Introduction to Psychology

ABPG 1103

Faculty of Applied Social Sciences
Semester/Year: May 2011
Course code: ABPG1103
Course: Introduction to Psychology
Matriculation No: 800918135538001
Identity Card No: 800918-13-5538
Telephone No: 0128083693 (Malaysia) +66896759616 (Thailand)
Email:syhu@oum.edu.my
Learning Centre: Pulau Pinang Learning Centre

1

ABPG 1103

Table of Contents
Course Guide
Title: Four subfields of psychology in their different areas of research and specialization.
1.0 Introduction
2.0 Clinical Psychology
2.1 Research area
2.1.1 Intelligence test
2.1.2 Personality test
2.1.3 Neuropsychological tests
2.2 Specialization
2.3 Importance of Clinical Psychology in human life
3.0 Development Psychology
3.1 Research Areas
3.1.1 Cognitive development
3.1.2 Social and emotional development
3.1.3 Motor development
3.1.4 Personality development
3.1.5 Moral development
3.2 Specialization
3.3 Importance of Developmental Psychology in human life
4.0 Educational Psychology
4.1 Research Areas
4.1.1 Bbehavioral perspective
4.1.2 Cognitive perspective
4.1.3 Social perspective
4.1.4 Constructivist perspective
4.1.5 Motivation
4.2 Specialization
4.3 Importance of Educational Psychology in human life
5.0 Industrial and Organizational Psychology
5.1 Research Areas
5.1.1 Job analytic methods
5.1.2 Recruitment process and Personnel selection
5.1.3 Performance appraisal method
5.1.4 Remuneration
5.1.5 Training
5.1.6 Motivation
5.2 Specialization
5.3 Importance of I/O Psychology in human life
6.0 Conclusion
7.0 References

2

3
4
4
4
5
6
7
8
8
9
9
9
9-10
11
11
12
12
12
13
13
13
13
14
15
15
15
15
16
16
16-17
17
17
18
19

ABPG 1103

1.0 Introduction
Psychology is a scientific study about human mind and behaviors that involves both physical and biological. The ultimate goals of psychology are to benefit society by applying such knowledge in human daily activities such as education, events, people, task, employment, association, relationship and treatment of mental health problems. . Psychologists are professional researchers or practitioners who will carry out the theories to understand and explain thought, emotion and behavior. They attempt to understand human by exploring concepts such as perception, cognition, attention, emotion, phenomenology, motivation, brain functioning, personality, behavior and interpersonal relationships and unconscious mind.
Psychology incorporates research from the social sciences such as anthropology, natural sciences (study of the universe) and humanities such as literature, history, ancient and modern languages, religion and philosophy. The psychology was born when Wilhelm Wundt established the first psychology lab at Leipzig, Germany in 1879. Ten most influential psychologists were B.F Skinner, Sigmund Freud, Albert Bandura, Jean Piaget, Carl Rogers,
William James, Erik Erikson, Ivan Pavlov, Kurt Lewin, and Eugene Garfield. The subfields of psychology are Biological, Clinical, Cognitive, Comparative, Developmental, Educational,
Industrial & Organizational, Social and etc.
Below are four subfields of psychology with the explanation of their different area and specialization. 3

ABPG 1103

2.0 Clinical Psychology
Clinical psychology is the scientific study of assessment, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mental illness caused by distress or dysfunction. Basically, clinical psychologists engage in research, consultation, forensic testimony, administration, teaching and program development.
Clinical psychologists are regulated mental health profession but not medical doctors.Clinical psychology is the largest specialty area in psychology and is strongly regulated by a code of ethics in most countries. In the US, professional ethics are largely defined by the APA
(American Psychological Association) Code of Conduct.
“The APA code is based on five principles, Beneficence and Nonmaleficence, Fidelity and
Responsibility, Integrity, Justice and Respect for People’s Right and Dignity.”
Common area of specialty within clinical psychology include child and adolescent , family and relationship counseling, geriatrics, learning disabilities, forensic , neuropsychological disorders, emotional disturbances , organization and business, school , sport ,substance abuse , specific disorders ,and health psychology.Many people may confuse between clinical psychologists with psychiatrists, there is an important distinction between these two careers.
Psychiatrists can prescribe medications while in most states psychologists cannot.
2.1 Research Areas
2.1.1 Intelligence tests are measures of cognitive functioning (often referred as IQ) while achievement tests are measures of developed skill or knowledge. These tests such as WAISIV (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale), WISC-IV (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children), which includes the measurement of general knowledge, memory, abilities, attitudes, logical reasoning, verbal skill and visual perception.
2.1.2 Personality tests are measures of personality aim and often described as either objective or projective tests. Objective test are often contrasted with projective tests.

