CHAPTER ONE

THE NATURE OF PSYCHOLOGY

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

Meaning of Psychology

 Etymologically, psychology was derived from two

Greek words psyche (mind) and logo (study)
hence, it literally means the study of the mind.
 Psychology is defined as the scientific study of
behavior and mental processes.

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

Its Nature
 As a science, it employs a systematic and scientific manner of
investigating how people behave and think in various
situations. It disallows unrepeatable procedures and
unfounded conclusions.

 The present definition of psychology is a product of an

earlier interest in overt behavior or directly observable and
covert thoughts and feelings or mental processes.

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011
Three ancient Greek philosophers
 Socrates: postulated the “Know Thyself ” principle. He
is best remembered for his statement “I only know that I
know nothing” and his belief that “To have knowledge is to love
wisdom.”
 Plato: believed that ideas are innate and the soul is the
most important possession of man.
 Aristotle: investigated the importance of the body and
soul (hylomorphism).

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

Other philosophers
 Rene Descartes: French Philosopher and Mathematician
who proposed the mind-body interaction and the value of
innate ideas (nature).
 John Locke: British philosopher who held the mind as
tabula rasa (blank slate) and argues that knowledge is acquired
through experience and interactions with the world
(nurture).
 Charles Darwin: introduced the theory of evolution stating
the origins of man.
 Francis Galton: who claimed that intelligence is inherited
and coined the term “nature and nurture.”

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

Birth of Psychology

Psychology was born in December, 1879

 Wilhelm Wundt established the first

psychological laboratory at the University of
Leipzig, Germany.

 He produced followers that helped shape

psychology’s direction.

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

 G. Stanley Hall- Established the first formal US psychology
laboratory in 1883 at Johns Hopkins University and is the first to
receive a Ph.D. degree from Harvard University’s Department of
Philosophy.

 J. McKeen Cattell- designed the Sixteen Personality Factor

Questionnaire (16PF).

 Edward Bradford Titchener- introduced structuralism with a

goal of specifying mental structures and analyzing the basic
elements of conscious experience using introspection as its main
method of observation of the subjects’ content of experience.

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

There were those who opposed structuralism and proposed another school
of thought. These include:
 William James - introduced functionalism, which was concerned with how the
consciousness functions.

 Sigmund Freud - a Viennese physician who introduced psychoanalysis.

 John B. Watson - founder of Behaviorism who redefined psychology as the study of

observable behavior .

 Max Wertheimer - he introduced Gestalt Psychology which means “whole” or “form”

in 1912.

 Abraham Maslow - major proponent of Humanism who emphasized human potential,

needs, and life’s meaning. His theories became important in the study of emotions and
motivation.

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

The Future of Psychology

 From mental health to health care providers:

Providing integrated health care;
 Integrating technology into practice;
 Meeting the needs of our diverse society; and
 Applying basic and applied scientific evidence to
inform our practice

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

Additionally, the disciplines’ trends can be any of
these:
 Psychology’s influence on issues of public interest will grow Poverty,
violence, terrorism, environmental issues shall have psychological
implications

 Since technology has shrunk the globe into a small community, racial,
ethnic, diversity, linguistic factors will give a space for practicing
psychologists to provide services and create opportunities for research.

 Increased Collaboration. Psychologists will be more and more interested

in other social sciences, medical, legal areas to incorporate and create
new knowledge for psychology.

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

History of Psychology in the Philippines
 Psychology was taught as early as the 17th century at the
University of Santo Tomas in Manila and the University of San
Carlos in Cebu;
 Psychology was under Philosophy in the 1900’s;
 In 1926, psychology was taught as a separate subject from
Philosophy and a department of Psychology
 UST was the first institution to offer BS, Master’s and Ph.D.
degrees in Psychology
 The field was closely identified with Education until the 1960’s.

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

Contemporary Perspectives in Psychology
 Biological Perspective - It views psychological events as
related to the activity of the brain and the nervous system.
This approach also considers the importance of
memory, including the hippocampus that fully develops at
age 3. Prior to this age, recall of childhood events can be difficult
since the hippocampus is not yet fully developed.

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

Contemporary Perspectives in
Psychology
 Behavioral Perspective - This is the perspective that
revolutionized psychology for half a century. It focused on
observable and measurable behavior that can be explained
through stimulus-response formula and is determined
through conditioning and reinforcement. Stimulus is
an environmental situation that elicits a response.
Punishment or reward usually follows after the response.

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

Contemporary Perspectives in
Psychology
 Cognitive Perspective – The success of behaviorism was
not without criticism. It was viewed as mechanical and
limited to overt behavior. Cognitive approach included
mental processes in the equation to fully understand human
behavior. These mental processes include: perceiving,
remembering, reasoning, deciding, and problem solving. This
approach departed from introspection since it assumed that
mental processes can be studied objectively by focusing on
specific behaviors but interpreting them using underlying
mental processes.

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

Contemporary Perspectives in
Psychology
Psychoanalytic Perspective
 Psychoanalysis was developed by Sigmund Freud. His theory is concerned
with the causal role of wishes and beliefs in human life. This school of
thought emphasized the influence of the unconscious mind on behavior.
 Freud believed that the human mind was composed of three
elements: the id, the ego, and the superego.
 The id is the aspect of personality that is entirely unconscious and includes
the instinctive and primitive behaviors. It is driven by pleasure principle
which strives for immediate gratification of all desires, wants, and needs.
 The ego operates based on the reality principle, which strives to satisfy the
id's desires in realistic and socially appropriate ways.
 The superego holds all internalized moral standards and ideals. It is our
sense of right and wrong.

