Brief Introduction to Psychology

Psychology a process of understanding

individual and social behavior

1. All people possess common features. They are equipped with

physical features and social qualities.
2. People are unique, independent in act, thought and feeling. They
are distinct to each other in manners, behaviors, traits, qualities
and characters.
 NATURE, DEFINITION & HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF
PSYCHOLOGY
Nature
● Psychology is about people, their thoughts, feelings, behaviors and
interaction with other people.
● Psychology seeks a general understanding of how human beings function.
It also seeks to understand internal and external sources of human
functioning.
● Psychologists wants to know why people think, feel, and behave as they do.
● They ask questions like: What makes each person different from all other
people? Yet why do they often behave so alike in some situations?
● They have developed theories, principles, method to examine and explain
human nature.
● With these understanding psychology attempts to enhance quality of human
life, sharpen human potentialities, and develop appropriate skills needed
for human adjustment.
 Pre-scientific definitions of psychology

⚫ Greek philosophers intellectualized the topic of human nature and

contributed rich explanation about human psychology. They believed that
soul (psyche), the spiritual entity, was responsible for the various mental
activities such as learning, reasoning, thinking, feeling etc. thus, they
discussed and exchanged ideas on soul and stressed that it should control
man's each and every actions.
⚫ The word ‘psychology’ was coined in 1590 by Rudolf Goeckle. It is
derived from two Greek words Psyche (soul or mind) and Logos
(study/reasoned discourse).
⚫ The term ‘psychology’ itself refers to ‘study of soul’. Later, psychology
was considered as the ‘study of ‘mind’. It was thought and explained such a
way by philosophers.
⚫ Philosophical discourse on human nature is confined in armchair
speculation (guess) only.
 DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN PSYCHOLOGY AND ITS
DEFINITION

● Wilhelm Wundt, a physiologist, established the first psychological

Laboratory in 1879 to study the consciousness. He is regarded as the father of
modern psychology. Psychologists of this period regarded the concept ‘soul’
and ‘mind’ is vague and outside the interest of science. So pre-scientific
definitions were completely rejected.
● Wundt defined psychology as “the description and explanation of the states of
consciousness as such.” The subject matter of psychology became clearer with
the definition and it became possible to experiment and to draw the quantitative
result. Psychology became the subject of scientific investigation.
● William James, replaced structuralism is known as functionalism. Rather than
focusing on the mind’s structure, functionalism concentrated on what the
mind does and how behavior functions. how behavior allows people to satisfy
their needs and how our “stream of consciousness” permits us to adapt to our
environment.
● Gestalt Psychology: Another important reaction to structuralism was the
development of Gestalt psychology in the early 1900s. Gestalt is a German
word that roughly means "configuration, whole, total" or the way things are
put together to form a whole object. A core belief in Gestalt psychology is
holism, or that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
● Gestalt psychology suggests that we do not simply focus on every small
component. Instead, our minds tend to perceive objects as part of a greater
whole and as elements of more complex systems.
● Led by German scientists such as Hermann Ebbinghaus and Max
Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka. Gestalt psychologists proposed that “The whole
is different from the sum of its parts,” This school of psychology played a
major role in the modern development of the study of human learning,
sensation and perception.
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● Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), a Viennese medical doctor, was the first
person to practice psychoanalysis. His very extensive investigation of the
development and maintenance of personality, with an emphasis on things
such as early childhood experiences and unconscious mind. His
contribution in areas such as clinical psychology, counseling psychology
and developmental psychology.

● John B. Watson and Behaviorism: criticized the content

(consciousness) and method (introspection) of psychology given by
Wundt. Watson made psychology a positive science when he
defined “psychology is the science of behavior that focuses on observable
behavior only .” His definition was considered scientific and behaviorist in
approach. This is S-R approach to psychology. S means stimulus and R
means response. Behavior was considered as the function of stimulus and
response (B = f [S, R]). S-R psychology is objective, positive, and
mechanistic in approach.
⚫ Later, S-R paradigm led to the conception of S-O-R view of human
behavior. Psychologist Robert Woodworth introduced the concept of
'O' in the experimental psychology and stated that in between 'S' and 'R'
the 'O' has vital role to play. Similarly, Behaviorist Bandura also
emphasized the role of cognitive processes/mental processes in learning.
The combined efforts of many other psychologists including
Woodworth and Bandura slowly showed the importance of
Organism/living being ('O') in behavior.
⚫ This view (S-O-R) emphasized both behavior (observable) and
cognitive processes (unobservable) are important to examine and to
get a complete picture of human functioning.
⚫ In other words, the concept of behavior is broadened with the S-O-R
view. Both 'subjective' and 'objective' psychology is combined and
organized.
⚫ Recently, David G. Myers (1997) defined psychology as ‘the science of
behavior and mental processes’. Robert S. Feldman in 2000 defined
psychology as the ‘scientific study of human behavior and mental
processes.’
⚫ It is accepted now that psychology is concerned with both observed
behavior and mental or cognitive processes (such as perception,
thinking, and motivation and so on) in their attempt to understand
human behavioral phenomena.
⚫ The subject matter of psychology is human being and the unit of
analysis is behavior (overt/seen/objective/observable and
covert/unseen/unobservable/subjective).
 Psychology
Psychology refers to the scientific
study of the behavior and mental
processes of the human being.
Psychology is backed by evidence and
must have proof and experiments
done to prove this.
Psychology is a field of study that is
scientific
Psychology is a discipline
In Psychology we arrive at conclusions
through research or experiments
Psychology has a clear theoretical
basis.
Common sense
Common sense is a basic ability to
perceive, Understand and judge things,
which is shared by ("common to") nearly
all people.
Common sense is not backed by
evidence and cannot be proved to be
right or wrong
Common sense is not scientific, but
based on reason
Common sense is not a discipline
When speaking of common sense, we
use previous experience.
Common sense does not have a
theoretical basis.
 Meaning of the Term Behavior

The term behavior is taken in its totality and comprehensive meaning

• “Any manifestation of life is activity” Woodworth (1948) and behavior is
collective name for those activities. Therefore, the term behavior includes all
the motor or conative activities (like walking, swimming, dancing etc.),
cognitive activities or mental activities (thinking, reasoning, imagining etc.)
and affective activities (like feeling, happy, sad, and angry etc.).
 GOALS OF PSYCHOLOGY

The goals of psychology are to describe, explain, predict, and the

goals of psychology are as follow:
● Describing the behavior
Psychologists observe the behavior carefully and describe it. The data
collected are reports of observations. At first, describing the observation may
sound like a straightforward task, but it is very challenging for people to be
objective or free from biases when describing what they observe.
● Explaining the behavior (What Happens)
Psychologists do not confine their activities in describing only. They want
explanation and try to understand the reason behind the behavior.
● Predicting the behavior: everyday life requires a certain amount of predictive
ability. People need to predict what will happen in the future because our
well-being and even our survival depend on making accurate judgments about
situations that could be either dangerous or favorable.
● Controlling What Happens : The fourth goal of psychology is to control or
modification. Controlling behavior – making it happen or not happen, starting
it or stopping it, and influencing its quality and strength – is very important for
psychologists to bring changes in human behavior, to develop specific skills or
to make people well who are suffering from low self-confidence, mental health
problems. These controls enable applied psychologists to help to improve
people's lives. Control is the heart of all programs of psychological treatment
or therapy.
● Improving the Quality of Life: Many psychological findings are applied
to solve human problems. Psychologist's ultimate aim is to understand
human nature and raise the quality of human life. Quality of life means
people's experience of positive feelings, feeling of satisfaction,
self-worth, self-fulfillment, happiness and reduction of feeling of futility,
distress and anxiety. Each man/woman desires to lead his/her life with
satisfaction and to increase their subjective well-being. Psychologists try
to understand human nature, find strengths and weaknesses of people and
raise their potentialities so that they can overcome their weaknesses and
increase their strengths, knowledge, self-confidence, and self-image.
 Scope/Branches/Fields of Psychology: What psychologists do?

● To be a psychologist, a person must earn an appropriate higher degree, perhaps

be certified, and then get a job using these credentials. Two critical steps are
teaching/training and occupation. A psychologist usually is the holder of a
Master and above degree in psychology. They should specialize in certain area
of psychology.
● American Psychological Association (APA) has listed more than 44 major
areas of psychology. The Largest single area of specialization in training is
clinical psychology followed by General and other (11%), Experimental and
comparative (10%), Counseling and guidance (10%), Educational (10%).
Majority of psychologists are involved in teaching (23%), followed by
Management or administration (19%), Clinical practice (43%) and so on.
 Some of these psychologies are shown in the table

