Introduction to Psychology: Schools, Theories, and Learning

Posted on Sep 15, 2024 in Psychology and Sociology

Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behavior

Psychology is the scientific study of the mind and behavior. It focuses on both the internal events that underlie our thoughts and feelings, as well as the behavior itself. Psychology can be studied at different levels:

Levels of Analysis in Psychology

1. Level of the Brain

This level examines the activity, structure, and properties of the brain itself, including brain cells, their connections, the chemical solutions in which they exist, and genes.

2. Level of the Person

This level focuses on the function and content of the mind.

• Mental processes: A set of operations that work together to carry out a function, such as attention, perception, or memory.
• Mental content: Knowledge, beliefs (including ideas, explanations, and expectations), desires (such as hopes, goals, and needs), and feelings (such as fears, guilt, and attractions).

3. Level of the Group

This level involves relationships between people (such as love, competition, and cooperation), relationships among groups, and culture.

Schools of Psychology

1. Structuralism (Wilhelm Wundt)

Structuralism aimed to identify the building blocks of consciousness. It proposed two types of elements:

• Sensations: Arise from the eyes, ears, and other organs.
• Feelings: Such as fear, anger, and love.

Introspection: The technique of observing your mental events as, or immediately after, they occur (e.g., remembering the number of windows in your parents’ room).

2. Functionalism (Charles Darwin)

Functionalism sought to understand how the mind helps individuals adapt to the world around them and function effectively in it (e.g., pain from an injury signals something wrong with the body).

3. Gestalt Psychology

Gestalt psychology, taking its name from the German word “Gestalt” which means “whole,” emphasized the overall patterns of perceptions and thoughts. It proposed that the “whole is more than the sum of its parts.”

4. Psychodynamic Theory (Sigmund Freud)

Freud stressed that the mind is not a single entity but has separate components. Some components are unconscious: outside conscious awareness and not able to be brought into consciousness at will. Psychodynamic theory explores the continual push and pull interaction among conscious and unconscious forces and specifies how such interactions affect behavior (e.g., various conflicts throughout childhood development shape overall personality).

5. Behaviorism

Behaviorism focuses on how a specific stimulus (object, person, or event) evokes a specific response (behavior in reaction to the stimulus) (e.g., teachers rewarding students).

6. Humanistic Psychology (Abraham Maslow)

Humanistic psychology assumes people have positive values, free will, and deep inner creativity, which allow them to choose life-fulfilling paths to personal growth.

Client-Centered Therapy: Based on the humanistic approach, Carl Rogers used the term “client” rather than “patient.” The client chooses how they are treated, and the relationship is equal with the therapist.

7. Cognitive Revolution (Herbert Simon)

The cognitive revolution in the late 1950s and early 1960s used computers as a model for the way the human mind works.

Cognitive Psychology: Characterizes the mental events that allow information to be stored and operated on internally (human information processing).

Scientific Method

• Systematically observe events
• Formulate a question
• Formulate a hypothesis
• Formulate a theory
• Test the theory

Classical Conditioning (Ivan Pavlov)

Pavlov discovered classical conditioning while conducting studies on his dog’s salivation. It is a learning process that occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired (conditioned stimulus, unconditioned stimulus). A response initially elicited by the second stimulus (unconditioned stimulus) is eventually elicited by the first stimulus (conditioned stimulus) alone.

• Conditioned Stimulus: A previously neutral stimulus that, after becoming associated with the unconditioned stimulus, eventually comes to trigger a conditioned response (e.g., a bell).
• Conditioned Response: The learned response to the previously neutral stimulus (e.g., drooling from the dog in response to the bell).
• Unconditioned Stimulus: Elicits an automatic response, without prior learning (e.g., smelling your favorite food).
• Unconditioned Response: The automatic response to the unconditioned stimulus (e.g., the feeling of hunger from smelling food you like).

Examples of Classical Conditioning: Advertising, treatment of phobias, and the mechanism underlying food or taste aversions.

Operant Conditioning (Edward Thorndike & B.F. Skinner)

Puzzle box or Skinner box: Demonstrated trial-and-error learning where an animal receives a reward after performing a specific behavior (law of effect) (e.g., a cat in a box learning to press a lever to escape and get food).

• Reinforcement: The process by which the consequences of a response lead to an increase in the likelihood that the response will occur again when the stimulus is present.
• Response Contingency: The circumstance in which a consequence depends on the animal producing the desired response.
• Positive Punishment: Occurs when a response leads to an undesired consequence, thereby decreasing the likelihood of that response.

Difference Between Classical & Operant Conditioning

Cognitive Learning

Cognitive learning is the acquisition of information that often is not acted on immediately but rather stored for later use (structured learning process).

Insight Learning

Learning that occurs when a person or animal suddenly grasps how to solve a problem or interpret a pattern of information and incorporate that new knowledge into old knowledge.

Observational Learning

Learning that occurs through watching others, not through reinforcement. This explains why people may not make an effort to get to meetings on time if they see latecomers not suffering any negative consequences.