Chapter 1: Introduction to Psychology

WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY?

Psychology Defined
 Psychology is the science of understanding people. Formally, it is the scientific study of
thought and behaviour.
 How does psychology differ from other fields that attempt to understand human
behaviour?
o Literature tries to understand people through story, character exploration, place,
and word artistry.
o History tries to understand people by describing and analyzing past events.
o Sociology studies people by looking at large-scale social forces and focuses on
groups rather than individuals.
 Is psychology a science?
o Psychologists rely on objective, verifiable evidence to draw conclusions about the
way individuals think and behave. Rather than merely relying on the opinions of
experts or authorities, they are trained to systematically observe and measure
behaviours.
o Moreover, not only is it a science, in an analysis of all of the scientific disciplines,
it emerged as one of the few core sciences around which other sciences revolve.
The other core sciences were medicine, earth science, chemistry, physics, and
math (Boyack, Klavans, & Börner, 2005).
 One aspect of psychology that makes it unique among the sciences is the fact that the
subject and the object of the work are the same. It is humans studying how humans think
and behave (the exception being animal studies).

Why Should You Study Psychology?

 Psychology is considered a part of a good general education, because its content is useful
to many fields. Understanding the thoughts, feelings, and motives of others and yourself
is helpful for any academic discipline.
 From our first days, humans have been inherently interested in other humans for survival
purposes. Psychology can be useful in your everyday life as well. In the Psychology in
the Real World section, Amanda Yzabo describes how she was able to use the knowledge
she gained from her Introductory Psychology class in her everyday life.
Subdisciplines of Psychology
 Cognitive psychology is the study of how we perceive, how we learn and remember,
how we learn and use language, and how we solve problems.
 Developmental psychology explores how thought and behaviour change and show
stability across the life span.
 Behavioural neuroscience studies the links among brain, mind, and behaviour.
o A related subdiscipline, biological psychology, examines the relationship
between bodily systems and chemicals and their influence on behaviour and
thought.
 Personality psychology considers what makes people unique as well as the consistencies
in people’s behaviour across time and situations.
 Social psychology considers how the real or imagined presence of others influences
thought, feeling, and behaviour.
 Clinical psychology focuses on the treatment of mental, emotional, and behavioural
disorders and ways to promote psychological health. This is the single largest
subdiscipline in psychology.
o A related field is counselling psychology. Counselling psychologists are more
likely than clinical psychologists to work with less severe psychological
disorders.
o Psychiatrists have training in medicine and an MD degree. In addition to
offering therapy, they can also prescribe drugs.
 Health psychologists examine the role of psychological factors in physical health and
illness.
 Educational psychology examines how students learn, the effectiveness of particular
teaching techniques, the dynamics of school populations, and the psychology of teaching.
o School psychology is a related field that is generally practiced by counsellors in
school settings.
 Industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology applies to a broad array of psychological
concepts and questions to work settings and problems. I/O is one of the fastest growing
subdisciplines in psychology.
 Sports psychology examines the psychological factors in sports and exercise (Weinberg
& Gould, 1999).
 Forensic psychology is a blend of psychology, law, and criminal justice (Adler, 2004).
o CONNECTION: Are police, parole officers, and judges more skilled at detecting
liars than others? No—although research suggests they are more confident in their
judgments (Chapter 11).
 The American Psychological Association (APA) is an organization that includes
psychologists from all over the world. The Canadian Psychological Association (CPA)
includes approximately 6700 Canadian psychologists.

THE ORIGINS OF PSYCHOLOGY

A Brief History of the Practice of Clinical Psychology
Prehistoric Views
o Most prehistoric cultures had medicine men or women known as shamans, who
treated “possession” by driving out the demons with rituals such as exorcisms,
incantations, and prayers.
o Some shamans used trephination – the drilling of a small hole in the person’s
skull to release the spirits and demons that possessed the afflicted person.

Ancient Views
o Egypt and Greece were the first cultures to focus on natural and physical
explanations for disorders.
 Hippocrates was the first to write about acrophobia – the fear of heights.
o At this same time, the Chinese were focusing on natural and bodily explanations
of psychological disorders (e.g., they made connections between a person’s bodily
organs and his emotions).
o Native North American medicine relied not only on spiritual healing, but also on
the use of herbs and botanicals.

