Psychology Introduction

:Definition of psychology
Psychology can be defined as the scientific study of behavior and .mental processes

:Perspectives of psychology
Any topic in psychology can be approached from a variety of perspectives. Each perspective offers a somewhat different .explanation of why individuals act the way they do

:We have five psychological perspectives :Biological perspective -1

The biological approach relates behavior to electrical and chemical .events taking place within the brain and nervous system The biological approach related to memory has emphasized the .importance of hippocampus in consolidating memories The biological approach to motivation and emotion showed that electric stimulation of certain regions in the brain produce excessive overeating and obesity; and stimulation at other nearby regions .produce aggressive behavior

:Behavioral perspective -2
With the behavioral approach, a psychologist studies individuals by looking at their behavior rather than at their brain and nervous system. The founder of this approach was the American psychologist .John Watson in 1900 According to behaviorism, stimulus-response psychology (SR) studies the stimuli in the environment, the responses that are elicited by these stimuli and the rewards or punishments that follow these .responses As regards to aggression, children are more likely to express aggressive responses, such as hitting another child, when such .responses are rewarded than when their responses are punished Important: A strict behavioral approach does not consider the .individual's mental processes

:Cognitive perspective -3
It is concerned with mental processes such as perceiving, .remembering, reasoning, deciding and problem solving The cognitive psychology resembles a modern computer or what is known as information processing system. Incoming information is processed in various ways: it is selected, compared and combined with other information in memory, transformed, rearranged and so .on The response output depends on these internal processes at that moment for example, with regard to aggression, you are far more likely to return the verbal aggression if the person is an acquaintance than if he or she is a mental patient that you don't know. In both cases the stimulus situation is the same; what differs is what you know about the other person, and it is this knowledge that controls .your behavior

:psychoanalytical perspective -4
The basic assumption of Freud's theory is that much of our .behavior stems from processes that are unconscious By unconscious processes Freud meant beliefs, fears and desires a person is unaware of but, nevertheless influence behavior. Forbidden impulses (sex and aggression) are focused out of awareness into the unconscious where they remain to affect dreams, slips of speech, or mannerisms and to manifest themselves as emotional problems, symptoms of mental illness, or on the other hand socially opposed .behavior as artistic behavior Freud believed that all of our actions have some unconscious motive .and other than the rational reason we may give

:Phenomenological perspective-5
It focuses almost entirely on subjective experience. We are not acted on by forces beyond our control, but instead we are capable at controlling our own destiny. We are the builders of our own lives because each of us is a free agent, to make choices and set goals and therefore accountable for our life choices. This is the issue of free will versus determinism. Some phenomenological theories are called also humanistic (the desire toward self actualization). All of us have a basic need to develop our potential to the fullest, to progress beyond .where we are now