1. What is Psychology? David Myers (8th Edition)
PowerPoint Slides
Mr. Mable
Tucker High School
2016
Psychology 7e in Modules

2. Student’s will be able to:
Define Psychology
Explain the specific jobs Psychologist do
Name key psychologist in its history
Describe where Psychology came from
List the Major Modern Perspectives
List the types of degrees needed in psych
Explain how to be a better psych student

3. WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY?

4. Psychology is: The scientific study of behavior and mental processes

5. Psychology Ology = The study of
Psych come from the Latin Psyche meaning the SOUL

6. Psychology attempts to answer the following questions:
Why do I do the things that I do?
Who am I ?

7. Behavior vs. Cognitive Cognitive Behavior Can be seen
Something that can be measured
i.e. Pushups
kissing
dancing
playing
football
Cannot normally be seen
Cognitive means thinking
It is any mental activity
For example:
dreaming
perception
memories
judgments
planning

8. Pre-Scientific Psychology

9. Prescientific Psychology
Psychology’s Roots
Prescientific Psychology
OBJECTIVE 2| Trace psychology’s prescientific roots from, from early understandings of mind and body to the beginnings of modern science. Through out human history thinkers have wondered: How do our minds work? How do our bodies relate to our minds? How much of what we know comes built in? How much is acquired through experience?
In India, Buddha wondered how sensations and perceptions combined to form ideas.
Psychology 7e in Modules

10. Prescientific Psychology
Confucius ( B.C.)
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In China, Confucius stressed the power of ideas and the importance of an educated mind.

11. Prescientific Psychology
Hebrew Scriptures
Hebrew scriptures linked mind and emotion to the body.

12. Prescientific Psychology
Socrates ( B.C.) and Plato ( B.C.)
Socrates
Plato
Socrates and his student Plato believed the mind was separate from the body, the mind continued to exist after death, and ideas were innate.

13. Prescientific Psychology
Aristotle ( B.C.)
“The soul is not separable from the body, and the same holds good of particular parts of the soul.” Aristotle, De Anima, 350 B.C.
Aristotle suggested that the soul is not separable from the body and that knowledge (ideas) grow from experience.
Psychology 7e in Modules

14. Aristotle Wrote the first book about psychology called Peri Psyches
Greek: “About the Soul”
The Greek letter Psi
Is the symbol of
Modern Psychology.

15. Prescientific Psychology
Rene Descartes ( )
Descartes like Plato believed the immaterial mind and physical body were separate but communicated in the brain at pineal gland. Animal spirits moved from the brain to act on the muscles and experiences lead the nerves to open up “pores” in the brain to form memories. Descartes was right about the nerves connecting the inside and the outside worlds but had no notion of how these nerves functioned.
Descartes, like Plato, believed in soul (mind)-body separation, but wondered how the immaterial mind and physical body communicated.
Psychology 7e in Modules

16. Prescientific Psychology
Francis Bacon ( )
Bacon is one of the founders of modern science, particularly the experimental method.
Psychology 7e in Modules

17. Prescientific Psychology
John Locke ( )
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Locke held that the mind was a tabula rasa, or blank sheet, at birth, and experiences wrote on it.
Psychology 7e in Modules

18. Historical Perspectives
Where did Psychology come from?

19. Modern Scientific Psychology
You should know the differences between:
Philosophy = Why?
Physiology = Science of Anatomy
Psychology = What Causes Behavior?

20. Psychological Science is Born
Structuralism
Titchner ( )
Wundt ( )
OBJECTIVE 3| Explain how early psychologists sought to understand the mind’s structure and functions, and identify some of the leading psychologists who worked in these areas. Structuralism: Wundt and his student Titchner focused on the elements of mind, and studied it by using introspection (self-reflection). Wundt established the first laboratory of psychology in 1879 at Leipzig, Germany, and wrote the first textbook of psychology.
Wundt and Titchener studied the elements (atoms) of the mind by conducting experiments at Leipzig, Germany, in 1879.
Psychology 7e in Modules

21. Wilhelm Wundt
Made the first Psychological Laboratory EVER in 1879 in Leipzig, Germany.
A student of his named G. Stanley Hall made the first Psych lab in the United States at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD. His lab was modeled after Wundt’s.

