PSYCHOLOGY for BS

UNIT 1. INTRODUCTION

PSYCHOLOGY helps us understand behavior and that our knowledge

of psychology is based on empirical study. This book is designed to facilitate these
learning outcomes. Keeping this in view, psychology is defined formally as a science
which studies mental processes, experiences and behaviour in different
contexts. In doing so, it uses methods of biological and social sciences to obtain
data systematically. It makes sense of these data so that they can be organised as
knowledge.
1: the science of mind and behavior. 2a: the mental or behavioral characteristics
of an individual or group. b: the study of mind and behavior in relation to a particular
field of knowledge or activity. 3. The science of human and animal behavior.

What is Introduction to psychology?

Introduction to Psychology is a journey through all of the major psychological
concepts and principles. The knowledge gained from this course will allow
students to critically evaluate psychological research and have a more in-depth
understanding of human thought and behavior.

What is the history of psychology?

Psychology is a relatively young science with its experimental roots in the 19th
century, compared, for example, to human physiology, which dates much earlier. As
mentioned, anyone interested in exploring issues related to the mind generally did so
in a philosophical context prior to the 19th century.

What is the current definition of psychology?

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior, according to the American
Psychological Association. It is the study of the mind, how it works, and how it affects
behavior.

Who is the father of psychology?

Wilhelm Wundt
Wilhelm Wundt was a German psychologist who established the very first
psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany in 1879. This event is widely recognized
 as the formal establishment of psychology as a science distinct from biology and
philosophy.

What is psychology and its example?

Psychology is the summary of a person's characteristics including how they
think, feel or behave. An example of psychology is the behavior of teenagers. noun.

What are the 5 main goals of psychology?

Psychology, as science has basically the following main aims or goals: understand,

predict, describe, influence, and control behavior, and improve the quality of
life.

What is psychology and its example?

Psychology is the summary of a person's characteristics including how they
think, feel or behave. An example of psychology is the behavior of teenagers. noun.

What is importance of psychology?

Essentially, psychology helps people in large part because it can explain why
people act the way they do. With this kind of professional insight, a psychologist
can help people improve their decision making, stress management and behavior
based on understanding past behavior to better predict future behavior.

What are the main principles of psychology?

By implementing the following seven principles of psychology, you can help
improve the educational practices for training your employees.
 Movement and Learning. ...
 Emotional States. ...
 Physical Environment. ...
 Social Interaction and Competition. ...
 Motivation and Engagement. ...
 Commitment and Consistency. ...
 Critical Thinking and Memory Recall.

What are the key features of psychology?

Its three fundamental features are systematic empiricism, empirical questions,
and public knowledge. Psychology is a science because it takes the scientific
approach to understanding human behavior.

What is subject of psychology?

Psychology looks at the ways people think, act, react, and interact. It is the study
of human (and animal) behaviour, and the thoughts and emotions that influence
behaviour.

What is the benefits of studying psychology?

Develop Critical Thinking Skills
As you study psychology you will learn more about topics such as the scientific
method, decision-making, and problem-solving, all of which might help you hone
your ability to think deeply and critically about different issues.

What are the 7 principles?

The 7 Principles of the Constitution (popular sovereignty, limited government,
separation of powers, checks and balances, judicial review, federalism, and
republicanism) explained.

What is scope of psychology?

The scope of psychology is wide as it addresses a variety of issues related to
mental and behavioral functioning of the individuals. • Study of psychology helps
us to develop a basic understanding about human nature and facilitates dealing with
a number of personal and social problems.

Branches of psychology
There are different types of psychology that serve different purposes. There is no
fixed way of classifying them, but here are some common types.

Clinical psychology: Clinical psychology integrates science, theory, and practice in

order to understand, predict and relieve problems with adjustment, disability, and
discomfort. It promotes adaption, adjustment, and personal development. A clinical
psychologist concentrates on the intellectual, emotional, biological, psychological,
social, and behavioral aspects of human performance throughout a person’s life,
across varying cultures and socioeconomic levels.

Clinical psychology can help us to understand, prevent, and alleviate

psychologically-caused distress or dysfunction, and Psychological assessment and
psychotherapy are central to the practice of clinical psychology, but clinical
psychologists are often also involved in research, training, forensic testimony, and
other areas.
Cognitive psychology: Cognitive psychology investigates internal mental
processes, such as problem solving, memory, learning, and language. It looks at
how people think, perceive, communicate, remember, and learn. It is closely related
to neuroscience, philosophy, and linguistics. Cognitive psychologists look at how
people acquire, process, and store information. Practical applications include how to
improve memory, increase the accuracy of decision-making, or how to set up
educational programs to boost learning.

