Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Have you ever wondered, “Why are people the way they are? Why do they do the things they do? How does the mind originate? Where is mind housed – that is, what is the mind’s relationship to the brain? Do humans have free will? What is the relationship between nature (our genetic inheritance) and nurture (our environmental influence)?”

These and similar questions have been asked by philosophers for centuries, and the field of psychological science attempts to address these broad challenges to the better understanding human behavior by using the scientific method and its principles.

Therefore, in this course, we will investigate the connection between mind, brain, and behavior. This course is designed to introduce you to the field of psychology as a science, by presenting basic principles, classic research findings, and current trends from the foundational areas of psychological science to include (but not limited to) physiological psychology, developmental psychology, and social psychology.

Psychological Science: Understanding Human Behavior uses OpenStax 2e Psychology textbook as a foundation and also contains other material curated by NOBA (Introduction to Psychology: The Full NOBA Collection) and Lumen Learning (Introduction to Psychology).  This text was created by Karenna Malavanti at Baylor University with the help of Christina Chan-Park (Baylor University), Bridgette Martin Hard (Duke University), and Alison Melley (George Mason University).