Chapter 1: What is psychology?
Psychology as a natural science and a social science
• Psychology: the study of mental processes, behavior, and the relationship between them. • Natural science: the law of nature (e.g., the brain functions) • Social science: person-person (e.g., interaction)
Key themes in the evolution of psychological ideas
• Hegel: dialectic, a continuing intellectual dialogue
1. Thesis: statement of opinion 2. Anti-thesis: an opinion that takes a different perspective 3. Synthesis: the selective combining of the two opinions (e.g. Table 1.1)
4. Forming a new thesis, then arising an antithesis
The early history of psychology
• Philosophy: exploring and understanding the general nature of many aspects of the world (e,g., introspection) • Physiology: the scientific study of living organisms and of life-sustaining functions (e.g., observation)
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Hippocrates: mind-body dualism, the mind being different from the body 1. Body: physical substances; mind: ethereal 2. The mind resides in the brain 3. The mind controls the body
• Plato: rationalist 1. Knowledge is most effectively acquired through logical methods, using philosophical analysis 2. The mind resides in the brain 3. Reality resides not in the concrete objects 4. Reality is in the ideal, abstract forms that these objects represent
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Aristotle: empiricist
1. We acquire knowledge through empirical methods, obtaining evidence through experience, observation, and experiments 2. The mind is within the heart 3. The mind does not exist on its own. The study of the mind and the study of the body are the same 4. Reality lies only in the concrete world of objects
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Descartes: rationalist
1. the introspective is better for finding truth 2. Supporting mind-body dualism. 3. This is the difference between humans and animals
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Locke: empiricist
1. Humans are born without knowledge 2. They must seek knowledge through empirical observation 3. Experience writes knowledge upon us
• Kant: dialectical synthesis 1. Understanding mental processes requires both opinions 2. Experiences-based knowledge (thesis) & innate concepts (anti-thesis)
Early psychological approaches to behavior
• Structuralism
1. Understanding the mind by analyzing its elements (e.g., sensations) 2. Wundt, first psychological experiment 3. focusing on immediate and direct (not mediated/interpreted) conscious experience
4. Introspection (self-observation) to look inward at pieces of information
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Functionalism
1. Focusing on active psychological processes rather than passive psychological elements 2. Why do they do it? vs. What are the structures? 3. Using diverse methodologies 4. William James: Principle of Psychology 5. From functionalism to pragmatism
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Associationism: how events or ideas can become associated in the mind, resulting in a form of learning
1. Ebbinghaus: experimental introspective, rehearsal (repetition) aids in learning 2. Guthrie: two events (a stimulus and a response) become associated through their close temporal contiguity 3. Thorndike: the law of effects, actions are strengthened by rewards (satisfaction)
Psychology in the 20th century
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Behaviorism: stimulus-response relationship Pavlov: classically conditioned learning
1. An originally neutral stimulus comes to be associated with a stimulus that already produces a physiological response 2. Involuntary learning behavior
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Watson
1. Psychology should be objective 2. Focusing on the relationship between observable behavior and environmental stimuli 3. Reject internal thoughts 4. Using animals studies
5. Voluntary learning behavior
- Skinner
1. Respondent behavior (involuntary), elicited by a definite stimulus (food) 2. Operant behavior (voluntary), which cannot be elicited. 3. A subsequent reinforcer (reward) can increase the probability of an operant behavior 4. Ignoring internal states
• Gestalt psychology 1. Psychological phenomena are best understood when viewed as holistically, not when they are analyzed into component elements. 2. The whole is different from the sum of its parts
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Cognitivism
1. Thought as a basis for understanding much of human behavior 2. Neisser: Cognitive Psychology (1967) 3. How people learn, structure, store, and use knowledge. 4. Serial vs. parallel processing
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Biological psychology
1. Understanding behavior by studying anatomy and physiology, especially the brain 2. Mental processes and the body are interrelated and indistinguishable 3. Sperry- split-brain study, which regions for which functions
- Behavioral genetics: attributing behavior in part to the influences of combinations of genes, as expressed in an environment - Biopsychosocial approach: understanding the individual in terms of psychological, social, and biological factors that contribute to behavior (e.g, health psychology)
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Evolutionary psychology
1. Explaining behavior in terms of organism’s evolved adaptations to a constantly changing environmental landscape 2. Darwin: natural selection and evolution 3. Successful individuals surviving long enough to reproduce, pass their genes to later generations
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Psychodynamic psychology
1. Emphasizing the importance of conflicting unconscious mental processes 2. Freud: psychoanalysis 3. Conscious: mental states of which we are aware (small) 4. Unconscious: mental states to which we do not normally have access (huge)
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Humanistic psychology
1. Emphasizing free will and the importance of human potential 2. Maslow: self-actualization, making real through actions 3. Rogers: unconditional positive regard, between mother and child