A.

Introduction to Psychology

- Psychology comes from the two Latin words “psyche” which means soul or mind and “logos
which means study.

- Psychology deals exclusively with the physiology of the brain and the senses, the functions of
the mind and the manner in which behaviors and mental processes are learned and produced.

- Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. It is the science that deals
with an individual’s sensory, perspective, emotional, cognitive and behavioral processes.

- Psychology is best defined as a science and a study of behavior.

a. Science – is a branch of knowledge or study that deals with a body of facts which is
systematically arranged and shows the operation of general laws.
- gathers facts / truths systematically, organizes them into general principles and
formulate theories.
b. Behavior – is any observable action or reaction of a living creature, and encompasses
anything we say or do through subtle changes in the brain brought about by electrical activity.

B. Objectives of Psychology

 To observe behavior
 To describe behavior
 To understand behavior
 To predict behavior
 To control behavior

C. History of Psychology

 Greek Influences
1. Democritus – believed that the human mind is composed of atoms that circulate
freely and penetrate the whole body through the senses that make us perceive the
world around.
2. Plato – the mind and soul is distinct and God given.
3. Aristotle – distinguished the three functions of the soul into vegetative (for the
maintenance of life), appetitive (concerned with motives and desires) and rational
(governing functions located at the heart).
4. Galen –contributed the theory of the dependence of human temperaments on
physiological factors and name them into sanguine or cheerful, phlegmatic or sluggish,
melancholic or sad and choleric as in irascible.
 Medieval Influences
1. St. Augustine – introduced the method of introspection and distinguished several
faculties of the soul producing the first development of what is now known as faculty
psychology.
 2. St. Thomas Aquinas – combined the notion that the mind is a form of living matter
and the idea of morality.
 Modern Influences
1. René Descartes – formulated a theory on mind and body interaction “cogito ergo
sum”
2. John Locke – composed Essay Concerning Human Understanding which introduced
the idea as the unit into which all experiences may be analyzed “tabula rasa’
3. George Berkeley – introduced the Theory of Knowledge (Solipsistic Philosophy);
claimed that ideas become the only reality.
 Scientific Psychology
1. Wilhelm Wundt – founded the first Psychological Laboratory in Leipzig, Germany in
1879 which gave him the title “Father of Scientific Psychology”
2. Granville Stanley Hall – established the first Psychological Research Laboratory at
John Hopkins University. Pioneered in child study and founded the first Psychological
Journal, The American Journal of Psychology and became the first President of the
American Psychological Association.
3. Edward B. Titchener and James Mckeen Cattell – founded their own psychological
laboratory in Cornel University and University of Pennsylvania.

D. School of Thought

A. Structuralism (Introspective Psychology or Elementarism)

Leaders: Edward Bradford Titchener and William Wundt

Method: Introspection or Mental Self-analysis

Edward Bradford Titchener developed structuralism based on the concepts of his

mentor, Wilhelm Wundt. The followers of Titchener were called structuralists because
they analyzed conscious experiences into its elements namely; sensation, images and
affective states. These elements they called the structures of conscious experience. The
method of study was called introspection, a process of self-observation. In
introspection, the researcher reports his own observation of himself. Many people
questioned the validity and accuracy of the findings because the process is very
subjective. It then paved the way for a new school of thought to emerge.

B. Functionalism

Leaders: John Dewey, William James and Harvey Carr

Method: Objective method and observation

Functionalism emerges toward the middle of 1850’s through the effort of a group of
American Psychologists. Most prominent of whom were William James and John Dewey.
They redefined psychology as the study of the mind as it functions in adapting the
organism to its environment. They studied consciousness as an ongoing process or
 stream instead of reducing it into elements. William James also argued that the proper
subject matter of psychology was the study of the organism functioning as a whole in his
environment. The method used by functionalists was objective observation and little of
introspection.

C. Behaviorism (S-R Psychology)

Leader: John Broadus Watson

Method: Conditioning

While Functionalism was developing and structuralism was on its height, a revolution
against the two was already in the mind of John Broadus Watson. He expressed
dissatisfaction in the methods used. He instead advocated the use of objective
experimental observation. He said the behavior and the behavioral acts are to be
described objectively in terms of stimulus response, habit formation, and habit
integration. Watson took the position that all behavior represents learned responses to
particular environmental stimuli.

Other educators who influenced behaviorism were Edward Lee Thorndlike who used
trial-error learning and Burrhus Frederic Skinner who used rewards and punishments in
shaping a behavior. The behaviorist technique has proven useful in the treatment of
psychological disorders.

