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PSYCHOLOGY PSY1011/PSY1022: A CUSTOM EDITION

Psychology PSY1011/PSY1022: A Custom Edition
Psychology PSY1011/PSY1022: A Custom Edition
Psychology
Psychology
PSY1011/PSY1022:
PSY1011/PSY1022:
A Custom
A Custom
Edition
Edition
Compiled
Compiled
by Dr by
Shruti
Dr Shruti
Mujumdar
Mujumdar
& Associate
& Associate
Professor
Professor
Sean Cain
Sean Cain
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR SEAN CAIN

COMPILED BY DR SHRUTI MUJUMDAR &
Compiled by Dr Shruti Mujumdar & Associate Professor Sean Cain
Compiled by Dr Shruti Mujumdar & Associate Professor Sean Cain
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Psychology PSY1011/
PSY1022: A Custom Edition
Compiled by Dr Shruti Mujumdar & Associate
Professor Sean Cain
2nd Edition
Author: Douglas A. Bernstein, Julie Ann Pooley, Lynne Cohen,

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 21 20 19 18
Table of Contents
Section 1 Psychology PSY1011
Chapter 1 Introducing Psychology 4

Chapter 1, Douglas A. Bernstein et al [2018]
Psychology: Australia and New Zealand [Cengage Learning Australia] (9780170386302)
Chapter 2 Biological Aspects of Psychology 40

Chapter 3 Sensation and Perception 98

Chapter 4 Learning 178

Chapter 5 Human Development 230

Chapter 6 Personality 304

Chapter 7 Culture and Psychology 350

Chapter 8 Indigenous Psychology 384

Section 2 Psychology PSY1022
Chapter 9 Memory 434

Chapter 10 Psychological Disorders and Treatment 494

Chapter 11 Social Cognition and Influence 594

Index 659
Psychology PSY1011
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Chapter 1
INTRODUCING PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology as a discipline has changed immensely since its humble beginnings. There is an amazing array of
professional and applied areas that people with psychological training now work in. In this opening chapter,
we provide an overview of psychology as a discipline and many of the more specialised areas in which
psychologists work. However, the main focus is on providing an understanding of the theoretical and applied
work of the discipline of psychology. It is important to note that the knowledge that you will gain from using
this book underpins much of human behaviour, which is relevant and may be applied to many other disciplines
and professions. We describe the linkages that tie these areas to one another and to other subjects, such
as economics and medicine, and how research in psychology is being applied in everyday life. We then tell the
story of how psychology developed and the various ways in which psychologists approach their work.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
On completion of this chapter, you should be able to:
1.1 define psychology 1.4 understand the diversity of psychology
1.2 understand the history of psychology 1.5 develop an awareness of the knowledge, skills and values
1.3 describe the role of the scientific method in the study that reflect the science and application of psychology,
of psychology and the possible career pathways in psychology.
APPLYING PSYCHOLOGY
1 Can studying psychology equip you with skills such as good oral and written communication skills and numeracy
skills, well-developed computer skills, the ability to find and research information, and environmental awareness?
2 What other settings, other than psychological practice, do psychologists work in?
Express Bring your learning to life with interactive study and exam preparation tools that support your textbook.
CourseMate Express includes quizzes, videos, concept maps and more.
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Chapter 1: Introducing Psychology
INTRODUCTION
A diverse range of employment opportunities is on offer when you study psychology. Studying
psychology at an undergraduate level provides you with a range of skills and competencies that CHAPTER
enable you to work in many different fields. In addition, some people choose to pursue postgraduate OUTLINE
studies and become registered psychologists. In this book, we endeavour to provide you with the ● The world of
knowledge to consider different pathways for your future studies and employment. psychology: an
Here are a number of people who have used the skills and knowledge gained in their study in overview
psychology: ● A brief history of
1 Nadine completed an undergraduate degree in psychology and then decided to seek psychology
employment before pursuing further studies. She worked in events management, where she ● Approaches to
was able to effectively use her excellent oral and written communication skills, knowledge of the science of
human behaviour, and problem-solving ability in a timely and ethical manner. After a year in psychology
the workforce, Nadine decided to study counselling at a postgraduate level. ● Human diversity
2 Michelle found her dream job working as a regional training coordinator after completing her and psychology
undergraduate degree in psychology. She works in a remote location assisting people as part of ● Studying and
a mental health and drug service. Her teamwork and oral communication skills are invaluable working in
to her role. psychology in
3 After completing a four-year degree in psychology, Frank went on to complete a Graduate Australia and
Training Program in the public service. After developing his skills in human resources, Frank New Zealand
now manages a human resources department within a university.
4 Donna received an honours degree in psychology and was able to apply her high-level research
skills when she started work in a large metropolitan hospital’s sleep clinic. Using her knowledge
and understanding of psychological theories related to sleep, Donna has progressed in her place
of employment and now coordinates the sleep clinic.
5 Gerry completed a Master of Applied Psychology degree where he focused on community
psychology. He sought employment in a non-government organisation in a regional
location, where his role involves working with families to support children with learning
difficulties.
6 As a graduate with a Master of Applied Psychology with a clinical focus, Josey completed
supervised practice that enabled her to establish her own private clinical practice, which now
employs three clinical staff.
7 Following completion of her honours degree in psychology, Eleanor went on to do a PhD
during which she completed groundbreaking research into effective behavioural interventions
for children with autism spectrum disorder. She now works as an academic in a university and
also consults privately with other organisations.
The people described above are doing fascinating work in different areas, and some are employed
as psychologists in one or more of psychology’s many specialty areas, or subfields. Most of these
people took their first psychology course without realising how many of these subfields there are, or
how many different kinds of jobs are open to people who study psychology. But each of these people
found something in psychology – perhaps something unexpected – that captured their interest, and
they were intrigued. And who knows? By the time you have finished this book and your course, you
may have found some aspect of psychology so compelling that you will want to make it your life’s
work too. At the very least, we hope you enjoy learning about psychology, the work of psychologists,
and how that work benefits people everywhere.
There are a number of perspectives that underpin the structure of this book. In each chapter, we
will highlight the application of psychological knowledge and skills through the appropriate Graduate
Attributes of the Australian Undergraduate Psychology Program: knowledge and its application,
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research skills, critical and creative thinking skills, values and ethics in psychology, communication
and interpersonal skills, and psychological literacy. An important aspect of this text is the focus on
using psychological knowledge and the development of psychological literacy.
1.1 THE WORLD OF PSYCHOLOGY:

AN OVERVIEW
psychology the science Psychology is the science that seeks to understand behaviour and mental processes, taking into account
of behaviour and mental physical attributes and the interaction with the environment. Generally, the goals of psychology
processes
are to understand, explain and predict human behaviour in different contexts. Psychology training
begins with an undergraduate degree, which enables students to develop psychological knowledge
and skills and apply them to a diverse range of areas, such as those described in the examples at
the beginning of this chapter. These provide insights into the different outcomes and pathways
that students of undergraduate psychology may take. Many students who begin an undergraduate
psychology degree utilise their skills and knowledge in different careers without formally completing
postgraduate studies to become a psychologist. A more detailed description of how to become a
registered psychologist in Australia and New Zealand is given at the end of this chapter and online
in Appendix A, ‘Careers for psychology graduates’.
To begin to appreciate all of the things that are included under the umbrella of behaviour and mental
processes, TRY THIS take a moment to think about how you would answer this question: Who are
you? Would you describe your personality, your 20/20 vision, your interests and goals, your skills and
accomplishments, your IQ, your cultural background, or perhaps a physical or emotional problem that
bothers you? You could have listed these and many other things about yourself, and every one of them
would reflect some aspect of what psychologists mean by behaviour and mental processes. It is no
wonder, then, that this book’s table of contents features so many different topics, including some – such
as vision and hearing – that you may not have expected to see in a book about psychology.The topics
have to be diverse in order to capture the full range of behaviours and mental processes that make you
who you are and that come together in other ways in people of every culture around the world.
Some of the world’s half-million psychologists focus on what can go wrong in behaviour and
mental processes – psychological disorders, problems in childhood development, stress-related illnesses
and the like – while others study what goes right. They explore, for example, the factors that lead
people to be happy and satisfied with their lives, to achieve at a high level, to be creative, to help others,
and to develop their full potential as human beings. This focus on what goes right, on the things that
positive psychology make life most worth living, has become known as positive psychology (Waterman, 2013; Wood &
a field of research that Tarrier, 2010), and you will see many examples of it in the research described throughout this book.
focuses on people’s
positive experiences and
characteristics, such as
happiness, optimism and Subfields of psychology
resilience When psychologists choose to focus their attention on certain aspects of behaviour and mental
processes, they enter one of psychology’s subfields. Let’s look at the typical interests and activities of
psychologists in each subfield; more will be described in later chapters.
This section outlines many of the subfields of psychology. However, it is important to realise that
there are nine areas of psychology which have been endorsed (that is, recognised) by the Psychology
Board of Australia, and which also reflect the nine colleges within the Australian Psychological
Society; namely, clinical, clinical neuropsychology, community, counselling, educational and
developmental, forensic, health, organisational, and sport and exercise. In addition, there are currently
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47 special interest groups (for example, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and psychology,
psychologists in oncology, and so on).The New Zealand Psychological Society has eight professional
institutes and special interest groups which members may join: clinical, community, counselling,
criminal justice and forensic, educational and developmental, organisational, health, and special
interest group (coaching). These groups provide members with opportunities to attend professional
development activities and meet with other psychologists who work in similar areas of practice.
The Australian Psychological Society and the New Zealand Psychological Society have a reciprocal
relationship. For more on these societies and the Psychology Board of Australia, see the upcoming
‘Studying and working in psychology in Australia and New Zealand’ section.
Let’s take a quick look at the typical interests and activities of psychologists in each subfield.
Please be aware that we are using the term ‘psychologist’ loosely to include psychological scientists
(who work in different subfields) as well as registered psychologists. We will describe their work in
more detail in later chapters.
Biological psychology
Biological psychologists, also called physiological psychologists, use high-tech scanning devices and biological psychologists
other methods to study how biological processes in the brain affect, and are affected by, behaviour and psychologists who analyse
the biological factors
mental processes (see Figure 1.1). Have you ever had the odd feeling that a new experience, such as
influencing behaviour and
entering an unfamiliar house, has actually happened to you before? Biological psychologists studying mental processes; also called
this illusion of déjà vu (French for ‘already seen’) suggest that it may be due to a temporary malfunction physiological psychologists
in the brain’s ability to combine incoming information from the senses, creating the impression of
two ‘copies’ of a single event (Brown, 2004). In Chapter 3, ‘Biological aspects of psychology’, we
describe biological psychologists’ research on many other topics, such as how your brain controls your
movements and speech, and what organs help you cope with stress and fight disease.
FIGURE 1.1 Visualising brain activity

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques
allow biological psychologists to study the brain activity
accompanying various mental processes.
Science Photo Library/Zephyr
Cognitive psychology
cognitive psychologists
TRY THIS Stop reading for a moment and look left and right.Your ability to follow this suggestion, psychologists who study the
to recognise whatever you saw, and to understand the words you are reading right now are the result mental processes underlying
of mental, or cognitive, abilities. Those abilities allow you to receive information from the outside judgement, decision making,
world, understand it and act on it. Cognitive psychologists (some of whom prefer to be called problem solving, imagining
and other aspects of human
experimental psychologists) study mental abilities such as sensation and perception, learning and thought or cognition;
memory, thinking, consciousness, intelligence and creativity. Cognitive psychologists have found, for also called experimental
example, that we don’t just receive incoming information – we mentally manipulate it. Notice that psychologists
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the drawing in Figure 1.2 stays physically the same, but two different versions emerge, depending on
which of its features you emphasise.
FIGURE 1.2 Husband and father-in-law

This figure is called ‘Husband and father-in-law’ (Botwinick, 1961) because you can see either an old or a
young man, depending on how you mentally organise its features. The elderly father-in-law faces to your right
and is turned slightly towards you. He has a large nose, and the dark areas represent his coat pulled up to his
protruding chin. However, the tip of his nose can also be seen as the tip of a younger man’s chin; the younger
man is in profile, also looking to your right, but away from you. The old man’s mouth is the young man’s
neckband. Both men are wearing a broad-brimmed hat.
Image from American Journal of Psychology. Copyright 1961 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Used with permission of the University of Illinois Press.
Applications of cognitive psychologists’ research are all around you. The work of those whose
engineering psychology special interest is engineering psychology – also known as human factors – has helped designers create
a field in which psychologists computer keyboards, mobile phones, MP3 players, websites, aircraft instrument panels, car navigation
study human factors in the
systems, nuclear power plant controls, and even TV remotes that are more logical, easier to use and
use of equipment and help
designers create better less likely to cause errors.You will read more about human factors research and many other aspects
versions of that equipment of cognitive psychology in several chapters of this book.
Developmental psychology
developmental Developmental psychologists describe the changes in behaviour and mental processes that occur
psychologists from birth through old age and try to understand the causes and effects of those changes (see
psychologists who seek to
Figure 1.3). Their research on the development of memory and other mental abilities, for example,
understand, describe and
explore how behaviour and is used by judges and lawyers in deciding how old a child has to be in order to serve as a reliable
mental processes change witness in court or to responsibly choose which divorcing parent to live with.The chapter on human
over a lifetime development describes other research by developmental psychologists and how it is being applied in
areas such as parenting, evaluating day care, and preserving mental capacity in elderly people.
FIGURE 1.3 Where would you put a third eye?

In a study of how thinking develops, children were asked to show
where they would place a third eye if they could have one. Nine-year-
old children, who were still in an early stage of mental development,
drew the extra eye between their existing eyes, ‘as a spare’. Having
developed more advanced thinking abilities, 11-year-olds drew the
third eye in more creative places, such as the palm of their hand ‘so I
can see around corners’.
Images from Shaffer, D. (1985). Developmental Psychology: Theory, Research and Applications. Copyright © Wadsworth, a part of Cengage Learning Inc. Reproduced by permission. www.
cengage.com/permissions
personality
psychologists Personality psychology
psychologists who study the
characteristics that make
Personality psychologists study individuality – the unique features that characterise each of us.
individuals similar to or Using personality tests, some of these psychologists seek to describe how your own combination of
different from one another personality traits, like your fingerprints, differs from everyone else’s in terms of traits such as openness
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to experience, emotionality, reliability, agreeableness and sociability. Others study the combinations of
personality traits that are associated with the appearance of ethnic prejudice, depression or vulnerability
to stress-related health problems. And personality psychologists interested in positive psychology
are trying to identify and understand the human strengths that help people to remain optimistic, even
in the face of stress or tragedy, and to find happiness in their lives (Snyder & Lopez, 2009).
Clinical, counselling, community and health psychology

Clinical psychologists and counselling psychologists conduct research on the causes and treatment clinical and counselling
of mental disorders and offer services to help troubled people overcome those disorders.Their research psychologists
psychologists who seek
is improving our understanding of the genetic and environmental forces that shape disorders ranging
to assess, understand and
from anxiety and depression to schizophrenia and autism, and it is providing guidance to therapists change abnormal behaviour
about which treatment methods are likely to be most effective with each category of disorder.
community
Community psychologists focus on the prevention of psychological disorders by promoting
psychologists
people’s resilience and other personal strengths.They also work with communities, non-government psychologists who work with
organisations and neighbourhood organisations to reduce crime, poverty and other stressful conditions communities and individuals
that often lead to psychological disorders. That is, community psychologists try to understand the to prevent psychological
individual and systems interactions and work from a preventative systemic orientation. disorders by striving for
change in social systems
Health psychologists study the relationship between risky behaviours such as smoking or lack
of exercise and the likelihood of suffering heart disease, stroke, cancer or other health problems such health psychologists
as hearing loss (see the Snapshot ‘Psychology and health education’). They also explore the impact psychologists who study
the effects of behaviour and
that illnesses such as diabetes, cancer and multiple sclerosis can have on people’s behaviour, thinking, mental processes on health
emotions and family relationships. Their research is applied in programs that help people to cope and illness, and vice versa
effectively with illness, as well as to reduce the risk of cancer, heart disease and stroke by changing
the behaviours that put them at risk.
Snapshot
Psychology and health education
Have you ever thought about what hearing
loss sounds like? As we age, many of us will
suffer from hearing loss. For some, our work
contexts affect our range of hearing. However,
think of the impact of new technologies that
enable us to listen to mobile music 24/7. This
‘sonic silence’ exhibit has been developed
to educate people about hearing loss; it is a
listening booth that simulates different types
of noise-induced hearing problems.
In Australia and New Zealand, clinical, counselling, community and health psychologists have a
master’s degree or a doctorate in psychology. All of these psychologists differ from psychiatrists, who
are medical doctors specialising in abnormal behaviour (psychiatry). You can read more about the
work of clinical, counselling, community and health psychologists in Chapter 12, ‘Health, stress and educational
psychologists
coping’, and in Chapter 14, ‘Psychological disorders and treatment’. psychologists who study
methods by which
Educational and school psychology instructors teach and
students learn, and who
Educational psychologists conduct research and develop theories about teaching and learning. The apply their results to
results of their work are applied in programs designed to improve teacher training, refine school improving those methods
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curricula, reduce truancy rates, and help students learn more efficiently and remember what they
learn. For example, they have supported the use of the ‘jigsaw’ technique, a type of classroom activity
in which children from various ethnic groups must work together to complete a task or solve a
problem. These cooperative experiences appear to promote learning, generate mutual respect, and
reduce intergroup prejudice (Aronson, 2004).
school psychologists School psychologists provide support to teachers and students, and they help to identify academic
psychologists who work problems and to set up programs to improve students’ achievement and satisfaction in school.They are also
with teachers and students,
involved in activities such as the early detection of students’ mental health problems, and crisis intervention.
assist in diagnosing students’
academic problems, provide
counselling to students, and Social psychology
set up programs to improve
students’ achievement Social psychologists study the ways in which people think about themselves and others, and how
people influence one another. Their research on persuasion has been applied to the creation of
social psychologists
safe-sex advertising campaigns designed to stop the spread of AIDS (acquired immune deficiency
psychologists who study
how people influence syndrome) or quit smoking campaigns. Social psychologists also explore how peer pressure affects
one another’s behaviour us, what determines who we like (or even love; see the Snapshot ‘Got a match?’), and why and how
and mental processes, prejudice forms. They have found, for example, that although we may pride ourselves on not being
individually and in groups
prejudiced, we may actually hold unconscious negative beliefs about certain groups that affect the
way we relate to people in those groups. Chapter 15, ‘Social cognition and influence’, describes these
and many other examples of research in social psychology.
Snapshot
Got a match?
Some commercial matchmaking services, such as eHarmony
(eharmony.com.au), apply social psychologists’ research on interpersonal
relationships and attraction in an effort to pair up people whose
characteristics are most likely to be compatible. According to eHarmony,
it uses the data of over 200 000 couples globally to identify personality
dimensions which influence how well two people are suited to
eHarmony
one another.
organisational
psychologists psychologists Organisational psychology
who study ways to improve
Organisational psychologists conduct research on leadership, stress, competition, pay rates and other
efficiency, productivity and
satisfaction among workers factors that affect the efficiency, productivity and satisfaction of people in the workplace. They also
and the organisations that explore topics such as worker motivation, work team cooperation, conflict resolution procedures
employ them and employee selection methods. Learning more about how businesses and organisations work –
sport psychologists or fail to work – allows organisational psychologists to make evidence-based recommendations
psychologists who explore for helping them work better. Today, companies all over the world are applying research from
the relationships between organisational psychology to promote the development of positive organisational behaviour. The results
athletic performance and
include more effective employee training programs, ambitious but realistic goal-setting procedures,
such psychological variables
as motivation and emotion fair and reasonable evaluation tools, and incentive systems that motivate and reward outstanding
performance.
forensic psychologists
psychologists who assist
in jury selection, evaluate Other subfields
defendants’ mental
competence to stand trial, and
Our list of psychology’s subfields is still not complete. There are sport psychologists, who use
deal with other issues involving visualisation and relaxation training programs, for example, to help athletes reduce excessive anxiety,
psychology and the law focus attention, and make other changes that let them perform at their best. Forensic psychologists
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(see the Snapshot ‘Linking psychology and law’) may assist police and other agencies in profiling
criminals, evaluating the mental competence of defendants, providing psychological reports for
court processes, and performing many other tasks related to psychology and the law. Environmental environmental
psychologists study the effects of the environment on people’s behaviour and mental processes. psychologists
psychologists who study
The results of their research are applied by architects and interior designers as they plan or remodel
the effects of the physical
university residences, shopping malls, auditoriums, hospitals, prisons, offices and other spaces to make environment on behaviour
them more comfortable and functional for the people who will occupy them. and mental processes
Snapshot
Linking psychology and law
Forensic psychologists research the types of
training required to appropriately carry out an
Fairfax Syndication/Edwina Pickles

investigative interview in the context of courts of
law. With high representations of Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Australian
judicial system, there is a need for forensic
psychologists to consider culturally appropriate
communication and interactions (Powell &
Bartholomew, 2003, 2011).
More information about the subfields we have mentioned – and some that we haven’t – are
available on the websites of the Australian Psychological Society (www.psychology.org.au) and the
New Zealand Psychological Society (www.psychology.org.nz).
Where do the psychologists in all these subfields work? Table 1.1 contains a summary of where
the approximately 20 000 psychologists in Australia and the 1000 psychologists in New Zealand find
employment, as well as the kinds of things they typically do in each setting.
TABLE 1.1 Typical activities and work settings for psychologists

The fact that psychologists can work in such a wide variety of settings and do so many interesting – and often well-paid – jobs helps
account for the popularity of psychology at universities. Psychology courses also provide excellent background for students planning to
enter medicine, law, business, teaching and many other fields.
Work setting Typical activities

Universities and professional schools Teaching, research and writing, often in collaboration with colleagues from other disciplines
Mental health facilities (for example, Testing and treatment of children and adults
hospitals, clinics, counselling centres)
Private practice (alone or in a group Testing and treatment of children and adults; consultation with business and other
of psychologists) organisations
Business, government and other Testing potential employees; assessing employee satisfaction; identifying and resolving
organisations conflicts; improving leadership skills; offering stress management and other employee
assistance programs; improving equipment design to maximise productivity and prevent
accidents
Schools (including those for Testing mental abilities and other characteristics; identifying children with problems;
intellectually disabled and emotionally consulting with parents; designing and implementing programs to improve academic
disturbed children) performance
Other Teaching prison inmates; research in private institutes; advising legislators on educational,
research or public policy; administering research funds; research on effectiveness of
military personnel; and so on
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Linkages within psychology and beyond

We have listed psychology’s subfields as though they were separate, but they often overlap, and so
do the activities of the psychologists working in them. When developmental psychologists study
the changes that take place in children’s thinking skills, for example, their research is linked to
the research of cognitive psychologists. Similarly, biological psychologists have one foot in clinical
psychology when they look at how chemicals in the brain affect the symptoms of depression. When
social psychologists apply their research on cooperation to promote group learning activities in the
classroom, they are linking up with educational psychology. Even when psychologists work mainly
in one subfield, they are still likely to draw on, and contribute to, knowledge in other subfields.
LINKAGES
If you follow the many linkages among psychology’s chapter has a special Linkages section that discusses the ties
subfields as you read this book, you will come away not only between material covered in the chapter, or the interrelation
with threads of knowledge about each subfield but also with to another psychological subfield.
an appreciation of the fabric of psychology as a whole. Each
CHAPTER 1 Introducing psychology
LINKAGES
Can subliminal messages Does psychotherapy work? What makes some people
help you lose weight? so aggressive?
CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER 14 CHAPTER 15

Sensation and Psychological disorders Social cognition
perception and treatment and influence
So if you want to understand psychology as a whole, you have to understand the linkages among
its subfields.To help you recognise these linkages, we highlight three of them in a ‘Linkages’ diagram
at the end of each chapter – similar to the one shown here. Each linkage is represented by a question
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that connects two subfields, and the chapter numbers indicate where you can read more about each
question (look for ‘Linkages’ symbols in the margins of that chapter). We pay particular attention to APPLYING
one of the questions in each diagram by discussing it in a special ‘Linkages’ section. If you follow the PSYCHOLOGY
linkages in these diagrams, the relationships among psychology’s many subfields will become much What other
settings, other
clearer. We hope that you find this kind of detective work to be interesting and that it will lead you
than psychological
to look for the many other linkages that we did not mention. Tracing linkages might even improve practice, do
your results in the course, because it is often easier to remember material in one chapter by relating psychologists
it to linked material in other chapters. work in?
Links to other fields

Just as psychology’s subfields are linked to one another, psychology itself is linked to many
other fields. Some of these linkages are based on interests that psychologists share with researchers
from other disciplines. For example, psychologists are working with computer scientists to create
artificial intelligence systems that can recognise voices, solve problems and make decisions in ways
that will equal or exceed human capabilities (Haynes, Cohen & Ritter, 2009; Wang, 2007).
Psychologists are also collaborating with specialists in neuroanatomy, neurophysiology,
neurochemistry, genetics and other disciplines in the field known as neuroscience (see the Snapshot neuroscience the
‘Professor Harry Ellis Reef ’). The goal of this multidisciplinary research enterprise is to examine scientific study of all levels
of the nervous system,
the structure and function of the nervous system in animals and humans at levels ranging from the
including neuroanatomy,
individual cell to overt behaviour. neurochemistry, neurology,
Many of the links between psychology and other disciplines appear when research conducted neurophysiology and
in one field is applied in the other. For example, biological psychologists are learning about the neuropharmacology
brain with scanning devices developed by computer scientists, physicists and engineers. Physicians
and economists are using research by psychologists to better understand the thought processes that
influence (good and bad) decisions about caring for patients and choosing investments. In fact, in
2002, the psychologist Daniel Kahneman won a Nobel prize in economics for his work in this
Snapshot
area. Other psychologists’ research on investigative interviewing has influenced how professionals Professor
in criminal investigations gather evidence in court proceedings (Powell, 2002). Psychological Harry Ellie
studies of the effects of ageing and brain disorders on people’s vision, hearing and mental abilities Reef
is shaping doctors’ recommendations about whether and when elderly patients should stop driving Professor Reef
cars. This book is filled with examples of other ways in which psychological theories and research was a neurologist
have been applied to health care, law, business, engineering, architecture, aviation and sports, to who studied the
relationship between
name just a few.
human behaviour and
the brain. He was a
leading researcher
Research: the foundation of psychology in brain-related
The knowledge that psychologists share across subfields and with other disciplines stems from the disorders and worked
research they conduct on many aspects of behaviour and mental processes. For example, rather than extensively in the
just speculating about why some people eat too much or too little, psychologists look for answers field of neuroscience.
by using the methods of science. This means that they perform experiments and other scientific
procedures to systematically gather and analyse information about behaviour and mental processes
and then base their conclusions – and their next questions – on the results of those procedures.
To follow up on the topic of eating, consider what would happen if you had just finished a big
lunch at your favourite restaurant and a waiter got mixed up and brought you a plate of the same
food that was meant for someone else.You would probably send it away, but why? Decisions to start
eating or stop eating are affected by many biological factors, including signals from your blood that
tell your brain how much ‘fuel’ you have available. The psychologist Paul Rozin was interested in
how these decisions are affected by psychological factors, such as being aware that you have already
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eaten (Rozin et al., 1998). What if you didn’t remember that you just had lunch? Would you have
started eating that second plate of food?
To explore this question, Rozin conducted a series of tests with R. H. and B. R., two men who
had suffered a kind of brain damage that left them unable to remember anything for more than
a few minutes. (You can read more about this condition, called anterograde amnesia, in Chapter 6,
‘Memory’.) The men were tested individually, on three different days, in a private room where
they sat with a researcher at lunchtime and were served a tray of their favourite food. Before and
after eating, they were asked to rate their hunger on a scale from 1 (extremely full) to 9 (extremely
hungry). Once lunch was over, the tray was removed and the researcher continued chatting, making
sure that each man drank enough water to clear his mouth of food residue. After 10 to 30 minutes, a
hospital attendant arrived with an identical meal tray and announced, ‘Here’s lunch’. These men had
no memory of having eaten lunch already, but would signals from their stomachs or their blood be
enough to keep them from eating another one?
Apparently not. Table 1.2 shows that in every test session, R. H. and B. R. ate all or part of the
second meal and in all but one session ate at least part of a third lunch that was offered to them 10 to
30 minutes after the second one. Rozin conducted similar tests with J. C. and T. A., a woman and a
man who had also suffered brain damage but whose memories had not been affected. In each of two
test sessions, these people finished their lunch but refused the opportunity to eat a second one.These
results suggest that the memory of when we last ate can indeed be a factor in guiding decisions
about when to eat again. They also support a conclusion described in Chapter 10, ‘Motivation and
emotion’; namely, that eating is controlled by a complex combination of biological, social, cultural
and psychological factors. As a result, we may eat when we think it is time to eat, regardless of what
our bodies tell us about our physical need to eat.
TABLE 1.2 The role of memory in deciding when to eat

Here are the results of a study in which brain-damaged people were offered a meal shortly after having eaten an identical meal. Their
hunger ratings (1–9, where 9 5 extremely hungry) before and after eating are shown in parentheses. B. R. and R. H. had a kind of
brain damage that left them unable to remember recent events (anterograde amnesia); J. C. and T. A. had normal memory. These
results suggest that the decision to start eating is determined partly by knowing when we last ate. Notice that hunger ratings, too, were
more consistently affected by eating for the people who remembered having eaten.
Session B. R. (amnesia) R. H. (amnesia) J. C. T. A.

One
Meal 1 Finished (7/8) Partially eaten (7/6) Finished (5/2) Finished (5/4)
Meal 2 Finished (2/5) Partially eaten (7/7) Rejected (0) Rejected (3)
Meal 3 Rejected (3) Partially eaten (7/7) – –
Two
Meal 1 Finished (6/5) Partially eaten (7/6) Finished (7/2) Finished (7/3)
Meal 2 Finished (5/3) Partially eaten (7/6) Rejected (1) Rejected (3)
a
Meal 3 Partially eaten (5) Partially eaten (7/6) – –
Three
Meal 1 Finished (7/3) Partially eaten (7/6) – –
Meal 2 Finished (2/3) Partially eaten (7/6.5) – –
Meal 3 Partially eaten (5/3) Partially eaten (7.5) – –
a
B. R. began eating his third meal but was stopped by the researcher, presumably to avoid illness.
From Rozin, P., Dow, S., Moscovitch, M., & Rajaram, S. (1998). The role of memory for recent eating experiences in onset and cessation of meals: Evidence from the amnesic syndrome.
Psychological Science, 9, 392–396. Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications, Inc.
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Rozin’s study illustrates the fact that although psychologists often begin with speculation
about behaviour and mental processes, they take additional steps towards understanding those
processes. Using scientific methods to test their ideas, they reach informed conclusions and
generate new questions. Even psychologists who don’t conduct research still benefit from it.They
are constantly applying the results of their colleagues’ studies to improve the quality, accuracy
and effectiveness of their teaching, writing or service to clients and organisations. For example,
practising clinical psychologists are combining their psychotherapy skills with research from
cognitive, organisational and sport psychology to help business executives, performing artists and
athletes excel (Hays, 2009).
The rules and methods of science that guide psychologists in their research are summarised in
Chapter 2, ‘Research in psychology’. We have placed that chapter early in the book to highlight
the fact that without scientific research methods and the foundation of evidence they provide,
psychologists’ statements and recommendations about behaviour and mental processes would carry
no more weight than those of astrologers, psychics or tabloid journalists. Accordingly, we will be
relying on the results of psychologists’ scientific research when we tell you what they have discovered
so far about behaviour and mental processes and also when we evaluate their efforts to apply that
knowledge to improve the quality of human life.
IN REVIEW
The world of psychology: an overview
SUBFIELDS FOCUS
Biological Biological factors influencing behaviour and mental processes
The mental processes underlying judgement, decision making, problem solving,
Cognitive
imagining and other aspects of human thought or cognition
Seeking to understand, describe and explore how behaviour and mental processes
Developmental
change over a lifetime
Clinical Seeking to assess, understand and change abnormal behaviour
The study methods by which instructors teach and students learn, and who apply
Educational
their results to improving those methods
How people influence one another’s behaviour and mental processes, individually and
Social
in groups
Ways to improve efficiency, productivity and satisfaction among workers and the
Organisational
organisations that employ them
Other
• Forensic – issues involving psychology and the law
• Community – working with communities and individuals to prevent psychological disorders by striving for change in
social systems
• Personality – the characteristics that make individuals similar to or different from one another
• Health – effects of behaviour and mental processes on health and illness, and vice versa
• Environmental – effects of the physical environment on behaviour and mental processes
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1.2 A BRIEF HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY

How did scientific research in psychology get started? Psychology is a relatively new discipline, but
its roots can be traced through centuries, especially in the history of philosophy. Since at least the
time of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in ancient Greece, philosophers had been debating psychological
topics, such as ‘What is the nature of the mind and the soul?’, ‘What is the relationship between the
mind and the body?’ and ‘Are we born with a certain amount of knowledge, or do we have to learn
everything for ourselves?’They even debated whether it is possible to study such things scientifically.
consciousness the A philosophical view known as empiricism was particularly important to the development of
awareness of external stimuli scientific psychology. Beginning in the 1600s, proponents of empiricism – especially the British
and our own mental activity
philosophers John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume – challenged the long-accepted
claim that some knowledge is innate. Empiricists argued instead that what we know about the
world comes to us through experience and observation, not through imagination or intuition.
This view suggests that at birth, our minds are like a blank slate (tabula rasa in Latin) on which
our experiences write a lifelong story. For well over a century now, empiricism has guided
psychologists in seeking knowledge about behaviour and mental processes through observations
governed by the rules of science.
Wundt and the structuralism of Titchener

The ‘official’ birth date of modern psychology is usually given as 1879, the year in which a
physiologist named Wilhelm Wundt established the first formal psychology research laboratory at
the University of Leipzig in Germany (Benjamin, 2000). At around this time, a number of other
German physiologists, including Hermann von Helmholtz and Gustav Fechner, had been studying
FIGURE 1.4 A vision and other sensory and perceptual processes that empiricism identified as the channels through
stimulus for which human knowledge flows. Fechner’s work was especially valuable because he realised that one
introspection could study these mental processes by observing people’s reactions to changes in sensory stimuli.
TRY THIS Look at By exploring, for example, how much brighter a light must become before we see it as twice as
this object and try to bright, Fechner discovered complex but predictable relationships between changes in the physical
ignore what it is. characteristics of stimuli and changes in our psychological experience of them. Fechner’s approach,
Instead, try to
which he called psychophysics, paved the way for much of the research described in Chapter 4,
describe only your
conscious experience, ‘Sensation and perception’.
such as redness, Wundt, too, used the methods of laboratory science to study sensory–perceptual systems, but
brightness and the focus of his work was consciousness, the mental experiences created by these systems. Wundt
roundness, and how wanted to describe the basic elements of consciousness, how they are organised, and how they
intense and clear the relate to one another (Schultz & Schultz, 2004). He developed ingenious laboratory methods
sensations and
to study the speed of decision making and other mental events, and in an attempt to observe
images are. If you can
do this, you would conscious experience, Wundt used the technique of introspection, which means ‘looking inward’
have been an (see Figure 1.4). After training research participants in this method, he repeatedly showed a light
excellent research or made a sound and asked them to describe the sensations and feelings these stimuli created.
assistant in Wundt concluded that ‘quality’ (for example, cold or blue) and ‘intensity’ (for example, brightness
Titchener’s or loudness) are the two essential elements of any sensation, and that feelings can be described in
laboratory.
terms of pleasure or displeasure, tension or relaxation, and excitement or depression (Schultz &
Schultz, 2004). In conducting this kind of research, Wundt began psychology’s transformation from
the philosophy of mental processes to the science of mental processes (see the Snapshot ‘Wilhelm
Wundt (1832–1920)’).
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Snapshot
Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920)
In an early experiment on the speed of mental processes, Wundt (third from left) first
measured how quickly people could respond to a light by releasing a button they had
been holding down. He then measured how much longer the response took when they
held down one button with each hand and had to decide, based on the colour of the light,
which one to release. Wundt reasoned that the additional response time reflected how
Alamy/INTERFOTO
long it took to perceive the colour and decide which hand to move. As noted in Chapter 7,
‘Cognition and language’, the logic behind this experiment remains a part of research on
cognitive processes today.
Edward Titchener, an Englishman who had been a student of Wundt’s, used introspection in his
own laboratory at Cornell University. He studied Wundt’s basic elements of consciousness, as well
as images and other aspects of conscious experience that are harder to quantify. One result was that
Titchener added ‘clearness’ as an element of sensation (Schultz & Schultz, 2004).Titchener called his
approach structuralism because he was trying to define the structure of consciousness.
Wundt was not alone in the scientific study of mental processes, nor was his work universally
accepted. Some of his fellow German scientists, including Hermann Ebbinghaus, believed that
analysing consciousness through introspection was not as important as exploring the capacities
and limitations of mental processes such as learning and memory. Ebbinghaus’ own laboratory
experiments, in which he served as the only participant, formed the basis for some of what we know
about memory today.
Gestalt psychologists
Around 1912, other German colleagues of Wundt, including Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka and
Wolfgang Köhler, argued against his efforts to break down human experience or consciousness into
its component parts. They were called Gestalt psychologists because they pointed out that the whole
shape (Gestalt in German) of conscious experience is not the same as the sum of its parts.Wertheimer
pointed out, for example, that if a pair of lights goes on and off in just the right sequence, we don’t
experience two separate flashing lights but a single light that appears to ‘jump’ back and forth. You
have probably seen this phi phenomenon in action on advertising signs that create the impression of
a series of lights racing around a display. Movies provide another example. It would be incredibly
boring to look one at a time at the thousands of still images printed on a reel of film. Yet when
those same images are projected onto a screen at a particular rate, they combine to create a rich and
seemingly seamless emotional experience. To understand consciousness, then, said the Gestaltists, we
have to study the whole ‘movie’, not just its component parts.
Freud and psychoanalysis

While Wundt and his colleagues in Leipzig were conducting scientific research on consciousness,
Sigmund Freud was in Vienna, Austria, beginning to explore the unconscious. As a physician, Freud
had presumed that all behaviour and mental processes have physical causes somewhere in the nervous
system. He began to question that assumption in the late 1800s, however, after encountering several
patients who displayed a variety of physical ailments that had no apparent physical cause. After
interviewing these patients using hypnosis and other methods, Freud became convinced that the
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causes of these people’s physical problems were not physical. The real causes, he said, were deep-
seated problems that the patients had pushed out of consciousness (Friedman & Schustack, 2003).
He eventually came to believe that all behaviour – from everyday slips of the tongue to severe forms
of mental disorder – is motivated by psychological processes, especially by mental conflicts that occur
without our awareness, at an unconscious level. For nearly 50 years, Freud developed his ideas into a
body of work known as psychoanalysis, which included a theory of personality and mental disorder, as
well as a set of treatment methods. Freud’s ideas are by no means universally accepted, partly because
they were based on a small number of medical cases, not on extensive laboratory experiments. Still,
he was a groundbreaker whose theories have had a significant influence on psychology and many
other fields.
William James and functionalism

Scientific research in psychology began in North America not long after Wundt started his work in
Germany. William James founded a psychology laboratory at Harvard University in the late 1870s,
though it was used mainly to conduct demonstrations for his students (Schultz & Schultz, 2004). It
was not until 1883 that G. Stanley Hall at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore established the
first psychology research laboratory in the United States. The first Canadian psychology research
laboratory was established in 1889 at the University of Toronto by James Mark Baldwin, Canada’s
first modern psychologist and a pioneer in research on child development.
Like the Gestalt psychologists, William James rejected both Wundt’s approach and Titchener’s
structuralism. He saw no point in breaking down consciousness into component parts that never
operate on their own. Instead, in accordance with Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, James
wanted to understand how images, sensations, memories and the other mental events that make up
our flowing ‘stream of consciousness’ function to help us adapt to our environment (James, 1890, 1892).
This idea was consistent with an approach to psychology called functionalism, which focused on the
role of consciousness in guiding people’s ability to make decisions, solve problems and the like.
James’ emphasis on the functions of mental processes encouraged North American psychologists
to look not only at how those processes work to our advantage but also at how they differ from
one person to the next. Some of these psychologists began to measure individual differences in
learning, memory and other mental processes associated with intelligence, made recommendations
for improving educational practices in schools, and even worked with teachers on programs tailored
to children in need of special help (Kramer, Bernstein & Phares, 2014).
John B. Watson and behaviourism

Besides fuelling James’ interest in the functions of consciousness, Darwin’s theory of evolution led
other psychologists – especially those in North America after 1900 – to study animals as well as
humans. These researchers reasoned that if all species evolved in similar ways, perhaps the behaviour
and mental processes of all species followed the same or similar laws and they could learn something
about people by studying animals.They could not expect cats or rats or pigeons to introspect, so they
watched what animals did when confronted with laboratory tasks such as finding the correct path
through a maze. From these observations, psychologists made inferences about the animals’ conscious
experience and about the general laws of learning, memory, problem solving and other mental
processes that might apply to people as well.
John B. Watson, a psychology professor at Johns Hopkins University, agreed that the observable
behaviour of animals and humans was the most important source of scientific information for
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psychology. However, he thought it was utterly unscientific to use behaviour as the basis for
making inferences about consciousness, as structuralists and functionalists did – let alone about
the unconscious, as Freudians did. In 1913, Watson published an article titled ‘Psychology as the
behaviourist views it’. In it, he argued that psychologists should ignore mental events and base
psychology only on what they can actually see in overt behaviour and in responses to various stimuli
(Watson, 1913, 1919).
Watson’s view, called behaviourism, recognised the existence of consciousness but did not
consider it worth studying because it would always be private and therefore not observable
by scientific methods. In fact, said Watson, a preoccupation with consciousness would prevent
psychology from ever being a true science. He believed that the most important determinant
of behaviour is learning and that it is through learning that animals and humans are able to
adapt to their environments. Watson was famous for claiming that, with enough control over the
environment, he could create learning experiences that would turn any infant into a doctor, a
lawyer or even a criminal.
The American psychologist B. F. Skinner was another early champion of behaviourism.
From the 1930s until his death in 1990, Skinner worked on mapping out the details of how
rewards and punishments shape, maintain and change behaviour through what he termed ‘operant
conditioning’. By conducting a functional analysis of behaviour, he would explain, for example, how
parents and teachers can unknowingly encourage children’s tantrums by rewarding them with
attention and how a virtual addiction to gambling can result from the occasional and unpredictable
rewards it brings.
Many psychologists were drawn to Watson’s and Skinner’s vision of psychology as the learning-
based science of observable behaviour. In fact, behaviourism dominated psychological research from
the 1920s through the 1960s, while the study of consciousness received less attention, especially in
the United States. (The section ‘In review: A brief history of psychology’ summarises behaviourism
and the other schools of thought that have influenced psychologists over the past century.)
Psychology today
Psychologists continue to study all kinds of overt behaviour in humans and in animals. By the end
of the 1960s, however, many had become dissatisfied with the limitations imposed by behaviourism
(some, especially in Europe, had never accepted it in the first place).They grew uncomfortable about
ignoring mental processes that might be important in more fully understanding behaviour (for
example, Ericsson & Simon, 1994). The dawn of the computer age influenced these psychologists
to think about mental activity in a new way – as information processing. Computers and rapid
progress in computer-based biotechnology began to offer psychologists exciting new ways of
studying mental processes and the biological activity that underlies them. As shown in Figure 1.1,
for example, it is now possible to literally see what is going on in the brain when a person reads or
thinks or makes decisions.
Armed with ever more sophisticated research tools, psychologists today are striving to do what
Watson thought was impossible: to study mental processes with precision and scientific objectivity.
In fact, there are probably now as many psychologists who study cognitive and biological processes
as there are who study observable behaviours. So mainstream psychology has come full circle,
once again accepting consciousness – in the form of cognitive processes – as a legitimate topic
for scientific research and justifying the definition of psychology as the science of behaviour and
mental processes.
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IN REVIEW
A brief history of psychology
SCHOOL OF THOUGHT EARLY ADVOCATES GOALS METHODS
Edward Titchener,
To study conscious
Structuralism trained by Wilhelm Experiments; introspection
experience and its structure
Wundt
To describe the organisation
of mental processes: ‘The Observation of sensory–
Gestalt psychology Max Wertheimer
whole is different from the perceptual phenomena
sum of its parts’
To explain personality and
behaviour; to develop
Psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud Study of individual cases
techniques for treating
mental disorders
To study how the mind works
Naturalistic observation of
Functionalism William James in allowing an organism to
animal and human behaviour
adapt to the environment
To study only observable
Observation of the relationship
John B. Watson, behaviour and explain
Behaviourism between environmental stimuli
B. F. Skinner behaviour through learning
and behavioural responses
principles
Check your understanding

1 Darwin’s theory of evolution had an especially strong influence on ism and ism.
2 Which school of psychological thought was founded by a European medical doctor?
3 In the history of psychology, was the first school of thought to appear.
1.3 APPROACHES TO THE SCIENCE

OF PSYCHOLOGY
We have seen that the history of psychology is, in part, a history of differing ways in which
psychologists thought about, or ‘approached’, behaviour and mental processes.Today, psychologists no
longer refer to themselves as structuralists or functionalists, but the psychodynamic and behavioural
approaches remain, along with some newer ones known as the biological, evolutionary, cognitive and
humanistic approaches. Some psychologists adopt just one of these approaches, but most are eclectic –
they blend aspects of two or more approaches in an effort to understand more fully the behaviour
and mental processes in their subfield (for example, Cacioppo et al., 2000). Some approaches to
psychology are more influential than others these days, but we will review the main features of all of
them so you can more easily understand why different psychologists may explain the same behaviour
or mental process in different ways.
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The biological approach What can

Snapshot
As its name implies, the biological approach to psychology assumes that behaviour and mental processes brain mapping
are largely shaped by biological processes. Psychologists who take this approach study the psychological tell us?
effects of hormones, genes and the activity of the nervous system, especially the brain (see the Snapshot Biological
‘What can brain mapping tell us?’). So if they are studying memory, they might try to identify the psychologists
changes taking place in the brain as information is stored there (Figure 6.15, in Chapter 6, ‘Memory’, are able to
provide further
shows an example of these changes). If they are studying thinking, they might look for patterns of brain
understanding
activity associated with, for example, making quick decisions or reading a foreign language.
to many areas
Research discussed in nearly every chapter of this book reflects the enormous influence of the of psychology,
biological approach on psychology today.To help you better understand the terms and concepts used
Science Photo Library/University of Durhum/Simon Fraser

such as reasoning
in that research, see Chapter 19 (online), ‘Behavioural genetics’, and Chapter 3, ‘Biological aspects and decision
of psychology’. making, because
of technology’s
increasing
The evolutionary approach sophistication.
Biological processes also figure prominently in an approach to psychology based on Charles Darwin’s
1859 book On the Origin of Species. Darwin argued that the forms of life we see today are the result
of evolution – of changes in life forms that occur over many generations. He said that evolution
occurs through natural selection, which promotes the survival of the fittest individuals. Those
whose behaviour and appearance allow them to withstand the elements, avoid predators and mate
are able to survive and produce offspring with similar characteristics. Those less able to adjust (or
adapt) to changing conditions are less likely to survive and reproduce. Most evolutionists today see
natural selection operating at the level of genes, but the process is the same. Genes that result in biological approach
characteristics and behaviours that are adaptive and useful in a certain environment will enable the an approach to psychology
in which behaviour and
creatures that inherit them to survive and reproduce, thereby passing those genes on to the next
behaviour disorders are seen
generation. According to evolutionary theory, many (but not all) of the genes that animals and as the result of physical
humans possess today are the result of natural selection. processes, especially those
The evolutionary approach to psychology assumes that the behaviour and mental processes of relating to the brain and
to hormones and other
animals and humans today are also the result of evolution through natural selection. Psychologists
chemicals
who take this approach see cooperation as an adaptive survival strategy, aggression as a form of
territory protection, and gender differences in mate selection preferences as reflecting different ways natural selection the
evolutionary mechanism
through which genes survive in future generations (Griskevicius et al., 2009). The evolutionary
through which Darwin said
approach has generated a growing body of research (for example, Buss, 2009; Confer et al., 2010); in the fittest individuals survive
later chapters, you will see how it is applied in relation to topics such as helping and altruism, mental to reproduce
disorders, temperament and interpersonal attraction. evolutionary approach
an approach to psychology
that emphasises the
The psychodynamic approach inherited, adaptive aspects
of behaviour and mental
The psychodynamic approach to psychology offers a different slant on the role of inherited processes
instincts and other biological forces in human behaviour. Based on Freud’s psychoanalysis, this
approach assumes that our behaviour and mental processes reflect constant and mostly unconscious psychodynamic
approach a view
psychological struggles within us (see Figure 1.5). Usually, these struggles involve conflict between developed by Freud that
the impulse to satisfy instincts (such as for food, sex or aggression) and the need to follow the rules emphasises the interplay
of civilised society. So psychologists taking the psychodynamic approach might see aggression, for of unconscious mental
example, as a case of primitive urges overcoming a person’s defences against expressing those urges. processes in determining
human thought, feelings
They would see anxiety, depression or other disorders as overt signs of inner turmoil.
and behaviour
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FIGURE 1.5 What do you see?

