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Educational psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of human learning. The study of learning processes, from both cognitive and behavioral perspectives, allows researchers to understand individual differences in intelligence, cognitive development, affect, motivation, self-regulation, and self-concept, as well as their role in learning. The field of educational psychology relies heavily on quantitative methods, including testing and measurement, to enhance educational activities related to instructional design, classroom management, and assessment, which serve to facilitate learning processes in various educational settings across the lifespan.
Differential psychology studies the ways in which individuals differ in their behavior and the processes that underlie it. This is a discipline that develops classifications (taxonomies) of psychological individual differences. This is distinguished from other aspects of psychology in that although psychology is ostensibly a study of individuals, modern psychologists often study groups, or attempt to discover general psychological processes that apply to all individuals. This particular area of psychology was first named and still retains the name of "differential psychology" by William Stern in his book (1900).
Psychology is the study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both conscious and unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feelings, and motives. Psychology is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries between the natural and social sciences. Biological psychologists seek an understanding of the emergent properties of brains, linking the discipline to neuroscience. As social scientists, psychologists aim to understand the behavior of individuals and groups.
Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that examines personality and its variation among individuals. It aims to show how people are individually different due to psychological forces. Its areas of focus include:
Observational learning is learning that occurs through observing the behavior of others. It is a form of social learning which takes various forms, based on various processes. In humans, this form of learning seems to not need reinforcement to occur, but instead, requires a social model such as a parent, sibling, friend, or teacher with surroundings. Particularly in childhood, a model is someone of authority or higher status in an environment. In animals, observational learning is often based on classical conditioning, in which an instinctive behavior is elicited by observing the behavior of another, but other processes may be involved as well.
An operant conditioning chamber is a laboratory apparatus used to study animal behavior. The operant conditioning chamber was created by B. F. Skinner while he was a graduate student at Harvard University. The chamber can be used to study both operant conditioning and classical conditioning.
Albert Bandura was a Canadian-American psychologist. He was a professor of social science in psychology at Stanford University.
In marketing and the social sciences, observational research is a social research technique that involves the direct observation of phenomena in their natural setting. This differentiates it from experimental research in which a quasi-artificial environment is created to control for spurious factors, and where at least one of the variables is manipulated as part of the experilovement.
Introspection is the examination of one's own conscious thoughts and feelings. In psychology, the process of introspection relies on the observation of one's mental state, while in a spiritual context it may refer to the examination of one's soul. Introspection is closely related to human self-reflection and self-discovery and is contrasted with external observation.
Participant observation is one type of data collection method by practitioner-scholars typically used in qualitative research and ethnography. This type of methodology is employed in many disciplines, particularly anthropology, sociology, communication studies, human geography, and social psychology. Its aim is to gain a close and intimate familiarity with a given group of individuals and their practices through an intensive involvement with people in their cultural environment, usually over an extended period of time.
Experimental psychology refers to work done by those who apply experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ human participants and animal subjects to study a great many topics, including sensation, perception, memory, cognition, learning, motivation, emotion; developmental processes, social psychology, and the neural substrates of all of these.
Naturalistic observation, sometimes referred to as fieldwork, is a research methodology in numerous fields of science including ethology, anthropology, linguistics, the social sciences, and psychology, in which data are collected as they occur in nature, without any manipulation by the observer. Examples range from watching an animal's eating patterns in the forest to observing the behavior of students in a school setting. During naturalistic observation, researchers take great care using unobtrusive methods to avoid interfering with the behavior they are observing. Naturalistic observation contrasts with analog observation in an artificial setting that is designed to be an analog of the natural situation, constrained so as to eliminate or control for effects of any variables other than those of interest. There is similarity to observational studies in which the independent variable of interest cannot be experimentally controlled for ethical or logistical reasons.
The behavioural sciences explore the cognitive processes within organisms and the behavioural interactions between organisms in the natural world. It involves the systematic analysis and investigation of human and animal behaviour through naturalistic observation, controlled scientific experimentation and mathematical modeling. It attempts to accomplish legitimate, objective conclusions through rigorous formulations and observation. Examples of behavioural sciences include psychology, psychobiology, criminology, anthropology, sociology, economics, and cognitive science. Generally, behavioural science primarily seeks to generalise about human behaviour as it relates to society and its impact on society as a whole.
External validity is the validity of applying the conclusions of a scientific study outside the context of that study. In other words, it is the extent to which the results of a study can generalize or transport to other situations, people, stimuli, and times. Generalizability refers to the applicability of a predefined sample to a broader population while transportability refers to the applicability of one sample to another target population. In contrast, internal validity is the validity of conclusions drawn within the context of a particular study.
In social research, particularly in psychology, the term demand characteristic refers to an experimental artifact where participants form an interpretation of the experiment's purpose and subconsciously change their behavior to fit that interpretation. Typically, demand characteristics are considered an extraneous variable, exerting an effect on behavior other than that intended by the experimenter. Pioneering research was conducted on demand characteristics by Martin Orne.
In social psychology, social defeat is the negative experience of being excluded from the majority group. The term is used in the study of the physiological and behavioral effects of hostile interactions among either animals or humans, in either a dyadic or in a group-individual context, potentially greatly affecting control over resources, access to mates, and social positions.
Psychological research refers to research that psychologists conduct for systematic study and for analysis of the experiences and behaviors of individuals or groups. Their research can have educational, occupational and clinical applications.
Psychology encompasses a vast domain, and includes many different approaches to the study of mental processes and behavior. Below are the major areas of inquiry that taken together constitute psychology. A comprehensive list of the sub-fields and areas within psychology can be found at the list of psychology topics and list of psychology disciplines.
Observational methods in psychological research entail the observation and description of a subject's behavior. Researchers utilizing the observational method can exert varying amounts of control over the environment in which the observation takes place. This makes observational research a sort of middle ground between the highly controlled method of experimental design and the less structured approach of conducting interviews.
References
- ↑ Comer, Ronald J. (1996). Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology. New York: W.H. Freeman and Co. p. 80.
- ↑ Corsini, Raymond J. (1984). Encyclopedia of psychology . New York: Wiley. pp. 89. ISBN 978-0-471-86594-0.
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