Introduction to Psychology: Nature, Scope, Schools and Methods
This domain asks you to define psychology as a science, map its branches, match each school to its founder, and choose the correct research method for a given research question. Board questions favour definitions, founder–school matching, and the distinction between experimental and correlational designs.
Nature and scope
- Psychology studies both observable behaviour and inferred mental processes (memory, emotion, motive); it is empirical, testable and replicable, not common sense.
- It is a science, but a young, multidisciplinary social science.
- Branches: clinical, counselling, educational, industrial–organisational, social, developmental, cognitive, health, sports, forensic, environmental and cross-cultural; pure (research) versus applied.
Schools
- Structuralism - Wundt (first laboratory, Leipzig, 1879) and Titchener; introspection of conscious experience.
- Functionalism - William James; how mind helps adaptation.
- Gestalt - Wertheimer, Köhler, Koffka; the whole is not the sum of parts.
- Behaviourism - Watson and Skinner; observable stimulus–response.
- Psychoanalysis - Freud; unconscious dynamics.
- Humanistic - Maslow, Rogers; free will and self-actualisation.
- Cognitive, biological and evolutionary perspectives.
Methods
- Experiment: manipulate the independent variable, control extraneous variables, random allocation; the only design that establishes cause.
- Correlation: coefficient ranges from −1 to +1; shows a relationship, never causation.
- Observation, survey, interview, case study and psychological tests each have strengths and limits.
Worked example
A researcher reports r = +0.62 between hours of sleep and test marks. The sign is positive, so more sleep is associated with higher marks, and 0.62 indicates a moderate-to-strong relationship. It is still not proof: a third variable such as health or study habits could drive both. Establishing causation needs an experiment that manipulates sleep.
Traps
- Psychology predicts behaviour; it does not read minds, and it is not mere common sense.
- Do not claim correlation proves causation, or that r = 0.62 means 62%.
- Wundt founded the first laboratory; introspection is a method, not a school.