CHAPTER 1
The Science of Psychology
The History of Psychology
• Psychology: the scientific study of behavior and mental
processes
– Behavior: outward or overt actions and reactions
– E.g. talking, facial expressions, and movement
– Mental processes: internal, covert activity of our minds
– E.g. thinking, feeling, and remembering
In the Beginning
• Wilhelm Wundt’s psychology laboratory
– Germany in 1879
– consciousness, the state of being aware of external
events, could be broken down into thoughts,
experiences, emotions, and other basic elements
– objective introspection: the process of objectively
examining and measuring one’s thoughts and mental
activities
• Structuralism
• Functionalism
Three Influential Approaches: Gestalt,
Psychoanalysis, and Behaviorism
• Gestalt
– An organized whole
– “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
– Started with Wertheimer, who studied sensation and
perception
– Gestalt ideas now part of study of cognitive psychology
• Cognitive psychology: field focusing not only on perception
but also on learning, memory, thought processes, and
problem solving
Figure 1.2 A Gestalt Perception
The eye tends to “fill in” the blanks here and sees both of these figures as circles
rather than as a series of dots or a broken line.
Three Influential Approaches: Gestalt,
Psychoanalysis, and Behaviorism
• Psychoanalysis: theory and therapy based on the work of
Sigmund Freud
• Freud’s patients suffered from nervous disorders with no
apparent physical cause.
– Proposed the existence of an unconscious (unaware)
mind into which we push—or repress—our threatening
urges and desires
– Believed that these repressed urges, in trying to
surface, created nervous disorders
– Stressed the importance of early childhood experiences
– The basis of modern psychotherapy
Three Influential Approaches: Gestalt,
Psychoanalysis, and Behaviorism
• Behaviorism
– Focuses on observable behavior only
– Must be directly seen and measured
• Proposed by John B. Watson
– Based on Pavlov’s work, who demonstrated that a reflex
could be conditioned or learned
– Watson believed that phobias were learned
▪ Case of “Little Albert”: baby taught to fear a white rat
• Mary Cover Jones: Early pioneer in behavior therapy
Counterconditioning
Modern Perspectives
• Psychodynamic Perspective
– Modern version of psychoanalysis
– More focused on development of a sense of self and
discovery of motivations behind a person’s behavior
other than sexual motivations
Modern Perspectives
• Behavioral Perspective
– B. F. Skinner studied operant conditioning of voluntary
behavior
– Behaviorism became a major force in the twentieth
century
– Skinner introduced the concept of reinforcement to
behaviorism
Modern Perspectives
• Humanistic Perspective
– The early roots of psychology in the field of philosophy
– People have free will the freedom to choose their
own destiny
▪ Self-actualization achieving one’s full potential or
actual self
– A form of psychotherapy
– Early founders
▪ Abraham Maslow
▪ Carl Rogers
Modern Perspectives
• Cognitive Perspective
– Focuses on memory, intelligence, perception, problem
solving, and learning
– Cognitive psychology
– Cognitive neuroscience
– Tools for imaging the structure and activity of the living
brain
Modern Perspectives
• Sociocultural Perspective
– Focuses on relationship between social behavior
and culture
– E.g. Bystander effect
– Cross-cultural research similarities and
differences
Modern Perspectives
• Biopsychological Perspective
– Attributes human and animal behavior to biological
events occurring in the body, such as genetic
influences, hormones, and activity of nervous system
– Physiological psychology, biological psychology,
psychobiology, and behavioral neuroscience
– A part of the larger field of neuroscience
– The study of disorders
Modern Perspectives
• Evolutionary Perspective
– Focuses on the biological bases of universal mental
characteristics that all humans share
– Looks at how mind works and why it works as it does
– Behavior seen as having an adaptive or survival value
– Studies about relationships
Critical Thinking
•Eclectic approach
•Do you believe that violence/aggression is a part
of human nature? Is violent behavior something
that can someday be removed from human
behavior or, at the very least, be controlled?
Think about this question from each of the
perspectives discussed in this chapter.
