WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY? AND HOW DO WE STUDY IT?

What is psychology

R.S.Feldman defines it as: The scientific study of behaviour and mental processes

William James- basic elements

The Psychologist was particularly interested in human psychology, which he thought consisted of certain basic elements: thoughts & feelings Physical world exists in time & space A way of knowing about these things

Role of psychology
Though we are making judgements about psychological matters using our own experiences as touchstone Formal psychology provides methods of deciding which explanation are more likely to be accurate

People are a puzzle, human behavior is fascinating, and psychology is all about people.

Its all about trying to understand certain important aspects or mysteries of human behavior such as: What factors influence an individuals behavior? Why do people need each other? Do we behave differently in the presence of others?

How does our understanding of the world develop? How do we manage people in organizations What makes an effective leader? What is the role of brain in our behavior?

What techniques do advertisers use to persuade us? Does morale and job satisfaction impacts production? Questions such as these form the basis of the study of psychology.

Why Psychology is Interesting, Important, And Useful Today?

The minimum condition for any living organism for having a psychology is the possession of a mental control system. Psychology is in a special position because it is a subject about which everyone can express an opinion based on personal information and subjective experience. Psychology has contributed to the development of understanding of important issues that humans face at social, political and individual levels

Why Psychology is Interesting, Important, And Useful Today?

The point is that psychology is not led by hunches, nor it is common sense. It is a science.

The scientific, methodological nature of psychology defines its very authentic and accurate contributions to understanding human functioning as it emerges out of the complex relationship of the four main aspects, thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and behavior

The term psychology originated from two Greek words psche logos Meaning: mind study or knowledge

The mind or soul, means the very essence of life, it is the mind functioning as the center of thought, feeling, and behavior. The functions or the processes involved may be operating consciously or unconsciously in helping, adjusting and relating the body to its social and physical environment.

The four main functions of psyche are: Intuition, Sensing, Thinking, Feeling

Currently, the definition of psychology is the systematic study of thoughts ,feelings, and behavior.

It involves the investigation of behavior and mental processes using scientific research processes.

The main goals of psychology are to: describe predict control explain HUMAN FUNCTIONING

Psychologists seek to understand thoughts, feelings, and behavior and the factors involved in creating and influencing them.

What do we want to know in psychology

How we: perceive learn remember think solve problems feel & develop differ from each other

We all have a mental life and therefore have some idea as to what that means.

In 1890 William James defined it as all about the mind or brain and that provides a good starting point for our understanding.

W. James believed that we all experienced our own thoughts, feelings, and a physical world that existed in time and space. The way we think, feel and act is connected to the way we function and interact with our environments. It also makes it easy for us to make judgments about the psychological phenomena we see in other people around us

However on a subjective, personal note, it may be all right to do so but, it may cause a lot of conflict when two people understand these things differently.
This is where formal psychology attempts to provide us with methods that can help us to decide which explanations are most likely to be correct. It helps distinguish between subjective, biased, and unreliable information; and the facts that can be truly judged as scientific and reliable Psychology is also about the ways in which people use their mental abilities to operate in the world around them. Adapting to the changing environments to survive facilitates and shapes the mind to use its resources or abilities fully

So, the psychologists have used scientific observations to study behavior and make inferences about what is going on inside the psyche

The term behavior refers to any observable action that can be actually seen and measured

Thoughts and feelings are internal responses these may not be directly accessible to observations, but are interrelated with and influence behavior. .

Behaviors
These can be seen as: OVERT BEHAVIOURS, a response that is external and directly observable, can be seen directly and can be seen while it is happening. COVERT BEHAVIOURS, a response that is internal or hidden from view, cannot be seen directly, and cannot be seen while it is happening

A science evolves-step by step

Half a million years ago people assumed that psychological problems were caused by evil spirits. Archaeologists have found ancient healers performed an operation called trephining

HOW DID PSYCHOLOGY ORIGINATE

It evolved out of 1) Philosophy -------pre-scientific era And moved on to a scientific era with strong influences from 2)Biology--- evolution & physiology,

3)Physics---- the scientific method and psychophysics.

