Introduction to the History and Science of Psychology

Module 1: The history and scope of Psychology

I. PSYCHOLOGY’S ROOTS
a. People came on to earth. Soon after they became interested in themselves and in others. They
wondered, “Who are we? From where came our thoughts? Our feelings? Our actions?” And
how do we understand – and master and mange the people around us.
b. Psychologies answered to these wonderings have developed from international roots in
philosophy and biology into a science that aims to describe and explain how we think, feel, and
act. Understanding roots of today’s psychology helps us appreciate psychologists varied
perspectives.

II. PRESCIENTIFIC PSYCHOLOGY

a. In India, Buddha wondered how sensation and perceptions combined to form ideas.
b. In China, Confucius stressed the powers of ideas and of an educated mind.
c. In ancient Israel, the Hebrew Scriptures anticipated today’s psychology by linking mind and
emotion to the body. People were said to think with their hearts and feel with their bowels.
d. Socrates (469-399 B.C.): and his student Plato thought that mind was separated from the body,
and continued after death. They thought knowledge was built within us.
e. ) Aristotle (384 - 322 B.C): (student of Plato, grandson of Socrates) concluded that soul is not
separated from the body, and knowledge is not preexistent , but grows from experiences stored
in memories.
f. Augustine (354-430 A.D.): wrote about how the condition of the body influences the mind, and
how the mind affects the body.
g. Rene Descartes (1595-1650): agreed with Socrates and Plato about the existence of innate
ideas and the mind being “entirely distinctive from the body” and able to survive its death.
Dissected animal’s brain and concluded that the fluid in their brain’s cavities contained the
animal spirit, flowing from brain to the nerves. Though he was right that nerve paths are
important, he didn’t know about the accumulated knowledge (like what an average 12 year old
knows).
h. Francis Bacon (1561-1626): became one of the founders of modern science and influenced
psychological science. He concluded that the human understanding comes from the things that
they experience.
i. John Locke (1632-1704): British political philosopher – wrote a paper on “our abilities.” He
concluded that the mind at birth is a blank state. Adding to Bacon’s legacy, he helped to
develop the idea of empiricism (the idea that knowledge comes from experiences, senses;
science flourishes through observations and experiment. He also concluded that we are equal at
birth.
III. PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE IS BORN
a. Wilhelm Wundt conducted first experiment when he was measuring “atoms of mind.” He
launched the first psychological laboratory, staffed by himself and his graduate students.
b. ) Soon this science was divided in two branches – structuralism and functionalism, and later
types of psychology.

IV. THINKING ABOUT THE MIND’S STRUCTURE

a. Wundt’s student, Edward Bradford Titchner, introduced structuralism (an early school of
psychology that used introspection to explore the elemental structure of the human mind).
b. He shared his observations with C. S. Lewis, who concluded that there’s only one thing from
which we know more that we learn from our external observations; it’s us.

V. THINKING ABOUT THE MIND’S FUNCTION

a. William James considered how the evolvement of functions occurs, and why each sense in our
body does its job. Like Charles Darwin, James concluded that our brain thinks because it’s one
of the things we need for survival.
b. James developed philosophy of pragmatism, which tested truth by its practical consequences.
c. Besides pragmatism and functionalism (how mental and behavior processes function – how
they enable organisms to adapt, survive, and flourish), James encouraged findings of emotions,
memories, willpower, consciousness, habits.

VI. PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE DEVELOPS

a. In 1960s, psychology reestablished interest in mental processes.
b. Psychology: the science of behavior and mental processes – a way of asking & answering “?”
c. John B. Watson & Rosalie Rayner: championed psychology as the science of behavior,
demonstrated conditional response to “Little Albert”
d. B. F. Skinner: rejected introspection and studied how consequences shape behavior.

VII. CONTEMPORAY PSYCHOLOGY : PSYCHOLOGY’S BIG ISSUE

a. Stability versus change: whether we change and whether our traits change with age.
b. Rationally versus irrationally: how deserving we are of our name “wise humans.
c. Biggest issue: relative contribution of biology and experience - nature-nurture issue
(controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to our
psychological traits and behaviors – are we born with certain traits, or do they come from
experience)?

d. Daniel Dennet called Darwin’s views – natural selection – the principle that among the range of
inherited trait variations, those contributions to reproduction and survival will most likely be
passed on the succeeding generations.” He also passed on Darwin’s principle of revolution.
e. The debate of nurture versus nature still continues today.
VIII. PSYCHOLOGY’S PERSPECTIVE

They complement each other.

a. Neuroscience: how the body & brain enable emotions, memories & sensory experiences.
b. Evolutionary: how the natural selection of traits promotes the perpetuation of one’s genes.
c. Behavior genetics: how our genes and our environment influence our individual differences.
d. Psychodynamic: how behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts.
e. Behavior: how we learn observable responses.
f. Cognitive: how we encode, process, store, and retrieve information.
g. How Behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures.