Psychological Professionals and Areas of
Specialization
• Psychologist
– Professional with an academic degree and specialized
training in one or more areas of psychology
– May specialize in any one of a large number of areas
▪ Clinical, counseling, developmental, social, and
personality, among others
– Basic research and applied research
Psychological Professionals and Areas of
Specialization
• Psychiatrist
– Medical doctor who has specialized in the diagnosis
and treatment of psychological disorders
• Psychiatric social worker
– Social worker with some training in therapy methods
who focuses on environmental conditions that can have
an impact on mental disorders, such as poverty,
overcrowding, stress, and drug abuse
Work Settings of Psychology
Where Psychologists Work Percentage of
Total
University and four-year colleges 35%
Self-employed 21%
Private for profit 18%
Private not for profit 9%
Schools and other educational settings 7%
State and local government 6%
Federal government 4%
Subfields of Psychology
Subfields of Psychology Percentage of
Total
Clinical 34%
Counseling 13%
Developmental 12%
Experimental and other research areas 8%
Cognitive 6%
General 6%
Social and personality 6%
Industrial/organizational 5%
School 4%
Other 4%
Educational 2%
The Scientific Approach
• Scientific approach: system of
gathering data so that bias and error
in measurement are reduced
• Psychology’s goals:
– Description: What is happening?
– Explanation: Why is it happening?
forming theories
– Prediction: When will it happen
again?
– Control: How can it be changed?
The Scientific Approach
• Steps in the scientific approach:
– Perceive the question
– Form a hypothesis
▪ Tentative explanation of a
phenomenon based on observations
▪ Testable, falsifiable, based on
theories
– Test the hypothesis
– Draw conclusions
– Report your results
▪ Others may replicate study or
experiment to see whether same
results will be obtained to
demonstrate reliability of results
Descriptive Methods
• Naturalistic Observation
– Watching animals or humans behave in their normal
environment
– Major advantage: realistic picture of behavior
– Disadvantages
▪ Observer effect
▪ Observer bias
▪ Each naturalistic setting is unique, and observations
may not hold
Descriptive Methods
• Laboratory Observation
– Watching animals or humans behave in a laboratory
setting
– Advantages
▪ Control over environment
▪ Allows use of specialized equipment
– Disadvantage
▪ Artificial situation may result in artificial behavior
• Descriptive methods lead to formation of testable
hypotheses
Inference or Observation?
Decide whether each statement is objective or whether it includes an
inference or interpretation made by the observer.
1. Marvin coughed three times before resuming his monologue on
the feats he performed on the football team when he was in high
school.
2. The noise from outside caught the rat’s attention and it hesitated
before deciding which alley to take in the maze.
3. As she began to talk about her mother’s death, her grief
manifested itself in tears.
4. He had his notebook open on the desk in front of him but he took
no notes and during the lecture he looked at his watch 23 times.
5. After Sandra left to go to class, John continued to sit under the
tree daydreaming.
6. Sammy indicated his preference for his father by approaching
him whenever he wanted to be reassured.
7. When the group therapy session was over, she was so anxious to get
away from the others that she forgot her purse and umbrella.
8. Sue ate her hamburger and salad rapidly, and entered the
conversation at the table only once during the meal.
9. Billy became more frightened of Prissy every time she tried to hug
and kiss him.
10. While Allison told the therapist about her affair with Ted, she looked at
her feet and held the arms of the chair tightly.
11. He knocked, then he rang the doorbell and waited for 87 seconds
before he finally decided that there was no one home.
12. Kenny was too shy to join the other children in the sand pile, but I
could tell that just watching them was a pleasant experience for him.
13. The man on the other side of the street fell after the third shot was
fired by the woman standing in front of the bakery.
14. The child looked from the stick to the bread several times before she
picked up the stick and used it to bring the bread within her reach.
Descriptive Methods
• Case Studies
– Study of one individual in great
detail
– Advantage: tremendous amount
of detail
– Disadvantage: cannot apply to
others, can be biased
– Famous case study: Phineas Phineas Gage survived a steel
tamping rod going through his head
Gage after some explosive powder went
off unexpectedly. The steel tamping
rod entered above the left side of
his mouth, passed through his left
frontal lobe, and exited through the
top of his skull.