General Psychology

November 26/2013
Holy Trinity University
Degree Three
 INTRODUCTION
You might have heard or used the term psychology
before you start attending this class.

Psychology is a science of human cognitive processes

and behaviors.

This course focuses on this science of mind and behavior.

Chapter one introduces the field of psychology as a study

of mind and behavior.
 Objectives

• Describe basic psychological

Up on the concepts;
completion • Compare and contrast the major
theoretical perspectives in
of this psychology;
course, • Discuss different aspects of
human development;
students • Compare and contrast different
will be learning theories;
• Summarize motivational and
able to: emotional processes;
 CHAPTER ONE
ESSENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY

This chapter deals on the concept of

psychology. And the specific contents
addressed in the chapter are
• definition of psychology and related concepts,
• goals of psychology,
• historical background and major perspectives in
psychology,
• branches/subfields of psychology, and
• research methods in psychology
 Learning Outcomes
• Define psychology
• Show historical roots of psychology as a science
• Point out the goals of psychology
• Identify early schools and modern perspectives of
psychology
• Discuss the basis of differences among perspectives of
psychology
At the end of this • Identify subfields of psychology

chapter, you will • Differentiate the major research methods in psychology

• Explore the major steps of scientific research in

be able to: psychology

 1.1. Definition of Psychology and
Related Concepts
What comes to your mind when you hear about the word
psychology?

Have you ever heard about, read or listened to anything related to

psychology?

What was its content about?

Did you appreciate it? If yes why?

What do you expect from the course in psychology?

 Psychology
• The word "psychology" is derived from two Greek
words “psyche” and “logos”.
• Psyche refers to mind, soul or sprit while logos means
study, knowledge or discourse.
• Therefore, by combining the two Greek words the term
"psychology" epistemologically refers to the study of the
mind, soul, or sprit and it is often represented by the
Greek letter ᴪ (psi) which is read as ("sy").
• Psychologists define psychology differently based on
their intentions, research findings, and background
experiences.
• Nowadays, most of them agree on the following scientific
definition of psychology
 ᴪ (psi)

Psychology is the scientific study of

human behavior and the underlying mental

In the above • science,

definition, • behavior and
there are
three aspects; • mental processes:
 ᴪ {psi}

Science: psychology uses scientific methods to

study behavior and mental processes in both
humans and animals.

This means psychologists do not study

behavior with commonsense rather they follow
scientific procedures and use empirical data to
study behavior and mental processes
 Behavior

Behavior: refers to all of our There is also covert

outward or overt actions and behavior which is hidden,
reactions, such as talking, non observable and
facial expressions, generally considered as a
movement, etc. mental process
 Behavior

You may, for example, think that human behavior

is all the result of inheritance, or you, may,
instead, say it is all the result of interaction with
the environment.

The first system of thinking takes a biological

approach and the later takes an environmental
approach.

But, what is common in both is there is a tendency

to give general, systematized approach of
explaining phenomena.
 Mental processes

It refer to all the internal,

covert activities of our
minds, such as thinking,
feeling, remembering, etc.
1.2. Goals of Psychology

Why do you think is psychology important?

What do you think a psychologist is doing
when studying behavior and mental processes?
 As a science

As a •description,
science, •explanation,
psychology
has four •prediction, and
goals; •control.
 Description:
• Description involves observing the behavior and noticing everything about
it.
• It is a search for answers for questions like ‗
– What is happening?‘
– Where does it happen?‘
– To whom does it happen?‘ And
– under what circumstances does it seem to happen?.
• Psychology is the scientific study of human behavior and the underlying
mental processes.
• example, a teacher might notice that a young freshman girl in her general
psychology classroom is behaving oddly.
• She is not turning to her homework, her results are slipping badly, and she
seems to have a very negative attitude toward the course.
 Explanation:

Explanation: Why is it happening?

