1. CHAPTER 1 WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY?

2. PSYCHOLOGY  What is your DEFINITION? The discipline concerned with behavior and mental processes and how they are affected by an organism’s physical state, mental state, and external environment.  Was your definition close?  Can you put the text definition in your own words? Symbolized with a  Empirical  Relying on or derived from observation, experimentation, or measurement

3. Thinking Critically About Psychology Can you distinguish between psychobabble and empirical psychology ? Psychobabble confirms are existing beliefs and prejudices, psychology challenges them.

4. Critical Thinking The ability and willingness to assess claims and make judgments on the basis of well-supported reasons and evidence, rather than emotion or anecdote

5. Critical Thinking Guidelines Ask questions; Be willing to wonder Define your terms Examine the evidence Analyze assumptions and bias

6. Critical Thinking Guidelines Avoid emotional reasoning Don’t oversimplify Consider other interpretations Tolerate uncertainty

7. Psychology’s Past Until the nineteenth century, psychology was not a formal discipline Great thinkers like Aristotle raised questions that today we would call psychology  How people take in information  Solve problems  Become motivated to act

8. Psychology’s Past Wanted to describe, predict, understand, and modify behavior to add to human knowledge and increase human happiness They did not rely heavily on empirical evidence – often their observations were based on anecdotes or descriptions of individual cases

9. Psychology’s Past – Good News, Bad News Good News – early thinkers not always wrong  Hippocrates – brain is the source of all pleasures  Stoic Philosophers – emotions related to explanations of events  Locke – the mind works by association - ideas arising from experience

10. Psychology’s Past – Good News, Bad News Bad News – without empirical methods, mistakes were made, psych was lumped in with other less-reputable disciplines  Phrenology: Joseph Gall--Different brain areas accounted for specific character and personality traits  Graphology: One’s personality could be revealed through analyzing handwriting samples  Astrology: Heavenly bodies influence human affairs

11. Phrenolog y

12. Based upon the “bumps” “ridges” and “depressions” in your skull Believers think you can tell a person’s personality by feeling their head Inion/ Anatolian Bump= good child?

13. Graphology

14. Write down (in cursive) the following sentence: The quick brown fox jumped over the slow, lazy dog.

18. Astrology

19. Is your Horoscope Accurate? http://www.latimes.com/features/horoscopes/ http://www.horoscope.com/ http://www.astrology.com/horoscopes

20. Astrology

21. Birth of Modern Psychology 1879 – First psychological laboratory – Leipzig, Germany by Wilhelm Wundt – first person to announce (1873) that he intended to make psychology a science  Wundt’s research methods were to observe, analyze, and describe researchers own sensations.  This was eventually rejected as too subjective

22. Psychology’s Past Three Early Psychologies  Structuralism  Functionalism  Psychoanalysis

23. Functionalism Emphasized the function or purpose of behavior and consciousness (the HOW and WHY) Functionalists (William James) broadened field of psychology to include the study of children, animals, religious experiences & stream of consciousness.  Wanted to know how specific behaviors and mental processes help a person or animal adapt to the environment

24. Structuralism Coined by a student of Wundt, E. B. Titchener Emphasized the analysis of immediate experience into basic elements. Interested in WHAT happens. Trained introspection Volunteers taught to observe, analyze and describe their own sensations, mental images, and emotional reactions.

25. Psychoanalysis A theory of personality and a method of psychotherapy, originally formulated by Sigmund Freud.  Emphasizes unconscious motives and conflicts that occur during early childhood and were too threatening to remember consciously  Freud argued that conscious awareness is merely the tip of the iceberg – the unconscious mind beneath the tip  Id, Ego, Superego

26. Psychoanalysis Freud concluded that the unconscious mind contained unrevealed wishes, passions, guilty secrets, unspeakable yearnings, and conflicts between desire and duty Many of these urges and thoughts are sexual or aggressive in nature

27. Major Psychological Perspectives Biological Perspective Learning Perspective Cognitive Perspective Sociocultural Perspective Psychodynamic Perspective

28. Wade/Tavris, (c) 2006, Prentice Hall The Biological Perspective Psychological approach that emphasizes bodily events and changes associated with actions, feelings and thoughts. This perspective involves:  Hormones  Brain chemistry  Heredity  Evolutionary influences

29. Wade/Tavris, (c) 2006, Prentice Hall The Learning Perspective A psychological approach that emphasizes how the environment and experience affect a person’s or animal’s actions. This perspective involves Behaviorism Social-cognitive learning theories

30. Wade/Tavris, (c) 2006, Prentice Hall The Cognitive Perspective A psychological approach that emphasizes mental processes in perception, memory, language, problem solving and other areas of behavior. This perspective involves  Computer models of human thinking  Infant thinking  Intelligence testing.

31. Wade/Tavris, (c) 2006, Prentice Hall Sociocultural Perspective A psychological approach that emphasizes social and cultural influences on behavior This perspective includes:  Social psychology or the study of rules, roles groups and relationships.  Cultural psychology or the study of cultural norms, values and expectations.

32. Wade/Tavris, (c) 2006, Prentice Hall Psychodynamic Perspective This perspective includes:  Unconscious thoughts, desires, conflicts. A psychological approach that emphasizes unconscious dynamics within the individual, such as inner forces, conflicts or the movement of instinctual energy.

33. Two Influential Movements in Psychology Humanist Psychology  A psychological approach that emphasizes personal growth and the achievement of human potential, rather than the scientific understanding and assessment of behavior  This approach  Rejected behaviorism and psychoanalysis  Emphasized creativity and achieving potential  POSTIVE PSYCHOLOGY—modern humanism

34. Two Influential Movements in Psychology Feminist Psychology  Psychological approach analyzing the influence of social inequities on gender relations and on the behavior of the two sexes  This Approach:  Recognized years of male bias in data collection and psychotherapy  Questions the use of research in justifying women’s lower status or elevating women’s status (female bias)  Motivated the study of new topics such as motherhood, menstruation, and menopause

35. What Psychologists Do Academic/Research Psychologists  Research in areas of basic applies psychology  Examples include:  Experimental Psychologists  Educational Psychologists  Developmental Psychologists  Industrial/Organizational Psychologists  Psychometric Psychologists

36. Psychological Practitioners Counseling psychologists help people deal with problems associated with everyday life School psychologists work with parents, teachers and students to enhance student performance Clinical psychologists diagnose, treat, and study mental or emotional problems

37. Clinical Psychologists are NOT: Psychotherapists  Anyone who does any type of psychotherapy Psychoanalysts  Individuals who receive training in psychoanalysis Psychiatrists  Medical doctors who diagnose and treat mental disorders

38. Psychologists in Other Settings Sports Consumer Issues Advertising Organizational Problems Environmental Issues Public Policy Opinion polls Military Training Animal Behavior Legal Issues Why would someone in Advertising or Polling want to use Psychology?!?!

39. What Areas do Psychology Undergraduates Pursue? Psychology Other Counseling Education Social work Medicine Law Health Sciences Business Sociology