PSYCO104 Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Neuron, Ecological Validity, Action Potential

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCO104
• Professor: James Farley

Document Summary

Life is lived forwards, but understood backwards (kierkegaard) One (non-scientific) approach to understanding behaviour relies on hindsight, or trying to understand why something happened by speculating about it after the fact" thinking you would have predicted an outcome you already know. Relying on hindsight reasoning can be problematic. Tends to result in many contradictions because there are often many possible explanations for any given behaviour/situation. Absence makes the heart grow fonder" if it isn"t out of sight out of mind". Not clear how to evaluate accuracy of hindsight reasoning. An alternative to hindsight for understanding behaviour is to rely on the scientific method. The scientific method places a great emphasis on prediction, control and theory building. Skepticism (what is the evidence for a claim?) It could be argued that psychology has been historically slow to adopt the scientific method, which may in part relate to the intangible nature of mental processes.