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BACHELOR OF PSYCHOLOGY (BPSY)
SEMESTER 2 / YEAR 2018
ABPG1203
HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF PSYCHOLOGY
MATRICULATION NO: 910225045262001
IDENTITY CARD NO.: 910225045262
TELEPHONE NO.:0189880119
E-MAIL : [email protected]
LEARNING CENTRE: PETALING JAYA LEARNING CENTRE
INSTRUCTIONS
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Psychology is the learning of scientific study of the human behavior of the way we feel, think and behave. The opening of first psychology lab by Wilhelm Wundt in 1879, psychologist have done research on studies on aspects of human behavior, ranging from brain functions, personality and their influence towards socio-cultural. As psychology developed, it began to tackle the reasons why we react from different angles, including psychodynamic, cognitive, biological, behavioral and humanistic perspectives.
There are many different psychology perspectives however most psychologists understand that not all perspective is correct. Since each perspective has its own strengths and weaknesses, it brings something different to the fundamental in the understanding of human behavior. Thus, it is crucial for psychology to have different perspectives on the understanding and study of human and animal behavior.
Psychodynamic perspective originally with the work of Sigmund Freud. The view of psychology and human behavior from this perspective emphasized the role of the unconscious mind, early childhood experiences, and their interpersonal relationships. It aims to explain human behavior and to treat people suffering from mental illnesses. Psychoanalysis became one of the earliest major forces in psychology. Credits to Freud’s work and influence, he conceived of the mind as being composed of three key elements which are the id, ego, and superego. The id is part of the psyche that includes primal and unconscious desires. While ego is the aspect of the psyche for them to deal with the demands of the real world. Last part is superego, tasked with managing all our standards, ideals and morals.
Behavioral psychology is a perspective that focuses mainly on learned behaviors and the behaviorism differs from other perspectives because it solely focuses on observable behaviors. Early in the twentieth century, the school of dominated psychology loses its hold. But today, the behavior perspective is standing strong and still concerned with how behavior learned and reinforced. The principles often applied in mental health, therapists and counselors applied these techniques to explain and in treatment variety of illnesses.
A new perspective was first introduced during the 1960s, which is known as cognitive psychology. It focuses mainly on mental processes such as thinking, problem-solving, language, memory and decision making. These influenced by psychologists such as Albert Bandura and Jean Piaget. This perspective has grown tremendously in recent decades. This perspective often utilizes information. It focuses more on the processing model, comparing computer function with the human mind, conceptualize information, processed and stored information.
Biological psychology which sometimes referred to biopsychology or physiological psychology, it played a major role in the development of psychology as the separate science. The point of view emphasized the biological and physical bases of behavior. The researches who take the biological perspective on psychological might study how genetics influence different behavior or how specific areas of the brain influence behavior and personality. The nervous system, immune and endocrine systems became the few subjects that interest biological psychologists and developed into their research target. It has grown significantly over the last decades, with advances in the human ability to explore and understand nervous and brain system. The development in technology such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans and positron emission tomography (PET) scans allow researchers to research deeply on brain under the variety of conditions. They can now look at the effects and functions of damage brain, drugs, and diseases.
Cross-cultural psychology is a new perspective that has grown rapidly over the last twenty years. Researches look deeply into human behavior across different culture. By looking and examine on these differences, we can learn how culture influences relate to our thinking and behavior. Researches usually will examine individualistic and collectivistic cultures. While evolutionary psychology is the study of how evolution explains the physiological processes. They will take the basic principles of evolutions and apply them to psychological phenomena. This perspective stressed that these mental processes exist because they serve an evolutionary purpose. They aid in survival and reproduction.
Humanistic perspective was first introduced during the 1950s, the influences greatly by the work of prominent humanists such as Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. This perspective emphasized the role of motivation in behavior and thought. Self-actualization is an essential part of this perspective. They focus more on the ways how human behave due to growing, change and personal potential. Positive psychology focuses on to help people live happier, healthier. The recent movement in psychology is to promote the humanist perspective.
During the pre-modern psychology era, it takes us back to many centuries whereas psychology was viewed as philosophy and it was not a science at the point of time. The transformation from the pre-modern to the modern era was slow in coming. As part of the culture, it must pass several tests along the way for a belief system to form. In the case of psychology was just a natural tie in with the times and intellectual elite of Greece and Egypt. School of philosophy took its identity from early on psychology, the discussions regarding the role and function of the human mind were open subjects. Upon these dialogues, the human thought began to be mentioned as duality, part spiritual and part physiological. The duality has not changed a great deal other than to include the secularization of spirituality. Philosophy provided legitimacy and authority to its views, the questions raised were of the why nature. The more legitimate questions were how a science dealt with things happened. The focus on psychology on human mind shifted from pre-modern view being a philosophy of current theory of conscious and unconscious levels of functioning around 1870.
A steady stream of radical ideas and theories began to appear around 1890. Although there were pioneers before him, he acknowledged and father of modern psychology is Sigmund Freud. Over the past century, the world of psychology has witnessed the development of approaches to theory and practice in response to Freud’s work along within the modern framework such as Erik Erikson, Carl Jung, and others. The ongoing development of the human mind not based on duality, but tasked associated with conscious and unconscious levels of functioning. Their findings interpreted differently seemed to be a shared acceptance of Freud’s hypothesis. The human thought functioned within their own structure and people achieved maximum functioning or they are dysfunctional in relationship consequently from their development. Psychotherapeutic approach for today by a clinician is apply using flexible in their application of specific modality.
