INTRODUCTION TO

PSYCHOLOGY

Syed Tanveer Rahman

Associate Professor
Dept. of Psychology
University of Dhaka
 Contents
1. Definition
2. Functions/Goals of Psychology
3. Branches of Psychology
4. Application of Psychology
5. Perspectives of Psychology
6. Future of Psychology
 Definition
• Psychology is the scientific study of
behavior and mental processes.
• scientific study :
observed and measured through
systematic way
The psychological constructs must be
operationally defined to be investigated
empirically.
 Definition (Cont.)
• Psychology is the scientific study of
behavior and mental processes.
• behaviour and mental processes :
what people do
thoughts, feelings, perceptions, reasoning
processes, memories, and even biological
activities that maintain bodily functioning
Goals/Functions of Psychology
• To Describe behavior and mental
processes = “What”
• To Explain behavior and mental processes
= “Why” & “How”
• To Predict behavior and mental processes
• To Control behavior and mental processes
 BRANCHES OF PSYCHOLOGY
• Biopsychology
– Examines how biological structures &
functions of the body affect behavior.
• Clinical psychology
– Deals with the study, diagnosis, and treatment
of psychological disorders
• Clinical neuropsychology
– Unites the areas of biopsychology and clinical
psychology, focusing on the relationship
between biological factors and psychological
disorders.
 BRANCHES OF PSYCHOLOGY
• Cognitive psychology
– Focuses on the higher mental processes.
• Counseling psychology
– Focuses on educational , social, and career
adjustment problems
• Developmental psychology
– Examines how people grow and change from
the moment of conception through death.
• Educational psychology
– Concerned with teaching and learning
processes
 BRANCHES OF PSYCHOLOGY
• Environmental psychology
– Considers the relationships between people
and their physical (natural & built)
environment
• Evolutionary psychology
– Considers how behavior is influenced by our
genetic inheritance from our ancestors
• Experimental psychology
– Studies the processes of sensing, perceiving,
learning and thinking using laboratory
experiments
 BRANCHES OF PSYCHOLOGY
• Forensic psychology
– Focuses on legal issues like discriminating
crime from insanity
• Health psychology
– Explores the relationship between
psychological factors physical ailments or
disease
• Industrial/Organizational psychology
– Concerned with the psychology of workplace
• Personality psychology
– Focuses on the consistency in people’s
behavior over time and the traits that
differentiate from one person to another.
 BRANCHES OF PSYCHOLOGY
• Psychology of Women
– Focuses on issues like discrimination against
women, causes of violence against women
• School psychology
– Devoted to counseling children in elementary
& secondary schools who have academic or
emotional problems
• Social psychology
– The study of how people’s thoughts, feelings
& actions are affected by others
• Sports psychology
– Applies psychology to athletic activity &
exercise
 Application of Psychology
• Psychologists of all branches are engaged in
efforts to work upon major societal problems
Example :
Psychology and the Reduction of Violence
Case-1: A bomb explodes at a park during the
1996 Olympics in Atlanta, killing one person
and injuring dozens more.
Case-2: Six-year-old Elisa Izquierdo, the victim of
virtually constant abuse since infancy, dies
when her mother throws her against a concrete
wall.
Case-3: A woman is killed by two teenage
muggers during a robbery that bets the
perpetrators less than $2.
Psychology and the Reduction of
Violence
• Violence in the United States has been
called the twentieth century plague, and it
shows little sign of letting up as we head
into the next century. Surveys consistently
rank violence and crime near the top of the
list of social problems that concern
Americans most (Mehren,1996).
Psychology and the Reduction of
Violence
• Yet violence has not gone unchallenged,
and the field of psychology is playing a key
role in efforts to reduce this social ill.
Psychologists specializing in diverse areas
and employing the major perspectives of
the field are making a concerted effort to
quell the spread of violence and to deal
with its aftermath (Human Capital
Initiative,1997)
Their work is reflected in several
key areas:
• Examining the notion that a “Cycle of
Violence” perpetuates violent behavior
across generations.
• Examining the effects of televised
violence. One survey found that of 94
prime-time programs examined, 48
showed at least one act of violence,
including 57 people killed and 99
assaulted (Hanson & Knopes, 1993).
Their work is reflected in several
key areas: (Cont.)
• Identifying methods for reducing youth
violence. Psychologist Ervin Staub
argues that a combination of cultural,
societal, and individual psychological
factors lies behind violence in youth, which
has become significantly more common
throughout the 1990s.
 Developing Measures to Reduce
the Incidence of Violence against
Minority Group Members
• Psychologists have devised several intervention
programs targeted toward African-American
adolescents. For instance, one program taught
social skills that could be employed in situations
in which conflicts are likely to lead to violence.
After watching a series of videotapes using peer
