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Lecture No 01 Introduction To Psychology

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11 views

Lecture No 01 Introduction To Psychology

Uploaded by

Aaila Akhter
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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1

Introduction to
Psychology
Lecture no 01
2

DEFINITION

• Psychology is the scientific study of behavior


and mental processes.
• It encompasses not just what people do but also
their thoughts, emotions, perceptions, reasoning
processes, memories, and even the biological
activities that maintain bodily functioning.
3

Role of Psychologists

• Describe, predict, and explain human


behavior and mental processes, as well as
help to change and improve the lives of
people and the world in which they live.
4

Role of Psychologists

• They use scientific methods to find answers that


are far more valid and legitimate than those
resulting from intuition and speculation, which are
often inaccurate
5

The Subfields of Psychology

• The subfields of psychology are like an extended


family, with assorted nieces and nephews, aunts
and uncles, and cousins who, although they may
not interact on a day-to-day basis, are related to
one another because they share a common goal:
understanding behavior.
6

Behavioral neuroscience

• Examines how the brain and the


nervous system and other biological
processes as well determine behavior.

• Neuroscientists consider how our


bodies influence our behavior.
7

Example

• For example, they may examine


the link between specific sites in
the brain and the muscular
tremors of people affected by
Parkinson’s disease or
investigate how our emotions
are related to physical
sensations
8

Experimental psychology

• Studies the processes of


sensing, perceiving,
learning, and thinking
about the world.
(Psychologists in every
specialty area use
experimental techniques.)
9

Cognitive psychology

• Focuses on higher mental


processes, including
thinking, memory,
reasoning, problem
solving, judging, decision
making, and language.
10

Cognitive psychology

• For example, a cognitive psychologist might be


interested in what the survivors of the APS school
massacre remembered about their experience
11

Developmental psychology

• Studies how people grow and change from the


moment of conception through death.
• A baby producing first smile, taking her, first steps
saying first word.
12

Personality psychology

• Personality psychology focuses on the consistency


in people’s behavior over time and the traits that
differentiate one person from another.
• Can you identify your personality traits?
13

Clinical psychology

• Clinical psychology deals with the study, diagnosis,


and treatment of psychological disorders.
14

Counseling psychology

• Counseling psychology focuses primarily on


educational, social, and career adjustment
problems.
15

School psychology

• School psychology is devoted to counseling


children in elementary and secondary schools who
have academic or emotional problems.
16

Social psychology

• Social psychology is the study of how people’s


thoughts, feelings, and actions are affected by
others.
17

Sport psychology

• Sport psychology applies psychology to athletic


activity and exercise
18

Forensic psychology

• Forensic psychology focuses on legal issues, such


as determining the accuracy of witness memories.
19

Health psychology

• Health psychology explores


the relationship between
psychological factors and
physical ailments or disease.
20

Industrial/Organizational psychology

• Industrial/
organizational
psychology is
concerned with the
psychology of the
workplace.
21
22

BRIEF HISTORY OF
PSYCHOLOGY

The roots of psychology


23
24
25

HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY

• 17th-century British philosopher John Locke


believed that children were born into the world
with minds like “blank slates” (tabula rasa in Latin)
and that their experiences determined what kind of
adults they would become.
26

HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY

• His views contrasted with those of Plato and the


15th-century French philosopher René Descartes,
who argued that some knowledge was inborn in
humans.
27

HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY

• 19th century, when, in


Leipzig, Germany, Wilhelm
Wundt established the first
experimental laboratory
devoted to psychological
phenomena.
28

HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY

• About the same time, William James was setting up


his laboratory in Cambridge Massachusetts.
• Structuralism: Wundt’s approach, which focuses
on uncovering the fundamental mental
components of consciousness, thinking, and other
kinds of mental states and activities.
29

HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY

• 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.
30

HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY

• Functionalism: An early approach to psychology


that concentrated on what the mind does—the
functions of mental activity—and the role of
behavior in allowing people to adapt to their
environments.
31

HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY

• Led by the American psychologist William James,


the functionalists examined how behavior allows
people to satisfy their needs and how our “stream
of consciousness” permits us to adopt to our
environment.
32
33

HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY

• Led by German scientists such as Hermann


Ebbinghaus and Max Wertheimer An approach to
psychology that focuses on the organization of
perception and thinking in a “whole” sense rather
than on the individual elements of perception.
34

Psychodynamic approach

• Sigmund Freud was a Viennese


physician whose ideas about
unconscious determinants of
behavior had a revolutionary
effect on 20th-century thinking.
35

Psychodynamic approach

• Behavior is motivated by inner forces and conflicts


about which we have little awareness or control.

• Dreams and slips of the tongue as indications of


what a person is truly feeling.
36
37

Behaviorism

• John B. Watson

• Working in the 1920s, Watson was adamant in his view


that one could gain a complete understanding of
behavior by studying and modifying the environment in
which people operate.
38

Behaviorism

• 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 beggar-man and thief, regardless of
his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations and
race of his ancestors” (Watson, 1924).
39

Cognitive perspective

• Focuses on how people think, understand, and


know about the world.

• Compare human thinking to the workings of a


computer, which takes in information and
transforms, stores, and retrieves it.
40

Humanistic perspective

• Rejecting the view that behavior is determined


largely by automatically unfolding biological forces,
unconscious processes, or the environment.
41

Humanistic perspective

• Humanistic perspective instead suggests that all


individuals naturally strive to grow, develop, and be in
control of their lives and behavior.

• Humanistic psychologists maintain that each of us has


the capacity to seek and reach fulfillment.
42
43

Today’s perspective in psychology

• Today, the field of psychology includes five major


perspectives.

• These broad perspectives emphasize different aspects of


behavior and mental processes, and each takes our
understanding of behavior in a somewhat different direction
44

Today’s perspective in psychology

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