Psychology Chapter 1 PDF

Chapter 1 Thinking Critically With Psychological Science (Modules 1–3) MODULE 1 The History and Scope of Psychology Psychology Is a Science THINKING CRITICALLY ABOUT: The Scientific Attitude Critical Thinking Psychological Science Is Born Psychological Science Matures Contemporary Psychology Use Psychology to Become a Stronger Person—and a Better Student MODULE 2 Research Strategies: How Psychologists Ask and Answer Questions The Need for Psychological Science Psychological Science in a Post-Truth World The Scientific Method THINKING CRITICALLY ABOUT: Correlation and Causation Psychology’s Research Ethics MODULE 3 Statistical Reasoning in Everyday Life Statistical Literacy Descriptive Statistics Inferential Statistics Astronomer Owen Gingerich has described the human brain as “by far the most complex physical object known to us in the entire cosmos” (2006, p. 29). On the scale of outer space, we are less than a single grain of sand on all the oceans’ beaches, and our lifetime lasts but a relative nanosecond. Yet there is nothing more awe inspiring than our own inner space. Our consciousness—our mind somehow arising from matter— remains a profound mystery. Our thinking, emotions, and actions (and their interplay with others’ thinking, emotions, and actions) fascinate us. Outer space staggers us with its enormity. But inner space enthralls us. Enter psychological science. From news and media portrayals, you might think that psychologists offer counseling, analyze personality, dispense child-raising advice, examine crime scenes, and testify in court. Do they? Yes— and much more. Consider some of psychology’s questions that you may wonder about: Have you ever worried about how to act among people of a different cultural tradition, gender identity, or sexual orientation, or among people with differing abilities? How are we alike as members of the human family? How do we differ? Have you ever vowed to never react as one of your biological parents would—but find yourself doing so anyway—and then wondered how much of your personality you inherited? To what extent do genes predispose our individual differences in personality? How do home and community environments shape us? Have you ever awakened from a nightmare and wondered why you had such a crazy dream? Why do we dream? Why is sleep so important? Have you ever played peekaboo with a 6-month-old and wondered why the baby finds your disappearing/reappearing act so delightful? What do babies perceive and think? Have you ever wondered what fosters school and work success? Does inborn intelligence explain why some people get richer, think more creatively, or relate more sensitively? Or does gritty effort, and a belief in the power of persistence, matter more? Have you ever become depressed or anxious and wondered when, or if, it will pass? What affects our emotional well-being? What’s the line between feeling “off” and a psychological disorder? As we will see in Modules 1 and 2 , psychology is a science that seeks to answer such questions about us all—how and why we think, feel, and act as we do. MODULE 1: The History and Scope of Psychology Once upon a time, on a planet in our neighborhood of the universe, there came to be people. Soon thereafter, these creatures became intensely interested in themselves and in one another: “Who are we? What produces our thoughts? Our feelings? Our actions? And how are we to understand and interact with those around us?” Psychology Is a Science Learning Objective Question LOQ 1-1 How is psychology a science? Underlying all science is, first, a passion for exploring and understanding without misleading or being misled. Some questions (Is there life after death?) are beyond science. Answering them in any way requires a leap of faith. With many other ideas (Can some people demonstrate extrasensory perception [ESP]?), the proof is in the pudding. We can let the facts speak for themselves. To assist your learning, numbered Learning Objective Questions appear at the beginning of major sections. You can test your understanding by trying to answer the question before, and then again after, you read the section. Magician James Randi used an empirical approach when testing those claiming to see glowing auras around people’s bodies: Randi: Do you see an aura around my head? Aura seer: Yes, indeed. Randi: Can you still see the aura if I put this magazine in front of my face? Aura seer: Of course. Randi: Then if I were to step behind a wall barely taller than I am, you could determine my location from the aura visible above my head, right? Randi once told me [DM] that no aura seer had yet agreed to take this simple test. Throughout the text, the most important concepts are boldfaced, with definitions immediately available (and in the Glossary at the end of the book). No matter how sensible-seeming or how wild an idea, the smart thinker asks: Does it work? When put to the test, do the data support its predictions? Subjected to scrutiny, crazy-sounding ideas sometimes find support. More often, science becomes society’s garbage disposal. It sends crazy-sounding ideas to the waste heap, atop previous claims of miracle cancer cures and out-of-body travels into centuries past. To sift reality from fantasy and fact from fiction therefore requires a scientific attitude: being skeptical but not cynical, open-minded but not gullible. When ideas compete, careful testing can reveal which ones best fit the facts. Do some people have a psychic power to predict an unexpected catastrophe? Is electroconvulsive therapy (delivering an electric shock to the brain) an effective treatment for severe depression? As we will see, putting such claims to the test has led psychological scientists to answer No to the first question and Yes to the second. Putting a scientific attitude into practice requires not only curiosity and skepticism but also humility— awareness of our vulnerability to error and an openness to new perspectives. What matters is not my opinion or yours, but the truths revealed by our questioning and testing. If people or other animals don’t behave as our ideas predict, then so much the worse for our ideas—and so much the better for scientific progress. One of psychology’s early mottos expressed this humble attitude: “The rat is always right.” (See Thinking Critically About: The Scientific Attitude.) LOQ 1-2 What are the three key elements of the scientific attitude, and how do they support scientific inquiry? Throughout the book, information sources are cited in parentheses, with researchers’ names and the date the research was published. For example, see “(Erlandsson et al., 2018)”. Every citation can be found in the end-of-book References section, with complete documentation that follows American Psychological Association (APA) style. Humility predicts helpfulness and realistic academic confidence (Erlandsson et al., 2018). One nine-country study asked 40,000 teens which of 16 math concepts were familiar to them. The teens didn’t realize that the researchers had inserted three fake terms: “proper number,” “subjective scaling,” and “declarative fraction.” Those who arrogantly claimed to know the nonexistent concepts were often men from advantaged backgrounds (Jerrim et al., 2019). The point to remember: Knowing what we don’t know enables generosity and intellectual humility, which in turn supports a healthy democracy. “Democratic citizenship,” notes psychologist Fathali Moghaddam (2019), begins by “accepting that ‘I could be wrong,’ ‘I must critically question everything’ … and ‘I must revise my opinions as the evidence requires.’” Ask Yourself Were you surprised to learn that psychology is a science? How would you explain that now if someone asked you about it? Critical Thinking LOQ 1-3 How does critical thinking feed a scientific attitude, and smarter thinking for everyday life? The scientific attitude—curiosity + skepticism + humility—prepares us to think smarter. This smart thinking, called critical thinking , examines assumptions, appraises the source, discerns hidden biases, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions. When reading a research report, an online opinion, or a news story, critical thinkers ask questions: How do they know that? What is this person’s agenda? Is the conclusion based on anecdote, or evidence? Does the evidence justify a cause-effect conclusion? What alternative explanations are possible? From a tongue-in-cheek Twitter feed: “The problem with quotes on the internet is that you never know if they’re true.” — Abraham Lincoln Critical thinkers wince when people make factual claims based on their gut: “I feel like climate change is [or isn’t] happening.” “I feel like self-driving cars are more [or less] dangerous.” “I feel like I’m safe from Covid here.” Such beliefs (commonly mislabeled as feelings) may or may not be true. Critical thinkers realize that they might be wrong. Sometimes, the best evidence confirms our beliefs. Other times it beckons us to a different way of thinking. Cynics sometimes seem smart, yet most demonstrate less cognitive ability and academic competence than average (Stavrova & Ehlebracht, 2019). To believe everything—or to reject everything—is to be a fool. Critical thinking, informed by science, helps check our biases. Consider: Does climate change threaten our future, and, if so, is it human-caused? Some climate-action advocates have interpreted record flooding as proof of climate change. Some climate-change skeptics have perceived a single colder-than-average winter as discounting global warming. Rather than having their understanding of climate change swayed by local weather examples, critical thinkers say, “Show me the evidence.” Over time, is the Earth actually warming? Are the polar ice caps melting? Are vegetation patterns changing? Are extreme weather events becoming more frequent? And is human activity emitting atmospheric CO2 that would lead us to expect such changes? When contemplating such issues, critical thinkers will also consider the credibility of sources. They will look at the evidence (Do the facts support them, or are they just makin’ stuff up?). They will recognize multiple perspectives. And they will expose themselves to news sources that challenge their preconceived ideas. Some religious people may view critical thinking and scientific inquiry, including psychology’s, as a threat. Yet many leaders of the scientific revolution, including Copernicus and Newton, were deeply religious people. U.S. astronomer Carl Sagan (1979) noted, My deeply held belief is that if a god anything like the traditional sort exists, our curiosity and intelligence are provided by such a god. We would be unappreciative of those gifts … if we suppressed our passion to explore the universe and ourselves. Critical inquiry can surprise us. Some examples from psychological science: Massive losses of brain tissue early in life may have minimal long-term effects (see Module 6 ). Within days, newborns can recognize their mother’s odor (see Module 15 ). After brain damage, a person may be able to learn new skills yet be unaware of such learning (see Module 25 ). People of differing ages, genders, and abilities report roughly comparable levels of personal happiness (see Module 38 ). Depression touches many people, but most recover (see Module 50 ). Other modules also illustrate how critical inquiry sometimes debunks popular presumptions, by checking intuitive fiction with empirical fact: Sleepwalkers are not acting out their dreams (see Module 9 ). Our past experiences are not all recorded verbatim in our brain. With brain stimulation or hypnosis, one cannot merely replay and relive long-buried or repressed memories (see Module 26 ). Opposites tend not to attract (see Module 44 ). Most people do not suffer from unrealistically low self-esteem, and high self-esteem is not all good (see Module 47 ). In these instances and many more, what psychological scientists have learned is not what is widely believed. Psychology’s critical inquiry can also identify effective policies. To deter crime, should we invest money in lengthening prison sentences, or should we increase the likelihood of arrest? To help people recover from a trauma, should counselors help them relive it, or not? To increase voting, should we tell people about the low turnout problem, or emphasize that their peers are voting? What matters is not what we “feel” is true, but what is true. When put to critical thinking’s test—and contrary to common practice—the second option in each case wins (Shafir, 2013). Thinking critically can—and sometimes does—change the world. Critical thinking can also change us, by helping us assess popular applications of psychology. Looking at a self-help blog, we can consider the author’s expertise and goals. We can ask: Are the suggestions based on evidence or anecdote? And how might the author’s personal values and agenda affect the advice? If you defer to guidance about how to live—how to raise children, how to achieve self-fulfillment, how to respond to sexual feelings, how to get ahead at work—you are accepting value-laden advice. A science of behavior and mental processes can help us reach our goals. But it cannot decide which goals are worth pursuing. Psychological scientists teach, but they do not preach. Study Tip: Memory research reveals a testing effect: We retain information much better if we actively retrieve it by self-testing and rehearsing. (More on this at the end of this module.) To bolster your learning and memory, take advantage of the Retrieval Practice opportunities you’ll find throughout this text—with answers for checking in Appendix E , or a click away in the e-book. Retrieval Practice RP-1 Describe what’s involved in critical thinking. ANSWERS IN APPENDIX E Psychological Science Is Born LOQ 1-4 What were some important milestones in psychology’s early history? To be human is to be curious about ourselves and the world around us. Before 300 b. c. e., the Greek naturalist and philosopher Aristotle theorized about learning and memory, motivation and emotion, perception and personality. Today we chuckle at some of his guesses, such as his suggestion that a meal makes us sleepy by causing gas and heat to collect around the supposed source of our personality, the heart. But credit Aristotle with asking the right questions. Psychology’s First Laboratory Philosophers’ thinking about thinking continued until the birth of psychology’s first laboratory. On a December day in 1879, in a small, third-floor room at Germany’s University of Leipzig, two graduate students helped an austere, middle-aged professor, Wilhelm Wundt, create an experimental apparatus. Their machine measured how long it took for people to press a telegraph key after hearing a ball hit a platform (Hunt, 1993). Curiously, people responded in about one-tenth of a second when asked to press the key as soon as the sound occurred —and in about two-tenths of a second when asked to press the key as soon as they were consciously aware of perceiving the sound. (To be aware of one’s awareness takes a little longer.) Wundt wanted to measure “atoms of the mind”—the fastest and simplest mental processes. Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) Wundt established the first psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig, Germany. Psychology’s First Schools of Thought Before long, this new science of psychology became organized into different branches, or schools of thought, each promoted by pioneering thinkers. Two early schools were structuralism and functionalism. Structuralism Much as chemists developed the periodic table to classify chemical elements, so psychologist Edward Bradford Titchener aimed to classify and understand elements of the mind’s structure (structuralism). He engaged people in self-reflective introspection (looking inward), training them to report elements of their experience as they looked at a rose, listened to a metronome, smelled a scent, or tasted a substance. What were their immediate sensations, their images, their feelings? And how did these relate to one another? Alas, structuralism’s technique of introspection proved somewhat unreliable. It required smart, verbal people, and its results varied from person to person and experience to experience. As introspection waned, so did structuralism. Hoping to assemble the mind’s structure from simple elements was rather like trying to understand a smartphone by examining its disconnected parts. Edward Bradford Titchener (1867–1927) Titchener used introspection to search for the mind’s structural elements. Functionalism Philosopher-psychologist William James sought to go beyond labeling our inner thoughts and feelings by considering their evolved functions (functionalism). Smelling is what the nose does; thinking is what the brain does. But why do the nose and brain do these things? Under the influence of evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin, James assumed that thinking, like smelling, developed because it was adaptive— it helped our ancestors survive and reproduce. Consciousness serves a function. It enables us to consider our past, adjust to our present, and plan our future. To explore the mind’s adaptive functions, James studied emotions, memories, willpower, habits, and moment-to- moment stream of consciousness thinking. James’ writings moved the publisher Henry Holt to offer James a contract for a textbook on the new science of psychology. James agreed and began work in 1878, with an apology for requesting two years to finish his writing. The text proved an unexpected chore and actually took him 12 years. (Why are we authors not surprised?) More than a century later, people still read the resulting Principles of Psychology (1890) and marvel at the brilliance and elegance with which James introduced psychology to the educated public. Psychology’s First Women James’ legacy stems from his Harvard mentoring as well as from his writing. In 1890—thirty years before U.S. women had the right to vote —he admitted Mary Whiton Calkins into his graduate seminar over the objections of Harvard’s president (Scarborough & Furumoto, 1987). When Calkins joined, the other students (all men) dropped out. So, James tutored her alone. Later, she finished all of Harvard’s Ph.D. requirements, outscoring all the male students on the qualifying exams. Alas, Harvard denied her the degree she had earned, offering her instead a doctorate from Radcliffe College, its undergraduate “sister” school for women. Calkins resisted the unequal treatment and refused the degree. She nevertheless went on to become a distinguished memory researcher and, in 1905, the first female president of the American Psychological Association (APA). William James (1842–1910) and Mary Whiton Calkins (1863–1930) James was a legendary teacher-writer who authored an important psychology text. He mentored Calkins, a memory researcher who would become the first female president of the American Psychological Association. The honor of being the first official female psychology Ph.D. later fell to Margaret Floy Washburn, who also wrote an influential book, The Animal Mind. In 1921, Washburn became the second female APA president (Fragaszy, 2021). But Washburn’s gender barred doors for her, too. Although her thesis was the first foreign study Wundt published in his psychology journal, she could not join the all-male organization of experimental psychologists founded by Titchener, her own graduate adviser (Johnson, 1997). What a different world from the recent past: Between 1997 and 2021, more than half of the elected presidents of the science-focused Association for Psychological Science (APS) were women. In the United States, Canada, and Europe, women now earn most psychology doctorates. Nevertheless, a gender gap persists in publishing psychological research in top journals, promotion to senior professorships, and salary (Gruber et al., 2021). Margaret Floy Washburn (1871–1939) The first woman to receive a psychology Ph.D., Washburn synthesized animal behavior research in The Animal Mind (1908). Psychology’s increasing diversity At this 1964 meeting of the Society of Experimental Psychologists (a), Eleanor Gibson was easy to spot among the many male members, all in a sea of White faces. By contrast, women are now 61 percent of APS members, including 75 percent of its psychology student affiliates, as is clear in this recent photo of APS graduate students (b). People of color have made enormous contributions to the field (see, for example, coverage of Mamie Phipps Clark and Kenneth Clark in the Chapter 1 modules), and psychology’s diversity continues to grow—with one-third of recent psychology doctorates earned by people of color (APA, 2021). For more on the history of these changes, see Appendix A , the Story of Psychology: A Timeline. Ask Yourself How do you think psychology might change in the future as more women, and others from historically excluded groups, contribute their ideas to the field? Retrieval Practice RP-2 What event defined the start of scientific psychology? RP-3 Why did introspection fail as a method for understanding how the mind works? RP-4 The school of used introspection to define the mind’s makeup; focused on how mental processes enable us to adapt, survive, and flourish. ANSWERS IN APPENDIX E Psychological Science Matures LOQ 1-5 How did behaviorism, Freudian psychology, and humanistic psychology further the development of psychological science? Many early psychologists shared English essayist C. S. Lewis’s view that “there is one thing, and only one in the whole universe which we know more about than we could learn from external observation.” That one thing, Lewis said, is ourselves. “We have, so to speak, inside information” (1960, pp. 18–19). Wundt and Titchener focused on inner sensations, images, and feelings. James also engaged in introspective examination of the stream of consciousness and of emotion, hoping to understand how they help humans survive and thrive. For these and other early pioneers, psychology was defined as “the science of mental life.” Behaviorism In the 1920s, provocative U.S. psychologists began to challenge the definition of psychology as the “science of mental life.” John B. Watson and, later, B. F. Skinner dismissed introspection and redefined psychology as “the scientific study of observable behavior.” After all, they said, science is rooted in observation: What you cannot observe and measure, you cannot scientifically study. You cannot observe a sensation, a feeling, or a thought, but you can observe and record people’s behavior as they are conditioned— as they respond to and learn in different situations. Many agreed, and behaviorism was increasingly influential well into the 1960s (Braat et al., 2020). John B. Watson (1878–1958) and Rosalie Rayner (1898–1935) Working with Rayner, Watson championed psychology as the scientific study of behavior. In a controversial study on a baby who became famous as “Little Albert,” he and Rayner showed that fear could be learned. (More about this in the Learning modules.) B. F. Skinner (1904–1990) This leading behaviorist rejected introspection and studied how consequences shape behavior. Freudian (Psychoanalytic) Psychology Another major force in psychology’s development was Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic psychology, which emphasized the ways our unconscious mind and childhood experiences affect our behavior. (In other modules, we’ll look more closely at Freud’s ideas, including his theory of personality, and his views on unconscious sexual conflicts and the mind’s defenses against its own wishes and impulses.) Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) The controversial ideas of this famed personality theorist and therapist have influenced humanity’s self-understanding. Humanistic Psychology As the behaviorists had rejected the early twentieth-century definition of psychology, other groups rejected the behaviorist definition. In the 1960s, humanistic psychologists , led by Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, found both behaviorism and Freudian psychology too limiting. Rather than focusing on conditioned responses or childhood memories, the humanistic psychologists focused on our growth potential, our needs for love and acceptance, and the environments that nurture or limit personal growth. Retrieval Practice RP-5 From the 1920s until the 1960s, the two major forces in psychology were and psychology. ANSWERS IN APPENDIX E Contemporary Psychology LOQ 1-6 How has contemporary psychology focused on cognition, on biology and experience, on culture and gender, and on human flourishing? Simultaneous with humanistic psychology’s emergence, psychologists in the 1960s pioneered a cognitive revolution, which led the field back to its early interest in how our mind processes and retains information. Cognitive psychology today continues its scientific exploration of how we perceive, process, and remember information, and of how thinking and emotion interact in anxiety, depression, and other disorders. The marriage of cognitive psychology (mind science) and neuroscience (brain science) gave birth to cognitive neuroscience. This specialty, with researchers in many disciplines, studies the brain activity underlying mental activity. Today’s psychology builds on the work of many earlier scientists and schools of thought. To encompass psychology’s concern with observable behavior and with inner thoughts and feelings, we now define psychology as the science of behavior and mental processes. Let’s unpack this definition. Behavior is anything an organism does —any action we can observe and record. Yelling, smiling, blinking, sweating, talking, tweeting, and questionnaire marking are all observable behaviors. Mental processes are our internal, subjective experiences—our sensations, perceptions, dreams, thoughts, beliefs, and feelings. The key word in today’s definition of psychology is science. Psychology is less a set of findings than a way of asking and answering questions. Our aim, then, is not merely to report results but also to show you how psychologists play their game. You will see how researchers evaluate conflicting opinions and ideas. And you will learn how all of us, whether scientists or simply curious people, can think harder and smarter when experiencing and explaining the events of our lives. Psychology—the science of behavior and mental processes—has roots in many disciplines and countries. The young science of psychology developed from the more established fields of philosophy and biology. Wundt was a German philosopher and a physiologist. James was an American philosopher. Freud was an Austrian physician. Ivan Pavlov (Learning modules), who pioneered the study of learning, was a Russian physiologist. Jean Piaget (Developing Through the Life Span modules), the last century’s most influential scientific observer of children, was a Swiss biologist. Like those pioneers, today’s estimated 1+ million psychologists are citizens of many lands (Zoma & Gielen, 2015). The International Union of Psychological Science has 89 member nations, from Albania to Zimbabwe. In China, the first university psychology department was established in 1978; by 2016 there were 270 (Zhang, 2016). Psychology is both growing and globalizing. The story of psychology is being written in many places, with interests ranging from the study of nerve cell activity to the study of international conflicts. Contemporary psychology, shaped by many forces, is particularly influenced by our understanding of biology and experience, culture and gender, and human flourishing. Ask Yourself How would you have defined psychology before taking this class? Evolutionary Psychology and Behavior Genetics Are our human traits inherited, or do they develop through experience? This has been psychology’s biggest and most persistent issue. But the debate over the nature–nurture issue is ancient. The Greek philosopher Plato (428–348 b. c. e.) assumed that we inherit character and intelligence and that certain ideas are inborn. Aristotle (384–322 b. c. e.) countered that there is nothing in the mind that does not first come in from the external world through the senses. In the 1600s, European philosophers rekindled the debate. John Locke argued that the mind is a blank slate on which experience writes. René Descartes disagreed, believing that some ideas are innate. Descartes’ views gained support from a curious naturalist two centuries later. In 1831, an indifferent student but ardent collector of beetles, mollusks, and shells decided not to become a priest and instead set sail on a historic round-the-world journey. The 22-year-old voyager, Charles Darwin, pondered the incredible species variation he encountered, including tortoises on one island that differed from those on nearby islands. Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) explained this diversity by proposing the evolutionary process of natural selection: From among chance variations, nature selects traits that best enable an organism to survive and reproduce in a specific environment. Darwin’s principle of natural selection—what philosopher Daniel Dennett (1996) has called “the single best idea anyone has ever had”—is still with us 160+ years later as biology’s organizing principle. Evolution also has become an important principle for twenty-first-century psychology. This would surely have pleased Darwin, who believed his theory explained not only animal structures (such as a polar bear’s white coat) but also animal behaviors (such as human mating and emotional expressions). Charles Darwin (1809–1882) Darwin argued that natural selection shapes behaviors as well as bodies. The nature–nurture issue recurs throughout this text as today’s psychologists explore the relative contributions of biology and experience. They ask, for example: How are we humans alike because of our shared biology and evolutionary history? That’s the focus of evolutionary psychology. And how do we individually differ because of our differing genes and environments? That’s the focus of behavior genetics. A nature-made nature–nurture experiment Identical twins have the same genes. This makes them ideal participants in studies designed to shed light on hereditary and environmental influences on personality, intelligence, and other traits. Fraternal twins have different genes but often share a similar environment. Twin studies provide a wealth of findings—described in other modules—showing the importance of both nature and nurture. We can, for example, ask: Are gender differences biologically predisposed or socially constructed? Is children’s grammar mostly innate or formed by experience? How are intelligence and personality differences influenced by heredity and by environment? Are sexual behaviors more “pushed” by inner biology or “pulled” by external incentives? Should we treat psychological disorders—depression, for example—as disorders of the brain, disorders of thought, or both? Repeatedly we will see that in contemporary science, the nature– nurture tension dissolves: Nurture works on what nature provides. In other modules, you’ll learn about epigenetics— how experience can influence genetic expression. And you will see that our species has been graced with the tremendous biological gift of neuroplasticity— the brain’s enormous capacity to learn and adapt. Moreover, every psychological event (every thought, every emotion) is simultaneously a biological event. Thus, depression can be both a brain disorder and a thought disorder. Ask Yourself Think of one of your own traits. (For example, are you a planner or a procrastinator— do you usually complete assignments on time, or late? Are you more an extravert or introvert—do you become energized by social interactions, or recharge by spending time alone?) How do you think that trait was influenced by nature and nurture? Retrieval Practice RP-6 How did the cognitive revolution affect the field of psychology? RP-7 What is natural selection? RP-8 What is contemporary psychology’s position on the nature–nurture issue? ANSWERS IN APPENDIX E Cross-Cultural and Gender Psychology Participants in many studies have come from the WEIRD ( We stern, I ndustrial, R ich, and D emocratic) cultures—so named because they represent a mere fraction of the people on our planet (Henrich, 2020). As we will see time and again, culture— shared ideas and behaviors that one generation passes on to the next—matters. Our culture shapes our standards of promptness and frankness, our attitudes toward relationships, our tendency to be casual or formal, our willingness to make eye contact, our hand gestures, and much, much more. By studying people from around the world, today’s researchers have observed our individual and cultural differences—in personality, in expressiveness, in attitudes and beliefs. Culture and kissing Kissing crosses cultures. Yet how we do it varies. Imagine yourself kissing someone on the lips. Do you tilt your head right or left? In Western cultures, where people read from left to right, about two-thirds of couples kiss right, as in Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan’s wedding kiss and Auguste Rodin’s sculpture, The Kiss. In one study, 77 percent of Hebrew- and Arabic-language right-to-left readers kissed tilting left (Shaki, 2013). It is also true, however, that our shared biological heritage unites us as a universal human family. The same underlying processes guide people everywhere. Some examples: People diagnosed with specific learning disorder (formerly called dyslexia) exhibit the same brain malfunction, whether they are Italian, French, or British (Paulesu et al., 2001). Variation in languages may impede communication across cultures. Yet all languages share deep principles of grammar, and people from different corners of the world can communicate with a smile or a frown. People in different cultures vary in feelings of loneliness (Lykes & Kemmelmeier, 2014). But across cultures, loneliness is magnified by shyness and low self-esteem (Jones et al., 1985; Rokach et al., 2002). “All people are the same; only their habits differ.” — Confucius, 551–479 b.c.e. We are each in certain respects like all others, like some others, and like no other. Studying people from all cultures helps us discern our similarities and our differences, our human kinship and our diversity. You will see throughout this book that our gender identity— our sense of being male, female, neither, or some combination of male and female—also matters, as does our biologically influenced sex. Today’s researchers report gender differences in what we dream, in how we express and detect emotions, and in our risk for alcohol use disorder, depression, and eating disorders. Gender differences fascinate us, and studying them is potentially beneficial. For example, many researchers have observed that women carry on conversations more readily to build relationships, while men talk more to give information and advice (Tannen, 2001). Understanding these differences can help us prevent conflicts and misunderstandings in everyday interactions. But again, psychologically as well as biologically, we are overwhelmingly similar. We learn to walk at about the same age. We experience the same sensations of light and sound. We remember vivid emotional events and forget mundane details. We feel the same pangs of hunger, desire, and fear. We exhibit similar overall intelligence and well-being. The point to remember: Even when specific attitudes and behaviors vary by gender or across cultures, as they often do, the underlying processes are much the same. Positive Psychology Psychology’s first hundred years often focused on understanding and treating troubles, such as abuse and anxiety, depression and disease, prejudice and poverty. Much of today’s psychology continues the exploration of such challenges. Without slighting the need to repair damage and cure disease, Martin Seligman and others (2002, 2016) have called for more research on human flourishing— on understanding and developing the emotions and traits that help us to thrive. These psychologists call their approach positive psychology. They believe that happiness is a by-product of a pleasant, engaged, and meaningful life. Thus, positive psychology uses scientific methods to explore the building of a “good life” that engages our skills, and a “meaningful life” that points beyond ourselves. Psychology’s Three Main Levels of Analysis LOQ 1-7 How do psychologists use the biopsychosocial approach, and how can it help us understand our diverse world? We all share a biologically rooted human nature. Yet many psychological and social-cultural influences fine-tune our assumptions, values, and behavior. We differ individually by gender identity, physical ability, and sexual orientation. And each of us is a complex system that is part of a larger social system—family, ethnic group, culture, and socioeconomic status (combines education, income, and occupation). The biopsychosocial approach integrates these three levels of analysis— the biological, psychological, and social- cultural. Consider horrific school shootings. Do they occur because the shooters have brain disorders or genetic tendencies that predispose them to violence? Because they have observed brutality in the media or played violent video games? Because they live in a gun-toting society? The biopsychosocial approach enables psychologists to move beyond labels (“school shooter”) and to consider the interconnected factors that may lead to violent acts (Pryor, 2019) ( FIGURE 1.1 ). Clinical psychologists use this approach to help people with mental disorders (Teachman et al., 2019). FIGURE 1.1 Biopsychosocial approach This integrated viewpoint incorporates various levels of analysis and offers a more complete picture of any given behavior or mental process. Each level of analysis offers a perspective for looking at a behavior or mental process, yet each by itself is incomplete. Each perspective described in TABLE 1.1 asks different questions and has its limits, but together they complement one another. Consider, for example, how they shed light on anger. Someone working from a neuroscience perspective might study brain circuits that cause us to be red in the face and “hot under the collar.” an evolutionary perspective might analyze how anger facilitated the survival of our ancestors’ genes. a behavior genetics perspective might study how heredity and experience influence our individual differences in temperament. a psychodynamic perspective might view an outburst as an outlet for unconscious hostility. a behavioral perspective might attempt to determine what triggers aggressive acts. a cognitive perspective might study how our interpretation of a situation affects our anger and how our anger affects our thinking. a social-cultural perspective might explore how expressions of anger vary across cultural contexts. TABLE 1.1 Psychology’s Theoretical Perspectives Perspective Focus Sample Questions Examples of Subfields Using This Perspective Neuroscience How the body How do pain messages travel from Biological; and brain the hand to the brain? How is blood cognitive; enable chemistry linked with moods and clinical emotions, motives? memories, and sensory experiences Evolutionary How the natural How does evolution influence Biological; selection of behavior tendencies? developmental; traits has social promoted the survival of genes Behavior How our genes To what extent are psychological Personality; genetics and our traits, such as intelligence, developmental; environment personality, sexual orientation, and legal/forensic influence our individual vulnerability to depression, products differences of our genes? Of our environment? Psychodynamic How behavior How can someone’s personality traits Clinical; springs from and disorders be explained by counseling; unconscious unfulfilled wishes and childhood personality drives and traumas? conflicts Behavioral How we learn How do we learn to fear particular Clinical; observable objects or situations? What is the counseling; responses most effective way to alter our industrial- behavior, say, to stop smoking? organizational Cognitive How we How do we use information in Cognitive encode, remembering? Reasoning? Solving neuroscience; process, store, problems? clinical; and retrieve counseling; information industrial- organizational Social-cultural How behavior How are we affected by the people Developmental; and thinking around us, and by our surrounding social; clinical; vary across culture? counseling situations and cultures The point to remember: Like two-dimensional views of a three- dimensional object, each of psychology’s perspectives is helpful. But each by itself fails to reveal the whole picture. Ask Yourself Which of psychology’s theoretical perspectives do you find most interesting? Why? Retrieval Practice RP-9 What advantage do we gain by using the biopsychosocial approach in studying psychological events? RP-10 The - perspective in psychology focuses on how behavior and thought differ from situation to situation and from culture to culture, while the perspective emphasizes observation of how we respond to and learn in different situations. ANSWERS IN APPENDIX E Psychology’s Subfields LOQ 1-8 What are psychology’s main subfields? Picturing a chemist at work, you may envision a laboratory scientist surrounded by test tubes and high-tech equipment. Picture a psychologist at work, and you would be right to envision a white-coated scientist probing a rat’s brain. an intelligence researcher measuring how quickly an infant shows boredom by looking away from a familiar picture. an executive evaluating a new diversity and inclusion training program for employees. a researcher at a computer analyzing “big data” from social media status updates, online searches, or digital traces of people’s behavior. a therapist actively listening to an anxious client’s thoughts. an academic studying another culture and collecting data on variations in human values and behaviors. a teacher or writer sharing the joy of psychology with others. The cluster of subfields we call psychology is a meeting ground for different disciplines. Thus, it’s a perfect home for those with wide- ranging interests. In its diverse activities, from biological experimentation to cultural comparisons, the tribe of psychology is united by a common quest: describing and explaining behavior and the mind underlying it. Some psychologists conduct basic research that builds psychology’s knowledge base. We will meet a wide variety of such researchers, including biological psychologists exploring the links between body and mind; developmental psychologists studying our changing abilities from womb to tomb; cognitive psychologists experimenting with how we perceive, think, and solve problems; personality psychologists investigating our persistent traits; and social psychologists exploring how we view and affect one another. These and other psychologists also may conduct applied research , tackling practical problems. Industrial-organizational psychologists, for example, use psychology’s concepts and methods in the workplace to help organizations and companies select and train employees, boost morale and productivity, design products, and implement systems. Psychology is a science, but it is also a profession that helps people have healthier relationships, overcome feelings of anxiety or depression, and raise thriving children. Counseling psychology and clinical psychology grew out of different historical traditions. Early counseling psychologists offered job skills guidance, whereas clinical psychologists worked alongside psychiatrists to assess and provide psychotherapy to people in the first psychology clinics. Today’s counseling psychologists and clinical psychologists have a lot in common. Counseling psychologists help people to cope with challenges and crises (including academic, vocational, and relationship issues) and assist those with psychological disorders to improve their personal and social functioning. Clinical psychologists focus on assessing and treating people with mental, emotional, and behavior disorders. Both counseling and clinical psychologists administer and interpret tests, provide therapy and advice to people with all levels of psychological difficulties, and undergo licensing exams. They sometimes also conduct basic and applied research. By contrast, psychiatrists , who also may provide psychotherapy, are medical doctors licensed to prescribe drugs and otherwise treat physical causes of psychological disorders. Psychology in court Forensic psychologists apply psychology’s principles and methods in the criminal justice system. They may assess witness credibility or testify in court about a defendant’s state of mind and future risk. This forensic psychologist testified that the defendant, who at age 15 showed no remorse after killing his parents and three younger siblings, has a personality disorder. Rather than seeking to change people to fit their environment, community psychologists work to create social and physical environments that are healthy for all (Bradshaw et al., 2009; Trickett, 2009). To prevent bullying, for example, they might consider ways to improve the culture of a school and neighborhood, and how to increase bystander intervention (Polanin et al., 2012). With perspectives ranging from the biological to the social, and with settings ranging from the laboratory to the clinic to the office, psychology relates to many fields. Psychologists teach in medical schools, business schools, law schools, and theological seminaries. They work in hospitals, factories, and corporate offices. And they engage in interdisciplinary studies, such as psychobiography (the study of the lives and personalities of public figures), psycholinguistics (the study of language and thinking), and psychoceramics (the study of crackpots). 1 Psychology: A science and a profession Psychologists experiment with, observe, test, and help modify behavior. Here we see psychologists testing a child, measuring emotion-related physiology, and doing face-to-face therapy. Ask Yourself When you signed up for this course, what did you know about different psychology specialties? Psychology also influences culture. Knowledge transforms us. Learning about the solar system and the germ theory of disease alters the way people think and act. Learning about psychology’s findings also changes people: They less often judge psychological disorders as moral failings, treatable by punishment and ostracism. They less often regard and treat women as men’s mental inferiors. They less often view and raise children as ignorant, willful beasts in need of taming. “In each case,” noted Morton Hunt (1990, p. 206), “knowledge has modified attitudes, and, through them, behavior.” Once aware of psychology’s well-researched ideas—about how body and mind connect, how a child’s mind grows, how we construct our perceptions, how we learn and remember, how people across the world are alike (and different)—your mind may never again be the same. “The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803–1882 But bear in mind psychology’s limits. Don’t expect it to answer the ultimate questions, such as those posed by Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy (1904): “Why should I live? Why should I do anything? Is there in life any purpose which the inevitable death that awaits me does not undo and destroy?” Although many of life’s significant questions are beyond psychology, some very important ones are illuminated by even a first psychology course. Through painstaking research, psychologists have gained insights into brain and mind, dreams and memories, depression and joy. Even the unanswered questions can renew our sense of mystery about things we do not yet understand. Moreover, your study of psychology can help teach you how to ask and answer important questions—how to think critically as you evaluate competing ideas and claims. “I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me.” — Job 42:3 Psychology deepens our appreciation for how we humans perceive, think, feel, and act. By so doing, it can enrich our lives and enlarge our vision. Through this book we hope to help guide you toward that end. As activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai said, “One teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.” Retrieval Practice RP-11 Match the specialty (i through iii) with the description (a through c). i. Clinical a. works to create social and physical environments that are healthy psychology for all ii. Psychiatry b. studies, assesses, and treats people with psychological disorders but usually does not provide medical therapy iii. Community c. is a branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders psychology ANSWERS IN APPENDIX E Use Psychology to Become a Stronger Person—and a Better Student LOQ 1-9 How can psychological principles help you learn, remember, and thrive? Psychology is not just about understanding others; it is also about understanding ourselves. It is only through such learning that we can be—and show to the world—our best selves. Throughout this text, we will offer evidence-based suggestions that you can use to live a happy, effective, flourishing life, including the following: Manage your time to get a full night’s sleep. Unlike sleep- deprived people, who live with fatigue and gloomy moods, well- rested people live with greater energy, happiness, and productivity. Make space for exercise. Aerobic activity not only increases health and energy, it also is an effective remedy for mild to moderate depression and anxiety. Set long-term goals, with daily aims. Successful people take time each day to work toward their goals, such as exercising or sleeping more, or eating more healthfully. Over time, they often find that their daily practice becomes a habit. Have a growth mindset. Rather than seeing their abilities as fixed, successful people view their mental abilities as like a muscle— something that grows stronger with effortful use. Prioritize relationships. We humans are social animals. We flourish when connected in close relationships. We are both happier and healthier when supported by (and when supporting) caring friends. Psychology’s research also shows how we can learn and retain information. Many students assume that the way to cement new learning is to reread. What helps more—and what this book therefore encourages—is repeated self-testing and rehearsal of previously studied material. Memory researchers Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke (2006) call this phenomenon the testing effect. (It is also sometimes called the retrieval practice effect or test-enhanced learning. ) They note that “testing is a powerful means of improving learning, not just assessing it.” In one study, English-speaking students who had been tested repeatedly recalled the meaning of 20 previously learned Lithuanian words better than did students who had spent the same time restudying the words (Ariel & Karpicke, 2018). Repetitive testing’s rewards also make it reinforcing: Students who used repetitive testing once found that it helped, and then used it later when learning new material. Many other studies, including in college classrooms, confirm that frequent quizzing and self-testing boosts students’ retention (Yang et al., 2021). “If you read a piece of text through twenty times, you will not learn it by heart so easily as if you read it ten times while attempting to recite it from time to time and consulting the text when your memory fails.” — Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, 1620 As explained in the Memory modules, to thoroughly understand information you must actively process it. One digest of 225 studies showed that students engaged in active learning showed the highest examination performance in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (the STEM fields) (Freeman et al., 2014). Active learning is particularly useful at reducing achievement gaps between underrepresented (low income, marginalized culture) and overrepresented (high income, dominant culture) STEM students (Theobald et al., 2020). So, don’t treat your mind like your stomach, something to be filled passively. Instead, treat it more like a muscle that grows stronger with exercise. Countless experiments reveal that people learn and remember best when they put material in their own words, rehearse it, and then retrieve and review it again. The SQ3R study method incorporates these principles (McDaniel et al., 2009; Robinson, 1970). SQ3R is an acronym for its five steps: S urvey, Q uestion, R ead, R etrieve 2 , R eview. To study a module, first survey, taking a bird’s-eye view. Scan each module’s headings, and notice the organization. Before you read each main section, try to answer its numbered Learning Objective Question (for this section: “How can psychological principles help you learn, remember, and thrive?”). Researchers have found that we retain information better after generating our own questions (Ebersbach et al., 2020; Roediger & Finn, 2010). Those who test their understanding before reading, and discover what they don’t yet know, will learn and remember better. Then read, actively searching for the answer to the Learning Objective Question (LOQ). At each sitting, read only as much of the module (usually a single main section) as you can absorb without tiring. Read actively and critically. Ask questions. Take notes. Make the ideas your own: How does what you’ve read relate to your own life? Does it support or challenge your assumptions? How convincing is the evidence? (Our Ask Yourself questions throughout each module will help you engage personally with the material.) Write out what you know. “Writing is often a tool for learning,” say researchers (Arnold et al., 2017). Having read a section, retrieve its main ideas: “Active retrieval promotes meaningful learning,” says Karpicke (2012). So test yourself. This will not only help you figure out what you know, the testing itself will help you learn and retain the information more effectively. Even better, test yourself repeatedly. To facilitate this, we offer periodic Retrieval Practice questions throughout each module (for example, the questions at the end of this section). After answering these questions for yourself, you can “show” the answer to check your understanding (or check the answers in Appendix E ) and reread the material as needed. Finally, review: Read over any notes you have taken, again with an eye on the module’s organization, and quickly review the whole module. Write or say what a concept is before rereading to check your understanding. The end-of-module Review is set up as an additional self-test, with the collected Learning Objective Questions, key terms, and Module Test questions. Survey, question, read, retrieve, review. Four additional study tips may further boost your learning: Distribute your study time. One of psychology’s oldest findings is that spaced practice promotes better retention than massed practice. You’ll remember material better if you space your time over several study periods—perhaps 1 hour a day, 6 days a week—rather than cram it into one week-long or all-night study blitz. For example, rather than trying to read an entire module in a single sitting, read just one main section and then turn to something else. Interleaving (mixing) your study of psychology with your study of other subjects boosts long-term retention and protects against overconfidence (Kornell & Bjork, 2008; Taylor & Rohrer, 2010). Spacing your study sessions requires a disciplined approach to managing your time. For more tips on time management, see the Student Preface—Student Success: How to Apply Psychology to Live Your Best Life—at the beginning of this text. Learn to think critically. Both inside and outside of this course, critical thinking—smart thinking—is a key to wisdom. Whether you are reading or conversing, note people’s assumptions and values. What perspective or bias underlies an argument? Evaluate evidence. Is it anecdotal? Or is it based on informative experiments? Assess conclusions. Are there alternative explanations? Process class information actively. Listen for the main ideas and sub- ideas of a lecture. Write them down. Ask questions during and after class. In class, as in your private study, process the information actively and you will understand and retain it better. As psychologist William James urged a century ago, “No reception without reaction, no impression without … expression.” Make the information your own. Engage with the Ask Yourself questions to relate what you read to your own life. Tell someone else about it. (As any teacher will confirm, to teach is to remember.) Also, take notes by hand. Handwritten notes, in your own words, typically engage more active processing, with better retention, than does verbatim note taking on laptops (Mueller & Oppenheimer, 2014). Overlearn. Psychology tells us that overlearning improves retention. We tend to overestimate how much we know. You may understand a module as you read it, but that feeling of familiarity can be deceptively comforting. By using all of the self-testing opportunities in the text and in Achieve, you can test your knowledge and overlearn in the process. Memory experts Elizabeth Bjork and Robert Bjork (2011) offer simple, scientifically supported advice for how to improve your retention and your grades: Spend less time on the input side and more time on the output side, such as summarizing what you have read from memory or getting together with friends and asking each other questions. Any activities that involve testing yourself—that is, activities that require you to retrieve or generate information, rather than just representing information to yourself—will make your learning both more durable and flexible. (p. 63) More learning tips To learn more about the testing effect and the SQ3R method, watch the Video: Make Things Memorable at tinyurl.com/HowToRemember. Ask Yourself Of all of these helpful principles, which ones seem most relevant and important for improving your own life and studies? How will you add them to your usual routines? Retrieval Practice RP-12 The describes the enhanced memory that results from repeated retrieval (as in self-testing) rather than from simple rereading of new information. RP-13 What does the acronym SQ3R stand for? ANSWERS IN APPENDIX E REVIEW Module 1: The History and Scope of Psychology Learning Objectives Test Yourself Answer these repeated Learning Objective Questions on your own (before “showing” the answers here, or checking the answers in Appendix D ) to improve your retention of the concepts (McDaniel et al., 2009, 2015). LOQ 1-1: How is psychology a science? LOQ 1-2: What are the three key elements of the scientific attitude, and how do they support scientific inquiry? LOQ 1-3: How does critical thinking feed a scientific attitude, and smarter thinking for everyday life? LOQ 1-4: What were some important milestones in psychology’s early history? LOQ 1-5: How did behaviorism, Freudian psychology, and humanistic psychology further the development of psychological science? LOQ 1-6: How has contemporary psychology focused on cognition, on biology and experience, on culture and gender, and on human flourishing? LOQ 1-7: How do psychologists use the biopsychosocial approach, and how can it help us understand our diverse world? LOQ 1-8: What are psychology’s main subfields? LOQ 1-9: How can psychological principles help you learn, remember, and thrive? Terms and Concepts to Remember Test Yourself Write down the definition in your own words, then check your answer. empirical approach critical thinking structuralism functionalism behaviorism humanistic psychology cognitive psychology cognitive neuroscience psychology nature–nurture issue natural selection evolutionary psychology behavior genetics culture positive psychology biopsychosocial approach levels of analysis basic research applied research counseling psychology clinical psychology psychiatry community psychology testing effect SQ3R Module Test Test Yourself Answer the following questions on your own first, then “show” the answers here, or check your answers in Appendix E. 1. How can critical thinking help you evaluate claims in the media, even if you’re not a scientific expert on the issue? 2. In 1879, in psychology’s first experiment, and his students measured the time lag between hearing a ball hit a platform and pressing a key. 3. William James would be considered a(n). Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener would be considered. a. functionalist; structuralists b. structuralist; functionalists c. evolutionary theorist; structuralists d. functionalist; evolutionary theorists 4. In the early twentieth century, redefined psychology as “the science of observable behavior.” a. John B. Watson b. Abraham Maslow c. William James d. Sigmund Freud 5. Nature is to nurture as a. personality is to intelligence. b. biology is to experience. c. intelligence is to biology. d. psychological traits are to behaviors. 6. “Nurture works on what nature provides.” Describe what this means, using your own words. 7. Which of the following is true regarding gender differences and similarities? a. Gender differences outweigh any similarities. b. Despite some gender differences, the underlying processes of human behavior are the same. c. Gender similarities and differences both depend more on biology than on environment. d. Gender differences are so numerous that it is difficult to make meaningful comparisons. 8. Martin Seligman and other researchers who explore various aspects of human flourishing refer to their field of study as. 9. A psychologist treating emotionally troubled adolescents at a local mental health agency is most likely to be a(n) a. research psychologist. b. psychiatrist. c. industrial-organizational psychologist. d. clinical psychologist. 10. A mental health professional with a medical degree who can prescribe medication is a. 11. A psychologist conducting basic research to expand psychology’s knowledge base may a. design a computer screen with limited glare and assess the effect on computer operators’ eyes after a day’s work. b. treat older people who experience depression. c. observe 3- and 6-year-olds solving puzzles and analyze differences in their abilities. d. interview children with behavioral problems and suggest treatments. MODULE 2: Research Strategies: How Psychologists Ask and Answer Questions Hoping to satisfy their curiosity about people and to relieve their own woes, millions turn to “psychology.” They read advice columns aimed at helping people cope with their problems, overcome their addictions, and save their marriages. They watch “celebrity psychics” demonstrate their supposed powers. They attend stop-smoking hypnosis seminars. They play online games, hoping to strengthen their brain. They immerse themselves in self-help books, websites, and lectures that promise to teach the path to love, the road to personal happiness, and the “hacks,” or shortcuts, to success. Others, intrigued by claims of psychological truth, wonder: How—and how much—does parenting shape children’s personalities and abilities? Are first-born children more driven to achieve? Do dreams have deep meaning? Do we sometimes remember events that never happened? Does psychotherapy heal? In working with such questions, the science of psychology does more than speculate. To separate uninformed opinions from examined conclusions, psychologists use the scientific method to conduct research. Let’s consider how psychology’s researchers do their science. The Need for Psychological Science Learning Objective Question LOQ 2-1 How does our everyday thinking sometimes lead us to a wrong conclusion? Some people suppose that psychology is mere common sense— documenting and dressing in jargon what people already know: “You get paid for using fancy methods to tell me what everyone knows?” Indeed, our intuition is often right. As the baseball great Yogi Berra (1925–2015) once said, “You can observe a lot by watching.” (We also have Berra to thank for other gems, such as “Nobody goes there anymore—it’s too crowded,” and “If the people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s gonna stop ’em.”) Because we’re all behavior watchers, it would be surprising if many of psychology’s findings had not been foreseen. Many people believe that love breeds happiness, for example, and they are right (we have what researchers call a deep “need to belong”). But sometimes what seems like common sense, informed by countless casual observations, is wrong. In other modules, we will see how research has overturned popular ideas—that familiarity breeds contempt, that dreams predict the future, and that most of us use only 10 percent of our brain. We will also see how research has surprised us with discoveries about how the brain’s chemical messengers control our moods and memories, about other animals’ abilities, and about the relationship between social media use and depression. Other things seem like commonsense truth only because we so often hear them repeated. Mere repetition of statements—whether true or false—makes them easier to process and remember, and thus more true-seeming (Dechêne et al., 2010; Fazio et al., 2015). Easy-to- remember misconceptions (“Bundle up before you go outside, or you will catch a cold!”) can therefore overwhelm hard truths. This power of familiar, hard-to-erase falsehoods is a lesson well known to political manipulators and kept in mind by critical thinkers. Three common flaws in commonsense thinking— hindsight bias, overconfidence, and perceiving order in random events— illustrate how, as novelist Madeleine L’Engle (1973) observed, “The naked intellect is an extraordinarily inaccurate instrument.” Did We Know It All Along? Hindsight Bias Consider how easy it is to draw the bull’s-eye after the arrow strikes. After the stock market drops, people say it was “due for a correction.” After an athletic match, we credit the coach if a “gutsy play” wins the game and criticize the same “stupid play” if it doesn’t. After a war or an election, its outcome usually seems obvious. Although history may therefore seem like a series of inevitable events, the actual future is seldom foreseen. No one’s diary recorded, “Today the Hundred Years’ War began.” This hindsight bias is easy to demonstrate by giving half the members of a group some purported psychological finding and giving the other half an opposite result. Tell the first group, for example: “Psychologists have found that separation weakens romantic attraction. As the saying goes, ‘Out of sight, out of mind.’” Ask them to imagine why this might be true. Most people can, and after hearing an explanation, nearly all will then view this true finding as unsurprising. Tell the second group the opposite: “Psychologists have found that separation strengthens romantic attraction. As the saying goes, ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder.’” People given this untrue result can also easily imagine it, and most will also see it as unsurprising. When opposite findings both seem like common sense, there is a problem. Such errors in people’s recollections and explanations show why we need psychological research. It’s not that common sense is usually wrong. Rather, common sense describes, after the fact, what has happened better than it predicts what will happen. “In life as in history the unexpected lies waiting, grinning from around corners. Only with hindsight are we wise about cause and effect.” — Author Penelope Lively, Moon Tiger More than 800 scholarly papers have shown hindsight bias in people young and old from around the world (Roese & Vohs, 2012). As physicist Niels Bohr reportedly jested, “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.” Hindsight bias As the Covid-19 pandemic began spreading in early 2020, some countries’ leaders told their people not to panic over “a measly cold,” assured their people that the virus was “very well under control,” and encouraged people to continue to “live life as usual.” In hindsight, such misjudgments cost many lives. Likewise, after the 2021 mob assault on the U.S. Capitol, it was, in hindsight, obvious that security officials should have anticipated the attack. Overconfidence We humans tend to think we know more than we do. Asked how sure we are of our answers to factual questions (Is Boston north or south of Paris?) , we tend to be more confident than correct. 3 And our confidence often drives us to quick—rather than correct—thinking (Rahnev et al., 2020). Consider these three anagrams, shown beside their solutions (from Goranson, 1978): WREAT → WATER ETRYN → ENTRY GRABE → BARGE About how many seconds do you think it would have taken you to unscramble each of these? Did hindsight influence you? Knowing the answers tends to make us overconfident. (Surely, the solution would take only 10 seconds or so?) In reality, the average problem solver spends 3 minutes, as you also might, given a similar anagram without the solution: OCHSA. 4 Fun anagram solutions from Wordsmith (wordsmith.org): Snooze alarms = Alas! No more z’s Dormitory = dirty room Slot machines = cash lost in ’em Are we any better at predicting social behavior? Psychologist Philip Tetlock (1998, 2005) collected more than 27,000 expert predictions of world events, such as whether Quebec would separate from Canada. His repeated finding: These predictions, which experts made with 80 percent confidence on average, were right less than 40 percent of the time. Overconfidence in history: “Not within a thousand years will man ever fly.” — Wilbur Wright, in 1901, 2 years before he and his brother, Orville, made the first powered flight “Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.” — Popular Mechanics , 1949 “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.” — General John Sedgwick just before being killed during a U.S. Civil War battle, 1864 “No woman in my time will be prime minister.” — Margaret Thatcher, 1969 (British Prime Minister, 1979–1990) Ask Yourself Do you have a hard time believing you may be overconfident? Could overconfidence be at work in that self-assessment? How might reading this section about overconfidence help reduce your tendency to be overconfident? Retrieval Practice RP-1 Why, after friends start dating, do we often feel that we knew they were meant to be together? ANSWERS IN APPENDIX E Perceiving Order in Random Events We’re born with an eagerness to make sense of our world. People see a face on the Moon, hear Satanic messages in music, or perceive the Virgin Mary’s image on a grilled cheese sandwich. Even in random data, we often find patterns, because—here’s a curious fact of life— random sequences often don’t look random (Falk et al., 2009; Nickerson, 2002, 2005). Flip a coin 50 times and you may be surprised at the streaks of heads and tails—much like supposed “hot” and “cold” streaks in basketball shooting and baseball hitting. In actual random sequences, patterns and streaks (such as repeating digits) occur more often than people expect (Oskarsson et al., 2009). That also makes it hard for people to generate random-like sequences. When embezzlers try to simulate random digits when specifying how much to steal, their nonrandom patterns can alert fraud experts (Poundstone, 2014). “The really unusual day would be one where nothing unusual happens.” — Statistician Persi Diaconis (2002) Why are we so prone to pattern-seeking? For most people, a random, unpredictable world is unsettling (Tullett et al., 2015). Making sense of our world relieves stress and helps us get on with daily living (Ma et al., 2017). Some happenings, such as winning a lottery twice, seem so extraordinary that we find it difficult to conceive an ordinary, chance- related explanation. “But with a large enough sample,” say statisticians, “any outrageous thing is likely to happen” (Diaconis & Mosteller, 1989). An event that happens to but 1 in 1 billion people every day occurs about 7 times a day, more than 2500 times a year. The point to remember: Our commonsense thinking is flawed due to three powerful tendencies: hindsight bias, overconfidence, and our tendency to perceive patterns in random events. But scientific inquiry can help us sift reality from illusion. Psychological Science in a Post-Truth World LOQ 2-2 Why are we so vulnerable to believing untruths? In 2017, the Oxford English Dictionary’s word of the year was post- truth— describing a modern culture where people’s emotions and personal beliefs often override their acceptance of objective facts. Consider three examples of such “truth decay” (widely shared misinformation): Belief: The U.S. crime rate is rising. Nearly every year since 1993, most U.S. adults have told Gallup that there is more crime “than there was a year ago” (Gallup, 2021). Fact: For several decades, both violent and property crime rates have been falling. Between 1993 and 2019, the U.S. violent crime rate dropped 49 percent (Gramlich, 2020). Belief: Crime is common among immigrants (McCarthy, 2017). Memorable incidents feed this narrative. Stories of an immigrant murdering, burglarizing, or lying spread through social networks and news outlets. Such fears are commonplace not only in North America, but also in Europe and Australia (Esses, 2021). Fact: Most immigrants are not criminals. Compared with native-born Americans, immigrants are 44 percent less likely to be imprisoned (CATO, 2017; Flagg, 2018, 2019). The same has been true in Italy, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere (Di Carlo et al., 2018). Belief: Many people have died soon after receiving a Covid-19 vaccine. Fact: This statement is true, but not meaningful. With millions of people dying each year, some of those inevitably will die after receiving a vaccine, even though the vaccine itself (as of mid-2021) had caused no deaths (Rizzo, 2021). In the United States, political party bias has distorted people’s thinking. Extremely liberal and extremely conservative Americans both, with similar self-confidence, view their beliefs as superior (Harris & Van Bavel, 2021). Among single-and-looking U.S. Democrats, 71 percent said that they would not date someone who voted for Donald Trump, while 47 percent of Republicans would not date someone who voted for Hillary Clinton (Pew, 2020). When rating candidates for college scholarships, both Democrats and Republicans discriminate against those from the other party (Iyengar & Westwood, 2015). Extremely liberal people and extremely conservative people also show an equally rigid mindset and use the same amount of negative and angry language—they only differ in the issues they support (Frimer et al., 2019; Zmigrod et al., 2020). So, no American can smugly think “Yes, but bias doesn’t apply to me. ” Bias goes both ways. U.S. Democrats and Republicans share concerns about failures to separate fact from fiction. In 2021, President Joe Biden (2021) warned that favoring one’s political beliefs rather than scientific research “undermines the welfare of the Nation, contributes to systemic inequities and injustices, and violates the trust that the public places in government to best serve its collective interests.” Republican Senator Mitt Romney (2021) similarly expressed concern about false news, urging politicians to show people respect “by telling them the truth.” Any agreement across partisan divides requires first a shared understanding of the essential facts. So why do post-truth-era people so often, in the words of psychologist Tom Gilovich (1991), “know what isn’t so?” False news Some misinformation gets fed to us intentionally. It’s “lies in the guise of news” (Kristof, 2017). In the 2016 U.S. election cycle, 6 percent of all Twitter-enabled news consumption was false news (Grinberg et al., 2019). In the United States and United Kingdom, exposure to false news related to Covid-19 vaccines was dangerous, reducing people’s intention to accept a Covid vaccine (Loomba et al., 2021). And made-up news is catchy. In one analysis of 126,000 stories tweeted by 3 million people, falsehoods—especially false political news—“diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth” (Vosoughi et al., 2018). Amid this sea of misinformation, we should remember Britain’s scientific academy, the British Royal Society’s, motto: nullius in verba (take nobody’s word for it). The good news is that most people can tell the difference between high-quality and low-quality information sources (Pennycook & Rand, 2019). When encouraged to use slow, deliberate thinking rather than to go with their gut, people better discern fiction from fact (Bago et al., 2020). Repetition In experiments, statements become more believable when they are repeated (De keersmaecker et al., 2020). From childhood onward, what we hear over and over—perhaps a made-up smear of a political opponent—becomes familiar, gets remembered, and comes to seem true and worth sharing (Effron & Raj, 2020; Fazio & Sherry, 2020). Availability of powerful examples In the media, “if it bleeds it leads.” Gruesome violence—a horrific murder, a mass killing, a plane crash—gets reported, with vivid images that color our judgments. No wonder Americans grossly overestimate their risk of being victimized by crime, terror, and plane crashes. Group identity and the echo chamber of the like-minded Our social identities matter. Feeling good about our groups helps us feel good about ourselves. On social media we tend to friend and follow people who think as we do (Cinelli et al., 2021; see FIGURE 2.1 ). We often prefer news sources that affirm our views and demonize news sources that do not. And we often live among like-minded neighbors (Brown & Enos, 2021). FIGURE 2.1 The meeting of like minds On social media, most people discuss contentious issues with like-minded others. In this graph of politically charged Twitter activity, each node represents a user who sent a message; each line represents a user who retweeted something. As we can see, users overwhelmingly sent messages to, and retweeted messages from, those who shared their liberal (blue) or conservative (red) ideology (Brady et al., 2017). The good news is that we can build a real-truth world by embracing a scientific mindset. Mindful of our own biases, we can listen and learn. Confronted with an opposing view, we can discuss before we dismiss. And with a mix of curiosity, skepticism, and humility, we can adopt the spirit of critical thinking: To accept everything is to be gullible; to deny everything is to be a cynic. “The best way we can transcend ideology is to teach our students, regardless of their majors, to think like scientists.” — Psychologist (and Yale University President) Peter Salovey, “Knowledge Can Be Power,” 2018 “We have … become sloppier than ever: Tweet first, research later. Post first, rescind later. Guess first, confirm later.” — Luvvie Ajayi, I’m Judging You: The Do- Better Manual, 2016 The Scientific Method The foundation of all science is a scientific attitude that combines curiosity, skepticism, and humility. Psychologists arm their scientific attitude with the scientific method— a self-correcting process for evaluating ideas with observation and analysis. Psychological science welcomes hunches and plausible-sounding theories. And it puts them to the test. If a theory works—if the data support its predictions—so much the better for that theory. If the predictions fail, the theory gets revised or rejected. When researchers submit their work to a scientific journal, peer reviewers —other scientists who are experts—evaluate a study’s theory, originality, and accuracy. The journal editor then uses the peer reviews to decide whether the research deserves publication. Constructing Theories LOQ 2-3 How do theories advance psychological science? In everyday conversation, we often use theory to mean “mere hunch.” Someone might, for example, discount evolution as “only a theory”— as if it were mere speculation. In science, a theory explains behaviors or events by offering ideas that organize observations. By using deeper principles to organize isolated facts, a theory summarizes and simplifies. As we connect the observed dots, a coherent picture emerges. A theory of how sleep affects memory, for example, helps us organize countless sleep-related observations into a short list of principles. Imagine that we observe over and over that people with good sleep habits tend to answer questions correctly in class and do well at test time. We might therefore theorize that sleep improves memory. So far, so good: Our principle neatly summarizes a list of observations about the effects of a good night’s sleep. Yet no matter how reasonable a theory may sound—and it does seem reasonable to suggest that sleep boosts memory—we must put it to the test. A good theory produces testable predictions, called hypotheses. Such predictions specify which results would support the theory and which results would disconfirm it. To test our theory about sleep effects on memory, we might hypothesize that when sleep deprived, people will remember less from the day before. To test that hypothesis, we might assess how well people remember course materials they studied either before a good night’s sleep or before a shortened night’s sleep ( FIGURE 2.2 ). The results will either support our theory or lead us to revise or reject it. FIGURE 2.2 The scientific method This self-correcting process asks questions and observes answers. Our theories can bias our observations. Having theorized that better memory springs from more sleep, we may see what we expect: We may perceive sleep-deprived people’s answers as less accurate. The urge to see what we expect is strong, both inside and outside the laboratory, as when people’s views of climate change influence their interpretation of local weather events. In the end, our theory will be useful if it (1) organizes observations and (2) implies predictions that anyone can use to check the theory or to derive practical