Foundation Of Psychology

Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. The scientific method is used by psychologists to research and analyze the two subjects. Behavior is actions, feelings, and biological states and mental processes usually mean problem solving, intelligence and memory. Many people are interested in psychology but most people only think of psychology the way it is represented in the media. Even though a large portion of psychologists help people, there is a lot of research going in to it. Psychology is a science, so it is deeply rooted in scientific research. When a psychologist provides an explanation of why and how a behavior occurs, they will present it as a theory.. Psychology did not become a science until the late 1800's,

A student of Wundt named Titchener used a process called introspection, to learn about the mental processes of different subjects. Both Wundt and Titchener influenced people to study new ideas and start spreading them in the United States. A United States professor named William James introduced experimental psychology to the United States and believed the mental process was connected to natural selection. Sigmund Freud, one of the best known figures of psychology, studied medicine and focused on neurology. Freud developed a therapy, called psychoanalysis, which was encouraging patients to express every thought that came to them to help them uncover any forgotten memories. His experiments led Freud to believe that the unconscious played a major role in human behaviors, impulses and desires. This focus on the unconscious was called the psychoanalytic theory. Even though this theory was controversial, it was very popular in European psychology. In the early 1900's a new school of thought called behaviorism was becoming more and more popular. It was the belief that psychology cannot be taken seriously as a science unless it can be

Psychologists research and test their ideas with the scientific method. There are many different perspectives used today to examine behavior, one of them is biological, which means that a certain behavior is related to chemicals in the body or genetics. Another is evolutionary; the behavior is an adaptive response to potential threats. The cognitive perspective is when a psychologist tries to find how different people act compared to people with the behavior. Believing that the behavior comes from unresolved feelings is the psychodynamic perspective. If it's believed the behavior may have been learned, the perspective is behavioral. The sociocultural perspective thinks of the behavior as the product of the person's culture. Another perspective called the humanistic perspective believes that the behavior might come from dissatisfaction with one's self. The eclectic approach is the belief that the behavior can come from many sources, it depends on the