PSYC1001 – Notes
Introduction & Psych Perspectives
What is Psychology? Psychology is the scientific investigation of mental (thinking, remembering and feeling) and behaviour. Understanding a person requires attention to the individual’s biology, psychological experience and cultural context.
Behaviour – Overt (observable) actions; Physiological correlates of actions
Mental Processes – Thoughts (memories, imagery, concepts); Emotions (fear, happiness, anger, arousal); interactions between the two (e.g. decision making)
Graduate Attributes:
o Knowledge and understanding of psychology, including major concepts, theoretical perspectives, empirical findings and historical trends
o Appreciation, application and evaluation of basic research methods in psychology.
o Critical thinking skills in psychology, including use of the scientific approach to solve problems.
o Values in psychology, including; the ethical use of information, appreciation of cultural diversity; and the value of empirical evidence.
o Effective communication skills in psychology across a variety of contexts and formats
o Appreciation of the application of psychological principles to personal, social and organizational issues.
Psychological Perspectives
Aims:
§ The Scientific approach in Psychology
§ A brief history of scientific Psychology
§ How Psychology is taught
§ Relationship between Psychology and other disciplines
§ Provide a framework for you to think about psychology
§ Preview some of the topics and theme you will study in the course.
Goals of Scientific Psychology
What?
Description of behaviour using careful observations
When?
Prediction allows for specification of the conditions under which a behaviour will or will not occur
Why?
Explanation, identifying the causes of behaviour
Change?
Facilitating changes in behaviour
Clichés
1. Birds of a feather flock together OR opposite attract
2. Absence makes the heart grow fonder OR out of sight out of mind.
These clichés can be used post hoc to explain most behaviour therefore out commonsense is unfalsifiable (not capable of being proved false).
Science / Common SenseObjective data collection / Subjective data collection
Systematic observation / Hit or miss observation
Reliance on evidence / Ignores counterevidence
(Science vs. Common Sense)
Brief History of Psychology
o Psychology emerged in part from philosophy. Many issues at the heart of contemporary psychological research and controversy are classic philosophical questions.
o Psychology is defined as an empirical science. (Based on or concerned with observations and experience rather than theory and pure logic.)
o Early assumptions were that the goal of Psychology was to understand the structure and contents of the mind.
Wilhelm Wundt – Father of Psychology
· He hoped to use scientific methods to uncover the elementary units of human consciousness that combine to form more complex ideas,
· Introspection – the process of looking inward and reporting on ones conscious experience.
· He trained observers to report on their experiences under different experimental conditions e.g. when presented with a stimulus or task.
· However this failed because peoples self reports were unreliable.
Structuralism & Functionalism
· Edward Titchener (1867 – 1927) advocated the use of introspection in experiments with the hope of devising a periodic table of elements of human consciousness. Due to his interest in studying the structure of consciousness, the school of thought initiated was knows an as structuralism.
· Functionalism focuses on the function of psychological processes in helping individuals adapt to their environment – by William James.
· E.g. attention serves to highlight and focus analysis on certain stimuli
· Consistent with evolutionary framework
· Functionalism focuses on identifying the rules or steps by which a particular task is achieved, not on the underlying mechanism.
· The philosopher Jerry Fodor has argued that the task could then be implemented on any information-processing system, such as a computer or an alien’s nervous system.
Paradigm – is a broad system of theoretical assumption that a scientific community uses to make sense of its domain of study, that includes shared models, metaphors and methods. Psychology lacks a unified paradigm but has a number of schools of thought or perspectives that can be used to understand psychological effects.
Psychodynamic perspectives – proposes that people’s actions reflect the way thoughts, feelings and wishes are associated in their minds; that many of these processes are unconscious; ad that mental processes can conflict with one another, leading to compromises among competing motives. Although their primary methods has been the analysis of case studies, reflecting the goal of interpreting the meanings hypothesized to underlie people’s actions, psychodynamic psychologists are increasingly making use of experimental methods to try to integrate psychodynamic thinking with scientific psychology.