In the early 1980s, some breakaway psychologists and physicians were dissatisfied with their treatment options. They believed that emphasis on the individual as the “problem” was neither accurate nor fair. Whilst, others were searching for ways to include the holistic methods of treatment. This group was not we found that severe suffering of their clients was not responding to the modern approaches. The final goal was to treat the whole person rather than presenting symptoms. It involved in the post-modern approaches have received mixed reviews. They see the validity and additional methodologies in their approaches. At the same time, they are those who are highly critical of these approaches. They find it difficult with the lack of western world understanding on the scientific method, including proper research, testing and extended to blindside comparisons.
Psychology is known as the study of people’s behavior, mental operations, and performance. It was referred to the application of knowledge, which can be applied in understanding events, treatment of mental health issues, and improve on relationships, education, and employment. This subject lies in the intersection of educational, theoretical science and applied sciences. Besides, there are certain sub-areas of psychology which include sports, education, media physical conditions, human development and physical conditions. This subject involves another field of study including humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.
In its primary form, psychology involves in studies people. They look into why and how human being do and how they could improve themselves. Everything a human does is connected closely to the subject and examine by the researcher. Indeed, psychology allows human to understand the functioning of body and mind work together. This branch of knowledge can improve decision making and avoid stressful situations. Indirectly it can help in improving time management, living quality and setting and managing goals.
This science not only allows human to be more successful, as well its impact on health. This helps many people tackle their mental illnesses so they can continue with living their lives in a more comfortable way. Psychological studies have aided in drug development and there are to diagnose various diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
Ever since psychology was well recognized as a distinct field of study, it has split into many specializations. Psychology as the science has been beneficial a lot to another field of human studies. Psychology learns about how the brain physically responds to habits and interactions, thus it has to measure the aspects of personality and behavior and this knowledge, therefore, help to improve schools, workplaces, and countries. The fundamental to discover the root of problems and treatment has helped a lot of people to recover from psychological problems.
Aviation psychologies are referred to all aspects related to pilot performance in order to increase safety; biological and physiological is the area of study focuses on the physical processes and correlations with psychology; clinical is the field treats mental illness and other psychological problems. Cognitive is the field of studies how the function of mind works; comparative psychology is the study of animal behavior; the consumer is the field of studies how consumers interact with products and services, often to help companies improve in selling products and services. Counseling psychology provides therapy to help human overcome health-related, emotional or social concerns; developmental psychology studies the way of human change or develops physically, mentally and socially. Educational which is known as school psychology is the field of work with the school system to improve student’s success and wellbeing in the understanding of their behaviors and psychological needs. Experimental is the field of study refers to scientific research in better understanding on behavior and human mind; family examines and seeks to improve family and marital relationships; forensic psychology is when psychologists use their expertise in legal or criminal cases. Geopsychology is the study of psychology regarding aging, something that is sure to grain importance with graying of America; industrial-organizational focuses on the questions on how to improve productivity in the workplace by cultivating the wellbeing of employees; psychometrics psychology deal with tests and experiments that measure personality and intelligence, social focuses on beliefs, emotions, behaviours on how it is affected by others and the causes of prejudices and other social conditioning; and lastly sports is the study of how psychology can be used to improve performance and motivation in athletes.
During the second half of twentieth century, the psychology research expanded rapidly and this field is experiencing the era of “knowledge explosion”. As psychology has grown over the years, psychologists have found ways to contribute to their communities in many fields as you can think of. They consult with organisation to improve worker satisfaction and improve productivity. Whereas they establish programmes to improve relations and reduce ethnic tensions. Besides, they contriuted to communities on solving pollution and noise issue that might affect mental health by creating awareness to public. They do rehabilitation training for people who are mentally or physically disabled.
Psychology educate judges and juries about eyewitness testimonies and they assist police in emergencies involving hostages or disturbed persons. A lot of organisastion conduct public opinion surveys, run suicide-prevention hotlines and educate public the importance of appreciate lives.
In conclusion, psychology allows your life to get better results and improving overall. By learning psychology, you may improve your leadership skills, become a better communicater as it involves much more than you speak or write. We have to consider non-verbal signals make up a huge portion in our interpersonal communications. By learning psychology, we learn the way to understand others better. We equip the ability to understand emotions and emotions of those around us which really plays an important role in our relationships and professional life. Research in cognitive psychology provided us with wealth of information about decision making. We apply psycholgy in our daily lives as the useful tool. The field of psychology offers us beneficial strategies that can help us achieve a better and healthier life.
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ATTACHMENT
REFERENCES
McLeod, S. (1970, January 01). Saul McLeod. Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/perspective.htmlPsychological approaches. (2018, January 10). Retrieved from https://educheer.com/psychological-approaches/Bachelor of Science (Psychology). (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.usq.edu.au/study/degrees/bachelor-of-science/psychologyLearning, L. (n.d.). Introduction to Psychology. Retrieved from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wsu-sandbox/chapter/psychological-perspectives/Author removed at request of original publisher. (2015, October 26). Introduction to Psychology. Retrieved from http://open.lib.umn.edu/intropsyc/chapter/3-2-our-brains-control-our-thoughts-feelings-and-behavior/
