Chapter 1 What is Psychology

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Chapter 1What is Psychology?
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What is Psychology?

• Psychology is a word deriving from Greek roots
• Psyche soul or mind
• Logos word
• Psychology is the systematic study of behavior
  and experience.

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Module 1.1

• The Goals of Psychologists

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The Goals of Psychologists

• Psychologists engage in the study of psychology
  in order to understand, explain and predict
  behavior.
• What are the major philosophical issues that are
  relevant to this study?

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The Major Philosophical Issues

• Free Will Versus Determinism
• Are the causes of behavior knowable, and is
  behavior predictable?
• Free will is the belief that behavior is caused
  by an individuals independent decision-making.
• Determinism is the assumption that everything
  that happens has a cause or determinant in the
  observable world.

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Which Perspective Holds that Behavioris Fully
Predictable?

• A determinist assumes that everything that
  happens has a cause that can be known.
• A believer in free will assumes that even with
  complete information regarding causes and
  conditions, predictions regarding human behavior
  can never be fully accurate.

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The Major Philosophical Issues

• The Mind-Brain Problem
• How is experience related to the organ system
  called the brain?
• Dualism is the belief that the mind is separate
  from the brain but somehow controls the brain and
  through it also the rest of the body.
• Monism is the view that conscious experience is
  generated by and therefore is inseparable from
  the brain.

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• Data from brain imaging research such as PET
  (positron emission tomography) suggests that
  brain activity and mental activity are two
  aspects of the same thing. Yet this question is
  far from resolved.

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The Major Philosophical Issues

• The Nature-Nurture Issue
• How do differences in behavior relate to
  differences in heredity and environment?
• Some scientists assume that the larger proportion
  of differences in potential and behavior are due
  to the influence of genes.
• Some scientists assume that most differences are
  a result of aspects of the environment such as
  culture, expectations, and resources.
• This issue shows up in virtually every field of
  psychology, and knowledge gained through research
  seldom provides a simple answer.

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What Psychologists Do

• Psychology is an academic, non-medical discipline
  that includes many branches and specialties.
• The educational requirements can vary, but
  generally involve study beyond the bachelors
  degree.
• A masters degree, or a Ph.D./Psy.D. (doctor of
  psychology) are common terminal degrees in the
  discipline.

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• Figure 1.4
• More than one third of psychologists work in
  academic institutions the remainder find
  positions in a variety of settings. (Based on
  data of Chamberlin, 2000)

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What Psychologists Do

• There are many specialties in the broad science
  of psychology. Psychologists practice within
  their chosen specialty in 3 main areas
• Teaching and Research
• Service Providers to Individuals
• Service Providers to Organizations

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What Psychologists Do

• Teaching and Research
• Most teaching psychologists work in colleges and
  universities.
• Most psychologists who teach also engage in
  research and writing.
• Some psychologists are employed in full-time
  research positions.

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What Psychologists Do

• Major categories of psychological research
• Biological Psychology (or neuroscience)
• A bio-psychologist tries to explain behavior in
  terms of biological factors, such as anatomy,
  electrical and chemical activities in the nervous
  system, and the effects of drugs, hormones,
  genetics and evolutionary pressures.

Sample Question How do drug abuse, brain damage,
and exposures to environmental toxins change
nervous system functioning (and by extension,
behavior)?
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What Psychologists Do

• Major categories of psychological research
• Learning and Motivation
• A psychologist who studies and does research in
  this area is interested in how behavior depends
  on outcomes of past behaviors and on current
  motivations.

Sample Question Do frequent or consistent
rewards for desired behaviors produce better
learning than less frequent or less predictable
rewards?
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What Psychologists Do

• Major categories of psychological research
• Cognitive Psychology
• A cognitive psychologist studies the processes of
  thinking and acquiring knowledge.

Sample Question What do experts in a field
know or do that sets them apart from other people?
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What Psychologists Do

• Major categories of psychological research
• Developmental Psychology
• A developmental psychologist studies the
  behavioral capacities typical of different ages
  and how behavior changes with age.

