General psychology
HONDOUT FOR THE COURSE GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY (Psyc1011)
CHAPTER ONE: ESSENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY
1.1. Definition of Psychology and Related Concepts
The word "psychology" is derived from two Greek words 'psyche' and ‗logos‟. Psyche
refers to mind, soul or sprit while logos means study, knowledge or discourse. Therefore,
by combining the two Greek words the term "psychology" epistemologically refers to the
study of the mind, soul, or sprit and it is often represented by the Greek letter ᴪ (psi)
which is read as ("sy"). Psychologists define psychology differently based on their
intentions, research findings, and background experiences. Nowadays, most of them
agree on the following scientific definition of Psychology is the scientific study of human
behavior and the underlying mental processes.
In the above definition, there are three aspects; science, behavior and mental processes:
Science: psychology uses scientific methods to study behavior and mental processes in
both humans and animals. This means psychologists do not study behavior with
commonsense rather they follow scientific procedures and use empirical data to study
behavior and mental processes.
Behavior: refers to all of our outward or overt actions and reactions, such as talking,
facial expressions, movement, etc. There is also covert behavior which is hidden, non-
observable and generally considered as a mental process
Mental processes: refer to all the internal, covert activities of our minds, such as
thinking, feeling, remembering, etc.
1.2. Goals of Psychology
As a science, psychology has four goals; description, explanation, prediction, and
control.
Description: Description involves observing the behavior and noticing everything about
it. It is a search for answers for questions like questions
What is happening?
Where does it happen?
To whom does it happen?
And under what circumstances does it seem to happen?
Example, a teacher might notice that a young freshman girl in his/her general psychology
classroom is behaving oddly. She is not turning to her homework, her results are slipping badly,
and she seems to have a very negative attitude toward the course.
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Explanation: Why is it happening? Explanation is about trying to find reasons for the
observed behavior. This helps in the process of forming theories of behavior (A theory is
a general explanation of a set of observations or facts). For instance, in the above
example, to find out why the girl is doing all those things, the teacher would most likely
ask her parents about her home background, her friends and the like and may come to an
understanding that this girl was behaving the way she did because she was given attention
(in a way reward) by other people when she used to behave oddly.
Prediction: prediction is about determining what will happen in the future. In the above
example, the case of the freshman girl, the psychologist or counselor would predict
(based on previous research into similar situations) that this girl may never be able to
reach her full learning potential.
Control: How can it be changed? Control or modify or change the behavior from
undesirable one (such as failing in school) to a desirable one (such as academic success).
In the example above, certain learning strategies can be used to help the girl so that she
will be successful in her academic endeavor.
Control can also be used in the sense that a psychologist tries to check out the effects of
certain undesirable factors in examining the relationship between two or more behaviors.
For example, in studying the relationship between intelligence and academic performance
in freshman courses, a psychologist needs to control the effect of socio-economic status
of the family.
1.3.1. The schools of thought in psychology
1.3.1.1 Early (old) schools of psychology
A school of thought is a system of thinking about a certain issue, for example, about human behavior or
mind.
Human behavior is all the result of interaction with the environment.
There are five such early schools of psychology.
Structuralism- structuralism views psychology as a study of structure of mind.
Titchener is the founder of structuralism.
The goal of structuralisms was to find out the units or elements, which make up the mind such as;
sensations, images, and feelings. The best-known method used by them was introspection -looking
inward into our consciousness. It is a procedure aimed at analyzing the mental experience into three basic
mental elements: images, feelings, and sensations.
Analyzing mental structure alone was found to serve little purpose in helping humans deal with the
environment. Hence, a new school of thought emerged to study this functional value of human mind-
functionalism.
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Functionalism- functionalism views psychology as a study of function of the mind. The
founder of this school of thought is William James (1848-1910), who was the first American
psychologist and the author of the first psychology textbook. Unlike Wundt and Titchener, James
focused on how the mind allows people to function in the real world; how people work, play, and
adapt to their surroundings, a viewpoint he called functionalism. He developed many research
methods other than introspection including questionnaires, mental tests and objective descriptions
of behavior. Generally, according to functionalists, psychological processes are adaptive. They
allow humans to survive and to adapt successfully to their surroundings.
Examining human mind in terms of its structural elements and functions were, however, found to be
simplistic to understand the complex human being. It was believed that human mind is more than the sum
of sensations as well as adaptive functions. Hence, a new school of thought was emerged to examine
mind in a holistic Manner-Gestalt Psychology.
Gestalt psychology: Gestalt psychology views psychology as a study of the whole mind.
Max Wertheimer and his colleagues founded this school of thought in Germany in the 20th
century. Gestalt psychologists argued that the mind is not made up of combinations of elements.
The German word "gestalt" refers to form, whole, configuration or pattern. According to them,
the mind should be thought of as a result of the whole pattern of sensory activity and the
relationships and organizations within their pattern. In brief, the gestalt psychologists
acknowledge consciousness. They held that "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Means
mind is greater than its parts (images, sensations, and feelings).
Generally, what is common to all the three schools of though is the fact that they all try to examine the
human mind; which is an internal, no-visible, and hidden experience of human beings. Although it could
be useful to understand this experience, it was believed that this subjective, private experience can ‘t be
observable, measurable, and hence can ‘t be studied scientifically. Hence, for psychology to become
scientific, it needs to get rid of dealing with subjectivity in all its forms and rather focus on studying
behavior. This has led to the birth of a new paradigm of thought about psychology called behaviorism.
Behaviorism: Behaviorists view psychology as a study of observable and measurable
behaviors. John B. Watson is the founder of behaviorism. Other proponents include E.
Thorndike and F. Skinner. For Watson, psychology was the study of observable and measurable
behavior and nothing more about hidden mental processes. According to Watson, we cannot
define consciousness any better than we can define the soul; we cannot locate it or measure it and,
therefore, it cannot be the object of scientific study.
As to Watson, behaviorism had three other important characteristics in addition to its focus on behavior;
conditioned response as the elements or building blocks of behavior, learned rather than unlearned
behaviors, and focus on animal behavior. He believed that all behaviors are learned but not inherited and
learners are passive and reactive (they are not initiating their learning but they respond when the
environment stimulates them).
All the four schools of thought discussed so far were focusing on human mind and behavior as conscious
experiences. But, an opposition to this assertion came from a physician in Vienna who, after working with
so many patients, realized that human functioning was basically explained by more powerful forces which
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were not accessible to our consciousness. Hence, this lead to the formulation of a new school of thought
in psychology called Psychoanalysis.
Psychoanalysis: psychology studies about the components of the unconscious part of the
human mind.
Freud argued that conscious awareness is the tip of the mental iceberg beneath the visible tip lays the
unconscious part of the mind. The unconscious which is the subject matter of psychoanalysis contains
hidden wishes, passions, guilty secrets, unspeakable yearnings, and conflict between desire and duty. We
are not aware of our unconscious urges and thoughts, and they make themselves known in dreams, slip of
the tongue, apparent accidents and even jokes. He used clinical case studies (hypnosis and Dream
analysis) as a method.
These schools of thought or perspective basically differ in terms of three issues: object, goal, and
methods of study:
In their object of study, i.e. what they studied (conscious mind, unconscious mind, and overt behavior).
In their goal (analyze the components of the mind or observing the effect of the environment on
behavior).
In their method (Introspection, observation, clinical case studies, etc...).
So, in the light of these three issues, now you compare and contrast the five schools of early psychology.
1.3.1.2. Modern schools of psychology
Modern psychologists tend to examine human behavior through several views (lenses) or perspectives.
The views or perspectives that predominate today are psychodynamic, behavioral, humanistic,
cognitive, biological, and sociocultural perspectives. These views reflect different questions about
human behavior, different assumptions about how the mind works, and different kinds of explanations
why people do and what they do. The schools are presented below.
