Psychology Today

Today, psychologists prefer to use more objective scientific _____to understand, explain, and predict human behavior. Psychological ____are highly structured, beginning with a hypothesis that is then empirically tested. Psychology has two ____areas of focus: academic psychology and applied psychology. Academic psychology focuses on the study of different sub-topics within psychology including personality psychology, social psychology, and developmental psychology.

These psychologists _______basic research that seeks to expand our theoretical ____, while other researchers conduct applied research that seeks to solve everyday problems. Applied psychology focuses on the use of different psychological principles to solve real world ___. Examples of applied areas of psychology _____forensic psychology, ergonomics, and industrial-organizational psychology. Many other psychologists work as therapists, helping people overcome _________, behavioral, and emotional disorders.

Exercise 5. Read the text Historical Background of Psychology and make up 10 questions to the text and ask your partner to answer them.

Psychology has both a traditional and scientific history, as any other science. Traditionally, psychology dates back to the earliest speculations about the relationships of man with his environment. Beginning from 600 B.C. the Greek intellectuals observed and discussed these relationships. Empedocles said that the cosmos consisted of four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. Hippocrates translated these elements into four bodily humors and characterized the temperament of individuals on the basis of these humors.

Plato recognized two classes of phenomena: things and ideas. Ideas, he said, come from two sources: some are innate and come with a soul, others are product of observations through the sense organs. The giant of the thinkers was Aristotle. He was interested in anatomy and physiology of the body, he explained learning on the basis of association of ideas, he said knowledge should be achieved on the basis of observations.

After the birth of Christ, St. Augustine characterized the method of introspection and developed a field of knowledge, later called as faculty psychology. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, scientific truth must be based on observation and experimentation.

During the 15^th and 16^th centuries the scientific knowledge developed greatly. Among the most important scientific investigations were those of Newton in psychology of vision and Harvey in physiology.

The mind-body problem was a very important for the 17^th and 18^th centuries philosophers and entered recent psychology. Here appeared such theories as: 1) occasionalism, according to which God is between a mind and a body; 2) double aspect theory, in which a mind and a body are different aspects of the same substance; 3) psychophysical parallelism, according to which a mind and a body are parallel in their actions.

The associanists, or empiricists, developed the doctrine of associations: simple ideas form complex sensations and ideas (Thomas Hobbes and John Locke were the founders of this theory). Opposed to the association theory was the doctrine of mental faculties.

Nowadays psychology is a separate discipline, a real combination of true knowledge of human nature.

Exercise 6. Enumerate all the thinkers Historical Background of Psychology mentioned in the text and their investigations.

Exercise 7.  Discuss in the group:

1.The contribution to the development of psychology made by the ancient thinkers.

2.The development of psychology in the Middle Ages.

Exercise 8. Read the text A new science is born and translate it into Russian.

Psychology's intellectual parents were the disciplines of phi­losophy and physiology. By the 1870s a small number of scholars in both fields were actively exploring questions about the mind. How are bodily sensations turned into a mental awareness of the outside world? Are our perceptions of the world accurate reflec­tions of reality? How do mind and body interact? The philoso­phers and physiologists who were interested in the mind viewed such questions as fascinating issues within their respective fields. It was a German professor, Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920), who eventually changed this view. Wundt mounted a campaign to make psychology an independent discipline rather than a step­child of philosophy or physiology.

The time and place were right for Wundt's appeal. German universities were in a healthy period of expansion, so resources were available for new disciplines. Furthermore, the intellectual climate favored the scientific approach that Wundt advocated. Hence, his proposals were well received by the academic commu­nity. In 1879 Wundt succeeded in establishing the first formal la­boratory for research in psychology at the University of Leipzig. In deference to this landmark event, historians have christened 1879 as psychology's "date of birth." Soon afterward, in 1881, Wundt established the first journal devoted to publishing research on psy­chology. All in all, Wundt's campaign was so successful that today he is widely characterized as the founder of psychology.

Wundt's conception of psychology dominated the field for two decades and was influential for several more. What was the subject matter of the new science? According to Wundt, it was consciousness — the awareness of immediate experience. Thus, psychology became the scientific study of conscious experience. This orientation kept psychology focused squarely on the mind. But it demanded that the methods used to investigate the mind be as scientific as those of chemists or physicists.

Wundt's work and ideas soon attracted attention. Many out­standing young scholars came to Leipzig to study under Wundtand do research on vision, hearing, touch, taste, attention, and emotion. Many of his students then fanned out across Germany and America, establishing laboratories that formed the basis for the new, independent science of psychology.

Indeed, it was in North America that Wundt's new science grew by leaps and bounds. Between 1883 and 1893, some 24 new psychological research laboratories sprang up in the United States and Canada. Many of the laboratories were started by Wundt's students, or by his students' students.

In any case, although psychology was born in Germany, it blossomed into adolescence in America.

Exercise 9. Translate these sentences into English using words from the text A new science is born

1) Термин «психология» происходит от двух греческих слов: «психе», что означает «душа», и «логос», что оз­начает «слово».

2) Философские размышления о тайнах сознания столь же стары, как и человеческий род.

3) Является ли наше восприятие внешнего мира точным отражением действительности?

4) Немецкий профессор Вундт считал, что психология должна стать самостоятельной дисциплиной, а не падчерицей философии и физиологии.

5) Предметом психологии является научное исследова­ние сознательного опыта.

6) Именно в Северной Америке психология сделала большой шаг вперед.

7) Много научно-исследовательских лабораторий по пси­хологии в Соединенных Штатах и в Канаде было ос­новано учениками профессора Вундта.

Exercise 10.    Choose the noun which can follow this verb.

Exercise 11.    Find in the text synonyms to the words given below:

to acquire, feeling, meditation, to examine, offer, to concentrate, to set up