1. OVERVIEW:
General Psychology

2. The Science of Psychology
a. Historical Origins of Psychology
b. Goals of Psychology
c. Fields of Specialization
d. Viewpoints in Psychology
d.1 Schools of Thought
d.2 Contemporary Approaches

3. Psychology
 A scientific study of human behavior
 Said to be the brain child of philosophy
 A process of trying to understand human need, motion, stimulation and what
lay behind choices made through every step of human life.
 Scientific study of the behavior of man and lower animals.

4.  Psychology(Psyche) – soul (Logos) – study
 - is a science that gather facts systematically organizes into general
principle and formulates theories.
 Psychology as a Science
 Science – is a branch of knowledge or a study dealing with a body of facts
or truth

5.  Behavior – refers to action or activity of the individual as matter of
physiological study.
 Behavior can be:
 1. overtly - outward behavior
 2. covert – hidden not visible to the naked eyes.
 Behavior can be:
 1. conscious - acts maybe in the level of one’s awareness
 2. unconscious – acts deeply embedded in one subconscious

6.  Behavior may be:
 1. Simple - involves few neurons
 2. complex – more number of neurons
 Behavior can be:
 1. Rational – exercised with sanity or reason.
 2. Irrational – acts committed for no apparent reason or explanation

7.  Behavior can be :
 1. Voluntary – done with full volition of ill.
 2. Involuntary – process within our body that go even while we are asleep or
awake.

8.  Objectives of the study of Psychology:
 1. To have an improve understanding of one’s own feelings and behavior.
To gain new insights into his/her own personality so that she/ he can adjust
more feasibly with his fellow beings.
 2. To arouse in the students an interest in the science of psychology. The
student is expected to improve his understanding of how psychology
functions as a science (What it tells about man and animals).
 “ The more a student knows about the science of psychology , the better he
is expected to cope with his problem”.

9.  Fields of Specialization
 1. Counseling Psychology: understanding and helping people solve the more
or less ordinary but nonetheless important questions they face.
 2. Clinical Psychology: attempts to understand person who have emotional
or other difficulties.
 3. Environmental Psychology : emphasizes psychological aspects of
ecology. Science between organism and the environment.
 4. Human Engineering: concerned with human problems and design of
instrument, machines.

10.  5. Humanistic Psychology : emphasize the whole person (motivations,
goals, creativity and the like.
 6. Industrial Psychology : helping to solve human relations problem of
business industry.
 7. Physiological Psychology : studies the effect of the individual’s body and
its structure and functioning on his behavior.
 8. School Psychology : understanding the problem of school system,
teacher-administration relationships and teacher – pupil relationship.
 9. Social Psychology: studies the individual in the group including the effect
of the individual on his group and its effect on him.

11.  Historical Background
 I. Traditional
 Psychology started with man’s earliest speculation regarding human
nature.
 II . Greek Influences
 A. Democritus (460 – 370 B.C)
 Human mind is composed of Atoms. Atoms from our environment enter
through our sense organs enabling us to perceive the world around us.

12.  B. Plato ( 427 – 347 B.C)
 Mind and Soul is distinct in its own right and is God given.
 Mind / Soul enter the body with reflected prediction of God
 Mind / Soul rule the body which it inhabits as knower (thinker and
determinant of action).

13.  Soul has three (3) parts
 1. Head ( reason)
 2. Heart (responsible for our noble impulses)
 3. Diaphragm (seat of our own passion).

14.  C. ARISTOTLE ( 384 – 322 B.C.)
 3 functions of the Soul:
 vegetative – basic maintenance of life.
 Appetitive - motives and desires
 Rational – governing function located in the heart
 The BRAIN merely performs minor mechanical processes as a gland.

15. HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF
PSYCHOLOGY
ARISTOTLE –
 A Greek philosopher who is regarded by many as the FATHER OF
PSYCHOLOGY
 Wrote the first book in Psychology “Para Psyche” meaning about mind or
soul.
 Believed that the mind or soul is the cause and principle of body or that
which animates the body

16. ARISTOTLE –
 He also believed that there are three kinds of souls: plant souls, animal
souls and human souls
 HUMAN SOUL – that is capable of reason
 He also theorized about learning, memory, motivation, emotion and
perception and personality
 Contended that human mind is a tabula rasa or an empty slate

17. RENE DESCARTES
 A French philosopher, mathematician, scientist and writer
 Founder of Modern Philosophy
 Father of Modern Mathematics
 “Cogito ergo sum” or I think therefore I am
 Concluded that there are other things or ideas that are certain and that are
innate or inborn such as God, time and space, the world of mathematics.

