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Psychology for Managers

Dr. M.Venkatesan

Associate ProfessorIIFT, New Delhi

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Psychology

The Science of mental processes and behavior

Mental processes: What the brain does whena person stores, recalls, or uses information or

has specific feelings.

Behavior: The outwardly observable acts of an

individual, alone or in a group.

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The Goals of Psychology

The goals of the psychologist conducting basic

research are

to describe, explain,

predict, and

control behavior.

These goals form the basis of the psychological

enterprise.

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DESCRIBING WHAT HAPPENS

First task in psychology is to make accurateobservations about behavior.

Observations as their date (data is the plural,

datum the singular). Behavioral data are reports of observations about

the behavior of organisms and the conditionsunder which the behavior occurs.

When researchers undertake data collection, theymust choose an appropriate level of analysis anddevise measures of behavior that ensureobjectivity.

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Different levels of psychological description alsoaddress different questions.

At the broadest level of psychological analysis,researchers investigate the behavior of the wholeperson within complex social and culturalcontexts.

At this level, researchers might study cross-cultural differences in violence, the origins ofprejudices, and the consequences of mentalillness.

At the next level, psychologists focus onnarrower, stop light, eye movements duringreading, and grammatical errors made bychildren acquiring language.

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They might work to discover the biological

bases of behavior by identifying the places in

the brain where different types of memories

are stored, the biochemical changes that

occur during learning, and the sensory paths

responsible for vision or hearing, and thesensory paths responsible for vision or

hearing.

Each level of analysis yields informationessential to the final composite portrait of

human nature that psychologists hope

ultimately to develop.

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EXPLAINING WHAT HAPPENS

While descriptions must stick to perceivableinformation, explanations deliberately go beyondwhat can be observed.

Explanations in psychology usually recognize that

most behavior is influenced by a combination offactors.

Some factors operate within the individual, suchas genetic makeup, motivation, intelligence level,

or self-esteem. These inner determinants tell something special

about the organism. Other factors, however,operate externally.

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Often a psychologists goal is to explain a wide

variety of behavior in terms of one underlyingcause.

A well-trained psychologist can explainobservations by using her or his insight into

the human experience along with the factsprevious researchers have uncovered aboutthe phenomenon in question.

Much psychological research attempts to

determine which of several explanations mostaccurately accounts for a given behavioralpattern.

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PREDICTING WHAT WILL HAPPEN Predictions in psychology are statements about

the likelihood that a certain behavior will occur orthat a given relationship will be found.

Often an accurate explanation of the causesunderlying some form of behavior will allow a

researcher to make accurate predictions aboutfuture behavior.

A scientific prediction is based on anunderstanding of the ways events relate to one

another, and it suggests what mechanisms linkthose events to certain predictors.

A causal prediction specifies the conditions underwhich behaviors will change.

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CONTROLLING WHAT HAPPENS

Control means making behavior happen or nothappen starting it, maintaining it, stopping it,and influencing its form, strength, or rate of occurrence.

A casual explanation of behavior is convincing if itcan create conditions under which the behaviorcan be controlled.

The ability to control behavior is importantbecause it gives psychologists ways of helpingpeople improve the quality of their lives.

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Three Levels of Analysis in Psychology

Level ofthe brain:Events that involve the structure and properties of the organ itself brain cells and their connections, the chemical soup in which theyexist, and the genes.

Level ofthe person:

Events that involve the nature of beliefs, desires and feelings thecontent of the mind, not just its internal mechanics.

Level ofthe group:

Events that involve relationships between people -such as love,

competition, and cooperation, relationships among groups, andculture.

Events at the level of the group are one aspect of the environment;the other aspect is the physical environment itself- such as time,temperature and other physical stimuli.

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Psychology ThenandNow:

TheEvolution ofaScience Structuralism: The school of psychology that sought to

identify the basic elements of experience and todescribe the rules and circumstances under whichthese elements combine to form mental structures.

Gestalt psychology: An approach to understandingmental processes that focuses on the idea that thewhole is more than the sum of its parts.

Psychodynamic theory: A theory of how thoughts andfeelings affect behavior; refers to the continual push-and-pull interaction among conscious and unconsciousforces.

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Behaviorism: The school of psychology that focuses on how aspecific stimulus (object, person, or event) evokes a specificresponse (behavior in reaction to the stimulus).

Humanistic psychology: The school of psychology that assumespeople have positive values, free will, and deep inner creativity, thecombination of which leads them to choose life-fulfilling paths topersonal growth.

Cognitive psychology: The approach in psychology that attempts tocharacterize how information is stored and operated on internally.

Cognitiveneuroscience: A blending of cognitive psychology andneuroscience (the study of the brain) that aims to specify how thebrain store and processes information.

Evolutionary psychology: The approach in psychology that assumesthat certain cognitive strategies and goals are so important thatnatural selection has built them into our brains.