Developmental psychology: This is the scientific study of systematic psychological

changes that a person experiences over the life span, often referred to as human
development. It focuses not only on infants and young children but also teenagers,
adults, and older people. Factors include motor skills, problem solving, moral
understanding, acquiring language, emotions, personality, self-concept, and identity
formation. It also looks at innate mental structures against learning through
experience, or how a person’s characteristics interact with environmental factors and
how this impacts development. Developmental psychology overlaps with fields such
as linguistics.

Evolutionary psychology: Evolutionary psychology looks at how human behavior,

for example language, has been affected by psychological adjustments during
evolution. An evolutionary psychologist believes that many human psychological
traits are adaptive in that they have enabled us to survive over thousands of years.

Forensic psychology: Forensic psychology involves applying psychology to

criminal investigation and the law. A forensic psychologist practices psychology as a
science within the criminal justice system and civil courts. It involves assessing the
psychological factors that might influence a case or behavior and presenting the
findings in court.

Health psychology: Health psychology is also called behavioral medicine or

medical psychology. It observes how behavior, biology, and social context influence
illness and health. A physician often looks first at the biological causes of a disease,
but a health psychologist will focus on the whole person and what influences their
health status. This may include their socioeconomic status, education, and
background, and behaviors that may have an impact on the disease, such as
compliance with instructions and medication. Health psychologists usually work
alongside other medical professionals in clinical settings.

Neuropsychology: Neuropsychology looks at the structure and function of the brain

in relation to behaviors and psychological processes. A neuropsychology may be
involved if a condition involves lesions in the brain, and assessments that involve
recording electrical activity in the brain. A neuropsychological evaluation is used to
determine whether a person is likely to experience behavioral problems following
suspected or diagnosed brain injury, such as a stroke.

The results can enable a doctor to provide treatment that may help the individual
achieve possible improvements in cognitive damage that has occurred.

Occupational psychology: Occupational or organizational psychologists are

involved in assessing and making recommendations about the performance of
people at work and in training. They help companies to find more effective ways to
function, and to understand how people and groups behave at work. This information
can help improve effectiveness, efficiency, job satisfaction, and employee retention.

Social psychology: Social psychology uses scientific methods to understand how

social influences impact human behavior. It seeks to explain how feelings, behavior,
and thoughts are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of other
people. A social psychologist looks at group behavior, social perception, non-verbal
behavior, conformity, aggression, prejudice, and leadership. Social perception and
social interaction are seen as key to understanding social behavior. Other branches
include military, consumer, educational, cross-cultural, and environmental
psychology. The number of branches continues to grow

UNIT 2. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

Individual differences refer to the field of study which examines psychological

differences between people. Two major topics of investigation within individual
differences are intelligence and personality. Other key topics include motivation and
emotion.

What does individual differences mean in psychology?

IT traits or other characteristics by which individuals may be distinguished
from one another.

What are the four types of individual differences?

Characteristics that define individual differences can be classified into four main
categories: Learning Style, Aptitude, Personality and Emotional Intelligence.

What are the significance of individual differences?

Individual differences must be kept in mind by the teacher if the needs of the
individual pupil are to be met. It should be remembered that physical and
emotional differences must be met, as well as intellectual differences.
 Why is it important to study individual differences in psychology?
The study of individual differences complements the search for general principles
by investigating how people differ from one another. Investigators of individual
differences attempt to measure, predict, modify, and understand the causal
influences on traits that are relatively stable over time and across situations.

What are different types and examples of individual differences?

Types of Individual Differences:
 Physical differences: ...
 Differences in intelligence: ...
 Differences in attitudes: ...
 Differences in achievement: ...
 Differences in motor ability: ...
 Differences on account of sex:
 Racial differences: ...
 Differences due to nationality…

What are the two major aspects of individual differences?

Individual differences refers to the field of study which examines psychological
differences between people. Two major topics of investigation within individual
differences are intelligence and personality.

2.1 INTELLIGENCE

DEFINITION OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

According to the dictionary of education

1. Individual differences stand for the variation or deviations among individuals in

regard to a single characteristic or number of characteristics.
2. It is stand for those differences which in their totality distinguish one individual
from another. So, we can say that individual differences is the differences
among humans that distinguish or separate them from one another and makes
one as a single unique individual.

CAUSES OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

The followings are the main causes of individual differences:

1. Hereditary (Nature)
Individuals have various endowments, abilities, and capacities provided by
hereditary. Which decide the path of progress and development of an individual.
 1. Hereditary also put limits upon individuals’ growth and development in
various dimensions.
2. Hereditary also contributes to sex, intelligence, and other specific abilities.

