PSY 151

Basic Tenets of Dr. Ark Verma

Psychology
Is Psychology Just Behaviour Modification?

❖ NO, It is not.
Subject Matter of Psychology
 What do Psychologists Study?

❖ A science which studies mental processes, experiences

& behaviour in different contexts.
❖ mental processes: What goes on in the mind?
❖ brain activity? or mental activity?
❖ such as learning, remembering, perceiving, feeling,
understanding.
❖ experiences: subjective feelings.
❖ what is your reality/awareness/soul?
❖ what are you feeling at this point of time?
❖ normal/altered or active/passive?
❖ behaviors: responses or reactions to the events & actions
in the world.
❖ simple or complex.
❖ overt or covert.
❖ basically like stimulus (S) & response (R).
Is Psychology a Science or Common Sense?
 Consider these statements?
1. Memory is more accurate under hypnosis.

2. All people dream during a night of normal sleep.

3. As the number of bystanders at an emergency increases, the time it takes

for the victim to get help decreases.

4. Humans do not have a maternal instinct.

5. Older adults tend to express less satisfaction with life in general than

younger adults.
1. Eyewitness testimony is often unreliable.

2. Children with high IQs tend to be less able physically than their

peers.

3. Creativity and high intelligence do not necessarily go together.

4. When it comes to close personal relationships, opposites attract.

5. The majority of teenagers have good relationships with their

parents.
 Probably not Common Sense!!!

❖ Common Sense has problems!!!

❖ e.g. confirmation bias,
stereotypes etc.
 How is Psychology Structured!
❖ as a Discipline:
❖ seeks to understand and explain, how the mind works &
how the different mental processes lead to different
behaviours.
❖ tries to minimise biases in explanations of behaviour and
experience in various ways.
❖ however, also recognises the importance of subjectivity
in some cases; though tries to develop a scientific
understanding.
❖ most importantly it consists of two streams:
❖ one, which makes use of the methods in physical &
biological sciences & the other which uses the methods
in social & cultural sciences in studying various psycho-
social phenomena.
❖ in the first case, psychology focuses largely on biological
principles to explain human behaviour.
❖ in the other, psychology focuses on how behavioural
phenomena can be explained in terms of the interaction
that takes place between the person & the social context.
❖ as natural science:
❖ psychology applies the “scientific method”.
❖ emphasises objectivity.
❖ uses what is called a ‘hypothetico-deductive model’.
❖ theory drives the scientific endeavour.
Ranjita and Shabnam were in the same class. Although, they were in the same class,
they were just acquainted with each other and their lives were quite different.
Ranjita came from a farmer’s family. Her grandparents, parents and elder brother
worked on their farm. They lived together in their house in the village. Ranjita was a
good athlete and was the best long distance runner in the school. She loved meeting
people and making friends.
Unlike her, Shabnam lived with her mother in the same village. Her father worked in
an office in a town nearby and came home during holidays. Shabnam was a good
artist and loved staying home and taking care of her younger brother. She was shy
and avoided meeting people.

❖ as a social science:
❖ psychological looks at the behaviour of the individuals in light of their
social context.
❖ finally, psychology attempts to understand mind &
behavior.
❖ mind… What is MIND?
❖ read Penrose!
❖ VS Ramachandran for phantom limbs.
A Brief Background of Psychology
 The word PSYCHOLOGY…

❖ ‘Psychology’ the word basically derives from a

combination of two Latin words:
❖ psyche: soul
❖ logia: the study of
❖ So, ideally the psychology began as the study of soul!!!
 The Origins…
❖ the birth of psychological investigations came from
philosophy.
❖ a subject that seeks to explore & explain human nature
through introspection.
❖ also uses tools of thought like epistemology, logic etc.
❖ Also, inputs came from physiology.
❖ a subject dedicated to understanding the functioning
of the human body.
 The Early Psychologists…
❖ Hippocrates (460 - 377 B.C.):
proposed that mental illness
was not caused by demons but
by physical malfunctions.
❖ dissected human cadavers
& living organisms to
conclude that mind
controlled the body.
❖ importantly suggested
that mind resides in the
brain.
 The Early Psychologists
❖ Plato (427-347 B.C.):
❖ suggested that ‘reality’ exists
in our minds & the head is
the seat of the mind.
❖ knowledge is gained
through thinking &
analysing as an effort to
understand the world.
❖ mind & body are different,
but they interact.
 The Early Psychologists
❖ Aristotle (384-222 B.C.):
❖ felt that mind & body were the
same thing.
❖ believed that we can
understand the mind by
studying the body.
❖ rely on concrete objects &
actions, rather than thoughts.
❖ reality lies in the concrete
world.
❖ was an empiricist.
Moving on to Modern Thinkers!
 The Modern Psychologists…
❖ Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
❖ a French mathematician &
philosopher.
❖ introspection & reflection are
better methods than
observation.
❖ mind & body are two
separate things. spiritual &
material.
❖ Cogito ergo sum.
 The Modern Psychologists…
❖ John Locke (1632-1704)
❖ relationship between mind &
body is an equal relationship of
the two aspects of the same
phenomenon.
❖ mind depends upon the body
through the senses for its
informations, while the body
depends on the mind to process
& store sensory experiences.
❖ empiricist & believed in tabula
rasa.
 The Modern Psychologists…
❖ Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
❖ proposed that humans have
a set of faculties - senses,
understanding & reasoning,
which work together to
control the link between
mind & body.
❖ two types of knowledge
needs to be used:
❖ a posteriori
❖ a priori
 Taking a pause…
❖ So, the early thinkers basically affected the broad subject
matter of psychology.
❖ it had to be the elusive relationship between mind &
body.
❖ mind could be studied through various ways, observable
behaviour was an important element.
❖ body on the other hand could be studied via the
biological/neural substrates.
Various Schools of Psychology
 Structuralism
❖ Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)
developed the first psychology
laboratory in Leipzig, Germany.
❖ focussed on the nature of
consciousness itself.
❖ believed that it was possible to
analyse the basic elements of
the mind & conscious
experience.
❖ founded structuralism.
❖ structuralism
❖ a school of psychology whose aim was to identify the basic
elements or structures of the psychological experience.
❖ to create something like a periodic table of “elements of
sensations”.
❖ used the method of introspection to attempt a map of
consciousness.
❖ asked participants to describe exactly what they experience as
they work on mental tasks, such as viewing colors, reading
etc.
❖ also used reaction times as a measure to systematically assess
the workings of the mind.
❖ detection of sound took longer than identification (Wundt)
❖ distinguished between sensation & perception.
❖ Edward Titchener (1867-1927) claimed to identify more
than 40,000 sensations, as vision, hearing & taste.
❖ the approach was rigorous & scientific.
❖ quantifying mental events.
❖ had limits: introspection.
 Functionalism