4

ABPG 1103

Table 1: Objective and Projective tests
Objective test

a personality test based on own Objective tests include the beliefs and independent of rater Minnesota Multiphasic Personality bias Inventory, Symptom Checklist 90 and consist of multiple-choice questions a personality test designed based

An example of test is Rorschach

on ambiguous stimuli,

test. The idea is show stimuli such

presumably revealing non-

as inkblot to a person, and then

conscious psychological

notifies the different perceptions

dynamics like hidden emotions

that are given by the person to know

and internal conflicts

Projective test

personality.

2.1.3 Neuropsychological tests designed to measure a psychological function known to be linked to a particular brain structure or pathway. An example test is, a single person working with an examiner in a quiet office environment that free from any distractions, to estimate a person’s peak level of cognitive performance.
Diagnostic impression: Results from the assessments will used as diagnosis for different treatments. Many countries use the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and
Related Health Problems (ICD-10) while the US most often uses the Diagnostic and statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM version IV-TR).
Basically, psychotherapy involves a formal relationship between professional and client – usually an individual, couple, family, or small group. They have intention to form a therapeutic alliance, discover the nature problems of psychological and inspire new ways of thinking, feeling and behaving. Even though there are many types of recognized therapeutic orientations, their differences normally can be divided into two dimensions: insight vs. action and in-session vs. out session.

5

ABPG 1103

Table 2: Difference dimensions of therapeutic orientations.
Insight

Gain

more

understanding Psychodynamic therapy

about motivations underlying thoughts and feeling
Action

Focusing on changes of how Solution focused therapy and one thinks and acts

In-session

Interaction and between

therapist

cognitive behavioral therapy client Humanistic therapy, Gestalt

inside

the therapy

center
Out-session

Therapeutic

work

happen outside of session

that Bibliotherapy, rational emotive behavior therapy

2.2 Specialization
Clinical psychology mostly specializes in assessing and treating patients with psychological problems. Some of them even act as therapists for the people who suffer from chronic psychiatric disorders and for the children or adults who presenting difficult behavior patterns such as combat veterans or trauma reactivity. Besides, some of the clinical psychologists are trained to be tutors or professors in universities or professional schools of psychology for special education with significant learning. Meanwhile, some of them work as counselors, trainers or supervisors in hospitals, community health centers and private practice.

6

ABPG 1103

2.3 Importance of Clinical Psychology in human life
Clinical psychology knowledge is applied mostly in determined different mental disorder and threatening the illnesses such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases.
From the assessment and diagnosis identify by clinical psychologists, doctors or psychiatrists able to recognize the cause and give treatment or prescribe medicine to patients.
Besides, clinical psychology also plays important role as family or relationship consultation.
Clinical psychologists focus on persons problems such as couple quarrelling and depression of jobless. Thus, they attempt to do adjustment for the person to prevent from suffering either mentally or physically.
Furthermore, clinical psychology knowledge is widely utilized in forensic consultation. They specialize in analyzing and investigating crime evidence thus to make an effort to aid in the administration of justice by assisting decision makers.
Some of the clinical psychologists even write and publish books about the clinical psychology. They are giving knowledge of psychology to either students or adults who have great intention on clinical psychology.

7

ABPG 1103

3.0 Developmental Psychology
Developmental psychology is the scientific study of psychological changes that occur from pre-natal to old age. Developmental psychology is also known as human development. The field examines the physical changes and development of human thinking, language, intelligence, emotions and social behavior. Developmental psychology not only describing the changes of characteristics but also seeks to explain the principles and internal workings underlying these changes. Several major issues of the developmental psychology are individual characteristics vs. shared human traits, stability vs. change and nature vs. nurture.

Table 3: Major issues of Development Psychology
Individual characteristics vs. Shared human Everyone development is unique even there traits are

some

common

pattern

in

human

development.
Stability vs. Change

Some personality traits continue to persist even they grow up and after major lifechanging experiences.

Nature vs. Nurture

Nature position believes that human behavior and development are determined by genetic code while nurture position believes human changes are determined by environment.

3.1 Research Areas

3.1.1 Cognitive development can be defined as changes in thinking, development and use internal mental capabilities such as reasoning, problem solving, memory and language. Major topics in cognitive development are study of language acquisition and development of perpetual and motor skills.

8

ABPG 1103

Table4: Piaget’s stage of Cognitive Development
Sensorimotor (age 0 to 2)

The cognitive development which "extends from birth to the acquisition of language". Infants explore the world with their five senses.

Preoperational stage (age 2 to 7)

Children develop their motor skills and mental reasoning.
However, children thinking still egocentric.

Concrete operational stages (age Children can think logically and not egocentric anymore
7 to 11)
Formal operational stages (age Individual can think abstractly and reason logically.
11 to 15).

3.1.2 Social and emotional development is the changes of thoughts, feeling and behaviors in social situations. Social influences can divide into two types: Conformity and Obedience.
Conformity can be defined as the act of matching attitudes, beliefs and behaviors to the society result of unconscious influences or direct social pressure. Obedience is an act carrying out by commands or orders.
3.1.3 Motor development is a range of movement skills that start develop as infants.
3.1.4 Personality development is the change and development of personal characteristics of individuals such as thinking, behaviors and feeling.
3.1.5 Moral development is the way of thinking about moral issue and it depends on level of cognitive development.
Table 5: Kohlberg’s stages of Moral Development
Preconventional Morality
Conventional Morality

Age 0 to 9

Children obey rules to avoid punishment.
Children begin to understand what older people

adolescence

Postconventional Morality

Age 9 to

expected and try to achieving their expectations.

Adulthood

They follow and accept the rules or laws of the society. They understand the universal ethical principle. They will think critically and choose own path by follow own ethical principles.

9

ABPG 1103

Table 6: Stages of Development
Pre-natal Development

Infancy Development

Babyhood Development

Early childhood
Development

Late childhood
Development

(a) Is referring to the stage of development from conception to birth. During these 9 months, one cell organism will develop into a complex human being. Pre-natal development is divided into 3 stages, Germinal, Embryonic and Foetal Stage.
Is referring to the stage of development of 5 senses of newborns (from birth until onset of speech, the child is called as infant). Motor developments (motor skills) also start at this stage. Most of the infant’s time is spent in sleep.
Is referring to development of intelligence, language, memory and imagination. Self-control begins to develop and egocentric thinking predominates
(b) Is referring to development on responsibility and morality of pre-school age child in school environment. At this stage, children are more likely to develop positive self-esteem and become more responsible.
At this stage, intelligence is demonstrated, actions are reversible and egocentric thought diminishes.

Adolescence Development

Adolescence is a transitional period between childhood and adulthood, a period of life between onset of puberty and the full commitment to an adult. At this stage, obvious physical and cognitive changes thus some childish fallacies of thinking such as Imaginary Audience and Personal Fable will appear.
Early adulthood
At this stage, an individual learn how to form intimate
Development
relationships both in friendship and love to prevent from isolation, fear of commitment and alienation.
Middle age Development (c) This period refer to the ages 40-60, that people will experience a conflict between generativity and stagnation. Women will go through a stage called menopause that menstruation becomes irregular and completely stops while men will go through a stage called Andropause which the hormone fluctuation and effects similar to menopause.
Old age Development

(d) This stage refers to those ages 60-80 and people will experience a conflict between integrity vs. despair. Many of them suffer from Alzheimer’s disease and some slowly starts to lose all memory. Finally, they will have to go through the stages of dying.

