WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY ? Pertemuan 1 s.d 2 Matakuliah: L0014/Psikologi Umum Tahun: 2007

BINA NUSANTARA2 DEFINITION & GOALS OF PSYCHOLOGY

BINA NUSANTARA3 ARISTOTLE Psyche + Science = Psychology Psyche = essence of life  translate from Greek = mind  breath He believed that the psyche escape in the last dying breath that was exhaled He believed that one must observe the thing being studied – look at it, listen to it, touch it  Aristotle vs Plato (understand = only Thinking about it) Logos (Greek) = the study of

BINA NUSANTARA4 DEFINITION Psychology is the “study of life” Psychology is the science of behavior and mental processes Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and the mind – The behavior = actions and responses that we can directly observe – Mind = Internal states and processes – thoughts and feelings – can not be seen directly and must be inferred from observable, measurable responses

BINA NUSANTARA5 GOALS OF PSYCHOLOGY 1. TO DESCRIBE how people and other species behave 2. TO PREDICThow people and other species will behave under certain conditions 3. TO UNDERSTAND the causes of these behaviors 4. TO INFLUENCE behavior through the control of its causes 5. TO APPLY psychological knowledge in ways that enhance human welfare

BINA NUSANTARA6 Psychology & other science Psychology Scientific study of behavior and mental processes Biology Scientific study of life processes and biological structures Computer Science Scientific study of information processing and manipulations of data Anthropology Scientific study of cultural origins, evolution and variations Medicine Scientific study of health and the causes and treatment of diseases Sociology Scientific study of human social relations and systems

BINA NUSANTARA7 VIEWPOINTS IN PSYCHOLOGY AND THEIR ORIGINS Nature of Conscious Experience Functions of the Conscious Mind Psychometrics Behaviorism and Social Learning Theory Neuroscience Perspective Nature of the “Unconscious Mind”

BINA NUSANTARA8 Aristotle – years after he lived : Psychology as part of Philosophy 17 th – 18 th : all the sciences start to distinct the subject matter and scientific methods 1875, William James : Laboratory at Harvard University, thought the 1 st psychology course and in 1890 published an influential early textbook of psychology 1879, Wilhelm Wundt : 1 st Psychology Laboratory in Leipzig, Germany

BINA NUSANTARA9 Nature of Conscious Experience What are you thinking and feeling right now ? To understand the basic elements of consciousness and how they worked together to create the experience of being alive Wunt, Titchener and Structuralism – Wanted to identify the basic elements of conscious experience and how those elements are organized – Methods : Introspection  a method of looking inward at one’s own conscious experience – Structuralism = the structure of mind through controlled introspection J. Henry Alston – The studies of the sensations of heat and cold - nerve stimulation – Wrote 1 st research article published by an African American Psychologist in a journal of the APA Max Wertheimer and Gestalt psychology – Gestalt = whole – Human consciousness could not be meaningfully broken down into raw elements – Phi Phenomenon = The whole is different from the sum of its parts

BINA NUSANTARA10 Functions of the Conscious Minds To understand the value of consciousness to us as species William James and Functionalism – Based on Charles Darwin Theory – Thinking, feeling, learning, remembering and other processes of human consciousness existed only because they helped us survive as a species and adapt to the demands of life – Learn about conscious awareness, voluntary action (free will), habits and emotions Hemann Ebbinghaus & Mary Whiton Calkins and Studies of Memory – Ebbinghaus : Invented a new set of meaningless items “Nonsense Syllables” – Mary : “paired associates” method Cognitive Psychology – All intellectual processes - perceiving, believing, thinking, remembering, knowing, deciding, etc. – Influenced by Gestalt psychology and Structuralism

BINA NUSANTARA11 Psychometrics the measurement (metrics) of mental functions (psycho) Albert Binet – Help the Paris Ministry of Education (1890) to choosing the children to be given advanced academic training and make the decision when the children were still young – Develop a way to measure Intelligence – Find a set of questions (e.g. arithmetic problems, word definitions, memory tasks) based on age norm – Stanford - Binet Intelligence scale

BINA NUSANTARA12 Behaviorism and Social Learning Theory To study psychological processes that useful in the struggle to survive, emphasis in the importance of learning from experience 1890, Ivan Pavlov – Identified a simple form of learning – conditioning (inherited reflex) comes to be triggered by a stimulus that has nothing to do with the reflex , John B. Watson & Margaret Floy Washburn – Behaviorism – It was impossible to study private mental processes because only outward behavior could be measured and scientifically understood Albert Bandura & Social Learning Theory – Our behavior are learned from other persons in society

BINA NUSANTARA13 Neuroscience Perspective 1852, Santiago Ramon Y Cajal – Description of Neurons - the cells that make up brain and nervous system Interested in the structures of the brain that play roles in emotion, reasoning, speaking and other psychological processes Determine the extent to which our psychological characteristic (e.g. intelligence & emotional stability), are influenced by heredity

BINA NUSANTARA14 Nature of the “Unconscious Mind” The most important aspect of human psychology is the mental processes that we are unaware Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis – The roots of the psychological problems were innate motives, particularly sexual and aggressive that reside in unconscious part of the mind Humanistic Psychology and Unconscious Mind – Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Victor Frankl – Human beings determine their own fates through conscious decision they make – The most important aspect of people is our view of what we are like - our SELF CONCEPT – Because of the society, sometimes we push upsetting information about ourselves into the unconscious, cause 2 problems Most of us have an inaccurate self concept, because we push out of consciousness information about ourselves that doesn’t match what society values The negative unconscious information sometimes threatens our self concepts and make us anxious

BINA NUSANTARA15 CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES IN PSYCHOLOGY The Sociocultural Perspectives Evolutionary Psychology The Positive Psychology Movements

BINA NUSANTARA16 Human Diversity : The Sociocultural Perspective The principles of perception, motivation, learning and personality apply for all human beings What makes psychologically different ? Ethnic Group vs Ethnic Identity Gender Identity Social anthropology, Social Learning Theories

BINA NUSANTARA17 Evolutionary Psychology The basic idea : the behavior of animals – including human animals – can be understood in term of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution Darwin hypothesized that the variations occur occasionally in the process of reproduction, known to be based on spontaneous change in a gene, known as mutations

BINA NUSANTARA18 Positive Psychology Movement Stop focusing only in human problems What is best about human lives Martin Seligman, 1990, one of APA presidents

BINA NUSANTARA19 SPECIALITY AREAS OF MODERN PSYCHOLOGY Applied psychologists used knowledge acquired by psychologist in the basic areas and by their own research studies, to solve and prevent significant human problems Areas : Clinical psychology, Counseling psychology, Educational and School Psychology, Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Health Psychology Psychology vs Psychiatry

BINA NUSANTARA20 What we know about human behavior ? 1. Human beings are biological creature 2. Every person is different, yet much the same 3. People can understood fully only in the context of their culture, ethnic identity and gender identity 4. Human lives are continuous process of change 5. Behavior is motivated 6. Humans are social animals 7. People play an active part in creating their experiences 8. Behavior can be adaptive or maladaptive