Psychology: The Science of Behaviour PDF

CHAPTER 1 Psychology: The Science of Behaviour THE NATURE OF PSYCHOLOGY Psychology’s Scientific Approach Thinking Critically about Behaviour Psychology’s Goals Psychology as a Basic and Applied Science Psychology’s Broad Scope: A Simple Framework PERSPECTIVES ON BEHAVIOUR Psychology’s Intellectua...

CHAPTER 1 Psychology: The Science of Behaviour THE NATURE OF PSYCHOLOGY Psychology’s Scientific Approach Thinking Critically about Behaviour Psychology’s Goals Psychology as a Basic and Applied Science Psychology’s Broad Scope: A Simple Framework PERSPECTIVES ON BEHAVIOUR Psychology’s Intellectual Roots Early Schools: Structuralism and Functionalism The Psychodynamic Perspective: The Forces Within The Behavioural Perspective: The Power of the Environment The Humanistic Perspective: Self-Actualization and Positive Psychology The Cognitive Perspective: The Thinking Human The Sociocultural Perspective: The Embedded Human The Biological Perspective: The Brain, Genes, and Evolution Research Foundations: Would You Marry Someone You Didn’t Love? Focus on Neuroscience: The Neuroscience of Imaging Studies USING LEVELS OF ANALYSIS TO INTEGRATE THE PERSPECTIVES An Example: Understanding Depression Frontiers: Culture, Language, and Behaviour CHAPTER OUTLINE The Chapter Outline is your road map to each chapter. Skim the outline before reading the chapter to get an overview of the chapter’s topic. Summary of Major Themes PSYCHOLOGY TODAY Applications: Academic Performance Enhancement Strategies The compass icon appears next to the opening story. Throughout the chapter, the icon will mark sections of text that may be relevant to this story. Try to answer these questions after you read the opening story. When you see the compass icon throughout the chapter, consider which issue it might address, what information is provided, and what else we need to know. Perhaps the most fascinating and mysterious universe of all is the one within us. —Carl Sagan In March 2010, a documentary about a fake reality TV show called The Game of Death aired on French TV. Participants were told that they would have to deliver severe electric shocks to other contestants to win the game. Eightytwo percent of the contenders did just that, even though the contestant allegedly receiving the shocks cried out in pain. After Gary Hansen of Roblin, Manitoba, had been severely bullied for two years, his parents began home-schooling him. However, at the beginning of the 2004–2005 school year, Hansen decided to go back to his high school. In March 2005, Hansen hanged himself, and the town is still trying to recover. What are the issues here? What do we need to know? Where can we find the information to answer the questions? 2 CHAPTER ONE Researchers at the University of Valencia, Spain, have reported that the brain structures involved in violence are also affected in empathy. It seems that our ability to “put ourselves in someone else’s shoes” is mediated, in part, by the same neural circuits that lead us to violent aggression. The researchers suggest that empathy may actually prevent aggression by actively inhibiting these circuits. Terms in boldface indicate new or important concepts. These terms are defined in the Glossary. 1. Define psychology and indicate what kinds of behaviours it studies. Directed questions appear throughout each chapter. Read the question before you read the material in the text. After reading the material, try to answer the question. L et’s begin our exploration of psychology with a quick exercise. Please read the paragraph below, unscrambling the words as you proceed. Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a tatol mses, and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by istlef but the wrod as a wlohe. Type “jumbled words,” “jumbled paragraph,” or “scrambled letters” into a web browser. Dig around in the search results, and you’ll find multiple sites and blogs about this paragraph. In 2003, it was all the rage. The paragraph spread across the Internet and reached countless email inboxes as people— amazed by how easily they could read it—passed it along. When we showed the paragraph to our students, most breezed through it, although some struggled (if you had trouble, that’s okay; see the unscrambled version at the end of this chapter). Show the paragraph to some people you know and see how they do. Do you accept the claim that if the first and last letters of a word remain intact “the rset can be a tatol mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm”? From the paragraph’s immense popularity, we speculate that many people do accept this statement. After all, the evidence is concrete; it’s right before our eyes. Well, whether or not you accept it, take this challenge: Can you think of reasons why this particular jumbled paragraph is easy to read? Even better, can you create a short jumbled paragraph—keeping the first and last letters of words intact—that people find difficult to read? We’ll return to this challenge later in the chapter. So what does a jumbled paragraph have to do with psychology? If you personally view psychology as synonymous with therapy, shrinks, or couches, then your answer might be “not much.” But as we’ll see, psychologists study a tremendous diversity of topics—including language and how we recognize words (Mousikou et al., 2010). The jumbled paragraph raises other key psychological issues, such as how we acquire knowledge and form beliefs about our world, which we’ll discuss in the conclusion of this chapter. Among the countless beliefs we hold and the claims we hear about human nature and behaviour, how do we separate fact from fiction and myth from reality? The science of psychology leads us to engage these questions. THE NATURE OF PSYCHOLOGY Psychology is the scientific study of behaviour and the mind. The term behaviour refers to actions and responses that we can directly observe, whereas the term mind refers to internal states and processes, such as thoughts and feelings, that cannot be seen directly and that must be inferred from observable, measurable responses. For example, we cannot directly see a person’s feeling of love or admiration for someone else, but we can infer how the person feels based on observable verbal statements (e.g., “I love you”; “I really admire you”). When people hear the word psychologist, the first image that comes to their minds is often that of a therapist. This reaction is understandable, as a large number of psychologists work in a subfield called clinical psychology: the study and treatment of mental disorders. Many clinical psychologists diagnose and treat people with psychological problems in clinics, hospitals, and private practice. In addition, some are scientists who conduct research on the causes of mental disorders and the effectiveness of various treatments. Yet many psychologists have no connection with therapy and instead conduct research in other subfields (Figure 1.1). For example, cognitive psychology specializes in the study of mental processes, especially from a model that views the mind as an information processor. Cognitive psychologists examine such topics as consciousness, attention, memory, decision making, and problem solving. An area within cognitive psychology, called psycholinguistics, focuses on the psychology of language. The jumbled-word exercise relates directly