PSYC 2000 Chapter : Psychology Notes Chapters 1-6
Document Summary
The scientific study of behavior and mental processes: behavior: any action; publically observable, mental processes: perceptions, thoughts, feelings, all latent constructs, unobservable processes, can study them. Goals of psychology: describe, explain behavior and mental processes, predict, control. Wilhelm wundt: 1879 - founding of first psych lab, father of modern psych, most academic family trees trace back to him, e. b. Descriptive methods: seek to describe phenomena, can show relationships (cannot show causation, types, naturalistic observation, watching animals or people in natural environment, ex: observing bees or people watching, advantage. Realistic picture of behavior: limitation and ways of minimizing them, laboratory observation, watching animals or people in controlled situation (artificial, ex: fake bar situation, advantages. Allows use of specialized equipment: limitations. Artificial situation that may result in artificial behavior. Can be difficult to generalize findings to real world situations: case study, study of one individual in great detail, advantages. May be only way to study some phenomena.