Sample Question What do people do or know as
adults that they do not know as children? Why did
this change occur? Was the change due to
biological changes, increased experience, or a
combination of these?
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What Psychologists Do

• Major categories of psychological research
• Social Psychology
• A social psychologist studies how an individual
  influences and is influenced by other people

Sample Question To what degree to the demands
and expectations of authority figures influence
our behavior? How strong is the human tendency to
conform?
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Concept Check

• Which psychologist would ask if punishment is an
  effective means of eliminating undesirable
  behaviors?

Learning And Motivation
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• Which psychologist would ask if people will obey
  an authority figure even when that leader is
  demanding behavior that might be classified as
  immoral or wrong?

Social Psychologist
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• Which psychologist wants to know when language
  learning occurs most rapidly in children?

Developmental Psychologist
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• Which psychologist would do research to determine
  how memories are stored in the brain?

Biological Psychologist
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• Which psychologist would do research to determine
  how retention and recall of information in a
  college-level psychology course can be enhanced?

Cognitive Psychologist
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What Psychologists Do

• Service Providers to Individuals
• There are many types of psychotherapists,
  professionals with training in psychology who
  specialize in helping people with psychological
  problems, actually are trained in a variety of
  disciplines.

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• TABLE 1.1
• Clinical Psychologists and Other Psychotherapists

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What Psychologists Do

• Service Providers to Individuals
• Clinical psychologists have advanced degrees in
  psychology, with a specialty in understanding and
  helping people with mental and emotional
  problems.
• They receive training in intellectual and
  psychological testing intended to aid in
  diagnosis and treatment.

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What Psychologists Do

• Service Providers to Individuals
• Psychiatrists are trained as medical doctors.
• In addition to learning the principles of
  psychology, they are educated in how to use
  prescription drugs to treat psychological
  distress.

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What Psychologists Do

• Service Providers to Individuals
• Psychiatric nurses receive standard nursing
  education plus additional training in the care of
  emotionally troubled individuals.
• They usually work in medical clinics and
  hospitals.

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What Psychologists Do

• Service Providers to Individuals
• Psychiatric and clinical social workers combine
  training in traditional social work with
  specialized knowledge of how to treat emotionally
  disturbed people and advocate for their well
  being within the larger community.

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What Psychologists Do

• Service Providers to Individuals
• Psychoanalysts are psychotherapists who use
  mental health treatment strategies that are based
  on the theories and methods pioneered by Sigmund
  Freud.
• Freud believed that an unconscious component of
  the human mind affects our functioning in
  day-to-day life.

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What Psychologists Do

• Service Providers to Individuals
• Counseling psychologists have an advanced degree
  in psychology and help people with educational,
  vocational, marriage, health, and other important
  life decisions. They receive training in therapy
  and some types of psychological testing.

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Concept Check

• Which psychotherapist would help a middle-aged
  woman trying to transition from work as a
  homemaker to resuming her college education?

Counseling Psychologist
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• Which psychotherapist would prescribe a mood
  stabilizer to a patient who shows signs of
  bipolar affective (emotional) disorder?

Psychiatrist
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• Which psychotherapist might provide ongoing
  counseling and support for residents of a halfway
  house for recovering addicts?

Clinical Social Worker
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• Which psychotherapist might be part of the staff
  of a hospital emergency room, and manage the
  intake of a patient admitted with acute suicidal
  thoughts and feelings?

Psychiatric Nurse
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• Which psychotherapist might be employed in an
  inpatient facility for developmentally delayed
  children and adolescents, doing assessment and
  psychotherapy?

Clinical Psychologist
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• Which psychotherapist would try to help a patient
  discover his or her hidden motivations for an
  apparently distressing and unacceptable behavior
  or thought?

Psychoanalyst
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What Psychologists Do

• Service Providers to Organizations
• Industrial/Organizational Psychologists study
  peoples behavior in the workplace using a
  combination of social, cognitive, and
  motivational psychology principles, and often
  employing psychological tests.

Sample Question Workers in two separate
departments at an aerospace engineering firm have
started to withhold information from each other
and this has been detrimental to morale and
productivity. How can this behavior be stopped
without terminating or reassigning any employees?
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What Psychologists Do

• Service Providers to Organizations
• An ergonomist, or human factors specialist,
  attempts to facilitate the use of machinery and
  appliances so that the average user can operate
  them as efficiently and as safely as possible.

