INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY

Introduction to Psychology



Introduction to Psychology

Introduction Psychology investigates a wide spectrum of topics which include learning and memory, sensation and perception, motivation and emotion, thinking and language, personality and social behavior, intelligence, infancy and child development, mental illness, and much more. It is very important to study these fields because they are present in everything we do. The brain and mind are the reasons we are the way we are and act in a certain way: Psychology has a leading role to play in understanding how brain function relates to behavior. People are, and always have been, curious about why they feel, think and behave as they do. The reasons why we act a certain way may help us be more successful in life. Making decisions, for example, is an important task that everyone must carry out on a day-to-day basis. Studying the thought process or behavior may guide a person to make better decisions, and therefore makes psychology a significant field.

Field of Psychology

Historically, psychology has been divided into many sub fields of study. Some of which overlap each other with theories and are interrelated. Sub fields (also referred to as "˜areas of application') of psychology include: Physiological psychologists study the functioning of the brain and the nervous system, experimental psychologists devise tests and conduct research in order to discover how people learn and remember. Industrial psychologists study the behaviour of people at work and what effect the work environment has upon them. School psychologists help students make career decisions as well as educational decisions. Social psychologists are interested in the ways people influence each other and how they act within a group and clinical psychologists help people who are mentally ill or who have problems in everyday life (Ulanov, A., & Ulanov, B. 1982).

Psychology emerged as a separate discipline in 1879 when Wilhelm Wundt opened the very first psychology laboratory. Wundt was a German psychologist, generally recognised as the founder of scientific psychology as an independent discipline. Wundt promoted what is known as structuralist or content psychology, which emphasised the observations of the conscious mind rather than inference. He carried out widespread research on perception, feeling and apperception (Saccuzzo 1987). He attempted to investigate the mind through introspection, which is the observation by a person of his or her own mental processes. Wundt claimed that all psychology begins with introspection. Other psychologist disagreed and said that the evidence obtained from introspection was unreliable and subjective. In the early 20th Century, introspection was seriously criticised by behaviourists who study the observational behaviour of a person, rather than inner conscious states that are not open to objective observation. The "behaviourists", led by J.B. Watson claimed that introspection could neither prove nor disprove an individuals' mental process. Only the individual could do that. Therefore no one can ever check this method for accuracy (Peck, 1978).

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was the founder of psychoanalysis. Freud was an Austrian physician and neurologist. He published the "psychoanalytic" theory in 1900 which was based on ...