General Psychology : Unit 1
Defining Psychology : Chapter 1
● Psychology: the scientific study of behavior and mental processes
○ Science - Psychology uses systematic methods to observe human
behavior and draw conclusions.
■ Goals are to describe, predict, and explain behavior
■ Psychologists are often interested in controlling or changing
behaviors
■ Psychologists use scientific methods to examine interventions
○ Behavior - Everything we do that can be directly observed
■ Ex: baby crying
○ Mental Processes - thoughts, feelings, and motives that each of us
thoughts, feelings and motives that each of us experiences privately, but
that cannot be observed directly. Although we cannot see thoughts and
feelings, they are nonetheless real.
■ Ex: A baby’s feelings when its mother leaves the room
The Psychological Frames of Mind
● Scientific Approach means that psychologists conduct research and rely on that
research to provide bases for their conclusions.
● Psychologists conduct research and rely on that research to provide the bases
for their conclusions.
● Examine the available evidence about some aspects of mind and behavior,
evaluate how strongly the data support their hunches, analyze disconfirming
evidence and carefully consider whether they have explored all the possible
factors and explanations
● 4 Attitudes: Critical thinking, Skepticism, Objectivity, and Curiosity
○ Critical Thinking : the process of reflecting deeply and actively, asking
question and evaluating the evidence
■ Thinking critically means asking ourselves how we know something
■ Reduce the likelihood that conclusion will be based on unreliable
personal beliefs, opinions, and emotions.
○ Skepticism : challenge whether a supposed fact is true and questioning
what “everybody knows”
, ■ A skeptic knows that if something sounds good to be true, it
probably is
○ Critical Thinking and Skepticism is the distinction between science and
pseudoscience (pseudo means “fake”)
○ Pseudoscience : information that is couched in scientific terminology, but
is not supported by sound scientific research.
■ Ex: Astrology ; Astrologers may present detailed information about
an individual (when a person is born), but no scientific evidence
supports these assumptions and predictions
■ One way to tell an explanation is pseudoscientific is to look at how
readily proponents and explanation will accept evidence to the
contrary
○ Objectivity : Being open to the evidence and waiting to see what the
evidence tells us rather than going with our hunches
■ Scientists apply the empirical method to learn about the world
■ Empirical Method : gaining knowledge through the observation of
events, the collection of data, and logical reasoning
■ Being objective involves seeing things as they really are, not as we
would like them to be
○ Curiosity
■ Thinking like a psychologist means opening your mind and
imagination to wondering why things are the way they are
■ Easy answers and simple assumptions will not do
○ Debate and Controversy
■ Psychologists do not always agree with one another about why the
mind and behaviors work as they do
■ Psychology fosters controversies and because psychologists think
deeply and reflectively and examine the evidence on all sides.
Psychology as the Science of All Human Behavior
● Clinical psychologists : specialize in studying and treating psychological
disorders
● Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939)
○ Freud believed that most of human behavior is caused by dark,
unpleasant, unconscious impulses clamoring for expression
, ○ Freudian Slip : means someone makes an error in speech that seems to
be full of unintentional meaning
○ Freud based his ideas about human nature on the patients whom he saw
in his clinical practice - individuals who were struggling with psychological
problems.
○ “ I have found little that is ‘good’ about human beings on the whole. In my
experience most of them are trash”
● Psychologists acknowledge that sometimes an individual’s best moment emerge
amid the most difficult circumstances
● Forgiveness : the act of letting go of our anger and resentment towards someone
who has harmed us.
○ Through forgiveness we cease seeking revenge or avoiding the person
who did us harm, and we might even wish that person well
■ October 2006, Charles Carl Roberts held 10 young Amish girls
hostage in a one-room schoolhouse in Pennsylvania, eventually
murdering 5 of them and wounding 5 others before killing himself.
The grief-stricken Amish community focused not on hatred and
revenge but on forgiveness. In addition to raising money for the
victim’s families, the Amish insisted on establishing a fund for the
murderer’s family. Prepared a funeral for the dead girls and invited
the killer’s wife to the funeral.
○ The science of psychology has much to offer in expanding our
understanding of not only the perpetrator’s violence but also the victims’
capacity for forgiveness
○ Researchers have explored the relationship between religious
commitment and forgiveness:
■ how forgiveness affects memory, the cognitive skills required for
forgiveness, and the potential dark side of forgiveness, which might
emerge, for example, when forgiveness leads an abusive spouse to
feel free to continue a harmful behavior.