Sample Question How can the design of a clerical
workstation in an office be improved to minimize
the possibility of repetitive stress related
injuries occurring to the employee who occupies
it?
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What Psychologists Do

• Service Providers to Organizations
• A school psychologist specializes in the
  psychological condition of the students, usually
  at the kindergarten through secondary school
  levels.
• School psychologists draw upon a combination of
  developmental, learning and motivational
  principles, and often use educational and
  psychological tests to assist with educational
  planning for individual students.

Sample Question Does a fourth grade student
whose grades have been declining over the past
two years have an identifiable learning
disability, or is there an issue related to the
students emotional well-being affecting his
performance?
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Concept Check

• Which psychologist would consult in the design of
  an airplane cockpit to maximize crew efficiency
  and safety?

Ergonomist
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• Which psychologist would evaluate a student for
  possible placement in a schools program for
  gifted children?

School Psychologist
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• Which psychologist would work with supervisors at
  a software development company to improve
  communication between departments and levels of
  management?

Industrial-Organizational Psychologist
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Majoring in Psychology

• Should you major in psychology?
• Although psychology is a popular major, very few
  jobs are listed specifically for people with
  bachelors degrees.
• Examples of jobs that are closely related to
  psychology are
• Personnel or human resources specialist
• Halfway or transitional home staff or supervisor
• Community or social services outreach worker

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Majoring in Psychology

• Should you major in psychology?
• Psychology will be useful in careers that are not
  closely related to psychology, and in your life
  apart from work as well.
• It can help you to more effectively evaluate
  evidence presented to you in a variety of
  situations
• It can help you to improve your learning and
  retention
• It can help you to be aware of the power of
  social influence and cultural context
• It is also an excellent major for those who are
  contemplating further professional education in
  areas such as business, law, or divinity.

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Majoring in Psychology

• Should you major in psychology?
• What about becoming a real psychologist?
• You will probably need a doctorate
  (Ph.D./Psy.D.).
• You will be in school for up to eight more years.
  It is hard to anticipate how the job market will
  change in the time it takes to complete your
  degree.
• You should have an interest in working in health
  care or educational settings or a willingness to
  work in a private practice or consulting role.

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Majoring in Psychology

• Should you major in psychology?
• Why take this class or consider majoring in the
  field?
• Psychology is a field that offers the exciting
  possibilities for improving the quality of life
  in many aspects and levels of human existence.
• Psychologists use information from the areas of
  psychology presented here to help people
  understand themselves and make better use of
  their skills and qualities.
• It is currently attracting talented persons from
  an increasing diverse variety of backgrounds.

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Majoring in Psychology

• Should you major in psychology?
• Whether or not you choose to do more advanced
  work, we hope that you will find a long-lasting
  benefit from your investment of time and energy
  in this Introduction to Psychology course.

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Module 1.2

• Psychology Then and Now

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• In all cultures, and for thousands of years,
  people have wondered about the nature of human
  thought, action and experience.
• The great writers of every civilization are
  widely read because they provide us with such
  compelling descriptions and make profound
  observations of human behavior.

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• Figure 1.7
• Dates of some important events in psychology and
  elsewhere. (Based partly on Dewsbury (2000a).

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• The first psychological laboratory The work of
  William Wundt, Leipzig, Germany - 1879
• William Wundt was trained as a physician and did
  research on the workings of the senses.
• Although other psychology experiments had been
  done, this was the first laboratory devoted
  exclusively to the activities of psychological
  research.

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• William Wundt
• Wundts fundamental question was What are the
  components of experience, or mind?
• He presented his subjects with a wide variety of
  stimuli, and asked them to look within
  themselves, to introspect. He tried to measure
  the changes in their experiences as the stimuli
  changes.

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• William Wundt
• Wundt and his students did experiments in a wide
  range of areas related to psychology, and they
  wrote prolifically about their findings.
• Most importantly, Wundt demonstrated that it was
  possible to perform meaningful experiments in the
  science of psychology.

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• Edward Titchener
• Edward Titchener was a student of Wundt who
  immigrated to the United States in 1892.
• He developed the approach he called
  structuralism.
• In structuralism, the researcher attempts to
  describe the structures that compose the mind
  the sensations, feelings and images.

