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vi Psychology: The science of who we are

Integration with the American Psychological Association Guidelines for

the Undergraduate Major—Version 2.0
In August 2013, the American Psychological Association created a new set of guidelines to help undergraduate
programs prepare students for professional careers in psychology. We were mindful of these guidelines, and
used them as a framework for our decision-making as we shaped this text. The goals outlined by the APA
include:
Goal 1: Knowledge Base in Psychology
Goal 2: Scientific Inquiry and Critical Thinking
Goal 3: Ethical and Social Responsibility in a Diverse World
Goal 4: Communication
Goal 5: Professional Development

As you read this text, you will find these themes appearing throughout the narrative. For example, we discuss
throughout the text the scientific nature of psychology and the importance of asking questions about how the
world works, independent of our perceptions and opinions regarding behavior (Goal 2). Another theme that
you will find in the text is the importance of culture and diversity (Goals 3 and 4). Finally, we have built into
the narrative discussions of the career options available in psychology as well as ways to apply psychology to
whatever professional path you select (Goal 5).

As you can see, we used what we know about psychology to build a text that facilitates your learning. The
success of this book is determined by the degree to which you are able to use the information from these
pages to engage with the world around you. We hope to convince you that psychology is not just a vibrant and
exciting science, but can also help you achieve your personal goals and improve your relationships.
 Table of Contents 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS
About the Authors iii
Preface iv
1 Understanding Psychology 8
What Is Psychology? 10
Psychology is a Science 10
Psychology is About the Individual 12
Psychology is Interested in Interaction 13
Psychology is the Study of Behavior 14
Breadth of Psychology 16
Major Perspectives of Psychology 16
Structuralism 16
Functionalism 17
Gestalt 17
Behaviorism 17
Psychodynamic theory 18
Humanism 18
Subfields of Psychology 19
A Brief History of Psychology 21
Intellectual Influences on Psychology 21
Wundt’s Laboratory 22
The Expansion of Psychology 23
Psychology Leaves the Laboratory 24
Psychology Today 26
Psychology in Context 28

2 Science of Behavior 32
The Science of Psychology 35
The Scientific Method 36
The Four Goals of Science 39
How Psychologists Study Behavior 40
Behavioral Research Methods 44
Behavioral observation 45
Experimental research 48
Indirect measurements 50
Comparative research 51
Research Ethics 52
Science is the Foundation of Psychology 54
2 Psychology: The Science of Who We Are

3 Biopsychology 58
Neural Structure and Function 60
Neural Communication: Electrical Signals 61
Neural Communication: Chemical Signals 62
Drug Effects on the Brain 63
The Nervous System 66
Structure and Function of the Brain 68
Middle Brain Structures 69
Emotional Processes in the Brain 71
Autonomic arousal 72
Somatic arousal 73
Cerebral Cortex 76
Occipital lobe 76
Temporal lobe 77
Parietal lobe 78
Frontal lobe 79
Brain Localization 82
Brain Laterality 83
Biopsychology Connections 86
4 Sensation and Perception 90
Light and the Optics of the Human Eye 92
The Retina and Visual Transduction 95
Visual Processing in the Brain 98
Perception of Color 100
Trichromacy: three primary colors 101
Color opponency 102
Vision: Perception of Motion and Form 104
Gestalt and Perception of Form 105
Depth Perception 107
Perceptual Constancy 109
Hearing: Anatomy and Sound 110
The Nature of Sound 111
The Outer and Middle Ear 113
Auditory transduction in the inner ear 115
From the ear to the brain 116
The Chemical Senses 117
Touch and Pain 120
Sensation, Perception, and Psychology 123
5 Development Through the Lifespan 126
Three organizing questions of development 128
 Table of Contents 3