2. Environment (Nurture)
Environment also plays key role in individual differences. No person from birth to
death gets the same environment. Individual differences occur on the basis of
simulation received by individual from his or her internal and external environment.
This may include family set up, peer group, economic statues, education etc.  It is
debatable that whether nature or nurture play vital or stronger role in development of
an individual in specific direction. Both are strong contenders in order to distinguish
one individual from other.

Psychologist Robert Sternberg defined intelligence as "mental activity directed

toward purposive adaptation to, selection, and shaping of real-world
environments relevant to one's life."

What is the most important type of intelligence?

It used to be that cognitive intelligence was the king of the hill in terms of
importance. Then emotional intelligence showed up. But now Cornell University's
professor of human development, Robert J. Sternberg, says "successful intelligence"
likely matters more than all the other intelligence types you've heard about

What factors influence intelligence?

Intelligence is also strongly influenced by the environment. During a child's
development, factors that contribute to intelligence include their home environment
and parenting, education and availability of learning resources, and healthcare and
nutrition.

What makes a person intelligent psychology?

Human intelligence is a mental quality that consists of the abilities to learn from
experience, adapt to new situations, understand and handle abstract concepts,
and use knowledge to manipulate one's environment.

What is the role of intelligence?

The Functions of Intelligence. U.S. intelligence has two broad functions-collection
and analysis-and one relatively narrow one, covert action. An additional function-
counterintelligence-is integral to the entire intelligence process.

2.2 PERSONALITY

What is personality in psychology PDF?

 Personality is a mirror of what you do and say. Essentially, your personality
defines who are you. Your behaviour reflects your personality and informs how
different you are from others
What is the personality in psychology?
Personality refers to individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking,
feeling and behaving. The study of personality focuses on two broad areas: One is
understanding individual differences in particular personality characteristics, such as
sociability or irritability.

What is personality and its types?

Personality embraces moods, attitudes, and opinions and is most clearly
expressed in interactions with other people. It includes behavioral characteristics,
both inherent and acquired, that distinguish one person from another and that can be
observed in people's relations to the environment and to the social group

Who is the father of personality psychology?

Gordon Allport was a psychologist who laid the foundations of personality
psychology. His theory is considered one of the first humanist theories because it
conceives man as an autonomous being with free will. Allport argued that instincts
and impulses aren't the only things that motivate human beings.

What is the importance of personality?

Personality development not only makes you look good and presentable but
also helps you face the world with a smile. Personality development goes a long
way in reducing stress and conflicts. It encourages individuals to look at the brighter
sides of life. Face even the worst situations with a smile.

What are characteristics of personality?

The model is based on the “Myers-Brigg Type Indicator” (MBTI) that categorizes
personalities into four broad categories. These categories are Dominance,
Steadiness, Influence, and Conscientiousness. A person's personality falls into
one of these types from the expression of their dominant personality characteristic.

What is the source of personality?

Dr. Chafetz believes that one's personality is composed of influences from three
sources: NATURE, NURTURE, and CHOICES. First, nature refers to the fact that
each person is born into this world with a certain set of character predispositions.

What are factors affecting personality?

Factors Affecting Personality Development of Children
 Parental Influence. ...
 Home Environment. ...
 School Environment. ...
 Culture. ...
 Family Treatment. ...
 Mass Media and Social Media

What are the 4 factors that influence personality?

There are 4 major determinants of personality which include the physical

environment, heredity, experiences and culture.

What are 3 factors that shape your personality?

There are three main influences on personality development that we are going to
look at in this lesson. Those are heredity, environment, and situation. Heredity:
This refers to the influences on your personality that you are born with.

2.3 HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT

What is heredity and environment in psychology?

Heredity is responsible for all the inborn traits, the instincts, emotions, I.Q.,
reflex action and physical traits. ADVERTISEMENTS: 3. Environment is
responsible for the growth and development of the physical, mental and social traits.

How does heredity and environment influence development?

The concept of genetic-environmental correlation states that our genes influence
the environments that we are exposed to. When children are younger, it is
common to see passive correlation, meaning the child has no control. Parents
provide their child's environment, tying it to heredity.

What is the role of heredity and environment in the development of child?

Heredity and environment are the elements that play a vital role in determining
the personality development of an individual. How a person will develop depends
on the environment but how far a person can develop depends on heredity. Each
individual has a different pattern of behaviors and personality.

Which is more important heredity or environment?

According to him, it was possible to measure the relative efficiency of the two. He
had given evidence to show that for people of the same race within a given
 community heredity is more than seven times more important than
environment.

What is difference between heredity and environment?

Heredity involves traits that are passed down from parents to their children
biologically through genes. Environment refers to one's surroundings.

How does heredity and environment affect human Behaviour?

The relationship between your genes and behavior can change over time as you
have new experiences. In some situations, genes play a larger role in
determining your behavior; in other situations, environment plays a larger role
in influencing your behavior.