to psycholinguistics. Psychology: The Science of Behaviour To illustrate psychology’s diversity, here a few other subfields: • Biopsychology/neuroscience focuses on the biological underpinnings of behaviour. Biopsychologists examine how brain processes, genes, and hormones influence our actions, thoughts, and feelings. Some biopsychologists seek to explain how evolution has shaped our psychological capabilities (e.g., our capacity for advanced thinking and language) and behavioural tendencies (e.g., to act aggressively or altruistically). • Developmental psychology examines human physical, psychological, and social development across the lifespan. For example, some developmental psychologists explore the emotional world of infants, while others study how different parenting styles psychologically affect children or how our mental abilities change during adolescence and adulthood. • Experimental psychology focuses on such basic processes as learning, sensory systems (e.g., vision, hearing), perception, and motivational states (e.g., sexual motivation, hunger, thirst). Most research in this subfield involves laboratory experiments, often with nonhuman animals. Although this subfield is called experimental psychology, be aware that researchers in many psychological subfields conduct experiments. • Industrial-organizational (I/O) psychology examines people’s behaviour in the workplace. I/O psychologists study leadership, teamwork, and factors that influence employees’ job satisfaction, work motivation, and performance. They develop tests to help employers identify the best job applicants and design systems that companies use to evaluate employee performance. • Personality psychology focuses on the study of human personality. Personality psychologists seek to identify core personality traits and how different traits relate to one another and influence behaviour. They also develop tests to measure personality. • Social psychology examines people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviour pertaining to the social world: the world of other people. Social psychologists study how people influence one another, behave in groups, and form impressions and attitudes. They study social relationships involving attraction and love, prejudice and discrimination, helping, and aggression. FIGURE 1.1 Psychologists study diverse topics. Subfields that may not immediately occur to you include aviation and space psychology, educational psychology, and the law. Note that topics studied in different subfields often overlap. Consider decision making, which is examined in all of the areas above. For example, a cognitive psychologist might study how wording the same 3 4 CHAPTER ONE Medicine Scientific study of health and the causes and treatment of diseases Computer Science Scientific study of information processing and manipulations of data Biology Scientific study of life processes and biological structures Psychology Scientific study of behaviour and mental processes Engineering Application of scientific principles to designing machines, structures, and systems Material in tables and figures can be just as important as the text. Be sure you read these sections. The compass icon indicates that the material here may help us understand the opening story. Anthropology Scientific study of cultural origins, evolution, and variations Economics Scientific study of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services Sociology Scientific study of human social relations and systems FIGURE 1.2 Psychology as a scientific hub. Psychology links with and overlaps many sciences. information in different ways affects people’s decisions; a social psychologist might study decision making in groups; and a developmental psychologist could examine how children’s decision-making strategies change with age (Josyln et al., 2009; Toma & Butera, 2009). Moreover, many psychologists have interests that bridge different subfields. Thus, a clinical psychologist might be interested in the biological bases of how adolescents with anxiety disorders make decisions. She could have adolescents who do and who don’t have an anxiety disorder perform decision-making tasks, and use brain-imaging techniques to compare the neural activity of the two groups (Krain et al., 2008). We’ll encounter other branches of psychology throughout the chapter, but we hope you already get the picture. Psychologists do study the causes of mental disorders, provide therapy, and evaluate therapy effectiveness, but their interests and research span the entire realm of behaviour. Indeed, the scope of modern psychology stretches from the borders of medicine and the biological sciences to those of the social sciences (Figure 1.2). Psychology’s Scientific Approach Across psychology’s diverse subfields, researchers share a common underlying scientific approach to studying behaviour. Science is a process that involves systematically gathering and evaluating empirical evidence to answer questions and test beliefs about the natural world. Empirical evidence is evidence gained through experience and observation, and this includes evidence from manipulating or “tinkering around” with things and then observing what happens (this is the essence of experimentation). For example, if we want to know how people’s intellectual abilities change as they age, we don’t rely on intuition, pure reasoning, or folk wisdom to obtain an answer. Rather, we collect empirical data by exposing people to intellectual tasks and observing how they perform. Moreover, in science these observations need to be systematic (i.e., performed according to a system of rules or conditions) so that they will be as objective and precise as possible (Shaugnessy et al., 2010). Understanding Behaviour: Some Pitfalls of Everyday Approaches Science is only one of many ways that we learn about human behaviour. Family and friends, great works of literature, secular and religious teachings, and the Internet and popular media all provide us with messages about human nature. Mix in our own intuitions (i.e., the knowledge that each of us acquires from years of personal experience interacting with people) and so-called “conventional” or “folk” wisdom, and we have potent ingredients for generating our personal beliefs about what makes people tick. Unfortunately, in everyday life there are many ways in which these sources can end up promoting misconceptions. Other people—via conversations, books, the Internet, and other popular media— may provide us with information and insights that they believe to be accurate but really are not. Even personal experiences can lead us to form inaccurate beliefs. Although our experiences and everyday observations provide us with empirical information, unlike scientific observations, everyday observation usually is casual rather than systematic. Our own experiences also may be atypical and not representative of what most people experience. As we’ll explore in Chapter 9, misconceptions can also result from our own faulty thinking. For example, consider the following: • We often take mental shortcuts when forming judgments—shortcuts that sometimes serve us poorly (White, 2009). Judging someone’s personality based solely on stereotypes about his or her physical appearance would be an example of a mental shortcut (e.g., Kleider et al., 2012). • Because many factors in real life may operate simultaneously to influence behaviour, we may Psychology: The Science of Behaviour fail to consider alternative explanations for why a behaviour has occurred and assume that one factor has caused it, when in fact some less obvious factor was the true cause (Elek et al., 2012; Lassiter et al., 2007). • Once our beliefs are established, we often fail to test them further. In this vein, we tend to display a confirmation bias by selectively paying attention to information that is consistent with our beliefs and downplaying or ignoring information that is inconsistent with them (Mendel et al., 2011; Hart et al., 2009). Using Science to Minimize Everyday Pitfalls Yes, scientists are human too, and they may fall victim to all these pitfalls and to others that we’ll discuss in the next chapter. But by adopting a scientific approach, psychologists can take concrete steps to avoid or at least minimize biases and problems that can lead to inaccurate conclusions. For example, rather than relying on imprecise casual observations, psychologists use various instruments (e.g., video recorders, questionnaires, brain-imaging devices) to objectively and precisely record people’s responses. When directly watching people, several researchers can independently observe the same behaviours and compare their findings to ensure that their observations were reliable. To avoid perceiving illusory correlations, psychologists typically use statistics to analyze their data. To minimize drawing erroneous conclusions about what has caused what, psychologists often are able to examine behaviour under highly controlled experimental conditions in which they intentionally manipulate one factor, try to keep other factors constant, and see how the manipulated factor influences behaviour. Science also is a public affair, as psychologists do publish their findings. Publication enables scientists to scrutinize and challenge each other’s findings if they wish. This collective approach reduces the risk of confirmation bias. As new studies are conducted, the original findings are put to the test and may be contradicted, forcing scientists to modify their beliefs and conduct further research to sort out contradictory results. To be sure, science has limitations and its own pitfalls. It is ideally suited to examining testable questions about the natural world. Psychologists can study such questions as “Do happy people differ from unhappy people in their degree of religiousness or spirituality?” and “What do people believe gives their life meaning?” But science cannot answer such questions as “Does God exist?” and “What is the meaning of life?” The former is a question of faith that is beyond scientific measurement; the latter is a question answered by personal values. As for pitfalls, poorly designed or poorly executed studies can produce misleading data that result in invalid conclusions. Even when studies are designed well and conducted properly, “false starts” can occur in which other researchers later are unable to duplicate the original researchers’ findings. Additionally, over time, new research often modifies or completely overturns existing scientific beliefs. But it’s important to realize that these aren’t weaknesses of the scientific approach. Rather, they reveal one of its great strengths: In principle, science ultimately is a self-correcting process. At any point in history, scientific knowledge represents a best estimate of how the world operates. As better or more complete information is gathered, that best estimate may continue to be supported or it may need to be changed. Understandably, to many people such change can be frustrating or confusing, as illustrated by the public uproar in 2009 when an expert medical panel issued new breast-cancer screening guidelines (Kolata, 2009). The panel stated that most women should start having regular mammogram tests at age 50, not at age 40 as recommended by prior, long-standing guidelines. Similarly, researchers in the Czech Republic reported that eating only two larger meals per day rather than multiple small meals actually leads to greater weight loss (Kahleova et al., 2012). To scientists, however, such changes represent an evolution of knowledge called scientific progress. Thinking Critically about Behaviour Because behaviour is so complex, its scientific study poses special challenges. As you become familiar with the kinds of evidence necessary to validate scientific conclusions, you will become a betterinformed consumer of the many claims made in the name of psychology. For one thing, this course will teach you that many widely held beliefs about behaviour are inaccurate. Can you distinguish the valid claims from the invalid ones in Table 1.1? Perhaps more important than the concepts you learn in this course will be the habits of thought that you acquire—habits that involve critical thinking. Critical thinking involves taking an active role in understanding the world around you rather than merely receiving information. It’s important to reflect on what that information means, how it fits in with your experiences, and its implications for your life and society. Critical thinking also means evaluating the validity of something presented to you as fact (Levy, 2010). For example, when someone makes a claim or asserts a new “fact,” ask 5 6 CHAPTER ONE TABLE 1.1 Widely Held Beliefs about Behaviour: Fact or Fiction? Directions: Decide whether each statement is true or false. 1. Most people with exceptionally high IQs are well adjusted in other areas of their lives. 2. In romantic relationships, opposites usually attract. 3. Overall, married adults are less happy than adults who aren’t married. 4. Graphology (handwriting analysis) is a valid method for measuring people’s personality. 5. A person who is innocent of a crime has nothing to fear from a lie detector test. 6. People who commit suicide usually have signalled to others their intention to do so. 7. When you negatively reinforce someone’s behaviour, the person becomes more likely to behave that way. 8. On some types of mental tasks, people perform as well or better when they are 70 years old than when they are 20 years old. 9. Usually, it is safe to awaken someone who is sleepwalking. 10. A schizophrenic is a person who has two or more distinct personalities, hence the term split personality. Answers: Items 1, 6, 8, and 9 are supported by psychological research. Item 7 is true by definition. The remaining items are false. (If you correctly answered 9 or 10 of these items, you’ve done significantly better than random guessing.) yourself the following questions, just as a scientist would: • What, exactly, is the claim or assertion? • Who is making the claim? Is the source credible and trustworthy? • What’s the evidence, and how good is it? • Are other explanations possible? Can I evaluate them? • What is the most appropriate conclusion? The Jumbled-Word Challenge Let’s think critically about the jumbled-word paragraph presented earlier. First, what’s the claim? There are three, actually: (1) that people can read jumbled words without a problem as long as the first and last letters stay in place, (2) that people have no problems because we read words as a whole rather than as individual letters, and (3) that this finding is based on research at Cambridge University. Second, who is making the claim? The jumbled paragraph’s author is anonymous, which is caution flag 1. We can’t evaluate the author’s credibility and trustworthiness. Third, what’s the evidence, and how good is it? The evidence begins with an unsubstantiated claim that research was conducted at Cambridge. No reference information (researchers’ names, publisher location, date) is given, which is caution flag 2. Indeed, scientists did no such research at Cambridge, although unpublished research at another university may have been the source (Davis, 2003; Rawlinson, 1999). There’s also the dramatic evidence of your own experience: reading the jumbled paragraph easily. But this is only one short paragraph. Also, overall, the transposition (i.e., switched ordering) of letters is minimal, which is caution flag 3, leading to the next question. Fourth, are other explanations possible for why the paragraph is easy to read? We’ll discuss reading more fully in Chapter 9. For now, consider the following: • Of the words in the paragraph, 65 percent either aren’t jumbled (because they have only one to three letters), or—with four-letter words—are “jumbled” only in that their second and third letters are switched (because there is only one possible transposition), which makes unscrambling them easy. • Of words with five or six letters, in all but one case, the transposition is minor because only a single letter is out of sequence (e.g., for mttaer, only the a is out of order). • Thus, in total, 83 percent of the words are either unjumbled or have only minor transpositions. This preserves much of the way the words sound when we read them. Further, these words provide contextual information in the sentence that makes it easier to anticipate the meaning of some of the few longer scrambled words. In everyday life, you’re unlikely to conduct a scientific study to test these alternative explanations, but you can gather additional evidence by constructing sentences with longer words and more complex transpositions and having some people try to read them. Try reading the following paragraph (the unjumbled version is revealed at the end of the chapter), and see if it changes your belief about the ease of reading jumbled words. Psychology: The Science of Behaviour A plciaiiotn dieend the mtnaalueghsr of a clgaloeue, but was coincetvd and dlepoeelvd sreeve macedil cdointonis in posirn, wrhee he deid. Arnodiistitman of agctannloauit dgurs ptttnaioeed the eefctfs of atehonr durg, and rprsoiearty frliaue rleeutsd. Lastly, what is the most appropriate conclusion? The claim that it’s relatively easy to read words as long as the first and last letters are intact appears to be too broad and absolute. Stated as such, it’s clearly wrong. Stated in qualified terms of “under some conditions” the claim has support, although one study found that even minor transpositions of interior letters slowed reading speed by 11 percent (Rayner, White, Johnson, & Liversedge, 2006). In some languages, however, such interior transpositions may make words very difficult, if not impossible, to read (Davis, 2003). Of Astrology and Asstrology: Potential Costs of Uncritical Thinking Suppose someone swallows the bait of the original jumbled-word paragraph and now erroneously believes that it’s always easy to read words with transposed letters. Unless it’s a smart-aleck student or worker who plans to turn in “jumbled” school papers or work reports (citing “scientific justification” for doing so), what’s the harm in holding this little false belief? Perhaps the immediate personal consequences are minimal, but misconceptions can add up and contribute to an increasingly misguided view of how the world operates. Unfortunately, people uncritically accept many misconceptions that do have concrete harmful consequences. For example, in the hope of making their babies smarter, consumers have shelled out about $200 million annually for Baby Einstein videos that the Walt Disney Company advertised as educational, despite a lack of scientific support for its claim (Zimmerman et al., 2007). Under government and consumer group pressure, Disney eventually dropped the educational label and later agreed to partially refund consumers (Lewin, 2009). Despite a lack of scientific evidence, people spend untold amounts of their hard-earned money to have their personalities analyzed and their futures forecasted by astrologers, graphologists (i.e., handwriting analyzers), tea-leaf readers, and other so-called “fortune tellers”—including rumpologists (sometimes referred to as asstrologers) who “read” people’s buttocks to obtain their presumed psychic insights (Wyman & Vyse, 2008). Money aside, it’s impossible to estimate how many people may have made major life decisions based on fortune tellers’ bogus advice. It’s also hard to know how many people have not 7 only wasted money on bogus therapies for ailments, diseases, and mental disorders, but also experienced needless continued distress or further bodily harm by failing to employ scientifically validated treatments. Unfortunately, pseudoscience—a field that incorporates astrology, graphology, rumpology, and so on—is dressed up to look like science and it attracts many believers, despite its lack of credible scientific evidence (Figure 1.3). Critical scrutiny is important for all scientific claims, as illustrated by Bem’s recent article claiming support for extrasensory perception (Bem, 2011). Daryl Bem is a highly respected researcher and the article was published in a prestigious journal. However, many other authors (e.g., Francis, 2012; LeBel et al., 2011) claimed that the data simply do not support the conclusions. Psychology’s Goals As a science, psychology has four central goals: 1. To describe how people and other animals behave 2. To explain and understand the causes of these behaviours 3. To predict how people and animals will behave under certain conditions 4. To influence or control behaviour through knowledge and control of its causes to enhance human welfare As you will learn in Chapter 2, the scientific goals of understanding, prediction, and control are linked in the following manner: If we understand the causes of a behaviour and know when the causal factors are present or absent, then we should be able to successfully predict when the behaviour will occur. Moreover, if we can control the causes, then we should be able to control the behaviour. For scientists, FIGURE 1.3 The popularity of pseudoscience. Source: © Sidney Harris. ScienceCartoonsPlus.com. Reprinted with permission. 2. What are the four goals of psychology? How are these goals linked to one another? 8 CHAPTER ONE successful prediction and control are the best ways for us to know whether we truly understand the causes of behaviour. We should also note, however, that prediction can have important practical uses that do not require a complete understanding of why some behaviour occurs. For example, a psychologist might find that scores on a personality test dependably predict school drop-out rates, without fully understanding the psychological processes involved. Psychology as a Basic and Applied Science 3. How do the goals of basic research and applied research differ? As scientists, psychologists employ a variety of research methods for developing and testing theories about behaviour and its causes. A distinction is sometimes made between basic research, the quest for knowledge purely for its own sake, and applied research, which is designed to solve specific practical problems. In psychology, the goals of basic research are to describe how people behave and to identify the factors that influence or cause a particular type of behaviour. Such research may be carried out in the laboratory or in real-world settings. Applied research often uses principles discovered through basic research to solve practical problems. Research methods will be discussed more fully in Chapter 2, but five research articles have been listed below to help you understand the difference between basic and applied research. These actual titles of articles appeared in psychological journals. Can you identify whether each study represents basic or applied research? 1. Two Forms of Spatial Imagery: Neuroimaging Evidence 2. The prevention of depressive symptoms in lowincome, minority children: Two-year follow-up 3. Increasing Seat Belt Use on a College Campus: An Evaluation of Two Prompting Procedures 4. Facial Structure Is a Reliable Cue of Aggressive Behaviour 5. Recognizing speech under a processing load: Dissociating energetic from informational factors Check your answers at the end of the chapter. Psychology’s Broad Scope: A Simple Framework Because we are biological creatures, living in a complex social world, psychologists study an amazing array of factors to understand why people behave, think, and feel as they do. At times, this diversity of factors may seem a bit overwhelming, but we would like to provide you with a framework that will greatly simplify matters. We call it levels of analysis: Behaviour and its causes can be examined at the biological level (e.g., brain processes, genetic influences), the psychological level (e.g., our thoughts, feelings, and motives), and the environmental level (e.g., past and current physical and social environments to which we are exposed). Here is a brief example of how the framework can be applied. Consider a behaviour that you engage in every day: eating (Figure 1.4). At the biological level, various chemicals, neural circuits, and structures in your brain respond to bodily signals and help to regulate whether you feel hungry or full. At the psychological level, your moods, food preferences, and motives affect eating. Do you ever eat when you’re not hungry—perhaps because you feel stressed or bored? The environmental level of analysis calls attention to specific stimuli (such as the appearance or aroma of different foods) that may trigger eating and to cultural customs that influence our food preferences. Does the aroma of freshly baked treats ever make your stomach growl? How about the sight of duck feet or a mound of fish gills on a plate? To most Westerners, duck feet and fish gills may not be appetizing, but during a stay in China, we discovered that our hosts considered them delicious. In Review • Psychology is the scientific study of behaviour and the mind. The term behaviour refers to actions and responses that we can directly observe, whereas the term mind refers to internal states and processes, such as thoughts and feelings, that cannot be seen directly and that must be inferred from observable, measurable responses. • The primary goals of psychological science are to describe, explain, predict, and influence behaviour and to apply psychological knowledge to enhance human welfare. • Basic research is the quest for knowledge for its own sake, whereas applied research involves the application of knowledge derived from basic research to solve practical problems. Psychology: The Science of Behaviour The Psychological Level 9 The Environmental Level The Biological Level FIGURE 1.4 Biological level (left). This rat weighs about triple the weight of a normal rat. As we (or rats) eat, hunger decreases as certain brain regions regulate the sensation of becoming full. Those regions in this rat’s brain have been damaged, causing it to overeat and become obese. Psychological level (centre). At times, we may eat out of habit, stress, or boredom. With a chocolate bar in hand and other candies lined up, this student is ready for some autopilot munching. Environmental level (right). Does a plateful of insecttopped crackers sound appetizing to you? Cultural norms influence food preferences. Mind–Body and Nature–Nurture Interactions Form a mental picture of a favourite food, and you may trigger a hunger pang. Focus on positive thoughts when facing a challenging situation, and you may keep your bodily arousal in check. Dwell instead on negative thoughts, and you can rapidly stimulate the release of stress hormones (Borod, 2000). These examples illustrate what traditionally have been called mind–body interactions—the relations between mental processes in the brain and the functioning of other bodily systems. Mind–body interactions focus our attention on the fascinating interplay between the psychological and biological levels of analysis. This topic has a long history within psychology, and, as you will see throughout the textbook, it remains one of psychology’s most exciting frontiers. The levels-of-analysis framework also addresses an issue that has been debated since antiquity: Is our behaviour primarily shaped by nature (our biological endowment) or nurture (our environment and learning history)? The pendulum has swung toward one end or the other at different times in history, but today, growing interest in cultural influences and advances in genetics and brain research keep the nature– nurture pendulum in a more balanced position. Perhaps most important, modern research increasingly reveals that nature and nurture interact (Masterpasqua, 2009; Moffitt et al., 2006). Just as our biological capacities affect how we behave and experience the world, our experiences influence our biological capacities. For humans and rats alike, continually depriving a newborn of physical contact, or providing a newborn with an enriched environment in which to grow, can influence its brain functioning and biological development (Rosenzweig, 1984). Thus, while it may be tempting to take sides, “Nature or nurture?” usually is the wrong question. As the levels-of-analysis framework implies, nature, nurture, and psychological factors must all be taken into account to gain the fullest understanding of behaviour. Later in the chapter, we’ll provide a more detailed example of how looking at behaviour from multiple levels enhances our understanding. PERSPECTIVES ON BEHAVIOUR Psychologists’ focus on biological, psychological, and environmental factors that influence behaviour is not new; this focus has been an integral part of psychology’s history. But just how did psychology’s scope become so broad? In part, it happened because psychology has roots in such varied disciplines as philosophy, medicine, and the biological 10 CHAPTER ONE Soon we’ll briefly look at Ray’s case through the lens of six psychological perspectives. But first, to better understand how these perspectives evolved, let’s examine psychology’s roots and two of its earliest schools of thought. Psychology’s Intellectual Roots FIGURE 1.5 Youth and beauty . . . or maturity and wisdom? What we perceive depends on our perspective. When you examine this drawing, you will see either a young woman or an old one. Now try changing your perspective. The ear and necklace of the young woman are the left eye and mouth of the old woman. 