Popular Psychology

Philosopher In Meditation, 1632

Although psychology's focus on individual behaviour and mental processes is unique, its interests overlap broadly with the disciplines of philosophy, sociology and medicine. Professional psychologists are formally trained and accredited, but many non-professionals retain an avid interest in psychological news and principles. Psychology is an enormously useful and practical science, with applications in daily life as well as in programs of self-help and behaviour change. A good grasp of introductory psychology is essential for the critical consumer of psychological information.

Most people who know "something" about psychology are not professional psychologists. "Amateur" psychologists range from people who are interested in learning about psychology to professionals in fields like sales, education, or health care who use principles of psychology in their work.

A. Psychology And Other Disciplines
The interests of psychology frequently overlap with related disciplines, including philosophy, medicine and sociology. Much is gained in both research and application when the expertise and perspectives of these different disciplines work together.

1. Philosophy
Because psychologists study human behaviour and mental processes, they study themselves. This self-interest has its roots in philosophy, the study of knowledge. Psychology differs from philosophy mainly because psychology encompasses other phenomena -- including emotions and behaviours, nonhumans as well as humans -- than does philosophy. Another important distinction is psychology's emphasis on the scientific method as its standard approach to knowledge.

2. Medicine
Medicine examines illness, including disturbances of mental processes and behaviour as well as physical disease. In contrast, psychology encompasses normal as well as abnormal behaviour and mental processes.

3. Sociology
Sociology is the study of group structure and behaviour. Whereas sociology's focus is the group -- including social class, institutions, cultures and subcultures -- psychology focuses on the behaviour and dynamics of the individual.

B. Professional Versus Amateur Psychology
Psychological issues and discoveries are popular topics in the news and everyday life. An interest in psychology, however, does not guarantee a good understanding of psychological ideas and methods.

It is important to distinguish between the amateur psychologist and the professional psychologist. Professional psychologists adhere to strict codes of ethics(standards for morally correct practice) and professional conduct in the course of their training and membership in professional organizations. Amateur psychologists, individuals who have not had specialized training or certification, are not equipped to conduct valid research or apply research findings safely and effectively.

One goal for the introductory psychology student can be to become a more critical consumer of psychological information. A knowledge of psychology will equip a student to make sound judgments about identifying and applying psychological principles in real-life problems and decisions. Psychology is an enormously practical science. Its findings can be applied usefully in all human enterprises.

C. Psychological Self-Help
In recent years the concepts of humanistic psychology have been popularized in the human potential movement and in many self-help programs for behaviour change. Popular literature offers many easy-to-read sources for practical applications of pscyhology. While many such sources are sound interpretations of psychological research, others are based more on author opinion and preference. A basic education in psychology can assist the interested reader in distinguishing between worthwhile and worthless popular literature and behaviour-change programs.

Professional Psychology

Counseling

Much of psychology's modern structure as a profession has derived from its development as an academic discipline. Psychology has grown through undergraudate major programs of graduate training, as well as through increasing professional organization and research publication. This academic and professional structure has also made possible important theory development and refinement, including neobehaviourism and cognitive psychology.

Professional psychologists work in a broad range of fields, both in conducting experimental research and in applying research findings to the solution of practical problems. Especially in their therapeutic work, psychologists frequently work beside allied professionals trained in medicine, education and social work.

Other disciplines besides psychology employ professionals who work on similar problems.

Psychiatry
Psychiatry is a medical specialty focusing on the diagnosis and treatment of disordered behaviour. Psychiatrists do very similar work to clinical psychologists, but while psychologists have degrees(a master's or doctorate in psychology, psychiatrists have a degree in medicine.) Psychiatrists, as licensed physicians, also have the legal power to prescribe drugs or surgery as treatments for behaviour disorders.


Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy involves a wide range of therapies or treatments for behaviour disorders. Psychotherapists employ psychological techniques like talking, instead of medical techniques like drugs or surgery, to change behaviour.

One particular kind of psychotherapy is psychoanalysis, a system of diagnosis and treatment based on the principles originally developed by Sigmund Freud. Some psychoanalysts are physicians like Freud himself, but non-MD's can also be trained as so-called "lay psychoanalysts".

Counselling
Counselling refers to the broad profession of helping and guiding normal individuals with behavioural or emotional problems. Many counsellors are trained and certified by schools or departments of education rather than psychology. Others obtain master's degrees in social work and practice as psychiatric social workers. Social workers' training emphasizes treatment as part of a general provision of social services to members of a community.

Fields Of Psychology

A. Experimental Psychology "Experimental" techniques refer to a particular method of collecting information, rather than to a specific subject matter. Almost any subject matter in psychology -- development, group behaviour, or personality, for example -- could be studied experimentally. However, over the decades the description "experimental psychology" has come to connote primarily the subject matter of basic psychological processes : learning, memory, sensation, perception, cognition, motivation and emotion.

1. Physiological psychology
Physiological psychologists study the biological bases of behavior, usually concentrating on the nervous system(the brain and other nervous tissue) and the biochemical processes underlying behaviour.

2. Comparative psychology
Comparative psychologists study physioloical effects on behaviour by specifically studying nonhumans, in an effort to make comparisons between nonhumans and humans.

3. Cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychologists study the so-called "higher" mental processes -- thinking, feeling, learning, remembering, and problem-solving -- as distinguished from the somewhat "lower" mental processes involved in awareness, sensation, and perception. Cognitive psychology is not only a field of study, it is a perspective on what "belongs" in psychology. Cognitive psychologists maintain that although internal psychological processes are not directly observable like behaviours, they are indirectly accessible to study, and so are a proper focus for scientific psychology. In this they are in opposition to behaviorists.

4. Developmental psychology
Developmental psychologists study in the changes in psychological function as an organism grows and ages. Developmental psychology adopts a life span perspective, focusing on the influences on behaviour and mental processes of changes that occur from conception and birth, through infancy and childhood, to adolescence, adulthood, old age and death.

5. Personality psychology
Personality psychologists specialize in the study of individual differences, how and why individuals differ from one another. Personality psychologists also work to develop techniques for assessing personality characterisitcs among different individuals.

6. Social psychology
Social psychology is the study of how the individual interacts with the social environment. Social psychologists examine social cognition or thinking (including attitudes and impression formation), social influence(such as persusasion and peer pressure), and social relationships(including aggression, helping, intimate relationships, and group dynamics). In contrast to personality psychologists, who look at the power of individual personality or disposition, social psychologists study the effects of situational influences on individuals in certain places, conditions and times.

B. Applied Psychology Experimental psychologists are strongly motivated by their interest or curiosity in psychological processes. In contrast, applied psychologists use psychological knowlege and techniques to solve problems, such as finding better ways to teach or learn, correct disordered behaviour or improve people's health and productivity.

1. Educational psychology
Educational psychologists are experts in the processes of teaching and learning, and conduct applied(practical) research to identify questions and answers in these processes.

2. School psychology
School psychologists provide advice and guidance within schools and school systems, concentrating on the needs of the student within the educational environment.

3. Counselling psychology
Counselling psychologists provide guidance and therapy to normal individuals with adjustment problems.

4. Clinical psychology
Clinical psychologists diagnose and treat the more severe problems of "clinical" populations, individuals who need in-patient care in institutions like hospitals or regular out-patient therapy through mental health clinics.

5. Industrial and Organizational psychology
Industrial psychologists work within industrial or employment settings to study and improve the relationship between workers and their jobs and workplace. Organizational psychologists more specifically study the relationship between the employee and his or her employing organization, focusing on group dynamics, leadership, management, and communication. Many professional psychologists have developed expertise in both these fields, and are known as industrial-organizational or "I-O" psychologists.

6. Engineering psychology
After World War II, engineering psycholgy developed as a special application of psychology to the relationship between human workers or equipment operators -- like airplane pilots -- and the machines and equipment they operate. Engineering psycholgy is also called human factors psychology because it focuses on the human factor in the person-machine relationship, and is sometimes called ergonomics(from the Greek ergo for "work") because of its applications to work environments. Engineering psychologists' contributions range from training programs so that people can operate equipment more effectively to designing easy-to-read, mistake-proof control panels and signs.

7. Health psychology
In recent years the distinct field of health psychology has emerged as a special focus on the psychological processes involved in wellness and illness, both physical and psychogenic (originating in the mind).

Theory Development In Psychology

The development of psychology in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries has taken place in the offices of therapists, the laboratories of researchers, and the classrooms of teachers. An important part of psychology's emergence as a scientific discipline has been its growth as an academic specialty.


Psychology As An Academic Discipline
G. Stanley Hall
G. Stanley Hall(1844-1924) was the first professor of psychology at an American university. While on the faculty at The Johns Hopkins University, Hall founded a psychological laboratory in 1883, and established the American Journal of Psychology, the first American professional journal in psychology, in 1887. In 1888 Hall moved on to become president of Clark University, where he emphasized graduate training, especially in psychology. In 1892 Hall founded the American Psychological Association, still the preeminent professional organization for psychologists.

Later in his career Hall turned to an interest in development and child psychology, producing the seminal works Adolescence in 1904 and Senescence in 1922.

Mary Whiton Calkins
Although the history of psychology seems disproportionately to be a chronicle of the endeavors of men, women were as present in the early development of scientific psychology as they have been in other disciplines. An important example is the work of Mary Whiton Calkins(1863-1930), who studied with Wundt in Leipzig and William James at Harvard and went on to a distinguished career on the faculty at Wellesley College. Although she had completed all requirements for her doctorate, Harvard refused to grant a Ph.D. to a woman. Because of this experience, she likewise refused Radcliffe's later offer to award her the doctorate.

Calkins became one of the early presidents of the American Psychological Association and authored two textbooks. Her work continued a lifelong interest in the interconncections between philosophy and psychology. Despite criticism from structuralists, she also maintained a particular focus on self-psychology, insisting that one's self is observed throughout introspective experience.

Modern Theory Development
Academic environments and the networks they comprise have always provided important avenues of communication amongt researchers and theorists. Researchers seldom work alone, and the very act of publishing one's findings or theories invites others' comments and contributions. Two important influences on modern psychology that have stimulated such exchange are neobehaviourism and cognitive psychology.

Neobehaviorism
Behaviourism in its most extreme form rejects the examination of any unobservable process. For example, one sequence of psychological experience can be summarized as follows:
S --> O --> R In this sequence, a stimulus (S) excites the sensory processes of an organism (O), which consequently makes a response (R).

