Understanding Psychology
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Introduction to Psychology
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Psychologists at Work
• What is the science of psychology?
• What are the major specialties in the field of psychology?
• Where do psychologists work?
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Psychology
• Scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
– Science of behavior and mental processes
– Covers diverse topics physical and mental health, perception,
dreaming, and motivation
– encompasses what people do think, experience emotions,
perceive, reason, memorize and even the biological activities
that maintain bodily functioning
– Do covers the behavior of other species
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What Psychologists do?
• Describe, predict, and explain human behavior
and mental processes,
• Facilitate to change and improve the lives of
people and the world in which they live.
• Use scientific methods to answers the questions
• Such are more valid and legitimate from intuition
and speculation, which are often inaccurate
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Subfields of Psychology
• Family Tree of Psychology
• How to identify a subfield?
– Very extended family having nieces and nephews, aunts and
uncles, and cousins
– May not interact on a day-to-day basis, are related to one
another
– Share a common goal: understanding behavior.
– Look at the basic questions about behavior that they address
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Major Subfields of Psychology
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The Subfields of Psychology
• What are the biological foundations of behavior?
– Humans are biological organisms
– Behavioral Neuroscience
– Examines how the brain and the nervous system determine
behavior.
– neuroscientists consider how our bodies influence our behavior.
may examine the link between specific areas in the brain and
the muscular tremors of people affected by Parkinson’s disease
or attempt to determine how our emotions are related to
physical sensations.
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The Subfields of Psychology
• How Do People
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Sense
Perceive
Learn About
Think About
…the World?
Experimental Psychology
• Includes the subspecialty Cognitive Psychology
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The Subfields of Psychology
• What Are the Sources of Change and Stability in
Behavior Across the Life Span?
• Developmental Psychology
– Studies how people grow and change from conception through
death.
• Personality Psychology
– Focuses on the consistency in people’s behavior over time and
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the traits that differ from person to person.
The Subfields of Psychology
• How Do Psychological Factors Affect Physical and
Mental Health?
• Health Psychology
– Explores the relationship between psychological factors and
physical ailments or disease.
• Clinical Psychology
– Deals with the study, diagnosis, and treatment of psychological
disorders.
• Counseling Psychology
– Focuses primarily on educational, social, and career-adjustment11
problems.
The Subfields of Psychology
• How Do Our Social Networks Affect Behavior?
• Social Psychology
– Study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions are
affected by others.
• Cross-Cultural Psychology
– Investigates the similarities and differences in psychological
functioning in and across various cultures and ethnic groups.
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Newer Subfields of Psychology
• Expanding Psychology’s Frontiers
• Evolutionary Psychology
– Considers how behavior is influenced by our genetic
inheritance from our ancestors.
• Behavioral Genetics
– Seeks to understand how we inherit certain behavioral traits and
how the environment influences the display of those traits.
• Clinical Neuropsychology
– Unites neuroscience and clinical psychology.
– Focuses on origin of psychological disorders in biofactors.
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Where do Psychologists work?
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Psychologists: A Portrait
• ~300,000 psychologists work in the United States.
• In the United States women outnumber men in the field.
– Today ~¾ of doctorates are given to women.
• Vast majority of psychologists in the United States are
white.
– 6% are members of racial minority groups.
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The Education of a Psychologist
• Ph.D.
– Doctor of philosophy
• Psy.D.
– Doctor of psychology
• M.A. or M.S.
– Master’s degree
• B.A. or B.S.
– Bachelor’s degree
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Careers for Psychology Majors
• Most psychology majors take a job in this field after
graduation.
• Most common areas of employment:
– Social Services
– Education
– Federal, state, and local government
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Careers for Psychology Majors
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MODULE 2: A Science Evolves
• The Past, the Present, and the Future
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What are the origins of psychology?
What are the major approaches in contemporary psychology?
What are psychology’s key issues and controversies?
What is the future of psychology likely to hold?