applications. (Does people’s sleep predict their retention?) Eventually, our research may (3) stimulate further research that leads to a revised theory that better organizes and predicts. As a check on their own biases, psychologists report their research with precise, measurable operational definitions of research procedures and concepts. Sleep deprived, for example, may be defined as “at least 2 hours less” than the person’s natural sleep. (Likewise, a study of “aggression” may observe how many pins you stab into a doll that represents a lab partner, or a study of “helping” may record dollars donated.) By using carefully worded statements, others can replicate (repeat) the original observations with different participants, materials, and circumstances. If they get similar results, confidence in the finding’s reliability grows. The first study of hindsight bias, for example, aroused psychologists’ curiosity. Now, after many successful replications with differing people and questions, we feel sure of the phenomenon’s power. Replication is confirmation. Replication is an essential part of good science. Over the span of a decade, psychologists attempted to replicate 307 studies. They were able to reproduce similar results 64 percent of the time (Nosek et al., 2022). Replication failures often occur when samples are small, so psychologists increasingly study large samples (Blake & Gangestad, 2020; Sassenberg & Ditrich, 2019). A bigger sample = a more replicable result. Today’s psychological research is benefiting from more replications, more rigorous research methods, and more sharing of research data and tips on how best to analyze it (Agrawal et al., 2020; Dougherty et al., 2018; Smaldino & McElreath, 2016). Professional societies and crowdsourced projects create communities of psychological scientists who work together to improve their research methods and practices (Landy et al., 2020). More and more psychologists also use preregistration to publicly communicate their planned study design, hypotheses, data collection, and analyses (Nosek et al., 2018). This openness and transparency also prevents later modifications, such as changing the hypotheses to fit the data. Rather than pressuring researchers to publish only the results that support their predictions, preregistration encourages psychologists to openly report all of their results—even when that means failing to replicate earlier findings (Kristal et al., 2020). There is still a place for exploratory research: Investigators gather data and seek patterns that inspire theories, which can then be tested with confirmatory research (with preregistered hypotheses and preplanned analyses). Psychological science also harnesses the power of meta-analysis (a statistical procedure for analyzing the results of multiple studies to reach an overall conclusion). Researchers use this procedure to statistically summarize a body of scientific evidence. By combining the results of many studies, researchers avoid the problem of small samples and can get a broader understanding of what they are studying. Replications, collaborations, preregistrations, explorations, and meta-analyses are all enabling “Psychology’s Renaissance” of improved scientific practices (Nelson et al., 2018). “Failure to replicate is not a bug; it is a feature. It is what leads us along the path —the wonderfully twisty path—of scientific discovery.” — Lisa Feldman Barrett, “Psychology Is Not in Crisis,” 2015 As we will see next, we can test our hypotheses and refine our theories using descriptive methods (which describe behaviors, often through case studies, surveys, or naturalistic observations), correlational methods (which associate different variables), and experimental methods (which manipulate variables to discover their effects). To think critically about popular psychology claims, we need to understand these methods and know what conclusions they allow. Retrieval Practice RP-2 What does a good theory do? RP-3 Why is replication important? ANSWERS IN APPENDIX E Description LOQ 2-4 How do psychologists use case studies, naturalistic observations, and surveys to observe and describe behavior, and why is random sampling important? The starting point of any science is description. In everyday life, we all observe and describe people, often drawing conclusions about why they think, feel, and act as they do. Psychologists do much the same, though more objectively and systematically, through case studies (in-depth analyses of individuals or groups), naturalistic observations (recording the natural behavior of many individuals), and surveys and interviews (asking people questions). The Case Study Among the oldest research methods, the case study examines one individual or group in depth in the hope of revealing things true of us all. Some examples: Brain damage. Much of our early knowledge about the brain came from case studies of individuals who suffered particular impairments after damage to a certain brain region. Children’s minds. Pioneering developmental psychologist Jean Piaget taught us about children’s thinking after carefully observing and questioning only a few children. Animal intelligence. Studies of various animals, including a few chimpanzees, have revealed their capacity for understanding and language. Freud and Little Hans Sigmund Freud’s case study of 5-year-old Hans’ extreme fear of horses led Freud to his theory of childhood sexuality. He conjectured that Hans felt unconscious desire for his mother, feared castration by his rival father, and then transferred this fear into his phobia about being bitten by a horse. Today’s psychological science discounts Freud’s theory of childhood sexuality but does agree that much of the human mind operates outside our conscious awareness. (More on this in the Personality modules.) Intensive case studies are sometimes very revealing, and they often suggest directions for further study. But atypical individual cases may mislead us. Both in our everyday lives and in science, unrepresentative information can lead to mistaken judgments and false conclusions. Indeed, anytime a researcher mentions a finding (Smokers die younger: 95 percent of men over 85 are nonsmokers) someone is sure to offer a contradictory anecdote (Well, I have an uncle who smoked two packs a day and lived to be 89!). Dramatic stories and personal experiences (even psychological case examples) command our attention and are easily remembered. Journalists understand that and often begin their articles with compelling stories. Stories move us, but stories can mislead. Which of the following do you find more memorable? (1) “In one study of 1300 dream reports concerning a kidnapped child, only 5 percent correctly envisioned the child as dead” (Murray & Wheeler, 1937). (2) “I know a man who dreamed his sister was in a car accident, and two days later she died in a head-on collision!” Numbers can be numbing, but the plural of anecdote is not evidence. A single story of someone who supposedly changed from gay to straight is not evidence that sexual orientation is a choice. As psychologist Gordon Allport (1954, p. 9) said, “Given a thimbleful of [dramatic] facts we rush to make generalizations as large as a tub.” The point to remember: Individual cases can suggest fruitful ideas. What’s true of all of us can be glimpsed in any one of us. But to find those general truths, we must employ other research methods. Retrieval Practice RP-4 We cannot assume that case studies always reveal general principles that apply to all of us. Why not? ANSWERS IN APPENDIX E Naturalistic Observation A second descriptive method involves recording responses in natural environments. These naturalistic observations traditionally ranged from watching chimpanzee societies in the jungle, to videotaping and analyzing parent-child interactions in different cultures, to recording racial differences in students’ self-seating patterns in a school lunchroom. Until recently, such naturalistic observation was mostly “small science”—possible to do with pen and paper rather than fancy equipment and a big budget (Provine, 2012). But today’s digital technologies—thanks to “big data” harvested from phone apps, social media, online searches, and more—have transformed naturalistic observations into big science. Anonymously tapping into 15 million cell phones’ GPS allowed scientists to track how often people in different geological regions obeyed stay-at-home orders and social distancing recommendations during the Covid-19 pandemic (Glanz et al., 2020). New technologies—wearable cameras and fitness sensors, and internet-connected smart-home sensors—offer increasing possibilities for people to allow accurate recording of their activity, relationships, sleep, and stress (Nelson & Allen, 2018; Yokum et al., 2019). The billions of people entering personal information online have also enabled big-data observations (without disclosing individual identities). One research team studied the ups and downs of human moods by counting positive and negative words in 504 million tweets from 84 countries (Golder & Macy, 2011). As FIGURE 2.3 shows, people seemed happier on weekends, shortly after waking, and in the evenings. (Are late Saturday evenings often a happy time for you, too?) Another study found that negative emotion (especially anger-related) words in 148 million tweets from 1347 U.S. counties predicted the counties’ heart disease rates better than smoking and obesity rates (Eichstaedt et al., 2015). Online searching enables people to learn about the world, and people’s online searching enables researchers to learn about people. For example, the words people search and the questions they ask can gauge a region’s level of racism and depression. But online searches also reveal our universal human likeness—as illustrated by the word pregnant being searched in conjunction with the same food cravings worldwide (Stephens-Davidowitz, 2017). Across the globe, we are kin beneath the skin. FIGURE 2.3 Twitter message moods, by time and by day This graph illustrates how researchers can use big data to study human behavior on a massive scale. It now is also possible to associate people’s moods with, for example, their locations or with the weather, and to study the spread of ideas through social networks. (Data from Golder & Macy, 2011.) Like the case study, naturalistic observation does not explain behavior. It describes it. Nevertheless, descriptions can be revealing. We once thought, for example, that only humans use tools. Then naturalistic observation revealed that chimpanzees sometimes insert a stick in a termite mound and withdraw it, eating the stick’s load of termites. Such unobtrusive naturalistic observations paved the way for later studies of animal thinking, language, and emotion, which further expanded our understanding of our fellow animals. Thanks to researchers’ observations, we know that chimpanzees and baboons use deception: Psychologists repeatedly saw one young baboon pretending to have been attacked by another as a tactic to get its mother to drive the other baboon away from its food (Whiten & Byrne, 1988). A natural observer “Observations, made in the natural habitat,” noted chimpanzee observer Jane Goodall (1998), “helped to show that the societies and behavior of animals are far more complex than previously supposed.” Naturalistic observations also illuminate human behavior. Here are two findings you might enjoy: A funny finding. We humans laugh 30 times more often in social situations than in solitary situations (Provine, 2001). (Have you noticed how seldom you laugh when alone?) Culture and the pace of life. Naturalistic observation also enabled Robert Levine and Ara Noren

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