D. Gestalt Psychology (Configuration or Holistic Psychology)

Leaders: Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler

Method: Phenomenology

While behaviorism was talking its roots in America, another school of thought emerged
in Germany. This new school questioned the analysis of consciousness r behavior in the
way the structuralists and behaviorists did. Gestalt psychology was developed by Max
Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler and Kurt Koffka. Gestalt is a German word which means
form, shape or configuration. The greatest contributions of Gestalt are in perception
and learning. They emphasized learning by while rather than by parts. The method used
is called phenomenology. Gestalt psychology became useful in teaching-learning
situations.

E. Psychoanalysis

Leader: Sigmund Freud

Method: Free Association

Psychoanalysis is not really a school of psychology because it did not concern itself with
learning, sensation, attention, perception and the other areas that preoccupied the
 previous schools of thought. It developed from the study and treatment of mental
patients suffering from psychological disorders. The methods used were free
association, dream analysis and projective techniques. This movement started in
Vietnam under the leadership of Sigmund Freud, an Austrian physician specializing in
diseases of the nervous system. Psychoanalysis is responsible for the attention given to
unconscious motivation and child development.

F. Purposivism (Hormic Psychology)

Leader: William McDougall

Method: Objective Method

An individual’s behavior cannot be adequately understood without understanding his /

her goals. The secretions of hormones within our body are the ones responsible for the
drives that make it possible to reach our goals.

E. Perspectives in Psychology

An approach is a perspective (i.e. view) that involves certain assumptions (i.e. beliefs) about
human behavior: the way they function, which aspects of them are worthy of study and what
research methods are appropriate for undertaking this study. There may be several different
theories within an approach, but they all share these common assumptions.

You may wonder why there so many different psychology perspectives and whether one
approach is correct and others are wrong. Most psychologists would agree that no one
perspective is correct, although in the past, in the early days of psychology, the behaviorist
would have said their perspective was the only truly scientific one.

Each perspective has its strengths and weaknesses, and brings something different to our
understanding of human behavior. For this reason, it is important that psychology does have
different perspectives on the understanding and study of human and animal behavior.

 Behaviorist Perspective

Behaviorism is different from most other approaches because they view people (and
animals) as controlled by their environment and specifically that we are the result of
what we have learned from our environment. Behaviorism is concerned with how
environmental factors (called stimuli) affect observable behavior (called the response).

The behaviorist approach proposes two main processes whereby people learn from
their environment namely classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical
conditioning involves learning by association, and operant conditioning involves learning
from the consequences of behavior.
 Classical conditioning was studied by the Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov. Through
looking into natural reflexes and neutral stimuli he managed to condition dogs to
salivate to the sound of a bell through repeated associated with the sound of the bell
and food. The principles of classical conditioning have been applied in many therapies.
These include systematic desensitization for phobias (step-by-step exposure to a feared
stimulus at once) and aversion therapy.

B.F. Skinner investigated operant conditioning of voluntary and involuntary behavior.

Skinner felt that some behavior could be explained by the person’s motive. Therefore
behavior occurs for a reason, and the three main behavior shaping techniques are
positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, and punishment.

Behaviorism also believes in scientific methodology (e.g. controlled experiments), and

that only observable behavior should be studies because this can be objectively
measured. Behaviorism rejects the idea that people have free will, and believes that the
environment determines all behavior. Behaviorism is the scientific study of observable
behavior working on the basis that behavior can be reduced to learned S-R (Stimulus-
response) units.

Behaviorism has been criticized in the way it under-estimates the complexity of human
behavior. Many studies used animals which are hard to generalize to humans, and it
cannot explain, for example, the speed in which we pick up language. There must be
biological factors involved.

 Psychodynamic Perspective

Freud believes that events in our childhood can have a significant impact on our
behavior as adults. He also believed that people have little free will to make choices in
life. Instead, our behavior is determined by the unconscious mind and childhood
experiences.

Freud’s psychoanalysis is both a theory and therapy. It is the original psychodynamic

theory and inspired psychologists such as Carl Jung and Erik Erikson to develop their
own psychodynamic theories. Freud’s work is vast, and he has contributed greatly to
psychology as a discipline.

Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, explained the human mind as like an iceberg, with
only a small amount of it being visible, that is our observable behavior, but it is the
unconscious, submerged mind that has the most, underlying influence on our behavior.
Freud used three main methods of accessing the unconscious mind: free association,
dream analysis and slips of the tongue.