Nature vs. Nurture 128

Stages vs. Continuity 128
Stability vs. Change 129
Neonatal and Early Childhood Development 129
Life Before Birth 130
The Newborn 131
Cognitive Development and Motor Control 132
Development of Thinking and Memory 133
Egocentrism and Theory of Mind 135
Social and Emotional Development 136
Self-Concept 139
Effects of Parenting Styles 140
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood 142
Physical Development 143
Cognitive Development 144
Moral Development 144
Social Development 145
Parent and Peer Relationships 147
Adulthood 148
Physical Changes in Middle Adulthood 149
Physical Changes in Later Adulthood 149
Physical and Mental Health in Adulthood 150
Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease 151
Cognitive Development in Adulthood 151
Social Development in Adulthood 152
Adulthood’s Commitments 152
Love and marriage 153
Parenting 154
Employment 154
Death and Dying 155
Grief and Coping with Loss 156
Well-Being Across the Lifespan 157
6 Learning and Behavior 162
Behavior Analysis and Behaviorism 164
Classical Conditioning 166
The Importance of Pairing 169
The magnitude of the UR 169
The salience of the NS 169
How many times the NS and US have been paired together 170
The time between the presentation of the NS and the US 170
The degree of contingency between the NS and US 171
4 Psychology: The Science of Who We Are

Extinction of Classical Conditioning 172

Classical Conditioning and Conditioned Emotion 173
Operant Conditioning 175
Operant consequence 177
Positive reinforcer 178
Negative reinforcer 179
Positive and Negative Consequences 180
Punishment 182
Schedules of Reinforcement 185
Intermittent schedules: ratio and interval 188
Schedule specific response patterns 190
Behavior, Learning, and Psychology 192
7 Memory 196
The Model of Memory 198
Sensory Memory 198
Short-Term Memory 200
Working Memory 202
Long-Term Memory: Forgetting 204
Constructive Memory 205
False Memories 207
Amnesia 208
Physical Storage of Memory 212
Myth #1: There is a Single Place in the Brain Where Each Memory is Stored 213
Myth #2: A Memory is a Faithful Copy of an Experienced Event 213
Distributed Nature of Memory 214
Memory Across Psychology 216
8 Thinking and Intelligence 220
Thinking: Processes and Concepts 222
Mental Concepts 223
Problem Solving 224
Obstacles to problem solving 227
Decision Making 228
Language 231
Defining Intelligence: Theories and Evidence 234
Theories of Intelligence 236
The roots of general intelligence 236
Crystallized and fluid intelligence 237
Multiple intelligences 238
Intelligence Testing 242
Origins of Intelligence Testing 244
IQ: The Intelligence Quotient 246
 Table of Contents 5

Intelligence Testing in Work and Life 252

Thinking, Intelligence, and Psychology 253
9 Personality 258
Personality and Motivation Defined 260
Views of Personality 261
Biological view 262
Trait view 263
Psychodynamic view 267
Structure of mind and personality 267
Personality Development: Freudian Perspectives 269
Behavioral and Cognitive Views 271
Experiential and social influences 272
Humanistic Theories 273
Maslow & self-actualization 273
Rogers & the person-centered perspective 274
Assessment of Personality 276
Personality Across Psychology 278
Motivation 279
Biological theories of motivation 280
Reinforcement Theory of Motivation 283
Social Theories of Motivation 284
Motivation in Context 285
Personality and Motivation in Life 286
10 Abnormal Psychology 290
Defining Psychological Disorders 292
Models of Abnormal Behavior 294
The Biological (Medical) Model 294
The Psychological Models 295
The Sociocultural Model 296
The Biopsychosocial Model 296
Classifying Psychological Disorders 297
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) 298
Specific Psychological Disorders 302
Anxiety Disorders 302
Generalized anxiety disorder 303
Phobias 303
Panic disorder 304
Obsessive-compulsive and post-traumatic stress disorders 304
Mood Disorders 305
Depressive disorders 306
Bipolar disorders 307
6 Psychology: The Science of Who We Are

Thought Disorders 308

Schizophrenia 308
The issue of suicide 309
Dissociative Disorders 311
Dissociative identity disorder 312
Eating Disorders 313
Substance-Related and Addictive Disorders 314
Personality Disorders 315
Abnormal Behavior and the Human Condition 318
11 Therapies 322
History of Therapies 324
Psychosurgery 326
Psychopharmacology 328
Antipsychotic medications 328
Antianxiety medications 329
Antidepressant medications 330
Mood stabilizers 331
Psychopharmacology Considerations 331
Psychotherapy 332
Psychoanalysis and Psychodynamic Therapy 333
Humanistic therapies 334
Behavioral therapies 335
Cognitive behavioral therapies 338
Group and Family Therapies 339
Effectiveness of Psychological Therapies 340
Alternative Therapies 341
Impact of Culture 341
Therapeutic Lifestyle Change 342
Therapy and Psychology 343
12 Social Psychology 348
Attitudes 350
Persuasion: Central and Peripheral Routes 352
Cognitive Dissonance 353
The Psychology of Prejudice 357
Stereotypes 359
Attributions 360
Attributions and biases 362
Behavior and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies 364
Social Norms and Behavioral Influences 366
 Table of Contents 7