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

Contemporary Perspectives in
Psychology
 Phenomenological Perspective
 Subjective experience is central to this approach. The
personal experience of man is his/her phenomenology - his
own world. Some of their theories are called humanistic
because they emphasize the qualities that distinguish human
from animals. Humans are motivated by growth and self-
actualization. It moreover emphasizes developing human
potential to the fullest.
 Popular figures in this perspective are Abraham Maslow
and Carl Rogers.

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

 Specializations in Psychology
1. Clinical psychology studies and applies therapeutic methods
to the treatment of individuals experiencing problems in life.
2. School and Educational psychology studies teaching
methods to improve learning in the classroom.
3. Industrial/Organizational psychology studies work and
working environments and applies findings to improve job
satisfaction and productivity.
4. Counseling psychology deals with academic, work, or social
personal problems. They deal with less serious psychological
problems unlike clinical psychologists.
5. Abnormal psychology studies maladaptive behavior patterns
and psychopathology.

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

 Specializations in Psychology
6. Comparative psychology studies similarities and differences in behavior of
various animal species.
Developmental psychology studies the stability and change of
characteristics, such as intelligence or social skills, over the life span.
Personality psychology studies individual differences across a number of
different personal attributes.
Physiological psychology studies biological bases of behavior, focusing on
the nervous system.
Social psychology studies behaviors of individuals in groups and how people
affect one another's behavior
Engineering Psychology deals with man and machine relationship and how
to improve such relationship. This field of psychology is also known as human
factors psychology.
 Forensic Psychology - It is defined as an intersection between psychology
and the legal proceedings. It is applied to the criminal justice system to evaluate
the psychology of the defendants.
New directions in the 21st century
12. Sports Psychology - This field analyzes the people’s behavior in sports. It
studies the factors that affect an individual’s performance in sports or any
physical activity. The skills built through sports are closely associated with
psychology. Sports psychology studies this relationship.
13. Cognitive Neuroscience - This relies on theory and evidence of
neuroscience and computational modeling. It addresses the questions of how
cognitive functions are produced by the brain using new techniques like brain
scanning or neuroimaging to view image of the brain during psychological
phenomena.
14. Evolutionary Psychology - This is a new field that calls for
multidisciplinary background like psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, and
biology in order to determine genetic, sociological, or biological origins of
adaptive or psychological mechanisms. Evolutionary psychologists ask how
human beings got to be where they are now.
15. Positive Psychology – It is an emerging perspective devoted to the study
of subjective feelings of happiness, well being, and good life.

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

Research Methods in Psychology

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

Naturalistic Observation
 It observes behavior in spontaneous and natural settings and
not in the laboratory, except for biological problems.
Participants are observed without interfering with what they
are doing. The advantage of this method is its validity (since
based on reality) and the richness of information that can be
obtained from the sequence and development of respondent’s
behaviors.
 Researchers should only be careful with artificial responses
since subjects are aware that they are being observed.

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

Survey
 The use of questionnaires or conduct of interviews, instead
of observing, can be an alternative way of determining what
respondents do, what they prefer, or what their opinions to
situations are.

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

Case Studies
 This method provides a detailed description of one or few
individuals. Its aim is to provide a detailed picture of the
individual through observation, interviews, and taking
psychological tests. These reports are mainly for clinical
purposes.
 Although one can obtain important insights from the results
of the study, it has problems with generalizability since the
experience of one or two persons cannot speak for the entire
group with the same situation.

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

Correlational Method
 Correlational studies are used to look for relationships or
associations between two or more variables using correlations
coefficient to determine strength (indicated by the value) and
direction (indicated by the sign) of the relationship.

 There are three possible results of a correlational study using a

correlational technique like Pearson’s r.
 Positive relationship: As X increases,Y increases.
 Negative relationship: As X increases,Y decreases.
 No correlation: Normally, the r-value is 0 or X is not related with Y.

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

Experimental Method
 The main objective here is establish cause and effect relationship by
determining the effect of an independent variable (IV) to the dependent
variable (DV). The IV is manipulated (increased, decreased, removed)
while the DV is the variable being measured and is ensured to be
constant.

 It is important in the experiment to control extraneous and

compounding variables. Extraneous variables are those that are not part of
the study but may affect the DV, while compounding variables are
differences (in giving instructions by experimenters, different
participants) which contaminate the results in the DV.

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

Indigenous Research Methods

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

Pakapa-kapa (‘groping,’ a field
method).
 An approach characterized by groping, searching, probing
into an unsystematized mass of social and cultural data to be
able to obtain order, meaning, and directions for research. It
can be related to unobtrusive techniques since the actual
procedures for collecting information may range from
observation, documentation, intervention, participation.

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

Panunuluyan interaction techniques
 Uses pakikipag-kapwa, Its levels of relationship of the
researcher starts from paninimbang hanggang malalimang
pakikipagpalagayang-loob. It uses panimulang pagsasanay,
paglalakbay at pakikisuno, paghimpil sa pook, pagtingin-tingin sa
maaaring panuluyan, paghanap ng tulay, and pagdalaw sa
pakikipanuluyan.

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

Pagtatanong-tanong of Gonzales
(1984).
 It is similar to interview method which considers region,
dialect, local culture, choice of venue and timing. It is a
Filipino word for “asking questions,” the repetition of
‘tanong’ to ‘tanong-tanong’ indicates seriousness of purpose,
one is truly determined to get answers to one’s questions.

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011

Pakikipagkwentuhan (Orteza, 1997).
 ‘Pakikipagkwentuhan’ is an informal, free, as well as a social
process of exchanging information, thoughts, and knowledge
that is part of human daily activities. Its guiding principles
are: With a topic to talk about but without a theme (may
pakay pero walang paksa;

Eugene P. Hontiveros, PhD Copyright June 2011