General Psychology and Life Skills
LART-2002
Chapter 1: Essence of Psychology
• Definition
• Goals of Psychology
• Historical Background and Major
perspectives in Psychology
• Psychology in Everyday Lives
Objectives of this Chapter
At the end of this chapter the students will be able to:
- write the textual definition of the term psychology
- describe the reasons why it is difficult to precisely
define psychology
- give their own definition of psychology
- explain important terms in the textual definition of
psychology
- explain why psychology is considered a science.
- tell why psychologists are interested in studying
animals
- describe different sub fields of psychology in their
own words
- explain the purposes of each sub field
- identify the type of human problem or issues
dealt with in each sub field
- describe the practitioners serving in each sub
field
- identify the importance both nature and nurture
for full development of human behavior
- identify various methods of research in
psychology
- describe the procedures and purposes of each
research method
- conduct a research using one of the research
methods on a variety of psychological topics,
- ask questions on the topics discussed in this
chapter.
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1.1 Definitions
One of the possible definitions of psychology is:
Psychology is the science concerned with the
study of human and animal behavior, with the
application of its principles to human problems.
Important terms
-science
-animal
-behavior
The Four Goals of Psychology
• Describing Behavior (What are people
doing?)
• Explaining Behavior (Why are they doing
that?)
• Predicting Behavior (What will happen if I
act this way?)
• Controlling/Changing(What can I do to get
them to stop doing that?)
Historical Background and Major Perspectives
in Psychology
• The root of the contemporary psychology lies in
philosophy.
• Philosophers have long been fascinated with
metaphysical aspects of human nature.
• By the 19th century many philosophers (the
originators of contemporary psychology) were
attempting to establish methods of measuring
the relationship between mental reaction and
physical stimuli impinging on the body.
1.2.1 Structuralism
• The founder of this school of thought was
William Wundt (1832-1920) who for the first
time established a psychological laboratory in
1878 at Leipzing University.
• The school focuses on the inner portion
(covert behavior), especially the element of
mind or consciousness.
• It studies mental life by analyzing:
- its elements,
- their properties, and
- the way they combine.
• Scientific inquiries go from parts to the whole,
i.e. one must begin with the basic elements of
the total situation.
• The method of inquiry used in this school of
thought is known as introspection, i.e.
observation by an individual of his own mental
process helped by trained subjects, under
experimental conditions.
Contribution
Structuring Is the first scientific study of
psychology
1.2.2 Functionalism
• The two of the most influential proponents of
functionalism were:
- William James and
- John Dewey
• They sought to study the functions of behavior
and mental processes, not merely their
structure.
• They emphasized on the study of mental
operations in contrast to mental elements
• For the proponents of this school, psychology
should study the:
- goals,
- purpose and
- function of mind.
• They are concerned with why behaviors occur.
• Conscious mind has no permanent structure, it
changes like flowing river.
• The methods used in this school to study behavior
are:
- observation,
- experimentation,
- introspection, and
- armchair philosophizing.
Contribution
• The contribution of this school includes the:
- study of individual differences, which later
on gave birth to psychometrics and IQ testing
movement
- current research on thinking and problem
solving.
1.2.3 Behaviorism
• The emergence of behaviorism early in the
20th century in the form of a movement (by
John B. Watson in America) was one of the
most important developments in the history
of the field of psychology.
• This school rejected completely the
introspective method of studying behavior
and insisted that psychological experiment
should be restricted to the study of observable
behavior.
• Behaviorists are purely environmentalists.
• For this school all behaviors are viewed as
overt responses elicited by stimulus.
• Its basic concept is that the response is to the
stimulus.
• What response occurs is what stimulus
condition.
• Theoretical goal of behaviorist is the
prediction and control of behavior.
• Behaviorists did not reject the existence of
mind and consciousness as critics have
sometimes suggested.
• Rather they viewed this concepts as
impossible to observe and contributing little
to a scientific approach to psychology.
• They believed that behavior is molded/modified by
experience.
• By altering the environment we change the
behavior.
• The methods that are commonly used by
behaviorists to study behavior include:
- experimentation,
- reinforcement techniques, and
- desensitization technique.
Contribution
• The major contribution of behaviorism to the field
of psychology include:
-learning should be observable (should be tested),
-what the learner does is more critical than what
the teacher does,
-feedback related to homework and examination
is important for effective learning, with the
immediate feedback being more useful.
