Chapter 1

Psychology
Introduction

济宁医学院精神卫生学院
应用心理学教研室 吉 峰
 Contents in Brief

1 What is Psychology?

2 The Contents of Psychology

3 Fields of Psychology

4 History of Psychology
 What is Psychology?
Come from
 Psychology Greece

 Psyche: Mind, Soul

 Logos: Knowledge or study
Perspectives on Psychology
Neurological Approach
Behavioral Approach
Cognitive Approach
Psychoanalytic Approach
Phenomenological Approach
(Humanistic Approach)
 Neurological approach
–focuses on brain and nervous
system.
–focuses on what take place within the
brain and nervous system when
behavior happens.
–focuses on what relationship between
the brain’s activity and behavior.
 Behavioral approach
– focuses on the activities of an
organism that can be observed.
– focuses on how organisms learn new
behaviors.
–Stimulus-response (S-R) psychology.
–“black box”
 Cognitive approach
– Focuses on how we encode, process,
store, and retrieve information.
– and how this information influences
what we attend to, perceive, learn,
remember, believe, and feel.
–Mental processes
 Psychoanalytic approach
– Focuses on the influence of
unconscious impulse (fears, desires,
and motivations) on behaviors.
– the influence of early experiences.
 Phenomenological
approach
– focuses on subjective experience.
– emphasizes that each individual has
great freedom in directing his or her
future, a large capacity for personal
growth, and enormous potential for
self-fulfillment
 DEFINITION OF PSYCHOLOGY
• Psychology
– the scientific study of behaviors and mental
processes
– Behaviors
• refers to observable actions or responses in both
humans and animals
– Mental processes
• refer to a wide range of mental activities such as
thinking, imagining, studying, and dreaming
• not directly observable; reported; inferred
 GOALS OF
PSYCHOLOGY
 – Describe (behaviors and mental
processes)
 – Explain (behaviors and mental
processes)
 – Predict (behaviors and mental
processes)
 – Control (behaviors and mental
• Describe
– first goal of psychology is to describe the
mental processes or behaviors of interest
– What specifically were your behaviors,
memorys, emotions
• Explain
– second goal of psychology is to explain
the causes of the behavior or mental
processes
– What were the causes of your behaviors,
thoughts, emotions?
• Predict
– third goal of psychology is to predict how
organisms will behave, think, or feel in
certain situations.
• Control
– the fourth goal of psychology is to
control an organism’s behavior
– Treatment
 In Chinese
Textbook

Psychology:
The science of mental
phenomena.

心理学 : 研究人的心理现象的科学 , 具
体来说是研究人的行为和心理活动规
律的科学。
 Mental
Phenomenon
cognitive process

Mental Process emotion and affection process

will process

individual inclination

Personality

individual characteristics
 Why the medical student
must learn psychology?
 Person

Physical person Mental person

 Section 2 Contents
 Sensation and Perception Basic
Psycholog
 Memory y
 Thought and Language
 Basic Motives and Emotion
 Mental Abilities
 Personality
 Section 2 Contents
 Stress and Coping Medical
Psycholog
 Psychosomatic disease y
Mental disorder
 Psychological Assessment
 Psychotherapy and
Counseling
 Mental health
 Section 3 Fields of
Psychology
Experimental and Physiological psychology
Developmental, Social and Personality psychology
Clinical and counseling psychology
School and Educational psychology
Industrial and Engineering psychology
 Experimental psychology
 Focuses on developing precise methods for
measuring and controlling psychological
phenomena.
 For example, to use experimental methods
to study how people react to sensory
stimuli, perceive the world, learn and
memory, respond emotionally.
 Physiological psychology
 Focuses on discovering the relationship
between biological processes and
behavior.

