PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY

ASSIGNMENT#1

Psychology is the study of mind which also involves the study of human
behavior and thought process. There are also various branches of psychology
which include behavioral psychology, development psychology, evolutionary
psychology, social psychology, cognitive psychology, etc. In the early days
of psychology there were two dominant theoretical perspectives regarding
how the brain worked, structuralism and functionalism
Structuralism was the name given to the approach pioneered by Wilhelm
Wundt, which focused on breaking down mental processes intro the most
basic components.
Structuralism was developed by William James & he argued that the mind is
constantly changing and it is pointless to look for the structure of conscious
experience. Rather, he proposed the focus should be on how and why an
organism does something, i.e. the functions or purpose of the brain
There are several goals of psychology. To describe the behavior and
thoughts, if a person is experiencing un-natural experiences such as seeing
things that don’t exist then psychologist try to explain this.
It explains psychological trends, if a group of people are behaving in a unique
fashion such as a school’s students feel more depresses than other schools,
then psychologists would explain the behavior according to laws.
It also predicts future behavior through historical data, if a group of people
have reacted to hardships in a particular fashion then psychologists would use
that data to predict how they would react to a similar situation in future.
At last to change and control the behavior, psychologist provide strategies to
businesses to change and control behaviors of their customers through
marketing.