General Psychology

mathematics HEALTH ENGINEERING DESIGN MEDIA management GEOGRAPHY EDUCA E MUSIC C PHYSICS law O ART L agriculture O BIOTECHNOLOGY G Y LANGU CHEMISTRY TION history AGE M E C H A N I C S psychology General Psychology Subject: GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY Credits: 4 SYLLABUS A definition of Psychology Practical problems, Methods of Psychology, Work of Psychologists, Schools of psychology, Attention & Perception - Conscious clarity, determinants of Attention, Distraction, Sensory deprivation, Perceptual constancies, perception of fundamental physical dimensions, Illusions, Organizational factors of perception. Principles of learning Classical conditioning, Operant Conditioning, Principles of reinforcement, Cognitive Learning, Individualized learning, Learner & learning memory - kinds of memory, processes of memory, stages of memory, forgetting. Thinking and language - Thinking process, Concepts. Intelligence & Motivation Theories - Measurement of Intelligence; Determinants; Testing for special aptitudes, Motivation - Motives as inferences, Explanations and predictors, Biological motivation, Social motives, Motives to know and to be effective. Emotions Physiology of emotion, Expression of emotions, Theories of emotions; Frustration and conflict, Personality - Determinants of Personality, Theories of personality Psychodynamic, Trait, Type, Learning, Behavioural & Self: Measurement of personality Suggested Readings: 1. Morgan, Clifford. T., King, Richard. A., Weisz, John.R., Schopler, John, Introduction to Psychology, TataMcGraw Hill. 2. Marx, Melvin H. Introduction to psychology - Problems, Procedures & Principles, MacMillan Publishing Co. 3. Rathus, Spencer A. Essentials of Psychology. 4. Kalat, James W. Introduction to psychology, 4th edition, Brooks / Cole Publishing Co. A DEFINITION OF PSYCHOLOGY STRUCTURE Learning objectives Psychology History Subfields Methods of psychology Criticism Work of psychologists Schools of psychology Attention and perception—conscious clarity Determinants of attention Distraction sensory deprivation Perceptual development Characteristics of perceptual developments Theories of perceptual development Perceptual constancies Perception of fundamental physical dimensions Organizational factors of perception Review questions LEARNING OBJECTIVES Understand the meaning of psychology; Explain the subfields of Psychology; Explain the methods of psychology; Understand the attention and perception; Understand the perceptual development; Understand the theories of perceptual development; and Understand the organizational factors of perception. PSYCHOLOGY Psychology is an academic and applied discipline that involves the scientific study of mental functions and behaviors. Psychology has the immediate goal of understanding individuals and groups through both establishing general principles and researching specific cases, and through several accounts it ultimately aims to benefit society. In this field, a professional practitioner or researcher is described a psychologist and can be classified as a social, behavioral, or cognitive scientist. Psychologists explore concepts such as perception, cognition, attention, emotion, phenomenology, motivation, brain functioning, personality, behavior, and interpersonal relationships. Psychologists of diverse stripes also consider the unconscious mind. Psychologists employ empirical methods to infer causal and correlational relationships flanked by psychosocial variables. In addition, or in opposition, to employing empirical and deductive methods, some—especially clinical and counseling psychologists—at times rely upon symbolic interpretation and other inductive techniques. Psychology has been described as a "hub science", with psychological findings linking to research and perspectives from the social sciences, natural sciences, medicine, and the humanities, such as philosophy. While psychological knowledge is often applied to the assessment and treatment of mental health problems, it is also directed towards understanding and solving problems in several different spheres of human activity. The majority of psychologists are involved in some kind of therapeutic role, practicing in clinical, counseling, or school settings. Several do scientific research on a wide range of topics related to mental processes and behavior, and typically work in university psychology departments or teach in other academic settings (e.g., medical schools, hospitals). Some are employed in industrial and organizational settings, or in other areas such as human development and aging, sports, health, and the media, as well as in forensic investigation and other characteristics of law. HISTORY The study of psychology in a philosophical context dates back to the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, China, India, and