Psychology Fundamentals: Essential Concepts & Theories

Foundations of Psychology: Core Concepts

Psychology

The study of individuals' internal processes and the forces that occur within their physical and social environments.

Scientific Method

A set of ordered steps used to analyze and solve problems.

Behavior

Actions that help organisms adapt to an environment. This includes observable behaviors such as laughing, mourning, etc.

Mental Processes

The functioning of the human mind.

Psychologists

They focus largely on the behavior of individuals. Their goals include:

• Description: Sticking to observable information.
• Explanation: Understanding that observable behavior is influenced by a number of factors, such as internal genetic composition, motivation, intelligence, and self-esteem.
• Prediction: Making statements about the probability of certain behaviors or expressing some relation between variables.
• Behavioral Control: The primary and powerful goal: making a behavior occur or not happen, including initiating it, holding it, stopping it, and influencing its shape, strength, and endurance.

Sociologists

They study the behavior of people in groups or institutions.

Anthropologists

They focus on the general context of behavior in different cultures.

Introspection

A method to examine matters of conscious mental life. It involves individuals' constant reflection on their thoughts, feelings, and sensory experiences.

Structuralism

A study of the structure of the mind and behavior. It was based on the premise that all mental experience could be understood as combinations of elementary components. Key aspects included:

• Elementary Components: Reducing complex human experience to simple sensations.
• Focus on Parts: Combining parts or elements rather than studying complex behaviors.
• Mental Focus: Only studying human consciousness through verbal reports, ignoring research subjects who could not describe their insights.

Functionalism

Views minds with a purpose, emphasizing learned habits that help organisms adapt to their environment and function.

Psychodynamic Perspective

Behavior is driven and motivated by powerful internal forces. Actions arise from innate instincts; the organism reacts when its needs are met and impulses are reduced. (Sigmund Freud)

Behavioral Perspective

Understanding how certain environmental stimuli control determined behaviors. (John Watson)

Humanistic Perspective

People are active creatures, good by nature, and able to choose. (Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow)

Biological Perspective

Seeks the causes of behavior in the activity of genes, the brain, the nervous system, and endocrine systems.

Neuroscience

Studies brain function. Behavioral neuroscience includes underlying brain processes that conduct sensation, learning, and emotions. Cognitive neurosciences focus on memory and language.

Evolutionary Perspective

A central idea of life sciences, it postulates that faculties evolved, focusing on evolution as a central explanatory principle.

Sociocultural Perspective

Studies the differences between cultures, including the causes and consequences of behaviors.