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AUSTRALIAN & NEW ZEALAND
DOUGLAS A. BERNSTEIN
JULIE ANN POOLEY
LYNNE COHEN
STEPHEN PROVOST
JACQUELYN CRANNEY
BETHANIE GOULDTHORP
NEIL DREW
00_H50875_Bernstein3e_FM.indd 1 14/08/20 5:37 PM

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Adaptation of Essentials of Psychology, 7th edition, by Douglas A. Bernstein, Australia.
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 24 23 22 21 20

BRIEF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 4

Introducing psychology, Research in psychology, Biological aspects of Sensation and perception,
page 2 page 36 psychology, page 72 page 124

Consciousness, Learning, Memory, Thought, language and
page 194 page 248 page 294 intelligence, page 352

Motivation and emotion, Human development, Health, stress and coping, Personality,
page 430 page 494 page 568 page 606

Psychological disorders and Social psychology, Culture and psychology, Indigenous psychology,
treatment, page 646 page 738 page 810 page 842
Online
Online Online Online
Appendix A
Careers for psychology
graduates, page 20-2
Online
CHAPTER 17 CHAPTER 18 CHAPTER 19
Appendix B
Neuropsychology, Behavioural genetics, Statistics in psychological
Searching psychology
page 17-2 page 18-2 research, page 19-2
databases, page 21-2
iii

CONTENTS FEATURES LIST
GUIDE TO THE TEXT
XII
XIII
GUIDE TO THE ONLINE RESOURCES XVII
PREFACE XIX
ABOUT THE AUTHORS XXI
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS XXIII
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCING PSYCHOLOGY 2

1.1 The world of psychology: an overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Evolutionary approach 18
Subfields of psychology 4 Psychodynamic approach 18
Linkages within psychology and beyond 10 Behavioural approach 19
1.2 A brief history of psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Cognitive approach 19
Wundt and the structuralism of Titchener 13 Humanistic approach 20
Gestalt psychologists 14 1.4 Human diversity and psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Freud and psychoanalysis 14 Impact of sociocultural diversity on psychology 22
William James and functionalism 15 1.5 Studying and working in psychology in
John B. Watson and behaviourism 15 Australia and New Zealand. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Psychology today 16 Psychological literacy and the Accreditation
Standards: Foundational graduate competencies (Level 1) 25
1.3 Approaches to the science of psychology. . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Careers in psychology 28
Biological approach 17
This book 30
CHAPTER 2 RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY 36

2.1 Thinking critically about psychology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Qualitative methodology 53
Critical thinking and scientific research 40 Linkages: Psychological research methods and
Role of theories 41 behavioural genetics 54
2.2 Research methods in psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 2.3 Statistical analysis of research results. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Observational methods 43 Descriptive statistics 58
Case studies: taking a closer look 44 Inferential statistics 61
Surveys: looking at the big picture 45 Statistics and research methods as tools in
critical thinking 61
Correlational studies: looking for relationships 47
2.4 Ethical guidelines for psychologists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Experiments: exploring cause and effect 48
Ethical conduct with humans 63
Selecting human participants for research 52
Ethical research with animals 64
CHAPTER 3 BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 72

3.1 Nervous system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 3.3 Central nervous system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Cells of the nervous system 75 Spinal cord 84
Action potential 76 Brain 85
Synapses and communication between neurons 78 Focus on research: Manipulating genes in animal
Organisation and functions of the nervous system 80 models of human disease 90
3.2 Peripheral nervous system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Cerebral cortex 92
Somatic nervous system 82 Exploring the brain 96
Autonomic nervous system 83
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CONTENTS
Thinking critically: What can fMRI tell 3.4 Chemistry of psychology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
us about behaviour and mental processes? 98 Main classes of neurotransmitters 109
The divided brain in a unified self 100 3.5 Endocrine system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Plasticity in the central nervous system 103 Hormones 112
Linkages: Human development and the Role of the brain 113
changing brain 106 Feedback systems 114
CHAPTER 4 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION 124

4.1 Sensory systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 Thinking critically: Does acupuncture
How we sense 126 relieve pain? 156
The problem of encoding 127 Proprioception: sensing body position 157
Absolute thresholds: is something out there? 128 Focus on research: The case of the mysterious
Linkages: Sensation and biological aspects of spells 159
psychology 129 4.6 Perception. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Signal detection theory 130 The perception paradox 161
Judging differences: has anything changed? 131 Three approaches to perception 162
Magnitude estimation: how intense is that? 131 4.7 Organising the perceptual world. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
4.2 Hearing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 Basic processes in perceptual organisation 164
Sound 132 Perception of location and distance 166
The ear 134 Perception of motion 169
4.3 Vision. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Perceptual constancy 170
Light 139 4.8 Recognising the perceptual world. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Focusing light 140 Bottom-up processing 173
Converting light into images 141 Top-down processing 174
Seeing colour 143 Network processing 176
Interaction of the senses: synaesthesia 146 Culture, experience and perception 177
4.4 Chemical senses: smell and taste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 Linkages: Perception and human development 178
Olfaction 148 4.9 Attention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Gustation 150 Directing attention 180
Smell, taste and flavour 151 Ignoring information 180
4.5 Sensing your body. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Dividing attention 181
Touch and temperature 153 Attention and automatic processing 182
Pain 154 Attention and the brain 182
CHAPTER 5 CONSCIOUSNESS 194

5.1 Scope of consciousness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196 5.2 Sleeping and dreaming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .205
Functions of consciousness 197 Stages of sleep 205
Levels of consciousness 197 Why do people sleep? 206
Mental processing without awareness 199 Sleep disorders 209
Thinking critically: Can subliminal messages Dreams and dreaming 212
change your behaviour? 201 5.3 Hypnosis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Focus on research: Subliminal messages in Experiencing hypnosis 214
popular music 202 Explaining hypnosis 215
Neuropsychology of consciousness 203
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CONTENTS
Applications of hypnosis 217 Expectations and drug effects 221

Linkages: Meditation, health and stress 217 CNS depressant drugs 221
5.4 Psychoactive drugs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 CNS stimulating drugs 223
Psychopharmacology 219 Hallucinogenic drugs 226
Drug abuse 219 Thinking critically: Is marijuana dangerous? 228
CHAPTER 6 LEARNING 248

6.1 Learning about stimuli. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250 Forming and strengthening operant behaviour 265
Habituation and sensitisation 250 Why reinforcers work 269
Opponent process theory 250 Punishment 270
Learnt association 251 Some applications of operant conditioning 272
6.2 Classical conditioning: learning signals Linkages: Neural networks and learning 273
and associations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252 6.4 Cognitive processes in learning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Pavlov’s discovery 252 Learnt helplessness 276
Conditioned responses over time 253 Focus on research: An experiment on human
Stimulus generalisation and discrimination 254 helplessness 276
Signalling of significant events 255 Latent learning and cognitive maps 277
Some applications of classical conditioning 258 Insight and learning 278
6.3 O
perant conditioning: learning the Observational learning: learning by imitation 279
consequences of behaviour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261 Thinking critically: Does watching violence
From the puzzle box to the Skinner box 261 on television make people more violent? 281
Basic components of operant conditioning 262 6.5 Using research on learning to help people learn. . . . . 283
Skill learning 283
CHAPTER 7 MEMORY 294

7.1 The nature of memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 Linkages: Memory, perception and eyewitness
Basic memory processes 295 testimony 316
Types of memory 297 7.5 Forgetting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Explicit and implicit memory 298 How do we forget? 319
Models of memory 298 Why do we forget? The roles of decay and interference 320
7.2 Storing new memories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302 Thinking critically: Can traumatic memories
Sensory memory 302
be repressed and then recovered? 322
Collective memories and forgetting 325
Short-term memory and working memory 302
Prospective memory 326
Long-term memory 306
Ageing and memory 326
Distinguishing between short-term and
long-term memory 308 Other interesting phenomena 327
7.3 Retrieving memories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309 7.6 Biological bases of memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
Retrieval cues and encoding specificity 309 Biochemistry of memory 328
Context and state dependence 309 Brain structures and memory 330
Focus on research: I could swear 7.7 Improving your memory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
I heard it! 310 Mnemonic strategies 333
Retrieval from semantic memory 311 Guidelines for more effective studying 334
7.4 Constructing memories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313 Reading a textbook 335
Relating semantic and episodic memory: PDP models 314 Lecture notes 336
Schemas 314 Design for memory 337
vi

CONTENTS
CHAPTER 8 THOUGHT, LANGUAGE AND INTELLIGENCE 352

8.1 Basic functions of thought. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353 Development of language 379
Circle of thought 353 How is language acquired? 380
8.2 Mental representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356 8.7 Understanding intelligence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
Concepts 356 Psychometric approach 384
Propositions 357 Information-processing model 385
Schemas, scripts and mental models 357 Triarchic theory of intelligence 386
Images and cognitive maps 360 Multiple intelligences 386
8.3 Thinking strategies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361 8.8 Testing intelligence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
Formal reasoning 361 Intelligence tests today 391
Informal reasoning 362 Aptitude and achievement measures 393
8.4 Problem-solving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365 8.9 Evaluating intelligence tests. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
Strategies for problem-solving 365 Statistical reliability 395
Obstacles to problem-solving 366 Statistical validity 396
Building problem-solving skills 369 Linkages: Emotionality and the measurement
Problem-solving by computer 370 of cognitive abilities 398
Computer-assisted problem-solving 372 Innate and environmental influences on IQ 399
Creative thinking 372 Conditions that can raise IQ 403
8.5 Decision-making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374 IQ in the classroom 404
Evaluating options 374 Thinking critically: Are intelligence tests
Biases and flaws in decision-making 375
unfairly biased against certain groups? 406
Linkages: Group processes in problem-solving Focus on research: Tracking cognitive
and decision-making 376 abilities over the life span 407
8.10 Diversity in intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
8.6 Language. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378
Unusual intelligence 410
CHAPTER 9 MOTIVATION AND EMOTION 430

9.1 Concepts and theories of motivation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431 9.4 Achievement motivation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
Sources of motivation 432 Need for achievement 455
Instinct doctrine and its descendants 432 Achievement and success in the workplace 457
Drive reduction theory 435 Achievement and wellbeing 458
Arousal theory 436 Relations and conflicts among motives 459
Incentive theory 437 Linkages: Conflicting motives and stress 461
9.2 Hunger and eating. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438 Opponent processes, motivation and emotion 462
Biological signals for hunger and satiation 438 9.5 Nature of emotion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
Hunger and the brain 439 Defining characteristics 463
Flavour, sociocultural experience and food selection 440 Biology of emotion 464
Unhealthy eating 442 9.6 Theories of emotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468
9.3 Sexual behaviour. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447 James’ peripheral theory 468
Focus on research: A survey of human Cannon’s central theory 471
sexual behaviour 448 Cognitive theories of emotion 472
Biology of sex 449 9.7 Communicating emotion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474
Social and cultural factors in sexuality 450 Innate expressions of emotion 475
Sexual orientation 451 Social and cultural influences on emotional expression 475
Thinking critically: What shapes sexual
orientation? 452
vii