Psychodynamic Perspective-
It has its origins in Freud's theory of psychoanalysis, but many other psychodynamic theories
exist.
This perspective emphasizes the unconscious dynamics within the individual such as inner forces,
conflicts or instinctual energy.
The psychodynamic approach emphasizes:
The influence of unconscious mental behavior on everyday behavior
The role of childhood experiences in shaping adult personality
The role of intrapersonal conflict in determining human behavior
Psychodynamic perspective tries to dig below the surface of a person's behavior to get into
unconscious motives;
psychodynamics thinks of themselves as archaeologists of the mind.
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Behavioral Perspective-
It emphasizes the role learning experiences play in shaping the behavior of an organism.
It is concerned with how the environment affects the person ‘s actions.
Behaviorists focus on environmental conditions (e.g. rewards, and punishments) that maintain or
discourage specific behaviors.
The behavioral perspective is sometimes called the "black box" approach in psychology because
it treats the mind as less useful in understanding human behavior and focus on what goes in to
and out of the box, but not on the processes that take place inside
This means, behaviorists are only interested in the effects of the environment (input) on behavior
(output) but not in the process inside the box.
Humanistic Perspective-
According to this perspective,
Human behavior is not determined either by unconscious dynamics or the environment.
It emphasizes the uniqueness of human beings and focuses on human values and subjective
experiences.
This perspective places greater importance on the individual ‘s free will.
The goal of humanistic psychology was helping people to express themselves creatively and
achieve their full potential or self-actualization (developing the human potential to its fullest).
Cognitive Perspective-
It emphasizes what goes on in people's heads; how people reason, remember, understand
language, solve problems, explain experiences and form beliefs.
This perspective is concerned about the mental processes.
The most important contribution of this perspective has been to show how people's thoughts and
explanations affect their actions, feelings, and choices.
Techniques used to explore behavior from a cognitive perspective include electrical recording of
brain activity, electrical stimulation and radioactive tracing of metabolic activity in the nervous
system.
Biological Perspective
It focuses on studying how bodily events or functioning of the body affects behavior, feelings,
and thoughts.
It holds that the brain and the various brain chemicals affect psychological processes such as
learning, performance, perception of reality, the experience of emotions, etc.
This perspective underscores that biology and behavior interact in a complex way; biology
affecting behavior and behavior in turn affecting biology.
It also emphasizes the idea that we are physical beings who evolved over a long time and that
genetic heritage can predispose us to behaving in a certain way.
For example, our eyebrows evolved to protect our eyes, we may have evolved certain kinds of
behavior patterns to protect our bodies and ensure the survival of our species.
Socio-cultural Perspective
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It focuses on the social and cultural factors that affects human behavior.
As a fish cannot leave without water, human behavior cannot be understood without
sociocultural context (the social and cultural environment) that people "Swim" in every day.
For instance, social psychologists examine how group membership affects attitudes and
behaviors, why authority and other people (like spouse, lovers, friends, bosses, parents, and
strangers) affect each of us.
Cultural psychologists also examine how cultural rules and values (both explicit and unspoken)
affect people's development, behavior, and feelings.
This perspective holds that humans are both the products and the producers of culture, and our
behavior always occurs in some cultural contexts.
1.4. Research Methods in Psychology
A. Definition of terms
Scientific method - a process of testing ideas through systematic observations, experimentations, and
statistical analysis.
Theory - is an integrated set of principles about observed facts that is intended to describe and explain
some aspects of experience.
Hypotheses - is a tentative proposition about the relationship between two or more variables or
phenomena. E.g. Males have high self - confidence in making decisions than females.
B. Major types of research methods
Three major types of research methods: descriptive, correlational and experimental research methods.
1.Descriptive research
in this type of research, the researcher simply records what she/he has systematically observed.
Descriptive research methods include naturalistic observation, case studies, and surveys.
1.1. Naturalistic observation: is a descriptive research method in which subjects are observed in their
natural environment to get a real (not artificial) picture of how behavior occurs.
