Samenvatting Psychologacal scaence
Hoofdstuk 1: The science of psychology
1.1 What as pscychologacal scaence?
Psychologacal scaence is the study through research, of mind, brain and behaviour. Mind refers to
mental actiity. Mental actiity results from iiological processes within the brain. Behaviour
descriies the totality of oiseriaile human (or animal) actons.
Psychological science teaches critcal thinking
One of the hallmarks of a good scientst is amiable sceptcism. This trait comiines openness and
wariness. The aiility to think in this way – to systematcally ueston and eialuate informaton using
well-supported eiidence- is called cratical thaniang.
Psychological reasoning examines how people typically think
Through scientic study, psychologists haie discoiered types of situatons in which common sense
fails and iiases infuence people’s judgements. In psychology the term reasoning refers to using
eiidence to draw conclusions. Here, the term psychological reasoning refers to using psychological
research to examine how people typically think, to understand when and why they are likely to draw
erroneous conclusions. Most of the iiases occur iecause people are motiated to use their
intelligence. They want to make sense of eients.
Following are some of the major iiases you will encounter:
- Ignoring evidence (confrmaton bias): don’t believe everything you think
o People show a strong tendency to place great importance on eiidence that supports
their ieliefs and they tend to downplay eiidence that does not match what they
ielieie.
- Failing to accurately judge source credibility: who can you trust?
o You should ie wary of appeals to authority, such as when sources refer to their
expertse rather than to the eiidence. Adiertsers can try to exploit our tendencies
to rely on expertse.
- Misunderstanding or not using statstcs: going with your gut
o People generally fail to understand or use statstcs in their eforts to interpret eients
around them. Statstcs help scientst understand the likelihood that eients happen
simply iy chance.
- Seeing relatonships that do not exist: making something out of nothing
o An extremely common reasoning error is the mispercepton that two eients that
happen at the same tme must somehow ie related. This can lead to supersttous
iehaiiour.
- Using relatve comparisons: now that you put in that way
o Informaton that comes irst has a strong infuence on how people make relatie
comparisons. How a ueston is framed or presented also changes how people
answer the ueston. The framing determines people’s relatie comparisons
- Acceptng afer-the-fact explanatons: I can explain!
o People expect the world to make sense so they ofen come up with explanatons for
why eients happen. They do so eien when they haie incomplete informaton. One
form of this reasoning iias is known as hindsight bias. We are wonderful at
explaining why things happened, iut we are much less successful at predictng future
eients.
- Taking mental shortcuts: keeping it simple
, o people ofen follow simple rules, called heuristcs, to make decisions. These mental
shortcuts are ialuaile iecause they ofen produce reasonaile good decisions
without too much efort. Many heuristcs can lead to inaccurate judgments and
iiased outcomes.
- Failing to see our own inadequacies (self-serving bias): everyone is beter than average
o People are motiated to feel good aiout themselies, and this motiaton afects how
they think. In general, people interpret informaton in ways that support their
positie ieliefs aiout themselies. One factor that promotes oierconidence is that
people haie difculty recognizing their own weaknesses.
1.2 What are the scaentiic foundations of psychology?
Nature/nurture debate: the arguments concerning whether psychological characteristcs are
iiologically innate or ac uired through educaton, experience and culture.
Mand/body problem: a fundamental psychological issue: are mind and iody separate and distnct, or
is the mind simply physical irain’s suijectie experience?
- Leonardo da Vinci studied the irain and he theorized that all sensory messages arriied at
one locaton in the irain. He called that region the sensus communis. He ielieied it to ie the
home of thought and judgment, its name may ie the root of the modern term common
sense.
- René Descartes promoted the infuental theory of dualism. This term refers to the idea that
the mind and the iody are separate yet intertwined. Psychologists nowadays reject dualism.
In their iiew, the mind arises from irain actiity. It does not exist separately.
The major schools of thought that haie characterized the history of experimental psychology
In the 1800s psychologist studied mental actiity through careful scientic oiseriatons. Willem
Wundt realized that psychological processes, the products of psychological actons in the irain, take
tme to occur. He used a method, reacton tme, to assess how uickly people can respond to eients.
Wundt was not satsied with simply studying mental reacton tmes, he wanted to measure
conscious experiences. To do so, he deieloped the method of antrospection, a systematc
examinaton of suijectie mental experiences that re uires people to inspect and report on the
content of their thoughts. The proilem with introspecton is that the experience is suijectie.
Introspecton led to structuralasm. This is an approach to psychology iased on the idea that
conscious experience can ie iroken down into its iasic underlying components. Titcehener, who
used this method, ielieied that an understanding of the iasic elements of conscious experience
would proiide the scientic iasis for understanding the mind.
William James was a critc of structuralism. James argued that the mind is much more complex than
its elements and therefore cannot ie iroken down. He noted that the mind consists of an eier-
changing, contnuous series of thoughts. This stream of conscaousness cannot ie frozen in tme, so
according to James, the structuralists’ techni ues were sterile and articial.
James argued that psychologists ought to examine the functons seried iy the mind – how the mind
operates. According to his approach, known as functionalasm, the mind came into existence oier the
course of human eioluton. Functonalism is an approach to psychology concerned with the adaptie
purpose, or functon, of mind an iehaiiour.
