Although scientific procedures do not necessarily guarantee that the answers to questions will be objective and unbiased, science is still the best method for drawing objective conclusions about the world around us.
When old facts are discarded, they are replaced with new facts based on newer and more correct data. Although science is not perfect, the requirements of empiricism and objectivity result in a much greater chance of producing an accurate understanding of human behaviour than is available through other approaches. The study of psychology spans many different topics at many different levels of explanation , which are the perspectives that are used to understand behaviour.
The same topic can be studied within psychology at different levels of explanation, as shown in Table 1. Studying and helping alleviate depression can be accomplished at low levels of explanation by investigating how chemicals in the brain influence the experience of depression. At the middle levels of explanation, psychological therapy is directed at helping individuals cope with negative life experiences that may cause depression.
And at the highest level, psychologists study differences in the prevalence of depression between men and women and across cultures. These sex and cultural differences provide insight into the factors that cause depression. The study of depression in psychology helps remind us that no one level of explanation can explain everything.
All levels of explanation, from biological to personal to cultural, are essential for a better understanding of human behaviour. Understanding and attempting to alleviate the costs of psychological disorders such as depression is not easy because psychological experiences are extremely complex.
The questions psychologists pose are as difficult as those posed by doctors, biologists, chemists, physicists, and other scientists, if not more so Wilson, A major goal of psychology is to predict behaviour by understanding its causes. Making predictions is difficult, in part because people vary and respond differently in different situations. Individual differences are the variations among people on physical or psychological dimensions.
For instance, although many people experience at least some symptoms of depression at some times in their lives, the experience varies dramatically among people. Some people experience major negative events, such as severe physical injuries or the loss of significant others, without experiencing much depression, whereas other people experience severe depression for no apparent reason.
Other important individual differences that we will discuss in the chapters to come include differences in extraversion, intelligence, self-esteem, anxiety, aggression, and conformity. Because of the many individual difference variables that influence behaviour, we cannot always predict who will become aggressive or who will perform best in graduate school or on the job.
The predictions made by psychologists and most other scientists are only probabilistic. We can say, for instance, that people who score higher on an intelligence test will, on average, do better than people who score lower on the same test, but we cannot make very accurate predictions about exactly how any one person will perform. Another reason that it is difficult to predict behaviour is that almost all behaviour is multiply determined , or produced by many factors.
And these factors occur at different levels of explanation. We have seen, for instance, that depression is caused by lower-level genetic factors, by medium-level personal factors, and by higher-level social and cultural factors. You should always be skeptical about people who attempt to explain important human behaviours, such as violence, child abuse, poverty, anxiety, or depression, in terms of a single cause. Furthermore, these multiple causes are not independent of one another; they are associated such that when one cause is present, other causes tend to be present as well.
This overlap makes it difficult to pinpoint which cause or causes are operating. For instance, some people may be depressed because of biological imbalances in neurotransmitters in their brain. The resulting depression may lead them to act more negatively toward other people around them, which then leads those other people to respond more negatively to them, which then increases their depression.
As a result, the biological determinants of depression become intertwined with the social responses of other people, making it difficult to disentangle the effects of each cause. Another difficulty in studying psychology is that much human behaviour is caused by factors that are outside our conscious awareness, making it impossible for us, as individuals, to really understand them.
The role of unconscious processes was emphasized in the theorizing of the Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud , who argued that many psychological disorders were caused by memories that we have repressed and thus remain outside our consciousness. Brendl, C. Name letter branding: Valence transfers when product specific needs are active.
Journal of Consumer Research, 32 3 , — Cacioppo, J. Multilevel integrative analyses of human behavior: Social neuroscience and the complementing nature of social and biological approaches. Psychological Bulletin, 6 , — Chen, P. Biological variations in depression and anxiety between East and West. Cutler, B. Expert testimony regarding eyewitness identification. Skeem, S.
Douglas Eds. Fiske, S. Social cognition: From brains to culture. Gilovich, T. Hsee, C. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10 1 , 31— Hufffington Post. Kelley, H. Attribution theory in social psychology. Levine Ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Nisbett, R. Human inference: Strategies and shortcomings of social judgment.