 For example, How do sex hormones

influence behavior? What area of brain
controls speech? How do drug affect
personality and memory?
 Developmental psychology
 Focuses on human development and the
factors that shape behavior from birth to
old age.
 For example, how language develops and
changes from birth to old age. What
factors affect it.
 Social psychology
 Focuses on the ways interactions with
other people influence attitudes and
behavior.
 Focuses on the behavior of groups.
 Personality Psychology
 Focuses on differences between
individuals, as well as each individual’s
unique qualities.
 Clinical Psychology
 Focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of
emotional and behavior problems, such as
mental illness, drug addiction , mental
retardation, family conflict and adjustment
problems, etc.
 Clinical psychologists work in mental
hospitals, mental health clinics, prisons,
university medical schools, or private
clinics.
 Counseling psychology
 Counseling psychologists serve many of
the same functions as clinical
psychologists, although they usually deal
with less serious problems.
 They often work with high school or
university students, providing help with
problems of social adjustment , vocational
and educational goal.
 School psychology
 School psychologists work with individual
children to evaluate learning and
emotional problem, to administer and
interpret intelligence, achievement, and
personality tests.
 They work in the elementary and
secondary school. In consultation with
parents and teachers, they plan ways of
helping the child both in the classroom and
in the home.
 Educational psychology
 Educational psychologists are specialists in
learning and teaching.
 They usually work in the university’s
school of education, where they do
research on teaching methods and help
train teachers and school psychologists.
 Industrial psychology
 Industrial psychologists work for a
particular company or as consultants for a
number of business organizations.
 They work on such problems as selecting
people most suitable for a particular job,
developing job training programs and
participating in management decisions.
they also conduct research on consumer
behavior.
 Engineering psychology
 Engineering psychologists seek to make
the relationship between people and
machines as satisfactory as possible.
 History of
Section 4
Psychology
“Psychology has a long past but a
short history”

--- Hermann
Ebbinghaus
Into the Lab
The “father of psychology”
Wilhelm Wundt created the first
psychological
laboratory in 1879 in Leipzig, Germany.

Objective: to study conscious experience

Method: introspection (self-observation)

Structuralism
Wundt’s ideas brought to the U.S. by
Titchener
and renamed Structuralism.
Objective: the structure of mind
experience.
basic “elements”.
Method: still was Introspection.
Functionalism
William James, an American psychologist
who
were great influenced by Charles Darwin
and his
theory of Natural Selection.
Objective: to study the mind in use.
Method: observation.
Contribution: Educational Psychology
Industrial Psychology
Behaviorism

1913—— Watson JB “behavior learning”

Objective: to study observable behavior.

Method: to observe stimuli and response.

“Psychology from the Standpoint of

Behaviorist”
Theory
Classical Conditioning (Pavlov)
Operant Conditioning (Skinner)
Learning by Observation (Bandura)
Gestalt Psychology
Key names: Max Wertheimer
Objective: to study thinking, learning,
and perception in whole units, not by
analyzing experiences into parts.
Slogan: “The whole is greater than the
sum
of its parts.”
Fig. 1.2 The design you see here is entirely made up of broken circles. However, as the
Gestalt psychologists discovered, our perceptions have a powerful tendency to form
meaningful patterns. Because of this tendency, you will probably see a triangle in this
design, even though it is only an illusion. Your whole perceptual experience exceeds the
sum of its parts.
 Psychodynamic
Psychology
Developed by Freud, an Austrian doctor.
Objective: to study unconscious impulse.
Methods: free association, interpretation
and dream analysis.
Neo-Freudians
 New or recent; some of Freud’s students
who broke away to promote their own
theories
 Key names: Adler, Anna Freud.
Theory

Unconscious
Personality Structure
Personality Development
Defense Mechanisms
Dream’s Analysis
Humanism
 Key manes: Rogers and Maslow
 Objective: to study human experience,
potentials and ideas.
 Stress free will.

 Believe that people can freely choose

to live more creative and meaningful.

 Method: interview and observation.
Research Methods
 Experimental method
 Observational methodHow can you
know about
 Survey method a person’s
behavior and
 Test method mental
process
 The blind man and the
elephant
 The first fall against the side of the
elephant, and say it like a wall.
 The second feel of the tusk , and
say it like a spear.
 The third take the trunk within
hands, and say it like a snake.
 The fourth feel about the knee of the
elephant, and say it like a tree.
 The fifth touch the ear of the
elephant, and say it like fan.
 The sixth seize on the tail of the
elephant, and say it like a rope.
 Researching the Brain
 Ablation: Surgical removal of parts of the brain
 Deep Lesioning: A thin wire electrode is
lowered into a specific area inside the brain;
Electrical current is then used to destroy a
small amount of brain tissue
 Electrical Stimulation of the Brain (ESB): When
an electrode is used to activate target areas in
the brain
 Electroencephalograph (EEG): Detects,
amplifies, and records electrical activity in the
brain
Fig. The functions of brain structures are explored by selectively activating or
removing them. Brain research is often based on electrical stimulation, but
chemical stimulation is also used at times.
Fig. In the apparatus shown in (a), the rat can press a bar to deliver mild
electric stimulation to a “pleasure center” in the brain. Humans also have been
“wired” for brain stimulation, as shown in (b). However, in humans, this has
been done only as an experimental way to restrain uncontrollable outbursts of
violence. Implants have not been done merely to produce pleasure.
 An EEG recording.

