BMS 220: Psychology of Medical care

Nature of Psychology
Scope of psychology
• Scientific study of behavior and mental processes
• Study people and animals

Mental process
• refers to all internal, covert activity of our minds: thinking, feeling and remembering

Behavior
• includes all outward or overt actions and reactions: talking facial expressions and movement

Why Scientific?
• To study behavior and mental process in both humans and animals
• researchers must observe them using scientific methods without being biased OR make faulty
observations.

Psychology ’s FOUR primary goals

1) Description 3) Prediction
2) Understanding 4) Control

Description Understanding Prediction Control

What is happening?
• To understand is to give a • Try to understand or
name
• Involves observing a
behavior OR noting
everything about it:
• what is happening?
• where it is happening?
• to whom it is happening?
• under what circumstances it
seems to be happening?
Why it is happening? When will it happen
again?
find out an • Determining what
explanation for one’s will happen in the
behavior future is making a
prediction.
How can it be changed?
• The focus of control,
• or the modification of some
behavior
➢ is to change a behavior from an
undesirable to a desirable one
• All psychological investigations
will try to meet all four goals in
some cases, the focus might be
on description and prediction

History of Psychology
• 1879-Germany: Science of own Wundt’s psychology: objective introspection
• The mind made up of thoughts, experiences, emotions, and other basic elements
• To inspect these non-physiological elements, objective introspection developed
❖ Early school of psychology- three aspects:

Structuralism Functionalism nature versus nurture

• analysis of structure of mind
structionalists would be
interested in all the
memories, thoughts,
perceptions, and sensations
the person is experiencing
• the study of how mind • Nature: all the genes and hereditary factors that
works to enable an influence who we are; from our physical
organism to adapt to and appearance to our personality characteristics
function in its • Nurture: all the environmental factors that
environment impact who we are, including our early childhood
experiences, how we were raised, our social
relationships and our surroundings culture
 ❖ Psychology Now; Modern Perspectives

Sigmund Freud’s Theory of Psychoanalysis Gestalt Psychology

• early childhood experiences personality formed • the whole is greater than
in first six years shapes one’s personality later the sum of its part
• unconscious mind into which we push, or repress
all our threatening/ unacceptable urges in trying
to surface created mental illness • focus on forms and configuration focus on how
the person perceives the motion, judge size,
space.

Behaviorism
• All behaviors learned through conditioning; a theory that the reaction "response “to an object or
event "stimulus" by a person or animal can be modified by 'learning', or ‘conditioning’
• The most well-known form of this is Classical Conditioning Pavlov, and Skinner built on it to produce
• Operant Conditioning; concept of reinforcement i.e, an organism tend to repeat behavior that has
positive consequences and not repeat response that has negative consequences (Skinner)

Cognitive perspectives (Piaget)

• Focus on how people think, remember, store and
use information. It focus on memory , intelligence,
perception, thought process, and problem solving

The Humanistic Prespective:

• The two founders of the humanistic perceptive are Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers
• The Humanistic perspective focuses on the growth potential of healthy people
• They focus on the power of free will and how people view themselves as a whole in pursuit of growth
(did not believe in determinism)
• Criticized Freud for being too negative

Biopsychological Perspective
• Human and animal behavior are linked to biological events occurring in the body
• Hormones, heredity, brain chemical, tumors and diseases
• To change behavior the biological problem must be addressed, usually through medication or surgery

