psychology for students

Soul is regarded as the life-giving entity of living beings, and in people. It is viewed as the immortal and spiritual aspects of a person, having no physical or material existence, but accounting for the psychological processes of thinking and willing. In fact, soul is the oldest subject matter of Psychology with the very name of the discipline derived from the Greek “psyche” (also meaning breath and mind) and ”logos” meaning science, study.
From the initial search for some essential common basis to all life, Greek scholars eventually postulated the concept of soul, which was systematized in Western thought by Aristotle. This concept was eventually christianized and emerged intact through Scholasticism to post-Renaissance Europe, at which time Descartes suggested the mind-body dualism, with Psychology as the study of the former and Physiology the study of the latter aspects of human experience. The concept of the soul in psychology was not seriously challenged until the 19th and 20th centuries with the rise of materialism in empirical sciences.

The Dawn of Scientific Psychology
Although were asked in antiquity (e.g., Aristotle’s ”De Memoria et psychological questions Reminiscentia,” i.e., “On Memory and Recollection”) and the first person who used this word as a branch of science was Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560) in his work “Commentarius de Anima,” i.e., “A Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima,” the first person who used to call himself a psychologist was the German philosopher and physiologist Wilhelm Wundt, who founded the first psychological laboratory in Leipzig, Germany, in 1879. That year is commonly seen as the start of psychology as an independent field of study, because the laboratory conducted exclusively psychological research.

Psychology as Science, Arts, and Ideology
Today, Psychology is defined as the science of behavior and mental processes. As a branch of Science, Psychology is an academic and applied field involving the study of behavior and its relationship to the mind and brain. Psychologists study an array of problems greater than that of any other scientific discipline. The Scope of Psychology is an extremely broad field: It encompasses many different approaches to the study of behavior and mind.
Important early contributors to the field include a German scientist Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-19090), a pioneer in studies on memory; the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936), who discovered the learning process of classical conditioning.
Though Psychology has been largely concerned with humans, the behavior and mental processes of animals have also been part of psychological research, either as a subject in its own right (e.g., animal cognition) or as a way of gaining an insight into human psychology by means of comparison (Comparative Psychology).
As an art, Psychology refers to the application of human knowledge to various spheres of human activity, including problems of persons’ daily lives (Folk Psychology) and the treatment of mental illnesses (Clinical Psychology, Psychotherapy, Psychiatry).
The Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud’s (1856-1939) influence on Psychology has been enormous, though more as cultural icon than a force in scientific psychology. Freudian Psychoanalysis is more arts than science. Freud’s basic theories postulated the existence in humans of various unconscious and instinctive drives, and that the Self existed as a perpetual battle between the desires and demands of the internal Ego, Superego, and Id.
The 20th century saw a rejection of Sigmund Freud’s theories among many psychologists as being too unscientific, as well as a reaction against Edward Titchener’s (1867-1927) abstract approach to the mind. This led to the formulation of behaviorism by John B. Watson (1878-1958), which was popularized by B.F. Skinner (1904-1990). Behaviorism proposed epistemologically limiting psychological study to overt behavior, since that could be quantified and easily measured. Scientific knowledge of the mind was considered too metaphysical, hence impossible to achieve. The final decades of the 20th century have seen the rise of a new interdisciplinary approach to studying human psychology, known as cognitive science. Cognitive science again considers the mind as a subject for investigation, using the tools of evolutionary psychology, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, and neurobiology. This new form of investigation has proposed that a wide understanding of the human mind is possible, and that such an understanding may be applied to other research domains, such as artificial intelligence.

Psychology can also viewed as an ideology and a part of the history of Western Civilization. Psychology represents Schools of thought in a certain location during a certain historical period. Various schools of thought have argued for a particular model to be used as a guiding theory by which all, or the majority, of human behavior can be explained. The popularity of these has waxed and waned over time. Some psychologists may think of themselves as adherents to a particular school of thought and reject the others, although most consider each as an approach to understanding the mind, and not necessarily as mutually exclusive theories.

BRANCHES AND PERSPECTIVES OF PSYCHOLOGY
Health Perspective: Clinical psychology, Health psychology, Psychosomatic Medicine
Clinical psychology is the application of psychology to the understanding, treatment, and assessment of psychopathology, behavioral or mental health issues. It has traditionally been associated with counseling and psychotherapy, although modern clinical psychology may take an eclectic approach, including a number of therapeutic approaches. Typically, although working with many of the same clients as psychiatrists, clinical psychologists do not prescribe psychiatric drugs. Some clinical psychologists may focus on the clinical management of patients with brain injury. This area is known as clinical neurological psychology.
In recent years and particularly in the United States, a major split has been developing between academic research psychologists in universities and some branches of clinical psychology. Many academic psychologists believe that these clinicians use therapies based on discredited theories and unsupported by empirical evidence of their effectiveness. From the other side, these clinicians believe that the academics are ignoring their experience in dealing with actual patients. The disagreement has resulted in the formation of the American Psychological Society by the research psychologists as a new body distinct from the American Psychological Association.
Whereas clinical psychology focuses on mental health and neurological illness, health psychology is concerned with the psychology of a much wider range of health-related behavior including healthy eating, the doctor-patient relationship, a patient’s understanding of health information, and beliefs about illness. Health psychologists may be involved in public health campaigns, examining the impact of illness or health policy on quality of life or in research into the psychological impact of health and social care.

