PSYA01H3 Chapter 1: Psychology - Chapter 1
Document Summary
Psychology (psukhe: breathe of soul, logos: word or reason) the scientific study of the causes of behaviour, as well as the applications of the finding of psychological research to the solution of problems. The goal is to understand human behaviour to explain why people do what they do (describe behaviour categorize and measure behaviour, discover the causes of behaviour. ); the purpose is due to intellectual curiousity, to solve the root of many world issues, finding new sciences (to facilitate implications) Causal events are events that cause other ones (including behaviour) John locke (emp irc ist, 1632-1704) believed that knowledge/truth could be done through observation and experience (tabula rasa: george berkeley (1685-1753) believed that knowledge of world events require inferences based on past experiences = preceive. James m ill (1773-1836) developed materialism: the belief that reality can be known only through an understanding of the physical world the mind is a machine.