SOSC1960

Discovering Mind and Behavior

Lecture 1
Introduction

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Teaching Team
 Instructor
 Beatrice LAI, Ph.D
 Office: Room 2387
 Contact: [email protected], ext 7817
 Consultation: by email appointment (with confirmation)

 TAs
 Stephen CHOY, Vivien PONG, Kayee WONG
 Contact: [email protected]
 Consultation: by email appointment (with confirmation)
Classroom Etiquettes
 Be punctual
 Turn off your mobile phones
WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY?

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True or False?
 When people are asked to give painful electric
shocks to other people to punish their mistakes,
most of us would refuse to do so.
 People pull harder in a tug-of-war when they are
part of a team than when they are pulling by
themselves.
 A group of people stood by and did nothing while
a woman was being stabbed to death.
 “Opposites attract”: We are more likely to be
attracted to people who possess qualities and
characteristics that we don’t have.
 Common sense and science
 Do not always trust common sense or
common beliefs, because they could be
empirically unwarranted.

 We need to examine any statement

empirically and critically. Scientific method is
needed.

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What is psychology?
 Definitions
 “…the scientific study of behavior and mental
processes” (Feldman, 2008)

 “…the discipline concerned with behavior and

mental processes and how they are affected by
an organism’s physical state, mental state, and
external environment” (Wade & Tavris, 2005)

 “…the science of mental processes and

behavior” (Kosslyn & Rosenberg, 2005)
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 Unifying themes
 Subject matter: behavior and mental
processes
 Method: science
 Coverage: all aspects of the human experience

 http://www.apa.org/about/division.html
 http://www.apa.org/topics/

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WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT
AREAS OF PSYCHOLOGY?
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Different Areas of Psychology
 Research Methods

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 Memory
 the processes through which we encode, store,
and retrieve information

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 How do people remember information?

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A visual mnemonics for days of the months

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 Learning
 the processes through which relatively
permanent change in behavior is brought
about

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阿笨與阿占
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 Social psychology
 how people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions
are affected by others

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 Sensation and perception
 the processes of sensing and perceiving the
world

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 States of consciousness
 different states of awareness of the sensations,
thoughts, and feelings experienced at a given
moment

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 Hypnosis (催眠)
 Intelligence
 the capacity to understand the world, think
rationally, and use resources effectively

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 Intelligence
 IQ?
 How intelligent is a person with an IQ score of
200?

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 Development
 the pattern of growth and change that occur
throughout the lifespan

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Robin & Trzesniewski (2005)
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 Personality
 the pattern of enduring characteristics that
produce consistency and individuality in a
given person

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I make decisions based on
A. feelings
B. feelings and reason equally
C. reason

I find it hard to give a

speech of strangers
A. yes
B. somewhat
C. no

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Marrying the rich?
 Health psychology
 the relationship between psychological factors
and physical health

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Appledaily, 28 Aug 2006 40

城市智庫研究, N=382
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 Psychological Disorders
Required textbook
 Feldman, R. S. (2016). Understanding
Psychology (13th ed). New York: McGraw-
Hill.
Assessment
Quiz 1 30%
Quiz 2 30%
Assignments 30%
Class Participation 10%
Quizzes (30% + 30%)

 MCs, noncumulative
 Lecture notes and required readings
 No make-up exam unless for validated medical
reasons
Assignment (30%)
 Two assignment questions will be distributed

 You need to complete both assignments.

Class Participation (10%)
 Attendance
 Active participation in class discussions
and activities
Course Communication Platform
 Canvas (https://canvas.ust.hk)
 Announcements
 Lecture materials
 Discussion
 Distribution of scores
Where do Psychologists Work?
Psychologists
 Researchers vs. Practitioners
 researchers: to develop psychological
knowledge (tool makers)
 practitioners: to apply psychological knowledge
(carpenters)

Psychologists

Researchers Practitioners

Developing theoretical Applying psychological

Aim:
understanding of behaviors knowledge

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Researchers Practitioners
The Education of a Psychologist
 B.A. or B.S.
 Bachelor’s degree
 M.A. or M.S.
 Master’s degree
 Ph.D.
 Doctor of philosophy
 Psy.D.
 Doctor of psychology
What is Psychology?
 Psychology is the scientific study of
behavior and mental processes

