6. Distinguish research object and subject sphere of modern psychology

Psychology is the academic and applied study of mental functions and behaviors. The word "psychology" comes from two specific Greek words—psyche, which means "soul," "life," or "mind," and logia, which means "the study of." Simply put, psychology is the study of the mind. The overarching goal of psychology is to understand the behavior, mental functions, and emotional processes of human beings. This field ultimately aims to benefit society, partly through its focus on better understanding of mental health and mental illness.

The subject of psychology is understood differently throughout history and from the perspective of different areas of psychology.

• Soul (all researchers until the early eighteenth century)

• The phenomena of consciousness (English empirical socialistiska psychology: D. Hartley, John Stuart mill, Alexander Bain, Herbert Spencer)

• Direct experience of the subject (structuralism — Wilhelm Wundt)

• Adaptability (functionalism — William James)

• The origin of mental operations (psychophysiology — Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov)

• Behavior (behaviorism — John Watson)

• The unconscious (of depth psychology: psychoanalysis — Sigmund Freud, individual psychology — Alfred Adler, analytical psychology — Carl Gustav Jung)

• The processing of images and the results of these processes (Gestalt psychology — Max Wertheimer)

• The problem of being human (humanistic psychology — Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Victor Frankl, Rollo may)

• The processes of information processing information system "brain", cognitive abilities (cognitive psychology — George Miller, Herbert Simon, Allen Newell, Noam Chomsky, David green, John sweets and others)

The object of psychology

The object of psychology is a collection of different media mental phenomena, including behavior, activities, relationships of people in big and small social groups.

Tasks of psychology

• learn to understand the nature of psychic phenomena;

• learn how to manage them;

• to use this knowledge to improve the effectiveness of the various sectors of practice;

• to be a theoretical basis for the practice of psychological services.

Methods of psychology

methods of data collection (introspection, observation, study of performance, examination of documents, method of survey, method of tests, experiment, biographical method);

methods of data processing (statistical analysis, other mathematical methods);

the methods of psychological influence (discussion, training, formative experiment, persuasion, suggestion, relaxation, etc.).

7. Define methodological connections between psychology and other sciences. The word psychology comes from two Greek words: "Psyche" mean­ing "mind" or "soul" and "Logos" meaning "study of. Therefore, psy­chology means "study of the mind" and the primary goal of psychology is to describe, explain and predict why humans think and behave the way that they do.

Psychology and Physical Sciences:

Psychology is a science of experience of an individual. But experience presupposes the duality of subject and object, both of which are real. Psychology deals with mental processes such as knowing, feeling and willing, and in order to account for them adequately it must study the nature of physical stimuli in relation to knowing and willing.

But there is a difference between psychology and physical sciences in the treatment of physical objects. Physical sciences investigate the nature of physical stimuli apart from their relation to an individual. But psychology studies the nature of the interaction between an individual with physical stimuli.

Psycho­logical science is not concerned with the nature of physical stimuli in themselves apart from their relation to an individual. It is primarily concerned with behaviour of an individual, and indirectly concerned with external stimuli.

Physical sciences investigate the nature of physical phenomena, and so they help psychology to explain the experience and behaviour of the individual, which are reactions to the physical and social stimuli.

(ii) Psychology and Biology:

Psychology is a science of the experience and behaviour. However experience cannot be adequately explained without the concomitant physiological processes. The environment acts on the mind through the sense-organs; and the mind reacts to the environ­ment through the muscles. The sense-organs and muscles are organs of the body. So mental processes are closely related to bodily processes.

(iii) Psychology and Physiology:

Psychology is a science of experience. Experiences of an individual are intimately connected with physiological processes, especially of the nervous system. Hence, psychology studies these physiological processes in order to adequately account for mental processes.

(iv)  Psychology and Logic:

Psychology is wider in scope than Logic, because it deals with all kinds of mental processes, viz., knowing, feeling and willing. But Logic deals with thinking only, which is a kind of knowing. It does not deal with feeling and willing.

Psychology deals with the process of reasoning or mental exploration of data whereas Logic deals with the result of mental explora­tion or finding a new relationship among the data.

Psychology deals with concrete mental processes, viz., concep­tion, judgement and reasoning as attended with feeling and willing, while Logic deals with the abstract mental products, viz., concepts, judgements and inferences divorced from feeling and willing.

Logic, as a normative science, is based on Psychology which is a positive science. In order to know how we ought to reason, we should know how we do reason. We should know the nature of reasoning before we can investigate the conditions of its validity.

Psychology deals with the actual process of reasoning. Logic deals with the validity of reasoning and the conditions of its validity. Nevertheless, the laws of logic are conditioned by the laws according to which the human personality thinks. All types of logical thinking are limited by the limitations of the human mind.

