Chapter 1: The History and Scope of Psychology

Introduction

Psychology offers one of the ways for understanding human beings and their behavior. Psychology produces knowledge in many areas of human behavior, such as health, sports, politics, religion, spirituality, family, marriage, friendship, child-rearing education, arts, and work. Psychology is a relatively young discipline comma and the developments in other disciplines such as philosophy, medicine, and physiology contributed to the development of it.

This chapter considers particularly how philosophical debates on the mind and the body influenced the emergence of psychology. In the chapter, firstly, definition of psychology as a discipline is explained. Secondly, psychology as a science is introduced. Thirdly, where psychology comes from; that is, the history of it, is summarized. In this frame, philosophical roots of psychology and different approaches for studying human behavior are described. Lastly, being a huge discipline today, the subareas of psychology are presented.

Definition of Psychology

Psychology is a discipline which studies biological, social, and psychological bases of the behavior. Psychology is a discipline which attempts to understand the behavior and aims to describe, explain, predict, control, and improve it. Psychology is a discipline which studies both human and animal behavior.

Psychology as a discipline also asks questions about humans and aims to understand a large variety of human (and animal) behavior. Psychology regards humans as biological, social, and psychological creatures and aims to understand biological, social, and psychological bases of their behavior. The term behavior in psychology refers to any response, reaction, or action people experience toward any stimuli inside or outside the body. In order to explain biological bases of behavior, psychology asks questions such as how heredity shapes human behavior, how hormonal changes influence our feelings, and how the nervous system functions in relation with our responses to the environment, etc. In order to explain social bases of behavior, psychology asks questions such as how (social and physical) environment shapes human behavior, how the others influence our way of life, how we behave in groups, and how the relations with parents shape our beliefs, etc. In order to explain psychological bases of behavior, psychology asks questions such as how our beliefs, values, and attitudes relate to each other, how our personality traits relate to our behaviors, and how our political ideologies relate to our behaviors, etc. For example, three psychologists might all aim to understand authoritarianism in people and they might approach it in three different ways.

Psychology as a Science

In the explanation of behavior, researchers in psychology must follow some scientific rules. For example, authoritarianism is a human reaction involving behaviors, beliefs, attitudes, and emotions. One may have questions such as what are the characteristics of authoritarianism? what are its causes? and what consequences does it have? Such questions are similar to the questions researchers in psychology ask.

In order to answer these questions in a scientific way, researchers in psychology need to consider some rules. First of all, they need to be aware of the psychological theories explaining the authoritarianism. Second, they need to have knowledge of studies that already tested these theories. Third, researchers need to come with a theoretical question that has not already been answered.

A theoretical question in a scientific study needs to be in the form of hypothesis, which expresses the prediction derived from the theory.

Theory is a way of explaining the behavior, which consists of predictions, propositions or ideas about the causes of behavior. Objective measures are those commonly used in research in psychology and have some standardized characteristics.

The History of Psychology

Psychology separated from philosophy and became a discipline on its own right in the late nineteenth century. It has come to be accepted as an independent discipline with the foundation of its own laboratory and development of its own methodology. Indeed, the human behavior has always drawn the interest of scholars from other disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, anthropology, biology, physiology, medicine, and computer science. As outlined below, earlier in the history, philosophical arguments played a particular role in the development of psychology as a science.

Philosophical Roots of Psychology

The relationship between the human mind, which is the center of consciousness, ideas, and thoughts, and the human body, which is the physical or material part, has largely been discussed in philosophy. It has been questioned whether they exist separately or are a part of the same (physical) entity. The idea that they are separate or the mind is something spiritual and nonphysical implied that the mind is not available to study scientifically. This idea was not encouraging for the development of psychology. Later in the history of philosophy new ideas emerged, which gave the way for psychology to study behavior and mental processes. As outlined below, it has also been largely discussed in philosophy how humans acquire the knowledge of the world.

Dualism: Dualism is a very old approach coming from Greek philosophy. The term dualism refers to separateness of mind (e.g. consciousness) and body (e.g. the brain). According to this approach, humans do have spiritual (mind) and physical part (body) in an isolated way. Plato and Aristotle believed that the human mind or soul existed independent from the physical or material body. In a different way, Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650), the French philosopher and founder of modern philosophy, suggested an approach of Cartesian dualism. Descartes, known with saying of “I reflect therefore I am”, did not reject the idea of mind and body as different and separate entities. However, he argued that there is a relationship between them. He suggested that although the body works like a machine having its own principles, the mind influences the working of the body.

Empiricism: Empiricism is a philosophical approach about how humans acquire knowledge. It suggests that humans come to the world with empty minds, which is called a tabula rasa or a blank slate. According to this approach, humans gain knowledge later in their life with their senses and through experience. This contrasted with notion of dualism and rationalism, which suggested that humans have knowledge through the reasoning. Instead, empiricism emphasized the sensations, perceptions and observations, people experience in the world they live in, as bases of their knowledge. According to empiricism, humans gain more complex understandings of themselves and their environment by associating their perceptions, observations, and ideas. Empiricism is known with British philosophers, John Locke (1632-1704) and David Hume (1711-1776).

Idealism: Idealism is also a philosophical approach about the nature of human knowledge. While questioning how humans acquire knowledge, idealism not only emphasized the role of the senses as in empiricism, but also the role of the mind. It suggested that by combining and integrating the sensations, perceptions and observations, human mind plays an active role in the development of knowledge.