role models, participants in the program were
less likely to fight and be arrested than
nonparticipants (Hammond &Yung,1991).
 Helping children who are the
victims of violence
• High rates of violence have led
Developmental Psychologist Joy Osofsky
to initiate the Violence Intervention Project
for Children and Families in New Orleans.
This program seeks both to prevent
violence and to provide help for children,
who are all too often either the victims of
violence or witnesses to it.
 PERSPECTIVES OF PSYCHOLOGY
1. The Psychodynamic Perspective: The approach
based on the belief that behaviour is motivated by
unconscious inner forces and conflicts over
which the individual person has little awareness
or control. It is also known as psychoanalytic or
psychosexual approach. This perspective is
intimately linked with one individual: Sigmund
Freud, a Viennese physician in the early 1900s,
whose ideas and works on unconscious
determinants of behaviour had a revolutionary
effect on twentieth-century thinking, not just in
psychology but in whole world of knowledge and
philosophy as well. Although there are some
criticisms of this approach yet it is successfully
used to treat some psychological disorders till to
date.
 PERSPECTIVES OF PSYCHOLOGY
2. The Cognitive Perspective: The approach that
focuses on how people think, understand, and
know about the world. The emphasis is on
learning how people comprehend and represent
the outside world within themselves, and how
our ways of thinking about the world influence
our behaviour.
3. The Biological Perspective: The approach that
views behaviour from the perspective of
biological functioning. It deals with the
questions like how individual nerve cells are
joined together, how the inheritance of certain
characteristics from parents and other ancestors
influences behaviour, how the functioning of the
body affects hope and fear, which behaviour are
instinctual, and so forth.
 PERSPECTIVES OF PSYCHOLOGY
4. The Behavioural Perspective: The approach
that suggests that observable behaviour
should be the focus of study. Whereas the
biological, psychodynamic, and cognitive
approaches look inside the organism to
determine the causes of its behaviour, the
behvioural perspective takes a very different
approach. It grew out of a rejection of
psychology’s early emphasis on the inner
workings of the mind, suggesting instead that
the field should focus on observable
behaviour that can be measured objectively.
 The Behavioral Perspective (Cont.)
John B. Watson was the first major American
psychologist to advocate this approach.
Working in the 1920s, Watson was adamant in
his view that one could gain a complete
understanding of behaviour by studying and
modifying the environment in which people
operated. He believed that human behaviour
is nothing but a product of his surrounding
environment and he has no choice or control
over his behaviour rather operates like a
mechanical robot in the environment being
fully controlled by the environmental
factors/variables like reward and punishment.
 PERSPECTIVES OF PSYCHOLOGY
5. The Humanistic Perspective: The approach that
suggests that all individuals naturally strive to grow,
develop, and be in control of their lives and
behaviour. It evolved as the reaction to the views that
behaviour is determined largely by automatic biological
forces, by unconscious processes, or by the
environment. This approach believes that each of us
has the capacity to seek and reach fulfillment.
According to the major proponents of this perspective,
Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, people will strive
to reach their full potential if given the opportunity.
The emphasis of the humanistic perspective is on free
will, the ability to freely make decisions about one’s
behaviour and life. It assumes that people have the
ability to make their own choices about their
behaviour rather than rely on social standards.
 The Humanistic Perspective (Cont.)
More than any other approach, it stresses more on
the role of psychology in enriching people’s
lives and helping them to achieve
self-fulfillment. The humanistic perspective has
had an important influence on psychologists,
reminding them of their commitment to the
individual person in society.
 FUTURE OF PSYCHOLOGY
1. As its knowledge base grows, psychology will
become increasingly specialized and new
perspectives will evolve.
2. More psychologists will focus on the
prevention of psychological disorders rather
than just on their treatment. Psychological
treatment will become more available and
socially acceptable as the number of
psychologists increases.
 FUTURE OF PSYCHOLOGY
3. Psychology’s influence on issues of public
interests will grow. The major problems of our
time---such as violence, racial and ethnic
prejudice, poverty, and environmental and
technological disasters---have important
psychological aspects, and it is likely that
psychologists will make important practical
contributions toward their resolutions.
4. As the world moves towards globalization day
by day, more issues of population-diversity
are arising demanding more studies on
blending of racial, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural
factors. This will throw new challenge to
psychologists in service and research.