Chapter 1 What is Psychology

PSY113 / INTRO TO PSYCH
INTRODUCTION
TO PSYCHOLOGY
KHALIL MICHAELA P. CABALLA, CHRA
INSTRUCTOR I
CHAPTER I:
WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY?
OBJECTIVES
To be able to define and understand the science of psychology
subfields, and the evolution of psychology.
To be able to explore and appreciate the major perspective of

Psychology
WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY?
PSYCHOLOGY - the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
Psychology thus seeks to describe, explain, predict, and control
behavior and mental processes.
Just what do psychologists do?

Psychologists engage in research, practice, and teaching.
Pure Research Applied Research
A TYPE OF RESEARCH
A TYPE RESEARCH CONDUCTED
CONDUCTED WITHOUT CONCERN
IN AN EFFORT TO FIND
FOR IMMEDIATE APPLICATIONS.
SOLUTIONS TO PARTICULAR.
Fields of Psychology
Clinical psychologists - help people with psychological disorders adjust to the
demands of life. Clinical psychologists evaluate problems such as anxiety and
depression through interviews and psychological tests.
Counseling psychologists - like clinical psychologists, use interviews and tests to

define their clients' problems. clients typically have adjustment problems but not
serious psychological disorders.
School psychologists - help school systems identify and assist students who have
problems that interfere with learning. They help schools make decisions about placing
students in special classes.
Educational psychologists - research theoretical issues related to learning,

measurement, and child development.
Developmental psychologists - study the changes physical, cognitive, social, and

emotional-that occur across the life span.
Personality psychologists - identify and measure human traits and determine
influences on human thought processes, feelings, and behavior. They are particularly
concerned with issues such as anxiety, aggression, and gender roles.
Social psychologists - concerned with the nature and causes of individuals' thoughts,
feelings, and behavior in social situations.
Environmental psychologists - study the ways in which people and the environment-
the natural environment and the human-made environment-influence one another.
Industrial psychologists - focus on the relationships between people and work.
Organizational psychologists - study the behavior of people in organizations such as

businesses.
Human factors psychologists - make technical systems such as automobile

dashboards and computer keyboards more user-friendly.
Consumer psychologists - study the behavior of shoppers in an effort to predict and
influence their behavior.
Health psychologists - examine the ways in which behavior and attitudes are related
to physical health.
Sport psychologists - help athletes concentrate on their performance and not on the
crowd, use cognitive strategies such as positive visualization (imagining themselves
making the right moves) to enhance performance, and avoid choking under pressure.
Forensic psychologists - apply psychology to the criminal justice system problems.

Historical Foundations of Psychology

(Socrates, Aristotle, Democritus)
The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle declared that people are motivated
to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Another Greek, Democritus, suggested that we
could think of behavior in terms of a body and a mind and raised the question of
whether there is free will or choice. Socrates suggested that we should rely on
rational thought and introspection careful examination of one's own thoughts
arid emotions-to achieve self-knowledge. He also pointed out that people are
social creatures who influence one another.
Schools of Thoughts in Psychology

Structuralism - founded by Wilhelm Wundt, used introspection to study the
objective and subjective elements of experience. Wundt also established the first
psychological laboratory in Leipzig, Germany, in 1879.
Structuralism attempted to break down conscious experience into objective
sensations, such as sight or taste, and subjective feelings, such as emotional
responses, will, and mental images like memories or dreams.
The school of psychology that argues that the mind consists of three basic
elements- sensations, feelings, and images - that combine to form experience
Introspection - Deliberate looking into one’s own cognitive processes to examine
one’s thoughts and feelings.

Structuralism - founded by Wilhelm Wundt, used introspection to study the
objective and subjective elements of experience. Wundt also established the first
psychological laboratory in Leipzig, Germany, in 1879.
EXAMPLE : A structuralist psychologist conducting an experiment to study the

sensation of taste. They might present a participant with a variety of different
foods and ask them to describe the basic taste qualities they perceive, such as
sweet, sour, salty, and bitter.

Functionalism - school founded by William James. It dealt with observable
behavior as well as conscious experience and focused on the importance of habit.
It is the school of psychology that emphasizes the uses or functions of the

mind rather than the elements of experience.
James was also influenced by Charles Darwin's (1809-1882) theory of
evolution. Earlier in the 19th century, the British naturalist Darwin had
argued that organisms with adaptive features-that is, the "fittest"-survive
and reproduce.

Functionalism - school founded by William James. It dealt with observable
behavior as well as conscious experience and focused on the importance of habit.
Functionalism seeks to explore the adaptive and practical functions of

memory, emphasizing its role in helping individuals survive, thrive, and
navigate the challenges of their environment.
The school of psychology that emphasizes the uses or functions of the mind
rather than the elements of experience.

