WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY ?Pertemuan 1 s.d 2

Matakuliah : O0072 /Pengantar PsikologiTahun : 2007

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DEFINITION & GOALS OF PSYCHOLOGY

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ARISTOTLE Psyche + Science = Psychology

• Psyche = essence of life translate from Greek = mind breath

• He believed that the psyche escape in the last dying breath that was exhaled

• He believed that one must observe the thing being studied – look at it, listen to it, touch it Aristotle vs Plato (understand = only Thinking about it)

• Logos (Greek) = the study of

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DEFINITION• Psychology is the “study of life”• Psychology is the science of behavior and mental

processes • Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and

the mind– The behavior = actions and responses that we can

directly observe– Mind = Internal states and processes – thoughts and

feelings – can not be seen directly and must be inferred from observable, measurable responses

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GOALS OF PSYCHOLOGY1. TO DESCRIBE how people and other species

behave2. TO PREDICT how people and other species

will behave under certain conditions3. TO UNDERSTAND the causes of these behaviors4. TO INFLUENCE behavior through the control of its

causes5. TO APPLY psychological knowledge in ways that

enhance human welfare

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Psychology & other science

Psychology Scientific study of behavior

and mental processes

BiologyScientific study

of life processesand biological

structures

Computer ScienceScientific study of

information processing andmanipulations

of data

AnthropologyScientific study of cultural origins, evolution and

variations

MedicineScientific study

of health and thecauses andtreatment of

diseases

SociologyScientific study of

human socialrelations and

systems

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VIEWPOINTS IN PSYCHOLOGYAND THEIR ORIGINS

• Nature of Conscious Experience• Functions of the Conscious Mind• Psychometrics• Behaviorism and Social Learning Theory• Neuroscience Perspective• Nature of the “Unconscious Mind”

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• Aristotle – 2.200 years after he lived : Psychology as part of Philosophy

• 17th – 18th : all the sciences start to distinct the subject matter and scientific methods

• 1875, William James : Laboratory at Harvard University, thought the 1st psychology course and in 1890 published an influential early textbook of psychology

• 1879, Wilhelm Wundt : 1st Psychology Laboratory in Leipzig, Germany

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Nature of Conscious ExperienceWhat are you thinking and feeling right now ?

To understand the basic elements of consciousness and how they worked together to create the experience of being alive

• Wunt, Titchener and Structuralism– Wanted to identify the basic elements of conscious experience and

how those elements are organized– Methods : Introspection a method of looking inward at one’s own

conscious experience– Structuralism = the structure of mind through controlled

introspection

• J. Henry Alston– The studies of the sensations of heat and cold - nerve stimulation– Wrote 1st research article published by an African American

Psychologist in a journal of the APA

• Max Wertheimer and Gestalt psychology– Gestalt = whole– Human consciousness could not be meaningfully broken down into

raw elements– Phi Phenomenon = The whole is different from the sum of its parts

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Functions of the Conscious MindsTo understand the value of consciousness to us as species

• William James and Functionalism– Based on Charles Darwin Theory– Thinking, feeling, learning, remembering and other processes of human

consciousness existed only because they helped us survive as a species and adapt to the demands of life

– Learn about conscious awareness, voluntary action (free will), habits and emotions

• Hemann Ebbinghaus & Mary Whiton Calkins and Studies of Memory– Ebbinghaus : Invented a new set of meaningless items “Nonsense

Syllables”– Mary : “paired associates” method

• Cognitive Psychology– All intellectual processes - perceiving, believing, thinking, remembering,

knowing, deciding, etc.– Influenced by Gestalt psychology and Structuralism

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Psychometricsthe measurement (metrics) of mental functions (psycho)

• Albert Binet– Help the Paris Ministry of Education (1890) to choosing

the children to be given advanced academic training and make the decision when the children were still young

– Develop a way to measure Intelligence– Find a set of questions (e.g. arithmetic problems, word

definitions, memory tasks) based on age norm– Stanford - Binet Intelligence scale

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Behaviorism and Social Learning Theory

To study psychological processes that useful in the struggle to survive, emphasis in the importance of learning from experience

• 1890, Ivan Pavlov– Identified a simple form of learning – conditioning (inherited

reflex) comes to be triggered by a stimulus that has nothing to do with the reflex

• 1910 - 1920, John B. Watson & Margaret Floy Washburn– Behaviorism– It was impossible to study private mental processes because only

outward behavior could be measured and scientifically understood

• Albert Bandura & Social Learning Theory– Our behavior are learned from other persons in society

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Neuroscience Perspective

• 1852, Santiago Ramon Y Cajal– Description of Neurons - the cells that make up brain

and nervous system

• Interested in the structures of the brain that play roles in emotion, reasoning, speaking and other psychological processes

• Determine the extent to which our psychological characteristic (e.g. intelligence & emotional stability), are influenced by heredity

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Nature of the “Unconscious Mind”The most important aspect of human psychology is the mental processes that we are

unaware• Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis

– The roots of the psychological problems were innate motives, particularly sexual and aggressive that reside in unconscious part of the mind

• Humanistic Psychology and Unconscious Mind– Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Victor Frankl– Human beings determine their own fates through conscious decision

they make– The most important aspect of people is our view of what we are like

- our SELF CONCEPT– Because of the society, sometimes we push upsetting information

about ourselves into the unconscious, cause 2 problems• Most of us have an inaccurate self concept, because we push out of

consciousness information about ourselves that doesn’t match what society values

• The negative unconscious information sometimes threatens our self concepts and make us anxious

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CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES IN PSYCHOLOGY

• The Sociocultural Perspectives• Evolutionary Psychology• The Positive Psychology Movements

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Human Diversity : The Sociocultural Perspective

• The principles of perception, motivation, learning and personality apply for all human beings

• What makes psychologically different ?• Ethnic Group vs Ethnic Identity• Gender Identity

Social anthropology, Social Learning Theories

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Evolutionary Psychology

• The basic idea : the behavior of animals – including human animals – can be understood in term of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution

• Darwin hypothesized that the variations occur occasionally in the process of reproduction, known to be based on spontaneous change in a gene, known as mutations

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Positive Psychology Movement• Stop focusing only in human problems• What is best about human lives

Martin Seligman, 1990, one of APA presidents

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SPECIALITY AREAS OF MODERN PSYCHOLOGY

• Applied psychologists used knowledge acquired by psychologist in the basic areas and by their own research studies, to solve and prevent significant human problems

• Areas : Clinical psychology, Counseling psychology, Educational and School Psychology, Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Health Psychology

• Psychology vs Psychiatry

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What we know about human behavior ?

1. Human beings are biological creature2. Every person is different, yet much the same3. People can understood fully only in the context of

their culture, ethnic identity and gender identity4. Human lives are continuous process of change5. Behavior is motivated6. Humans are social animals7. People play an active part in creating their

experiences8. Behavior can be adaptive or maladaptive

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TUGAS• Mahasiswa memilih salah satu tokoh dalam Historical

Time Line (yang sudah dijelaskan sebelumnya) dan membuat suatu tulisan yang mencakup – Profile tokoh tersebut– Teori– Penelitian yang pernah dilakukan– Contoh pengaplikasian teori – Kontribusi yang signifikan dari tokoh tersebut dalam ilmu

psikologi• Tugas dibuat secara berkelompok • Dikumpulkan 10.09.07, 7.20 am