He believed that the unconscious that the unconscious mind consisted of three
components: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id contains two main instincts:
“Eros”, which is the life instinct, which involves self-preservation and sex which is fueled
by the ‘libido’ energy force; and “Thanatos”, which is the death instinct, whose energies,
because they are less powerful than those of “Eros” are channeled away from us and
into aggression towards others.

The id and the superego are constantly in conflict with each other; and the ego tries to
resolve the discord. If this conflict is not resolved, we tend to use defense mechanisms
to reduce our anxiety. Psychoanalysis attempts to help patients resolve their inner
conflicts.

An aspect of psychoanalysis is Freud’s theory of psychosexual development. It shows

how early experiences affect adult personality. Stimulation of different areas of the
body is important as the child progresses through the important developmental stages.
Too much or too little can have bad consequences later.

Psychosexual Stages of Development

According to Sigmund Freud, personality is the mostly established by the age of five.
Early experiences play a large role in personality development and continue to influence
behavior later in life. Freud believed that personality develops through a series of
childhood stages during which the pleasure-seeking energies of the id become focused
on certain erogenous areas. The psychosexual energy, or libido (sex drive), was
described as the driving force behind behavior.

According to him from birth on, we have an innate tendency to seek pleasure, especially
through physical stimulation and particularly through stimulation of parts/zones of the
body that are sensitive to touch: the mouth, the anus and the genitals which are
referred to as erogenous zones. Various body zones are active as per the age and stage
or there occur shift of dominant erogenous zone from one age / stage to other.

Fixation – if the child need’s at one of the psychosexual stages were either
unsatisfied or over satisfied, fixation would take place. This means the child would show
continued attachment to an old stage even after moving on to a new one as per his /
her age. This results into problematic behavior patterns

a. Oral Stage (birth to about age 1)

- In this stage the infant obtains sensual pleasure first by sucking and later by biting. The
center of libido is mouth.

- The mouth is vital for eating, and the infant derives pleasure from oral stimulation
through gratifying activities such as tasting and sucking.
- Also the infant is entirely dependent upon caretakers, the infant also develops a sense
of trust and comfort through this oral stimulation.

Helpful:

1. Feeding and contact with the mother.

2. Mouthing new objects.
3. Relief of teething pain by biting.
4. A conflict at this stage occurs with a child being weaned off the mother’s breast.

Signs of Fixation or affects on adult personality in this stage are:

1. Overeating or Pessimism
2. Smoking
3. Envy
4. Gullibility
5. Suspicion
6. Dependency
7. Passivity

b. Anal Stage (Ages 1-3)

- The region around the anus becomes highly sensitive to the stimulation of “holding
on” and “letting go”.

- Freud believed that the primary focus of the libido was on controlling bladder and
bowel movements.

- The major conflict at this stage is toilet training --- the child has to learn to control his
or her bodily needs.

- Developing this control leads to a sense of accomplishment and independence.

- Toilet training is child’s first encounter with authority.

- First part of this stage involves pleasure from expulsion of feces; latter part involves
pleasure from retention.

- Fixation at first stage: messiness and disordered

- Fixation at second stage: excessive compulsiveness, over conformity, exaggerated

self-control
- Parenting plays a very important role in success of the stage and development of
personality.

- Parents who utilize praise and rewards for using the toilet at the appropriate time
encourage positive outcomes and help children feel capable and productive.

- Positive experiences during this stage served as the basis for people to become
competent, productive and creative.

- If parent punish, ridicule or shame a child for accidents or other inappropriate parental
responses can result negative outcomes.

- If parents take an approach that is too lenient, Freud suggested that an anal-expulsive
personality could develop in which the individual is messy, wasteful and destructive.

- If parents are too strict or begin toilet training too early, Freud believed that an anal-
retentive personality develops in which the individual is stringent, orderly, rigid and
obsessive.

c. Phallic Stage (Ages 3-5)

- The child grows more interested in their genitals. At this stage, children also begin to
discover the differences between males and females. In this stage, the focus of libido,
where pleasure is found, is in awareness of sexual organs and love-hate relationship
with the same-sex parent.

- Some critical episodes for development occur during this stage, but these episodes
occur differently for boys (Oedipus complex) and girls (Electra complex).