Behaviorism – focuses on the learning and studies the way environmental events control behaviour. Behaviourists reject the concept of mind, viewing mental evens as the contents of a black box that cannot be known or studied scientifically. Scientific knowledge comes from using experimental methods to study the relationship between environmental events and behaviour.
§ It was one of the early challenges to introspection
§ They argues that subjective experience could not be verified by an objective observer
§ Only the study of observable behaviour qualified as scientific
§ Highly successful approach
§ There are 2 variants:
o Radical Behaviourism – which says that only the study of observable behaviour is qualified as scientific & that “internal states” are unobservable and therefore not a part of scientific Psychology. (B.F Skinner, John Watson)
o Methodological Behaviourism – says that it is acceptable to study “Internal States”(thoughts and emotions) as long as these can be linked to observable behaviours & it is still the approach the underlies much of the modern Cognitive Psychology and Associative Learning.
Psychoanalysis – is another idea that challenged introspection. Freud argued that many important psychological events are unconscious. Although the details of Freud’s theory have not been supported, the idea that many psychological processes proceed without full conscious awareness is well established.
Humanistic Perspective – emphasized the uniqueness of the individual and focuses on the person immediate experience, According to this perspective, people are motivated to achieve personal goals so they can fulfill their true potential. As a result, humanistic methods typically focus on helping individuals to understand their own unique frame of reference and work towards achieving self-actualization, defined as the fulfillment of the whole range needs.
The Cognitive perspective – focuses in the way people process, store and retrieve information. Information processing refers to taking input from the environment and transforming it into meaningful output. A metaphor underlying the cognitive perspective is the mind as a computer, complete with software. In recent years, however, many cognitive psychologists have used the brain itself as a metaphor for the way mental processes operate. The primary method of the cognitive perspective is experimental.
The Evolutionary perspective – argues that many human behavioural proclivities exist because they helped out ancestors survive and produce offspring that would be more likely to survive. Natural selection is the mechanism by which natural forces select traits in organisms that are adaptive in their environmental niche. The basic notion of evolutionary theory is that evolution selects organisms that maxmise their reproductive success, defined as the capacity and reproduce, and maxmise the reproductive success of genetically related individuals. The primary methods are deductive and comparative, although evolutionary psychologists are increasing replying on experimental methods.
Psychology and the Brain
o Psychological processes depend on the physical activity in the brain. So we could sidestep the study of behaviour and mental events, and focus instead on neurons and neurotransmitters? No.
o Level of analysis
§ Political, economic patterns
§ Group behaviours
§ Behaviour of individuals
§ Neural events
§ Molecular analysis
§ Subatomic analysis
o No amount of staring down at a microscope or measuring neural activity would reveal a psychological process such as emotion or memory that we didn’t already know about. But if we have a psychological process defined, we can examine brain activity while we manipulate that process.
o The better our functional understanding of the psychological process, the better we can identify he neural mechanisms responsible for the various steps in that process.
o Neuroscience is an important aspect of [psychology but it doesn’t replace it.
Psychology as a natural science
§ Empirical – based on systematic observation
§ Experiments – manipulate one variable to observe the effect on another
§ Analysis – examine data to determine conclusions that can be drawn
§ Theory – Used to generate predictions and summarise existing knowledge.
§ Public – Results are subject to Review by others.
Study of Psychology will tell you about:
· Principles of behaviour that are supported by evidence
· Our current understanding of the mechanisms underlying normal and dysfunctional behaviours.
· How to do research into behaviours and experience.
· Practical and effective methods for promoting desirable behaviours and reducing distress.
Future/Careers
Fields:
- Clinical
- Organisational
- Health
- Education
- Forensic
- Human Factors
- Sport
Clinical Psychology – concerned with diagnosis, assessment – how bad that disorder is and how it is affecting them.
Clinical Psychology – Psychopathology – Normal Psychology are all closely connected.
Treatments and diagnosis – Clinical
Middle ages: Exorcism used to drive out evil forces within afflicted individuals.
Biological approach:
Early traditions – Hippocrates humoral theory – thought if u didn’t have the right balance in your body then you would be disturbed e.g. needs therapy like bleeded out by leeches.