Medieval to Early Modern Views

o During the Middle Ages people were again diagnosed as being possessed, as
opposed to having a physical disorder. Remember, this is the era of witches!
o It was during the 16th century witch-hunts that the first facilities for the mentally
ill were created. Called asylums, these facilities were really nothing more than
warehouses for the socially undesirable.
o In response to the horrible conditions of the asylums, moral treatment
movements began.
Late 19th to Early 20th Century Views
o The first modern views of psychological disorders viewed them as any other form
of illness – things to be diagnosed and treated with the proper therapy.
o Emil Kraepelin began a systematic method of classifying and diagnosing
psychological disorders. He identified “dementia praecox” (premature dementia),
later changed to “schizophrenia,” and was the first to distinguish thought
disorders from mood disorders.
o Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalysis, a clinically based approach to
understanding and treating psychological disorders. This perspective focused on
the unconscious and early childhood experiences in adult psychological disorders.
o Psychoanalysis spawned modern psychodynamic therapies that focus on how
early relationships with family members unconsciously influence later
relationships in life.
o Freud is a controversial figure in psychology. For many contemporary
psychologists, it is hard to reconcile his largely untestable theories with the
rigours of science.

Modern Views
 o By the middle of the 20th century, three of the major modern developments in
clinical psychology had emerged: modern diagnostic criteria for mental disorders,
psychotherapy, and drug therapy. Chapters 15 and 16 will cover these issues in
depth.
o Today, psychologists in North America use the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual, 5th edition (DMS-5) to diagnose psychological disorders. In fact, this
standardized manual diagnoses more than 250 psychological disorders.

The Philosophy of Empiricism

o John Locke established empiricism – the view that knowledge and thoughts come
from experience. Locke believed that the mind begins as a blank slate (tabula
rasa), and that experience (what one sees, hears, tastes, touches, and smells)
establishes its contents.
o Philosophy is not held to the scientific requirements of psychology – that is, it
doesn’t need to collect data. It was not until the 1870s that the first psychological
laboratory was opened in Germany.

Structuralism-Functionalism
o Structuralists believe that breaking down experience into its elemental parts
provides the best way to understand thought and behaviour.
 To do this, they used introspection – looking into one’s own mind for
information about the nature of conscious experience.
 Although structuralism was founded by Wilhelm Wundt, one of the most
famous structuralists was Edward Titchener, although he also coined the
term functionalism.
o Functionalists, who also used introspection, felt it was better to look at why the
mind worked the way it did, rather than to describe its parts.
 William James was one of the most famous functionalists.
 Although both James and Wundt used introspection to attempt to study
consciousness, it did not succeed as a scientific method because it did not
produce consistent results.

Behaviourism
o Founded by John Watson, behaviourism proposes that psychology can be a true
science only if it examines observable behaviour, not ideas, thoughts, feelings, or
motives.
o Behaviourism is an extreme form of environmentalism in which Locke’s idea of
tabula rasa is most clearly expressed.
o Skinner modified Watson’s ideas and argued that rewards and reinforcement
shape behaviour. Skinner is highly esteemed for advancing psychology as a
scientific discipline.

Humanistic and Positive Psychology

 o Humanistic psychology focuses on personal growth and meaning as a way of
reaching one’s highest potential.

Cognitivism
 The term cognition appeared to discuss thoughts and mental processes.
o Cognitive science used the computer as a metaphor for the mind. Computers
store, retrieve, and process information, just as the brain stores, retrieves, and
processes sensations, memories, and ideas. Sensation was the input; perception
was the interpretation and processing of the input; and behaviour and thoughts
were the output.

Socio-culturalism
o Examine the cross-cultural differences in the causes and consequences of
behaviour.

Evolutionary Psychology
o Evolutionary psychologists apply evolutionary principles such as natural selection
and adaptation to explain the development of mental characteristics and
behaviour.
o Evolutionary psychologists examine a wide variety of topics across many content
areas in psychology such as developmental psychology, social psychology,
clinical psychology, linguistics, sensation, and so on.

WAYS OF THIKING ABOUT MIND, BODY, AND EXPERIENCE

The Nature-Nurture Debate

 This debate is over whether innate biology or life experience determines our personality
and behaviours.
 The nature-only view is that who we are comes from inborn tendency and genetically
based traits.
 The nurture-only side states that we are all born essentially the same, and we are a
product of our experiences.
Mind-Body Dualism
 This debate is over how much separation there is between our mind and our body. From
this perspective, the mind controls the body. The body can occasionally control the mind
too, but mainly when we lose our better judgment, such as in the throes of passion.
Mostly, mind and body are separate.

The Evolution of Behaviour

 Evolution is the change over time in the frequency with which specific genes occur
within a breeding species.
o Every once in a while, genes change for no apparent reason. These are called
chance mutations.