Signs of Fixation or affects on adult personality in this stage are:

1. Reckless or afraid of love

2. Narcissistic
3. Self-Assured or Selfish
4. Poor opposite Sex Relationships

Oedipus complex

- Occurs in boys
- Desire for stimulation or masturbation of his own genitals
- Have sexual / sensual desires for his mother
- Boys begin to view their fathers as a rival for the mother’s affections. The Oedipus
complex describes these feelings of wanting to possess the mother and the desire to
replace the father.
- The child also fears that he will be punished by the father for these feelings, a fear
Freud termed castration anxiety.
- Starts identification with father (reduces anxiety; behave like his father; take up his
ideas of right and wrong; and tries to dress like his father)

Electra complex

- Occurs in girls
- Attracted towards their father.
- Notice that she does not have the sex organs like her father and brother.
- Feeling of being castrated by her mother which makes her angry and she starts
devaluating her mother.
- Identification with mother in girls being with feeling that by doing so she will stand
better chance in her own “romantic relationship”

d. Latency Stage (Ages 6 to Puberty)

- At this stage, sexual drive lay dormant. The stage begins around the time that children
enter into school and become more concerned with peer relationships, hobbies and
other interests.
- Sexual energy is still present, but it is directed into other areas such as intellectual
pursuits and social interactions.
- Child usually has few opposite sex friends.
- This stage is important in the development of social and communication skills and self-
confidence.
- A sign of fixation in this stage is a lack of close friends.

e. Genital Stage (Adolescence and beyond)

- Marked by puberty
- Mature heterosexual interests appears
- A person becomes interested in dating and marriage
- The more libidal energy that a child has at this stage, the greater his or her capacity will
be to develop normal relationships with the opposite sex.
- If the other stages have been completed successfully, the individual should now be
well-balanced, warm and caring. The goal of this stage is to establish a balance between
the various life areas.

Sign of Fixation in this stage include:

1. Guilt about sexuality

2. Feelings of inadequacy
3. Poor sexual relationships
4. Anxious feelings regarding the opposite sex
 Humanistic Perspective

Humanistic psychology is a psychological perspective that emphasizes the study of the

whole person (known as holism). Humanistic psychologists look at human behavior, not
only through the eyes of the observer but through the eyes of the person doing the
behaving.

Humanistic psychologists believe that an individual’s behavior is connected to his inner

feelings and self-image. The humanistic perspective centers on the view that each
person is unique and individual, and has the free will to change at any time in his or her
lives.

The humanistic perspective suggests that we are each responsible for our own
happiness and well-being as humans. We have the innate (i.e., inborn) capacity for self-
actualization, which is our unique desire to achieve our highest potential as people.

Because of this focus on the person and his or her personal experiences and subjective
perception of the world the humanists regarded scientific methods as inappropriate for
studying behavior.

Two of the most influential and enduring theories in humanistic psychology that
emerged in the 1950s and 1960s are those of Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow.

 Cognitive Perspective

The cognitive perspective is concerned with “mental” functions such as memory,

perception, attention, etc. It views people as being similar to computers in the way we
process information (e.g., input-process-output). For example, both human brains and
computers process information, store data and have input and output procedure.

This has led cognitive psychologists to explain that memory comprises of three stages:
encoding (where information is received and attended to), storage (where the
information is retained) and retrieval (where the information is recalled).

It is an extremely scientific approach and typically uses lab experiments to study human
behavior. The cognitive approach has many applications including cognitive therapy and
eyewitness testimony.

 Biological Perspective

Theorists in the biological perspective who study behavioral genomics consider how
genes affect behavior. Now that the human genome is mapped, perhaps, we will
 someday understand more precisely how behavior is affected by the DNA we inherit.
Biological factors such as chromosomes, hormones and the brain all have a significant
influence on human behavior, for example, gender.

The biological approach believes that most behavior is inherited and has an adaptive (or
evolutionary) function. For example, in the weeks immediately after the birth of a child,
levels pf testosterone in fathers drop by more than 30%. This has an evolutionary
function. Testosterone-deprived men are less likely to wander off in search of new
mates to inseminate. They are also less aggressive, which is useful when there is a baby
around.

Biological psychologists explain behaviors in neurological terms, i.e., the physiology and
structure of the brain and how this influences behavior. Many biological psychologists
have concentrated on abnormal behavior and have tried to explain it. For example,
biological psychologists believe that schizophrenia is affected by levels of dopamine (a
neurotransmitter).

These findings have helped psychiatry take off and help relieve the symptoms of the
mental illness through drugs. However, Freud and other disciplines would argue that
this just treats the symptoms and not the cause. This is where health psychologists take
the finding that biological psychologists produce and look ate the environmental factors
that are involved to get a better picture.

