Psychology 1
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What is Psychology?
Psychology delves into the realm of dreams and consciousness and the human mind. Up until the 1900s, it was defined as “the study of the soul” (Greek). Questions to consider when diving into this subject:
- How can humans commit genocide? Torture?
- How do we know that those things are horrible?
- Free will? Or are we driven by our environment? Our biology? Our non-conscious influnences?
- What is a mental illness and is it treatable?
- What even is the consciousness or the notion of self?
- How do our brains work? How can they break? How can they be healed?
- Why do we behave the way that we do?
The Philosophical Issues in Psychology
Free Will vs Determinism
Determinism: the idea that everything that happens has a cause, or determinant that someone could observe or measure.
Free will: the belief that behavior is caused by a person's independent decisions.
Most people believe that the physical world is deterministic, but it doesn't apply to humans. Some think that it does because we are part of the physical
world...right? But if we assume determinism, then everything is predictable and empirical and testable--your behavior should be predictable if we analyzed all of the causes.
The Mind-Brain Problem
This is the question of how our experiences relates to the brain.
Dualism: the mind is separate from the brain but somehow controls the brain and therefore the rest of the body.
Monoism: conscious experience is inseparable from the physical brain--mental activity is brain activity.
Most brain researchers (Hi Vivan) support the notion of monoism. They are able to scan our brains via positron-emission tomography (PET) and
record where our brain activity is--which parts of our brain are working harder--during certain activities (music, visual, language, memory...)
Nature vs Nurture
How do differences in behavior relate to differences in heredity and environment? Consider: Do most little boys spend more time than girls with toy guns and trucks than dolls because of biology or because parents treat their sons and daughters differently?
In 1879, Wilhelm Wundt started th first laboratory intended solely for psychology. He published a book Principles of Physiological Psychology which boiled down to:
If scientists could break down objects into matter and structure, us psychologists can do the same for the brain!
We will further explore this analogy in the next module about biology.
Views of Psychology
Structuralism
Wundt asked questions, like "How do you feel when ___________________?" Obviously, we all feel and think different things when we do the same thing. Hank gives the example
of licking kittens. You and I would probably think different things--"Ew, this is nasty" or "This kitten is so cute and lickable!" (...?) This was __too subjective.__ There
was no way of empirically measuring these things, so this led to the failure of this view of structuralism. It was too hard to scientifically answer these questions.
Structuralism: an attempt to describe the structures that compose the mind, particularly sensations, feelings, and images. Wundt asked his patients to introspect, to look
within themselves.
Functionalism
William James focused on the __WHY__ we do those things. He wanted to understand what the function of behavior was. He asked questions like: How can people strengthen good
habits? Can someone attend to more than one item at a time? How do people recognize that they have seen something before? How does an intention lead to action?
Functionalism: to learn how people produce useful behaviors
Around this time, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection also came to play. This also played a factor in funtionalism--which behaviors were conserved
through the evolutionary process? Intelligence tests and mazes for animals began being studied and researched, and people began measure people's intelligence also.
Behaviorism
This is where a lot of modern psychology comes from. We now see psychology as "the systematic study of behavior and experience."
Behaviorism: a field of psychology that concentrates on observable, measurable behaviors and not on mental processes.
The notion of behaviorism was found by John B. Watson, who wanted to be able to predict and control behavior. They wanted to find the laws and stimuli that cause
certain behaviors. Many people began study animal behavior and learning. If the researcher can control the diet, sleep, ... of animals, and they were able to learn,
maybe the same would apply to humans.