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Hilaw Na Karne
Hilaw Na Karne
What is Psychology?
Mental Processes – activities of the mind (analyzing, thinking, calculating, remembering, imagining, etc.)
Etymology
Psychology comes from the Greek words psyche which means soul or mind and logos which means study or discourse.
As a definition of psychology, its etymological meaning is not adapted or accepted for the following reasons:
Psychology formally became a science when in 1897, Wilhelm Wundt (pronounced Voondt) established the first
laboratory in psychology in Leipzig, Germany.
Classifications of Behavior
Conscious
Preconscious
Unconscious
Although psychology is considered a science, some of the knowledge we have were derived from pseudoscience.
Pseudoscience is false science. Knowledge is not derived from the scientific method or process.
a. Ectomorph – cerebrotonic
b. Mesomorph – somatotonic
c. Endomorph – viscerotonic
2. Astrology – the belief that the position of the stars and planets in the time we were born determine our
personality
3. Phrenology - the belief that the bumps and dents in the skull determines personality
4. Graphology - the belief that penmanship determines personality
5. Numerology – certain numbers determine personality (e.g. Triskaidephobia or the fear of number 13)
Trephining/Trepanning – an unethical surgery of the skull in which a hole is opened to treat abnormal behavior
They believed before that a small man resides in the brain who controls the person.
Proponent: Edward Tichener – when he taught structuralism in the US, he added on the teachings of his mentor,
Wilhelm Wundt, in spite of claiming that the ideas he teaches are entirely attributed to Wundt.
Elements of Behavior
1. Individual Sensations
2. Individual Feelings
It relies of the method of introspection (self-reporting) for data gathering. One of the limitations of this school of
thought is that the method of data-gathering which is introspection is prone to bias from the respondent. A respondent
can lie or report false data.
Pragmatism – each behavior has a function (for example, you experience pain as a mechanism of your body to inform
you that something is wrong/dysfunction in your body)
C. Psychoanalysis – school of thought that derived from the theories of Sigmund Freud
Psyche is tripartite
Psychosexual Development Stages (refer to UTS notes) – in summary, psychosexual development theory states that a
behavior in adulthood could be a result of a fixation in childhood.
D. Gestalt Psychology – the whole is different from the sum of its parts
Gestalt psychology stands in opposition to structuralism as it believes that behavior must be treated as whole and not
by its individual parts.
Behaviorism believes that behavior is a result of or a function of conditioning. Under behaviorism are the fields of SR or
stimulus response psychology and similar areas.
Classical Conditioning was developed by Ivan Pavlov as a result of studying the salivation of dogs. How the experiment
went are as follows:
The act of presenting food is an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) and salivation is an unconditioned response (UCR).
In this part, the dog was made to listen to the ringing of the bell (neutral stimulus - NS) and it elicited no salivation
(neutral response – NR).
In this stage the dog was presented food after the ringing of the bell and responded with salivation.
In this stage, the dog has associated the ringing of the bell with the presentation of the food which is why it salivated.
The bell has become a conditioned stimulus (CS) now and salivation a conditioned response (CR).
Behavior is seen as a function of reinforcement (positive or negative) and punishment (positive or negative).
Reinforcement – anything when delivered contingent to a behavior, increases the likelihood that the behavior will be
repeated or strengthened
Punishment - anything when delivered contingent to a behavior will likely result to the weakening or extinction of the
behavior
Schedules of Reinforcement
Positive Reinforcement – giving the subject something (what they want) when they perform the desired action so they
associate the action with the reward and the action again
Negative Reinforcement – strengthening of a behavior by removing a negative stimuli (for example, you want to go the
beach but you lather on sunscreen to prevent being sun burned or you drink your medicine even if it is bitter because
you don’t want to get sick anymore)
Positive Punishment – delivery of an aversive stimuli to extinguish a behavior (for example, a person is jailed so that he
will not steal again)
Negative Punishment – taking away something precious or valuable from the subject