4. What are perspectives on behaviour? Cite four ways in which they can influence psychological science. 5. Contrast the positions of dualism and monism as they apply to the “mind–body” problem. and physical sciences. As a result, different ways of viewing people, called perspectives, became part of psychology’s intellectual traditions (Figure 1.5). In science, new perspectives are engines of progress. Advances occur as existing beliefs are challenged, a debate ensues, and scientists seek new evidence to resolve the debate. Sometimes, the bestsupported elements of contrasting perspectives are merged into a new framework, which in turn will be challenged by still newer viewpoints. If you have ever met someone who views the world differently from the way you do, then you know that perspectives matter. Similarly, perspectives serve as lenses through which psychologists examine and interpret behaviour. To illustrate this point, let’s consider the case of Ray, who was a shy student when he first entered university. Ray knew he was shy, especially around women, yet he wasn’t sure why. He had been nervous on the few dates he had gone on in high school. During his first term at university, Ray met some women he liked but was afraid to ask them out. He didn’t make male friends either. By winter, he was depressed and his schoolwork suffered. After a good spring break visit with his family, Ray turned things around. He studied hard, did well in class, and made friends with some guys in the dorm. His mood improved and soon thereafter he met Kira. Kira was attracted to Ray but sensed his shyness, so she asked Ray out. They’ve been dating for a year and Ray is happy. He and Kira have even discussed marriage. Humans have long sought to understand themselves, and for ages the mind–body problem has occupied the centre of this quest. Is the mind—the inner agent of consciousness and thought—a spiritual entity separate from the body, or is it part of the body’s activities? Many early philosophers held a position of mind– body dualism, the belief that the mind is a spiritual entity not subject to physical laws that govern the body. But if the mind is not composed of physical matter, how could it become aware of bodily sensations, and how could its thoughts exert control over bodily functions? French philosopher and scientist René Descartes (1596–1650) proposed that the mind and body interact through the brain’s tiny pineal gland. Although Descartes placed the mind within the brain, he maintained that the mind was a spiritual, nonmaterial entity. Dualism implies that no amount of research on the physical body (including the brain) could ever hope to unravel the mysteries of the nonphysical mind. Another view, monism (from the Greek word monos, meaning “one”), holds that mind and body are one and that the mind is not a separate spiritual entity. To monists, mental events correspond to physical events in the brain, a position advocated by English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679). Monism helped set the stage for psychology because it implied that the mind could be studied by measuring physical processes within the brain. The stage was further set by John Locke (1632–1704) and other philosophers from the school of British empiricism, which held that all ideas and knowledge are gained empirically—that is, through the senses. According to empiricists, observation is a more valid approach to knowledge than is pure reason, because reason is fraught with the potential for error. This idea bolstered the development of modern science, whose methods are rooted in empirical observation. Discoveries in physiology (an area of biology that examines bodily functioning) and medicine also paved the way for psychology’s emergence. By 1870, European researchers were electrically stimulating the brains of laboratory animals and mapping the surface areas that controlled various body movements. Additionally, medical reports were linking damage in different areas of patients’ brains with various behavioural and mental impairments. This mounting evidence of the relation between brain and behaviour supported the view that empirical methods of the natural sciences could be used to study mental processes. Indeed, in the mid-1800s German Psychology: The Science of Behaviour scientists had already established a new field called psychophysics, the study of how psychologically experienced sensations depend on the characteristics of physical stimuli (e.g., how the perceived loudness of a sound changes as its physical intensity increases). Around this time, Charles Darwin’s (1809–1882) theory of evolution was generating societal shock waves. Opponents attacked his theory because it seemed to contradict philosophical and religious beliefs about the exalted nature of human beings. Evolution implied that the mind was not a spiritual entity, but rather the product of biological continuity between humans and other species. Darwin’s theory also implied that scientists might gain insight about human behaviour by studying other species. By the late 1800s, a convergence of intellectual forces provided the impetus for psychology’s birth. Early Schools: Structuralism and Functionalism The infant science of psychology emerged in 1879, when Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) established the first experimental psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig in Germany (Figure 1.6). There he helped train the first generation of scientific psychologists. Among these were August Kirschmann and James Baldwin, both of whom were founding members of the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto, and George Humphrey, who began the tradition of research in experimental psychology at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario (Wright & Myers, 1982). One of Wundt’s graduate students, Englishman Edward Titchener (1867–1927), later established a psychology laboratory in the United States at Cornell University. Wundt and Titchener believed that the mind could be studied by breaking it down into its basic components, as a chemist might break down a complex chemical compound. Their approach came to be known as structuralism, the analysis of the mind in terms of its basic elements. In their experiments, structuralists used the method of introspection (“looking within”) to study sensations, which they considered the basic elements of consciousness. They exposed participants to all sorts of sensory stimuli—lights, sounds, tastes—and trained them to describe their inner experiences. Although this method of studying the mind was criticized as being too subjective, and it died out after a few decades, the structuralists left an important mark by establishing a scientific tradition for studying cognitive processes. In the United States, structuralism eventually gave way to functionalism, which held that psychology should study the functions of consciousness rather than its structure. Here’s a rough analogy to explain the difference between structuralism and functionalism: Consider your hands. A structuralist would try to explain their movement by studying how muscles, tendons, and bones operate. In contrast, a functionalist would ask, “Why do we have hands? How do they help us adapt to our environment?” The functionalists asked similar questions about mental processes and behaviour. They were influenced by Darwin’s evolutionary theory, which stressed the importance of adaptation in helping organisms survive and reproduce in their environment. William James (1842–1910), a leader in the functionalist movement, taught courses in physiology, psychology, and philosophy at Harvard University (Figure 1.7). James helped widen the scope of psychology to include the study of various biological and mental processes, and overt behaviour. Like Wundt, James trained psychologists who went on to distinguished careers. Among them was Mary Whiton Calkins (1863–1930), who became the first female president of the American Psychological Association in 1905 (Figure 1.8). Although functionalism no longer exists as a school of thought within psychology, its tradition endures in two modern-day fields: cognitive psychology, which studies mental processes, and evolutionary psychology, which emphasizes the adaptiveness of behaviour. FIGURE 1.6 At the University of Leipzig in 1879, Wilhelm Wundt established the first laboratory of experimental psychology to study the structure of the mind. 6. Compare the goals of structuralism and functionalism. The Psychodynamic Perspective: The Forces Within Have you ever been mystified by why you behaved or felt a certain way? Recall the case of Ray, the student described earlier in this chapter, who could not understand why he was shy. The psychodynamic perspective searches for the causes of behaviour within the inner workings of our personality (our unique pattern of traits, emotions, and motives), emphasizing the role of unconscious processes. Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) developed FIGURE 1.7 William James, a leader of functionalism, helped establish psychology in North America. His multivolume book Principles of Psychology (1890/1950) greatly expanded the scope of psychology. 11 7. What causal factors are the focus of the psychodynamic perspective? 12 CHAPTER ONE FIGURE 1.8 Mary Whiton Calkins founded a psychology laboratory at Wellesley College, where she taught for over 30 years. She studied memory and dreams, and in 1905, she became the first female president of the American Psychological Association. the first and most influential psychodynamic theory (Figure 1.9). Psychoanalysis: Freud’s Great Challenge 8. What observations convinced Freud of the importance of unconscious and childhood determinants of adult behaviour? 9. In what sense, according to Freud, is the human in continuous internal conflict? In late 19th century Vienna, Freud was a young physician intrigued by the brain’s mysteries. Some of his patients experienced such symptoms as blindness, pain, paralysis, and phobias (i.e., intense unrealistic fears) that were not caused by any apparent bodily malfunction or disease. Thus, Freud reasoned that the causes must be psychological. Moreover, if patients were not producing their symptoms consciously, Freud reasoned that the causes must be hidden from awareness—they must be unconscious. Freud eventually treated his patients by using a technique called free association, in which the patient expressed any thoughts that came to mind. To Freud’s surprise, patients eventually described painful and long-“forgotten” childhood experiences, often sexual in nature. After patients remembered and mentally “relived” these traumatic experiences, their symptoms often improved. Freud became convinced that an unconscious part of the mind profoundly influences behaviour, and he developed a theory and a form of psychotherapy called psychoanalysis—the analysis of internal and primarily unconscious psychological forces. He also proposed that humans have powerful inborn sexual and aggressive drives and that because these desires are punished in childhood, we learn to fear them and become anxious when we are aware of their presence. This anxiety leads us to develop defence mechanisms, which are psychological techniques that help us cope with anxiety and the pain of traumatic experiences. Repression, a primary defence mechanism, protects us by keeping unacceptable impulses, feelings, and memories in the unconscious depths of the mind. All behaviour, whether normal or “abnormal,” reflects a largely unconscious and inevitable conflict between the defences and internal impulses. This ongoing psychological struggle between conflicting forces is dynamic in nature, hence the term psychodynamic. To explain Ray’s extreme shyness around women, Freud might have explored whether Ray is unconsciously afraid of his sexual impulses and therefore avoids putting himself into dating situations where he would have to confront those hidden impulses. Freud’s theory stirred great controversy. Even some of his followers disagreed with aspects of the theory, especially its heavy emphasis on childhood sexuality. Other psychologists viewed the theory as difficult to test. Nevertheless, Freud’s ideas stimulated research on such topics as dreams, memory, aggression, and mental disorders. One review of over 3000 scientific studies examining Freud’s ideas found support for some aspects of his theory, whereas other aspects were unsupported or contradicted (Fisher & Greenberg, 1996). But even where Freud’s theory wasn’t supported, it ultimately led to important discoveries. Additionally, Freud’s work forever broadened the face of psychology to include the study and treatment of psychological disorders. Modern Psychodynamic Theory FIGURE 1.9 Sigmund Freud founded psychoanalysis. For more than 50 years, he probed the hidden recesses of the mind. Modern psychodynamic theories continue to explore how unconscious and conscious aspects of personality influence behaviour. However, they downplay the role of hidden sexual and aggressive motives and focus more on how early relationships with family members and other caregivers shape the views that people form of themselves and others (Kernberg, 1984, 2000). In turn, these views can unconsciously influence a person’s relationships with other people throughout life. Psychology: The Science of Behaviour To explain Ray’s shyness, a modern psychodynamic psychologist might examine Ray’s conceptions of himself and his parents. Ray’s shyness may stem from a fear of rejection of which he is unaware. This fear may be based on conceptions that he developed of his parents as being rejecting and disapproving, views that now unconsciously shape his expectations of how relationships with women and men will be. The psychodynamic perspective dominated thinking about personality, mental disorders, and psychotherapy for the first half of the 20th century, and it continues to influence psychology and the practice of psychotherapy (Ryle, 2010). Although most contemporary psychological scientists reject Freud’s particular version of the unconscious mind, modern psychological research has identified brain mechanisms that produce unconscious emotional reactions and has shown that many aspects of information processing occur outside of awareness (Bargh & Morsella, 2010; LaBar & LeDoux, 2006). The Behavioural Perspective: The Power of the Environment The behavioural perspective focuses on the role of the external environment in governing our actions. From this perspective, our behaviour is jointly determined by habits learned from previous life experiences and by stimuli in our immediate environment. Origins of the Behavioural Perspective The behavioural perspective has roots in the philosophical school of