I.

FOUNDATION OF MODERN PSYCHOLOGY

ORIGINS OF PSYCHOLOGY
We examine three fundamental ideas of psychology, all of which were conceived of and debated before
psychology was recognized as a scientific discipline.

Briefly, the ideas are these:

1. Behavior and mental experiences have physical causes that can be studied scientifically.
2. The way people behave, think, and feel is modified over time by their experiences in their environment.
3. The body’s machinery, which produces behavior and mental experiences, is a product of evolution by
natural selection.

Physical Causation of Behavior

 Descartes’ dualism placed more emphasis on the role of the body than had previous versions of dualism.
Hobbes’s materialism held that behavior is completely a product of the body and thus physically caused.
 To the degree that behavior and the mind have a physical basis, they are open to study just like the rest of
the natural world.
 Nineteenth-century physiological studies of reflexes and localization of function in the brain demonstrated
the applicability of science to mental processes and behavior.

The Role of Experience

 The British empiricists claimed that all thought and knowledge are rooted in sensory experience.
 Empiricists used the law of association by contiguity to explain how sensory experiences can combine to
form complex thoughts.
 In contrast to empiricism, nativism asserts that some knowledge is innate and that such knowledge provides
the foundation for human nature, including the human abilities to learn.

The Evolutionary Basis of Mind and Behavior

 Darwin proposed that natural selection underlies the evolution of behavioral tendencies (along with
anatomical characteristics) that promote survival and reproduction.
 Darwin’s thinking led to a focus on the functions of behavior.
 Natural selection also offered a scientific foundation for nativist views of the mind.

Major Philosophical Issues in Psychology

Free Will versus Determinism

 Determinism - the idea that everything that happens has a cause or determinant, that someone
could observe or measure.
 Free Will - The belief that behavior is caused by a person’s independent decisions
Mind-Brain Problem
 Dualism - holds that the mind is separate from the brain but somehow controls the brain and
therefore the rest of the body
 Monism - the view that conscious experience is inseparable from the physical brain.
Nature-Nurture Issue
 How do differences in behavior relate to differences in heredity and environment? (Kalat, 2017)
Wilhelm Wundt, Edward Titchener, and Structuralism

Wilhelm Wundt was interested in studying mental experiences.

 Introspection - an attempt to directly study consciousness by having people report on what they are
consciously experiencing
Edward Titchener - a disciple of Wundt, brought Wundt’s teachings and methods of introspection to the United
States.
 Structuralism - an approach that attempts to define the structure of the mind by breaking down mental
experiences into their component parts.

 The founding of psychology as a formal, recognized, scientific discipline is commonly dated to

1879, when Wilhelm Wundt opened the first university-based psychology laboratory in
Leipzig, Germany.
 At about that same time, Wundt also authored the first psychology textbook and began mentoring
psychology’s first official graduate students. The first people to earn Ph.D. degrees in psychology were
Wundt’s students.
 The first American to work in Wundt’s experimental laboratory was the psychologist G. Stanley Hall.
In 1892, Hall founded the American Psychological Association (APA), now the largest organization
of psychologists in the United States,

William James and Functionalism

James founded functionalism, the school of psychology that focused on how behavior helps individuals adapt to
demands placed upon them in the environment.
o Whereas structuralists were concerned with understanding the structure of the human mind, functionalists
were concerned with the functions of mental processes
o Examined the roles or functions of mental processes—why we do what we do. For example, James
believed we develop habits, such as the characteristic ways in which we use a fork or a spoon, because they
enable us to perform more effectively in meeting the many demands we face in daily life.

John Watson and Behaviorism

John Broadus Watson

 Behaviorism - promotes that psychology should limit itself to the study of overt behavior that
observers could record and measure.
 He reasoned that because you can never observe another person’s mental processes, psychology would
never advance as a science unless it eliminated mentalistic concepts like mind, consciousness,
thinking, and feeling. He believed that the environment molds the behavior of humans and other
animals.
BF Skinner
 Studied how behavior is shaped by rewards and punishments, the environmental consequences
that follow specific responses.
Max Wertheimer and Gestalt Psychology

 Gestalt psychology - the school of psychology that studies ways in which the brain organizes and
structures our perceptions of the world.
 He led to major discoveries about the nature of perception, the processes by which we organize sense
impressions and form meaningful representations of the world around us.
 They rejected the structuralist belief that mental experience could be understood by breaking it down into
its component parts.
 “whole is greater than the sum of the parts” - brain organizes our perceptions of the world by grouping
elements together into unified or organized wholes, rather than as individual bits and pieces of sense
experience.

Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis

 Freud conceived of the unconscious as the repository of primitive sexual and aggressive drives or
instincts and of the wishes, impulses, and urges that arise from those drives or instincts.
 He believed that the motives underlying our behavior involve sexual and aggressive impulses that
lie in the unconscious, hidden away from our ordinary awareness of ourselves. Thus, we may do
or say things without understanding the true motives that prompted these behaviors.
 The way that people behave is largely influenced by their unconscious drives.
 The development of personality is mostly influenced by the events of early childhood. Freud
suggested that personality was largely set in stone by the age of five.
 Bringing information from the unconscious in the consciousness can lead to catharsis and allow
people to deal with the issue.
 People utilize a number of defense mechanisms to protect themselves from information contained
in the unconscious.
 Emotional and psychological problems such as depression and anxiety are often rooted in
conflicts between the conscious and unconscious mind.
 A skilled analyst can help bring certain aspects of the unconscious into awareness by using a
variety of psychoanalytic strategies such as dream analysis and free association

Contemporary Perspective in Psychology

 Although some early schools of psychology have essentially disappeared, contemporary perspectives,
continue to evolve and to shape our understanding of behavior.
 Behavioral Perspective - the belief that environmental influences determine behavior and that
psychology should restrict itself to the study of observable behavior.
 Psychodynamic- behavior is influenced by the struggle between unconscious sexual or aggressive
impulses and opposing forces that try
to keep this threatening material out of consciousness.
 Humanistic- school of psychology that believes that free will and conscious choice are essential
aspects of the human experience.
 Physiological - examines relationships between biological processes and behavior.
 Cognitive - study mental processes, including thinking, learning, memory, use of language, and
problem solving.
 Sociocultural - Eexamine how behavior and attitudes are shaped by social and cultural influences

II. PSYCHOLOGIST: WHO THEY ARE AND WHAT THEY DO

SCOPE OF PSYCHOLOGY

A person’s behavior or mental experience can be examined at these levels:

 neural (brain as cause),
 physiological (internal chemical functions, such as hormones, as cause),
 genetic (genes as cause),
 evolutionary (natural selection as cause),
 learning (the individual’s prior experiences with the environment as cause),
 cognitive (the individual’s knowledge or beliefs as cause),
 social (the influence of other people as cause),
 cultural (the culture in which the person develops as cause),
 developmental (age-related changes as cause).

SPECIALTY AREAS
  Experimental psychologists - apply experimental methods to the study of behavior and mental processes.
They study such processes as learning, sensation and perception, and cognition.
 Clinical psychologists - evaluate and treat people with psychological disorders, such as depression and
anxiety disorders. They may use psychotherapy to help people overcome psychological problems or
cope better with the stresses they face in their lives.
 Counseling psychologists - help people who have adjustment problems that are usually not as severe as the
kinds of problems that clinical psychologists treat.
 School psychologists - work in school systems, where they help children with academic, emotional, and
behavioral problems and evaluate students for placement in special education programs.
 Educational psychologists - develop tests that measure intellectual ability or academic potential, help gear
training approaches to students’ learning styles, and create ways of helping students reach their maximum
academic potential.
 Developmental psychologists - study people’s physical, cognitive, social, and personality development
throughout the life span.
 Personality psychologists - seek to understand the nature of personality—the cluster of psychological
characteristics and behaviors that distinguishes us as unique individuals and leads us to act consistently
over time.
 Social psychologists - study how group or social influences affect behavior and attitudes.