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Major Perspectives

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Neuroscience Perspective
 Considers how people and nonhumans
function biologically
 Brain and Neurons
 Genes
 Evolution

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Neuroscience Perspective
 Brain and Neurons
 Phineas Gage

Macmillan, M. (2006). Restoring

Phineas Gage: A 150th Frontal 58
Retrospective. J. Hist. Neurosci. 9: Lobe
Neuroscience Perspective
 Genes

The Genain Quadruplets

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Neuroscience Perspective
 Evolution
 Genes play a central role in an individual’s adaptation to
environmental demands

 Survival of the fittest

 Species with traits better adapted to their
environment survive and reproduce

 Natural selection
 Through reproduction, more adaptive traits are
selected to be passed onto future generations by
genes
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Examples
 Imprinting in birds
 Emotionally attached to the first
moving object

 Parent-infant attachment
 Emotional attachment to the
primary caregiver
Konrad Lorenz
(1903 - 1989)
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Examples
 Mate Selection
 Differences are consistent across cultures
 E.g. China, Taiwan, Japan, USA, Canada, UK,
Germany, Italy, Africa, India

Men Women

Physical attractiveness Economic resources

Youth
Good housekeeping
skills 62
Psychodynamic Perspective
 Behavior is motivated by inner forces and
conflicts about which we have little
awareness or control

 Theory is developed from

memories of patients
with serious mental
disorders

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Sigmund Freud
 Id
 Libido: sexual instinct, aggressive impulses
 The pleasure principle: the drive to seek
immediate satisfaction
 Unconscious
 Present at birth

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 Ego
 Reason and logical thinking
 The reality principle – find ways to gratify the
id that are acceptable to the superego
 Develops gradually during the 1st year
 Conscious

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 Superego
 Societal rules,
“shoulds” and should nots”
 Conscious
 Develops at age 5-6

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 Ego keeps the
three components
in balance

 Otherwise, tension
occurs

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Freud’s Psychosexual Theory
 Development is fundamentally stage-like, with
each stage centered on a particular conflict
between sexual urges and demands of society

 The specific personality a child develops depends

on the degree of success the child has in moving
through the various stages

 Over-indulgence or lack of gratification results in

fixation
 conflicts or concerns that persist beyond the
developmental stage in which they first occur 68
Oedipus complex

Castration anxiety

Electra complex

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 Which stage is David Beckham fixated at?

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

David Beckham
suffers from OCD and it manifests itself through constant cleanliness
and perfection of all that is around him. Anything out of order is enough
to cause a conflict and must be attended to immediately. Examples of
this complete order is that everything must be in pairs, if there are
three books on a table one must be added, or one must be removed.

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Evaluation
 Contributions
 Ideas of unconsciousness and childhood roots
of adult personality
 Limitations
 Lack of empirical data and verification,
partially due to the fuzziness of the concepts
 Derivation of the concepts and theories from a
limited population
 Important changes in personality can take
place during adolescence and adulthood
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Behavioral Perspective
 Focuses on observable behavior that can
be measured objectively
 Learning leads to permanent change in
behavior

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 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, and yes, even beggar-man and
thief, regardless of his talents, penchants,
tendencies, abilities, vocations, and
race of his ancestor (Watson, 1924)

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Criticism of Behavioral Perspective
X Humans are not passive recipients of
environmental influences

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Cognitive Perspective
 Focuses on how people think, understand,
and know about the world

Information-processing theory
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Cognitive Perspective
 Does using a cell-phone impair people’s
driving ability?

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 Phone
Conversation

Traffic

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Humanism
 Emphasis is on free
will

 Achieving self-
fulfillment

 Maslow’s Self-
Actualization
“It’s always ‘Sit,’ ‘Stay,’ ‘Heel’— never ‘Think,’
‘Innovate,’ ‘Be yourself.’”
 Rogers’ Conditions
of Worth
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Maslow and Self-Actualization

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Rogers’ Conditions of Worth
 Self-actualizing tendency
– striving to fulfill innate capabilities

 Positive Regards:
 warmth, affection, love, and respect

 Conditions of worth:
 the conditions that others place upon us in
order to receive their positive regard

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• Conditional • Unconditional positive
positive regard regard - unconditional
- positive love and acceptance of
regard given an individual by
when another person
providers’
wishes fulfilled

What kind of people

are considered to be
fully functioning?

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 Readings
 Ch. 1

 Next topic
 Research Methods

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