Chapter 1

Introduction to Psychology
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Psychologists at Work
Learning Outcomes
Define science of psychology Describe subfields of psychology

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What is Psychology?
The scientific study of behavior and mental processes (p. 4)
What you can see (overt behaviors) What you cant see (covert behaviors) Describe, predict, explain behavior and mental processes using the scientific method Also it encompasses individuality of human being.

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 Behavior refers to anything you do. Smiling, running, laughing, eating, and sleeping are all examples of. Actions or responses that are directly observable are referred to as overt behaviors.

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 Mental processes refer to thoughts, emotions, perceptions, reasoning processes, memories, and even the biological activities that maintain bodily functioning. These processes are also referred to as covert behaviors.

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 Psychologists try to describe, predict, and explain human behavior and mental processes, as well as help to change and improve the lives of people and the world in which they live. They use scientific methods to find answers that are far more valid and legitimate than those resulting from intuition and speculation, which are often inaccurate.
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 The phrase behavior and mental processes means many things: it encompasses not just what people do but also their thoughts, emotions, perceptions, reasoning processes, memories, and even the biological activities that maintain bodily functioning.

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Etiology
Many people think psychology means the study of the mind. The word psychology comes from the Greek roots of psyche, meaning mind, and logos, meaning knowledge or study. Today, however, psychology is defined as the study of behavior and mental processes.

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The Subfields of Psychology

Behavioral neuroscience Experimental psychology Changes across the lifespan Physical & mental health Focus on those around us: social networks Newer areas of study

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Subfields of Psychology
1. Behavioral neuroscience is the subfield of psychology that mainly examines how the brain and the nervous system determine behavior. Thus, neuroscientists consider how our bodies influence our behavior.

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 2. Experimental psychology is the branch of psychology that studies the processes of sensing, perceiving, learning, and thinking about the world. Here are some subspecialties within experimental psychology: A. Cognitive psychology focuses on higher mental processes, including thinking, memory, reasoning, problem-solving, judging, decisionmaking, and language. B. Developmental psychology studies how people grow and change from the moment of conception through death. C. Personality psychology focuses on the consistency in peoples behavior over time and the traits that differentiate one person from another. D. Health psychology explores the relationship between psychological factors and physical ailments or disease. For example, health psychologists are interested in assessing how long-term stress (a psychological factor) can affect physical health, and in identifying ways to promote behavior that brings about good health.

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Sub fields
3. Clinical psychology deals with the study, diagnosis, and treatment of psychological disorders. Clinical psychologists are trained to diagnose and treat problems that range from the crises of everyday life, such as unhappiness over the breakup of a relationship, to more extreme conditions, such as profound and lingering depression. 4. Counseling psychology focuses primarily on educational, social, and career adjustment problems. Many large business organizations employ counseling psychologists to help employees with workrelated problems. 5. Forensic psychology applies psychology to the criminal-justice system and to legal issues. For example, forensic psychologists may be asked to examine people accused of crimes to determine if they are competent to stand trial or have psychological disorders.
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Subfields
6. Social psychology is the study of how peoples thoughts, feelings, and actions are affected by others. Social psychologists concentrate on such diverse topics as human aggression, liking and loving, persuasion, and conformity. 7. Cross-cultural psychology investigates the similarities and differences in psychological functioning in and across various cultures and ethnic groups. For example, cross-cultural psychologists examine how cultures differ in their use of punishment during childrearing.

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Subfields
8. Evolutionary psychology considers how our behavior is influenced by our genetic inheritance from our ancestors. The evolutionary approach suggests that the chemical coding of information in our cells not only determines traits such as hair color and race, but also holds the key to understanding a broad variety of behaviors that helped our ancestors survive and reproduce. Examples of some of these behaviors include shyness, jealousy, attraction, competitiveness, and sensitivity. 9. Behavioral genetics seeks to understand how we might inherit certain behavioral traits and how the environment influences whether we actually display such traits. 10. Clinical neuropsychology combines the areas of neuroscience and clinical psychology. It focuses on the origin of psychological disorders in biological factors.
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Working at Psychology
About 300,000 psychologists in the U.S.
50% men, 50% women, but number of women is growing 6% from racial minority groups