○ Positive Psychology : a branch of psychology that emphasizes human
strengths.
■ Research in positive psychology centers on topics such as hope,
optimism, happiness, and gratitude
■ One goal of positive psychology is to bring a greater balance to the
field by moving beyond focusing on how and why things go wrong
in life to understanding how and why things go right
, Psychology in Historical Perspective
● Psychology seeks to answer questions that people have been asking for
thousands of years :
○ How do we learn?
○ What is memory?
○ Why does one person grow and flourish while another struggles?
● Ancient myths attributed most important events to the pleasure or displeasure of
the gods
○ When a volcano erupted, the gods were angry or If two people fell in love,
they had been struck by cupid’s arrows
○ Gradually, myths gave way to philosophy - the rational investigation of the
underlying principles of being and knowledge - and people began trying to
explain events in terms of natural rather than supernatural causes
○ Westtern Philosophy - Ancient Greece in the 5th and 4th centuries B.C.E
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and others debated the nature of thought and
behavior, including the possible link between the mind and the body.
○ Rene Descartes (philosopher) argued that the mind and body were
completely separate, and they focused their attention on the mind
○ The influence of philosophy on contemporary psychology persists today,
as researchers who study emotion still talk about Descartes, and
scientists who study happiness often refer to Aristotle.
Wundt’s Structuralism and James’s Functionalism
● Wilhelm Wundt (1832 -1920)
○ A German philosopher - physician, integrated philosophy and the natural
sciences to create the academic discipline of psychology
○ Modern Psychology was born in Dec 1879 at the University of Leipzig
when Wundt and his students performed an experiment to measure the
time lag between the instant a person heard a sound and the moment he
or she pressed a telegraph key to signal having heard it.
○ Wundt's study was about workings of the brain : he was trying to measure
the time it took the human brain and nervous system to translate
information into action.
■ At the heart of this experiment was the idea that mental processes
could be measured
■ Concentrated on discovering the basis elements, or “structures,” of
mental processes.
○ Structuralism : it focused on identifying the structures of the human mind
Defining Psychology : Chapter 1
● Psychology: the scientific study of behavior and mental processes
○ Science - Psychology uses systematic methods to observe human
behavior and draw conclusions.
■ Goals are to describe, predict, and explain behavior
■ Psychologists are often interested in controlling or changing
behaviors
■ Psychologists use scientific methods to examine interventions
○ Behavior - Everything we do that can be directly observed
■ Ex: baby crying
○ Mental Processes - thoughts, feelings, and motives that each of us
thoughts, feelings and motives that each of us experiences privately, but
that cannot be observed directly. Although we cannot see thoughts and
feelings, they are nonetheless real.
■ Ex: A baby’s feelings when its mother leaves the room
The Psychological Frames of Mind
● Scientific Approach means that psychologists conduct research and rely on that
research to provide bases for their conclusions.
● Psychologists conduct research and rely on that research to provide the bases
for their conclusions.
● Examine the available evidence about some aspects of mind and behavior,
evaluate how strongly the data support their hunches, analyze disconfirming
evidence and carefully consider whether they have explored all the possible
factors and explanations
● 4 Attitudes: Critical thinking, Skepticism, Objectivity, and Curiosity
○ Critical Thinking : the process of reflecting deeply and actively, asking
question and evaluating the evidence
■ Thinking critically means asking ourselves how we know something
■ Reduce the likelihood that conclusion will be based on unreliable
personal beliefs, opinions, and emotions.
○ Skepticism : challenge whether a supposed fact is true and questioning
what “everybody knows”
, ■ A skeptic knows that if something sounds good to be true, it
probably is
○ Critical Thinking and Skepticism is the distinction between science and
pseudoscience (pseudo means “fake”)
○ Pseudoscience : information that is couched in scientific terminology, but
is not supported by sound scientific research.
