Overzicht van de Psychologie
Psychological science
1 The science of Psychology
1.1 Why study psychology?
Psychology is about You and about Us
Psychological science is the study of mind, brain, and behavior. Mind refers to mental activity.
The perceptual experiences we have while interacting with the world (sight, smell, taste,
hearing and touch) are examples of the mind in action. The mind is also responsible for our
memories, thoughts, and feelings. Mental activity results from biological processes within the
brain. ‘The mind is what the brain does.’
The term behavior describes a wide variety of observable actions. These actions range from
the subtle to the complex. Some of them occur exclusively in humans; others occur in all
organisms.
The goals of psychology are to understand mental activity, social interactions, and how
people acquire behaviors.
Psychological Science Teaches Critical Thinking
Humans are intuitive psychologists. That is, they try to understand and predict others’
behavior.
One of the hallmarks of a good scientist is amiable skepticism. This trait combines of
openness and wariness. The ability to think systematically, evaluating information to reach
reasonable conclusions, is often called critical thinking.
1.2 What are the scientific foundations of psychology?
The Nature/Nurture Debate Has a Long History
Greek philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato debated whether the individual’s psychology is
attributable more to nature or to nurture. That is, are psychological characteristics biologically
innate? Or are they acquired through education experience, and culture (the beliefs, values,
rules, norms, and customs existing within a group of people who share a common language
and environment)? The nature/nurture debate has taken one form or another throughout
psychology history. Psychologists now widely recognize that both nature an nurture are
important to humans’ psychological development.
The Mind/Body Problem Also Has Ancient Roots
The mind/body problem is perhaps the quintessential psychological issue: Are the mind and
body separate and distinct, or is the mind simply the physical brain’s subjective experience?
Da Vinci theorized that all sensory messages arrived at one location in the brain. He called
that region the sensus communis, and he believed it to be the home of thought and
judgment; its name may be the root of the modern term common sense. In the 1600s, the
philosopher Rene Descartes promoted the first influential theory of dualism. This term refers
to the idea that the mind and body are separate yet intertwined.
Experimental Psychology Began with Introspection
In A System of Logic (1843), the philosopher John Stuart Mill declared that psychology should
leave the realms of philosophy and of speculation and become a science of observation and of
experiment. Indeed, he defined psychology as the science of the elementary laws of the mind
and argued that only through the methods of science would the processes of the mind be
understood.
In 1879, Wilhelm Wundt established the first psychology laboratory and institute. Wundt was
not satisfied with simply studying mental reaction times, however. He wanted to measure
conscious experiences. To do so, he developed the method of introspection, a systematic
,examination of subjective mental experiences that requires people to inspect and report on
the content of their thoughts. Wundt asked people to use introspection in comparing their
subjective experiences as they contemplated a series of objects.
Introspection and Other Methods Led to Structuralism
Edward Titchener, a student of Wundt’s, used methods such as introspection to pioneer a
school of thought that became known as structuralism. This school is based on the idea that
conscious experience can be broken down into its basic underlying components. Titchener
believed that an understanding of the basic elements of conscious experience would provide
the scientific basis for understanding the mind. He argued that one could take a stimulus such
as a musical tone and through introspection, analyze its quality, intensity, duration and clarity.
Wundt ultimately rejected such uses of introspection, but Titchener relied on the method
throughout his career. The general problem with introspection is that experience is subjective.
Functionalism Addressed the Purpose of Behavior
One critic of structuralism was William James, a brilliant scholar whose wide ranging work has
had an enormous, enduring impact on psychology. In 1873, he was among the first professors
at Harvard to openly welcome questions from students rather than having them listen silently
to lectures. To this day, psychologists find rich delight in reading James’s penetrating analysis
of the human mind, Principles of Psychology. For instance, he noted that the mind consisted
of an ever-changing, continuous series of thoughts. This stream of consciousness could not be
frozen in time, according to James, so the structuralists’ techniques were sterile and artificial.
James argued that psychologists ought to examine the functions served by the mind – how
the mind operates. According to his approach, which became known as functionalism, the
mind came into existence over the course of human evolution. It works as it does because it is
useful for preserving life and passing along genes to future generations. In other words, it
helps humans adapt to environmental demands.
