THE CONCEPT OF PSYCHOLOGY

1.0 INTRODUCTION

By now, you should have read through the course guide, which was sent to you as part of your institutional package furthering course. If you have not, please ensure that you read the course guide before reading your study materials as it provides a comprehensive outline of the materials you will cover on a unit-to-unit basis, starting with the topic you are about to study: definitions of psychology. The unit guides you through several definitions of psychology across the ages. Let us look at what you should learn in this unit, as specified in the unit objectives below.

2.0 OBJECTIVES

By the end of this unit, you should be able to:

1. describe the concept of psychology; and 
2. define the concept of psychology in a specific way. 

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Descriptions

There are various reasons for popular misconceptions e.g (frequent appearances in the mass media) of statements about what psychologists tell us. These are often one- sided views exaggerating some opinions held by only a few psychologists or even by some who are not properly qualified psychologists. This is because human behaviour can be observed by all and sundry who attempt to explain occurrences from their own intuition, or belief. In other branches of science, for example physics and chemistry, common sense or intuition does not help observers to explain why diatomic hydrogen behaves differently from a monatomic one, when these are bombarded by neutrons.


Another explanation of such differential judgments is traceable to the fact that whereas human behaviour may be a matter of common observation, scientific facts are only understood after sustained learning. Many writers also think that the labels, especially labels of definitions and constructs, in psychology, are derived from the daily usage of many common words while those used in pure science have separate origins and they are of restricted use. For example, intelligence is a psychological construct which implies one thing to a psychologist and another to a layman, and a typical word thermocouple of pure science means a very special thing to scientists and students of science but, perhaps nothing to a layman.

Furthermore, many people think psychology is the same as psychoanalysis and Freudian or neo- Freudian psychology (We will discuss this in the later units of this course), which psychologists regard as accounting for only a minor part of the entire body of psychological knowledge. It is also not uncommon to find ignorant individuals who conceptualise psychologists as those who can hypnotise others.

Here we will look at some of the descriptions of the concept of psychology. You will probably have come across the word ‘psychology’ before, and you may have your own idea of what psychology is all about. Unfortunately there are a number of misconceptions and misunderstandings as to what psychology is exactly, and for this reason we will consider why this is so and then examine some descriptions of this subject area.

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1

How would you describe psychology? Make a few brief notes before moving on to the next section.
Now, let us go on with our descriptions of the concept of psychology. While people have been interested in human behaviour for thousands of years, psychology has only become a discipline in its own right in the last 100 years. For many years, philosophers puzzled over the nature of the human mind and people’s motivations. However, philosophers’ accounts were essentially speculative and they made no attempt to prove whether their views were correct or incorrect.

Many writers agree that the birth of psychology as we now understand the concept was in 1879 in Leipzig, Germany. At this time, Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory devoted to experimental psychology. Over the next 40 years, many universities throughout Europe and the United States set up their own laboratories. The main belief shared by these early pioneers was that human psychological processes could be studied objectively using the same experimental methods developed over the years by the natural sciences (for examp1e physics and chemistry). The first recognized book on psychology was written by William James and published in 1890.
From these early beginnings, psychology expanded quite rapidly and achieved various important milestones in its history. Many see the writings of Sigmund Freud as very significant in the development of psychology, although as you will see later, his work has been criticized for lacking in sound scientific basis. Psychology today encompasses a wide range of perspectives and has been applied to a large number of different areas of human functioning. You will learn about some of these in what follows. I know you now find our discussion meaningful and interesting. Let us continue.


Any dictionary and almost all introductory psychology textbooks will contain a description of the word psychology. Unfortunately, you may find that there are almost as many different descriptions of the subject area as there are textbooks. This may not however be as confusing as it might at first appear as many descriptions will share common elements, or say basically the same thing in slightly different ways. Why do psychologists differ in their descriptions?

There are at least two reasons why psychologists do not always agree on a simple common description of psychology.

1. The first is that psychology is a relatively new discipline. Compared with sciences such as chemistry and physics, psychology is in its infancy and its theories and methods are still being developed
2. The second reason is that psychology already covers a diverse range of subjects, and psychologists working in different areas see psychology in slightly different ways. Let us cite an example so that you can have a clear understanding. Educational psychologists will be mainly concerned with the way in which children learn, and how to help children who are not doing well at school. By contrast, a clinical psychologist will deal almost exclusively with people who are mentally ill or who are experiencing behavioural problems. It is time for you to try your hand on a question. 