22. G. Stanley Hall (1844-1924) Started 1st laboratory in USA
Invited Sigmund Freud & Jung to visit USA
Translated Freud’s work into English
1st President of the APA
Founded American Journal of Psychology
Studied adolescence and childhood
Promoted the study of educational psychology
Earliest study of the differences between men and women

23. Psychological Science is Born
Functionalism
James ( )
Mary Calkins
Functionalism: James suggested that it would be more fruitful to consider the evolved functions of our thoughts and feelings than simply studying the elements of mind. Based on the theory of evolution, he suggested that the function of these thoughts and feelings was adaptive. James admitted the first woman student Mary Calkins to Harvard and tutored her. Despite his efforts she was not able to attain her PhD from Harvard.
Influenced by Darwin, William James established the school of functionalism, which opposed structuralism.
Psychology 7e in Modules

24. William James
Wrote the first modern textbook EVER in 1890 called Principles of Psychology.
James was a professor of Psychology at Harvard University.
Much of what was in his book still holds true today!

25. Gestalt Psychology What do you see?
A theory of mind and brain that proposes that the operational principle of the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies; or, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts
Counters attempts to believe one can break down the mind or experience into bits and parts, as if we were machines .
The idea that we tend to see the “Big Picture”, the forest instead of individual trees. Experience is always more than the sum of its parts
Gestalt means SHAPE or FORM.
What do you see?

26. What do you see?

29. The Whole is greater than the sum of its parts!

30. Psychological Science is Born
The Unconscious Mind
Freud ( )
Sigmund Freud and his followers emphasized the importance of the unconscious mind and its effects on human behavior.
Psychology 7e in Modules

31. Sigmund Freud Austrian Neurologist (1856-1938)
Invented Psychoanalysis the “talking cure”
Unconscious mind
Dream Interpretation
Importance of early childhood experiences
Theory of personality (Id, ego, superego)
Defense mechanisms such as repression, displacement
Oedipal conflict
Time Magazine voted him the 2nd Most Influential Person in 20th Century

32. Sigmund Freud Medical Doctor of Neurology.
“Archaeologist of the Mind”.
Founded:
Psychoanalysis/Psychoanalytic Approach
Dream Analysis
Free Association(the “talking cure”)
The Unconscious Mind
And lots more…

34. Psychological Science Develops
Behaviorism
Skinner ( )
Watson ( )
OBJECTIVE 4| Describe the evolution of psychology as defined from 1920s to through today. Ivan Pavlov a Russian Physiologist, James Watson and Skinner were all instrumental in developing the science of psychology and emphasized behavior instead of mind or mental thoughts. From 1920 to 1960, psychology in the US was heavily oriented towards behaviorism.
Watson (1913) and later Skinner emphasized the study of overt behavior as the subject matter of scientific psychology.
Psychology 7e in Modules

35. Ivan Pavlov ( )
Brilliant Russian Scientist
Won Nobel Prize in Medicine for study of the digestive system
Contribution to Psychology
Concept of the “Conditioned Response”
Classical Conditioning (learning by association)
Famous for his experiments with dogs illustrating the effects of conditioning

36. Who is conditioning whom?

37. John B. Watson and Behaviorism
He believed it is unscientific to study consciousness.
Behaviorism: the school of psychology, founded by John Watson, that defines psychology as the scientific study of observable behavior

38. Little Albert – Where is he now?
Watson succeeded in conditioning fear into a normal child who previously did not react fearfully to the sight of a white rat, now the child feared all things white and furry (generalization)

39. B.F. Skinner American Psychologist (1904-1990)
Pioneered “Operant Conditioning” which is a kind of conditioning based on reinforcement (rewards & punishment)
Promoted “Radical Behaviorism”, everything we do, think and say is the result of conditioning
Invented all kinds of laboratory devices to study the learning process and measure simple behaviors in laboratory animals called a “Skinner Box”

40. Skinner Boxes
Skinner was a genius at developing ways to precisely measure behavior in laboratory settings.

41. Psychological Science Develops
Humanistic Psychology
Maslow ( )
Rogers ( )
Maslow and Rogers emphasized current environmental influences on our growth potential and our need for love and acceptance.
Psychology 7e in Modules

43. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs