Chapter 1 - Psychology's History and Approaches

Chapter 1 - Psychology's

 History and Approaches

Psychology is a science of behavior and mental processes.

• Science is based on research 
• Mental processes are thinking and dreaming
• behavioral is both observable and miserable 

Psychology changes:

• Stability vs. Change: personality traits, physical appearances 
• Continuity vs. Discontinuity
• Nature vs. Nurture: biology vs. experience

5 Goals of Psychology:

1. Observe
2. Predict
3. Explain
4. Describe 
5. Control

History of Psychology

• Socrates and his student Plato believed the mind was separate from the body, the mind continued to exist after death and ideas were innate.
• Aristotle suggested that the soul is not separated from the body and that knowledge grows from experience. 
• Hippocrates - "father of medicine"                                                                                                  - Stressed illnesses and abnormal behavior were caused by natural causes, not supernatural
• Descartes, like Plato, believed in soul (mind)- body separation, but wondered how the immaterial mind and physical body communicated. 
• John Locke - Locke held that the mind was a tabula Rosa, or blank sheet, at birth, and experiences wrote on it.

Structuralism:

• The first school of psychology 
• Broke down mental processes into the most basic components (structures) of conscious experience.
• Introspection- What you hear? See? Taste? Smell? Feel? Based on this how you behaved?

Functionalism:

• Focused less on the how of sensation and perception, but rather on the way. Emphasized the process of how thoughts formed, changed, and how they adapted.     

   7 Perspectives 

1. Neuroscience or Biological: Focus on how the physical body and brain creates our emotions, memories, and sensory experiences.
2. Evolutionary: Focus on Darwinism                                                                                                - We behave the way we do because we inherited those behaviors.                                                - Thus, those behaviors must have helped ensure our ancestors survival.
3. Psycho-dynamic: Fathered by Sigmund Freud                                                                                - Usually stemming from our childhood.                                                                                        - Our behavior comes from unconscious drives
4. Behavioral: Focuses on our OBSERVABLE behaviors 
5. Cognitive: Focuses on how we think or encode information
6. Socio-Cultural: Focus on how your culture affects your behavior
7. Humanistic: Focuses on positive growth                                                                                         - Attempt to seek self-actualization