Unit II The Major Branches of Psychology

Lead-in

1. Adjust the sayings given below (A) with their meanings (B).

A) 1. Many hands make light work

2. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

3. Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

4. If you don’t work, you shan’t it.

5. Work is a blessing not a curse.

B) a. Don’t delay doing a job if you have time to do it now.

b. Everyone has to work to earn a living.

c. If a lot of people help, a job will be easier to do.

d. You can’t work all the time. You need to have a break sometimes.

e. Work should make people happy not sad.

2. What branches of psychology do you know? What exactly do they deal with?

Pre-reading

1. Match the branches of psychology given below with their definitions.

1. Biopsychology	a. The branch of psychology that studies diagnosis and treatment of abnormal behavior
2. Experimental psychology	b. The branch of psychology that considers how the educational process affects students
3. Cognitive psychology	c. The branch of psychology that studies how people's thoughts, feelings, and actions are affected by others
4. Developmental psychology	d. The branch of psychol­ogy that studies the biological basis of behavior
5. Personality psychology	e. The assessment of large-scale programs to determine their effectiveness in meeting their goals
6. Health psychology	f. The branch of psychology that studies the psychology of the workplace, considering productivity, job satisfaction, and related issues
7. Clinical psychology	g. The branch of psychology that considers the academic and emotional problems of elementary and secondary school students
8. Counseling psychology	h. The branch of psychology that studies how people grow and change throughout their lives
9. Educational psychology	i. The branch of psychology that studies the processes of sensing, perceiving, learning, and thinking about the world
10. School psychology	j. The branch of psychology that considers the relationship between people and their physical environment
11. Social psychology	k. The branch of psychology that studies insanity and other legal issues related to psychology
12. Industrial-organizational psychology	l. The branch of psychology that considers our buying habits and the effects of advertising on buyer behavior
13. Environmental psychology	m. The branch of psychology that studies consistency and change in people's behavior and the characteristics that differentiate people
14. Forensic psychology	n. The branch of psychology that focuses on educational, social, and career adjustment issues
15. Program evaluation	o. The branch of psychology that explores the relationship of physical and psychological factors
16. Consumer psychology	p. The branch of psychology that considers higher mental processes including thinking, language, memory, problem solving, knowing, reasoning, judging, and decision making

2. Scan the text and suggest appropriate headings for each part:

a) Understanding Change and Individual Difference

b) Understanding the Social World

c) Sensing, Perceiving, Learning and Thinking about the World

d) Studying and Caring for People’s Physical and Mental Health

e) Studying the biological Foundations

f) Emerging Areas of Study

3. Choose the words from the list to make as many phrases as possible.

Part I
Damaged	excretions of
to determine	to understand
Research	to be related
long-term	Quantities
Disorders	stress
	Chemicals
Part II
Problem	higher mental
Limit	Techniques
central parts	Experimental
Strategies	Appropriately
Efficient	to raise
Part III
to trait	Universal
to attempt	Consistence
to trace	Throughout
Unique	the course of the life span
Part IV
get advice	Unhealthy
scores psychological tests	developing solutions
Disorder	mental health
devote	Prevention
getting along with	loss of touch
everyday crises of life	are trained to
Interaction	Treatment
prevents from	early signs
adjustment problems	Continual
treat problems	Resolving
Part V
to form relationships	important advances
to focus on	select the right parson
Affects	are influenced by
is concerned with	Complex
Part VI
meeting their goals	respond
Habits	Insane
Criteria

4. Fill in the gaps with the words given above.

Text.

Part I.

About a year and a half after the Three Mile Island accident, a team of psychologists studied the urine of people who lived near the ........ nuclear plant. Why would psychologists be interested in urine? The answer, it turns out, is that ........ done in the field of biopsychology, the branch that specializes in the biological bases of behavior, has shown that ........ stress results in the ........ of certain chemicals that are not ordinarily found in large quantities. In order to ........ the nature of ........ at Three Mile Island, then, it was important to search for the presence of such ........ - which were, in fact, found in abnormally large ........ in people living near the Three Mile Island nuclear plant seventeen months after the accident (Baum, Gatchel, & Schaeffer, 1983).

Biopsychologists study a broad range of topics with a focus on the biological foundations of the brain and nervous system. For example, they may investigate the ways in which specific sites in the brain are related to ........ such as Parkinson's disease, or they may attempt to ........ how bodily sensations are ........ emotion.

Part II.

If you have ever wondered how acute your vision is, how you experience pain, or how you can most effectively study, you have …….. a question that is most …….. answered by an …….. psychologist. Experimental psy­chology is the branch of psychology that studies the processes of sensing, per­ceiving, learning, and thinking about the world.

The work of experimental psychologists overlaps that done by biopsycholo­gists, as well as that done in other branches of psychology. Actually, the term "experimental psychologist" is somewhat misleading, since psychologists in every branch use experimental ........, and experimental psychologists do not ........ themselves to only experimental methods.

Several subspecialities have grown out of experimental psychology and have become ........ of the field in their own right. For example, cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology that specializes in the study of ........ processes including thinking, language, memory, problem solving, knowing, reasoning, judging, and decision making. Covering a wide swath of human behavior, cognitive psycholgists have, for instance, identified more ........ ways of remembering and better ........ for solving .........

Part III.

A baby producing its first smile . . . taking its first step . . . saying its first word. These events, which can be characterized as milestones in development, are …….. also singularly special and …….. for each person. Developmental psychologists …….. these changes …….. people's lives.