What are examples of heredity?

When a parent with blue eyes and parent with brown eyes pass down their
genes for eye color to their offspring, this is an example of heredity. The children
inherit the genes that consist of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) from the parents, and
they may have blue or brown eyes.

What is the role of environment in personality development?

Environmental factors, such as upbringing, culture, geographic location, and life
experiences, greatly influence our personality. For example, a child raised in a
harmonious environment may have a more positive or calm outlook and disposition.

Role of Heredity and Environment as determining of individual differences

What is Heredity?
·        According to Douglas and Holland (1947), “One’s heredity consists of all the
structure, physical characteristics or capacities derived from parents, other ancestry
or species”
·        Life in actual sense begins with the conception, approximately, nine months before
birth.
·        Life is the result of the union of these male and female cells. (Sperm and Ovum)
·        Only one sperm (single male cell) is able to establish contact with the ovum
(Single female cell) situated in the ovarian duct of the mother and makes if fertile.
This process is called fertilization
·        The fertilized Ovum is technically known as Zygote (structure on a new life).
·        Human life thus starts from a single cell produced by the union of two germ cells
(Sperm and Ovum), one from each parent and gradually develops in to a
complicated composition of trillions of body cells and yet containing the same genetic
material that was inherited at the time of conception.
·        In human Zygote there are 23 pairs of chromosomes (23 by father and 23 by
mother =46 Chromosomes).
·        There are more than 1000 genes in each chromosome cell.
·        The possibility regarding the combination of 23,000 characteristics each from
mother and father, may help us to understand the reason for uniqueness of each
individual.
·        The inheritance of traits at the time of conception makes up the native capital and
endowment of an individual that are present with him in the form of sum total of the
traits basically present in the fertilized ovum. These are called the heredity factors
present in an individual.

Role of Genes
·        Some genes are dominant and others recessive. Like chromosomes, genes also
occur in pairs. Each of the pairs is donated by one of the parents
·        A dominant gene from one of the parents and recessive gene from the other
·        Dominant genes from both the parents.
·        Recessive genes from both the parents.
·        Dominant gene must exhibit its dominance over the recessive ones. (Ex. Brown
eye Blue eye)

What is Environment?
·        “Environment cover all the outside factors that have acted on the individual since
he began life”- Woodworth
·        Environment is everything that affect the individual expect genes.
·        Before birth- Environment at the womb (Physiological and psychological state of
the mother, habit, interests)
·        After Birth -  (Physical forces and social or cultural forces)

Role of Heredity in Generating Individual Differences

1.      Heredity determining the sex of the child.

·        The autosomes (first 22 pair of Chromosomes) are responsible for deciding and
determining the growth and development of most of the characteristics and structural
composition of our body. Remaining one is the sex chromosome. That will be
deciding the gender of the individual.
·        There are two types of sex chromosomes, X and Y
·        X+Y= Son, X+X=Daughter (X,Y-Male, X,X- female)
·        Father is biologically more accountable for determination of the sex.

2.      Heredity contribute significantly towards physical constitution

·        Most of the attributes related to our body make-up, its constitution and functioning
are well decided and guided by heredity.
·        Ex: hair, facial look, blood type etc.
·        Sometimes the role of heredity as a determined of physical condition or bodily
make up becomes questionable.
3.      Contribution of heredity towards the birth of twins and the related individual
differences
·        Sometimes two or more ova get fertilized resulting in the birth of two or more
offspring’s at a time. There are two distinctly different types of twins namely:
·        Identical twins: (Ova Split in to two or more – each part develop in to complete
individual)
·        They carry exactly same genes.
·        Fraternal twins: two or more ova may mature simultaneously and get fertilized
simultaneously by two or more different sperms.
Role of Environment as Determinant of individual differences

1.      Internal Environment (inside the womb)

·        Whatever mother eats or drinks have an impact on the growth and development of
child.
·        Environment available during pregnancy is quite important for the baby.
·        The mother remains tense, worried, anxious and emotionally upset then it may
eventually have an adverse effect on the growth and development of the baby.
·        Environment at the time of delivery will affect the child (Normal delivery or not?
hygienic or not? )

2.      External Environment (After Birth)

·        Physical, Sociological, Cultural and Psychological environment

Relative Importance of Heredity and Environment as determines of Individual

Difference
·        Every phenomenon of life is the product of both. Each is as necessary to the result
as the other. Neither can ever be eliminated and neither can ever be isolated.
·        (Whether the seed or the soil is more important for the proper growth of a plant?)
·        Nothing is more certain than that heredity and environment are co-acting influence
and that both are essential to achievement.
·        As a gift from heredity, we get our working capital but it is the environment which
gives us the opportunity to invest it