Download Table 13 - Angelfire

CHAPTER I
PSYCHOLOGY: THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF BEHAVIOR
Men – as individuals and as societies – have always endeavored to
understand, predict, influence, and control human behavior – their own
behavior and that of others.
- Carl Rogers
PSYCHOLOGY - comes from Greek words : PSYCHE and LOGOS


Psyche which means soul or mind
Logos which means study
 Scientific study of behavior and mental processes (Feldman 1990; Atkinson, et.al
1993)
 Scientific study of behavior and its causes (Smith, et. al 1982)
 Scientific study of human behavior and mental life (Roediger, et. al. 1984)
 The science and means of promoting human welfare (Wortman, et. al. 1985)
 Science of behavior and cognitive processes (Baron 1989)
 It is chiefly concerned with what makes people behave as they do.
 A scientific study of the behavior of all living organisms with special
attention to human behavior
Psychology is a science because it is systematic (methodical), empirical
(experience/observation) and dependent upon measurement.
 BEHAVIOR
: activities that can be observed objectively
e.g. a. reaction of muscles and glands
b. organized patterns of responses as a whole
: also includes internal processes like thinking, feeling and
other reactions which cannot be directly observed but can
be inferred from external behavior
CLASSIFICATIONS OF BEHAVIOR
a.
b.
c.
d.
OVERT
COVERT
INTRINSIC
EXTRINSIC
-
publicly seen or known
concealed or disguised
inherent or innate
external
 STUDY
: it enables the individual to learn more quickly and choose a vocation
more intelligently
: it makes a person achieve emotional equilibrium and make better
social adjustments
: it enables one to resolve problems, and to develop greater personal
efficiency
 WHAT PSYCH IS?
Since it is a science, psychologists are scientists therefore it is guarded by six
fundamental characteristics.
1. Human behavior follows an orderly pattern.
 Even if there is change in a person’s life, there is a degree of order and
regularity in its nature. Change pattern can be understood.
2. Human behavior can be known.
 It can be empirically observed, therefore it can be investigated.
3. Knowledge of human behavior is tentative but superior to ignorance.
 We must pursue knowledge not only for its own sake but also to be able
to improve human conditions.
4. Natural phenomena have natural causes.
 All natural events have natural causes. Science rejects the beliefs in
supernatural forces to cause events.
5. Nothing is self-evident.
 Truth must only be claimed and established when they are demonstrated
objectively. Scientists never rely on traditional, subjective beliefs. They
are skeptical and critical in their approach to truths.
 Rational criticism is the core of any scientific enterprise.
6. Knowledge is derived from the acquisition of experiences.
 Anything in this world must be empirically explained. In most cases, we
only rely on our perceptions which is achieved through our senses, rely
on experiences and observations.
 Knowledge is a product of experience.
 WHAT PSYCH IS NOT?
1. Psychology and the Mysterious
 Psychology is learned through observation, careful reflections of what
they observed and through checking of what their conclusion is.
 It is not magical, mysterious, or super human way of looking into thoughts
or feelings of a person.
2. Psychology and Common Sense.
 There are statements accepted by common sense but are not accepted
by psychology.
e.g. Notion that insane or mentally ill person have “lost their minds”.
3. Psychology and the Para-science.
 People confused psychology with the para-sciences.
 Para-science is base on premises that differ sharply from those of the
scientific world. Examples are phrenology : studies personality through
the bumps and hollows of a person’s skull and graphology : bases the
character of a person on handwriting.
 These para-sciences had no scientific evidence to support their claims
while psychology is based on the traditional methods of science including
the systematic gathering of data, putting hypothesis to careful tests and
cumulative building of knowledge.
HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF PSYCHOLOGY
The roots of psychology can be traced from great philosophers of ancient
Greece.
The famous ones were Socrates, Plato and Aristotle who posed
fundamental questions about mental life: What is consciousness? Are people
inherently rational or irrational? Is there really such a thing as free choice?
Other psychological questions deal with the nature of the body and human
behavior, and they have an equally long history. Hippocrates, often called the
“father of medicine”, lived around the same time as Socrates. He was deeply
interested in physiology, which is the study of the functions of the living organisms
and its parts. His observation on how the brain controls various organs of the body
became the biological perspective of psychology.
The Beginnings of Scientific Psychology
The historical framework of present-day psychology can be best understood
by taking up the establishment of the different schools of psychology. The term
school refers to the group of psychologists who associated themselves with the
early leaders in psychology both geographically and systematically.
SCHOOLS OF THOUGHTS
1. STRUCTURALISM
 A school of thought which studies conscious experience, conceived as made-up
elementary mental states observed through introspection.
 Developed in Germany in 19th century by Wilhelm Wundt, “Father of Modern
Psychology”
 Concern
: discovery of the structure of the mind
 Belief
: the mind is made up of building blocks (Titchener) in the form of
various types of sensation and perception.
 Building blocks could be discovered through INTROSPECTION
 looking into one’s own mind
 observation of conscious experience and self report by trained observers
as their method of investigation.
 self-observation and analysis of one’s mental processes and states
According to Edward Bradford Titchener, the role of psychology was to reduce
conscious processes to their simplest and most basic components and determine
how they are combined and their laws of combination.
 Sensation : a psychological event that occurs when receptors are stimulated
1. PHYSICAL SENSATION - condition of mind or body resulting from
stimulation of sense organs
2. AFFECTION or FEELINGS - a personal emotional experience, an aspect
of emotion which differs in the degree of
intensity
3. IMAGES - mental picture, picture of the mind
 Perception : the giving of meaning to a stimulus received by the sense organs
WILHELM WUNDT (1831-1920)
- father of Scientific Psychology
- interested in analyzing conscious experiences began when he became
curious about an effect that could be produced by a METRONOME, a
pendulum-like device that ticks ata steady rate and is used in music
training to help maintain a tempo.
- He worked in a laboratory in Leipzig, Germany
- In order to carry out a systematic analysis of the structure of the
conscious adult mind:
CONSCIOUSNESS
ELEMENTS
INTERACTION