 Industrial/organizational (I/O) psychologists - study people at work. They are concerned with such
issues as job satisfaction, personnel selection and training, leadership qualities, effects of organizational
structure on productivity and work performance, and challenges posed by changes in the workplace.
 Health psychologists - study how such psychological factors as stress, lifestyle, and attitude affect
physical health.
 Consumer psychologists - are interested in understanding consumer behavior—why people
purchase particular products and particular brands

MERGING SPECIALTY AREAS

 Neuropsychologists - study relationships between the brain and behavior. Although some
neuropsychologists limit their activities to research, clinical neuropsychologists use specialized tests to
evaluate the cognitive effects of brain injuries and strokes.
 Geropsychologists - focus on psychological processes associated with aging.
 Forensic psychologists - work within the legal system. They may perform psycho- logical evaluations in
child custody cases, testify about the competence of defendants to stand trial, develop psychological
profiles of criminal types, give expert testimony in court on psychological issues, or assist attorneys in
selecting potential jury members.
 Sport psychologists - apply psychological principles and techniques to sports and
athletic competition

III. RESEARCH METHOD IN PSYCHOLOGY

SCIENTIFIC METHOD

 The scientific method is a framework for acquiring knowledge based on careful observation and the use of
experimental methods. It can be conceptualized in terms of four general steps that scientists use to test their
ideas and to expand and refine their knowledge: (1) developing a research question, (2) framing the research
question in the form of a hypothesis, (3) gathering evidence to test the hypothesis, and (4) drawing
conclusions about the hypothesis.

SCIENTIFIC METHOD: How We know What We Know

  Developing a research question. Psychologists generate research questions from many sources, including
theory, careful observation, previous experience, and commonly held beliefs. For example, a researcher
might be interested in the question “Does exposure to stress increase risk of the common cold?”
 Framing the research question in the form of a hypothesis - An investigator reframes the research question
in the form of a hypothesis—a precise prediction that can be tested through research. Hypotheses are often
drawn from theory.
 Gathering evidence to test the hypothesis. The investigator develops a re- search design or strategy for
gathering evidence to provide a scientific test of the hypothesis. The type of research method used depends
on the nature of the problem.
 Drawing conclusions about the hypothesis. Investigators draw conclusions about their hypotheses based
on the evidence their research has produced. To test their hypotheses, they turn to statistics, the branch of
mathematics involving methods of tabulating and analyzing numerical data. Investigators use statistical
methods to determine whether relationships between variables or differences be- tween groups
are statistically significant (relatively unlikely to have been due to chance)

RESEARCH METHOD: How we learn and What we know

 Case Study Method - Intensive study of individuals

 Survey Method - Measuring opinions and attitudes
 Naturalistic Observation Method - Taking research into the field
 Correlational Method - Examining relationships between variables
 Experimental Method - Exploring cause-and-effect relationships by manipulating independent variables
and measuring their effects on dependent variables

Ethical Principles in Psychological Research

 Informed consent- means that participants must be given enough information about the study’s methods
and purposes to make an “informed” decision about whether they wish to participate. Participants must also be
free to withdraw from the study at any time.
 Confidentiality - Psychologists must also protect the confidentiality of the records of research participants
and of the clients they treat. That is, they must respect people’s right to privacy. There are situations, however,
when laws require psychologists to disclose confidential information acquired in research or clinical practice, as
when a participant or a therapy client threatens to do physical harm to someone else.
 PAP Code of Ethics

BIOLOGICAL FOUNDATION OF PSYCHOLOGY

I. NEURONS: THE BODY’S WIRING

SRUCTURE OF THE NEURON

 Neurons - the basic building blocks of the nervous system, are cells in the body that are specialized for
transmitting information or messages in the form of electrical impulses.

PARTS OF THE NEURON

  Nerve - a bundle of axons from different neurons.
 For example: the optic nerve - which transmits messages from the eyes to the brain contains more than a
million axons.

Nerve - a bundle of axons from different neurons.

