PSYC 1101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Behavioural Sciences, Applied Science, Cogito Ergo Sum
25 May 2018
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Essential Questions:
1. What is psychology?
2. What are the major approaches to psychology
3. Who were the people who helped psychology begin as a science and were instrumental in
creating the field today?
4. What are each person’s contribution to the specific approaches to psychology that they
represented
What is Psychology?
● The scientific study of behavior and mental processes (thought)
● A behavioral science
● Provides tools to help us gain insight into our own behavior, as well as our relationships
with others
The Goals of Psychology
1. Describe
a. “The child is throwing a fit in the store”
2. Explain
a. “He wants the delicious candy bar”
3. Predict
a. “He will get the candy”
4. Influence
a. Figure, how to apply, why we study psychology
b. Walmart always has candy at the checkout lane because they know that moms
have already lost patience with their kids by the time they get to checkout
50000…
5. Scientific Method
a. Purpose
i. State the problem
b. Research
i. Find out about the topic
c. Hypothesis
i. Predict the outcomes to the problem
d. Experiment
i. Develop a procedure to test the hypothesis
e. Analysis
i. Record the results of the experiment
f. Conclusion
i. Compare the hypothesis to the experiment a conclusion
● There are two types of science that influence psychology
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
The scientific study of behavior and mental processes (thought) Provides tools to help us gain insight into our own behavior, as well as our relationships with others. Predict the outcomes to the problem: experiment, develop a procedure to test the hypothesis, analysis, record the results of the experiment, conclusion, compare the hypothesis to the experiment a conclusion. There are two types of science that influence psychology. Research on drug effects on the brain. Putting research to use for a purpose. Ex: using research on how drugs affect the brain to come up with a new antidepressant to help people suffering from depression. The attempt to understood how we know what it is we know. What determines your likes, dislikes, and personality characteristics. We are born with all of our knowledge already inside us, simply waiting to be rediscovered (nature) Philosophical empiricism: the belief that all knowledge is acquired through experience (nurture)
