Introduction to Psychology

Psychology is derived from Greek words psyche and logos which means study

of mind or soul. It is a science that deals with behaviour and mental processes. Hence,psychology is defined as the scientific study of behaviour and mental processes. It focuses on both biological and social dimensions. The physiological psychologists or psychobiologists focus on relationships between behaviour and mental functioning. As for the social psychologists, they focus on group and social influences on individuals.

Psychologists are interested in every aspect of human thought and behaviour.

The different fields of psychology includes developmental psychology, physiological

psychology, experimental psychology, personality psychology, clinical psychology,

counselling psychology, social psychology, industrial psychology, organizational

psychology, etc. In these fields, they study different areas like development,

physiological bases of behaviour, learning, perception, consciousness, memory,

thought, language, motivation, emotion, intelligence, personality, adjustment,

abnormal behaviour, social influences and social behaviours. Psychology is often

applied in education, industry, health, clinical, consumer affairs, engineering and

many other areas.

Given the wide array of interests, psychologists in various fields are drawn

together by their common interests in a number of fundamental issues or questions

about behaviour that cut across their areas of specialisation. These enduring issues

include the ones related to ‘person-situation’, ‘heredity-environment’, ‘stabilitychange’,

‘diversity’ and ‘mind-body’.

The ‘person-situation’ issue focus on to what extent behaviour is caused by the

influence of processes occurring inside a person and external environment or situation.

For decades, psychologists have been debating the degree of influence that heredity

(genetics) and environment (experiences) have on behaviour. Psychologists are also

interested in knowing to what extent do people stay relatively unchanged (stability)

throughout their lives and how do people change? Another enduring issue is the one

related to diversity, which inquires to what extent every person is in certain respects

like all other people, like some other people and like no other person. Finally, many

psychologists are fascinated by the ‘mind-body’ relationship ie., relationship between

what we experience (such as thoughts and feelings) and the biological processes (such

as activity in the nervous system).

Psychology as Science

Psychology is the science of behaviour and mental processes. Science provides

logical guidelines for evaluating evidence and well reasoned techniques for verifying

principles. Hence, psychologists rely on the scientific method when searching out

answers to psychological questions. Consequently, they follow the scientific method

which is essentially an approach to knowledge that relies on systematically collecting

data through observation, generating a theory to explain the data, producing testable

hypotheses based on the theory and testing those hypotheses empirically to reach valid generalisable conclusions. Thus like all scientists, psychologists use the scientific

method to describe, understand, predict and eventually to achieve some measure of

control over what they study.

Since psychologists see themselves as scientists, the terms psychologist and

behavioural scientists may be used to denote them. The broader label social scientist

refers to all who study society or behaviour, and may include psychologists,

sociologists, anthropologists, historians and others.

Psychology and Other Social Sciences

Psychology is not alone in applying the scientific method to the study of

behaviour. The behavioural sciences like psychology, sociology, anthropology,

political science, economics and history are very closely related. However, the

questions and hypotheses that guide the research in each field differ, and consequently

different methods of research are adopted.

A Brief History of Modern Scientific Psychology

Psychology has a long past but a short history. Human beings or homosapiens

appeared on earth about 100,000 years ago and probably ever since they have been

trying to understand themselves. Going back to the time of Greek philosophers like

Plato and Aristotle, who have wondered about human behaviour and mental process.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C) is sometimes called the Father of psychology. But speculation

about psychological matters did not begin with the Greek thinker. Hundreds of years

before Aristotle, the earliest philosopher on record were dealing with these topics. But

not until the late 1800s, did great thinkers like Aristotle began to apply the scientific

method to questions that had puzzled philosophers for centuries. Only then did

psychology come in to being as a formal scientific discipline separate from

philosophy.

The brief history of psychology will be discussed at a much later point in

history ie., in the last part of the 19th century when the field called psychology

emerged. Charles Darwin (1809-1882) who was not a psychologist yet was considered

to be responsible for the idea that human behaviour and thinking might be a subject

for scientific inquiry. In the ‘Origin of Species’ (1859) and ‘The Descent of Man’

(1871), Darwin marshalled evidence that like other forms of life on earth, human

beings evolved through a process of natural selection. If human beings are a product of

evolution, may be wee too are subject to laws of nature. And therefore can be studied,

analysed and understood scientifically.

Psychologists were just beginning to use scientific methods to study the brain,

nerves and sense organs. Most important was the philosopher and physicist Gustav

Fechner (1801-1887) who had shown how scientific methods could be applied to the

study of mental processes. Early in 1850s Fechner became interested in the

relationship between physical stimulation and sensation. He was fascinated by the

sensitivity of human senses. Fechner devised the necessary techniques to find precise

answers to questions like – how bright must a star be, to be seen? How loud must a

noise be, to be heard? How heavy must a touch be, to be felt? When Fechner’s major

work, ‘Elements of Psychophysics’ was published in 1860, it showed how

experimental and mathematical procedures could be used to study the human mind About twenty years later, a German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt, founded a

discipline that he eventually called psychology.