Limitations of naturalistic observation are observer effect (animals or people who know they are being
watched may behave artificially) and observer bias (the researcher may not observe systematically or
he/she may observe behaviors he/she wants to observe and ignores others).
1. 2. Case study: is a descriptive technique in which an individual is studied in great detail.
Its advantage is that it provides tremendous amount of data about a single case or individual.
The disadvantage of case study is that the researchers can not apply the results to other similar people,
which means what researchers find in one case can not necessarily apply or generalize to others.
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1. 3. Survey: is a descriptive research method used to collect data from a very large group of people.
It is useful to get information on private (covert) behaviors and it addresses hundreds of people with the
same questions at the same time.
Its disadvantage is that it needs a careful selection of a representative sample of the actual population.
2.Correlational research
It is a research method that measures the relationship between two or more variables. A variable is
anything that can change or vary -scores on a test, the temperature in a room, gender, and so on. For
example, a researcher might be curious to know whether or not cigarette smoking is connected to life
expectancy.
Though correlation tells researchers if there is a relationship between variables, how strong the
relationship is, and in what direction the relationship goes, it does not prove causation (which means it
does not show the cause and effect relationship). This means, for example, that if there is a relationship
between smoking and lung cancer, this does not mean that smoking causes lung cancer.
3.Experimental Research
it is a research method that allows researchers to study the cause and effect relationship between
variables. In experimental research, a carefully regulated procedure in which one or more factors believed
to influence the behavior being studied are manipulated and all other factors are held constant.
Experiments involve at least one independent variable and one dependent variable. The independent
variable is the manipulated, influential, experimental factor. The dependent variable is the factor
(behavior) that is measured in an experiment. It can change as the independent variable is manipulated.
For example, a researcher may need to know whether or not class size has an effect on students ‘academic
performance and hypothesizes as-do students in small class size have better academic performance than
students in large class size?
In this question, the researcher has two variables: class size, which is the independent variable to be
manipulated and students‟ performance which is the dependent variable to be measured while class size is
changed.
Experiments also involve randomly assigned experimental groups and control groups. An experimental
group is a group whose experience is manipulated. In our example, the experimental group is students
who are assigned in small class sizes. A control group is a comparison that is treated in every way like the
experimental group except for the manipulated factor (class size). The control group serves as a baseline
against which the effects of the manipulated condition can be compared. In this example, the control
group is the group of students who are assigned in large class sizes.
Although experimental research is useful to discover causes of behaviors, such research must be done
cautiously because expectations and biases on the part of both the researcher and participants can affect
the results.
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C. Steps of scientific research
Step one - Defining the Problem - noticing something attention catching in the surrounding for which
one would like to have an explanation. For example, you may notice that children seem to get a little
more aggressive with each other after watching practically violent children ‘s cartoon videos. You wonder
if the violence in the cartoon video could be creating aggressive behavior on the children. Hence, you
may raise a research problem focusing on the effect of aggressive videos on children ‘s behavior.
Step two - Formulating the Hypothesis -Hypothesis is an educated guess about your observation.
After having an observation on surroundings (perceiving the problem), you might form an educated guess
about the explanation for your observations, putting it into the form of a statement that can be tested in
some way. For our example above, you might formulate a hypothesis -children who watch violent
cartoons will become more aggressive than those who watch non-violent cartoons‖.
Step three - Testing the Hypothesis - at this step, the researcher employs appropriate research
methods and collects ample data (information) to accept or reject the proposed statement. For instance, in
the above example, the data will be gathered from children who watch aggressive videos and from those
who do not watch aggressive videos and make comparisons between the behaviors of the two groups to
determine whether watching aggressive video makes children more aggressive.
Step four - Drawing Conclusions - this is the step in which the researcher attempts to make
generalizations or draw implications from tested relationship.
Step five - Reporting Results - at this point, the researcher would want to write up exactly what
she/he did, why she/he did, and what she/he found. So that, others can learn from what she/he has already
accomplished, or failed to accomplish. This allows others to predict and modify behavior based on the
findings.