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Name Landmark Events Key Ideas

StructuralismWundt founds first psychology laboratory,

1879.Use introspection to discover the elements of

mental processes and rules for combining

them.

FunctionalismJamessPrinciples of Psychology, published

1890Study why thoughts, feelings and behavior

occur, how they are adaptive.

Gestalt psychologyWertheimers paper on perceived

movement, 1912.Focus on overall pattern of thoughts or

experience; the whole is more than the sum of

its parts.

Psychodynamic

theory

Freud publishes The Ego and the Id, 1927. Conflicts among conscious and unconscious

forces underlie many thoughts, feelings and

behaviors.

BehaviorismWatsons paper Psychology as the

Behaviorist Views It, 1913; Skinners The

Behavior of Organisms, 1937.

Behavior is the appropriate focus of

psychology, and it can be understood by

studying stimuli, responses, and the

consequences of responses.

Humanistic

psychology

Maslow publises Motivation and

Personality, 1954.Nonscientific approach; belief that people have

positive value, free will, and deep inner

creativity.Cognitive psychology

Neissers bookCognitive Psychology gives

the school its name, 1967.Mental processes are like information

processing in a computer.

Cognitive

neuroscience

First issue of the Journal of Cognitive

Neuroscience appears, 1989.The mind is what the brain does.

Evolutionarypsychology

Barkow, Cosmides, and Tooby edit The

AdaptedM

ind, 1992.

Mental strategies and goals are often inborn,

the result of natural selection.

Schools of Psychological Thought

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The Question Who Addresses it?

How can people cope better with day-to-day

operation

Clinical psychologists

Counseling psychologists

Community psychologistsPsychiatrists.

How do memories get stored in the brain? Biological psychologistsPsychopharmacologies

How can you teach a dog to follow commands? Experimental psychologistsBehavior analysts

Why cant I always recall information Iam sure Iknow?

Cognitive psychologist

Cognitive scientists

What makes people different from one another? Personality psychologistsBehavioral geneticists

How does peer pressure work? Social psychologists

What do babies know about the world? Developmental psychologists

Why does my job make me feel so depressed? Industrial psychologistsHuman factor psychologists

How should teachers deal with disruptive students? Educational psychologistsSchool psychologists

Why do I get sick before every exam? Health psychologists

Was the defendant insane when she committed the

crime?

Forensic psychologists

Why do I always choke during important basketball

games?

Sports psychologists

The Diversity of Psychological inquiry

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Psychodynamic Perspective Behavior is driven, or motivated, by powerful

inner forces.

In this view, human actions stem from inheritedinstincts, biological drives, and attempts to

resolve conflicts between personal needs andsocietys demands.

Deprivation states, physiological arousal, andconflicts provide the power for behavior just ascoal fuels a stem locomotive.

As a whole, the organism stops reactive when itsneeds are satisfied and its drives reduced. Themain purpose of action is to reduce tension.

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THEBEHAVIORIST PERSPECTIVE Behaviorist perspective seek to understand how particular

environmental stimuli control particular kinds of behavior.

First, behaviorists analyze the antecedent environmentalconditions those that precede the behavior and set thestage for an organism to make a response or withhold aresponse.

Next, they look at the behavioral response, which is themain object of study the action to be understood, preobservable consequences that follow from the response.

A behaviorist, for example, might be interested in the wayin which speeding tickets of varying sizes (consequences)change the likelihood that motorists will drive with cautionor abandon (behavioral responses).

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THE HUMANISTIC PERSPECTIVE People are neither driven by the powerful, instinctive

forces postulated by the Freudians nor manipulated bytheir environments, as proposed by the behaviorists.

Instead, people are active creatures who are innately goodand capable of choice.

Humanistic psychologists study behavior, but not by

reducing it to components, elements, and variables inlaboratory experiments. Instead, they look for patterns inpeoples life histories.

Rogers, Maslow, and their colleagues defined a perspectivethat strives to deal with the whole person, practicing a

holistic approach to human psychology. They believed that true understanding requires integrating

knowledge of the individuals mind, body and behavior withan awareness of social and cultural forces.

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THECONGINITVE PERSPECTIVE The centerpiece of this perspective is human thought and all the

processes of knowing attending, thinking, remembering, andunderstanding.

People act because they think, and people thing because they arehuman beings, exquisitely equipped to do so.

Behavior is only partly determined by preceding environmentalevents and past behavioral consequences, as behaviorists believe.

Some of the most significant behavior emerges from totally novelways of thinking, not from predictable ways used in the past.

The ability to imagine options and alternatives that are totally

different from what is or was enables people to work towardfutures that transcend current circumstances.

Cognitive psychologists view thoughts and imagination and causesof overt actions. Feeling regret when youve hurt someone is anexample of thought as a result. But apologizing for your actionsafter feeling regret is an example of thought as a cause of behavior.