The Stanford Prison Experiment 367

Obedience to authority 368
Behavioral and obedience research ethics 370
Conformity and influence 370
Social Influence and Helping Behavior 373
Understanding Social Psychology 374
Glossary 379
References 391
Index 407
 1 Understanding
Chapter

Psychology

After reading this chapter, you will be able to answer the following questions:
ƒƒ How is psychology the study of you?
ƒƒ What are the three characteristics of psychology?
ƒƒ How is psychology a science?
ƒƒ What does it mean to say that psychology is an integrative study of behavior?
ƒƒ How do the subfields of psychology help us understand behavior?
ƒƒ What are some of the key events in the early history of psychology?
ƒƒ How did psychology expand from the laboratory to become an applied science?
ƒƒ Where do psychologists work and what do they do?
P
sychology is the scientific study of you. It is the study of how you learned to walk, how
you talk, how you make decisions about what to eat, who to be friends with, and what
types of products to buy. And psychology is so much more. Psychology is also the study
of how you fall in love, why some situations make you scared, and what it is that makes you
intelligent (or not). Psychology helps us to understand exceptional moments in your life, such
as when you choose to help someone else or when you are able to overcome challenges. It
also helps us to understand your greatest challenges—such as dealing with mental illness of
your own or of a friend or family member—and your darkest experiences—such as prejudice,
discrimination, hatred, bullying, and conforming to peer or other social pressures. Psychology
truly provides insight into all of the different experiences, thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors that
are part of what it is to be you.

To appreciate how psychology can help you understand who you are, take a moment to think
of what you did, thought, and felt over the past 24 hours. As you think about the number
of different things you did and the experiences that made up your previous day, you will
be making a list of the things psychologists study. For example, think about the last time
you watched television. As you watched your favorite show, sporting event, news program,
or movie, you were engaged in many activities studied by psychologists. As you read the
following paragraphs, consider some—but not all—of the ways a psychologist might study
your television-watching behavior.

As you watched the television, the sensory receptors in your eyes and ears received the
electromagnetic radiation emitted by the television (light) and the molecular motion
produced by movement of the speakers (sound). Once the sensory organs were stimulated
by this environmental information, the neural signals passed to your brain to be processed.
Psychologists interested in sensation, the conversion of real-world energy into a neural
code, and perception, the processing of neural sensory information, study how the sensory
organs, nervous system, and brain are able to receive, encode, transfer, and make sense of the
information in your environment. One of the major challenges in understanding the viewing
of television, computer, and movie screens is how the brain transforms the two-dimensional
screen image into the perception of a three-dimensional world. This is a major perceptual
challenge, but one that occurs so automatically, we hardly ever stop to think about it.