Most have doctoral degrees (Ph.D. or Psy.D.), while some have Masters degrees Psychologists are different from psychiatrists

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A Science Evolves: The Past, the Present, and Future

Learning Outcomes
Explain the roots of psychology Discuss todays perspectives on psychology Apply psychology to your life Summarize psychologys key issues and controversies

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The Roots of Psychology

Wilhelm Wundt began the first psychology laboratory in 1879 in Leipzig, Germany
Structuralism Functionalism

Gestalt psychology

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 Structuralism: Wundts approach, which focuses on uncovering the fundamental mental components of consciousness, thinking, and other kinds of mental states and activities. The perspective that replaced structuralism is known as functionalism.
Functionalism: An early approach to psychology that concentrated on what the mind doesthe functions of mental activityand the role of behavior in allowing people to adapt to their environments. Gestalt (geh SHTALLT) psychology is an approach to psychology that focuses on the organization of perception and thinking in a whole sense rather than on the individual elements of perception.

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Todays Perspectives
Neuroscience Psychodynamic Behavioral Cognitive Humanistic

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 Neuroscience perspective The approach that views behavior from the perspective of the brain, the nervous system, and other biological functions. Psychodynamic perspective The approach based on the view that behavior is motivated by unconscious inner forces over which the individual has little control.
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 Behavioral perspective The approach that suggests that observable, measurable behavior should be the focus of study. Cognitive perspective The approach that focuses on how people think, understand, and know about the world. Humanistic perspective The approach that suggests that all individuals naturally strive to grow, develop, and be in control of their lives and behavior.
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Johns Story

 John is second year math major from De La Salle University. He was fortunate to be blessed with exceptional intelligence that is why he was granted a star scholarship. Without the scholarship, he would not be able to afford a private university because his family has limited financial resources. Obviously, math is his favorite subject but he also excels in all of his subjects. Aside from math, he also likes philosophy, psychology and religion because these subjects taught him how to become a good individual and a good Christian. He is a member of the math club and COSCA, a school organization that provides community service to less fortunate people. John likes being involved in volunteer work and helping other people.
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 He is a responsible student and a good friend. He has a good relationship with his family except with father, who was also a scholar during his college years. His father has high expectations from him and gets disappointed whenever he only wins second place and not the top prize in a math competition. His father would always tell him that he should always aim for the top because when he was a student he always does his best because this will make his family proud. Besides, the cash prize he gets help the family a lot. Because of this, John is somewhat distant to his father and he said to himself that when he becomes a parent, he would never pressure his child like what his father is doing to him. He was closer to his mother who died of leukemia when he was in third year high school.
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 Finally, John won first place in an interschool math competition where he won P5,000. After the contest, he celebrated with his 3 close friends2 girls and a guy. John has a big crush on one of the girls but no one knows about it. He treated his friends in a pizza restaurant and after that they bought some alcoholic beverages from a store and consumed them in one of his friends house. Though they did not drink a lot, the amount was enough to make them a little disinhibited but not enough to make them totally unaware of what they are doing. On their way home, they went inside a 24-hour drug store because one of his friends needs to buy a medicine for his asthma. John noticed a donation box beside the cashier with a note attached to it saying, Help save Anna. She has leukemia and she needs financial assistance John slowly got the envelope containing the cash prize from his bag then placed all the money inside the donation box. His friends saw what he did but never asked why he did it.
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 The next morning, his father asked for the results of the competition. John said, Sorry dad, I did not even win the third place. Question:
What do you think is the reason why John decided to put the cash prize inside the donation box? Write as many as possible reasons.

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 Behavioral Perspective
John learned that act of kindness from his religion classes and from being part of COSCA. Also, helping other people could be rewarding experience for John that is why he continues to do it

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 Cognitive Perspective
John thought that the girl with leukemia would benefit more from the money than him. Also, by pretending that he did not win, maybe his father will not expect too much from him the next time he competes. Therefore, as part of his plan, he donated it because he should not bring home a cash prize.

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 Psychodynamic Perspective
The act of donating the money is Johns unconscious way of resenting his father for expecting too much. It can also be an unconscious way of expressing his love to his mother who died of leukemia.

