Chapter 1
The Science of Psychology
1.1 Psychological Science is the study of mind, brain and behavior.
Psychology involves the study of thoughts, feelings, and behaviour. The term
psychologist is used broadly to describe someone whose career involves
understanding people’s minds of predicting their behaviour. Humans could not
function without understanding others and predict others behavior.
Psychological science is the study, through research, of mind, brain, and behavior.
Mind refers to mental activity (memories/ thoughts/ feelings/ perceptual
experiences).
Mental activity results from biochemical processes within the brain.
Behavior describes the totality if observable human actions.
Long psychologists focused on behavior rather than on mental states. They didn’t
have much objective techniques for assessing the mind.
1.2 Psychological Science teaches critical thinking
One of the hallmarks of a good scientist is amiable skepticism. 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,
systematically questioning and evaluating information using well-supported
evidence, is called critical thinking. Being a critical thinker involves looking for
holes in evidence, using logic and reasoning to see whether the information makes
sense, and considering alternative explanations. It also requires considering whether
the information might be biased.
1.3 Psychological Science helps us understand biased or inaccurate thinking
Psychologists have cataloged some ways that intuitive thinking can lead to errors.
The human brain is highly efficient at finding patterns and connections, but
sometimes we see patterns that do nit really exist. False beliefs can sometimes lead
to dangerous actions.
Common biases:
- Ignoring evidence (conformation bias). Overweight evidence that supports
beliefs and downplay evidence that doesn’t match beliefs. Contributing factor
is selective sampling of information.
- Seeing causal relationships that do not exist. The misperception that
two events must be related.
- Accepting after-the-fact explanations (hindsight bias). We are good in
explaining past events but not at predicting future events.
- Taking mental shortcuts. People follow simple rules (heuristics) to make
decisions. But these can lead to biased outcomes.
Availability heuristic = things that come most easily to mind guide out
thinking.
1.4 Why are people unaware of their weaknesses?
Another bias in thinking is that people are motivated to feel good about themselves,
and this motivation affects how they interpret information. Dunning & Kruger’s
explanation is that people are often blissfully unaware of their weaknesses because
they cannot judge those weaknesses at all.
Considering possibilities is known as hypothesis generation and occurs near the
beginning of the scientific process.
,Dunning & Kruger found that people with the lowest grades rate their mastery of
academic skills much higher than is warranted by their performance people lack
the ability to evaluate their own performance in areas where they have little
expertise (Dunning-Kruger effect)
Psychology originated with the ancient philosophers, who explored questions about
human nature. It was until the 1800s that psychologists began to use scientific
methods to investigate mind, brain and behavior.
1.5 Many psychological questions have a long history
Mind/body problem = a fundamental psychological issue. Are mind and body
separate and distinct or is the mind simply the physical brain’s subjective experience.
First believed was that the mind was separate from the body. Da Vinci challenged
this doctrine when dissecting human bodies for his anatomical drawings.
Descartes promoted the theory of dualism. This is the idea that the mind and the
body are separate yet intertwined. The body was nothing more than an organic
machine governed by reflex.
Nowadays, psychologists reject dualism. In their view, the mind arises from
brain activity, and the activities of the mind change the brain.
Nature/ nurture debate = the arguments concerning whether psychological
characteristics are biologically innate or acquired through education, experience, and
culture.
1.6 Mental processes and behavior serve functions for individuals and groups
Psychology arose as a field of study built on the experimental method. In A System of
Logic, John Stuart Mill defined psychology as: the science of elementary laws of the
mind. William James laid the foundation for modern psychology. A core idea of him
was that the mind is much more complex than its elements and therefore cannot be
broken down. He noted that the mind consists of an ever-changing, continuous series
of thoughts stream of consciousness is the product of interacting and dynamic
stimuli coming from both inside our head as outside the world. James argued that
psychologists ought to examine the functions served by the mind functionalism
(approach concerned with the adaptive purpose, or function, if mind and behavior). It
helps humans adapt to environmental demands.
Natural selection = the idea that those who inherit characteristics that help them
adapt to their particular environments have a selective advantage over those who do
not. Features that are adaptive (that facilitate survival and reproduction) are passed
along, and those not adaptive (that hinder survival and reproduction) are not passed
along.
1.7 The field of psychology spans the range of human experience
Psychologists are interested in mental phenomena. The topics are universal, but the
way we experience them can vary within an individual people and across people.
The field of psychology is increasing its diversity and inclusion.
Areas of specialization in psychology:
Clinical psychology (understand mental illness)
Cognitive psychology (understand basic skills and processes that are the
foundation of mental life and behavior).
Cultural psychology (understand effects of cultural factors on mental life and
behavior).
