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1 PSYCHOLOGY AND ITS METHODS
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Learning Objectives
Engage with the pioneers of psychology and become familiar with the
trajectory of the field from its beginning until now.
Consider the methods, tools, types of participants, and ethical
practices used to study psychology and evaluate its scientific rigor.
Identify the major organizations and emerging branches in psychology,
and explain the need to study a diverse group of people.
WHAT’S YOUR PREDICTION: THINKING LIKE A
PSYCHOLOGIST
The Situation
When you first signed up to take an introductory psychology course, you likely had
some idea or conception of what you think psychology is. You may have read about
Sigmund Freud or Ivan Pavlov and his dogs; you may have seen a psychologist,
such as “Dr. Phil,” on a television talk show; or you may have heard a therapist giving
personal advice on a podcast. You may even have taken a psychology course in high
school, had exposure to psychology in other classes, or done some reading on your
own. Whatever your background, it’s important to realize that you come into this
course with many intuitive or commonsense theories about people. Everyone does.
What are some of your theories? And are they correct in light of what psychologists
know on the basis of scientific research?
Make a Prediction
Let’s stop and evaluate some of your intuitive beliefs about people. The 10
statements below concern topics in psychology that you will find in this book (the
chapters in which they appear are shown in parentheses). Read each statement
carefully, and write down whether you think it is generally TRUE or FALSE. When
you’ve finished, try to estimate the number of answers you got correct.
___ 1. The right and left sides of your brain are basically exact copies of one
another. (2)
___ 2. Some people dream; others do not. (4)
___ 3. Getting what you want all of the time is more reinforcing than getting
what you want occasionally. (5)
___ 4. Human memory capacity is limited, which is why we lose memories.
(6)
___ 5. Intelligence is purely inherited. (7)
___ 6. Americans are getting married at younger ages today than in the past.
(9)
___ 7. A smile has very different meanings in different cultures. (10)
___ 8. Any type of stress is bad for your health. (12)
___ 9. Suicide rates are highest among teenagers and younger adults. (13)
___ 10. Using social media is one of the most effective ways to reduce
anxiety. (14)
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y ( )
The Results
Now that you have completed the commonsense psychology quiz, you are ready
to read this section on how to score it. In fact, the scoring is easy: The first statement
is true; the other nine statements are false. So how well did you do? This is a truefalse quiz, so you could expect to get about five answers right just by guessing or
flipping a coin. Did you do any better than that? Did you do worse?
What Does It All Mean?
Look back at the statements in this quiz, and you’ll notice that they cover a broad
spectrum of topics, including your brain, sleeping and dreaming, learning, memory,
intelligence, marriage, cultural diversity, health and wellness, aging and development,
and mental health. These topics represent a cross-section of psychology today—a
remarkably diverse discipline with many areas of specialization.
If you did not get a perfect score on the test, you may also have noticed that at
least some of the answers were not obvious as a matter of common sense. For
example, later in this book we will find that the left and right sides of your brain are
near copies of each other, that everyone dreams, (whether or not we remember it),
that it is more rewarding to get what we want occasionally (it can be quite boring to
get what we want all of the time), that our capacity to store memories is infinite (we
do not “lose” memories per se; we can have greater difficulty retrieving them as we
age), that intelligence is partly inherited and partly due to learning, that Americans
who get married are marrying much later in life (waiting on average until their late
20s), that a smile has the same meaning all over the world, that some types of stress
can be good for us (such as the stress of earning a college degree), that suicide is
highest among older adults (rates increase around age 45), and that using social
media more often can lead to increased anxiety—even if using it can also be fun. And
there is a lot more. But for now, let us step back and define psychology and look at its
history and its methods.
We live in a fast-paced world where the cause and effect of human behavior is as
mainstream and critical to our lived experiences as its impact on the world around us.
Human behavior and ingenuity move the needle for how we live, interact, and engage
in the world, to include the technologies we develop. From our greater access to
information (e.g., using Google), our increased ability to reach out and connect with
people anywhere in the world (e.g., via video conferencing), to the everyday person
having a stronger voice in the world in real time (e.g., via social media platforms)—
understanding the psychology of human behavior is increasingly important. Why?
Because human behavior is more closely connected worldwide now than ever before,
and with continued advancements and human ingenuity, we are likely to become
increasingly connected.
