SOSC1960

Discovering Mind and Behavior

Lecture 1
Introduction

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Teaching Team
 Instructor
◼ Beatrice LAI
◼ Office: Room 2387
◼ Contact: beatricelai@ust.hk, ext 7817
◼ Consultation: by email appointment (with confirmation)

 TAs
◼ Vivien PONG, Kayee WONG, Alison YOUNG
◼ Contact: sosc1960ta@ust.hk
◼ Consultation: by email appointment (with confirmation)
Classroom Etiquettes
 Join the Zoom class before the actual class
time and test the equipment
 I will normally start the meeting 5
minutes before the actual time class
Classroom Etiquettes
 Once you have
joined the Zoom
class, check the
video/audio
connection
 Test your speaker
and microphone in
Zoom

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Classroom Etiquettes

 Report any
technical issues to
the me via group
chat immediately

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Classroom Etiquettes
 Your microphone is
normally muted when
you enter the class
 Raise hand in
“Participants” to request
for speaking up
 Self-identify yourself
when speaking up in the
meeting

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Classroom Etiquettes
 When I send out a polling question, you
will see it on the screen, respond to the
question promptly

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WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY?

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True or False?
 When people are asked to give painful electric
shocks to other people to punish their mistakes,
most of us would refuse to do so.
 People pull harder in a tug-of-war when they are
part of a team than when they are pulling by
themselves.
 A group of people stood by and did nothing while
a woman was being stabbed to death.
 “Opposites attract”: We are more likely to be
attracted to people who possess qualities and
characteristics that we don’t have.
 Common sense and science
◼ Do not always trust common sense or
common beliefs, because they could be
empirically unwarranted.

◼ We need to examine any statement

empirically and critically. Scientific method is
needed.

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What is psychology?
 Definitions
◼ “…the scientific study of behavior and mental
processes” (Feldman, 2008)

◼ “…the discipline concerned with behavior and

mental processes and how they are affected by
an organism’s physical state, mental state, and
external environment” (Wade & Tavris, 2005)

◼ “…the science of mental processes and

behavior” (Kosslyn & Rosenberg, 2005)
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 Unifying themes
◼ Subject matter: behavior and mental
processes
◼ Method: science
◼ Coverage: all aspects of the human experience

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WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT
AREAS OF PSYCHOLOGY?
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Different Areas of Psychology
 Research Methods

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Memory
 The processes through which we encode,
store, and retrieve information

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 How do people remember information?

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A visual mnemonics for days of the months

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Learning
 The processes through which relatively
permanent change in behavior is brought
about

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阿笨與阿占
The Adventure of
Pan and James
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Social Psychology
 How people’s thoughts, feelings, and
actions are affected by others

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States of Consciousness
 Different states of awareness of the
sensations, thoughts, and feelings
experienced at a given moment

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 Hypnosis
Personality
 The pattern of enduring characteristics
that produce consistency and individuality
in a given person

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I make decisions based on
A. feelings
B. feelings and reason equally
C. reason

I find it hard to give a

speech of strangers
A. yes
B. somewhat
C. no

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Intelligence
 The capacity to understand the world,
think rationally, and use resources
effectively

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 IQ?
 How intelligent is a person with an IQ
score of 200?

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Sensation and Perception
 The processes of sensing and perceiving
the world

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Development
 The pattern of growth and change that
occur throughout the lifespan

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Robin & Trzesniewski (2005)
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Health Psychology
 The relationship between psychological
factors and physical health

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Compared with 2016 and 2017, the stress level increased by 28.3%, prevalence
of anxiety increased by 42.3%, and the depression symptoms and unhappiness
have doubled during the COVID-19 outbreak
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Psychological Disorders
Required textbook
 Feldman, R. S. (2019). Understanding
Psychology (14th Ed). New York: McGraw-
Hill.
Assessment

Quizzes 30%
Assignment 1 25%
Assignment 2 25%
Video 10%
Research Experience 10%
Quizzes (30%)
 MCs and T/F questions
 Open-book, open-note
 Lecture notes and required readings
 No make-up quiz unless for validated
medical reasons

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Assignments (25%+25%)

 Assignment 1 - Memory
 Assignment 2 – Social Psychology
Video (10%)
 Select a concept or theory you learned
from this course.
 Make a video to illustrate how you can
apply the theory/concept from the topic
you chose above to daily lives.

