Domains in Psychology Mr. Price
The 3 Major Approaches / 6 Domains Psychological Learned fears & expectations Emotional processes Cognitive processing Biological Natural selection & adaptation Brain mechanics hormones Behavior & Mental Processes Social Cultural Influences Presence of others Cultural, Social, & family expectations Peer influences Compelling models (like media)
Any one approach fails to see the whole
Biological Focus: How Body & Brain enable Emotions Memories Sensory experiences How Genes create differences in a common environment Sample Questions: How are messages transmitted in the body? How is blood chemistry linked to moods and motive? To what degree are things like intelligence, personality, sexual orientation, & depression effected by genes?
Example How the brain be working, yo
Evolutionary Focus: How the natural selection of traits promoted survival of genes Sample Questions: How does evolution influence behavior? (aggression, sex, taste, etc?)
Likely Suspects? William James & Functionalism
Psychodynamic Focus: How personality comes from unconscious drives & conflicts Sample Questions: How are personality or disorders formed by sexual and aggressive drives or childhood wishes or traumas?
Likely Suspects Freud & Psychoanalysis
Behavioral Focus: How we learn observable responses Sample Questions: How do we learn to fear certain things or situations? How can we change our behaviors (stop smoking, weight loss etc)?
Likely Suspects Pavlov & Behaviorism (Conditioning)
Cognitive Focus: How we encode process store & retrieve information Sample Questions: How do we use information in remembering? Problem Solving? Is our memory trustworthy?
Cognitive Example: Who are these people?
Cognitive Psychologists theorize we can recognize a grotesque caricature of someone because that is how we remember faces ourselves, by exaggerating features in our memory.
Social-Cultural Focus: How behavior & thinking change across situations & cultures Sample Questions: How are all humans alike? How does environment make us different?
Social-Cultural Example: Cultures that have no future tense make better decisions (health, finances, etc). Us: "Bob will go to the store to buy nachos“ Mandarin: “Bob store buy nachos” A tensed language makes people 30% less likely to save money. It is thought speakers of ‘tense-less’ languages see their lives as less of a timeline and more of a whole.
Recognizing the fields (practice!) A: Biologic B: Evolutionary C:Psychodynamic D:Behavioral E: Socio-Cultural F: Cognitive Which domain would be most concerned with the following: Discovering the easiest way to memorize a long list of information How Lucian’s personality will be effected by mild trauma to his brain. How Triana’s behavior will differ from her parents after moving from Bangladesh to America. Why having ADD was beneficial to our early ancestors Explaining that Elmira is aggressively affectionate because she was praised by her parents and teachers for being friendly. Explaining that Susan’s fear of butterflies comes from the butterfly wallpaper in the room of her childhood home (she was too young to remember) that caught fire.
How would each explain the following? Each groups will receive a different Domain Discuss how a Psychologist specializing in that domain would explain this behavior. The rest of the class will guess which domain you had. Little Bruce has started wearing a strange outfit and beating up his classmates.
Which Domain? Biological? Evolutionary? Psychodynamic? Behavioral? Socio-Cultural? Cognitive?
How would each explain the following? Diana has started tying her friends to a chair
Which Domain? Biological? Evolutionary? Psychodynamic? Behavioral? Socio-Cultural? Cognitive?
How would each explain the following? Little Bart is hyperactive
Which Domain? Biological? Evolutionary? Psychodynamic? Behavioral? Socio-Cultural? Cognitive?
How would each explain the following? John sees imaginary green energy flying from his hands
Which Domain? Biological? Evolutionary? Psychodynamic? Behavioral? Socio-Cultural? Cognitive?