Introduction to psychology

What is psychology?
• Psychology is the scientific study of mind (mental processes) and behaviour
• Behaviour—observable actions of a person or animal
• Mind—thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions, memories, dreams, motives and other
subjective experiences
• Science—an objective way to answer questions based on observable facts/data and well-
described methods

The Subfields of Psychology

• The different subfields of psychology allow psychologists to explain the same behaviour in
multiple ways.
• Behavioral genetics focuses on behavioral genetics studies the inheritance of traits related
to behavior.
• Behavioral neuroscience focuses on behavioral neuroscience examines the biological basis
of behavior.
• Clinical psychology deals with the study, diagnosis, and treatment of psychological
disorders.
• Cognitive psychology focuses on the study of higher mental processes.
• Counselling psychology focuses primarily on educational, social, and career adjustment
problems.
• Developmental psychology Developmental psychology examines how people grow and
change from the moment of conception through death.
• Educational psychology Educational psychology is concerned with teaching and learning
• processes, such as the relationship between motivation and school performance.
• Environmental psychology Environmental psychology considers the relationship between
people and their physical environment.
• Evolutionary psychology Evolutionary psychology considers how behaviour is influenced by
our genetic inheritance from our ancestors
• Environmental psychology Environmental psychology considers the relationship between
people and their physical environment.
• Evolutionary psychology Evolutionary psychology considers how behaviour is influenced by
our genetic inheritance from our ancestors
• Environmental psychology Environmental psychology considers the relationship between
people and their physical environment.
• Evolutionary psychology Evolutionary psychology considers how behaviour is influenced by
our genetic inheritance from our ancestors
Training in Psychology
• The lowest degree is a Bachelors degree.
• The second level is a Master's degree.
• This is the lowest level that allows you to practice but you generally need some type of
supervision.
• Most practicing psychologists have a doctoral degree (Ph.D. or Psy.D.). This is the only level
for full licensure and independent practice.

Working at Psychology
• Psychologist
• Psychiatrist
• Counselors
• Social workers

Psychologist vs. Psychiatrist

• They are similar in that both may work in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders.
They are different in that a psychiatrist is a medical doctor who may prescribe medication.
• A psychologist generally has a Ph.D. and cannot prescribe medication.

Psychology’s Key Issues and Controversies

• Free-will versus Determinism
• Observable behaviour versus Internal mental processes
• Nature versus Nurture

Free-will versus Determinism

• Free-will - The idea that behaviour is caused primarily by choices that are made freely by the
individual
• Determinism - The idea that people’s behaviour is produced primarily by factors outside of
their will full control

Nature versus Nurture

• Nature is about how genes, our biological makeup are involved in the experiences that we
have during our lives.
• The proportion of differences that is due to genetics is known as the heritability of the
characteristics
• Nurture is the influences of the physical and social environment
Early Psychology
• Structuralism
• Functionalism

Structuralism
1. Wilhelm Wundt opened the first psychology lab in 1879

2. Psychologists have studied various aspects of human behaviour, such as personality, brain
functions and socio-cultural influences
3. Wilhelm Wundt was a German scientist who founded structuralism approach to psychology.
4. Identifying the building blocks, or the structure, of psychological experience.
5. Focused on uncovering the fundamental mental components of perception, consciousness,
thinking, emotions, and other kinds of mental states and activities.
6. used a method called introspection to learn what was going through people's heads as they
completed various tasks
7. Introspection - A procedure used to study the structure of the mind in which subjects are
asked to describe in detail what they are experiencing when they are exposed to a stimulus

Problems with structuralism

• People's descriptions of their own feelings and reactions are often wrong.
• our memories are full of inaccuracies and exaggerations
• introspection was valuable as an attempt to apply a scientific method to studies of the mind,
some of its results suffered from our inability to accurately report our thoughts and feelings.
Functionalism
• The functions of mental activity and the role of behaviour in allowing people to adapt to
their environments.
• Functionalism basically explain why we behave the we do
• Understanding behaviour in functions in our lives
Perspectives of psychology
The biological perspective
• It focuses on the interaction between biology and emotions, thoughts, and behaviours
• Neuropsychologist study a variety of human processes including perceptions, eating,
reproduction, sleeping, learning, memory, and language.

Psychodynamic approach
• Sigmund Freud was more interested in what's going on in our unconscious minds
• He believed that his patients' problems were caused by repressed memories of childhood
trauma
• More concern about internal factors such as Consciousness, sub consciousness, super
consciousness

Behaviorism
• What is behaviourism all about ?
• Behavioural psychology is the study of external behaviour
• Behaviour is objective and observable, where as what goes on in one’s mind can never really
be known or measured (the mind is a “black box”)
• Behaviour is the response of an organism to stimuli

Cognitive Psychology
• How you see yourself and your environment
• Cognitive psychologists study how you learn, solve problems and make decisions
• Cognitive psychology is much more focused on processes of change and takes into account
internal processes

Humanistic Psychology
• Humanistic psychologists look at what you think
• Humanistic psychology works from the assumption that self-actualization, or the will to be
the best that we can be, motivates us
• Humanistic psychologists tend to be optimistic about human potential
• They're interested in studying how people flourish through happiness, spirituality and
motivation.