CONTENTS
CHAPTER 10 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 494

10.1 Exploring human development. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496 Thinking critically: Does day care harm
Genes and the environment 496 the emotional development of infants? 522
10.2 Beginnings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499 Relationships with parents and peers 523
Prenatal development 499 Focus on research: Exploring developing minds 527
The newborn 501 Gender roles 528
10.3 Infancy and childhood: cognitive development . . . . 504 Risk and resilience 531
Changes in the brain 505 10.5 Adolescence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532
Development of knowledge: Piaget’s theory 505 Changes in body, brain and thinking 532
Modifying Piaget’s theory 509 Adolescent feelings and behaviour 533
Information processing during childhood 511 Identity and development of the self 536
Linkages: Development and memory 512 Moral development 538
The social world and cognitive development 512 10.6 Adulthood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540
Individual variations in cognitive development 513 Physical changes 540
10.4 Infancy and childhood: social Cognitive changes 541
and emotional development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516 Social changes 543
Individual temperament 517 Longevity, death and dying 547
Attachment 519
CHAPTER 11 HEALTH, STRESS AND COPING 568

11.1 Health psychology: stress and stressors. . . . . . . . . . . 569 Coping resources and coping methods 581
Health psychology 569 Social support 582
Understanding stress and stressors 571 Stress, personality and gender 584
Psychological stressors 571 Focus on research: Personality and health 586
Measuring stressors 572 11.4 Physiology and psychology of health and illness . . . . . 587
11.2 Stress responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 574 Stress, illness and the immune system 587
Physical responses 574 Stress, illness and the cardiovascular system 589
Psychological responses 576 Thinking critically: Does hostility increase
Linkages: Stress and psychological disorders 578 the risk of heart disease? 589
11.3 Stress mediators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579 11.5 Promoting healthy behaviour. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 591
How stressors are perceived 580 Health beliefs and health behaviours 592
Predictability and control 580 Changing health behaviours: stages of readiness 592
Programs for coping with stress and promoting health 593
CHAPTER 12 PERSONALITY 606

12.1 Psychodynamic approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607 Allport’s trait theory 615
Structure and development of personality 608 Five-factor personality model 615
Variations on Freud’s personality theory 611 Biological trait theories 616
Contemporary psychodynamic theories 612 Evaluating the trait approach 618
Evaluating the psychodynamic approach 612 Thinking critically: Are personality traits inherited? 619
12.2 Trait approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 614 12.3 Social-cognitive approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 621
Traits versus types 614 Historical basis of the social-cognitive approach 621
viii

CONTENTS
Prominent social-cognitive theories 622 Focus on research: Personality

Evaluating the social-cognitive approach 624 development over time 630
12.4 Humanistic approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 625 12.5 Assessing personality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 632
Prominent humanistic theories 626 Projective personality measures 632
Evaluating the humanistic approach 628 Non-projective personality measures 633
Linkages: Personality, culture and Personality tests and employee selection 635
human development 629
CHAPTER 13 PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDERS AND TREATMENT 646

13.1 Defining and explaining psychological disorders. . . . . 648 13.3 Approaches to treatment of psychological
What is abnormal? 649 disorders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 686
Behaviour in context: a practical approach 650 Basic features of treatment 686
Explaining psychological disorders 651 Psychodynamic psychotherapy 687
Biopsychosocial approach 651 Humanistic psychotherapy 689
Diathesis-stress as an integrative explanation 654 Behaviour therapy 691
13.2 Classifying psychological disorders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 655 Group, family and couples therapy 698
A classification system: DSM-5 656 Evaluating psychotherapy 700
Thinking critically: Is psychological Thinking critically: Are all forms of
diagnosis biased? 658 therapy equally effective? 701
Anxiety disorders 660 13.4 Biological treatments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 706
Linkages: Anxiety disorders and learning 664 Psychosurgery 706
Somatic symptom and related disorders 665 Electroconvulsive therapy 706
Dissociative disorders 667 Psychoactive medications 708
Affective disorders 668 Medications and psychotherapy 712
Schizophrenia 672 Linkages: Biological aspects of psychology
Personality disorders 677 and the treatment of psychological disorders 713
Focus on research: Exploring links between 13.5 Community psychology: from treatment
child abuse and antisocial personality disorder 678 to prevention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 714
Community mental health 714
Additional psychological disorders 680
Other factors 715
Mental illness and the law 684
CHAPTER 14 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 738

14.1 Social influences on the self. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 740 14.3 Prejudice and stereotypes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 754
Social comparison 740 Theories of prejudice and stereotyping 755
Focus on research: Self-esteem Reducing prejudice 757
and the ultimate terror 741 14.4 Interpersonal attraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 759
Social norms 742 Keys to attraction 759
Linkages: Motivation and the presence of others 743 Intimate relationships and love 761
Social identity theory 744 14.5 Social impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 764
Social perception 744 Social norms 764
14.2 Forming and changing attitudes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 750 Conformity and compliance 765
Forming attitudes 750 Obedience 769
Changing attitudes 750 14.6 Aggression. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 774
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CONTENTS
Why are people aggressive? 774 14.8 Cooperation, competition and conflict. . . . . . . . . . . . 787
When are people aggressive? 777 Social dilemmas 788
Thinking critically: Do violent video games Promoting cooperation 789
make people more aggressive? 778 Interpersonal conflict 789
14.7 Altruism and helping behaviour. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 782 Group processes 790
Why do people help? 783 Linkages: Biological and social psychology 793
CHAPTER 15 CULTURE AND PSYCHOLOGY 810

15.1 What is culture? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 811 Issues with cultural contact 826
Dimensions of culture 812 Thinking critically: Is ethnic prejudice too
Culture and identity 815 ingrained ever to be eliminated? 828
15.2 Psychology, culture and health. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 819 Consequences of cultural contact 829
Importance of culture to health 821 15.4 F ocus on cultural and cross-cultural
research methods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 832
Does ‘normal’ cross cultures? 822
Cultural and cross-cultural researchers 833
15.3 Cultural contact. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 824
CHAPTER 16 INDIGENOUS PSYCHOLOGY 842

16.1 What do we mean by indigenous peoples?. . . . . . . . . 844 16.4 Working with indigenous peoples. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 863
Health and wellbeing of indigenous peoples 844 Developing indigenous cultural competence 864
Why is it important to differentiate indigenous Psychological and mental health assessment and
peoples in the study of psychology? 846 indigenous peoples 866
16.2 Indigenous peoples of Australia and New Zealand. . . . 848 Focus on research: Strategies
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples 848 for remembering in the Australian landscape 867
Māori peoples 855 16.5 Focus on indigenous research methods . . . . . . . . . . . 869
16.3 What is indigenous psychology? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 860 Decolonising Australian psychological research 870
Indigenous psychology in Australia 861 Decolonising New Zealand psychological research 871
Indigenous psychology in New Zealand 861 Australian Psychological Society apology 873
Online
CHAPTER 17 NEUROPSYCHOLOGY (ONLINE) 17-2

17.1 Foundations of neuropsychology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17-3 17.3 Neuropsychological disorders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17-12
A brief history of neuropsychology 17-5 Amnestic disorders 17-12
Modules and networks 17-6 Consciousness disturbances 17-14
Lesion analysis 17-7 Thinking critically: Can someone be partially
Neuropsychological assessment 17-8 paralysed and not know it? 17-16
Training for neuropsychology 17-8 Perceptual disturbances 17-17
17.2 Mechanisms of brain dysfunction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17-9 Focus on research: Studying hemineglect 17-20
Cerebral infarcts 17-9 Linkages: Language disorders and the brain 17-21
Traumatic brain injury 17-10 Movement disorders 17-23
Neurodegenerative diseases 17-11 Dementia 17-24
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CONTENTS
Online
CHAPTER 18 BEHAVIOURAL GENETICS (ONLINE) 18-2

18.1 The biology of genetics and heredity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18-3 18.4 Genetic factors in psychology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18-6
18.2 A brief history of genetic research in psychology . . . . 18-4 Genetic influences over the life span 18-6
18.3 The focus of research in behavioural genetics. . . . . . . 18-5 Genes affecting multiple traits 18-7
Identifying genes related to behaviour 18-7
18.5 Behavioural genetics and environmental influences. . . 18-8
Online
CHAPTER 19 STATISTICS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH (ONLINE) 19-2

19.1 Describing data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19-3 19.3 The normal distribution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19-6
The histogram 19-3 Correlation 19-7
19.2 Descriptive statistics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19-4 19.4 Inferential statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19-8
N 19-4 Differences between means: the t test 19-8
Measures of central tendency 19-5 Beyond the t test 19-10
Measures of variability 19-5
APPENDIX A: CAREERS FOR PSYCHOLOGY GRADUATES (ONLINE) 20-2

APPENDIX B: SEARCHING PSYCHOLOGY DATABASES (ONLINE) 21-2
NAME INDEX N-1
SUBJECT INDEX S-1
xi

FEATURES LIST
LINKAGES FOCUS ON RESEARCH THINKING CRITICALLY
Psychological research methods Manipulating genes in animal What can fMRI tell us about
and behavioural genetics 54 models of human disease 90 behaviour and mental processes? 98
Human development and The case of the mysterious spells 159 Does acupuncture relieve pain? 156
the changing brain 106
Subliminal messages in popular Can subliminal messages
Sensation and biological aspects of music 202 change your behaviour? 201
psychology 129
An experiment on human Is marijuana dangerous? 228
Perception and human helplessness 276
Does watching violence on
development 178
I could swear I heard it! 310 television make people more
Meditation, health and stress 217 violent? 281
Tracking cognitive abilities over
Neural networks and learning 273 the life span 407 Can traumatic memories be
repressed and then recovered? 322
Memory, perception and A survey of human sexual
eyewitness testimony 316 behaviour 448 Are intelligence tests unfairly
biased against certain groups? 406
Group processes in problem- Exploring developing minds 527
solving and decision-making 376 What shapes sexual orientation? 452
Personality and health 586
Emotionality and the Does day care harm the emotional
Personality development over time 630
measurement of cognitive abilities 398 development of infants? 522
Exploring links between child
Conflicting motives and stress 461 Does hostility increase the risk
abuse and antisocial personality
of heart disease? 589
Development and memory 512 disorder 678
Are personality traits inherited? 619
Stress and psychological disorders 578 Self-esteem and the
ultimate terror 741 Is psychological diagnosis biased? 658
Personality, culture and human
development 629 Strategies for remembering Are all forms of therapy equally
in the Australian landscape 867 effective? 701
Anxiety disorders and learning 664
Studying hemineglect 17–20 Do violent video games make
Biological aspects of
people more aggressive? 778
psychology and the treatment
of psychological disorders 713 Is ethnic prejudice too ingrained
ever to be eliminated? 828
Motivation and the presence of
others 743 Can someone be partially
paralysed and not know it? 17–16
Biological and social psychology 793
Language disorders and
the brain 17–21
xii Copyright 2021 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. WCN 02-200-202

