01:830:101 Study Guide - Natural Selection, Monism, Empiricism

• School: Rutgers University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: 01:830:101
• Professor: All

Document Summary

Lecture outline: what is psychology, psychology"s philosophical background, practice with the classroom communication system. What is psychology: psychology is defined as the scientific investigation of behavior and experience. Science distinguishes psychology: other academic disciplines address some of the same questions as does psychology: Basic characteristics of science: science is based on careful observation along with logical reasoning. Measurement, statistics, experimentation: methods and results are publicly examined and challenged. Peer review as a criterion of publication. Results should be replicated, or obtained by others using the same techniques: more will be said about the nature of science in the next class. The diversity of psychology: a multitude of topics. The american psychological association currently has 56 different divisions (areas of study). An enormous challenge: the human brain is the most complex physical system ever encountered, as your textbook author james w. kalat points out, this complexity has the consequence that the answer to many psychological questions is: it depends.