Lakhasly

General Psychology
Brainstorming Questions
 What comes to your mind when you hear about the word
psychology?
 Have you ever heard about, read or listened to anything related to
psychology?
 What was its content about?
 Did you appreciate it? Why?
 What do you expect from the course in psychology?
Introduction to Psychology
 The word "psychology" is derived from two Greek words 'psyche'
and ‗logos‟. Psyche refers to mind, soul or spirit while logos means
study, knowledge or discourse. Therefore, by combining the two
Greek words the term "psychology" epistemologically refers to the
study of the mind, soul, or spirit.
Psychology involves the study of mental activity and behavior. The term psychologist is used broadly to
describe someone whose career involves understanding mental life or predicting behavior.
Mind refers to mental activity. Examples of the mind in action include the perceptual experiences
(sights, smells, tastes, sounds, and touches) we have while interacting with the world. The mind is also
responsible for memories, thoughts, and feelings. Mental activity results from biological processes
within the brain.
Behavior describes the totality of observable human (or animal) actions. These actions range from the
subtle to the complex. Some occur exclusively in humans, such as debating philosophy or performing
surgery. Others occur in all animals, such as eating, drinking, and mating. For many years, psychologists
focused on behavior rather than on mental states. They did so largely because they had few objective
techniques for assessing the mind. But with technology is different.
Goals of Psychology
 Dear student, why do you think is psychology important? What do you
think a psychologist is doing when studying behavior and mental
processes?
 As a science, psychology has four goals; description, explanation,
prediction, and control.
 Description: Description involves observing the behavior and noticing
everything about it. It is a search for answers for questions like “What is
happening?” Where does it happen?‘ to whom does it happen?‘ And “under
what circumstances does it seem to happen?.
 For example, a teacher might notice that a young freshman girl in his/her
general psychology classroom is behaving oddly. She is not turning to her
homework, her results are slipping badly, and she seems to have a very
negative attitude toward the course.
 Explanation: Why is it happening? Explanation is about trying to
find reasons for the observed behavior. This helps in the process of
forming theories of behavior (A theory is a general explanation of a
set of observations or facts).
 For instance in the above example, to find out why the girl is doing
all those things, the teacher would most likely ask her parents about
her home background, her friends and the like and may come to an
understanding that this girl was behaving the way she did because
she was given attention (in a way reward) by other people when she
used to behave oddly.
 Prediction: prediction is about determining what will happen in the future. In the above
example, the case of the freshman girl, the psychologist or counselor would predict (based
on previous research into similar situations) that this girl may never be able to reach her full
learning potential.
 Control: How can it be changed? Control or modify or change the behavior from
undesirable one (such as failing in school) to a desirable one (such as academic success). In
the example above, certain learning strategies can be used to help the girl so that she will
be successful in her academic endeavor. Control can also be used in the sense that a
psychologist tries to check out the effects of certain undesirable factors in examining the
relationship between two or more behaviors.
 For example, in studying the relationship between intelligence and academic performance
in freshman courses, a psychologist needs to control the effect of socio-economic status of
the family.
Historical Background and Major Perspectives in
Psychology
 Psychology is a relatively new field, only about 125 years old. It began as a
science of its own in 1879 in Leipzig, Germany, with the establishment of a
psychology laboratory in the University of Leipzig by Wilhelm Wundt.
Wundt developed the technique of objective introspection to scientifically
examine mental experiences. With such newer orientation to the study of
human subjective experiences that were previously under the field of
philosophy alone, psychology then begun as an independent field of study
and with Wundt as its founder or "father of modern psychology.” Once
psychology begun to use the scientific method, it then went through
successive developments in which different schools of thought emerged at
different times. These schools of thought can be categorized as old and
modern as described below.
Early schools of psychology: “schools of thought”
 Structuralism- structuralism views psychology as a study of structure of mind.
It is an expansion of Wundt‘s ideas by his student named Edward Titchener
(1867-1927). Titchener is the founder of structuralism.
 The goal of structuralists was to find out the units or elements, which make up
the mind such as; sensations, images, and feelings.
 The best-known method used by them was introspection “looking inward into
our consciousness” It is a procedure aimed at analyzing the mental experience
into three basic mental elements: images, feelings, and sensations.
 Analyzing mental structure alone was found to serve little purpose in helping
humans deal with the environment. Hence, a new school of thought emerged to
study this functional value of human mind-functionalism.
 Functionalism- functionalism views psychology as a study of function of the
mind. The founder of this school of thought is William James (1848-1910), who
was the first American psychologist and the author of the first psychology
textbook. Unlike Wundt and Titchener, James focused on how the mind allows
people to function in the real world; how people work, play, and adapt to their
surroundings. Functionalism, which was the study of the function rather than
the structure of consciousness, was interested in how our minds adapt to our
changing environment.
 Examining human mind in terms of its structural elements and functions were,
however, found to be simplistic to understand the complex human being. It was
believed that human mind is more than the sum of sensations as well as
adaptive functions. Hence, a new school of thought was emerged to examine
mind in a holistic manner-Gestalt Psychology.