• Adolescent Psychology • Educational psychology

• Adult development and aging
• Cognitive psychology
• Child psychology
• Clinical psychology
• Community psychology
• Consulting psychology
• Consumer psychology
• Counseling psychology
• Cross-cultural psychology
• Rural psychology
• School psychology
• Social psychology
• Developmental psychology
• Cultural psychology
• Engineering psychology
• Environmental psychology
• Experimental psychology
• General psychology
• Health psychology
• Indigenous psychology
• Industrial and organizational
psychology
• Military psychology
• Para psychology
• Personality psychology
• Physiological and comparative
psychology
• Psychobiology
• Psychotherapy

All the sub fields of psychology can be categorized under the broad heading
of pure (theoretical) psychology and Applied psychology
 PURE (THEORETICAL) PSYCHOLOGIES
It deals with the formulation of psychological principles and theories. It
suggests various methods and techniques for the analysis, assessment,
modification and improvement of behavior.
Some of the important branches of pure psychology
● General psychology: It is exclusively concerned with normal individual
behavior and explains the different concepts and its relations with human
mental functions and behaviors.
● Abnormal Psychology: It is another important theoretical branch of
psychology that describes and explains in detail about abnormal behavior,
how it occurs, why it occurs and what are the symptoms and the causes of
abnormal behavior etc.
● Experimental Psychology The study of sensations, perceptions, learning,
memory , forgetting, motivation, physiological bases of behavior, and many
others in laboratory study are the primary challenges of experimental
psychology.
● Social psychology: studies a person's behavior in his/her social and cultural
background. But social psychology is not only confined to individual behavior
rather it also studies group and how it influence the individual's behavior.
● Physiological psychology
It studies the internal environment and physiological structure of the body
particularly, brain, nervous system, functioning of the glands, biochemical events in
relation to the behavior of the organism.
● Physiological psychology
It studies the internal environment and physiological structure of the body
particularly, brain, nervous system, functioning of the glands, biochemical events in
relation to the behavior of the organism.
● Developmental psychology
It studies how people change physically, mentally and socially over the entire life
span. It describes and explains the processes of growth and development in relation
to the behavior of the individual from birth to old age.
 APPLIED (PRACTICAL) PSYCHOLOGIES

In applied, the theory generated or discussed through pure psychology finds its
practical shape. Here we discuss of the applications of psychological rules,
principles, theories, and techniques with reference to the real practical life
situations.
● Educational psychology: It deals with the formulation of curriculum and evolving
effective teaching methods, tackling the problem of absenteeism, explaining
possible causes of educational 'backwardness, special teaching of gifted and
retarded' children, evaluation of capabilities, improving teacher taught relations,
motivational aspects relating to education, problem of study habit, educational
guidance
● Clinical psychology is dedicated to the study, diagnosis, and treatment of mental
illnesses and other emotional or behavioral disorders. More psychologists work in this
field than in any other branch of psychology. In hospitals, community clinics, schools,
and in private practice, they use interviews and tests to diagnose depression, anxiety
disorders, schizophrenia, and other mental illnesses. People with these psychological
disorders often suffer terribly. They experience disturbing symptoms that make it
difficult for them to work, relate to others, and cope with the demands of everyday life.
● many clinical psychologists study the normal human personality and the ways in which
individuals differ from one another. Still others administer a variety of psychological
tests, including intelligence tests and personality tests. These tests are commonly given
to individuals in the workplace or in school to assess their interests, skills, and level of
functioning. Clinical psychologists also use tests to help them diagnose people with
different types of psychological disorders.
● Counseling psychology It is closely related to clinical psychology. Counseling
psychologists may treat mental disorders, but they more commonly treat people with
less-severe adjustment problems related to marriage, family, school, or career. Many
other types of professionals care for and treat people with psychological disorders,
including psychiatrists, psychiatric social workers, and psychiatric nurses.
● Law
Many psychologists today work in the legal system. They consult with attorneys
(lawyers), testify in court as expert witnesses, counsel prisoners, teach in law schools,
and research various justice-related issues. Sometimes referred to as forensic
psychologists, those who apply psychology to the law study a range of issues, including
jury (judge) selection, eyewitness testimony, and confessions (reveal) to police,
lie-detector tests, the death penalty, criminal profiling, and the insanity defense.
● Industrial or work psychology studies an employee’s behavior in their
work setting for their good, comfort and satisfaction of living.
● Industries and organizations face with many problems relating to working
personnel such as the way workers are recruited and selected, how employees are
trained and developed, and the measurement of employee job performance.
● Other I/O psychologists study the psychological processes underlying work
behavior, such as the motivation to work, and worker feelings of job satisfaction
and stress.
● Still other I/O psychologists focus on group processes in the workplace, including
the relationships between workplace supervisors and subordinates, and how
groups of workers coordinate to get the job done.
● Industrial, organizational and engineering psychologists are concerned with
human factors in industries and organizations, such as, overcrowding, noise,
privacy, light, temperature health problems, and safety from accidents, security
designing of machines to minimize human errors and other related influences on
the quality of life.
● Other Domains of Application
Psychology has applications in many other domains of human
life. Environmental psychologists focus on the relationship between people
and their physical surroundings. They study how street noise, heat,
architectural design, population density, and crowding affect people’s
behavior and mental health. In a related field, human factors
psychologists work on the design of appliances, furniture, tools, and other
manufactured items in order to maximize their comfort, safety, and
convenience.
FOR AS LEVEL PSYCHOLOGY
SYLLABUS CODE: 9990
Batch: 2023 -2025
 THE APPROACHES CONSIDERED AT AS LEVEL ARE LISTED BELOW

