1. Myers’ PSYCHOLOGY (7th Ed)
Prologue:
The Story of Psychology
James A. McCubbin, PhD
Clemson University
Worth Publishers

2. Have you ever…
Reacted to something just as one of your biological parents would?
Played peekaboo with a 6 month old and wondered why the baby found the game so funny?
Awakened from a crazy dream and wondered why you had it?
Become depressed or anxious and wondered if you would ever feel “normal” again.

3. Psychology Defined
Who are we? From where come our thoughts? Our feelings? Our actions?- Psychology can help answer these questions.
The scientific study of behavior and mental process.
Behavior-anything an organism does. Ex: yelling, smiling, blinking, talking, etc.
Mental processes-internal, subjective experiences we infer from behavior. Ex: sensations, perceptions, dreams, thoughts, beliefs and feelings.
Key word: Science-evaluates competing ideas with careful observations and rigorous analysis.

4. Prologue: Psychology’s Roots
Prescientific Psychology attempted to answer these questions:
Is the mind connected to the body or distinct? Ex: Hebrew believed that people thought with the heart and felt with the bowels.
Are ideas inborn or is the mind a blank slate filled by experience?

5. Prologue: Psychology’s Roots
Socrates & Plato-concluded that mind is separable from body-continues after death. Knowledge innate-born within us.
Aristotle-Derived principles by logic and observations. Knowledge grows from experience.
Rene Descartes-same ideas as S&P-dissection on animals-spirits moved through nerves into muscles to provoking movement.

6. Prologue: Psychology’s Roots
Francis Bacon-One of the founders of modern science. Fascinated with the idea of finding patterns in random events.
John Locke-An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Argued that the mind at birth is a blank slate (tabula rasa) on which experiences writes.
Bacon and Locke’s ideas helped form modern empiricism.

7. Prologue: Psychology’s Roots

8. Prologue: Psychology’s Roots
Psychological Science Is Born
Empiricism
Knowledge comes from experience via the senses
Science flourishes through observation and experiment

9. Prologue: Psychology’s Roots
Wilhelm Wundt opened the first psychology laboratory at the University of Liepzig (c. 1879)
Experiment-Machine measured the time lag between people’s hearing a ball hit a platform and their pressing a telegraph key.
1. Responded 1/10 sec when asked to press when they heard it.
2. 2/10 when asked to press as soon as they were consciously aware of perceiving the sound.

10. Prologue: Psychology’s Roots
Edward Bradford Titchener-Structuralism used introspection (looking in) to explore the elemental structure of the human mind.
Aimed to discover the elements of the mind.
Trained people to report elements of their experience as they looked at an object, listened to a metronome, smelled a scent or tasted a substance.
Waned because you needed smart, verbal people; unreliable.

11. Prologue: Psychology’s Roots
William James-Functionalism focused on how behavioral processes function- how they enable organisms to adapt, survive, and flourish.
Encouraged explorations of down-to earth emotions, memories, will power, habits, and moment-to-moment streams of consciousness.

12. Prologue: Psychology’s Roots
Psychological Science develops from the more established fields of philosophy and biology
Wilhelm Wundt--German philosopher and physiologist
William James--American philosopher (functionalist)
Ivan Pavlov--Russian physiologist-engineered the science of learning.
Sigmund Freud--Austrian physician-influential theory of personality.
Jean Piaget--Swiss biologist-most influential observer of children.

13. Prologue: Psychology’s Roots
Figure 1- British Psychological Society membership

14. Prologue: Psychology’s Roots
Definition of Psychology
The science of behavior (what we do) and mental processes (sensations, perceptions, dreams, thoughts, beliefs, and feelings)

15. Prologue: Contemporary Psychology
Psychology’s Big Issues
Nature-nurture controversy
the relative contribution that genes and experience make to development of psychological traits and behaviors
**you will become VERY familiar with this one**

16. Prologue: Contemporary Psychology
Charles Darwin & Natural selection
principle that those inherited trait variations contributing to survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations

17. Prologue: Contemporary Psychology
Continued Debate…
How are differences in intelligence, personality, and psychological disorders influenced by heredity and by environment?
Is children’s grammar mostly innate or formed from experience?
Are sexual behaviors more “pushed” by inner biology or “pulled” by external incentives?

18. Prologue: Contemporary Psychology
Three Main Levels of Analysis
Together, different levels of analysis form an integrated biopsychosocial approach with considers the influece of biological, psychological and social-cultural factors.

19. Prologue: Contemporary Psychology
Psychology’s Perspectives

20. Prologue: Contemporary Psychology
Psychology’s Perspectives
A lot depends on your viewpoint

21. Prologue: Contemporary Psychology
Psychology’s Subfields
Basic Research
Biological psychologists explore the links between brain and mind
Developmental psychologists study changing abilities from womb to tomb
Cognitive psychologists study how we perceive, think, and solve problems

22. Prologue: Contemporary Psychology
Psychology’s Subfields
Basic Research
Personality psychologists investigate our persistent traits
Social psychologists explore how we view and affect one another

23. Prologue: Contemporary Psychology
Psychology’s Subfields
Applied Research
Industrial/organizational psychologists study and advise on behavior in the workplace
Clinical psychologists study, assess, and treat people with psychological disorders

24. Prologue: Contemporary Psychology
Psychiatry
A branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders
Practiced by physicians who sometimes use medical (for example, drug) treatments as well as psychotherapy