The Psychology Book

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The most famous behaviourists were, obviously, Ivan Pavlov and B.F. Skinner. But what I found fascinating was Joseph Wolpe's research that shows that you can 'unlearn' fear by relaxing and facing your fears head on. It's still a good book in my opinion. It's a good way to come to your own conclusions or look further into each idea. It's just not a hard facts kinda book which I guess is what I was looking for. "Ideas" is the main word here. If you thought it was difficult to learn psychology and its many concepts, The Psychology Book presents the key ideas in a clear layout. Learn about the key personalities of the 19th and 20th centuries whose work has made significant contributions to our understanding of human behaviour. Superb mind maps and step-by-step summaries explain the line of thought clearly for students of psychology and for anyone with a general interest in understanding the human mind.

The new science Psychology can also be seen as a bridge between philosophy and physiology. Where physiology describes and explains the physical make-up of the brain and nervous system, psychology examines the mental processes that take place within them and how these are manifested in our thoughts, speech, and behavior. Where philosophy is concerned with thoughts and ideas, psychology studies how we come to have them and what they tell us about the workings of our minds. All the sciences evolved from philosophy, by applying scientific methods to philosophical questions, commanders, scientists, literary men… diviners, oarsmen, and wrestlers,” to research inherited traits for his book Hereditary Genius. As predicted, he found more highly talented individuals in certain families than among the general population. However, he could not safely attribute this to nature alone, as there were also conferred benefits from growing up in a privileged home environment. Galton himself grew up in a wealthy household with access to unusually good educational resources. This is a book that very few people will read cover to cover. You would most likely fall asleep. I found it most satisfying to read topics I thought might relate to me. I also skimmed through some of the chapters with a title that made no sense. Like, the "Dormez!" chapter is about hypnosis. There were also a lot of concepts that had nothing to do with the title.

In this chapter, we learn about the earliest psychologists and some of the (weird) things they believed in. For example, Wilhelm Wundt believed that every living being has a consciousness, even single-celled organisms (an amoeba's ability to devour food means it has some form of consciousness). PHILOSOPHICAL ROOTS 37 participants, or through measuring levels of behavior such as tension and relaxation or excitement. Observing behavior Wundt believed that “the exact description of consciousness is the sole aim of experimental psychology.” Although he understood consciousness as an “inner experience,” he was only interested in the “immediately real” or apparent form of this experience. This ultimately led him to the study of behavior, which could be studied and quantified by “direct observation.” Wundt said that there are two types of observation: external and internal. External observation is used to record events that are visible in the external world, and is useful in assessing relationships such as cause and effect on Wundt’s laboratory set the style for psychology departments around the world. His experiments moved psychology out of the domain of philosophy and into science. Categories of consciousness Based on his sensory experiments, Wundt claimed that consciousness consists of three major categories

Francis Galton Sir Francis Galton was a polymath who wrote prolifically on many subjects, including anthropology, criminology (classifying fingerprints), geography, meteorology, biology, and psychology. Born in Birmingham, England, into a wealthy Quaker family, he was a child prodigy, able to read from the age of two. He studied medicine in London and Birmingham, then mathematics at Cambridge, but his study was cut short by a mental breakdown, worsened by his father’s death in 1844. Galton turned to traveling and inventing. His marriage in 1853 to Louisa Jane Butler lasted 43 years, but was childless. He devoted his life to measuring physical and psychological characteristics, devising mental tests, and writing. He received many awards and honors in recognition of his numerous achievements, including several honorary degrees and a knighthood. Key works A lecturer in philosophy and psychology, Nigel Benson has written several bestselling books on the subject of psychology, including Psychology for Beginners and Introducing Psychiatry. In the course of the 20th century, psychology blossomed; all of its major branches and movements evolved. As with all sciences, its history is built upon the theories and discoveries of successive generations, with many of the older theories remaining relevant to contemporary psychologists. Nothing comes from the magnetizer; everything comes from the subject and takes place in his imagination. Abbé Faria The behaviorists’ studies concentrated almost exclusively on how behavior is shaped by interaction with the environment; this “stimulus–response” theory became well known through the work of John Watson. New learning theories began to spring up in Europe and the US, and attracted the interest of the general public.The qualities of these elements can be found in four corresponding humors (fluids) that affect the functioning of our bodies. If the 19th century was the age of the editorial chair, ours is the century of the psychiatrist’s couch. Marshall McLuhan Although they used scientific methods and their theories laid the foundations for the new science, many in the next generation of psychologists found their processes too subjective, and began to look for a more objective methodology. In the 1890s, the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov conducted experiments that were to prove critical to the development of psychology in both Europe and the US. He proved that animals could be conditioned to produce a response, an idea that developed into a new movement known as behaviorism.

I do my thing and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectation, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful. If not, it can't be helped." An influential science The many branches of psychology that exist today cover the whole spectrum of mental life and human and animal behavior. The overall scope has extended to overlap with many other disciplines, including medicine, physiology, neuroscience, computer science, education, sociology, anthropology, and even politics, economics, and the law. Psychology has become perhaps the most diverse of sciences. Psychology continues to influence and be influenced by the other sciences, especially in areas century BCE Greek philosopher Aristotle says that the soul and body are inseparable: the soul is the actuality of the body. AFTER 1710 In A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley claims that the body is merely the perception of the mind. 1904 In Does Consciousness Exist? William James asserts that consciousness is not a separate entity but a function of particular experiences.