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• Edward Titchener
• Titchener presented a stimulus to his subjects
  and asked them to analyze its separate features.
• After Titcheners death in 1927, his research
  methods were abandoned.
• There was no feasible way to check the accuracy
  of his subjects observations.
• As psychology evolved through the 20th century,
  psychological researchers became more interested
  in describing and analyzing readily observable
  behaviors.

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• William James The Principles of Psychology
  (1890)
• The American psychologist William James was
  keenly interested in what the mind does, rather
  than the elements of mind.
• He rejected the methods of Wundt and Titchener.
• He wanted to learn how the mind produces
  behaviors. He called his approach functionalism.

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• William James The Principles of Psychology
  (1890)
• Typical questions asked from a functionalist
  perspective
• How does a person recall the answer to a
  question?
• How does a person inhibit an undesirable impulse?
• Can a person attend to more than one task at a
  time?

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• Psychophysics
• Early psychologists, doing research on sensation
  and sensory experience, noticed interesting
  aspects of the functioning of the senses.
• For example, the perception of a stimulus
  intensity is not directly proportional to the
  actual physical intensity of the stimulus.

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• Psychophysics
• A sound that is half as loud (in physical terms,
  in decibels) as another sound may not sound that
  way to the listener.
• Psychophysics attempts to provide a mathematical
  description of the relationship between the
  actual physical properties of the stimulus and
  its perceived properties.

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• The enormous impact of Darwin The origin of
  species (1859) The descent of man (1871)
• In his presentation of compelling evidence that
  humans and other animal species were related,
  Charles Darwin forced scientists and thoughtful
  people working in many disciplines to consider
  the basic features held in common by many or all
  animals, such as thinking and intelligence.
• Comparative psychologists, who use this
  perspective, are specialists who compare
  different animal species.

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• Figure 1.10
• One of the tasks used by early comparative
  psychologists to assess animal intelligence
  tested the delayed-response problem. A stimulus
  was presented and a delay ensued then the animal
  was expected to respond to the remembered
  stimulus. Variations on this delayed-response
  task are still used today.

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• Comparative psychology
• Early comparative psychologists devised a number
  of experiments to try to measure animal
  intelligence, such as
• The delayed response problem
• The detour problem
• The pattern recognition problems
• Some species appeared to be gifted in one set of
  tasks and highly deficient in another.

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• Figure 1.11
• Another task popular among early comparative
  psychologists was the detour problem. An animal
  needed to first go away from the food in order to
  move toward it.

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• Figure 1.12
• Zebras learn rapidly when they have to compare
  stripe patterns (Giebel, 1958). How smart a
  species is perceived to be depends in part on
  what ability or skill is being tested.

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• Comparative psychology
• Eventually the inconsistencies in performance
  between different tasks across a single species
  suggested to comparative psychologists that
  questions about animal intelligence might be
  meaningless.
• This issue is similar to some of the problems
  that we currently are encountering in the
  controversial area of measuring human
  intelligence.

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• Human intelligence and IQ testing
• Francis Galton was one of the first scientists to
  try to measure human intelligence and determine
  to what extent heredity influenced variations in
  human cognitive abilities.
• He studied the sons of accomplished men and found
  that the offspring of the talented and famous had
  a high probability of being accomplished too.
• He explained this as due chiefly to the influence
  of heredity.
• Is this the only possible explanation?
• Galton tried to develop an intelligence test, but
  did not succeed.

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• Human intelligence and IQ testing
• Alfred Binet devised the first useful
  intelligence test 1905, at the behest of the
  French government, for use in identifying
  children in the public school system who might be
  in need of special services.
• His test was imported to the United States after
  his death, and was the template for the
  development of many tests of intelligence and
  other qualities of interest in the field of
  psychology.
• Some of the most interesting questions you will
  encounter in this course will involve whether it
  is truly possible to measure these qualities, or
  to fully understand what they are.

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• Women in Psychology
• In the early days of psychology, opportunities
  for women were limited as they were in so many
  areas at the time.
• Mary Calkins was one of the pioneering women in
  the field. Her graduate education in psychology
  at Harvard was paid for as part of her teaching
  salary at Wellesley College.
• Although she never received the Ph.D. that she
  earned from Harvard, she went on to do research,
  study the function of memory, and serve as the
  president of the American Psychological
  Association.