Materialism: Materialism is a philosophical approach, which rejects the idea of mind and body as separate entities. According to materialism, the mind is not something spiritual or nonphysical. The mind is just a part of the body. That is, the roots of the mind can be found in the body. This implies that working of the mind can be explained through the working of the body. This also implies that internal psychological processes are understood by exploring the physical principles of the body.

Emergence of Modern Psychology: Beginning of modern psychology dates back to the late nineteenth century, when Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) founded first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany. He had been educated as a physician but developed interest in psychology. Wilhelm Wundt believed that the human mind could be studied scientifically and The idea that human mind is somehow related to physical body gave way to the development of psychology as a science.

Different Approaches For Studying Human Behavior

Since the beginning of psychology, there have been different approaches to the study of human behavior These approaches provided a variety of viewpoints for psychology to understand complicated human behavior better.

Structuralism

Approach of structuralism suggested that psychology should study human mind by discovering the structures of consciousness.

Functionalism

Functionalism (approach), emerged in the USA as an alternative to structuralism (approach). Functionalism suggested that psychology should study human mind by discovering the functions of consciousness. It suggested that psychology should question what consequences or functions the behavior has in a given environment or how it is useful in a particular condition. William.

Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis approach, founded by Sigmund Freud (1856- 1939), suggested that psychology should study human mind by discovering the unconscious processes). Sigmund Freud was a neurologist and observed and talked with people having psychological problems. He concluded that early life experiences, which people Functionalism is not valid today but its follower, behaviorism (and evolutionary psychology), is still a crucial approach in psychology.

Behaviorism

Behaviorism approach, emerged in the USA, suggested that psychology should study the observable behavior. Behaviorism was influenced by functionalism and empiricism. It emphasized the relationship between behavior and environment. It suggested that psychology should question what happens in people’s environment and how they behave accordingly. That is, how the environment shapes the behavior.

Gestalt Psychology

Gestalt psychology, known with names, Max Wertheimer (1880-1943), Wolfgang Köhler (1887-1967), Kurt Koffka (1886-1941), emerged in Germany in the early twentieth century. The German word Gestalt is used in psychology in the meaning of pattern or configuration. Gestalt psychology was a reaction against structuralism, which attempted to divide human experience or consciousness into its elements. According to Gestalt psychology, individual elements of any experience cannot explain the experience itself. This approach argued that the human mind organizes the experience in the way that is not reducible to the sum of its parts. It suggested that elements of any experience interact with each other and humans perceive a pattern or a whole of these interactions, which takes place across time and/or space.

Cognitive Perspective

Cognitive perspective suggested that psychology should study how mental processes influence the human behavior. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, researchers such as Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909), Jean Piaget (1896-1980),

Semenovich Vygotsky (1186-1934), and Noam Chomsky (1928) influenced the development of cognitive perspective in psychology. According to cognitive perspective, how humans process the information or the stimuli in the environment influence how they behave. It suggests that humans’ thoughts and interpretations of information and stimuli shape their behaviors.

Subareas of Psychology

Psychology has an interest in a variety of human behaviors occurring in a variety of contexts. This led modern psychology to divide into so many areas of specialization. These subareas are relatively old and extensively contributed to the theoretical, empirical, and methodological development of psychology. Psychology has some main subareas, such as, social psychology, clinical psychology, developmental psychology, and industrial and organizational psychology.

Social Psychology

Social psychology studies human behavior in relation with others’ behavior. It aims to understand how others influence humans’ behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. Social psychology has played a very important role in the development of psychology since the early twentieth century and interested in a large variety of subjects. Social identities and group and inter-group dynamics, interpersonal relationships, family and close relationships, aggression, helping behavior, crowd behavior, conformity, attitude formation and change, gender, ideological beliefs and voting behavior are some of the well-known subjects which social psychology studies.

Clinical Psychology

Clinical psychology studies the behavioral, emotional, and cognitive problems in humans. It aims to understand the determinants of psychological disorders such as stress, depression, anxiety, and phobia. Clinical psychologists develop measures to recognize people with behavioral adjustment problems.

Industrial and Organizational Psychology

Industrial and organizational psychology studies human behavior in the context of working people. It aims to understand the relationship between behavior and work performance in settings such as factories, companies, banks, hospitals, schools, and universities.

Developmental Psychology

Developmental psychology studies human behavior in the context of aging. It aims to understand how human behavior changes with aging through life. Developmental psychology has particular interest in the study of what influences development in the childhood. It attempts to understand how physical, social, emotional and cognitive changes occur in the childhood and how they influence each other. Developmental psychology also aims to explain physical, social, emotional and cognitive changes in adolescence, adulthood, and old age.

Cross Cultural Psychology

Cross cultural psychology studies human behavior in the context of culture. It aims to understand what is common and what is not in human behavior across cultures. Cross cultural psychology explains how cultural differences influence human behaviors, thoughts and feelings. Since the late twentieth century, psychology has increasingly studied similarities and differences among people from different ethnic and cultural groups.

Consumer Psychology

Consumer psychology studies human behavior in the context of marketing. It aims to understand determinants of purchasing behavior. Consumer psychology examines how motivation, perception, learning, attitudes, personality etc. influence people’s buying behavior and their use of products.

Health Psychology

Health psychology studies human behavior in the context of health. It aims to understand the relationship between behavior and health problems and illness. Health psychology examines how humans’ way of life involving smoking, exercising, sleeping, drinking and eating is related to their social and personal characteristics and health problems.

Neuropsychology

Neuropsychology studies human behavior in the context of the brain and nervous system. It aims to understand the relationship between functions of the brain and nervous system and behavior. Neuropsychology attempts to explain how and why the brain and nervous system function in relation with our behaviors, thoughts, and feelings.