Psychology As a science

Psychological phenomena are complex, and making predictions about them is difficult

because of individual differences and because they are multiply determined at different levels of explanation.

All scientists, whether they are physicists, chemists, biologists, sociologists, or psychologists, use

empirical methods to study the topics that interest them. Empirical methods include the processes of collecting and organizing data and drawing conclusions about those data. The empirical methods used by scientists have developed over many years and provide a basis for collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data within a common framework in which information can be shared. We can label the scientific method as the set of assumptions, rules, and procedures that scientists use to conduct empirical research.

Cognitive Psychology

is a blend of humanism and behaviorism. It gives special attention on thought process, the reasoning as well as problem solving. Cognitive psychologists are concerned on understanding the basic methods of the operation of the human brain.

Lower level is biological -

Depression is in part genetically influenced.Depression is influenced by the action of neurotransmitters in the brain.

Psychology is a popular major for students, a popular topic in the public media, and a part of our everyday lives.

Because Television shows such as Dr. Phil feature psychologists who provide personal advice to those with personal or family difficulties. Crime dramas such as CSI, Lie to Me, and others feature the work of forensic psychologists who use psychological principles to help solve crimes.

the difference between values and facts and explain how the scientific method is used to differentiate between the two.

Although scientific research is an important method of studying human behavior, not all questions can be answered using scientific approaches. Statements that cannot be objectively measured or objectively determined to be true or false are not within the domain of scientific inquiry. Scientists therefore draw a distinction between values and facts. Values are personal statements such as "Abortion should not be permitted in this country," "I will go to heaven when I die," or "It is important to study psychology." Facts are objective statements determined to be accurate through empirical study. Examples are "There were more than 21,000 homicides in the United States in 2009," or "Research demonstrates that individuals who are exposed to highly stressful situations over long periods of time develop more health problems than those who are not."

Why do Psychologists use the scientific method to collect, analyze, and interpret evidence?

Because people are frequently unaware of the causes of their own behaviors. Employing the scientific method allows the scientist to collect empirical data objectively, which adds to the accumulation of scientific knowledge.

The results of these everyday research projects can teach us many principles of human behavior.

Because we learn through experience that if we give someone bad news, he or she may blame us even though the news was not our fault. We learn that people may become depressed after they fail at an important task. We see that aggressive behavior occurs frequently in our society, and we develop theories to explain why this is so. These insights are part of everyday social life. In fact, much research in psychology involves the scientific study of everyday behavior (Heider, 1958; Kelley, 1967).

The study of psychology spans many different topics at many different levels of explanation, which are the perspectives that are used to understand behavior.

Lower levels of explanation are more closely tied to biological influences, such as genes, neurons, neurotransmitters, and hormones, whereas the middle levels of explanation refer to the abilities and characteristics of individual people, and the highest levels of explanation relate to social groups, organizations, and cultures (Cacioppo, Berntson, Sheridan, & McClintock, 2000).

Once we learn about the outcome of a given event (for example, when we read about the results of a research project), we frequently believe that we would have been able to predict the outcome ahead of time. For instance, if half of a class of students is told that research concerning attraction between people has demonstrated that "opposites attract" and the other half is told that research has demonstrated that "birds of a feather flock together," most of the students will report believing that the outcome that they just read about is true, and that they would have predicted the outcome before they had read about it.

Of course, both of these contradictory outcomes cannot be true. (In fact, psychological research finds that "birds of a feather flock together" is generally the case.) The problem is that just reading a description of research findings leads us to think of the many cases we know that support the findings, and thus makes them seem believable. The tendency to think that we could have predicted something that has already occurred that we probably would not have been able to predict is called the hindsight bias.

Middle level is interpersonal-

People who are depressed may interpret the events that occur to them too negatively.Psychotherapy can be used to help people talk about and combat depression.

What is psychology?

Psychology is the scientific study of the mind and behavior. We include science in our definition because we use the scientific method, which is the best way for scientists to ask questions and test explanations to arrive at new knowledge.

Although scientists use research to help establish facts, the distinction between values and facts is not always clear-cut.

Sometimes statements that scientists consider to be factual later, on the basis of further research, turn out to be partially or even entirely incorrect. Even though scientific procedures do not guarantee that the answers to questions will be objective and unbiased, science is still the best method for drawing objective conclusions about the world around us. When old facts are discarded, they are replaced with new facts based on newer and more correct data. Although science is not perfect, the requirements of empiricism and objectivity result in a much greater chance of producing an accurate understanding of human behavior than is available through other approaches.

Outline the basic schools of psychology

Structuralism, Functionalism, the Gestalt Psychology, Behaviorism, Psychoanalysis, Humanism and Cognitive Psychology.

Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Though it is easy to think that everyday situations have commonsense answers, scientific studies have found that people are not always as good at predicting outcomes as they think they are. This is termed the ____ because

The hindsight bias leads us to think that we could have predicted events that we actually could not have predicted.

why using our intuition about everyday behavior is insufficient for a complete understanding of the causes of behavior.

The problem, however, with the way people collect and interpret data in their everyday lives is that they are not always particularly thorough. Often, when one explanation for an event seems right, we adopt that explanation as the truth even when other explanations are possible and potentially more accurate. For example, eyewitnesses to violent crimes are often extremely confident in their identifications of the perpetrators of these crimes. But research finds that eyewitnesses are no less confident in their identifications when they are incorrect than when they are correct (Cutler & Wells, 2009; Wells & Hasel, 2008). People may also become convinced of the existence of extrasensory perception (ESP), or the predictive value of astrology, when there is no evidence for either (Gilovich, 1993). Furthermore, psychologists have also found that there are a variety of cognitive and motivational biases that frequently influence our perceptions and lead us to draw erroneous conclusions (Fiske & Taylor, 2007; Hsee & Hastie, 2006). In summary, accepting explanations for events without testing them thoroughly may lead us to think that we know the causes of things when we really do not.

Despite the differences in their interests, areas of study, and approaches, all psychologists have one thing in common:

They rely on scientific methods. Research psychologists use scientific methods to create new knowledge about the causes of behavior, whereas psychologist-practitioners, such as clinical, counseling, industrial-organizational, and school psychologists, use existing research to enhance the everyday life of others. The science of psychology is important for both researchers and practitioners.

In a sense all humans are scientists.

We all have an interest in asking and answering questions about our world. We want to know why things happen, when and if they are likely to happen again, and how to reproduce or change them. Such knowledge enables us to predict our own behavior and that of others. We may even collect data (information collected through formal observation or measurement) to aid us in this undertaking. It has been argued that people are "everyday scientists" who conduct research projects to answer questions about behavior (Nisbett & Ross, 1980). When we perform poorly on an important test, we try to understand what caused our failure to remember or understand the material and what might help us do better the next time. When our good friends Monisha and Charlie break up, despite the fact that they appeared to have a relationship made in heaven, we try to determine what happened. When we contemplate the rise of terrorist acts around the world, we try to investigate the causes of this problem by looking at the terrorists themselves, the situation around them, and others' responses to them.

Higher level is cultural -

Women experience more depression than do men.The prevalence of depression varies across cultures and historical time periods.

The same topic can be studied within psychology at different levels of explanation, as shown in the figure "Levels of Explanation," below. For instance, the psychological disorder known as depression affects millions of people worldwide and is known to be caused by biological, social, and cultural factors. Studying and helping alleviate depression can be accomplished at low levels of explanation by investigating how chemicals in the brain influence the experience of depression. This approach has allowed psychologists to develop and prescribe drugs, such as Prozac, which may decrease depression in many individuals (Williams, Simpson, Simpson, & Nahas, 2009). At the middle levels of explanation, psychological therapy is directed at helping individuals cope with negative life experiences that may cause depression. And at the highest level, psychologists study differences in the prevalence of depression between men and women and across cultures. The occurrence of psychological disorders, including depression, is substantially higher for women than for men, and it is also higher in Western cultures, such as in the United States, Canada, and Europe, than in Eastern cultures, such as in India, China, and Japan (Chen, Wang, Poland, & Lin, 2009; Seedat et al., 2009). These sex and cultural differences provide insight into the factors that cause depression. The study of depression in psychology helps remind us that no one level of explanation can explain everything. All levels of explanation, from biological to personal to cultural, are essential for a better understanding of human behavior.

accomplished at low levels of explanation by investigating how chemicals in the brain influence the experience of depression. This approach has allowed psychologists to develop and prescribe drugs, such as Prozac, which may decrease depression in many individuals (Williams, Simpson, Simpson, & Nahas, 2009). At the middle levels of explanation, psychological therapy is directed at helping individuals cope with negative life experiences that may cause depression. And at the highest level, psychologists study differences in the prevalence of depression between men and women and across cultures. The occurrence of psychological disorders, including depression, is substantially higher for women than for men, and it is also higher in Western cultures, such as in the United States, Canada, and Europe, than in Eastern cultures, such as in India, China, and Japan (Chen, Wang, Poland, & Lin, 2009; Seedat et al., 2009). These sex and cultural differences provide insight into the factors that cause depression. The study of depression in psychology helps remind us that no one level of explanation can explain everything. All levels of explanation, from biological to personal to cultural, are essential for a better understanding of human behavior.

Humanism

as contrary to the humanist and the behaviorist believed that every person is destined to be good. This psychologist also believed that criminality as well as delinquency are just caused by the environment that they claimed to be unhealthy and are inadequate for the proper development of the individual. Humanist believed that every individual has desire for what is good.

