Why have you enrolled in college? Some students enroll because their parents attended college and have instilled a value for education. Others may enroll to get the job they want. Some may have enrolled because a friend (or an attractive person) enrolled. I was 45 years old when I enrolled in college. I graduated from Barstow High School in 1962, and graduated from Barstow College in 1992--I took a short break to party. While serving time in state prison for the sale of a quarter gram of methamphetamine (speed), a teacher encouraged me to go back to school. I applied for financial aid while I was still incarcerated, and three months after my release, I enrolled full time and remained a student until 2 Feb 2004, the day I defended my dissertation for my Ph.D. There is a host of other reasons, of course, that people enroll in college. We must look at the context surrounding each individual in order to fully understand what it is that they are doing, thinking, or feeling; therefore, psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.

A man, such as I, who spent much of his life as a drug addict and continually involved with the judicial system, might periodically question why he became an addict. Was it to do with influences in his environment, or was it a genetic inheritance? I was definitely influenced by my environment, for my mom was an alcoholic (a periodic). So, was my addictive personality a genetic inheritance or was I influenced by my mother’s drinking? These questions not only baffle people, but it is a controversy that’s been going on for a long time. The same questions can be asked about homosexuality and a host of other human behaviors.

Behavior includes anything that individuals do that can be directly observed (enrolling in a class, talking to classmates, and asking questions are all behaviors). The psychology of learning consists of various approaches to learning such as classical & operant conditioning. Please pay close attention to this chapter because some of it is recondite (difficult to understand). You’ll learn the different ways that we humans go about learning. For example, operant conditioning is a type of conditioning in which an operant response is brought under stimulus control. You’ll see such terms as conditioned and unconditioned stimulus and conditioned and unconditioned response. Perhaps the easiest way to view operant conditioning is to regard it as a set of circumstances under which new responses that are within the organism’s volitional repertoire come to be strengthened by contingent reinforcement. For example: I took drugs and they made me feel good (stimulus), so that feeling was the contingent reinforcement that caused me to repeat that behavior (response).

There are many psychological perspectives. For example, some people may be more interested in Freud’s psychodynamic perspective, and psychoanalysis for the treatment of mental disorders. Others may be more in tune with behaviorism, humanistic, neurobiological, evolutionary, sociocultural, or cognitive psychological approaches. These theories are important components in the history of psychology, and specifically for this course.

Since Freud is credited with being the founder of depth psychology--psychoanalysis in particular and psychodynamic in general, he is therefore the one who initially started documenting unconscious processes. Anything from a slip of the tongue to dreaming are considered unconscious processes. It would be in your best interest to absorb as much information as you can concerning Freud. He is a pioneer, not only in depth psychology but psychology overall, and has had a profound influence on psychological thinking ever since.

Be watchful for cultural and ethnic aspects of psychology. The study of human behavior overall cannot be described by looking at it from only the American perspective. Much of what people do in other cultures are very different from what people do in our culture. For example, if I walk up close to your face and start talking to you, as an American, you’re most likely going to back up--for we Americans like our space; however, this behavior isn’t unusual in Hong Kong. Consider why this might be so.

Often psychological problems can be treated either by support groups (such as AA and NA), clinical or counseling psychologists, or licensed clinical social workers. At other times psychological problems can be treated by psychiatrists. Psychiatrists are most always more expensive, and their expertise is based in medicine, having a medical doctorate (M.D.). Let’s say you are having x symptoms. If you went to a clinical psychologist, he might refer you to a medical doctor or a psychiatrist to possibly rule out a medical cause. If it wasn’t a medical problem, then the psychologist could ethically proceed. Or if an M.D. rules out a medical problem, he or she might refer you to a clinical psychologist.

Those of you who are majoring in psychology, one of the most important chapters in this book is "Thinking Critically with Psychological Science." For example, there is terminology in the field of research that is synonymous to "an educated guess." Other terms such as interview, questionnaire, and experiment will also arise, as well as dependent and independent variable, case study, survey; therefore, as you read this first chapter, I suggest that you use your highlighter with a printed copy of this lecture to make your studying smarter, especially paying attention to text that is in bold type. Actually, this is a good suggestion for the entire textbook. What’s going to be asked on test questions will be acknowledged to some degree in these lectures, so don’t fluff them off. Studying the areas that are in bold type will help prepare you for the final.

There is another domain of research that isn’t often acknowledged in the scientific approach to contemporary psychology, and that is qualitative (as opposed to quantitative) research methodologies. These approaches are just as valid as any. To name just a few: phenomenological, hermeneutic, heuristic, and the more commonly known ethnological case study that is used primarily in cultural anthropology. Doctoral candidates in the humanities often use another qualitative method--the artistic method. My doctoral dissertation is a hybrid methodology--a combination of phenomenological and artistic. The phenomenological component includes interviews, and the artistic component includes storytelling.

1. In your own words, give three descriptions of critical thinking approaches that you will experiment with in your assignments during this course. (minimum of 100 words)