In strict behaviourist terms, one might observe the S and the R, but not the processes occurring within the O. A behaviourist rejects as impossible and irrelevant questions such as "Did the O feel pain?" and "Did the O make the R deliberately?" Ultimately, since only the S and the R can be safely and objectively studied, the behaviourist approach is said to favour "S-R" ("stimulus-response") psychology.

Neobehaviourists("new behaviourists") introduced the concept of intervening variables, changes in processes within the organism which cannot be observed but can be used to explain S-R patterns.

One such neobehaviourist was Clark L. Hull (1884-1952) (picture on the left) , whose 1943 work Principles of Behaviour listed a series of postulates or rules regarding the effects on behaviour of such intervening variables as derive and habit strength.


Another neobehaviourist, Edward Chace Tolman(1884-1959), found it necessary to hypothesize that learning can take place even when it is not observable. Tolman allowed rats to explore mazes without offering them any rewards for being fast or accurate. The rats showed no signs of having learned the maze -- until a later time when they were rewarded for their maze running efforts. At that time the rats learned the maze faster than rats who had not explored the maze before. Obviously the experienced rats had learned something, although their learning had remained latent(hidden) until it was useful. Tolman developed the somewhat "mentalist" concept of latent learning while he conducted traditional behaviourist research on rats' performance times.

Cognitive Psychology
After World War II, problem-solving machinery and information technology combined to produce artificial intelligence, the software and hardware we take for granted as computers. Because to some extent computers stimulate many human-like cognitive processes (like thinking , remembering, and problem-solving), the study of artificial intelligence can yield some answers about the dynamics of human cognition.


Ulric Neisser (1928) has been influential in developing a model of human cognitive processes as actively involved in seeking information and meaning. Cognitive psychology -- the study of the psychological processes involved in cognitive functions -- combines time-honored Gestalt principles of perception with an interest in information processing, the sequence of cognitive operations whereby sensory experiences are meaningfully interpreted and acted upon.

Therapeutic Roots Of Psychology

For centuries, the need for scientific psychology has been expressed as a need for help as well as a form of intellectual curiosity. While philosophers speculated on human nature and researchers examined human sensory processes, educators and physicians struggled to find new answers to problems of helping people to learn and adjust. Much of modern psychology has been influenced by these early efforts to help others.

Psychoanalysis
The Viennese physician Sigmund Freud(1856-1939) developed an early interest in neurology into a system of treatment for psychological disorders. His system of therapy was known as psychoanalysis because it emphasized the importance of analysing the "psyche" in order to gain insight into psychological conflicts. Psychoanalysis has also come to be known as a "theory" of personality and a perspective on human nature.

Psychoanalysis, a form of mentalism like structuralism and functionalism, assumes that psychological experiences are caused by biological drives and instincts. Living in civilized society inevitabley frustrates many biological drives, bit most of the resultant conflict is kept hidden from one's conscious mind. Conflicts and anxiety in one's unconscious can sometimes manifest themeselves in disguised forms, safely in dreams, or more dangerously in physical symptoms. Such symptoms can be crippling unless the sufferer, through psychoanalytic therapy, achieves insight into the original conflict, and the symptoms become unnecessary.

Although the principles of psychoanalysis have captured the public imagination, they defy empirical testing. Scientific theories are formed, tested, modified, and sometimes rejected on the basis of empirical(experience-based) observations. Yet psychoanalytic concepts like that of the unconscious mind cannot be tested, confirmed or rejected through observation. Thus psychoanalysis cannot accurately be called a "theory". Nonetheless the concepts of psychoanalysis are well known worldwide, and the application of psychology in the treatment of mental and physical illness has been shaped by many psychoanalytic ideas.

Humanistic Psychology
Psychoanalysis assumes that human behaviour is naturally selfish and uncivilized, and that people must be guided and coerced into being productive and helpful.

Humanistic psychology begins with a very different assumption. Humanistic psychologists assume that people are essentially motivated to be productive and healthy, and only need guidance when circumstances have impeded their natural progress.

Abraham Maslow(1908-1970) explained that while much of human behaviour is devoted to gratifying needs, there are many different levels of human needs. Human motivation can be ranked in a hierarchy of needs. In this hierarchy, needs for physiological survival are most basic, followed by needs for safety and belongingness. Beyond these are "higher" needs for esteem, and highest of all, for self-actualization. Self-actualization is a process of becoming all one can be, of realizing one's individual human potential. Although Maslow asserted that self-actualization is the least basic of the needs in the hierarchy, his placement of such a motivation as a "need" distinguishes his perspective as humanistic.


Carl Rogers (1902-1097) was one of the founders of the humanistic psychology movement and the most influential psychologist in American history. He wrote 16 books and more than two hundred articles and received many honors, including the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association. He developed a client-centered or person-centered approach to therapy based on a humanistic theory of personality. In Rogers' system, the client who seeks therapy is the "expert" on his or her own needs, goals, and how to meet them. This contrasts sharply with psychoanalysis, in which a patient seeks the expert assistance of an analyst. Rogers emphasizes the power of providing acceptance and feedback to the client in helping the client to discover his or her own best strategy for growth and adjustment.