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 Humanistic Perspective
Maybe for John, helping the sick girl is for fulfilling than the cash prize. He made a choice entirely on his own.

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 Behavioral Neuroscience Perspective

Maybe there is a chance that the alcohol, which made him a little disinhibited, affected Johns decision making and mood during that time and did not consider the consequences of donating the money.

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 Evolutionary Psychology Perspective

History tells us that women are attracted to men who possess manly qualities but time has changed. Women can now be also attracted to men who are sensitive and kind-hearted. Partly, it could be one of Johns ways of attracting his friend.

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 Socio-cultural Perspective
In our country, we depend on each other in times of difficulty. We call it pakikipagkapwa. John wanted to show his pakikipagkapwa to the girl. Besides, as Catholics, we are taught to help others in need.

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 Positive Psychology Perspective

John is naturally a good and caring person. He likes helping other people. It is his virtue.

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To Conclude
In explaining human behavior, we can use different perspectives and there is no perspective that is considered as the best perspective. The key is not to know if the explanation is correct or incorrect rather if it is valid or invalid

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Psychologys Key Issues & Controversies

The field of psychology is more unified than a first glimpse might suggest. No matter what topical areas a psychologist specializes in, he or she will rely primarily on one of the five major perspectives.

Psychology is a unified science because psychologists of all perspectives agree that the issues must be addressed if the field is going to advance. Consider opposing viewpoints on each issue as the opposing ends of a continuum, with the positions of individual psychologists typically falling somewhere between them.
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Psychologys Key Issues & Controversies

Nature (heredity) vs. nurture (environment) Conscious vs. unconscious causes of behavior Observable behavior vs. internal mental processes Free will (choices) vs. determinism (behavior is produced by factors beyond ones control) Individual differences vs. universal principles

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Research in Psychology
Learning Outcomes
Define the scientific method, list the steps involved Describe how psychologists use research to answer questions of interest Summarize the descriptive research method used by psychologists Summarize the experimental research method used by psychologists
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The Scientific Method

Systematically acquiring knowledge and understanding about behavior and other phenomena (p. 24)
Step 1: Identifying questions of interest Step 2: Formulating an explanation (theory hypothesis) Step 3: Carrying out research designed to support or refute the explanation Step 4: Communicating the findings
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 The scientific method is the systematic approach used by psychologists to acquire knowledge and understanding about behavior and other phenomena of interest. Theories are broad explanations and predictions designed to interrelate concepts and facts in a way that summarizes data and predicts future observations. A hypothesis is an educated guess about the outcome of an event. An operational definition is the translation of a hypothesis into specific, testable procedures that can be measured and observed.
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 If we were to rely on common sense to understand behavior, wed have considerable difficulty, particularly because commonsense views are often contradictory. One of the major undertakings for the field of psychology is to develop suppositions about behavior and to determine which of those are accurate. Using the scientific method results in a systematic acquisition of knowledge.

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Psychological Research
The central focus of the scientific method is research Research is the systematic inquiry aimed at the discovery of new knowledge. This is the central ingredient of the scientific method in psychology. It provides the key to understanding the degree to which hypotheses are accurate. There are a number of different methods used to conduct research. Descriptive Research Archival research Naturalistic observation Survey research
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 Archival research: Researchers examine existing data, such as census documents, college records, and newspaper clippings, to test a hypothesis. For example, college records may be used to determine if there are gender differences in academic performance. Naturalistic observation: Researchers observe behavior as it unfolds in the natural setting. When conducting naturalistic observation, it is important to realize that both people and animals often alter their behavior when they realize they are being watched.

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 Survey research: Researchers conduct a study by giving subjects a survey or questionnaire. Researchers choose a sample of people to represent a larger group of interest. Questions usually focus on behaviors, thoughts, or attitudes. Survey methods have become so sophisticated that even with a very small sample researchers are able to infer with great accuracy how a larger group would respond.

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Psychological Research (cont.)

Case study: intensive investigation of an individual or small group When case studies are used as a research technique, the goal is often not only to learn about the few individuals being examined, but also to use the insights gained from the study to improve our understanding of people in general. Correlational research: two sets of variables are examined to see if they are associated Positive correlation Negative correlation Correlation does not show causation! The inability of correlational research to demonstrate cause-and-effect relationships is a crucial drawback to its use.