Socio -cultural Perspective

• Social psychology: study of groups, social roles, and relationships.
• Cultural psychology: study of cultural norms (standards or expected behaviors), values and
expectations.
Approaches to Psychology
Nature Nurture
Biological Cognitive
Psychoanalysis Humanism behaviorism
Approach psychology
• Focuses on • Innate driver of • Innate mental • Maslow • All behavior is
genetic, sex and structures such as emphasized basic learned from the
hormonal and aggression schemas, perception physical needs environment
neuro chemical (nature) and memory and • Society influences through
explanation of • Social upbringing constantly changed a person’s self- conditioning
behavior during childhood by the environment concept
(nurture)
 Types of Psychological professionals
Psychiatrists medical doctors, provide diagnosis and therapy for people with mental illness
are psychiatrists or psychologists with special training in the theory and therapy of
Psychoanalysts psychoanalysis
Psychologists counseling, psychological treatment, teaching, research, and different specialists
Psychiatric Social social workers with special training in the influences of the environment on
Workers mental illness e.g., poverty, drug abuse, overcrowdings
• utilizes theory of psychology to bring changes in patient ’s behavior
Psychiatric nurse • works on collaborations with other specialists in different healthcare settings
Major subfields of psychology
Biological psychology Study the relationship between biological process and behavior.
Experimental The use of experimental methods to study how people and animals perceive the
Psychology world, learn and remember, reason and respond emotionally.
Developmental Concerned with human development and factors that shape behaviors from birth
Psychology: to old age.
Social and personality
Study of thoughts, emotions and behaviors that shape individual’s personality.
Psychology:
Clinical and counseling
Help to improve individuals’ well-being and increase their ability to function
Psychology
School and Educational
Work with children to evaluate learning and emotional problem
Psychology
Study of human behavior in organizations and workplace. Address issues of
Organizational
recruitment, selection and placement, workplace motivation and quality of work
Psychology life
Military Psychology Deal with stressor of war and help in adjustment
Steps in using scientific methods in psychology
1) Perceiving the 2) Forming 3) Testing 5) Reporting
4) Drawing Conclusions
question: Hypothesis: hypothesis your results
• Derived from • Initial • Make more • once you get a result of your • write up
the goal of observation; details hypothesis testing, you will exactly what
description what’s going observation or do find either your hypothesis you did, why
• What is on, form an a survey in which was supported or wasn’t. If you did it, how
happening educated guess the psychologist wasn’t, that’s mean you need you did it and
here? about the can ask questions to go back and find another what you
explanation of of a large number explanation and then test it. found, so that
the observation of people or may • Data will come from testing others can
in the first step design procedure will be analyzed learn.
experiment with statistical methods.

Think about problem and Think about the things

Situations from your own life That interest you
life

Pick 2 or 3 areas within the field and

make a list of questions abut each
 How Research is Done in Psychology?
• There are number of ways to investigate the answers to research questions/ test hypotheses:

Advantages Disadvantages
Observer effect: tendency of
people or animals to behave
differently from normal when they
know they are being observed.
Watch behaviors of
• to solve this problem, the
animals or people in
researcher can adopt participant
their normal
observation; observer becomes a
environment.
participant in a group being observed.
Example: if you want
Naturalistic Get realistic picture of Observer bias: tendency of
1 observation
to know how
how the behavior occurs
adolescents behave observers to see what they expect to
with opposite sex, you see.
might go to mall or • to solve this problem, adopt Blind
social club to observe Observers; observer does not know
them what the research hypothesis is.
• having more than one observers can
overcome observer bias
• various observations can be
compared.
More control upon
Laboratory factors in real situation Behavior may differ in lab than in real
2 observation
Observation in lab
that might influence the situation.
behavior.
One individual is The researcher can not apply the
Tremendous number of
3 Case studies studied in great
details is provided
results to other similar people (lack of
details generalization).
the researchers ask a
Lack of sample representation can
series of questions
Get private information happen. To overcome this problem,
about the topic that
and get a tremendous the researcher should get a
4 Survey they are studying. It
amount of data on a very representative sample, means
can be done in a form
large group of people. randomly selected sample of subjects
of interview or
from a large population of subjects.
questionnaire.
• Cause and effect relationship- identify the cause of behavior
• Manipulation of independent variable if corresponding changes in behaviors result
• Important terms you should know in experiment:
5 Experiment • Independent variables: cause
• Dependent variable: effect
• confounding variable: variable may influence the dependent variable
• Control group: receive placebo treatment or nothing
Placebo impact on experimental studies
• Placebo is anything that seems to be a “ real” medical treatment, but it is not. Could be a pill, saline
solution, distilled water, other type of “fake” Rx.
• Has used in experimental studies to help researchers understand what effect of a new drug might have
on a particular condition.
• Example. Study group will be given new drug to lower cholesterol and the control group will be given a
placebo. Both groups will receive the standard Rx.
• All placebo do not contain an active substance meant to produce negative effect.
• It can sometimes improve a patient’s condition simply because the person has the expectation that it
will be helpful.

Ethics in Psychological Research

• Informed consent is the process by which researchers working with human participants describe their
research project and obtain the subjects' consent to participate in the research based on the subjects'
understanding of the project's methods and goals.
• When done properly, the consent process ensures that individuals are voluntarily participating in the
research with full knowledge of relevant risks and benefits.
• Psychologists who conduct research should inform participants about:
✓ The purpose of the research, expected duration and procedures.
✓ Participants' rights to decline to participate and to withdraw from the research once it has started,
as well as the anticipated consequences of doing so.
✓ potential risks, discomfort or adverse effects.
✓ Any prospective research benefits.
✓ Limits of confidentiality, such as data coding, anonymous and when confidentiality must be broken.
✓ Incentives for participation.
✓ Who participants can contact questions.