general psychology
General psychology is the theoretical basis for all other branches of psychology whether theoretical or applied. The general self is interested in studying the general. principles that underlie people's general behavior, without focusing on one particular group of them but not the other.
It also examines common psychological phenomena among all people, such as psychological motivations, mental abilities, intelligence, emotional and personal balance and psychological growth... Etc.
It can be said that general psychology is a science that is interested in studying the principles, foundations and general origins of psychology, which is seen as the primary assets and basic information in psychology, which represents great importance in science and takes the starting point for the study of its various phenomena and subjects.
The origins of general psychology
philosophical origins
The interest in human thinking in matters of the soul and human nature dates back to the ages of Greek philosophy, the Greek philosophers ended up convinced that in man there is an aspect that is not glimpsed by the eye or perceived by other senses, and that this invisible aspect is responsible for some puzzling phenomena such as dreams, desires, impulses, decisiveness, hesitation in decisions and the like and they called this side the self.
Without carrying this name any religious content and trying to identify the nature of this soul by observation and description. Plato and Aristotle were among greece's closest philosophers in their view of right.
biological assets
The significance of the evolution of memberships by natural or Darwinian selection led to the vision of human behavior in a new light, its biological context, and the emergence of comparative psychology was one of the results of this view, and the general climate led to the advancement of physiological psychology.
Psychiatry peaked with Freud when he insisted on theories of motivation and personality, and at the same time physiological studies led directly to Pavlov's research in Russia, pavlov's studies had a significant impact on psychological studies of human and animal learning and also had a significant impact on the study of cognition and developmental psychology.
psychological assets
The first psychology laboratory was established in Leipzig by Wilhelm Fondt, and in his experimental approach to psychology, Fondt followed up with a physiological error and other scientists who had earlier conducted psychological studies in the field of sequophysics and these studies addressed the relationships between physical stimuli and the sensations they induce. The research into the modern detective was concerned with vision, hearing and other sensations, attention judgment of time, times of return and the like.
Fondt's primary concern was the time of human return or latency, which is the time it takes someone to respond to an exciter.
Studies conducted on human testers were the beginning of so-called experimental psychology and the experimentalists were convinced that the most important contributions to knowledge came more through systematic empirical observations than through the reflection of psychological observations.
Today, experimental psychologists are not only studying sensory acts but are also looking at memory, learning, solving issues and even aesthetics, and experimental psychology aims to be news and quantitative and to avoid inaccuracy and unjustified meditation.
History of general psychology
Since the founding of the Psychology Laboratory in Leipzig, Germany in 1879, Font has studied the stereotypes formed to build the human mind, as psychology is only a study of the experiences and experiences we experience and feel.
Font also developed a model called structural trend-structu ralism, which relates to the physical composition of the body with a focus on the basic elements of thought processes, feelings, sensations and other types of mental conditions and activities, with the aim of combining these feelings and basic sensations and the perception of the outside world.
Over the last 20 years, people have begun to take an interest in describing internal experiences such as suffering from physical and psychological pain on the one hand and focusing on the study of thinking, memory, remembering and the ability to solve problems on the other, and this awakening has led to the emergence of a career trend, an early trend in psychology that focuses on the work of the mind, the functions of mental activity, the role of behavior in making life and adapting people to their community.
Define general psychology
The introduction of a generally accepted definition of psychology is not easy because of the breadth of the field covered by this science, its breadth of interests and the scientific and philosophical differences between its scientists and schools. We will be reciting some of the definitions introduced for psychology:
- William James defines this science as describing and interpreting situations of feeling in their own right.
- Scientist James Jolly defined psychology as the science that cares about the events of the inner world.
- Fondt defined psychology as a science that researches internal experience, i.e. sense, feelings and will, but amended its definition and used the definition of direct experience rather than internal experience, referring to our experience on external matters as well.
The modern and most accepted definition of psychology is that psychology is one that seeks to understand and predict human and animal behaviour.
The modern definition included animal behavior because animal behavior is important in itself and important in terms of what it tells us about ourselves, for example a comparative study of aggressive behavior in several animal species can shed light on similar human events, as well as the use of animals in dangerous experiments on human life where human use is forbidden, and animal experiments are often generalized to human beings.