 For example: the optic nerve - which transmits messages from the eyes to the brain contains more than a
million axons
Glial Cell - act as a kind of glue to hold neurons together
 Support and nourish neurons in a number of ways, such as by removing their waste products, and may even
assist them in communicating with one another
 Form the myelin sheath, a fatty layer of cells that—like the insulation that wraps around electrical wires—
acts as a protective shield on many axons
 Insulation helps speed transmission of neural impulses, which allows muscles to move more efficiently and
smoothly.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) - is a chronic and often crippling disease of the central nervous system, affecting about one
in one thousand adults, in which the body’s own immune system attacks and eventually destroys the myelin sheath.
May cause a wide range of potential symptoms, including problems with vision, arm or leg movement, sensation or
balance.
Types of Neuron

 Sensory neurons - transmit information about the outside world to the spinal cord and brain. This
information first registers on your sensory organs.
 Motor neurons - convey messages from the brain and spinal cord to the muscles that control the
movements of your body. They also convey messages to your glands, causing them to release hormones—
chemical substances that help regulate bodily processes.
 Interneurons - are the most common type of neuron in the nervous system. They connect neurons to
neurons. In the spinal cord, they connect sensory neurons to motor neurons. In the brain, they form
complex assemblages of interconnected nerve cells that process information from sensory organs and
control higher mental functions, such as planning and thinking.

HOW NEURON COMMUNICATE

Ion - electrically charged atoms and molecules both inside and outside the neuron
 Have either a positive (+) or negative (-) charge
 The movements of ions across the cell wall cause electrochemical changes in the cell that generate an
electrical signal to travel down the cell’s axon in the form of a neural impulse
 The most important ions in this process are two types of positively charged ions, sodium ions and
potassium ions .

1. Resting Potential
 When a neuron is at rest (not being stimulated), the gates that control the passage of sodium ions
are closed.
 A greater concentration of positively charged sodium ions remains outside the cell, causing the cell to have
a slightly negative charge, relative to the surrounding fluid.
 The resting potential of a neuron is about -70 millivolts (mV) (a millivolt is one thousandth of a volt).
 2. Depolarization
 When the cell is stimulated, usually by neurotransmitters released from adjoining neurons, sodium gates at
the base of the axon open.
 Positively charged sodium ions from the surrounding fluid then rush in, which causes the area inside the
cell membrane at the point of excitation to become less negatively charged.

3. Action Potential
 When stimulation is sufficiently strong, depolarization quickly spreads along the cell membrane.
 As this wave of depolarization reaches a critical threshold, the neuron abruptly shifts from a negative
charge to a positive charge of about 140 mV.
 The sudden reversal of electrical charge is called an action potential, or neural impulse.
 Firing of the neuron or Spike - the action potential typically begins at the juncture between the soma and
the axon, which is called the axon hillock. It then shoots down the entire length of the axon as a wave of
changing electrical charges
 Once an action potential reaches the end of an axon, it causes the release of neurotransmitters from the
terminal buttons that carry the neural message to the next neuron.
 According to the all-or-none principle - A neuron will fire completely (generate an action potential) if
sufficient stimulation is available, or it will not fire.Different axons generate action potentials of different
speeds depending on such characteristics as their:
 Thickness (generally the thicker the axon, the faster the speed),
 Whether or not they are covered with a myelin sheath (which speeds transmission).

4. Repolarization
 After firing, a neuron busies itself preparing to fire again.
 Sodium gates along the cell membrane close, preventing further inflows of positively
charged sodium ions into the cell.
 The potassium ion channels open and the cell pumps out positively charged ions, mostly potassium ions,
and as it rids itself of these positive ions.

5. Hyperpolarization
 Ion channels do not immediately respond and positively-charged ions continue to exit the cell.
The inner side of the cell membrane develops a higher negative charge than at the threshold
potential value.
 The voltage will be between -71 mV and -75 mV during hyperpolarization
(undershoot).