Wundt hoped to establish a field of psychological research that would
follow the footsteps of physics and chemistry.
 Structuralism was brought to he United States of America by Edward B.
Titchener
(1867-1927) and he began a laboratory at Cornell University in 1892.
 CRITICAL FLAWS
1. introspective method itself.
2. Observing what you are experiencing changes the experience.
3. Psychologists began to discover that the very act of introspection altered the
conscious experience they wanted to examine.
4. Discovery: different researchers independently using the introspective
method were getting different results.
5. Nothing could be done to resolve the disagreement between trained
observers since all were describing a personal experience, who could say
which observer was correct?
 1930’s
- reseachers begun to abandon structuralism
- psychologists working with animals were finding exciting results
without introspection
- European psychoanalysts
were examining the influence of
unconscious processes in maladjustment
- Many American psychologists were searching for practical solutions
to everyday problems.
MAJOR CONTRIBUTIONS/REASONS WHY PSYCHOLOGY OWES
A DEBT TO STRUCTURALISM
1. It provided psychology with a strong scientific and research impetus.
2. It gave the introspective method a thorough test; which was worthwhile
since most psychologists are now in agreement that introspection has
severe limitations.
3. It served as foundation against which new schools of psychological
thought could rebel.
2.
FUNCTIONALISM
leaders (taught at the University of Chicago in the 20th century)
- James R. Angell
- John Dewey
- Harvey Carr
 Most Important Contributions
1. Changing the focus of psychology to learning, motivation and thinking
veered away from the structuralists’ emphasis on individual perception
and sensations.
2. LONGITUDINAL RESEARCH
- technique used in effort to understand human behavior processes.