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Major Milestones in Psychology
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• It was thought psychological problems were caused by
evil spirits
• to escape from a person’s body used Trephination
• chipping a hole in a patient’s skull
• Formal beginning of psychology late 19th century
• Wilhelm Wundt established first Psychological
laboratory in 1879 at Leipzig university Germany
• Given birth to structuralism
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Structuralism
• focuses on uncovering the fundamental mental
components of consciousness, thinking, and other kinds
of mental states and activities
• For understanding of the world, Wundt and other
structuralists used a procedure called introspection
• Presented people with a stimulus like an object etc
• Wundt was challenged by Psychologists community by
showing mistrust on introspection to uncover structures
• Not a true scientific technique
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The Roots of Psychology
• Functionalism
– William James
– Replaced structuralism
– Concentrated on what the mind does and how behavior
functions
• Stream of consciousness —the flow of thoughts in our conscious
minds—permits us to adapt to our environment
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The Roots of Psychology
• Gestalt Psychology
– Hermann Ebbinghaus & Max Wertheimer
– Emphasized how perception is organized
• “The whole is different from the sum of its parts”
– Studying how people consider individual elements together as
units or wholes
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Today’s Perspectives
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The Neuroscience Perspective
• “Blood, Sweat, and Fears”
• Neuroscience Perspective
– Considers how people and nonhumans function biologically.
– how the functioning of the body affects hopes and fears
– Includes study of heredity, evolution, and behavioral
neuroscience.
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THE PSYCHODYNAMIC PERSPECTIVE:
UNDERSTANDING THE INNER PERSON
• Behavior is motivated by inner forces and conflicts about
which we have little awareness or control
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The Behavioral Perspective
• “Observing the Outer Person”
• Behavioral Perspective
– John B. Watson
– B. F. Skinner
– Rejected psychology’s early emphasis on the inner workings of
the mind
– Focuses on observable behavior that can be measured
objectively
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The Cognitive Perspective
• “Identifying the Roots of Understanding”
• Cognitive Perspective
• Evolving from structuralism and a reaction to
behaviorism
– Focuses on how people think, understand, and know about the
world
– Compare human thinking to the workings of a computer, which
takes in information and transforms, stores, and retrieves it
• thinking is Information processing
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The Humanistic Perspective:
• “The Unique Qualities of the Human Species”
• Humanistic Perspective
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Carl Rogers
Abraham Maslow
Rejected all other notions
Individuals naturally strive to grow, develop, and be in control
of their lives and behavior
– Emphasis is on “free will” not “determinism”
– Individuals naturally strive to grow, develop, and be in control
of their lives and behavior.
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Key Issues in Psychology
• Nature (heredity) versus nurture (environment)
– How much of people’s behavior is due to their genetically
determined nature (heredity), and how much is due to nurture,
the influences of the physical and social environment in which a
child is raised?
– Every psychologist would agree that neither nature nor nurture
alone is the sole determinant of behavior; rather, it is a
combination of the two.
– The real controversy involves how much of our behavior is
caused by heredity and how much is caused by environmental
influences.
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conscious versus unconscious causes
of behavior
• How much of our behavior is produced by forces of
which we are fully aware, and how much is due to
unconscious activity—mental processes that are not
accessible to the conscious mind?
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observable behavior versus internal
mental processes
• Should psychology concentrate solely on behavior that
can be seen by outside observers, or should it focus on
unseen thinking processes?
• Behaviorists versus Cognitive Psychologists
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Free will versus determinism
• How much of our behavior is a matter of free will
(choices made freely by an individual), and how much is
subject to determinism, the notion that behavior is largely
produced by factors beyond people’s willful control?
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individual différences versus universel
principles
• how much of our behavior is a consequence of our
unique and special qualities, the individual differences
that differentiate us from other people? Conversely, how
much reflects the culture and society in which we live,
stemming from universal principles that underlie the
behavior of all humans?
• Neuroscience vs. Humanists
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Key Issues and 5 Major Perspectives
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Psychology’s Future
• Psychology will become increasingly specialized and
new perspectives will evolve.