While psychologists interested in studying

sensation and perception are studying
how you process the sensory information
received as you watch television, a cognitive
psychologist would be more interested in
studying the neural process that results
in you correctly understanding an actor
who says, “You can see the sea from seat
3C.” Despite all those “sees” in the same
sentence, you are able to understand that
each identical sounding “see” has a distinct
meaning. Yet another psychologist, a
 10 Psychology: The Science of Who We Are
psychology
the scientific study of the
behavior of individual
organisms and how
environmental, physiological,
mental, social, and cultural
events influence these
behaviors
social psychologist, might analyze your reaction to the aggressive discussion between
a male and female character on the show, or how the staged aggression between the
actors influences your behavior in the real world. Another psychologist might study
your emotional reaction to this interaction based on your racial, cultural, or sexual
background. Or, maybe, the psychologists studying your behavior are interested in how
your reaction changes based on the people with you while you watch the television
program.
The possible questions raised by your television watching, as identified above, are only
a small sample of the questions psychologists can ask about this behavior. And notice
that they are not exclusive of one another. A psychologist investigating your sensory
experiences and one investigating your social experience will come up with different
explanations of what is influencing your television watching because they are looking
at what you are doing in different ways. Television watching may seem like a simple
task to you, but the behaviors involved are complex and of great interest to a variety of
psychologists.
With so many questions we can ask about your television watching, imagine what would
happen if we looked at a more complex behavior, such as falling in love, dealing with
a school bully, or handling the loss of a loved one. Highlighting the types of questions
asked by different types of psychologists illustrates just how much about you can be
understood through psychological science.
WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY?
Defining psychology as the scientific study of what you do captures both the breadth
and focus of psychology, but it is a little too informal for an academic introduction
to the discipline. More formally, we can say that psychology is the scientific study of
individual organisms’ behaviors and how environmental, physiological, mental, social,
and cultural events influence these behaviors. Take a moment to look back at the
definition of psychology, and you will notice that psychology is a complex discipline
with three main characteristics:
1. Psychology is a science.
2. Psychology studies individual behavior.
3. Psychology studies the variables that influence behavior (environment, physiology,
mental processes, social interactions, and cultural practices).
Understanding these three characteristics of psychology is critical to appreciating fully
how psychology can help you understand yourself, your friends and family, and others
in your world.
Psychology is a Science
A key component of psychology’s definition is that it is a scientific discipline. As a
science, psychology aims to accomplish its goals through systematic observation
and measurement. Psychologists conduct their research using the scientific method
 Chapter One: Understanding Psychology 11

as a framework for exploring the world through developing and testing hypotheses.
Depending on the research question, a psychologist may use many of the same tools as
other scientists, including the same types of technology, methodology, and philosophy.
Similar to other scientists, research psychologists aim to describe, predict, explain, and
control behavior (we will explore this topic more fully in Chapter 2). However, while
psychologists share the same goals as other scientists, their area of study is unique. As
already established, their area of focus is you and what you do. Because your behavior is
so complex and you live in such a complex world, psychologists frequently use methods
and technologies that are distinct from those used by other scientists. For example,
psychologists often rely on surveys and self-report of experiences, two tools that are
rarely employed in the disciplines of physics and chemistry.

While psychology is a science, the majority of psychologists are not interested in

the strictly scientific side of psychology. Instead, a large portion of those who work
in psychology-related fields are interested in how to apply the discoveries made by
psychological researchers. For example, most therapists and counselors are not directly
engaged in research, but they study the work done by research psychologists and apply
it to developing ways to work with their individual clients. In this way, psychological
practice is informed by basic psychological research. At the same time, the challenges
and difficulties experienced by psychological practitioners often generate questions for
the basic scientists to explore. Regardless of whether the psychologist is working on
the production or the application of psychological science, his or her work is driven
by what we know based on our scientific explorations of human behavior (Figure 1.1).

Publish/Report
Psychological Practioners
Psychological Scientists • Develop technologies
• Conduct Research • Work with people/
• Develop Theories clients
New problems/questions

1.1 The generation of future research

The connection between psychological science and application.