Guide to the text
As you read this text you will find a number of features in every
chapter that will enhance your study of psychology and help you to
understand how the theory is applied in the real world.
CHAPTER-OPENING FEATURES
2
CHAPTER
2
Gain an insight into how psychological CHAPTER
theories relate to the real world RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY
2
CHAPTER
through the chapter opener. RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY
Our goal in this chapter is to describe the research methods psychologists use to help answer questions
about behaviour and mentalRESEARCH INthePSYCHOLOGY
processes. We will also describe critical thinking processes that help
psychologists to chapter
Our goal in this form those
is toquestions andresearch
describe the make sense of research
methods results. use to help answer questions
psychologists
about behaviour and mental processes. We will also describe the critical thinking processes that help
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
psychologists to chapter
Our goal in this form those
is toquestions andresearch
describe the make sense of research
methods results. use to help answer questions
psychologists
On completion
about of this
behaviour andchapter,
mental you should be
processes. Weable
willto:also describe the critical thinking processes that help
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
L O 1 O1 demonstrate an understanding of theand
scientific
psychologists to form those questions make method
sense ofand an
research results.
appreciation
On completion of its
of this role in you
chapter, developing psychological
should be able to: knowledge
Identify the key concepts the chapter LEARNING
L O 2 demonstrateOBJECTIVES
an understanding of experimental research
L O 1 O1 demonstrate an understanding of the scientific method and an
methodology and be able to outline the basic research designs
will cover with the learning objectives appreciation
On completion of its
of this role in you
chapter, developing psychological
should be able to: knowledge
L O 3 L demonstrate competence in basic statistical techniques using
L O 2 demonstrate an understanding of experimental research
L O 1 O1 demonstrate an understanding of the scientific method and an
at the start of each chapter. manual analysis
methodology
appreciation ofand
methods
its be able
role to outline the
in developing basic research
psychological designs
knowledge
L O 4 4 explain the relevance of ethical guidelines for psychologists.
L O 3 L demonstrate competence in basic statistical techniques using
L O 2 demonstrate an understanding of experimental research
manual analysis
methodology and methods
be able to outline the basic research designs
L O 4 4 explain the relevance of ethical guidelines for psychologists.
L O 3 L demonstrate competence in basic statistical techniques using manual
Examine how theoretical concepts APPLYING PSYCHOLOGY
analysis methods
1L O How do psychologists
4 4 explain evaluate
the relevance claims
of ethical in the real
guidelines forworld; for example,
psychologists.
have been used in practice through theAPPLYING PSYCHOLOGY
impact of social media on wellbeing?
the applying psychology questions. 12 How canpsychologists
psychologistsevaluate
understand theinexperiences of individuals
Krakowiak Krakowiak
How do claims the real world; for example,
diagnosed
impactwith
theAPPLYING mental health
PSYCHOLOGY
of social media issues?
on wellbeing?
Applying psychology icons in the
iStock.com/Michal
3 How
21 How can psychologists protect the welfare of human and animal
How can psychologistsevaluate
understand theinexperiences of individuals
Krakowiak
do psychologists claims the real world; for example, the
chapter link these questions to in- participants
diagnosed in research?
with
impact of social mental
media health issues?
on wellbeing?
iStock.com/Michal
iStock.com/Michal
32 How
How can
can psychologists
psychologists protect the welfare
understand of humanofand
the experiences animal
individuals
depth discussions about research. participants in research?
diagnosed with mental health issues?
3 HowPSYCHOLOGICAL LITERACY
can psychologists protect the welfareAND GRADUATE
of human and animalCOMPETENCIES (GCs)
In this chapter
participants you are introduced to research methodology;
in research? Studying this chapter should help you to develop the
specifically:
PSYCHOLOGICAL capacity to use logic
LITERACY AND GRADUATE COMPETENCIES and evidence to critically evaluate
(GCs)
• (GC1.1.xii) Knowledge (research methods and and develop arguments, critically evaluate theoretical
In this chapter you are introduced to research methodology; Studying this chapter should help you to develop the
statistics) – during the discussion of research and methodological approaches in psychology, and
specifically:
PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERACY AND GRADUATE capacity to use logic
COMPETENCIES and evidence to critically evaluate
(GCs)
approaches to understanding psychological phenomena, demonstrate a rigorous and objective attitude in
• (GC1.1.xii) Knowledge (research methods and and develop arguments, critically evaluate theoretical
youchapter
In this are givenyoua wide range of theoretical
are introduced to researchand research
methodology; thinking
Studyingand thislearning about human
chapter should behaviour.
help you to develop the
statistics) – during the discussion of research and methodological approaches in psychology, and
knowledge. For example, in the discussion of research
specifically: In terms of
capacity to GC1.4 (values
use logic and ethics)
and evidence toand GC1.10
critically evaluate
approaches to understanding psychological phenomena, demonstrate a rigorous and objective attitude in
approaches Knowledge
• (GC1.1.xii) to determining the relative
(research influence
methods and (integration and application), we ask you
and develop arguments, critically evaluate whether, knowing
theoretical
you are given a wide range of theoretical and research thinking and learning about human behaviour.
about the nature of research methods inin psychology after
Understand the skills required while of genetics and
statistics)
introduced to
environment
– during on behaviour,
the discussion you are
of research
knowledge. For example, in the discussion of research
and methodological approaches psychology,
In terms of GC1.4 (values and ethics) and GC1.10
reading this chapter, you would challengeattitude
any of the
and
approaches tothe field of epigenetics.
understanding psychological phenomena, demonstrate a rigorous and objective
(integration and application), we ask you whether, knowing
in
approaches to determining the relative influence following statements, rather than accepting them at face
studying psychology and how to master • (GC1.3) Analyse
you are given andrange
a wide critique theory and
of theoretical
of genetics and environment on behaviour, you are
andresearch
research thinking and learning about human behaviour.
about the nature of research methods in psychology after
value:
– this chapter
knowledge. Forprovides
example, you
in with the basis for
the discussion of research In terms of GC1.4 (values and ethics) and GC1.10
introduced to the field of epigenetics. reading this chapter, you would challenge any of the
them by reviewing the psychological understanding the methodsthe
approaches to determining that produced
relative
• (GC1.3) Analyse and critique theory and research
the findings
influence •(integration
Theoriesandin psychology
application),are
wereally justwhether,
ask you commonknowing
following statements, rather than accepting them at face
sense.
reported in subsequent
of genetics and environment chapters, and also the
on behaviour, youbasis
are for •about the nature
Research
value:
of researchthat
demonstrates methods in psychology
children who watchafter
literacy and graduate competencies – this chapter provides you with the basis for
analysing
introducedand critiquing
to the field of research on human behaviour
epigenetics.
understanding the methods that produced the findings
reading thistelevision
violent chapter, you would
shows arechallenge any of the
more aggressive;
• Theories in psychology are really just common sense.
that is,
and mental processing, that could be reported
• (GC1.3) Analyse and critique theory and research in a following statements,
watching rather than
violent television accepting
shows leads them at face
to increased
(GC) section. reported in subsequent chapters, and also the basis for
variety
– of formats
this chapter (e.g.,you
provides through
with social media).
the basis for
analysing and critiquing research on human behaviour
• Research demonstrates that children who watch
value:
aggression.
violent television shows are more aggressive; that is,
• (GC1.8) Criticalthe
understanding and creative
methods thinking
that produced– critically
the findings Theories
• Survey in psychology
findings indicatedarethat
really
Newjust common sense.
Zealanders are in
and mental processing, that could be reported in a watching violent television shows leads to increased
thinking
reported inabout the methodology
subsequent chapters, that has led
and also the to certain
basis for favour of abolishing
• Research demonstrates a law that
that prohibits
children whothe smacking
watch
variety of formats (e.g., through social media). aggression.
findings
analysing isand
a key aspect ofresearch
critiquing psychological literacy.
on human behaviour of children.
violent television shows are more aggressive; that is,
• (GC1.8) Critical and creative thinking – critically • Survey findings indicated that New Zealanders are in
and mental processing, that could be reported in a watching violent television shows leads to increased
thinking about the methodology that has led to certain favour of abolishing a law that prohibits the smacking
variety of formats (e.g., through social media). aggression.
findings is a key aspect of psychological literacy. of children.
• (GC1.8) Critical and creative thinking – critically • Survey findings indicated that New Zealanders are in
thinking about the methodology that has led to certain favour of abolishing a law that prohibits the smacking
findings is a key aspect of psychological literacy. of children.
02_H50875_Bernstein3e_1pp.indd 36 5/30/20 4:15 PM
xiii

GUIDE TO THE TEXT
FEATURES
98
WITHIN CHAPTERS
CHAPTER 3 > Biological aSpectS of pSychology
THINKING CRITICALLY Learn to analyse the evidence and draw conclusions

