Introduction to Psychology

Module #1 Student Activity Sheet

Name: _________________________________________________________________ Class number: _______

Section: ____________ Schedule: ________________________________________ Date: ________________

Lesson Title: Overview of Psychology Materials:

• SAS
Learning Targets: • Textbook
At the end of the module, students will be able to:
References:
1. Define psychology in a scientific standpoint.
2. Explain the goals of psychology. Feist, G. J., & Rosenberg, E. L. (2019).
3. Discuss the different perspectives used in explaining Psychology: Perspectives and connections.
human psychology. McGraw-Hill Education.
Plotnik, R., & Kouyoumdjian, H. (2010).
1. Introduction to psychology. Cengage
Learning.

A. LESSON PREVIEW/REVIEW

Hello, PHINMA Ed students! Welcome to Introduction to Psychology. In today’s

session, you are tasked to set expectations as you get oriented with what the course is all about and
to determine the nature of flexible learning. Before we begin with the formal course orientation, let’s
pause and reflect by briefly answering the questions below:

• When you hear of the word psychology, what comes into your mind?
• What are the misconceptions that you know or heard of about psychology?
• What made you decide to pursue an academic study in psychology?

B.MAIN LESSON

Psychology
• It is the scientific study of thought and behavior.
• The root word psyche is a Greek word for “mind,” but modern psychology is as likely to study
the brain and behavior as it is the “mind.”
• This is both a clinical practice and a science. The clinical practice side encompasses the services
provided in therapists’ offices, schools, hospitals, and businesses.

Goals of Psychology
1. Describe the different ways that organism behave.
2. Explain the causes of behavior.
3. Predict how organisms will behave in certain situations
4. Control an organism’s behavior positively, or negatively.

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 Introduction to Psychology
Module #1 Student Activity Sheet

Name: _________________________________________________________________ Class number: _______

Section: ____________ Schedule: ________________________________________ Date: ________________

Subdisciplines of Psychology
As a science and a practice, psychology is divided into various areas of investigation. Like this
course, divided into chapters or sessions – technically, all that we will discuss here are encompassing
the different areas of psychology. The field of psychology is divided into more than 25 distinct, but
increasingly interrelated, subdisciplines (Feist & Rosenberg, 2019). For this discussion, we will focus
only on the most prominent subdisciplines so we can better understand how each field is unique from
one another.

• Cognitive Psychology
o It is the study of how we perceive information, how we learn and remember, how we
acquire and use language, and how we solve problems.
o For instance, a researcher who is concerned with how people remember their new mobile
number is studying cognitive psychology.

• Experimental Psychology
o Deals with research studies on cognition and learning because experiments are
conducted in laboratory to address their research questions.

• Developmental Psychology
o It explores how thought and behavior change and show stability across the lifespan. It
allows us to appreciate that organisms – human or otherwise – change and grow.
o Developmental psychologists ask questions like: How do our reasoning skills or
emotional skills change as we age? Does old age bring wisdom?

• Biological Psychology
o It includes research on all areas of connection between bodily systems and chemicals
and their relationship to behavior and thought.
o Research about stress and health, studying the effects of stress on hormones and
behavior is an example of research in this field.
o It is an older term that is being replaced by behavioral neuroscience in contemporary
psychology.

• Personality Psychology
o It considers what makes people unique, as well as the consistencies in people’s behavior
across time and situations.
o A question from this area, for example, might be whether the tendency to be friendly,
anxious, or hostile affects one’s health, career choice, or interpersonal relationships.

• Social Psychology

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 Introduction to Psychology
Module #1 Student Activity Sheet

Name: _________________________________________________________________ Class number: _______

Section: ____________ Schedule: ________________________________________ Date: ________________

o It considers how real or imagined presence of others influences thought, feeling, and
behavior.
o Social psychologists ask questions like: How does the presence of other people change
an individual’s thoughts, feelings, or perceptions? Why are we attracted to particular
kinds of people?

• Clinical Psychology
o It focuses on the diagnosis and treatment of mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders
and ways to promote psychological health.
o Clinical psychologists also conduct research and teach, and they work in universities,
medical settings, or private practice.

• Counseling Psychology
o It deals with less severe psychological disorders.
o Counseling psychologists treat and assess relatively healthy people and assist them with
career and vocational interest.

