PSYCH001 - What is Psychology

• Psychology is the systematic study of behavior and experience.
• Determinism the idea that everything that happens has a cause, or determinant, that someone could observe or measure.
• Free will is the belief that behavior is caused by a person's independent decisions.
• The mind-brain problem is the philosophical question of how experience relates to the brain.
• Dualism (a view of mind-brain problem), holds that the mind is separate from the brain but somehow controls the brain and therefore the rest of the body.

  However, this contradicts the law of conservation of matter and energy.
• Monism (preferred view of mind-brain problem), is the view that conscious experience is inseperable from the physical brain.
• Nature-Nurture issues (or heredity-environment issue): how do differences in behavior relate to differences in heredity and environment?
• Clinical Psychologists have an advanced degree in psychology, with a specialty in understanding and helping people with psychological problems.

  
  

  General Interest: emotional difficulties
• Psychiatry is a branch of medicine that deals with emotional disturbances.
• A Clinical Social Worker is a social worker who is specialized in cases involving clinical psychological issues.
• Counseling Psychologists help people with educational, vocational, marriage, health-related, and other decisions. They deal with mostly life decisions and family or career readjustments.

  
  

  General Interest: helping people make important decisions
• Forensic Psychologists provide advice and consultation to police, lawyers, and courts.
• Industrial/Organizational Psychology is the psychological study of people at work.

  
  

  General Interest: people at work
• Human Factor Specialists (Ergonomist) attempts to facilitate the operation of machinery so that ordinary people can use it efficiently and safely.

  
  

  General Interest: communication between person and machine
• School Psychologists are specialists in the psychological condition of students, usually from the early days of kindergarten till finishing pre-university education.

  
  

  General Interest: problems that affect school children
• Developmental Psychologists study how behavior changes with age.

  
  

  General Interest: changes in behavior over age
• Research field of Learning and Motivation studies how behavior depends on the outcomes of past behaviors and current motivations.

  
  

  General Interest: learning in humans and other species
• Cognitive Psychologists study processes of thought and knowledge. They focus on how people make decisions, solve problems, and convert their thoughts into language.

  
  

  General Interest: memory, thinking
• Biopsychologist (behavioral neuroscientist) explains behavior in terms of biological factors, such as activities of the nervous system, the effects of drugs and hormones, genetics and evolutionary pressures.

  
  

  General Interest: relationship between brain and behavior
• Evolutionary Psychologists tries to explain behavior in terms of the evolutionary history of the species, including why evolution might have favored a tendency to act in particular ways.

  
  

  General Interest: evolutionary history of behavior
• Social Psychologists study how an individual influences other people and how the group influences an individual.

  
  

  General Interest: group behavior, social influences
• Cultural Psychologists study how culture influences people's thoughts and behavior, and vice versa.

  
  

  General Interest: relationship between brain and behavior
• Environmental Psychologists' general interests are about how factors such as noise, heat and crowding affects behavior.
• Educational Psychologists' general interest is in improvement of learning in school.
• Personality Psychologists' general interest is in personality differences.
• Psychometrician's general interest is in measuring intelligence, personality, interests