10

ABPG 1103

3.2 Specialization
Developmental psychologists mostly concentrate on the growth and development of the human either mentally or physically. Basically, they main job fields are child psychologists, educational psychologist and forensic developmental psychologists. They normally specialize in researching and teaching, thus most of them act as consultants in day-care centers or social service agencies. However, some of them are tutors in schools or professional campus.

3.3 Importance of Developmental Psychology in human life
Learning of development psychology, we have better understanding of human behavior and emotion. According to Charles Spielberger (PhD, a psychologist who specializes in the study of anger), we are able to control our anger by focus on other matter or try to relax and stop thinking of anger. Thus, it’s help in build up a good relationship with others and improves our daily communication with others. Nevertheless, it plays important role in helping teachers or parents to know the behavior of kids and able to guide them in better way. At the same time, it helps to discover our weakness thus to seek for self-improvement. As a consequent, our self-confidence will increase and become a healthier person either physically or mentally.

11

ABPG 1103

4.0 Educational Psychology
Educational Psychology is the study of psychological methods in learning and teaching.Each person has an unique characteristics, behaviors, abilities, intelligence, culture and cognitive styles that determined on how their developed, environment and personality traits. Therefore, teachers need to consider and carry out different methodologies to attain effective teaching.
Attention-deficit

hyperactivity

disorders

(ADHD),

dyslexia,

speech

disorder,

mentalretardation, hearing impairment, cerebral palsy, epilepsy and blindnessare the common disabilities found among school age children.
“It focuses on the interaction of human development, cognitive science, instructional methods, measurement and assessment. Research on effective teachers associates several teacher behaviors or practices with good teaching. These include: lesson clarity, instructional variety, and task involvement, careful use of praise, consistent classroom guidelines, and frequent feedback about learning. Important topics in educational psychology today include classroom diversity, constructivist teaching methods, and the impact of out-of-school experiences.” 4.1 Research Areas
4.1.1 Refer to behavioural perspective, behaviour analyse based on behavioural principles such as operant conditioning by B.F Skinner. This tool help children attain the goals and maintain new skills. According to behaviorists such as Edward Thorndike, B.F Skinner and
Albert Bandura, we must work directly with the behavior itself in order to change a person’s behavior. Most of the student moody and emotional as the results of environment, teacher’s attitudes, disciplinary strategies, and reactions of parents and other peers.
4.1.2 Cognitive perspective is more widely held than other perspective. Cognitive is a sub discipline of psychology and exploring internal mental processes. It is the study of how information is perceived, beliefs, memories, motivations, emotions, language, reasoning, problem-solving and creativity. Educational psychologists have used Dual coding theory, by
Allan Paivio, to explain how students learning take place. Problem-solving is an important research topic in educational psychology. For example, Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational
Objectives, by Benjamin Bloom can carried out to improve students’ problem-solving skills and the critical thinking.

12

ABPG 1103

4.1.3 Social perspective plays an important role in the classroom experience and school society. It emphasizes on the development of social skills and academic learning. Refer to
Social Learning Theory, by Albert Bandura, students learn by observing others students behaviors and their behavior changed as its consequences. The theory identified few factors that determine whether will affect in behavioral or cognitive change.
4.1.4 Constructivist perspective is the theory of knowledge and experience. Piaget's theory of constructivist learning has widely used on learning theories and teaching methods . He suggested that when individuals go through the process of accommodation and assimilation, new knowledge will gain from the experiences.
4.1.5 Motivation is an internal state that energizes, directs and sustains one’s behavior towards a particular goal. Based on Maslow’s needs hierarchy that demonstrates how a deficit in any category of need such as physiological, love, security, self-esteem and etc that will affect students performance. Educational Psychologists research on motivation is to concern about level of their needs, their interest and their intrinsic motivation. Refer to a theory developed by Bernard Weiner, success or failure in their academic affects their emotions and motivations. Thus, when students have positive attitudes, they will have good presentation and results in their academy.

4.2 Specialization
Educational psychologists mostly work as tutors or researchers on the cognitive and social processes of human development in university settings. For the school psychologists, they are generally oriented towards students by providing services either in consultation, academic, behavior or crisis intervention. Some of them may work as consultants for private sectors in designing and creating educational materials, classroom programs and online courses.