consists of interviewing, testing, observing one person over a long
period of time.
permits psychologists to observe and record the person’s
development and how he reacts to different circumstances.
WILLIAM JAMES
- 1st native American Psychologist
- 1875, had a mall demonstration laboratory in Harvard
- Harvard offered the 1st college course under the name psychology
 concern : a. practical application of findings
b. the utility of how conscious processes function in the adjustment
of man
to his environment
 relied : on EXPERIMENTATION for its method of investigation
 belief : that psychology should focus on true-to-life everyday experience
(James)
3. PSYCHOANALYSIS
 developed by Viennese physician, SIGMUND FREUD (1856-1939)
 traces its roots to neurology and medicine
 GOAL : to treat and understand abnormal behavior
- he presented as one of the major tenets of psychoanalysis--“the concept of the unconscious mind”
CRITICS : THREE BLOWS TO HUMAN PRIDE
1. Copernicus
- demonstrated that the earth was not the center of the
universe
2. Charles Darwin
- state that human evolved from lower specie
3. Sigmund Freud
- argued that humans are not the conscious masters of
their behavior
 Techniques:
a.
b.
c.
d.
Hypnosis
Free Association
Dream Interpretation
Slips of the Tongue or Freudian Slips
 Criticisms:
1. Lack of scientific control and careful experimentation.
2. It relies on techniques that have never been validated.
 Contribution/Historical Importance
 Freud’s work made a great contribution to psychology because the interest it
stimulated in many neglected areas --- the working of the unconscious mind,
sexuality, emotionality, abnormal behavior, conflict, childhood did prove
fruitful.
4. BEHAVIORISM
 John B. Watson
- founder, developed an objective system of Psychology
- student of Angell at the University of Chicago
- argued that psychologist should use only objective method, and
their observations and measurements should be in a form which
could be checked and verified by other psychologists
 Focus
 Aim
: prediction and control of actual behavior
: “doings and sayings of people”
 IVAN P. PAVLOV - Russian Physiologist (1849-1936)
- established the phenomena of conditioning, method of
behaviorism by experimenting on conditioned responses
OPERANT CONDITIONING
RESPONSE

REINFORCEMENT
Response increases if followed by reinforcement
CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
 The acquisition procedure in which a previously neutral stimulus is paired with a
response producing stimulus until the neutral stimulus elicits the same type of
responses.
 Two stimulus tends to go together
NEUTRAL
STIMULUS
paired with
RESPONSE –
PRODUCING
STIMULUS

OPTIMISM
: By focusing the democratic view that human beings are
minimally limited by heredity and easily changed by
experience.

ASSUMPTION
: “All People, regardless of their talents, penchants,
tendencies, abilities, vocations, race of ancestors --heredity and background could improve themselves and
their positions in life.

HOPE
: To established a utopian society based on behavioralistic
principles
 CRITICISMS
1. Behaviorists often ignore important but unobservable aspects of human
behavior, such as emotion, though and unconscious process.
2. Discredit feelings or ideas that didn’t readily lend themselves to controlled
experimentation
3. Heredity places a role on the behavior of human beings. (constraint)
 CONTRIBUTIONS
1.
2.
3.
4.
Demonstrated that much of our behavior is the product of our immediate
environment.
Shown that the associations we experience, the pleasant or unpleasant
consequences following our actions and our observations of the actions
of those around us often determine our behavior.
Through behavior technology, problems such as aggression, phobias,
shyness and poor study habits can often be corrected.
Behavioral psychologists have emphasized the need to define terms
carefully, run controlled experiments and generally make psychology
more of a science.
5. GESTALT
 “form or shape”
 “pattern or configuration”
 founded and developed by MAX WERTHEIMER (1880-1943) in opposition to
structuralism
 belief : “We Perceive wholes rather than simple combinations of individual
elements”.
 “THE WHOLE IS DIFFERENT FROM THE SUM OF ITS PARTS”
 Structuralism is the brick and mortar Psychology, for it attempts at
analyzing mental experiences into its separate components.
 emphasized the active role of the mind in organizing sensations into meaningful
perceptions
 WOLFGANG KOHLER -popularized GESTALT
 Conscious sensations can be examined but the whole experience must be
taken for what it is.
 The Laws of Psychology are the Laws of Systems, not parts.
6. PURPOSIVISM
 WILLIAM MCDOUGALL - advocate, adopt another school of thought
- conducted his research at Duke University of Durham, North
Carolina
- believed that objects, movements and behavior have a definite
purpose
-
-
stressed that : “behavior cannot be understood adequately without
understanding his goals” … that man is dynamic, striving,
purposeful and creative creature.
It is referred also as HORMIC PSYCHOLOGY because it places
an importance of hormones in life.
7. HUMANISM (the 3rd force in Psychology)
a. Psychoanalytic View by Sigmund Freud
b. Behavioral View by John Watson
c. Humanistic View by ABRAHAM MASLOW (1908-1970) and CARL
ROGERS
 Humanists don’t believe that behavior is governed either by unconscious drives
and motives or by external stimuli and rewards in the environment.
 They argued that people are FREE AGENTS, having free will and that they are
conscious, creative and born with an in order motivation to fulfill their potential.
 SELF – ACTUALIZATION - is a life long process rather than as a final
goal
that one eventually reaches
 Behavior can only be understood by examining each individual’s unique SELFPERCEPTION.