Explanation is about trying to find reasons for the

observed behavior.
• This helps in the process of forming theories of behavior (A theory is
a general explanation of a set of observations or facts).
• For instance in the above example, to find out why the girl is doing all
those things, the teacher would most likely ask her parents about her
home background, her friends and the like and may come to an
understanding that this girl was behaving the way she did because she
was given attention (in a way reward) by other people when she used
to behave oddly
 Prediction:

Prediction: prediction is about

determining what will happen in the
future.
• In the above example, the case of the
freshman girl, the psychologist or counselor
would predict (based on previous research into
similar situations) that this girl may never be
able to reach her full learning potential.
 Control:
• How can it be changed? Control or modify or change the
behavior from undesirable one (such as failing in school) to
a desirable one (such as academic success).
• In the example above, certain learning strategies can be
used to help the girl so that she will be successful in her
academic endeavor.
• Control can also be used in the sense that a psychologist
tries to check out the effects of certain undesirable factors in
examining the relationship between two or more behaviors.
– For example, in studying the relationship between intelligence
and academic performance in freshman courses, a psychologist
needs to control the effect of socio-economic status of the
family.
 1.3. Historical Background and
Major Perspectives in Psychology

Dear student, can you imagine how long has psychology

been around and where did it begin?

Psychology is a relatively new field in the realm of the

sciences, only about 125 years old.

It began as a science of its own in 1879 in Leipzig,

Germany, with the establishment of a psychology
laboratory in the University of Leipzig by Wilhelm Wundt.
 "father of modern psychology”
• Wundt developed the technique of objective
introspection to scientifically examine mental
experiences.
• With such newer orientation to the study of human
subjective experiences that were previously under the field
of philosophy alone, psychology then begun as an
independent field of study and with Wundt as its founder or
"father of modern psychology.
• Once psychology begun to use the scientific method, it then
went through successive developments in which different
schools of thought emerged at different times.
• These schools of thought can be categorized as old and
modern as described below.
 1.3.1. Early schools of psychology
• Dear student, what do you think is a school
of thought?
• Do you think we have schools of thought in
psychology?
• If yes, like what, for example?
– A school of thought is a system of thinking
about a certain issue, say, for example, about
human behavior or mind.
 psychology

Surly, psychology, as a discipline,

is embedded in different systems
of thought from its inception.

These systems of thought were

very broad in the early years of
psychology and, therefore, we
call them “schools of thought”.
 There are five such early
schools of psychology.

• It is an expansion of Wundt‘s ideas by his

structuralism student named Edward Titchener (1867-1927).
• Titchener is the founder of structuralism.
views • The goal of structuralists was to find out the
units or elements, which make up the mind
psychology such as; sensations, images, and feelings.
as a study of • The best-known method used by them was
introspection ―looking inward into our
structure of consciousness‖.
• It is a procedure aimed at analyzing the mental
mind. experience into three basic mental elements:
images, feelings, and sensations.
 Structuralism

Analyzing mental
structure alone was found
to serve little purpose in
helping humans deal with
the environment.
 The second school of
thought is Functionalism
 Functionalism

Hence, a new school of thought emerged to study this functional value of human mind-
functionalism. Functionalism- views psychology as a study of function of the mind.

The founder of this school of thought is William James (1848-1910),

who was the first American psychologist and the author of the first
psychology textbook.

Unlike Wundt and Titchener, James focused on how the mind allows
people to function in the real world; how people work, play, and adapt
to their surroundings, a viewpoint he called functionalism.
 Functionalism