Developmental psychology (understand how humans grow and develop)
Health psychology (understand how psychological processes influence
physical health and vice versa)
, Industrial/organizational psychology (understand how psychological processes
play out in the workplace)
Close relationships psychologists (research our intimate relationships)
Social-personality psychology (study of everyday thoughts, feelings, and
behaviors, and the factors that give rise to them)
1.8 Biology is increasingly emphasized in explaining psychological phenomena
Three major advances that helped further the scientific understanding of
psychological phenomena:
1. Brain imaging. Technology such as EEG and now devices that measure
subtle changes in the magnetic field have significantly accelerated progress in
brain science. The method fMRI can reveal changes in brain activation in
response to different mental processes. Research has made clear that there is
some localization of function. Many brain regions have to work together to
produce complex behaviors and mental activity brain connectivity.
2. Genetics and epigenetics. The human genome is the basic genetic code for
the human body. Psychologists use this to study how specific genes affect
thoughts/ actions/ feelings. Nearly all aspects of human psychology and
behavior have at least a small genetic component, very
few single genes cause specific behaviors.
Epigenetics = the study of biological or environmental
influences on gene expression that are not part of inherited
genes.
3. Immunology and other peripheral systems. Deep and
multilayered connections are revealed between our minds
and other systems previously thought to be relatively
independent.
Gut brain axis = peripheral systems in the body,
including the digestive system, have two-way
communication with the brain.
1.9 Psychology is a computational and data science
Computational modeling.
Behaviorism = a psychological approach that emphasizes environmental influences
on observable behaviors. It is focused on studying observable behavior to the
exclusion of mental events such as thoughts and feelings.
New findings suggested that psychologists would need to study people’s
mental functions and not just their overt actions to understand behavior.
George A. Miller and collogues launches the cognitive revolution in
psychology. This was accelerated by the computer age. Psychologists learned
how to use simple computerized tasks to indirectly measure some components
of cognition.
Computational modeling = computers can solve mathematical models that
describe the motion of the planets and the invisible properties of thought.
Big data
The big data approach uses tools from the computer science world to identify
complex patterns in large data sets. These new methods allowed psychologists to
study topics that otherwise wouldn’t been able to study. It also increased the
diversity of the samples used in psychology research.
At the same time, these methods are not without controversy. Critics have
questioned the ethics of using data that were originally collected for one purpose to
answer different research questions
Data ethics = the branch of philosophy that addresses ethical issues in data
sciences, including data accessibility, identifiability, and autonomy.
, Replicability, open science, and data sharing
One of the features of a good scientific study is replicability, meaning that the
results would be more or less the same if someone ran the study again. But there is
an unavoidable element of chance in psychological science because studies use
small groups of people, or samples, to make inferences about larger groups of
individuals, that makes it possible not to replicate it in a new sample.
Open science movement = emphasizes research transparency and data accessibility.
Psychologists have developed tools to help promote open science at all phases of the
research process.
Among the benefits of the open science movement is a shift in norms about
data sharing in psychology (original, anonymous data from experiments).
1.10 Culture provides adaptive solutions
Through evolution, specialized mechanisms and adaptive behaviors have been built
into our bodies and brains. Specialized circuits have evolved in the brain to address
the most demanding adaptive challenges we face. The complexity of living in groups
gives rise to culture, and culture’s various aspects are transmitted from one
generation to the next through learning.
The flow of people, commodities, and financial instruments among all regions of the
world, often referred to as globalization, has increased. Recently, the internet has
created a worldwide network of humans, essentially a new form of culture with its
own rules, values and customs.
Recognition has grown that culture plays a foundational role in shaping how people
view and reason about the world around them, and that people from different
cultures possess different minds.
- Westerns tend to be independent and autonomous, stressing their
individuality.
- Easterners tend to be more interdependent, stressing their sense of being part
of a collective.
Culture instills certain rules, called norms, which specify how people ought to
behave in different contexts. Culture can influence our biology by altering our
behavior. Culture also has material aspects.
1.11 Psychological Science crosses levels of analysis
Four defined levels of analysis:
Biological level of analysis (deals with how the physical body contributes to
mind and behavior)
Individual level of analysis (individual differences in personality and in the
mental processes that affect how people perceive and know the world)
Social level of analysis (how group contexts affect the ways in which people
interact and influence each other)
These three refer to the biopsychosocial model.
Cultural level of analysis (explores how people’s thoughts, feelings and
actions are similar or different across cultures)
Studying a psychological phenomenon at one level of analysis has been the favored
approach, but researchers have started to explain behavior at several levels of
analysis. Combining the levels of analysis usually provides more insights than
working with one level. Psychologists may also collaborate with researcher from
other scientific fields, these collaborations are called interdisciplinary.
1.12 Psychological education embraces the science of learning
Most effective learning strategies:
