PSYC 100 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1.1-1.2: Empiricism, Wilhelm Wundt, Scientific Method

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Jordan Poppenk

Document Summary

Identify several fields in which psychologists may work. Describe the roles of psychological research, including the different types of psychologists and the problems they study. Psychology: science of behavior, thought and experience and how they are affected by physical, mental, social, and environmental factors. Psychologists: clinical: diagnosing and treating individuals with mental disorders, researchers and teachers, non-clinical/applied psychologists, advertising, communications, business and human resources, governmental and community service organizations. They all try to understand behavior carry out or read and apply research about behavior and mental processes. Explain structuralism and functionalism in relation to empiricism. Rationalism: pursuit of truth through reason and logic; questions can be answered through logic and reason. Psychologists tend to observe a phenomena, collect data, and interpret the data to come to a conclusion. Empiricism: obtain all knowledge through observable facts and experiences; what can be observed and measured; questions can be answered by observing facts and experiences.