Foundations: Overview and Themes

Psychological Science is the scientific study of mind, brain, and behavior. In this class, we will explore what it means to be human. It has never been more important for us to understand what makes people tick, how to evaluate information critically, and the importance of history. Psychology can also help you in your future career; indeed, there are very few jobs out there with no human interaction!

Because psychology is a science, we analyze human behavior through the scientific method. There are several ways to investigate human phenomena, such as observation, experiments, and more. We will discuss the basics, pros and cons of each! We will also dig deeper into the important ethical guidelines that psychologists must follow in order to do research. Lastly, we will briefly introduce ourselves to statistics, the language of scientific research. While reading the content in these chapters, try to find examples of material that can fit with the themes of the course.

To get us started:

• Psychological science relies on empirical evidence and adapts as new data develop.
  • The study of the mind moved away from utilizing the method of introspection to using reaction time studies as we learned more about empiricism and objective views of behavior.
• Applying psychological principles can change our lives, organizations, and communities in positive ways.
  • Many psychologists work in careers outside of the typical “clinician” role. We advise in human factors, education, policy, and more! Clinical/therapists play an important role in a functioning and functional society, but so do psychologists that are working as professors and school counselors, data scientists, health policy and other fields.
• Psychology explains general principles that govern behavior while recognizing individual differences.
  • While completing an observation study, psychologists will work to aggregate common themes to explain the behavior of the group (sample) as a whole. In doing so, we still allow for normal variation from the group!
• Ethical principles guide psychology research and practice.
  • The IRB and IACUC are important in ensuring ethical integrity of studies and dignity of both human and animal subjects are maintained and held. There are many interesting questions about behavior and mental thinking out there. Some of these questions must be studied indirectly, using animal subjects or other populations. Other questions must be fine tuned and carefully researched to make sure that we respect every participant. All research questions are backed by a well-defined proposal and must meet important criteria in order to be conducted.