❖ William James (1842-1910)

❖ founded functionalism
❖ to understand why animals &
humans have developed the
particular psychological
aspects.
❖ “ My thinking is first & last
and always for the sake of my
doing” (James, 1890).
❖ basically their perspective derives from, Darwin’s (1809-1882)
theory of natural selection.
❖ physical characteristics of animals & humans have evolved
because they serve a purpose, useful.
❖ it now exists under the name of evolutionary psychology.
❖ which believes that mental functions as memory, emotion &
personality, serve key adaptive functions.
❖ concept of fitness: characteristics are passed on to
generations to the extent that they are helpful in survival &
propagation. e.g. jealousy.
❖ has its own limitations. testability.
 Psychodynamic Approach

❖ Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

❖ rockstar
❖ founded psychoanalysis
❖ an approach to understand
human behaviour that focuses
on the role of unconscious
thoughts, feelings, & memories.
❖ developed his method by
extensive analysis of his patients.
❖ believed that many of his patients problems like anxiety,
depression etc. were rooted in their painful childhood
experiences.
❖ influenced a whole lot of other psychologists & theorists
as Carl Jung (1875-1961), Alfred Adler (1870-1937),
Karen Horney (1855-1952) & Erik Erikson (1902-1994).
❖ proposed that these patients can be helped if the
unconscious drives can be remembered, particularly
through a deep exploration of their ‘sexual experiences’.
❖ talk therapy & dream analysis: psychoanalysis.
 Behaviorism
❖ John B. Watson (1878 - 1958)
❖ founded behaviorism
❖ based on the premise that it is
not possible to objectively
study the mind.
❖ psychologists should limit their
attention to the study of
behaviour (overt) itself.
❖ mind is a “black box”.
❖ no point in trying to determine,
when we can predict behaviour.
❖ Behaviorists explain the behaviour in terms of S-R.
❖ e.g. Watson found that systematically exposing a child to
fearful stimuli in presence of “harmless” stimuli could lead
the child to fear them:
“The boy was placed in the middle of a room; a white laboratory rat
was placed near him and he was allowed to play with it. The child
showed no fear of the rat. In later trials, the researchers made a loud
sound behind Albert’s back by striking a steel bar with a hammer
whenever the baby touched the rat. The child cried when he heard the
noise. After several such pairings of the two stimuli, the child was
again shown the rat. Now, however, he cried and tried to move away
from the rat.”
 Behaviorism: Classical Conditioning

❖ Russian physiologist, Ivan

Pavlov studied the effects of
pairing two completely
unrelated stimuli, on learning.
❖ He paired:
❖ food > salivating response.
❖ food + bell > salivating
response.
❖ bell > salivating response.
Behaviorism: Operant Conditioning
❖ B .F. Skinner (1904-1990)
❖ used reinforcements &
punishments to modify
behavior.
❖ used theses principles to
develop theories about how
to teach children & create
peaceful societies.
❖ influenced a lot of marketing
strategies.
 The Cognitive Approach
❖ Cognitive Psychology
❖ a field of psychology that
studies mental processes,
including perception, thinking,
memory, language, problem
solving, emotions etc.
❖ Contributors like Hermann
Ebbinghaus (1850-1909), Sir
Frederick Bartlett
(1886-1969), Donald
Broadbent (1926-1993) etc.
❖ the cognitive approach provides a distinct alternative to
behaviourism
❖ as thinking is recognised as important.
❖ ignoring the mind will never be sufficient because
people will interpret the stimuli that they experience.
❖ Uses modern methods like neuroimaging (fMRI, PET),
eye tracking etc.
 Sociocultural Psychology
❖ studies how the social situations and the cultures in which
the people find themselves in influence thinking &
behaviour.
❖ e.g. we are attracted to people who are similar to us in
attitudes & interests (Byrne, 1969).
❖ e.g. we develop our beliefs & attitudes by comparing
our opinions to those of others (Festinger, 1954).
❖ e.g. we frequently adjust our beliefs & behaviours to be
similar to those of the people we care about - conformity.
❖ an interesting idea is that of norms
❖ ways of thinking, feeling, or behaving that are shared
by group members and perceived by them as
appropriate (Asch, 1952).
❖ cultures represent common set of social norms,
including common religious & family values…
shared by people who live in a particular
geographical area.
❖ e.g. Western norms are different to ours. ~
individualism vs collectivism.