Understanding How Culture, Ethnicity, and Race Influence Behaviour

• Cultural difference
• Race difference
• Ethnicity difference

Psychology’s Future
• psychologists to focus on prevention of psychological disorders rather than only on their
treatment
• Emerging of new sub fields of psychology such as consumer psychology, social
neuroscience, criminal justice
What is the Psychoanalytic Perspective?
• It is a psychological theory that revolves around the unconscious mind and how an
individual’s childhood experiences have shaped it.
• Freud’s psychoanalytic theory is an explanation for mysterious phenomena such as the
meaning behind dreams, slips of the tongue, and behavioural reflex reactions to stressful
situations.

Components of psychoanalytic theory

• Id
• Ego
• Super ego

Stages of Development
• Oral Stage
• Anal stage
• Phallic stage
• Latency stage
• Genital stage
Defense mechanism

What is defense mechanism?

• Distort reality to protect the ego from anxiety caused by id impulses. There are many
different types of defence mechanisms
• Defence mechanisms are simply ways of coping with difficult feelings; your mind's way of
dealing with stress
• These little mental tricks, distortions of reality, help you meet your needs in socially
acceptable ways.

Most Common Defense Mechanisms

• Denial
• Réaction formation
• Projection
• Régression
• Intellectualization
• Repression
• Rationalization
• Sublimation
• Displacement
• Somatisation

Denial
• Refusing to recognize objective event in conscious awareness
• In other words refusing to believe something that you find too upsetting
• The process of denial is you're totally disconnecting yourself with what actually happened
because when you use this defence mechanism you are not interacting with reality.

Réaction formation
• Which a person perceives their true feelings or desires to be socially or, in some cases,
legally unacceptable.
• They convince themselves or others that the opposite is true--often in a very exaggerated
performance.
• It often appears hyper, unreasonable, and obviously showy in order to attract as much
attention as possible.

Back ground of reaction formation

• It is a way to cope with the pressure and stress caused by the original feeling that they have
identified as being bad.
• Binary opposition
• Compulsive

Projection
• Projection is putting an unpleasant thought onto somebody else
• That's a way to sort of deal with the stress that's caused by wanting something that society
tells you shouldn't have

Regression
• Reverting to earlier, younger ways of coping with your problems
• In other words people behave as if they were at an earlier stage of development

Intellectualization
• Keeping very aloof and logical about painful topics
• Reducing anxiety by reacting to emotional situations in a detached, unemotional way

Repression
• Repression is being unable to remember or reflect on past events or impulses.
• Repression is Pushing very upsetting memories deep down, away from conscious thought

Rationalization
• Rationalization is providing socially acceptable reasons for our inappropriate behaviour
• People provide self-justifying explanations in place of the actual, but threatening, reason for
their behaviour

Sublimation
• It is channelling unacceptable impulses into positive behaviour or artistic forms of
expression
• Sublimation is expression of sexual or aggressive impulses through indirect, socially
acceptable ones

Displacement
• Redirecting distress from original target someone / something else
• In other words it is a way of expressing feelings toward something or someone besides the
target person, because they are perceived as less threatening.

Somatization
• Shifting an emotional problem into a physical complaint
Freud’s Contributions
• Played a key role in linking personality and culture
• Drew public attention to psychological factors
• Freud’s emphasis on the unconscious has been partially supported by current research on
dreams and implicit memory

Criticism on Freud’s theory

• Lack of empirical testing
• Abstract, untestable concepts
• Reliance on case studies
• Personality is fixed
Humanistic perspective
• A psychological model that emphasizes an individual’s phenomenal world and inherent
capacity for making rational choices and developing to maximum potential
• Humanistic perspective also referred as “the third force” of the psychology
• Humanistic psychologists study behaviour, but not by reducing it to components, elements,
and variables in laboratory experiments. Instead, they look for patterns in people’s life
history.

The fundamental principles of humanism

1. A human being is more than just a sum of his or her parts. He or she should be viewed
holistically, not reductively.
2. A person's behaviour is influenced by his or her environment. Social interactions are key in
the development of a human being.
3. People are aware of their existence, that is, they are conscious of themselves and their
surroundings. They are aware of past experiences and use them to inform present and
future behaviour.
4. Human beings have free will and make conscious choices. They are not driven by instinct or
impulse alone.
5. Human beings have intentional goals and seek to create meaning in life.

key components of humanism

• self-directed learning –
• Self-Evaluation –
• Self -esteem -
• Self -actualization
• Free will -

Contributors of humanistic psychology

Carl Rogers
• Rogers developed a client-centered, therapy
• Which clients should guide the direction of therapy as they are capable of choosing a
healthy direction for their lives
• The therapist should provide an empathic and non-judgmental alliance and provide
unconditional positive regard towards the client

Abraham Maslow
• Developed a concept called “hierarchy of needs”
• A theory describing human needs from the most basic to the existential
Cognitive perspective
• The Cognitive perspective studies mental processes, including perception, thinking,
memory, and judgment.
• Cognitive psychologists believe that one cannot fully explain behaviour in terms of
stimulus–response connections
• Mediators
• Tolman’s cognitive map

How cognitive psychology is different from behaviour psychology?