Behaviorism

Structuralism, functionalism, and Gestalt psychology all seek to understand human experience by "looking" at mental processes. However, mental processes -- like sensation, perception and cognition -- are internal and cannot be directly observed. They are all examples of the perspective known as mentalism, the study of mental events and processes. Mentalism has long been criticized as a contradiction of the empirical basis of the scientific method. Recall that science relies on empirical (sense experienced) observations of real events. If a researcher cannot see or hear or feel another's thoughts or hidden emotions, these processes cannot be studied scientifically. Behaviorism is the alternative to mentalism.

Behaviorism is a perspective in psychology that emphasizes the need to study only what is observable. Mental events are not observable; behaviours are observable. Thus behaviour alone can be the foundation for scientific psychology.



Behaviorism originated in the field of psychology, but it has had a much wider influence. Its concepts and methods are used in education, and many education courses at college are based on the same assumptions about man as behaviorism. Behaviorism has infiltrated sociology, in the form of sociobiology, the belief that moral values are rooted in biology.

The "father of behaviorism" was John B. Watson (1878-1958). Watson originally trained in physhiology but turned to a stronger intgerest in comparative psychology, the study of the behaviour of nonhumans. Watson observed that while the rats he studied could not introspect or offer self-reports of their behaviour, they could still behave, and their behaviour could be objectively observed and measured.

Watson's heir apparent as champion of behaviourism was undeniably the late B. F. Skinner (1904-1990), who became best known for his studies of animal learning and what it can teach humans about better ways to live and function.

Behaviorism - Encylopedia of Philosophy
Behaviorism - Gray Demar

Gestalt Psychology

Gestalt psychology (also Gestalt theory of the Berlin School) is a theory of mind and brain that proposes that the operational principle of the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies. The classic Gestalt example is a soap bubble, whose spherical shape (its Gestalt) is not defined by a rigid template, or a mathematical formula, but rather it emerges spontaneously by the parallel action of surface tension acting at all points in the surface simultaneously. This is in contrast to the "atomistic" principle of operation of the digital computer, where every computation is broken down into a sequence of simple steps, each of which is computed independently of the problem as a whole. The Gestalt effect refers to the form-forming capability of our senses, particularly with respect to the visual recognition of figures and whole forms instead of just a collection of simple lines and curves.



Gestalt is a German word which translates roughly to mean "form", "shape" or "pattern" in English. (The word Gestalt is capitalized because in German all nouns are capitalized). In the early twentieth century Gestalt psychologists in Germany studied perceptual phenomena that caused them to doubt the usefulness of structuralist assumptions. Max Wertheimer(1880-1943), Kurt Koffka(1886-1941) and Wolfgang Koehler(1887-1967) found that arrangements of perceptual stimuli close together in time or space created illusions of connections between the stimuli. For example, if blinking lights were positioned closely beside each other, a subject seemed to be "moving" from one light fixture to the next and the next. As another example, consider the powerful illusion of "motion" pictures: when a series of still photograph frames are projected in quick succession, one sees not separate frames but continuous motion of the characters and action on the screen.

Wertheimer, Koffka and Koehler dubbed such "apparent movement" the phi phenomenon. They observed that human perception seemed particularly prone to such illusions, and speculated that it is more meaningful to connect close-together events than to keep them artificially separate.

Gestalt psychologists focused on identifyiung the priniciples of perception and the conditions under which these principles apply. They concluded that the human mind imposes an order or "meaning" of its own, rather than passively absorbinug the content of sensory experiences.

More recently Gestalt psychology has influenced bothy approaches to psychotherapy and the modern development of cognitive psychology. With its emphasis on the importance of meaning in human perception and behaviour, Gestalt psychology contributes disticninctively to psychological theories of human nature.

Gestalt Psychology - Wikipedia

Experimental Roots Of Psychology II

Wilhelm Wundt Surrounded by Colleagues in His Laboratory of Experimental Psychology
from the left: Friedrich Sander, Otto Klemm, Dittrich, Wilhelm Wirt, Wilhelm Wundt (sitting) and Hartmann, his assistant

Laboratory Psychology
Is psychophysics part of psychology or part of physics? Until the late nineteenth century, most "psychological" research was really focused on medicine, physiology, or physics rather than on psychological processes. This changed, however, as a body of work emerged that was distinctive of psychology -- behaviour and mental processes -- rather than the domain of other disciplines. The "birthdate" usually assigned to this demarcation of psychological resarch is 1879, because it was in that year that the first scientific laboratory for psychological research was established.

Structuralism
In 1879 Wilhelm Wundt(1832-1920), a German professor of philosophy, founded the first laboratory for the scientific study of psychology at the University of Leipzig. Unlike his predecessors in psychophysics, Wundt was interested in decidedly psychological processes like consciousness, thought and emotions. The "laboratory" Wundt established consisted of a group of people interested in these same phenomena, all of whom intended to study these processes scientifically.

The "scientific" technique Wundt employed was introspection, literally a "looking within", the common practice of considering one's own actions and reactions and self-consciously trying to analyze their sequence and components. For example, in order to understand the tactile sensation of "wetness" Wundt would ask a subject to immerse his hands in water, and describe his various sensations separately. "Wetness" might equal a combination of the tactile sensations of "coolness" plus "smoothness". Wundt hoped thus to identify the basic components of more complex conscious experiences.


Wundt's work was extended in the United States by his student Edward Bradford Titchener(1867-1927), who emphasized the study of sensations as the building blocks of the content of consciousness, without concern for the processes of goals of consciousness. Because Titchener's and Wundt's school of thought came to be known as structuralism. Structuralist assumptions are very common. They can be seen in action when a child tries to understand a new toy by taking it apart, or when an adult enjoys a meal and inquires about the ingredients. The structuralist perspective assumes that psycholoical experience is better understood only when the content of that experience has been analyzed and identified.

Functionalism
A very different point of view was espoused by William James(1842-1910), whose 1890 book Principles Of Pscyhology is considered the first text in psychology. James himself is usually referred to as the father or founder of American psychology. Trained as a physician, James was a professor of physiology, psyhcology and philosophy at Harvard. His interests in psychology were broad and his influence on the new discipline enormous.

James favoured a school of psychology termed funcitonalism. A functionalist perspective assumes that the products of psychological processes -- behaviour, emotions and thoughts -- must serve some function, or they would be changed or lost. The way to understand psychological processes, therefore is not to analyze their struccture, but rather to identify their goals. Whereas a structuralist looks at a behaviour and asks," What are the components of that behaviour?" a functionalist asks,"What purpose does that behaviour serve?"

Functionalist assumptions emerge whenever researchers question the usefulness or origins of a cross-cultural behaviour pattern. For example, why do people in all parts of the world smile when they are happy? Because smiling is universal, it is probably built-in rather than acquired through learning. The functionalist question is: What puropose does smiling serve? Smiling must be useful, it must increase the chances of the smilers' survival. It must have at least one important survival function.

Experimental Roots Of Psychology I

The German scientist Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (1821-1894) can be equally well regarded as a physicist, physiologist, physician, biologist, mathematician, philosopher, or engineer/inventor. He made important discoveries in physiology, optics, electrodynamics, mathematics, and meteorology. His multidisciplinary training, approach and interests and his cross-fertilisation of research fields are seen by the members of our Institute and School as a goal worth striving for. Most of the fields and topics on which the present members of the Helmholtz Institute and Helmholtz School work, found their first proper recognition and formulation in the work of this nineteenth century scientist.

Experimental Methodology
Philosophical ideas about human nature inevitabley influenced the shape of the science of psychology. Because psychology is a science, however, much of the shape of the discipline has been determined by experimental explorations and discoveries.

The scientific method relies on empirical observation, hypothesis formulation, and hypothesis testing. An important method of empirical observation is experiement. In an experiment, a researcher manipulates changes in environmental conditions and treatments the subjects receive. By comparing the behaviour of subjects who received one treatment with those who received others, the researcher is able to specify cause-and-effect relationships among changes(variables) in conditions and consequences.


Psychophysiology
Physicians and philosphers have long speculated on the relationship between body and mind. In the nineteenth century researchers began systematic experiments on how physical events are psychologically experienced. The first experiments in the relationship between physiological processes and psychological experience(psychophysiology) focused on the functioning of the senses, especially sight, sound and touch.

Johannes Mueller (1801-1858) established the first institute for the study of physiology in Berlin. Although favouring a mechanistic view of human nature, he also believed in vitalism, a conviction that all living beings were animated by a "life force" that was ultimately impossible to analyse.

One of Mueller's students was Hermann L. von Helmholtz(1821-1894). Helmholtz rejected Mueller's belief in vitalism and instead refined a mechanistic explanation of behaviour in terms of the physical and chemical processes of the nervous system. In Helmholtz's experimental approach to the nervous system, he charted distances between stimulation and response points along the nerve fibers of frogs, demonstrating that behaviours could be evaluated by measuring reaction time, the interval between a stimulus and a response.


Johannes Peter Müller was a German physiologist, comparative anatomist and ichthyologist not only known for his discoveries but also for his ability to synthesize knowledge.

Psychophysics
Another approach to understanding the body-mind connection was taken by the psychophysicists. Psychophysics as a discipline focused on the relationship between the physical and environmental changes(stimuli) and the sensory processes that they trigger. Gustave Feodor Fechner(1801-1889) had been a confirmed mechanist who later in life softened his mechanism in a quest for a more spiritual understanding of experience. In his 1860 work Elements Of Psychophysics, Fechner argued that since matter and mind must be related, research must focus on how physical stimuli are related to the mental experiences they produce.

Ernst Heinrich von Weber(1795-1878) was a colleague of Fechner's who in 1834 had published a study of the sensory processes involved in touch. Weber's experimentation with people's judgements about the heaviness of hand-held weights led him to develop Weber's Law, a mathematical summary of how changes in sensory qualities are perceived. In brief, according to Weber's Law, the noticeability of a change in a stimulus depends on the magnitude of that stimulus. For example, if a person has lost five pounds, will weight loss be noticeable? Yes, if the person previously weighed only 90 pounds. No, if the person previously weighed 300 pounds. One pound less than 90 is more noticeable than one pound less than 300.

Theoretical Roots Of Early Behaviorism
The Roots Of Evolutionary Psychology

Popular Concepts Of Psychology

Gall, Franz Joseph. "A Lecture by Dr. Gall." Caricature by J. Rowlandson

Psychology is a relatively new discipline, but it has its roots in ancient and modern philosophy. Philosophers have long sought to answer basic questions about human nature. Religious, political and economic influences kept popular the idea that human nature is built-in and even inherited. With all our similar experiences and needs, critics observed, no two human beings are exactily alike. Many popular, nonscientific systems were developed in an effort to explain and even predict human behaviour on the basis of such built-in factors as physical appearance and physical size.


Physiognomy
Physiognomic explanations for human behaviour argued that it was possible to "read" one's character in his or her physical features. An early system of this was popularized by Johann Kaspar Lavater ( 1741 -1801) and its effects can still be read in nineteenth - and early twentieth-century literature where physical descriptions are supposed to indicate certain personality traits, eg. a "noble" brow, a "weak" chin or a "generous" mouth. Lavater's ideas were later extended by an Italian criminologist who described the shifty-eyed, sneering "criminal type".


Phrenlogy
Franz Joseph Gall(1758-1828) popularized phrenology(literally from the Greek for "study of the personality"), a technique for inferring character from the shape and form of the skull. Phrenologists assumed that certain personality traits and mental faculties were revealed in the bumps and dents they could feel through patients' scalps. Though ultimately discredited, phrenology enjoyed immense popularity and success, and offered a simple(though invalid) way to predict behaviour on the basis of a few observations.

History Of Psychology II

The Dominican monk Thomas Aquinas in Italy was a prominent Scholastic theologian--one of the most influential thinkers of the Catholic Church of his time. He greatly influenced later theologians. Aquinas moved away from allegorical biblical interpretation and promoted the literal reading of Scripture. Aquinas and the Scholastics relied heavily on the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, whose work came to the Latin West from the Arab world. Aquinas believed in a logical, natural order created by God, which included Christian history.

Philosophers were the first to ask questions about psychology. The Greeks and later philosophers formed theories about how people can perceive the world, what is innate and what is learned through experience, and whether illnesses were physical or mental in nature. In the 1600s, philosophers pondered if the mind and body were separate and the mind unobservable or if the two were connected and both scientifically observable.

Monism Versus Dualism
Psychology has also been influenced by basic arguments about the very nature of reality. Ancient notions that all which exists is of one nature are collectively referred to as monism. Later, religiously-popularized notions that there are two kinds of reality in existence are referred to as forms of dualism. Both monism and dualism have left undeniable marks on the modern sicience of psychology.

Dualism
Dualist ideas about human nature were first detailed by the Greek philosopher Aristotle(384-322 BC), who conceived of the soul as the animator of all beings, including humans. According to Aristotle, humans have rational(reasoning) souls. Humans' ability to reason makes human thought abstract, separate from the material world. Thus a human being has a material body but a rational(reasoning) mind, and is governed by two systems of nature. Artistotle's dualism explains human thought and action as unique in all existence.

Thomas Aquinas(AD 1227-1274) extended Aristotle's dualistic view of human nature with the argument that, because human thought is rational, human action is freely decided instead of compelled by natural forces. This is the essential argument in favour of free will. Whether human will is free or not is an important consideration in determining the morality of human action.

The most articulate proponent of the dualism of human nature was French philosopher Rene Descartes(1596-1650). Famous for the dictum Cogito ergosum ("I think, therefore I am"), Descartes distinguished between the free will that governs the rational human soul and the physical "passions"(appetites) and "emotions"(excitements) that govern the material body. Further, Descartes saw the realtionship between body and soul as a conflict, an ongoing struggle for control of one's actions.

Modern psychologists continue to debate the nature of human behaviour, with strong arguments both for forms of "free will" and for a more mechanical understanding of psychological processes.

Monism
Some of the earliest systems of philosophy were monistic pshilosopheis, advocating that all of reality has but a single nature. one form of monism, idealism, argues that all of reality exists only in the mind, as ideas, and thus things are "real" only to the person who is presently experiencing them. One extension of this idealism is that, for things to continue when no one is thininking about them, they (and we) must all be figments of a supreme being's imagination -- ideas of God, for example.

Another form of monism is materialism, arguing that the single nature of reality is matter. If all of reality is matter, then all that exists must be governed by the laws fo matter, or the laws fo mechanics. This view, known as mechanism, can be applied to human nature if one accepts that human beigns, like all else in reality, are purely material beings, and thus human action is governed by the physcial laws of mechanics. Mechanism has had an enduring influence on the science of psychology, especially in early theories about the relationship between bodily(physical) events and mental experiences.

Determinism
One implication of mechanism is that, according to the laws of mechanics, physical forces cause specific changes in other physical objects. Causes determine effects in the physical world. If one wishes to understand the present condition of an object or event, one must examine the events(causes) which led up to (determined) it. This understanding -- that present conditions can be understood if one examines past influences -- is known as determinism. It is a critical assumption in any science.

Empiricism
Another essential tenet of science is the reliance on observable events as evidence of reality. Instead of imagining how things "must" be, a scientist observes how they are, or rather how they look, sound, feel, taste or smell. This reliance on the evidence of one's sensory experiences is known as empiricism.

Empiricism is such a familiar and common-sensical part of the scientific method that it is difficult to remember that the scientific way of knowing was once a new concept. Ancient and medieval scholars often argued that one could "reason" one way to the truth, or be informed through revelation, prophecy, or inspiration.

The English scholar Roger Bacon(1214-1292) argued that empirical observation was essential to the scientific method. Later, John Locke(1632-1704) asserted that empirical (sensory) experience was the basis for all knowledge. Locke maintained that the human mind at birth is a tabula rasa("blank slate") on which experience alone can inscribe knowledge.

Locke's influence continues with modern psychologists who argue that the way an individual is educated and nurtured vastly outweighs the power of any inborn talents or inherited nature. This "nature versus nurture" controversy has influenced many fields and topics in psychological research.

History Of Psychology I

Hippocrates Refusing Gift from Alexander

Psychology has long been a common human interest, but it has been considered a formal scientific discipline only since the late nineteenth century. Several perspectives and disciplines contributed to the shaping of psychology as a science: philosophical perspectives; experimental methods and discoveries; therapeutic applications; and theoretical developments.

Philosophical Roots Of Psychology

Early Medicine

Before 500 BC in the Western World, medical practices were largely controlled by priests, who explained both mental and physical illnesses in terms of divine causes.

Hippocrates(460-377 BC) rejected mystical and superstitious explanations for bodily processes. He argued that physical well-being, illness, and healing were natural processes. In The Art Of Healing, Hippocrates described behaviour patterns recognizable to modern psychologists as behavioural disorders. The Nature Of Man contains his theory that the natural elements -- earth, air, fire and water -- combine to form, bodily humors or natural fluids like blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm. Any imbalances among these four humors would result in illness or disease.



Galen(AD 130-200), a physician in Imperial Rome, extended Hippocrates's ideas by suggesting a better understanding of human nature and emotions. Galen emphasized the usefulness and effectiveness of the parts and processes of human anatomy. He further argued that imbalances among the bodily humors would result in extremes or disorders of temperatment. Too much blood would make a person "sanguine" or cheerful, excessive yellow bile would make one "bilious" or angry, too much black bile led to "melancholia" or sadness, and too mcuh phlegm of course made one "phlegmatic" or lethargic and sluggish.

These early ideas of influences on behaviour, while obviously crude and simplistic by today's standards, ahve persisted in our language(eg. a "sense of humour") and our ongoing interest in how bodily processes affect thought, emotions and action.

Origins And Scope Of Psychology

The term "psychology" was first coined in 16th century Germany as a combination of two Greek root words: "psyche" (soul or mind) and "logos" (study). Its original use suggested "the study of the mind", something as old as the human race itself. In recent centuries this interest in human nature has been honed into a systematic discipline. Today psychology is defined as the science of behaviour and mental processes.

The scope of psychology includes many different fields, distinguished by interest in different psychological processes, different populations, and differeent levels of analysis. Professionals psychologists may be interested in basic research or applied techniques like therapy, or they may study humans or animals. They may focus on either internal or external processes, on changes among individuals or over time, and on the influence of either human nature or specific situations.

Because psychology is a science, all fields of psychology rely on the scientific method. The scientific methold is a way of acquiring knowledge. This particular method emphasizes the study of how real events are experienced through one's senses, a perspective known as empiricism. Empirical research is research based on the evidence of sensory experience. A scientist conducts empirical observations, records measurements(data) of these events, and makes guesses(hypotheses) about their causes and connections. Many hypotheses about similar sets of events are summarized in theories, which are models or broad explantions of cause-and-effect connections.

In conducting scientific research on behaviour and mental processes, psychologists may study either human or nonhuman subjects. Research can be conducted in the natural settings where the events occur(referred to as the field) or in the laboratory, which is any controlled environment. In laboratory research, psychologists control who the subjects are as well as the conditions they ecounter. In all research, whether human or nonhuman, field or laboratory, psychologists record their observations and formulate hypotherses in order to explain behaviour and mental processes. The goal of psychology is to understand, predict, and control behaviour and mental processes.

What Is Psychology

Psychology is the science of the mind. The human mind is the most complex machine on Earth. It is the source of all thought and behaviour.

Psychology lies at the intersection of many other different disciplines, including biology, medicine, linguistics, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, and artificial intelligence (AI).

For example, neuropsychology is allied with biology, since the aim is to map different areas of the brain and explain how each underpins different brain functions like memory or language. Other branches of psychology are more closely connected with medicine. Health psychologists help people manage disease and pain. Similarly, clinical psychologists help alleviate the suffering caused by mental disorders.

Branches Of Psychology
Any attempt to explain why humans think and behave in the way that they do will inevitably be linked to one or another branch of psychology. The different disciplines of psychology are extremely wide-ranging. They include:

• Clinical psychology
• Cognitive psychology: memory
• Cognitive psychology: intelligence
• Developmental psychology
• Evolutionary psychology
• Forensic psychology
• Health psychology
• Neuropsychology
• Occupational psychology
• Social psychology

What all these different approaches to psychology have in common is a desire to explain the behaviour of individuals based on the workings of the mind. And in every area, psychologists apply scientific methodology. They formulate theories, test hypotheses through observation and experiment, and analyse the findings with statistical techniques that help them identify important findings.

How Psychologists study the mind
But how can we study something as complex and mysterious as the mind? Even if we were to split open the skull of a willing volunteer and have a look inside, we would only see the gloopy grey matter of the brain. We cannot see someone thinking. Nor can we observe their emotions, or memories, or perceptions and dreams. So how do psychologists go about studying the mind?

