Module 1 Notes

PSYCH100-Module 1: The Science of Psychology Notes

-------------------------------------------------
Textbook pg 2-27

Psychology * Scientific study on causes of behavior
Causal Event * Event that causes another event to occur

Different Fields of Psychology * Physiological Psychology * Studies the physiological basis of behavior * Mainly through the nervous system * Learning * Memory * Sensory process * Emotional behavior * Motivation * Sexual behavior * Sleep * Strongly connected in understanding drug use/addiction * Comparative Psychology * Studies behaviors of organisms to understand adaptive/functional significance of behaviors and their relation to evolution * I.e. Inherited behavioral patterns * Courting/mating * Predation/aggression * Defensive behaviors * Parental behaviors * Behavioral Analysis * Studies effect of the environment on behavior * Effects of consequences of behaviors on the behaviors themselves * Belief that the relationship between the behavior and some consequence event is an important cause of a behavior * I.e. Cause and effect * Behavior with pleasant results are repeated * Behaviors with unpleasant results are unrepeated * Strongly related to drug use/abuse

* Behavior Genetics * Studies role of genetics in behavior * No two people will ever be the same * Examine physical/behavioral similarities in blood relatives * Cognitive Psychology * Studies complex behaviors/mental processes * Perception * Attention * Learning/memory * Verbal behavior * Concept formation * Problem solving * Events that cause behavior consist of functions of the human brain that occur in response to environmental events * Used to treat drug addiction by teaching coping strategies * Cognitive Neuroscience * Studies to understand cognitive psychological by studying brain mechanisms responsible for them * I.e. Study behavior of people whose brains have been damaged naturally * Diseases * Tumours * Strokes * Developmental Psychology * Studies the changes in behavioral, perceptual, and cognitive capacities of organisms as a function of age and experience * I.e. Studying the effects of aging * Helps how drug-taking behavior can change over time * Social Psychology * Study of the effects people have on each other’s behavior * Also plays a role in drug addiction * I.e. Kids who start smoking because of pleasure; instead it is the opposite * Smoke because peers do/social influences * Personality Psychology * Categorize/understand the causes of the individual differences in patterns of behavior * Personality can also determine how susceptible a person is to drugs

* Evolutionary Psychology * Explains behavior in terms of adaptive strategies that specific behaviors provided during the evolution of a species * Use natural selection as a guiding principle * Must trace development of differences in species and explore how adaptive advantages relate to human behavior * Possibility that addictions are caused by processes not working in our benefit but interact harmfully with respect to certain substances that were not originally part of the early human environment * Cross-Cultural Psychology * Studies the effect of culture on behavior * Different cultures have different strategies to interact with environment * Laws/Customs * Myths * Religious beliefs * Ethical principles * Can be related to drug use * Some cultural customs may involve drugs * Clinical Psychology * Investigation/treatment of abnormal behavior/psychological disorders * Most clinical psychologists are practitioners who try to help people solve their problems * The rest are scientists looking for causal events both genetic and physiological, and environmental factors (parental upbringing), and other social stimuli * Done to improve psychotherapy methods

Different Professions of Applied Psychology TYPE OF PSYCHOLOGIST | AREA OF APPLICATION | EMPLOYMENT SETTING | Clinical neuropsychologist | Identify/treat behavioral consequences of nervous system disorders/injuries | -Hospitals | Clinical psychologist | Identify/assess/treat psychological disorders | -Private practice-Hospital | Community psychologist | Welfare of people in social system; disadvantaged | -Community organizations | Consumer psychologists | Motivation/perception/learning/purchasing behavior of people in the marketplace | -Corporations-Advertising agencies | Engineering psychologists/Ergonomists | Perceptual/cognitive factors in the use of machinery | Corporations/engineering agencies | Forensic psychologists | Behavior as it relates to legal/justice system | -Private law firms-Public agencies*Both in justice system | Health psychologists | Behavior that affects health/lifestyle | -Hospitals-Government-Corporations | Organizational psychologists | Behavior in individual in industrial work processes | -Corporations-Government | School psychologists | Behavioral issues of students in school setting | -Corporation-Government-Educational |

