Chapter 1: Introduction to Psychology

1.1 What Is Psychology?

Psychology
Psychology refers to the scientific study of the mind and behavior.
Psychologists use the scientific method to acquire knowledge.
Hypothesis: a tentative explanation to a researchers question, called to explain the
phenomenon.
Psychologists:
- Describe what they observe
- Explain the mechanisms underlying these observations
- Understand when and why behaviors occur
- Predict future behavior or events
- Control of influence human behavior.
Scientists test that which is perceivable and measurable. Thus, psychological science is
empirical, based on measurable data.
The scientific method is also a form of empiricism. An empirical method for acquiring
knowledge is one based on observation, including experimentation, rather than a method
based only on forms of logical argument or previous authorities. This is used in psychology
since thoughts are neither matter nor energy.
Levels of analysis:
- Intra-personal processes (Within an individual, like memory)
- Inter-personal processes (Between individuals, like communication)
- Inter-group processes (Between groups, like two different schools’ opinions about
each other)
- Cultural/societal processes (Like sociology)
An education in psychology is valuable for a number of reasons: critical thinking skills,
trained in the use of the scientific method, better communication skills, understanding the
complex factors that shape one’s behavior.

1.2 History of Psychology

The main schools of psychology are structuralism, functionalism, Gestalt, behaviorism,
psychoanalysis, humanism, and cognitivism.
The very roots date back to the 4th and 5th centuries BC, with Greek Philosophy, Taoism and
Buddhism, but also ‘Plato’s chariot allegory’.
Two 19th century scholars, Wilhelm Wundt and William James, are generally credited as
being the founders of psychology as a science and academic discipline that was distinct
from philosophy.
Modern psychology starts with the idea that the mind and behavior could be the subject of
scientific study.
Wundt and Structuralism
Wilhelm Wundt: German scientist who was the first person to be referred to as a
psychologist.
- He viewed psychology as a scientific study of conscious experience
- Created the first laboratory for psychological research
- He believed that the goal of psychology was to identify components of consciousness
and how those components combined to result in our conscious experience.
- Introspection: internal perception, a process by which someone examines their own
conscious experience as objectively as possible, making the human mind like any
other aspect of nature that a scientist observed.
- Notion of voluntarism: people have free will and should know the intentions of a
psychological experiment if they were participating.
- Structuralism: by Edward Titchener, a student of Wundt. Focused on contents of
mental processes rather than their function.
- However, despite his efforts to train individuals in the process of introspection, this
process remained highly subjective, and there was very little agreement between
individuals.

William James and Functionalism

William James, John Dewey and Charles Sanders Peirce helped establish functional
psychology.
- accepted Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection and viewed this theory as
an explanation of an organism’s characteristics
- natural selection leads to organisms that are adapted to their environment, including
their behavior
- Adaptation: a trait of an organism has a function for the survival and reproduction of
the individual, because it has been naturally selected.
- psychology’s purpose was to study the function of behavior in the world, and as such,
his perspective was known as functionalism
- Functionalism: how mental activities help an organism fit into its environment.
Functionalism focused more on the operation of the whole mind.
Structuralism focused more on the operation of the individual parts of the mind.

Freud and Psychoanalytic Theory

Freud: Austrian neurologist who was fascinated by patients suffering from “hysteria” and
neurosis. Freud theorized that many of his patients’ problems arose from the unconscious
mind.
- the unconscious mind was a repository of feelings and urges of which we have no
awareness
- the unconscious mind could be accessed through dream analysis, by examinations
of the first words that came to people’s minds, and through seemingly innocent slips
of the tongue
- Psychoanalytic theory focuses on the role of a person’s unconscious, as well as early
childhood experiences.
- Id (unconscious desires), ego (reason), superego (morality) – just like Plato’s chariot
allegory.
- Many of his ideas did not have empirical support though: like the Oedipus complex.
 - Neo-Freudians: Criticism on Freud’s psychoanalytic method by for example Karen
Horney for focus on childhood causes (instead of solutions), biology (instead of
cultural causes for neuroses), and views of female psychology.

Wertheimer, Koffka, Köhler, and Gestalt Psychology

The word Gestalt roughly translates to “whole”, a major emphasis of Gestalt psychology
deals with the fact that although a sensory experience can be broken down into individual
parts, how those parts relate to each other as a whole is often what the individual responds
to in perception. It was a response to structuralism: you cannot break everything down into
parts. The whole is more than the sum of the parts. The notes of a song are what make the
song.
Figure-Ground asymmetry: we tend to perceive as figures those parts of our perceptual
fields that are convex, symmetric, small, and enclosed.
Wertheimer, Koffka and Köhler introduced these Gestalt principles. They came from
Germany and lost a lot of their work when moving to the United States when fleeing the war.

Pavlov, Watson, Skinner and Behaviorism

Pavlov: studied learning behavior in the form of conditioned reflex, in which an animal or
human produced a reflex (unconscious) response to a stimulus and, over time, was
conditioned to produce the response to a different stimulus that the experimenter associated
with the original stimulus  classical conditioning.
Watson: believed that objective analysis of the mind was impossible, Watson preferred to
focus directly on observable behavior and try to bring that behavior under control. Watson
was a major proponent of shifting the focus of psychology from the mind to behavior, and
this approach of observing and controlling behavior came to be known as behaviorism. A
major object of study by behaviorists was learned behavior and its interaction with inborn
qualities of the organism.
Skinner: a behaviorist, and he concentrated on how behavior was affected by its
consequences. Therefore, Skinner spoke of reinforcement and punishment as major factors
in driving behavior.

Maslow, Rogers and Humanism

Some disliked the reductionism, or simplifying nature, of behaviorism. Behaviorism is also
deterministic at its core, because it sees human behavior as entirely determined by a
combination of genetics and environment. Some psychologists began to form their own
ideas that emphasized personal control, intentionality, and a true predisposition for “good” as
important for our self-concept and our behavior: humanism. It emphasizes the potential for
good that is innate to all humans. Most known are Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers.
Maslow: asserted that so long as basic needs necessary for
survival were met (e.g., food, water, shelter), higher-level needs
(e.g., social needs) would begin to motivate behavior. According
to Maslow, the highest-level needs relate to self-actualization, a
process by which we achieve our full potential. Research from
humanistic psychologists was rejecting reductionist
experimentation, because it missed the ‘whole’ human being.
Humanistic research programs were largely qualitative, but a
number of quantitative research strains within humanistic
psychology, including research on happiness, self-concept, meditation, and the outcomes of
humanistic psychotherapy.
Rogers: like Maslow, emphasized the potential for good that exists within all people. Rogers
used a therapeutic technique known as client-centered therapy: the patient taking a lead role
in the therapy session. The therapist has to be unconditionally positive, genuine and
empathic. The therapist has to accept the client for who they are.
- Response to both the pessimism of Freud’s unconscious and the determinism of
behaviorism.
- People have free will and are motivated to reach their full potential (self-
actualization).
- A focus on qualitative research.

The Cognitive Revolution

By the 1950s, new disciplinary perspectives in linguistics, neuroscience, and computer
science were emerging, and these areas revived interest in the mind as a focus of scientific
inquiry  cognitive revolution.
- Response to behaviorism.
- Goal is to look inside the ‘black box’’: interested in studying thoughts, memories, and
expectations.
Noam Chomsky was very influential: believed that psychology’s focus on behavior was
short-sighted and that the field had to re-incorporate mental functioning to offer any
meaningful contributions to understanding behavior.
European psychology had never really been as influenced by behaviorism as had American
psychology; and thus, the cognitive revolution helped reestablish lines of communication
between European psychologists and their American counterparts.

Multicultural And Cross-Cultural Psychology

WEIRD stands for western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic. Some say this
group has been ‘overstudied’ and unrightfully applied to other groups. There are differences
in groups because of variety of areas, including perception, cooperation, and moral
reasoning, or you could say, culture and environment.
Multicultural psychologists develop theories and conduct research with diverse populations,
typically within one country. Cross-cultural psychologists compare populations across
countries, such as participants from the United States compared to participants from China.

