What is Psychology?

Andrew Colman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317724995
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This clear and lively introduction to psychology assumes no prior knowledge of the subject. Extensively revised and updated, this third edition describes psychology as it is taught at universitues. Examples are used throughout to illustrate fundamental ideas, with a self-assessment quiz focusing readers' minds on a number of intriguing psychological problems. The differences betwen psychology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis are explained, and the professions and careers associated with psychology are explored. Suggestions for further reading and useful internet sites are included.

Chapter 1

Getting started

O latest born and loveliest vision far

Of all Olympus’ faded hierarchy

Keats, “Ode to Psyche”

Definitions

Psychology is a popular and rapidly growing subject. Among all the major branches of knowledge, it has the curious distinction of being the one that is most often misspelt. This is often harmless enough, but it can sometimes cause problems. If you try to look up psychology in a dictionary but are not sure how to spell it, you might end up reading a definition of phycology (the study of algae), physiology (the study of biological processes in plants and animals), psephology (the statistical and sociological study of elections), psychography (spirit-writing), or even pseudology (the art or science of lying). If you can spell psychology, you already know more about it than many people do.

The word psychology first appeared in English in 1693 but was not widely used or understood until the mid 1800s. It was coined by joining together the Greek words psyche and logos. Psyche originally meant breath, but it later came to mean soul as well, because breathing was thought to indicate that the soul had not yet left the body. In Greek mythology, the soul was personified by Psyche (with a capital P), a young woman who was loved by Eros, the god of love. Eros married Psyche but visited her only at night and insisted that she should never see his face, but one night her curiosity overcame her and she lit an oil lamp while he was asleep. She fell in love with Eros at first sight but was so startled by his beauty that she spilt a drop of hot oil on his shoulder and awakened him, and when he realized what she had done he abandoned her. To win him back, Psyche had to endure many trials and dangers, but eventually she was transformed into a goddess and joined him in heavenly bliss. This explains why Psyche is often depicted in works of art with butterfly wings or as a butterfly. Psyche symbolizes the human soul, suffering hardship and struggle in life but re-emerging after death in a new and better existence, like a caterpillar reborn as a butterfly.

During the seventeenth century, the meaning of the Greek word psyche broadened to include mind. Logos, the other Greek word from which psychology was formed, originally meant word and later came to mean discourse or reason. According to its Greek roots, therefore, psychology is literally discourse or reasoning about the mind, or as we would say today, the study of the mind, and that is the definition to be found in some dictionaries.

That definition seems straightforward and natural, but it is unsatisfactory for two main reasons. First, contemporary psychology is concerned not only with inner mental processes but also with outward behaviour. Psychologists even study brain mechanisms, many of which are only indirectly related to mental processes, and such things as reflexes and instincts that have next to nothing to do with the mind in the ordinary sense of the word. Second, philosophers have argued that anyone who believes that the mind exists independently of the body – that there is a ghost in the machine – is committing a category mistake based on the fallacy of mind-body dualism. A category mistake is a statement or belief about something belonging to one category that is intelligible only in relation to something belonging to another. According to this view, a belief that the mind can exist independently of physical behaviour is a category mistake, as is a belief that a team spirit can exist independently of the team members, or that a grin can exist independently of a face or body, as happens near the end of chapter 6 of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, when the Cheshire Cat “vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone”.

For these reasons, many contemporary psychologists prefer to define psychology as the study of behaviour or the science of behaviour. But these definitions raise problems of their own. Although it is true that psychologists base most of their research findings on observations of behaviour, they are often interested in the unobservable mental processes underlying the behaviour rather than the behaviour itself. To clarify this point, let me give you an example from the study of dreaming (there will be more about dreams in chapter 2). When psychologists study dreaming, they observe various physical processes, including rapid eye movements, deep muscular relaxation, characteristic patterns of brain waves, and (in male dreamers) penile erections. We know that these are signs of dreaming because if we wake people up when they are showing them they tell us that they were dreaming, whereas if we wake them at other times they do not. But the physiological signs are of no great psychological interest in themselves; their significance lies in the fact that they are associated with the mental experience of dreaming.

In other words, the trouble with the fashionable definitions of psychology as the study of behaviour or the science of behaviour is that they can be misleading. Psychologists often study aspects of behaviour only in order to make inferences about underlying thoughts and feelings, and if these inferences were not possible, then the whole justification of the research would collapse. There are even some mental processes, such as thinking and remembering, that are studied by psychologists in spite of the fact that they are not necessarily accompanied by any observable behaviour. It is quite possible to sit quietly in a corner and think about or remember something without batting an eyelid, and indirect research methods are needed to study such phenomena. It is worth pointing out that indirect methods are accepted without fuss in other sciences. For example, astronomers study many things that cannot be observed directly. In addition to optical images, they routinely analyse X-ray, infra-red, and radio emissions from objects in space. But it would be silly to define astronomy as the study of electromagnetic signals from space, as if the signals themselves rather than the objects and events that they signify were the focus of interest. For the same reason, it seems slightly perverse to define psychology as the study or science of behaviour, as if psychologists were interested only in outward behaviour, and never in the mental experiences that are often associated with it.

