Introduction to Psychology

Becoming Familiar

with the

Field of Psychology

Psychology Binder• Class Requirement

• 1 Subject Notebook (70 pages) [college rule]• Pens/Pencils• Folder with 2 pockets

• Four Major Sections/Areas of Psychology1. State of Consciousness2. Emotion and Motivation3. Personality4. Abnormal Psychology

Fields of Psychology 47 Divisions in 1993 (page 3 of textbook) 53 in 2002

7 Major Fields1. Developmental Psychology2. Physiological Psychology3. Experimental Psychology4. Personality Psychology5. Clinical and Counseling Psychology6. Social Psychology7. Industrial and organizational Psychology

American Psychological Association (APA)

Developmental Psychology

Mental growth from conception to death

Physiological Psychology

Behavior influenced by physical and chemical

phenomena in the body

Experimental Psychology

Learning, perception, memory, motivation and

other basic processes

Personality Psychology

Individual differences in traits/characteristics

Clinical/Counseling Psychology

Clinical – diagnosis, cause and treatment of psychological disorders

Counseling – “normal” problems of adjustment

Social Psychology

The influence of people on one another

Occupational Psychology

Psychology applied to the workplace.

(training, in-service – looking to improve productivity)

Science of Psychology Psychology:

Science of human behavior and mental processes

Use of the Scientific Method1. Collect data through careful, systematic observation

2. Explain what they have observed by developing theories

3. Make predictions based on those theories

4. Systematically test those predictions through additional observation and experiments to determine whether they are correct

Scientific Method

DescribeUnderstandPredictControl

All about Behavior!!!

Research Methods of Psychology Read Pages 10-16 Take Notes on the SIX types of Research Methods

EACH METHOD NEEDS:

Name of Method Define the Method Give an Example of the method Advantage of the Method Disadvantage of the Method

Example of Notes on MethodsNaturalistic Observation

1. Definition: Research method involving the systematic study of animal or human behavior...

2. Example: studying the behavior of animals, watching dogs play in the dog park

3. Advantages: Provides a great deal of firsthand behavioral information that is more likely to be accurate than reports after the fact. Subjects behavior is more natural, spontaneous, and varied than behaviors taking place in the lab.

4. Disadvantages: The presence of an observer may alter subjects’ behavior: the observer’s recording of the behavior may reflect a preexisting bias; sometimes observation can not be linked to other settings or subjects.

Scientific Process THEORY: systematic explaniaton of a

phenomenon; it organizes known facts, allows prediction of new facts, and permits a degree of control over the phenomenon

HYPOTHESES: Specific, testable predictions derived from a theory.

History of Psychology

Timeline

Early Beginnings

Psychology first started out as the idea of Philosophy First traces of psychology comes from Aristotle and

Plato Dating all the way back to around 425 B.C. Psychology came about when philosophers started to

add the scientific method to the study of philosophy. This new study became known as the science of the

mind or Psychology.

1879 - Wilhelm Wundt

First psychology laboratory Wilhelm Wundt opens first experimental laboratory in

psychology at the University of Leipzig, Germany. Credited with establishing psychology as an academic discipline, Wundt's students include James McKeen Cattell, and G. Stanley Hall.

1883

First American psychology laboratory

G. Stanley Hall, a student of Wilhelm Wundt, establishes first U.S. experimental psychology laboratory at Johns Hopkins University.

1886

First doctorate in psychology

The first doctorate in psychology is given to Joseph Jastrow, a student of G. Stanley Hall at Johns Hopkins University. Jastrow later becomes professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin and serves as president of the American Psychological Association in 1900.

1892

APA founded G. Stanley Hall founds the American Psychological

Association (APA) and serves as its first president. He later establishes two key journals in the field: American Journal of Psychology (1887) and Journal of Applied Psychology (1917).

Reading Assignment Read Pages 23 – 25 and take notes Notes should express the focus of each type of

psychological study. Make a chart like below and take notes:

Structuralism Functionalism Behaviorism