CoonCh1

Introduction to Psychology - 131 - Dr. Bjornsen - Outline

Coon Chapter 1 - The Search for Understanding

Behavior – overt and covert behaviors (thinking and remembering)

Empiricism – direct observation and measurement – using data – objectivity

Scientific observation – test hypotheses – research methods – systematic

Psychological research – different types

Developmental psych – the course and processes of growth through ages or stages

Learning theorists - increasing your knowledge and/or skills - to modify your behavior based on past experience

Personality research - characteristics that define your consistent "self" or who you are

Sensation and perception - sensations are physical, perceptions are your mental interpretations of these sensations

Comparative psychology - compare traits of different species

Biopsychology - how biological processes influence thoughts and behavior

Gender psychology - differences and similarities between males and females

Social psychology - social behavior, such as aggression and friendship

Cultural psychology - how your behaviors are shaped by the culture in which you live - and how the culture shapes development

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Animals in research – animal models - we share 98% of our genetic makeup with all other life on the planet - and 99.9% with non-human primates such as Gorillas and Chimpanzees

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Goals of psychology - describe behavior, understand behavior, predict behavior, control behavior

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History of psychology

Darwin and Natural Selection

Wilhelm Wundt – 1879 – used stimuli, and introspection, experimental self-observation – beginning of Structuralism - what is the structure of the mind, what can it do?

Followed by E. B. Tichner in the (U.S.) – analyze experience into basic elements or building blocks

Functionalism – William James (U.S.) – 1890 – Principles of Psychology – HOW the mind functions, for what purposes (adaptation, following Darwin, natural selection)

Behaviorism – (U.S.), John Watson – argued introspection was not scientific – advocated studying observable behavior – adopted Ivan Pavlov’s model of Conditioned and Unconditioned responses

famous for his statement on raising a child to be anything through conditioning

B.F. Skinner – operant conditioning – learning follows perceiving the consequences of our behavior

behavior modification

Gestalt psychology – Max Wertheimer - argued what is important to humans is the totality of experience, not the separate elements studied by the behaviorists

Psychodynamic psychology – Sigmund Freud – 1900 – The Interpretation of Dreams – unconscious mind, repressed thoughts, psychoanalysis

Neo-Freudians - revise Freud's ideas

Women in Psychology - Mary Calkins - 1st woman president of APA, 1905

1894 - first woman to be awarded a Ph.D. in psychology - Margaret Washburn

today, 2/3 of graduate students in psychology are women

Humanistic psychology – view the person in a much more positive light, with free will and rational thought

reject Freudian theory and Behaviorism

Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow

Self-evaluation, self-actualization