■ Ex: Astrology ; Astrologers may present detailed information about
an individual (when a person is born), but no scientific evidence
supports these assumptions and predictions
■ One way to tell an explanation is pseudoscientific is to look at how
readily proponents and explanation will accept evidence to the
contrary
○ Objectivity : Being open to the evidence and waiting to see what the
evidence tells us rather than going with our hunches
■ Scientists apply the empirical method to learn about the world
■ Empirical Method : gaining knowledge through the observation of
events, the collection of data, and logical reasoning
■ Being objective involves seeing things as they really are, not as we
would like them to be
○ Curiosity
■ Thinking like a psychologist means opening your mind and
imagination to wondering why things are the way they are
■ Easy answers and simple assumptions will not do
○ Debate and Controversy
■ Psychologists do not always agree with one another about why the
mind and behaviors work as they do
■ Psychology fosters controversies and because psychologists think
deeply and reflectively and examine the evidence on all sides.
Psychology as the Science of All Human Behavior
● Clinical psychologists : specialize in studying and treating psychological
disorders
● Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939)
○ Freud believed that most of human behavior is caused by dark,
unpleasant, unconscious impulses clamoring for expression
, ○ Freudian Slip : means someone makes an error in speech that seems to
be full of unintentional meaning
○ Freud based his ideas about human nature on the patients whom he saw
in his clinical practice - individuals who were struggling with psychological
problems.
○ “ I have found little that is ‘good’ about human beings on the whole. In my
experience most of them are trash”
● Psychologists acknowledge that sometimes an individual’s best moment emerge
amid the most difficult circumstances
● Forgiveness : the act of letting go of our anger and resentment towards someone
who has harmed us.
○ Through forgiveness we cease seeking revenge or avoiding the person
who did us harm, and we might even wish that person well
■ October 2006, Charles Carl Roberts held 10 young Amish girls
hostage in a one-room schoolhouse in Pennsylvania, eventually
murdering 5 of them and wounding 5 others before killing himself.
The grief-stricken Amish community focused not on hatred and
revenge but on forgiveness. In addition to raising money for the
victim’s families, the Amish insisted on establishing a fund for the
murderer’s family. Prepared a funeral for the dead girls and invited
the killer’s wife to the funeral.
○ The science of psychology has much to offer in expanding our
understanding of not only the perpetrator’s violence but also the victims’
capacity for forgiveness
○ Researchers have explored the relationship between religious
commitment and forgiveness:
■ how forgiveness affects memory, the cognitive skills required for
forgiveness, and the potential dark side of forgiveness, which might
emerge, for example, when forgiveness leads an abusive spouse to
feel free to continue a harmful behavior.
○ Positive Psychology : a branch of psychology that emphasizes human
strengths.
■ Research in positive psychology centers on topics such as hope,
optimism, happiness, and gratitude
■ One goal of positive psychology is to bring a greater balance to the
field by moving beyond focusing on how and why things go wrong
in life to understanding how and why things go right
, Psychology in Historical Perspective
● Psychology seeks to answer questions that people have been asking for
thousands of years :
○ How do we learn?
○ What is memory?
○ Why does one person grow and flourish while another struggles?
● Ancient myths attributed most important events to the pleasure or displeasure of
the gods
○ When a volcano erupted, the gods were angry or If two people fell in love,
they had been struck by cupid’s arrows
○ Gradually, myths gave way to philosophy - the rational investigation of the
underlying principles of being and knowledge - and people began trying to
explain events in terms of natural rather than supernatural causes
○ Westtern Philosophy - Ancient Greece in the 5th and 4th centuries B.C.E
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and others debated the nature of thought and
behavior, including the possible link between the mind and the body.
○ Rene Descartes (philosopher) argued that the mind and body were
completely separate, and they focused their attention on the mind
○ The influence of philosophy on contemporary psychology persists today,
as researchers who study emotion still talk about Descartes, and
scientists who study happiness often refer to Aristotle.
Wundt’s Structuralism and James’s Functionalism
● Wilhelm Wundt (1832 -1920)
○ A German philosopher - physician, integrated philosophy and the natural
sciences to create the academic discipline of psychology
○ Modern Psychology was born in Dec 1879 at the University of Leipzig
when Wundt and his students performed an experiment to measure the
time lag between the instant a person heard a sound and the moment he
or she pressed a telegraph key to signal having heard it.
○ Wundt's study was about workings of the brain : he was trying to measure
the time it took the human brain and nervous system to translate
information into action.
■ At the heart of this experiment was the idea that mental processes
could be measured
■ Concentrated on discovering the basis elements, or “structures,” of
mental processes.
○ Structuralism : it focused on identifying the structures of the human mind
