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 Psychology 1. State of Consciousness 2. Emotion and Motivation 3. Personality 4. Abnormal Psychology

 Fields of Psychology 47 Divisions in 1993 (page 3 of textbook) 53 in 2002  7 Major Fields 1. Developmental Psychology 2. Physiological Psychology 3. Experimental Psychology 4. Personality Psychology 5. Clinical and Counseling Psychology 6. Social Psychology 7. 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 Method 1. 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  Describe  Understand  Predict  Control  All about Behavior!!!

Research Methods of Psychology  Read Pages  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 Methods Naturalistic Observation 1. Definition: Research method involving the systematic study of animal or human behavior 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.

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: StructuralismFunctionalismBehaviorism