Electroencephalograph
 Researching the Brain (cont.)
 Computed Tomographic Scanning (CT):
Computer-enhanced X-ray of the brain or body
 Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI): Uses a
strong magnetic field, not an X-ray, to produce
an image of the body’s interior
 Functional MRI: MRI that makes brain activity
visible
 Positron Emission Tomography (PET):
Computer-generated color image of brain
activity, based on glucose consumption in the
brain
Fig. An MRI scan of the brain.
Fig. PET scans.
Fig. The bright spots you see here were created by a PET scan. They are similar
to the spots in last Figure . However, here they have been placed over an MRI
scan so that the brain’s anatomy is visible. The three bright spots are areas in the
left brain related to language. The spot on the right is active during reading. The
top-middle area is connected with speech. The area to the left, in the frontal lobe
is linked with thinking about a word’s meaning (Montgomery, 1989).
Fig. In the images you see here, red, orange, and yellow indicate high
consumption of glucose; green, blue, and pink show areas of low glucose use.
The PET scan of the brain on the left shows that a man who solved 33 out of 36
reasoning problems burned more glucose than the man on the right, who
solved 11.

Exit
Behaviourist ‘Black Box’
approach

Brain seen as a ‘black box’

Response
Stimulus
‘Black-box’ revisited

Trying to explain processes within the brain

Stimulus Response

1 2 3 4

Mental processes
 Abraham Maslow and
Needs
 Hierarchy of Human Needs: Maslow’s ordering
of needs based on presumed strength or
potency; some needs are more powerful than
others and thus will influence your behavior to
a greater degree
 Basic Needs: First four levels of needs in
Maslow’s hierarchy
 Lower needs tend to be more potent (“prepotent”)
than higher needs
 Growth Needs: Higher-level needs associated
with self-actualization
 Meta-Needs: Needs associated with impulses
for self-actualization
Fig. Maslow believed that lower needs in the hierarchy are dominant. Basic
needs must be satisfied before growth motives are fully expressed. Desires for
self-actualization are reflected in various meta-needs.
Overt Behavior
 Eating, sleeping, talking,
 singing, dancing,
 walking, running,
 laughing, crying,
 Sitting in the classroom, watching
the blackboard, reading the
textbook, listening to the class.
Covert Behavior
 Thinking, imagining, dreaming,
 memory, need, motivation,
 Cognitive Process
 感觉—— Sensation
 知觉—— Perception
 记忆—— Memory
 思维—— Thinking
 想像—— Imagination
 注意—— Attention
Fig. A reversible figure-ground design. Do you see two faces in
profile, or a wineglass?
Fig. In some ways, a computer acts like a mechanical memory system.
Both systems process information, and both allow encoding, storage, and
retrieval of data.
Fig. The curve of forgetting. This graph shows the amount remembered
(measured by relearning) after varying lengths of time. The material learned was
nonsense syllables. Forgetting curves for meaningful information also show early
losses followed by a long, gradual decline, but overall, forgetting occurs much
more slowly. (After Ebbinghaus, 1885.)
Fig. (a) Nine dots are arranged in a square. Can you connect them by drawing
four continuous straight lines without lifting your pencil from the paper? (b) Six
matches must be arranged to make four triangles. The triangles must be the
same size, with each side equal to the length of one match.
Fig. Problem solutions. (a) The dot problem can be solved by extending the lines
beyond the square formed by the dots. Most people assume incorrectly that they
may not do this. (b) The match problem can be solved by building a three-
dimensional pyramid. Most people assume that the matches must be arranged on
a flat surface. If you remembered the four-tree problem from earlier in the
chapter, the match problem may have been easy to solve.
Do Animals Think?
 Delayed Response Problems: Tasks in
which an animal must remember the
solution to a problem before responding
 Multiple-Stick Problem: Several sticks of
increasing length are arranged between
the cage and the desired goal or object
 Conclusion: Animals are capable of
delayed responding, planning future
actions, tool use, and simple problem
solving that imply a basic level of
thinking capacity
Fig. Psychologist Wolfgang Köhler believed that the solution of a multi-stick problem revealed a
capacity for insight in Chimpanzees.
 Attention-Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder
(ADHD)
 Behavioral problem characterized by short
attention span, rapid speech, impulsivity,
and rarely finishing work. Much more
common among boys than girls
 Treatment Methods:
 Drugs: Ritalin (methylphenidate): Stimulant;
seems to lengthen attention span and reduce
impulsiveness
 Behavior Modification: Application of learning
principles to change or eliminate maladaptive
or abnormal behavior
 Reward child for being calm and paying
attention