• Health Psychology
o It examines the role of psychological factors in physical health and illness.
o Topics in this area range from studies of how stress is linked to illness and immune
function to studies on the role of social factors in how people interact with health care
professionals.

• Educational Psychology
o It studies how students learn, the effectiveness of particular teaching techniques, the
social psychology of schools, and the psychology of teaching.
o It also attempts to understand special population of students such as the academically
gifted and those with special needs.

• Industrial/Organizational (IO) Psychology

o It is an applied science that involves understanding real-world rather than laboratory
behavior (Aamodt, 2010).
o Industrial side: involves matching employees to their jobs and uses psychological
principles and methods to select employees and evaluate job performance.
o Organizational side: aims to make workers more productive and satisfied by considering
how work environments and management styles influence work motivation, satisfaction,
and productivity.

• Sports Psychology

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 Introduction to Psychology
Module #1 Student Activity Sheet

Name: _________________________________________________________________ Class number: _______

Section: ____________ Schedule: ________________________________________ Date: ________________

o It examines the psychological factors that affect performance and participation in sports
and exercise (Weinberg & Goul, 2007).
o For instance, sports psychologists might focus on improving athletic performance
through techniques as relaxation and visualization.

• Forensic Psychology
o It is a blend of psychology, criminal justice, and the law (Adler, 2004).
o Forensic psychologists make legal evaluations of a person’s mental competency to stand
trial, the state of mind of a defendant at the time of a crime, the fitness of a parent to have
custody of children, and allegations of child abuse.
o Occasionally, they also do criminal profiling to identified who might have committed a
particular crime.

Brief History of Scientific Psychology

§ Philosophy of Empiricism
o It is the view that all knowledge and thoughts come from experience.
o John Locke, an English philosopher argued that the mind begins as a tabula rasa, or
blank slate, onto which experience writes the contents of the mind (Locke, 1690/1959)

§ Psychophysics of Human Perception

o The study of how people experience physical stimuli such as sound, light, waves, and
touch.
o One important principle here is that the perception of physical properties is not the same
as the physical properties themselves.

§ Structuralism (Wilhelm Wundt)

o Breaking down experience into its elemental parts offered the best way to understand
thought and behavior.
o Structuralists believed that a detailed analysis of experience as it happened provided the
most accurate glimpse into the workings of the human mid.
o Introspection – a method they use to look into one’s own mind for the information about
the nature of consciousness and experience.

§ Functionalism (William James)

o Argued that it was better to look at why the mind works the way it does that to describe
its parts.
o Also relied on introspection as a primary method of understanding how the mind worked.

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 Introduction to Psychology
Module #1 Student Activity Sheet

Name: _________________________________________________________________ Class number: _______

Section: ____________ Schedule: ________________________________________ Date: ________________

§ Behaviorism (John Watson)

o Psychology can be a true science only if it examines observable behavior, not ideas,
thoughts, feelings, or motives.

§ Humanistic and Positive Psychology (Martin Seligman & Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)

o Humanistic psychology is a theory of psychology that focuses on personal growth and
meaning as a way of reaching one’s highest potential.
o Positive psychology is a scientific approach to studying, understanding, and promoting
healthy and positive psychological functioning.

§ Gestalt Psychology (Max Wertheimer)

o Perception occurs in unified wholes, where the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

§ Behavioral Genetics, Behavioral Neuroscience, and Evolutionary Psychology

o Who we are and what we do and think are very much influenced by genetic factors, and
brain activity, with a long evolutionary past.

Psychological Perspectives: Explaining Human Behavior

Perspective Primary Assumptions Focus

Psychoanalytic- • first 5 years of life most shape personality unconscious thoughts
Psychodynamic • unconscious forces are most important and motives
Behavioral- • only explanation for behavior is the conditions behavior, learning,
Learning that create behavior and environmental
• learning occurs through association and conditions
consequences of the behavior
Cognitive • thoughts, heuristics, and assumptions are the thoughts, language,
primary forces behind behavior assumptions,
memory, decision-
making strategies
Humanistic- • people strive to live meaningful, happy lives meaningful life,
Positive • people are motivated by growth and psychological well-
psychological health being and growth
Sociocultural • thought, behavior, and personality are mostly cultural and society
products of social and cultural conditions
• there are both similarities and differences in
thought, personality and behavior cross-
culturally