IX. PSYCHOLOGY’S SUBFIELDS

a- Some psychologists conduct basic research (pure science that aims to increase the
scientific knowledge base) that builds psychology’s knowledge base.

1. Biological psychologists: explores links between brain and mind.

2. Developmental psychologists: studying our changing abilities from womb to

tomb.

3. Cognitive psychologists: experiment how we perceive, think, and serve problems.

4. Personality psychologists: investigates our persistent traits.

5. Social psychologist: explores how we view and affect one another.

b- Can conduct applied research (scientific studies-aim to solve practical problems).

c. Clinical psychologists: study, assess, and treat people with psychological disorders.
d. Psychiatry: a branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders; practiced by physicians
who sometimes provide medical treatment as well as psychological therapy.
e. Psychohistory (psychological analysis of historical characters): psycholinguistics (study of
language and thinking).

Module 2:Research Strategies: How Psychologists Ask and Answer

Questions

X. THE LIMITS OF INTUITION AND COMMON SENSE

a- Others scorn a scientific approach because of their faith in human intuition. Advocates of
‘intuitive management” urge us to distrust statistical predictors and tune into out hunches when
 hiring, firing, and investing.
b- Sometimes out intuition can lead us astray: Imagine folding a piece of paper 100 times on
itself. Roughly how thick would it be?

XI. THE SCIENTIFIC ATTITUDE

a- Critical thinking- thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions

b- Rather, it examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, and

assesses conclusions.

XII. THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

a- Theory an explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes and

predicts observations.
b- Hypothesis a testable prediction, often implied by a theory.
c- Operational definition a statement of the procedures used to define research variables.
For example, intelligence may be operationally defined as what an intelligence test measures.
d- Replication repeating the essence of a research study, usually with different
participants in different situations, to see whether the basic finding extends to other
participants and circumstances. (The first study of the hindsight bias aroused psychologists’
curiosity, and now after many successful replications with differing people and questions, we
feel sure of the phenomenon’s power.)

XIII. THE CASE STUDY

a- The case study is in which psychologists study one individual in great depth in the hope of
revealing things true of us all. Some famous psychologists used case studies in their research as
well.
XIV. THE SURVEY
a- Survey a technique for ascertaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of people,
usually by questioning a representative, random sample of them.
b- Population: all the cases in a group, from which samples may be drawn for a study, except
for national studies.
c-Random sample: a sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an
equal chance of inclusion.

XV. NATURALISTIC OBSERVATION

a- Naturalistic observation: observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring
situations without trying to manipulate and control the situation.
b- It does not explain behavior it describes it.

XVI. CORRELATION
 a-The correlation coefficient is a statistical measure of the extent to which two factors
vary together, and thus of how well either factor predicts the other.

c. Scatter plot a graphed cluster of dots, each of which represents the values of two variables. The
slope of the points suggests the direction of the relationship between the two variables. The
slope of the points suggests the direction of the relationship between the two variables. The
amount of scatter suggests the strength of correlation. (Little scatter indicates high correlation).

XV. ILLUSORY CORRELATIONS

a- Correlations make visible the relationships that we might otherwise miss. They also
restrain our “seeing” relationships that actually do not exist.

XVII. EXPERIMENTATION
a- Experiment is a research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more
factors (independent variables) to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process (the
dependent variable). By random assignment of participants, the experiment controls other
relevant factors.

XVIII. EVALUATING THERAPIES

a- Double-blinded: procedure is an experimental procedure in which both the research
participants and the research staff are ignorant about whether the research participants have
received the treatment or a placebo. Commonly used in drug-evaluation studies.
b- Placebo effect: experimental results caused by expectations alone; any effect on
behavior caused by the administration of an inert substance or condition, which is assumed to
be an active agent.
c- Experimental condition: the condition of an experiment that exposes participants to the
treatment, that is, to one version of the independent variable.
d- Control condition the condition of an experiment that contrasts with the experimental
condition and serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of treatment. Random
Assignment assigning participants to experimental and control conditions to by chance, thus
minimizing preexisting differences between those assigned to the different groups.
e- Independent variable: the experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose
effect is being studied.
f- Dependent variable: the experimental factor-in psychology, the behavior or mental
process that is being measured; the variable that may change in response to manipulations of the
independent variable.

XIX. STATISTICAL REASONING

a- Off-the-top-of-of-the-head estimates often misread reality an then mislead the public.
 Someone throws out a big round number and others echo it. Before long the big round number
becomes public misinformation.

XX. MEASURES OF CENTRAL TENDENCY

a- Mode: the most frequently occurring score in a distribution.

b- Mean: the arithmetic average of a distribution, obtained by adding the scores and
then dividing by the number of scores.
c-Median: the middle score in a distribution; half the scores are above it and half are
below it.
d-Statistical significance: a statistical statement of how likely it is that an obtained results
occurred by chance.