Introduction to
Psychology
Becoming Familiar
with the
Field of Psychology
Psychology Binder
•
Class Requirement
•
•
•
•
1 Subject Notebook (70 pages) [college rule]
Pens/Pencils
Folder with 2 pockets
Four Major Sections/Areas of Psychology
1.
2.
3.
4.
State of Consciousness
Emotion and Motivation
Personality
Abnormal Psychology
American Psychological Association (APA)

Fields of Psychology



47 Divisions in 1993 (page 3 of textbook)
53 in 2002
7 Major Fields
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Developmental Psychology
Physiological Psychology
Experimental Psychology
Personality Psychology
Clinical and Counseling Psychology
Social Psychology
Industrial and organizational Psychology
Developmental Psychology
Mental growth from
conception to death
Physiological Psychology
Behavior influenced by
physical and chemical
phenomena in the body
Experimental Psychology
Learning, perception,
memory, motivation and
other basic processes
Personality Psychology
Individual differences in
traits/characteristics
Clinical/Counseling Psychology
Clinical – diagnosis, cause and
treatment of psychological
disorders
Counseling – “normal”
problems of adjustment
Social Psychology
The influence of people on
one another
Occupational Psychology
Psychology applied to the
workplace.
(training, in-service – looking to improve productivity)
Science of Psychology

Psychology:
 Science of human behavior and mental
processes

Use of the Scientific Method
1.
2.
3.
4.
Collect data through careful, systematic observation
Explain what they have observed by developing theories
Make predictions based on those theories
Systematically test those predictions through additional
observation and experiments to determine whether they
are correct
Scientific Method
 Describe
 Understand
 Predict
 Control
 All
about Behavior!!!
Research Methods of Psychology


Read Pages 10-16
Take Notes on the SIX types of Research Methods
EACH METHOD NEEDS:
Name of Method
 Define the Method
 Give an Example of the method
 Advantage of the Method
 Disadvantage of the Method
Example of Notes on Methods
Naturalistic Observation
1. Definition: Research method involving the systematic study of
animal or human behavior...
2. Example: studying the behavior of animals, watching dogs
play in the dog park
3. Advantages: Provides a great deal of firsthand behavioral
information that is more likely to be accurate than reports
after the fact. Subjects behavior is more natural, spontaneous,
and varied than behaviors taking place in the lab.
4. Disadvantages: The presence of an observer may alter subjects’
behavior: the observer’s recording of the behavior may
reflect a preexisting bias; sometimes observation can not be
linked to other settings or subjects.
Scientific Process

THEORY: systematic explaniaton of a
phenomenon; it organizes known facts, allows
prediction of new facts, and permits a degree of
control over the phenomenon

HYPOTHESES: Specific, testable predictions
derived from a theory.
History of Psychology
Timeline
Early Beginnings
Psychology first started out as the idea of Philosophy
 First traces of psychology comes from Aristotle and
Plato
 Dating all the way back to around 425 B.C.
 Psychology came about when philosophers started to
add the scientific method to the study of philosophy.
 This new study became known as the science of the
mind or Psychology.

1879 - Wilhelm Wundt
 First

psychology laboratory
Wilhelm Wundt opens first experimental laboratory in
psychology at the University of Leipzig, Germany.
Credited with establishing psychology as an academic
discipline, Wundt's students include James McKeen Cattell,
and G. Stanley Hall.
1883
 First American

psychology laboratory
G. Stanley Hall, a student of Wilhelm Wundt, establishes
first U.S. experimental psychology laboratory at Johns
Hopkins University.
1886
First

doctorate in psychology
The first doctorate in psychology is given to Joseph
Jastrow, a student of G. Stanley Hall at Johns Hopkins
University. Jastrow later becomes professor of psychology
at the University of Wisconsin and serves as president of
the American Psychological Association in 1900.
1892
APA founded

G. Stanley Hall founds the American Psychological
Association (APA) and serves as its first president. He later
establishes two key journals in the field: American Journal
of Psychology (1887) and Journal of Applied Psychology
(1917).
Reading Assignment
Read Pages 23 – 25 and take notes
 Notes should express the focus of each type of
psychological study.
 Make a chart like below and take notes:

Structuralism
Functionalism
Behaviorism