Introduction To The History And Science Of Psychology

1
Introduction To The History And Science Of
Psychology

• Please view after reading p. 1 17 in the text
• Material taken from UCCP lesson content.

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OBJECTIVES

• After completing this lesson, you should be able
  to
• Trace the views of pre-scientific thinkers
  regarding the origin of knowledge and how the
  mind and body relate.
• Discuss early psychologists efforts to
  understand the structure and functions of the
  mind.
• Identify the nature and scope of contemporary
  psychology.
• Describe the different perspectives from which
  psychologists examine behavior and mental
  processes.
• Identify some of the basic and applied research
  subfields of psychology, and differentiate the
  mental health professions of clinical psychology
  and psychiatry.

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Psychology is

• Psychology is the scientific study of behavior
  and mental processes. In other words,
  psychologists use scientific methods to study the
  way that people think, feel, and behave.
• For much of human history, people have been
  asking the same questions about human nature that
  psychologists do today. In the past, however,
  scientific methods were not always used to find
  answers. Rather, other methods, such as
  philosophy or religion, were used to explore the
  questions that people had about humanity. These
  other disciplines comprise the pre-scientific
  roots of psychology. In order to see how
  psychology developed into the discipline it is
  today, we will first examine these precursors to
  psychology.

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Religion Philosophy

• Some of the earliest theories about the human
  mind were developed by religious thinkers.
• - The Buddha in India wondered how the
  information we receive from our five senses
  becomes a part of our thought process.
• - In China, Confucius argued that education was
  a powerful force in human development.
• - In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the mind
  and emotions were linked to the body. Often,
  religious thinkers stressed that the mind and
  body were connected.

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Religion Philosophy

• Greek philosophers Socrates and Plato theorized
  that the mind and body were two separate
  entities. These philosophers differed from
  religious thinkers in that they used logical
  reasoning to come to their conclusions about
  human nature.
• Logical reasoning involves applying rules of
  logic. Types of logical reasoning, include
• 1. Inductive Reasoning (using a specific
  example to state a general law every fast car
  Ive seen is red, therefore every fast car is
  red)
• 2. Deductive Reasoning (arguing from a general
  law to a specific instance all babies cry,
  therefore my sisters new baby cries)
• 3. Analogy (people are like other social
  animals, such as apes)
• These different forms of logic can lead to
  different conclusions about human nature, but
  they must always be based on premises that people
  already assume to be true. Logic is faulty if
  the premise is faulty (as you can see in the
  inductive reasoning example).

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Religion Philosophy

• Another Greek philosopher, Aristotle, believed
  that logical reasoning was not the best way to
  come to an understanding of human nature.
  Rather, Aristotle argued that gathering data
  through observation of people is the best way to
  learn.
• In his emphasis on data and observation,
  Aristotle anticipated modern science, and even
  today direct observation is used in many fields
  of psychology.

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Modern Science

• During the Renaissance period in Europe, a number
  of philosophers explored human behavior with a
  greater emphasis on scientific methodology. One
  highly influential person was John Locke, who
  argued that at birth the human mind is a tabula
  rasa (meaning a blank slate, or a white paper)
  and that our experiences in life write on that
  blank slate to make us into the people we are
  today. Lockes theory has been formalized into
  the concept of empiricism, the idea that
  knowledge we have comes from experiences and the
  idea that science should be used in observation
  and experiments.

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Psychology As Its Own Discipline

• Psychology was born as a formal discipline in
  1879, when William Wundt conducted an experiment
  to measure peoples reaction time to sounds.
• The first experiment
• When research participants were asked to press a
  key as soon as the sound occurred, it took them
  1/10 of a second. When participants were asked
  to press a key as soon as they were aware of
  perceiving the sound, it took them 2/10 of a
  second to respond.
• These results showed that peoples behavior
  doesnt depend only on the information received
  by the sense organs (in this case, ears).
  Behavior can sometimes depend on the social
  environment in which we find ourselves, the
  instructions given, or our expectations about the
  situation. By making a change in wording, the
  reactions time slowed (their behavior changed).

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Contemporary Psychology

• Today, psychology has grown to include a wide
  variety of perspectives. Each perspective would
  approach a given problem or question about human
  nature somewhat differently, but each would give
  us another piece of the puzzle to help us
  understand the issue.
• What would psychologists say about the following
  example?
• Example In 2001, Andrea Yates drowned her 5
  children in the bathtub after her husband left
  for work. How would different psychologists
  understand or explain what happened?

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Contemporary Psychology Theories

• A psychologist with a cognitive perspective might
  look for the cause in Andreas private mental
  functions. She might note Andreas low
  self-esteem, or Andreas belief that she was
  possessed by the devil. These beliefs could have
  influenced Andreas decision.
• A psychologist with a neuroscience or behavioral
  genetic perspective might look for the cause in
  Andreas potential mental disorder or an illness.
  He might note that mood disorders ran in
  Andreas family, and that all 3 of her siblings
  were on antidepressants. She may also have been
  suffering from a chemical imbalance in her brain,
  which could cause depression and psychosis.
• A psychologist with a behavioral or
  social-cultural perspective might look for the
  cause in Andreas social environment. She might
  note that Andreas husband never helped with
  childcare, and that he left her alone to care for
  5 children when he knew that she was so depressed
  she could barely take care of herself. They
  might conclude that the stressors of her social
  environment were so great that Andrea took
  extreme measures to reduce her stress and change
  that social environment.

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Theories cont

• A psychologist with a humanistic approach might
  focus on Andreas subjective experience.
  Humanistic psychology often avoids statistical
  data in favor or introspection. A humanistic
  psychologist would consider Andreas experience
  as a whole, and avoid focusing on one single
  aspect of her actions or environment.
• Psychodynamic approaches place importance on
  unconscious drives and internal conflict. A
  psychologist focusing on this theory would
  evaluate Andreas actions while focusing on
  unconscious conflicts that may have influenced
  her behavior. Her actions might be explained as
  the results of unfulfilled wishes, childhood
  trauma, and defense mechanisms (such as denial).
  
• Evolutionary and Sociobiological approaches
  consider the mechanics of genetics, natural
  selection, and their interaction. For example, a
  psychologist might argue that Andrea lacked the
  stress management skills necessary to care for
  her children, and that led her to behave in the
  way she did. They focus on how the environment
  influences the selection of certain traits, and
  how this selection perpetuates the genes of some
  and stifles those of others.

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Contemporary Psychology

• From this example, we can see that
• The different perspectives in psychology today
  all provide important information about human
  behavior AND there are many, many factors that
  shape human behavior.
• No one perspective is more right than the
  others each adds another piece to the puzzle.
  This complexity is part of what makes psychology
  so interesting.