13

ABPG 1103

4.3 Importance of Educational Psychology in human life
Through educational psychology, teachers or tutors understanding students more, this will lead them become a good and effective in communicating with students, especially with the special cases students who are hyperactive or have difficult in reading and writing. Therefore, students can maintain good relationship and build up new relationship in school social environment. Meanwhile, students understand how their mind and body works thus to get rid of stress. They are able to manage their time for study wisely. Its help in improving one’s memory and build up creativity as well as motivation thus enable students to learn effectively in their studies and lastly get better results or grades.

14

ABPG 1103

5.0 Industrial and Organizational psychology
Industrial and Organizational( I-O) Psychology is the study of psychological methods that applied in workplaces include for-profit business , non-profit , government agencies , colleges , universities and professional school programs. I-O psychologists research to increase the productivity of the workplace and workers through hiring training, assessment and human resources. I-O psychologists usually work in human resources, professors, researchers, consulting, government and positions in private sector. I-O psychologists not only help in selection and assessment in workplace, but also help in selection of students for admission to colleges, universities and professional schools.
5.1 Research Areas
5.1.1 Job analytic methods include two approaches, task-oriented job analysis and workeroriented job analysis. Task-oriented involves an examination of the duties, tasks and competencies that are required by a job while worker-oriented job involves an examination of knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristic (KSAOs) that are required to perform successfully in position. Competency modeling also adapts to examine large group of duties and tasks related to a process or goal whereas practice analysis examines the way work is performed in an occupation across jobs. The outcome normally used to create job-relevant selection procedures, performance appraisals and criteria, job evaluations as well as training programs. 5.1.2 Recruitment process and Personnel selection systems are applied in workplace.
Recruitment is the process of attracting, screening and selecting people for a job while personnel selection is the process used to hire and promoting people. Personnel recruitment processes include developing job announcements, placing advertisement, screening potential candidates using tests and interviews, selecting based on results and on-boarding to ensure they fulfill the new role effectively. Personnel selection tools include ability tests, knowledge tests, personality tests, structured interviews, the systematic collection of biographical data and work samples.
5.1.3 Besides, performance appraisal is a method to evaluate the job performance of employees in the term of quality, quantity, cost and time. Performance appraisal is often used in promotion and compensation decisions, to assist design and validate personnel selection procedures and performance management. Individual assessment and psychometrics is a
15

ABPG 1103

measurement and evaluation of individual differences in order to assist organizations decides on hiring, promoting and development. The assessments include written tests, physical tests, psychomotor tests, personality tests, work samples and assessment centers. I-O psychologists are well-trained in psychometric psychology, the theory and technique of psychological measurements of knowledge, abilities, attitudes and personality traits.
5.1.4 Remuneration is the total compensation that employees received in exchange their performances and services they provided in their jobs. Compensation includes wages, salary, bonuses, perquisite and pension in cash money.
5.1.5 Training is given to ensure the employees can perform the target work tasks at an acceptable level. Formative evaluations are a training program used to locate the problems in training process in order to make corrective adjustments while the training is ongoing.
5.1.6 Motivation is an internal state that energizes people to attain their goals.Motivation involves three psychological processes: arousal, direction and intensity. Arousal is a psychological state of reactive to stimuli; direction is the path employees take to attain the goals while intensity is energy that employees put into the goals. There are four theories to describe employees’ motivation such as need-based, cognitive process, behavioral and jobbased.

Table 7: Theories for motivation
John
Adams

Stacey Equity
(1963)

theory Attempts to explain the balance between inputs (works) that they

bring

to

a

job

with

the

outcomes

(compensation) they received.

Abraham Maslow Maslow's

Was applied to offer an explanation of how the work

Hierarchy of Needs environment motivates employees. In accordance with
(1943)

Maslow's theory, which was not specifically developed to explain behavior in the workplace; employees strive to satisfy their needs in a hierarchal order.