The importance of general psychology
Psychology is interested in understanding human beings and trying to change or modify their behavior.
The main purpose of each science, including psychology, is to describe and understand the phenomena around which its field of research and understanding is taking place and to reveal the causes of its emergence. Psychology before any other science has a theoretical aspect of studying psychological phenomena, which are evident in external behaviour in order to reach the general laws and principles governing these phenomena.
An applied area is to use these laws to control, change and guide human behaviour properly. One of psychology's concerns is its design to measure the excellence of normal behaviour as opposed to pathological behaviour and to develop solutions to many everyday problems. The importance of psychology is more evident when we read its branches.
branches of general psychology
experimental psychology
It examines how behavior is modified, how people retain these modifications, how human sensory systems work to allow people to test what's going on around them the factors that pressure them and guide their behavior.
The name of this section shows the research approach it uses, using the experimental approach as its main approach. What distinguishes experimental psychology from other branches is what it studies, i.e. the processes of perception sensation, memory, learning, motivations and the physiological and biological foundations of behavior.
developmental psychology
This science tries to understand complex behaviors by studying their beginnings and knowing the systemic ways in which they change over time. Since changes are rapid in the early years of life, the psychology of a child studying children's behaviour covers a wide range of this science. However, developmental changes also occur in adolescents, adults and advanced age, so these changes are part of developmental psychology.
educational psychology
Educational psychology is a branch concerned with increasing the efficiency of schooling by applying psychological knowledge about learning and motivations to the curriculum and teaching methods.
Social Psychology
Social psychology is a branch primarily concerned with studying what an individual's membership has in a range of influences in his or her behavior, and may examine how the decisions of a member of a committee are influenced by what other members of those committees say and do. It also focuses on the ways in which we recognize others and how these perceptions affect our behaviour towards them.
industrial psychology
The first application of industrial psychology to industry and organization issues was the use of intelligence and abilities in the selection of users.
Public and private institutions apply this science to management and training issues, improve communication within the organization, guide users and raise the level of industrial returns.
In some countries, there are also psychological consulting offices in the field of industry and management that stem from their services to those who need them and may study consumer trends towards certain products.
Clinical Psychology
This section is perhaps the closest branch of the public's idea of psychology, in the eyes of people, psychologists who diagnose and treat mental disorders through psychotherapy, and in fact this is the field of clinical psychology.
Counseling Psychology
Counseling Psychology This section usually deals with people with mild personal and emotional issues. Psychotherapy may be used to try to help with these issues, and the specialist in this section is often consulted by people on special issues such as the choice of a profession or educational programme.
general psychology goals
The study of psychology achieves many goals that vary according to the scholars there are those who study it to know the psychological significance of major historical events, and there are those who care about it to look for solutions to its own problems in life and at work, and there are those who study it with the intention of gaining the experience that qualifies him to help others, and there are those who aim behind his studies to acquire the ability to interpret complex human behavior. Indeed, we all like to study people and understand their motives, tendencies, attitudes and character traits.
Psychology is one of the most important sciences that teach people, all people have a psychological impact on us, and we also psychologically affect other people, our parents, presidents, friends and colleagues affect us, and some people believe that psychology studies abnormal behavior or deviant characters such as patients of minds, souls or children with psychological problems and difficulties, but this belief is right because psychology cares about the normal person as his concern for homosexuality.
People also make mistakes when they think that prominent figures in politics, industry, art or science are moving not only in accordance with logical principles, but in fact there are also psychological factors that underlie their behavior and which clearly affect it.
Psychology is interested in studying the leader as his interest in studying the behavior of followers, although we believe that the leader has the most influence on us than other people, and tyrants and titans in history have often done great work that changed the course of history and changed the shape of the world map and was driven only by strong psychological factors, which they sought to satisfy through politics and wars.
There is no doubt that psychological factors were driving characters such as Hitler, Napoleon or Nero and people will one day be able to understand the difference between the dictatorial personality and the personality of the authentic statesman by raising psychological awareness and by understanding human nature.
Research methods in general psychology
There are many research curricula in psychology. The most reliable approach to psychology is the following:
- introspective approach.