Maslow developed a concept on personality based on ideas.
Rogers developed therapies to help in developing individual potentials.
 FIELDS OF PSYCHOLOGY
1. Biological Psychology (Physiological Psychology)
- Seek to discover the relationship between biological processes
and behavior.
2. Experimental Psychology
- Experimental Psychologists usually conduct research from a
behaviorist or cognitive perspective and use experimental
methods to study how people react to sensory stimuli, perceive
the world, learn and remember, reason and respond emotionally.
3. Developmental Psychology
- Concern with human development and the factors that shape
behavior from birth to old age.
4. Social Psychology
- Interested in how people perceive and interpret their social world
and how others influence their beliefs, attitudes and behavior.
- Concern with social relationships between and among people, and
with the behavior of groups.
5. Clinical Psychology
- Apply psychological principles to the diagnosis and treatment of
emotional and behavioral problems such as mental illness, drug
addiction, and marital or family conflict.
6. Educational Psychology
- Educational Psychologists are specialists in learning and teaching.
- They do research on teaching methods and help train teachers.
7. Industrial Psychology (Organizational Psychology)
- Industrial Psychologists typically work for a company.
- The field is concern with problems such as selecting people who
are most suitable for particular jobs or developing job training
programs.
8. Forensic Psychology
- It deals with legal issues.
 GOALS OF PSYCHOLOGY (Wrightsman 1979)
1. Describe behavior. – sharing of phenomenon
2. To identify factors that help predict behavior.
 rely on variety of techniques
a. basis of past performance (High school vs. College)
b. test and correlation technique (if a worker is satisfied with the
job it means he is interested on the job)
3. To understand or explain behavior by identifying causes that bring about
certain effects.
 Principles - the comprehensive framework are the theories
- assembling the known facts
- gaining insights into the relationship among
observable behaviors
- deriving principles and models them that will
explain behavior
* Theories
-
explanatory tool
serve to integrate and systematized knowledge
make possible formulation of new assumptions or
hypotheses which can be tested experimentally
subject to change
4. To control or change behavior. – works with prediction
 METHODS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY (Morgan 1977)
3 Major Categories
1. DESCRIPTIVE METHOD
- provides description of a behavior of a person or animal being studied
- consists of words and numbers (e.g. IQ scores)
a. Naturalistic Observation
- simply recording what you see and hear without selecting some
events and
ignoring others
b. Systematic Observation
- more precise and systematic with the use of tests, scales,
inventories and
questionnaires
c. Clinical Method
- making diagnosis of problem (depression, emotional trauma)
2. EXPERIMENTAL METHOD
- basis or foundation of scientific research
- method : determines the value of the work through the accuracy of the
equipment
influences ultimate results
- presence of 2 variables : independent and dependent variables, can
change the
amount or quality
 Independent Variable (IV)
- factor that produces the effects
being
examined in the experiment
 Dependent Variable (DV) the changed condition that is
considered
to be a consequence of, or to
depend on
3. STATISTICAL METHOD
- necessary for the proper interpretation of test results and other data that
have
significance as a means of evaluation
a. Measures of Central Tendency
 MEAN : average of the set of scores arrives at by adding all
scores
and dividing by their number.
 MEDIAN : score midway the test and highest score
 MODE : most common score or number
* the advantages of this method are its being organized and
that it can
reduce data to descriptive terms
b. Correlation - degree of the relationship between 2 variables
c. Reliability and Validity
 reliability : refers essentially to repeatability
: a test is reliable if it yields similar results
 validity : to correlate tests
: extent with which a test measures what it is
suppose to
measure
References:
Atkinson, Rita L. et.al. Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology, 13th edition.
Philippines: Thomson Learning, Incorporated. 2000.
Bucu, Luz C. et.al. Introduction to Psychology, 2nd edition.
Philippines: Rex Bookstore. 2000.
Gaerlan, Josefina. et.al. General Psychology, 5th edition.
Philippines: Ken, Incorporated. 2000.