While psychology uses the basic ideas, technologies, and procedures of science, there
is a challenge in psychology that is unique to the social sciences. Psychology seeks to
understand how people behave, but the psychologists doing the research are themselves
people. This creates major challenges because we all have theories and ideas about why
people do things. In fact, it is very difficult to watch any object in motion without
developing an explanation for why it behaves the way it does. When conducting
psychological research, the explanations psychologists have for how people behave
can interfere with developing a scientific understanding of their behavior. Instead
of focusing on science-driven explanations, people have a tendency to take their
observations and informal explanations and use these to form explanations of other
people’s behavior. Sometimes these insights are valid, but often, they fail to accurately
explain the real reasons for behavior.
 12 Psychology: The Science of Who We Are
anthropomorphization
the projecting of human
experience and abilities onto
non-human objects
Take a moment and consider how odd it is for the researcher and the research focus to
be the same type of object. If we were geologists studying rock formations, we would
likely not be tempted to project our feelings and experiences onto the rock. However,
as the similarity between us, as the observer, and the object of our study grows,
the tendency to project our feelings, thoughts, and emotions into the situation gets
stronger (the projecting of human experience and abilities onto non-human objects is
formally called anthropomorphization). As psychological scientists, we must separate
ourselves carefully and purposefully from the topic of our study. While our experience
can give us insights into behavior, it is essential that we compare these insights with the
outcomes of well-designed scientific studies.
Another major challenge in conducting psychological science lies in the reactivity of
the subject to the study’s demands. Participants in psychological studies are influenced
by the way the study is designed, what happens before the study, and experiences
from their past. Associations between the study and other events, as well as unrelated
experiences (such as traffic, conflicts with co-workers or family members, or the length
of time since the participant last ate) can impact how a participant behaves during the
study. Because of the dynamic nature of human behavior, psychologists must use a
different set of tools and procedures to conduct their research than those often thought
of when contemplating how and where a scientist works.
As you read this book and other psychological work, you will find some ideas that
confirm your beliefs about human behavior and others that challenge them. When you
find your ideas about behavior challenged, we encourage you to ask yourself, “Why is
this different from what I thought about behavior?” and “Where did my ideas about
how people behave come from?” By developing the habit of asking questions about
what you believe and the origin of those beliefs, you will become better able to use
scientific knowledge in guiding your decisions and actions. A similar set of questions
should be asked about other people’s beliefs about behavior. “Why do they believe
this?” and “Where did their ideas about behavior come from?”
Psychology is About the Individual
As highlighted by the formal definition of psychology and the introduction to this
chapter, psychology is about the individual: you. Other sciences, such as sociology,
economics, and anthropology focus on how groups of people interact with one another.
Psychology does look at groups, but the focus of these studies is always how the group
influences the individual’s behavior. For example, psychological science has shown that
people tend to take on the characteristics of groups that are important to them, such as
their style of dress, political ideas, and manner of speaking. Psychologists are interested
in understanding why this happens at the level of the individual. Is this tendency to
conform an attempt by the individual to gain support and protection from the group?
Does conformity reflect an attempt by the individual to bolster his or her self-esteem?
As we saw in the television-watching example, these two questions regarding the
function of our conformity behavior are not exclusive of each other, but could be the
 Chapter One: Understanding Psychology 13

focus of two different lines of study. While much of the psychological literature involves
collecting data from a group of participants, the goal of a psychological study is to
understand how an individual behaves in a given situation, and why.

Psychology is Interested in Interaction

To understand the various influences on individual behavior, Environment
psychologists take an integrative approach. Thanks to the breadth
of psychological research, we now understand that behavior is a
product of many influences. Psychology separates these influences Physiology Culture
into five general categories (Figure 1.2): Behavior
• Environment: the natural world around the individual, which
can include illumination, temperature, sounds, weather, air
quality, and other features Social Mental
• Physiology: the individual’s biological structure, organ Interactions Processes
functions, and genetic makeup
• Mental processes: the information-processing systems and 1.2 The five interacting behavioral influences
structures that are part of the individual’s mental capacities An integrated view of psychology states that
while we only have one experience of reality, our
and process sensory information
behavior is simultaneously influenced by our
• Social interactions: the groups and individuals we interact biology, the environment around us, our mental
with throughout our life processes, the people who surround us, and our
cultural norms.
• Cultural practices: the norms and rules that have been
adopted by the individual’s social group and that have become
part of the social structure of his or her environment

While we are not aware of all of these different elements’ influences at any given
moment, our behavior is continuously influenced by each of them. It is tempting—
and easier—to think of these influences in isolation, such as occurs in nature/nurture
debates when people wonder if a particular behavior is inherited (nature) or learned
(nurture), but the belief that one of these influences can act in isolation from the others
is mistaken. All of the aspects of our environment we can detect are part of the context
that influences our behavior. Because we need to understand how all of the aspects of
the environment work together to produce our behavior, we say that psychology is an
integrative study of behavior.

We discussed our tendency to adopt the characteristics of the social group in the
previous section. The degree to which we conform to the characteristics of the group
is influenced by available sources of shelter/protection, our biological susceptibility to
stress, how much information needs to be processed, the size of the group, and our
cultural attitudes about the individual’s value compared to the group. For scientific
purposes, we may isolate one or two of these influences to better understand how they
impact behavior, but in understanding real world behavior, it is important to remember
that our actions are a product of all of these influences acting together.
14 Psychology: The Science of Who We Are

Concept Recall
1. What is the formal definition of psychology?
2. Why must psychologists and other social scientists be vigilant regarding
their own biases in conducting their research?
3. How does psychology differ from other social sciences, such as
sociology and anthropology?
4. What are the five types of interactions psychologists view as shaping our
behavior?

