Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes, originating from the Greek words for 'soul' and 'study.' It encompasses various subfields including clinical, social, organizational, educational, and health psychology, each addressing specific aspects of human behavior and well-being. The document also outlines different schools of thought within psychology, such as structuralism, functionalism, behaviorism, gestalt psychology, psychoanalysis, humanism, and cognitivism, highlighting their foundational theories and criticisms.

1. What is Psychology
•The word "psychology" comes from the Greek
word psyche meaning " spirit, soul", and the
Greek word logia meaning the study of
something
•Psychology is the scientific study of behaviour
and mental processes.
•Psychology is considered a science of
behavior or a scientific study of the behavioral
activities & experiences.

2. Psychologists study
• Overt or observable behaviour, as well as
• Covert behaviour – private mental
processes that cannot be directly
observed or measured and must be
inferred from overt behaviour.

3. The primary goals of psychology are
to:
• Describe behaviour – what is the nature
of this behaviour?
• Understand and explain behaviour - why
does it occur?
• Predict behaviour– can we forecast when
and under what circumstances it will
occur?
• Control behaviour - what factors
influence this behaviour?

4. Applied Psychology
• Applied psychology uses the various
fields of basic psychology to improve the
quality of life of the human being in
various fields like school, industry,
hospital, consultancy and community.

5. Clinical psychology
• It deals with the evaluation, diagnosis
and treatment of individual psychological
disorders.
• Principal activities include interviewing
the client, psychological testing, and
providing group or individual
psychotherapy

6. Counseling Psychology-
• it usually works with a somewhat
different clients, providing assistance
to people struggling with everyday
problem of moderate severity. Thus
they often engage in family, marital
and career counseling

7. Social psychology
• It deals with interpersonal behavior and
the role of social forces in governing
behavior.
• It primarily focuses on attitude
formation, attitude change, prejudice,
leadership, conformity, attraction,
aggression, intimate relationships and
behavior in groups.

8. Organizational Psychology
• It tries to study and solve the different
organizational problems exist in the school,
hospitals, university, military, companies etc.
• Here it tries to solve the problems of
leadership, group conflicts, conflicts,
organization culture, organization
development etc.

9. Educational psychology
• is mainly devoted to an understanding of the
different aspects of the teaching-learning
process.
• It is concerned with the application of the
principles, techniques and methods of
psychology to the teaching-learning process.

10. Environmental Psychology
• The study the effects of the physical and
social environment on behavior.
• Environmental psychologists work in
school, industrial and governmental
settings.
• They design work environment and
study the effects of crowding, noise and
air pollution on behavior

11. Health psychology
• Health psychology examine how biological,
social and psychological factors influence
health and illness.
• Health psychologist use psychological sciences
to promote health, prevent illness and
improve health care

12. Forensic psychology
• Forensic psychology is a branch
of psychology which relates to the law.
• The main part of forensic psychology is
working with the criminal justice system.
• Forensic psychology is the use
of psychological practices and principles
and applying them to the legal system,
mainly in court.

13. Sports and Exercise Psychology
• It involves the study of how
psychological factors affect performance
and how participation in sport and
exercise affect psychological and physical
factors.
• Sport psychologists teach cognitive and
behavioral strategies to athletes in order
to improve their experience and
performance in sports.

14. Schools of psychology
• A school of thought, is the perspective of a
group of people who share common
characteristics of opinion , discipline, belief
etc.
• A school is collection of people who put their
ideas under the same umbrella, because these
people have similar ideas , methodology.

15. Structuralism
• Wilhelm Wundt opened the door of the 1st
Psychology laboratory in 1879 in Leipzig,
Germany.
• He is regarded as founder of Psychology.
• He defined psychology as the study of
consciousness. According to Wundt, if
consciousness exists then it must have a
structure.
• Structuralism also focused on breaking down
mental processes into the most basic
components. It means that we cannot study a
stimulus as it is, but we need more study the
small elements.

16. • He thought that consciousness could be studied
by INTROSPECTION
• It describe that what a person is feeling, after
providing a stimulus to somebody and then
ask him to tell about his/her feelings is called
introspection.
• INTROSPECTION It refers to the observation
and recording of the nature of one’s own
perception, thoughts and feelings; looking into
one’s mind; a mental self- analysis.

17. criticism
• Introspection can not be regarded as a
reliable, objective and valid technique.

18. Functionalism
• Founder: William James.
• Functionalism school of thought was emerged
as a reaction to structuralism.
• Functionalism emphasized function rather
than structure of human consciousness.
To study function
1) How the mind operates i.e how the elements
of mind works together.
2) how mental processes promote adaptation.

19. • mental tests , questionnaires, physiological
measures in addition to introspection.
• common with structuralists & functionalist
Both structuralists and functionalists still
regarded psychology as the science of
conscious experience.

20. Behaviorism
• Founder: John B. Watson
• Define School of psychology that studies only
observable and measurable behavior.
• You cannot define conscious any more than you
can define a soul.
• You cannot locate or measure consciousness, and
therefore it cannot be the object of scientific
study.
• Objectively studies through observable actions
rather than thoughts and feeling that cannot be
observed.

21. criticism
• They limited psychology to the study of the
observable behavioral response given by
organism to a stimulus.
• They did not explain consciousness and sub
consciousness.

22. Gestalt Psychology
• Proponent: Max Werthiemer
• School of Psychology that studies how people
perceive and experience objects as whole
patterns.
• According to Gestalt thinkers, the whole is
greater than the sum of its parts.
• Example When we see a tree, we see just that,
a tree, not a series of branches.

23. criticism
• Gestaltists perform only in the area of
perception.
• There approaches were not purely scientific.

24. Psychoanalysis
• Sigmund Freud
• Studied hypnosis and found the unconscious
• Believed that much of our behavior is
governed by hidden motives and unconscious
desires
• Maintained that many unconscious desires
and conflicts are sexual.
• Believed that childhood experiences especially
5 years determined adult personality.

25. • 1.Psychoanalytic theory proposes that most of
the mind is unconscious–filled of conflicting
impulses, urges, and wishes.
• 2. Freud asserted that the sex urges in the
unconscious constitute the main human drive.
This is known as the “libido” theory.
• 3. People are motivated to satisfy this impulses,
ugly as some of them are. But at the same time,
people are motivated to see themselves as
decent, and hence may delude themselves about
their true motives

26. • Methods
Dream interpretation, clinical investigation, free
association.
Criticism
• Psychoanalytic theory is not scientific.
• Too much emphasis on sex and aggression but
did not fully explain consciousness and human
behavior.

27. Humanism
Proponent, Ibraham Maslow and Carl Roger
• It is developed in response of psychoanalysis
and behaviorism
• Humanist psychologists viewed humans as a
free agents capable of controlling their own
lives, making their own choices , setting goals
and achieves them.
• Humanistic psychology focused on individual
free will, personal growth and the concept of
self-actualization.

28. cognitivism
Proponent: Edward Tolman and Jean Piaget
• Cognitive psychology is school of
psychology that studies mental processes
including how people think, perceive,
remember and learn.
• Cognitive Psychology studies man’s
thinking, Perception, Language,
Attention, Memory, Problem-Solving,
Decision-Making, creativity and
Judgment Intelligence

29. The end