• He developed many research methods other than

introspection including questionnaires, mental tests and
objective descriptions of behavior.
• Generally, according to functionalists, psychological
processes are adaptive.
• They allow humans to survive and to adapt successfully
to their surroundings.
• Examining human mind in terms of its structural
elements and functions were, however, found to be
simplistic to understand the complex human being.
• It was believed that human mind is more than the sum
of sensations as well as adaptive functions.
 Gestalt psychology
• Hence, a new school of thought was emerged to
examine mind in a holistic manner-Gestalt
Psychology.
• Gestalt psychology views psychology as a study
of the whole mind.
• Max Wertheimer and his colleagues founded this
school of thought in Germany in the 20th century.
• Gestalt psychologists argued that the mind is not
made up of combinations of elements.
• The German word "gestalt" refers to form, whole,
configuration or pattern.
 Gestalt
• According to them, the mind should be thought of
as a result of the whole pattern of sensory activity
and the relationships and organizations within
their pattern.
• In brief, the gestalt psychologists acknowledge
consciousness.
• They held that "the whole is greater than the sum
of its parts.
• Means mind is greater than its parts (images,
sensations, and feelings).
 Gestalt
• Generally what is common to all the three schools
of though is the fact that they all try to examine
the human mind; which is an internal, no-visible,
and hidden experience of human beings.
• Although it could be useful to understand this
experience, it was believed that this subjective,
private experience can‘t be observable,
measurable, and hence can‘t be studied
scientifically.
 School Thought
• Hence, for psychology to become scientific, it
needs to get rid of dealing with subjectivity in
all its forms and rather focus on studying
behavior.
• This has led to the birth of a new paradigm of
thought about psychology called behaviorism.
 Behaviorism:
• behaviorists view psychology as a study of observable
and measurable behaviors. John B. Watson is the
founder of behaviorism. Other proponents include E.
Thorndike and F. Skinner.
• For Watson, psychology was the study of observable
and measurable behavior and nothing more about
hidden mental processes.
• According to Watson, we cannot define consciousness
any better than we can define the soul; we cannot locate
it or measure it and, therefore, it cannot be the object of
scientific study.
• As to Watson, behaviorism had three other
important characteristics in addition to its focus
on behavior; conditioned response as the elements
or building blocks of behavior, learned rather than
unlearned behaviors, and focus on animal
behavior.
• He believed that all behaviors are learned but not
inherited and learners are passive and reactive
(they are not initiating their learning but they
respond when the environment stimulates them).
• All the four schools of thought discussed so far
were focusing on human mind and behavior as
conscious experiences.
• But, an opposition to this assertion came from a
physician in Vienna who, after working with so
many patients, realized that human functioning
was basically explained by more powerful forces
which were not accessible to our consciousness.
• Hence, this lead to the formulation of a new
school of thought in psychology called
Psychoanalysis.
Psychoanalysis
 Psychoanalysis
• Psychoanalysis: psychology studies about the
components of the unconscious part of the human
mind.
• Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is the founder of this
school of thought. He was the most controversial
and most popular in the study of behavior and
mental processes.
• As a physician, Sigmund Freud became
convinced that some of the physical illnesses of
his patients didn‘t have medical or bodily causes;
but non-physical or emotional causes.
 Psychoanalysis
• He called these kinds of illnesses as ‗hysteria‘ or
conversion reaction to indicate the conversion of
emotional problems into bodily problems.
• He also underscored that that conflicts and
emotional traumas that had occurred in early
childhood can be too threatening to be
remembered consciously and therefore they
become hidden or unconscious and then will
remain to affect later behavior.
 Psychoanalysis
• Freud argued that conscious awareness is the tip of the
mental iceberg beneath the visible tip lays the
unconscious part of the mind.
• The unconscious which is the subject matter of
psychoanalysis contains hidden wishes, passions, guilty
secrets, unspeakable yearnings, and conflict between
desire and duty.
• We are not aware of our unconscious urges and
thoughts and they make themselves known in dreams,
slip of the tongue, apparent accidents and even jokes.
• He used clinical case studies (hypnosis and Dream
analysis) as a method.
 Psychoanalysis

• Before concluding this section, how do you think the above

five early schools of psychology generally differ one from
the other?
• These schools basically differ in terms of three issues:
object, goal, and methods of study:
• In their object of study, i.e. what they studied (conscious
mind, unconscious mind, and overt behavior).
• In their goal (analyze the components of the mind or
observing the effect of the environment on behavior).
• In their method (Introspection, observation, clinical case
studies, etc...). So, in the light of these three issues, now you
compare and contrast the five schools of early psychology
• Note that an important lesson learned from early
psychological thoughts is that there are different
ways of explaining the same behavior.
• Hence, modern psychologists tend to examine
human behavior through several views.
• The views that predominate today are
psychodynamic, behavioral, humanistic,
cognitive, biological, and sociocultural
perspectives.
• These views reflect different questions about
human behavior, different assumptions about how
the mind works, and different kinds of
explanations why people do and what they do.
The schools are presented below.
1.3.2. Modern schools of psychology
• The early schools of thought have generally laid
the foundation for further developments in
psychology as a science.
• They opened a door for taking multiple
perspectives in explaining human behavior and
mental processes.
• Dear student, what lessons do you think were
generally learned from the early schools of
psychology in better understanding human
behavior?
 Psychodynamic perspective

