Science of Psychology - Part 1

The Science of Psychology

Part 1: The Psychology Discipline

Dr Angela Papadimitriou
Clinical Psychologist

Assistant Professor, Health & Social Sciences Cluster, SIT

Welcome to Psychology

Lectures by Asst. Professor Angela Papadimitriou
Clinical Psychologist
Module Lead for HSC1004
[email protected]

Lecture format
• Each 2-hour lecture will comprise 2 parts
• Each part represents a different psychology topic
• Preparation: Readings of lecture and textbook chapters
• Readings for all weeks (5 – 12) already on LMS
• Lecture slides will be uploaded prior to lecture

Psychology Tutorials

Tutors
• Asst. Prof. Angela Papadimitriou (Group 5)
• Adjuncts / Associate Faculty:

• Dr Jaswyn Chin (Groups 2, 3, 6 & 7)
• Ms Haanusia Prithivi Raj (Groups 1, 4 & 8)

Tutorial Format
• Each 2-hour tutorial will comprise experimental &

clinical applications of theoretical content from lectures
• Worksheets & activities will be provided and conducted

during tutorial sessions
• Preparation: Readings of lecture and textbook chapters
• Tutorial material will be uploaded at end of each week

Assessment

• Continuous Assessments (40%)
• Sociology Group Presentation (20%)
• Psychology Test (20%)
• Week 9: 30 October 2017
• Content from weeks 5 – 8
• 1-hour MCQ

• Final Exam (60%)
• Psychology content (lectures, tutorials) weeks 5 – 12
• No sociology content
• 2-hour MCQ

Learning Objectives

• Define the discipline of psychology and its goals
• Understand the evolution of psychology
• Identify early psychological approaches
• Describe contemporary psychological

approaches
• Understand different professions within the

psychology field
• Explain importance of psychology for health

sciences

What Psychology Is NOT

simplistic or superficial beliefs
about psychology, and about ways
of applying psychology which are
not based on science, often
popularised by certain
personalities, magazine articles,
television shows, advice columns,
or the like, that influence the
general public

What Psychology Is NOT

Pop Psychology
• Talk shows
• Self-Help Books

What Psychology Is NOT

Pseudoscience using
psychological jargon and
buzzwords without particular
accuracy or relevance, heavily
based on experience instead of
well-known science

What Psychology Is NOT

Pseudoscience (pseudo = false):
promises quick fixes to life’s problems

• “reliving” the supposed
trauma of your birth to resolve
your unhappiness as a child

• “reprogramming” one’s brain
to become more creative at
work

Psychology is more complex, more informative, and far more
helpful as based on rigorous research & empirical evidence
(careful observation, experimentation & measurement)

What Psychology Is NOT

What Psychology Is NOT

Numerology
Astrology
Graphology

Fortune-Telling

What Psychology Is NOT

• Astrologer: choose an Aries
instead of an Aquarius as
your next love to overcome
your romantic problems

• Psychic: romantic problems
due to being jilted in a
former life

• Predictions of psychics,
astrologers are so vague
they are meaningless
(“spirituality will increase
next year”)

• No psychic has ever found
a missing child or serial
killer

What Psychology Is NOT

• Most women suffer from Often psychological
research produces
emotional mood swings due to findings that directly
contradict prevailing
premenstrual syndrome beliefs
• If you play Beethoven to your

infant your child will become

smarter
• Hypnosis can help you

accurately remember your 3rd

birthday

Like scientists in other fields, psychological
researchers strive not only to discover new
phenomena and correct mistaken ideas, but
also deepen our understanding of an already

familiar world (eg., origins of aggression)

What Is Psychology?

The scientific study of behaviour and mental
processes
• Scientific: Precise and careful observation of

humans and animals using the scientific
method
• Behaviour: all overt (evident and observable)
actions & reactions (talking, facial expressions
& movement)
• Mental Processes: all internal, covert (hidden)
activity of our minds (thinking, feeling and
remembering)

The Goals of Psychology

• All sciences have a common goal: to learn how
things work

• The goals of psychology aimed at uncovering
mysteries of human and animal behaviour:
• Describe: What is happening?
• Explain: Why is it happening?
• Predict: When will it happen again?
• Control: How can it be changed?

• Not all psychological research will meet all 4
goals

Psychology’s Forerunners

Plato (428 BC-348 BC):
• theoretical structure of the human mind (intellect,

spiritual centre & desires)
• psyche (mind & soul): the framework of human

behaviour & impulses

Psychology’s Forerunners

Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC):
• Para Psyche (About the Mind): the first known text in

the history of psychology
• Mind: primary reason for the existence and functioning

of the body
• Mind & Reason could exist independently of the body
• Unlike Plato, believer in nurture (human mind blank at

birth, experiences define the formation of the mind
and knowledge-base) – 1st behaviourist

Psychology’s Forerunners

Hippocrates (c. 460 – c. 370)
• Father of Medicine
• Rejected the superstition of priests

and founded a medical school
• Disease results from natural

causes and must be treated by
natural methods
• Physical reasons underlying many
mental ailments (e.g., epilepsy)
• 1st physician: thoughts, ideas, and
feelings come from the brain and
not the heart
• Often prescribed rest, exercise,
diet, music, and association with
friends to restore natural balance