• First, cognitive psychology acknowledges the existence of internal mental states disregarded
by behaviourists
• Cognitive psychologists claim memory structures determine how information is perceived,
processed, stored, retrieved and forgotten
• Also Cognitive psychology encompasses perception, categorization, memory, knowledge
representation, language and thinking processes.

The major cognitive psychologists

• Jean Piaget
• Lev Vigotsky
• Noam Chomsky
• Wolfgang Kohler - Concept of insight
Insight - a sudden change in the way one organizes a problem situation; typically this is
characterized by a change in behaviour from random responding to rule-based responding
Mental set - an individual uses to organize their perception of a particular situation, such as
a problem
• Jerome Bruner,

Learning - in cognitive psychology, the process of gathering information and

organizing it into mental schemata.

In cognitive memory terms

• Memory
• Recall
• Recognition
• Relearning
• Priming
Key Ideas in Cognitive
• Cognitive processes interact with each other and with non-cognitive processes
• Emotions may affect decisions
• Working memory capacity contributes to reading speed
• Perception contributes to memory decisions

Sociocultural Perspective
• Understanding why humans behave the way they do
• Groups Can Affect Behavior
• Examining cultural difference

Sub fields of sociocultural perspective

• Social psychology
• Cultural psychology
• Cultural -historical psychology

Cultural Psychology
• Culture - the common set of social norms,including religious and family values and other
moral beliefs, shared by the people who live in a geographical region
• Cultural psychology is the study of how psychological and behavioural tendencies are rooted
and embedded within culture.
• A cultural psychologist would be interested in how the social practices of a particular set of
cultures shape the development of cognitive processes in different ways.
• Culture - the common set of social norms,including religious and family values and other
moral beliefs, shared by the people who live in a geographical region
• Cultural psychology is the study of how psychological and behavioural tendencies are
rooted and embedded within culture.
• A cultural psychologist would be interested in how the social practices of a particular set of
cultures shape the development of cognitive processes in different ways.

Social Psychology
• The scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviours are influenced by the
actual, imagined, or implied presence of others
• Social psychology typically explains human behaviour as a result of the interaction of mental
states and immediate social situations.
Important aspects of social- cultural perspective
• Conformity
• Social norms
• Individualism
• Collectivism

Cultural -historical psychology

• Lev Vygotsky
• He believed that parents, peers and the culture at large were responsible for the
development of higher order functions
• He stresses the importance of social norms and culture
• Proposes that children learn behaviour through problem-solving interactions with other
children and adults.
• Through these interactions, they learn the values and norms of their society Significances

Sociologist vs. Social psychologist

• Social psychology studies how people act, think, and feel in the context of society. That is,
how people's behaviours, thoughts, and feelings change because of other people.
• Sociologist has study society as a whole, their focus is on organizations and how those
organizations impact the individuals within them.
• Sociologists are more focused on society, and social psychologists are more focused on the
individual.

Biological perspective
• The approach that views behaviour from the perspective of the brain, the nervous system,
and other biological function
• psychobiology—is the application of the principles of biology to the study of mental
processes and behaviour.
• The fields of behavioural neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, and neuropsychology are all
subfields of biological psychology.
• Bio psychologists study the communication between your brain, glands and muscles.
• Bio psychologists might examine the role of genes in influencing our personality,
intelligence, or tendency to develop psychological disorders
• Some neuroscientists may focus on the functions of the nervous system, including the
effects of neurotransmitters, brain trauma and disease on individual behaviour
Key assumptions of the biological approach:
• Dualism the view, that mind and body are distinct ,the two could interact via the pineal
gland in the brain.
• How can a non-physical mind control a physical body?
• Materialism the assumption that all behaviour has a physiological basis.
• The belief that mind and body are a single entity
• Localization of function - the assumption that specific functions are associated with specific
areas of the brain.
• Heredity - the biological transmission of characteristics from one generation to another.
• Natural selection - the evolutionary process by which those random variations within a
species which enhance reproductive success lead to perpetuation of new characteristic

Evolutionary psychology
• Sub field of psychology that applies the Darwinian theory of natural selection to human and
animal behaviour
• Evolutionary psychologists use evolutionary theory to understand many different
behaviours including romantic attraction, stereotypes and prejudice, and even the causes of
some psychological disorders.
• The evolutionary approach is important to psychology because it provides logical
explanations for why we have many psychological characteristics

Examples
• Why go through childbirth?
• Why do we want to adopt babies and not the elderly?
• Why have sex?
• Why is sex pleasurable and why do we humans go out of our way to have sex?
• Sex is the proximal evolutionary mechanism to achieve the distal evolutionary goal of
guaranteeing reproduction

A key ideas of evolutionary psychology

• Fitness -the extent that having a given characteristic helps the individual organism survive
and reproduce at a higher rate than do other members of the species who do not have the
characteristic.