definition of basic concepts of sociology

al-Farabi Kazakh National University
Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology
Department of Pedagogy and Psychology.

SIW №1
Theme:Analyze theoretical background of modern psychology Made by: Kaldybayeva N. Checked by: Ahmetova D.

Almaty, 2013

Plan
1. Introduction
2. Development of modern psychology
3. Modern psychology
4. Conclusion

Introduction Рsychology, science or study of the thought processes and behavior of humans and other animals in their interaction with the environment. Psychologists study processes of sense perception, thinking, learning, cognition, emotions and motivations, personality, abnormal behavior, interactions between individuals, and interactions with the environment. The field is closely allied with such disciplines as anthropology and sociology in its concerns with social and environmental influences on behavior; physics in its treatment of vision, hearing, and touch; and biology in the study of the physiological basis of behavior. In its earliest speculative period, psychological study was chiefly embodied in philosophical and theological discussions of the soul.

Development of Modern Psychology In the 19th cent., the laboratory work of Ernst Heinrich Weber, Gustave Fechner, Wilhelm Wundt, Hermann von Helmholtz, and Edward Titchener helped to establish psychology as a scientific discipline—both through the use of the scientific method of research, and in the belief that mental processes could be quantified with careful research techniques. The principle of evolution, stemming from Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection, gave rise to what became known as dynamic psychology. The new approach, presented by American psychologist William James in his Principles of Psychology (1890), looked at consciousness as an evolutionary process. Out of the new orientation in psychology grew the clinical experiments in hysteria and hypnotism carried on by J. M. Charcot and Pierre Janet in France. Sigmund Freud, in his influential theory of the unconscious, gave a new direction to psychology and laid the groundwork for the psychoanalytic model. Freudian theory took psychology into such fields as education, anthropology, and medicine, and Freudian research methods became the foundations of clinical psychology. The behaviorism of American psychologist John B. Watson was highly influential in the 1920s and 30s, with its suggestion that psychology should concern itself solely with sensory stimuli and behavioral reaction. Behaviorism has been important in modern psychology, particularly through the work of B. F. Skinner since the 1930s. Equally important was the development of Gestalt psychology by German psychologists Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Köhler, and Max Wertheimer. Gestalt theory contended that the task of psychology was to study human thought and behavior as a whole, rather than breaking it down into isolated instances of stimulus and response. Another influential school of psychology was developed in the 1950s and 60s by Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. Their humanistic theory asserts that people make rational, conscious decisions regarding their lives, and optimistically suggests that individuals tend to reach toward their greatest potential.

Modern Psychology Modern psychology is divided into several subdisciplines, each based on differing models of behavior and mental processes. Psychologists work in a number of different settings, including universities and colleges, primary and secondary schools, government agencies, private industry, hospitals, clinics, and private practices. Recent years have seen a rise in the significance of applied psychology—as can be seen from the areas contemporary psychologists concern themselves with—with an attendant decline in the importance of psychology in academia. In the United States, clinical psychology has become a significant focus of the discipline, largely separate from psychological research. Clinical psychologists are responsible for the diagnosis and treatment of various psychological problems. Biological models of behavior have become increasingly prominent in psychological theory, particularly with the development of various tools—such as the positron emission tomography (PET) scan—for mapping the brain. The field of neuropsychology, which studies the brain and the connected nervous system, has been an outgrowth of this contemporary focus on biological explanations of human thought and behavior. Cognitive models, derived from the Gestalt school of psychology, focus on the various thinking processes which mediate between stimuli and responses. Educational psychology, derived from the 18th and 19th cent. educational reforms of Friedrich W. Froebel, Johann Pestalozzi, and their follower Johann Herbart, was later expanded by G. Stanley Hall and by E. L. Thorndike. It is concerned with the development of improved methods of teaching and learning.
Social psychology, developed by British psychologists William McDougall and Havelock Ellis, studies the effects of various social environments on the individual. Some other branches of the field include developmental psychology, which studies the changes in thought and behavior through the course of life; experimental psychology, which is the laboratory research involved in the understanding of the mind; and personality psychology, which deals specifically with individual personality and the processes by which it is formed. In recent years a number of new fields of psychology have emerged. Industrial/organizational psychology, emerging from social psychology, focuses on the workplace and considers such topics as job satisfaction, leadership, and productivity. Health psychology examines how psychological factors contribute to pathology, and demonstrates how psychology can contribute to recovery and illness prevention for such somatic disorders as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. In environmental psychology, research focuses on how individuals react to their physical environments, and suggests improvements which may be beneficial to psychological health. Other new areas of psychology include counseling psychology, school psychology, forensic psychology, and community psychology.

Conclusion Thus, though I welcome all surprising technological achievements of the last two decades, I worry that today's students of psychology will work thus which is almost deprived of deep psychological enlightenments. I am afraid that they will be concentrated on technology, instead of mankind, without forgetting that potent scanners are are no more useful, than a pencil if they are not used for testing legiblly formulated psychological hypotheses. Certainly, need for the modern students to accept interdisciplinary approach imposes on them much higher requirements, than what face the previous generations. Nevertheless, the psychology still counts. The high school and universities in psychology have to continue to provide to students of the complete case record, encouraging deep psychological intuition and reasonings before subjecting them colourful photos of a brain. Otherwise, though they can admire technologies, they will not do in the best way to use it.