ABDUL WALI KHAN UNIVESITY

MARDAN

Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan Pakistan. http://www.awkum.edu.pk/

Introduction to Psychology

C la s s : B S 3 r d
 Introduction to Psychology
• Etymology:
• Psychology is derived from two Greek words.
1. Psyche means soul
2. Logos means knowledge or study.

Old definition:
the study of soul is psychology.
• Modern definition:
• Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
Psychology
• Psychology is the scientific investigation of behavior and mental
processes of humans and animals.
• Core terms:
Scientific
There are three core terms which investigation

is important to understand psychology.

1. Behavior Psychology

2. Mental processes
3. scientific investigation Behavior
Mental
processes
Behavior:
All overt or covert actions which can be observed by another person.
For example:
Walking, talking, smiling, fighting, frowning etc.

Behavior is overt, manifest, obvious, and easy to study

Two types of behavior:
1. Overt behavior are those which can be observed and Noticed easily. Like, walking,
laughing, writing etc.
2. Covert behavior are those which are hidden and can be noticed with careful and
objective observation. For example, manipulation, persuasion etc.
Why behavior?
• Psychology deals with behavior because it is
the only way we can get to know about a
person’s personality, his intentions, his likes
and dislikes, his decision-making capacity.
•
• Behavior are the actions and reactions to
the environment which can be observed
• Behavior helps us understand humans and
behavior.
• Behavior can be recorded and measured
scientifically.

• Behavior helps to judge a candidate in

interview, exam, trials and physical as well as
mental tasks.
Mental processes
• All the cognitive process which take place in
the brain are mental processes.
• For example:
1. Thinking
2. Perception
3. Problem solving
4. Memory formation and retrieval
5. Imagination
6. Planning etc.
Importance:
All these processes help us to understand ourselves
and our environment better. These processes also
helps us to cope with problems and challenges as well.
Scientific investigation
It is a systematic and organized way of collecting facts and figures
about
Something.
This method gives us accurate data as compared to non-scientific
methods.

• Non-scientific sources of knowledge are:

• History
• Common sense
• Reasoning
• Judgements and advices etc.

Importance:
psychology adopts scientific method in its study because
scientific investigation gives us accurate data about behavior and
mental processes of humans as well as animals.
Steps in scientific investigation
Scientific inquiry begins with
an attitude of eagerness to
skeptically investigate
competing ideas, with an
open- minded approach.
Putting ideas to the test helps
us in fully understanding
them

1. Observation
2. Question origination
3. Hypothesis
4. Experiment
5. theory
A touch to history
• Aristotle:
 first person who coined the term of
“psychology”.
 he wanted to understand life by
understanding how a dead person is different
than an alive person. He said, “if you want to
understand life, you will have to understand
the act of dying.”

William Wundt:
 Father of psychology
In 1879, he established first laboratory for
psychology at Lipzig university, German.
He was an eminent structuralist.
Phases in the History of Psychology
Main terms in psychology changed during different periods of time it was viewed as:
1. Study of ‘Soul’
2. Study of ‘Mind’
3. Study of ‘Conscious experience’
4. Study of ‘Behavior’
Science does not deal with the supernatural:
In old ages, psychology was viewed as study of soul. Psychologist in 19th century
put an effort to adopt scientific method for investigation of different question of
human mind, personality and his preferences. For this purpose they define
psychology in a whole different way, because soul is a supernatural phenomenon (as
god, angel, demons, heaven, etc.) and science does not deal with supernatural.
Supernatural phenomenon cannot be observed through our senses which is
problematic for first step of scientific investigation( observation)
Goals of psychology
• Psychology covers almost all those areas where behavior or mental processes is involved. Main goals of psychology
are:
description

• Description of behavior and mental process

• Explanation of behavior and mental process
• Prediction of behavior and mental process
• Control of behavior and mental process control
goals of explanatio
psychology n

• For example:
• Psychology answers questions like:
• what is anger? (description)
• What are the factor which causes anger? (explanation) prediction

• When will a person get angry? (prediction)

• How to control anger in a child? (control)
 Research methodology
• Psychology uses empiricism in its research.
• EMPIRICISM:
• Originally a Greek school of medicine that stressed the importance of observation and now
generally used to describe any attempt to acquire knowledge by observing objects or events.
• Main research methods in psychology are:
1. Case method
2. Naturalistic observation
3. Experimentation
4. Questionnaire
5. Interview
6. Survey
Research methodology
• Case Study method:
• A method of gathering scientific knowledge by studying a single individual.
• Naturalistic observation:
• A method of gathering scientific knowledge by unobtrusively observing
people in their natural environments.
Experiment:
A technique for establishing the causal relationship between variables.
Questionnaires:
A set of question which can be used in- person, can be mailed, or used via
Internet.
Research methodology
Interviews:
Interview is face-to-face, or telephonic conversation between a psychologist and
participant, where psychologist tries to get to his finding.
• Surveys:
• a large number population is approached in this method with same set of questionnaire
•.
• Most frequently used method for obtaining information quickly and evaluating people’s
interest, liking, disliking and opinions without indulging in long- term procedures and
techniques.

