3671

Министерство образования и науки Российской Федерации

НОВОСИБИРСКИЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ ТЕХНИЧЕСКИЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ

81.2Англ	№ 3671
И 683

ИНОСТРАННЫЙ ЯЗЫК

Английский для студентов специальности «Психология»

Методическое пособие

НОВОСИБИРСК

2009

ББК 81.432.1-923 И 683

Составители: ст. преп. Е.Г. Ваганова, преп. Е.В. Якушко

Рецензенты:

канд. филос. наук, доцент каф. ин. яз. ТФ НГТУ Г.В. Игонина, ст. преп. каф. ин. яз. ФГО НГТУ Л.А. Азябцева

Методическое пособие предназначено для изучения профессиональноориентированного английского языка. Пособие содержит тексты для чтения, упражнения для развития навыков устной и письменной речи. В представленных текстах рассматриваются такие темы, как история развития психологии и ее связь с другими науками, процессы мышления и восприятия, управление стрессом, социальное давление и стереотипы.

Методическое пособие предназначено для студентов 2 курса ФГО, специальность «Психология», а также для всех, кто совершенствует речевую компетенцию и интересуется представленной тематикой текстов.

© Hовосибиpский государственный технический университет, 2009

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Contents
Unit 1. PSYCHOLOGY AS A SCIENCE
OF CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE.......................................................	4
Text 1. The historical background of psychology......................................	4
Text 2. The scope of psychology. Its relations to other sciences ...............	8
Text 3. Careers in psychology..................................................................	12
Text 4. What type of psychologists would you like to be? ......................	15
Unit 2. THE PROCESS OF SENSATION ..................................................	17
Text 1. Sensation and the nervous system................................................	17
Text 2. Taste and smell lessen with age ...................................................	21
Text 3. Déjà vu.........................................................................................	23
Unit 3. THE PROCESS OF THINKING .....................................................	25
Text 1. Memory and thinking...................................................................	25
Text 2. Psychoanalysis as a theory and a therapy ....................................	28
Text 3. Stress at work...............................................................................	30
Text 4. Stress management ......................................................................	31
Unit 4. THE PROCESS OF PERCEPTION ............................................	33
Text 1. Perception ....................................................................................	33
Text 2. Social pressure and perception.....................................................	35
Text 3. Stereotypes and stereotyping .......................................................	37
List of Literature ..........................................................................................	39

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UNIT 1. PSYCHOLOGY AS A SCIENCE

OF CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE

Text 1. The historical background of psychology

Psychology has both a traditional and scientific history, as any other science. Traditionally, psychology dates back to the earliest speculations about the relationships of mеn with their environment. Beginning from 600 B.C. the Greek intellectuals observed and discussed these relationships. Empedocles said that the cosmos consisted of four elements: earth, air, fire and water. Hippocrates translated these elements into four bodily humors and characterized the temperament of individuals on the basis of these humors.

Plato recognized two classes of phenomena: things and ideas. Ideas, he said, come from two sources: some are innate and come with a soul, others are product of observations through the sense organs. The giant of the thinkers was Aristotle. He was interested in anatomy and physiology of the body, he explained learning on the basis of association of ideas, he said knowledge should be achieved on the basis of observations.

After the birth of Christ, St. Augustine characterized the method of introspection and developed a field of knowledge, later called as faculty psychology. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, scientific truth must be based on observation and experimentation.

During the 15th and 16th centuries the scientific knowledge developed greatly. Among the most important scientific investigations were those of Newton in psychology of vision and Harvey in physiology.

The mind – body problem was very important for the 17th and 18th centuries philosophers and entered recent psychology. Here appeared such theories as: 1) occasionalism, according to which God is between a mind and a body; 2) double aspect theory, in which a mind and a body are different aspects of the same substance; 3) psychophysical parallelism, according to which a mind and a body are parallel in their actions.

The year 1879 is considered to be the start of psychology as a separate discipline. It was the date when Wilhelm Wundt created the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany. Americans disagree and think that William

James was the “founding father of psychology” because in 1875 he started teaching a course on the relationship between physiology and psychology at Harvard University. In 1890 he wrote a book “Principles of psychology” which was a very important step in the history of psychology.

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Structuralism was the first approach in psychology. It was described by Wundt who thought that the object of psychological investigation should be the conscious mind. According to Wundt, the mind should be studied by introspection ( looking at one’s own mental experience) in order to break down into its components such as images, sensations and feelings.