Bio-physiological Perspective: Brain, Mind, and Behavior
Psychology does not necessarily refer to the brain or nervous system and can be framed purely in terms of phenomenological or information processing theories of mind. Increasingly, though, an understanding of brain function is being included in psychological theory and practice, particularly in areas such as artificial intelligence, neurological psychology, and cognitive neuroscience. Since all behavior is rooted in the brain, it is sensible to study how the brain functions in order to understand behavior. This is the approach taken in behavioral neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, and neurological psychology. Neurological psychology is the branch of psychology that aims to understand how the structure and function of the brain relate to specific psychological processes. Often psychologists in neuroscience are employed as scientists to advance scientific or medical knowledge. Neurological psychology is particularly concerned with the understanding of brain injury in an attempt to work out normal psychological function. The approach of cognitive neuroscience to studying the link between brain and behavior is to use brain imaging tools.

Cognitive Perspective: Information Processing and the Mind
The nature of thought is another core interest in psychology. Cognitive psychology is primarily concerned with the process by which perception results in behavior. Cognitive psychology uses information processing as a framework for understanding the mind. Perception, learning,[problem solving, thinking, memory, attention, language and emotion are all well researched areas. Cognitive psychology is based on a school of thought known as cognitivism, whose adherents argue for an information processing model of mental function, informed by positivism and experimental psychology. Techniques and models from cognitive psychology are widely applied and form the mainstay of psychological theories in many areas of both research and applied psychology. Cognitive science is very closely related to cognitive psychology, but differs in some of the research methods used, and has a slightly greater emphasis on explaining mental phenomena in terms of both behavior and neural processing. Both areas used computational models to simulate phenomena of interest. Since mental events cannot directly be observed, computational models provide a tool for studying the functional organization of the brain and behavior. Such models allow cognitive psychologists to better understand the information processing requirements of behavior and explain hypotheses obtained from behavioral experiments.

Developmental Perspective: Change over time
Largely focusing on the development of the human mind through the life span, developmental psychology seeks to understand how people come to perceive, understand, and act within the world and how these perceptions change as we age. This may focus on intellectual, cognitive, neural, social, or moral development. Researchers who study children use a number of unique research methods to engage them in experimental tasks. These tasks often resemble specially designed games and activities that are both enjoyable for the child and scientifically useful. In addition to studying children, developmental psychologists also study other times of rapid change (such as adolescence and old age).

Educational Perspective
Educational psychology largely seeks to apply much of this knowledge and understand how learning can best take place in educational situations. Because of this, the work of child psychologists such as Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934), Jean Piaget (1896-1980), Lawrence Kohlber (1927-1987), and Jerome Bruner (1915- ) has been influential in creating teaching methods and educational practices.

Inter-actionist Perspective: Social psychology, Personality psychology
Social psychology is the study of the nature and causes of human social behavior, with an emphasis on how people think towards each other and how they relate to each other. Social Psychology aims to understand how we make sense of social situations. For example, this could involve the influence of others on an individual’s behavior (e.g., conformity or persuasion), the perception and understanding of social cues, or the formation of attitudes and/or stereotypes about other people. Social cognition is a common approach and involves a mostly cognitive and scientific approach to understanding social behavior.

Applied psychology: Industrial and organizational psychology, Forensic psychology
The basic premise of applied psychology is the use of psychological principles and theories to overcome practical problems in other fields, such as business management, product design, ergonomics, nutrition, and clinical medicine.
Applied psychology includes the areas of industrial/organizational psychology, human factors, forensic psychology as well as many other areas.

Industrial and organizational psychology focuses to varying degrees on the psychology of the workforce, customer, and consumer, including issues such as the psychology of recruitment, selecting employees from an applicant pool which overall includes training, performance appraisal, job satisfaction, work behavior, stress at work and management.

Forensic psychology is the area concerned with the application of psychological methods and principles to legal questions and issues. Most typically, this involves a clinical analysis of a particular individual and an assessment of some specific psycho-legal question. Forensic psychology refers to any application of psychological principles, methods or understanding to legal questions or issues. In addition to the applied practices, it also includes academic or empirical research on topics involving law and human behavior.

The field of human factors is the study of how cognitive and psychological processes affect our interaction with tools and objects in the environment. The goal of research in human factors is to better design objects by taking into account the limitations and biases of human behavior.