- Experimental approach.
- Observational approach.
- Clinical curriculum.
- Statistical approach.
introspective research method
This approach is also called the self-observation curriculum and is based on the individual's own meditation and observation of his or her psychological incidents.
If we want to know something about a psychological experience such as perception remembrance, pain, pleasure, learning and other experiences, we just have to reflect on ourselves when experiences occur on us.
Introspection was the exclusive approach derived from rational philosophers by the facts from which they extracted the results by trial. Fondt, the pioneer and founder of modern psychology, adopted this approach as an inevitable result of his definition of psychology as an analytical study of first-hand experience, as direct experience depends on those who suffer it and only he can observe it, and it only turns into a scientific fact through the verbal report made by the introspective.
Fondt's difference between experimental introspection, i.e. intended
self-observation, and non-experimental introspection i.e. unintended or spontaneous self-observation may promise the first alone a scientific approach, while he saw that spontaneous observation i.e. casual attention to psychological experience and meditation, was not useful for scientific purposes.
Experimental introspection requires a number of conditions on the part of the introspector, the most important of which are:
- Calm.
- Comfort.
- Training.
- Objectivity.
Experimental research method
This approach is based on observation and experimentation, not opinion, and the belief that the psychologist plans experiments and observations that other scientists can repeat and obtain facts in the form of often verifiable quantitative measurements.
The researcher proceeds from formulating a theory or hypothesis that summarizes a number of observations and predicts what we can expect to occur in a new situation, and the researcher uses measurement and resorts to description, classification when measurement is not possible.
The researcher also provides definitions of the terms he uses to make readers and other researchers aware of the angle from which the researcher looks at the phenomenon studied, called these terms (procedural definitions) which define phenomena in the ways used to measure or address them.
The experiment is based on the following:
- the change in mutants that the researcher assumes has an impact on the issue he is studying.
- Adjust the experimental conditions.
- Note the impact of changing mutants in the considered situation.
Observation method
Some researchers consider methodological observation to be an alternative to the experimental approach, which is similar to experimentation in that there are mutants that must be measured but different from them in that researchers do not have the freedom to treat independent mutants as they want, they focus on transitions that occur naturally.
After systematically studying the behavior of the accident, the psychologist can draw the causes of this behavior using some rules of logic. The basic feature of systematic observation in psychology is the description of behavior as it naturally occurs using questionnaire and interviews, and the method of systematic observation reveals to us what individuals do and what they
differ in their behavior.
The experimental approach gives us facts about the relationship between an independent mutant and a dependent mutant, but a psychologist who uses the method of methodological observations may also want to reveal the causes of observed behavior, and the psychologist is making a number of observations in different behaviors in order to discover some correlations.
Clinical Research Methodology
The clinical approach is based on the basic idea that some of the facts that are gathered around a phenomenon can only explain the appropriate explanation by contacting the people concerned and making assumptions about the nature of their response and this approach is borrowed from the field of psychiatry.
This approach is based on the use of the calendars to obtain quantitative measurements and methodological observation that takes from the method of experimental calendars the right of the clinician to ask and put forward hypotheses and shift the conditions.
This approach focuses on a few cases that are studied in depth and uses the measurements and types of data that the researcher can obtain.
The researcher uses a number of specialists who gather facts to help him diagnose and discover the causes.
This approach is also called the case history curriculum because the researcher deals with one case and studies it thoroughly in its present and past until it reaches its roots. Naturally, this approach is apparently easy when we merely mention general principles, but it is very difficult and assumes long training, requiring the clinician to be accurate in interpretation that allows him to discover the true significance of the direct answers he receives.
Statistical Research Methodology
We use statistics to summarize the numbers that the observations and measurements tell about and interpret their meanings, we get behavioral measurements or test marks and observations.
We use so-called centralization measures such as medium, intermediate, token, range, standard deviation. and dispersion measures.
One of the statistical approaches used in psychology is also "interdependence" and refers to the relationship between the two phenomena of this relationship visible in the signs obtained by one group of testers in both phenomena.
Statistical curricula in psychology provide us with methods to show the value of the results we obtain in different research curricula.