• Neuroscientific approaches will likely influence other
branches of psychology.
• Influence on issues of public interest will grow.
• Issues of diversity will become more important to
psychologists providing services and doing research.
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MODULE 3: Research in Psychology
• What is the scientific method?
• What role do theories and hypotheses play in
psychological research?
• What research methods do psychologists use?
• How do psychologists establish cause-and-effect
relationships using experiments?
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The Scientific Method
• Approach used by psychologists to systematically acquire
knowledge and understanding about behavior and other
phenomena of interest.
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Scientific Method
• Four main steps
– 1. Identifying questions of interest
– 2. Formulating an explanation
– 3. Carrying out research designed to support or refute the
explanation
– 4. Communicating the findings
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The Scientific Method
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Hypotheses: Crafting Testable Predictions
• Hypothesis
– Prediction stated in a way that allows it to be tested.
– Stems from theories.
• Operational Definition
– Translation of a hypothesis into specific, testable procedures
that can be measured and observed.
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Psychological Research
• Research
– Systematic inquiry aimed at the discovery of new knowledge.
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Descriptive Research
• Archival Research
– Existing data, such as:
• census documents
• college records
• newspaper clippings
– … are examined to test a hypothesis.
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Descriptive Research
• Survey Research
– A sample of people chosen to represent a larger group of
interest —population —is asked a series of questions about
their behavior, thoughts, or attitudes.
– Survey researchers strive for random sampling.
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Descriptive Research
• The Case Study
– An in-depth, intensive investigation of a single individual or a small
group.
• Often includes psychological testing
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Descriptive Research
• Correlational Studies
• Two sets of variables are examined to determine whether
they are associated, or “correlated.”
– Variables
• Behaviors, events, or other characteristics that can change, or vary, in
some way
– Correlation coefficient
• Positive
• Negative
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TV Viewing and Aggression
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Experimental Research
• Experiment
• Investigating relationship between two or more variables
by:
– 1. changing one variable in a controlled situation
– 2. observing the effects of that change on other aspects of the
situation
• Experimental manipulation
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Experimental Research
• Experimental Groups and Control Groups
– Treatment
• Manipulation implemented by the experimenter
– Experimental group
• Receives a treatment
– Control group
• Receives no treatment
• Rules out other reasons for change
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Experimental Research
• Independent and Dependent Variables
– Independent (IV)
• The condition that is manipulated by an experimenter
– Dependent (DV)
• The variable that is measured and is expected to change as a result of
experimenter’s manipulation of the independent variable
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Experimental Research
• Random Assignment of Participants
– To make the experiment a valid test of the hypothesis
• Random Assignment to Condition
– Participants are assigned to different experimental groups or
“conditions” on the basis of chance
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Experiment Example
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Experimental Research
• Significant Outcome
– Using statistical analysis, researchers can determine whether a
numeric difference is a real difference or is due merely to
chance
• Replication
– Repeating experiment
• Meta-analysis
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Research Method: Advantages & Shortcomings
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MODULE 4: Research Challenges
• Exploring the Process
– What major issues confront psychologists conducting research?
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Ethics of Research
• Protecting Participants
• APA Ethical Guidelines:
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Protect from physical and mental harm
Participants’ right to privacy regarding behavior
Assurance that participation is voluntary
Informing participants about procedures
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The Ethics of Research
• Informed Consent
– Participants sign a document affirming that they know:
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the basic outlines of the study
what their participation will involve
the risks the experiment may hold
that their participation is purely voluntary
they may terminate the study at any time
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Should Animals Be Used in Research?
• Procedures that subject animals to distress are permitted
only when an alternative procedure is unavailable and
when the research is justified by its prospective value
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Threats to Experimental Validity
• Attempt to Avoid Experimental Bias
• Experimental Bias
– Factors that distort the way the independent variable affects the
dependent variable in an experiment
• Experimenter expectations
• Participant expectations
– Placebo
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Thinking Critically about Research
• What is valid research?
– What was the purpose of the research?
– How well was the study conducted?
– Are the results presented fairly?
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