● Biological Approach: The approach that views behavior from the perspective
of biological functioning: how individual brain, immune system, nervous
system, and genetics or inheritance of certain characteristics from parents and
other ancestors influence behavior, how the functioning of the body affects
hopes and fears, which behavior are instinctual and so forth. This perspective
includes the study of heredity and evolution.
● Main studies in this section are:
● Dement and Kleitman (sleep and dreams)

● Hassett et al. (monkey toy preferences)

● Holzel et al. (mindfulness and brain scans)

●Cognitive Approach: This perspective focuses on how people think, and
understand and how they represent the outside world within them and how our
ways of thinking about the world influence our behavior. Many psychologists who
adhere to the cognitive perspective compare human thinking to the working of a
computer, considering how information is input, transformed, stored and retrieved.
In this view thinking is information processing.
●Main studies in this section are:
● Andrade (doodling)

● Baron-Cohen et al. (eyes test)

● Pozzulo et al. (line-ups)

● Social Approach: studies a person's behavior in his/her social and cultural
background or social environments such as in family groups, with workmates
or friends. One of the major debates in Social Psychology involves the idea that
out actions are a direct result of our social context.
● The three studies which we will look at in this section have been chosen
because of the way in which the authors of the studies put the emphasis on the
social context of the participants in shaping their behavior.
● Main studies in this section are:
● Milgram (obedience)

● Perry et al. (personal space)

● Piliavin et al. (subway Samaritans)

● Learning approach : Learning approach to Psychology proposes that
behaviour is acquired by learning experiences. Learning theorists examine
how we acquire these behaviours and study the mechanisms that underlie
learning. It focused solely on observable behaviors.
● This is S-R approach to psychology. S means stimulus and R means response.
Behavior was considered as the function of stimulus and response (B = f [S,
R]). S-R psychology is objective, positive, and mechanistic in approach. S-R
concept of psychology (positivist approach) emphasizes the study of
observable behavior. S-R psychology dominated the field of psychology for
several decades.
● Main studies in this section are:
● Bandura et al. (aggression)

● Fagen et al. (elephant learning)

● Saavedra and Silverman (button phobia)

 THE REQUIREMENTS ARE THE SAME FOR EACH OF THE
FOUR APPROACHES AT AS LEVEL.

● For each of the core studies above, candidates should show understanding of:
● the psychology that is being investigated

● the background to that particular study

● the aim(s) of the study

● the procedure of the study, including as appropriate, the research methods

used, sample size and
● demographics [if known] and sampling technique [if known]),
experimental design, controls, question types,
● tasks, measured and manipulated variables

● ethical issues regarding the study

● the results of the study, including key quantitative and qualitative findings
 ● the conclusion(s) the psychologist(s) drew from the study
● the strengths and weaknesses of all elements of the study.

Candidates should be able to:

● describe and evaluate the research methods used

● consider how the study relates to psychological issues and debates

● apply the findings of the study to the real world.

The issues and debates considered at AS Level are:
● the application of psychology to everyday life

● individual and situational explanations

● nature versus nurture

● the use of children in psychological research

● the use of animals in psychological research.

The AS Level core studies have been chosen to give learners a broad range
of topic areas as well as knowledge of research methods.