 Gestalt psychology: Gestalt psychology views psychology as a study of the whole mind. Max
Wertheimer (1880–1943), Kurt Koffka (1886–1941), and Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1967) were
three German psychologists who introducing Gestalt principles. The German word "gestalt"
refers to form, whole, configuration or pattern. The Gestalt approach emphasized that
perception is more than the sum of its parts and studied how sensations are assembled into
meaningful perceptual experiences.
 All the three schools of though is the fact that they all try to examine the human mind; which
is an internal, no-visible, and hidden experience of human beings. It was believed that this
subjective, private experience can‘t be observable, measurable, and hence can‘t be studied
scientifically. This has led to the birth of a new paradigm of thought about psychology called
behaviorism.
 Behaviorism: behaviorists view psychology as a study of observable and measurable
behaviors. John B. Watson is the founder of behaviorism. Other proponents include E.
Thorndike and F. Skinner. For Watson, psychology was the study of observable and measurable
behavior and nothing more about hidden mental processes.
 According to Watson, we cannot define consciousness any better than we can define the soul;
we cannot locate it or measure it and, therefore, it cannot be the object of scientific study.
 All the four schools were focusing on human mind and behavior as conscious experiences. But,
an opposition to this assertion came from a physician in Vienna who realized that human
functioning was basically explained by more powerful forces which were not accessible to our
consciousness. Hence, this lead to the formulation of a new school of thought in psychology
called Psychoanalysis.
Psychoanalysis: psychology studies about the components of the unconscious part
of the human mind. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is the founder of this school of
thought. He was the most controversial and most popular in the study of behavior
and mental processes. The psychoanalytic approach is based on the belief that
childhood experiences greatly influence the development of later personality traits
and psychological problems. It also stresses the influence of unconscious fears,
desires, and motivations on thoughts and behaviors.
Modern schools of psychology
 Psychodynamic perspective - It has its origins in Freud's theory of
psychoanalysis, but many other psychodynamic theories exist. This
perspective emphasizes the unconscious dynamics within the individual such
as inner forces, conflicts or instinctual energy. The psychodynamic approach
emphasizes:
 The influence of unconscious mental behavior on everyday behavior
 The role of childhood experiences in shaping adult personality
 The role of intrapersonal conflict in determining human behavior
 Psychodynamic perspective tries to dig below the surface of a person's
behavior to get into unconscious motives; psychodynamists think of
themselves as archaeologists of the mind.
 Behavioral Perspective- It emphasizes the role learning experiences play in
shaping the behavior of an organism. It is concerned with how the environment
affects the person‘s actions. Behaviorists focus on environmental conditions (e.g.
rewards, and punishments) that maintain or discourage specific behaviors.
 The behavioral perspective is sometimes called the "black box" approach in
psychology because it treats the mind as less useful in understanding human
behavior and focus on what goes in to and out of the box, but not on the
processes that take place inside This means, behaviorists are only interested
in the effects of the environment (input) on behavior (output) but not in the
process inside the box
 Humanistic Perspective: emphasizes that each individual has great
freedom in directing his or her future, a large capacity for personal growth,
a considerable amount of intrinsic worth, and enormous potential for selffulfillment.
 The cognitive approach examines how we process, store, and use
information and how this information influences what we attend to,
perceive, learn, remember, believe, and feel.
 The biological approach focuses on how our genes, hormones, and nervous
system interact with our environments to influence learning, personality,
memory, motivation, emotions, and coping techniques.
 The cross-cultural approach examines the influence of cultural and ethnic
similarities and differences on the psychological and social functioning of
a culture’s members. As a fish cannot leave without water, human
behavior cannot be understood without sociocultural context (the social
and cultural environment) that people "Swim" in every day.
Branches/Sub Fields of Psychology
 Developmental psychology – It studies the physical, cognitive and psychological
changes across the life span. It attempts to examine the major developmental
milestones that occur at different stages of development.
 Personality Psychology – it focuses on the relatively enduring traits and
characteristics of individuals. Personality psychologists study topics such as selfconcept, aggression, moral development, etc.
 Social Psychology –deals with people‘s social interactions, relationships, social
perception, and attitudes.
 Cross-cultural Psychology - examines the role of culture in understanding
behavior, thought, and emotion. It compares the nature of psychological
processes in different cultures, with a special interest in whether or not
psychological phenomena are universal or culture-specific.
 Industrial psychology – applies psychological principles in industries and organizations
to increase the productivity of that organization.
 Forensic psychology - applies psychological principles to improve the legal system
(police, testimony, etc..).
 Educational Psychology - concerned with the application of psychological principles and
theories in improving the educational process including curriculum, teaching, and
administration of academic programs.
 Health Psychology - applies psychological principles to the prevention and treatment of
physical illness and diseases.
 Clinical Psychology:-is a field that applies psychological principles to the prevention,
diagnosis, and treatment of psychological disorders.
 Counseling Psychology: - is a field having the same concern as clinical psychology but
helps individuals with less severe problems than those treated by clinical psychologists.