PSYCHOLOGY – SSC 210

Lahore School of
Economics

Hirra Rana
Psychology is the scientific study of
behavior and mental processes.
Goals of Psychology
What are the Psychologists trying to accomplish?

 Describe

 Predict

 Understand

 And Influence human behavior and mental processes.

 Emergence of the field of psychology

Psychology was a branch of philosophy until the 1870s

So what makes psychology different from philosophy?

 -Philosophers relied on methods such as observation and logic

 -psychologists utilize scientific methodologies to study and draw

conclusions about human thought and behavior.

 -Physiology also contributed to psychology’s eventual .Early

physiology research on the brain and behavior to the study of human
thought and behavior.
 The First Psychologists: A Brief History of
Psychology
 Wilhelm Wundt “father of psychology”
- nature of conscious experience
- “introspection”

 Examining our own internal thoughts

and feelings. When we reflect on our
thoughts, emotions, and memories and examine what they
mean, we are engaging in introspection

 Wilhelm Wundt, 1832–1920. Wundt is

credited with making psychology an
Independent science, separate from philosophy.

-First psychology laboratory in

Leipzig, Germany, 1879
 E. Bradford Titchener
- popularized Wundt’s psychology and brought it to the US
- used introspection to uncover components of thought
 Structuralism
 Titchener called Wundt’s ideas structuralism and tried to
analyze the structure of mental life into basic “elements” or
“building blocks.”
 Structuralism :The school of thought concerned
with analyzing sensations and personal
experience into basic elements.
William James
- first important textbook:
The Principles of Psychology

 American scholar William James broadened psychology to

include animal behavior, religious experience, abnormal
behavior, and other interesting topics.

 functionalism :comes from James’s interest in how the mind

functions to help us adapt to the environment.
Functionalism
The school of psychology concerned with
how behavior and mental abilities help
people adapt to their environments.
 Behaviorism
(John B. Watson, 1878–1958)

Functionalism and structuralism were soon challenged by

behaviorism

 The study of observable behavior. Behaviorist John B. Watson

objected strongly to the study of the “mind” or “conscious
experience.”
 Ivan Pavlov’s concept of conditioning to explain most
behavior. (A conditioned response is a learned reaction to a
particular stimulus.)
Behaviorism (Radical Behaviorism)
 B. F. Skinner, 1904–1990. Skinner studied simple behaviors
under carefully controlled conditions.

 The best-known behaviorist, B. F. Skinner ,believed that our

actions are controlled by rewards and punishments.

 Skinner was convinced that a “designed culture” based on

positive reinforcement could encourage desirable behavior.
 Key Issues in Psychology
1. Nature (heredity) vs. Nurture (environment)
2. Conscious vs. Unconscious determinants of behavior
3. Observable behavior vs. Internal mental processes
4. Free will vs. Determinism
5. Individual differences vs. Universal principles