• - It has its origins in Freud's theory of

psychoanalysis, but many other
psychodynamic theories exist.
• This perspective emphasizes the unconscious
dynamics within the individual such as inner
forces, conflicts or instinctual energy.
 The psychodynamic approach
emphasizes:
• The influence of unconscious mental behavior on
everyday behavior
• The role of childhood experiences in shaping
adult personality
• The role of intrapersonal conflict in determining
human behavior Psychodynamic perspective tries
to dig below the surface of a person's behavior to
get into unconscious motives; psychodynamists
think of themselves as archaeologists of the mind.
 Behavioral Perspective-
• It emphasizes the role learning experiences
play in shaping the behavior of an organism.
• It is concerned with how the environment
affects the person‘s actions.
• Behaviorists focus on environmental
conditions (e.g. rewards, and punishments) that
maintain or discourage specific behaviors.
 Behavioral
Perspective-
• The behavioral perspective is sometimes called
the "black box" approach in psychology because
it treats the mind as less useful in understanding
human behavior and focus on what goes in to and
out of the box, but not on the processes that take
place inside
• This means, behaviorists are only interested in the
effects of the environment (input) on behavior
(outpu t) but not in the process inside the box.
 Humanistic Perspective
• According to this perspective, human behavior
is not determined either by unconscious
dynamics or the environment.
• Rather it emphasizes the uniqueness of
human beings and focuses on human values
and subjective experiences.
• This perspective places greater importance on
the individual‘s free will.
 Humans…
• The goal of humanistic psychology was
helping people to express themselves
creatively and achieve their full potential or
self actualization (developing the human
potential to its fullest).
 Cognitive Perspective-
• it emphasizes what goes on in people's heads;
how people reason, remember, understand
language, solve problems, explain experiences
and form beliefs.
• This perspective is concerned about the mental
processes.
• The most important contribution of this
perspective has been to show how people's
thoughts and explanations affect their actions,
feelings, and choices.
 Cogni……..
• Techniques used to explore behavior from a
cognitive perspective include electrical
recording of brain activity, electrical
stimulation and radioactive tracing of
metabolic activity in the nervous system.
 Biological Perspective-
• it focuses on studying how bodily events or
functioning of the body affects behavior, feelings,
and thoughts.
• It holds that the brain and the various brain
chemicals affect psychological processes such as
learning, performance, perception of reality, the
experience of emotions, etc.
• This perspective underscores that biology and
behavior interact in a complex way; biology
affecting behavior and behavior in turn affecting
biology.
 Biolo….
• It also emphasizes the idea that we are
physical beings who evolved over a long time
and that genetic heritage can predispose us to
behaving in a certain way.
• In a manner that our eyebrows evolved to
protect our eyes, we may have evolved certain
kinds of behavior patterns to protect our bodies
and ensure the survival of our species.
 Socio-cultural Perspective-
• It focuses on the social and cultural factors that
affects human behavior.
• As a fish cannot leave without water, human
behavior cannot be understood without
sociocultural context (the social and cultural
environment) that people "Swim" in every day.
• For instance, social psychologists examine how
group membership affects attitudes and behaviors,
why authority and other people (like spouse,
lovers, friends, bosses, parents, and strangers)
affect each of us.
 Socio…
• Cultural psychologists also examine how
cultural rules and values (both explicit and
unspoken) affect people's development,
behavior, and feelings.
• This perspective holds that humans are both
the products and the producers of culture, and
our behavior always occurs in some cultural
contexts.
1.4. Branches/Sub Fields of Psychology
• Dear student, can you tell where psychologists are
employed to work after graduation?
– Do you tried?
• Very good! Let us see some fields of psychology
together.
• The areas where psychologists join to work depend all
on the type of field of study they pursue in a university.
• Accordingly, psychology has become a very diverse
field today that there are different branches (or sub
fields) which psychologists can pursue to study.
• Below are some of the branches of psychology.
 Developmental psychology
• – It studies the physical, cognitive and
psychological changes across the life span.
• It attempts to examine the major developmental
milestones that occur at different stages of
development.
• Personality Psychology – it focuses on the
relatively enduring traits and characteristics of
individuals.
• Personality psychologists study topics such as
self-concept, aggression, moral development, etc.
 Social
Psychology
• –deals with people‘s
– social interactions,
– relationships,
– social perception, and
– attitudes
 Cross-cultural Psychology