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2

State one reason why psychologists disagree on a common description of psychology.

3.2 Is Psychology more than just ‘Common Sense’?

One reaction that people have when they hear of the results of a psychological research is that it is all just ‘common sense’. While it is true that psychologists do sometimes confirm what people may already believe, their research also allow them to ascertain the conditions under which certain events do or do not occur. Different people have different views of how the world works and may presume different things about ‘human nature’. Sometimes common sense appears to be contradictory. For example if you were asked to speculate as to why some people enjoy each other’s company and others do not, you may fall back on the proverb ‘Birds of the same feathers flock together’. In other words, people with similar interests, habits, and personalities tend to be attracted to each other. However you might equally have provided an alternative theory which is that ‘opposites attract’. Both of these expressions are well known, yet surely both cannot be true. A psychologist may wish to examine this and determine whether one is more accurate than the other, or identify the circumstances under which one is truer than the other.

There are many other examples of ‘common sense’ which turn out not necessary to be true. As you read more about psychology, you will come across a number of such challenges. For example, some police officers may believe that they can persuade a reluctant suspect to confess or believe that only a guilty person would sign a confession. We will see in another unit of this course that both of these presumptions may not actually be true.]

 SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3

Visit the School of Arts and Social Sciences in the National Open University of Nigeria’s library. Open any recent book on introductory psychology at the contents page and note the different subjects that are covered. If possible, compare it with an introductory psychology book published more than 20 years ago. Note the differences between the contents of the two volumes.

Now, clap for yourself for participating in our discussion. Let us continue. 

3.3 Definitions

It is not very clear if one would have time to think as Marshall Temple (1984 11) wanted when she opined. Can you imagine what life would be like if we had idea at all what effect our behaviour is going to have on others? What a mad world it would be if a smile were answered by a kick and angry shout by a friendly greeting.  Efforts at thinking about these questions and hazarding answers for them have to do with a branch of knowledge known as psychology. Perhaps the most succinct definition of the concept is that psychology is the scientific study of behaviour. Many people would insert the world ‘human’ in this definitions, as the vast majority of psychologists are interested exclusively in studying human behaviour (Alhassan, 2000).  However, some psychologists study animals other than humans, partly because such study is interesting in itself and partly because studying animals allows researchers to carry out experiments and then extend the results into the human domain. Perhaps the best known example of this is the work of B.F. Skinner, who carried out many experiments using rats, pigeons and other animals in order to understand how they respond to their environment. Many of Skinner’s findings were expanded to cover human populations and valuable lessons were learnt (Andrew et.at.1993).
In some cases, psychologists have used animals such as rats and mice because such subjects are more easily recruited than humans. It may also be true that some psychologists are less worried about carrying out potentially harmful experiments on animals such as rats and mice than they might be when carrying out the equivalent studies on humans. However, it is important for you to note that today; psychologists in almost all countries are governed by rules, meaning they should not harm any animals (human or otherwise) that are used in experiments.

My dear student, l knows you are getting more interested in our discussion. That is nice. You are likely to find the next section even more interesting. Let us go on.

So, psychologists generally study human behaviour and try to understand why people behave the way they do. They may also gather information about a subject and by carefully analyzing their information, reach a conclusion. We will see in unit 2 some of the ways in which psychologists might go about studying human behaviour.

4.0 CONCLUSION

In this unit, you have learnt some descriptions of psychology. Psychologists differ in their descriptions of psychology because psychology is a relatively new discipline. In addition, psychology already covers a diverse range of subjects. Given this situation, psychologists working in different areas see psychology in slightly different ways. You have also learnt some definitions of psychology. Psychology is mainly concerned with the systematic (or scientific) study of human behaviour. Such systematic study allows psychologists to offer explanations for different behaviour and in some cases to make predictions about future behaviour.

5.0 SUMMARY

1. What you have learnt in this unit concerns descriptions and definitions of psychology from the perspectives of different psychologists. 
2. The unit has served to introduce you to other units in the course. 3. The units that follow shall build upon this introduction to ensure clarity of concepts and understanding of contents. 

6.0TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

1.  State two reasons why psychologists do not always agree on a common description of psychology 
2.  From your understanding of our discussion, how would you define psychology