Samenvatting Psychology eight edition H1 tm H8

Boek: Psychology, Eight Edition
Auteur: Peter Gray, David F. Bjorklund

Module: Inleiding in de Psychologie

, Chapter 1: Background to the study of psychology
Psychology = the science of behavior and the mind.
Behavior = observable actions of a person ar an animal.
Mind = an individual’s sensations, perceptions, thoughts, emotions etc. (subjective experiences).

Science = all attempts to answer questions through systematic collection and logical analysis of
objectively observable data.

1879 Wilhelm Wundt opened first university for psychology in Germany.

Three Fundamental ideas for psychology
1. Behavior and mental experiences have physical causes that can be studied scientifically.
2. The way people behave, think and feel is modified over time by their experiences in their
environment.
3. The body’s machinery, which produces behavior and mental experiences, is a product of
evolution by natural selection.


Physical causation of behavior The role of experience The evolutionary basis of
mind and behavior
 Church dualism = material body, British Empiricism = all thought & Darwin’s theory of natural
immaterial soul. Behavior can’t be knowledge comes from sensory selection and evolution in
studied. experience 1859 formed the basis for
 Descartes’ dualism placed more Locke’s tabula rasa/blank slate. evolutionary psychology.
focus on body for complex behavior
(eating) but not thought.
 Hobbes’s materialism opened the
way for psychology as he argued
that nothing exists but matter and
energy and thoughts are product of
the brain.
th
19 century: Law of association by contiguity = Focus on function of behavior:
 Nervous system understood, inspired sensory experiences combine to form how does an organism’s
reflexology thoughts. Example: a child eats an behavior help it to survive and
 Concept of localization of function in apple for the first time, hears the reproduce
the brain word apple, taste sweet > concept of
apple created.
Behavior, mind and thought have a physical German Nativism claims that Natural selection offers a
bases > paved the way for psychology knowledge is innate and provides the scientific foundation for
ability to learn. A priori knowledge = nativism; ingrained knowledge
built in the brain. A posteriori
knowledge = gained from experience.
Example = a sheet of paper won’t
learn from an apple.

, The scope of psychology
Levels of causal analysis and topics of study Discipline of psychology Professions of Psychology
Level of analysis = level or type of causal Scientific disciplines can be classified Profession includes:
process that is studied. as natural science, social science or  Academic; teach &
Biological: humanities. research
 Neural (brain) Psychology has connections with  Practicing; real
 Physiological (hormones) each class and is a hub science. world application.
 Genetic (genes)
 Evolutionary (natural selection In various settings:
Other:  Universities
 Learning (experiences and  Clinical settings
environment, behavioral)  Schools
 Cognitive ( information in the mind)  Business and
 Social (other people) government
 Cultural (customs in a culture)
 Developmental
Each level of analysis can be applied to any
behavior or mental experience. They can also
be combined and are complementary.
Some subfields of psychology are defined by
their level of analysis (evolutionary psychology);
others by their topics studied (clinical
psychology)
Specialties defined by topic studied and not
level of analysis:
 Perceptual psychology
 Psychology of motivation/emotion
 Personality psychology
 Abnormal psychology (study mental
disorders)
 Clinical psychology (help mental
disorders)