Intro to Psych

Psychology: the SCIENTIFIC STUDY of behavior and mental processes

  • psych is a science

  • Two types of science

    • natural

    • Social science 

  • Stress is actually good for us; helps us meet our goals and makes us get things done

Behavior: any action that other people can observe or measure (any action that causes you to do something/body functions)

Cognitive Activities: private mental processes

  • Ex: dreams perceptions, thoughts, memories, feeling

  • Not directly observable; need conclusions from person to clarify feelings

There are 5 goals:

  1. Observe: watch/measure a behavior, mental process, person

  2. Describe: describing needs to be without your opinions; must be objective

  3. Explain: in an explanation, you may use your opinion to tell what happened

  4. Predict: after explanation, you must predict what will happen in other circumstances/will it happen again?

  5. Control: find ways to stop behavior/what are ways to control or manipulate it

Fields of Psychology:

  • Personality, forensics, environmental, clinical, school, behavioral, cognitive, social, developmental, and rehabilitation psychology

A psychiatrist is NOT the same as a clinical psychologist (they are a medical doctor)