(SOCI-03734)

Understanding Psychology & Human Behavior

Assignment No. 01

Submitted by:
Muhammad Ahmad (19CS18)

Department Of Computer System Engineering

Faculty of Engineering
The Islamia University of Bahawalpur
 1. What is Psychology?
Psychology is the scientific study of the mind and behavior, according to the American Psychological
Association. Psychology is a multifaceted discipline and includes many sub-fields of study such areas as
human development, sports, health, clinical, social behavior and cognitive processes.

2. Summarize the history of psychology?

The field of psychology started in the mid-1800s by defining itself as the science of
consciousness. The primary technique was introspection: looking within.
Introspection suffered from one major problem: there was no way to resolve differences of
opinion. This proved to be a fatal flaw when people reported different introspections under
similar conditions.
By the 1920s psychologists were more likely to define their field as the science of behavior.
Behaviorists argued that truly scientific psychologists should study only observable behavior.
Although behaviorism appears to constrict the subject matter of psychology by leaving out the
mind, Hilgard pointed out that behaviorism also broadened psychology. It allowed
psychologists to study those unable to make introspective reports, such as animals and babies.
The behavioral era dominated psychology in the United States from the 1920s through the
1950s. Partly as a reaction to behaviorism's neglect of subjective mental processes, humanistic
psychology emerged as an alternative approach during the early 1960s.
Computer technology led to the resurgence of cognitive psychology in the 1970s. Computers
provided a new metaphor for discussing mental processing as well as new tools for research on
human information processing.
Another change in the 1970s and 1980s was the emergence of neuroscience as an important
source of information about behavior and mental processes. Aided by new technologies such as
brain scanning, scientists could now document which areas of the brain were activated by
cognitive processes.
Today, the different approaches to psychology coexist. Each provides a useful perspective, and
they can be combined when more than one approach is relevant to a topic.

3. Describe the early schools of psychology?

Structuralism and functionalism were the two earliest schools of thought in psychology. When
psychology was first established as a science separate from philosophy, the debate over how to
explain human behavior and analyze the mind began. As a result, different approaches and
perspectives emerged.
 4. Contemporary Approaches to Psychology:
Humanism: is a perspective within psychology that emphasizes the potential for good that is
innate to all humans. Two of the most well-known proponents of humanistic psychology are
Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers (O’Hara, n.d). Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) was an
American psychologist who is best known for proposing a hierarchy of human needs in
motivating behavior.

Behavioral Psychology:
Early work in the field of behavior was conducted by the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov
(1849–1936). Pavlov studied a form of learning behavior called a conditioned reflex, in which an
animal or human-produced a reflex (unconscious) response to a stimulus and, over time, was
conditioned to produce the response to a different stimulus that the experimenter associated
with the original stimulus. The reflex Pavlov worked with was salivation in response to the
presence of food. The salivation reflex could be elicited using a second stimulus, such as a
specific sound, that was presented in association with the initial food stimulus several times.
Once the response to the second stimulus was “learned,” the food stimulus could be omitted.
Pavlov’s “classical conditioning” is only one form of learning behavior studied by behaviorists.

Cognitive Psychology:
Cognitive psychology is radically different from previous psychological approaches in that it is
characterized by both of the following:
It accepts the use of the scientific method and generally rejects introspection as a valid method
of investigation, unlike phenomenological methods such as Freudian psychoanalysis.
It explicitly acknowledges the existence of internal mental states (such as belief, desire, and
motivation), unlike behaviorist psychology.
Cognitive theory contends that solutions to problems take the form of algorithms, heuristics, or
insights. Major areas of research in cognitive psychology include perception, memory,
categorization, knowledge representation, numerical cognition, language, and thinking.

Subfields:

The three subfields of professional psychology are: 

Clinical Psychology,
Counseling Psychology,
and School Psychology.

5. Why is studying psychology valuable?

Essentially, psychology helps people in large part because it can explain why people act the way
they do. With this kind of professional insight, a psychologist can help people improve their
decision making, stress management and behavior based on understanding past behavior to
better predict future behavior.

6. What possible career paths are there in psychology?

There are many different options available to psychology degree holders, depending on your
specializations and interests, such as:
Psychologist.
Psychotherapist.
Social worker.
Counselor.
Educational psychologist.
Human resource manager.
Teacher.
Research roles.