Bennett University-

Psychology
Introduction
Evolution of Psychology
Dr. Kiran Sakkar Sudha
Overview
• Evolutionary Perspective of Psychology:

• Overview of Psychology as a domain

• Goals of Psychology
• Psychology as a science and art
Setting the Context
• Study of Behavior:
• Of?

• Hub Science-Off shoots in clinical and non clinical areas

• How do we draw opinions?

• What are facts?
• What is observation?
• Who taught us?
• What goes in entire process drawing a meaning or conclusion?
 Setting the Context
• Understood as scientific study of behavior and mental processes

• Behavior:

outward or overt internal, covert

actions and reactions, (hidden)
such as talking, facial activity of our
expressions, minds, such as
and movement thinking, feeling,
and remembering
Video
Goals of Psychology-
• Description- What is Happening?

• Explanation- Why is it happening?

• Prediction- Will It happen again?

• Control – How it can be changed?

• The goal is to change a behavior from an undesirable to a desirable one

• Example- Employee taking a day off on every Friday

Essentials of Psychology
• Structuralism – Wilhelm Wudnt, 1879- Brought Objectivity and Measurement to Psychology.
• Introspection- Understanding What ?

• Basic Elements of Mind

• process of examining and measuring one’s own thoughts and mental activities

• Functionalism- William James - how the mind allows people to function in the real world—
how people work, play, and adapt to their surroundings,

• no longer a major perspective.

• Instead, one can find elements of functionalism in the modern fields of educational psychology (studying
the application of psychological concepts to education) and industrial/organizational psychology
 Popular Approaches
• Psychoanalysis- Sigmund Freud
• Understanding of both Personality and therapy
• Concept of Unconscious
• Majorly Critiqued for-?

• Gestalt – Wertheimer Max, Ability to see things as a whole even if they are
partially complete.
• Role of sensing and perceiving

• Behaviorism- Watson James, Whatever can be seen, can be learned

• In learning Unit
• Cognitive Psychology – Higher mental abilities
• focuses on memory, intelligence, perception, thought process, problem solving,
language, and learning
Evolutionary Perspective
• Mind as information-processing machines

• Survival Instinct- A developmental perspective,

• an eclectic perspective—one that uses the “bits and pieces” of
several perspectives that seem to best fit a particular situation.
• Examples
Question

• Do you believe that violence is a part of human nature? Is violent

behavior something that can someday be removed from human
behavior or, at the very least, be controlled?
Psychology as an Art

• One way or the other

way
• Deceptions
• Natural Observations
and Opinion
• Cognitive Abilities
Psychology as a science

• Laboratory
experiments
• Case analysis
• Research
• Instruments like Lie
detectors

• Scientific and Natural

Observation
Closing Remarks

Applications
• Mental testing
• Mental health care
• Education
• Work
• Military and intelligence
• Health, well-being,
• social change
References
• Ciccarelli, S. K. & Noland, W.J. (2015). Psychology: An
exploration Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson