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1.1 The Science of Psychology PSYCHOLOGY touches our lives in many ways. Psychology is about memory, stress, therapy, love, persuasion, hypnosis, perception, death, conformity, creativity, learning, personality, aging, intelligence, sexuality, emotion, happiness, wisdom, and much more. Psychologists use critical thinking and scientific investigation to achieve the goals of describing, understanding, predicting, and controlling human behavior. Psychology-Spotlight on Behavior SURVEY QUESTIONS: What is psychology? What are its goals? Psychology is both a science and a profession. As scientists, some psychologists do research to discover new knowledge. Others are teachers who pass this knowledge on to students. Still others apply psychology to solve problems in mental health, education, business, sports, law, and medicine. Later we will return to the profession of psychology. For now, let's focus on how knowledge is created. Whether they work in a lab, a classroom, or a clinic, all psychologists rely on critical thinking and information gained from scientific research. Defining Psychology The word psychology comes from the roots psyche, which means
mind,
and logos, meaning
knowledge or study.
However, when did you last see or touch a
mind
? Because the mind can't be studied directly, psychology is now defined as the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. Psychologists are highly trained professionals. In addition to the psychological knowledge they possess, psychologists learn specialized skills in counseling and therapy, measurement and testing, research and experimentation, statistics, diagnosis, treatment, and many other areas. What does behavior refer to in the definition of psychology? Anything you do—eating, emailing, sleeping, talking, or sneezing—is a behavior. So are snowboarding, gambling, watching television, picking your nose, learning Spanish, and reading this book. Naturally, we are interested in overt behaviors (directly observable actions and responses). But psychologists also study covert behaviors. These are private, internal activities, such as thinking, dreaming, remembering, and other mental events (Jackson, 2008). Empiricism Many people regard themselves as expert
people watchers.

Common-sense
theories abound. However, you may be surprised to learn how often self-appointed authorities and common-sense beliefs about human behavior are wrong. Take a moment and read
Testing Commonsense Beliefs
for more information. Because of the limitations of common sense, psychologists have a special respect for empirical evidence (information gained from direct observation), especially when it is collected systematically. We study behavior directly and collect data (observed facts) so that we can draw valid conclusions. Would you say it's true, for instance, that
You can't teach an old dog new tricks
? Why argue about it? As psychologists, we would simply get some
old
dogs and some
new
dogs (and some
borrowed
dogs and some
blue
dogs?) and then try to teach them all a new trick to find out! Basically, the empirical approach says,
Let's take a look
(Stanovich, 2007). Have you ever wondered if people become more hostile when it's blazing hot outside? John Simister and Cary Cooper (2005) decided to find out. They obtained data on temperatures and criminal activity in Los Angeles over a 4-year period. When air temperature and the frequency of aggravated assaults was graphed, a clear relationship emerged. (See • Fig. 1.1.) Temperatures and crime rates rise and fall more or less in parallel (so there may be something to the phrase
hot under the collar
). Isn't the outcome of this study fairly predictable? Sometimes the results of studies are consistent with common knowledge, and sometimes they come as a surprise. In this instance, you may have guessed the outcome. However, hostile actions that require more extreme physical exertion, such as fistfights, become less likely at very high temperatures. Without systematically gathering data, we wouldn't know for sure if overheated Angelenos become more lethargic or more aggressive. Thus, the study tells us something interesting about frustration, discomfort, and aggression. Module 1.1 • IMKtHttl Ot H't«oi^T ■CRITICAL THINKINGTesting Commonsense Beliefs It may appear that psychological research
discovers
what we already know from everyday experience. Why waste time and money confirming the obvious? Actually, commonsense beliefs are often wrong. See if you can tell which of the following commonsense beliefs i are true and which are false (Landau S Bavaria, 2003). '. • Babies love their mothers because mothers i' fulfill their babies'physiological need for j food. True or False? • Most humans use only 10 percent of their ; potential brainpower. True or False? • Blind people have unusually sensitive organs of touch. True or False? The more motivated you are, the better you will do at solving a complex problem. True or False? The weight of evidence suggests the major cause of forgetting Is that memory traces decay as time passes. True or False? Psychotherapy has Its greatest success in the treatment of psychotic patients who have lost touch with reality. True or False? Personality tests reveal your basic motives, Including those you may not be aware of. True or False? To change people's behavior toward mem-bers of ethnic minority groups, we must first change their attitudes. True or False? It turns out that research has shown that all these commonsense beliefs are false. Yet rn a survey, all the beliefs were accepted as true by a large number of college students (Landau & Bavaria, 2003). How did you do? We can all benefit from being more reflective in evaluating our beliefs. It's valuable to apply your critical thinking skills by asking ^whether a belief makes logical sense. Can it be ■explained by any of the concepts in this book? Can you imagine what sort of study you could do that might yield evidence to get you closer to the truth? Critical Thinking boxes like this one will help you be more reflective and think critically about human behavior. -11-14 -17 < a S g. s • FIGURE 1.1 Results of an empirical study. The graph shows that aggravated assaults in Los Angeles become more likely as air temperature increases. This suggests that physical discomfort is associated with interpersonal hostility. (Data from Simister S Cooper, 2005.) 1 1h
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