Psychology is the Study of Behavior

While psychology is a complex field representing scientists asking a broad range of
questions about you, all psychologists share one thing in common: They focus on
the study of what you do—your behavior. What exactly is behavior? Broadly defined,
behavior is anything that the organism does. Ogden Lindsley, a behavior analyst (a
scientist within a branch of psychology that focuses on the interaction between
behavior and the environment, described in more detail in Chapter 6), defined behavior
as anything that passes the dead person’s test (Lindsley, 1991). According to Lindsley, a
behavior is anything that a dead person cannot do. Can a dead person walk? No. Can
a dead person talk? No. Sing? Think? No, and no. So, walking, talking, singing, and
thinking are all behaviors. Table 1.1 gives several examples of both behaviors and non-
behaviors according to Lindsley’s dead person’s test.

Table 1.1 The dead person’s test

Behavior Non-Behavior

Passes Dead Person’s Test Fails Dead Person’s Test

(Cannot be done by a dead person) (Can be done by a dead person)

Running, walking, playing Not moving

Raise hand before speaking Not talking during class

Sleeping Lying on the ground

Eating fruits and vegetables Not eating foods high in calories or sugar

Awareness of what is and is not behavior is particularly useful when we aim to change
our behavior. People frequently decide that they would like to lose weight, and to meet
this objective, they will set a goal that goes something like this: “I will not eat any junk
food.” Is “not eating junk food” a behavior? Notice that a dead person does not spend
much time eating junk food, so this isn’t actually a behavior. Instead, you will have
more success adopting a specific goal, such as eating healthy food or increasing your
 Chapter One: Understanding Psychology 15

daily exercise, both of which are behaviors as neither of these are things that a corpse
can do. As living beings, behavior is what we do, so when trying to change behavior,
we have more success swapping one behavior for another than swapping one behavior
for a non-behavior.

While eating healthy and exercising are directly observable behaviors, psychologists
focus on the full breadth of what an organism can do. As we look at the complexity
of behavior, we note that behavior ranges from complex, full-body movements—like
those we would see in a professional dancer—to the microscopic changes that occur
inside a neuron, the cells that make up our nervous system (described in Chapter 3).
To appreciate the range of complexity in our behavior, think again of when you last
watched television. One large-scale behavior you were engaged in was to move your
arm toward the remote, securing the remote with your hand, lifting it, and pressing
the buttons. At the same time, the muscles surrounding the pupil of your eye were
adjusting to the brightness of the scene on the television. On the smallest level, neurons
in your brain were firing in response to the lights and sounds from the television. While
different in size and complexity, all of these behaviors are part of what you do (notice
that a dead person does not do any of these things), and all are important parts of the
experience we call watching television.

Not only do psychologists study behaviors of different size and complexity, but they
also study behaviors that occur outside the organism, such as movement of the limbs,
eye blinking, talking, as well as the behaviors that occur inside the organism, such
as hormone secretion, changes in neurotransmitter levels, and changes in heart rate.
External, public, easily observable behaviors and internal, private, hard to measure
behaviors are part of what the organism does—its behavior. Figure 1.3 illustrates the
relation between simple and complex behaviors as well as internal versus external
behaviors. All of these behaviors are important parts of understanding how we interact
with the world. Returning once again to the television-watching experience, if we
changed the way you interacted with the remote control, the way your pupils dilated,
Complex

Imagining Professional
your future dancing
Recalling the Changing the channel
“Gettysburg Address” with a remote
Internal External
Changes inside Jumping at an
neurons unexpected sound
Secreting Pupil adjusting to
hormones ambient light

Simple
1.3 Two major dimensions of behavior
Behaviors range from simple to complex, internal to external. Behaviors organisms exhibit inter-
act to increase the complexity of those behaviors.
 16 Psychology: The Science of Who We Are
perspectives of
psychology
philosophical ways of
thinking about the goals of
psychology and the nature of
human behavior
structuralism
the view that psychology’s
goal should be to identify
and understand the
basic elements of human
experience
Edward B. Titchener
or the neurons that are active as you watch your television show, we would change your
experience. As we think about our experience with the world, it is important to note
that: (1) there are many behaviors occurring both outside and inside as we interact with
the world, and (2) while we are not aware of all of the behaviors we engage in, we use all
of our behaviors to create a single, unified experience of the world.
BREADTH OF PSYCHOLOGY
Everything you do, whether big or small, outside the body or inside your skin, is of
interest to, and studied by, psychologists. Not only are psychologists interested in
everything you do, but they are also interested in all of the places where you engage
in behavior. If there is a place where you could behave, there is a psychologist who
studies the effect of that context on your behavior. For example, the United States space
program employs a large team of psychologists who work on a variety of projects,
including understanding the effect of being in space on behavior. We will discuss many
of the current areas in which psychologists work at the end of the chapter. In order
to understand the breadth of psychology and psychology studies, consider the major
perspectives of the discipline.
Major Perspectives of Psychology
Each subfield of psychology represents a unique focus and set of methodologies
brought to bear on the study of the individual. Although psychologists might identify
themselves as members of one or more particular subfields, their work parallels the
work of psychologists in other disciplines, as psychology works overall to produce a
broader understanding of human behavior.
Over the years since its founding, psychology has seen the rise and fall of a number
of different perspectives of psychology: philosophical ways of thinking about
psychology’s goals and the nature of human behavior. While there are a number of
different perspectives at any given time, psychology is typically dominated by a
particular perspective at any given moment. Understanding the different perspectives of
psychology is an important step in appreciating modern psychological thought. These
psychological perspectives represent formalized philosophies regarding the primary
goals of psychology as well as specific methodologies for accomplishing those goals.
The six major historical perspectives of psychology are structuralism, functionalism,
gestalt, behaviorism, psychodynamic theory, and humanism.
Structuralism
As the oldest perspective of modern psychology, structuralism suggests that
psychology’s goals should be to: (1) reduce experience to its basic elements, (2) discover
the laws that govern these elements, and (3) connect these elements to physiological
conditions (Schultz & Schultz, 2004). As you can see from these three objectives,
structuralism’s founder, Edward B. Titchener, believed that there are basic components
to our experience, and these components can be organized in a lawful way to produce
 Chapter One: Understanding Psychology 17

our behavior, no matter how complex. Frank J. Landy (1999) described structuralism functionalism
the view that psychology’s
as “an attempt to outline the elements of consciousness from the inside out.” Titchener
goal should be to study how
was strongly influenced by chemistry’s periodic table of the elements and argued that consciousness and experience
psychology should similarly strive to identify and understand the basic elements that aid in adjusting to the
make up our experiences of the world and reduce conscious experience to its most environment
elementary components (Cummins, 1991). evolutionary
psychology
Functionalism a subfield of psychology
that aims to understand the
Functionalism asserts that psychology’s goal should be to study how consciousness evolutionary pressures that
and experience aid in adjusting to the environment (Schultz & Schultz, 2004). Rather shaped behavior and the
than focusing on experience itself, as suggested by Titchener, the functionalists adaptive function of behavior
believed psychology’s emphasis should be on why we have experiences and what they
accomplish. The functionalists emphasized understanding how mental operations
work, why they work that way, and how they help the organism to survive in its
current environment. Functionalists focused on how mental activities, such as
memory, perception, imagination, and judgment, enable us to evaluate, organize, and
act on experience. William James, considered by many historians to be the father of
American psychology, was the best-known proponent of the functionalist view. Today,
the ideas of functionalism are embodied in the field of evolutionary psychology: a
subfield of psychology that aims to understand the evolutionary pressures that shaped
behavior and the adaptive function of behavior. With its heavy emphasis on how our
William James
behavior adapts to the world around us and what a given behavior’s function is in that
world, functionalism became a strong influence on the development of psychological gestalt
approaches to solving real world problems (Landy, 1999). the view that psychology’s goal
should be to study experience
as a whole rather than the sum
Gestalt of its parts
The gestalt perspective argues that psychology’s goal should be to study experience as behaviorism
a whole rather than the sum of its parts. Gestalt psychologists rejected the structuralist the view that psychology’s
claim that consciousness could be broken down into its elemental components, and goal should be to study
directly observable behavior
instead they claimed human experience is more than the sum of its component parts and to understand how the
(Schultz & Schultz, 2004). A good way to understand the gestalt movement is to events in the environment
imagine eating all the ingredients of your favorite food separately. If you particularly outside the organism produce
enjoy apple pie, you would likely be disappointed in the experience you get from eating behavior
apple chunks, then sugar, cinnamon, eggs, and butter. You have all the right ingredients,
but there is more to a pie than just the ingredients (and you really should avoid eating
raw eggs). Similarly, human experience is not the same if we try to break it down into
just the basic sensory components.