• The major weakness of behaviorism, the
major reason for its decline, was its inability to
cope with the complexity of human thought
and language.
1.2.4 Gestalts
• The major proponents of this school of
thought were:
- Max Wertheimer,
- Kurt Koffka, and
- Wolfgang Kohler.
• The advocators of this school view
psychological function as a patterned whole, a
totality of experience or a Gestalt (in German
language).
• They opposed the atomist approach of
structuralisms and later the behaviorists
• They argued that people perceive the world in
‘wholes’.
• They emphasize our tendency to integrate
piece of information into meaningful wholes.
• Gestalt theorists followed the basic principle
that the whole is greater than the sum of its
parts.
• In other words, the whole (a picture, a car)
carried a different and altogether greater
meaning than its individual components
(paint, canvas, brush; or tire, paint, metal,
respectively).
• In viewing the "whole," a cognitive process
takes place – the mind makes a leap from
comprehending the parts to realizing the
whole
• Retrieved from
http://facweb.cs.depaul.edu/sgrais/gestalt_pri
nciples.htm
• When a teacher arranges problems to
organize the elements of classroom exercises
into meaningful wholes insight occurs.
• According to this school of thought, learning
by understanding relationships and concepts is
more forceful.
• The method of this school is objective
observations and reports of conscious
experience rather than on carefully controlled
behavior.
Contribution
• The major contribution of this school include:
- teachers should present their subject matter
in the classroom as a whole,
- goals and purposes have an important place
in learning
- the interdisciplinary approach to
educational problems is important
- the teacher should start where the learners’
perceptions are, not where his/her own
perception happen to be.
1.2.5 Psychoanalysis
• This school of thought was originated in
medical practice by an Austrian physician
called S. Freud. The dynamics of the mind
were Freuds’ domain.
• According to him there three qualities of
mental processes, namely conscious (the
phenomena we are aware of), pre conscious
(the phenomena we are less aware of),
unconscious (the phenomena we are not
aware of).
• Freud emphasizes that human beings are
controlled not by rational and conscious
process but rather by drives and urges hidden
within the unconscious mind.
• The analysis of the unconscious dynamic
process was major tenet of this school of
thought.
• This unconscious drives are sexual and
threatening by nature.
• The methods of studying this unconscious
human mind include the:
- analysis of dreams,
- slips of tongue, and
- free association.
• Freud argued that unpleasant experiences
that are buried in the unconscious mind are
the causes of mental illness.
• According to him, the individual is both
animalistic and human, shaped by:
- biological needs,
- sexual drives, and
- aggressive instincts.
• The two major contributions of this school of
thought are:
- the development of pyschoanaalytic
methods called analysis of dreams and slips of
tongue as well as free association for treating
mental disorders.
-the formulation of psychoanalytic theory
of personality development.
1.2.6 Humanistic psychology
• The two major proponents of this school of
thought were:
-Abraham Maslow and
- Karl Rogers.
• The basic assumption of this school is that
Personal:
- values,
- feelings, and
- thought are the legitimate and
understandable factors in influencing
behavior.
• Hence, to understand the true behavior of an
individual, we need to understand his/her
values, feelings, and thoughts of the world.
• The advocators of this school of thought seek
to understand behavior subjectively, in terms
of its meaning to the individual.
• According to this school, people are:
- free agents (have free will),
- conscious,
- creative, and
- with inner motivation to fulfill their
potential.
• The emphasis is that people are capable of
choosing their life patterns and of growing to
greater maturity and fulfillment.
• The ideas that behavior is governed either by:
-unconscious drives and motives or
-external stimuli and rewards in the
external environment are rejected in this
school of thought.
Individual Assignment 2
Psychology in Everyday Live
Assignment 3
1.3 Sub Fields of Psychology
1.3.1 Clinical Psychology
1.3.2 Counseling Psychology
1.3.3 School and Educational Psychology
1.3.4 Experimental/Physiological Psychology
1.3.5 Industrial Psychology
1.3.6 Social Psychology
1.3.7 Developmental Psychology
1.3.8 Community Psychology
1.3.9 Psychometrics
1.3.10 Personality Psychology
1.3.11 Biopsychology
1.3.12 Evolutionary Psychology
1.3.13 Cognitive Psychology
1.3.14 Comparative Psychology
1.3.15 Forensic Psychology
1.3.16 Military Psychology
1.3.17 Sport Psychology
1.3.18 Evolutionary Psychology