TRY THIS Take a moment to write down
what you see in these clouds. According to
the psychodynamic approach to psychology,
what we see in cloud formations and other
vague patterns reflects unconscious wishes,
impulses, fears and other mental processes.
In the personality chapter, we discuss the
value of personality tests based on this
assumption.
Photodisc
Freud’s original theories are not as influential today as they once were (Mischel, 2004a), but you
will encounter modern versions of the psychodynamic approach in other chapters when we discuss
theories of personality (see Chapter 3, ‘Personality’), psychological disorders and psychotherapy (see
Chapter 14, ‘Psychological disorders and treatment’).
The behavioural approach

behavioural approach The assumptions of the behavioural approach to psychology contrast sharply with those of the
an approach to psychology psychodynamic, biological and evolutionary approaches. The behavioural approach is rooted
emphasising that human
in the behaviourism of Watson and Skinner, which, as already mentioned, focused entirely on
behaviour is determined
mainly by what a person observable behaviour and on how that behaviour is learned. Accordingly, psychologists who take
has learned, especially from a strict behavioural approach concentrate on understanding how past experiences with rewards
rewards and punishments and punishments act on the ‘raw materials’ provided by genes and evolution to shape observable
behaviour into what it is today. So whether they are trying to understand a person’s aggressiveness,
fear of spiders, parenting methods or drug abuse, behaviourists look mainly at that person’s learning
history. As they believe that behaviour problems develop through learning, behaviourists seek
to eliminate those problems by helping people replace maladaptive habits with new and more
appropriate ones (see the Snapshot ‘Why is he so aggressive?’).
Snapshot
Why is he so aggressive?
Psychologists who take a cognitive-behavioural approach suggest that behaviour
is not shaped by rewards and punishments alone. They say that children’s
aggressiveness, for example, is learned partly by being rewarded (or at least
Shutterstock.com/Lopolo
not punished) for aggression but also partly by seeing family and friends acting
aggressively. Furthermore, attitudes and beliefs about the value and acceptability
of aggressiveness can be learned as children hear others talk about aggression
as the only way to deal with threats, disagreements and other conflict situations
(for example, Cooper, Gomez & Buck, 2008; Wilkowski & Robinson, 2008).
Recall, though, that the peak of behaviourism’s popularity passed precisely because it ignored
everything but observable behaviour. That criticism has had an impact on the many behaviourists
who now apply their learning-based approach in an effort to understand thoughts, or cognitions,
as well as observable behaviour. Those who take this cognitive-behavioural, or social-cognitive, approach
explore how learning affects the development of thoughts, attitudes and beliefs and, in turn, how
these learned cognitive patterns affect overt behaviour.
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The cognitive approach

The growth of the cognitive-behavioural perspective reflects the influence of a broader cognitive
view of psychology.This cognitive approach focuses on how we take in, mentally represent and store cognitive approach a
information; how we perceive and process that information; and how all these cognitive processes way of looking at human
behaviour that emphasises
affect our behaviour. Psychologists who take the cognitive approach study the rapid series of mental research on how the brain
events – including those outside of awareness – that accompany observable behaviour. So in analysing, takes in information,
say, an aggressive incident in a cinema ticket queue, these psychologists would describe the following creates perceptions, forms
series of information-processing events: first, the aggressive person (1) perceived that someone has and retrieves memories,
processes information
cut into the ticket queue, then (2) recalled information stored in memory about appropriate social
and generates integrated
behaviour, (3) decided that the other person’s action was inappropriate, (4) labelled the person as rude patterns of action
and inconsiderate, (5) considered possible responses and their likely consequences, (6) decided that
humanistic approach
shoving the person is the best response, and (7) executed that response.
an approach to psychology
Psychologists who take a cognitive approach focus on these and other mental processes to that views behaviour as
understand many kinds of individual and social behaviours, from decision making and problem controlled by the decisions
solving to interpersonal attraction and intelligence, to name but a few. In the situation just described, that people make about
their lives based on their
for example, the person’s aggression would be seen as the result of poor problem solving, because
perceptions of the world
there were probably several better ways to deal with the problem of queue jumping. The cognitive
approach is especially important in the field of cognitive science, in which researchers from psychology,
computer science, biology, engineering, linguistics and philosophy study intelligent systems in
humans and computers. Together, they are trying to discover the building blocks of cognition and to
determine how these components produce complex behaviours such as remembering a fact, naming
an object, writing a word or making a decision (see the Snapshot ‘Cognitive science at work’).
Snapshot
The humanistic approach Cognitive
science at
Mental events play a different role in the humanistic approach to psychology (also known as the work
phenomenological approach). Psychologists who favour the humanistic perspective see behaviour as
Some cognitive
determined primarily by each person’s capacity to choose how to think and act.They don’t see these
psychologists
choices as driven by instincts, biological processes, or rewards and punishments but rather by each undertake work
individual’s unique perceptions of the world. So if you see the world as a friendly place, you are likely in cognitive skill
to be optimistic and secure. If you perceive it as full of hostile, threatening people, you will probably acquisition, where
be defensive and fearful. the main interest
Like their cognitively oriented colleagues, psychologists who choose the humanistic approach is in how practice
would see aggression in a cinema queue as stemming from a perception that aggression is justified. leads to improved
performance
Whereas the cognitive approach leads psychologists to search for laws governing all people’s thoughts
and knowledge.
and actions, humanistic psychologists try to understand how each individual’s unique experiences
This has obvious
guide that person’s thoughts and actions. In fact, many who prefer the humanistic approach claim implications for
that because no two people are exactly alike, the only way to understand behaviour and mental education in general
processes is to focus on how they operate in each individual. Humanistic psychologists also believe and specifically the
that people are essentially good, that they are in control of themselves, and that they have an innate development of
tendency to grow towards their highest potential. educational software
The humanistic approach began to attract attention in North America in the 1940s through the for children.
writings of Carl Rogers, a psychologist who had been trained in, but later rejected, the psychodynamic
approach. We describe his views on personality in Chapter 13, ‘Personality’, and his psychotherapy
methods in Chapter 14, ‘Psychological disorders and treatment’. Another influential figure of the
same era was Abraham Maslow, a psychologist who shaped and promoted the humanistic approach
through his famous hierarchy-of-needs theory of motivation, which we describe in Chapter 10,
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‘Motivation and emotion’, and Chapter 13, ‘Personality’. Today, the impact of the humanistic
approach to psychology is limited, mainly because many psychologists find humanistic concepts and
predictions too vague to be expressed and tested scientifically. It has, however, helped inspire the
theories and research in positive psychology that are now becoming so popular (Snyder & Lopez,
2009). (For a summary of all the approaches we have discussed, see the section ‘In review: Approaches
to the science of psychology’.)
IN REVIEW
Approaches to the science of psychology
APPROACH CHARACTERISTICS
Emphasises activity of the nervous system, especially of the brain; the action of hormones
Biological
and other chemicals; and genetics
Evolutionary Emphasises the ways in which behaviour and mental processes are adaptive for survival
Emphasises internal conflicts, mostly unconscious, which usually pit sexual or aggressive
Psychodynamic
instincts against environmental obstacles to their expression
Emphasises learning, especially each person’s experience with rewards and punishments; the
Behavioural cognitive-behavioural approach adds emphasis on learning by observation and the learning of
certain ways of thinking
Emphasises mechanisms through which people receive, store, retrieve and otherwise process
Cognitive
information
Emphasises individual potential for growth and the role of unique perceptions in guiding
Humanistic
behaviour and mental processes
Check your understanding

1 Teaching people to be less afraid of heights reflects the approach.
2 Charles Darwin was not a psychologist, but his work influenced the approach to psychology.
3 Assuming that people inherit mental disorders suggests a approach.
1.4 HUMAN DIVERSITY AND PSYCHOLOGY

Today, the diversity seen in psychologists’ approaches to their work is matched by the diversity in
their own backgrounds. This was not always the case. As in other academic disciplines in the early
20th century, most psychologists were white, middle-class men (Walker, 1991). Almost from the
beginning, however, women have been part of the field (Schultz & Schultz, 2004); see the Snapshot
‘Mary Whiton Calkins (1863–1930)’.Throughout this book, you will find discussions of the work of
their modern counterparts, whose contributions to research, service and teaching have all increased
in tandem with their growing representation in psychology (see the Snapshot ‘Professor Carmen
Mary Lawrence’).
The Psychology Board of Australia publishes a statistical breakdown of registered psychologists in
the country. Currently, women comprise 79 per cent of this group and men 21 per cent (Psychology
Board of Australia, 2016). The most represented age group is that between the ages of 30 and
34 years (15 per cent). In 2010, the New Zealand psychologist workforce comprised approximately
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Snapshot
Mary Whiton Calkins (1863–1930)
Mary Whiton Calkins studied psychology at
Harvard University, where William James
described her as ‘brilliant’. Because she was a
woman, though, Harvard refused to grant her a
Courtesy of Wellesley College Archives/photo by Pastridge

doctoral degree unless she received it through
Radcliffe, which was then an affiliated school for
women. She refused but went on to do research
on memory and in 1905 became the first
woman president of the American Psychological
Association (APA). Margaret Washburn (1871–
1939) encountered similar sex discrimination at sociocultural factors
social identity and other
Columbia University, so she transferred to Cornell
background factors, such as
and became the first woman to earn a doctorate
gender, ethnicity, social class
in psychology. In 1921, she became the second and culture
woman president of the APA.
culture the accumulation
of values, rules of behaviour,
forms of expression, religious
70 per cent women and 29 per cent men, with 16 per cent of psychologists in the over-60 age group
beliefs, occupational choices
(the largest age grouping) (NZ Ministry of Health, 2016); a breakdown in terms of cultural identity and the like for a group of
indicated that about 5 per cent were Māori psychologists. With respect to Australian Aboriginal and people who share a common
Torres Strait Islander peoples, 39 Indigenous psychologists were registered in 2009, which was less language and environment
than 1 per cent of total registrations (Rickwood, Dudgeon & Gridley, 2010). Only two had doctoral
qualifications, and both were women – Dr Pat Dudgeon and Dr Tracey Westerman.
Snapshot
Professor
The impact of sociocultural diversity on psychology Carmen
Mary
Another aspect of diversity in psychology lies in the wide range of people that psychologists study
Lawrence
and serve. This change is significant because most psychologists once assumed that all people were
Carmen Lawrence
very much alike, and that whatever principles emerged from research or treatment efforts with one was born on 2 March
group would apply to everyone, everywhere. They were partly right, because people around the 1948. She was
world are alike in many ways. They tend to live in groups, have religious beliefs and create rules, awarded a doctorate
music, dances and games. The principles of nerve cell activity or reactions to heat or a sour taste are in psychology in
the same in men and women everywhere, as is their recognition of a smile. However, not all people’s 1983 and went on
moral values, achievement motivation or communication styles are the same. These and many other to pursue a career in
aspects of behaviour and mental processes are affected by sociocultural factors, including people’s politics, from which
she retired in 2007.
gender, ethnicity, social class and the culture in which they grow up. These variables create many
Professor Lawrence
significant differences in behaviour and mental processes, especially from one culture to another (for was the first woman
example, Shiraev & Levy, 2010). to become the
Culture has been defined as the accumulation of values, rules of behaviour, forms of expression, premier of a State of
religious beliefs, occupational choices and the like for a group of people who share a common Australia.
language and environment (Fiske et al., 1998). Culture is an organising and stabilising influence. It
Fairfax Syndication/SMH/Pat Scala
encourages or discourages particular behaviours and thoughts; it also allows people to understand
and know what to expect from others in that culture. It is a kind of group adaptation, passed along by
tradition and example rather than by genes from one generation to the next (Castro & Toro, 2004).
Culture determines, for example, whether children’s education will focus on skill at hunting or
reading, how close people stand during a conversation, and whether or not they form lines in public
places. Psychologists and anthropologists have found that cultures can differ in many ways (Cohen,
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2009). They may have strict or loose rules governing social behaviour. They might place great value
Snapshot
The impact on achievement or on self-awareness. Some seek dominance over nature; others seek harmony with
of culture it. Time is of great importance in some cultures but not in others.
Culture helps shape A culture is often associated with a particular country, but most countries are actually multicultural;
almost every aspect in other words, they host many subcultures within their borders. Often, these subcultures are formed
of our behaviour and by people of various ethnic origins.The population of Australia, for instance, includes Africans, Asians,
mental processes, Europeans, Britons and New Zealanders. In each of these groups, the individuals who identify with
from how we dress
their cultural heritage tend to share behaviours, values and beliefs based on their culture of origin,
to how we think
to what we believe
thus forming a subculture. In many countries, there are already indigenous cultures, such as Australian
is important. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Māori in New Zealand, Native Americans in the
Because we grow United States, and First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples in Canada.
up immersed in our Like fish unaware of the water in which they are immersed, people often fail to notice how
culture, we may their culture or subculture has shaped their thinking and behaviour until they come in contact with
be unaware of its people whose culture or subculture has shaped different patterns (see the Snapshot ‘The impact of
influence on our culture’). Consider hand gestures, for example. The ‘thumbs up’ sign means that ‘everything is OK’
own thoughts and
to people in Australia and New Zealand but is considered a rude gesture in Nigeria and Bangladesh.
actions until – like
these young women
And although making eye contact during social introductions in Australia and New Zealand is
who emigrated from usually seen as a sign of interest or sincerity, it is likely to be considered rude in Japan. Even some
Africa to Sydney – of the misunderstandings that occur between men and women in the same culture can be traced
we encounter people to slight, culturally influenced differences in their communication styles (Tannen, 2001, 2012). For
Shutterstock.com/Ruud Morijn Photographer
whose culture has decades, the impact of culture on behaviour and mental processes was of concern mainly to a
shaped them in relatively small group of researchers working in cross-cultural psychology. In the chapters to come,
different ways. however, you will see that psychologists in almost every subfield are now looking at how ethnicity,
gender, age and many other sociocultural variables can influence behaviour and mental processes. In
short, psychology is striving to be the science of all behaviour and mental processes, not just of those
in the cultures where it began.
Psychology has a role to play in promoting the health and wellbeing of people from all cultures.
However, with respect to Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and the Māori
culture, psychology has often neglected to develop knowledge and understanding of human
behaviour in a culturally appropriate manner. This is examined in much more depth in Chapter 16,
‘Culture and psychology’, and in Chapter 17, ‘Indigenous psychology’.
1.5 STUDYING AND WORKING IN PSYCHOLOGY

IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND
Given the colonisation of Australia, it is not surprising that psychology in this country was influenced
by British psychology. Indeed, a branch of the British Psychological Society was even established in
Australia. The first formal teaching of psychology in Australia occurred in the 1890s. However, it was
only in 1929 that the first department of Psychology was established by Henry Tasman Lovell at the
University of Sydney (Boag, 2008). In 1966, the Australian Psychological Society arose as an independent
professional body, with its own standards and legislation guiding its members. Currently, it is the main
organisation representing the promotion and advancement of psychology in Australia, and has over
20 000 members. In 2009, the Australian Government established the Psychology Board of Australia,
which has the responsibility of registering psychologists and overseeing and monitoring the profession.
In New Zealand, the practice of psychology dates back to 1875, when it was first taught
within the area of philosophy at the University of Otago. The New Zealand Psychological Society
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represents more than 1000 psychologists and aims to establish and enforce high standards within the
profession. It became an independent organisation in 1967. The New Zealand Psychologists Board
is responsible for the registration of psychologists in New Zealand.
Psychological literacy and the graduate

attributes of undergraduate psychology
Undertaking a major in psychology should equip you with a unique set of skills that range from
communication (typical of a humanities degree) to numeracy (typical of a science degree; Hayes, APPLYING
1997), with much of interest in-between! Studying first-year psychology, regardless of your intended PSYCHOLOGY
career destination, should begin your development of this skill set, which will be useful in your Can studying
psychology equip you
personal and professional life. Indeed, as a student, you, as well as your lecturers, should be aware of with skills such as
the intended ‘outcomes’ of your learning. Moreover, the curriculum should be designed by educators good oral and written
in such a way that you are given reasonable opportunities to acquire those outcomes – assuming you communication
have the motivation and study skills to learn. skills and numeracy
skills, well-developed
We list below the evolving graduate attributes and associated learning outcomes of the Australian
computer skills, the
undergraduate degree program (Cranney et al., 2009; Cranney & Botwood, 2012); these are similar ability to find and
to the lists that apply to other undergraduate programs across the world (for example, American research information,
Psychological Association, 2013; Lunt et al., 2014; Quality Assurance Agency, 2010). First, however, and environmental
awareness?
we provide a few definitions and then a few words about psychological literacy and global citizenship.
What are graduate attributes? ‘Graduate attributes are the qualities, skills and understandings a
university community agrees its students should develop during their time with the institution and
consequently shape the contribution they are able to make to their profession and society. They are
qualities that also prepare graduates as agents of social good in an unknown future’ (Bowden et al.,
2000, cited in Barrie, 2007). Graduate ‘attributes’ are sometimes called graduate ‘capabilities’ or graduate
‘competencies’; as we value aspects of the above definition, we will use ‘attributes’ in this book.
And what is psychological literacy? McGovern et al. (2010) conceptualised psychological literacy
as the aforementioned lists of graduate attributes, and gave examples of how a psychologically literate
person would behave. Cranney and Dunn (2011b) subsequently defined psychological literacy as the
capacity to intentionally apply psychological science to meet personal, professional and societal goals.
Cranney and Morris (2011), meanwhile, provided a multidisciplinary theoretical framework for the
importance of psychological literacy in terms of ‘adaptive cognition’, defined as ‘global ways of thinking
(and consequently behaving) that are beneficial to one’s (and others’) survival and wellbeing’ (p. 251).
These authors also identified various domains of application of psychological principles, including
the self and close others, local communities and global communities. For further information about
psychological literacy, please see the Psychological Literacy website (www.psychliteracy.com).
The importance of knowing more about the science of human thought, emotion and behaviour
is underscored by the fact that most problems in society today are related to human behaviour; for
example, the obesity and depression epidemics, terrorism and human-induced climate change. Thus,
the more that humans know about their own behaviour, the more likely it is they will be able to
change that behaviour, not only for the betterment of themselves, but also for the betterment of
all humankind. This is where the concept of ‘global citizenship’ is relevant. Global citizenship has
been defined as the understanding of global interconnectedness and the capacity to live, work and
contribute positively as a member of global communities (Cranney et al., 2012). Psychology has
much to offer here; in particular, the application of psychological principles to the ‘global community’
domain can be seen as an aspirational level of psychological literacy. A key component of global
citizenship is cultural responsivity, which will be emphasised throughout this book. We urge you, as
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a member of current and future global communities, to positively engage with any opportunities
you are given to develop both your psychological literacy and your global citizenship (Charlton &
Lymburner, 2011; Cranney & Dunn, 2011a).
As implied above, psychological literacy can be seen as the ‘Gestalt’ or ‘whole’ of the evolving
graduate attributes that should be acquired by those undertaking a psychology major program.
Listed below are the evolving graduate attributes and associated learning outcomes that reflect a
combination of:
1 the psychology educator consensus reported by Cranney and Botwood (2012; pp. 19–22)
2 the minimalist proposed APAC Standards (Australian Psychology Accreditation Council, 2016)
3 the program learning outcomes endorsed by the Australian Psychological Society (Morrissey, 2016).
Knowledge
Graduates will be able to comprehend and apply a broad and coherent body of knowledge of
psychology, with depth of understanding of the underlying principles, theories and concepts in the
discipline, using a scientific approach, including the following topics:
i individual differences in capacity, behaviour and personality, including cultural, ethnic and
gender diversity
ii psychological health and wellbeing, and evidence-based interventions
iii psychological disorders and evidence-based interventions
iv learning and memory
v cognition, language and perception
vi motivation and emotion
vii neuroscience and biological bases of behaviour
viii life-span developmental psychology
ix social psychology
x intercultural diversity and cultural awareness
xi Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in psychology
xii moral and ethical frameworks and their relationship to the science and practice of
psychology
xiii psychological assessment and measurement
xiv research methods and statistics
xv the history and philosophy underpinning the science of psychology
xvi sociocultural, historical and professional influences on research and practice in psychology
xvii psychology’s relationship to cognate disciplines and professions.
Research skills
Graduates will be able to apply the basic knowledge and skills required to ethically design, conduct,
evaluate and report studies to address psychological questions across a variety of domains (including
program evaluation), specifically:
i framing research questions
ii undertaking literature searches
iii critically analysing theoretical and empirical studies
iv formulating testable hypotheses
v operationalising variables
vi choosing an appropriate methodology to test the hypotheses
vii designing appropriate questionnaires/surveys as needed
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viii making valid and reliable measurements

ix appropriately analysing quantitative and qualitative data, and interpreting results
x deriving theoretical and practical implications
xi acknowledging limitations
xii suggesting future research
xiii communicating this research to a variety of audiences in a variety of formats.
Critical and creative thinking skills

Graduates will be able to apply the knowledge and skills to utilise logic, evidence and psychological
science to evaluate claims about, and solve problems regarding, human behaviour, including:
i recognising the major limitations of human reasoning
ii using logic and evidence to critically evaluate and to develop arguments
iii critically evaluating theoretical and methodological approaches in psychology
iv demonstrating creative and pragmatic problem solving regarding human behaviour.
Values and ethics in psychology

Graduates will be able to apply knowledge and skills regarding values, morals and professional codes
to demonstrate moral and ethical decision making and behaviour, including:
i recognising moral influences that impact on individuals in a globalised society
ii recognising how prejudicial attitudes that exist in oneself and in others may lead to
discrimination and inequity
iii demonstrating understanding of relevant professional codes, including the relevant values
identified in those institutional codes (for example, intellectual integrity)
iv applying personal moral philosophical positions to novel ethical dilemmas within the
constraints of ethical codes.
Communication and interpersonal skills

Graduates will be able to apply knowledge and skills of professional and ethical communication,
including:
i writing effectively in a variety of formats and for a variety of purposes
ii listening and speaking effectively, including demonstrating effective oral presentation
and basic interviewing skills, and the ability to use flexible techniques to communicate
sensitively with people from diverse cultural backgrounds
iii demonstrating interpersonal skills and the capacity to work collaboratively in a team to
complete projects.
Integration and application

Graduates will be able to demonstrate capstone aspects of psychological literacy – that is, basic
integrative competencies in applying psychological knowledge, skills and attitudes – to explain,
predict and influence human behaviour to achieve personal, professional and societal goals, including:
i understanding the links between basic psychological theories and their application; that
is, the capacity to explain complex behaviour in real-world settings, using the concepts,
language, findings and major theories of the discipline
ii applying evidence-based self-management strategies to achieve pre-professional goals
iii demonstrating basic career literacy, including the capacity for professional reflection and
ongoing professional development; that is, lifelong professional learning
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iv demonstrating the capacity to design, implement and evaluate programs of behaviour change
v demonstrating cultural responsivity – the capacity to engage respectfully with members of
different cultures and diverse groupings (one aspect of global literacy).
Careers in psychology
The decision to study psychology can be extremely rewarding, as many different career pathways
become available to you. The information in this section on such pathways is brief and is intended
only as an overview of the study of psychology.A more detailed overview with additional information
is available online – see Appendix A, ‘Careers for psychology graduates’.
Courses in psychology aim to provide you with an understanding of why humans behave in a
particular way, why they differ from one another, and how they are affected by living and working
together. An undergraduate course provides the basis for the study of psychology at higher levels but
also equips you with basic skills in analysing, understanding, researching, changing and evaluating
human behaviour, as well as exploring the interaction between people and their physical and social
environments.
What skills will I develop?

Studying psychology provides you with many skills. Psychology involves the scientific study of how
humans think, behave and experience life, with an emphasis on information that is well grounded
in research. Psychologists therefore study the relationship between mental processes and behaviour
from a scientific perspective and help people understand, describe and change their behaviour
(Bernstein et al., 2013).
Studying psychology also provides you with a range of psychological and general skills and
knowledge which will be useful in other areas. People who gain an undergraduate degree in
psychology are equipped to undertake many diverse occupations – in fact, most people who study
psychology do not become professional psychologists. Through their coursework, psychology
students are trained to have good oral and written communication skills, numeracy skills and
computer skills, as well as practical research skills which can be used to gather information in
a variety of community settings. Another important area of expertise is interpersonal awareness.
Graduates learn about social communication and sources of interpersonal conflict, develop problem-
solving skills, practise how to critically evaluate information, and are trained to examine issues from
a broad perspective (O’Hare & McGuiness, 2003).
What is a psychologist?
A psychologist is someone who has undergone at least four years of tertiary training in an
accredited, formally recognised psychology program and who then engages in further study or
undertakes two years of approved supervised practice. The websites of the Psychology Board
of Australia (www.psychologyboard.gov.au/Registration/General.aspx) and the New Zealand
Psychologists Board (www.psychologistsboard.org.nz/looking-to-register) provide details of the
general registration requirements for psychologists in Australia and New Zealand.
While an undergraduate degree in psychology provides you with many skills, it does not allow
you to call yourself a psychologist. The websites of the Australian Psychological Society (www.
psychology.org.au/studentHQ/studying/study-pathways) and the New Zealand Psychological
Society (www.psychology.org.nz/study-careers) are useful references when it comes to assessing the
different pathways to becoming a psychologist.
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Career and employment options

In Australia and New Zealand, psychologists may choose from a range of career options and employment
opportunities, which vary from salaried positions with government departments, non-government
healthcare or welfare agencies, business corporations, and research and teaching institutions of higher
education, to work in private practice. Employment opportunities exist for those with undergraduate
degrees in psychology as well as those with postgraduate degrees in more specialised areas.
Within Australia, the largest employers of professional psychologists are State/Territory and federal
departments of health and ageing (for example, clinical psychologists, program directors), the federal
Department of Education and Training (for example, educational psychologists, school counsellors,
guidance officers), the federal Department of Social Services and Department of the Prime Minister
and Cabinet (for Indigenous affairs) (for example, welfare workers, counselling psychologists, project
officers). Other employers include educational facilities and agencies run by religious organisations,
youth and community organisations, human resource management and the justice system. In their
roles with such organisations, psychologists conduct research, study and contribute to the work
environment, help people learn, and work in the community.
Registration and accreditation

Psychology boards
On 1 July 2010, the Australian Health Workforce Ministerial Council approved the standard for
the registration of psychologists in accordance with the Health Practitioner Regulation National
Law 2009, with the safeguarding of the public being one of the main aims. The Psychology Board
of Australia (www.psychologyboard.gov.au) provides guidance for practitioners regarding this
registration, including on the following list of qualification options:
● completion of an accredited master’s degree in psychology
● four years of approved sequential academic training in psychology in an accredited program,
which generally involves a three-year degree with a major in psychology plus a fourth year or
honours degree in psychology, followed by a two-year Psychology Board–approved internship
● a five-year accredited sequence of study followed by a one-year Psychology Board–approved
internship
● other qualifications which the Psychology Board may regard as equivalent to the above.
Australia has a policy of mutual recognition, which means that some other psychology registration
boards – for example, that of New Zealand – will generally accept registration through this pathway.
The organisation that accredits programs of education and training in psychology in Australia
is the Australian Psychology Accreditation Council (APAC; www.psychologycouncil.org.au). The
Psychology Board of Australia only recognises training programs which have been accredited by
APAC for the purpose of registration.
The Psychology Board of Australia is also closely linked with the Australian Health Practitioner
Regulation Agency (AHPRA; www.ahpra.gov.au), which works with various national boards to
regulate 14 health-related professions, including psychology.
The New Zealand Psychologists Board (www.psychologistsboard.org.nz) was established by the
Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 and regulates the psychology profession in New
Zealand, including the accreditation of psychology training programs. It is similar to the Psychology
Board of Australia in that it has a duty of care to the public.
There are two main ways of registering as a psychologist in New Zealand:
1 as an intern psychologist who has completed a master’s degree and a postgraduate diploma, or a
doctoral degree, along with the prescribed internship
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2 as a trainee psychologist who has completed either a master’s degree or a doctoral degree
followed by supervised practice approved by the Psychologists Board.
Psychological societies
The professional body that regulates and oversees the profession of psychology in Australia is the
Australian Psychological Society (APS; www.psychology.org.au); the body with these responsibilities
in New Zealand is the New Zealand Psychological Society (NZPsS; www.psychology.org.nz).
The APS establishes the standards required to practise psychology as a profession. Since January
2000, the minimum requirement for APS membership has been six years – this requirement also
applies to membership of one of the nine colleges representing specialist areas within psychology
(in New Zealand, these are referred to as institutes or divisions). This means that the training of
psychologists in Australia follows a model where the first four years provides a foundation in the
discipline and science of psychology, and professional training is provided in the last two years.There
are many students who do not wish to complete such a period of study and training to become
qualified psychologists, and who leave university with a three-year undergraduate degree with a
major in psychology and supporting studies in other areas. As mentioned previously, these students
will still have developed the skills and competencies to seek employment in many diverse areas.
The APS also collaborates with the tertiary education sector to make sure that the profession has
access to current and accurate information and training in psychology. In addition, it supervises and
develops the guidelines for professional matters and training programs.
The APS represents over 20 000 members.There are varying levels of membership which require
different educational requirements. For example, students of psychology may join APS as a student
member. However, to become a full member, APS requires completion of the full six years of training
in an accredited program, or the equivalent of a master’s degree in psychology.
The NZPsS was first established in 1947 and became incorporated in 1967. It is the main society
in New Zealand for practising psychologists, academics, students and other subscribers, representing
over 1000 members. While the NZPsS has a national office in Wellington, it also caters to specialist
interest groups and branches which are geographically defined. Similar to the APS, the NZPsS
is responsible for the code of ethics that spells out the responsible behaviour and commitment
expected of all psychologists in the country. Membership of the NZPsS is available to those who
have either a doctorate in psychology or an honours or master’s degree in psychology.
This book
In each of the chapters to come, a brief introductory section is devoted to pointing out what aspects
of that chapter are relevant to which graduate attributes and to psychological literacy. If such a
psychological literacy and graduate attributes section had been prepared for this first chapter, it
would have read as follows.
This chapter is, of course, your introduction to psychological literacy and graduate attributes –
what they are and why they are important. Specifically, it is an introduction to:
1 the history and philosophy of science and psychology (part of knowledge)
2 how psychological principles can be applied meaningfully in personal and professional contexts
(part of integration and application)
3 the way in which psychological knowledge, skills and attitudes can be relevant to professional
development (part of integration and application).
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CHAPTER REVIEW
Express
ONLINE STUDY RESOURCES

Visit http://login.cengagebrain.com and use the access code that comes with this book for 12 months access
to the resources and study tools for this chapter.
The CourseMateExpress website contains:
● revision quizzes ● web links
● concept maps ● flashcards
● graduate attribute information ● and more.
● videos
SUMMARY
Psychology is the science that seeks to understand behaviour and mental processes and to apply that understanding in the service of
human welfare.
THE WORLD OF PSYCHOLOGY: AN OVERVIEW

