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The World of Psychology: An Overview
What is psychology, andhow did it grow?
What Is Psychology?
• The science that seeks to understand behavior and mental processes, and to apply that understanding in the service of human welfare.
Academic Psychology
• Biological• Perception• Consciousness• Learning• Memory• Cognition
• Motivation/Emotion• Developmental• Personality• Social• Disorders
Next
Testosterone and Aggression
Early Late Result
Grp None no T no T Low
Grp Early T No T Low
Grp Late Tno T Low
Group Both T T High
Return
Figure 1.1: What Do You See?
• An elderly father-in-law or a husband?
• Perception involves more than just passively receiving information.
Return
Return
In-class only
Two Examples
• Spotlight Effect
• Illusion of Transparency
Return
Typical Work Settings
• Mental Health Facilities
• Universities and Colleges
• Business
• Schools
• Other (Miltary, Prisons, Public Policy)
Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)
• Used laboratory science methods to study consciousness.
• Changed psychology from a philosophy to a science of mental processes.
Historical Roots of Psychology
Structuralism
• Founder: Edward Titchener, trained by Wundt
• Goals: To study conscious experience and how elements of consciousness are structure in humans.
• Methods: Experiments; introspection.• Application: “Pure scientific research”
– Spurred development of psychological laboratories.
• Describe the intensity and clarity of the sensations and images that make up your experience of this object.
Introspection
Gestalt Psychology
• Founder: Max Wertheimer• Goals: To describe organization of mental
processes.– “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
• Methods: Observation of sensory/perceptual phenomena.
• Applications: Understanding visual illusions; laid groundwork for humanistic and cognitive psychology.
Psychoanalysis
• Founder: Sigmund Freud
• Goals: To explain personality and behavior and develop techniques for treating mental illness.
• Methods: Study of individual cases.
• Applications: Development of psychotherapy; emphasis on childhood, role of unconscious processes.
Functionalism
• Founder: William James• Goals: To study how the mind works in
allowing an organism to adapt to the environment.
• Methods: Naturalistic observations of animal and human behavior.
• Applications: Child psychology; educational and industrial psychology; study of individual differences.
Behaviorism
• Founders: John B. Watson; B. F. Skinner
• Goals: To study observable behavior and explain behavior via learning principles.
• Methods: Observation of the relationship between environmental stimuli and behavioral responses.
• Application: Behavior modification; improved teaching methods.
Watson’s Famous Quote
“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and, yes, even beggarman and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, abilities, vocation, and race of his ancestors”.
Current Approaches
• Biological Approach: Emphasizes activity of the nervous system, especially the brain; the action of hormones and other chemicals; and genetics.
• Evolutionary Approach: In what ways do behavior and mental processes aid reproduction and survival.
• Behavioral Approach: Emphasizes learning and how environmental circumstances dictate behavior.
Approaches (cont’d)
• Cognitive Approach: Emphasizes how people receive, store, retrieve, and otherwise process information
• Humanistic: Focuses on the attributions and choices made by the individual
• Psychodynamic: Conflicts between underlying biology and societal goals.
• Cultural/Personality: Effects of individual traits and cultural upbringing on behavior.
Impact of SocioculturalDiversity on Psychology
• Are all people essentially the same?• Sometimes “Yes”: Most basic processes of
perception and learning are shared• Sometimes “No”: Sociocultural variables shape
what people make of those experiences and what they learn from them.
• Culture is an organizing and stabilizing influence.
• Separate identity• Meeting personal
goals; being unique• Self-assurance,
express individuality• Personal credit for
success; Blame external factors for failure
• Self frame of reference
• Connectedness• Belonging, Meet
obligations• Self-restrain, self-
effacing,• Social unit credit for
success; Blame internal factors for failure
• Group frame of reference
Individualist Collectivist
Cultural Values in Advertising--Korean or U.S. Advertisements?
• “She’s got a style all her own”– ANSWER: ?
• “You, only better”– ANSWER: ?
• “A more exhilarating way to provide for your family”– ANSWER: ?
• “We have a way of bringing people closer together”– ANSWER: ?
• “Celebrating a half-century of partnership”– ANSWER: ?
• “How to protect the most personal part of the environment: Your skin”– ANSWER: ?
• “Our family agrees with this selection of home furnishings”– ANSWER: ?
• “A leader among leaders”– ANSWER: ?
Source: Brehm, Kassin, Fein, Social Psychology, 4/e (1999)