The History and Perspectives of

Psychology

Psychology

• What does it mean?

Inner sensations- mental processes

Observable behavior

Prologue: The Story of Psychology

Psychology’s Roots Prescientific Psychology

Psychological Science is Born

Psychological Science Develops

Prologue: The Story of Psychology

Contemporary Psychology Psychology’s Big Debate

Psychology’s Three Main Levels of Analysis

Psychology’s Subfields

Psychology’s RootsPrescientific Psychology

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In India, Buddha wondered how and combined to form ideas.

Prescientific PsychologyConfucius (551-479 B.C.)

In China, stressed the power of ideas and the importance of an educated

mind.

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Prescientific PsychologyHebrew Scriptures

scriptures linked mind and emotion to the body.

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Prescientific PsychologySocrates (469-399 B.C.) and Plato (428-348 B.C.)

Socrates and his student Plato believed the mind was from the body, the mind continued to exist after death, and

ideas were innate.

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Prescientific PsychologyAristotle (384-322 B.C.)

Aristotle suggested that the soul separable from the body and that

knowledge (ideas) grow from .

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Prescientific PsychologyRene Descartes (1596-1650)

Descartes, like , believed in soul (mind)-body separation, but wondered how

the immaterial mind and physical body .

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Prescientific PsychologyFrancis Bacon (1561-1626)

Bacon is one of the founders of modern science, particularly the

method.

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Prescientific PsychologyJohn Locke (1632-1704)

Locke held that the mind was a , or blank sheet, at birth, and

experiences wrote on it.

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Prescientific Psychology

Mind and body are connected

Mind and body are distinct

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Augustine

What is the relation of mind to the body?

Prescientific Psychology

Some ideas are inborn

The mind is a blank slate

How are ideas formed?

Psychological Science is BornStructuralism

Wundt and Titchener studied the elements (atoms) of the mind by conducting

experiments at Leipzig, Germany, in 1879.

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Psychological Science is BornFunctionalism

Influenced by Darwin, William James established the school of functionalism,

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Psychological Science is BornThe Unconscious Mind

and his followers emphasized the importance of the mind and its effects on human behavior.

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Psychological Science DevelopsBehaviorism

Watson (1913) and later emphasized the study of overt as the subject matter of scientific psychology.

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Psychological Science Develops

Humanistic Psychology

Maslow and Rogers emphasized current environmental influences on our growth

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Psychology: A Definition

The scientific study of behavior and mental

processes.

Break it down…

• Science• Behavior• Mental Processes

Psychology’s Big Issues

• Stability v. Change• Continuity v. Discontinuity• Nature v. Nurture

Stability v. Change

• As the years pass, do we change or remain the same?

• Do we become adults or are we always just big kids?

• Personality traits, physical appearance, sense of humor, tastes, etc…

Continuity v. Discontinuity

• Does growth occur gradually or in stages?

• Biology versus Experience• Am I the way I am because I was

born that way or because of my surroundings?

Nature v. Nurture

Can I ever be like these people, or does nature give me limitations?

Figure 1 Biopsychosocial approachMyers: Psychology, Eighth EditionCopyright © 2007 by Worth Publishers

Psychology’s Perspectives

The Big Eight

Neuroscience/Biological Perspective

• Focus on how the physical body and creates our emotions, memories and sensory experiences.

If you could not remember the names of your parents and went to a psychologist who adheres to the neuroscience perspective, what might they say?

Evolutionary Perspective

• Focuses on .

• We behave the way we do because we__________those behaviors.

• Thus, those behaviors must have helped ensure our ancestors ___________.

How could this behavior ensured Homer’s ancestors survival?

Psychodynamic/Psychoanalytic Perspective

• Fathered by Sigmund Freud.

• Our behavior comes from drives.

• Usually stemming from our .

What might a psychoanalyst say is the reason someone always needs to be chewing gum?

Behavioral Perspective

• Focuses on our

behaviors.• Only cares about

the behaviors that impair our living, and attempts to change them. If you bit your fingernails

when you were nervous, a behaviorist would not focus on calming you down, but rather focus on how to stop you from biting your nails.

Cognitive Perspective• Focuses on how we

think (or information)

• How do we see the world?

• How did we learn to act to sad or happy events?

• Cognitive Therapist attempt to change the way you think.

Meet girl Get Rejected by girl

Did you learn to be depressed

Or get back on the horse

Social-Cultural Perspective• Focus on how your effects

your behavior.

Even in the same high school, behaviors can change in accordance to the various subcultures.

Humanistic Perspective• Focuses on growth• Attempt to seek self-actualization• Therapists use active listening and

.

Mr. Rogers would have made a great Humanistic Therapist!!!

Positive Psychology Perspective

• Focus on and psychological states

• Focus on what goes right, instead of what goes wrong

• Create personal rather than treat symptoms

• Founded by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Martin Seligman

Psychology’s Current Perspectives

Perspective Focus Sample QuestionsHow the body and brain enables emotions?

How are messages transmitted in the body? How is blood chemistry linked with moods and motives?

How the natural selection of traits the promotes the perpetuation of one’s genes?

How does evolution influence behavior tendencies?

How much our genes and our environments influence our individual differences?

To what extent are psychological traits such as intelligence, personality, sexual orientation, and vulnerability to depression attributable to our genes? To our environment?

Psychology’s Current Perspectives

Perspective Focus Sample Questions

How behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts?

How can someone’s personality traits and disorders be explained in terms of sexual and aggressive drives or as disguised effects of unfulfilled wishes and childhood traumas?

How we learn observable responses?

How do we learn to fear particular objects or situations? What is the most effective way to alter our behavior, say to lose weight or quit smoking?

Psychology’s Current Perspectives

Perspective Focus Sample QuestionsHow we encode, process, store and retrieve information?

How do we use information in remembering? Reasoning? Problem solving?

How behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures?

How are we — as Africans, Asians, Australians or North Americans – alike as members of human family? As products of different environmental contexts, how do we differ?

What are “successful” individuals doing to be “successful”?

What is happiness? How do we foster creativity? What makes optimism possible?

Psychology’s Subfields: Research

Psychologist What he/she does

BiologicalExplore the links between brain and mind.

DevelopmentalStudy changing abilities from womb to tomb.

CognitiveStudy how we perceive, think, and solve problems.

Personality Investigate our persistent traits.

SocialExplore how we view and affect one another.

Psychology’s Subfields: Research

Data: APA 1997

Psychology’s Subfields: Applied

Psychologist What she does

ClinicalStudies, assesses, and treats people with psychological disorders

CounselingHelps people cope with academic, vocational, and marital challenges.

EducationalStudies and helps individuals in school and educational settings

Industrial/Organizational

Studies and advises on behavior in the workplace.

Psychology’s Subfields: Applied

Data: APA 1997

A (Ph.D.) studies, assesses, and treats troubled people with

psychotherapy.

on the other hand are medical professionals (M.D.) who use

treatments like drugs and psychotherapy to treat psychologically diseased patients.

Clinical Psychology vs. Psychiatry

Table 1Myers: Psychology, Eighth EditionCopyright © 2007 by Worth Publishers