The concept of ‘behaviour and mental processes’ is a broad ● Community psychologists work to prevent mental disorders
one, encompassing virtually all aspects of what it means to be and to extend mental health services to those who need them.
a human being. Some psychologists study and seek to alleviate ● Health psychologists study the relationship between
the problems that can plague human life, while those working behaviour and health and help promote healthy lifestyles.
in positive psychology focus their attention on understanding ● Educational psychologists conduct and apply research on
happiness, optimism, human strengths and the like. teaching and learning, whereas school psychologists specialise
As the subject matter of psychology is diverse, most in supporting and guiding teachers and students in an
psychologists work in particular subfields within the discipline: academic environment.
● Biological psychologists, also called physiological ● Social psychologists examine questions regarding how people
psychologists, study topics such as the role played by the brain influence one another.
in regulating normal and disordered behaviour. ● Organisational psychologists study ways of increasing
● Cognitive psychologists, some of whom prefer to be called efficiency and productivity in the workplace.
experimental psychologists, focus on basic psychological ● Sport psychologists, forensic psychologists and environmental
processes such as learning, memory and perception; they also psychologists exemplify some of psychology’s many other
study judgement, decision making and problem solving. subfields.
● Developmental psychologists specialise in trying to Psychologists often work in more than one subfield and usually
understand the development of behaviour and mental share knowledge with colleagues in many subfields. Psychologists
processes over a lifetime. also draw on and contribute to knowledge in other disciplines, such
● Personality psychologists focus on characteristics that set as computer science, economics and law.
people apart from one another and by which they can be Psychologists use the methods of science to conduct research.
compared. This means that they perform experiments and use other scientific
● Clinical psychologists and counselling psychologists provide procedures to systematically gather and analyse information about
direct service to troubled people and conduct research on psychological phenomena.
abnormal behaviour.
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A BRIEF HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY

The founding of modern psychology is usually marked as 1879, suggesting that psychologists should study how consciousness
when Wilhelm Wundt established the first psychology research helps us adapt to our environments. In 1913, John B. Watson
laboratory. Wundt studied consciousness in a manner that founded behaviourism, arguing that to be scientific, psychologists
was expanded by Edward Titchener into an approach he called should study only the behaviour they can see, not private mental
structuralism. It was in the late 1800s, too, that Sigmund Freud, events. Behaviourism dominated psychology for decades, but
in Vienna, began his study of the unconscious, while in the psychologists are once again studying consciousness in the form of
United States, William James took the functionalist approach, cognitive processes.
APPROACHES TO THE SCIENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY

Psychologists differ in their approaches to psychology; that is, in ● In the psychodynamic approach, behaviour and mental
their assumptions, questions and research methods: processes are seen as reflecting struggles to resolve conflicts
● The biological approach focuses on how between raw impulses and the social rules that limit the
physiological processes shape behaviour and mental processes. expression of those impulses.
● Psychologists who take the behavioural approach ● The cognitive approach assumes that behaviour can be
view behaviour as determined primarily by learning understood through analysis of the basic mental processes
based on experiences with rewards and that underlie it.
punishments. ● To those adopting the humanistic approach, behaviour is
● Psychologists who prefer the evolutionary approach controlled by the decisions that people make about their lives
emphasise the inherited, adaptive aspects of behaviour and based on their perceptions of the world.
mental processes.
HUMAN DIVERSITY AND PSYCHOLOGY

Psychologists are diverse in their backgrounds and in their Psychologists are increasingly taking into account the
activities. Most of the prominent figures in psychology’s early influence of culture and other sociocultural variables such as
history were white males, but women and people of colour made gender and ethnicity in shaping human behaviour and mental
important contributions from the start and continue to do so. processes.
STUDYING AND WORKING IN PSYCHOLOGY IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

Studying psychology, regardless of your course of study or unique set of capabilities that will be useful in your personal and
intended career destination, should begin your development of a professional life.
TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

Select the best answer for each of the following questions, then check your responses against the ‘Answer key’ at the end of the book.
1 The first research laboratory in psychology was established to 2 Dr Hemmings believes that human behaviour is influenced
study . by genetic inheritance, unconscious motivations and
a consciousness environmental influences. Dr Hemmings uses a(n)
approach.
b the unconscious
a evolutionary
c perceptual processes
b eclectic
d the collective unconscious
c humanistic
d behavioural
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3 You are marooned on a tropical island with a dangerous 7 The concepts of behaviour and mental processes
criminal. In your suitcase are four books on psychology. include .
If you believe that the criminal’s behaviour is primarily due a personality traits
to unconscious conflicts, you should choose the book written
b sensory abilities
by to find more information.
c intelligence
a Sigmund Freud
d all of the above
b William James
8 A major difference between psychologists and psychiatrists is
c John Watson
that psychiatrists .
d Wilhelm Wundt
a have more training in psychological testing
4 Larry says that people act the way they have learned to act.
b are medical doctors
He believes that if others stop rewarding a person’s annoying
behaviour, that behaviour will decrease. Larry most likely takes c are more active in research
a(n) approach to psychology. d all of the above
a behavioural 9 Ali argues that, compared to men, women’s greater selectivity
b cognitive in choosing a mate is an adaptive strategy that makes it more
likely that fathers will be good providers. This view is rooted in
c evolutionary
the approach to psychology.
d humanistic
a evolutionary
5 Psychology is best defined as the science of .
b behavioural
a behaviour and mental processes
c cognitive-behavioural
b psychological disorders and conditions
d humanistic
c personality development
10 Paul tells his wife that she won’t ever be able to understand
d neurons and hormones him unless she can begin to understand his own unique view
6 Research on the factors that lead people to be happy and of the world. Without realising it, Paul is expressing a basic
satisfied with their lives is known as psychology. principle of psychology.
a developmental a psychodynamic
b humanistic b cognitive-behavioural
c positive c humanistic
d existential d cognitive
TALKING POINTS
When they discover that you are taking a psychology course, family and friends tend to want to know what you are learning about
(and they might worry that you will ‘analyse’ them!). It can be tough to give a short answer, so here are a few talking points to help you
summarise this chapter without giving a lecture (we’ll offer others for each chapter to come).
1 Psychology is the science that explores behaviour and mental 5 Some psychologists study human problems; others focus on
processes. learning about human strengths.
2 Psychologists’ research is widely applied in the service of 6 Sigmund Freud was a medical doctor, not a psychologist.
human welfare. 7 Some kinds of behaviour and thinking are the same for
3 Clinical psychology is the most famous subfield, but everyone, everywhere; others are influenced by people’s
psychology also includes a wide range of other subfields. gender, ethnicity and cultural background.
4 Registered psychologists have postgraduate degrees in
psychology; psychiatrists have medical degrees.
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FURTHER READING
Now that you have finished reading this chapter, how about exploring some of the topics and information that you found most
interesting. Here are some places to start.
RECOMMENDED BOOKS
D. B. Baker (ed.), Oxford Handbook of the History of Psychology: International Perspectives Alan M. Goldstein (ed.), Forensic Psychology (Wiley, 2006) – an overview of the role of
(Oxford University Press, 2011) – provides an understanding of the history of psychological science in the legal system.
psychology and includes international examples and information. Daniel Kahneman,Thinking Fast and Slow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013) – summarises
Paul Bell, Environmental Psychology (Wadsworth, 2001) – applications of psychology to decades of Daniel’s research and explains how he thinks we think.
solving problems in natural and artificial environments, including university campuses.
CHAPTER REFERENCES
American Psychological Association, Board of Educational Affairs Task Force on Cranney, J., Botwood, L., & Morris, S. (2012). National standards for psychological literacy
Psychology Major Competencies (2013). APA Guidelines for the Undergraduate and global citizenship: Outcomes of undergraduate psychology education. Retrieved from
Psychology Major, Version 2. 0. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/ www.psychologicalliteracy.com
about/psymajor-guidelines.pdf Cranney, J., & Dunn, D. S. (Eds.) (2011a). The psychologically literate citizen: Foundations
Aronson, E. (2004). Reducing hostility and building compassion: Lessons from the jigsaw and global perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press.
classroom. In A. G. Miller (Ed.), The social psychology of good and evil (pp. 469–488). Cranney, J., & Dunn, D. S. (2011b). Psychological literacy and the psychologically literate
New York: Guilford Press. citizen: New frontiers for a global discipline. In J. Cranney and D. S. Dunn (Eds.), The
Australian Psychology Accrediation Council (2016). Proposed Accreditation Standards for psychologically literate citizen: Foundations and global perspectives (pp. 3–12). New York:
Psychology. June. Retrieved from https://www.psychologycouncil.org.au/Assets/Files/ Oxford University Press.
APAC_Consultation_Paper_20160701.pdf Cranney, J., & Morris, S. (2011). Adaptive cognition and psychological literacy. In
Barrie, S. (2007). A research-based approach to generic graduate attribute policy. J. Cranney and D. S. Dunn (Eds.), The psychologically literate citizen: Foundations and
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Confer, J. C., Easton, J. A., Fleischman, D. S., Goetz, C. D., et al. (2010). Evolutionary tuning-educational-structures-in-europe
psychology: Controversies, questions, prospects, and limitations. American McGovern, T. V., Corey, L., Cranney, J., Dixon, W. E., et al. (2010). Psychologically
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13–16 September. Retrieved from https://events.psychology.org.au/ei/ Shiraev, E. B., & Levy, D. A. (2010). Cross-cultural psychology: Critical thinking and
speakers/2016APSPresentations/5A_ShirleyMorrissey.PDF contemporary applications (4th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
NZ Ministry of Health. (2016). Health of the Health Workforce 2015. Wellington: Ministry Snyder, C. R., & Lopez, S. J. (2009). Oxford handbook of positive psychology (2nd ed.).
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O’Hare, L., & McGuiness, C. (2003). Skills and attributes developed by psychology Tannen, D. (2001). You just don’t understand: Women and men in conversation. New York:
undergraduates: Ratings by undergraduates, postgraduates, academic psychologists HarperCollins.
and professional practitioners. Psychology Learning and Teaching, 4, 35–42.
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cultural backgrounds: Guidelines for all forensic professionals. In D. Carson & R. Bull
(Eds.), Handbook of Psychology in Legal Contexts. (2nd ed.) John Wiley & Sons. Wang, Y. (2007). Cognitive informatics: Exploring the theoretical foundations for natural
intelligence, neural informatics, autonomic computing, and agent systems. International
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contemporary forensic psychology textbooks. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 10(1),
254–261. doi: 10.1375/pplt.2003.10.1.254 Waterman, A. S. (2013). The humanistic psychology–positive psychology divide:
Contrasts in philosophical foundations. American Psychologist, 68(3), 124.
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psychologyboard.gov.au/About/Statistics.aspx Watson, J. B. (1913). Psychology as the behaviorist views it. Psychological Review, 20,
158–177.
Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) for Higher Education. (2010). Subject Benchmark:
Psychology (3rd ed.). Retrieved from http://www.qaa.ac.uk/en/Publications/ Watson, J. B. (1919). Psychology from the standpoint of a behaviorist. Philadelphia:
Documents/Subject-benchmark-statement-Psychology.pdf Lippincott.
Rickwood, D., Dudgeon, P., & Gridley, H. (2010). A history of psychology in Aboriginal Wilkowski, B. M., & Robinson, M. D. (2008). The cognitive basis of trait anger and
and Torres Strait Islander mental health. In N. Purdie, P. Dudgeon, & R. Walker reactive aggression: An integrative analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Review,
(Eds.), Working together: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health and wellbeing 12, 3–21.
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Rozin, P., Dow, S., Moscovitch, M., & Rajaram, S. (1998). The role of memory for recent for integrated research and practice. Clinical Psychology Review, 30(7), 819–829.
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syndrome. Psychological Science, 9, 392–396.
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ANSWERS TO ‘IN REVIEW’ AND ‘TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE’ QUESTIONS