WHAT CAN fMRI TELL US ABOUT BEHAVIOUR AND MENTAL PROCESSES? using the five-question framework in the thinking
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but the structure or set of structures. It is easy to talk about
pictures of brain activity offered by fMRI are generating
millions of them. There are many thousands of scientific
‘thinking’ or ‘attention’, but these psychological terms might
not correspond to specific biological processes that can be
critically sections. Throughout the book, psychological
articles that have discussed the results of fMRI scans
taken while people engaged in various kinds of thinking
isolated and located by any technology.
phenomena are described in a way that first reveals
Is there evidence available to support the claim?
or experienced various emotions. Neuroscientists who use
brain-imaging techniques are now to be found in psychology When a participant in an fMRI experiment thinks or feels the logic of the scientific enterprise, then identifies
departments around the world, and, as described in other something, you can actually see the colours in the brain scan
chapters, their work is changing the research landscape in change, much like the colour changes you see on weather radar
as a rainstorm intensifies or weakens. Looking at an fMRI scan,
possible flaws in its design or implementation, and
cognitive, social and abnormal psychology. Excitement over
fMRI is not confined to scientists. Popular and scientific
magazines routinely carry fMRI pictures that appear to
you get a clear impression of the brain areas that ‘light up’
when a person experiences an emotion or performs a cognitive
finally leaves room for more questions and further
task (see Figure 1.1 in Chapter 1, ‘Introducing psychology’).
‘show’ people’s thoughts and feelings as they happen.
Readers see these articles as more believable than those These scans are not as precise as they seem, though, research.
offering the same data in less dramatic tables or graphs because fMRI does not directly measure brain cell activity.
(McCabe & Castel, 2008), which may be one reason why so The colours seen in an fMRI scan reflect instead the flow
many companies these days are making money by offering of blood in the brain and the amount of oxygen the blood is
brain-imaging services that carrying. Changes in blood flow and blood oxygen are related
can supposedly improve the to changes in the firing rates of neurons, but the relationship
4.5 > S e n S I n G y o u r B o D y 159
APPLYING quality of employee selection, is complex and not yet fully understood (Maandag et al.,
PSYCHOLOGY lie detection, political 2007; Perthen et al., 2008). Furthermore, when brain cells
campaign strategies, product process information, their firing rate may either increase
Is it possible to
Application ofshow
proprioception or decrease (Gonsalves, Kahn, Curran, Norman, & Wagner,
design and diagnosis of mental
that gamblersiswho
Proprioception won sense for
a critical 2005). If the increases
success in physical therapy and rehabilitative medicine,and decreases in a particular brain
especially
disorders. The editor of one
fora people
sizeablewho
amount
have ofto relearn how to move their muscles after strokes region happen
or other to cancel
problems. each other out, an fMRI scan will
Research
scientific journal summed up
inmoney,
a branchactually hadcalled
of physics only non-linear dynamics has been applied tomiss the neuronal
problems activity taking place in that region. In fact,
in proprioception.
this trend by saying that ‘a
a small
For amount
example, usingofthe
brain comparednoise
discovery that the right amount of random background
picture is worth a thousand with can
the direct
improvemeasurement
the of brain cell activity
detection
activity inof the
signals,
brainrehabilitation
area that can
neurologists have added a small amount
dollars’ (Farah, 2009).
ofbe done in(or
vibration research
‘noise’)with animals, fMRI technology
tothat
muscle and joint
normally in This procedure dramatically increasesispatients’
sensations.
increases still rather crude.
ability It takesjoint
to detect coordinated changes in millions
movements
activity when andthe
position
person(Glanz, What am I being asked to
is 1997). (See the upcoming section ‘Inof neurons
review: to produce
Sensing a detectable
your body’ for a change in the fMRI signal.
summary of our discussion of touch, believe or accept?
temperature, pain and kinaesthetic Critics also argue that the results of fMRI research can
perception.)
rewarded?
In the early 1800s, similar depend too much on how experimenters choose to interpret
FOCUS ON RESEARCH excitement surrounded
phrenology, a technique that involved feeling bumps and
them. In a typical fMRI experiment, participants are shown
some kind of display, such as pairs of photos, and asked to
Examine the ways in which research methods have been
depressions
THE CASEon OF theTHE
skull.MYSTERIOUS
It was claimed that these contours
SPELLS
reflect the size of 27 structures on the brain’s surface that
perform various tasks. One task might be to press a button if
the photos are exactly the same. A second task might be to
applied to help advance understanding of behaviour
Early in this chapter we discussed the specific energy Janszky had a unique opportunity to learn something
determine personality traits, mental abilities, talents
doctrine, which says that each sensory system can send
and other characteristics. Although wildly popular with
press the button if objects in the photos are arranged in the
about the origin of orgasmic sensations without intruding
same way. In this second task, a participant should press and mental processes through the focus on research
information to the brain only about its own sense, regardless on his patient’s privacy. His approach exemplifies the
the public (Benjamin & Baker, 2004), phrenology did not the button if one photo shows, say, a short man standing to
of how the stimulation occurs. For example, gently pressing
survive the critical thinking of 19th-century scientists
on your closed eye will send touch sensations from the skin
case study method of research. As described in Chapter 2,
the left of a tall woman, and the other photo shows a small
‘Research in psychology’, case studies focus intensively
sections. Focus on research is organised around five key
and the technique has long been discredited. Today, some dog standing to the left of a giraffe. Both versions of the task
on your eyelid and visual sensations from your eye. This
scientists wonder whether fMRI is a 21st-century version of
doctrine applies even when stimulation of sensory systems
phrenology, at least in the sense that their colleagues might
on a particular individual, group or situation. Sometimes
require the participant to compare two images, but only the
they lead to important insights about clinical problems or
second of them requires considering whether things that
questions: (1) What was the researcher’s question? (2)
arises from within the brain itself. For example, tinnitus, other phenomena that occur so rarely that they cannot be
be accepting its value too readily. These scientists point out
a continuous ‘ringing in the ears’, occurs as a result of
that although fMRI images can indicate where brain activity
look different are actually similar in some way. The fMRI
studied through surveys or controlled experiments. In this
scans taken during these tasks might show certain brain
How did the researcher answer the question? (3) What did
spontaneous activation of nerve cells in auditory areas of case, Janszky decided to study Linda’s brain activity while
occurs as people think and experience emotion, there is areas ‘lighting up’ only during the second task. If so, the
the brain, not from any external sound source. The following
no guarantee that this activity is actually causing the
she was actually having a spell. He reasoned that if the
researcher would suggest that those areas are involved in the researcher find? (4) What do the results mean? And
case study illustrates a far less common example in which spells were caused by seizures in a specific brain region,
associated thoughts and feelings (Aldridge, 2005). Questions recognising analogies, or the similarities between apparently
spontaneous brain activity resulted in erotic sensations.
are also being raised about the assumption that particular
it might be possible to eliminate the problem through
different things (Wharton et al., 2000). The researcher
surgery.
(5) what do we still need to know?
thought
What was processes or emotions
the researcher’s occur in a particular brain
question? would base this conclusion on a computer program that
A 31-year-old woman we’ll call ‘Linda’ reported that for What did the researcher find?
many years she had been experiencing recurring ‘spells’ that Linda’s brain activity was recorded during five of her spells,
began with what seemed like sexual sensations (Janszky using electroencephalography (EEG), a method described in
et al., 2002). These ‘orgasm-like euphoric erotic sensations’ more detail in Chapter 3, ‘Biological aspects of psychology’.
were followed by a staring, unresponsive state in which During each spell, the EEG showed that she was having
she lost consciousness. The spells, which occurred without seizures in the right temporal lobe of her brain. A subsequent
warning and in response to no obvious trigger, interfered MRI of her brain revealed a small area of abnormal tissue in
severely with her 98
03_H50875_Bernstein3e_1pp.indd ability to function normally in everyday the same area of the right temporal lobe. The organisation 5/30/20 3:56 PM
82life. LindaC H Awas
P T Eexamined
R 3 > BiolobygJózsef
i c a l aJanszky,
SpectS o a fneurologist,
pSychology of nerve cells in abnormal brain tissue can make it easier for
who suspected that she might be suffering from epilepsy, a seizures to occur, so Linda was advised to have some tissue
seizure disorder in which nerve cells in the brain suddenly surgically removed from the problem area. After the surgery,
start firing uncontrollably. The symptoms of an epileptic
IN REVIEW
seizure depend on which brain areas are activated. Seizures
her seizures stopped. Test your understanding as you go via the in review
What do the results mean?
that activate the motor area of the cerebral cortex will cause
Nervous system
uncontrollable movements, seizures that activate visual Janszky concluded that Linda had been having boxes, which summarise information and are
cortex ‘localisation-related epilepsy’, meaning that her spells
PART will create the sensation of images, and so on. Could
FUNCTION
there be a specific brain region that, when activated by a
TYPE OF SIGNAL CARRIED
were seizures coming from a specific brain location. This accompanied by check your understanding self-test
Axon causes the sensations
seizure, Carries signals awaythat
of orgasm fromare
thenormally
cell body conclusionThewas supported
action potential,byanthe fact that she had right
all-or-nothing
brought on by external stimulation? temporal lobe
spell. Her axon
seizures on
electrochemical
MRI toshowed
vesiclesan
thethat
signal EEGshoots
abnormality
at the
each down
time the
in the
tip of the axon,
she had a
same region
releasing
questions to help you review, integrate, and comprehend
How did the researcher answer the question?
ItDendrite
is not easy to study the neurological
Detects and carriesbasis
signalsoftosexual
that commonly
the cell body disappeared Theafter
gives rise to seizures, and her spells
neurotransmitters
the abnormality
postsynaptic potential, anwas removed. Linda’s
electrochemical signal
large chunks of information.
sensations because most people are understandably case also led Janszky
moving to the
towards suggest that the right temporal
cell body
reluctant to allow researchers to monitor their sexual lobe may play a special role in creating the sensory
Neurotransmitter
activity. In the processAofchemical released
diagnosing by oneproblem,
Linda’s cell that binds to the
experienceA of
chemical
orgasm. message telling the next cell to fire or not
receptors on another cell to fire its own action potential
Receptor Protein on the cell membrane that receives chemical Recognises certain neurotransmitters, thus allowing it
signals to begin a postsynaptic potential in the dendrite
Synapse Provides an area for the transfer of signals between Chemicals that cross the synapse and reach receptors
8 CHAPTER 1 > INTR ODUCIN
neurons, G P S Ybetween
usually C H O L O the
G Y axon of one cell and the on another cell
dendrite of another
schoolCHECK
04_H50875_Bernstein3e_1pp.indd YOUR
psychologists
159 UNDERSTANDING
School psychologists provide support to teachers and students, and they help to identify 5/30/20 4:16 PM
psychologists who work with academic challenges and opportunities and to set up programs to improve students’ achievement
1 and
teachers Forstudents,
one neuron
assist into communicate with another, a has to cross the
and satisfaction in school. They are also involved in activities such as the early detection of students’
identifyingbetween them.
students’ academic
challenges and opportunities, mental health issues or concerns, and crisis intervention.
2 counselling
provide The nervous system’s main functions are to
to students, , and
and set upinformation.
programs to improve
Social psychology
students’ achievement and Social psychologists study the ways in which people socially interact with those around them, how
3 The
aspirational two main types ofthey
growth cellsthink
in the nervous
about systemand
themselves are others, and how people and influence one another. Their. research on
of a sound wave.
social psychologists persuasion has been applied to the creation of safe-sex advertising campaigns designed to stop
psychologists who study how the spread of AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) or quit smoking campaigns. Social
people influence one another’s
psychologists also explore how peer pressure affects us, what determines who we like (or even love;
behaviour, social interactions
and attitudes, individually and see the Snapshot ‘Got a match?’), and why and how prejudice forms. They have found, for example,
in groups 3.2 PERIPHERAL NERVOUS SYSTEM
that although we may pride ourselves on not being prejudiced, we may actually hold unconscious
negative beliefs about certain groups that affect the way we relate to people in those groups.
The PNS 14,
Chapter sends sensory
‘Social information
psychology’, from the
describes eyes,and
these ears and other sense
many organs
examples to the CNS.
of research The PNS
in social
also carries messages from the brain and spinal cord to the muscles, glands and other parts of the
psychology.
body. Unlike the CNS, it is not protected by bone. To accomplish its relay tasks, the PNS has two
somatic nervous system
the subsystem of the peripheral
nervous system that transmits
subsystems, the somatic nervous system and the autonomic nervous system (as shown in Figure 3.7),
each of which performs both sensory SNAPSHOT Got a match?
and motor functions.
Explore how psychology is applied in the world around
information from the senses to
the central nervous system and Somatic nervous system
Some commercial matchmaking services, such as eHarmony (eharmony.
com.au), apply social psychologists’ research on interpersonal you with the snapshot boxes.
carries signals from the central relationships and attraction in an effort to pair up people whose
nervous system to the muscles The first of these components is the somatic nervous system, which transmits information from the
characteristics are most likely to be compatible. According to
sensory neurons cells in the senses to the CNS and carries signals from the CNS to the muscles that move the skeleton. Sensory
eHarmony, it uses the data of over 200 000 couples globally to
nervous system that provide neurons bring information into the identify Motor neurons
brain.personality carrythat
dimensions information
influencefrom the brain
how well to direct
two people are
information to the brain about motion. For example, imagine thatsuited
you are at the beach. You feel the warmth of the sun and smell
to one another.
the environment the ocean because sensory neurons in your somatic nervous system take in these pieces of sensory
eHarmony
motor neurons cells in the information and send them to the CNS for processing. And when you decide it is time to turn over, sit
nervous system that the brain
uses to influence muscles and up or put on more sunscreen, your brain sends movement instructions through motor neurons in the
other organs to respond to the somatic nervous system. These motor neurons extend from your spinal cord to your muscles, where
environment in some way the release of a neurotransmitter onto them causes the muscles to contract.
organisational
psychologists psychologists Organisational psychology
who study ways to improve
Organisational psychologists conduct research on leadership, stress, competition, pay rates and
efficiency, productivity and
satisfaction among workers and the other factors that affect the efficiency, productivity and satisfaction of people in the workplace. They
organisations that employ them also explore topics such as worker motivation, work team cooperation, conflict resolution procedures
xiv sport psychologists and employee selection methods. Learning more about how businesses and organisations work – or
psychologists who explore fail to work – allows organisational psychologists to make evidence-based recommendations to help
the relationships between businesses work better. Today, companies all over the world are applying research from organisational
athletic performance and Copyright 2021 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. WCN 02-200-202
psychology to promote the development of positive organisational behaviour. The results include
such psychological variables as
motivation and emotion more effective employee training programs, ambitious but realistic goal-setting procedures, fair
03_H50875_Bernstein3e_1pp.indd
forensic psychologists 82 and reasonable evaluation tools, and incentive systems that motivate and reward outstanding 5/30/20 3:56 PM
psychologists who assist in jury performance.

