The Basics of Psychology

The Basics of
Psychology
The Origins of the field of Psychology
Shamanic Tradition
Philosophies explaining the nature of

reality
The field of psychology has been artistic
and thematic for most of it’s existence
A major principle underscoring
psychological concepts is that they are
goal-directed teleological structures
“All of our behaviours, thoughts and motivations stem

from goals that we have set ourselves”
For a long time, it was believed that we were born as “Tabula Rasa”, a
clean slate upon which thoughts and behaviours were imprinted
Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung challenged this notion, claiming that
there were deep seated ancestral and biological forces spurring us
These were the first hints of the possibility of psychology

developing into a scientific discipline
One of the biggest criticisms of it has
been that it is unscientific
What does it mean for a field to be
scientific?
How does the field of psychology fail to

meet those standards?
A systematically organized body of
knowledge
Rationality Creativity Evidence
Replicability Empirical Falsifiable

What is imagination?
The faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or
concepts of objects and experiences not present to the
senses
The major difference between something being nonsensical
and something being creative is the aspect of reasonability
What is logic?
Reasoning conducted or assessed according to
strict principles of validity.
Science becomes a collection of reasonable ideas that have
been tested and reasonable ideas that we can’t test yet
Motivations that stem Motivations that
from biology, genetics and stem from future
ancestry goals
Ideas that have been Ideas that have been

Psychology as a
tested formulated
Scientific Discipline
Behaviourism, Humanism, Existentialism,

Evolutionary Psychology Psychoanalysis
The continuum of
reasonability
Logic Imagination
How did reasonability originate in humans?
Logic and imagination are two sides of the same coin
Boole (1848) and Frege (1879) formalized logic in such a
way that it became possible to see how logical operations
could be carried out mechanically, automatically, and
hence through purely physical causation, without the need
for an animate interpretive intelligence to carry out the
steps. This raised the irresistible theoretical possibility that
not only logic but other mental phenomena such as goals
and learning also consisted of formal relationships
embodied non-vitalistically in physical processes
Logic is embedded in physical nature and the mental
aspects of it are mere interpretations of a physical
phenomena
“Why is survival the fundamental motive of all living
organisms?”
The origin of evolutionary mechanisms
Things that existed for longer periods of time could influence the
environment more than things that ceased to exist immediately
Through a constant, repetitive reinforcement, survival slowly became

the focus of mutation
The biological mechanisms of organisms refined themselves
over millions of years
Complex, refined structures with specific roles became

commonplace
(digestive organs, hormones etc)

What about consciousness? When did that develop?
What is the difference between a conscious and a non-conscious

being?
Sensory systems complexified in this time-
period too
Organisms began to perceive their environments with

more detail
Simple consciousness developed as organisms

gained object permanence
As animals tried to gauge the probabilities of prey/predator movement,

they developed imagination and creativity
Emergent Properties
Consciousness
Society
Eusociality
The highest level of organization of sociality, is defined by the

following characteristics: cooperative brood care (including care of
offspring from other individuals), overlapping generations within a
colony of adults, and a division of labour into reproductive and non-
reproductive groups
The Neocortex
Attention, working memory, reasoning
Cognition
Heuristics
A simple cognitive short-cut that attaches two propositions

to form a meaningful assumption
What are emotions?
Motivational domains
Values could not only be derived from the environment
There is no intrinsic response across all species related to an

environmental factor
Different species react differently to the same stimulus and so do different

individuals within the same species
Programs that are designed to solve one
adaptive problem can interfere with the
functioning of another program
A super-ordinate program is required that can regulate which
programs are activated and which ones are inhibited in specific
situations
Emotions are the super-ordinate system that helps an organism
decide which programs to supress and which ones to enable
Fear
Go o
d exp
Go o erien
d exp ces w
erien ith s
ces w n akes
ith s
n akes
Bad experience
with snakes
Instinctual
valuation of
snakes
Time
Value systems recalibrate based on individual experiences, but

baseline instinctual conceptions are more readily accessible than
learned ones
The cognitive-evaluative mechanism of
categorizing good and evil
Locate a key-threat
Encode an array of fitness

damaging events in memory
Motivates action using bodily functions

Criteria for creating an emotion
1. The situation had to recur ancestrally
2. Could not be negotiated successfully unless there were superordinate programs to help
3. Had rich and reliable repeated structures
4. Had recognizable cues signalling their presence
5. Would incur very high fitness costs

Emotions also act as recalibration
engines of the long term
They reassign values and expectations as per the

individuals experience
Unique mechanism that helps the individual specifically

Uncertainty
Error management theory

Negative Trait Bias
The tendency of people to recognize stimuli with implications of

negativity faster than stimuli that might be positive
Traumatic events further antagonize the individual and bias

them even further towards creating more negative heuristics
The individual is generally reacting to a situation rather than

acting to create or cause the situation
All cognition was still focused on aiding survival
Emotional responses developed as more complex pleasure-

seeking and pain-avoiding mechanisms
The development of emotions and cognitions enabled

animals to form social groups
Perspectives in Psychology
Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic
Behavioural Perspective
Cognitive Perspective
Gestalt Perspective
Humanistic Perspective
Evolutionary Perspective

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The Basics of

Philosophies explaining the nature of

“All of our behaviours, thoughts and motivations stem

These were the first hints of the possibility of psychology

How does the field of psychology fail to

Rationality Creativity Evidence

Replicability Empirical Falsifiable

Ideas that have been Ideas that have been

Behaviourism, Humanism, Existentialism,

Through a constant, repetitive reinforcement, survival slowly became

Complex, refined structures with specific roles became

(digestive organs, hormones etc)

What is the difference between a conscious and a non-conscious

Organisms began to perceive their environments with

Simple consciousness developed as organisms

As animals tried to gauge the probabilities of prey/predator movement,

The highest level of organization of sociality, is defined by the

Attention, working memory, reasoning

A simple cognitive short-cut that attaches two propositions

Values could not only be derived from the environment

There is no intrinsic response across all species related to an

Different species react differently to the same stimulus and so do different

Value systems recalibrate based on individual experiences, but

Encode an array of fitness

Motivates action using bodily functions

1. The situation had to recur ancestrally

3. Had rich and reliable repeated structures

4. Had recognizable cues signalling their presence

5. Would incur very high fitness costs

They reassign values and expectations as per the

Unique mechanism that helps the individual specifically

Error management theory

The tendency of people to recognize stimuli with implications of

Traumatic events further antagonize the individual and bias

The individual is generally reacting to a situation rather than

Emotional responses developed as more complex pleasure-

The development of emotions and cognitions enabled

Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic

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