first sem I chapter assignment

An Introduction to Psychology


The root of the Psychology can be traced to the great Philosophers of the ancient Greece. The most famous among them were Socrates, Plato and Aristotle who posed question about mental life. Plato considered mind as an ‘inner man’. Aristotle through his book “peri psyche” said it is the mind which controls body processes.
Psychology comes from the Greek words “psyche” means soul and “logos” means study, which therefore means study of soul. But this definition had its own drawbacks, as the concept of the soul was abstract and metaphysical in nature, therefore this definition was discarded and re- defined as study of mind. This definition remained until the last century when they considered as vague and metaphysical in nature.
But with the beginning of the scientific psychology all these definitions gave away and thanks to the contribution of Wilhelm Wundt who established a first psychological laboratory at the university of Leipzig in Germany in 1879. Wundt believed that mind and behavior like planets and chemicals or human organs could be subjected to scientific analysis.
At present psychology is defined as the s scientific study of behavior and mental process. Like the all other sciences psychology too have its own subject matter. Psychology touches on many aspects of our lives and influences law and public policy. The scope of psychology is broad, covering topics such as face recognition, social judgments, memory obesity, violence and many more.
From the late 1800’s until the 1930’s psychologists were divided about what they should study and how they should study it. At this point of time major schools of thoughts were developed. These are structuralism, behaviorism, functionalism, gestalt school of psychology and psycho analysis.


The Schools of Psychology

Structuralism:

This school of thought in psychology grew out of work of Wilhelm Wundt and his other associates. But it is E.B Titchener, the student of Wundt introduced the term structuralism- the analysis of mental structures- to describe this branch of psychology. These psychologist believed that the chief purpose of psychology was to describe, analyze and explain conscience experiences particularly feelings and sensations. They believed that the experience of individual can be broken into basic elements such as sight, taste etc. they attempted to give a scientific analysis of conscious experience by breaking it into specific components or structure. For ex, they identified four basic skin sensation: warmth, cold, pain and pressure. They analyzed the sensation of wetness as the combined experience of cold and smoothness. The structuralist primarily used the method of research called introspection in this subjects were trained to observe and report as accurately as they could, their mental processes, feelings and experiences.
We cannot experience and record simultaneously therefore every experience cannot be broken down and cannot be explained. The main focus of this structuralism was the structure of the mind. Though this school had its own contribution to psychology it died with Wilhelm Wundt.

Functionalism:

Structuralism was opposed by William James, a distinguished psychologists at the university of Harvard who felt that analyzing the elements of consciousness, was less important than understanding its fluid, personal nature. His approach was known as functionalism. Studying how the mind works to enable an organism to adapt to and function its environment. William James’ landmark book “principles of psychology” (1890) became a standard reading for generations of psychologists and is the most influential texts in the history of psychology. James’ thinking illustrates how psychology, like any field is deeply embedded in a network of culture and intellectual influences. According to functionalists studying consciousness is like studying the wind because it is in flow and it is always changing. They focused on how people play, walk and adapt their surroundings. James has been impressed with Charles Darwin’s (1859-1871) concept of natural selection. According to the principles of natural selection heritable characteristics to be passed on to the subsequent generations and thus come to be selected over time. This corner stone notion of Darwin’s Evolutionary theory suggested the typical characteristics of a species. Hence he contended that psychology should investigate the functions rather than the structure of consciousness.
James also argued that the structuralists approach missed the real nature of conscious experience. Whereas structuralist naturally gravitable to the laboratory, the functionalist were more interested in how people adapt their behavior of the real world around them. Instead of focusing on sensation and perception. The functionalist such as Mc Keen Cattell and John Dewey begun to investigate mental testing, patterns of development in children, the effectiveness educational practices and behavioral differences between the sexes.