Functionalism was developed by W. James who thought that the workings of the mind are functional. The mind works to survive and to adapt. So we should investigate what behaviour and thoughts are for.

At the turn of the 19th century two powerful approaches appeared. One of them is psychoanalysis developed by Sigmund Freud in Austria. Freud wrote that the proper object of psychological investigation should be unconscious mind and that our behaviour is determined by processes that we are not aware of.

Behaviourism, introduced by John Watson, was the most important of all approaches that investigated “minds” and proposed that psychology should investigate only observable behaviour if it wanted to be an objective science. This approach dominated experimental psychology until 1950’s.

Cognitive psychology investigates the mind by using computer information processing ideas to arrive at models of how our brain works and then apply scientific methods to confirm these models. The cognitive approach was successful and is a very dominant one in psychology today.

The Humanistic approach has had less of an impact on psychology because it adapted less scientific view of the human mind. Humanistic psychologists argued that psychology should focus on each individual’s conscious experience and aims in life.

The biological approach has advanced evolutionary, physiological and genetic explanation for human behaviour throughout the history of psychology.

Questions to the text:

1.What are the roots of psychology?

2.Who made a contribution in the development of psychology? Enumerate some ancient thinkers mentioned in the text and their investigations.

3.What major theories appeared on the basis of the mind – body problem in the 17th – 18th centuries?

4.What year is considered to be the start of psychology? Who created the first psychology laboratory?

5.Who is considered to be the “founding father” of psychology in the

USA?

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6.What is the object of investigation from the structuralist point of

view?

7.Who developed the functional approach in psychology? What are the functions of brain from the functional point of view?

8.What approaches appeared at the turn of the19th century? What were the objects of their investigations?

9.What does cognitive psychology aim to investigate?

10.What did the humanistic psychologists argue for?

11.What did the biological approach contribute to the study of human behaviour?

Tasks:

1.Form nouns with –ist and adjectives with –ical from the nouns: psychology, physiology, microbiology, biology, cardiology, neurology according to the pattern: sociology – sociologist – sociological.

2.Choose the right word from the box and insert it into one of the sentences given below:

approach, to apply, application, environment, to deal with

These findings can be …… in industry.

Individuals try to adapt to the conditions of their social …….. . Subjects used an extraordinary different …… to the problem.

Several countries now have one or more research organizations which

……. with the problem of human ageing.

It is difficult to translate laboratory and clinical findings directly into practical …….. .

3. Arrange the following in pairs of synonyms:

basic	to connect
to investigate	social intercourse
throughout	to evaluate
to provide	to increase
to link	teenager
people	main
communication	during
to assess	to give
setting	to study
to enhance	human beings
youngster	environment
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4. Translate the following sentences and word combinations into Russian (the exercise to be done orally):

he behaved badly at the lesson; Bill, behave yourself!; people behave differently in this situation; to study the behaviour of man; what can you say about his behaviour?

to deal with animals; to deal with man’s behaviour; to deal with the selection of animals for the experiment;

to apply the results of the experiment to practice; to apply a new method; an application of new methods; the application of natural selection; the application of a law;

good conditions; under difficult conditions; to study their life conditions;

natural environment; artificial environment; to study the environmental conditions;

the subjective approach to the problem; the objective approach; an artificial approach;

the results will depend on our approach to the problem; we are dependent on our environment; to study the dependence of one’s behaviour on the environmental conditions;

to contribute to the investigation of a problem; to contribute to the development of psychology; to make important contributions to the field of animal psychology.

5. Translate the following sentences from Russian into English, using the vocabulary of the previous exercise:

─Во время осмотра больной вел себя спокойно.

─Мы изучали поведение животных в разных условиях.

─Ученый провел этот эксперимент в очень трудных условиях.

─Психологи также имеют дело с субъективным человеческим опытом.

─Трудно иметь с ним дело.

─Лучше иметь дело с объективными факторами.

─Ученый применил новый метод к своему исследованию.

─Применение нового метода дало хорошие результаты.

─Применяйте ваши знания на практике.

─Я могу это сделать при одном условии.

─Проблема «Человек и окружающая среда» очень важна.

─Поведение зависит от окружающей среды.

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─Ученые получили новые свидетельства зависимости животных от окружающей среды.

─Такой подход к проблеме очень интересен.

