PSY2043 Ch01 Lecture Notes

PSY2043 Introduction to Psychology

Ch01 The Nature of Psychology

INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Understand the scope of scientific psychology.
  • The scope of psychology is broad, covering topics such as face recognition, social judgments, memory, obesity, violence, and many more.
• Understand differing historical perspectives on the topics within psychology. Know five contemporary perspectives within psychology.
  • Historical perspectives
    • Structralism (the analysis of mental structures)
    • Functionalism (studying how the mind works so that an organism can adapt to and function in its environment)
    • Behaviorism (the study of behavior without reference to consciousness)
    • Gestalt psychology (which focuses on the patterns formed by stimuli and on the organization of experience)
    • Psychoanalysis (which emphasizes the role of unconscious processes in personality development and motivation)
    • Information-processing theory
    • Psycholinguistics
    • Neuropsychology
  • 5 Contemporary perspectives
    • Biological perspectives
    • Behavioral perspectives
    • Cognitive perspectives
    • Psychoanalytic perspectives
    • Subjectivist perspectives
• Be familiar with seven major subfields within contemporary psychology. Know four cutting-edge interdisciplinary approaches in psychology.
  • 7 Major subfields
    • Biological psychology
    • Cognitive psychology
    • Developmental psychology
    • Social and personality psychology
    • Clincial and counseling psychology
    • School and educational psychology
    • Organizational and engineering psychology
  • 4 Cutting-edge interdisciplinary approaches in psychology
    • Cognitive neuroscience – learn how mental activities are executed in the brain (scanning).
    • Evolutionary psychology – psychological mechanisms have a genetic basis and in the past increased our ancestors’ chances of surviving and reproducing.
    • Cultural psychology
    • Postive psychology
• Define psychology. Give examples of psychological research.
  • Psychology can be defined as the scientifc study of behavior and mental process.
  • Examples
    • Brain damage and face recognition
    • Attributing traits to people
    • Childhood amnesia
    • Obesity
    • Effects of media violence on children’s aggresion
• Identify key ideas and debates that shaped the history of psychology. Give examples of five different perspectives within contemporary psychology.
  • idea – mind and behavior could be the subject of scientific analysis – scientific psychology born
  • debate – nature vs nurture
• Explain how psychologists use the scientific method to uncover knowledge.
  • Generating a hypothesis
  • Testing it by using a scientific method
    • Experimental method
    • Correlational method
    • Observational method
• State the principles that guide the ethical conduct of psychological research.
  • Minimal risk
  • Informed consent
  • Right to privacy

The Scope of Psychology

• To evaluate new claims made about psychology, you need to know
  (1) what psychological facts are already firmly established
  (2) the standards for scientific evidence.
• Psychology can be defined as the scientifc study of behavior and mental process.

The Historical Origins of Psychology

• Nature-nurture debate
  • Roots of psychology can be traced to the 4th and 5th centuries B.C. One of the earliest debates about human psychology focused on the question of whether human capabilities are inborn or acquired through experience (the nature–nurture debate).
• The beginnings of scientific psychology 科学心理学
  • Scientific psychology was born in the late nineteenth century with the idea that mind and behavior could be the subject of scientific analysis. The first experimental laboratory in psychology was established by Wilhelm Wundt at the University of Leipzig in 1879. （十九世纪末 Wilhelm Wundt 建立）
    • Wilhelm Wundt: Introspection（内省法）- observing and recording the nature of one’s own perceptions, thoughts, and feelings
• The early ‘schools’ of psychology in the twentieth century
  • Structuralism and funtionalism（结构主义和功能主义）
    • Titchener – structuralism – the analysis of mental structures
    • William James – functionalism – studying how the mind works to enable an organism to adapt to and function in its environment.
    • Both structuralists and functionalists still regarded psychology as the science of conscious experience
  • Behaviorism（行为主义）
    • Watson, and others ascribing to behaviorism, argued that nearly all behavior is a result of conditioning and the environment shapes behavior by reinforcing specific habits.
  • Gestalt psychology（格式塔心理学）
    • The Gestalt psychologists’ primary interest was perception, and they believed that perceptual experiences depend on the patterns formed by stimuli and on the organization of experience.
  • Psychoanalysis（精神分析）
    • At the center of Freud’s theory is the concept of the unconscious – the thoughts attitudes, impulses, wishes, motivations, and emotions of which we are unaware.
• Later developments in twentieth-century psychology
  • Information-processing theory（信息处理理论）
  • Psycholinguistics（心理语言学）
  • Neuropsychology（神经心理学）

Contemporary Psychology Perspectives

• The biological perspective
• The behaviroal perspective
• The cognitive perspective
• The psychoanalytic perspective
• The subjectivist perspective
  • An orientation toward understanding behavior and mental processes in terms of the subjective realities people actively construct.
• Relationships between psychological and biological perspectives
  • Reductionism - Biological researchers often attempt to explain psychological principles in terms of biological ones
• Major subfields of psychology
  • Biological psychology
  • Cognitive psychology
  • Developmental psychology
  • Social and personality psychology
  • Clincial and counseling psychology
  • School and educational psychology
  • Organizational and engineering psychology

How Psychological Research is Done

• Generating hypotheses
• Experiments
• Correlation
• Observation
• Literature reviews
• Ethics of psychological