Behaviorism:

This was introduced in 1930 by John B Watson, an American psychologist. Watson and his followers believed that observable and not inner experiences was the only reliable source of information. This concentration on observable was a reaction against the structuralists emphasis on introspection. The behaviorist also stressed the importance of environment in shaping the individuals behavior. They chiefly looked for an connection between observable behavior and stimuli from environment.
The behaviorist movement was greatly influenced by the work of Russian psychologists Ivan Pavlov. In a famous study , he rang a bell each time when a gave a dog some food. The dog’ s mouth would water when the animal smelled the food. After he repeated the procedure many times, the dogs saliva begun to flow whenever dog heard the bell, even if no food appeared. This experiment demonstrated that a reflex such as flow of saliva can become associated with the stimulus other than the one that the first produced it-in this case the sound of bell instead of smell of food. The learning process by which response become associated with a new stimulus is called conditioning.
Watson and other behaviorist realized that human behavior could also be changed by conditioning . intact Watson believed he could produce almost any response by controlling an individuals environment. Any behavior that is re-inforced becomes a habit. Organisms behave in a particular way because of the re-inforcement of their early behavior, which tend to occur again in the future.
Behaviorist tended to discuss psychological phenomena in terms of stimuli and responses, giving rise to the term stimulus –response (S-R) psychology. Not however that S.R psychology in itself is not a theory or perspective but a set of terms that can be used communicate psychological information. S R terminology is still sometimes used in psychology.

Gestalt Psychology:

About 1912at the same time that behaviorism was catching on in the United State, Gestalt psychology was appearing in Germany. Gestalt is a German word meaning “form” or configuration which is referred to the approach taken by Max Worthmier and his colleagues Curt Koffka and Wolfging Kolher, all of whom eventually emigrated to the United States. Gestalt psychology believed the human being s and other animals perceive external world as an organized pattern and as an individual sensation. The Gestalt psychologist point out an example-a film consists of thousands of individuals still pictures, but we see what looks like smooth continuous movement. They believed that behavior should be studied as an organized pattern rather than a separate incidents of stimulus and response. The familiar saying the whole is greater than some of its parts. But expressed an important principles of Gestalt movement.
Among the key interests Gestalt psychology were the perception of motion, how people judge size, and the appearance of color under changes in illumination. These interests lead them to a number of perception centered interpretation of learning, memory, problem solving that helped to lay the ground work for current research in cognitive psychology.
The Gestalt psychologists also influenced the key founders of modern psychology- including Kurt Luwin, Solomon Asch and Firtiz who explained Gestalt principles to understand interpersonal phenomena. For instances, Asch extended gestalt notion that people whole rather than some of its parts from the simple objective perception to the more complex case of personnel perception . they also saw the process of imposing meaning and structure on incoming stimuli as automatic and outside conscious awareness, a gestalt view that continuous to infuse contemporary research on social cognition till the date.



Psycho-analysis:

Psycho analysis is both a theory of personality and method of psycho therapy originated by Sigmund Freud around the turn of 20th century. In his medical practice Freud treated people troubled by psychological problems such as irrational fears, obsession and anxieties with an innovative procedure called psychoanalysis.
At the center of Freud’s theory is the concept of unconsciousness- the thoughts, attitudes, impulses, wishes, motivations and emotions of which we are unaware. Freud believed that childhood’s unacceptable (forbidden or punished) wishes are driven out of conscious awareness and become the part of the awareness where they continue to influence our thoughts, feelings and actions. Unconscious thoughts are expressed in dreams, slips of the tongue and physical mannerism. During the therapy with patients Freud used the method of free associations in which the patient was instructed to say whatever comes to his mind as a way of bringing unconscious wishes in awareness. The analysis of dreams served the same purpose. Freud created a therapy called psycho analytic therapy where he gave an insight to the problems of individuals and emphasizes the recovery of unconscious conflicts, motives and defenses through techniques of the above said free association and transference.
In classical Freudian theory, the motivations behind unconscious wishes almost always involved sex or aggression. For this reason, Freud’s theory was not widely accepted when it was first proposed. Even if Freud’s theory is not accepted in its entirety, but they tend to agree that peoples ideas, goals and motives can at time operate outside conscious awareness.

Conclusion:

All the above said schools of psychology have contributed in its own way to the development of the scientific psychology. Both structuralists and functionalists regarded psychology as the science of conscious experience whereby it helped in guiding individuals activities. The behaviorists psychology believed all behavior is a result of conditioning and environment shapes behavior by reinforcing specific habits. Both Gestalt psychology and Sigmund Freud’s psycho analysis had its great impact on the individuals and the great minds of the time.
Submitted by:(I B.A)

Jobin
Bimol
Deepika
Ashwida
Meera

Submitted to:

Mrs. Shalini Ayyappa
(Department of Psychology)


Bibliography:

1.Wayne Weiten, Psychological Themes and Variations, 6th Editions.

2.Edward E Smith and Barbara Fredrickson, Introduction to Psychology, 14th edition, Published by Thomson Learning, 2006