selection, evaluate defendants’
mental competence to stand Other subfields
trial, and deal with other issues
Our list of psychology’s subfields is still not complete. Sport psychologists use visualisation and
involving psychology and the law
relaxation training programs to help athletes reduce excessive anxiety, focus attention and make
00_H50875_Bernstein3e_FM.indd
environmental 14changes that let them perform at their best. Forensic psychologists (see the Snapshot ‘Linking
other 14/08/20 5:39 PM
psychologists psychologists
psychology and law’) may assist police and other agencies in understanding criminals, evaluating
who study the effects of the
the mental competence of defendants, providing psychological reports for court processes, and
scientists (who work in different subfields) as well as registered psychologists. We will describe
their work in more detail in later chapters. Bear in mind though, that use of the term ‘psychologist’
to describe yourself is restricted to those who satisfy the requirement of the Psychology Board of
8 CHAPTER 1 > INTRODUCING PSYCHOLOGY Australia for registration and practice, otherwise you will be in breach of the Health Practitioner
Regulation National Law Act 2009.
school psychologists School psychologists provide support to teachers and students, and they help to identify Biological psychology
teachers and students, assist in Biological psychologists, also called physiological psychologists, use high-tech scanning devices
and satisfaction in school. They are also involved in activities such as the early detection of students’ and other methods to study how biological processes in the brain affect, and are affected by,
identifying students’ academic
challenges and opportunities, mental health issues or concerns, and crisis intervention. behaviour and mental processes (see Figure 1.1). Have you ever had the odd feeling that a new biological psychologists
provide counselling to students, psychologists who analyse
and set up programs to improve
Social psychology experience, such as entering an unfamiliar house, has actually happened to you before? Biological
the biological factors
psychologists studying this illusion of déjà vu (French for ‘already seen’) suggest that it may be
students’ achievement and Social psychologists study the ways in which people socially interact with those around them, how influencing behaviour and
aspirational growth due to a temporary malfunction in the brain’s ability to combine incoming information from mental processes; also called
they think about themselves and others, and how people influence one another. Their research on
the senses, creating the impression of two ‘copies’ of a single event (Brown, 2004). In Chapter 3, physiological psychologists
social psychologists
psychologists who study how
persuasion has been applied to the creation of safe-sex advertising campaigns designed to stop
the spread of AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) or quit smoking campaigns. Social
GUIDE TO THE TEXT
‘Biological aspects of psychology’, we describe biological psychologists’ research on many other
people influence one another’s topics, such as how your brain controls your movements and speech, and what organs help you
behaviour, social interactions cope with stress and fight disease.
in groups that although we may pride ourselves on not being prejudiced, we may actually hold unconscious
FIGURE 1.1 Visualising brain activity
Chapter 14, ‘Social psychology’, describes these and many other examples of research in social
psychology. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
techniques allow biological psychologists to study
FEATURES WITHIN CHAPTERS

SNAPSHOT Got a match?
the brain activity accompanying various mental
processes.
com.au), apply social psychologists’ research on interpersonal
relationships and attraction in an effort to pair up people whose
Important key terms are marked in bold in the text and characteristics are most likely to be compatible. According to
Actively try out the concepts discussed in the chapter by
defined in the margin when they are used for the first time. identify personality dimensions that influence how well two people are
suited to one another. following the Try this icons throughout the text.
eHarmony
Science Photo Library/Zephyr
organisational
54 C Hpsychologists
psychologists APTER 2 > RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY
Organisational psychology Cognitive psychology
who study ways to improve TRY THIS Stop reading for a moment and look left and right. Your ability to follow this suggestion, to
efficiency, productivity and recognise whatever you saw, and to understand the words you are reading right now are the result of cognitive psychologists
mental, or cognitive, abilities. Those abilities allow you to receive information from the outside world, psychologists whose research
Liamputtong, 2010). Snell and Hodgetts (2007) used photo elicitation techniques to explore heavy understand it and act on it. Cognitive psychologists study mental abilities such as sensation and focuses on analysis of the
sport psychologists and employee selection methods. Learning more about how businesses and organisations work – or mental processes underlying
psychologists who explore metal music communities.
fail to work – allows organisational psychologists to make evidence-based recommendations to help
perception, learning and memory, thinking, consciousness, intelligence and creativity. Cognitive
judgement, decision-making,
psychologists have found, for example, that we do not just receive incoming information – we mentally
the relationships between businessesQualitative methods
work better. Today, have been
companies all overused extensively
the world with
are applying Aboriginal
research and Torres Strait Islander peoples
from organisational problem-solving, imagining
athletic performance and manipulate it. Notice that the drawing in Figure 1.2 stays physically the same, but two different and other aspects of human
(Bessarab
psychology & Ng’andu,
to promote 2010). Aboriginal
the development cultures adhere
of positive organisational to oral
behaviour. traditions,
The results includeand ‘yarning’ is a very
versions emerge, depending on which of its features you emphasise. thought or cognition
important part of the way that people communicate and come to know their culture and knowledges
forensic psychologists and reasonable evaluation tools, and incentive systems that motivate and reward outstanding
(Bessarab & Ng’andu, 2010). Yarning is a culturally safe and culturally appropriate way to learn about
selection, evaluate defendants’ the lived experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (Bessarab, Ng’andu, 2010; Geia,
Hayes, & Usher, 2013). Importantly, yarning connects the person and the researcher to the collective
PSYCHOLOGY experiences
LINKAGES
trial, and deal with other issues
involving psychology and the law
16, ‘Indigenous psychology’.
Our list of psychology’s subfields is still not complete. Sport psychologists use visualisation and
of the person, their family and their history. We discuss these concepts more in Chapter
relaxation training programs to help athletes reduce excessive anxiety, focus attention and make
environmental other changes that let them perform at their best. Forensic psychologists (see the Snapshot ‘Linking
psychologyQualitative
and law’) may methods also
assist police andcan beagencies
other used ininconjunction
understandingwith otherevaluating
criminals, research methods to provide
physical environment on a richer understanding of psychological phenomena, which is termed a multimethod approach to
the mental competence of defendants, providing psychological reports for court processes, and
Understand the network of relationships among psychology’s subfields through the psychology linkages features in
behaviour and mental processes
cultural and cross-cultural
performing many other
collecting tasks related
information. to psychology
Using multipleand Environmental
the law. allows
methods psychologiststhe data sources to see if
us to ‘triangulate’
study the effects of the environment on people’s behaviour and mental processes. The results of
they are all converging on the same conclusions. Qualitative research traditionally involves a smaller
this
who helpbook.
us to better
understand the way culture
their research are applied by architects and interior designers as they plan or remodel university
sample size. It does not seek to be representative of a population
residences, shopping malls, auditoriums, hospitals, prisons, offices and other spaces to ormake
of a them
psychological phenomenon
but allowsand
more comfortable for functional
in-depthfor understanding
the people who and may provide
will occupy the basis
them. Cultural for further research.
and cross-cultural
affects our lives and to better
understand our, and others, psychologists study the interactions between differing cultural groups. This is increasingly important
place in the world in a globalised world where people are travelling more and encountering people from a wide range of
LINKAGES • inkages sections take an in-depth look
L
PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH METHODS AND BEHAVIOURAL GENETICS at topics that feature interrelated fields of
One of the most fascinating and difficult challenges in environmental factors
psychology is to find research methods that can help us
01_H50875_Bernstein3e_1pp.indd 8 in producing differences LINKAGES 5/30/20 2:12 PM
psychology.
understand the ways in which people’s genetic inheritance among people in How much of our
(their biological nature) intertwines with environmental personality, mental behaviour is due
events and conditions before and after birth (often called ability, mental disorders to genetics and
nurture) to shape their behaviour and mental processes and other phenomena, how much to our
(Moffitt, Caspi, & Rutter, 2005). Consider Mark and John, as noted in the Snapshot environment?
identical twins who were both adopted at birth because ‘Twins and behavioural (A link to Chapter 3,
their biological parents were too poor to care for them. John genetics’. It also seeks to ‘Biological aspects
grew up with a married couple who made him feel secure identify specific genes that of psychology’.)
and loved. Mark went from orphanage to foster home to contribute to hereditary
hospital and, finally, back to his biological father’s second influences.
CHAPTER
wife. In other words, these genetically identical people had
REVIEW
encountered quite different environments. Still, when they
Animal research
526 C H A P T E R 10 > H U M A N D E V E L O P M E N T
met for the first time at the age of 24 years, they discovered Some behavioural genetics research takes the form of
similarities that went far beyond physical appearance. They experiments, mainly on the selective breeding of animals
used the same aftershave lotion, smoked the same brand of (Suomi, 2004). For example, Stephen Suomi (1999) identified
LINKAGES Lansfordbrand et al., of
2005). These findings monkeys whose
it is genes predisposed them to showstylesstronginortheir
cigarettes, used the same imported toothpaste, and remind us that important to evaluate parenting
CHAPTER
likedAs
thenoted
sameinsports.
Chapter cultural context. There is no single, universally
1, ‘Introducing
They had joined the psychology’,
military within all weak reactions
psychology’). to
‘best’ style
The stress. He then(Holden,
of parenting
‘Linkages’ mated strong
diagram
2014). reactors with
shows ties to
REVIEW
eightofdays
psychology’s
of each other,subfields
and are
their related
IQ to
scores one
were
Peer friendships and popularity another.
nearly other
two strong reactors
additional and mated
subfields and weakare
there reactors
many with
more other
ties weak
Our discussion of behavioural genetics illustrates reactors. Within a few generations, fordescendants of the strong-
identical. How had genetic influences
Social developmentoperated in two
over thejust throughout
years of childhood occurs thein book.
a world Looking
that broadens linkages among
to include brothers,
one way
different in which the
environments topic
to shape of
suchthis chapter,
similarities? research reactor pairswill
subfields reacted
help much
you more
see how strongly
they tofit
all stressors
together than did
sisters, playmates and classmates. Relationships with other children start early (Rubin, Bukowski, &
in psychology, is linked to
asthe subfield of biological theanddescendants
help you of theappreciate
better weak-reactor pairs.
themonths, Selective-breeding
big picture
Exploring questions
LINKAGES suchParker, these hasBy
2015). taken
two months of age, infants engage in mutual gazing. By six theythat is
vocalise Linkages diagrams at the end of every
•
psychology (see
theChapter 3, ‘Biological aspects ,ofthe experiments must be interpreted with caution, though,
psychologists into field of
andbehavioural
smile at each genetics
other. By eight months,psychology.
they prefer to look at another child rather than at an adult
studyAsofnoted
how genes and environments work together because animals do not inherit specific behaviours. Instead,
to shape
in Chapter
behaviour. They
of psychology’s
1, ‘Introducing
(Bigelow, MacLean,
have
subfields discovered
butareit isrelated
psychology’,
a long to that
Wood, &all
onemost
journey another.
Smith, 1990).psychology’).
In other words, The even‘Linkages’
infants arediagram shows
interested
they inherit differing sets of physical structures and capacities
from interest to intimacy. two additional subfields and there are many more ties
ties topeople,
in other chapter present a set of questions that
behavioural tendencies are likely togenetics
be influenced by just show that make certain behaviours more likely or less likely.
Our discussion
interactions
of behavioural Observations illustrates
of two-year-olds throughout
that the mostthe they book.
can doLooking for linkages
with their peers is to
However, these behavioural tendencies can be altered
among
look at illustrate three of the ways material in the
one waybetween
in whichthe theenvironment
topic
them, this and
ofimitate many
chapter,
them and different
research
exchange – or grab subfields willage
– toys. By helpfour,you seebegin
they how to they
play all‘pretend’
fit togethertogether,
by the environment (Grigorenko, 2002; Parker et al., 2006).
genes.
inAccordingly,
psychology, is research in the
behavioural
linkedagreeing
to subfield genetics
of
about roles biological
and themes (Coplanand help you
& Arbeau, better
2011). Thisappreciate
kind of play the big picturebecause
is important that is it chapter is related to other chapters.
is designed
psychologyto explore the relative
(see Chapter roles
3, ‘Biological
provides of genetic
a new aspects
context andof communicating
CHAPTER
for 2 For example,
psychology.
RESEARCH when Suomi
desires and feelings,
(1999) placed young, highly
IN PSYCHOLOGY
and offers an opportunity to form first
‘friendships’ (Dunn & Hughes, 2001; Rubin stress-reactive monkeys
et al., 2015). In the school with unrelated
years, ‘foster mothers’,
peer interaction becomes he
behavioural genetics the study moreof how genes and
frequent, environment
complex work
and structured. discovered thatgames
Children play the fosterwith mothers’
rules, joinown teams, stress
tutorreactivity
each other,
together to shape behaviour amplified or dampened the
and cooperate – or compete – in achieving goals. Friends become more important and friendships youngsters’ genetically
longer-lasting as school-age children find that friends are a source of companionship, stimulation,
support and affection (Rose & Asher, 2017). In fact, companionship and fun are the most important
aspects of friendship for children at this age. Psychological intimacy does not enter the picture until
CHAPTER 2 RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY
adolescence (Furman & Rose, 2015).
Friends help children establish their sense of self-worth (Harter, 2012). Through friendships,
children can compare their own strengths and weaknesses with those of others in a supportive and
accepting atmosphere. Some children have more friends than others. When children are asked to
02_H50875_Bernstein3e_1pp.indd 54 how much of our behaviour
nominate the classmates is it possible
they like thetobest
do and the least, those is it ethical
who getto deceive
the most votes – the popular 5/30/20 3:53 PM
is due tochildren
genetics–and tend to be the ones experiments
who areon friendly, assertive and people
goodinatorder to
communication; they help set the
how much is due
rules for to ourgroup, and they
their psychotherapy?
engage in positive social behaviour, learn aboutsuch their social others. Especially
as helping
environment? behaviour?
in early adolescence, children who are athletic, arrogant or aggressive may also be popular, as long as
their aggressiveness is not too extreme (Asher & McDonald, 2011).
Unfortunately, about 10 per cent of schoolchildren do not have friends. Some, known as rejected
how much children,
of ourare actively disliked,
behaviour either because
is it possible to do they are too aggressive is it ethical and lacking in self-control, or
to deceive
is due tobecause
geneticsthey and are anxiousexperiments
and socially on unskilled. Others, called people neglected
in order children,
to are seldom even
how much mentioned
is due to our in peer nominations; they are isolated, quiet and
psychotherapy? withdrawn
learn about theirbutsocial
not necessarily disliked.
Friendless 3
environment?
CHAPTER children tend to do poorly in school
CHAPTER 13 and usually behaviour?
experience
CHAPTERpsychological
14 and behaviour
problems
Biological aspectsin later
of life (Asher & Hopmeyer,
Psychological 2001; Ladd
disorders and & Troop-Gordon, 2003). It appears that having
Social psychology
psychology
even one close, stable friend can protect treatment schoolchildren from loneliness and other problems (Laursen,
Bukowski, Aunola, & Nurmi, 2007; Parker, Saxon, Asher, & Kovacs, 2001). It also appears that the single
most important factor in determining children’s popularity is the social skills that they learn over the
years of childhood and adolescence (Rubin et al., 2015).
Social skills
CHAPTER 3 and understanding
CHAPTER 13 CHAPTER 14
Biological aspects of interactions
Psychological disordersover
andchildhood show
Socialchildren’s
psychology
SUMMARY Changes in peer and relationships increasing social talents
psychology treatment
and understanding. Social skills, like cognitive skills, are learnt (Rubin et al., 2015). Linkages icons throughout the book are a
•
One of the most basic of these social skills is the ability to engage in sustained, responsive
LINKAGES
L O 1 THINKING CRITICALLY interactions with peers. These interactions require cooperation, sharing and taking turns – behaviours
ABOUT PSYCHOLOGY
quick reminder to consider the bigger picture
Do children perceive
others as adults
• Critical
that first appear in the preschool years. A second social skill that children learn is the ability to detect
thinking is theand correctly
process interpretclaims
of assessing other people’s emotional signals.
or data,Therefore, children’s
representing social performance
the variables of interest. If data are
of psychology as an interrelated discipline.
do? (Aandlinkmaking
to depends
on the on processing information about other people (Fischerthey
& Manstead, 2016).
Chapter 14,SUMMARYjudgements
‘Social A
basis
related set
of well-supported
of social skills involves the ability
to be useful,
to feel what another
must be evaluated
person is feeling, or
for reliability and
something
evidence. validity.
psychology’.)
• Often, questions aboutclose to it (empathy),
behaviour and mentalandprocesses
to respond with comfort • orExplanations
help if the person is in distress.
of phenomena Children
often take who
the form of a
understand another person’s
are phrased in terms of hypotheses about variables that perspective, who appreciate how that person might be
theory, which is a set of statements thatfeeling, andcanwho
be used to
L O 1 THINKING CRITICALLY ABOUT PSYCHOLOGY
have been specified bybehave accordingly
operational tend to be
definitions. the of
Tests most popular members
account of for,
theirpredict
peer group (Rubinsuggest
and even et al., 2015).
waysChildren
of controlling
who do not have these skills are rejected or neglected; they may become bullies or the victims of bullies.
• Critical
hypotheses are based
thinking is theon objective,
process quantifiable
of assessing claimsevidence, certain
or data,phenomena.
representing the variables of interest. If data are
Bullying has attracted intense attention in recent years, not only because its victims often
and making judgements on the basis of well-supported to be useful, they must be evaluated for reliability and
experience reduced self-esteem and depression (Leadbeater, Thompson, & Sukhawathanakul, 2014;
evidence. validity.
66
• Often, questions about behaviour and mental processes • Explanations of phenomena often take the form of a
are phrased in terms of hypotheses about variables that
have been specified by operational definitions. Tests of
theory, which is a set of statements that can be used to xv
Copyright 2021 Cengage Learning. All Rightsaccount Reserved.for, predict and even suggest ways of controlling
May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. WCN 02-200-202
hypotheses are based on objective, quantifiable evidence, certain phenomena.
10_H50875_Bernstein3e_2pp.indd 526 10:42 AM
66