British empiricism. According to the early empiricist John Locke, at birth the human mind is a tabula rasa—a “blank tablet” or “slate”— upon which experiences are written. In this view, human nature is shaped purely by the environment. In the early 1900s, experiments by Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936) revealed how learning occurs when events are associated with each other. Pavlov found that dogs automatically learned to salivate to the sound of a new stimulus, such as a tone, if that stimulus was repeatedly paired with food. Meanwhile, American psychologist Edward Thorndike (1874–1949) examined how organisms learn through the consequences of their actions. According to Thorndike’s (1911) law of effect, responses followed by satisfying consequences become more likely to recur, and those followed by unsatisfying consequences become less likely to recur. Thus, learning is the key to understanding how experience moulds behaviour. FIGURE 1.10 John B. Watson founded the school of behaviourism. He published Psychology as a Behaviourist Views It in 1913. the “mentalism” of the structuralists, functionalists, and psychoanalysts (Figure 1.10). He argued that the proper subject matter of psychology was observable behaviour, not unobservable inner consciousness. Humans, he said, are products of their learning experiences, and he issued the following challenge: Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specialized world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee you to take any one of them at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. (1925, p. 82) Behaviourists sought to discover laws that govern learning, and they believed that the same basic principles of learning applied to all organisms. B.F. Skinner (1904–1990) was a leading 20th century behaviourist (Figure 1.11). Although Skinner Behaviourism Behaviourism, a school of thought that emphasizes environmental control of behaviour through learning, began to emerge in 1913. John B. Watson (1878– 1958), who led the new movement, strongly opposed 13 FIGURE 1.11 B.F. Skinner, a leading behaviourist, argued that mentalistic concepts were not necessary to explain behaviour and that learning principles could be used to enhance human welfare. 10. What are the important causal factors in behaviour within the behavioural perspective? How was this school of thought influenced by British empiricism? 14 CHAPTER ONE 11. What is cognitive behaviourism? How does it differ from radical behaviourism? FIGUR E 1.1 2 Albert Bandura has played a key role in merging the cognitive and behavioural perspectives into cognitive behaviourism. didn’t deny that people have thoughts and feelings, he maintained that “No account of what is happening inside the human body, no matter how complete, will explain the origins of human behaviour” (1989b, p. 18). Skinner believed that the real causes of behaviour reside in the outer world: “A person does not act upon the world, the world acts upon him” (1971, p. 211). His research, based largely on studying rats and pigeons under controlled laboratory conditions, examined how behaviour is influenced by the rewarding and punishing consequences that it produces. In the case of our shy student, Ray, a behaviourist might focus on Ray’s past dating experiences. In high school, the first time Ray invited a girl to a dance, he was turned down. Later, he had a crush on a girl and they went out once, after which she turned him down. Though nervous, he asked out a few girls after that but was turned down each time. Such punishing consequences decreased the likelihood that Ray would ask someone out in the future. Fortunately, Kira asked Ray out, and the positive consequences they experienced on their first date reinforced their behaviour, increasing the odds that they would go out again. Skinner believed that through “social engineering,” society could harness the power of the environment to change behaviour in beneficial ways. His approach, known as radical behaviourism, was considered extreme by many psychologists, but he was esteemed for his scientific contributions and for focusing attention on how environmental forces could be used to enhance human welfare. In the 1960s, behaviourism inspired powerful techniques known collectively as behaviour modification. These techniques, aimed at decreasing problem behaviours and increasing positive behaviours by manipulating environmental factors, are still used widely today (Eldevik et al., 2010). Behaviourism’s insistence that psychology should focus only on observable stimuli and responses resonated with many who wanted psychology to model itself on the natural sciences. Behaviourism dominated North American research on learning into the 1960s, challenged psychodynamic views about the causes of psychological disorders, and led to effective treatments for some disorders. But radical behaviourism’s influence waned after the 1970s, as interest in studying mental processes expanded (Robins et al., 1999). Still, behaviourists continue to make important contributions, and their discovery of basic laws of learning was one of the greatest contributions made by 20th-century American psychology. Thinking critically ARE THE STUDENTS LAZY? Imagine that you are a high school teacher. Whenever you try to engage your students in a class discussion, they gaze into space and hardly say anything. You start to think that they’re just a bunch of lazy kids. From a radical behavioural perspective, is your conclusion reasonable? How might you improve the situation? Think about it, and then see the Answers section at the end of the book. Cognitive Behaviourism In the 1960s and 1970s, a growing number of psychologists showed that such cognitive processes as attention and memory could be rigorously studied by using sophisticated experiments. This ability led some behaviourists to challenge radical behaviourism’s view that mental life was off-limits as a topic for scientific study. A leading cognitive behaviourist is Albert Bandura (Figure 1.12), who was born in Alberta in 1925, received his B.A. from the University of British Columbia in 1949, and received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 1952. Since 1953, he has taught at Stanford University, where he promotes the view that the environment exerts its effects on behaviour not by automatically “stamping in” or “stamping out” behaviours, as Watson or Skinner maintained, but rather by affecting our thoughts. In cognitive behaviourism, learning experiences and the environment affect our behaviour by giving us the information we need to behave effectively (Bandura, 1969, 2002). Cognitive behaviourism remains an influential viewpoint to this day. A cognitive behaviourist might say that Ray’s past dating rejections were punishing, leading him to expect that further attempts at romance would be doomed. In turn, these expectations of social rejection inhibited him from asking women out and even from making male friends. The Humanistic Perspective: SelfActualization and Positive Psychology In the mid-20th century, as the psychodynamic and behavioural perspectives vied for dominance within psychology, a new viewpoint called humanism arose to challenge them both. The humanistic perspective emphasized free will, personal growth, and the attempt to find meaning in one’s existence. Humanists rejected psychodynamic concept