Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. The word "psychology" comes from the Greek words "psyche" meaning life and "logos" meaning explanation. Those who study mental processes and human behavior by observing, interpreting, and recording how people relate to one another and the environment are called psychologists. Psychologists employ the scientific method to objectively and systematically understand human behavior.
Many areas of psychology take on aspects of biology. We do not exist in isolation. Our behavior is influenced by our interactions with others. Therefore, psychology is a social science.
Unlike human physiology, psychology is a relatively young field. Philosophical interest in the human mind and behavior dates back to the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Persia, Greece, China, and India. However, until the mid-1800s, psychology was considered as part of the discipline philosophy.
It was only in the 1860s, psychology began to be accepted as its own academic and scientific discipline when in Leipzig, Germany Gustav Fechner created the first theory of how judgments about sensory experiences are made and how to experiment on them.
Later, in 1879, Wilhelm Wundt founded the first psychological laboratory to conduct research and experiments in the field of psychology. Wilhelm Wundt was also the first person to refer to himself as a psychologist.
It was developed by Wilhelm Wundt in the 1800s and is regarded as the first school of thought in psychology. It focused on breaking down mental processes into the most basic components. The structuralist used techniques such as introspection to analyze the inner processes of the human mind. Informal introspection is where an individual personally reflects on their own thoughts and feelings, but structuralists favored a more formal approach. Wundt's and Titchener's versions were slightly different - Wundt looked at the whole experience while Titchener was focused on breaking down the process into smaller pieces.
It formed as a reaction to the theories of the structuralist school of thought. This was concerned not with the structure of consciousness but with how mental processes function - that is, how humans and animals use mental processes in adapting to their environment. It was heavily influenced by the work of William James who believed that mental processes are fluid and have continuity, rather than the rigid, or fixed structure that the structuralist suggested. Instead of focusing on the mental processes themselves, functionalist thinkers were interested in the role that these processes play. John Dewey, Harvey Carr, and James Rowland Angell are other functionalist thinkers.
This became a dominant school of thought in the 1950s. Main behaviorist thinkers are John B. Watson, Ivan Pavlov, and B.F. Skinner. This school of thought redefined psychology as the 'science of behavior'. It is focused on behavior that is viewed as observable and measurable and suggested that all behavior can be explained by environmental causes rather than by internal forces. The behaviorist thinkers argued that concepts such as mind, consciousness, and feelings are neither objective nor measurable, and therefore not an appropriate subject matter for psychology.
Sigmund Freud proposed psychoanalysis theory which emphasized the influence of the unconscious mind on human behavior. The unconscious mind is defined as a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories that are outside of conscious awareness. Freud believed that the unconscious continues to influence behavior even though people are unaware of these underlying influences. Freud believed that the human mind was composed of three elements: id, ego, and superego.
The complex human behaviors are an outcome of the way these three elements interact.
It rejected the views of behaviorists and the psychoanalytic. It focuses on the whole person and recognizes that each individual is unique and people's thought processes may be different from one another. Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow are the main humanist thinkers. They maintain that people are innately good and they possess free will. According to the humanistic approach, people are capable of making conscious, rational choices that can lead to personal growth and psychological health. This school of thought has a significant influence on the field of 'positive psychology' which is centered on helping people living happier, more fulfilling lives.
This sees humans not as passive recipients who are pushed and pulled by environmental forces but as active participants who seek out experiences, alter and shape those experiences, and who use mental processes to transform information in the course of their own cognitive development. It studies mental processes such as memory, decision-making, perception, reasoning, language, and other forms of cognition. As part of the larger field of cognitive science, cognitive psychology is related to other disciplines including linguistics, philosophy, and neuroscience.
Jane Piaget is one of the most influential cognitive psychologists. He studied cognitive development in a systematic way. He developed what he referred to as 'schema' (plural. schemata). He defined 'schema' as both the category of knowledge as well as the process of acquiring that knowledge. He believed that people are constantly adapting to the environment as they take in new information and learn new things. As experiences happen and new information is presented, new schemas are developed and old schemas are changed or modified.
It is a school of psychology based upon the idea that we experience things as unified wholes. It started in Germany and Austria during the late 19th century. Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang Kohler are the noted Gestalt psychologists. They suggested that when trying to make sense of the world around us, we do not simply focus on every small component. Instead, our minds tend to perceive objects as part of a greater whole and as elements of more complex systems. According to the Gestalt thinkers, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This school of psychology played a major role in the modern development of the study of human sensation and perception.
The study of psychology has four goals:
The first goal is to observe behavior and describe, often in minute detail, what was observed as objectively as possible
While descriptions come from observable data, psychologists must go beyond what is obvious and explain their observations. In other words, why did the subject do what he or she did?
Once we know what happens, and why it happens, we can begin to speculate what will happen in the future. There’s an old saying, which very often holds true: "the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior."
Once we know what happens, why it happens, and what is likely to happen in the future, we can change the negative behavior.
In many ways, these four goals are similar to the kinds of things we do every day as we interact with others. Psychologists ask many of the same types of questions, but they utilize the scientific method to rigorously test and systematically understand both human and animal behavior.
