第23章
A. Basic Definitions
1. Psychology: The scientific study of the behavior of individuals and their mental
processes
2. The Scientific Method: The scientific method consists of a set of orderly steps
used to analyze and solve problems
3. Behavior: The means and actions by which organisms, including both animals
and humans, adjust to their environment
4. Mental Processes: The private, internal workings of the human mind
B. The Goals of Psychology
1. The goals of the psychologist conducting basic research are to Describe,
Explain, Predict, and Control behavior. Applied psychologists have a fifth
goal, to improve the quality of human life.
2
CHAPTER 1: THE SCIENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY IN YOUR LIFE
2. Describing Behavior: The first task of the psychologist is to make accurate
observations about behavior
a) In collecting behavioral data, which are reports of observations about
the behavior of organisms and the conditions under which the
behavior occurs, psychologists must ensure objectivity and choose an
appropriate level of analysis
b) Level of analysis refers to whether the observations concern broad,
general and global aspects or whether the observations concern
minute details of the object under study
c) Objectivity refers to a desire to collect facts as they really exist, not as
we hope them to exist. Objectivity helps ensure that subjective personal
biases, prejudices, and expectations do not distort data collected.
C. Explaining Behavior requires that explanations deliberately go beyond what can be observed.
Psychological explanations for behavior often recognize that organismic, dispositional, and
situational (or environmental) variables each play a role in determining behavior.
1. Organismic variables operate within the individual, such as genetic makeup,
motivation, intelligence, and self-esteem
2. Dispositional variables are organismic variables that exist within humans
3. Situational (or environmental) variables are external events that influence
behavior
D. Predicting Behavior involves statements about the likelihood that a certain behavior will occur or
that a given relationship will be found
1. Scientific prediction is based on an understanding of the ways events relate to
one another, and suggests what mechanisms link those events to certain
predictors
2. Causal prediction specifies conditions under which behaviors will change
E. Controlling behavior is the central, most powerful goal of many psychologists. Controlling
behavior means causing a behavior to happen or not to happen and influencing the nature of the
behavior as it is being performed.
F. Improving the Quality of Life is the result of the first four goals of psychology. All therapeutic
programs and interventions, such as those designed to help individuals stop smoking, stop doing
drugs, or lose weight, are attempts to use psychological principles to control behavior. Psychological
principles can be used not only to help individuals live more successfully, but also to improve the
functioning of groups of people and societies.
III. The Evolution of Modern Psychology
A. At the core of this historical review is one simple principle: Ideas Matter. Ideas influence the
manner in which people think, feel, and behave, and, ultimately, the manner in which they lead their
lives.
B. Psychology’s Historical Foundations
1. In 1879, in Leipiz, Germany, Wilhelm Wundt founded the first formal
laboratory devoted to experimental psychology
3
PSYCHOLOGY AND LIFE
2. In 1883, the first experimental psychology laboratory in the United States was
founded at Johns Hopkins University by G. Stanley Hall
3. Edward Titchener, a student of Wundt, became an influential early
psychologist with his laboratory at Cornell University
4. In 1890, William James, brother of novelist Henry James, wrote the two-volume
work, The Principles of Psychology, which many experts consider the most
important psychology text ever written
5. In 1892, G. Stanley Hall founded the American Psychological Association
6. With the emergence of the field of experimental psychology, debate began over
the proper methods and subject matter of the new field. Two important
opposing ideas were structuralism and functionalism.
C. Structuralism: The Contents of the Mind
1. Edward Titchener used a method for examining the elements of conscious
mental life called introspection to understand the “what” of mental contents,
rather than the “why” or “how” of thinking. Titchener’s approach came to be
known as structuralism, the study of the structure of mind and behavior.
2. Structuralism was based on the assumption that all human mental experience
could be understood as the combination of simple events or elements
3. The goal of structuralism was to reveal the underlying structure of the human
mind by analyzing the basic elements of sensation and other experiences that
form mental life. Titchener hoped to create a periodic table of mental elements,
similar to the periodic table of physical elements used by chemists and
physicists.
4. Structuralism was attacked primarily on three grounds:
a) It was reductionistic because it reduced all complex human experience
to simple sensations
b) It was elemental because it sought to combine parts into a whole
rather than study the variety of behaviors directly
c) It was mentalistic because it studied only verbal reports of human
conscious awareness, ignoring the study of individuals who could not
describe their introspections, including animals, children, and the
mentally disturbed
5. One alternative to structuralism, pioneered by the German psychologist Max
Wertheimer, focused on the way in which the mind understands experiences
as gestalts—organized wholes—rather than the sums of simple parts. Gestalt
psychology will be discussed in Chapter 5.
6. A second major opposition to structuralism was functionalism
D. Functionalism: Minds with a Purpose
1. William James disagreed that mental life was composed of simple events or
elements that, when added together, formed mental life. Instead, he viewed
mental life as a stream of consciousness, a system in continual interaction with
the environment.
2. Functionalism focused on learned habits that enable organisms to adapt to
their environment and to function effectively. The essential question for
4
CHAPTER 1: THE SCIENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY IN YOUR LIFE
functionalists was “What is the function or purpose of a behavior?”