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Module 1: The Nature of Psychology
Defining Psychology
• Psychology is defined as the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
Why is Psychology a Science?
– It has the same goals as other sciences; to describe, explain, predict and control
behaviour
– Utilizes critical thinking
– Theories are based on empirical data
– Research is conducted in a systematic and scientific manner
Why is Psychology a behavioural science?
A Behavioral science is a term that is used for all the disciplines that explore the activities of
and interactions among organisms in the natural world. It involves the systematic analysis and
investigation of human and animal behaviour through controlled and naturalistic experimental
observations and rigorous formulations.
Difference between behavioural sciences and social sciences
The term behavioural science is often confused with the term social sciences. Though these two
broad areas are interrelated and study systematic processes of behaviour, they differ on their
level of scientific analysis of various dimensions of behaviour. A behavioural science essentially
scientifically investigates the decision processes and communication strategies of the organism
and between organisms in a social system. This is what psychology does. While Social sciences
study the structural-level (school, government, family) processes of a social system and its
impact on social processes and social organization. This is done by Sociology.
Types of Psychologists
Psychologists in different subfields of psychology study different topics.
1. Cognitive psychologists study basic mental processes and their relationship to behavior
in areas such as sensation, perception, learning, memory, judgment, decision making,
and problem solving.
2. Biological psychologists study how biological structure and function affect behavior and
mental processes.
3. Personality psychologists study individuality—the uniqueness of each person—and
whether some combinations of personality traits predict patterns of behavior.
4. Developmental psychologists study and describe changes in behavior and mental
processes over the life span.
5. Clinical psychologists provide therapy for behavior disorders and may study the causes
of disorders.
6. Counseling psychologists have either a Ph.D. or a master’s degree in psychology and
work as mental health counselors.
7. Educational psychologists conduct research and develop theories about teaching and

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learning.
8. School psychologists specialize in testing and diagnosing learning disabilities, and
establish programs to improve student achievement and success.
9. Social psychologists study the ways that people influence one another.
10. Industrial-organizational psychologists study factors that affect the efficiency,
productivity, and satisfaction of workers and the organizations that employ them.
What Psychologists do
• Research, Practice psychology, Teaching
Where Psychology Comes From: A Short History
• Interest in behavior and the mind can be traced back to ancient Greek philosophers such
as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. (Scientific psychology has its roots in philosophy)
• In the 1600s philosophers such as John Locke argued for empiricism—that knowledge
comes through experience and observation. They saw a person as being born a tabula
rasa—a “blank slate,” with no inborn knowledge, but on which experiences of life “write”
to give knowledge through direct sensation.
• Wilhelm Wundt founded the first psychology research laboratory in Leipzig, Germany, in
1879. He attempted to use empirical research methods to study consciousness—the
mental experiences that arise from our sensory-perceptual systems. He called his
technique introspection.
Five research directions emerged in psychology in the late 1800s:
1. Wundt, and later Edward Titchener in the United States, used the technique of
introspection, in which highly trained subjects carefully describe each aspect of their
conscious sensory experiences. This approach was called structuralism, because it
focused on describing each of the separate elements (structures) that make up
conscious experience.
2. Gestalt psychologists from Europe, led by Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang
Kohler, saw consciousness as a whole experience that could not be studied as separate
parts.
3. In Vienna, Austria, Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalysis, a theory that many
aspects of behavior and conscious experience stem from unconscious conflicts and
desires.
4. In the USA, William James was influenced by Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
James’s approach, functionalism, emphasized the study of what consciousness does—
how it functions to help people adapt to their environments. The focus was on ever-
changing patterns of sensations, memories, and other mental events rather than on
the parts that make up consciousness.
5. John Watson, also in the United States, argued that psychologists should ignore mental
events and concentrate only on observable behaviors. His behaviorism approach held
that learning is the most important cause of behavior.
o Behaviorism was developed further by B. F. Skinner’s functional analysis of
behavior, which focused on how rewards and punishments shape behavior.
In psychology today the focus is once again on mental activity as information processing