Research Canada. Budget — What it means for us. Seedat, S. Archives of General Psychiatry, 66 7 , — Wells, G. Eyewitness identification: Issues in common knowledge and generalization. Fiske Eds. Malden, NJ: Blackwell. Williams, N. Relapse rates with long-term antidepressant drug therapy: A meta-analysis. Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental, 24 5 , — Skip to content Chapter 1. Introducing Psychology. Learning Objectives Explain why using our intuition about everyday behaviour is insufficient for a complete understanding of the causes of behaviour.
Describe the difference between values and facts and explain how the scientific method is used to differentiate between the two. These are extremely good questions, by the way, and answering them now will provide a solid foundation for learning the rest of the material in this book. Some people are surprised to learn that psychology is a science A general way of understanding the natural world featuring systematic empiricism, empirical questions, and public knowledge. They generally agree that astronomy, biology, and chemistry are sciences but wonder what psychology has in common with these other fields.
Before answering this question, however, it is worth reflecting on what astronomy, biology, and chemistry have in common with each other. It is clearly not their subject matter. Astronomers study celestial bodies, biologists study living organisms, and chemists study matter and its properties.
It is also not the equipment and techniques that they use. Few biologists would know what to do with a radio telescope, for example, and few chemists would know how to track a moose population in the wild. For these and other reasons, philosophers and scientists who have thought deeply about this question have concluded that what the sciences have in common is a general approach to understanding the natural world.
Psychology is a science because it takes this same general approach to understanding one aspect of the natural world: human behavior. The general scientific approach has three fundamental features Stanovich, Stanovich, K. How to think straight about psychology 9th ed.
The first is systematic empiricism Learning about the world through careful observation. Empiricism refers to learning based on observation, and scientists learn about the natural world systematically, by carefully planning, making, recording, and analyzing observations of it.
As we will see, logical reasoning and even creativity play important roles in science too, but scientists are unique in their insistence on checking their ideas about the way the world is against their systematic observations.
Instead, they systematically recorded, counted, and compared the number of words spoken by a large sample of women and men. The second feature of the scientific approach—which follows in a straightforward way from the first—is that it is concerned with empirical questions A question about the way the world actually is that can be answered by making systematic observations. These are questions about the way the world actually is and, therefore, can be answered by systematically observing it.
The question of whether women talk more than men is empirical in this way. Either women really do talk more than men or they do not, and this can be determined by systematically observing how much women and men actually talk.
There are many interesting and important questions that are not empirically testable and that science cannot answer. Among them are questions about values—whether things are good or bad, just or unjust, or beautiful or ugly, and how the world ought to be. So although the question of whether a stereotype is accurate or inaccurate is an empirically testable one that science can answer, the question of whether it is wrong for people to hold inaccurate stereotypes is not. Similarly, the question of whether criminal behavior has a genetic component is an empirical question, but the question of what should be done with people who commit crimes is not.
It is especially important for researchers in psychology to be mindful of this distinction. The third feature of science is that it creates public knowledge Detailed descriptions of research that are available to other researchers and the general public, usually through publication in a professional journal.
After asking their empirical questions, making their systematic observations, and drawing their conclusions, scientists publish their work. This usually means writing an article for publication in a professional journal, in which they put their research question in the context of previous research, describe in detail the methods they used to answer their question, and clearly present their results and conclusions.
Publication is an essential feature of science for two reasons. One is that science is a social process—a large-scale collaboration among many researchers distributed across both time and space. Our current scientific knowledge of most topics is based on many different studies conducted by many different researchers who have shared their work with each other over the years.
The second is that publication allows science to be self-correcting. Individual scientists understand that despite their best efforts, their methods can be flawed and their conclusions incorrect. Publication allows others in the scientific community to detect and correct these errors so that, over time, scientific knowledge increasingly reflects the way the world actually is.
