1. Discovering psychology
Intro to Psych
Discovering psychology

2. Psychology is the systematic scientific study of behaviours and mental processes
Behaviours: observable actions or responses in humans and animals
Mental processes: not directly observable, includes such processes as thinking, imagining, dreaming and studying
Definition

3. Goals Describe the different ways organisms behave
Explain the causes of behaviour
Predict how organisms will behave in certain situations
Control an organism’s behaviour
Goals

4. Understanding behavior includes biological, cognitive, behavioural, psychoanalytic, humanistic and cross- cultural approaches
Major Approaches

5. How genes, hormones, and the nervous system interacts with our environments to influence learning, personality, memory, motivation, emotions and coping techniques
Differences between normal and autistic brains
Biological

6. How we process, store, and use information and how the information influences what we attend to, perceive, learn, remember, believe, and feel
Can use MRIs to take pictures of the living brain while performing different functions
Structural approach
Cognitive

7. How we learn new behaviours and modify old ones depending on the environment
Rewards and punishments
Social cognitive approaches also see the observed behaviours of others as influencing our own
Behavioural

8. Stresses the influence of unconscious fears, desires, and motivations on thoughts, behaviours, and the development of personality traits and psychological problems later in life
Freud
Unconscious
Psychoanalytic

9. Each human has great freedom in directing his or her future, a large capacity for personal growth, a considerable amount of intrinsic worth and potential for self-improvement
Maslow
Positive approach
Humanistic

10. Examines the influence of cultural and ethnic similarities and differences on psychological and social functioning of a culture’s members.
Cultures differ in expectation and learning: this creates different understandings of social behaviour
Cross-cultural

11. A brief history of psychology

12. A brief history of psychology
Structuralism
Functionalism
Gestalt
Behaviourism
Who won?
A brief history of psychology

13. Structuralism Wilhelm Wundt – “father” of psychology 1879
Thought analyzing sensation was the key to analyzing mind structure
“Structuralism” studies primary sensations and perceptions that make up mental experiences
“Introspection” explores conscious mental processes by asking subjects to look inward to report sensations and perceptions
Criticisms: biased and unscientific, as based on self-reports
Structuralism

14. Functionalism William James; published “Principles of Psychology” 1890
Looked at goals, purposes and functions of the mind as adaptive
“Functionalism”: study of function (not structure) of consciousness and how minds adapt to environment
Had lots of impact on educational psychology and looked at many current areas of psychology
Criticised by Gestalt as not holistic enough
Functionalism

15. Functionalism (example)
You see a wolf
You run away
The act of running makes you feel fear
Physiological changes create emotion
Functionalism (example)

16. Gestalt Experience results from analyzing patterns (gestalts)
Perception is more than the sum of its parts and studies how sensations are assembled into meaningful experiences
ie. Fixed lights flashing in sequence appear to be moving
Gestalt ideas used to explain many of our perceptions today
Wertheimer (1912)
Gestalt

17. Watson (1930) believed psychology should be an objective experimental science.
Analyze behaviours to predict and control them
Was the dominate theory of psychology from 1920s to 1960s
Surpassed by cognitive approach in the 1990s.
Behaviourism

18. Psychologist
Psychiatrist
Counsellor
Therapist
Professions

19. Areas of study Social and Personality Developmental Experimental
Biological
Cognitive
Psychometrics
Areas of study