1. Psychology is derived from the Greek words meaning “mind” and “knowledge and study.” Psychology now can be defined as the scientific study of overt behavior and mental processes or covert behavior. Psychologists hope through the use of psychology to describe, understand, predict, and ultimately control behavior.
2. The scientific method is a form of critical thinking based on careful measurement and controlled observations which consist of six elements: making observations, defining a problem, proposing a hypothesis, gathering evidence and testing the hypothesis, building a theory and finally, publishing the results. Psychologists apply this to their research by carefully observing the behavior of both animals and humans. They also use
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Many recognize Wilhelm Wundt as the father of Psychology; the guy who started it all and paved the way for many other scientists to discover subtitles that connected to psychology. There are many more important figures that contributed to the subject and the learning of psychology, however, the two most recognized individuals I will be discussing are John Watson and Sigmund Freud. John Watson was a behaviorist who deeply relied on the observation of animal and eventually human responses in relation to outside stimuli. He deemed the idea of introspection as unscientific simply because the disagreement over the issue cannot be settled. He also objected to the study of the conscious experience and the mind. Watson adopted Ivan Pavlov’s concept of conditioning (responses to certain stimuli) to explain behavior. Part of me believes in observing others behavior in relationship to outside stimuli. A lot can be told about a person by the way they handle certain situations. On the other side of psychology scale is Sigmund Freud. Freud was a psychoanalyst who deeply believed in the mind and the unconscious to explain behavior. He compared our mind to an iceberg, showing only the tip of ourselves while the rest is submerged inside of us. He believed we had three layers: a conscious level, containing our perceptions and thoughts; a preconscious level, containing memories and stored knowledge; and finally an unconscious level (the face of mankind) which contains out selfish needs, immoral urges, fears, violent motives, irrational wishes, shameful experiences, and unacceptable desires. Freud believed this level of our mind hid our deepest motives and our true personalities. It was also known as a “Freudian Slip” to accidentally blurt out the truth or something you wanted to say. This “slip” comes from the unconscious level of our mind. I also agree with Freud because there is so much that is hidden in someone’s subconscious that no one could know about. Everyone has hidden
Psychology comprises of two words originally used by the ‘Greeks’, ‘psyche’, defining the mind, soul or spirit and lastly ‘logos’ being study. Both words define together the ‘study of the mind’. Psychology perspectives evaluate the normal and abnormal behaviour and how persons’ deal with different concepts of issues and problems. Psychology theories’ are based on ‘common sense’, but its scientific structure, everything needs to be evaluated and tested, therefore, promoting different psychological theories’.
The birth of psychology was in December of 1879, at Germanys University of Leipzig (Myers, 2014, p.2). In 1960, Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener defines psychology as “the science of mental health” (Myers, 2014, p.4). However, two provocative American psychologists, John Watson and B.F Skinner, redefined psychology in 1920. They redefined psychology as “the scientific study of observable behavior” (Myers, 2014, p.4). The problem arose when psychologists realized people could not observe feeling or thought so they needed to come up with a new definition for psychology. We define psychology today as “the science of behavior and mental processes” (Myers, 2014, p.4). Psychology includes many subfields such as human development, social behavior,
Psychology can be broadly defined as the scientific and systematic study of people’s behavior and mental processes.
Psychology is a social science that aims to study the mind and the behaviors of humans. It aims to understand what drives humans to act the way they do. It differs from sociology and anthropology in that it takes accounts the individual rather than society as a whole.
Wilhem Wundt, known today as the “Father of Psychology”, was born in Baden in 1832. As both a psychologist and a philosopher, Wundt went on to establish the foundation of psychology and pave the way for hundreds of scientists down the line.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), is the founder of the psychodynamic approach. He proposed that human behaviour is influenced by unconscious thoughts, formed in early development and childhood (Gross 2005) and that all behaviour has a cause or reason, meaning the unconscious part of the mind to be constant conflict with the conscious (McLeod 2015). Freud put forward the theory that human consciousness is made up of three parts, the tripartite personality, consisting of the id, ego and super ego (Gross 2005). Freud
The scientific method is the analyzation of evidence, to examine a case from every angle possible, to not give up on an investigation until all of the angles are covered and to not allow personal emotions create a bias in their mind (Osterburg 2010). A scientific method example would be when an investigator arrives to a crime scene, they would first search the area for clues and see if something doesn’t seem right. Next they would have to search for different forms of evidence, most important would be trace evidence because it can provide DNA evidence which can also link a suspect to the crime. There are many more ways evidence and other clues can be harvested from a crime scene but it is up to the investigator to use their knowledge and help find the person responsible for the crime
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.
Psychology is the scientific study of the mind, brain, and behavior. In psychology, and all of the other sciences, relying on opinions is abandoned in order to find out which explanations best fit the evidence or data given. Science continually forces us to question our findings and conclusions. Over time, psychology has advanced greatly and a main reason for such progressiveness is because of the change in the research model used.
The word Psychology comes from two Greek words: Psyche and Logos. The term ?psychology? used early on described the study of the spirit. It was in the 18th century when psychology gained its literal meaning: The study of behaviour. In studies today psychology is defined as the scientific and systematic study of human and animal behaviour. The term psychology has a long history but the psychology as an independent discipline is fairly new.
Martin, Carlson and Buskit, (2013), p. 5 in PSYCHOLOGY defined psychology as the scientific study of behaviour. However, psychology varies in its form. For example, there’s social psychology, cognitive psychology, cultural psychology and many others. Considering psychology was a concept known by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and other civilizations, it became a popular subject of study during the enlightenment period.
When the word psychology is mentioned, most people automatically think of mental illness or the popular television series like CSI, Mentalist and talk shows that give personal psychological advice like Dr Phil. But these opinions and sources led us to a very narrow scope of its definition. Psychology is defined as the scientific sturdy of mind and behavior. The first part of the definition calls psychology a scientific sturdy, as a science it is a body of systemized knowledge that is gathered by carefully observing and measuring events. The scientific methods are important to the psychologists and researchers who apply such knowledge and researches in areas like forensic, industrial organization and clinical.
Psychology is the study of the mind, its biology, and behavior if the individual. The father of psychology, Wilhelm Wundt, used objective measurement and controlled analyzing to find and emphasize separation between psychology and philosophy (McLeod). Wundt opened the Institute for Experimental Psychology at the University of Leipzig in Germany in 1879, using his background in physiology to study reactions and sensations (McLeod). There is no doubt that he, along with the later help of Sigmund Freud, launched what is now modern psychology. Psychology and its research helped the world understand the inner workings of the mind and how it affects everyone around us.
Psychologists use the scientific method to perform their research. The scientific method is a consistent way of making observations, forming theories, gathering data, testing predictions, and interpreting results. Researchers make observations to describe and measure behaviour. After witnessing
Scientific Methods can simply be described as an ability to investigate systematically along with taking notes, learning from peers and previous mistakes. Scientific method provides us a way of gaining knowledge...