Intro to Psychology

Intro to Psychology Ch. 1.1: Why study Psychology? Ch. 1.2: A Brief History of Psychology

PSYCHOLOGISTS • DO NOW: What are some assumptions, traits, and functions of a Psychologist? • A Psychologist is a person who _______?

WHY STUDY PSYCHOLOGY? • To discover the psychological values that have the potential to improve the lives of humans. • It involves gaining new perspective on your own and others’ behavior.

PSYCHOLOGY’S ORIGIN “Psychology” comes from two Greek words” Psyche – mind or soul Logia – study or investigation.

PSYCHOLOGY • Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. • involves both human and animal behavior. • Psychological behaviors are tested through scientific research

PSYCHOLOGY AND YOU • READ ONLY: Your friend makes a simple comment about your hair, clothes, or favorite hobby and you blow up, getting violently angry. Why? • Psychologists have determined that emotions occur as the result of physical stimulation coupled with some social or personal event. • READ ONLY: Consider the following situation: You just drank two cans of heavily caffeinated soda. Your heart is beating hard, and your stomach is tense. Then your friend makes a critical comment. When you hear them, you get angry – but you get angrier than usual because you body is already stimulated. On the other hand, if you are very tired, you might not react to an emotional event so violently. • QUESTION: What other types of physical stimulation can cause a strong emotional response?

How does your perspective of this painting change upon closer examination of it?

GOALS OF PSYCHOLOGYDescription, Explanation, Prediction, & Influence Description: describe or gather information about the behavior being studied and present what is known.

EXPLANATION • After describing behavior, Psychologists then seek to explain why people behave as they do by offering hypotheses. • HYPOTHESIS: an assumption, educated guess, or prediction about behavior or phenomenon that is tested through scientific research. • As research on each hypothesis is completed, more complex explanations called THEORIES are constructed. • A THEORY is a set of complex explanations based on findings from a large number of experiments

PREDICTION • The third goal of the psychologist is to predict what humans will do, think, or feel in various situations. • By studying descriptive and theoretical accounts of past behaviors, psychologists can predict future behaviors.

INFLUENCE • Finally, psychologists seek to influence behavior in helpful ways. They do this in two very different ways. • First, they practice BASIC SCIENCE or research. Basic research (science) is the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. An example is the study of an infants ability to see visual patterns. • Second, when a psychologist tries to correct a behavior he/she is practicing APPLIED SCIENCE. A.S. is a way to use scientific findings to accomplish practical goals.

SCIENTIFIC METHOD • Scientists investigate a question they have by using the Scientific Method • Why do scientists use this method? • To ensure their conclusions are not full or errors or bias • Scientists reach their conclusions by identifying a problem or question, formulating a hypothesis, collecting data, and analyzing the data.

SCIENTIFIC METHOD MADE SIMPLE

EXPLORING PSYCHOLOGY • READ ONLY: It’s 4 A.M. and “Bob”, a 9th-grader is engulfed in his computer screen, one minute pretending he’s a cruel mafia lord organizing a gambling empire and the next minute imagining he’s an evil sorcerer or an alien life form. Bob is playing a Multiple User Dungeon game that is played by sending messages online to other players. After logging on for hours, Bob finds himself sleeping through classes, forgetting homework, and slipping into “Internet Addiction.”

LET’S TRY TO EXPLAIN BOB • From a Psychologists perspective, Bob is demonstrating complex behavior. • He ignores PHYSIOLOGICAL needs, or the needs having to do with such things as hunger and sleep and an organism’s physical processes. • He engages in this behavior because of COGNITIVE or private, unobservable mental reasons that have to do with and organism’s thinking and understanding. • QUESTIONS: 1)Why do you think Bob is spending so much time on the Internet when he knows that his schoolwork is suffering? 2) How might a psychologist doing basic science and a psychologist practicing applied science differ in their approach to the issue of internet addiction?

TRUE OR FALSE: TEST YOUR INTUITION

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY VOCABULARY: • STUCTURALIST • DUALISM • INTROSPECTION • FUNCTIONALIST • PSYCHONANALYST • BEHAVIORIST • HUMANIST • COGNIVIST • PSHYCHOBIOLOGIST Vocabulary will be defined throughout the PowerPoint. OBJECTIVES: To explain important trends in the history of psychology and to identify the various approaches to the study of psychology

DUALISM and the ORIGINS of PSYCHOLOGY • Psychology is a history of alternative perspectives. • Philosophers in the 17th century (1600’s) popularized the idea of DUALISM which is the concept that the mind and body are separate and distinct.

HISTORICAL APPROACHES • Wilhelm Wundt known as the person who established modern psychology as a separate science. • Wundt developed a theory known as Structuralism. A STRUCTURALIST is a person (scientist) who is interested in the basic elements that make up conscious (aware, or mindful of) mental experiences.

INTROSPECTION • Wundt also developed a technique known as INTROSPECTION: a method of self-observation in which participants report their thoughts and feelings.

EXPERIMENT • This next activity (experiment) will explore the concept of free association. • Directions: Write down the first thought that comes into your minds as I read aloud the following list of words. Do not CALL OUT LOUD or write your name on your paper: Time Death Red Mother Fear Home School Friend Love Hate

FUNCTIONALISM and WILLIAM JAMES • William James is considered the father of American Psychology and developed the idea of Functionalism. • A FUNCTIONALIST studies the “function” of the mind rather than the structure • not concerned with WHERE something occurs in the mind, but HOW. • "A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely re-arranging their prejudices."

SIR FRANCIS GALTON • Sir Francis Galton wanted to understand how heredity influenced a person’s abilities, character, and behavior. • Heredity includes all traits that are passed along biologically from parent to child. • Studied the biographies of famous, well-known people and concluded that greatness runs in families. • Declared that the “most fit” humans were those with high intelligence. • Darwinian

LET’S QUESTION SIR FRANCIS • What factors did Galton fail to take into account in his studies? • Galton failed to consider the stimulation in one’s environment • social and economic factors as influences on intelligence. • A person’s heredity and that person’s environment interact to produce intelligence.

GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY • Is perception more often different from reality? • Some psychologists argued perception is more than the sum of its parts. • The German word Gestalt means a whole pattern or structure • Gestalt psychology: looks at the human mind and behavior as a whole. • Founded by Max Wertheimer, • Response to structuralism • A set of dots outlining the shape of a star is likely to be perceived as a star, not as a set of dots. • We perceive the whole

HOW DO WE SEE THIS PICTURE, AS A WHOLE OR IN INDIVIDUAL PARTS?

THE MOST IMPORTANT APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF PSYCHOLOGY TODAY • Psychoanalytical • Behavioral • Humanistic • Cognitive • Biological • Sociocultural

SIGMUND FREUD • Freud's approach to psychology is often termed PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHOLOGY. • A PSYCHOANLAYST studies how unconscious motives and conflicts determine human behavior. • Unconscious mind is "part" stores repressed (held back) memories. • Freud: our behavior is determined by unconsciousprocesses. • Early experiences have an intense influence on the development of the unconscious mind • The unconscious could be accessed through analysis of dreams. • Freud believed that when dreaming your unconscious is free. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O78LXXGQFvE • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mkin1FhojCo

BEHAVIORAL PSYCHOLOGYand IVAN PAVLOV • Pavlov found that behavior may be the product of prior experience. • Pavlov rang a tuning fork each time he gave a dog some meat powder. • After he repeated the procedure several times, the dog would salivate when it heard the ring of the fork – even if no food appeared. • The dog had been conditioned to associate the sound with food. • Psychologists who stressed studying observable behavior became known as BEHAVIORISTS

JOHN B. WATSON • Watson established the psychological school of behaviorism. • Watson put emphasis on external behavior and reactions to given situations, rather than the internal (like Freud). • Watson’s opinion: the analysis of behaviors and reactions was the only objective method to get insight into human behavior. • Believed that children had no inborn tendencies, but rather were shaped by their environments

B.F. SKINNER • B. F. Skinner introduced the concept of reinforcement – or the response to a behavior that increases the likelihood the behavior will be repeated. • READ ONLY: To illustrate Skinner’s behavioral analysis, let’s break down the behavior of leaving the classroom. • As a student, you have been conditioned to the sound of the school bell (a stimulus). The bell rings and you know to either change classes or go home for the day. The sound of the bell and the resulting behavior reinforces the behavior of changing classes or going home. • In Mr. Cass’s class, what does the sound of the bell mean? What is the reinforced behavior?

HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY • Humanistic Psychology developed as a reaction to Behavioral Psych. • A Humanist is a psychologist who believes that each person has freedom in directing his or her future and achieving personal growth. • H.P. emphasizes how each person is unique and has a self-concept and potential to develop.

COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY • Cognitivists focus on how we process, store and use information and how this information influences our thinking, language, problem solving and creativity. • Jean Piaget, Noam Chomsky, and Leon Festinger believed that behavior is more than a simple response to a stimulus. • Behavior is influenced by a variety of mental processes, including perceptions, memories, and expectations.

BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY • Biological Psychology emphasizes the impact of biology on our behavior. • Psychobiologists study how the brain, nervous system, hormones, and genetics influence our behavior. • P.B.’s have found that genetic factors and chemicals in the brain have a major influence on human behavior

Cognitive and Sociocultural Psychology • Cognitive Psych studies how we process, store and use information • How the info influences our behavior • Sociocultural studies the influence of culture and ethnic similarities and differences on behavior

Intro to Psychology