PSYC 100 Lecture 1: Week 1 Lecture Notes

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Jordan Poppenk

Document Summary

Psychology is the scientific study of behaviour (output, measurable), thought (what drives behaviour), and experience (conscious act, i. e. perception/emotion) Psych is both a natural and a social science. Psych touches on medicine, education, business, humanities, law, and engineering. Law defines a reasonable person as a standard: a typical person with ordinary powers of self- control. Economics defines a reasonable person as an assumption: people maximize their needs and desires. Wilhelm wundt metal atoms used to measure reaction time and introspection (to look into yourself) William james researched the purpose of conscious behaviour. *introspection was not creating reliable data, came to a halt when responses varied drastically, which ultimately lead to empiricism. General statements (universals) cannot be a result of finite observations. The face that some things are not observable enabled study of thought and perception. Theory describe a body of data, integrate data in to a whole.