Chapter 1 - Chapter 1: science of Psychology Notes: What is...

Chapter 1: science of Psychology Notes:
What is psychology?:
 Psychology is the science with a specific focus on behavior; discovering and
explaining causes of behavior.
 Psychology literally means “the science of the mind” but it’s actually behavior
changed b/c they declared that the brain’s role is to control behavior
Why behavior is studied:
 The ultimate goal of psychology is to study behavior. To explain behavior we
must become familiar with the things people do (should be the same
phenomenon around the world) and the causes of discovering events.
 Causal event – events that cause other events to occur
 Psychologists may be interested in same behaviors but study different
categories of causal events; levels of explanation. Levels don’t indicate a
superior approach but a common choice of how to study.
 Purpose? To show us and give us promise on how to solve out most
important and pressing problems; poverty, drug addiction, pollution, etc.
most of our problems stem from our individual behaviors, and we can better
our lives once we understand human behaviors.
Fields of psychology:
 Some try to discover the causes of behavior, some are practitioners of applied
psychology; applying our scientific colleagues have learned to the solution of
problems in the world outside the lab and some are both.
Areas of psychological research:
 Research psychologists differ in two ways: types of behavior they investigate
and causal events they investigate.
 Physiological psychology – examines the physiological basis of behavior.
Organism’s nervous system is an appropriate level of explanation. Study
behavioral phenomena that can be observed in non-human animals, which
can help us, understand the causal events in human behavior.
 Comparative psychology – study of the behavior of members of a variety of
species in an attempt to explain behavior in terms of evolutionary adaptation
to the environment. Studies similar behavioral phenomenon to that of
physiological psychologist  inherited behavioral patterns.
 Behavior genetics – studies role of genetics in behavior. They study this by
examining similarities in physical and behavioral characters of blood
relatives and other lab techniques.
 Cognitive psychology – study of mental processes and complex behaviors
such as perception, attention, learning and memory, verbal behavior, concept
formation, and problem solving. Events that cause behaviors is due to the
brain.
 Cognitive neuroscience – interested in same thing as cognitive psychology but
attempt to discover the particular brain mechanism responsible for cognitive
processes. Behavior of those whose brains were damaged naturally.

 Developmental psychology – study of the changes in behavioral, perceptual,
cognitive, social, and emotional capacities of organisms as a function of age
and experience.