Introduction To Psychology

Vol 1

Ilona Roth

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781317716594
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This two volume text provides a comprehensive introduction to the issues, theories and methods of psychology, including both classic approaches and recent research. The areas covered range from the intellectual, social and emotional development of the child to the ways in which adults perceive, attend, remember and communicate; from Freud's psychoanalytic framework to the work of present day psychologists; from debates about the scientific status of psychology to the special problems which the study of people poses for psychologists. Each chapter presents important issues in depth, highlighting controversies while showing that they rarely have neat solutions. Throughout, emphasis is given to the contrasting levels of analysis which contribute to the understanding of psychological functioning, from fundamental biological processes to complex social interactions. While prepared for the Open University course "Introduction to Psychology" these volumes will provide an excellent introduction to students of psychology at other universities and colleges. The text incorporates the best of the Open University's tried and tested teaching methods, and particular importance is placed on encouraging the reader's active participation, making the books enjoyable and stimulating as well as informative. The text is divided into eight sections comprising eighteen

—————PART I—————

INTRODUCTION

chapter ₁ WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY?

Contents

1 Psychology and everyday life

1.1 Some everyday misconceptions

1.2 The impact of psychology

1.3 Psychology as a resource

Summary of Section 1

2 Psychology and common sense

2.1 People are psychologists; psychologists are people

2.2 Some pitfalls of common sense

Summary of Section 2

3 Theory and method in psychology

3.1 Formulating a theory

3.2 Designing a study

3.3 The experimental method

3.4 Drawing conclusions

3.5 The whole story?

Summary of Section 3

4 Special problems for psychology

4.1 The problems of studying people

4.2 Is psychology a science?

4.3 Ethics

Summary of Section 4

5 This Introduction to psychology

5.1 A common objective?

References

Answers to SAQs

1 Psychology and everyday life

As you start this Introduction to psychology, you probably have your own idea of what psychology is. Perhaps you know a psychologist, or have met one through your job, your child’s school, or in some other context. Perhaps you have read some of the works of a famous figure of psychology such as Freud, Eysenck, Piaget or Skinner. Some of you will have studied courses with psychological content. If so, you will be aware that psychology is a very diverse field—psychologists do a wide variety of things. Yet the everyday image of psychology is sometimes narrow and over-simplified.

1.1 Some everyday misconceptions

There is a common caricature of the psychologist as a somewhat learned and intimidating person who can ‘read one’s mind’. I am sure that I am not the only psychologist who has been asked what I do in casual conversation, only to be met with the horrified response of, ‘Oh dear, perhaps you are reading my mind!’. I can assure you that psychologists feel as uncomfortable with this suggestion as the people who make it.

What is it that psychologists do which has earned them this reputation? I can think of no branch of psychology which literally involves reading other people’s minds. What goes on in a person’s mind is not available for direct scrutiny like the pages of a book. Only those people who believe in telepathy might claim that the mind is accessible in this way. However, many psychologists believe that it is possible to gain indirect access to the mind, and thus to arrive at an understanding of how it works. For although the mind cannot be directly observed, we can observe other people’s behaviour, that is, all the things they do and say.

A key assumption in psychology is that the way people behave bears a relationship to what is going on in their minds. To take a simple example, if someone is observed to be smiling, this is more likely to reflect an internal state of happiness rather than one of sadness. It is possible to infer with some confidence that the person is happy. So while psychology does not involve literally reading minds, the goal, for many psychologists, is to provide insight into how the mind works and what experiences people are having, based on observations of human behaviour.

Some psychologists reject even these indirect forms of ‘mind reading’. One notable group of psychologists, called behaviourists, regards attempts to ‘go beyond’ observable behaviour in this way as little more than crystal ball gazing. Behaviourists argue that anything which cannot be directly observed is beyond the scope of psychology. For them, behaviour is the central subject-matter of psychology, not a means to discover what people are thinking and feeling.

Another common misconception about psychologists is that their interests are narrowly focused on topics such as how you feel—emotion—and what provides the driving force for behaviour—motivation. But these are just small corners of the field. All aspects of how the mind and behaviour function interest psychologists, ranging from mental processes such as thinking, memory and attention, to complex social behaviour such as speaking a language, making friends or helping someone across the road.

It may also be thought that psychologists are mainly interested in the thoughts, feelings, experiences and behaviour of the individual. Again, there are psychologists who believe that each individual is unique. But many psychologists are more interested in the characteristics which are common to people in general: they seek to establish the general principles governing how all minds work and why all people display certain patterns of behaviour.

A different kind of misconception is that the work of psychologists is especially or exclusively concerned with ‘abnormal’ minds and ‘abnormal’ behaviour. But this is the domain of just one kind of specialist psychologist called a clinical psychologist. The work of clinical psychologists typically involves helping people with mental or behavioural problems. There are many other kinds of psychologist, most of whom are more concerned with ‘normal’ than ‘abnormal’ psychological functioning. Some of these work in practical fields, such as education and industry; others do academic work, particularly research and teaching.

To summarize, psychology seeks to understand, rather than actually to read minds; it is broad rather than narrow in scope; it is concerned with characteristics common to people in general as well as with the experiences of unique individuals; and it deals with both normal and abnormal functioning. This may none the less leave you thinking that psychology is a somewhat remote and mysterious subject. Although there are topics and methods in psychology which you may find unfamiliar, there are many ways in which psychology pervades and is part of everyday life. Let us take the demystification of psychology one step further by describing some of them.

1.2 The impact of psychology

Over the years, some important ideas from psychology have had such an impact on our thoughts and behaviour that we are barely aware of their origin.

The psychologist whose impact on everyday thinking has probably been greatest is Sigmund Freud (1856–1939). At the heart of his theory is the idea that people’s behaviour is driven by unconscious mental forces which are beyond their awareness and control. The strength of these forces and the precise ways in which they affect a person’s behaviour are largely determined by experiences in early childhood. Neither of these ideas seems particularly remarkable to us, because they have become so much part of the way in which we make sense of other people’s behaviour. For instance, if someone makes a tactless remark to you and then immediately apologizes, you may still think that ‘deep down’ the person had intended to hurt your feelings. Yet the notion that we are unconsciously motivated to behave in ways which seem, consciously, unacceptable to us, originated with Freud.

The approach pioneered by Freud has penetrated everyday thinking at many different levels. Our everyday language contains many expressions and phrases which Freud originated—the Oedipus complex, phallic symbol and wish fulfilment, for example. And his theory has provided a fertile source of ideas for novelists and literary critics, because it offers a framework within which meaning can be given to the strange and frequently destructive ways in which people behave towards one another.

Freud is by no means the only psychologist whose ideas have affected our lives. For example, the behaviourist B. F. Skinner (born 1904) has had both positive and negative effects on the way children are educated. His work has drawn attention to the fact that children are more likely to learn if they are encouraged or rewarded for the right kind of behaviour, than if they are punished for the wrong kind of behaviour. His claim that learning involves little more than this kind of encouragement has been less useful. The work of the developmental psychologist Jean Piaget (1896–1980) has done much to promote the view that children will only learn when they are ready. According to Piaget, when children’s mental faculties have reached a certain stage of maturity, they will discover things for themselves. As a result of this insight, teachers these days are much less likely to impose a rigid learning regime on their pupils. Instead, teaching is tuned to the needs of individual children.

You may wonder whether psychology has had too much of an impact on our outlook and everyday behaviour. Perhaps some of the ideas which have come from psychology are too ‘permissive’. Some may think, for instance, that people should be held responsible for their actions at all times, rather than, as Freud has led us to believe, being driven by forces beyond their control. Both parents and teachers are sometimes heard to claim that there is too little discipline in the classroom—that ‘sparing the rod and spoiling the child’ has led to a decline in standards of behaviour and education.

Psychological ideas can also be seen as reinforcing ‘reactionary’ attitudes within society. The psychologist Sir Cyril Burt argued that a child’s intelligence, as measured by an IQ test, was a relatively fixed quantity, which could be determined at an early age. This stimulated the policy, reflected in the eleven-plus examination, that children’s schooling opportunities should be finally decided on the basis of their performance at this age. Children who performed well in the eleven-plus benefited from entry to grammar schools, but the academic provision for the remaining children was inadequate, particularly for bright ‘late developers’.

The point is that the impact of psychology on everyday life is not necessarily experienced as beneficial, or even neutral, by everyone. This is because attitudes and values vary from one individual to another and from one era and society to another. For instance, although some people deplore the more relaxed atmosphere which prevails in today’s schools, others regard it as infinitely preferable to what they regard as the rigid authoritarian regime of earlier years. And, of course, psychologists, as individuals within a particular society, have their own beliefs and values. These inevitably influence the type of problem they choose to work on, and the nature of the solutions they put forward.

1.3 Psychology as a resource

There are many areas in which psychology provides a practical resource, the beneficial effects of which few would deny. A pioneer in this field is the psychologist Donald Broadbent who has argued that the starting point for psychology should be practical problems in the real world (Open University, 1981). He became particularly interested in the problems air traffic controllers experience when dealing with several important messages reaching their ears at the same time. Other psychologists have devised tests to ensure that pilots are selected with the right kind of personality characteristics as well as intellectual and motor skills. They have worked on the safe design of aircraft instrument panels to ensure that pilots can cope with all the important signals that come in when flying a plane. They have looked at how efficiently pilots fly under conditions of jet lag or sleep deprivation. They have even provided aircraft staff with expert advice on how to handle hijackers and terrorists, and have counselled victims of both hijacking and air crashes. Psychologists have made similar contributions to safety standards on roads and in factories. In these areas, at least, we can see psychology as a resource which has had beneficial effects on our everyday lives.

In this section I have tried to give some idea of what psychologists do and how their work has affected our lives. But there is an even closer and more subtle link between the work of psychologists and what people do every day of their lives. This is the subject of the next section.

Summary of Section 1

• • Contrary to common misconception, psychologists do not literally read people’s minds. They attempt to understand how the mind works by studying behaviour.
• • Psychologists are interested in many topics besides feelings and emotions. They also study mental processes such as memory and thinking, and complex social behaviour such as communicating with and helping other people.
• • Psychologists are interested in the characteristics common to people in general as well as in understanding unique individuals.
• • Clinical psychologists seek to help people with psychological problems. Many psychologists are more concerned with ‘normal’ psychological functioning.
• • Psychology has had a profound influence on our everyday lives, particularly on ideas about what motivates behaviour and the best methods of educating children.
• • Psychology has provided an important practical resource in fields such as aircraft and road safety.

2 Psychology and common sense

The psychologist Robert Farr once observed that ‘the man in the street was successfully a psychologist long before there was ever a separate study of psychology’ (Open University, 1981). What he meant was that we are constantly engaged in trying to understand what is going on in other people’s minds and why they behave as they do. If we were not, we would not be able to interact with each other because other people’s intentions would be constantly misunderstood. In short, Farr’s claim is that our commonsense understanding of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Part I Introduction
• Part II The Developing Person
• Part III The Foundations of Behaviour
• Part IV Individual Diversity
• Acknowledgements for Volume 1
• Name index for Volumes 1
• Concept index for Volumes 1