Psychology
Introduction
Section 1
What is Psychology?
Psychology studies behavior and
cognitive processes from five
perspectives: behavioral, cognitive,
physiological, sociocultural, and
psychodynamic.
What is Psychology?
The field seeks to obtain scientific
information on everything we (and other
living organisms) think, feel, or do.
Key Perspectives
Today, most psychologists look at psychology
through five key perspectives.
1. The Behavior Perspective- Most
psychologists believe that overt behavior is
indeed one of the central concerns of their
field. Overt Behavior is that behavior which
is observable or can be seen.
Key Perspectives
2. The Cognitive Perspective- Mental activities
involving the acquisition, change,
representation, storage, and retrieval of
information. Or, the ways in which people
think, remember, decide, and so on. Many
people would argue that attempting to
understand behavior without attention to the
cognitive process is like trying to solve a
jigsaw puzzle without all the pieces.
Key Perspectives
3.The Physiological Perspective- In this area
scientist’s look at how the body reacts to
different feelings and situations. What
happens to your body when you think, listen
to music, grow hungry, fall in love, or become
angry? Activity in our brains often affects
other parts of our body through our nervous
system. Many psychologists find that
understanding these biological roots is
important to understanding behavior.
Key Perspectives
4.The Sociocultural Perspective- In many cases
of how or why people act, looking at
individual’s perceptions, feelings, and
behaviors are strongly influenced by the social
and cultural systems in which they live. How a
person was raised, their education, the society
they live in, their heritage or culture, and the
environment, all plays an important role in
determining how people will behave.
Key Perspectives
5.The Psychodynamic Perspective- This
approach suggests that many aspects of
behavior stem from hidden struggles among
hidden forces deep within our personalities.
In other words we aspect of our behavior
comes from struggle in our unconscious mind.
Is there that little voice inside of you that tells
you to do something? What about dreams?
What can they tell us? This is what this
perspective looks at.
Key People in Psychology
Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) - is considered
by many to be the founder of psychology. He
developed the first widely accepted school of
thought, structuralism, which focuses on the
inner workings of consciousness.
Key People in Psychology
Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)
Key People in Psychology
In 1879, he opened the first psychology
laboratory at the University of Leipzig in
Germany. Wundt felt that psychology should
be the study of the conscious experience. The
task of analyzing sensation, feelings, and
images into their most basic parts. In that
way, we’ll come to understand the nature of
the human mind.
Key People in Psychology
He felt that this could be done through
introspection- asking individuals to describe
what is going on in their minds as they
perform various tasks or have specific
experiences.
Key People in Psychology
William James (1842-1910) - Is known as the
first American psychologist. He authored the
first book widely used psychology textbook,
Principles of Psychology, in 1890. He led the
movement of functionalism, which focuses on
how the mind functions.
Key People in Psychology
William James (1842-1910)
Key People in Psychology
James felt that the mind is not static. It is
always changing. He believed that psychology
should be that of understanding how the mind
functions in everyday life. How does our basic
psychological nature help us adapt to a
complex and ever-changing world?
Key People in Psychology
To understand the human mind, we must have
to study how it functions; identifies its basic
parts or components.
Key People in Psychology
John B. Watson (1878-1958) - was one of the
most preeminent American psychologists. He
moved psychology away from the studying of
the contents of the mind to studying only
observable behavior, an approach known as
behaviorism.
Key People in Psychology
John B. Watson (1878-1958)
Key People in Psychology
Watson felt that we could not see “mind” or
“conscious experience.” All we can observe is
overt behavior. And people cannot report
accurately on what goes on in their “minds”whatever those are.
Key People in Psychology
So the idea of using introspection as a
research method to build our new science is
ridiculous. Overt behavior is the only thing we
can observe or measure scientifically, so that
should be the focus of psychology.
Who works in Psychology?
What is the difference between a Psychiatrist
and a Psychologist?
• Psychiatrists- are physicians (doctors) who
specialize in the treatment of mental
disorders. It is important to remember that
these people are in fact medical doctors.
Who works in Psychology?
What is the difference between a Psychiatrist and a
Psychologist?
• Psychologists- receive their training in graduate
programs of psychology. They choose to
specialize in certain areas of their field, such as
treatment of psychological disorders.
Psychologist focus mainly on the principle and
findings of their field, they also must complete
extensive training in statistics, research methods,
and in related fields such as physiology, sociology,
or management science.
Who works in Psychology?
Although often times these two-field overlap,
but they remain largely independent.
What specialties are within
psychology?
• Clinical Psychology: Studies the diagnosis,
causes, and treatment of mental disorders.
For example, clinical psychologists have
recently devised several effective forms of
treatment for reducing serious depression.
What specialties are within
psychology?
• Counseling Psychology: Assists individuals in
dealing with many personal problems that do
not involve mental disorders. For example,
counseling psychologists assists individuals in
career planning and in developing more
effective interpersonal skills.
What specialties are within
psychology?
• Developmental Psychology: Studies how
people change physically, cognitively, and
socially over the entire lifespan. For example,
developmental psychologists have recently
found tendencies toward shyness may occur
very early in life and are, at least in part, an
inherited characteristic.
What specialties are within
psychology?
• Educational Psychology: Studies all aspects of
the educational process from techniques of
instruction to learning disabilities. For
example, educational psychologists are
working to develop classroom procedures
designed to help minority children in the
United States overcome some of the
environmental disadvantages they face.
What specialties are within
psychology?
• Cognitive Psychology: Investigates all aspects
of cognition- memory, thinking, reasoning,
language, decision-making, and so on. For
example, cognitive psychologist have recently
established that animals-even rats- are
capable of complex forms of counting, such as
keeping running counts of two types of events
simultaneously.
What specialties are within
psychology?
• Industrial/Organizational Psychology: Studies
all aspects of behavior in work settingsselection of employees, evaluation of
performance, work motivation, and
leadership. For example,
industrial/organizational psychologists have
found that individuals work harder when they
have concrete goals and accept than when
they do not have specific goals.
What specialties are within
psychology?
• Psychobiology (physiological psychology):
Investigates the biological bases of behaviorthe role of complex biochemical events in our
nervous systems and bodies in everything we
do, sense, feel, or think. For example, psychobiologists are now attempting to identify the
neural and physiological mechanism that plays
a role in various types of addition.
What specialties are within
psychology?
• Social Psychology: Studies all aspects of social
behavior and social thought-how we think
about and interact with others. For example,
social psychologists have recently found that
female leaders receive more negative and
fewer positive nonverbal reactions from
followers than do male leaders.
What specialties are within
psychology?
• Experimental Psychology: Studies all aspects of
basic psychological process such as perception,
learning, and motivation. For example, research
by experimental psychologists have recently
added much to our understanding of attentionthe process of directing portions of our
information-processing capacity to specific
stimuli or events. This understanding, in turn, is
now being applied to the design of more effective
warnings for various hazards.
What specialties are within
psychology?
Keep in mind two very important facts;
• Psychologists do a number of very different
things.
• Despite the existence of many subfields or
specialties, psychology remains a unified field
with shared values, goals, and overall
methods.
Major Subfields of Psychology
School
5%
Developmental
5%
Percentages
Industrial
4%
Social and
Personality
6%
Clinical
Experimental
Counseling
Clinical
43%
Educational
6%
Other
Educational
Social and Personality
School
Developmental
Other
7%
Industrial
Counseling
10%
Experimental
14%