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 ( ) - 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 ( )

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 ( ) - Is known as the first American psychologist. He authored the first book widely used psychology textbook, Principles of Psychology, in He led the movement of functionalism, which focuses on how the mind functions.

Key People in Psychology William James ( )

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 ( ) - 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 ( )

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 settings- selection 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 behavior- the role of complex biochemical events in our nervous systems and bodies in everything we do, sense, feel, or think. For example, psycho- biologists 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 attention- the 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