Transcript
Chapter 1: Psychology and Scientific Thinking
What is Psychology? Science Versus Intuition
William James: known as founder of American psychology
Described psychology as a “nasty little subject”
Psychology and Levels of Analysis
Psychology: the scientific study of the mind, brain, and behavior
It spans multiple levels of analysis (separated into rungs)
Lower rungs: “the brain” (biological influences)
Higher rungs: “the mind” (social influences)
What Makes Psychology Distinctive- and Fascinating
The 5 challenges of psychology
Human behavior is difficult to predict due to all actions being multiply determined. This is why we must be skeptical of single-variable explanations of behavior
Caused by many factors
Psychological influences are rarely independent of each other, making it difficult to pin down which cause or causes are operating
People differ from each other in thinking, emotion, personality, and behavior. These individual differences explain why people respond in different ways to the same situation
Variations among people in their thinking, emotion, personality, and behavior
People often influence each other, often making it difficult to pin down what causes what
Albert Bandura: reciprocal determinism- the fact that we mutually influence each other’s behavior
This can make it challenging to isolate the cause of human behavior
People’s behavior is often shaped by culture
Cultural differences place limits on the generalizations that psychologists can draw about human nature