In 1859, Darwin publishes his revolutionary study On the Origin of Species, which introduced
the world to evolutionary theory; it views the history of a species in terms of the inherited,
adaptive value of physical characteristics, of mental activity and behavior. Changes passed
along in this way are called adaptations. Earlier philosophers and naturalists had discussed
the possibility that species might evolve. But Charles Darwin first presented the mechanism of
evolution, which he called natural selection: the process by which random mutations that are
adaptive are passed along and random mutations that are not adaptive are not. ‘Survival of
the fittest’
Gestalt Psychology Emphasized Patterns and Context in Learning
According to Gestalt theory, the whole of personal experience is not simply the sum of its
constituent elements. In other words, the whole is different from the sum of its parts. The
Gestalt movement reflected an important idea that was at the heart of criticisms of
structuralism.
Twentieth-century psychology was profoundly influences by one of its most famous thinkers,
Sigmund Freud. Psychology was in its infancy at the end of the nineteenth century, when
Freud deduced that much of human behavior is determined by mental processes operating
below the level of conscious awareness, at the lever of the unconscious. He also developed
psychoanalysis; a method that attempts to bring the contents of the unconscious into
conscious awareness so that conflicts can be revealed. He also used free association, a
technique in which a patient would talk about whatever he or she wanted to for as long as she
or he wanted to.
Behaviorism Studies Environmental Forces
, Watson believed that if psychology was to be a science, it had to stop trying to study mental
events that could not be observed directly. Scorning methods such as introspection and free
association, he developed behaviorism. This approach emphasizes observable environmental
effects on behavior.
Cognitive Approaches Emphasized Mental Activity
Cognitive psychology is concerned with mental functions such as intelligence, thinking,
language, memory, and decision making. Cognitive research has shown that the way people
think about things influences their behavior. During the next decade, cognitive neuroscience
emerged. This field studies the neural mechanisms (mechanisms involving the brain, nerves,
and nervous tissue) that underlie thought, learning, and memory.
During the mid-twentieth century, many psychologists came to appreciate that people’s
behaviors were affected by the presence of others. Social psychology is the study of how
people are influenced by their interactions with others.
1.3 What are the latest developments in psychology?
Biology is increasingly important
The last three decades have seen tremendous growth in our understanding of the biological
bases of mental activities. The field is only now drawing on biology’s full power to explain
psychological phenomena.
Psychologists have made tremendous progress in understanding brain chemistry. It was long
believed that only a handful of chemicals were involved in brain function, but in fact hundreds
of substances play critical roles in mental activity and behavior.
Neuroscience: we know that there is some localization of function in the brain. That is, some
areas are important for specific feelings, thoughts, and actions. But many brain regions work
together to produce behavior and mental activity. The progress in understanding the neural
basis of mental life has been rapid and dramatic.
Scientists have also made enormous progress in understanding the influence of genetic
process on life. Genetic researchers have mapped the human genome: the basic genetic
code, or blue-print, for the human body.
Evolution is increasingly important
The brain adapts biologically, the contents of the mind adapt to cultural influences. Through
evolution, specialized mechanisms and adaptive behaviors have been built into our bodies
and brains. According to evolutionary theory, we need to be aware of the challenges our early
ancestors faced if we want to understand much of our current behavior, whether adaptive or
maladaptive.
Culture provides adaptive solutions
For humans, many of the most demanding adaptive challenges involve dealing with other
humans. The complexity of living in groups gives rise to culture, and culture’s various aspects
are transmitted from one generation to the next trough learning. Many of a culture’s rules
reflect adaptive solutions worked out by previous generations. Human’s cultural evolution has
occurred much faster than human’s biological evolution. Cultural rules are learned as norms,
which specify how people ought to behave in different contexts. Our social interactions, which
vary among cultures, are reflected in the way our brains are organized. Cultural neuroscience
studies the ways that cultural variables affect the brain, the mind, genes and behavior.
Psychological science now crosses levels of analysis
Recently researchers have started to explain behavior at several levels of analysis. Four
broadly defined levels of analysis reflect the most common research methods for studying
mind and behavior. The biological level of analysis deals with how the physical body, including