Persia. As early as the 4th century BC, Greek physician Hippocrates theorized that mental disorders were of a physical, rather than divine, nature. Structuralism German physician Wilhelm Wundt is credited with introducing psychological detection into a laboratory setting. Recognized as the "father of experimental psychology", he founded the first psychological laboratory, at Leipzig University, in 1879. Wundt focused on breaking down mental processes into the most basic components, motivated in part through an analogy to recent advances in chemistry, and its successful investigation of the elements and structure of material. Although Wundt, himself, was not a structuralist, his student Edward Titchener, a major figure in early American psychology, was a structuralist thinker opposed to functionalist approaches. Functionalism Functionalism formed as a reaction to the theories of the structuralist school of thought and was heavily influenced through the work of the American philosopher, scientist, and psychologist William James. James felt that psychology should have practical value, and that psychologists should find out how the mind can function to a person's benefit. In his book, Principles of Psychology, published in 1890, he laid the foundations for several of the questions that psychologists would explore for years to come. Other major functionalist thinkers incorporated John Dewey and Harvey Carr. Other 19th-century contributors to the field contain the German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus, a pioneer in the experimental study of memory, who urbanized quantitative models of learning and forgetting at the University of Berlin, and the Russian-Soviet physiologist Ivan Pavlov, who exposed in dogs a learning process that was later termed "classical conditioning" and applied to human beings. Starting in the 1950s, the experimental techniques urbanized through Wundt, James, Ebbinghaus, and others re-appeared as experimental psychology became increasingly cognitivist—concerned with information and its processing—and, eventually, constituted a part of the wider cognitive science. In its early years, this development was seen as a "revolution," as cognitive science both responded to and reacted against then-popular theories, including psychoanalytic and behaviorist theories. Psychoanalysis From the 1890s until his death in 1939, the Austrian physician Sigmund Freud urbanized psychoanalysis, which comprised a method of investigating the mind and interpreting experience; a systematized set of theories in relation to the human behavior; and a form of psychotherapy to treat psychological or emotional distress, especially unconscious conflict. Freud's psychoanalytic theory was largely based on interpretive methods, introspection, and clinical observations. It became very well recognized, largely because it tackled subjects such as sexuality, repression, and the unconscious mind as general characteristics of psychological development. These were largely measured taboo subjects at the time, and Freud provided a catalyst for them to be openly discussed in polite society. Clinically, Freud helped to pioneer the method of free association and a therapeutic interest in dream interpretation. Freud had an important influence on Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, whose analytical psychology became an alternative form of depth psychology. Other well- recognized psychoanalytic scholars of the mid-20th century incorporated psychoanalysts, psychologists, psychiatrists, and philosophers. Among these thinkers were Erik Erikson, Melanie Klein, D.W. Winnicott, Karen Horney, Erich Fromm, John Bowlby, and Sigmund Freud's daughter, Anna Freud. Throughout the 20th century, psychoanalysis evolved into diverse schools of thought, most of which may be classed as Neo-Freudian. Psychoanalytic theory and therapy were criticized through psychologists such as Hans Eysenck, and through philosophers including Karl Popper. Popper, a philosopher of science, argued that psychoanalysis had been misrepresented as a scientific discipline, whereas Eysenck said that psychoanalytic tenets had been contradicted through experimental data. Meanwhile, though, researchers in the emerging field of neuro-psychoanalysis defended some of Freud's ideas on scientific grounds, while scholars of the humanities maintained that Freud was not a "scientist at all, but ... an interpreter." Behaviorism In the United States, behaviorism became the dominant school of thought throughout the 1950s. Behaviorism is a discipline that was established in the early 20th century through John B. Watson, and embraced and extended through Edward Thorndike, Clark L. Hull, Edward C. Tolman, and later B.F. Skinner. Theories of learning accentuated the methods in which people might

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