Introducing psychology
In review
A brief history of psychology
1 functional, behaviour; 2 psychoanalysis; 3 structuralism
Approaches to the science of psychology
1 behavioural; 2 evolutionary; 3 biological
Test your knowledge
1c, 2b, 3a, 4a, 5a, 6c, 7d, 8b, 9a, 10c
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Chapter 2
BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS
OF PSYCHOLOGY
Before you read the next sentence, close your eyes and touch your nose. This task is easy, but it is not
simple. To get the job done, your brain used specific nerves to tell your eyelids to close. It used other nerves
to tell your hand to extend a finger and then sent a series of messages that moved your arm in just the right
direction until it received a message that your finger and your nose were in contact. This example illustrates
that everything you do – including how you feel and think – is based on some kind of biological activity in
your body, especially in your brain. This chapter tells the story of that activity, beginning with the neuron,
one of the body’s most basic biological units. We describe how neurons form systems capable of receiving and
processing information and translate it into behaviour, thoughts and biochemical changes.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
On completion of this chapter, you should be able to: 3.3 identify the functions of different divisions of the nervous
system and describe the research techniques used to
3.1 describe the organisation of the nervous system
investigate brain function
3.2 outline the processes involved in communication within
3.4 outline the chemistry of psychology: the role of
the nervous system
neurotransmitters and the endocrine system
3.5 outline the endocrine system.
APPLYING PSYCHOLOGY
1 How can elite athletes and professional musicians create changes in the part of their brain that controls movement by
imagining practising their skilled movements?
2 Can differences between hormones in men and women account for some of the differences between the sexes?
3 Is it possible to show the neural foundations of specific thought processes and emotions, such as religious beliefs or
romantic love?
Express Bring your learning to life with interactive study and exam preparation tools that support your textbook.
CourseMate Express includes quizzes, videos, concept maps and more.
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Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
“What—has—prevented—him?” I roared.
“Look out—your van will be in the ditch.”
And turning quickly I was just in time to pull the tiresome brute of a
horse, who never could be left to himself an instant, straight again.
I walked on shrugging my shoulders. Menzies-Legh was without any
doubt as ill-conditioned a specimen of manhood as I have ever come across.
At the four crossroads beyond Brede, on the party’s pausing as usual to
argue over the signpost while Fate, with Frogs’ Hole Farm up her sleeve,
laughed in the background, I laid my hand on Jellaby’s arm—its thinness
quite made me jump—and said, “Where is Lord Sigismund?”
“Gone home, I believe, with his father.”
“Why is he not coming back?”
“He’s prevented.”
“But by what? Is he ill?”
“Oh, no. He’s just—just prevented, you know.”
And Jellaby slipped his arm out of my grasp and went to stare with the
others up at the signpost.
On the road we finally decided to take, while they were all clustering
round the labourer I have mentioned who directed us to the deserted farm, I
approached Frau von Eckthum who stood on the outer fringe of the cluster,
and said in the gentler voice I instinctively used when speaking to her, “I
hear Lord Sigismund is not coming back.”
Gently as my voice was, it yet made her start; she generally did start
when spoken to, being unusually (it adds to her attractiveness) highly strung.
(“She doesn’t when I speak to her,” said Edelgard, on my commenting to
her on this characteristic.
“My dear, you are merely another woman,” I replied—somewhat sharply,
for Edelgard is really often unendurably obtuse.)
“I hear Lord Sigismund is not coming back,” I said, then, very gently, to
the tender lady.
“Oh?” said she.
For the first time I could have wished a wider range of speech.
“He has been prevented, I hear.”
“Oh?”
“Do you know what has prevented him?”
She looked at me and then at the others absorbed by the labourer with a
funny little look (altogether feminine) of helplessness, though it could not of
course have been that; then, adding another letter but not unfortunately
another word to her vocabulary, she said “No”—or rather “N-n-n-o,” for she
hesitated.
And up bustled Jellaby as I was about to press my inquiries, and taking
me by the elbow (the familiarity of this sort of person!) led me aside to
overwhelm me with voluble directions as to the turnings to Frogs’ Hole
Farm.
Well, it was undoubtedly a blow to find by far the most interesting and
amiable member of the party (with the exception of Frau von Eckthum)
gone, and gone without a word, without an explanation, a farewell, or a
regret. It was Lord Sigismund’s presence, the presence of one so
unquestionably of my own social standing, of one whose relations could all
bear any amount of scrutiny and were not like Edelgard’s Aunt Bockhügel
(of whom perhaps more presently) a dark and doubtful spot round which
conversation had to make careful détours—it was undoubtedly,
Gentle as my voice was, it yet made her start
I say, Lord Sigismund who had given the expedition its decent air of
being just an aristocratic whim, stamped it, marked it, raised it altogether
above mere appearances. He was a Christian gentleman; more, he was the
only one of the party who could cook. Were we, then, to be thrown for future
sustenance entirely on Jellaby’s porridge?
That afternoon, dining in the mud of the deserted farmyard, we had
sausages; a dinner that had only been served once before, and which was a
sign in itself that the kitchen resources were strained. I have already
described how Jellaby cooked sausages, goading them round and round the
pan, prodding them, pursuing them, giving them no rest in which to turn
brown quietly—as foolish a way with a sausage as ever I have seen. For the
second time during the tour we ate them pink, filling up as best we might
with potatoes, a practice we had got quite used to, though to you, my
hearers, who only know potatoes as an adjunct, it will seem a pitiable state
of things. So it was; but when one is hungry to the point of starvation a hot
potato is an attractive object, and two hot potatoes are exactly doubly so.
Anyhow my respect for them has increased tenfold since my holiday, and I
insist now on their being eaten in much larger quantities than they used to be
in our kitchen, for do I not know how thoroughly they fill? And servants
quarrel if they have too much meat.
“That is poor food for a man like you, Baron,” said Menzies-Legh,
suddenly addressing me from the other end of the table.
He had been watching me industriously scraping—picture, my friends,
Baron von Ottringel thus reduced—scraping, I say, the last remnants of the
potatoes out of the saucepan after the ladies had gone, accompanied by
Jellaby, to begin washing up.
It was so long since he had spoken to me of his own accord that I paused
in my scraping to stare at him. Then, with my natural readiness at that sort of
thing, I drew his attention to his bad manners earlier in the afternoon by
baldly answering “Eh?”
“I wonder you stand it,” he said, taking no notice of the little lesson.
“Pray will you tell me how it is to be helped?” I inquired. “Roast goose
does not, I have observed, grow on the hedges in your country.” (This, I felt,
was an excellent retort.)
“But it flourishes in London and other big towns,” said he—a foolish
thing to say to a man sitting in the back yard of Frogs’ Hole Farm. “Have a
cigarette,” he added; and he pushed his case toward me.
I lit one, slightly surprised at the change for the better in his behaviour,
and he got up and came and sat on the vacant camp-stool beside me.
“Hunger,” said I, continuing the conversation, “is the best sauce, and as I
am constantly hungry it follows that I cannot complain of not having enough
sauce. In fact, I am beginning to feel that gipsying is a very health-giving
pursuit.”
“Damp—damp,” said Menzies-Legh, shaking his head and screwing up
his mouth in a disapproval that astonished me.
“What?” I said. “It may be a little damp if the weather is damp, but one
must get used to hardships.”
“Only to find,” said he, “that one’s constitution has been undermined.”
“What?” said I, unable to understand this change of attitude.
“Undermined for life,” said he, impressively.
“My dear sir, I have heard you myself, under the most adverse
circumstances, repeatedly remark that it was healthy and jolly.”
“My dear Baron,” said he, “I am not like you. Neither Jellaby, nor I, nor
Browne either, for that matter, has your physique. We are physically,
compared to you—to be quite frank—mere weeds.”
“Oh, come now, my dear sir, I cannot permit you—you undervalue—of
slighter build, perhaps, but hardly——”
“It is true. Weeds. Mere weeds. And my point is that we, accordingly, are
not nearly so likely as you are to suffer in the long run from the privations
and exposure of a bad-weather holiday like this.”
“Well now, you must pardon me if I entirely fail to see——”
“Why, my dear Baron, it’s as plain as daylight. Our constitutions will not
be undermined for the shatteringly good reason that we have none to
undermine.”
My hearers will agree that, logically, the position was incontrovertible,
and yet I doubted.
Observing my silence, and probably guessing its cause, he took up an
empty glass and poured some tea into it from the teapot at which Frau von
Eckthum had been slaking her thirst in spite of my warnings (I had, alas, no
right to forbid) that so much tea drinking would make her still more liable to
start when suddenly addressed.
“Look here,” said he.
I looked.
“You can see this tea.”
“Certainly.”
“Clear, isn’t it? A beautiful clear brown. A tribute to the spring water
here. You can see the house and all its windows through it, it is so perfectly
transparent.”
And he held it up, and shutting one eye stared through it with the other.
“Well?” I inquired.
“Well, now look at this.”
And he took another glass and set it beside the first one, and poured both
tea and milk into it.
“Look there,” he said.
I looked.
“Jellaby,” said he.
I stared.
Then he took another glass, and poured both tea and milk into it, setting it
in a line with the first two.
“Browne,” said he.
I stared.
Then he took a fourth glass, and filled it in the same manner as the
second and third and placed it at the end of the line.
“Myself,” said he.
I stared.
“Can you see through either of those three?” he asked, tapping them one
after the other.
“No,” said I.
“Now if I put a little more milk into them”—he did—“it makes no
difference. They were muddy and thick before, and they remain muddy and
thick. But”—and he held the milk jug impressively over the first glass—“if I
put the least drop into this one”—he did—“see how visible it is. The
admirable clearness is instantaneously dimmed. The pollution spreads at
once. The entire glass, owing to that single drop, is altered, muddied,
ruined.”
“Well?” I inquired, as he paused and stared hard at me.
“Well?” said he. “Do you not see?”
“See what?” said I.
“My point. It’s as clear as the first glass was before I put milk into it. The
first glass, my dear Baron, is you, with your sound and perfect constitution.”
I bowed.
“Your splendid health.”
I bowed.
“Your magnificent physique.”
I bowed.
“The other three are myself, and Jellaby, and Browne.”
He paused.
“And the drop of milk,” he said slowly, “is the caravan tour.”
I was confounded; and you, my hearers, will admit that I had every
reason to be. Here was an example of what is rightly called irresistible logic,
and a reasonable man dare not refuse, once he recognizes it, to bow in
silence. Yet I felt very well. I said I did, after a pause during which I was
realizing how unassailable Menzies-Legh’s position was, and endeavouring
to reconcile its unassailableness with my own healthful sensations.
“You can’t get away from facts,” he answered. “There they are.”
And he indicated with his cigarette the four glasses and the milk jug.
“But,” I repeated, “except for a natural foot-soreness I undoubtedly do
feel very well.”
“My dear Baron, it is obvious beyond all argument that the more
absolutely well a person is the more easily he must be affected by the
smallest upset, by the smallest variation in the environment to which he has
got accustomed. Paradox, which plays so large a part in all truths, is rampant
here. Those in perfect health are nearer than anybody else to being seriously
ill. To keep well you must never be quite so.”
He paused.
“When,” he continued, seeing that I said nothing, “we began caravaning
we could not know how persistently cold and wet it was going to be, but
now that we do I must say I feel the responsibility of having persuaded you
—or of my sister-in-law’s having persuaded you—to join us.”
“But I feel very well,” I repeated.
“And so you will, up to the moment when you do not.”
Of course that was true.
“Rheumatism, now,” he said, shaking his head; “I greatly fear
rheumatism for you in the coming winter. And rheumatism once it gets hold
of a man doesn’t leave him till it has ravaged each separate organ, including,
as everybody knows, that principal organ of all, the heart.”
This was gloomy talk, and yet the man was right. The idea that a holiday,
a thing planned and looked forward to with so much pleasure, was to end by
ravaging my organs did not lighten the leaden atmosphere that surrounded
and weighed upon Frogs’ Hole Farm.
“I cannot alter the weather,” I said at last—irritably, for I felt ruffled.
“No. But I wouldn’t risk it for too long if I were you,” said he.
“Why, I have paid for a month,” I exclaimed, surprised that he should
overlook this clinching fact.
“That, set against an impaired constitution, is a very inconsiderable
trifle,” said he.
“Not inconsiderable at all,” said I sharply.
“Money is money, and I am not one to throw it away. And what about the
van? You cannot abandon an entire van at a great distance from the place it
belongs to.”
“Oh,” said he quickly, “we would see to that.”
I got up, for the sight of the glasses full of what I was forced to
acknowledge was symbolic truth irritated me. The one representing myself,
into which he had put but one drop of milk, was miserably discoloured. I did
not like to think of such discolouration being my probable portion, and yet
having paid for a month’s caravaning what could I do?
The afternoon was chilly and very damp, and I buttoned my wraps
carefully about my throat. Menzies-Legh watched me.
“Well,” said he, getting up and looking first at me and then at the glasses
and then at me again, “what do you think of doing, Baron?”
“Going for a little stroll,” I said.
And I went.
CHAPTER XVII
T HIS was a singular conversation.