6. Resting potential
 During hyperpolarization, all voltage-gated channels close and sodium and potassium ions pass
through the cell membrane via concentration gradients (leakage channels) and pumps to maintain
the -70 mV inner voltage.
 In a slower process, the cell restores the electrochemical balance by pumping out sodium ions and
drawing in some potassium ions, making it possible for another action potential to occur.
 During the time these changes are occurring, called a refractory period, the neuron, like a gun
being reloaded, is temporarily incapable of firing. But temporarily truly means temporarily, for a
neuron can “reload” hundreds of times per second.

NEUROTRANSMITTERS: NERVOUS SYSTEM’S CHEMICAL MESSENGERS

• Neurons don’t actually touch.

• Synapse - the tiny gap that separates one neuron from another and serves as a connection point
between neurons
• They must be transferred by neurotransmitters, the chemical agents or messengers that carry the message
across the synapse.
• The messages control activities ranging from contraction of muscles that move our bodies, to
stimulation of glands to release hormones, to the psychological states of thinking and emotion.
• Each specific type of neurotransmitter has a particular chemical structure, or three-dimensional shape.
• It fits into only one kind of receptor site, like a key fitting into a lock
• When neurotransmitters dock at receptor sites, they lock into place, causing chemical changes in the
receiving (or postsynaptic) neuron.
• Excitatory effects - make an action potential more likely to occur.
• Inhibitory effects - put the brakes on an action potential, making it less likely to occur
• Several processes normally prevent excitatory neurotransmitters from continuing to stimulate a receiving
cell.
• Reuptake - is nature’s own version of recycling. Through reuptake, neurotransmitters not taken up by the
receiving cell are reabsorbed by their vesicles to be used again.
• Enzymes in the synapse break down neurotransmitters, which are then eliminated from the body in the
urine.
• Terminal buttons release neuromodulators - chemicals that either increase or decrease the sensitivity of
the receiving neuron to neurotransmitters.

 ANTAGONIST
 Drugs or chemicals that block the actions of neurotransmitters by occupying their receptor sites. Prevent
transmission of the messages the neurotransmitter carries.

Schizophrenia

• Irregularities in how the brain uses dopamine may help explain the development of it. People with
schizophrenia may experience hallucinations (“hearing voices” or seeing things that are not there) and
delusions (fixed, false ideas, such as believing that aliens have taken over their bodies).
• Antipsychotic drugs - are antagonists that block receptor sites for dopamine, help control hallucinations and
delusional thinking

Parkinson’s disease

• A degenerative brain disease that leads to a progressive loss of motor functioning or physical movements.
Parkinson’s patients experience tremors (shakiness), muscle rigidity and stiffness, and difficulty walking
and controlling the movements of their fingers and hands.
• These symptoms result from the death, for unknown reasons, of dopamine-producing cells in an area
of the brain involved in regulating body movement

 AGONIST

• Enhance the activity of neurotransmitters.

• Agonists work by increasing either the availability or effectiveness of neurotransmitters or by binding to
their receptor sites and mimicking their actions.
• Stimulant Caffeine - increases the availability of a neurotransmitter called glutamate.
• Amphetamines and cocaine - are agonists that increase the availability of the neurotransmitter dopamine
in the brain by blocking its reuptake by the transmitting neuron
• Alcohol and Antianxiety drugs (eg. valium) - act as agonists by increasing the sensitivity of receptor sites
to the neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)
• GABA is the major inhibitory neurotransmitter in the adult brain. Drugs that boost GABA’s
activity have calming or relaxing effects on the nervous system. Reduced levels of GABA in the
brain may play a role in emotional disorders in which anxiety is a core feature, such as panic
disorder
• Antidepressants - serve as agonists that increase the availability of the neurotransmitters - norepinephrine
and serotonin in the brain.
• Norepinephrine (also called noradrenaline) is a chemical cousin of the hormone epinephrine (also
called adrenaline). Norepinephrine does double duty as a neurotransmitter and a hormone.
• Serotonin largely as an inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain, serves to regulate mood states,
feeling full after meals, and sleep. Serotonin also works as a kind of behavioral seat belt to curb
impulsive behaviors, including impulsive acts of aggression.