RESEARCH METHODS IN PSYCHOLOGY

Psychology is conducted both scientifically and non-scientifically, but is to a large extent wholly rigorous. Mainstream psychology is based largely on positivism, using quantitative psychological research studies and the scientific method to test and disprove hypotheses, often in an experimental context. Psychology tends to be eclectic, drawing on scientific knowledge from other fields to help explain and understand behavior. However, not all psychological research methods strictly follow the empirical positivism philosophy. Qualitative psychological research utilizes interpretive techniques and is descriptive in nature, enabling the gathering of rich clinical information unattainable by classical experimentation. Some psychologists, particularly adherents to humanistic psychology, may go as far as completely rejecting a scientific approach, viewing psychology more as an art rather than a rigid science. However, mainstream psychology has a bias towards the scientific method, which is reflected in the dominance of cognitivism as the guiding theoretical framework used by most psychologists to understand thought and behavior.
The testing of different aspects of psychological function is a significant area of contemporary psychology. Psychometric and statistical methods predominate, including various well-known standardized tests as well as those created ad hoc as the situation or experiment requires.
Academic psychologists may focus purely on research and psychological theory, aiming to further psychological understanding in a particular area, while other psychologists may work in applied psychology to deploy such knowledge for immediate and practical benefit. However, these approaches are not mutually exclusive and most psychologists will be involved in both researching and applying psychology at some point during their work. Clinical psychology, among many of the various discipline of psychology, aims at developing in practicing psychologists knowledge of and experience with research and experimental methods which they will continue to build up as well as employ as they treat individual with psychological issues or use psychology to help others.
Where an area of interest is considered to need specific training and specialist knowledge (especially in applied areas), psychological associations will typically set up a governing body to manage training requirements. Similarly, requirements may be laid down for university degrees in psychology, so that students acquire an adequate knowledge in a number of areas. Additionally, areas of practical psychology, where psychologists offer treatment to others, may require that psychologists be licensed by government regulatory bodies, as well.

Controlled experiment in Experimental psychology
The majority of psychological research is conducted in the laboratory under controlled conditions. This method of research relies completely on the scientific method to determine the basis of behavior. Common measurements of behavior include reaction time and various psychometric measurements. Experiments are conducted to test a particular hypothesis.
As an example of a psychological experiment, one may want to test people’s perception of different tones. Specifically, one could ask the following question: is it easier for people to discriminate one pair of tones from another depending upon their frequency? To answer this, one would want to disprove the hypothesis that all tones are equally discriminable, regardless of their frequency. A task to test this hypothesis would have a participant seated in a room listening to a series of tones. If the participant would make one indication (by pressing a button, for example) if they thought the tones were two different sounds, and another indication if they thought they were the same sound. The proportion of correct responses would be the measurement used to describe whether or not all the tones were equally discriminable. The result of this particular experiment would probably indicate better discrimination of certain tones based on the human.

Co-relational studies
Co-relational studies use statistics to determine if one variable is likely to co-occur with another variable. For example, one might be interested in whether or not an individual smokes is correlated with their change of getting lung cancer. One way to answer this would be to simply take a group of people who smoke and measure the proportion of those that get lung cancer within a certain time. In this particular case, one would probably find a high correlation (since tobacco has a deleterious effect on the lungs). However, we cannot know for certain that smoking is the ”cause” of lung cancer. It could be that those more prone to cancer are also more likely to take up smoking. A third alternative is that some other variable caused both conditions. This is a major limitation of co-relational studies, and it is exemplified by the fact that co-relation implies causation (logical fallacy). Co-relation does not imply causation.

Longitudinal studies
A longitudinal study is a research method, which observes a particular population over time. For example, one might wish to study specific language impairment by observing a group of individuals with the condition over a period of time. This method has the advantage of seeing how a condition can affect individuals over long time scales. However, since individual differences between members of the group are not controlled, it may be difficult to draw conclusions about the populations.

Compound research methods
Social psychologists typically use several research methods simultaneously (e.g., lab experiment and interview). In the 1960s, Stanley Milgram (1933-1984) studied obedience in laboratory. The experimenter told the participants to give increasingly stronger shocks to another person as part of a study on learning. In reality, the experiment had nothing to do with learning; the real issue under consideration was the degree to which participants would comply with the experimenter’s requests and demands. In fact, the ‘learner’ supposedly receiving the shocks was a confederate who never really received any punishment. The results were shocking. Some 65 percent of participants eventually used the highest setting on the shock generator – 450 volts – to shock the learner. The participants, who were extensively interviewed after the experiment, said that they obeyed primarily because they believed that the experimenter would be responsible for any potential ill effects that befell the learner.

Neuropsychological methods and Computational modeling
Computational modeling is a tool often used in cognitive psychology to simulate a particular behavior using a computer. This method has several advantages. Since modern computers are extremely fast, many simulations can be run in a short time, allowing for a great deal of statistical power. Modeling also allows psychologists to visualize hypotheses about the functional organization of mental events that couldn’t be directly observed in a human. Several different types of modeling are used to study behavior. Connectionism uses neural nets to simulate the brain. Another method is symbolic modeling, which represents different mental objects using variables and rules. Other types of modeling include dynamic systems and stochastic modeling.