WEEK 1- Introducing Psychology. Flashcards
Introducing Psychology.
Definition of Psychology
Is the science of behaviour and mental processes or the scientific study of mind, brain and behaviour.
¿What is the difference between mind and brain?
The brain is a physical organ and the mind has other functions like cognition, thinking, and language.
Pop psychology (a.k.a popular psychology)
Refers to what society generally believes about psychology. It is usually untrue, and largely acquired through magazine articles, books, or newspapers, and written by non-psychologists for mass audiences. Example of the full moon that can cause crimes and craziness.
¿What are the differences between a psychologist and , psychiatrist?
Psychologists do not have a medical degree and the psychiatrist has a medical degree with a specialization in psychiatry. Psychiatrists can prescribe drugs and psychologists cannot.
Dualism
Is the idea that the mind and body are separate or distinct from each other. Is a debate that Socrates, Plato and Descartes had at the beginning of time.
Monoism
The idea that the mind and body are connected. Aristoteles and Locke believed in this perspective.
Which is the first school of thought?
Structuralism and was founded by Edward Titcher.
Structuralism
Study conscious experience and its structure. It involves images, feelings and sensations. Wundt and Titcher used the technique of introspection, which means ‘looking inward’ to study aspects of the conscious experience.
Criticism of structuralism
This school received critiques because Titcher and Wundt used introspection to develop their theories, but by using this technique you don’t have an objective conclusion because what a person feels does not mean the other feel it too.
Functionalism
This school of thought was founded by William James and influenced by Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection. It looked at all the drawbacks of structuralism and it formed his own way of thinking. This school examined the purpose and functions of the mind. William James said that consciousness evolved because it had adaptive purpose and struggle of survival.
Behaviourism
Is a school of thought founded by John B. Watson. Behaviorism examined the things you learn from the environment and by looking at others. It centers on observable or measurable behaviour. Behaviourists tried to identify the stimuli, responses and consequences that build and alter our behaviour. Watson believed that behaviour can be predicted and controlled. Also, they looked at animal’s studies (structuralism and functionalism didn’t believe that animals behaved in certain ways).
Apart from John B Watson, who else was a behaviourist?
Skinner and Pavlov
Behaviour is determined by:
It’s consequences
Gestalt Psychologists
Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler
Gestalt Psychology the German school of thought
It focuses on how we organize our perception of the world. Humans tend to fill in the blanks. Gestalt psychologists study the conscious experience as a whole, not the sum of its parts.
Psychoanalytic Approach
Developed by Sigmund Freud, he believed that mental illnesses could be cured by using psychoanalysis, the aim of this therapy is to release repressed emotions and experiences from the unconscious to the conscious awareness. It is only having a cathartic (healing) experience can the person be helped and cured.
How did Freud see behaviour and personality?
Freud view behavior as controlled by unconscious factors and personality being determined by early experiences in life.
According to Freud, the structure of the psyche consists in:
Layers:
- Conscious: consists on the material that is immediately available to us. The thoughts and perceptions are located in this layer.
- Pre-conscious: is the material that we CAN get to know and be aware of. Memory and stored knowledge are located here.
- Unconscious: it’s the material that can’t be known directly. Instincts, repressed material, aggression, irrational wishes, selfish needs, shameful experiences, immoral urges, unacceptable sexual desires, fear and impulses are located in this layer.
Parts: the id (pleasure), the ego (reality and consciousness), and the super-ego (morality).
What are the two underlying schools of thought related to the birth of psychology?
Structuralism and functionalism
Humanistic Psychology/Approach
It is a school of thought and is also known as the phenomenological approach is a more holistic approach to studying psychology. Humanistic psychology considers the thoughts and behaviours of humans, as well as acknowledging the uniqueness of each individual person. It believes in free will and self-efficacy and that individuals should be assisted to reach their full potential and to maximize their health and well-being.
Cognitive Psychology
It is a school of thought and It focuses on how humans process incoming information, looking at processes underlying attention, language use, memory, perception, problem-solving, creativity, and thinking.
The Information-Processing Model
Is a framework that demonstrates how the brain processes incoming information which consists of:
- You encode sensory information.
- Then you manipulate the information (mental processes).
- Output (Behavior, emotions etc).
Biological Psychology / Approach.
Focuses on our genetics, physiology and neurochemistry, and their role in our thoughts, feelings and behaviour. A related approach to studying psychology is cognitive neuroscience, which is concerned specifically with the biological processes that underlie cognition through studying neural connections in the brain.
Science vs Pseudoscience
Karl Popper said that Science relied on look, see what you see and then develop a hypothesis based on that observations. And that methods like Freud, that only served to confirm beliefs were pseudoscience. And they could be used to prove anything.
- Science = disconfirms (Einstein’s) Science require testing theories against evidence.
- Pseudoscience = confirms (beliefs) (Freud).
¿Is Psychology a science or a pseudoscience?
Psychology is a science because researches are open to more ideas and are more receptive. Also, is a science that is willing to change and seeks for evidence to contradict ideas.
Developmental Psychology
Seeking to understand, describe and explore how behaviour and mental processes change over a lifetime.
Clinical Psychology
Provide direct service to troubled people and conduct research on abnormal behaviour.
Educational Psychology
The study methods by which instructors teach and students learn, and who apply their results to improving those methods.
Social Psychology
How people influence one another’s behaviour and mental processes, individually and in groups.
Organisational Psychology
Ways to improve efficiency, productivity and satisfaction among workers and the organisations that employ them.
Community psychologists are primarily interested in the ___________ of mental illness by striving for change in social systems.
Prevention.
If you were to study consciousness by having your friends use introspection and report the results to you, your research method would be most similar to that used by
Structuralists.
Forensic Psychology
Issues involving psychology and the law.
Culture
Is an organising and stabilising influence. It encourages or discourages particular behaviour and is defined as the accumulation of values, rules of behaviour, forms of expression and religious beliefs.
Natural Selection
The evolutionary mechanism through which Darwin said the fittest individuals survive to reproduce.
The evolutionary approach to psychology assumes that:
That the behaviour and mental processes of animals and humans today are also the results of evolution through natural selection. Psychologists who take this approach see cooperation as an adaptive survival strategy, aggression as a form of territory protection, and gender differences in mate selection preferences as reflecting different ways through which genes survive in future generations.
A psychologist with a humanistic approach would state that behaviour is driven by:
Choices
Suzie has successfully completed a four-year accredited degree in psychology. In either Australia or New Zealand, before she can call herself a psychologist, she must
Study for a further two years (in Psychology, at Masters level) and/or undertake two years of supervised practice.
Cognitive-behavioural approach
Adds emphasis on learning by observation and the learning of certain ways of thinking. Those who take this cognitive-behavioural, or social-cognitive, approach explore how learning affects the development of thoughts, attitudes and beliefs and, in turn, how these learned cognitive patterns affect overt behaviour.
Positive Psychology
Relates to paying more attention to mental wellness or wellbeing. This approach of psychology was founded by Martin Seligman. It focuses on the influences of positive emotions, experiences and environment on mental health. It concentrates with what is wrong with you rather than what is right with you (traditional psychology method).
The first research laboratory in psychology was established to study __________.
Perceptual processes
Dr Hemmings believes that human behaviour is influenced by genetic inheritance, unconscious motivations and environmental influences. Dr Hemmings uses a(n) approach.
Eclectic Approach
Research on the factors that lead people to be happy and satisfied with their lives is known as ___________ psychology.
Positive Psychology