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 Introduction to Psychology
Module #1 Student Activity Sheet

Name: _________________________________________________________________ Class number: _______

Section: ____________ Schedule: ________________________________________ Date: ________________

Neuropsychology- • the foundation for thought and behavior is brain structures,

Behavioral Genetic biological and genetic forces neurochemicals, and
genes
Evolutionary • human thought and behavior have been adaptive mechanisms
shaped by evolutionary forces (natural and
sexual selection)

CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING

The instructor will now rationalize the answers to the students and will encourage them to ask
questions and to discuss among their classmates for 20 minutes.

1. Which of the following argued that thoughts, feelings, and motives are unimportant in
understanding human behavior?
a. Behaviorists
b. Psychoanalysts
c. Functionalists
d. Gestalt psychologists

2. What school of thought is considered as the contemporary version of positive psychology?

a. Functionalism
b. Structuralism
c. Humanism
d. Behaviorism

3. How we think about ourselves, other people, and the world, as well as assumptions we make and
the strategies, we use for solving problems and interacting with others are the keys to
understanding differences between people. Which of the following perspectives of psychology
best fit this picture?
a. Behavioral-Learning
b. Cognitive
c. Humanistic-Positive
d. Sociocultural

4. Which of the following correctly describes psychology?

a. It is the scientific study of human behavior.
b. It is the scientific study of mental illness.
c. It is the scientific study of neuroses and psychoses.
d. It is the scientific study of human thought and behavior.

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 Introduction to Psychology
Module #1 Student Activity Sheet

Name: _________________________________________________________________ Class number: _______

Section: ____________ Schedule: ________________________________________ Date: ________________

5. Based on what you have learned, which below would you most agree in terms of differentiating
psychology from its related filed, sociology?
a. Psychology studies groups and cultures; sociology studies human behavior.
b. Psychology studies cultures; sociology studies people.
c. Psychology studies individuals; sociology studies groups.
d. Psychology studies systems; sociology studies cultures.

6. Dr. Fuentes, a psychologist has conducted a series of studies on which part of the brain is most
active during a memory task. Given the nature of her investigation, you can conclude she is
probably
a. a cognitive psychologist.
b. a developmental psychologist.
c. a behavioral neuroscientist.
d. an experimental psychologist.

7. A __________ psychologist would be most interested in understanding what it means to be fully

functioning, whereas a __________ psychologist would focus on what people do and not what
they think or feel.
a. evolutionary; biological
b. humanistic; behavioral
c. psychoanalytic; social-learning
d. cognitive; psychoanalytic

8. Professor De Paul is presently doing his research wherein he is aiming to confirm whether the
body, the brain, and the environment coexist. In his paper, he intends to give emphasis that what
we think, feel, or do is always an interaction between the nature, and the nurture. Given your
understanding on the different perspectives of psychology, you can say the Professor De Paul is a
follower of:
a. Neuropsychological-Behavioral Genetic
b. Sociocultural Psychology
c. Evolutionary Psychology
d. Psychoanalytic-Psychodynamic

9. Carlo brought Amie, his new girlfriend to his favorite restaurant and ordered strawberry shortcake
for dessert. While Amie took a teaspoonful of the cake, she told Carlo that the cake is delicious,
melts right away in her mouth, creamy, and not too sweet. If you are to analyze what Amie just
said about the cake, what school of thought would fit this description?
a. Structuralism
b. Functionalism
c. Gestalt

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 Introduction to Psychology
Module #1 Student Activity Sheet

Name: _________________________________________________________________ Class number: _______

Section: ____________ Schedule: ________________________________________ Date: ________________

d. Behaviorism

10.This field of psychology deals with the study, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of
psychopathology.
a. Developmental Psychology
b. Counseling Psychology
c. Clinical Psychology
d. Health Psychology

C. LESSON WRAP-UP

FAQs:

What are the goals of psychology?

Answer: The goals of psychology are to describe, explain, predict, and control behavior.

What are the most common disciplines in the practice of psychology?

Answer: Clinical psychology, Counseling psychology, Industrial/Organizational psychology, Social
psychology, and Educational psychology.

Thinking about Learning

You are done with the session. Let us track your progress.

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