This document provides an overview of the field of psychology. It discusses the origins of psychology in Greek philosophy and defines psychology as the scientific study of life. Some key topics that will be covered include love, mental disorders, emotions, and relationships. The goals of psychology are to describe, predict, understand, and influence human behavior and mental processes through rigorous scientific study.

1. Psychology

2. Psyche + Science I invite you to learn about one of life’s most interesting subjects……. YOU The earlier origin of psychology are found in Greek Philosophers, in the work of Aristotle. He studied reproduction to see how life was recreated in each generation He also studied the everyday actions of living people as they reasoned, spoke, remembered, and learned

3. Definition of psychology Psychologist still define psychology as “study of life” Psychology is considered “science” This reliance on rigorous scientific methods of observation is the basis of all science, including psychology

4. Terms Behaviour refers to all of a person’s overt actions that others can directly observe, when you walk, speak, or run, you are behaving in this sense Mental processes refer to the private thoughts, emotions, feelings, and motives that other people cannot directly observe

5. What are we learning ? You will see that a wide range of topics will be discussed including love, violence, mental disorders, and sexuality. We will also discuss emotions, way of improving memory, relationship between employers and employees and other topics.

6. Goal of psychology Describe Information gathered in scientific studies helps psychologists describe behaviour and mental processes accurately. Eg. The study of sexual behaviour among students without the protection of condoms would be an important first step in designing a program to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

7. Goals of psychology Psychologist aims to predict future behaviour through well researched The job description and test allows psychologist to determine the right person with the right job.

8. Goals of psychology Understand We understand behaviour and mental processes when we can explain them. Because there is always more to learn our current explanations are always tentative. In other words, our explanations are not truths. They are “theories” that might be improved or even rejected by future studies.

9. Goals of psychology Influence Psychologists hope to go beyond description, understanding, and prediction to influence behaviour in beneficial ways. The big challenge for psychologists is What can we do to help a teenager boy climb out of depression How can we help parents raise a rambunctious child? What is the best way to help college students select their career These questions cannot be understood until we have identified ways to intentionally influence behaviour that psychology completely fulfills its promise.

10. Founding the science of psychology The first topic studied by psychologists was private conscious experience. What are you thinking and feeling right now? Everything that you are aware of at this moment is your private conscious experience

11. Structuralism The study of human consciousness by Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchecer. They wanted to identify the basic elements of conscious experience how those elements are organized, their view point is known as structuralism They use introspection as a method of looking inwardly at one’s own conscious experiences

12. Introspection experiment Everyone close your eyes Tell me what you feel with an item I give you Don’t tell me what it is but I would like you to describe the raw sensation of the object. Your sense with the object. When you describe the sensations that you experience, you are introspecting, because you are describing the elemental contents of your mind.

13. Group discussion How would this course will be relevant to you as a student of psychology? If you need to influence someone behaviours, what needs to be done first ? and How ?