1.3 Contemporary Psychology

Contemporary psychology is a diverse field that is influenced by all of the historical
perspectives described in the preceding section. Reflective of the discipline’s diversity is the
diversity seen within the American Psychological Association (APA). The APA is a
professional organization representing psychologists in the United States. The APA is the
largest organization of psychologists in the world, and its mission is to advance and
disseminate psychological knowledge for the betterment of people.
The Association for Psychological Science (APS) was founded in 1988 and seeks to
advance the scientific orientation of psychology. Its founding resulted from disagreements
between members of the scientific and clinical branches of psychology within the APA.
Overview of the major subdivisions within psychology today in the order in which they are
introduced throughout the textbook:
1. Biopsychology explores how our biology influences our behavior. While biological
psychology is a broad field, many biological psychologists want to understand how
the structure and function of the nervous system is related to behavior.
2. While biopsychology typically focuses on the immediate causes of behavior based in
the physiology of a human or other animal, evolutionary psychology seeks to study
the ultimate biological causes of behavior. To the extent that a behavior is impacted
by genetics, a behavior, like any anatomical characteristic of a human or animal, will
demonstrate adaption to its surroundings (based on the theory of Charles Darwin)
3. Sensation and perception: our experience of our world is not as simple as the sum
total of all of the sensory information (or sensations) together. Rather, our experience
(or perception) is complex and is influenced by where we focus our attention, our
previous experiences, and even our cultural backgrounds.
4. Cognitive psychology is the area of psychology that focuses on studying
cognitions, or thoughts, and their relationship to our experiences and our actions.
5. Developmental psychology is the scientific study of development across a lifespan.
Developmental psychologists are interested in processes related to physical
maturation. However, their focus is not limited to the physical changes associated
with aging, as they also focus on changes in cognitive skills, moral reasoning, social
behavior, and other psychological attributes.
6. Personality psychology focuses on patterns of thoughts and behaviors that make
each individual unique. E.g., Freud, Maslow, Gordon Allport: contributed to early
theorists attempting to explain how an individual’s personality develops from their
given perspective. Research is focused on identifying personality traits, measuring
these traits, and determining how these traits interact in a particular context to
determine how a person will behave in any given situation. Personality traits are
relatively consistent patterns of thought and behavior, and many have proposed that
five trait dimensions are sufficient to capture the variations in personality seen across
individuals: conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, and
extraversion
7. Social psychology focuses on how we interact with and relate to others. Social
psychologists conduct research on a wide variety of topics that include differences in
how we explain our own behavior versus how we explain the behaviors of others,
prejudice, and attraction, and how we resolve interpersonal conflicts. Social
psychologists have also sought to determine how being among other people changes
our own behavior and patterns of thinking.
8. Industrial-Organizational psychology (I-O psychology) is a subfield of psychology
that applies psychological theories, principles, and research findings in industrial and
organizational settings. I-O psychologists are often involved in issues related to
personnel management, organizational structure, and workplace environment.
9. Health psychology focuses on how health is affected by the interaction of biological,
psychological, and sociocultural factors: the biopsychosocial model. Health
psychologists might conduct research that explores the relationship between one’s
genetic makeup, patterns of behavior, relationships, psychological stress, and health.
They may research effective ways to motivate people to address patterns of behavior
that contribute to poorer health.
10. Sport and exercise psychology studies the psychological aspects of sport
performance, including motivation and performance anxiety, and the effects of sport
on mental and emotional wellbeing. Research is also conducted on similar topics as
 they relate to physical exercise in general, between mental and physical performance
under demanding conditions, such as fire fighting, military operations, artistic
performance, and surgery.
11. Clinical psychology (most ‘popular’ among media) is the area of psychology that
focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders and other
problematic patterns of behavior. As such, it is generally considered to be a more
applied area within psychology; however, some clinicians are also actively engaged
in scientific research. Counseling psychology is a similar discipline that focuses on
emotional, social, vocational, and health-related outcomes in individuals who are
considered psychologically healthy.
12. Forensic psychology is a branch of psychology that deals questions of psychology
as they arise in the context of the justice system. For example, forensic psychologists
(and forensic psychiatrists) will assess a person’s competency to stand trial or
assess the state of mind of a defendant. They may also be involved in providing
psychological treatment within the criminal justice system.

1.4 Careers in Psychology

Career options in academic settings
PhD refers to a doctor of philosophy degree, but here, philosophy does not refer to the field
of philosophy per se. Rather, philosophy in this context refers to many different disciplinary
perspectives that would be housed in a traditional college of liberal arts and sciences.
The requirements to earn a PhD vary from country to country and even from school to
school, but usually, individuals earning this degree must complete a dissertation. A
dissertation is essentially a long research paper or bundled published articles describing
research that was conducted as a part of the candidate’s doctoral training.
Often times, schools offer more courses in psychology than their full-time faculty can teach.
In these cases, it is not uncommon to bring in an adjunct faculty member or instructor.
Adjunct faculty members and instructors usually have an advanced degree in psychology,
but they often have primary careers outside of academia and serve in this role as a
secondary job.
In some areas in psychology, it is common for individuals who have recently earned their
PhD to seek out positions in postdoctoral training programs that are available before going
on to serve as faculty. In most cases, young scientists will complete one or two postdoctoral
programs before applying for a full-time faculty position. Postdoctoral training programs allow
young scientists to further develop their research programs and broaden their research skills
under the supervision of other professionals in the field.

Career Options Outside of Academic Settings

A PsyD is a doctor of psychology degree that is increasingly popular among individuals
interested in pursuing careers in clinical psychology. PsyD programs generally place less
emphasis on research-oriented skills and focus more on application of psychological
principles in the clinical context.
While both can conduct therapy and counseling, clinical psychologists have a PhD or a
PsyD, whereas psychiatrists have a doctor of medicine degree (MD). As such, licensed
clinical psychologists can administer and interpret psychological tests, while psychiatrists
can prescribe medications.