Explain how psychology changed from a philosophical to a scientific discipline.

because psychological experiences are extremely complex. The questions psychologists pose are as difficult as those posed by doctors, biologists, chemists, physicists, and other scientists, if not more so (Wilson, 1998).

Many people have direct knowledge about psychology

because they have visited psychologists, for instance, school counselors, family therapists, and religious, marriage, or bereavement counselors.

Gestalt Psychology

is lead by Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Wertheimer and Koffha (German psychologist). The Gestalt psychologist analyzes experience by configuration, whole or pattern. These psychologists give importance to the wholeness in the process of learning. They give emphasis that the whole is greater than the sum to its parts. Furthermore, they give emphasis of form in perception, they believed that shapes and forms need to be describe by the organization of the entire perceptual field.

Structuralism

is lead by Wudnt and Titchener. This school of psychology is primarily deals with the study of the element which form the structure of the mind. Structuralist used the method of "Introspection".

A major goal of psychology is to predict behavior by understanding its causes. However,

making predictions is difficult in part because people vary and respond differently in different situations. Individual differencesare the variations among people on physical or psychological dimensions. For instance, although many people experience at least some symptoms of depression at some times in their lives, the experience varies dramatically among people. Some people experience major negative events, such as severe physical injuries or the loss of significant others, without experiencing much depression, whereas other people experience severe depression for no apparent reason. Other important individual differences that we will discuss in the chapters to come include differences in extroversion, intelligence, self-esteem, anxiety, aggression, and conformity.lol

Another reason that it is difficult to predict behavior is that almost all behavior is

multiply determined, or produced by many factors. And these factors occur at different levels of explanation. We have seen, for instance, that depression is caused by lower-level genetic factors, by medium-level personal factors, and by higher-level social and cultural factors. You should always be skeptical about people who attempt to explain important human behaviors, such as violence, child abuse, poverty, anxiety, or depression, in terms of a single cause.

Because values cannot be considered to be either true or false, science cannot

prove or disprove them. Nevertheless, as demonstrated in the activity "Facts vs. Values in Scientific Research," research can sometimes provide facts that can help people develop their values. For instance, science may be able to objectively measure the impact of unwanted children on a society or the psychological trauma suffered by women who have abortions. The effect of capital punishment on the crime rate in the United States may also be determinable. This factual information can and should be made available to help people formulate their values about abortion and capital punishment, as well as to enable governments to articulate appropriate policies. Values also frequently come into play in determining what research is appropriate or important to conduct. For instance, the US government has supported and provided funding for research on HIV, AIDS, and terrorism, while denying funding for research using human stem cells.

The word psychology comes from the Greek words

psyche, meaning "life," and logos, meaning "explanation."

Most psychologists work in

research laboratories, hospitals, and other field settings where they study the behavior of humans and animals. For instance, university researchers may study such diverse topics as anxiety in children, the interpretation of dreams, the effects of caffeine on thinking, how birds recognize each other, how praying mantises hear, how people from different cultures react differently in negotiation, and the factors that lead people to engage in terrorism. Other topics of study include alcohol and drug addiction; memory; emotion; hypnosis; love; what makes people aggressive or helpful; and the psychologies of politics, prejudice, culture, and religion. Psychologists also work in schools and businesses, and they use a variety of methods, including observation, questionnaires, interviews, and laboratory studies, to help them understand behavior.

Another difficulty in studying psychology is that much human behavior is caused by factors that are outside our conscious awareness, making it impossible for us, as individuals, to really understand them. It is the

role of unconscious processes was emphasized in the theorizing of the Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), who argued that many psychological disorders were caused by memories that we have repressed and thus remain outside our consciousness. Unconscious processes will be an important part of our study of psychology, and we will see that current research has supported many of Freud's ideas about the importance of the unconscious in guiding behavior.

Functionalism

was developed at the University of Chicago. It was lead by John Dewey and James Angell. It also developed at the Harvard University with William James. Functionalist are involved in studying the functions of consciousness. They believed that the learning process was aided by consciousness. The study of functionalist also deals with personality, intelligence and other practical problem related to the field of education. The functionalist is interested in the learning process because the learning process is one of the means of adjustment of man to the environment where he live.

Psychoanalysis

was developed by Dr. Sigmund Freud. He developed this theory explaining the physical, nervous and emotional disorders with the organic explanations. Sigmund Freud is interested on the sub-conscious mind.

Behaviorism

was lead by John B. Watson. He is a professor of psychology at John Hopkins University. The psychologists believed that psychology should be concerned with behaviors. They stressed that behaviors are observable and they are not conscious experience that is subjective and only known to the person involved.