What is Psychology?
This domain introduces psychology as the scientific study of behaviour and mental processes; the exam tests definitions, historical schools, branches and the case for psychology as a science.
Definition and scope
Psychology studies behaviour (observable, measurable responses) and mental processes (inferred internal states such as memory, emotion, thought). The modern definition is broader than Watson's behaviourist one, which rejected mental processes.
Historical schools
- Structuralism - Wundt (first laboratory, Leipzig, 1879) and Titchener; introspection of conscious experience.
- Functionalism - William James; how mental processes aid adaptation.
- Gestalt - Wertheimer, Kohler, Koffka; the whole is more than the sum of parts.
- Psychoanalysis - Freud; unconscious conflict.
- Behaviourism - Watson, Skinner; observable behaviour and conditioning.
- Humanistic - Maslow, Rogers; growth and self-actualisation.
- Cognitive - information processing.
Science or common sense
Psychology is a science because it is systematic, empirical, objective, replicable and aims at description, explanation, prediction and control. Common sense is unsystematic and often contradictory.
Worked example
A claim: 'Playing violent video games makes teenagers aggressive.' To test it, define aggression operationally (for example, number of hits in a laboratory task), measure game exposure, and note that a correlation alone cannot show causation - a third variable such as family conflict could explain both. Reasoning: turning a vague claim into measurable variables is what makes the question scientific.
Traps
- Confusing psychology with parapsychology, pseudoscience or 'mind reading'.
- Naming Freud as the founder of scientific psychology (Wundt's 1879 laboratory is the conventional marker).
- Treating introspection as the main contemporary method.
- Saying behaviourism is the whole of modern psychology.