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Experimental Research
Establish cause-and-effect relationships using formal experiments: deliberately producing a change in one variable and observing the effects of that change All experiments include a set of key elements, which are important to keep in mind as you consider whether a research study is truly an experiment Experimental group Control group Independent variable Dependent variable Random assignment to condition Replication
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 Experimental manipulation is defined as the change that an experimenter deliberately produces in a situation. The control group is the group that is exposed to all experimental conditions EXCEPT for the independent variable. They receive no treatment. The experimental group is the group that is exposed to all experimental conditions AND the independent variable. They do receive treatment. Replication is the repetition of research, sometimes using other procedures, settings, and groups of participants, to increase confidence in prior findings.
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 The independent variable is the condition that is manipulated by an experimenter.

For example, someone's age might be an independent variable. Other factors (such as what they eat, how much they go to school, how much television they watch) aren't going to change a person's age.

The dependent variable is the outcome of the experiment, which is expected to change based on the experimenters manipulation of the independent variable.
For example, a test score could be a dependent variable because it could change depending on several factors such as how much you studied, how much sleep you got the night before you took the test, or even how hungry you were when you took it.

Random assignment is the use of chance to assign subjects to experimental and control groups.
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 Independent variable causes a change in Dependent Variable and it isn't possible that Dependent Variable could cause a change in Independent Variable. For example:
(Time Spent Studying) causes a change in (Test Score) and it isn't possible that (Test Score) could cause a change in (Time Spent Studying).

We see that "Time Spent Studying" must be the independent variable and "Test Score" must be the dependent variable because the sentence doesn't make sense the other way around.

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 Drunken driving contribute to traffic accidents. Drunken = independent variable. traffic accidents. = dependent variable. smoking leads to cancer smoking= independent cancer= dependent

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Experimental Research (cont.)

One experiment alone does not forever resolve a question about human behavior. Psychologists require that findings undergo replication they must be repeated sometimes using other procedures, in other settings, with other groups of participants, before full confidence can be placed in the results of any single experiment. Meta-analysis permits psychologists to combine the results of many separate studies into one overall conclusion.

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Research Challenges: Exploring the Process

Learning Outcomes
Explain the major ethical issues that confront psychologists conducting research Discuss the issues related to testing on animals Identify threats to experimental validity

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The Ethics of Research

Psychologists must follow strict ethical guidelines to protect research participants (see p. 36)
Those guidelines involve the following safeguards:
Protection of participants from physical and mental harm The right of participants to privacy regarding their behavior The assurance that participation in research is completely voluntary The necessity of informing participants about the nature of procedures before their participation in the experiment

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 Participants must sign an informed consent document that says they understand the basic outline of the study and any risks, and are aware of what is involved

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Should Animals Be Used in Research?

Researchers ethically bound to minimize discomfort, illness, and pain, and to promote the psychological well-being whenever possible But why use animals at all?

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 To guard against participant expectations biasing the results of an experiment, the experimenter may try to disguise the true purpose of the experiments.
Sometimes, its impossible to do so. In that case, psychologists typically use a procedure in which all participants receive a treatment, but those in the control group receive a placebo, a false treatment. Because both groups are kept in the dark about whether theyre getting a real or false treatment, any differences in outcome can be attributed to the quality of a drug or treatment and not to any possible psychological effects.
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Threats to Experimental Validity: Avoiding Experimental Bias

Experimental bias: factors that distort how the independent variable affects the dependent variable (ex., experimenter or participant expectations) Placebo: A false treatment, such as a pill, without any significant chemical properties or active ingredients

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Parting Shots

 Psychology touches virtually every aspect of our lives. Psychology is not just common sense. Psychology is a science because its concepts are researchable using various methods. Nowadays, almost everything can be automated but the task of a psychologist cannot be replaced by any instrument or machine. There is no CT-Scan that can read a mind, a thermometer that can tell how passionate your are, a stethoscope that will tell if you are falling in love, weighing scale that will measure how heavy your problem is, or a meter stick that will measure how deep your depression is or how high your happiness is.

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