Behaviorism
Behaviorism suggests that psychology’s goal should be to study directly observable
behavior and to understand how the events in the external environment produce
behavior. American psychologist John Watson, who coined the term “behaviorism,”
argued that psychology could not become a science if it continued to focus on non- John Watson
Another random document with
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that a tree was struck in a yard near the house where we made our
first inquiry for shelter, and a man at an open window was prostrated
and had not “come to.” One of the children had run away down the
street and was brought back screaming with fright, and asking if the
thunder struck him! The shower was very severe, but passed over
rapidly, and when the golden sunset glow came on, we began to
think of making a supper from the crackers, nuts, raisins and
pineapple in our lunch box, thinking how much better that was than
standing in the “breadline” at San Francisco. But while we were still
watching the sunset, we were called to supper, and the lunch box
was forgotten. Our good lady finally told us she boarded the school
masters for thirty-five years, and “took” people, but now she was
alone she did not like to take men, having been frightened, and she
always sends them to a man a little way up the road, but does not
tell them he is the “select-man.” When they ask there, they are
offered the lock-up. “If you had been two men I should have sent you
there!” We talked until nearly dark, before taking our things upstairs.
Breakfast was served in the morning, and our hostess seemed ten
years younger, declaring we had been no trouble. When we gave her
what we usually pay at a small hotel, she accepted it reluctantly. We
promised to send her the report of our journey, and she asked if we
should come the same way next year.
It was all right that we did not stay at the Farragut, for that hard drive
would have shortened our visit in Newburyport, and dinner with a
friend at the Wolfe Tavern.
We found a large mail at Newburyport, and then looked up a way
home. Really, the only fitting terminal route to such a fine journey
was to follow the coast to Boston, and then home via Concord. At
Hamilton we found the family tomb of Gail Hamilton, and took a
snap-shot of her home.
The miles of driving along the coast, and the boulevards of the Park
Reservation through Beverly, Salem, Marblehead, Swampscott,
Lynn, Revere Beach and Winthrop, were a striking contrast to the
miles of hills. We found friends along the way, and stayed one night
close by the shore, then drove into Boston, where Nan fell into line
on Atlantic avenue as unconcerned as when in the solitude of the
mountains. We made a call or two as we passed through the city to
Cambridge, and on through Arlington and Lexington to Concord,
where we spent the last night at the Old Wright Tavern, built in 1747.
It is full of souvenirs and reminders of the Revolutionary times.
Framed illuminated inscriptions hung on the walls of the dining-room.
We began our last day very pleasantly, after leaving our cards at a
friend’s house, by calling on the Chaplain of the Concord
Reformatory, and finding in his home friends from Chicago, who
asked about the revolver, which reminded us we had not taken it
from the bottom of the bag in which it was packed before we left
home.
At noon it began to rain, and we had the first cosy rainy drive,
enjoying it as we always do. We did not regret, however, missing the
deluge which came just as Nan was hurrying in to her stall. She
knew all the afternoon where she was going, and was impatient with
every delay. We did not blame her, for she had taken a great many
steps in the seven hundred miles and more, and been equal to every
demand, traveling every day but two in the whole month. The miles
of this journey swell the number to nearly 15000, but we will not
change the title of our book, for 14000 is a multiple of the mystic
number 7, and also of the 700 miles of this Postscript.

14000
MILES
A CARRIAGE AND TWO WOMEN
BY
FRANCES S. HOWE
This book is privately printed and the edition is limited. It contains
reports of an unbroken series of annual drives through New England,
New York State and Canada. Copies will be sent on receipt of price,
$1.50, and 15 cents additional for express or postage.
Address, Leominster, Mass.
MISS F. S. HOWE,

60 Mt. Pleasant Ave., or

MISS F. C. ALLEN,

5 Park Street.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14000 MILES, A
CARRIAGE AND TWO WOMEN ***

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