The Major Movements in Modern Psychology

Structuralism: Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Bradford Titchener

Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) was originally trained as a physician, taught

physiology for seven years at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. Early in his

career he showed interest in mental processes. During this time, the field of

psychology had no domain of its own and its subject matter belonged to philosophy.

Wundt’s ambition was to establish an independent identity for psychology. With this

goal he left Heidelberg to accept chairpersonship of the philosophy department at the

University of Leipzig in Germany. Four years later, in 1979, Wundt founded the first

experimental psychology laboratory in the world, thus conferring on psychology a full

fledged scientific status. His goal was to develop techniques for uncovering the

natural laws of human mind. He believed that psychologists should investigate the

elementary process of human consciousness, their combinations and relationships

much as chemists study the fundamental elements of matter. Wundt felt that it was

also important to study the central mental operations such as attention, intentions and

goals.

Inorder to study the elementary process, Wundt and his followers devised a

method called ‘analytic or objective introspection’, a formal type of self observation.

They trained themselves in the art of objective introspection, recording in minute

detail, their thoughts, feelings, heart beat and respiration rates for example, when

listening to a metronome. From this they analysed many kinds of sensation patterns in

to their component parts. The most important product of Leipzig was its students who

carried the new science to Universities around the world. Among them was Edward

Bradford Titchener, British by birth, who eventually published the summary of the

basic ‘sensation qualities’ that had been discovered.

In 1892, Titchener, migrated to the United States and took charge of a new

experimental laboratory at Cornell University. He considered psychology as the

science of consciousness. He broke consciousness down in to three basic elements:

physical sensations (what we see), feelings (such as liking or disliking bananas) and

images (memories of other bananas). Even the most complex thoughts and feelings

can be reduced to these simple elements. Titchener saw psychology’s role as

identifying these elements and showing how they can be combined and integrated.

Because it stresses the basic units of experience and the combinations in which they

occur, this school of psychology is called structuralism. The stucturalists held the

following beliefs:

1. Psychologists should study human consciousness particularly sensory experiences.

2. They should use analytic introspective laboratory studies.

3. They should analyse the mental processes in to elements, discover their

combinations and connections and locate related structures in the nervous system.

Limitations1. Emphasised one method of study, ie., formal analytic introspection, which

automatically excluded the experiences of children and animals that could not be

properly trained.

2. Considered complex phenomena such as thinking, language, morality and

abnormality in appropriate for introspective studies.

3. Structuralists were unwilling to address themselves to practical issues.

Functionalism: William James

William James (1842-1910) was the first American born psychologist. He

taught philosophy and psychology at Harvard University for thirty five years. William

james did not identify with any movement. His special ‘system’ of psychology

evolved from keen observation of himself and others.

James opposed structuralism because he saw it as artificial, narrow and

essentially inaccurate. He held that Wundt’s ‘atoms of experience’ – pure sensation

without associations, simply do not exist in real life experiences. According to James, our minds are constantly weaving associations, revising experience, starting, stopping, jumping back and forth in time. perception, emotion and images cannot be separated.

He argued, consciousness flows in a continuous stream. If we could not recognise a

banana, we would have to figure out what it was each time we saw a banana. Mental

associations allow benefiting from previous experience.

William James suggested that when we repeat something, our nervous systems

are changed so that each repetition is easier than last. With these insights, James

arrived at a functionalist theory of mental behaviour. In early 1900s, several

psychologists at the University of Chicago (including John Dewey) were strongly

influenced by James views.

Functionalist theory goes beyond were sensation and perception to explore how

an organism learns to function in its environment. The functionalists held the

following beliefs:

1. Psychologists should study the functioning of mental processes and many other

topics, including the behaviour of children and simple animals, abnormality and

individual differences.

2. Psychologists should use informal introspection (self-observation and self report)

and objective methods (those relatively free of bias) such as experimentation.

3. Psychological knowledge should be applied to practical matters such as education, law and business.

Behavourism: John B. Watson

John Watson (1878-1958) completed his doctorate in the field of animal

psychology at the University of Chicago. In ‘ Psychology as Behaviourist Views It’

(1913), Watson contented that you cannot define consciousness any more than you

can define soul. And if you cannot locate or measure something, it cannot be the

object of scientific study. Challenging structuralists, functionalists and psychodynamic

theories, Watson argued that the whole idea of mental processes or consciousness

could not be tested and reproduced by all trained observers, because they depended on

each person’s idiosyncratic impressions.Watson’s view of psychology, known as behaviourism,was based on well known experiments conducted by the Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov concluded that all behaviour is learned response to some stimulus in the environment called conditioning. Many young American psychologists were attracted to the behaviouris movement. In some form or another it dominated American psychology for bout thirty years. The early behaviourists had the belief that:

1. Psychologists should study environmental events (stimuli) and observable

behaviour (responses).

2. Experience has a more important influence on behaviour, abilities and traits than

heredity.

3. Introspection should be abandoned and objective methods should be used like

experimentation, observation and testing.

4. Psychologists should aim at the description, explanation, prediction and control of

behaviour.

5. The behaviour of lesser animals should be investigated along with human

behaviour because, simple organisms are easier to study and understand than

complex ones.

Psychoanalytic Psychology: Sigmund Frued

Sigmund Frued (1856-1939), the Vienese physician specialised in treating

problems of the nervous system, particularly neurotic disorders. Frued noticed that

many of his patients’ nervous ailments appeared to be psychological rather than

physiological in origin. Frued’s clinical discoveries led him to develop a

comprehensive theory called the psychoanalytic theory. Frued held that human beings are motivated by unconscious instincts and urges that are not available to the rational, conscious part of our mind. To uncover the unconscious, he developed a technique, called psychoanalysis, in which the patient lies on a couch, recounts dreams, and says whatever comes to mind which is termed as free association. The psychoanalyst sorts through half remembered scenes, broken trains of thoughts and the like and attemptsto reconstruct the past experiences that shape the patient’s present behaviour.

Frued held that personality develops in a series of critical stages during the first

few years of life. If we successfully resolve the conflicts that we encounter at each of

these stages, we can avoid psychological problems in later life. But if we become

‘fixated’ at any one of these stages, we may carry related feelings of anxiety or

exaggerated fears with us in to adulthood. Frued maintained that many unconscious

desires and conflicts have their roots in sexual repression. The view that unconscious

conflicts within the individual influence much human thought and action is known as

psychoanalytic psychology.

The psychoanalytic psychologists held the following beliefs:

1. Psychologists should study the laws and determinants of personality (normal and

abnormal) and devise treatment methods for personality disorders.

2. The important aspects of personality like unconscious motives, memories, fears,

conflicts and frustration are to be brought to consciousness for treatment of

personality disorders.3. Personality is formed during early childhood. Exploring memories of the first five

years of life is essential for treatment.

4. Personality is most suitably studied in the context of a long term intimate

relationship between patient and therapist.

Psychoanalytic theory as expanded and revised by Frued’s colleagues and

successors, laid the foundation for the study of personality and psychological

disorders and remains influential today.

Gestalt Psychology

While behaviourism was becoming popular in America, Gestalt psychology

(gestalt is the German word for whole or pattern or structure) was growing in

Germany. As the name suggests, the gestalt psychologists believed that experiences

carried with them a quality of wholeness or structure. Just like behaviourism, gestalt

psychology arose as a protest against structuralism, particularly the practice of

reducing complex experiences to simple elements. Gestalt psychology is that school of

psychology that studies how people perceive and experience objects as whole patterns.

The gestalt movement had a number of psychologists like Max Wertheimer,

Wolfgang Kohler and Kurt Koffka. Gestalt psychology paved the way for the modern

study of perception.

The Views of Modern Psychology

Psychology as a science is continuing to grow in dimensions. Although

contemporary psychologists rarely follow specific movements, they disagree on some

fundamental philosophical issues and hence approach psychology in different ways.

Many behavioural scientists identify themselves to some degree with one of the four

major points of view like, psychoanalytic, neo-behaviouristic, cognitive and

humanistic. Some follow a combination of these views known as eclectic approach.

1. Psychoanalytic View

The psychoanalytic view holds that behaviour results from psychological

dynamics that interact within the individual and which is often outside conscious

awareness

2. The Neo-behaviouristic View

The behaviouristic approaches have become broader and flexible today.

Modern behaviourists still investigate stimuli, observable responses and learning.

They also study complicated phenomena that cannot be directly observed like stress,

attribution, motivation and personality. This new type of behaviourism is sometimes

called neo-behaviourism, where ‘neo’ means new. The major characteristic of Neobehaviouristic

position is its insistence on asking precise, well delineated questions,

using objective methods and careful research.

3. The Cognitive View

In the early 1960s cognitive psychologists began to rebel against the old

bhaviouristic model. They insisted that psychologists had to come to understand what

was going on inside the human mind, particularly the operations of the mind.Cognitive psychologists hold the following beliefs:

1. Behaviourist scientists should study the mental processes like thought, memory,

perception, attention, problem solving, language, etc.

2. Psychologists should aim at acquiring precise knowledge of how these processes

operate and how they are applied in daily life.

3. Informal introspection should be used particularly to develop hypotheses, whereas,

objective methods are preferred to confirm these hypotheses.

Thus, cognitive psychology combines various aspects of functionalism, gestalt

psychology and behaviourism.

4. The Humanistic view

Humanistically oriented psychologists have the aim of humanising psychology.

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) is an important psychologist in the humanistic

movement. Most of the humanistically oriented psychologists share the following

beliefs:

1. Psychologists should help people understand themselves and develop to their

fullest potential enriching human lives.

2. Behavioural scientists should study living human beings as a whole.

3. Significant human problems should be the subject of investigations.

4. Behavioural scientists should focus on subjective awareness.