• - examines the role of culture in understanding

behavior, thought, and emotion.
• It compares the nature of psychological
processes in different cultures, with a special
interest in whether or not psychological
phenomena are universal or culture-specific.
 Industrial
psychology

• – applies psychological principles in industries

and organizations to increase the productivity
of that organization.
 Forensic
psychology

• - applies psychological principles to improve

the legal system (police, testimony, etc..).
 Educational Psychology
• It - concerned with the application of
psychological principles and theories in
improving the educational process including
curriculum, teaching, and administration of
academic programs.
 Health Psychology
• It - applies psychological principles to the
prevention and treatment of physical illness
and diseases.
 Clinical
Psychology:-
• is a field that applies psychological principles
to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of
psychological disorders.
 Counseling Psychology

• It - is a field having the same concern as

clinical psychology but helps individuals with
less severe problems than those treated by
clinical psychologists.
1.5. Research Methods in Psychology

• Dear student, can you please describe what

science, and the scientific method in particular,
is focused on?
• Before getting into research methods, it is
important to start with discussion of scientific
method.
• At the beginning of this chapter, we said that
psychology is the scientific study of behavior
and mental processes.
 Resear …
• This means, in psychology, researchers want to
see only what is there, not what their biases might
want them to see.
• Researchers do this by using the scientific method
(a system for reducing bias and error in the
measurement of data).
• Hence, before discussing the types of research
methods; we try to see the following terms.
• Scientific method - a process of testing ideas
through systematic observations,
experimentations, and statistical analysis.
 Resear…..
• Theory - is an integrated set of principles about
observed facts that is intended to describe and
explain some aspects of experience.
• Hypotheses - is a tentative proposition about
the relationship between two or more variables
or phenomena.
• E.g. Males have high self - confidence in
making decisions than females
B. Major types of research methods
• Dear student, do you think that psychologists are
doing exactly the same thing to achieve the
different goals?
• Although all psychologists pursue the same
scientific method, there is, however, diversity in
what psychologists do to achieve the different
objectives and goals.
• Hence, there are three major types of research
methods: descriptive, correlational and
experimental research methods.
 Descriptive research
• Descriptive research - in this type of research,
the researcher simply records what she/he has
systematically observed.
• Descriptive research methods include
naturalistic observation, case studies, and
surveys.
i. Naturalistic observation:
• is a descriptive research method in which subjects
are observed in their natural environment to get a
real (not artificial) picture of how behavior
occurs.
• Limitations of naturalistic observation are
observer effect (animals or people who know they
are being watched may behave artificially) and
observer bias (the researcher may not observe
systematically or he/she may observe behaviors
he/she wants to observe and ignores others).
 ii. Case study:
• is a descriptive technique in which an individual
is studied in great detail.
• Its advantage is that it provides tremendous
amount of data about a single case or individual.
• The disadvantage of case study is that the
researchers can‘t apply the results to other similar
people, which means what researchers find in one
case can‘t necessarily apply or generalize to
others.
 iii. Survey:
• is a descriptive research method used to collect
data from a very large group of people.
• It is useful to get information on private
(covert) behaviors and it addresses hundreds of
people with the same questions at the same
time.
• Its disadvantage is that it needs a careful
selection of a representative sample of the
actual population.
 Correlational research
• - is a research method that measures the
relationship between two or more variables.
• A variable is anything that can change or vary
–scores on a test, the temperature in a room,
gender, and so on.
• For example, a researcher might be curious to
know whether or not cigarette smoking is
connected to life expectancy.
• Though correlation tells researchers if there is a
relationship between variables, how strong the
relationship is, and in what direction the
relationship goes, it doesn‘t prove causation
(which means it doesn‘t show the cause and effect
relationship).
• This means, for example, that if there is a
relationship between smoking and lung cancer,
this doesn‘t mean that smoking causes lung
cancer.
 Experimental Research:
• it is a research method that allows researchers to
study the cause and effect relationship between
variables.
• In experimental research, a carefully regulated
procedure in which one or more factors believed
to influence the behavior being studied are
manipulated and all other factors are held
constant.
• Experiments involve at least one independent
variable and one dependent variable.