6. Make a report about a famous psychologist and his contribution to the development of the science.

Text 2. The scope of psychology. Its relations to other sciences

A science is an organized body of reliable information. Such a body of knowledge does not grow as a result of speculation alone, nor does it develop from random observations. Its accumulation depends on the use of special procedures which constitute a scientific method. In the early stages of a science, moreover, the importance of the procedure used far outweighs that of the information obtained.

Psychology, like every other science, acquired scientific status when (1) its observations became systematic rather than aimless; (2) its observations became impersonal – that is to say, when psychologists honestly sought information instead of attempting to prove their own ideas by a prejudiced selection of facts, and (3) it became possible for any qualified investigator to repeat the observations of another, under essentially the same conditions, and to verify the results, i.e., in other words, it became experimental.

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 or soul”. There are many modern definitions of the term. One of them belongs to Atkinson, who defined psychology as “the scientific study of behaviour and mental processes”. So in the definition of psychology there are three basic words: “science”, “behaviour”, “mental processes”.

“Science” means a rational investigation of processes and phenomena. By “behaviour” psychologists mean everything that people and animals do: actions, emotions, ways of communication, developmental processes. Since life span of most laboratory animals is shorter than that of people, it is possible to control genetic factors more easily than with people. Another advantage of studying animals is that animal behaviour is simplier than human behaviour and so it can be more easily investigated. “Mental processes” characterize the work of the mind and the nervous system.

Thus, psychology as a science studies mental activity and behaviour. Psychologists study basic functions such as learning, memory, language,

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thinking, emotions and motives with the help of several scientific methods: observing, measuring, testing, analyzing statistics. They investigate development throughout the life span from birth to death. They are involved in mental and physical health care. They treat people who are emotionally distressed.

Psychology occupies a strategic position between natural and social sciences on the one hand, and between sciences and humanities, on the other.

Each of the subjects listed in four groups (see the diagram below) has its own relationship with psychology. For example, knowledge of physics and chemistry is necessary to provide a scientific basis for experimental psychology. Psychology is also closely linked to sociology. But whereas sociologists their attention to groups, group processes and social forces, social psychologists focus on group and social influences on individuals. Psychology and biology are also closely connected. Physiological psychologists investigate the role of the brain and the nervous system in such functions as memory, language, sleep, attention, movement, perception, hunger, anger and joy. On the other hand, psychologists took much from the theory of knowledge, logic and philosophy of science. Besides, psychology separates from philosophy. Anthropology is the study of the physical evolution of mankind, the origins of social groups and the development of civilizations. Its examination of various cultures – especially the so called primitive ones – has provided psychology with much significant data for understanding the influence of cultural factors on human behaviour patterns.

	I. Natural Sciences		III. Humanities
	Physics	Zoology	Philosophy
	Chemistry	|	Literature
	Pharmacology	Neurophysiology	History of Art
	Mathematics	and Anatomy	Religion
		|
	II. Social Sciences		IV. Applications
		Psychology
	Anthropology		Education
	Sociology		Law and Criminology
	Economics		Management
	Political Science		Medicine
	Linguistics		Psychiatry

Table to illustrate the place of psychology among the sciences and humanities

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Questions to the text:

1.What is a science?

2.What does the accumulation of scientific knowledge depend on?

3.When did psychology acquire scientific status?

4.What are the main methods of psychological investigations?

5.What basic words are there in the definition of psychology? What do they mean?

6.What position does psychology occupy among the sciences and humanities? Prove that each of the subjects listed in four groups has its own relationship with psychology.

Tasks:

1. a) Give Russian equivalents for:

mental activity, human behaviour, to provide a scientific basis, to be closely connected to, to be derived from, to conduct research, school settings;

b) Give English equivalents for:

память, мышление, естественные науки, гуманитарные науки, с одной стороны, с другой стороны, внимание, восприятие, определение, общение, оценивать, окружающая среда.

2. Arrange the following in pairs of antonyms:

birth	joy
on the one hand	to worsen
anger	inside
to separate	death
primary	regress
achievement	to decrease
within	on the other hand
to enhance	to unite
to improve	final

3. Translate the following text from Russian into English:

Методы психологического исследования зависят от задач исследования. Два главных метода применяются в процессе изучения человека и животных. Это экспериментальный метод и метод наблюдения.

Эксперимент проводится в лаборатории при тщательно контролируемых условиях. Поведение испытуемых в этих условиях

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