What Is Psychology?

What is psychology?

= it is the scientific study of the 'mental processes' and behavior

What is the mind?

= the mind is the means by which people perceive, think, and feel = mental processes. Behavior is simply what people do.

Psychologists study the mind and behavior and anything that influences them, including childhood experiences, brain activity, genetics, friends and family, cultural norms, etc. Psy brings together many other disciplines eg. biology, philosophy, anthropology, computer science, art, and many other fields all with a goal of better understanding human behavior.

Why study psychology?

= First, because an understanding of psychology is essential to everyday functioning. We base all of our actions and decisions on an understanding of ourselves - we choose friends, roommates, spouses, majors, and careers based on our beliefs about our own talents, traits, and preferences. Why do you feel sad about some things while your friends don't and vice versa?

= Second, we have a curiosity of others' behaviors, what makes other people behave the way they do? eg. what makes someone blow up the federal building in Oklahoma City?.

Always be skeptical - Be a critical thinker - think about the story of Clever Hans.

Look out for fallacies, untruths, etc. when you read or indeed whenever you encounter new information.

Just because something is written in a book does not mean it's accurate - sometimes eg. b/c psych is a vital field - and changing faster than books can keep up

Be on the look out for confirmation bias = tendency to seek info that supports our beliefs and ignoring anything that disconfirms

Historical roots/schools of thought

Well known pioneers

In Germany, Wilhelm Wundt = world's first psychologist - establish the first institute for research in experimental psy- method for studying the mind was introspection = report contents of immediate states of consciousness -

This psy is called structuralism = reporting on mental experiences, i.e., the basic structures/elements of conscious experiences, including sensations, perceptions, memory, attention, learning, emotions, language. Example: Describe an apple.

Problem: too subjective because too many variables come into play

In America, William James, who grew bored by structuralism, thought that it was not the elements/components that were important but rather their functions -how do they work what functions do they perform in terms of helping adapt (or not) to our environment. This is called functionalism.

Gestalt psy - the opposite of structuralism - interested in how we came up with 'perceptual whole'. This approach looks at how the mind organizes info into a coherent whole - our mind/perception attempts completion. "the whole is different from the sum of its parts"

Around the same time in Vienna, there is Sigmund Freud -who thought that mental disorders stem from unconsciousness motivations mind and from early childhood experiences. His was a psychology of personality and of psych disorders. He thought behavior was as a result of unconscious desires and motives, and that blocked out emotions could be converted into physical symptoms. Psychoanalysis: uncover and release these emotions.

John Watson - denounced any sort of introspection, or unconscious, thought they should not be part of psych at all. Only observable behavior was important, behaviorism. He thought all of our behavior was a product of learning, a consequence of past events/actions. Environment is a determinant of behavior. Moved psychologists to describing, explain, predict, control behavior

Humanistic - unique subjective mental experience of the world emphasis the goodness of people studies self-awareness, love helping behavior, positive personality growth.

Cognitive psych - how the mind organizes perceptions, processes info, interprets experience. Liken to how a computer works.

Neuroscience - how does the brain communicate with itself and other body organs, has to do with looking at the elementary biochemical level of behavior.

Evolutionary - present traits behaviors might be as a result of genetic info passed on through the years - warfare - homicide