GUIDE TO THE TEXT
END-OF-CHAPTER FEATURES
At the end of each chapter you will find several tools to help you to review, practise and extend your knowledge of the
key learning objectives in the chapter review section.
TA L k I N G P O I N T S
CHAPTER
REVIEW
• Neural plasticity in the CNS, the ability to strengthen Scientists are searching for ways to increase neural
Psychology is the science that seeks to understand behaviour anddamage,
mental processes
including and to the
Review your understanding of the neural connections at its synapses
SUMMARY apply
as well as
that
to establish
understanding
new synapses, forms the basis for learning and memory. in the service
plasticity following
of human
use welfare.
of neural
brain
stem cells.
through
key chapter topics with the summary, LO4 CHEMISTRY OF PSYCHOLOGY

which connects back to the chapter- O 1 THE
• LNeurons thatWORLD OF
use the same PSYCHOLOGY:
neurotransmitter form a AN OVERVIEW
motivation and higher cognitive activities. Both Parkinson’s
opening learning objectives. eurotransmitter system.

•TheThere
concept
areofthree
‘behaviour,
classes social interaction and small
of neurotransmitters: mental • Health
disease and schizophrenia involve a disturbance of
psychologists
dopamine systems.study the relationship
Gamma-amino butyricbetween
acid (GABA)
processes’ is a broad
molecules, peptides one, encompassing
and virtually all
gases. Acetylcholine systems behaviour and health
is an inhibitory and help promote
neurotransmitter healthy
involved in anxiety and
aspects of what it means to be a human being.
in the brain influence memory processes and movement. The goals of lifestyles.
epilepsy. Glutamate is the most common excitatory
psychology are to understand,
Norepinephrine is releasedexplain and predict
by neurons human
whose axons • Educational psychologists
neurotransmitter. conduct
It is involved in and applyand memory
learning
behaviour
spreadin different
widely contextsthe
throughout to brain;
promote it isainvolved
healthy life
in arousal, research
and, inonexcess,
teaching
mayand learning,
cause whereas
neuronal death. school
Endorphins are
andmood
human welfare.
and learning. Serotonin, another widespread psychologists specialise in supporting
peptide neurotransmitters that affect pain and guiding
pathways. Nitric
Because the subjectismatter
neurotransmitter, activeof inpsychology is diverse,mood and
systems regulating teachers
oxide and
and students in an academic
carbon monoxide environment.
are gases that function as
most psychologists
appetite. Dopaminework insystems aresubfields
particular involved within the
in movement, • Social psychologists examine how people influence
neurotransmitters.
discipline: one another’s behaviour, social interactions and
• L OBiological
5 ENDOCRINE psychologists, SYSTEM
also called physiological attitudes, individually and in groups.
psychologists, study topics such as the role played by • Organisational psychologists study ways of increasing
• Like nervous
the brain system cells,
in regulating those of the endocrine system
behaviour. efficiency,
preparesatisfaction
for action inand productivity
times in the
of stress. Hormones also affect
• communicate
Cognitive psychologists
by releasingfocus
a chemical
on basic that signals to
psychological workplace.
brain development, contributing to sex differences in
other cells.such
processes, However, the chemicals
as learning, memoryreleased by endocrine
and perception; • Sport thepsychologists, forensic
brain and behaviour. psychologists
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organs, glands,
they alsoorstudy hormones and are
are calleddecision-making
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involved in the psychologists
control of most exemplify
endocrinesome of
functions. The
by the bloodstream to remote target organs. The target
problem-solving. psychology’s
brain is themany
mainother subfields.
controller. Through the hypothalamus,
• organs
Developmental psychologists
often produce a coordinated
try toresponse
understand, to hormonal Psychologists
it controls theoften work ingland,
pituitary morewhich
than one subfield
in turn controls
stimulation.
describe andOne of these
explore responses is the
the development fight-or-flight
of behaviour, and usually shareorgans
endocrine knowledge
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body. The braininismany
also a target
syndrome, which and
social interaction is triggered by adrenalover
mental processes hormones that
a lifetime. subfields. Psychologists
organ also draw
for most endocrine on and contribute to
secretions.
• Personality psychologists focus on people’s unique knowledge in other disciplines, such as computer science,
characteristics. economics and law.
• Clinical psychologists and counselling psychologists Psychologists use the methods of science to conduct
CHAPTER REFERENCES
provide direct service to people and conduct research research. This means that they perform experiments
TALKING
on challenging behaviours. and use other scientific procedures
Here are a few talking points to help you summarise this chapter for family to systematically
and friends without
• Community POINTS
psychologists work givingwith communities
a lecture: gather and analyse information about psychological
and focus on prevention by promoting resilience and phenomena.
people’s strengths.
1 Biological TALKING
processes shape us, Here but they
are ado not
few enslave
talking us; addiction
points may
to help you have a biological
summarise basis,forbut
this chapter people
family andwith addictions
friends withoutcan
overcome their
LO2
POINTS habits.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY
giving a lecture:
Consolidate your learning by 2 If any part of the nervous system is damaged, the ability normally handled by that part will be impaired or destroyed.
1TheThe
3 Our five senses
founding
nervous give does
of system
modern us a personal
not haveisversion
psychology usually
the ofmarked
abilityreality,
assonew
to form everyone experiences
should
neurons; the
study how
however, world a little bitneurons
consciousness
through plasticity differently.
helps ushave
adaptthe
to ability to
considering the chapter talking points 1879,
2 Howwhen Wilhelm
willstructure
change Wundt
our senses established
andbefunction.
impacted by the first psychology
technology? our environments. In 1913, John B. Watson founded
research laboratory. Wundt studied consciousness in a behaviourism, arguing that to be scientific, psychologists
section. How would you explain these 3 There
4 As in other
are was
manner that
animals,
reflexes in chemicals
the by
expanded nervouscalled
Edward
pheromones
system thatinto
Titchener
can
allowan affect
us to reacthumans,
soshouldbuttothey
quickly do notpain
studyaonly
sudden serve as strong
that
the behaviour we sexual
cancan
they escapeattractants,
danger no
theprivate
see, not even
matterhe
before what
our perfume
brains knowmakers suggest.
about it.
points to friends and family? approach
4
5 Unlike
called
thataSigmund
Brain-scanning
1800s
structuralism.
video camera
Freud,that
techniques,
It was also in the late
dispassionately
such asbegan
in Vienna, hisrecords
functional ofevents,
magnetic
study the resonance
mental events. Behaviourism dominated psychology
our perceptions
imaging,ofbut
for decades, thepsychologists
provideworld arepictures
clear notare
fixed
of and
oncethe objective.
brain
again They
and its
studying are
activity
affected
but
unconscious,bywhile
are not our past experience,
necessarily
in the our wants
able toStates,
United pinpoint the and
William needs,
exact
James our of
location
took expectations,
particular and the
thoughts
consciousness in situations
form ofincognitive
or feelings.
the which weprocesses.
find ourselves.
the functionalist
5 Each
Because approach, suggesting that psychologists
6 sideperception
of the brain depends to some
is somewhat extent
better onthe
than experience, peopletasks,
other at some frombut
different cultures
both sides may
can do differ
most in their
things well;sensitivity
people aretonot
certain
optical illusions.or ‘left-brained’ in the way they are right-handed or left-handed.
‘right-brained’
L O 3 APPROACHES TO THE SCIENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY
6 Can we truly multitask? When we are concentrating on one thing, we may become blind to other important
7 The brain can change in response to damage or experience; piano lessons can increase the number of brain cells devoted toinformation. Limits
on our for
Psychologists
touch, ability to divide
differ
example.in theirattention between
approaches tasks make
to psychology; that • to
it dangerous text or talk on
Psychologists whoa mobile
take thephone while driving.
behavioural approach view
is, in their assumptions, questions and research methods: behaviour as determined primarily by learning based on
8 Neurotransmitters play a significant role in emotions and memory as well as Alzheimer’s disease.
• The biological approach focuses on how physiological experiences with rewards and punishments.
processes shape behaviour and mental processes.
FURTHER Now that you have finished reading this chapter, how about exploring some of the topics and
READING information that you found most interesting. Here are some places to start:
117
31
J. Richard Block and Harold Yuker, Can You Believe Your Richard L. Gregory and Andrew M. Colman (Eds.), Oliver Sacks, Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of
Eyes? (Gardner Press, 1989) – more illusions and visual Sensation and Perception (Longman, 1995) – the the Deaf (Vintage, 2000) – how deaf people experience
oddities. senses and psychophysics. the world.
Chandler Burr, The117
03_H50875_Bernstein3e_1pp.indd Emperor of Scent (Random House, Richard L. Gregory and J. Harris (Eds.), The Artful Eye Roger Shepard, Mind Sights (Freeman, 1990) – visual
5/30/20 3:56 PM
2003) – about the perfume industry and a scientist (Oxford University Press, 1995) – visual perception. illusions and ambiguous figures.
who is testing a new theory of smell. Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat Adams, R. J., Courage, M. L., & Mercer, M. E. (1991).
Richard Cytowic, The Man Who Tasted Shapes (MIT Press, (Touchstone Books, 1998) – descriptions of patients Deficiencies in human neonates’ color vision:
2003) – about synaesthesia, a condition in which with sensory and perceptual disorders. Photoreceptoral and neural explanations. Behavioral
Extend your understanding through senses are mixed. Brain Research, 43, 109–114.
the suggested further reading and and cognition in infancy: Carnegie Mellon symposia on modulates pain in humans using functional MRI. Brain,
extensive references list relevant to CHAPTER cognition (pp. 215–234). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. 125, 310–319.
REFERENCES Assefi, N. P., Sherman, K. J., Jacobsen, C., Goldberg,

J., Smith, W. R., & Buchwald, D. (2005). A randomized
Bargary, G., Barnett, K. J., Mitchell, K. J., & Newell, F. N.
(2009). Colored-speech synaesthesia is triggered
each chapter. clinical trial of acupuncture compared with sham
acupuncture in fibromyalgia. Annals of Internal
by multisensory, not unisensory, perception.
Psychological Science, 20, 529–533.
Adams, W. J., Graf, E. W., & Ernst, M. O. (2004). Experience Medicine, 143, 10–19. Bartoshuk, L. M. (1991). Taste, smell, and pleasure. In R. C.
can change the ‘light from above’ prior. Nature Australian Bureau of Statistics (2017). First results of Bollef (Ed.), The hedonics of taste (pp. 15–28). Hillsdale,
Neuroscience, 7, 1057–1058. National Health survey. Retrieved from http:www.abs. NJ: Erlbaum.
Anderson, B. L. (2004). The role of occlusion in the gov.au4363 Bartoshuk, L. M. (2000). Comparing sensory experiences
perception of depth, lightness, and opacity. Australian Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Cities across individuals: Recent psychophysical advances
Psychological Review, 110, 785–801. and Regional Development (2019). Australian Road illuminate genetic variation in taste perception.
Andrew, D., & Craig, A. D. (2001). Spinothalamic lamina I Deaths Database. Retrieved from https://www.bitre. Chemical Senses, 25, 447–460.
neurons selectively sensitive to histamine: A central gov.au/statistics/safety/fatal_road_crash_database. Bartoshuk, L. M., Duffy, V. B., Hayes, J. E., Moskowitz, H. R.,
neural pathway for itch. Nature Neuroscience, 4, 72–77. aspx & Snyder, D. J. (2006). Psychophysics of sweet and fat
Angelaki, D. E., & Cullen, K. E. (2008). Vestibular system: Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet (2019). Overview perception in obesity: Problems, solutions and new
The many faces of a multimodal sense. Annual Review of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health perspectives. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
of Neuroscience, 31, 125–150. status, 2018. Perth, WA: Australian Indigenous Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 361(1471),
Arle, J. E., & Shils, J. L. (2008). Motor cortex stimulation HealthInfoNet. 1137–1148.
for pain and movement disorders. Neurotherapeutics, Balcetis, E., & Dunning, D. (2010). Wishful seeing: More Bartoshuk, L. M., Fast, K., & Snyder, D. J. (2005).
5(1), 37–49. desired objects are seen as closer. Psychological Differences in our sensory worlds: Invalid comparisons
Arterberry, M. E., Craton, L. G., & Yonas, A. (1993). Infants’ Science, 21, 147–152. with labeled scales. Current Directions in Psychological
sensitivity to motion-carried information for depth and Bantick, S. J., Wise, R. G., Ploghaus, A., Clare, S., Smith, Science, 14, 122–125.
object properties. In C. Granrud (Ed.), Visual perception S. M., & Tracey, I. (2002). Imaging how attention
187
xvi

Guide to the online resources
FOR THE INSTRUCTOR
Cengage is pleased to provide you with a selection of resources that will

help you prepare your lectures and assessments. These teaching tools
are accessible via cengage.com.au/instructors for Australia
or cengage.co.nz/instructors for New Zealand.
MINDTAP
Premium online teaching and learning tools are available on the MindTap platform, the personalised eLearning solution.
MindTap is a flexible and easy-to-use platform that helps to build student confidence and gives you a clear picture of
their progress. We partner with you to ease the transition to digital – we’re with you every step of the way.
The Cengage Mobile App puts your course directly into the students’ hands with course materials available on their
smartphone or tablet. Students can read on the go, complete practice quizzes or participate in interactive real-time
activities.
MindTap for Bernstein’s Psychology: Australia and New Zealand 3rd Edition is full of innovative resources to support
critical thinking that will help your students move from memorisation to mastery! It includes:
• Bernstein’s Psychology: Australia and New Zealand 3rd Edition eBook
• polling questions and chapter quizzes
• mastery training
• apply psychology: problems
• virtual labs
• animations
• watch-and-respond video quizzes.
MindTap is a premium purchasable eLearning tool. Contact your
Cengage learning consultant to find out how MindTap can transform your
course.
INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL
The instructor’s manual includes:
• learning objectives • class activities
• key terms • active learning activities
• chapter outlines • critical thinking activities.
COGNERO TEST BANK

A bank of questions has been developed in conjunction with the text for creating quizzes, tests and exams for your
students. Create multiple test versions in an instant and deliver tests from your LMS, your classroom, or wherever you
want, using Cognero. Cognero test generator is a flexible online system that allows you to import, edit, and manipulate
content from the text’s test bank or elsewhere, including your own favourite test questions.
xvii

GUIDE TO THE ONLINE RESOURCES
POWERPOINT™ PRESENTATIONS
Use the chapter-by-chapter PowerPoint slides to enhance your lecture presentations and handouts by reinforcing
the key principles of your subject.
ARTWORK FROM THE TEXT

Add the digital files of graphs, tables, pictures and flow charts into your LMS, use them in student handouts, or
copy them into your lecture presentations.
FOR THE STUDENT
MINDTAP
MindTap is the next-level online learning tool that helps you get better grades! MindTap gives you the resources you
need to study, all in one place and available when you need them. In the MindTap Reader, you can make notes, highlight
text and even find a definition directly from the page.
If your instructor has chosen MindTap for your subject this semester, log in to MindTap to:
• get better grades
• save time and get organised
• connect with your instructor and peers
• study when and where you want, online and mobile
• complete assessment tasks as set by your instructor.
When your instructor creates a course using MindTap, they will let you know your course link so you can access the
content. Please purchase MindTap only when directed by your instructor. Course length is set by your instructor.
xviii

