ANTHROPOLOGY / UNDERSTANDING THE SELF 1

Module 6 PSYCHOLOGY

At the end of this module, you are expected to:

1. Discover the meaning of Psychology
2. List various fields of Psychology
3. Define Various fields of Psychology
4. Discover the history of Psychology

What is Psychology?
 Psychology comes from the Greek word “psyche” which means “breath, spirit, soul” and “logia” which
means “study of the mind”
• Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
• Psychology Is an Empirical Science: Psychological science relies on empirical evidence as a
way of knowing about how we think, feel, and behave

What is a Theory?
• A theory is a general set of principles proposed to explain how a number of separate facts are
related (map reading example)
• A theory allows you to
• propose reasons for relationships
• derive explanations
• make predictions

Goals of Psychology
• Psychology seeks to
• describe
• explain
• predict, and
• influence behavior and mental processes

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What Psychologists Do
• Research
• There are two kinds of research: the pure research/ basic and applied research
• Practice (clinical, counseling)
• Teaching

Fields of Psychology

• Clinical
 This usually involves conducting tests and examinations to assess the mental health of a
person
• Counseling
• This branch of psychology is similar to clinical psychology that focus on assessing
the mental health of an individual but the focus is mostly on “common problems” of
people like marriage problems, work problems, stress, etc.
• School
• This field aims to improve student’s performance in schools
• Educational
• This field of psychology deals with testing related activities in education that may
focus on curriculum, scientific experiments to ensure validity and reliability of tests
and other special needs of the students.
• Developmental
 This field of psychology deals aims to study the developmental changes in human
behaviors and actions from birth to death
• Personality
• This fields aims to examine the differences and similarities in human personalities
and how these personalities reflect on their actions
• Social
 This focuses in particular in the study of humans and their interaction with their
environment and with others.
• Environmental
• This field focuses on improving the physical environment
• Experimental
• Focused on the conduct of experiments and research in laboratories.
• Industrial
• Focused on the psychology of industry including operations, processes and human
involvement and it has three subparts:
• Organizational
• Human Factors
• Consumer
• Health
• It is the application of principles of psychology for the treatment and/or prevention
of disease.
• Sport
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• Focuses on the application of psychological principles in studying activities related

to sports.
• Forensic
• Focuses on providing assistance used often in law enforcement. Psychologist may
administer tests to profile a suspect or assess the mental state of the victim.

History of Psychology

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Figure 1: Shows the timeline that captures the most important timeline of the evolution of Psychology
Adapted from http://open.lib.umn.edu/intropsyc/chapter/1-2-the-evolution-of-psychology-history-approaches-and-questions/
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APPROACHES OF PSYCHOLOGY

Experimental Psychology begins with Structuralism

• Edward Titchener, Wundt’s student
• Structuralism breaks conscious experiences into
• objective sensations (sight or taste), and
• subjective feelings (emotions, memories, dreams)
• Mind functions by combining objective and subjective elements of experience

Functionalism
• William James
• Functionalism focused on behavior in addition to mind and consciousness
• Used direct observations to supplement introspection
• Influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution or natural selection

Behaviorism
Behaviorism focuses on learning observable (measurable) behavior.
John Broadus Watson
The proponent of “little Albert” study.
B.F. Skinner
Is a psychologist who developed “operant conditioning theory”.
Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971)

Gestalt Psychology
Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler (1920s)
Gestalt is the study of perception and its influence on thinking and problem solving
Perception are more than sum of their parts
Active and purposeful
Insight learning

Psychoanalysis
It was founded by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
Psychoanalysis
It makes unconscious conscious; it restrains trauma through therapy.

Cognition Affects Behavior

Tolman- animals could learn by observation (behavioral approach could not make sense any more)
Research on memory
1957- George Miller launched the cognitive revolution in psychology.
Ulric Neisser - Cognitive Psychology (1967)
C. Ps. is concerned with higher-order mental functions such as intelligence, thinking, language, memory,
and decision making
Computers-information processing theories

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Relations of Psychology to Other Related Sciences

Psychology does not operate as a vacuum. It draws facts from other related sciences.

Anthropology is a science that studies man’s culture. To understand culture of the people, the study of
individuals within the culture is necessary which the field of psychology.

Sociology deals with the origin and evaluation of human society and the progress of civilization. Sociology
is interested in the behavior of the group while psychology is interested in the behavior of individual in
the group.

Physiology deals with the operations of the body systems and organs and their interactions. In
psychology, it studies human behavior as affected by these body systems and organs.

Biology Studies living organisms, their functions and process. Psychology studies human behavior as
affected by cell, chromosomes, hormones, genes, and other body functions.

Economics is concerned with the production, distribution and consumption of goods as well as services.
Psychology deals on the individual behavior as affected by economic matters.

Political Science deals with the origins, organization, principles and operations of government.
Psychology is concerned with individual behavior – governed and governing.

Chemistry deals with the composition and property of substance and the changes that take place in those
substances. Substances (drugs and poisons for instance) have effect on psychological functioning and
behavior of individual taking those drugs-and which belong realm of psychology.

Psychiatry is a field of medicine that is concerned with the treatment of mental illness. Clinical
psychology for instance is concerned with the diagnosis of abnormal behavior before treatment is given
by psychiatrist.

References and Supplementary Materials

th
1. Gleitman,Henry, James Gross and Daniel Reisberg.2011.Psychology.8 Ed.
Canada: W.W. Norton and Company.

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2. Eden Joy Pastor Alata,Bernardo Nicolas Caslib,Jr.2018.Understanding the Self.1 Ed. Rexstore

https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-psychology.html
https://study.com/academy/lesson/intro-to-psychology.html
Reference
https://study.com/academy/lesson/fields-of-psychology-definitions-characteristics.html
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https://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/psychology/BAPROGRAM/fields.html
https://www.etymonline.com/word/psychology
http://www.learner.org/series/discoveringpsychology/history/history_nonflash.html

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