Psychology For Dummies

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Use the table of contents and index to see what grabs your interest. If you’re new to the subject, by all means start with Chapter 1 and go. But you don’t have to read it cover to cover. Kind of like a cafeteria — take what you like and leave the rest. Find out about the professional practice of psychology with an introduction to its scientific nature and the different approaches psychologists use to investigate and understand people. Psychoanalytic criticisms claim that individuals cannot explain their own behavior because the causes are largely unconscious. Consequently, conscious explanations will be distorted by rationalization or other defenses.

Remember Don’t forget it. When you see this icon I am reminding you of the highlights from that section. It flags the if you learn just one thing from this chapter type of stuff, so pay attention. Both Rogers and Maslow regarded personal growth and fulfillment in life as basic human motives. This means that each person, in different ways, seeks to grow psychologically and continuously enhance themselves.In this section, I describe the most common metatheories psychologists use when they find a behavior or mental process they’re interested in researching. Work typically begins from within one of these theories. Biological Remember One of the cardinal rules of science is that whatever is being investigated must yield to the empirical test and be replicated. That is, the existence of something, be it a theory for example, must be verifiable or disprovable by repeated observation, measurement, and experimentation. The biological approach centers on the biological underpinnings of behavior, including the effects of evolution and genetics. The premise is that behavior and mental processes can be explained by understanding genetics, human physiology, and anatomy. Biological psychologists focus mostly on the brain and the nervous system. (For more on biological psychology, see Chapter 3.) Neuropsychology and the study of the brain, genetics, and evolutionary psychology are included within the biological metatheory.

Client-centered therapy aims to increase clients’ self-worth and decrease the incongruence between the self-concept and the ideal self. Tattoos and body piercings are good examples of this power. At one point in mainstream culture, people who got ink and piercings were perceived to be acting outside of the status quo, so status quo people weren’t lined up outside the tattoo or piercing parlor. Nowadays, both are widely accepted, and even Mr. Status Quo may have a tat or piercing (or two or three). There are four main types of psychologists that are defined by what they spend the bulk of their time doing. I cover them in the sections that follow. Experimental and research psychologists Brains don’t work and minds don’t think in a vacuum. Behavior and mental processes are embedded within a context that includes other people and things in the environment in which people live. Therefore, the social aspect of the biopsychosocial model also includes parent-child relationships, families, communities, and culture. Second, they must be conscious experiences of the here and now. No efforts should be made to retrieve unconscious experiences from the past.Therefore, psychology can be defined as the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes. Psychology attempts to uncover what people do along with why and how they do it. Building a person Remember So does that mean I can’t be a psychologist without a doctorate? Yes and no. Maybe you can’t call yourself a psychologist per se, but with a master’s degree or a bachelor’s degree, people can still use their psychology education and training to engage in a wide range of activities including research, consultation, and teaching. A psychology degree is an excellent degree that can apply to a lot of other fields, including government, nonprofits, politics, surveying, business, media, and education. Getting Started with Metatheory and Frameworks In this chapter, we are interested in how psychologists look for the truth. You’ll find out about how psychologists go about their business, the major branches of psychology, how overarching theories frame the questions they ask, and the variables they look at. Finally, you'll see how the discipline of psychology works to be as scientific as possible by basing its knowledge on solid theory, research, and statistical methods, which shore up its credibility among the other scholarly disciplines, and how all of that is done ethically. The Core Activities of a Psychologist

Behaviorism emphasizes the role and influence of a person’s environment and previous learning experiences to understanding behavior. Behaviorists don’t traditionally focus on mental processes per se because they believe that mental processes are too difficult to observe and measure objectively. In the framework of behaviorism, the why of behavior can be explained by looking at the circumstances in which it occurs and the consequences surrounding someone’s actions. Classical conditioning and operant conditioning are ways of understanding behavior and they lead to behavior modification, a specific approach to modifying behavior, and helping people change that comes from the metatheory of behaviorism (see Chapter 8 for details on some behavior-modification techniques that are based on classical and operant conditioning). Cognitive The cognitive framework centers on the mental processing of information, including the specific functions of attention, concentration, reasoning, problem solving, and memory. Cognitive psychologists are interested in the mental plans and thoughts that guide and cause behavior and affect how people feel. Intelligence testing and information-processing theories are examples that fall within the cognitive metatheory. Of course, a lot of psychologists wear more than one hat. Some psychologists fit into more than one of these categories, for example, clinical psychologists conduct research. Researchers teach. Teachers do research. Consultants do research. Research is conducted on consulting. I think you get the point. How Do I Become a Psychologist? Tip When you see this icon, I’m trying to emphasize a bit of information that may come in handy someday. Like all other carbon-based living organisms on planet Earth, human beings are staying alive machines. I’m not saying there is no meaning to life. Quite the contrary; I’m saying that the function of life is to be alive, to stay alive, and to perpetuate life. But there’s got to be more than that, right? Wrong book. Try Philosophy For Dummies or Religion For Dummies. What?remember.eps Psychologists sometimes call this armchair psychologizing folk psychology — a framework of principles used by ordinary people to understand, explain, and predict their own and other people’s behavior and mental states. In practice, everyone uses a variety of psychological notions or concepts to explain individuals’ mental states, personalities, and behaviors. Two concepts in particular that people tend to rely on are beliefs and desires. That is, most people assume that people have beliefs and that they act on those beliefs. So when you wonder why people do what they do, it’s easy; it’s because of their beliefs.

I envision psychology reaching a pinnacle when it can list all the ingredients of the human mind and all the determinants of behavior. Maybe the field can figure it all out through that reverse engineering process mentioned earlier. Or, at the very least, maybe psychology will figure out people, and all the information that experts gather can be stored or formulated into an algorithm for making people that, one day, a super-intelligent robotic life form can utilize to re-create the human species thousands of years after it becomes extinct. I did say mad scientist, right? Finally, these whole experiences should be looked at through introspection. Introspection is the careful searching of one’s inner subjective experiences. Humanism rejects scientific methodology: Psychology For Dummies takes you on the challenging and thrilling adventure into the astonishing science of why we do the things we do. Along the way you’ll find out how psychology helps us improve our relationships, make better decisions, be more effective in our careers, and avoid stress and mental illness in difficult times. One of my favorite professors, Dr. Jay Brand, sums it up very eloquently: Science represents a protracted attempt to contribute to a public edifice of knowledge founded on probabilistic evidence that the piecemeal construction achieves some important similarities with reality. No one sincerely believes that his or her single experiment will answer any useful question once and for all… . … theory development (knowledge) integrated across many single investigators (and experiments and data analyses) represents the true value of science to society.Saul Mcleod, Ph.D., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years experience of working in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology. Tattoos and body piercings are good examples of this power. At one point in mainstream culture, people who got ink and piercings were perceived to be acting outside of the status quo, so status quo people weren’t lined up outside the tattoo or piercing parlor. Nowadays, both are widely accepted, and even Mr. Status Quo may have a tat or piercing (or two or three). Developmental But then it happens: change. That’s right, something unexpected happens, and my human begins floundering, struggling, and verging on failing to achieve its primary function. How could I have forgotten that the world is not a static place?