The upshot of all this is that there is no generally accepted definition of psychology. But a book should deliver what its title promises, and authors should not shirk their responsibilities, so here is the definition that I think is best, all things considered: psychology is the science of the nature, functions, and phenomena of behaviour and mental experience. Underlying this definition is the fundamental assumption that behaviour and mental experience are governed by rational laws that we can discover and understand, and some of the evidence in support of that assumption will emerge in later chapters. There are objections that could be raised against this definition of psychology, but nothing would be gained by prolonging the discussion because it is impossible to give a definition that would solve all the problems and satisfy everyone. Quibbles about the precise meanings of words are nearly always a waste of time (except in courts of law, where they can be highly profitable or extremely costly), and it is a mistake to think that to know how something is defined is to understand it. The best way to gain an understanding of psychology is by looking at examples of the kinds of things psychologists do and the kinds of things they regard as falling outside the boundaries of their subject. Chapter 2 contains many examples of the first kind, but let me first mention some of the things that are often mistaken for psychology.

What psychology is not

Psychology is often confused with other academic subjects, practices, and professions. I shall discuss a few of the more common cases of mistaken identity. This will achieve the twin goals of helping to fix the boundaries of psychology and eliminating several popular fallacies.

1 Psychiatry This is a branch of medicine concerned with the nature, causes, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental disorders. A psychiatrist is a medical practitioner who has undergone a conventional medical training before specializing in psychiatry rather than, for instance, gynaecology, cardiology, general practice, or any other branch of medicine. As a medical specialist, a psychiatrist treats psychiatric patients in hospitals and cases referred by general practitioners.

What is the difference between psychology and psychiatry? Psychologists are not medically trained; their entire professional training is devoted to psychology. Furthermore, the work that most psychologists do has little or nothing to do with mental disorders, because psychology is concerned mainly with normal behaviour and mental experience. But the picture is complicated by the existence of a profession called clinical psychology, which I shall discuss in chapter 6. A significant proportion of psychologists belong to this profession. Clinical psychologists treat mentally disordered patients in psychiatric hospitals and elsewhere, and to that extent their work resembles psychiatry. A patient receiving treatment for a mental disorder may be forgiven for not realizing that Dr Tweedledum (MB, Ch.B., DPM) is a medical practitioner with a diploma in psychological medicine, in other words a psychiatrist, whereas Dr Tweedledee (B.Sc., M.Sc., Ph.D.) is a clinical psychologist who happens to have a doctoral degree in psychology but is not medically trained. The patient may, however, notice certain differences in the psychiatrist’s and the psychologist’s approach to treatment. Dr Tweedledee, the clinical psychologist, will not prescribe medical forms of treatment such as drugs, ECT (electro-convulsive therapy, or shock treatment), or psychosurgery.

2 Psychoanalysis This is a theory of mental structure and function, or more correctly a loosely connected set of theories and propositions, and an associated method of psychotherapy based on the writings of the Austrian physician Sigmund Freud (1856–1939). Its distinctive character lies in the emphasis that Freud placed on unconscious mental processes and the various mechanisms people use to repress them. A familiar example is the Oedipus complex. Most psychoanalysts believe that pre-adolescent boys develop this complex as a result of repressing sexual desire for their mothers and jealousy of their fathers, and that girls develop a mirror-image complex called the Electra complex. Some people find this theory hard to swallow, but there are other aspects of psychoanalytic theory that are far more plausible. In chapter 4 I shall discuss a brilliant example of psychoanalytic theorizing to explain a mystery surrounding a fairly common mental disorder.

As a therapeutic method, psychoanalysis relies on four main techniques designed to throw light on unconscious mental processes. The first is called free association. Psychoanalysts try to create an accepting and non-threatening atmosphere to pacify their clients’ psychological defences, and they then encourage their clients to relate whatever comes to mind, without hesitation or censorship, however trivial or embarrassing some of the thoughts and feelings might seem.

The second technique is dream analysis. With the help of free association, psychoanalysts help their clients to interpret the symbolic meaning of their dreams. According to psychoanalytic theory, the latent content of all dreams consists of unconscious wish-fulfilments, which are potentially disturbing to the dreamer and would interrupt sleep if they were not disguised through symbolism.

