PART 1: THE NATURE AND SCOPE OF PSYCHOLOGY1 What is this thing called Psychology? 12 Theoretical approaches to Psychology 133 Psychology as a science 38PART 2: THE BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF BEHAVIOUR AND EXPERIENCE4 The nervous system 525 Sensory processes 746 Parapsychology 897 States of consciousness and bodily rhythms 1058 Addictive behaviour 1249 Motivation 14110 Emotion 15611 Learning and conditioning 17112 Application: Health Psychology 186PART 3: COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY13 Attention 21314 Pattern recognition 23015 Perception: processes and theories 24216 The development of perceptual abilities 26017 Memory and forgetting 27718 Language and thought 298Copyright: Sample material19 Language acquisition 31020 Problem-solving, decision-making and artificial intelligence 32621 Application: Cognition and the law 343PART 4: SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY22 Social perception 36223 Attribution 38124 Attitudes and attitude change 39225 Prejudice and discrimination 40926 Conformity and group influence 43027 Obedience 44528 Interpersonal relationships 46029 Aggression and antisocial behaviour 48430 Altruism and prosocial behaviour 50131 Application: The Social Psychology of Sport 517PART 5: DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY32 Early experience and social development 52833 Development of the self-concept 55134 Cognitive development 56635 Moral development 58636 Gender development 60337 Adolescence 61938 Adulthood 63339 Old age 65140 Application: Exceptional development 666Copyright: Sample materialPART 6: INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES41 Intelligence 68342 Personality 70843 Psychological abnormality: definitions and classification 73144 Psychopathology 75045 Treatments and therapies 77346 Application: Criminological Psychology 797PART 7: ISSUES AND DEBATES47 Bias in psychological theory and research 81548 Ethical issues in Psychology 82749 Free will and determinism, and reductionism 84450 Nature and nurture 858Acknowledgements 871References 875
For example, theres evidence to support both proverbs in the first pair (see Chapter 28). Formal Psychology tries to identify the conditions under which each statement applies; they appear contradictory if we assume that only one or the other can be true! In this way, scientific Psychology throws light on our everyday, informal understanding, rather than negating or invalidating it. Legge (1975) believes that most psychological research should indeed be aimed at demonstrating what we know already, but that it should also aim to go one step further. Only the methods of science can provide us with the public, communicable body of knowledge that were seeking. According to Allport (1947), the aim of science is Understanding, prediction and control above the levels achieved by unaided common sense, and this is meant to apply to Psychology as much as to the natural sciences (see Chapters 3 and 42).
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Figure 1.11 For Joynson, the fundamental question is: If the Psychologist did not exist, would it be necessary to invent him? Conversely, for Skinner (1971), it is science or nothing and Broadbent (1961) also rejects the validity of our everyday understanding of ourselves and others (Joynson calls this the behaviourists prejudice). Yet we cannot help but try to make sense of our own and other peoples behaviour (by virtue of our cognitive abilities and the nature of social interaction) and, to this extent, were all Psychologists. Heather (1976) points to ordinary language as embodying our natural understanding of human behaviour: as long as human beings have lived theyve been Psychologists, and language gives us an elaborate and highly refined conceptual tool, developed over thousands of years of talking to each other.
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CONCLUSIONS Psychology is a diverse discipline. Psychologists investigate a huge range of behaviours and mental or cognitive processes. There is a growing number of applied areas, in which theory and research findings are brought to bear in trying to improve peoples lives in a variety of ways. During the course of its life as a separate discipline, definitions of Psychology have changed quite fundamentally, reflecting the influence of different theoretical approaches. Rather than having to choose between our common-sense understanding of people and the scientific version, Psychology as a scientific discipline can be seen as complementing and illuminating our everyday psychological knowledge. Formal versus informal Psychology Legge (1975) and others resolve this dilemma by distinguishing between formal and informal Psychology (or professional versus amateur, scientific versus non-scientific). 9781510468672.indb 11 1 : W H A T I S T H I S T H N G C A L L E D P S Y C H O L O G Y ?
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