I passed round the back of the house and along a footpath I found
there, turning it over in my mind. Less than ever did I like Menzies-
Legh. In spite of the compliments about my physique I liked him less than
ever. And how very annoying it is when a person you do not like is right; bad
enough if you do like him, but intolerable if you do not. As I proceeded
along the footpath with my eyes on the ground I saw at every step those four
glasses of tea, particularly my one, the one that sparkled so brilliantly at first
and was afterward so easily ruined. Absorbed in this contemplation I did not
notice whither my steps were tending till I was pulled up suddenly by a
church door. The path had led me to that, and then, as I saw, skirted along a
fringe of tombstones to a gate in a wall beyond which appeared the
chimneys of what was no doubt the parsonage.
The church door was open, and I went in—for I was tired, and here were
pews; ruffled, and here was peace. The droning of a voice led me to
conclude (rightly) that a service was in progress, for I had learned by this
time that in England the churches constantly burst out into services,
regardless of the sort of day it is—whether, I mean, it is a Sunday or not. I
entered, and selecting a pew with a red cushion along its seat and a
comfortable footstool sat down.
The pastor was reading the Scriptures out of a Bible supported, according
to the unaccountable British custom, on the back of a Prussian eagle. This
prophetic bird—the first swallow, as it were, of that summer which I trust
will not long be delayed, when Luther’s translation will rest on its back and
be read aloud by a German pastor to a congregation forced to understand by
the simple methods we bring to bear on our Polish (also acquired) subjects—
eyed me with a human intelligence. We eyed each other, in fact, as old
friends might who meet after troublous experiences in an alien land.
Except for this bird, who seemed to me quite human in his expression of
alert sympathy, the pastor and I were alone in the building; and I sat there
marvelling at the wasteful folly that pays a man to read and pray daily to a
set of empty pews. Ought he not rather to stay at home and keep an eye on
his wife? To do, indeed, anything sooner than conduct a service which
nobody evidently wants? I call it heathenism; I call it idolatry; and so would
any other plain man who heard and saw empty pews, things of wood and
cushions, being addressed as brethren, and dearly beloved ones into the
bargain.
When he had done at the eagle he crossed over to another place and
began reciting something else; but very soon, after only a few words, he
stopped dead and looked at me.
I wondered why, for I had not done anything. Even, however, with that
innocence of conscience in the background, it does make a man
uncomfortable when a pastor will not go on but fixes his eyes on you sitting
harmless in your pew, and I found myself unable to return his gaze. The
eagle was staring at me with a startling expression of comprehension, almost
as if he too were thinking that a pastor officiating has such an undoubted
advantage over the persons in the pews that it is cowardice to use it. My
discomfort increased considerably when I saw the pastor descend from his
place and bear down on me, his eyes still fixing me, his white clothing
fluttering out behind him. What, I asked myself greatly perturbed, could the
creature possibly want? I soon found out, for thrusting an open Prayer-book
toward me he pointed to a verse of what appeared to be a poem, and
whispered:
“Will you kindly stand up and take your part in the service?”
Even had I known how, surely I had no part nor lot in such a form of
worship.
“Sir,” I said, not heeding the outstretched book, but feeling about in my
breast-pocket, “permit me to present you with my card. You will then see
——”
He, however, in his turn refused to heed the outstretched card. He did not
so much as look at it.
“I cannot oblige you to,” he whispered, as though our conversation were
unfit for the eagle’s ears; and leaving the open book on the little shelf in the
front of the pew he strode back again to his place and resumed his reading,
doing what he called my part as well as his own with a severity of voice and
manner ill-suited to one presumably addressing the liebe Gott.
Well, being there and very comfortable I did not see why I should go. I
was behaving quite inoffensively, sitting still and holding my tongue, and the
comfort of being in a building with no fresh air in it was greater than you,
my friends, who only know fresh air at intervals and in properly limited
quantities, will be able to understand. So I stayed till the end, till he, after a
profusion of prayers, got up from his knees and walked away into some
obscure portion of the church where I could no longer observe his
movements, and then, not desiring to meet him, I sought the path that had
led me thither and hurriedly descended the hill to our melancholy camp.
Once I thought I heard footsteps behind me and I hastened mine, getting as
quickly round a bend that would conceal me from any one following me as a
tired man could manage, and it was not till I had reached and climbed into
the Elsa that I felt really safe.
The three caravans were as usual drawn up in a parallel line with mine in
the middle, and their door ends facing the farm. To be in the middle is a most
awkward situation, for you cannot speak the least word of caution (or
forgiveness, as the case may be) to your wife without running grave risk of
being overheard. Often I used carefully to shut all the windows and draw the
door curtain, hoping thus to obtain a greater freedom of speech, though this
was of little use with the Ilsa and the Ailsa on either side, their windows
open, and perhaps a group of caravaners sitting on the ground immediately
beneath.
My wife was mending, and did not look up when I came in. How
differently she behaved at home. She not only used to look up when I came
in, she got up, and got up quickly too, hastening at the first sound of my
return to meet me in the passage, and greeting me with the smiles of a dutiful
and accordingly contented wife.
Shutting the Elsa’s windows I drew her attention to this.
“But there isn’t a passage,” said she, still with her head bent over a sock.
Really Edelgard should take care to be specially feminine, for she
certainly will never shine on the strength of her brains.
“Dear wife,” I began—and then the complete futility of trying to thresh
any single subject out in that airy, sound-carrying dwelling stopped me. I sat
down on the yellow box instead, and remarked that I was extremely fatigued.
“So am I,” said she.
“My feet ache so,” I said, “that I fear there may be something serious the
matter with them.”
“So do mine,” said she.
This, I may observe, was a new and irritating habit she had got into:
whatever I complained of in the way of unaccountable symptoms in divers
portions of my frame, instead of sympathizing and suggesting remedies she
said hers (whatever it was) did it too.
“Your feet cannot possibly,” said I, “be in the terrible condition mine are
in. In the first place mine are bigger, and accordingly afford more scope for
disorders. I have shooting pains in them resembling neuralgia, and no doubt
traceable to some nervous source.”
“So have I,” said she.
“I think bathing might do them good,” I said, determined not to become
angry. “Will you get me some hot water, please?”
“Why?” said she.
She had never said such a thing to me before. I could only gaze at her in a
profound surprise.
“Why?” I repeated at length, keeping studiously calm. “What an
extraordinary question. I could give you a thousand reasons if I chose, such
as that I desire to bathe them; that hot water—rather luckily for itself—has
no feet, and therefore has to be fetched; and that a wife has to do as she is
told. But I will, my dear Edelgard, confine myself to the counter inquiry, and
ask why not?”
“I, too, my dear Otto,” said she—and she spoke with great composure,
her head bent over her mending, “could give you a thousand answers to that
if I chose, such as that I desire to get this sock finished—yours, by the way;
that I have walked exactly as far as you have; that I see no reason why you
should not, as there are no servants here, fetch your own hot water; and that
your wishing or not wishing to bathe your feet has really, if you come to
think of it, nothing to do with me. But I will confine myself just to saying
that I prefer not to go.”
It can be imagined with what feelings—not mixed but unmitigated—I
listened to this. And after five years! Five years of patience and guidance.
“Is this my Edelgard?” I managed to say, recovering speech enough for
those four words but otherwise struck dumb.
“Your Edelgard?” she repeated musingly as she continued to mend, and
not even looking at me. “Your boots, your handkerchief, your gloves, your
socks—yes——”
I confess I could not follow, and could only listen amazed.
“But not your Edelgard. At least, not more than you are my Otto.”
“But—my boots?” I repeated, really dazed.
“Yes,” she said, folding up the finished sock, “they really are yours. Your
property. But you should not suppose that I am a kind of living boot, made to
be trodden on. I, my dear Otto, am a human being, and no human being is
another human being’s property.”
A flash of light illuminated my brain. “Jellaby!” I cried.
“Hullo?” was the immediate answer from outside. “Want me, Baron?”
“No, no! No, no! No, NO!” I cried leaping up and dragging the door
curtain to, as though that could possibly deaden our conversation. “He has
been infecting you,” I continued, in a whisper so much charged with
indignation that it hissed, “with his poisonous——”
Then I recollected that he could probably hear every word, and muttering
an imprecation on caravans I relapsed on to the yellow box and said with
forced calm as I scrutinized her face:
“Dear wife, you have no idea how exactly you resemble your Aunt
Bockhügel when you put on that expression.”
For the first time this failed to have an effect. Up to then to be told she
looked like her Aunt Bockhügel had always brought her back with a jerk to
smiles; even if she had to wrench a smile into position she did so, for the
Aunt Bockhügel is the sore point in Edelgard’s family, the spot, the smudge
across its brightness, the excrescence on its tree, the canker in its bud, the
worm destroying its fruit, the night frost paralyzing its blossoms. She cannot
be suppressed. She cannot be explained. Everybody knows she is there. She
was one of the reasons that made me walk about my room the whole of the
night before I proposed marriage to Edelgard, a prey to doubts as to how far
a man may go in recklessness in the matter of the aunts he fastens upon his
possible children. The Ottringels can show no such relatives; at least there is
one, but she looms almost equal to the rest owing to the mirage created by
fogs of antiquity and distance. But Edelgard’s aunt is contemporary and
conspicuous. Of a vulgar soul at her very birth, as soon as she came of age
she deliberately left the ranks of the nobility and united herself to a dentist.
We go there to be treated for toothache, because they take us (owing to the
relationship) on unusually favourable terms; otherwise we do not know
them. There is however an undoubted resemblance to Edelgard in her less
pleasant moods, a thickened, heavier, and older Edelgard, and my wife, well
aware of it (for I help her to check it as much as possible by pointing it out
whenever it occurs) has been on each occasion eager to readjust her features
without loss of time. On this one she was not. Nay, she relaxed still more,
and into a profounder likeness.
“It’s true,” she said, not even looking at me but staring out of the
window; “it’s true about the boots.”
“Aunt Bockhügel! Aunt Bockhügel!” I cried softly, clapping my hands.
She actually took no notice, but continued to stare abstractedly out of the
window; and feeling how impossible it was to talk really naturally to her
with Jellaby just outside, I chose the better part and with a movement I could
not wholly suppress of impatience got up and left her.
Jellaby, as I suspected, was sitting on the ground leaning against one of
our wheels as though it were a wheel belonging to his precious community
and not ours, hired and paid for. Was it possible that he selected this wheel
out of the twelve he could have chosen from because it was my wife’s
wheel?
“Do you want anything?” he asked, looking up and taking his pipe out of
his mouth; and I just had enough self-control to shake my head and hurry on,
for I felt if I had stopped I would have fallen upon him and rattled him about
as a terrier rattles a rat.
But what terrible things caravans are when you have to share one with a
person with whom you have reason to be angry! Of all their sides this is
beyond doubt the worst; worse than when the rain comes in on to your bed,
worse than when the wind threatens to blow them over during the night, or
half of them sinks into the mud and has to be dug out laboriously in the
morning. It may be imagined with what feelings I wandered forth into the
chill evening, homeless, bearing as I felt a strong resemblance to that
Biblical dove which was driven forth from the shelter of the ark and had no
idea what to do next. Of course I was not going to fetch the hot water and
return with it, as it were (to pursue my simile), in my beak. Every husband
throughout Germany will understand the impossibility of doing that—picture
Edelgard’s triumph if I had! Yet I could not at the end of a laborious day
wander indefinitely out-of-doors; besides, I might meet the pastor.
The rest of the party were apparently in their caravans, judging from the
streams of conversation issuing forth, and there was no one but old James
reclining on a sack in the corner of a distant shed to offer me the solace of
companionship. With a sudden mounting to my head of a mighty wave of
indignation and determination not to be shut out of my own caravan, I turned
and quickly retraced my steps.
“Hullo, Baron,” said Jellaby, still propped against my wheel. “Had
enough of it already?”
“More than enough of some things,” I said, eyeing him meaningly as I
made my way, much impeded by my mackintosh, up the ladder at an oblique
angle (it never could or would stand straight) against our door.
“For instance?” he inquired.
“I am unwell,” I answered shortly, evading a quarrel—for why should I
allow myself to be angered by a wisp like that?—and entering the Elsa drew
the curtain sharply to on his expressions of conventional regret.
Edelgard had not changed her position. She did not look up.
I pulled off my outer garments and flung them on the floor, and sitting
down with emphasis on the yellow box unlaced and kicked off my boots and
pulled off my stockings.
Edelgard raised her head and fixed her eyes on me with a careful
imitation of surprise.
“What is it, Otto?” she said. “Have you been invited out to dine?”
I suppose she considered this amusing, but of course it was not, and I
jerked myself free of my braces without answering.
“Won’t you tell me what it is?” she asked again.
For all answer I crawled into my berth and pulled the coverings up to my
ears and turned my face to the wall; for indeed I was at the end both of my
patience and my strength. I had had two days’ running full of disagreeable
incidents, and Menzies-Legh’s fatal drop of milk seemed at last to have
fallen into the brightness of my original strong tea. I ached enough to make
his prophesied rheumatism a very near peril, and was not at all sure as I lay
there that it had not already begun its work upon me, beginning it with an
alarming promise of system and thoroughness at the very beginning, i. e., my
feet.
“Poor Otto,” said Edelgard, getting up and laying her hand on my
forehead; adding, after a moment, “It is nice and cool.”
“Cool? I should think so,” said I shivering. “I am frozen.”
She got a rug out of the yellow box and laid it over me, tucking in the
side.
“So tired?” she said presently, as she tidied up my clothes.
“Ill,” I murmured.
“What is it?”
“Oh, leave me, leave me. You do not really care. Leave me.”
At this she paused in her occupation to gaze, I fancy, at my back as I lay
resolutely turned away.
“It is very early to go to bed,” she said after a while.
“Not when a man is ill.”
“It isn’t seven yet.”
“Oh, do not, I beg you, argue with me. If you cannot have sympathy you
can at least leave me. It is all I ask.”
This silenced her, and she moved about the van more careful not to sway
it, so that presently I was able to fall into an exhausted sleep.
How long this lasted I could not on suddenly waking tell, but everything
had grown dark and Edelgard, as I could hear, was asleep above me.
Something had wrenched me out of the depths of slumber in which I was
sunk and had brought me up again with a jerk to that surface known to us as
sentient life. You are aware, my friends, being also living beings with all the
experiences connected with such a condition behind you, you are aware what
such a jerking is. It seems to be a series of flashes. The first flash reminds
you (with an immense shock) that you are not as you for one comfortable
instant supposed in your own safe familiar bed at home; the second brings
back the impression of the loneliness and weirdness of Frogs’ Hole Farm (or
its, in your case, local equivalent) that you received while yet it was day; the
third makes you realize with a clutching at your heart that something
happened before you woke up, and that something is presently going to
happen again. You lie awake waiting for it, and the entire surface of your
body becomes as you wait uniformly damp. The sound of a person breathing
regularly in the apartment does but emphasize your loneliness. I confess I
was unable to reach out for matches and strike a light, unable to do anything
under that strong impression that something had happened except remain
motionless beneath the bed-coverings. This was no shame to me, my friends.
Face me with cannon, and I have the courage of any man living, but place
me on the edge of the supernatural and I can only stay beneath the
bedclothes and grow most lamentably damp. Such a thin skin of wood
divided me from the night outside. Any one could push back the window
standing out there; any one ordinarily tall would then have his head and
shoulders practically inside the caravan. And there was no dog to warn us or
to frighten such a wretch away. And all my money was beneath my mattress,
the worst place possible to put it in if what you want is not to be personally
disturbed. What was it I had heard? What was it that called me up from the
depths of unconsciousness? As the moments passed—and except for
Edelgard’s regular breathing there was only an awful emptiness and absence
of sound—I tried to persuade myself it was just the sausages having been so
pink at dinner; and the tenseness of my terror had begun slowly to relax
when I was smitten stark again—and by what, my friends? By the tuning of a
violin.
Now consider, you who frequent concerts and see nothing disturbing in
this sound, consider our situation. Consider the remoteness from the
highway of Frogs’ Hole Farm; how you had, in order to reach it, to follow
the prolonged convolutions of a lane; how you must then come by a cart
track along the edge of a hop-field; how the house lay alone and empty in a
hollow, deserted, forlorn, untidy, out of repair. Consider further that none of
our party had brought a violin and none, to judge from the absence in their
conversation of any allusions to such an instrument, played on it. No one
knows who has not heard one tuned under the above conditions the
blankness of the horror it can strike into one’s heart. I listened, stiff with
fear. It was tuned with a care and at a length that convinced me that the spirit
turning its knobs must be of a quite unusual musical talent, possessed of an
acutely sensitive ear. How came it that no one else heard it? Was it possible
—I curdled at the thought—that only myself of the party had been chosen by
the powers at work for this ghastly privilege? When the thing broke into a
wild dance, and a great and rhythmical stamping of feet began apparently
quite near and yet equally apparently on boards, I was seized with a panic
that relaxed my stiffness into action and enabled me to thump the underneath
of Edelgard’s mattress with both my fists, and thump and thump with a
desperate vigour that did at last rouse her.
Being half asleep she was more true to my careful training than when
perfectly awake, and on hearing my shouts she unhesitatingly tumbled out of
her berth and leaning into mine asked me with some anxiety what the matter
was.
“The matter? Do you not hear?” I said, clutching her arm with one hand
and holding up the other to enjoin silence.
She woke up entirely.
“Why, what in the world——” she said. Then pulling a window curtain
aside she peeped out. “There’s only the Ailsa there,” she said, “dark and
quiet. And only the Ilsa here,” she added, peeping through the opposite
curtain, “dark and quiet.”
I looked at her, marvelling at the want of imagination in women that
renders it possible for them to go on being stolid in the presence of what
seemed undoubtedly the supernatural. Unconsciously this stolidity, however,
made me feel more like myself; but when on her going to the door and
unbolting it and looking out she made an exclamation and hastily shut it
again, I sank back on my pillow once more hors de combat, so great was the
shock. Face me, I say, with cannon, and I can do anything but expect nothing
of me if it is ghosts.
“Otto,” she whispered, holding the door, “come and look.”
I could not speak.
“Get up and come and look,” she whispered again.
Well my friends I had to, or lose forever my moral hold of and headship
over her. Besides, I was drawn somehow to the fatal door. How I got out of
my berth and along the cold floor of the caravan to the end I cannot
conceive. I was obliged to help myself along, I remember, by sliding my
hand over the surface of the yellow box. I muttered, I remember, “I am ill—I
am ill,” and truly never did a man feel more so. And when I got to the door
and looked through the crack she opened, what did I see?
I saw the whole of the lower windows of the farmhouse ablaze with
candles.
CHAPTER XVIII
M Y hearers will I hope appreciate the frankness with which I show them
all my sides, good and bad. I do so with my eyes open, aware that some
of you may very possibly think less well of me for having been, for
instance, such a prey to supernatural dread. Allow me, however, to point out
that if you do you are wrong. You suffer from a confusion of thought. And I
will show you why. My wife, you will have noticed, had on the occasion
described few or no fears. Did this prove courage? Certainly not. It merely
proved the thicker spiritual skin of woman. Quite without that finer
sensibility that has made men able to produce works of genius while women
have been able only to produce (a merely mechanical process) young, she
felt nothing apparently but a bovine surprise. Clearly, if you have no
imagination neither can you have any fears. A dead man is not frightened.
An almost dead man does not care much either. The less dead a man is the
more do possible combinations suggest themselves to him. It is imagination
and sensibility, or the want of them, that removes you further or brings you
nearer to the animals. Consequently (I trust I am being followed?) when
imagination and sensibility are busiest, as they were during those moments I
lay waiting and listening in my berth, you reach the highest point of
aloofness from the superiority to the brute creation; your vitality is at its
greatest; you are, in a word, if I may be permitted to coin an epigram, least
dead. Therefore, my friends, it is plain that at that very moment when you
(possibly) may have thought I was showing my weakest side I was doing the
exact opposite, and you will not, having intelligently followed the argument,
say at the end of it as my poor little wife did, “But how?”
I do not wish, however, to leave you longer under the impression that the
deserted farmhouse was haunted. It may have been of course, but it was not
on that night of last August. What was happening was that a party from the
parsonage—a holiday party of young and rather inclined to be noisy people,
which had overflowed the bounds of the accommodation there—was
utilizing the long, empty front room as an impromptu (I believe that is the
expression) ball-room. The farm belonged to the pastor—observe the fatness
of these British ecclesiastics—and it was the practice of his family during
the holidays to come down sometimes in the evening and dance in it. All this
I found out after Edelgard had dressed and gone across to see for herself
what the lights and stamping meant. She insisted on doing so in spite of my
warnings, and came back after a long interval to tell me the above, her face
flushed and her eyes bright, for she had seized the opportunity, regardless of
what I might be feeling waiting alone, to dance too.
“You danced too?” I exclaimed.
“Do come, Otto. It is such fun,” said she.
“With whom did you dance, may I inquire?” I asked, for the thought of
the Baroness von Ottringel dancing with the first comer in a foreign farm
was of course most disagreeable to me.
“Mr. Jellaby,” said she. “Do come.”
“Jellaby? What is he doing there?”
“Dancing. And so is everybody. They are all there. That’s why their
caravans were so quiet. Do come.”
And she ran out again, a childishly eager expression on her face, into the
night.
“Edelgard!” I called.
But though she must have heard me she did not come back.
Relieved, puzzled, vexed, and curious together, I did get up and dress,
and on lighting a candle and looking at my watch I was astonished to find
that it was only a quarter to ten. For a moment I could not credit my eyes,
and I shook the watch and held it to my ears, but it was going, as steadily as
usual, and all I could do was to reflect as I dressed on what may happen to
you if you go to bed and to sleep at seven o’clock.
And how soundly I must have done it. But of course I was unusually
weary, and not feeling at all well. Two hours’ excellent sleep, however, had
done wonders for me so great are my recuperative powers, and I must say I
could not help smiling as I crossed the yard and went up to the house at the
remembrance of Menzies-Legh’s glass of tea. He would not see much milk
about me now, thought I, as I strode, giving my moustache ends a final
upward push and guided by the music, into the room in which they were
dancing.
The dance came to an end as I entered, and a sudden hush seemed to fall
upon the company. It was composed of boys and young girls attired in
evening garments next to which the clothes of the caravaners, weather-
beaten children of the road, looked odd and grimy indeed. The tender lady, it

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Psychology PSY1011/PSY1022: A

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PSYCHOLOGY PSY1011/PSY1022: A CUSTOM EDITION

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Section 1 Psychology PSY1011

Chapter 1 Introducing Psychology 4

Chapter 2 Biological Aspects of Psychology 40

Chapter 3 Sensation and Perception 98

Chapter 4 Learning 178

Chapter 5 Human Development 230

Chapter 6 Personality 304

Chapter 7 Culture and Psychology 350

Chapter 8 Indigenous Psychology 384

Section 2 Psychology PSY1022

Chapter 9 Memory 434

Chapter 10 Psychological Disorders and Treatment 494

Chapter 11 Social Cognition and Influence 594

1.1 THE WORLD OF PSYCHOLOGY:

FIGURE 1.1 Visualising brain activity

Science Photo Library/Zephyr

FIGURE 1.2 Husband and father-in-law

FIGURE 1.3 Where would you put a third eye?

Clinical, counselling, community and health psychology

Fairfax Syndication/Edwina Pickles

TABLE 1.1 Typical activities and work settings for psychologists

Work setting Typical activities

Linkages within psychology and beyond

CHAPTER 1 Introducing psychology

CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER 14 CHAPTER 15

Links to other ﬁelds

TABLE 1.2 The role of memory in deciding when to eat

Session B. R. (amnesia) R. H. (amnesia) J. C. T. A.

1.2 A BRIEF HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY

Wundt and the structuralism of Titchener

Freud and psychoanalysis

William James and functionalism

John B. Watson and behaviourism

Check your understanding

1.3 APPROACHES TO THE SCIENCE

The biological approach What can

Science Photo Library/University of Durhum/Simon Fraser

FIGURE 1.5 What do you see?

The behavioural approach

The cognitive approach

Check your understanding

1.4 HUMAN DIVERSITY AND PSYCHOLOGY

Courtesy of Wellesley College Archives/photo by Pastridge

1.5 STUDYING AND WORKING IN PSYCHOLOGY

Psychological literacy and the graduate

viii making valid and reliable measurements

Critical and creative thinking skills

Values and ethics in psychology

Communication and interpersonal skills

Integration and application