A third technique is the analysis of parapraxes, or to use a more familiar term, Freudian slips. Psychoanalysts believe in the law of psychic determinism, according to which all behaviour is the result of psychological motives that are sometimes unconscious, and they also believe that this law applies not only to deliberate actions but also to slips of the tongue and other apparently accidental actions. Parapraxes are analysed for possible clues to repressed thoughts and desires by a method similar to dream analysis.

The last of the main psychoanalytic techniques is the analysis of the transference. The transference is a dependent, child-like, and often sexually charged relationship that a person undergoing psychoanalysis usually forms with the analyst, and this relationship is likely to have features carried over (transferred) from earlier relationships, especially with parents. Psychoanalysts believe that the transference provides a context in which aspects of past relationships can be usefully explored.

A full psychoanalysis is a lengthy (and costly) affair involving several 50-minute sessions per week over a period of years. The ulti mate goal of the analysis is to identify repressed thoughts and feelings, to understand the reasons for their repression, and to learn to accept them consciously and rationally.

Since the early decades of this century when Freud was practising, the psychoanalytic movement has been riven by doctrinal conflicts. The most influential contemporary schools are based on the writings of Sigmund’s daughter Anna Freud (1895–1982), the Austrian-born British psychoanalyst Melanie Klein (1882–1960), the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961), and the Austrian psychoanalyst Alfred Adler (1870–1937). Their followers call themselves Freudian, Kleinian, Jungian, and Adlerian analysts respectively. The Jungian and Adlerian schools, in particular, represent radical departures from the original theories and methods of Sigmund Freud.

The interrelationships between psychoanalysis, psychology, and psychiatry are quite confusing. Psychoanalysts are not necessarily qualified in psychology or psychiatry – their essential training involves undergoing psychoanalysis themselves – but some psychologists and psychiatrists do become psychoanalysts. A further source of confusion is the fact that, especially in continental Europe and parts of the Third World, many psychologists and psychiatrists who are not qualified psychoanalysts are more or less psychoanalytically inclined in their approach. On the other hand, in the United Kingdom, the United States, and other English-speaking countries most psychologists hold views that are distinctly non-psychoanalytic or even hostile to psychoanalysis.

3 Psychometrics Roughly speaking, psychometrics is mental testing. It includes IQ testing, ability and aptitude testing, and the use of psychological tests for measuring interests, attitudes, and personality traits or mental disorders. The history of psychometrics can be traced to 1905, when Alfred Binet (1857–1911) and Théodore Simon (1873–1961) developed the world’s first standardized intelligence test in France. Psychometrics soon became an integral part of psychology, particularly of those areas of psychology that are concerned with individual differences and personality, to be outlined in chapter 3. But most areas of contemporary psychology make no use of psychometrics because they deal with general psychological processes rather than individual differences. In spite of this fact, some people erroneously identify psychometrics with psychology as a whole, probably because the only direct contact that many people have with psychology involves mental testing at school.

People are often disturbed, and also sceptical, about the possibility of expressing their quintessentially human qualities, such as their intelligence or personality, in the form of mere numbers. Doubts of this kind usually arise from a misunderstanding of the logic of measurement, and they are on the whole not shared by people who have studied psychology. But criticisms of the uses to which psychometrics has sometimes been put cannot be dismissed so easily. Many psychologists admit that IQ tests in particular have often been abused for social and political purposes. For example, the importation of the Binet-Simon IQ test into the United States contributed to the enactment of sterilization laws designed to prevent “subnormals”, criminals, and other deviant groups from reproducing. Also in the United States, the blatantly racist Immigration Restriction Act of 1924 that prevented hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from escaping the Nazi Holocaust was given pseudo-scientific respectability by psychometric surveys purporting to show that central and eastern Europeans had low IQs. In the United Kingdom, the Education Act of 1944 introduced the divisive eleven-plus examination, based largely on IQ tests, and for more than a generation children who failed it were denied entry to the grammar schools that prepared pupils for higher education and were sent instead to academically inferior secondary modern schools, where they remained even if their intellectual or scholastic ability improved dramatically in later years.

4 Philosophy A rough-and-ready definition of philosophy is “thought about thought”. Many of the issues that non-psychologists assume to be part of psychology are really philosophical problems. These are questions that cannot be settled by any imaginable observations of behaviour but by their nature must be dealt with by rational argument alone. Let me illustrate this distinction with a few examples.

The psychology of perception (several aspects of which will be discussed in chapters 2 and 3) is devoted to investigating how people gain information about their environment through their sense organs. A major branch of philosophy, called epistemology, also focuses on how people learn about the world, but it deals with quite different types of questions. For example, one of the central problems of epistemo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Preface to the first edition
• Preface to the second edition
• 1 Getting started
• 2 Beyond common sense: A self-assessment quiz
• 3 The subject matter of psychology
• 4 Research methods and statistics
• 5 The origins and development of psychology
• 6 Psychology as a profession
• Index