Behaviorism - founded by John B. Watson, argues that psychology must limit
itself to observable behavior and not attempt to deal with subjective
consciousness. Behaviorism focuses on learning by conditioning.
The school of psychology that defines psychology as the study of observable

behavior and studies the relationship between stimuli and responses
Burrhus Frederic Skinner (B.F Skinner) - introduced the concept of
reinforcement as an explanation of how learning occurs.
Reinforcement- a stimulus that follow a response and increases the

frequent the response.

Gestalt Psychology - Founded by Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and
Wolfgang Köhler.
It is concerned with perception and argues that the wholeness of human

experience is more than the sum of its parts. Gestalt translates roughly to
pattern or organized whole.
EXAMPLE : Solving a jigsaw puzzle.


Psychoanalysis - was founded by Sigmund Freud. The school asserts that people
are driven by hidden impulses and that they distort reality to protect themselves
from anxiety.
Psychoanalysis was based on the idea that much of our lives is governed by
unconscious ideas and impulses that originate in childhood conflicts.
How Today's Psychologists View Behavior and

Mental Processes Cognitive?
Cognitive perspective - is concerned with the ways we mentally represent the
world and process information.
The cognitive tradition has roots in Socrates' advice to "know thyself' and in
his suggested method of introspection. We also find cognitive psychology's
roots in structuralism, functionalism, and Gestalt psychology, each of which,
in its own way, addressed issues that are of interest to cognitive
psychologists.

Cognitive - having to do with mental processes such as sensation and

perception, memory, intelligence, language, thought, and problem solving.
Cognitive psychologists - study how we learn, remember the past, plan for
the future, solve problems, form judgments, make decisions, and use
language.

Biological and Evolutionary perspectives - is based on the work of Charles
Darwin, who argued that in the age-old struggle for survival, only the fittest
organisms reach maturity and reproduce, thereby transmitting the traits that
enable them to survive to their offspring.


Humanistic-existential perspective - stress the importance of subjective

experience and assert that people have the freedom to make choices.
Existentialism views people as free to choose and as being responsible for

choosing ethical conduct.
Grounded in the work of Carl Rogers (1951) and Abraham Maslow (1970).

Psychodynamic Perspective - In the 1940s and 1950s, psychodynamic theory
dominated the field of psychotherapy and influenced scientific psychology and
the arts.
It is patterned from Freud’s psychoanalytic theory
Neoanalysts focused less on the unconscious and more on conscious

choice and self direction
Famous neoanalysts such as Karen Horney (1885-1952) and Erik Erikson
(1902-1994)
Behaviorism and Social Cognitive Theory
Perspectives on Learning
There are two Major perspectives in learning:
Behaviorism
Social-Cognitive Theory
Social-cognitive theory - a school of psychology in the behaviorist tradition

that includes cognitive factors in the explanation and prediction of behavior;
formerly termed social learning theory.
Sociocultural perspective - the view that focuses on the roles of ethnicity,

gender, culture, and socioeconomic status in behavior and mental processes.
Ethnicity - One kind of diversity involves people's ethnicity. Members of an

ethnic group share their cultural heritage, race, language, or history.
Gender - the culturally defined concepts of masculinity and femininity memory

discovered the primacy and recency effects, and engaged in research into the
role of the frequency of repetition in the vividness of memories.
Sociocultural Perspective Proponents
Kenneth Clark and Mamie Clark conducted research on African

American students about the negative effects of school segregation.
Jorge Sanchez – intelligence tests are culturally biased.
Mary Salter Ainsworth – attachment styles between parents and
children.
Mary Whiton Calkins – studied memory and first female APA president.
Psychology as a Science
Be skeptical
Examine definitions of terms
Be cautious in drawing conclusions from

evidence
Always apply critical
Consider alternative interpretations of research
evidence thinking to all areas
Do not overgeneralize of life.
The Scientific Method

Scientific Method – the approach through which psychologists systematically
acquire knowledge and understanding about behavior and other phenomena of
interest.
1. Observation 5. Draw Conclusion

2. Formulate Questions / Hypotheses 6. Theory construction or
3. Hypothesis testing / Examining modification
research question 7. New research questions or

4. Seek evidence through the use hypothesis
of experimentation
Theories – Broad explanations and predictions concerning phenomena of

interest
Hypothesis - in psychology, a specific statement about behavior or mental

processes that is tested through research.
Correlation - an association or relationship among variables.