In fact, psychologists adopt a similar approach to scientists in other fields. Nuclear physicists interested in the structure of atoms cannot observe protons, electrons and neutrons directly. Instead, they predict how these elements should behave and devise experiments to confirm or refute their expectations.

In a similar way, psychologists use human behaviour as a clue to the workings of the mind. Although we cannot observe the mind directly, everything we do, think, feel and say is determined by the functioning of the mind. So psychologists take human behaviour as the raw data for testing their theories about how the mind works.

Since the German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) opened the first experimental psychology lab in Leipzig in 1879, we have learned an enormous amount about the relationship between brain, mind and behaviour.

Quotes About Psychology

Psychoanalysis is not the only way to resolve inner conflicts. Life itself still remains a very effective therapist. ~Karen Horney


Behavioral psychology is the science of pulling habits out of rats. ~Dr. Douglas Busch


Why waste money on psychotherapy when you can listen to the B Minor Mass? ~Michael Torke


Depressed people think they know themselves, but maybe they only know depression. ~Mark Epstein


Psychoanalysis is confession without absolution. ~G.K. Chesterton


There is no psychology; there is only biography and autobiography. ~Thomas Szasz, The Second Sin: Psychology, 1973


Let the credulous and the vulgar continue to believe that all mental woes can be cured by a daily application of old Greek myths to their private parts. ~Vladimir Nabokov, 1951


People who do not understand themselves have a craving for understanding. ~Wilhelm Stekel


A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world. ~Paul Dudley White


The reflex is physiology below the collar button. Psychology is physiology above the collar button. ~Martin H. Fischer

Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering. ~Carl Jung


I don't go for this auto-cannibalism. Very damaging. ~Peter O'Toole, on psychoanalysis


But my dear man, reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know. ~Alan Watts


The aim of psychoanalysis is to relieve people of their neurotic unhappiness so that they can be normally unhappy. ~Sigmund Freud, attributed


If you just set people in motion they'll heal themselves. ~Gabrielle Roth


A psychiatrist asks a lot of expensive questions your wife asks for nothing. ~Joey Adams


There are cases where psychoanalysis works worse than anything else. But who said that psychoanalysis was to be applied always and everywhere. ~C.G. Jung


There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face. ~Ben Williams


Becoming conscious is of course a sacrilege against nature; it is as though you had robbed the unconscious of something. ~Carl G. Jung


Neurosis is no worse than a bad cold; you ache all over, and it's made you a mess, but you won't die from it. ~Mignon McLaughlin

Words are the physicians of a mind diseased. ~Aeschylus


The sun is nature's Prozac. ~Astrid Alauda, 1990


Anybody who is 25 or 30 years old has physical scars from all sorts of things, from tuberculosis to polio. It's the same with the mind. ~Moses R. Kaufman


I was seized by the stern hand of Compulsion, that dark, unseasonable Urge that impels women to clean house in the middle of the night. ~James Thurber


Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort. ~Mason Cooley


Psychology doesn't address the soul; that's something else. ~David Chase


A wonderful discovery, psychoanalysis. Makes quite simple people feel they're complex. ~S.N. Behrman


It seems a pity that psychology has destroyed all our knowledge of human nature. ~G.K. Chesterton


Psychology has a long past, but only a short history. ~Hermann Ebbinghaus


A neurotic is a man who builds a castle in the air. A psychotic is the man who lives in it. A psychiatrist is the man who collects the rent. ~Jerome Lawrence


The two main hazards of psychoanalysis: that it might fail, and that if it succeeds, you'll never be able to forgive yourself for all those wasted years. ~Mignon McLaughlin

Psychology

We all use the principles of psychology everyday and probably don't even realize it. When we spank our child for doing something wrong, we are utilizing the learning principle of punishment. When we get nervous right before we have to give that big speech, we are activating our autonomic nervous system. When we talk to ourselves in our heads, telling ourselves to "calm down," "work harder," or "give up," we are utilizing cognitive approaches to change our behaviors and emotions.

What is Psychology?

Psychology is the study of cognitions, emotions, and behavior. Psychologists are involved in a variety of tasks. Many spend their careers designing and performing research to better understand how people behave in specific situations, how and why we think the way we do, and how emotions develop and what impact they have on our interactions with others. These are the research psychologists who often work in research organizations or universities. Industrial-organizational psychologists work with businesses and organizations to help them become more productive, effective, and efficient, and to assist them in working with their employees and their customers. Practitioners, typically counseling and clinical psychologists, work with individuals, couples, families, and small groups to help them feel less depressed, less anxious, become more productive or motivated, and overcome issues which prevent them from living up to their potential.

The study of psychology has five basic goals:

1. Describe - The first goal is to observe behavior and describe, often in minute detail, what was observed as objectively as possible

2. Explain - 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?

3. Predict - 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."

4. Control - Once we know what happens, why it happens and what is likely to happen in the future, we can excerpt control over it. In other words, if we know you choose abusive partners because your father was abusive, we can assume you will choose another abusive partner, and can therefore intervene to change this negative behavior.

5. Improve - Not only do psychologists attempt to control behavior, they want to do so in a positive manner, they want to improve a person�s life, not make it worse. This is not always the case, but it should always be the intention.