What is Psychology?
Chapter 1
What is Psychology?
• Psychology is the scientific study of
behavior that is observed through
research
Tell me,
how does
that make
you feel?
Psychology defined…
• It’s important to
remember, that
psychology requires
scientific/systematic
observation
• Scientific study =
Use of the Scientific
Method
• MUST be
observable
Roots of Psych
• Psychology primarily stems from 2 fields:
▫ Physiology: the study of the body and it’s
processes
▫ Philosophy: the study of knowledge (how and
what we think)
The Stone ages
• Originally, behavior was thought to be caused by
supernatural forces
• Trephining : the stone age practice of chipping
a hole into the head of someone to “let the
demons escape”
• Egyptians believed in 7 kas that determined
behavior. Proof of the existence of the ka was
reflected in the behavior
Examples of trephining
The Greeks
• First group of people to truly
begin studying human
behavior
• People thought behavior was
controlled by gods, instead of
their own minds
▫ Their conclusion was that
people were rational (could
think for themselves)
• They changed the game and set
the stage for the sciences to
develop because of their
reliance on observation as a
means of understanding the
world around them
The Middle Ages
• Mid-1500’s, Nicolaus Copernicus said the Earth
was heliocentric
▫ Revolving around the sun
 His research was shot down for a long time
• Later, Galileo used a telescope for the first time
to confirm Copernicus’s work
▫ Galileo was ex-communicated, or kicked out of
the church, because he defied church teaching
(thought for himself)
The Middle Ages
• Leonardo Da Vinci, like Galileo, was not content
to ask the priest for answers about the world
around them
▫ He relied on himself to find answers
▫ Practiced to principles of empiricism
 Understanding by experimentation
Da Vinci
• Dualism is the idea
that the mind and the
body are separate
from each other
▫ Philosopher Rene
Descartes disagreed,
proposing a link
between the two
The Middle Ages
• Strange behavior was thought to be caused by
the supernatural
▫ The sole authority in the Middle Ages was the
church
• Examples of cures:
▫ Stoning
▫ Drowning
▫ Starvation
The Middle Ages
• Hippocrates:
▫ Known as the “father
of medicine”
▫ First to say that
behavior had natural
causes
 The first two cultures
to agree with this
statement were the:
 Greeks
 Romans
The Middle Ages
• John Locke:
▫ Influential English
philosopher
▫ Ideas helped shape the
principles that led to the
formation of the USA
▫ Believed people were a
blank slate, or a
tabula rasa, and that it
is our experiences that
“write” on it to make us
who we are
Colonial Times
• USA: Salem Witchcraft Trials
▫ Again the emphasis was on supernatural forces
Colonial Times
• USA: 1800’s
▫ The study of phrenology attempted to explain
behavior by interpreting the lumps and
bumps pf people’s heads
▫ This pseudoscience was significant in the
development of psychology
 It sought natural causes as an explanation to
behavior
Phrenology
Used as a tool for
determining a person’s
intelligence, along with
measuring the size of a skull
Hitler had this
scientists use these
practices to show
Aryan superiority
despite it’s inaccuracy
Major figures in Psychology
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Wilhelm Wundt
William James
Francis Galton
Sigmund Freud
Ivan Pavlov
John Watson and B.F. Skinner
Jean Piaget
Wilhelm Wundt
• Known as the “Father of
Psychology”
• He founded the first Psych
lab in Leipzig, Germany
in 1879
• Trained in the study of
Physiology
▫ Physiology has to do with
the study of how the body
works
▫ He was always more
interested in understanding
the human brain
Wilhelm Wundt
• Was a structuralist
▫ Psychologist who studied
the basic elements that
make up conscious mental
experiences
• He developed the model of
self-observation known as
introspection
▫ A method of selfobstruction in which
participants report their
thoughts and feelings
Man, this guy is doing some serious
deep thinking... Introspection at it’s
finest. Thinking face, check. Wise
old man, check. Sick nasty beard,
check check!
William James
• Known as the “Father of American Psychology”
• Taught the 1st Psychology class in the US at
Harvard University in 1875
• Wrote the first Psych textbook
Harvard
Is it just me, or
does Harvard
look a lot like
Hogwarts?