One of the major infuences on functonalism was the work of naturalist Charles Darwin. He
introduced the world to evolutionary theory. Darwin reasoned that species changed oier tme,
changes passed along in suriiiing and reproducing are called adaptations. Darwin was the irst to
,present the mechanism of eioluton called natural selection: the process iy which changes that are
adaptie are passed along and those that are not adaptie are not. The idea that species that are
ieter adapted to their eniironments will suriiie and reproduce iecame known as the survival of
the ftest.
Another school of thought was the Gestalt school, the Gestalt theory is a theory iased on the idea
that the whole of personal experience is diferent from the sum of its consttuent elements. The
Gestalt moiement refected an important idea that the percepton of oijects is suijectie and
dependent on context. Two people can look at an oiject and see diferent things.
In the twenteth century Sigmund Freud speculated that much of human iehaiiour is determined iy
mental processes operatng ielow the leiel of conscious awareness. This suiconscious leiel is called
unconscaous. Freud deieloped psychoanalysas: a method that atempts to iring the contents of the
unconscious into conscious awareness so that conficts can ie reiealed. Howeier, many of his ideas,
such as the meaning of dreams, are impossiile to test using the methods of science.
In 1913, John B. Watson deieloped behavaourasm: a psychological approach that emphasizes the role
of eniironmental forces in producing oiseriaile iehaiiour. Watson ielieied animals and humans
learn iehaiiours through eniironmental experiences.
Later cognitie psychology arose. Cognative psychology is the study of mental functons such as
intelligence, thinking, language, memory and decision making. Later cognitie psychologist joined
with neuroscientsts and cognative neuroscaence emerged. This is the study of the neural
mechanisms underlying thought, learning, percepton, language and memory.
During the mid-twenteth century psychologist emphasized a scientic, experimental approach to
understanding how people are infuenced iy others. The ield that emerged, socaal psychology, is the
study of how people infuence other people’s thoughts, feelings and actons. The related ield,
personalaty psychology, iniolies the study of people’s characteristcs thoughts, emotons and
iehaiiors and how they iary across social situatons.
Rapid adiancements in understanding the iiological and eniironmental iases of psychological
disorders are leading to efectie treatments that allow people to liie normal liies.
1.3 What are the latest developments an psychology?
There are four themes that characterize the latest deielopments in psychological science.
1. Biology is increasingly emphasized in explaining psychological phenomena.
a. Brain chemistry; hundreds of suistances play critcal roles in mental actiity and
iehaiiour
i. Neuroscience; researchers haie ieen aile to study the working irain as it performs
its iital psychological functons. They are aile to do so with irain imaging methods.
A challenge is mapping out how iarious irain regions are connected and how they
work together to produce mental actiity.
c. The human genome (the iasic genetc code); for psychologist this map represents
the foundatonal knowledge for studying how speciic genes afects thoughts,
actons, feelings and disorders. This can create treatments iased on genetc
manipulaton.
2. Eiolutonary thinking is increasingly infuental
a. Soliing adaptie proilems; eiolutonary theory is useful for considering whether
iehaiiors and psychical mechanisms are adaptie. Through eioluton, specialises
mechanisms and adaptie iehaiiors haie ieen iuilt into our iodies and irains.
, i. Our eiolutonary heritage; knowledge of the challenges our early ancestors faced
helps us understand our current iehaiior.
3. Culture proiides adaptie solutons
Human cultural eioluton has occurred much faster than human iiological eioluton. Recogniton has
grown that culture plays a foundatonal role in shaping how people iiew and reason aiout the world
around them. Culture shapes ieliefs and ialues. Cultural rules are learned as norms, which specify
how people ought to iehaie in diferent contexts.
4. Psychological science now crosses leiels of analysis
Researchers haie started to explain iehaiior at seieral leiels of analysis. By crossing leiels,
psychologists are aile to proiide a more complete picture of mental and iehaiioural processes.
There are four iroadly deined leiels of analysis;
o Biological; deals with how the physical iody contriiutes to mind an iehaiiour
o Indiiidual; focuses on indiiidual diferences in personality and in the mental
processes that afect how people perceiie and know the world
o Social; iniolies how group contexts afects the ways in which people interact and
infuence each other
o Cultural; explores how people’s thoughts, feelings and actons are similar or diferent
across cultures
o Ethnomusicology; the cross-cultural study of music preferences has deielop into a
separate ield
o Interdisciplinary; psychologist who collaiorate with researchers from other ields
Suiields in psychology focus on diferent leiels of analysis
- Neuroscience/biological psychologists; examine how iiological systems giie rise to mental
actiity and iehaiior
- Cognitve psychologists; iniestgate processes such as thinking, perceiiing, proilem soliing,
decision making, using language and learning
- Developmental psychologists; study how people change across the life span, from infancy
through old age
- Personality psychologists; seek to understand enduring characteristcs that people display
oier tme and across circumstances
- social psychologists; focus on how people are afected iy the presence of others and how
they form impressions of others
- cultural psychologists; seek to understand how people are infuenced iy the societal rules
that dictate iehaiiour in the cultures in which they are raised
- clinical psychologists; are interested in the factors that cause psychological disorders and the
methods iest used to treat them
- counselling psychologists; oierlap with clinical psychologists. They seek to improie people’s
daily liies, iut they work more with people facing difcult circumstances than with those
who haie serious mental disorders
- school psychologists; work in educatonal seengs
- industrial and organizatonal psychologists; are concerned with iehaiior and productiity in
industry and the workplace
- forensic psychologists; work in legal seengs
- sport psychologists
- health psychologists
Chapter 3: baology and behavaor
3.1 how does the nervous system operate?
