Chapter 1:Psychology & Scientific thinking
What is Psychology? Science Vs. intuition
- Psychology: the scientific study of the mind, brain, and behavior
Levels of analysis:
➔ Higher rungs tied most closely to social influences-involves relating to others and
personal relationships-” the mind.”
➔ Middle rungs tied most closely to psychological influences-involves thoughts, feelings,
and emotions.
➔ Lower rungs tied most closely to biological influences-” the brain.”
What makes Psychology so challenging? -and fascinating
Five challenges:
1. Human behavior is difficult to predict
● Actions are multiplied determined: proceed by many factors.
2. Psychological influences are rarely independent of each other.
3. Individual differences: people differ from each other in thinking, emotion, personality,
and behavior.
4. People influence each other.
● Reciprocal determinism
5. Behaviour is shaped by culture.
● Emic approach: investigators study the behavior of a culture from the
perspective of a “native” or insider
● Etic approach: investigators study the behavior of a culture from the perspective
of an outsider
Why we can’t always trust common sense:
-Naive Realism: the belief that we See the world precisely as it is
-we assumed that “seeing is believing” and trust our intuitive perception of the world ourselves
-in many cases, “believing is seeing “ rather than the reverse
What is Psychology? Science Vs. intuition
- Psychology: the scientific study of the mind, brain, and behavior
Levels of analysis:
➔ Higher rungs tied most closely to social influences-involves relating to others and
personal relationships-” the mind.”
➔ Middle rungs tied most closely to psychological influences-involves thoughts, feelings,
and emotions.
➔ Lower rungs tied most closely to biological influences-” the brain.”
What makes Psychology so challenging? -and fascinating
Five challenges:
1. Human behavior is difficult to predict
● Actions are multiplied determined: proceed by many factors.
2. Psychological influences are rarely independent of each other.
3. Individual differences: people differ from each other in thinking, emotion, personality,
and behavior.
4. People influence each other.
● Reciprocal determinism
5. Behaviour is shaped by culture.
● Emic approach: investigators study the behavior of a culture from the
perspective of a “native” or insider
● Etic approach: investigators study the behavior of a culture from the perspective
of an outsider
Why we can’t always trust common sense:
-Naive Realism: the belief that we See the world precisely as it is
-we assumed that “seeing is believing” and trust our intuitive perception of the world ourselves
-in many cases, “believing is seeing “ rather than the reverse
