Enrolling in this class, I believed I had a solid basic knowledge of psychology that would assist me throughout the semester, however, just reading the first page proved how wrong I was. My initial perception of psychology was similar to that of psychology before the 1900s, as the textbook states. I focused on the psychoanalysis of mind and soul, theories on consciousness and exactly what that entails, unaware that the definition of psychology had been altered long before I had begun to study Freud and his Id, Ego, and Superego. The fact that psychology has shifted so drastically to become a proper science surprised me, as I had always known it as a study of theories, but it also made more sense as I continued to read. Amongst intellectuals, evidence is king, and there is no possible way to gain evidence of a soul …show more content…
On the other hand, the human brain and its functions can be measured, through recorded observations and tasks with quantitative or qualitative properties. As a relatively new field of study, psychology has the task of proving itself worthy of recognition in the world of science. The textbook states in the second chapter that the side who makes a demonstrable claim has the burden of providing proof to back up said claim. In this situation, the side with the burden of truth is those that support psychology as a science. How can you prove that something is not a science? You would have to prove that there is nothing measurable or recordable about the human brain that could be recreated through experiments. Modern psychology, which focuses more on the effects of experiences and behaviors on health, is a much easier practice to measure than previous theoretical psychology
D. Brett King, Wayne Viney, & William Douglas Woody, (2013). A History of Psychology, Ideas & Context. 3rd ed. United States: Pearson.
Westen, D. (1998). The scientific legacy of Sigmund Freud: toward a psychodynamically informed psychological science. Psychological Bulletin, 124(3), 333.
Schultz, Duane P., and Sydney Ellen. Schultz. A History of Modern Psychology. 9th ed. Australia: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2008. Print.
William Wundt conceived psychology as a science that could be experimented. His work majored on the concept of voluntarism as a way of coming into terms with psychological problems. Wundt’s ideas of understanding psychological problems explored mental disorders and abnormal behavior, religious beliefs, and pronouncement of the damaged parts of the brain. Through his experiments, he was able to distinguish psychology as a distinct science from other topics. He believed that analyzing consciousness as an individual’s subjective experience of the mind and the world, should inform scientific psychology (Rieber, 2001).
Rene Descartes, Herman von Helmholtz, and Wilhelm Wundt all played important roles in creating psychology how it is today, by going beyond what the thought processes were at their time and expanding on knowledge. They didn’t look at the world as other’s did, and they didn’t take “no” for an answer. These great thinkers were centuries to decades apart, but their theories combined and collided into the new psychology.
The term psychology has many meanings to different people, even to those who work within the psychological field. The word psychology derives from two Greek roots; 'psyche' refers to 'soul' or 'mind' and logo refers to 'the study of'. A more update definition of the word psychology can be found from Atkinson, et al (1991) “The scientific study of behaviours and mental processes.” However on Google Definitions the definition of psychology is “the mental characteristics and attitudes of a person” [accessed 16 September 2011], which gives somewhat of a contradiction. In this assignment I will be outlining and evaluating four key psychological perspectives. The psychological perspectives I have chosen are the behavioural approach, biological approach, cognitive approach and the psychodynamic approach.
Over the course of this class I have pieced together many things about my own life that before went unnoticed. I am now able to see things in a bit of a different light. Now that I have been introduced to the realm of psychology I understand some of the reasons for behavior around me. I have learned that there is a reason for most everything and a lot of our behaviors and mental processes can be explained through psychology. Studies have been conducted for many years to try and pinpoint the source of our behavior and it is not something that most people think about every day. Having a better understanding of why we operate the way we do will help me to better understand myself and the others around me.
Psychology is an integral part of our modern society, and its influence is quite widespread. Many important decisions, which are made in our society, can be based on psychology - decisions which affect the lives of many people. This is why it is important to determine whether or not psychology is a science. The answer to the question if psychology is a science is not a simple 'yes' or 'no' – it depends on the area of psychological study, on the theory used within an area, and often on the way the researcher chooses to study a phenomenon ( Makunda, 1997). It also depends on what is meant by 'scientific' – for the philosopher of science Karl Popper, for instance, the most important criterion was what he called 'falsifiability'. There are also other criteria of science, which I am going to present in this essay. I will examine different psychological theories in the light of different aspects of scientific endeavour.
The British Psychological Society states that ‘Psychology is the scientific study of people, the mind and behaviour’ (BPS). In this essay I will be discussing what is actually meant by this and whether psychology fits into both the traditional views of a science, as well as more contemporary perspectives. It is widely suggested that Psychology is a “coalition of specialities” meaning it is multi-disciplinary (Hewstone, Fincham and Foster 2005, page 4). I will therefore examine whether it could be considered wrong to think that all parts of the discipline should neatly fit into one view of a scientific approach.
At Wesleyan University, Edward Thorndike’s junior year psychology course was merely a requirement for completing his degree and claimed it offered no spark of inspiration. The desire to pursue psychology came later through required readings from chapters in William James’ book Principles of Psychology. After graduation from Wesleyan University, an opportunity presented itself to Thorndike to work under James at Harvard for his graduate degree. He continued his education under the supervision of James McKeen Catell at Columbia University and in 1898 completed his Ph.D..
Health psychology has been an appealing subject to me because it is relatable on many levels. Of the topics we have covered in class I think unit 3 have left the deepest impression. Stress is something everyone can relate to but probably understood on the minimum. Stress is a common experience for university students and without an exception I fall victim to it every time an exam or presentation comes up. Learning about this topic, what stress is, what it does to your body, how it affects your behavior has lead me to reflect upon past experiences in a way that I can learn to better cope with the effects of stress.
In this essay I am looking at where Psychology as a discipline has come from and what affects these early ideas have had on psychology today, Psychology as a whole has stemmed from a number of different areas of study from Physics to Biology,
This week in class, we were instructed to read about time management and the history of psychology as well as the different types. Only truly taking off in the late 19th century, psychology is one of the newer sciences. Wilhelm Wundt, who established the first psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig in Germany, popularized psychology with his experiment of the mental process with a fellow classmate and professor. With well over 20 different types of psychology, it is one of the most rapidly growing sciences out there. It might be odd to say that psychology is a science, but it requires a person to question and perform experiments just like any other kind of science.
PSYC321-Social Psychology taught me about the ways in which people are influenced by others, how people make decisions, inferences we make about others’ attitudes and personalities, and influence of situational and variables on behavior. I learned that people behave the way that they do for so many reasons. Behaviors are caused more by the social situation than they are by the characteristics of the individuals. One of the concepts that I recall is Lewin’s equation which indicates that the behavior of a person at any given time depends on both the characteristics of the person and the influence of the social situation. Some of the things we do can also be attributed to cultural influences and differences that exist between societies. I found
Have you ever wondered why people have certain reactions? I chose chapter eight on emotions for my reflection paper because emotions are something that everyone has and feels, yet cannot always explain or react to in the way you would expect. Personally, I have never been great at responding to emotions in a way that I would not regret in the future. Thus, naturally being drawn to this chapter as a way to expand my knowledge on how to react to things more positively. I also wanted to learn why I feel a certain way after events that would not affect most people and be reassured about my feelings. Opposite to that, it is nice to see that, while not always productive, others have the same reaction habits. Overall, emotions are a complicated