William James
• Proposed activities of the mind such as:
▫
▫
▫
▫
Thinking
Feeling
Learning
Remembering
• These activities serve one major function:
▫ Help us survive
• Whereas Wundt focused on the structure of the
mind, James was more concerned about the
function
▫ Functionalist: study of the function)rather than the
structure) consciousness
Francis Galton
• English mathematician that wanted to
understand how heredity might influence a
person’s ability, character and behavior
▫ Traits and properties passed along biologically
from parent to childhood
• Concluded that genetics was the driving force
behind everything that makes us up
Sir Francis Galton
Sweet Chops
bro…
Francis Galton
• Believed genius was hereditary
▫ Failed to acknowledge environmental factors
▫ Encouraged “good” marriages to makes sure the
world had talented offspring
• Is of great importance to us because he was one
of the first to have procedures to test his ideas
▫ Came up with the first personality tests
Sigmund Freud
• Many of the first psychologists were interested
in understanding the conscious mind, but
Freud was more interested in the unconscious
mind
• Believed conscious experiences were only the
“tip of the iceberg”
Sigmund Freud
• Believed that beneath the surface, biological
conflicted with societal ideas of morality
▫ Attributed this as the reason for many of the
unexplainable physical symptoms that troubled
his patients
• Developed two new methods for studying the
unconscious processes of the mind
▫ Free association: to say whatever comes to
mind in any given prompt
▫ Dream analysis: extension of free association,
applied to dreams
Sigmund Freud
• Saw himself as a psychoanalyst that was
supposed to be objective and simply listen to
his patients and interpret their responses
• Freud’s beliefs and practices are controversial
and debated by a number of experts
▫ However, his theories are still impactful today
▫ He also developed to case study
 Analysis of thoughts, feelings, beliefs, experiences,
behaviors and problems of an individual
Ivan Pavlov
• Was a physiologist whose famous experiment
with dogs developed the understanding of
classical conditioning and association.
▫ Experiment:
 Rang a bell before feeding his dogs
 Noticed that when he rang the bell, the dog
salivated because it knew food came next
 After doing this over and over, he would ring the bell
and the dog would still salivated
 It had been conditioned to do so
Pavlov’s Dogs
Guess all
psychologists
have great
beards
Sorry for cutting off the top of
your head Mr. Pavlov
John Watson and B.F. Skinner
• Belonged to the psychological school of thought
known as Behaviorists
▫ Define: psychologist who analyzes how people learn or
modify their behavior based on response to their
environment
• Watson believed that all behavior, even instinctive,
was the result of some type of environmental
stimulus
• Watson was the pioneer of behaviorism, but it was
BF Skinner that introduced the concept of
reinforcement
B.F. Skinner
• Mid – late 1900s. American
• Conditioning can be applied
to entire societies
▫ Reward for behavior results in
that behavior being done again
in the future
 Though he did not feel the opposite
worked (punishment does not
change behavior – just covers it up)
▫ Entire basis for “Walden II” – a
utopian society based on
rewarding good behavior
Reinforcement
• A response to a behavior that increases the
likelihood the behavior will be repeated
Jean Piaget
• A type of psychologist known as a cognitivist
• Cognitivists focus on how we do 3 things with
information we receive and perceive
▫ Process
▫ Store
▫ Use Information
• This information influences our thinking,
language, problem solving, and creativity
• Piaget and other cognitivists believe that behavior is
more than just a response to a stimulus
New Age Psychology
• Biological Psychology emphasizes the impact
of biology on behavior
▫ Psychobiologists study how the brain,
nervous system, hormones and genetics
influence our behavior
▫ It is more holistic in the sense that it accounts for
both the mind and the body simultaneously
instead of looking at each individually
New Age Psychology
• Sociocultural Psychology is the newest
approach for both cultural and ethnic
similarities and differences on behavior and
functioning
• This idea believes that everything we think, feel
and how we behave is determined by the
societal factors around us
Structuralism vs. Functionalism
• Structuralism – looks at the parts that make
up the whole
▫ A way of perceiving things that looks at each piece
that makes it what it is and what it does
▫ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_2ADWBZ
gS8
Structuralism vs. Functionalism
• Functionalism – more concerned with the
product that the thing creates
▫ What is perceived is not the parts that make up
the whole, but rather the result that the whole
itself produces
▫ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piYOpluZchg