Chap 1: What's Psychology?

Chap 1: what's psychology?: Early works in psychology: Philosophers were the first psychologists, including Platos and Aristotle. Aristotle: introduced the term tabula rasa known as "blank state" to describe the mind, he considers it a place for our experiences to be written. Ex. Like a blank book The first documented efforts to explain psychological disorders was done by a Persian physician who wrote a book that described both neuroanatomy of the brain and mental illness and their treatments. Mind, body, and behavior: Psychology focuses on answering questions about the mind through behavioral evidence. They use behavior, actions, words, response time, and brain activity to make inferences about what's going on inside the mind. Psychology is considered the union of both philosophy and physiology. Dualism - is the philosophical belief that the mind and body are separate from each other Most psychologist today don't adopt the belief of dualism, and instead believe that the brain and mind are the same as "the mind is the activity of the brain". Behavior: directly measurable Empiricism - the view that knowledge arises directly from what we observe and experience Psychology is empirical so the field arrives at conclusions through observation and analysis @ Phienoms Chap 1: basic research in psychology: The work that psychologists do can be divided into 3 primary areas: basic research, application and clinical work (not exclusive). Basic research in psychology: Basic research is work done by psychologists to understand the fundamental principals of behavior and the mind. Basic research is usually conducted with perfectly healthy people. But the research populations are changing. Basic research also comes in many forms from surveys to measuring brain's electrical signals. Psychologists are usually interested in a specific aspect Of psychology aka a speciality. • major areas shown → Basic research seeks to understand and doesn't try to fix or improve on a way to address it. Basic research aka pure research is meant to increase our scientific understanding. It's usually purely theoretical and intended to increase our understanding of certain phenomena or behavior. @ Phienoms Chap 1: applied psychology: Applied psychology: Applied psychology can be divided into 2 primary areas: research and practice Applied research's purpose is to discover a new or more effective way to solve specific problems while applied practice refers to the actual application of the discovered techniques to solve specific practical problems Applied research are psychologist finding ways to effectively solve problems by altering the environment to better complement the behavior or changing the behavior to solve problems. translational research is a form applied research where psychologist take basic research and using the findings in the research to create a practical solution to a problem. The difference between translational research and applied Research is translational research turns new discoveries/basic research into real tools or solutions whereas applied research uses the tools or solutions along with what we know to solve problems • one creates the tools to solve the problem (translational research) and the other (applied research) uses experience and the tools if needed to solve a problem @ Phienoms Chap 1: clinical Psychology: Clinical psychology: Clinical psychology is a form of applied psychology, with a focus in wellness and mental health. It’s focus is identifying, preventing, and relieving distress/dysfunction that is psychological in nature. Clinical work is the most dominate type of work in psychology. Some clinical psychologist do basic research Or applied research, but the majority of psychologist do practice focus work like diagnosing and treating mental health issues within clients. Clinical psychologist are often contrasted with psychiatrist, who are medical doctors who focus on the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness. The difference between them are the training they receive and approach to treatment. Psychiatrist are required to go to medical school prior to completing medical training in psychiatry and are focused on pharmacotherapy. Which is prescribing medication as the primary mean of treating mental illness. Psychologist primarily use psychotherapy (talk therapy) as a form of treatment and preforms psychological assessments. Another major career path in clinical psychology besides clinical psychologists and psychiatrists are counseling psychologists. The difference between clinical and counseling psychologists is clinical psychologists tend to diagnose and treat more severe mental illness, counseling psychologists focus of helping people deal with ongoing situations, or dealing with a life transition. @ Phienoms Chap 1: nature versus nurture: The nature V.S. nature debate is basically what extent is the human experience shaped by nature, and to what extent does the environment play a role? The contrasting position to empiricism is nativism, which is the belief that some forms of knowledge are innate. The logical extreme of nativism is biological determinism. Which is undefendable because it's obvious that people learn and change because of their experiences. We can't completely dismiss nativism, because for many basic processes of perception it’s difficult to change the way a person sees something even with more experiences. • ex. optical illusions It's difficult to prove that illusions are innate, but children who were blind from birth and received surgical correction for their vision are still susceptible to the Ponzo illusion and Müller-Lyer illusion immediately after surgery. A large variety of individuals difference in temperament, intelligence, and personality have been shown to have some biological component. Your genetics and biology (natures ) outlines the chapters, while experiences (nurture) fills in the specific details. @ Phienoms Chap 1: evolutionary psychology: Charles Darwin's theory of evolution (1859) shaped psychology and still is influential today. Adaptive traits - traits that are advantageous for survival and reproduction Darwin believed that traits that are more advantageous for survival and reproduction (adaptive traits) are more likely to be passed down in a process called natural selection because of the benefits they provide. Behavioral tendencies like human behavior can also be passed down, because the brain is a part of the body so it too is subjected to natural selection. Heritability - the principal that a trait must be able to be passed down through generations in order for it to be selected. Variations in phenotypes - In order for selection to occur there must be different physical traits present in the population without differences, particular traits Connot be favored or disfavored because there's only one Genotype is the opposite of phenotype instead of describing one’s physical traits it describes the genetic structure. Natural selection produces evolutionary change as a changes the generic composition of an entire population (genotype). The struggle for existences - Populations can have more offsprings than resources can support @ Phienoms Chap 1: history of psychology: The mind-body connection: Philosophers guided the questions psychologists ask, the work of physiologists has helped psychologists forge links between the mind and the body. Back in the 1900s phrenology believed that the shape of the skull was due to the size of the brain structure beneath it and could tell you about the person's mental capacities because they thought different brain areas correspond to different characteristics or abilities. Although phrenology is now completely discredited, in recent years it’s been verified through cognitive neuroscience that brain areas are associated with Specific functions ( proportions of the skin had nothing to do with it). Studying psychology as a science: Wihelm Wundt is considered the "father of psychology". He established the first psychological laboratory in 1879 at the university of Leipzig in Germany. Wundt was interested in sensation and perception, how people understand the world and turn it into ideas and thoughts (mental experiences - the mind) Laying the foundations of structuralism: Introspection a method refined by Wundt relied on participants self reporting their thoughts, feelings, and mental images. titchener wanted to know what forms an experience (sensation, feelings, mental image), wundt wanted to know how the mind works as a whole when we experience something. Edward titchener, wudut'S student believed that problems can be solved with systematic introspection, by standardizing the way conscious experiences were reported so it can be compared to another person's experiences. @ Phienoms Chap 1: structuralism: Both Wundt and titchener, believed that psychology should focus on breaking conscious experiences into basic elements (sensation, feelings, and mental images) and understanding how those elements combine to create experience. They also believed that self-reports of conscious experiences should be the primary form of evidence in psychology. titchener, along with many are considered responsible for popularizing the study of experimental psychology in North America. he even founded a laboratory at Cornell university. titchener popularized breaking conscious experience into elementary parts, which is now known as structuralism. Wundt didn't identify as a structuralist his belief was called voluntarism. He believed that we actively pick and chose what to pay attention/focus on and that choice influences our experience and emotions. The difference between Wundt's introspection and titchener'S was Wundt was more concerned about now the mind worked as a whole when we experience something compared to titchener who was more concerned about what makes up an experience. Structuralism is often recognized as the first significant movement in the history of psychology as a science. @ Phienoms Chap 1: functionalism: Structuralism and systematic introspection itself began to receive significant criticism, particularly In North America. Among the critics were William James, who was am American physician and philosopher. william james is considered as the “father of american psychology”. he was the first person to offer a course on experimental psychology in the U.S. at Harvard in 1875. James believed that structuralism was fundamentally misguided. He argued that breaking down conscious experiences into basic elements Without understanding their function provided little to no insight into the workingS of the mind. Functionalism influenced by Darwin’s theories on evolution, was interested in the function and purpose of psychological traits and human behavior and how they may have helped us survive and reproduced. Functionalism focuses on the problems that psychological processes solve, it also opened up the range of topics psychologists explored. Such as john Dewey, an early pioneer of educational psychology, and Edward thorndike who was influential in the field of animal learning. Although functionalism offered an alternative perspective to structuralism for the process of psychological research, it didn't replace structuralism as in Europe and burlin the structuralist approach continued. Both structuralism and functionalism (majority of the early works in psychology) focused on exploring immediate conscious experiences and often used similar methods. @ Phienoms Chap 1: behaviorism: Psychologist began increasingly skeptical of introspection and it's inherently subjected nature. Which led to behaviorism. Behaviorism suggests observable behavior should be the only topic of study, ignoring conscious experiences, and disregarding introspection. As animal psychology began to become more popular, it wasn't possible to preform introspection as you can't ask animals what they're thinking. So they were forced to observe their behaviors. Due to the skepticism about the measurability of the mind and the study of animal behavior, psychology shifted towards behaviorism. American psychologist John B. Watson popularized the idea that the mind and internal mental states were unmeasurable and rejected introspection. he believed that psychology should focus on observable behavior as it can be measured and replicated. WatSon's beliefs were called perspective behaviorism because it solely focused on behavior. Although his approach was the dominant one in N.A due to WW1, it delayed the rise of behaviorism. In the 1950s, B.F. Skinner was a behaviorist and was known for his work on operant conditioning, and the study on how behaviors can be changed with rewards and punishments. His theories on operant conditioning are still influential and valid, because it focuses on behavior, operant conditioning it can be applied to different tasks. @ Phienoms Chap 1: cognitive revolution: The focus on the mind was mostly lost due to behaviorism, but thanks to behaviorism psychology became much more methodologically rigorous. In the 1950s, there was a renewed interest in mental processes and the mind because there were still things behaviorist models can't explain. The cognitive revolution was A shift away from behaviorism. Computers according to Steven pinker provided a framework for how to consider the mind. He believed if we can explain computers using internal parts like the CPU why can't we do the same with humans. Cognitive science was the result of the cognitive revolution which is a combination experimental psychology, linguistics, computer science, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and more. Psychology today doesn't just only take the behaviorist approach of observing behavior and disregarding the mental processes, instead cognitivist, use behavior as a way to make inferences about what's going on inside the mind. Computers were important in shifting how psychologist made inferences about the mind by introducing new methods and models for understanding mental processes. The cognitive revolution returned psychology's focus to the scientific understanding of the mind and paved the way for many more research in psychology.