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(cognitive perspective)
Early Psychological Perspectives: Structuralism and Functionalism
– Structuralism
• Attempts to break conscious experience down into objective sensations such as sight, or taste,
and the subjective feelings such as emotional responses.
– Believes that the mind functions by combining objective and subjective elements of
experience.
– Functionalism
– In the study of individuals the focus should be on behavior as well as the mind and
consciousness.
Psychological Approaches and their Applications
–Behaviorism (learning perspective)
– The learning perspective is concerned with how the environment and experience affect a
person's (or a nonhuman animal's) actions.
– John Watson (1878-1958), Believed that psychology should limit itself to observable,
measurable events and behavior.
– B.F. Skinner (1904-1990), Believed organisms learn to behave in certain ways because of
reinforcement.
– Behaviorists focus on the environmental rewards and punishers that maintain or discourage
specific behaviors.
– Behaviorists do not consider the mind to explain behavior; they prefer to stick to what they
can observe and measure directly: acts and events taking place in the environment. E.g. if
you have trouble sticking to a schedule? A behaviorist would analyze the environmental
distractions that could help account for this problem.
– Social-cognitive learning theorists, on the other hand, combine elements of behaviorism with
research on thoughts, values, and intentions.
– They believe that people learn not only by adapting their behavior to the environment
but also by imitating others and by thinking about the events happening around them.
– Intentional learning by observing others.
– Application: By applying the principles of conditioning and reinforcement, people can learn
healthy behaviors and unlearn unhealthy ones.
Gestalt Psychology: Making Psychology Whole
– Gestalt translates to “pattern” or “organized whole”.
– Demonstrated that learning is a accomplished by insight, not by mechanical repetition.
Application: study perception
The Biological and Evolutionary Perspectives
• A biological approach presumes that biological factors (e.g., genes, hormones, brain
systems) affect behavior and mental events.
• Focuses on how bodily events affect behavior, feelings, and thoughts. Electrical impulses
shoot along the intricate pathways of the nervous system. Hormones course through the

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bloodstream, telling internal organs to slow down or speed up. Chemical substances flow
across the tiny gaps that separate one microscopic brain cell from another.
• Biological psychologists study how these physical events interact with events in the
external environment to produce perceptions, memories, and behavior.
• They also investigate the contribution of genes and other biological factors to the
development of abilities and personality traits.
 A popular biological specialty, evolutionary psychology, follows in the tradition of
functionalism by focusing on how genetically influenced behavior that was
functional or adaptive during our evolutionary past may be reflected in many of
our present behaviors, mental processes, and traits.
 An evolutionary approach emphasizes how behavior and mental phenomena are a
result of evolution through natural selection, generation-to-generation
adaptations of organisms in order to survive in their environments.
The Cognitive Perspective
– The cognitive perspective emphasizes what goes on in people's heads-how-people reason,
remember, understand language, solve problems, explain experiences, acquire moral
standards, and form beliefs. (The word cognitive comes from the Latin for "to know.")
– Cognitive psychologists deduce mental processes from observable behavior.
– One of the most important contributions of this perspective has been to show how
people's thoughts and explanations of events affect their actions, feelings, and choices.
– All of us are constantly seeking to make sense of the world and of our own physical and
mental states. Our ideas may not always be realistic or sensible, but they continually
influence our behavior.
– The cognitive approach is one of the strongest forces in psychology, and it has inspired an
explosion of research on the intricate workings of the mind
Application: By reconfiguring damaging thinking patterns, people can learn healthy,
realistic ways of thinking about life experiences
The Humanistic-Existential Perspective.
– Humanism
– stresses the human capacity for self-fulfillment.
– Existentialism
– views people as free to choose and be responsible for choosing ethical conduct.
– Humanistic-Existential psychologists stress the importance of subjective experience.
– Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers; two prominent psychologists in this area.
– emphasizes free will, personal growth, resilience, and the achievement of human
potential and self-fulfillment.
– Humanists argue that psychology should focus on what really matters to most people
their uniquely human hopes and aspirations.
– Although many researchers regard humanism as a philosophy of life rather than a
systematic or scientific approach to psychology, this movement has had considerable
influence both inside and outside the field.
Application: By examining experiences in current life situations, people can develop their
individuality and learn how to realize their full potential

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The Psychodynamic Perspective
– Founded by Sigmund Freud. Also called psychoanalysis
– The psychodynamic approach, founded by Freud, sees constant unconscious conflicts
within a person as the main determinant of behavior and mental life.
– Psychodynamic psychologists try to dig below the surface of a person's behavior to get to
the roots of personality; they think of themselves as archeologists of the mind.
– Many psychological scientists believe that psychodynamic approaches belong in philosophy
or literature rather than in academic psychology.
– Application: By understanding and making more conscious the relationships between overt
problems and the unresolved, internal conflicts that caused them, people can work
through problems to reach an effective solution
Research Methods
The Scientific Method
– Scientific method is an organized way of using experience and testing ideas in order to expand
and refine knowledge.
– Hypothesis: is a precise, testable statement about behavior or mental processes that is based
on theory and is tested through research.
– The hypothesis is tested through controlled methods such as the experiment. Based on the
results of the research another theory is created.
– Theories: formulations of apparent relationships among observed events.
– Researchers should be able to replicate a study: repeating a study to see if the findings hold up
over time with different subjects.
Samples and Populations
– Sample: participants in a research, they are a subset of the populations
– Population: the group being studied
– Sampling is the process of selecting research participants to study from the overall population.
– Types of Sampling.
– Random sample:
• each member of the population has an equal chance of being selected to participate.
– Stratified sample:
• selection is made so that identified subgroups in the population are represented
proportionately in the sample.
– Volunteer bias:
– people who volunteer as participants differ systematically from people who do not.
Types of Research Methods
1. Tests
Psychological tests sometimes called assessments are procedures used to measure and
evaluate personality traits, emotional states, aptitude, interests, abilities and values.
Difficult to construct a reliable (produces the same result each time) and valid (measures

