Dr. B.R.

AMBEDKAR OPEN UNIVERSITY , HYDERABAD

Admission Number :: 22822354045

Name of the Candidate :: Maria Mohammed Abdul

Majeed

Address :: Moosa Bowli, Hussaini Alam

21-3-488

Mobile Number :: +91 7416917232

Email ID :: mariaamajeed.20@gmail.com

Name of the Programme :: MSc Psychology

Course Code :: 01

Course Title :: Principals of Psychology

Assignment Number :: II

Study Centre ::228

Date of submission :: March, 2022

Signature ::
 Section-A

Give a brief account of the evolution of psychology

Before psychology was an independent and scientific field many tried to

understand this concept of human behavior, perception, personality etc. with the
help of philosophy or physiology.

psychology as a scientific field was established in 1879 when the first laboratory
was founded by Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig, Germany . Wundt was interested in
the conscious experience and wanted to understand the building blocks of the
mind. Wundt and his disciples tried to understand mind with the help of
introspection. It was a procedure in which individuals or subjects in psychological
experiments were asked to describe in detail, their own mental processes or
experiences. However, introspection as a method did not fit well with many
psychologists. They felt it was less scientific because the introspective reports
could not be verified by outside observers. This caused development of new
perspectives in psychology.

American psychologist, William James, who is known as the founder of

psychology in America set up a psychological laboratory in Cambridge,
Massachusetts soon after Wilhelm Wundt set up the Leipzig laboratory, he
developed what is called a functionalist approach to study the human mind.
According to William James instead of focusing on the structure of the mind,
psychology should instead study what the mind does and how behavior works in
making people deal with their environment. functionalists focused on “ why do
people think, feel or perceive and how did these abilities come to be?”

Yet another reaction to structuralism came in the form of behaviorism. In 1913,

John Watson challenged the idea of introspection. He was greatly influenced by
the work of physiologists like Ivan Pavlov on classical conditioning. For Watson,
mind is not observable and introspection is not rational because it cannot be
verified by another observer. According to him, scientific psychology must focus
on what is observable and verifiable. Behaviorism of Watson was followed by
many. Most prominent among them was Skinner who popularized the approach.
Although behaviorists were dominating the field of psychology for decades, there
were other approaches that where being developed.

Sigmund Freud was a man who shook the world with his radical view of human
nature. Human behavior, according to Freud, is a dynamic expression of
unconscious desires and conflicts. He established psychoanalysis as a method for
understanding and treating psychological disorders. Freudian psychoanalysis saw
humans as motivated by an unconscious desire for pleasure seeking (almost
always sexual) desires.

The humanistic perspective in psychology found a more positive view of human

nature. Humanists, such as Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, focused on the free
will of human beings and their natural striving to grow and unfold their potential.
They argued that behaviorism with its emphasis on behavior as determined by
environmental conditions overlooks human freedom and dignity. It views human
in a mechanical form.

In the early 20th century, a new perspective called Gestalt psychology rose in
Germany as a reaction to the structuralism of Wundt. Instead of looking at the
components of the mind, the Gestalt psychologists argued that when we look at
the world our perceptual experience is more than the sum of the components of
the perception. In other words, what we experience is more than what is received
from our environment.

Aspects of Gestalt approach and structuralism were combined and led to the
development of the cognitive perspective which focuses on how we know about
the world. Cognition is the process of knowing. It involves thinking,
understanding, perceiving, memorizing, problem solving and other mental
processes by which our knowledge of the world develops. Some cognitive
psychologists view the human mind as an information processing system like the
computer.
 Section-B

How to improve memory? Discuss

There are a number of strategies for improving memory called mnemonics to help
us improve our memory. Some of these mnemonics involve use of images
whereas others use verbal information.

Mnemonics using images require that you create images of and around the
material you wish to remember. The two main mnemonic devices, which make
use of images are the keyword method and the method of loci.

(a) The Keyword Method: a mnemonic technique used to learn foreign language
vocabulary. If English is the native language, the key word would be an English
word associated with the sound of a foreign word and related to the meaning of
the foreign word with the help of an image.

(b) The Method of Loci : In order to use the method of loci, items you want to
remember are placed in a physical space in the form of images. This method is
particularly helpful in remembering items in a serial order.

Mnemonics using verbal information: Mnemonics of this kind are helpful because
of the framework you create while organizing the information makes the retrieval
task easy.

First Letter Technique or acronym : In order to use the first letter technique, you
need to pick up the first letter of each word you want to remember and arrange
them to form another word or a sentence. A famous example is, colors of a
rainbow VIBGYOR- that stands for Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and
Red.
One must :

(a) Engage in Deep Level Processing :

(b) Minimize Interference : Interference is a major cause of forgetting and

therefore you should try to avoid it as much as possible.

(c) Give Yourself enough Retrieval Cues :While learning something, think of
retrieval cues related to what you are learning. Cues will be easier to remember
compared to the entire content.

The methods of PQRST had been developed by Thomas and Robinson to help
learners in remembering more. This is a shortened form for Preview, Question,
Read, Self-recitation, and Test. A preview is a quick look at the chapter to see
what the subject matter is. The word "question" refers to asking questions and
obtaining answers from the lesson. Begin reading and looking for answers to the
questions you framed. After reading, try to rewrite what you've read and, finally,
assess how much you've understood.

All of these techniques can help improve memory.