Chapter 1: What is Psychology?
Summary
TLDRThis chapter introduces the foundations of psychology, exploring its definition, history, and different approaches, including biological, behavioral, and cognitive perspectives. The video highlights how psychology examines both extraordinary and everyday human behaviors, using scientific methods to study behavior and mental processes. It delves into early philosophical influences, the rise of various psychological theories, and modern-day applications. The chapter also discusses career opportunities in psychology, emphasizing roles in research, therapy, and specialized fields like forensic and health psychology. Lastly, it touches on the connection between mind and body, as well as the positive psychology movement.
Takeaways
- 🧠 Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes, using the scientific method to observe and draw conclusions.
- 🔬 The core attitudes of psychology include critical thinking, skepticism, objectivity, and curiosity, promoting a scientific approach to studying human behavior.
- 📺 Media often inaccurately portrays psychologists, but psychology extends far beyond disorders to include everyday human behavior.
- 📜 Psychology has historical roots in philosophy, biology, and physiology, with early philosophers and scientists like Socrates, Aristotle, and William Blount contributing to its development.
- 🌿 Freud pioneered the psychodynamic approach, emphasizing unconscious thoughts and early experiences, but positive psychology focuses on human strengths and well-being.
- 🧬 The biological approach examines the role of the brain and nervous system in behavior, while the behavioral approach focuses on observable actions influenced by the environment.
- 🌀 Evolutionary psychology explains behavior through adaptation and survival, influenced by ideas like natural selection from Charles Darwin.
- 🌍 The socio-cultural approach explores how social and cultural contexts influence human behavior, becoming more prominent with cultural diversity in research.
- 💼 Psychology offers various career paths, including clinical psychology, industrial-organizational psychology, forensic psychology, and school psychology, often requiring advanced degrees.
- 🤝 The connection between mind and body is crucial, with mental states influencing physical health and vice versa, as seen in emotions, exercise, and chronic pain.
Q & A
What is psychology, according to the script?
-Psychology is defined as the scientific study of behavior and mental processes, focusing on both observable behaviors and internal thoughts, feelings, and motives.
What are the four core attitudes at the heart of psychology's scientific approach?
-The four core attitudes are critical thinking, skepticism, objectivity, and curiosity.
What is the difference between behavior and mental processes in psychology?
-Behavior refers to actions that can be directly observed, while mental processes are internal thoughts, feelings, and motives that cannot be seen.
How does psychology differ from pseudoscience?
-Psychology uses empirical, structured scientific methods to study human behavior, while pseudoscience presents information as scientific without sound scientific research to back it up.
What are the goals of psychology?
-The goals of psychology are to describe, predict, and explain behavior through scientific observation and research.
What was Freud’s contribution to psychology?
-Freud founded the psychodynamic approach, emphasizing unconscious thought, the conflict between biological instincts and societal demands, and early family experiences as major influences on personality.
What is positive psychology and why did it emerge?
-Positive psychology focuses on the positive aspects of human behavior, such as love, work, and civic values. It emerged as a pushback against the field's focus on negative aspects like disorders.
How does the biological approach differ from the behavioral approach in psychology?
-The biological approach focuses on the brain and nervous system to understand behavior, while the behavioral approach emphasizes the study of observable responses and their environmental determinants.
What is the evolutionary approach in psychology?
-The evolutionary approach explains human behaviors through adaptation, reproduction, and survival of the fittest, suggesting that behaviors evolve to improve survival chances.
How does the mind-body connection play a role in psychology?
-Psychology explores how thoughts and emotions can impact physical health and how the state of the body (e.g., exercise, pain) can influence mental states.
Outlines
📚 Introduction to Psychology
This section introduces psychology by explaining its definition, approaches, history, and relevance in health and wellness. It emphasizes that psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes, focusing on observable behaviors and internal thoughts. The core of psychology involves critical thinking, skepticism, objectivity, and curiosity. It also distinguishes psychology from other sciences, noting how psychologists study both extraordinary and everyday human behavior. Popular media often misrepresents the field, contributing to misconceptions. The goals of psychology include describing, predicting, and explaining behavior using empirical methods.
😊 Positive Psychology and Social Media Influence
This paragraph discusses the rise of positive psychology, which focuses on the positive aspects of human behavior, such as traits associated with love, work, and civic values. It highlights how social media impacts well-being, distinguishing between active users who post regularly and passive users who only scroll. Studies suggest that active posters experience more positive emotions, while passive users may feel envious or dissatisfied. The history of psychology is also briefly touched upon, referencing early philosophical debates on human behavior and the mind-body connection.
🧠 Major Psychological Approaches
This section covers various psychological approaches, including the biological, behavioral, psychodynamic, humanistic, cognitive, evolutionary, and socio-cultural perspectives. Each approach is briefly defined, with emphasis on their complementary nature. For example, the biological approach focuses on brain and nervous system functions, while the behavioral approach centers on observable behaviors. Notable figures such as Freud (psychodynamic approach) and Skinner (behavioral approach) are mentioned. The section also notes how these approaches inform different areas of research, including neuroscience, behaviorism, and social psychology.
👩⚕️ Careers in Psychology
This paragraph explores various career paths in psychology, ranging from clinical psychologists to forensic psychologists. Clinical psychologists often have doctoral degrees and focus on diagnosing and treating mental disorders, while psychiatrists are medical doctors who specialize in medication management. Other specialties include cross-cultural psychology, sports psychology, community psychology, and industrial-organizational psychology. These careers emphasize the importance of evidence-based practices, research, and therapy, with roles varying across industries such as academia, business, legal systems, and healthcare.
🔄 Mind-Body Connection
The final section discusses the interaction between the mind and body, emphasizing how emotions, such as anger, can affect physical health. For example, anger may increase heart rate and adrenaline. Similarly, physical conditions like chronic pain can influence mood and mental well-being. The connection between mental and physical health is central to psychology, highlighting the importance of understanding how thoughts and feelings impact overall health. The chapter concludes by summarizing key takeaways, including an understanding of psychology's definition, historical roots, and diverse approaches, as well as career opportunities within the field.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Psychology
💡Scientific Method
💡Behavior
💡Mental Processes
💡Critical Thinking
💡Positive Psychology
💡Neuroscience
💡Psychodynamic Approach
💡Behavioral Approach
💡Cognitive Approach
Highlights
Introduction to the definition of psychology, including the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
Psychology uses the scientific method to observe, draw conclusions, and explain behavior and mental processes.
The four core attitudes of the scientific approach: critical thinking, skepticism, objectivity, and curiosity.
Psychology goes beyond disorders, covering a broad range of human behavior, including positive aspects of life like love and optimism.
Media portrayals of psychologists have often been inaccurate, focusing mostly on psychological disorders.
Study showing the positive effects of active social media use compared to passive scrolling.
Historical foundations of psychology rooted in early philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and later developments in biology and physiology.
Introduction of William Wundt's structuralism and its focus on mental processes through introspection.
Functionalism, introduced by William James, focused on how humans adapt to the environment and the function of human thought.
Overview of contemporary approaches to psychology: biological, behavioral, psychodynamic, humanistic, cognitive, evolutionary, and sociocultural.
Freud's psychodynamic approach focused on unconscious thoughts, biological instincts, and early family experiences.
The biological approach emphasizes the study of the brain and nervous system, including areas like neuroscience.
The behavioral approach, led by figures like John Watson and B.F. Skinner, focuses on observable behaviors and environmental determinants.
Overview of career opportunities in psychology, ranging from clinical practice to research and academia.
Discussion of how the mind impacts the body and vice versa, such as how emotions like anger can affect physical health and how exercise can improve mood.
Transcripts
chapter one what is psychology in this
chapter we're gonna learn about what
psychology is and break it down the
definition approaches health and
wellness history of it and careers we're
going to discuss the roots and early
scientific foundations of psychology
summarize the main themes of the
approaches evaluate the areas of
specialization and careers in psychology
and describe the connections between the
mind and the body understanding complex
behavior such as why people engage in
courageous acts is part of what
psychologists study not only do
psychologists study extraordinary
behaviors they also study everyday
experiences psychology is considered a
science but it is different from other
sciences from which students are
familiar psychology as a science focuses
on the many facets that make people who
they are so anyone know a psychologist
what they do where they come from few
people actually know a psychologist most
students learn about psychology from the
media like movies TVs TV shows and news
until the last decade media portrayals
of psychologists have been wildly
inaccurate and even derogatory at times
think about the times you've seen
psychologists played in the media the
scientific study of behavior and mental
processes scientific study is part of
psychology the goals of psychology are
to describe predict and explain behavior
and they're easily tied to the research
methods that we will be discussing in
chapter 2 behavior they look at what can
be observed and mental processes those
are your thoughts feeling
motives things that cannot be seen
psychology is defined as the scientific
study of behavior and mental processes
as a science psychology uses the
scientific method to observe human
behavior draw conclusions based on those
observations and behaviors everything
that a person does that can be directly
observed and mental processes as we said
internal thoughts feelings and motives
that cannot be so looking against at the
science of psychology it does not accept
assumptions at face value and uses a
structured empirical method to study
human behavior at the core of the
scientific approach are four attitudes
critical thinking skepticism objectivity
and curiosity critical thinking is the
process of reflecting deeply and
actively asking questions and evaluating
the evidence psychologists are skeptical
they ask questions what want to know
what people know and apply it to
everyday life to challenge assumptions
pursuit of precise information is an
additional characteristic of
psychologists they aim to have the best
understanding of a topic or issue as
possible pseudoscience is information
that is presented as if it were
scientific but it's actually not it's
not supported by sound scientific
research psychologists are objective and
they use empirical methods to evaluate
events and data and individuals as they
are not as we would like them to be and
curiosity asking questions and wondering
about things that's part of what makes
psychologists scientist so psychology
covers a plethora of topics and issues
as you most people think of
psychological disorders but if you look
at this book only two chapters are
dedicated to psychological disorders
there are a lot of things outside of
that that is covered by psychology
psychology looks at all human behavior
Freud pioneered the original perceptions
of what people knew about psychology and
since then these perceptions have been
mainstreamed into TV in the media
psychology seeks to understand the truth
of human life in all its dimensions
including people's best and worst
experiences some psychologists argue
that their field has focused too much on
the negative aspects of humanity and
neglected qualities that reflect the
best of human life the branch of
positive psychology was a push by
scholars for more emphasis on the
positive and good aspects of human
behavior they wanted to focus more on
what humans value the traits associated
with optimal capacities for love and
work and positive group and civic values
so there's a lot more to psychology then
disorders so looking at social media
it's a big part of our lives down and it
depends on how you use it there's
actually a study looking at the effects
of social media on people's mood and
what they found is that if you're an
active poster you're always posting the
things that you're doing the places you
go all your activities is different then
those who passively scroll through
looking at everything else everyone else
post about their lives so what is was
found is that the people who are posting
all the time promote more of a positive
well-being they feel better than those
who are passively scrolling because it's
more of the look what I don't have type
syndrome and feeling sorry for yourself
so how do you use social media
moving into the history of psychology
and looking at it from a historical
perspective for thousands of years
people have been trying to answer basic
questions of human behavior such as how
do our senses perceive the world how do
we learn what is memory why does one
person grow and flourish where as
another person struggles in life the
dreams matter and can people learn to be
happier or more optimistic early
philosophers such as Socrates Plato and
Aristotle debated the nature of thought
and behavior including the possible link
between the mind and the body later
Descartes's and others argued that the
mind and body were completely separate
entities and focused their studies on
the mind psychology has its roots not
only in philosophy but also in biology
and physiology William Blount
a German philosopher and physician
founded the academic discipline of
psychology he first studied
structuralism they focused on the basic
elements or structures of mental
processes an introspection was the
method used to study these mental
structures and relies entirely on the
person's conscious reflection
individuals were asked to think about
what was occurring mentally as events
were taking place these studies focused
mainly on sensation and perception
because there were veils were the
aspects that could be broken down into
components or parts
so functionalism is concerned with the
functions and purposes of the mind in an
individual's adaptation to the
environment structuralists were looking
inside the mind while functionalist were
focused on how humans interacted with
the outside world a core question in
functionalism is why is human thought
adaptive functionalism meshed well with
other intellectual development Charles
Darwin's principle of natural selection
which considers how organisms adapt to
the environment survive and produce
offspring was one of them genes
associated with survival are more likely
passed down from one generation to the
next and species change through random
genetic mutation which explains why
members of a species are different from
one another of the same members so here
are some dates for you just kind of give
you a time frame of how everything
played out for psychology going from
philosophy biology and physiology and
then moving for what and then James who
was one of his students
and Darwin how he played into it with
evolution and the natural selection part
of looking at psychology which will be
discussed further when we look at the
approaches so here are the contemporary
approaches that we're going to be
covering for psychology and it's
important to realize that these
approaches are complementary not
necessarily contradictory and they
really represent different levels of
analysis you know biological behavioral
psychodynamic humanistic cognitive which
is listed twice in socio-cultural so
looking at the biological approach it
emphasizes the study of the body
especially the brain and the nervous
system neuroscience is the scientific
study of the structure function
development genetics and biochemistry of
the nervous system it emphasizes that
the brain and nervous system are central
to understanding behavior but
and emotion and has spread to many other
research areas including developmental
neuroscience social neuroscience and
behavioral neuroscience sciences
examples the behavioral approach also
emphasizes the scientific study of
observable behavior responses and their
environmental determinants John Watson
and Skinner were the first behaviorist
and they dominated psychological
research during the first half of the
20th century when we move into
conditioning and more of the behavioral
approach we will get into more detail on
the behaviorist Pavlov Watson and
Skinner looking at the psychodynamic
approach of course that's Freud
so the notably behaviorist that we will
look into further later on or ivan
pavlov john watson and BF Skinner
looking at the psychodynamic approach of
course you have Freud the psychodynamic
approach emphasizes unconscious thought
the conflict between biological
instincts and society's demands and
early family experiences Sigmund Freud
was the founder of the psychodynamic
approach he believed that a person's
early interactions with parents were the
major factor that shaped an individual's
personality the humanistic approach
emphasizes the person's positive
qualities the capacity for growth and
the freedom to choose any destiny
humanistic psychologists stress that
people have the ability to control their
lives and avoid being manipulated by the
environment topics such as altruism and
optimism are largely studied under this
approach the cognitive approach
emphasizes the mental processes involved
in knowing how we direct our attention
how we perceive
how we remember how we think and solve
problems other science is to adopt this
approach focus on information processing
the way the human mind interprets
information stores it and applies it to
decision-making the evolutionary
approach uses evolutionary ideas such as
adaptation reproduction and survival of
the fittest as the basis for explaining
specific human behaviors evolutionary
psychologists believe that their
approach provides an umbrella that
unifies unifies the diverse fields of
psychology one notable evolutionary
psychologist is David buss and if you're
interested you can look him up on
YouTube he has several things that you
can watch to see how he uses the
evolutionary approach to explain
behavior and a lot about mating behavior
and this picture here is of Jane Goodall
who did research with apes as you can
see chimpanzees I'm sorry socio-cultural
approach emphasizes the ways in which
the social and cultural environments
influence behavior with the rise of
cultural diversity in the United States
research on the influence of culture on
behavior has led to important findings
in the role that culture plays in our
sense of self of course in reality many
career psychologists straddle all of the
different categories that we're looking
at here in terms of careers in
psychology there are a variety of career
options for scholars in psychology some
seek employment universities where they
teach and conduct research others may
work in business and industry while
still others may work in private
practice individuals who are primarily
engaged in helping others are called
practitioners of psychology they have to
be licensed at a clinical license and
they provide therapy that is considered
evidence-based practice which is
supported by empirical research this
clinical psychologist typically has a
doctoral degree in psychology while a
psychiatrist has a medical degree and
specializes more in the abnormal and
psychotherapy so in my experience your
counselors usually our master-level some
have PhDs and they usually provide your
talk therapy or behavioral therapy
different types of therapies whereas in
general most but not all but most
psychologists that I've ever known
either work in some type of field like
companies or they may work for insurance
companies things along that line whereas
you do have clinical psychologists a lot
of times the clinical psychologists
focus on testing and providing that
service and then your psychiatrist
usually do med management so you usually
see them for a few minutes tell them how
you're doing whether it's your symptoms
are increasing or decreasing and they
adjust the medications now there's
always exceptions to the rules but you
can see here there's quite a bit that
people can do with a degrees in
psychology of course they're usually
going to be higher than a bachelor's
degree so some other specializations are
cross-cultural psychology cross-cultural
psychology focuses on a cultures role in
understanding behavior thought emotion
sport psychology apply psychologies
principles to improving sport
performance and enjoying participation
forensic psychology apply psychological
concepts to the legal system and they're
often hired by legal teams to provide
input and aspects of trials such as jury
selection and to testify as experts and
trials community psychology focus on
accessible care for people with
psychological problems they may work in
community-based mental health centers
and provide outreach programs to people
in need environmental psychology is the
study of the interaction between people
in the physical environment in school
and educational psychology centrally
concerns children's learning and
adjustment in school health psychology
emphasizes health psychological factors
lifestyle and Nate
the healthcare delivery system and
clinical and counseling psychology
usually they diagnose and treat people
with psychological problems clinical
psychologists are interested in
psychopathology which is the scientific
study of psychological disorders and the
treatment of these disorders in the
development of diagnostic categories of
mental health
you also have industrial and
organizational psychology which focuses
on the workplace both the workers
themselves and the organization that
employs them the main area of industrial
psychology focus on personnel matters
and human resource management while the
main area of organizational psychology
focus is on the social influence in the
organization social psychology deals
with people social interactions
relationships social perceptions social
cognitions and attitudes and researchers
are interested in how groups or
individuals influence the behavior of
others physiological psychology focuses
on the physical processes that
underlying mental processes behavioral
neuroscience focuses on biological
processes specifically how the brain
affects behavior sensation and
perception researchers focus on both the
physical symptoms and psychological
processes that allow individuals to
experience the world learning is the
complex process by which behavior
changes in response to changing
circumstances cognitive psychology is a
broad field that includes examples such
as attention consciousness information
processing and memory researchers in
this area are often called experimental
psychologists developmental psychology
studies how individuals change both as a
result of biology and environment from
birth through death developmental
psychologists inquiries range across
biological cognitive and social domains
of life motivation focuses on how
individuals attain goals how rewards
affect the experience of motivation
emotion centers on the physiological and
brain processes that underline emotional
experiences the emotional expressions of
health and the possibility that emotions
are universal and then the psychology of
women and gender psychology of women and
gender
these psychological social and cultural
influences on women's development and
the behavioral behavior while also
addressing interest of the broader topic
of ginger and the ways our biological
sex influences our ideas of ourselves as
men and women personal personality
psychology focuses on the relatively
enduring characteristics of individuals
like traits goals motives genetics
personality development well-being etc
think about ways that your mind impacts
your body maybe on days that you're
worried or upset does it impact your
body do you feel different in your body
what about when you're angry
anger is a good one to think about
because a lot of times when people get
angry their heart rate increases and
they feel and it may be a rush of
adrenaline how about how the body
impacts the mind think about when you
exercise does that affect your mood what
about chronic pain or a time that you
had to deal with pain for a period of
time did that affect your mood so
there's kind of this back-and-forth
connection the way that you think and
feel impacts the state of your health in
your body and the way that you treat
your body affects your thinking so this
chapter and review what we're hoping
that you will be able to retain from
this is to explain that psychology is
and what it is and describe it and talk
a little bit about the positive
psychology movement be able to discuss
the roots and early scientific
foundations of psychology summarize the
main themes of the seven approaches to
psychology evaluate the areas of
specialization and careers in psychology
and describe the connections between the
mind and body I hope this was helpful
thank you and you have a wonderful day
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