Drug therapies – Antipsychotics, Antidepressants, Lithium: is for people with bipolar disorder, Anxiolytics: treat anxiety disorder.
Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) – is seen to reduce severe depression but is only used as a last resort. In some cases it improves their mood and depression. Side effects of short-term memory loss can also be seen.
Psychosurgery – Irreversible and drastic. It is very rare today. Used for OCD. Make cut in brain to improve the symptoms.
PSYCHOLOGICAL TREATMENT APPROACHES:
o Reflect underlying assumptions about causation:
§ Psychoanalytic (unconscious conflict e.g. fear towards father) – getting people to explore their thoughts so these issues come to the surface.
§ Behavioural (learned response to stimuli e.g. dog)
§ Cognitive (thinking influences emotions and behaviour – focuses more on thoughts rather than the behaviour with the thoughts being the key issues that need to be challenged)
§ Cognitive/behavioural – usually come together.
Behaviour therapy:
§ Reaction against psychoanalysis – not focus on mystical theories, lets focus on what we can see and measure.
§ Ultimate aim: change overt, observable maladaptive behaviour.
§ Take the presenting problem seriously – a phobia is a phobia vs. caused by deep intrapsychic conflict.
§ Specific, clearly defined goals
§ Time limited, directive
§ Therapist/client relationship not sufficient – says that if u can take to your therapist openly then you defiantly will get better. This is incorrect, as you need to actually go out and fix it. Yes having a good relationship helps but is not the sole basis of fixing the problem.
§ Empirical research based and evaluated
§ Strong evidence for its efficacy
Aaron Beck
- Ultimate goal of CT is the development of adaptive thoughts pattern. He was sitting with a patient and found out that maybe the problem lies with the thought.
There are three main approaches in cognitive therapy
o Collaborative Empiricism – where the therapist works with the patient, never outright challenge their belief but you use questioning so they see that what they are thinking is untrue, get them to slowly realize that their thinking patterns are distorted.
o Socratic (physical/bodily sensations) questioning - above
o Cognitive restructuring – help them get some flexibility in their thinking, get them to explore the possibility that what they r thinking is incorrect.
Cognitive-Behaviour Therapy
o Even pure cognitive therapists tend to conceptualise problems in learning terms.
o Behaviour therapists often use ‘cognitive’ explanations and methods
o Cognitive therapists often use ‘behavioural; explanations and methods
- Integration of cognitive and behavioural theories
o Strong evidence for effectiveness – good for mood and anxiety disorders but also good for more serious disorders in conjunction with medication.
(PICTURE FROM LECTURE NOTES)
How does research inform our clinical approach to psychological disorders?
Is Psychotherapy effective?
· Assess (pre) – Treat – Assess (Post)
· Reduced problem: Treatment worked
· But: would they have improved without treatment? (Individualism, placebo effect, short term study – variables that don’t make it completely reliable)
· Randomised no treatment control
· Reduced problem: treatment worked
· But: was is the specific treatment
· Randomised placebo control
· Comparative treatment research
EXAMPLE: Post-traumatic stress Disorder
A. Exposure to a trauma event in which:
· The person experienced, witnessed or was confronted with actual or threatened death or serious injury or threat to physical integrity of self or others
· Response involved intense fear, helplessness or horror.
B. Re-experiencing
· Intrusive recollections
· Nightmares
· Sense of relieving the trauma e.g. flashbacks
· Distress or reminders
· Physiological reactivity to reminders.
C. Avoidance
· Cognitive avoidance e.g. thoughts, feelings
· Avoidance of physical reminders e.g. people and places that may remind them of the trauma.
D. Arousal
· Insomnia
· Anger, Irritability
· Impaired concentration
· Hyper vigilance
E. Symptoms still present one month after could mean PTSD
F. Clinically significant distress, functional impairment.
PTSD
- 7.8 % of population have experienced PTSD
- Can occur at any age, including childhood
- Affects about 10% of survivors of traumatic event
Managing Stress Response
o For 30 years the common response has been to offer everyone trauma counseling
o Termed “psychological de-briefing”
· Occurs within 48 hrs. of trauma exposure
· Requires people to discuss their experience and their emotional responses