• The independent variable is the manipulated,
influential, experimental factor.
• The dependent variable is the factor (behavior)
that is measured in an experiment.
• It can change as the independent variable is
manipulated. Used or worked
• For example, a researcher may need to know
whether or not class size has an effect on
students‘ academic performance and hypothesizes
as ―do students in small class size have better
academic performance than students in large class
size?
• In this question, the researcher has two variables:
class size, which is the independent variable to be
manipulated and students‟ performance which is
the dependent variable to be measured while class
size is changed.
• Experiments also involve randomly assigned
experimental groups and control groups.
• An experimental group is a group whose
experience is manipulated.
• In our example, the experimental group is
students who are assigned in small class sizes.
• A control group is a comparison that is treated
in every way like the experimental group
except for the manipulated factor (class size).
• The control group serves as a baseline against
which the effects of the manipulated condition
can be compared.
• In this example, the control group is the group of
students who are assigned in large class sizes.
• Although experimental research is useful to
discover causes of behaviors, such research must
be done cautiously because expectations and
biases on the part of both the researcher and
participants can affect the results.
 C. Steps of scientific research
• Dear student, can you think of the procedures
to be followed to conduct scientific research,
please?
• Did you try?
• Fantastic! In scientific research, there are at
least five major steps to be followed.
 Step one –
• Defining the Problem - noticing something attention
catching in the surrounding for which one would like to
have an explanation.
• For example, you may notice that children seem to get
a little more aggressive with each other after watching
practically violent children‘s cartoon videos.
• You wonder if the violence in the cartoon video could
be creating aggressive behavior on the children.
• Hence, you may raise a research problem focusing on
the effect of aggressive videos on children‘s behavior.
 Step two
• - Formulating the Hypothesis - after having an
observation on surroundings (perceiving the
problem), you might form an educated guess
about the explanation for your observations,
putting it into the form of a statement that can be
tested in some way.
• For our example above, you might formulate a
hypothesis ―children who watch violent cartoons
will become more aggressive than those who
watch non-violent cartoons.
 Step three -
• Testing the Hypothesis - at this step, the
researcher employs appropriate research methods
and collects ample data (information) to accept or
reject the proposed statement.
• For instance, in the above example, the data will
be gathered from children who watch aggressive
videos and from those who do not watch
aggressive videos and make comparisons between
the behaviors of the two groups to determine
whether watching aggressive video makes
children more aggressive.
 Step four –
• Drawing Conclusions - this is the step in
which the researcher attempts to make
generalizations or draw implications from
tested relationship
 Step five
• - Reporting Results - at this point, the
researcher would want to write up exactly
what she/he did, why she/he did, and what
she/he found.
• So that, others can learn from what she/he has
already accomplished, or failed to accomplish.
• This allows others to predict and modify
behavior based on the findings.
 Summary
• Psychology is a science of behavior and
mental process.
• Psychologists aim at describing, explaining,
predicting and controlling behaviors.
• Though Psychology as a scientific field began
in 1879 in Germany, it has gone through
different phases.
• The perspectives of psychology are generally
classified as early and modern.
 Discussion Questions
1. Compare and contrast the five early schools of thought
in psychology.
2. Compare and contrast the modern psychological
perspectives.
3. Please reflect on the relationship between the goals of
psychology and the three types of research methods using
examples.
4. Mention the steps of conducting research in
psychology.
5. A psychologist is interested in exploring the effect of
tutorial support on students‘ academic performance
and assign students into two groups.
• Early psychology was considered schools of
―isms‖ which include structuralism,
functionalism, behaviorism, and, in fact, Gestalt
psychology and psychoanalysis.
• Modern perspectives of psychology have emerged
from these early psychological thoughts.
• These modern perspectives that are used to
describe and explain behavior and mind are
…..(please list).
• The knowledge of Psychology can be applied
in different contexts such as health, education,
business, law, and the like.
• Psychologists study behavior using three major
types of research methods; descriptive,
correlational, and experimental.
• In employing the different types of research
methods, psychologists are expected to follow
five basic steps in conducting research.
• Students in group one get the tutorial support
and those in group two do not. In this example,
what is the
• a) Dependent variable
• b) Independent variable
• c) Control group
• d) Experimental group