18. Aristotle John Locke Rene Descartes
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud

19. JOHN LOCKE
 Cemented by his Essay concerning Human Understanding
 He believed on the ideas such as God, good or evil are innate at birth
 According to him variety of beliefs, non-beliefs and moralities the so-called
innate ideas could have not been possible

20. JOHN LOCKE
 Believed in the good nature of humans, an instinct for social good and the
ability to reason
 He believed that matter and mind could not be empirically proven to exist
because when they try to look these things, we all see are qualities of it and
not matter mind itself.

21. CHARLES DARWIN
 An English naturalist and geologist from England who is best known for his
Theory of Natural Selection
 According to him species change or evolve into a variation that would most
likely survive in the particular environment they are in.

22. ERNST WEBER
 A German physiologist who made use of measurements in his study of the
relation of stimulus and mental experience
 He was known for the techniques he developed: the two point threshold and
the justice noticeable difference
 A law named after him the Weber’s Law

23. Gustav Fechner
 A German physiologist whose medical training and interest in physics and
psychology paved way for investigation of mental processes using scientific
methodologies
 DOUBLE ASPECTISM – or the belief that all of physical nature has a
mental counter part of mind or soul led him to develop Psychophysics

24. PSYCHOPHYSICS
 The study of the systematic relationships between physical events and
mental events.
HERMAN VON HELMHOLTZ
 The most famous German scientist of the 19th century
 He became a medical doctor and a physiologist but his first love was
physics

25. HERMAN VON HELMHOLTZ
 Noted Contribution are:
 theory regarding the conservation of energy
 Invention of the ophthalmoscope
 Researches on sight and hearing
 Papers on geometry and physics

26. FRANCIS GALTON
 First cousin of Charles Darwin and an intellect who had a lot of contributions
to different field of science as well as mathematics.
 He devised the first weather maps, invented the electrocardiograph and
devised method of classifying fingerprints
 He was the first to measure intelligence and develop questionnaires and
surveys in collecting data about humans
 FATHER OF PSYCHOMETRICS /
 FATHER OF MENTAL TEST

27. WILHELM WUNDT
 FATHER OF MODERN PSYCHOLOGY
 FATHER OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
 The first one to be called a PSYCHOLOGIST

28. G. STANLEY HALL
 An American student of Wilhelm Wundt who also made a lasting
contributions to psychology
 First to have established a psychological laboratory in the United States at
John Hopkins University in 1883
 Founded the American Journal of Psychology in 1887
 First president of American Psychological Association

29.  Different Schools of Psychology
 Different ideas about psychology.
 What to include and not to include in Psychology.
 What it should emphasize ?
 What research methods to be used?
 Group of Psychologists who agreed and associated with the leader of the
movement.
 They shared the same ideas about what psychology was and how it was to
be studied.

30. Early Schools of Thought in Psychology
STRUCTURALISM
 Pioneered by Wilhelm Wundt
 EDWARD B. TITCHENER – who brought the paradigm to the United States
and coined the term
STRUCTURALISM
 Is concerned about consciousness and the elements or structures that form
its makeup

31. INTROSPECTION
 Self examination as a methodology
The following details for the method:
3. The observer must know when the experience begins and ends
4. The observer must maintain “strained attention”
5. The phenomenon must bear repetition
6. The phenomenon must be capable of variation

32. FUNCTIONALISM
 Was led by America’s first and leading psychologist WILLIAM JAMES
 Published book known as
“The Principles of Psychology”
PRAGMATISM
 No idea could be concluded as true or false
 All that we believe in are all “maybes”

33. FUNCTIONALISM
 Focus on the usefulness, function, practicality and consequence of behavior
as opposed to its structures
 EXAMPLE – a behavior as simple as smiling should be understood as to its
usefulness such as to express emotion, to greet or even to express sarcasm

34.  Psychology was functional one whose aim was not to reduce mind to
elements but to study consciousness as an ongoing process.
 William James: The subject matter of psychology was the study of organism
as a whole functioning in his environment.

36. GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY
 Founded by MAX WERTHEIMER, WOLFGANG KOHLER, KURT KOFFKA
 GESTALT
 Is a German word actually means a “unified or meaningful whole”
 “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”
 GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY – seeing movement when there is none maybe
considered as an illusion
 Applied in other areas of perception, particularly in grouping and in
organizing

37. BEHAVIORISM
 Originated in Russia
 Founded by IVAN PAVLOV known for his learning model of CLASSICAL
CONDITIONING
 In America, leading behaviorists were:
a. EDWARD LEE THORNDIKE
b. BURRHUS FREDERICK SKINNER
C. JOHN B. WATSON

38. BEHAVIORISM
 In order for psychology to be true science, it should only study what is
observable – the environment and behavior
 Others such as thoughts, feelings or consciousness, are useless to
psychology because they are subjective, not observable, therefore not
measurable

39.  Psychology as the science of behavior, acts are to describe objectively in
terms of stimulus response habit formation, habit integration.
 View of Human: Human behavior is learned and all behavior is the result of
environmental forces and the individual’s genetic endowments . Decision
making as one kind of behavior. Therefore, Individual is seen as having an
equal potential for positive and negative tendencies.

40.  B. F. Skinner: “Radical Behaviorism”
 Humans are controlled by environmental conditions. Human Being is
governed by choice and freedom. They reject the concept of the person as
a “free agent” who shapes his / her own destiny. Past and present situations
in the objective world determine behavior. Therefore, The environment is
the primary shaper of human existence.

41. PSYCHOANALYSIS
 Developed by SIGMUND FREUD
 MIND IS DIVIDED INTO 3 PARTS
 CONSCIOUS – contains information that we are aware of in a give period
of time
 PRECONSCIOUS – it is the storehouse of information that is easily
retrievable to consciousness
 UNCONSCIOUS – contains things that are difficult to access or to be
made aware of

42.  Human beings are basically determined by psychic energy and by early
experiences.
 Unconscious motives , irrational forces are strong and present behavior.
 View of Human Nature:
 Human nature is essentially pessimistic, deterministic, mechanistic and
reductionistic.
 Human are viewed as energy system. The dynamics of personality consists
of the ways in which the psychic energy is distributed (id, ego, super- ego).

43.  All human behavior as determined by the desire to gain pleasure and avoid
pain.
 Human are both life instinct and death instinct. The goal of life is Death.
 Life is a roundabout way to death.

44. EXISTENTIALISM
 Is more of a philosophy, it emphasizes on the creative process, freedom
and uniqueness or individual existence
HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY
 The offspring of Gestalt psychology emphasizes people’s tendency to
actualize or realize his full potentials
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
 Focus on the importance of mental process such as thinking, organizing,
memory and planning in understanding human behavior

45.  Philosophy of Humanistic
 Humans are capable of self awareness. The unique and distinctive capacity
to think and to decide. The power to choose among alternatives – to decide
freely within the framework of limitation.
 “ With freedom to choose and act comes a responsibility”.

46.  Being Human we have to face ultimate aloneness, a person comes into the
world alone and leaves alone. Therefore, we have to relate to other in a
meaningful relationship for human are RATIONAL BEING.
 Failure to create meaningful relationship will lead to
ISOLATION,LONELINESS,ALIENATION.

47.  In summary:
 Psychology -( Psyche : means “soul”
• Logos : study
• “ study of the soul”
• Greek developed empirical method (information gained
from direct observation and measurement).
• They used the assumptions without verifying them.
• They did much speculation about the motivational aspects
of human behavior.
• They replaced Psyche as Mind. Therefore, Psychology is
the study of the mind.

48. Renaissance Scientist : Introduced the idea that observations could be further
objectified through measurements.
German Psychologists / Physicists : used measurement and techniques to
study sensation and laid foundation to scientific psychology.

49.  School of thoughts
 Structuralism : Psychology should be concerned with identifying and studying
the elements that form the structure of consciousness and analyze
experience into basic elements.” Consciousness is an ever changing stream
or flow of images and sensation”.
 Functionalism : Functionalism studies the behavior by analyzing its elements
and proposed that it is to be studied in terms of forms or organization.
Focused on the operations/functions of conscious activity.
 Behaviorism : It explains human behavior though relationship of stimulus. To
understand human behavior take into account what environment does. To
study observable and measurable behavior not consciousness
 Stress the importance of learning and influence of environment.

50.  Gestalt: Psychology should study the whole pattern of behavior, experience
or the perception of the organized configuration. They emphasize the study
of THINKING, LEARNING, PERCEPTION into whole units not into parts.

51.  PSYCHOANALYSIS
 Behavior is constantly influenced by unconscious thoughts.
 The central aspects of Human behavior : Human Desires and Primitive
Impulses.

52. Activity: CHAPTER 1
 Based on the information you have
acquired recently regarding psychology,
write an essay about your views
concerning how this course could be
potential use to you. It may be an areas of
relationships, academics, self
improvement or your future endeavors..