Chapter 1: General Psychology As a Science

“General Psychology as a Science”

In College life, you will encounter General Psychology that you didn’t encounter in you high school life. Every First year students in college has many question in mind, one of them is what psychology is. But do we really understand what is general Psychology or simply Psychology?

General Psychology is derived from the Greek words Psyche and logos, meaning soul and study. To Greeks, Psychology is simply a study of the soul.

According to Feldman, General Psychology is referring to the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes.

Human Behavior includes all overt action and reactions such as talking, facial expression, and movements. The term mental processes refer to all internal, covert activity in our minds.

The types of behavior are Overt (obvious), Covert (secret), Conscious (Aware of :), Unconscious (not aware of :), Rational (reasonable), Irrational (unreasonable), Voluntary (freewill), Involuntary (against in your freewill).

In Addition, there are schools of thought in Psychology. These are the Structuralism, Functionalism, behaviorism, Gestalt psychology, Psychoanalytic Approach, and Cognitive Approach.

One of these is the Structuralism.

Structuralism is founded by Wilhelm Wundt. Structuralism is a perspective that focused on the basic elements that constitute the foundation of perception, consciousness, thinking, emotions and other kinds of mental states and activities.

Functionalism is a school of thought in psychology. It is led by William James, focuses on what the mind does and how behavior functions. While the structuralists were looking inside the mind, searching for its structures, the functionalists were looking more at what was going on in the person’s interaction with the outside world and looking for the function of the human brain.

Behaviorism – After reading about Ivan Pavlov’s experiment with dogs, John B. Watson thought that conditioning could form the basis of a new perspective called behaviorism. Watson believed that to understand, one must observe it. Behaviorism focuses on how stimulus-response would produce a behavior.

Gestalt psychology is a German word means whole. “The whole is different from the sum of its parts.” This means that when basic elements that compose our perception of objects are considered together, they produce something greater and more meaningful than those individual elements alone.

Psychoanalytic Approach focuses on unconscious thought, conflict between biological instincts and society’s demands and early experiences. It gives emphasis on the influence of sexual and aggressive impulses on the way people think, feel and behave.

Cognitive Approach means thinking. This perspective focuses on how people think, remember, store and use information. In this view and individual’s mental processes are in control of behavior through memories, perceptions, images and thinking. “If you change the word, Change your thinking.”

Psychology can be related to science because it uses scientific method to find the conclusion or the final answer to every research paper. Also psychology can be related to physiology, anthropology, history and sociology. Moreover, there are areas of psychology and these are the Developmental Psychology, Social Psychology, Abnormal Psychology, Clinical & Counseling Psychology, Cognitive psychology, Industrial & Organizational psychology, educational psychology and etc.

Areas of psychology  can be classified into two:

1. Pure psychology 

•   Developmental psychology 
• Social Psychology
• Abnormal Psychology

    2. Applied psychology

• Clinical and Counseling psychology
• Psychiatry
• Cognitive psychology
• Industrial and Organizational Psychology
• Educational psychology

For me, as a college student, Psychology can help me to determine what it is in mind of one person. Finally, psychology can help to encourage the other people that they must not waste their life rather they must take care of it because every life in the world is a gift from God.