 Evolutionary Perspective

A central claim of evolutionary psychology is that the brain (and therefore the mind)
evolved to solve problems encountered by our hunter-gatherer ancestors during the
upper Pleistocene period over 10,000 years ago.

The evolutionary approach explains behavior in terms of the selective pressures that
shape behavior. Most behaviors that we see / display are believed to have developed
during our EEA (environment of evolutionary adaptation) to help us survive.

Observed behavior is likely to have developed because it is adaptive. It has been

naturally selected, i.e., individuals who are best adapted survive and reproduce.
Behaviors may even be sexually selected, i.e., individuals who are most successful in
gaining access to mates leave behind more offspring.

The mind is therefore equipped with ‘instincts’ that enabled our ancestors to survive
and reproduce.

Strength of this approach is that it can explain behaviors that appear dysfunctional, such
as anorexia, or behaviors that make little sense in a modern context, such as our
biological stress response when finding out we are overdrawn at the bank.
F. Branches of Psychology

 General Psychology – its field presents the basic and fundamental principles of human
behavior.
 Developmental Psychology – it is the study of human development and the factors that
shape behavior from conception to old age.
 Social Psychology – it is the study of how people think about, influence, relate with one
another, and the ways interaction with people influence attitudes and behavior.
 Personality Psychology – it is the study of individual differences.
 Clinical Psychology – it is the study that deals with the evaluation of learning and
emotional problems of individuals in school.
 School and Educational Psychology – it is the study that deals with the evaluation of
learning and emotional problems of individuals in school.
 Counseling Psychology – it is the study that deals with personal problems such as
academic, social or vocational.
 Industrial / Organizational Psychology – it is the study that involves the selection of
people that are suitable for a particular job, development of training programs in an
organization and identifying consumer behavior.
 Engineering / Human Factor Engineering Psychology – it is the study of how people and
machines are related and the ways of improving such relationship.
 Environmental Psychology – it is the study that deals with the relationship of man and
his environment.
 Physiological / Biological Psychology – it is the study that employs the biological
perspective so as to discover the relationships between the biological processes and
behavior.
 Experimental Psychology – it is the study that employs the behavior and cognitive
perspective as well as the experimental method on studying how people react to
sensory stimuli, perceive, learn and respond.
 Forensic Psychology – it is the study that applies psychology to law and legal
proceedings.
 Sports Psychology – it is the study that applies theories and knowledge in psychology to
enhance athletes’ and coaches’ performance.
 Consumer Psychology – it is the study that deals with the activities which are directly
involved in selecting, obtaining and using products, services and ideas to satisfy the
needs and desires of consumers.
 Health Psychology – it is the study of the cognitive, affective, behavioral and
interpersonal factors that affect health and illness.

G. Issues Common to Psychology

1. The dynamic versus the stabilizing aspects of human personality.

2. Human emotion versus logical reasoning.
 3. Free will versus determinism.
4. Nature versus nurture.

H. Methods in Psychology

1. Introspection – a method which allows reporting subjective experiences when

stipulated by appropriate objects or events. From these reports, one can reconstruct the
mental content of the said experience.
2. Observation – a visual method of examining, discriminating and interpreting the actions
of individuals and groups in any given situations.
2.1. Naturalistic – observation which is free, unlimited and undirected – an observation
without interference. It is also known as observation in its natural setting.
2.2. Directed – it is specific and thorough. Specific tools such as questionnaires,
checklists or outlines, series or guides control the scope of the subject matter.
3. Questionnaires, Opinionnaires, Inventories – they consist of questions to be answered
to gather facts and opinions.
4. Testing or Statistical Method – it necessitates a test (teacher-made or standardized)
which is presented to the individual for assessment.
5. Clinical method or the Case-History Method – it is a combination of naturalistic
observation and testing. Data are obtained through interrogation, written record or
diaries, accounts from other persons or through personal observation.
6. Statistical Method – it reduces data into descriptive terms to permit ready
comprehension with less effort. It includes measures of central tendencies, variability,
measures of relationship and indicates probabilities. This method is enhanced by the
use of statistical tables, test scoring machines, computing medians and the likes.
7. Survey Method – it acquires information on behavior through questionnaires, opinion
polls, census and ratings and includes the following:
7.1. Observation
7.2. Classification of facts through sampling
7.3. Verification
7.4. Generalization or formulation of principles or laws