2.  Scientific study
 Behavior
◦ Overt
 Mental processes
◦ Covert
 Empiricism
◦ Knowledge originates through experience

3.  Goals of psychology
◦ Describe
 What is happening?
◦ Explain
 Why is it happening?
◦ Predict
 When will it happen again?
◦ Control
 How can it be changed?

4.  Socrates & Plato (400 B.C.)
◦ Dualism
 Descartes (1600’s)
◦ Pineal gland
 John Locke (mid-late 17th
century)
◦ Tabula rasa (blank slate)

5.  Wilhelm Wundt (1879)
◦ “father of psychology”
◦ Objectivity ( without bias in measurement)
 Edward Titchener (late 19th
century)
◦ Structuralism
 William James (late 19th
century)
◦ Functionalism

6.  Gestalt Psychology (1900’s)
◦ Max Wertheimer
◦ Means “whole”
 Psychoanalysis (1900’s)
◦ Sigmund Freud
 Behaviorism (1900’s)
◦ John B. Watson

7.  Humanistic Psychology (1950’s)
◦ “third force”
 Cognitive Psychology (1960’s)
◦ Stimulated by development in computers
 Evolutionary Psychology
◦ Universal human characteristics

8.  Psychodynamic Theory
 Behaviorism
 Humanism
 Cognitive Perspective
 Evolutionary Perspective
 Biopsychological Perspective
 Sociocultural Perspective

9.  Various ways that psychologists can look at a
psychological issue
 Stephen Kosslyn
◦ Level of the brain
◦ Level of the person
◦ Level of the world

10.  Organizations
◦ APA
◦ APS
 Psychologist vs. psychiatrist
◦ Psychologist
 Ph.D.
◦ Psychiatrist
 M.D.

11.  Clinical Psychology
◦ Diagnosis/treatment of people
 Academic Psychology
◦ Teach students/research
 Applied Psychology
◦ Use psychological theory to try and solve real world
problems

12.  Which category do these careers fall into?
◦ Researching
 academic
◦ Studying behavior in the workplace
 applied
◦ Help student’s with learning problems
 clinical
◦ Counselor
 clinical
◦ Teaching
 academic
◦ Working with patients as a health psychologist
 applied
◦ Looking at sports performance
 applied

13.  Scientific Method
1.) Identify the problem
2.) Conduct background research
3.) Formulate a hypothesis
4.) Test the hypothesis
5.) Analyze your results
6.) Report your results

14.  Critical thinking: making reasoned judgments about
claims.
◦ 4 criteria for critical thinking.
 #1 – there are very few “truths” that do not need to be
subjected to testing.
 #2 – all evidence is not equal in quality
 #3 – just because someone is considered to be an
authority or to have a lot of expertise, does not make
everything that person claims automatically true
 #4 – critical thinking requires an open mind