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While psychology is still in its infancy, now in its third century as a formal
discipline, it’s easier than ever before to build an encyclopedic text by compiling new
theories and discoveries, hot off the presses, with old ones from psychology’s
historical warehouse. Both the history of the field and the discoveries and issues
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today are relevant for developing an understanding of the contributions of psychology,
both to fields of science and to our everyday lives. We begin this text with the most
fundamental of questions: What is psychology?
WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY?
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Engage with the pioneers of psychology and become familiar with the trajectory of
the field from its beginning until now.
Define psychology.
Explain whether psychology is the study of the human mind or of human
behavior.
Outline how the field of psychology has changed over the years.
Identify the important issues and areas of specialization in psychology.
Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and the mind, and its biological
bases. If you dissect this definition, you’ll find that it contains three elements. First,
psychology is a scientific enterprise. At an intuitive level, everyone is a psychologist—
you, me, the Uber driver who listens to the stories that their passengers share, the
users on social media, and the novelist who paints exquisite verbal portraits of
fictional characters. Unlike those who rely largely on their personal experience,
however, psychologists employ systematic, objective methods of observation.
psychology. The scientific study of behavior and the mind, and its biological
bases.
The second key element in the definition of psychology is that it is the study of
behavior. The term behavior refers to any activity that can be observed, recorded,
and measured. It may be as simple as the blink of an eye or as complex as making
the decision to get married.
Third, psychology is the study of the mind. For many years, researchers flinched
at the mere use of the term. It was like talking about spirits or souls or ghosts in the
human machine. Today, the term mind is used to refer to all conscious and
unconscious mental states. These states cannot be seen, but psychologists try to
infer them from observable behavior.
Historical Roots
Having its origins in philosophy, psychology is said to have a long past but a short
history. There is truth in this statement. The Greek philosopher Socrates (470–399
BCE) and his followers Plato and Aristotle wrote extensively about human nature.
They wrote about pleasure and pain, the senses, imagination, desire, and other
aspects of the “psyche.” They also speculated about whether human beings were
innately good or evil, rational or irrational, and capable of free will or controlled by
outside forces. At about the same time, Hippocrates (460–377 BCE), the “father of
modern medicine,” referred to the human brain as an “interpreter of consciousness.”
He also tried to differentiate for the first time among psychological disorders. Years
later, Roman physician Galen (130–200 CE) theorized that every individual is born
with one of four personality types or “temperaments.”
Other philosophers have planted more recent seeds. French mathematician and
philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650) theorized that the body is a physical
structure, that the mind is a spiritual entity, and that the two interact only through a
tiny structure in the brain. This position, known as dualism, implied that although the
body could be studied scientifically, the mind—as the product of a willful “soul”—could
not. Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) disagreed. He and other English philosophers
argued that the entire human experience, including our conscious thoughts and
feelings, are physical processes emanating from the brain—and therefore are subject
to study. In this view, which later became known as monism, the mind and body are
one and the same.
dualism. The assumption that the body and mind are separate, though perhaps
interacting, entities.
monism. The assumption that the body and mind are the same; the mind and
body are part of one synergistic entity.
Psychology also has its origins in physiology (a branch of biology that scientifically
studies living organisms) and medicine. In the 19th century, physiologists began
studying the brain and nervous system. For example, German scientist Hermann von
Helmholtz (1821–1894) studied sensory receptors in the eye and ear and
investigated such topics as the speed of neural impulses, color vision, and space
perception. Gustav Fechner (1801–1887), another German scientist, founded
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psychophysics, the study of the relationship between physical stimuli and our
subjective sensations of those stimuli.
Within the medical community, there were two particularly notable developments.
In an influential textbook, German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin (1856–1926) likened
mental disorders to physical illness and devised the first comprehensive system for
classifying the various disorders. In Paris, neurologist Jean Charcot (1825–1893)
discovered that patients suffering from nervous disorders could sometimes be cured
through hypnosis, a psychological form of intervention. From philosophy, physiology,
and medicine, then, psychology is deeply rooted in the past (Hilgard, 1987; Watson &
Evans, 1991).
Pioneers in the Study of the Mind
The history of modern psychology is a history of great thinkers, but with a largely
homogenous voice—one largely consisting of white men resulting from the social,
cultural, and political climates in which they lived. Dean Keith Simonton (2002) thus
said of psychology’s history that it springs from a combination of individual genius and
zeitgeist, which is German for “spirit of the times.” More than this, initiatives to expand
the inclusivity of the voice in psychology across race, gender, and more is of utmost
importance to the field (American Psychological Association, 2021).
Modern experimental psychology was born in 1879, in Germany, at the University
of Leipzig. It was there that physiologist Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) founded the first
laboratory dedicated to the scientific study of the mind. At the time, no courses in
psychology were being taught because the discipline did not exist on its own. Yet
many students from Europe and the United States were drawn to Wundt’s laboratory,
comprising the first generation of scholars to call themselves psychologists. This
distinguished group included G. Stanley Hall (who in 1891 founded the American
Psychological Association, with 26 members), James McKeen Cattell (the first to
study individual differences), Hugo Münsterberg (among the first to apply psychology
to industry and the law), Edward Titchener (who introduced his system of
structuralism); and Margaret Floy Washburn (Edward Titchener's first graduate
student and the first woman to earn a PhD in Psychology in 1894). Overall, 186
students were awarded doctoral degrees under Wundt’s supervision, including 33
from the United States (Benjamin, Durkin, Link, Vestal, & Acord, 1992). During his
career, Wundt published 53,735 pages of material, edited psychology’s first journal,
and wrote its first book. His goal, as stated in the book’s preface, was ambitious: “to
mark out a new domain of science.”
structuralism. Developed by Wilhelm Wundt and his student Edward Titchener
asa theory of consciousness by breaking down consciousness into elements that
constitute the mind.
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Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) founded the first laboratory dedicated to the scientific
study of the mind at a time when no courses in psychology were being taught
because the discipline did not yet exist on its own.
Source: Wikimedia, Weltrundschau zu Reclams Universum 1902
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Margaret Floy Washburn (1871–1939) became the first woman to receive a PhD
in psychology. In 1908, she wrote The Animal Mind, a book that was important to the
emerging study of animal behavior.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Wundt’s approach to the study of the mind was a far cry from the “armchair
speculation” of the philosophers of his time. He founded the first laboratory dedicated
to the study of psychology—to the study of how the mind works in a more structured,
systematic, scientific way with objective measurement and control. Among the
methods he developed was intensive introspection, in which trained observers
reported on their moment-to-moment reactions to tones, visual displays, and other
stimuli presented to them. In this way, Wundt studied such topics as attention span,
reaction time, color vision, and time perception. In one study, for example, he had an
observer look at a block of 12 letters for a fraction of a second and then immediately
report as many as he could remember. Six letters seemed to be his limit. What would
happen if the number of letters in the array were varied? How would others do if
given the same task? By recruiting people to serve as participants, varying stimulus
conditions, and demanding that all observations be repeated, Wundt was laying the
foundation for today’s psychology experiment.
introspection. Wundt’s method of having trained observers report on their
conscious, moment-to-moment reactions.
In the United States, this budding new field was hearing a second voice. That
voice belonged to William James (1842–1910)—a medical school graduate who went
on to become a professor at Harvard University. In 1875, James (whose brother
Henry was the famous novelist) offered his first course in psychology. He was very
different from Wundt, but he too was influential. While Wundt was establishing
psychology as a rigorous new laboratory science, James was arousing interest in the
subject matter through rich ideas and eloquent prose. Those who studied with James
described him as an “artist” (Leary, 1992). This group included G. Stanley Hall (who
had also worked with Wundt), Mary Whiton Calkins (a memory researcher who
conducted one of the first studies of dreams and in 1905 became the first female
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president of the American Psychological Association), and Edward Thorndike (known
for his work on animal learning and for the first textbook on educational psychology).
William James (1842–1910) a medical school graduate who went on to become a
professor at Harvard University teaching courses in psychology. In 1890, James
published the first textbook in psychology, titled The Principles of Psychology.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
In 1890, James published a brilliant two-volume text entitled The Principles of
Psychology, and in 1892 he followed it with a condensed version. In 28 chapters,
James wrote about habit formation, the stream of consciousness, individuality, the
link between mind and body, emotions, the self, and other deep and challenging
topics. The original text was referred to as “James”; the brief version was nicknamed
“Jimmy.” For American psychology students of many generations, at least one of
these books was required reading. Now, more than a hundred years later,
psychologists continue to cite these classics. The brief version can still be found in
the paperback section of many bookstores, and online.
A third prominent leader of the new psychology was Sigmund Freud (1856–1939),
a neurologist from Vienna. Quite far removed from the laboratory, Freud was
developing a very different approach to psychology through clinical practice. After
graduating from medical school, he saw patients who seemed to be suffering from
ailments that had no physical basis. These patients were not consciously faking, and
they could often be “cured” under hypnosis. Based on his observations, Freud
formulated psychoanalysis—a theory of personality, a form of psychotherapy, and
one of the most influential schools of thought in modern history. Freud and his many
followers (most notably, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, and Karen Horney) left a permanent
mark on psychology.
psychoanalysis. Freud’s theory of personality and method of psychotherapy,
both of which assume that our motives are largely unconscious.
Freud (1900) introduced his theory in The Interpretation of Dreams, the first of 24
books he would write. In sharp contrast to Wundt and James, who defined
psychology as the study of conscious experience, Freud argued that people are
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p y gy y p g p p
driven largely by unconscious forces. Indeed, he likened the human mind to an
iceberg: The small tip above the water is the conscious part, and the vast region
submerged beneath the surface is the unconscious. Working from this assumption,
Freud and his followers developed personality tests and therapy techniques designed
to penetrate this hidden but important part of the human mind (explored further in
Chapter 8).
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) posited that people are driven largely by
unconscious forces. From this perspective, Freud formulated a theory of personality
called psychoanalysis, which is a form of psychotherapy, and one of the most
influential schools of thought in modern history.
Hans Casparius / Stringer / Getty
Despite the differences in their approaches, Wundt, James, and Freud were the
pioneers of modern psychology. Indeed, they were ranked by 29 prominent historians
as the first, second, and third most important psychologists of all time (Korn, Davis, &
Davis, 1991). Many others also helped shape this new discipline (illustrated in Table
1.1). In 1885, German philosopher Hermann Ebbinghaus published the results of
classic experiments on memory and forgetting, using himself as a subject. In 1886,
American Lightner Witmer opened the first psychological clinic. He later established
the first journal and training program in a new helping profession that he would call
“clinical psychology” (McReynolds, 1997). In 1905, French psychologist Alfred Binet
devised the first major intelligence test in order to assess the academic potential of
schoolchildren in Paris. And in 1912, Max Wertheimer discovered that people see two
stationary lights flashing in succession as a single light moving back and forth. This
illusion paved the way for Gestalt psychology, a school of thought based on the idea
that what people perceive is different from the sum of isolated sensations. In the
emergence of psychology as the study of mental processes, there were many, many
pioneers.
Table 1.1
The Behaviorist Alternative
The first generation of psychologists was just beginning to explore conscious and
unconscious mental processes when they were struck by controversy about the
direction they were taking: Can a science really be based on introspective reports of
subjective experience or on mental processes that supposedly reside in the
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unconscious? Should understanding how the mind works be the goal of this new
science? There were those who did not think so.
In 1898, Edward Thorndike ran a series of novel experiments on “animal
intelligence.” In one study, he put cats into a cage, put food outside a door, and timed
how long it took for them to learn how to escape. After several trials, Thorndike found
that the cats, by repeating behaviors that “worked,” became quicker with practice.
Then in 1906, Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov made another key discovery. Pavlov
was studying the digestive system in dogs by putting food in their mouths and
measuring the flow of saliva. After repeated testing, he found that the dogs would
salivate in anticipation before the food was in the mouth. At first, Pavlov saw this
“psychic secretion” as a nuisance. But soon he realized what it revealed: that a very
basic form of learning had taken place.
