Psychology Notes 1

WEEK 1: INTRODUCTION INTO PSYCHOLOGY:

What is Psychology?

• The scientific study of mind, brain and behaviour
• Multiple levels of analysis:

• Multiple determinants
• Inter-relationships
• Different for each individual
• Influenced by others
• Cultural differences

• What is the difference between the mind and the brain? Brain is the structure (organ) Mind involves higher cognition/thinking
• Both are interconnected
• Thinking and behaviour can be different or the same
• Psych shows that everyone is unique
• People behave differently in the same situation
• Can’t study the mind, brain and behaviour independently

What makes Psychology fascinating?

• Human behaviour is difficult to predict – all actions are multiply  determined
• Psychological influences are rarely independent of each other
• There are individual differences – people can surprise us by their  behaviour
• Reciprocal determinism – people mutually influence each other’s  behaviour
• Cultural differences – generalisations cannot be drawn on human nature

Subfields of Psychology:

• Biological psychology:

• Studies how biological processes in the brain affect, and are affected by behaviour and mental processes
• Examines the relationship between the brain and the nervous system with behaviour
• Also called behavioural neuroscience

• Cognitive Psychology:

• Studies mental abiltiies such as sensation and perception, learning and memory,

• Focuses on the way people process behaviour
• Studies mental abilities like creativity, intelligence, memory, thinking etc
• Special interest – engineering psychology

• Developmental Psychology:

• Descirbes the changes in behaviour and mental processes that occur from  birth thorugh old age and try to understand the causes and effects of those changes.

• Studies life span development
• Looks at all types of patterns
• Longitudal studies are used
• Foxuses on cognitive, social, intellectual, emotional growth etc
• Studies parenting techniques, evaluating child care, etc

• Clinical Psychology:

• Research on causes & treatment of mental disorders
• Clinical psychologist provide wide range of psychological services for indivduals with MH conditions
• Are different to psychiatrists

• Educational Psychology

• Develops theories about teaching and learning
• Includes social, emotional and cognitive processes involved in learning
• Focuses on how students can learn and effective learning and  teaching techniques.

• Organisational Psychology

• Focuses on people in the work place
• Studies productivity, motivation, absenteeism, leadership, effective  training programmes, etc.
• Organisational psychologists have skills in areas of recruitment and  selection

• Personality Psychology:

• Studies individuality – the unique features that characterize each of us

Psychology & Common sense:

• Common sense: very subjective
• Psychology is empirical and scientific
• You can test common sense and to extent can become a theory
• Can not depend on common sense, only through scientific research
• Common sense can be right and wrong

History of Psychology:

• An understanding of history gives us:

• Greater perspective and a deeper understanding
• Recognition of fads and fashions
• Ability to avoid repetition of mistakes
• A source of valuable ideas

• Relatively new discipline
• Psych grew out of philosophy:

• There was no psych department until Wilhelm Wundt established the 1st fully functional psych lab
• Philsophy is the mother of science
• Philsophy had a different way of understanding thing
• Psych had a different way, hence moved away from it and became a independent branch
• Empiricism:

• Initial school of thoguhts
• Believed that our experiences shape us into who we are
• They argued instead that what we know about the world comes to us through experience & observation, not through imagination or intuition

• John Locke (1632 – 1702)
• The human mind begins as a ‘tabula rasa’ (black slates, in which experiences thorugh out life is etched onto) & we learn through experience
• 2 sources of ideas from experience:

• Sensations & Reflection → simple knowledge builds complex knowledge

Structuralism:

• Founded by: Edward Titchner (1867-1927) - Student of Wundt
• To learn about the structure of the mind through  analysing elementary conscious experience (like Wundt)
• Elements of consciousness: sensation, images and affections  (feelings)
• Decline of structuralism partly due to criticisms of introspection as an
• experimental method
• Imageless thought: gap between a question being asked and answering a question
• Introspection : trained people in how to observed people
• Deals with the structure of the mind

Declined due to this a scientific answer for IT could not be found

Gestalt Psychology:

• Interested in how we organize our perception of the world
• Pointed out that the whole shape of conscious experience is not the same as the sum of its parts
• As humans we tend to ‘fill in the blanks’
• Phi phenonmen: optical illusion
• Eyes are percieving eerything to see the whole

Psychoanalysis:

• Founder: Sigmund Greud
• Emphasises the role of unconscious processes
• Mental conflicts occur without awareness, at an unconscious level
• Not universally accepted today due to the small amounts of research
• Theory of personality:

• Id: pleasure principle (immediate gratification)
• Ego: reality principle (guides you in what to do)
• Superego: morality (higher order thinking)

• Some thoughts we don’t want to come out, hence we repress them
• Thoughts can go from your sub conscious to ur conscious

Functionalism:

• Founder: William James
• Influenced by Darwin’s theory of natural selection
• To examine the purpose and functions of the mind
• “What for” (i.e. function) of mind, NOT “What is” (i.e. structures)
• Consciousness evolved because it has a function – adaptive purpose, struggle for survival
• Helps people makes deceisions and solve probslmes
• Belives that everything has a function, hence that is why it is there

Behaviourism:

• Founder: John B Watson
• Unconvering general principles of learning
• Environment was everything – people are shaped by it
• Most important determinant of behaviour is learning, which enables animals and humans adapt to their environments
• Emphasis on objectivity
• Prediction and Control of behaviour
• Animal Studies
• Black box
• Little Albert study (phobias are a result of conditioned response)

• B.F. Skinner (1904-1990)
• Skinner emphasised observation and control
• All behaviour is determined by its consequences
• Also argued that psychological studies should only focus on
• objective and measurable phenomena

Summary Table: