Psychology: The science of mental processes and behavior

• Science: making verifiable, objective predictions
• Mental processes: storing, recalling, using info/feelings
• Behavior: observable acts
• Psychology evolved from philosophy (using logic to study reality) & physiology (biological processes – the brain)

• Clinical/Personality: the unique behaviors of persons
• Various topics: psychological disorders and treatment, intelligence & creativity, personality, traits & measurement, psychodymamic theory: Freud, humanistic psychology, stress management
• Learning: our behavior is merely a product of what we have learned
• Behaviorism…forget about mental processes: we don’t really have thoughts…focus on observable behavior
• Stimulus – Response theory: we respond to stimuli with behavior, not thoughts
• Reinforcement for behavior: if our behavior produces rewarding consequences, then we will do it again
• Various topics: behaviorism, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, cognitive learning
• Cognitive: How information from the environment is processed into our experience and remembered
• Reaction to dogma of behaviorism
• Information-processing approach to mental events
• We process information much like a computer does
• Behavior is mentally programmed: depressive behaviors are caused by depressed views of the world (i.e., abnormal processing of stimuli)
• Various topics: sensation & perception, memory, consciousness, language & thinking
• Biological: How the brain guides our behavior
• Various topics: neural functioning, neurotransmitters, genes, heritability of traits/characteristics, the physiological underpinnings of emotion and motivation
• Developmental: The changes in behavior/cognition that occur through the life cycle
• Various topics
• Infancy: perception & behavior, attachment, language, moral, and cognitive development, etc.
• Adolescence: physical, social & cognitive development
• Adulthood and Aging: memory & intelligence, moral development
• Social: how our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are impacted by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others
• Various topics: stereotypes & prejudice, attribution of cause, relationships, conformity, compliance, obedience, helping behavior

• Wundt’s influential study: determined that it takes about 1/10 of a second to shift one’s attention from the sound of a bell to the position of a pendulum
• Led Wundt to believe we had voluntary control process for mental events: selective attention
• A self-conscious experimental psychology took place as far as Wundt believed: voluntary vs. involuntary mental actions
• Structuralism: Focus on consciousness
• Find basic elements of conscious processes: sensations & feelings
• Sensations: whenever a sense organ (e.g., eye) is stimulated and that impulse reaches the brain
• Feelings: follows a sensation and is (1) pleasant/unpleasant, (2) exciting/unexciting, and (3) straining/relaxing
• Discover rules for how elements are connected into more complex mental structures
• Introspection: tool of structuralism; self-observation: “seeing” mental processes in immediate experience
• Highly subjective: ultimate downfall; no two person’s observations were the same: lack of consistency in description
• More a description of the memory of the sensation (i.e., retrospection), rather than the sensation itself

A. Functionalism: focus on adaptation; ppplying Darwin’s theory of natural selection to mental processes

• Pragmatism: If an idea works, then it is valid; that is, “why” we think, feel, and behave
• Function of consciousness/the mind: how it helps us to survive
• William James: consciousness flows like a river
• “Stream” of consciousness: consciousness is personal/selective, continuous (i.e., cannot be cut up for analysis), and constantly changing
• Structuralism was foolish to search for common elements to all minds

• You should not dissect an experience into separate elements to discover truths – instead, look at the “whole”
• Dividing mental experience up into elements is not meaningful: we do not see patches of colors but see people, cars, trees, etc.
• Perception is focus here; e.g., phi phenomenon: illusion that a light is moving from one location to another by flashing lights on and off at a certain rate

• Internal drives/impulses (sex & aggression)
• Unconscious motivation
• Conscious vs. unconscious conflicts (ego vs. id)
• Mental illness arises from being overwhelmed by this conflict
• Psychoanalysis as therapy: “tell me about your childhood…”

E. Humanistic Psychology

• We operate under a sky of free will: we choose our destiny
• Focus is on life-fulfillment
• Self-Actualization: reaching one’s full, human potential in terms of talents, capacities, missions
• To be at peace with oneself, musicians must make music, artists must paint, poets must write: you must be true to your own nature!

G. Evolutionary Psychology

• Based on Darwin’s theory of natural selection: behavior and mental processing/strategies are used to ensure genetic survival
• Helping others (especially our blood relatives) promotes genetic fitness
• Attraction has been suggested to be driven by genetic fitness
• Men desire youthfulness; women desire resources (both suggest genetic fitness)