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• Women in Psychology
• Other early contributing women in the field of
  psychology were
• Christine Ladd-Franklin
• Margaret Washburn
• Karen Horney
• Anna Freud
• The latter two were followers of Sigmund Freud
  and the Psychoanalytic school of psychology.

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• Behaviorism John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner
• Recall that structuralism was abandoned because
  it was difficult to study the subjective
  perception of experience.
• Behaviorism is a field of psychology that
  concentrates on observable, measurable behaviors
  and not mental processes.
• Behaviorists primarily seek to study the
  observable behaviors associated with what is
  generally referred to as learning.

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• Behaviorism John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner
• Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a
  purely objective experimental branch of natural
  science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction
  and control of behavior. -- John B. Watson,
  1913

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• Behaviorism and Studies of Learning
• The earliest researchers in the field of learning
  expected to find that it operated using simple,
  basic and predictable laws, comparable to
  Newtons physical laws of the universe.
• Much as Newtons majestic clockwork has given
  way to the more random and unpredictable world of
  modern quantum physics, the specialty of
  behaviorism has revealed some laws of behavior,
  but a good deal of complication arising from
  other processes (such as the influence of
  cognition and motivation.)

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• Behaviorism and Studies of Learning
• The early question posed by behaviorists in the
  mid-20th century, such as Clark Hulls work with
  rats in the area of maze learning, have given way
  to complex questions about how humans learn to be
  aggressive and violent.
• This is just one of many interesting questions
  with complex answers that have yet to be fully
  revealed.
• Even modern behaviorists have left behind the
  hope of discovering simple universal principles
  of behavior. But their principles are
  nonetheless interesting and useful, as you will
  soon see.

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis
• Sigmund Freud revolutionized psychology by
  proposing the existence of an unconscious mind
  rooted in our animal origins.
• He worked with his patients to understand how
  this hidden part of the mind influenced their
  mood and behavior by analyzing their dreams,
  fantasies, and exploring their perceptions of
  their own early childhood experiences.
• Although much of his theory has been recently
  questioned or rejected as unscientific, modern
  psychology is still heavily influenced by his
  ideas about treatment of psychological distress.

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Recent Trends in Psychology

• Modern Clinical Psychology
• The trauma experienced by so many soldiers in
  World War II provided ample opportunity for the
  further development of psychoanalysis and
  innovation in new methods of psychotherapy.
• Behaviorists used rewards and other principles of
  learning in treating psychological distress.
• Other fields of psychology that eventually made
  contributions in therapy as the 20th Century
  progressed include humanistic and cognitive
  psychology.

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Recent Trends in Psychology

• Academic and Applied Psychology
• Although many researchers have abandoned the
  study of consciousnesses or self, there is still
  abundant research being done on cognition.
• Applied fields of psychology are booming. These
  include
• Health psychology (addiction, stress, nutrition.)
• Forensic psychology (dealing with issues of
  mental competence for trial, and accuracy of
  eyewitness testimony.)

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Recent Trends in Psychology

• Cross-cultural psychology and human diversity
• In examining a variety of issues related to
  psychology, scientists have become more conscious
  of cultural context over the past three decades.
• Psychologists now recognize, for example that
  mental illness is at least partly culturally and
  socially defined.
• What is considered psychologically adaptive is
  also defined by the culture in which one is
  raised.

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Recent Trends in Psychology

• Cross-cultural psychology and human diversity
• An observation that supports these ideas is that
  homosexuality once was considered a psychological
  disorder. It is no longer considered a legitimate
  mental illness in our culture, whatever
  controversy continues about issues of sexual
  orientation.
• Another is that Freudian theories of child
  development are difficult to apply in cultures of
  the world in which children are fathered by one
  man but raised by his brother.

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Recent Trends in Psychology

• An evolving science
• We have radically changed as a species, and we
  have changed our world over the past century.
  This fact is having major consequences for our
  day-to-day functioning and long-term survival.
• Psychology cannot always provide simple answers
  and solutions. But psychologists are working to
  help us understand ourselves better, find the
  best solutions and change ourselves when it is in
  our best interest to do so.