PSYCH 7A Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Empiricism, Edward B. Titchener, Wilhelm Wundt
29 Jun 2018
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PSYCH 7A - Lecture 1 - The Science of Psychology
What is Psychology?
●psyche – “soul” or “mind”
●logos – the study of a subject
●Psychology:
○ The scientific study of behavior and mental processes
●Behavior – anything an organism does that is directly observable
●Mental Processes – the internal, private experiences we have that CANNOT be directly
observed
●Psychology is a science:
○systematic methods (carefully planned and conducted) to observe, describe,
explain behavior
○theories must be tested
Can We Trust Our Common Sense and Intuition?
●People naturally use their common sense and intuition when trying to understand
people’s behaviors
○ Can we trust this person?
○ Would this person make a good mate?
○ Is this person likely to be friendly or hostile?
○ What might this person do in this situation?
●Our intuitions / common sense come from our experiences
●However, the “knowledge” that comes from our experiences is not reliable
○ We have a limited number of experiences in any particular situation
○ We draw conclusions about situations where we don’t know all the
variables/information
●Our intuitions and common sense can be just plain WRONG!
Critical Thinking
●Critical thinking – the ability of systematically and objectively evaluate information
using well-supported evidence
● Critical thinkers look for “holes” in the evidence
○Can we trust the source of this “evidence”
○Are there other possible explanations other than the one proposed?
○Might the source of the “evidence” be biased in some way? (especially in politics
or people with a personal agenda!)
●Human beings constantly try to figure out WHY things occur
find more resources at oneclass.com
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Document Summary
Psych 7a - lecture 1 - the science of psychology. Logos the study of a subject. The scientific study of behavior and mental processes. Behavior anything an organism does that is directly observable. Mental processes the internal, private experiences we have that cannot be directly observed. Systematic methods (carefully planned and conducted) to observe, describe, explain behavior. People naturally use their common sense and intuition when trying to understand people"s behaviors. Our intuitions / common sense come from our experiences. However, the knowledge that comes from our experiences is not reliable. We have a limited number of experiences in any particular situation. We draw conclusions about situations where we don"t know all the variables/information. Our intuitions and common sense can be just plain wrong! Critical thinking the ability of systematically and objectively evaluate information using well-supported evidence. Critical thinkers look for holes in the evidence. Can we trust the source of this evidence .