PSYCHOLOGICAL METHODS
Psychologists use systematic method to study and investigate psychological issues about how people work and how they interact. They use the scientific methodology in all of the methods At the most fundamental or basic level, the scientific method has a number of steps. These are: OBSERVATION, which leads to formation of theory HYPOTHESIS, which is an impression of what the theory could imply TEST, the steps taken to find weather the hypothesis is correct CONCLUSION, which may prove or negate the assumption implied in the theory.

Scientific method
1 Identify question of interest 2 Formulate an explanation 3 Carry out research a)Operationalize hypothesis b)Select a research method c)Collect the data d)Analyze data 4 Communicate the findings

PSYCHOLOGICAL METHODS
These are: OBSERVATION, which leads to formation of theory HYPOTHESIS, which is an impression of what the theory could imply TEST, the steps taken to find weather the hypothesis is correct CONCLUSION, which may prove or negate the assumption implied in the theory.

The various methods of investigating psychology fall into two groups: The experimental method The non-experimental method Basically they all follow the scientific method, but there is a critical difference between these two groups The nature of the psychological investigation determines the many possible variations of the scientific methods that needs to be applied

Scientific Methodologies
You can Observe the behavior of crowds You can do a Case-study on child development You can conduct an Experiment to see if the performance of students vary with the change of room, time etc You can investigate Cross-cultural issues You can Correlate intelligence with selfesteem You can Survey attitudes towards smoking

Psychologists study and investigate certain events or behaviors that are of interest to them. These are called variables as variables are events that vary. These are of two types 1)Independent Variable I.V & 2) Dependent Variable D.V Designated as such, depending on the kind of scientific inquiry to be undertaken

RESEARCH METHODS
THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

Observe Make Hypothesis Test & Conclude

NON- EXPERIMENTAL METHO

Experimental method (Laboratory set-up)

Observation Case-study Cross-cultural study Questionnaire

THE UNDERPININGS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Scientific Method. A method for obtaining scientific evidence in which research questions or hypotheses are formulated and tested Theory. A formulation of the relationships and principles that underlie observed events. Theories allow us to explain and predict behavior Hypothesis. In psychology, a specific statement about behavior or mental process that is tested through research. Generalize. To extend from the particular to the general; to apply observations based on a sample to a population. Population. A complete group of organisms or events.

Methods of Observation
Case study

Laboratory-observation Research participants

Survey

Testing

Naturalistic-observation

Drawing Conclusions From Psychological Research

The three major types of research are: 1. Descriptive 2. Correlational 3. Experimental

Descriptive Study
An approach to research designed to systematically investigate a person, group, or patterns of behavior

It helps us draw conclusions about the way things are.

The Correlation Method

A scientific method that studies the relationships between variables Correlation coefficient is a number between +1 to -1 that expresses the strength and direction of the relationship between 2 variables. Positive correlation means a relationship between 2 variables in which one variable increases as the other also increases. Negative correlation means a relationship between 2 variables in which one variable increases as the other decreases. It helps us to make predictions about one variable if we know the status of the other.

The Experimental Method

A scientific method that seeks to confirm cause-andeffect relationship by introducing independent variables and observing their effects on dependent variables.
Experimental Design (hypothesis)

Control Group No IV introduced

Experimental Group IV GIVEN

Behaviour DV Measured For both groups The results obtained Show the cause-effect relationship

How Do We Draw Conclusions From Research

One needs to be careful about drawing conclusions from researches. Scrutinize descriptions of research carefully, you may ask Have the researchers ruled out other possible explanations for their results? Only when the answer is satisfactory then you are justified to draw conclusions

When experimental studies are sufficiently controlled, then they do allow us to develop principles and theories of human behavior and educational practice. Principles identify the factors and influences that govern behaviour,and are arrived at from multiple research studies. Theories are formulated to explain why these principles are true Thus principles explain the WHATS of human behavior and theories describes WHYS those things happen.