Psychology’s Forerunners

Hippocrates

• The right side of the brain controls the left side of the body
and vice versa

• The Art of Healing: symptoms of melancholia (depression),
mania, postpartum depression, phobias, paranoia and hysteria

• The Nature of Man: 1st theory on temperament. Human
moods, emotions and behaviours caused by excess / lack of
body fluids (humors): blood, yellow bile, black bile, & phlegm

Contribution to Psychology:
• Describing the natural causes of psychological conditions
• Recommending holistic treatments
• Describing behavioural problems
• Formulating long-lasting theories of temperament and

motivation (based on imbalances of humors)

Milestones for Ψ Development

Objective Introspection: Wundt (1832-1920)

• Psychology’s First Laboratory (1879): measuring the
‘atoms of the mind’

• Apply scientific principles to study the human mind
• Consciousness (state of being aware of external

events): thoughts, experiences and other basic
elements
• Objective Introspection: the process of objectively
examining and measuring mental processes resulting
from physical sensations
• First attempt to bring objectivity and measurement
into psychology

Milestones for Ψ Development

Structuralism: Titchener (1867-1927)

• Self-Reflective Introspection: Objective Introspection
used on thoughts, as well as physical sensations

• Structuralism: using introspection to reveal the
structure of the mind

• Introspection waned as unreliable due to variability
of experience, and debate on key elements of
experience

Milestones for Ψ Development

Functionalism: James (1842-1910)
• Harvard: 1st school in US to offer classes in Ψ
• Principles of Psychology textbook (1890)
• Did not believe that scientific study of consciousness was

yet possible
• Interested in importance of consciousness in everyday life
• Functionalism: how the mind allows people to function in

real world – work, play and adapt to surroundings
• Heavily influenced by Darwin’s ideas on natural selection

(physical traits that help an animal adapt to its environment
and survive passed on to offspring)
• Functionalism no longer prevalent approach but influenced
educational & organizational psychology, and behaviorism

Early Ψ Approaches

Gestalt Ψ (Wertheimer, Kohler & Koffka)

• Looks at the human mind and behaviour as a whole
not in parts

• “The whole is other than the sum of its parts”
• Emphasized dynamic nature of visual perception
• Incorporated in cognitive psychology

Early Ψ Approaches

Psychoanalysis: Freud

• Interested in nervous disorders with no physical
causes – must be in the mind

• All threatening urges and desires are repressed in the
unconscious mind - when they try to surface they
create the nervous disorders

• Early childhood experiences are crucial
• Emphasised the ways our unconscious thought

processes and emotional responses to childhood
experiences affect our behaviour
• Freudian psychoanalysis (theory and therapy) basis
of much modern psychotherapy (insight into and
change of behaviour)

Early Ψ Approaches

Behaviourism: Pavlov, Watson, Skinner

• Pavlov (1849 – 1936): conditioning & learning
• Watson & Skinner(1924): scientific study of observable

behaviour
• focus on scientific enquiry
• focus on observable behaviour, not consciousness
• focus of his early work was on phobias
• Behaviourism still a major
psychological approach and
influential to
cognitive psychology

Early Ψ Approaches

Humanism: Rogers & Maslow (1950s)

• Behaviourism and Psychoanalysis too
limiting

• Focus on how environmental influences
can nurture or limit growth potential

• Attention on having human needs of
love and acceptance satisfied

• Humanism today exists as a
form of psychotherapy for
self-understanding and
self-improvement

Contemporary Ψ Approaches

Cognitive: focus on mental processes
(1960s)
• the study of human mental

processes and their role in thinking,
feeling, and behaving
• focus on memory, intelligence,
perception, thought processes,
problem-solving, language and
learning
• Cognitive neuroscience: studies
the brain activity underlying mental
activity (e.g., MRI, PET)

Contemporary Ψ Approaches

• Sociocultural: emphasizes social and cultural
influences on behaviour

• Biological Perspective: emphasizes bodily events and
changes associated with actions, feelings and
thoughts

• Evolutionary Psychology: how are we humans alike
because of our common biology and evolutionary
history

• Behaviour Genetics: how are we diverse because of
our differing genes and environment

• Biopsychological: (integrated approach): considers
the influences of biological, psychological and social-
cultural factors

Ψ Settings & Subfields

Ciccarelli & White, Psychology, 2015

Professionals within the Ψ Field

• Psychiatrist: does work similar to that of a clinical psychologist
but is likely to take a more biological approach; has a medical
degree (M.D.) with a speciality in psychiatry

• Clinical Psychologist: diagnoses, treats and/studies mental and
emotional problems, both mild and severe; has a PhD or a Psy.D.

• Psychoanalyst: practices psychoanalysis; has specific training in
this approach after an advanced degree (M.D. or Ph.D.); may
treat any kind of emotional disorders or pathology

• Psychotherapist: does any kind of psychotherapy; may have
anything from no degree to an advanced professional degree,
term unregulated

• Councillor: may have degrees from counselling programs; deal
with normal life problems; no training in the assessment or
treatment of mental health issues; term not regulated.

Why Ψ for Health Sciences?

• Understand the person – not just the symptom
• Assess the condition in a 360-degree way
• Identify the impact of psychological variables

on treatment
• Communicate effectively with the patient, their

families and their treating team
• Understand importance of critical thinking as a

health professional and researcher
• Develop critical thinking skills
• Enrich research skills