Philosophical Roots of Psychology * Most important idea of the human behavior is the self-awareness of being conscious * With this awareness we relate it to our behaviors * Consider alternatives * Makes plans * Act on plans * Animism * Belief that all animal and all moving objects possess spirits providing their motive force * PSYCHOLOGY AS A SCIENCE MUST BE BASED ON THE IDEA THAT BEHAVIOUR IS STRICKLY SUBJECT TO PHYSICALS LAWS LIKE EVERY OTHER NATURAL PHENOMENON * I.e. When dropped, rocks fall to the ground due to gravity, not because their spirits want to reconnect with the Earth’s spirits

* Rene Descartes (1596-1650) * French philosopher/mathematician * Investigated natural phenomena through sensory experience and human reasoning * Assumed world was a purely mechanical entity * Ran its course without divine intervention from God * Challenged the Church’s idea that philosophy was to reconcile human experiences with the truth of God’s revelations * Thought animals and humans was a machine affected by natural causes and producing natural effects * I.e. Reflexes * Automatic response to a stimulus * I.e. blinking of the eye when an object approaches * Proposed that the human mind was not part of the natural world * Obeyed different laws * Gave birth to DUALISM * Belief that reality can be split into mind and matter * Suggested that a causal link between the mind and its physical housing * Refused to deny a spiritual basis to human actions * John Locke (1632-1704) * Replaced Descartes rationalism (pursuit of truth through reason) with EMPIRICISM * Pursuit of truth through observation and experience * Locke implied that at birth our minds were empty and open to the writings of experience * George Berkeley (1685-1753) * Knowledge of events in the world requires inferences based on accumulation of past experiences * WE MUST LEARN TO PERCEIVE* * James Mill (1773-1836) * Introduced MATERIALISM * Belief that reality can only be known through an understanding of the physical world which the mind is a part of * Assumed that animals and humans were the same * Both were physical in makeups and subject to the physical laws of the universe * Believed that the mind was as passive as the body * The mind was like a machine

Biological Roots of Psychology * Luigi Galvani (1737-1798) * Italian psychologist * Discovered muscles contracted by applying an electrical current directly to them or to the nerves attached to them * Muscles contained energy needed to contract * Did not have to be inflated with pressurized fluid * Johannes Muller (1801-1858) * Came up with the doctrine of specific nerve energies * Different nerve fibers convey specific info from one part of the body to the brain or from the brain to one part of the body * Noticed that the basic message sent along all nerves was the same electrical impulse * Stated the brain interprets impulses received from the nerves as visual sensations because optic nerves are attached to the eye * The brain is similarly specialized, with different parts having different functions * Pierre Flourens (1774-1867) * French physiologist * Operated on parts of the animal nervous system * Observed what the animal could no longer do without certain parts and assumed that part for the particular missing functions * Experimental ablation * Removal/destruction of a portion of the brain of an experimental animal for the purpose of studying the functions of that region * Claimed to have discovered regions of the brain that control: * Heart rate/breathing * Purposeful movements * Visual auditory reflexes * Paul Broca (1824-1880) * French surgeon * Performed autopsy n the brain of a man who had a stroke several years previously * Stroke had caused the man’s ability to speak * Discovered the stroke damaged part of the cerebral cortex of left side o the brain * Suggested that this region of the brain is a center for speech * Gustav Fritsch & Edward Hitzig (1870) * Introduced using electrical stimulation as a tool for mapping the functions of the brain * Later discovered by Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield that highly specific sensory experiences and even memories could be mapped in a similar way * Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894) * Demonstrated that mental phenomena could be explained by physiological means * Also concluded that too much variability between people to measure the speed of a person’s reaction to a physical stimulus * Ernst Weber (1795-1878) * Introduced the idea that perceptual phenomena could be studied scientifically (like biology or physics) * Directly related to PSYCHOPHYSICS * Measures the quantitative relation between physical stimuli and perceptual experience * DETERMINISM * Doctrine that behavior is the result of prior events * Law of Effect * Observed by Edward Thorndike (1874-1949) * Stimuli that occurs as a consequence of a response can increase or decrease the likelihood of making that response again * Goals were satisfiers that caused the action to recur more frequently