Pseudoscience A set of beliefs or activities that is claimed to be scientific but lacks one or more of the three features of science. Consider the theory of biorhythms not to be confused with sleep cycles or other biological cycles that do have a scientific basis.
The physical cycle has a period of 23 days, the intellectual cycle a period of 33 days, and the emotional cycle a period of 28 days. So, for example, if you had the option of when to schedule an exam, you would want to schedule it for a time when your intellectual cycle will be at a high point. The theory of biorhythms has been around for more than years, and you can find numerous popular books and websites about biorhythms, often containing impressive and scientific-sounding terms like sinusoidal wave and bioelectricity.
The problem with biorhythms, however, is that there is no good reason to think they exist Hines, Hines, T. Comprehensive review of biorhythm theory. Psychological Reports, 83 , 19— A set of beliefs or activities can be said to be pseudoscientific if a its adherents claim or imply that it is scientific but b it lacks one or more of the three features of science. It might lack systematic empiricism. Either there is no relevant scientific research or, as in the case of biorhythms, there is relevant scientific research but it is ignored.
It might also lack public knowledge. People who promote the beliefs or activities might claim to have conducted scientific research but never publish that research in a way that allows others to evaluate it. A set of beliefs and activities might also be pseudoscientific because it does not address empirical questions. The philosopher Karl Popper was especially concerned with this idea Popper, Popper, K. Conjectures and refutations: The growth of scientific knowledge. New York, NY: Routledge.
He argued more specifically that any scientific claim must be expressed in such a way that there are observations that would—if they were made—count as evidence against the claim. In other words, scientific claims must be falsifiable An important property of scientific claims. A claim is falsifiable if there is an observation that would—if it were made—count as evidence against the claim.
The claim that women talk more than men is falsifiable because systematic observations could reveal either that they do talk more than men or that they do not. As an example of an unfalsifiable claim, consider that many people who study extrasensory perception ESP and other psychic powers claim that such powers can disappear when they are observed too closely. This makes it so that no possible observation would count as evidence against ESP. If a careful test of a self-proclaimed psychic showed that she predicted the future at better-than-chance levels, this would be consistent with the claim that she had psychic powers.
But if she failed to predict the future at better-than-chance levels, this would also be consistent with the claim because her powers can supposedly disappear when they are observed too closely.
Why should we concern ourselves with pseudoscience? There are at least three reasons. One is that learning about pseudoscience helps bring the fundamental features of science—and their importance—into sharper focus. A second is that biorhythms, psychic powers, astrology, and many other pseudoscientific beliefs are widely held and are promoted on the Internet, on television, and in books and magazines.
Learning what makes them pseudoscientific can help us to identify and evaluate such beliefs and practices when we encounter them.
A third reason is that many pseudosciences purport to explain some aspect of human behavior and mental processes, including biorhythms, astrology, graphology handwriting analysis , and magnet therapy for pain control.
Among the pseudoscientific beliefs and practices you can learn about are the following:. Figure 1. The researcher who more often than not is really a small group of researchers formulates a research question, conducts a study designed to answer the question, analyzes the resulting data, draws conclusions about the answer to the question, and publishes the results so that they become part of the research literature.
Because the research literature is one of the primary sources of new research questions, this process can be thought of as a cycle. New research leads to new questions, which lead to new research, and so on. But even in these cases, the researcher would start by checking the research literature to see if the question had already been answered and to refine it based on what previous research had already found.
The research by Mehl and his colleagues is described nicely by this model. When they checked the research literature, however, they found that this question had not been adequately addressed in scientific studies. They conducted a careful empirical study, analyzed the results finding very little difference between women and men , and published their work so that it became part of the research literature.
The publication of their article is not the end of the story, however, because their work suggests many new questions about the reliability of the result, about potential cultural differences, etc. As another example, consider that as cell phones became more widespread during the s, people began to wonder whether, and to what extent, cell phone use had a negative effect on driving. Collet, C. Phoning while driving I: A review of epidemiological, psychological, behavioural and physiological studies.