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Research Experience (10%)
 You have to complete two tasks in class on July 5
◼ Research study: Complete a real research study online
as a participant. Write a thought piece (in no more than
100 words) about your experience
◼ Research exercise: Watch a video about a research
study. Write a thought piece (in no more than 100
words) about the study
Course Communication Platform
 Canvas (https://canvas.ust.hk)
◼ Announcements
◼ Lecture materials
◼ Distribution of scores
Where do Psychologists Work?
Psychologists
 Researchers vs. Practitioners
◼ researchers: to develop psychological
knowledge (tool makers)
◼ practitioners: to apply psychological knowledge
(carpenters)

Psychologists

Researchers Practitioners

Developing theoretical Applying psychological

Aim:
understanding of behaviors knowledge

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Researchers Practitioners
The Education of a Psychologist
 B.A. or B.S.
◼ Bachelor’s degree
 M.A. or M.S.
◼ Master’s degree
 Ph.D.
◼ Doctor of philosophy
 Psy.D.
◼ Doctor of psychology
What is Psychology?
 Psychology is the scientific study of
behavior and mental processes

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Major Perspectives

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Neuroscience Perspective
 Considers how people and nonhumans
function biologically
◼ Brain and Neurons
◼ Genes
◼ Evolution

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Neuroscience Perspective
 Brain and Neurons
◼ Phineas Gage

Macmillan, M. (2006). Restoring Phineas

Gage: A 150th Retrospective. J. Hist. Frontal 62

Neurosci. 9: 46-66. Lobe

Neuroscience Perspective
⚫ Genes

The Genain Quadruplets

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Neuroscience Perspective
 Evolution
◼ Genes play a central role in an individual’s adaptation to
environmental demands

 Survival of the fittest

◼ Species with traits better adapted to their
environment survive and reproduce

 Natural selection
◼ Through reproduction, more adaptive traits are
selected to be passed onto future generations by
genes
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Examples
 Imprinting in birds
◼ Emotionally attached to the first
moving object

 Parent-infant attachment
◼ Emotional attachment to the
primary caregiver
Konrad Lorenz
(1903 - 1989)
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Example
 Mate Selection
◼ Differences are consistent across cultures
 E.g. China, Taiwan, Japan, USA, Canada, UK,
Germany, Italy, Africa, India

Men Women

⚫Physical attractiveness ⚫Economic resources

⚫Youth
⚫Good housekeeping
skills 66
Psychodynamic Perspective
 Behavior is motivated by inner forces and
conflicts about which we have little
awareness or control

 Theory is developed from

memories of patients
with serious mental
disorders

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Sigmund Freud
 Id
◼ Libido: sexual instinct, aggressive impulses
◼ The pleasure principle: the drive to seek
immediate satisfaction
◼ Unconscious
◼ Present at birth

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 Ego
◼ Reason and logical thinking
◼ The reality principle – find ways to gratify the
id that are acceptable to the superego
◼ Develops gradually during the 1st year
◼ Conscious

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 Superego
◼ Societal rules,
“shoulds” and should nots”
◼ Conscious
◼ Develops at age 5-6

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 Ego keeps the
three components
in balance

 Otherwise, tension
occurs

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Freud’s Psychosexual Theory
 Development is fundamentally stage-like, with
each stage centered on a particular conflict
between sexual urges and demands of society

 The specific personality a child develops depends

on the degree of success the child has in moving
through the various stages

 Over-indulgence or lack of gratification results in

fixation
◼ conflicts or concerns that persist beyond the
developmental stage in which they first occur 72
Oedipus complex

Castration anxiety

Electra complex

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 Which stage is David Beckham fixated at?

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

David Beckham
suffers from OCD and it manifests itself through constant cleanliness
and perfection of all that is around him. Anything out of order is enough
to cause a conflict and must be attended to immediately. Examples of
this complete order is that everything must be in pairs, if there are
three books on a table one must be added, or one must be removed.

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Evaluation
 Contributions
◼ Ideas of unconsciousness and childhood roots
of adult personality
 Limitations
◼ Lack of empirical data and verification,
partially due to the fuzziness of the concepts
◼ Derivation of the concepts and theories from a
limited population
◼ Important changes in personality can take
place during adolescence and adulthood
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Behavioral Perspective
 Focuses on observable behavior that can
be measured objectively
 Learning leads to permanent change in
behavior

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 Give me a dozen healthy infants,
well-formed, and my own specified world to
bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any
one at random and train him to become any
type of specialist I might select – doctor,
lawyer, artist, and yes, even beggar-man and
thief, regardless of his talents, penchants,
tendencies, abilities, vocations, and
race of his ancestor (Watson, 1924)

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Criticism of Behavioral Perspective
X Humans are not passive recipients of
environmental influences

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Cognitive Perspective
 Focuses on how people think, understand,
and know about the world

Information-processing theory
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Cognitive Perspective
 Does using a cell-phone impair people’s
driving ability?

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 Phone
Conversation

Traffic

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Humanism
 Emphasis is on free
will

 Achieving self-
fulfillment

 Maslow’s Self-
Actualization
“It’s always ‘Sit,’ ‘Stay,’ ‘Heel’— never ‘Think,’
‘Innovate,’ ‘Be yourself.’”
 Rogers’ Conditions
of Worth
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Maslow and Self-Actualization

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Rogers’ Conditions of Worth
 Self-actualizing tendency
– striving to fulfill innate capabilities

 Positive Regards:
◼ warmth, affection, love, and respect

 Conditions of worth:
◼ the conditions that others place upon us in
order to receive their positive regard

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• Conditional • Unconditional positive
positive regard regard - unconditional
- positive love and acceptance of
regard given an individual by
when another person
providers’
wishes fulfilled

What kind of people

are considered to be
fully functioning?

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 Readings
◼ Ch. 1

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