Psychology 101

A Ten Chapter Overview of Psychology

Welcome! Have a seat and make yourself comfortable, we are about to start class. Psychology 101 is a general psychology text adapted to an online guided format. It represents a summary of the major theories, concepts, and interventions in the field of psychology. Reading the text will provide you with a strong basic understanding of the field of psychology. It won't make you a psychologist, but it's a great place to start.

Chapter 1: How to Learn Psychology

We all use the principles of psychology everyday and probably don't even realize it. When we spank our child for doing something wrong, we are utilizing the learning principle of ...
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Chapter 1.1: Influence of Research on Psychology

Psychology is not an absolute science and is often referred to as a 'Social Science' or a 'Soft Science.' This is because it deals with human thoughts, feelings, and behavior, ...
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Chapter 1.2: Experimental Research

Starting from the general and moving to the more specific, the first concept we need to discuss is Theory. A theory can be defined as a "general principle proposed to ...
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Chapter 1.3: Types of Research

What we've focused on is called Experimental Methods, the true experiment. It involves randomized assignment of subjects, standardized instructions, and at least one IV and one DV. There are several ...
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Chapter 2: Biopsychology

Most experts in the field of psychology and biology agree that the mind and the body are connected in more complex ways than we can even comprehend. Research constantly shows ...
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Chapter 2.1: Neurotransmitters

A Neuron is a specialized nerve cell that receives, processes, and transmits information to other cells in the body. We have a fixed number of neurons, which means they do ...
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Chapter 2.2: The Brain & Nervous System

The nervous system is broken down into two major systems: Central Nervous System and Peripheral Nervous System. We'll discuss the Central Nervous System first. The Central Nervous System consists of ...
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Chapter 3: Introduction to Development, Personality & Stage Theories

When discussing any type of development, most theorist break it down into specific stages. These stages are typically progressive. In other words, you must pass through one stage before you ...
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Chapter 3.1: Motor & Cognitive Development

Most infants develop motor abilities in the same order and at approximately the same age. In this sense, most agree that these abilities are genetically preprogrammed within all infants. The ...
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Chapter 3.2: Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development

Like Piaget, Erik Erikson (1902-1994) maintained that children develop in a predetermined order. Instead of focusing on cognitive development, however, he was interested in how children socialize and how this ...
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Chapter 3.3: Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is probably the most well known theorist when it comes to the development of personality. Freud's Stages of Psychosexual Development are, like other stage theories, completed in ...
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Chapter 3.4: Freud’s Structural & Topographical Model

Sigmund Freud's theory is quite complex and although his writings on psychosexual development set the groundwork for how our personalities developed, it was only one of five parts to his ...
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Chapter 3.5: Freud’s Ego Defense Mechanisms

Before we can talk more about this, we need to understand what drives the id, ego, and superego. According to Freud, we only have two drives; sex and aggression. In ...
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Chapter 3.6: Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development

Although it has been questioned as to whether it applied equally to different genders and different cultures, Kohlberg's (1973) stages of moral development is the most widely cited. It breaks ...
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Chapter 4: Introduction to Learning Theory & Behavioral Psychology

Learning can be defined as the process leading to relatively permanent behavioral change or potential behavioral change. In other words, as we learn, we alter the way we perceive our ...
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Chapter 4.1: Classical & Operant Conditioning

One important type of learning, Classical Conditioning, was actually discovered accidentally by Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936). Pavlov was a Russian physiologist who discovered this phenomenon while doing research on digestion. His ...
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Chapter 4.2: Reinforcement & Reinforcement Schedules

c The term reinforce means to strengthen, and is used in psychology to refer to any stimuli which strengthens or increases the probability of a specific response. For example, if ...
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Chapter 5: Sensation & Perception

Although intimately related, sensation and perception play two complimentary but different roles in how we interpret our world. Sensation refers to the process of sensing our environment through touch, taste, ...
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Chapter 5.1: Sensation

Sensation is the process by which our senses gather information and send it to the brain. A large amount of information is being sensed at any one time such as ...
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Chapter 5.2: Perception

As mentioned in the introduction, perception refers to interpretation of what we take in through our senses. The way we perceive our environment is what makes us different from other ...
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Chapter 6: Section 1: Memory, Intelligence, and States of Mind

This chapter focuses on various states of mind, how our memory works, why we forget things, the debate over intelligence and intelligence testing, and the power of the mind to ...
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Chapter 6.1: Memory & Forgetting

Human memory, like memory in a computer, allows us to store information for later use. In order to do this, however, both the computer and we need to master three ...
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Chapter 6.2: Intelligence

The assessment of human abilities dates back nearly 4000 years when China used written tests to rate applicants for civil service. Two-thousand years later, during the Hans Dynasty, civil service ...
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Chapter 6.3: Relaxation & Hypnosis

Many internal and external factors affect how we think, feel, and behave. Although alcohol and drugs have been studied in great detail and have been shown to have both positive ...
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Chapter 7: Motivation & Emotion

What drives you to want to learn about psychology? Why did you choose your career? Your partner? Where you would live? Are your drives different from other people or do ...
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Chapter 7.1: Motivation

Ever wonder why some people seem to be very successful, highly motivated individuals? Where does the energy, the drive, or the direction come from? Motivation is an area of psychology ...
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Chapter 7.2: Emotion

What is emotion? A feeling? Then what is a feeling? These terms are difficult to define and even more difficult to understand completely. People have been attempting to understand this ...
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Chapter 8: Social Psychology

Everybody has heard of peer pressure, but most people argue that they are not affected by it, or at least not affected as 'most people.' The truth is, we are ...
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Chapter 8.1: Our View of Self & Others

The way we look at ourselves plays an important role in how we see the world. The way we see the world plays an important role in how we see ...
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Chapter 8.2: Obedience & Power

Why do we obey some people and not others? Why are you able to influence your friends? What attributes cause a person to be more influential? These questions are paramount ...
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Chapter 8.3: The Role of Groups

Do you think you act differently when alone than when other people are around? The answer to this question is typically a resounding 'yes.' We are concerned with our social ...
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Chapter 9: Psychopathology

By the eighteenth century we began to look at mental illness differently. It was during this time period that "madness" began to be seen as an illness beyond the control ...
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Chapter 9.1: Classifying Psychopathology

Mental illness is classified today according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM IV), published by the American Psychiatric Association (1994). The DSM uses a ...
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Chapter 9.2: Psychiatric Disorders

Let's discuss the first two axes in more detail now as these are what we typically think of when we think of mental illness or psychopathology. The DSM IV (American ...
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Chapter 9.3: Stigma, Stereotyping & the Mentally Ill

These are the obvious effects of mental illness, but there are less obvious effects due to the misperception of the mentally ill. Not too long ago when people heard the ...
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Chapter 10: Psychotherapy

1. A positive, healthy relationship between a client or patient and a trained psychotherapist 2. Recognizable mental health issues, whether diagnosable or not 3. Agreement on the basic goals of ...
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Chapter 10.1: Types of Psychotherapy

Aside from these commonalties, therapists approach clients from slightly different angles, although the ultimate goal remains the same: to help the client reduce negative symptoms, gain insight into why these ...
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Chapter 10.2: Therapy Providers

We all know that medical illnesses are treated by medical professionals, namely physicians. But what we sometimes fail to realize is that there are many different types of physicians and ...
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References

American Psychiatric Association (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.). Washington DC: Author. Baddeley, A. D. (1992). Is working memory working? Quarterly Jounal of Experimental Psychology, 44A, ...
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List of Chapters