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on animals might be revealing. This was the position held by the German physician, philosopher, and psychologist Wilhelm Wundt, who described a continuum of life from even the smallest animals to ourselves. In his book Principles of Physiological Psychology, he claimed that consciousness is a universal possession of all living organisms, and has been since the evolutionary process began. To Wundt, the very definition of life includes having some kind of mind. He declared: “From the standpoint of observation, then, we must regard it as a highly probable IN CONTEXT APPROACH Hypnosis BEFORE 1027 Persian philosopher and physician Avicenna (Ibn Sina) writes about trances in The Book of Healing. 1779 German physician Franz Mesmer publishes A Memoir on the Discovery of Animal Magnetism. AFTER 1843 Scottish surgeon James Braid coins the term “neurohypnotism” in Neurypnology. APPROACH Mind/body dualism BEFORE 4th century BCE Greek philosopher Plato claims that the body is from the material world, but the soul, or mind, is from the immortal world of ideas.

defective nurture.” Intelligence, he says, is inherited, but must be fostered through education. In 1875, Galton undertook a study of 159 pairs of twins. He found that they did not follow the “normal” distribution of similarity between siblings, in which they are moderately alike, but were always extremely similar or extremely dissimilar. What really surprised him was that the degree of similarity never changed over time. He had anticipated that a shared upbringing would lessen dissimilarity between twins as they grew up, but found that this was not the case. Nurture seemed to play no role at all. The “nature–nurture debate” continues to this day. Some people have favored Galton’s theories, including his notion—now known as eugenics—that people could be “bred” like horses to promote certain characteristics. Others have preferred to believe that every baby is a tabula rasa, or “blank slate,” and we are all born equal. Most psychologists today recognize that nature and nurture are both crucially important in human development, and interact in complex ways. ■ R.D. Laing’s The Divided Self redefines “madness,” offering existential analysis of inner conflict as therapy. However, if two ideas are unalike, they may continue to exist without association. This causes them to weaken over time, so that they eventually sink below the “threshold of consciousness.” Should two ideas directly contradict one another, “resistance occurs” and “concepts become forces when they resist one another.” They repel one another with an energy that propels one of them beyond consciousness, into a place that Herbart referred to as “a state of tendency;” and we now know as “the unconscious.” Herbart saw the unconscious as simply a kind of storage place for weak or opposed ideas. In positing a two-part consciousness, split by a distinct threshold, he was attempting to deliver a structural solution for the management of ideas in a healthy mind. But Sigmund Freud was to see it as a much more complex and revealing mechanism. He combined Herbart’s concepts with his own theories of unconscious drives to form the basis of the 20th-century’s most important therapeutic approach: psychoanalysis. ■ Nurture is that which is experienced from birth onward. Nature is that which is inborn and inherited, and… he term “consciousness” is generally used to refer to an individual’s awareness of his or her own thoughts, including sensations, feelings, and memories. We usually take this awareness for granted, except when we are having difficulties—such as trying to do something when we are very tired. But if you focus your thoughts on your consciousness, you soon become aware that your conscious experiences are constantly changing. While reading this book, for example, you may be reminded of past experiences or present discomforts that interrupt your concentration; plans for the future may spontaneously spring to mind. Thinking about your conscious experiences makes you realize just how much your thoughts are changing, and yet they seem to come together, merging and carrying on smoothly as a whole. American psychologist William James compared these everyday experiences of consciousness to a stream that continuously flows, despite the odd interruption and change of direction. He declared: “A ‘river’ or a ‘stream’ are the metaphors by which it is most William James was born in 1842 to a wealthy and influential New York family, and traveled widely as a child, attending schools in both Europe and the US. James showed early artistic ability and initially pursued a career as a painter, but his growing interest in science eventually led to him to enrol at Harvard University in 1861. By 1864, he had moved to Harvard Medical School, although his studies were interrupted by bouts of physical illness and depression. He finally qualified as a physician in 1869, but never practiced medicine.The Psychology Book is the perfect introduction to the science, aimed at adults with an interest in the subject and students wanting to gain more of an overview. Here you’ll discover key concepts by psychologists who have significantly enhanced our understanding of the human mind and behavior. Learn about everyone who’s contributed to the big ideas in psychology, incorporating the ideas of today’s scientists as well those of the ancient philosophers and pioneers. Cultural psychology For Wundt, the psychological development of a person is determined not only by sensations but also by complex social and cultural influences, which cannot be replicated or controlled in an experimental situation. He included religion, language, myths, history, art, laws, and customs among these influences, discussing them in a ten-volume work, Cultural Psychology, which he wrote during the last 20 years of his life. Wundt saw language as an especially important part of culture’s contribution to consciousness. Any verbal communication begins with a “general impression,” or unified idea of something we wish to say. Having “apperceived” this general starting point, we then choose words and sentences to express it. While speaking, we monitor the accuracy of the intended meaning. We might say, “No, that’s not right, I mean…,” and then choose a different word or phrase to express ourselves better. Whoever is listening has to Trauma must be understood in terms of the relationship between the individual and society - Ignacio Martín-Baró