PSYCH101 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Statistical Hypothesis Testing, Scientific Method, White Coat

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCH101
• Professor: Richard Ennis

Document Summary

Many people think psychology means people conducting therapy or people in white lab coats (cid:449)at(cid:272)hi(cid:374)g rats ru(cid:374) through (cid:373)azes. Not (cid:374)e(cid:272)essaril(cid:455) (cid:449)ro(cid:374)g (cid:271)ut (cid:862)pop(cid:863) ps(cid:455)(cid:272)holog(cid:455) ofte(cid:374) depi(cid:272)ted on television. They do not fully capture scope of psychology: psychology is a vast discipline, collection of disciplines composed of many overlapping fields of study. Two unifying qualities allow to group these fields into the category of psychological science. Psychology involves study of behaviour, includes perceptions, thoughts, emotions. Second, psychologists employ the scientific method in their work: psychology can be defined as the scientific study of behaviour, thought, experience, and how they can be affected by physical, mental, social and environmental factors. Person who carefully follows a system of observing, predicting and testing is conducting science. Whether the field of study is a science or a specific type of research is scientific, is not based on subject but rather on the use of the scientific method.