Part A: Introduction to Psychology
1. foundations for the study of psychology
what is psychology
the science of human behaviour and its underlying mental processes (the mind)
behaviour = the observable actions of a person or an animal
mind = an individual’s sensations, perceptions, memories, thoughts, dreams, motives,
emotions, and other subjective experiences; all the unconscious knowledge and
operating rules that are built into or stored in the brain and that provide the foundation
for organizing behaviour and conscious experience
science = all attempts to answer questions through the systematic collection and
logical analysis of objectively observable data most of which are based on observations
of behaviour (as mind is not directly observable), but psychologists often use those
data to make inferences about the mind and thus observe it scientifically
we try to find a cause (a mental process) behind behaviour (by asking questions)
o science = asking question (why? what?)
not mere curing troubled ones – mostly about ‘normal’ behaviour (if we once identify
what mental illness is)
a broad, diverse field of research and a profession
bit of the history and philosophy that predate and underlie modern psychology:
fundamentals of psychology: 3 underlying ideas
behaviour and mental processes have no supernatural, but rather a material origin
(physical causes) that can be studies scientifically
o dualism vs materialism
o physical causation of behaviour
people (their behaviour, thoughts, feelings) change because of experiences (e.g.
learning) in their environment
o nature vs nurture
humankind was shaped by evolution and natural selection, just as all other species
o allow us to study humans by studying other animals
o evolution vs creationism
stimulus = everything offered to an organism (to provoke a reaction)
response = a measurable action to a stimulus (= behaviour)
dualism vs materialism
dualism: stimulus -> mind -> response
before Descartes, most dualists assigned the interesting qualities of the human being
to the soul
‘each human being consists of two distinct but intimately conjoined entities, a material
body and an immaterial soul’; ‘conscious thought (e.g. I want to move my arm) is
performed by a mind that exists separately from the body’
I have my brain OR I am my brain (?)
compatible with intuition or religions (Christian, ...)
Rene Descartes (1596-1650): saw the body as a complex machine = proposed a form
of dualism where body played an important role; pineal gland = a house for human
soul)
o nerves – threads – bring sensory info by physical means into brain, where the
soul receives info, by nonphysical means thinks about it, then wills movements
to occur and executes its will by triggering physical actions in nerves that act on
muscles
, o function of the soul = thought; to be useful, thought must be responsive to the
sensory input channelled into the body through sense organs, and it must be
capable of directing the body’s movements by acting on the muscles
o ‘animals are totally mechanic; humans weren’t; any activity performed by
humans that is qualitatively no different from the behaviour of a non-human
animal can, in theory, occur without the soul’
o his speculations about reflexes and the interaction of the body and soul in
controlling voluntary actions = important toward a scientific analysis of HB
o limitations
how a nonmaterial entity (the soul) can have a material effect (body movement),
or how the body can follow natural law and yet be moved by a soul that does
not?
o the theory sets strict limits, which few psychologists would accept today, on
what can and cannot be understood scientifically
o the notion of material ground for thought is strengthening; dualism is dismissed
materialism: stimulus -> response
Hobbes’s materialism held that behaviour is completely a product of the body
and thus physically caused open to study like the rest of the natural world
19th-century physiological studies of reflexes and localization of function in the brain
demonstrated the applicability of science to mental processes and behaviour
qualia: it is about the subjective quality of an observable thought, or memory (about
experience in order to understand, to know)
o e.g. the experience of perceiving a colour (not as a wavelength of light)
o is the subjective quality of colour related to matter?
counter forces
o why is not subjective quality produced by brain? why to have a mind? what does
mind do? when it starts to exist (during development of individual/species)
o why does brain damage affect the ‘mind’ (temporarily/permanently)?
o how does the mind affect the brain?
nature vs nurture
nurture: the idea of a blank slate; we can become anything (by e.g. training)
o British empiricists: ‘all thought and knowledge are rooted in sensory
experience and primary building blocks of experience are the senses’
philosophical founders: Locke, Stuart Mill
o association takes place when building blocks appear successively or
simultaneously = the law of association by contiguity; this explains how
sensory experiences can combine to form complex thoughts
apple = red + sour + round
Stuart Mill: ‘it is a mental chemistry’
o supported by how animals learn
o Ivan Pavlov: described the learning behaviour of dogs – conditioned them to a
stimulus
o J. B. Watson (1878-1958): Pavlov’s work -> behaviourism
‘people can learn everything’
nature = nativism
o in philosophy, the difference between a priori and a posteriori knowledge –
‘some knowledge is innate and it provides the foundation for human nature,
including the human abilities to learn’
Leibniz, Kant
o supported by indications proving that not everything is learned (e.g. time,
place)
, o Max Wertheimer
gestalt psychology (?)
‘perception involves more than the senses’
o Noam Chomsky (1928): a linguist, the book Syntactic structures (1957)
‘language cannot be learned only by learning stimulus-response
connections’
‘language ability is innate’
experiences change people (nurture), but only in those areas in which we can change
(nature) = we are born into a body (including a NS) that is able to learn certain things
but our capabilities are not limitless
the evolutionary basis of mind and behaviour
Darwin: ‘natural selection underlies the evolution of behavioural tendencies (along
with anatomical characteristics) that promote survival & reproduction’ focus on the
functions of behaviour
natural selection offered a scientific foundation for nativist views of the mind
position of psychology
psychology has strong connections with each class of scholarly disciplines (natural sciences,
social sciences and humanities) and is a hub science
subdomains/subfields of psychology
levels of causal analysis: each level of analysis can be applied to any given type of behaviour
or mental experience
biological causal explanations
o neural
o physiological
o genetic
o evolutionary
explanations that focus on environmental experiences, knowledge & development
o learning
o cognitive
o social
o cultural
o developmental
topics of study
sensory psychology
perceptual psychology
psychology of motivation, psychology of emotion
personality psychology
clinical & abnormal psychology
the profession of psychology
academic psychologists – teach and do research
practising psychologists – apply psychological knowledge and principles to real-world
issues
various settings
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