What is psychology?

 The word Psychology was coined in 16th century from

Greek terms “Psyche” meaning “soul” and “logos” meaning
the study of a subject. Thus the initial meaning of
Psychology was “The study of Soul.”(La Pointe’ 1970)

 Psychology is the study of mental processes. By mental

processes we mean knowing, feeling and thinking. These
processes go inside our minds.(Hume and Titchner)

 According to Feldman, Psychology is the scientific study of

behaviour and mental processes encompassing not just
people’s action but their biological activities, feelings,
perceptions, memory, reasoning and thoughts.
 Why To Study Psychology?
 To have a better understanding of ones own potentials.

 To know how can they change the perceptions of other

people.

 Helps analyze human behaviour in a business arena.

 Develop leadership skills; as leadership is an integral part

of any business.
 Human Resource Programs depend on psychological
evaluations.

 Training and Development Coordination requires people

handling.

 Understanding human psyche for Customer Service

Representation.

 Psychology provides a systematic understanding of

employee and consumer demands, both material and non-
material.
 Understanding human tendencies to create efficiency and
success in business.

 Human interaction and response shapes business decisions

and strategies in business.

 To understand interactions with staff and management as

well as effective communication and interpersonal skills
needed to effectively handle difficulties and challenges
within a company.
 History of Psychology
 Plato
He believed that human beings enter the world with an
inborn knowledge of reality called nativism.
 Aristotle
He contributed to psychology by being one of the first
thinkers to speculate formally on psychological topics like
sleep and dreams etc.
 Saint Augustine
He wrote his views concerning memory, common emotion an
motivation in the self-analysis he conducted in his classical
work autobiographical work confession. He was the founder
of the technique introspection.
 Rene’ Descartes
He believed that knowledge was inborn in humans. He was
also of the same belief nativism as Plato.
 Francis Bacon
He emphasized the importance of observation rather than
speculation.
 John Locke
He believed that the children were born in this world with
minds like empty slates (tabula rasa in Latin) and there
experience determine what type of adult they will become.
 Pierre Flourens
He studied the effects of damage to specific brain structures
on the behaviour of animals.
 Ernest Weber
He invented a technique called psychophysics. Psychophysics
enabled Weber to quantify the relationship between physical
stimulation and mental experiences. He gave Weber’s Law on
the bases of Psychophysics.
 Hermann Von Helmholtz
He measured the speed of nerve impulse. He set forth the
theory of colour vision. He also gave explanation for our
perception of musical tones.
 Gustav Fechner
He said that mind and body are parallel to each other
changes in one correspond to the changes in others.
 Paul Broca
He conducted study on the brain damage in human beings
and found that the patients with the damage to a region on
the left of the front of the brain (frontal lobe) will lose their
ability to speak. That area was named after him as Broca’s
area that is the area for speech production.
 Sir Francis Galton
He applied Darwin’s theory of natural selection to the
development of human behaviour he claimed that
individuals with the most highly developed abilities would
most likely to survive this let him to find the felid differential
psychology. Galton has his own contributions in the felid of
intelligence testing.
 James Mc Keen Cattle
Cattle coined the term mental tests which he used to
describe different tests of vision, hearing and physical skills
that he administered on to his students.
He owned a business The Psychological Corporation, which
is to this day active in development of tests that asses
abilities, intelligence and personality.
 Hermann Ebbinghaus
He is popular for his work on memory. He performed
experiments on himself. He said once “Psychology has a long
past but a short history”.(Boring, 1957)
Schools of Thought/Perspectives of Psychology
 Structuralism
 Functionalism
 Behaviourism
 Gestalt’s Psychology
 Cognitive Psychology / Cognitivism
 Psychodynamic Psychology/ Psychodynamism
 Humanistic Perspective
 Existentialism / Existential Perspective
 Psychobiological perspective
Fields Of Psychology
 Physiological Psychology
 Psychophysiology
 Comparative Psychology
 Behaviour Analysis
 Behaviour Genetics
 Cognitive Psychology
 Experimental Neuropsychology
 Developmental Psychology
 Social Psychology
 Personality Psychology
 Cross-cultural Psychology
 Clinical Psychology
Applied Fields of Psychology
 Health Psychologist
 School Psychologist
 Consumer Psychologist
 Community Psychologist
 Organizational Psychologist
 Engineering Psychologist
Research Methods In Psychology
Goals of Psychological Research
 There are four primary goals of psychological research:

 Description: Exploring Reasons (What, When, How)

 Explanation: Why Certain Behaviour Happens?

 Prediction: What Might Happen Next?

 Control: Experimental And Controlled Environment

 Methods Used In Psychological
Research
 Naturalistic Observation.
Participant Observation
Nonparticipant observation
 Case study method
 Experimental Method
 Survey
 NATURALISTIC OBSERVATION
 Also Known As Field Study
 Not In Laboratory Or The Clinical Settings
 Observing And Recording Behaviour In The Real
Life Situations

 Advantages
 Wide Applicability Of Results
 Understanding Behaviour In Natural Context

 Disadvantages
 Loss Of Experimental Control
 Time Consuming
 Participant observation
 It is the type in which the researcher becomes the part
of a particular group he wants to study.
 It is used for studying the practices, customs and
norms of a specific sect or cultural group.

 Non Participant observation

 It is the type in which the researcher is not part of the
group to be observed.
 The observations are made from outside the group.
Case Study Method
o Follows a single case
o Typically over an extended period of time
o Draw general conclusions about behaviour
 Advantages
 Can gather extensive information
 Both qualitative and quantitative
 Disadvantages
 Only one case is involved
 Severely limiting generalization to the rest of the
Population
Experimental Method
 Provides Procedure For Testing A Hypothesis

 Study Of Cause And Effect Relationship

 Through Manipulation Of The Variables

 Hypothesis
Is a suggested explanation, a starting point of any
experiment or it can be said to as the tentative solution
of a problem under study.
 Variables
These are the factors that are used in the study taken
from the situation under study.

1. Independent Variable (IV) : the variable that is

manipulated by the experimenter (input variable)

2.Dependent Variable (DV) : the outcome variable

(results of the experiment); the measured variable
Survey
 This is the method often used to find out the interests
and attitudes of the people.
Procedure
 Selection of problem
 Formulation of hypothesis
 Preparation of questionnaire/ Interview
 Selection of a sample group/Sampling
 Data Collection
 Tabulation of data collected
 Conclusion
APA Ethical Guidelines (humans)
 Informed consent
 Awareness of risks
 Confidentiality
 Deception can be used ONLY if benefits justify it and there
is no other way to do the study
APA Ethical Guidelines (animals)

 Researchers must ensure “appropriate consideration of

the animal’s comfort, health, and humane treatment.

 Animals may not be subjected to “pain or stress” when

an alternative procedure is available.
Ethical Issues in Research
 Respecting the rights of human research
participants involves:
 Informed consent is an explanation of a study and the
responsibilities of experimenter and participant.
 Confidentiality of study information must be
maintained.
 Debriefing refers to explaining the research process to
the participants at the end of the study.
 Deception involving participants must be
justified.
 Animal research must be justified and must
minimize discomfort and pain.