SHORT NOTES
Basic areas of modern psychology:
Biological psychology – studies animal behavior and
compares it with human behavior. Psychologists in this field study the ways in
which the nervous system and other organs provide the basic for behavior.
Sensation and perception – This specially is concerned with
how the sense organ operates. Operation of sense organs is sensation and
interpretation of sensory organs is called perception.
Learning and memory – The ways in which we learn and
remember new information, new skills, new habits, and new ways of relating to
other people are studied in this specialty.
Cognition – Psychologists in this are concerned with
intelligent action e.g., thinking, planning, decision making.
Development Psychology – This field of psychology is
concerned with changes that take place in people during their life span. It is
also the changes occurring from time of conception to death.
Motivation and emotion – Psychologist study the needs and
states that activate and guide behavior such as hunger, thirst, sex, the need
for achievement, the nature of the feelings and mood that color experience.
Personality – focuses on the more or less consistent ways
of behaving that characterize our personality.
Social psychology – It studies the influence of other
people on our behavior, the behavior of people in groups, intimate
relationships and attitudes towards others.
Sociocultural psychology – In this area psychologists focus
on the ethnic and cultural factors, gender identity, sexual orientation.
Applied areas of modern Psychology:
(Personal problem / correct abnormal behavior)
Clinical Psychology – Clinical psychologists try to
understand and treat personal problems and correct abnormal behavior in a
clinical set up.
Counseling psychology – Specialists in this field help
people with their personal / school problems and with their career choices.
Industrial – Organizational Psychology – This field focuses
on ways to train and motivate workers on ways to promote job satisfaction and
good relationships among workers.
Educational and School Psychology – Educational psychology
is concerned with the ways children learn in the classroom and the construction
of the psychological and educational concepts. School psychology consults with
teachers and about children who are experiencing learning behavior problems and
they test children to see whether they could benefit from the special education
programs.
Health psychology – specialists in this field focus on the
ways of coping up with stress and trying to bring out the effect of stress.
They seek to prevent health problems such as heart diseases by teaching people
to relax, exercise and control their diets.
Ethic of research with animal subjects:
There are a number of reasons why psychologists study
animal behavior.
Some studies conducted on animals would not be possible on
humans.
Experiments conducted on animals can eb better controlled
than experiments done on humans.
A great deal of information ca be learnt by comparing the
behavior of animals of different species:
a. Health:
All animal subjects must be cared for in a manner that ensures good health.
b. Necessity:
Studies of animals are considered to be ethical only when they are necessary to
significantly advance the understanding of human behavior and mental process.
c. Humane
treatment: Every effort must be made to minimize the discomfort of the animal
subject. Necessary surgery must be performed under anesthesia and the animal’s
death must be as painless as possible. Studies that inflict pain or stress are
considered essential to worthwhile scientific aims.
Although we must be very careful not to assume
automatically what is learnt about animal behavior will apply to human
behavior, much useful research has been learned from animal research.
The use of animals in research has received a great deal of
public attention in recent years due to the activities of animal rights groups.
Ethics of Research on Human Participants
Psychology depends heavily on research conducted with human
participants for its database. More complete discussion of these issues can be found
in the American Psychological Association (A.P.A.) Ethical Principles in the
Conduct of Research with human participants.
Freedom from pressure – It is not ethical to pressurize an
individual into participating in an experiment. Students in college courses for
e.g., cannot be required to participate, they must be given an alternative way
to meet any course requirements.
Inform Consent – The experimenter must give potential
participants a full description of the experiment in a language they can understand
before they are asked to participate. Its not ethical to allow individual to
participate in an experiment without knowing what they are getting into. Once
the experiment has begun, it must be made clear to the participants that they
are fully free to change their minds and withdraw from the experiment without
penalty, embarrassment and so on.
Limited deception – Sometimes it is necessary to conduct
experiments without the participants knowing the true purpose of the study.
Adequate debriefing – Research participants have a right to
know the results of the study. Current practice dictates that all persons are
provided with a summary of the study in a language they understand. If the
results are not immediately available, they have a right to receive it when it
is available.
Confidentiality - Researchers have an obligation to keep
everything that they learn about the research participants absolutely
confidential. In addition, data must be stored without names attached in most
cases to protect future abuses of the information.
Contemporary perspectives in psychology
Biological perspective – Relation between our biological
systems and behavior. Cajal identified neurons (brain cells) understand the
role played by our brain in emotion, motivation, reasoning, etc., role of
heredity, role of drugs on the brain chemicals.
Socio-cultural perspective – Here, psychologists emphasize
that cultural, ethnic identity and gender are the three key factors that should
be taken into consideration in order to understand a person.
Definition of culture – The patterns of behavior beliefs
and values that are shared by a group of people.
Definition of ethnic group – A group of persons who are
descendants from a common group of ancestors.
Definition of ethnic identity – Each person’s sense of
belonging to a particular ethnic group and sharing that groups belief,
attitudes, skill, music, ceremonies, etc.
Definition of gender identity – One’s views of oneself as
male or female.
Two aspects of this prospective are important namely:
It promotes cultural relativity (promotes thinking of
different cultures in relative terms rather than judgmental terms). It says
that cultures are simply different rather than being inferior or superior.
It reminds us that not all members of a given culture,
ethnic group or gender are alike, there are more differences within the same
group than between different cultures.
DISTINGUISH BETWEEN
Ethnic group and ethnic identity
Ethnic group – A group of persons who are descendants from
a common group of ancestors.
People belonging to a particular ethnic group share the
group’s belief, attitudes, skill, music, ceremonies, etc. They also share
similar racial characteristics by knowing the person’s race, we will be able to
know his ethic group. E.g., when a person is born and brought up in India but
later decides to migrate to Australia, he then adopts the culture, values,
behaviorism of the Australians. Therefore, India becomes his ethnic group.
Ethnic identity – Each person’s sense of belonging to a
particular ethnic group and sharing that groups belief, attitudes, skill,
music, ceremonies, etc.
e.g., When an individual has a particular ethic group but
adopts that of another that becomes his ethnic identity. When the individual
migrates to Australia, Australia becomes his ethnic identity. It can be changed
simply by adopting the values, rituals, norms, etc. of another ethnic group.
Basic and applied area of modern psychology
Basic area of modern psychology – Those who work in basic
areas conduct research on psychological processes such as emotion, thinking,
learning, prejudice, etc. by using scientific methods.
e.g., Bio-psychological studies animal behavior and
compares it with human behavior
e.g., Sensation and perception studying of the sense organs
and their interpretations.
e.g., Social psychology studies the influence of society on
behavior.
e. g., learning and memory – The ways in which we learn and
remember new information, new skills, new habits and new ways of relating to
other people are studied in this specialty.
Applied area of modern psychology – Those who work in
applied areas (use knowledge from the basic areas to solve and prevent
significant human problems such as marital difficulties, emotional instability,
job dissatisfaction, etc.)
e.g., Clinical psychology diagnoses and treats
psychological disorders.
e.g., Counseling psychology helps people with personal,
school or career problems.
e.g., Industrial – organizational psychology studies
problems of workers.
e.g., Educational and school psychology is concerned with
school or college syllabus. School psychology helps to identify the problem
children.
e.g., health psychology studies the effect of stress and
trying to prevent health problems by certain techniques.
DEFINITIONS
Clinical Psychology – Clinical psychologists try to
understand and treat personal problems and correct abnormal behavior.
Counseling psychology – Specialists in this field help
people with personal or school problems and career choices.
Industrial and organizational Psychology – This field focus
on ways to match employees to jobs, to train and motivate workers and to
promote job satisfaction and good relationships among workers.
Educational and school psychology – Educational psychology
is concerned with ways children learn in the classroom and with the
construction of psychological and educational tests. School psychologists
consult with teachers about children who are experiencing learning or behavior
problems and they test children to see whether they benefit from special
educational programs.
Health psychology – Specialists in this field focus on the
ways in which pressures, conflicts, hardships and other factors may contribute
to poor health. They seek to prevent health problems such as heart diseases by
teaching people to relax, exercise and control their diet and to stop high-risk
behaviors such as smoking.
Psychology – Today psychology is defined as the science of
behaviors and mental processes.
A science: Control and Observation
Behavior: Persons overt actions that others can directly
observe.
Mental processes: (Covert) Private thoughts, emotions,
feelings, thinking, reasoning, etc.
Goals of psychology –
Describe – the information gathered through scientific
research helps us to describe psychological phenomena accurately and
completely.
Predict – able to predict future behavior.
Explanation – We understand behavior and mental processes when
we can explain them. Explanations are theories and not facts.
Influence – Psychologists hope to influence behavior in
beneficial ways i.e., therapy
Ethnic identity – Each person’s sense of belonging to a
particular ethnic group and sharing that groups belief, attitudes, skill,
music, ceremonies, etc. is called ethnic identity.
Ethnic group – A group of persons who are descendants from
a common group of ancestors. People belonging to a particular ethnic group
share the group’s beliefs attitudes, skill, music ceremonies etc., and racial
characteristics.
Gender identity – Gender identity refers to one’s view of
oneself as male or female. As boys and girls interact with their parents,
siblings, teachers, and friends they learn what it means to be male or female
in their society. For e.g., males traditionally have been taught to be strong
and assertive whereas females have been taught to eb mature and gentle.
