 “You’ll
understand what life is if you think
about the act of dying. When I die, how
will I be different from the way I am right
now? In the first moments after death, my
body will be scarcely different in
physical terms than it was in the last
seconds of life. At that moment, the
psyche takes flight in the last breath.”
Aristotle
The Story of Psychology
The word psychology literally means,
"study of the soul".
It derives from Ancient Greek: "ψυχή"
(psychē, meaning "breath", "spirit", or
"soul"); and "-λογία" (-logia, translated as
"study of").





Is the mind separate from
the brain?
Are ideas inborn or is the
mind a blank slate filled by
experience?
Where does knowledge
come from?
What is the source of love?
How do we experience
pain?



Plato said we are inspired
by innate knowledge but
Aristotle derived ideas
from observations
Aristotle Said that
knowledge is not
preexisting
Developed ideas about
personality, memory,
motivation, and emotion

Scientific Revolution
 The influence of Newton
 The influence of Locke
Empiricism
Knowledge comes from
experience/observation via the senses
Science flourishes through observation
and experiment

Psychological Science Develops
 Wundt--German philosopher and
physiologist
 James--American philosopher
 Pavlov--Russian physiologist
 Freud--Austrian physician
 Piaget--Swiss biologist

Wilhelm Wundt
opened the first
psychology
laboratory at the
University of
Liepzig (c. 1879)
 Applying
the knowledge of the scientific
revolution to the questions of the ancient
Greek philosophers
 The
Scientific Study of the Mind
 The
Study of observable behavior
The scientific study of behavior and
mental processes

Psychology’s Perspectives
 A lot depends on your viewpoint
 Psychology’s Perspectives
• Biological
 Neuroscience
 Evolutionary
 Behavior Genetics
• Behavioral
• Psychodynamic
• Socio-cultural
Take the problem of drug abuse and addiction. Why does it occur?
 Biological
Perspective
 Explain behavior by describing underlying
biochemical and neurological causes
(Neurobiological Psychology)
 Explain behavior by attributing it to
evolutionary arguments (evolutionary
psychology)
 Explain behavior by attributing it to family
history/genes (genetic psychology)
 observable behavior reduced to physiological
explanations
“To what extent is the propensity toward addiction inherited?”
“Does the tendency to seek stimulation through drug used confer
any survival advantage?”

Behavioral Psychology
 Explain behavior by assessing the
effects of external stimuli
 “We do what we do because we
have been trained to do it”
 B.F. Skinner: most influential
behaviorist
“How important are role models in developing addictive behaviors?”
 Behaviorism
• Behavior can be
shaped by
manipulating and
changing the
environment
“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and
my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll
guarantee to take anyone at random and train him to
become any type of specialist I might select; doctor,
lawyer, artist, merchant. And yes, even beggarman and
thief, regardless of his talents, tendencies, abilities, and
race of his ancestors” Watson-1925
 Cognitive
Perspective
• Study the intervening mental processes
between stimulus inputs and response outputs
• exploring internal mental processes. It is the
study of how people perceive, remember, think,
speak, and solve problems
• Significant contributions made in the areas of
language, development, and memory
How did individuals assess the risk of drug use?
 Psychodynamic
perspective
• Human behavior is primarily determined by
unconscious processes
• Theory not based on experimental evidence and
many aspects are untestable
• Influential to modern psychotherapy
“ Does unconscious conflict manifest itself in the abuse of illegal
substances?”

Psychoanalysis
• Developed outside the
university setting
• Founded by Sigmund
Freud in 1895
• Freud concluded that
unconscious mental
forces direct our
behavior
• Utilized free-association
and hypnosis
 Social-Cultural
• How behavior and thinking vary across
situations and culture
• Recognizes the power of the situation in
determining human behavior
• Studies the interaction between the environment
and actions
“Why is the rate of alcoholism higher in the United States than in
Sweden?”
3
½ minutes of
awesome!
 http://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=YCOg
KozCq1Q
A Story;
On June 20th, 2001, after her husband had left for
work, Andrea Yates, drowned her 5 children in the
family bathtub. She told the police that she drowned
the children to save them from burning in hell. A jury
rejected her insanity defense, and she was sentenced to
serve life in a psychiatric prison…
…In January 2005, a Texas Appeals Court Overturned
her conviction because a psychiatrist for the
prosecution had falsely testified that he had consulted
for a Law and Order episode.
The Appeals Court stated that the false testimony may
have contributed to the jury’s rejection of Yates
insanity defense. Prosecutors declined to discuss
whether Yates would be retried. Her defense attorney
said he would not seek her immediate release, because
she was receiving “excellent mental health care.”
 She
was found “not guilty by reason of
insanity”
Why do you think Andrea Yates
murdered her children?
(write it down )
Yates- 60 Minutes
 Is
the cause in her private mental
functioning (cognitive perspective)?
• She clearly had low self esteem
• She believed she was possessed and that her
scalp was marked with a 666.
• She told the police that her children were not
“developing correctly” and that drowning them
was the only way to save them.

Do we find the cause in her mental disorder that
may have a biological basis?
• Mood disorders run in families and did in
Andrea’s.
• A sister and two brothers were on
antidepressants
• Research indicates that brain chemistry plays a
role in psychological disorders.
• Serotonin appears scarce in depression and
Andrea took herself off of her medicine about a
month before the murders.
• Andrea’s husband claimed he had been pleading
with doctors to prescribe his wife Haldol, used to
treat individuals who hear voices or have
delusional thoughts.
 Do
we find the cause in her social
environment (behavioral and socio-cultural
perspectives)?
• Why did her doctor take her off of anti-psychotic
•
•
•
•
•
medicine?
Was it a family issue?
Andrea’s in-laws report that her husband Russell
was not socially supportive. He claimed he had
never changed a diaper.
How could he leave her alone with 5 children
when she could barely take care of herself?
Why, after doctors strongly recommended no
more children, did he continue to get her
pregnant again?
Where was her extended family while all of this
was going on?
 Was
it because she had inner voices
telling her to do things?
 Was she abused as a child and did she
repress certain emotions that came out
on her children?
 That would be the psychoanalytic
perspective…i.e. Freud!
 Was
it because she has been rewarded
when she does crazy things and therefore
she has been “programmed” to do crazy
things?
 That would be the behavioral
perspective
What important idea does this
case convey?
Many factors shape human
behavior!
What is the number one health threat in the
United States?
 Obesity
 Two-Thirds of American adults are considered
overweight and over half of them obese, double
the rate of 40 years ago.

 The
biology of obesity questions the notion
that being overweight is simply a matter of
weak will.
• Evolutionary advantage?
• Early humans who could store the most food were
the most likely to survive. Was this passed on in
genes?
• “Hardwired to expend as little energy as
possible.” (Psychologist Paul Rozin)
• Genetics influence the number of fat cells
A
variety of Psychological factors may
also contribute to obesity.
• Clean our plate! “Eyes rule our bellies.”
(Barbara Ralls)
• Eat until it’s gone? M&M’s study. Small vs. Jumbo
pack?
• The more we restrain ourselves from eating, the
more we will eat when we become anxious,
depressed, or break a diet. We then binge.
 Finally, socio-cultural
factors contribute to
overeating as well.
• America: “A culture of bigness.” “When someone
comes to your house, the worst thing you can do is
not give them enough food.” (Paul Rozin)
• Quantity, not quality
• Compared to the French, Americans eat much more,
but enjoy it much less, often hurrying through every
meal.
• What kind of food is the most easily accessible?
Healthy or unhealthy?
So…Are things Biological,
Psychological, Social?
“Everything is related to
everything else.”
Examples? ….Test Anxiety?