(v) Psychology and Philosophy:

Philosophy has two parts epistemology and ontology. Psycho­logy is related to epistemology. Psychology enquires into the nature of knowing, feeling, and willing. It deals with knowing as a fact, and the nature and development of knowledge of an individual mind.

It is concerned with the validity of knowledge. Psychology assumes the possibility of knowledge and merely traces its growth and development in an individual mind.

But Epistemology enquires into the conditions under which knowledge is possible, and deals with the validity of knowledge.

(vi) Psychology and Sociology:

Psychology deals with the behaviour pattern of an individual in relation to the environment which is physical as well as social. The external world or light, sound, taste, smell, heat, cold, etc., constitute the physical environment. Parents, relatives, friends, enemies, playmates, companions and all the people with whom an individual comes into contact and interacts constitute his social environment.

(vii) Psychology and Education:

Psychology is the science of the behaviour of the individual in relation to the environment. Education is the science of unfolding the powers, of the pupil and moulding his character and behaviour in such a manner that he becomes a useful and well-adjusted member of the community.

8. Explain historical stages of psychology (pre-scientific, medieval-philosophical and contemporary). It is always a difficult question to ask, where to begin to tell the story of the history of psychology. Some would start with ancient Greece; others would look to a demarcation in the late 19th century when the science of psychology was formally proposed and instituted. Many cultures throughout history have speculated on the nature of the mind, heart, soul, spirit, and brain. Philosophical interest in behavior and the mind dates back to the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, China, and India. Psychology was largely a branch of philosophy until the mid-1800s, when it developed as an independent and scientific discipline in Germany and the United States. These philosophical roots played a large role in the development of the field.

17th Century

René Descartes, a French mathematician and philosopher from the 1600s, theorized that the body and mind are separate entities, a concept that came to be known as dualism. According to dualism, the body is a physical entity with scientifically measurable behavior, while the mind is a spiritual entity that cannot be measured because it transcends the material world. Descartes believed that the two interacted only through a tiny structure at the base of the brain called the pineal gland.

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke were English philosophers from the 17th century who disagreed with the concept of dualism. They argued that all human experiences are physical processes occurring within the brain and nervous system. Thus, their argument was that sensations, images, thoughts, and feelings are all valid subjects of study. As this view holds that the mind and body are one and the same, it later became known as monism. Today, most psychologists reject a rigid dualist position: many years of research indicate that the physical and mental aspects of human experience are deeply intertwined. The fields of psychoneuroimmunology and behavioral medicine explicitly focus on this interconnection.

The late 19th century marked the start of psychology as a scientific enterprise. Psychology as a self-conscious field of experimental study began in 1879, when German scientist Wilhelm Wundt founded the first laboratory dedicated exclusively to psychological research in Leipzig. Often considered the father of psychology, Wundt was the first person to refer to himself as a psychologist and wrote the first textbook on psychology, entitled Principles of Physiological Psychology.

Wundt believed that the study of conscious thoughts would be the key to understanding the mind.

Structuralism

Edward B. Titchener, an English professor and a student under Wundt, expanded upon Wundt's ideas and used them to found the theory of structuralism. This theory attempted to understand the mind as the sum of different underlying parts, and focused on three things: (1) the individual elements of consciousness; (2) how these elements are organized into more complex experiences; and (3) how these mental phenomena correlate with physical events.

9. Reveal a concept of sole as initial psychological phenomenon in ancient science: The beginning of the history of psychology is hard to pinpoint, mainly because it is difficult to establish exactly what psychology is.

Since the dawn of civilization and the establishment of the earliest religions and spiritual beliefs, various priests, shamans and spiritual leaders were responsible for the mental wellbeing of their people. From shamen to Jewish Qabbalists, curing the mind was a huge part of the spiritual path, even if treatment was couched in magic and mystery, using rituals to drive out demons.

If we define psychology as a formal study of the mind and a more systematic approach to understanding and curing mental conditions, then the Ancient Greeks were certainly leading proponents. As with many scientific studies, Aristotle was at the forefront of developing the foundations of the history of psychology. Aristotle's psychology, as would be expected, was intertwined with his philosophy of the mind, reasoning and Nicomachean ethics, but the psychological method started with his brilliant mind and empirical approach.

Of course, it would be unfair to concentrate fully on Aristotle's psychology without studying some of the other great thinkers who contributed to the history of psychology, but his work certainly is the basis of modern methods. Any modern psychologist of note fully understands the basics of Aristotelian thought and recognizes his contribution to the history of psychology.