This document provides an introduction to the field of psychology. It outlines the course plan and goals of studying psychology, which include applying concepts, student-centered learning, and understanding human behavior through description, explanation, prediction, and control. The document also summarizes several major branches of psychology and their focus of study. It discusses key concepts like paradigms, theories, and the evolution of the field from its founding in 1879 to modern approaches. Major debates in psychology around topics like nature vs nurture are also outlined.

1. Introduction to Psychology
By: Abdikadir Omar Farah
PD-Psychology

2. Course Plan
• Focus on application
• student centered
• Assignments will be live assignment
• Presentations
• Observe my presentations
• Class discussions
• No right or wrong answer
• Small group discussions
• The two rules

3. What is Psychology?
• Psychology is the biopsychosocial and spiritual study of human
behavior.
• Example: Anger
• Biology: lack of sleep
• Psychology: displacement
• Social: conformity
• Spiritual: be patient

4. Four Goals of Psychology
• Describe, Explain, Predict, and Control human
behavior
• Answer the question:
• What is the person doing?
• Why he is doing what he is doing?
• Can we predict what he can do in future?
• How we can control what he is doing?

5. Why studying psychology?

6. Branches of Psychology
• Clinical psychology deals with the study, assessment, diagnosis, and
treatment of psychological disorders.
• Counseling psychology focuses primarily on educational, social, and
career adjustment problems.
• 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 about the world.

7. Cont…
• Cross-cultural psychology investigates the similarities and differences
in psychological functioning in and across various cultures and ethnic
groups.
• Developmental psychology examines how people grow and change
from the moment of conception through death.
• Educational psychology is concerned with teaching and learning
processes, such as the relationship between motivation and school
performance.

8. Cont….
• Forensic psychology focuses on legal issues, such as determining the
accuracy of witness memories.
• Health psychology explores the relationship between psychological factors
and physical ailments or disease.
• Industrial/organizational psychology is concerned with the psychology of
the workplace
• School psychology is devoted to counseling children in elementary and
secondary schools who have academic or emotional problems.
• Social psychology is the study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and
actions are affected by others.
• Sport psychology applies psychology to athletic activity and exercise.

9. Paradigm
• Paradigm
• Framework containing the basic assumptions, way of thinking, and
methodology that are commonly accepted by members of a scientific
community.
• Red lenses
• The Blind Village
• Earth flat vs spherical

10. Theory
• Theory
• An explanation for facts
• Theories never become facts themselves, no matter how well they are
established
• A theory is never just a theory, because always have data
• Theories can’t be proven, but are judges by:
1. how good their data is,
2. and whether they fit the data
• Evolution theory

11. Cont…
• Theories don’t go away just because you find data that don’t fit them
• The only way to make a theory go away is to find a better theory
• Hypothesis
• A possible way things could be
• May or may not have supporting data

12. Evolution of Psychology
• Wilhelm Wundt laid the foundation of psychology in 1879, when he
opened his laboratory in Germany.
• Early perspectives that guided the work of psychologists were
structuralism, functionalism, and gestalt theory.
• The neuroscience approach focuses on the biological components of
the behavior of people and animals.
• The psychodynamic perspective suggests that powerful, unconscious
inner forces and conflicts about which people have little or no
awareness are the primary determinants of behavior.

13. Cont…
• The behavioral perspective deemphasizes internal processes and
concentrates instead on observable, measurable behavior, suggesting
that understanding and control of a person’s environment are
sufficient to fully explain and modify behavior.
• Cognitive approaches to behavior consider how people know,
understand, and think about the world.
• The humanistic perspective emphasizes that people are uniquely
inclined toward psychological growth and higher levels of functioning
and that

14. Major Psychology Debates
• Nature Vs Nurture
• Identical twins, adoption
• Free Will Vs Determination
• Addiction
• Conscious Vs Unconscious
• Anxiety
• Individual Differences Vs Universal Principle
• Emotion experience and expression
• Observable Behavior Vs Internal Mental Process
• Conditioning