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PSY 101U: Introduction to Psychology
Psy Lecturer: Dr. Afroditi Papaioannou-Spiroulia
E-mail: a.papaioannou@cityu.gr
Lecture 1
Source of basic material:
Dr. A. Papaioannou-Spiroulia
General introduction
BASIC POINTS:
History of Psychology
Scope of Psychology
The use of “Metaphor” in Psychology: From Plato’s approach to Artificial Intelligence
The history and scope of Psychology
Q: How long have people been thinking and writing about the questions that fascinate psychologists today? Where did Psychology come from? What are Psychology’s roots?
Psychology traces its roots back through recorded history, more than 2000 years ago, to the writings of many scholars who spent their lives wondering about people: How our minds work? How our bodies relate to our minds? Mind and body are connected or distinct? Human ideas are innate or result from experience?...
Psychology comes from Physiology and mainly from
Philosophy.
Historical origins of Psychology from Philosophy
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.): theorized about Psychology’s concepts and suggested that:
a) Soul and body are not
separate.
b) Knowledge grows from
experience.
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Historical origins of Psychology from Philosophy
Rene Descartes (1596-1650):
- Beliefs:
rationalist: true knowledge comes through reasoning;
nativist: heredity provides individuals with inborn knowledge and abilities and we use this to reason;
“We are to doubt everything. That’s the only way we can be certain about anything”
“I think, therefore I am”.
Historical origins of Psychology from Philosophy
John Locke (1632-1704):
- Saw the mind as receptive and passive, with its main goal as sensing and perceiving.
[“An Essay Concerning Human Understanding”]
- “Tabula rasa”: We are born as a blank slate, everything we know is learned → this is in direct contrast to the rationalist Descartes.
Psychology Becomes More Scientific
Hermann Helmholtz(1821-1894):
- He was a mechanist and he believed that everything can be understood with basic physical and chemical principles.
- He pushed for the need to test and demonstrate things.
Psychology Becomes More Scientific
Gustav Fechner(1801 – 1887):
- Psychophysics – He pushed to investigate the relationshipbetween the physical world and and our conscious psychologicalworld.
- Possible: a) measure the perceivedas well as the physical intensities ofsensory stimuli, b) to determine amathematical relationship[JNC: Just Noticeable Difference approach].
Psychological Science is born
Q: What event defines the birth of Psychology as we know it today?
Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920):
- Established the 1st psychology laboratory (1879) at the University of Leipzig, Germany.
- Focused on consciousness:
found basic elements of conscious processes;
discovered how elements (sensations and feelings) are connected;
specified laws of connection.
- Introspection:
Self-observation: “seeing” mental processes in immediate experience.
Psychological Science is born
Wundt and Psychology’s
first graduate students
studied the “atoms of the
mind” by conducting
experiments at Leipzig,
Germany, in 1879. This
work is considered the
birth of Psychology as we
know it today.
The first ‘schools’ of Psychology
Q: What were structuralism and functionalism, and
how did they differ?
Structuralism: an early school of Psychology that used
introspection to explore the elemental structure of
the human mind.
- Lots of work based on sensation and perception and breaking those down into minute detail.
- 3 basic mental elements: images, feelings and sensations.
- Edward Bradford Titchener: found 43.000 elements associated with sensory experiences (visual, auditory, taste).
The first ‘schools’ of Psychology
Functionalism: a school of Psychology that focused on how mental and behavioral processes function – how they enable the organism to adapt, survive and flourish [applying Darwin’s theory of natural selection to mental processes].
- William James (1842-1910):
stream of consciousness;
consciousness is personal/selective, continuous (can’t be “cut up” for analysis), and constantly changing;
“structuralism was foolish to search for common elements to all minds”.
The first ‘schools’ of Psychology
William James wrote
an important psychology
textbook
[Principles of Psychology, 1890].
Mary Calkins (memory
researcher), James’s
student, became the
APA’s first female
president.
The first ‘schools’ of Psychology
Structuralism →
searched for
the BASIC ELEMENTS
of the MIND
Functionalism →
tried to explain
WHY WE DO
what we do
The first ‘schools’ of Psychology
Behaviorism: focused on observable behavior.
- John. B. Watson (1878-1958):
felt that the main goal of Psychology should be the prediction and control of behavior;
stimulus-response theory: we respond to stimuli with our behavior, not thoughts
[see and Pavlov’s dog studies]
reinforcement for behavior: if our behavior produces rewarding consequences, then we will do it again.
The first ‘schools’ of Psychology
Behaviorists, like Watson and later Skinner, emphasized the study of overt behavior as the subject matter of
scientific Psychology.
Watso
n (1878-1958)
Skinner (1904-1990)
Subsequent ‘schools’ of Psychology
Gestalt Psychology:
- “Das Ganze ist etwas mehr als die Summe seiner Teiler: The whole is something more that the sum of its parts” →
- wholes vs multiple individual elements: “Don’t an experience into separate elements to discover truths – instead, look at the ‘whole’”.
- Max Wertheimer (1880-1943):
Phi phenomenon: you can create an illusion that a light is moving from one location to another by flashing lights on and off at a certain rate.
Subsequent ‘schools’ of Psychology
Psychoanalysis:
- Sigmund Freud’s (1856-1939) Psychodynamic Theory:
importance of the unconscious mind and its effects on human behavior;
conscious vs unconscious conflicts:
a) unconscious: motivations and
memories of which we are not
aware,
b) mental illness arises from being
over- whelmed by which of these is
‘in control’.
Psychoanalysis as therapy: tell me about your childhood…
And Psychological Science Keeps on Developing…
Humanistic Psychology: for example, Maslow (1908-1970) and Rogers (1902-1987) emphasized current environmental influences on our growth potential and our need for love and acceptance.
Cognitive Science/Psychology: the psychological study of higher mental processes – of how people perceive, remember, think, speak, and solve problems [1956-on, Miller, Bruner, Newell…] […]
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Definition of modern/contemporary Psychology
Q: How has the science of Psychology’s focus changed since its birth in the late 19th century?
After beginning as a “science of mental life”, Psychology evolved in the 1920s into a “science of observable behavior”. Then, after rediscovering the mind in the 1960s, Psychology today views itself as a “science of behavior and mental processes”.
Definition of modern/contemporary Psychology
Q: What is the modern definition of Psychology?
We define Psychology today as
the scientific study of
behavior (what we do) and
mental processes (inner thoughts and feelings).
Psychological Associations and Societies
Psychology is growing and globalizing → Psychological
Associations and Societies →
APA is the largest organization of Psychology with
about 160.000 members world-wide, followed by the
BPS with 34.000 members.
PLANNIND LECTURE 2
TOPICS OF INTEREST:
Based on Lecture 1: Focus on the roots and the definition of Psychology.
Next, we’ll focus on the Psy research and the biological perspective on Psychology.
FOR ANY FURTHER QUESTIONS
DON’T HESITATE TO ASK ME IN CLASS
OR CONTACT ME VIA E-MAIL
(a.papaioannou@cityu.gr)
-Always Cc Student Support, as well (student.support@cityu.gr).
ANY QUESTIONS, THOUGHTS, IDEAS…?
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