INTRO TO PSYCHOLOGY

Introduction

 Definition of Psychology
o Scientific study of overt and covert behavior in individual organisms
o Study of behavior: brushing teeth, sitting, showering
 Overt: capable of being seen
o Ex: brushing teeth
 Covert: not capable of being seen
o Ex: memories, thoughts, daydreaming, emotions

 Just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean covert → key word capable
o Eyes adjusting to distances
 Interested in one individual NOT a group
 Organism included a variety→ humans/ animals

 Why use animals?

 Scientific
o Systematic way of obtaining info
o A person who is doing something scientific used observations and has a
systematic approach
 Not always a Science
o Psychology started at the beginning of time

CHAPTER 1: HISTORY
 Aristotle
o Believed our mind was in the heart
 mind as in thoughts and dreams
o Brain was a cooling system (cools blood) and a heart pumps hot blood and send
it to the brain to wake up
 Descartes
o 1700s
o Interested in humans & animals and comparing between the bodies and behavior
o If flame was in hand, hand was attached to a string connecting brain, would pull
brain, which makes you react because of gland
 How did they create answers?
o Armchair approach: sit in a chair and think reason
o Withdrawal reflex: after an action occurs, pull away after the action has occurred
o Didn’t do observation or data
o Just processed → ended up wrong
o 16th century → new approach
 Physics →
o First science
o Gravity
 Chemistry→
 o Second science
o Chemicals
 Biology→
o Third science
o Life and staying alive
 PSYCHOLOGY
 Father of Psychology
o William Wundt
o German biologist
 Birth Year of Psychology
o Wanted to find/ research behavior
o Published book in psychology in1879
o 1879 is the birth year of psychology
 Not one of the oldest but newest fields

9/9/2019
 William Wundt
o Used the scientific method to study the human brain/mind
o Studied the mind such as feelings and emotions (sensations, perception)
o Wanted to know how fast the mind worked, how fast does a thought come?
o Wundt developed a machine that was like a ruler. It would ring a bell and he
would see how fast a person can push a button. (studying reaction time)
 Thought he was measuring thought
o Measuring covert behavior
 Introspection:
o observe some time of stimulus and had to explain what was going on in their
mind
o required people to provide rigorous self reports of their own internal experiences
 Example: Apple
 You look and smell and describe it as redness, not red
o You have to train to be an introspector
o 10,000 times to know basic elements of mind
o Trying to come up with a starting place
o To years to spread research
 People were excited and fascinated
 Lots of people went to study with Wundt
 Edward Titchener
o Wundt’s student
o Came a form of psychology→
o Structuralism:
 idea that the human mind was made of small components structure of a
human mind
 Immediate conscious experience
 Could be broken down to identify elements and discover how they
combine to produce meaningful wholes
o There are basic human elements in our mind
o Tried to create periodic table of human mind
 35,000 “elements”
o Helped spread psychology across America
 William James
o Didn’t believe in introspection (Wundt) or Structuralism (Titchener)
 o Believed a mental function must be considered
o Had own school of psychology
o More important is that we have a mind and its functions.
 Functionalism - applied use of psychology
o What is it used for
 What is the function/ purpose of our mind
o One of the 1st child psychologists
 How can help children use
o First one to use the field
o 1913 american psychology
 James Watson
o Became president of APA→ all scientists
o Your behavior is observable NOT your mind
o Study of behavior (NEW DEFINITION ( covert to overt)) → Behaviorism
o Behaviorism
 Observable rather than consciousness experience
 Mind had nothing to do with psychology
 Got kicked out of school
 Popular until 1970’s
 Memory is a covert behavior
 Late 1960’s
o Computers were becoming popular
 Add, subtract, and divide would be as big as this room
o Look at computer model
 Used as a model to see how our mind worked
o Gave birth to cognitive psychology
 Cognitive Psychology
o How info is stored (memory)
o Study of mind a behavior
 Mental Disorders
o Didn’t deal with disorders back then
o Early 20th century began to look
o Sigmund Freud developed therapeutic approach of psychoanalysis (psychiatrist)
o Mental Health and Disorders were added to psychology
 Today
o Psychologists- phD, don't have to deal with mental disorders
o Psychology- deal with mental disorders
o Psychiatrist- not psychology, just deals with mental disorders
 Medical doctor, can prescribe medicine
o Psy D- is a degree that specializes with mental disorders
 Therapy, study behavior, can not prescribe medicine
o 47 divisions of psychology according to American Psychology Association
 Experimental
 studying the basic aspect of human mind
 Human behavior-memory, personality
 Clinical and counseling
 Industrial
 Where to put windshield wipers
 school