Ergonomics, 53 , — It was clear from previously published research that engaging in a simple verbal task impairs performance on a perceptual or motor task carried out at the same time, but no one had studied the effect specifically of cell phone use on driving. Each new study was published and became part of the growing research literature on this topic. Scientific research in psychology is generally conducted by people with doctoral degrees usually the doctor of philosophy [PhD] The highest degree in most academic fields, including psychology.
Scientific researchers in psychology typically have this degree. Some of them work for government agencies e. However, the majority of them are college and university faculty, who often collaborate with their graduate and undergraduate students.
Although some researchers are trained and licensed as clinicians—especially those who conduct research in clinical psychology—the majority are not. Instead, they have expertise in one or more of the many other subfields of psychology: behavioral neuroscience, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, personality psychology, social psychology, and so on. Doctoral-level researchers might be employed to conduct research full-time or, like many college and university faculty members, to conduct research in addition to teaching classes and serving their institution and community in other ways.
Of course, people also conduct research in psychology because they enjoy the intellectual and technical challenges involved and the satisfaction of contributing to scientific knowledge of human behavior. You might find that you enjoy the process too. If so, your college or university might offer opportunities to get involved in ongoing research as either a research assistant or a participant.
Of course, you might find that you do not enjoy the process of conducting scientific research in psychology. But at least you will have a better understanding of where scientific knowledge in psychology comes from, an appreciation of its strengths and limitations, and an awareness of how it can be applied to solve practical problems in psychology and everyday life. A fun and easy way to follow current scientific research in psychology is to read any of the many excellent blogs devoted to summarizing and commenting on new findings.
Among them are the following:. People have always been curious about the natural world, including themselves and their behavior. In fact, this is probably why you are studying psychology in the first place. Science grew out of this natural curiosity and has become the best way to achieve detailed and accurate knowledge. Keep in mind that most of the phenomena and theories that fill psychology textbooks are the products of scientific research.
And scientific research continues because what we know right now only scratches the surface of what we can know. Scientific research is often classified as being either basic or applied. Basic research Scientific research that is conducted primarily for the sake of learning something new.
The research of Mehl and his colleagues falls into this category. Applied research Scientific research that is conducted primarily to solve some practical problem. Research on the effects of cell phone use on driving, for example, was prompted by safety concerns and has led to the enactment of laws to limit this practice.
Although the distinction between basic and applied research is convenient, it is not always clear-cut. For example, basic research on sex differences in talkativeness could eventually have an effect on how marriage therapy is practiced, and applied research on the effect of cell phone use on driving could produce new insights into basic processes of perception, attention, and action.
Some people wonder whether the scientific approach to psychology is necessary. Can we not reach the same conclusions based on common sense or intuition? Although much of our folk psychology is probably reasonably accurate, it is clear that much of it is not. Scientific research, however, has shown that this approach tends to leave people feeling more angry, not less Bushman, Bushman, B.
Does venting anger feed or extinguish the flame? Catharsis, rumination, distraction, anger, and aggressive responding. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28 , — Likewise, most people believe that no one would confess to a crime that he or she had not committed, unless perhaps that person was being physically tortured.
Kassin, S. The psychology of confession evidence: A review of the literature and issues. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 5 , 33— Lilienfeld, S. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Here is a short list. How can so many of our intuitive beliefs about human behavior be so wrong? Notice that this is a psychological question, and it just so happens that psychologists have conducted scientific research on it and identified many contributing factors Gilovich, Gilovich, T.
One is that forming detailed and accurate beliefs requires powers of observation, memory, and analysis to an extent that we do not naturally possess. It would be nearly impossible to count the number of words spoken by the women and men we happen to encounter, estimate the number of words they spoke per day, average these numbers for both groups, and compare them—all in our heads. This is why we tend to rely on mental shortcuts in forming and maintaining our beliefs. This is compounded by the fact that we then tend to focus on cases that confirm our intuitive beliefs and not on cases that disconfirm them.
This is called confirmation bias The tendency to notice and remember evidence that is consistent with what we already believe and to ignore evidence that is inconsistent with what we already believe.
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