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INTERIM SUMMARIES
CHAPTER 1
1.1 Psychology is the scientific investigation of mental processes (thinking, remembering,
feeling, etc.) and behavior. Understanding a person requires attention to the individual’s biology,
psychological experience, and cultural context.
1.2 Biopsychology (or behavioral neuroscience) examines the physical basis of psychological
phenomena such as motivation, emotion, and stress. Although different neural regions perform
different functions, the neural circuits that underlie psychological events are distributed
throughout the brain and cannot be “found” in one location. At another boundary of psychology,
cross-cultural psychology tries to distinguish universal psychological processes from those that
are specific to particular cultures.
1.3 Although many contemporary psychological questions derive from age-old philosophical
questions, by the end of the nineteenth century psychology had emerged as a discipline that
aimed to answer questions about human nature through scientific investigation. Two prominent
early schools of thought were structuralism and functionalism. Structuralism attempted to
identify the basic elements of consciousness (i.e., the structure of consciousness) using
introspection (the verbal reporting of thoughts). Functionalism attempted to explain
psychological processes in terms of the role, or function, they serve. Wilhelm Wundt is known as
the father of psychology, Mary Whiton Calkins as the first woman president of APA, and Francis
Cecil Summer as the Father of Black Psychology.
1.4 A paradigm is a broad system of theoretical assumptions employed by a scientific
community that includes shared models, metaphors, and methods. Psychology lacks a unified
paradigm but has a number of schools of thought, or perspectives which also share models and
methods) and which can be used to understand psychological events.
1.5 The psychodynamic perspective proposes that people’s actions reflect the way thoughts,
feelings, and wishes are associated in their minds; that many of these processes are unconscious;
and that mental processes can conflict with one another, leading to compromises among
competing motives. This perspective originated with Sigmund Freud in the late nineteenth
century in response to patients whose symptoms appeared to have no physical bases. Freud
developed a “talking cure” to treat his patient’s psychological disorders which he called
“psychoanalysis.” This approach uses the metaphor of an ice berg to emphasize the influence of
the unconscious, with only the tip reflecting conscious thought. Although the primary method
has been the analysis of case studies, psychodynamic psychologists are increasingly making use
of experimental methods which should alleviate some of the criticism based on violation of the
falsifiability criterion.
1.6 The behaviorist perspective focuses on learned behavior and studies the way environmental
events control behavior. J. B. Watson and Ivan Pavlov pioneered this perspective by
demonstrating learning through association, and B. F. Skinner demonstrated learning through
consequences. The behaviorist perspective uses the metaphor that humans and other animals are
like machines, upon which the environment pushes buttons that trigger behavior. Behaviorists
primarily use experimentation to test theories about the relationship between the environmental
events and behavior.
1.7 The cognitive perspective focuses on thought processes (e.g., the way people perceive,
process, store and retrieve information). Cognitive psychologists are interested in how memory
works, how people solve problems and make decisions, and similar questions. The primary
metaphor originally underlying the cognitive perspective was the mind as computer
(information processing). In recent years, many cognitive psychologists have turned to the
brain itself as a source of metaphors. The primary method of the cognitive perspective is
experimentation.
1.8 The evolutionary perspective argues that many human behavioral tendencies evolved
because they helped our ancestors survive and reproduce. Psychological processes have evolved
through the natural selection of traits that help organisms adapt to their environment. Evolution
selects organisms that maximize their reproductive success, defined as the capacity to survive
and reproduce as well as to maximize the reproductive success of genetically related individuals.
The evolutionary perspective was inspired by the writings of Charles Darwin, and the metaphor
most used in this perspective is that humans are like “runners in a race” with the fittest winning
(passing on their genes most successfully). Although the methods of evolutionary theorists have
traditionally been deductive and comparative, evolutionary psychologists are increasingly using
experimental methods.
1.9 Although the different perspectives offer radically different ways of approaching psychology
each has made distinctive contributions. These perspectives have often developed in mutual
isolation, but efforts to integrate aspects of them are likely to continue to be fruitful. Psychology
is also divided into many different subdisciplines, such as biopsychology, social psychology and
clinical psychology. A relatively new subdiscipline is positive psychology which focuses on the
positive side of human nature (mental health as opposed to mental illness). Topics studied in
positive psychology include happiness, gratitude and hope.
1.10 Because of its philosophical roots, psychology not surprisingly grapples with some difficult
questions, including the extent to which psychological processes are the same in men and women
and the nature-nurture controversy. Regardless of the specific psychological topic under
investigation, such Big Picture Questions are behind much of the theory and research that you
will read about in this text.