16

ABPG 1103

Victor H.Vroom

Expectancy theory

Emphasizes the needs for organizations to relate rewards directly to performance and to ensure that the rewards provided are those rewards deserved and wanted by the recipients." Albert Bandura

Bandura’s Social

Cognitive process theory that offers the important

Cognitive Theory

concept of self-efficacy for explaining employee's level of motivation relative to workplace tasks or goals

Others factors that affect motivations are creativity, group and team systems, culture, strength, strategic appropriateness, adaptability and competing values frameworks.
5.2 Specialization
Industrial and Organizational Psychologists mostly are trained as scientist-practitioner who employ scientific principles and research-based designs into generate knowledge that assist clients in workplaces environment. They are normally employed as professors, researchers, consultants or human resources department officer in different organizations to provide their knowledge related to optimizing human potential in workplace.
5.3 Importance of Industrial and Organizational Psychology in human life
Through industrial and organizational psychology, we will able to get a suitable job that related to what we have learnt. From I-O field, we are not only get motivated, become more creative and productive, but also have ability to make accurate decision which enhances our leadership skills. Consequently, its builds and boost up our self-confidence. Besides, we have better understanding with our co-workers and able to get along with them. We will learn how to deal correctly and rightfully with other people in a work place and it will enrich everyone’s career positively.

17

ABPG 1103

6.0 Conclusion
Psychology is a field of study which deals with human behavior, thought, reasoning and perceptions for the entire life span. The American Psychological Association recognizes over
50 subdivisions to psychology. However, if we conclude the psychology, we may found out that all subfields are interrelated. For example, knowledge of psychology is very beneficial in the field of medical therapies, as it pertains to the study of behaviors and the brain. When dealing with the patients, it is important to know is there are physically, mentally as well as medical symptoms. At the same time, they have to comfort and assist patients from variety of age group who are facing surgery or terminal illness. Thus, doctors and nurses have to possess knowledge of different perspectives in different fields such as clinical, biological, developmental psychology.
Besides, psychology is important in sales and marketing world. Based on the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs on developmental psychology, as a sales person, we know about own needs and we take this advantage to pursue prospect to buy our products or services.
However, based on some perspectives of industrial and organization psychology, we are trained and motivated to attain our goals by achieve higher target of the monthly sales so that we are returned with higher remuneration.
Everything we perform is very much related to psychology. If psychology study not exist and founded, we may not able to survive as we don’t know what we are, why we think like that, what should we do, and how we going to do. When we fail to describe how the cognitive system of conceptual categories has been reflected and realized in the semantic system of language, lastly its confines further cognition to cause cognitive difficulty. Consequently, we should make use of psychology in every aspect in our daily life.
(2995 words)

18

ABPG 1103

7.0 Reference
Aanstoos, C. Serlin, I., & Greening, T. (2000). A History of Division 32 (Humanistic
Psychology) of the American Psychological Association. In D. Dewsbury (Ed.), Unification through division: Histories of the divisions of the American Psychological Association, Vol.
V. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Albert,E (2006) Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies . What is CBT?
Available : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_psychology ( 15 June 2011).
APA (2003) Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. Available : http://www.apa.org/ethics/code2002.html.( 10 June 2011).
Bowlby, John (1999). Attachment and Loss: Vol I, 2nd Ed..Basic Books. pp. 13–23. ISBN 0465-00543-8.
Colman, A.M. (2010, May 25). A Dictionary of Psychology. Oxford University Press.
.Available : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanistic_psychology Oxford Reference Online.
( 22 June 2011).
Cronbach, L. J. (1951). Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests Psychometric.
16(3), 297-334.
Denzin, Norman K. & Lincoln, Yvonna S. (2005). The Sage Handbook of Qualitative
Research (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. ISBN 0-7619-2757-3
Elliott, K. Educational Psychology: Effective Teaching, Effective Learning Chapter1
Available: http://www.mhhe.com/socscience/education/elliott/toc/c1.htm ( 11 June 2011)
James R.B (2008), Adlerian Family Therapy, Chapter 5, Theories and Techniques of Family
Therapy and Counseling (1st edition) Page97-119, Cengage Learning.
Porta , M . A dictionary of epidemiology.5th. edition. New York: Oxford University Press,
2008. Available : http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/tutorial/Cho2/cohort.html ( 20 June
2011)

19