Developmental psychology is the branch of psychology that studies how people grow and change throughout …...... Another branch, personality psychology, …….. to explain both …….. and change in a person's behavior over time, as well as the individual …….. that differentiate the behavior of one person from another when each confronts the same situation.

Part IV.

If you have difficulties …….. others, …….. unhappiness with your life, or a fear that …….. you …….. carrying out your normal activities, you might consult one of the psychologists who …….. their energies to the study of physical or mental health: health psychologists, clinical psychologists, and counseling psychologists.

Health psychology is the branch of psychology that explores the relationship between psychological factors and physical ailments or disease. For instance, health psychologists are interested in how long-term stress (a psychological factor) can affect physical health, as we saw in the example of Three Mile Island. They are also concerned with identifying ways of promoting behavior related to good health (such as increased exercise) or in discouraging …….. behavior such as smoking.

For clinical psychologists, the focus of activity is on the treatment and …….. of psychological disturbance. Clinical psychology is the branch of psychology that deals with the study, diagnosis, and …….. of abnormal behavior. Clinical psychologists ……... diagnose and …….. ranging from the …….. - such as grief due to the death of a loved one - to more extreme conditions such as …….. with reality. Some clinical psychologists also conduct research, investigating issues that range from identifying the …….. of psychological disturbance to studying the relationship between family communication patterns and psychological …….. .

The kinds of activities carried out by clinical psychologists are varied indeed. It is the clinical psychologist who administers and …….. and who provides psychological services in community …….. centers. Even sexual problems are often treated by the clinical psychologist.

Counseling psychology is the branch of psychology that focuses on educational, social, and career …….. . Almost every college has a counseling center staffed with counseling psychologists, where students can …….. on the kinds of jobs they might be most suited for, on methods of studying effectively, and on strategies for …….. everyday difficulties, from problems with roommates to concerns about a specific professor's grading practices.

Two close relatives of counseling psychology are educational psychology and school psychology. Educational psychology considers how the educational process affects students; it is, for instance, concerned with ways of understanding intelligence, developing better teaching techniques, and understanding teacher- student …….. . School psychology, in contrast, is the specialty devoted to assessing children in elementary and secondary schools who have academic or emotional problems and to …….. to such problems.

Part V.

None of us lives in isolation; rather, we are all part of a …….. network of interrelationships. These networks with other people and with society as a whole are the focus of study of a number of different kinds of psychologists.

Social psychology is the study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and actions are affected by others. Covering a broad area, social psychologists …….. such diverse topics as understanding human aggression, learning why people …….. with one another, and determining how we …….. advertisements.

Industrial-organizational psychology …….. the psychology of the workplace. Such questions as "How do you increase productivity and worker accuracy?" "How can you …….. for a job?" and "Are there ways an employee's job satisfaction can be increased?" are asked by industrial and organizational psychologists.

If you were interested in designing an inner-city apartment building that wouldn't be prone to vandalism, you might turn to an environmental psychologist. Environmental psychology considers the relationship between people and the physical environment. Environmental psychologists have made …….. in understanding how a person's physical environment …….. his or her life on a number of fundamental levels.

Part VI.

As the field of psychology matures, the number of specialty areas increases. For example, forensic psychology focuses on legal issues, such as deciding what …….. indicate that a person is legally …….. and whether larger or smaller juries make fairer decisions. Consumer psychology is oriented toward understanding the factors underlying consumers' buying …….. and the ways in which people …….. to advertisements. Psychologists interested in program evaluation also constitute a growing body; they focus on assessing large-scale programs, usually run by the government, to determine whether they are effective in …….. . For example, psychologists specializing in evaluation have examined the effectiveness of such governmental social services as the Head Start day-care program and Medicaid.

Follow-up

1. In pairs ask and answer questions, as in the example.

S1.: What is biopsychology?

S2.: It’s a branch of psychol­ogy that studies the biological basis of behavior. What do they main topics focus on? ……..

Make notes under the headings, then talk about each branch:

• Name

• Target

• Focus on

• Form of help

2. Select the branch of psychology the most suitable for you. Would you choose this field of psychology for your future career? Given your abilities and interests, what would you like to do, with what age group would you like to work, and what factors would encourage or discourage you from pursuing this career? Use different media sources to explain your answer.

3. Study the diagram and talk about the major settings in which psychologists are employed using the phrases: The majority of people ….. A small percentage of people….. Others prefer to ….. I think it’s important that ….. It seems that ….. ….. is not employed.

The percentage rate:

Schools (15%), four-year colleges (3%), business government and other (12%),

hospitals (9%), other academic settings (4%), universities (18%), other human service (6%), independent practice (17%), medical schools (3%), clinics (10%), unspecified (1%).

4. Project work. Search the Internet and identify the major branches and specialty areas of psychology in Russia at present. Display the percentage of psychologists in each of the major specialty area.

5. Research Project. Today’s media are concerned about such topics as health and well-being, parenting and education, sociocultural context, and social policy. Monitor a newspaper, radio news programs, or television news programs for a week and keep a record of stories that reflect each of these concerns. Then write a brief report in which you answer the following questions:

I. What was the most frequently expressed concern?

II. Were the concerns you encountered in each category focused on one particular kind of story? Or were there a number of different kinds of news items that reflected a variety of concerns within each category? Explain your answer.

III. What information do you wish you had in order to understand the story better.