PSY 2012 Lecture 2: Chapter 1 Notes Jan10 (1)
● Psychology
○ “Study of the soul”
○ The scientific study of behavior and mental processes
○ Psychology isn’t just about the science, it’s always how we think about it
○ Different attitudes:
■ Critical thinking
● How was information obtained, and by whom? Would they have a
bias?
● Their willingness to listen and adopt new ideas
● Would their funding create a bias?
■ Skepticism
● Challenge prevailing wisdom and assumptions
● Just because situations are similar does not mean they are the
same, they may not have the same solution
■ Empirical methodology
● Systematic, objective, and reproducible data
● No bias, everyone can agree what happened
● Published and public: this is important, because if we find
something interesting, we would want to share it, and encourage
other scientists to replicate the results
■ Curiosity
● Ask questions, test different numbers and look deeper
● Be aware of the difference between correlation and causation
● Just because a question isn’t specifically about psychology, that
doesn’t mean the science can’t be applied
● We can’t always take objective data at face value
○ Different Theories
■ Wundt’s Structuralism (father of modern psychology, in 1879 made the
first psychological lab German, this theory is dead) vs. James’
Functionalism (father of American psychology, wrote the first general
psychology textbook) (what vs. why)
● Psychology used to be considered philosophy, these two men
broke away from that
● Wundt’s believed that thoughts had a structure, and if you figured
out that structure you would know what people thought
● There was a problem, because some people could imagine things
with having a word for it--it’s not objective.
● Functionalism was less focused on thoughts, and more focused
on behaviors. They took some ideas from Darwinism and survival
of the fittest; evolution
● When you observe someone’s behavior, those behaviors are
happening for a reason. The behaviors you don’t see don’t have
any value.
● This was good because it WAS objective.
Document Summary
The scientific study of behavior and mental processes. Psychology isn"t just about the science, it"s always how we think about it. Their willingness to listen and adopt new ideas. Just because situations are similar does not mean they are the same, they may not have the same solution. No bias, everyone can agree what happened. Published and public: this is important, because if we find something interesting, we would want to share it, and encourage other scientists to replicate the results. Ask questions, test different numbers and look deeper. Be aware of the difference between correlation and causation. Just because a question isn"t specifically about psychology, that doesn"t mean the science can"t be applied. We can"t always take objective data at face value. Wundt"s structuralism (father of modern psychology, in 1879 made the first psychological lab german, this theory is dead) vs. james". Functionalism (father of american psychology, wrote the first general psychology textbook) (what vs. why)