Independent variable - a condition in a scientific study that is manipulated so

that its effects may be observed.
Dependent variable - a measure of an assumed effect of an independent

variable.
Experiment - a scientific method that seeks to confirm cause-and-effect

relationships by introducing independent variables and observing their effects
on dependent variables.
Experimental groups - in experiments, groups whose members obtain the

treatment
Control Groups - in experiments, groups whose members do not obtain the

treatment, while other conditions are held constant.
Placebo Effect - a bogus treatment that has the appearance of being

genuine.
Blind Study - in this experimental terminology, unaware of whether or

not one has Placebo Effect
Double-blind study - a study in which neither the subjects nor the

observers know who has received the treatment.
Samples and Population
SAMPLE- part of a population
POPULATION - a complete group of organisms or events
RANDOM SAMPLE - a sample drawn so that each member of a population has

an equal chance of being selected to participate
STRATIFIED SAMPLE - a sample drawn so that identified subgroups in the

population are represented proportionately in the sample .
Methods of Observation
CASE STUDY - a carefully drawn biography that may be obtained through

interviews, questionnaires, and psychological tests.
SURVEY - a method of scientific investigation in which a large sample of

people answer questions about their amudes or behavior.
Naturalistic observation - a scientific method in which organisms are

observed in their natural environments.
Ethics of Research
Protection of people from harm

Right of people to privacy
Assurance that the participation is voluntary
Informing the people about the nature of procedures before the experiment
Informed consent – a document signed by the participants affirming that

they have been told the basic outlines of the study and are aware of what
their participation will involve.
Debriefing
References:
1.Rathus, S. (2014). Psychology (3rd ed.). Cengage Learning.

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PSY113 / INTRO TO PSYCH

To be able to explore and appreciate the major perspective of

Just what do psychologists do?

Pure Research Applied Research

Counseling psychologists - like clinical psychologists, use interviews and tests to

Educational psychologists - research theoretical issues related to learning,

Developmental psychologists - study the changes physical, cognitive, social, and

Industrial psychologists - focus on the relationships between people and work.

Organizational psychologists - study the behavior of people in organizations such as

Human factors psychologists - make technical systems such as automobile

Forensic psychologists - apply psychology to the criminal justice system problems.

Historical Foundations of Psychology

Schools of Thoughts in Psychology

Schools of Thoughts in Psychology

EXAMPLE : A structuralist psychologist conducting an experiment to study the

Schools of Thoughts in Psychology

It is the school of psychology that emphasizes the uses or functions of the

Schools of Thoughts in Psychology

Functionalism seeks to explore the adaptive and practical functions of

Schools of Thoughts in Psychology

The school of psychology that defines psychology as the study of observable

Reinforcement- a stimulus that follow a response and increases the

Schools of Thoughts in Psychology

It is concerned with perception and argues that the wholeness of human

EXAMPLE : Solving a jigsaw puzzle.

Schools of Thoughts in Psychology

How Today's Psychologists View Behavior and

How Today's Psychologists View Behavior and

Cognitive - having to do with mental processes such as sensation and

How Today's Psychologists View Behavior and

Biological and Evolutionary perspectives - is based on the work of Charles

enable them to survive to their offspring.

How Today's Psychologists View Behavior and

Humanistic-existential perspective - stress the importance of subjective

Existentialism views people as free to choose and as being responsible for

How Today's Psychologists View Behavior and

Neoanalysts focused less on the unconscious and more on conscious

Behaviorism and Social Cognitive Theory

Behaviorism and Social Cognitive Theory

Social-cognitive theory - a school of psychology in the behaviorist tradition

Sociocultural perspective - the view that focuses on the roles of ethnicity,

Behaviorism and Social Cognitive Theory

Ethnicity - One kind of diversity involves people's ethnicity. Members of an

Gender - the culturally defined concepts of masculinity and femininity memory

Sociocultural Perspective Proponents

Kenneth Clark and Mamie Clark conducted research on African

Examine definitions of terms

Be cautious in drawing conclusions from

The Scientific Method

1. Observation 5. Draw Conclusion

3. Hypothesis testing / Examining modification

research question 7. New research questions or

The Scientific Method

Theories – Broad explanations and predictions concerning phenomena of

Hypothesis - in psychology, a specific statement about behavior or mental

Correlation - an association or relationship among variables.

The Scientific Method

Independent variable - a condition in a scientific study that is manipulated so

Dependent variable - a measure of an assumed effect of an independent

The Scientific Method

Experiment - a scientific method that seeks to confirm cause-and-effect

Experimental groups - in experiments, groups whose members obtain the

The Scientific Method

Control Groups - in experiments, groups whose members do not obtain the