• It is also easily used because it is a cheap method and in formation is gathered without
much difficulty.
 Neurological basis of behavior
Nervous system of a body is responsible to carry
out all actions of body in a smooth and effective
manner.

Nervous system mostly control all our behavior,

whether those are involuntary (reflex action of
knee jerk) or voluntary (running, talking etc.)

Brain parts control not only our behavior but it is

center of mental process as well.

Brain control our speech, vision, hearing,

movement as well as many psychological
disorders.
Nervous system (NS)
• The system that controls and regulates the structure and
function of the brain, spinal cord, nerves, and the nerve cells;
it maintains coordination between the nervous system and the
rest of the bodily systems.
•
• It is responsible for the internal communication
system that ensures the integrated functioning
of the various systems.
Types:
1. Central nervous system(brain and spinal cord)
2. Peripheral nervous system ( somatic NS and
autonomic NS)
Neuron
• The basic structural and functional unit od nervous system.
• Structure of a Neuron:
• Three main parts.
• Dendrites:
• Receivers of incoming signals
• from receptors (sense organs)
• Soma:
• The cell body containing the cytoplasm and the
• nucleus of the cell; cytoplasm keeps it alive.
• Axon:
It is a part which brings message from nervous system to effector (muscles and glands).

Terminal Buttons:
Swollen, bulblike structures at one end of the axon.
Central Nervous System: Brain
Frontal lobe
Associated with motor control, reasoning, planning, decision making,
problem solving.
Parietal lobe
Associated with movement, orientation, recognition, perception of stimuli.

Temporal lobe:
Associated with
perception and recognition of
sounds, voices and speech.

Occipital lobe:
Associated with visual
processing.
 Learning
• Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior; this change is not
automatic and results from practice or experience.
• Learning is commonly understood as the act, process, or experience of
gaining knowledge or skill.
• Learning is done through:
1. Exposure
2. Observation
3. Experience
4. Repetition
5. Conditioning etc.
Types/ Forms of Learning
• Verbal learning:
Verbal learning involves the person’s own association, experiences and relations with the
phenomenon that has been learned. For example:
• Learning to speak a language.
• Motor Learning:
It involves the practical application of the learned phenomena. For example:
Learning driving, cricket or football.

Problem Solving:
Problem solving tasks usually involves trial and error and primarily include verbal processes.
For example:
Learning chess or solving math problem.
Types of learning
• There are three type learning
discussed in this course.
1. Operant conditioning
2. Classical conditioning
3. Learning through observation

• These three types of learning

are explained by different
psychologist and are explain a
great deal about how we learn
and why do we behave in
certain way at harder time.
Operant conditioning
• A type of learning in which the consequences of an organism’s behavior
determine whether it will be repeated in the future.
Rewards strengthen behavior while punishment weakened the behavior.
For example:
a child will become punctual if you give him/her a compliment (chocolate,
candy etc.) when he finishes his homework at time.
a child who get scolded for breaking plate will be more careful next time
he handles plates.

Proposed by B. F. Skinner

Experiment:
he experimented with rats and pigeon and on the
basis of his observation, he introduced operant
conditioning.
Application
1. Training animal in circus

2. Training children and adolescents

3. Treatment of mentally disable children

4. Treatment for smoker and people with issues of alcohol and drug intake.

5. Motivating employees to work efficiently

6. Motivating people to follow rules.

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
When a neutral stimulus evokes a response after being paired with a stimulus that
naturally evokes a response. For example

A person once or twice vomited after eating pizza. After that, whenever he sees
pizza, he will get a feeling of nausea.

A person who fails 4,5 test when he wears red shirt, will see that as a bad luck and
will avoid red shirt at day of tests and interview.

Introduced by Ivan Pavlov

Experiment:

Pavlov did an experiment with dog. He used food and a bell in his experiment.
Application
1. Training of children

2. Treatment of smoking. (aversive therapy)

3. Reason of many dislikes and preferences

4. Association with familiar can strengthen relations or friendships.

Observational learning
• Learning which is take place through observing others. For example,
1. People of same culture behavior in similar manner.
2. Children copy their parents by watching them doing something.
Social learning theory:
social learning theory states that we learn a great deal through observing others.
Proposed by Albert Bandura.
Experiment:
In his experiment, Bandura showed two videos to two different group of children.
In one video, adults were playing with dolls in peaceful way. In second video, children
watched adult playing with dolls in violent ways. When children were given the dolls,
thy play in a manner they watched in videos.
Application
1. Most of skills are learned through
observation and learning.

2. People living in same culture practice

this type of learning.

3. Children learn man things through

observation.

4. We learn most things in school,

college etc. through observation.