Interesting. But what do puzzle-solving cats and salivating lab dogs have to do
with psychology? Indeed, what’s the relevance to people of any animal research? To
answer these questions, John Watson—an American psychologist who experimented
with dogs, cats, fish, rats, monkeys, frogs, and chickens—redefined psychology as
the study of observable behavior, not of the invisible and elusive mind. Said Watson
in his address given at Columbia University, “Psychology as the behaviorist views it is
a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the
prediction and control of behavior” (1913, p. 158). Sensations, thoughts, feelings, and
motivations may fuel speculation for the curious philosopher, but if something can’t be
seen, then it has no place in psychology. Psychoanalysis, barked Watson, is
“voodooism” (1927, p. 502). As for using animals, Watson—like others who were
influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution—saw no reason to believe that the
principles of behavior would differ from one species to the next.
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Rosalie Raynor with Little Albert, a 9-month-old boy conditioned to fear objects
that included a white rat, and even generalized to other furry objects, such as a
beard.
Source: Wikimedia, Akron psychology archives.
American psychologists were immediately drawn to the hard-boiled approach of
behaviorism. The behaviorist’s research goals were clear: Vary a stimulus in the
environment and observe the organism’s response. There were no inferences made
about mental processes inside the head, just stimulus-response connections. It was
all neat, clean, and objective. One of Watson’s more famous examples was that of
Little Albert—a 9-month-old boy conditioned by John Watson and his research
assistant, Rosalie Raynor, to fear objects that included a white rat, and even
generalized to other furry objects, such as a rabbit, a furry dog, and white cotton balls
as a beard (Watson & Rayner, 1920). Watson’s academic career was cut short not
long afterward after he was forced out of academic psychology in 1920 when it
became public that he had an extramarital affair with his research assistant. He
divorced his wife; married the assistant whom he loved, Rosalie Raynor; and left
psychology as a result of this incident. (Watson then went into advertising, where he
applied the principles of conditioning and became a leader in the industry.) But
behaviorism was alive and well. Psychology was defined as the scientific study of
behavior, and animal laboratories were springing up all over North America.
behaviorism. A school of thought that defines psychology as the scientific study
of observable behavior.
Behaviorism had many proponents and was popular for many years. After
Watson, another leader emerged. B. F. Skinner, the psychologist who coined the term
reinforcement, invented an apparatus for use in testing animals and demonstrated in
numerous experiments with rats and pigeons that behavior is controlled by reward
contingencies in the environment. Skinner first reported on his experiments in 1938.
Later, he and others used his findings to modify behavior in the workplace, the
classroom, the clinic, and other settings. To the day he died, Skinner (1990)
maintained that psychology could never be a science of mind.
The “Cognitive Revolution”
Behaviorism dominated psychology in the United States and Canada from the
1920s through the 1960s. Ultimately, however, psychologists were unwilling to limit
their scope to the study of observable behavior. There was too much happening
inside the human organism that was interesting and hard to ignore. Physiologists
were locating new pathways in the brain that regulate thoughts, feelings, and
behavior. Animal researchers were finding that inborn biological instincts often
interfere with learning. Child development researchers were noticing that children
pass through a series of cognitive stages in the way they think about the world.
Those interested in social relations were finding that our interactions with other
people are influenced by the way we perceive and interpret their actions. Those
studying psychoanalysis were increasingly coming to appreciate the powerful
influences of unconscious motivation. And psychologists who called themselves
humanists argued that people strive not only for reward but also to achieve “selfactualization,” a higher state of fulfillment. Among the foundational psychologists for
the humanistic approach are Carl Rogers (who is also regarded as among the
founding fathers of psychotherapy research) and Abraham Maslow (who developed
the groundbreaking work of a hierarchy of needs focused on positive qualities in
people).
The most dramatic change that took place in psychology was (and still is) the
“cognitive revolution.” The term cognition refers to the mental processes that
intervene between a stimulus and response—including images, memories,
expectations, and abstract concepts. At least in the United States, the cognitive
psychologies of Wundt and James were swept under the proverbial rug for years
during the rise of behaviorism. The subject matter was considered too “soft” and
nonscientific. In the 1960s, however, the pendulum swung back and cognitive
psychology reemerged, stronger than ever, in a trend that has continued to this day
(Robins, Gosling, & Craik, 1999; Xiong & Proctor, 2018).
cognition. A general term that refers to mental processes such as thinking,
knowing, and remembering.
What rekindled this interest in mental processes? One source of inspiration was
the invention of the computer. Built for information-processing purposes, computers
provided a new and intriguing model of the human mind. The computer receives input
in the form of symbols, converts the symbols into a special code, stores the
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