Luis A.

Ramos
Psychological Thinking
Prof. Johnston
Online Assignment 2
1.
What is the study of psychology and how do others interpret it?
It is not a simple thing to explain to others that the field of psychology is a science. Most individuals
are convinced that psychology is more like philosophy rather then a hard science. The best thing we
can do is tell them that we follow the scientific method and that psychology is not unique in the nature
of not having a single unified theory.
What do they mean when they say psychology is a hub science?
When they refer to psychology as a hub science thy are talking about a field of science that has
ramifications with other fields when something is discovered in the hub science.
2.
The first passage that caught my attention was the section that talks about how psychology is a hub
science. The passage explains that what we find in studies in psychology could have effects on other
fields of study. This alone seems to be interesting since it means that while we do not have a unified
theory we have a broad spectrum of studies and how they relate to human behavior.
The second passage that seemed interesting was the history of how a science develops. The passage
gives examples of how the concept of the world being flat was proven wrong and how that theory
evolved through time. What I found interesting is how our own common sense at times has prevented
us having a complete understanding of a subject.
3.
Well since this is the last class that I am taking I guess my connections are more related to my other
classes. This introductory course is a foundation on how to think for classes like behavioral statistics or
research methods. The course teaches us how to read and understand the research materials that I have
used in my research methods class and also given us a working framework for the statistical data that
we eventually would use in our statistics class. It is difficult to make a greater connection as I see this
class as the very basic part of other classes that I have already taken.
4.
The one critique I have when it comes to how we think about psychology is that even though we follow
guidelines of science we are still unable to get absolute answers. What do I mean by this is that we can
do control experiments all we want and try to eliminate as many variables from an equation but we will
never be 100% sure that our data is accurate and we are left with our best guess for a behavior is x, y,
or z.
5.
I do not have any questions at this time.