Summary Psychological science
Chapter 1: the science of psychology
'Psychology involves the study of thoughts, feelings, and behavior. The term psychologist is
used broadly to describe someone whose career involves understanding people’s minds or
predicting their behavior.'
Psychological science is the study through research, of mind brain and behavior:
- Mind refers to mental activity. The mind includes the memories, thoughts, feelings,
and perceptual experiences we have while interacting with the world
- The brain is where all these mental activities take place
- Behavior describes the totality of observable human actions. These actions range
from the subtle to the complex
For a long time, psychologists have focused on behavior rather than on mental states.
Psychological science teaches critical thinking
An amiable skeptic remains open to new ideas but is wary of new ‘scientific findings’ when
good evidence and sound reasoning do not seem to support them. Thinking in this way is
called critical thinking. Many decades of psychological research have shown that people’s
intuitions are often wrong, and they tend to be wrong in predictable ways that make critical
thinking very difficult.
1.3 Psychological science helps us understand biased or inaccurate thinking
Intuitive thinking can lead to errors. Most of these errors and biases occur because we are
motivated to use our intelligence.
The brain is highly efficient at finding patterns and noting connections between things. But
sometimes we see patterns that do not really exist. Some of these patterns are:
- Ignoring evidence (confirmation bias): people are inclined to overweigh evidence that
supports their beliefs and tend to downplay evidence that does not match what they
believe. One factor that contributes to confirmation bias is the selective sampling of
information → only looking on websites that are consistent with your own political
views
- Seeing causal relationships that do not exist: an extremely common reasoning error
is the misperception that two events that happen at the same time must somehow
be related
- Accepting after-the-fact explanations (hindsight bias): once we know the outcome,
we interpret and reinterpret old evidence to make sense of that outcome
- Taking mental shortcuts: these mental shortcuts are valuable because they often
produce reasonably good decisions without too much effort. But they can also create
biased outcomes:
o Availability bias: you believe information far more often that is generally
available to you then information which is not in the news that often
,1.4 Why are people unaware of their weaknesses?
People are often blissfully unaware of their weaknesses because they cannot judge those
weaknesses at all. Hypothesis generation is one the most fun parts of thinking like a
psychologist.
Personal ratings versus actual performance
People lack the ability to evaluate their own performance in areas where they have little
expertise – a phenomenon known as the Dunning-Kruger effect.
1.5 Many psychological questions have a long history
The mind/body problem was perhaps the quintessential psychological issue: are the mind
and body separate and distinct or is the mind simply the subjective experience of ongoing
brain activity.
In the 1600s, the philosopher Rene Descartes promoted the influential theory of dualism.
This term refers to the idea that the mind and the body are separate yet intertwined. In
earlier views of dualism, mental functions had been considered the mind’s sovereign
domain, separate from body functions.
Descartes proposed a somewhat different view. The body was nothing more than an organic
machine governed by ‘reflex’. Many mental functions resulted from body functions.
Deliberate action was controlled by the rational mind.
Another question is whether an individual’s psychology is attributable more to nature of
nurture. That is, are psychological characteristics biologically innate? Or are they acquired
through education, experience, and culture (the beliefs, values, rules, norms, and customs
existing within a group of people who share a common language and environment.
1.6 mental processes and behaviors serve functions for individuals and groups
In a system of logic (1843), the philosopher John Stuart Mill declared that psychology should
leave the realms of philosophy and speculation and become a science of observation and
experiment.
If one person could be credited for laying the foundation for modern psychology, it would be
William James. James wrote a penetrating analysis of the human mind, principles of
psychology (1890). It was the most influential bool in the early history of psychology. A core
idea was that the mind is much more complex that its elements and therefore cannot be
broken down.
The mind consists of ever-changing, continuous series of thoughts he called the stream of
consciousness. James also argued that psychologists ought to examine the functions served
by the mind. The mind came into existence over the course of human evolution, also known
as functionalism.
Some features are likely to have evolved through the evolutionary process of natural
selection, by which features that are adaptive are passed along and those that are not
adaptive are not passed along.
,1.7 the field of psychology spans the range of human experience
After decades of focusing on a relatively narrow slice of the world population, the field of
psychology is finally beginning to increase its diversity and inclusion.
Areas of specialization in psychology:
- Clinical: seeks to understand, characterize, and treat mental illness
- Cognitive: laboratory research that aims to understand the basic skills and processes
that are the foundation of mental life and behavior
- Culture: how cultural factors can have profound effects on mental life and behavior
- Developmental: how humans grow and develop from the prenatal period throughout
life
- Health: how psychological processes influence physical health and vice versa
- Industrial/organizational: how psychological processes play out in the workplace
- Relationships: research on our intimate relationships
- Social personality: everyday thoughts, feelings and behaviors and the factor that give
rise to them
1.8 biology is increasingly emphasized in explaining psychological phenomena
Recent decades have seen remarkable growth in the understanding of the biological bases of
mental activities. Three major advances were:
- Brain imaging: technology such as electroencephalography (EEG), which measures
changes in electrical activity, and now devices that measure subtle changes in the
magnetic field caused by changes in blood flow have significantly accelerated
progress in brain science
o fMRI enables researchers to study the working brain as it performs its
psychological functions in close to real time
o human connectome project was to build a network map of the brain and its
functions
Genetics and epigenetics
The human genome is the basic genetic code for the human body. It is foundational
knowledge for studying how specific genes affect thoughts, actions, feelings, and disorders.
Epigenetics is the study of the ways these environmental mechanisms can get ‘under the
skin’ to influence our mind and behavior.
Immunology and other peripheral systems
There has been an enormous form of progress in
understanding how the immune system protects our
bodies and interacts with other systems that
respond to stress etc. One active area of research
explores the two-way relation between the gut
microbiomes. The billions of microorganisms that
live in our digestive tract, and our mind and
behavior.
, 1.9 psychology is a computational and data science
During the first half of the twentieth century, psychology was largely focused on studying
observable behavior to the exclusion of mental events such as thoughts and feelings, an
approach known as behaviorism. But evidence explained that it was not as simple as
behaviorists made it seem to be.
To address the need of including the thoughts as well as the
behavior the psychologists George A. Miller and his colleagues
launched the cognitive revolution. And the cognitive revolution
was accelerated by the computer age.
The big data approach uses tools from the computer science
world, such as data mining and machine learning to identity
complex patterns in large data sets.
Replicability, open science, and data sharing
One feature of a good scientific study is replicability, meaning
that the results would be the same if someone ran the study
again.
Open science emphasizes research transparency and data
accessibility.
1.11 psychological science crosses levels of analysis
Four broadly defined levels of analysis reflect common research methods:
- Biological level of analysis: deals with how the physical body contributes to mind and
behavior
- individual level of analysis: focuses on individual differences in personality and in the
mental processes that affect how people perceive and know the world
- social level of analysis: involves how group contexts affect the ways in which people
interact and influence each other
Together they are sometimes referred to as the biopsychosocial model.
- Cultural level of analysis: which explores how people’s thoughts etc. are similar or
different across cultures
Biopsychosocial model: an approach to psychological science that integrates biological
factors, psychological processes, and social-contextual influences in shaping human mental
life and behavior.
1.12 psychological education embraces the science of learning
Distributed practice is learning material in bursts over a prolonged time frame is one of the
best ways to learn. It turns out that tests are not only good for figuring out whether you
know something. Being tested on material can help you learn that material better, an effect
known as retrieval-based learning. Repeatedly recalling content from memory makes that
content stick in your mind better and longer.
Asking ‘Why?’ can help you learn especially when the material to be learned is factual
knowledge. Elaborative interrogation helps you link the new fact to existing knowledge in
your mind and integrate it into your understanding. Another beneficial technique is
interleaved practice or switching between topics during studying instead of completing one
topic before moving on to the next.