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what it is suppose to measure) tests
a) Objective tests: measure beliefs feelings or behaviours of which the individual is aware
b) Projective tests: are designed to evaluate unconscious feelings and motives
2. Methods of Observation ( does not allow cause and effect)
a) The Case Study.
Information collected about individuals and small groups. Information cannot be used for
generalizations. Sometimes simply Anecdotes or compelling portraits but may have factual
inaccuracies.
b) The Survey.
Used to study individuals who cannot be observed in the natural setting or studied
scientifically. Allows the collection of large amounts of data on large amounts of people.
(can be done by phone, as an interview or using a questionnaire)
c) Naturalistic Observation.
Observe people or animals in their natural habitats. Researcher has little or no control of
the situation.
3. Correlation (does not identify cause and effect)
– Investigates whether one observed behavior or trait is related to (correlated) with another.
– Mathematically expressed as a correlation coefficient; a number the varies between +1.00 and
-1.00.
– Correlational studies may suggest but do not prove cause and effect.
4. Experiments (explores cause and effect) (the most scientific method)
– Involves Independent and Dependent Variables.
• Independent variable: manipulated by the experimenters so that the effects of various levels
may be determined.
• Dependent variable: the measured outcome or result.
– Has Experimental and Control Groups
• Experimental groups (are participants who) obtain the treatment.
• Control groups (are participants who) do not receive the treatment.
• Confirmation bias occurs when people look only for evidence that supports
their hypothesis.
Beware of flaws in experimental control
a) Confounding variables are other factors that might have influenced the dependent variable.
These extra differences “confound” or confuse interpretation of experiments because you
cannot know results were caused by the independent variable or by the confounding variable.
b) Random variables are uncontrolled, sometimes uncontrollable factors like weather, cultural
backgrounds, individual differences, and so forth. The random assignment of participants to
different groups will reduce the impact of random variables by spreading their effects across
groups.
c) Participants’ expectations about the experiment can affect results. E.g. if participants expect a

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treatment to help them, they may show improvement just because of their expectations. This
is called the placebo effect. To avoid such effects, a control group may receive a placebo, a fake
treatment. It looks the same as the experimental treatment, but that lacks the critical
“ingredient.”
d) Unintentional experimenter expectations can also affect results. Experimenter bias occurs
when researchers inadvertently encourage certain results. To guard against this, researchers
might use a double-blind design, in which both the experimenter and the participants are
unaware of who is in the experimental and who is in the control group.
Ethical Issues in Psychological Research and Practice
i. Do not deceive: participants should not be deliberately misled.
ii. Informed consent: Participants should be advised about all aspects of the research and
give consent before they can participate in research.
iii. Right to withdraw: participants have the right to withdraw from the investigation at
any time even if being paid.
iv. Do no Harm: participants should leave the research in the same condition in which
they arrived
v. Confidentiality: participants and their data should be kept anonymous
Research with Nonhuman Animals
– Psychologists generalize to humans the results of research conducted with animals.
– Animals may be harmed only when there is no alternative and when the researchers believe that
the benefits justify the harm.
Critical Thinking, Science, and Pseudoscience.
Pseudoscience: false science.
– Critical thinking: taking nothing for granted. Thoughtfully analyzing and probing questions,
statements and arguments of others.
Principles of Critical Thinking
– Be skeptical.
– Examine definitions of terms.
– Examine the assumptions or premises of arguments.
– Be cautious in drawing conclusions from evidence.
– Consider alternative interpretations of research evidence.
– Do not oversimplify.
– Do not overgeneralize.
– Apply critical thinking to all areas of life.
Psychological Thinkers and Main Concern Psychology
– Freud: unconscious processes, personality and psychosexual development
(psychodynamic)
– Erickson: psychosocial development

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– Jung: unconscious processes, analytical psychology (psychodynamic)
– Piaget: cognitive development (cognitive)
– Watson: behaviourism
– Skinner: operant conditioning (behaviourism)
– Maslow: motivation (humanism)