PREFACE
Welcome to Psychology, the third Australia and New Zealand Preparing this edition provided us with the opportunity
edition. to adapt the information presented to ensure its relevance to
Studying psychology is both exciting and rewarding – our lives. The book includes regional examples to highlight
it’s the beginning of a journey which may take you down many of the psychological principles explained. We
diverse pathways. In our experience, most students worked collaboratively and sought regional representation,
enter the introductory course thinking that psychology including consulting with Indigenous Australian and New
concerns itself mainly with personality, psychological Zealand academics, to ensure substantial coverage of the
testing, mental disorders, psychotherapy and other material presented.
aspects of clinical psychology. They have little or no
idea of how broad and multifaceted psychology can be. Chapter organisation
So many students are surprised when we ask them to We have designed each chapter to be a freestanding unit
read about neuroanatomy, neural communication, the so that your instructors may assign chapters in any order
endocrine system, sensory and perceptual processes and desired. For example, many instructors prefer to teach
principles, prenatal risk factors and many other topics the material on human development relatively late in the
that they tend to associate with disciplines other than course, which is why it appears as Chapter 10. However,
psychology. that chapter can be comfortably assigned earlier in the
Introductory texts in psychology present an opportunity course as well.
to discover the reasons behind human behaviour and to
address the issues which impact upon this behaviour. As Linkages
you work your way through this text, you will not only gain Many students decide to study psychology through a
psychological knowledge but also develop skills with which personal desire to help people. While this is one aspect
to evaluate human behaviour. We build on the Bernstein of the profession, psychology is much broader and more
tradition; specifically, we endeavour to: multifaceted. This introductory course in psychology
• explore the full range of psychology, from cell to society, will raise your awareness of the many different fields of
in a manner as free as possible of theoretical bias psychology and provide examples of where psychological
• balance our need to explain the content of psychology knowledge has been of assistance to other disciplines. To
with an emphasis on the doing of psychology, through help you see these relationships, we have built into the book
a blend of conceptual discussion and description of an integrated ‘Linkages’ tool.
research studies Thinking critically
• foster scientific attitudes and help you to learn to think We describe research on psychological phenomena in a
critically by examining the ways in which psychologists way that reveals the logic of the scientific enterprise,
have solved, or failed to solve, fascinating puzzles of identifies possible flaws in design or interpretation, and
behaviour and mental processes leaves room for more questions and further research.
• produce a text that, without oversimplifying We try to display these critical thinking processes in
psychology, is clear, accessible and enjoyable to read ‘Thinking critically’ and ‘Focus on research methods’
• demonstrate that, in spite of its breadth and diversity, sections, as well as throughout the main text. The
psychology is an integrated discipline in which ability to think critically is both a graduate attribute
each subfield is linked to other subfields by common and a fundamental component of psychological literacy.
interests and overarching research questions – the As first-year psychology students, you will have the
connection between social, clinical, biological and opportunity to substantially develop this capacity,
cultural psychologists in researching health and illness which should serve you well throughout your lifetime in
is just one example of how psychologists from different personal, professional and global contexts.
subfields benefit from and build on one another’s work
• provide opportunities to apply your reading and An emphasis on active learning
learning The many figure and photo ‘Try this’ symbols help you
• focus learning within the context of graduate to understand and remember a psychological principle
competencies as accepted by the discipline in Australia or phenomenon by suggesting ways in which you can
and New Zealand as well as internationally demonstrate it for yourself. In ‘Memory’, for example,
• focus on developing your psychological literacy, to a ‘Snapshot’ caption asks you to write a step-by-step
enable you to better understand and evaluate presented description of how to tie shoelaces to illustrate the operation
evidence. of procedural memory.
xix

P R E FA C E
‘Try this’ symbols also appear in page margins at the principle or phenomenon under discussion. For example, in
many places throughout the book where active learning Chapter 4 (‘Sensation and perception’) we ask you to focus
is encouraged. At these points, we ask you to stop reading attention on various targets as a way of appreciating the
and actually do something to illustrate the psychological difference between overt and covert shifts in attention.
xx

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Douglas A. Bernstein is Professor Emeritus at the University Stephen Provost has been a psychology educator in a
of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, where he served for variety of institutions for more than 30 years. He has
many years as director of the introductory psychology taught learning, memory, perception, psychopharmacology,
program. He is currently affiliated as Courtesy Professor statistics and a variety of topics in experimental psychology.
of Psychology at the University of South Florida and a He has a strong interest in the appropriate use of technology
Visiting Professor of Psychology at the University of in teaching. He held grants from the Committee for the
Southampton in the UK. Dr Bernstein chairs the Program Advancement of University Teaching in 1993 and 1995, the
Committee of the National Institute on the Teaching of first relating to the development of courseware/simulation
Psychology (NITOP) and is the Founder of the Association software, and the second relating to the use of hypertext
for Psychological Science’s Preconference Institute on the in teaching. He has been involved in a number of projects
Teaching of Psychology. In 2002 he received the American funded by the Australian Universities Teaching Committee
Psychological Foundation’s award for Distinguished and the Australian Learning and Teaching Council,
Teaching in Psychology. including acting as the Project Officer for the Disciplinary
Review of Psychology (Lipp, O., Terry, D., Chalmers, D., Bath,
D., Hannan, G., Martin, F., … Provost, S. [2007]. Learning
Julie Ann Pooley is a Professor of Psychology at Edith
Outcomes and Curriculum Development in Psychology. Sydney:
Cowan University, in the School of Arts and Humanities.
Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher
Julie Ann is a passionate educator who was awarded an
Education. Retrieved from http://www.olt.gov.au/resource-
Australian Award for University Teaching in 2003 and a
learning-outcomes-psychology-uq-2006). He received the
Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning
Australian Psychological Society Award for Distinguished
in 2011 from the Australian Learning and Teaching Council.
Contribution to Psychological Education in 2010.
Currently, Julie Ann is also the Associate Dean Teaching
and Learning for the School of Arts and Humanities. She
has published and presented her research work at the local, Jacquelyn Cranney (Honorary Professor, UNSW) has
national and international levels. Julie Ann’s research extensive undergraduate teaching experience, for which
focus is on resilience and well-being of individuals and she has won numerous UNSW, national and international
communities. awards. She has published research on student learning
and motivation, and on psychology education. She
has contributed to and led national and international
Lynne Cohen AM is an Australian Learning and Teaching
psychology education committees as well as communities
Council Fellow and a Fellow of the Australian Psychological
of practice for psychology educators. She has attracted
Society with an interest in developing leadership in
several UNSW and National education Fellowships and
undergraduate students. She has received numerous awards
grants, through which she and her colleagues have driven
for learning and teaching. She is a retired Professor of
nation-wide change in terms of undergraduate students
Psychology and currently holds an honorary appointment at
learning to apply evidence-based psychological strategies in
Edith Cowan University. Lynne is a community psychologist
their diverse career destinations. Jacky is a fervent believer
and brings many years of experience in resiliency research
in George Miller’s (1969) exhortation to ‘give psychology
with children and university students. She has successfully
away’, particularly through providing opportunities to
developed transition programs which empower students
undergraduate students to develop psychological literacy
and positively impact on their experience and outcomes. She
(= the intentional application of psychological science to
has led a number of interdisciplinary research teams and is
meet personal, professional and societal needs), a part of
committed to a collaborative model involving community
which is evidence-based self-management (= the capacity
organisations. Lynne developed and implemented a literacy
to effectively pursue valued goals, and to be flexible in the
program for children with learning difficulties and has
face of setbacks).
trained a team of teachers to provide a service for students
with learning difficulties. She is involved with the ‘We
Are Here Foundation’ to teach children and adults to be Neil Drew is Director of the Australian Indigenous
upstanders and not bystanders when they come across HealthInfoNet at Edith Cowan University. Neil has more
injustice. Together with colleagues, she was instrumental in than 30 years’ experience working with a diverse range
establishing the Lifespan Resilience Research Group at Edith of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities
Cowan University. and groups, initially in Queensland and more recently in
Western Australia. Neil has a career long commitment to
xxi

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
community psychology research and practice. His long- Contributors

term involvement to the discipline has been of enormous
The authors and Cengage would like to extend our thanks
value in his role as program head and co-founder of the
Dr Uncle Mick Adams for his cultural review and guidance
Wundargoodie Aboriginal Youth and Community Wellbeing
in the development of the ‘Culture and psychology’ and
Program, which promotes wellness and suicide prevention
‘Indigenous psychology’ chapters, and for his general advice
with young Aboriginal people in the East Kimberley region
on cultural and Indigenous content throughout the book.
of Western Australia. In his current role Neil has a strong
Uncle Mick is a respected Aboriginal Elder and a social
interest in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health
worker with over 50 years’ experience as an Indigenous
knowledge exchange, which is concerned with the way that
health sector leader in Australia.
knowledge is acquired, activated and used in the everyday
We would also like to thank Bethanie Gouldthorp and
practice of health professionals.
Graeme Gower for their contributions to earlier editions of
this text.
xxii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors and Cengage would like to thank the following • Rabiul Islam, Charles Sturt University
reviewers for their incisive and helpful feedback: • Linda Jones, Massey University
• Mary Turnbull, Cairnmillar Institute • Diana Karamacoska, University of Wollongong
• Mir Rabiul Islam, Charles Sturt University • Evita March, Federation University
• Dr Mitchell Longstaff, Southern Cross University • Mariann Martsin, Queensland University of Technology
• Anthony Crook, The University of Notre Dame Australia • Kimberley Norris, University of Tasmania
• Carly Pymont, University of Canberra • Tania Signal, Central Queensland University
• Danielle Wagstaff, Federation University Australia We would also like to thank the following contributors of
• Dr Rachael Fox, Charles Sturt University Appendix B ‘Searching psychology databases’:
• Mervyn Jackson, RMIT University • Alfred Allan, Edith Cowan University
• Mathew Marques, La Trobe University • Paul Chang, Edith Cowan University
• Elissa Pearson, UniSA • Justin Gaetano, Southern Cross University
• Tom Beesley, University of New South Wales • Jann Small, Southern Cross University
• Dimity Crisp, University of Canberra • Craig Speelman, Edith Cowan University
• Amanda George, University of Canberra • Mark Stoney, Edith Cowan University
• Trevor Hine, Griffith University • Margie Wallin, Southern Cross University.
xxiii

1
CHAPTER
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: APPLYING PSYCHOLOGY
L O 1 O1define psychology 1 Psychologists are able to work in a variety
L O 2 understand the history of psychology of settings, such as mental health facilities,
L O 3 L describe the different approaches to the science of schools, private practice, and so forth. What
psychology are some other settings for which psychology
L O 4 4 understand the diversity of psychology provides an excellent background?
L O 5 5 develop an awareness of the knowledge, skills and 2 Can studying psychology equip you with skills
values that reflect the science and application of such as good oral and written communication
psychology, and the possible career pathways in skills and numeracy skills, well-developed
psychology. computer skills, the ability to find and research
information, and environmental awareness?
iStock/Getty Images Plus/primipil

I N T R O D U C T I O N 3
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 enable
you to work in many different fields. In addition, some people choose to pursue postgraduate studies
and become registered psychologists. In this book, we endeavour to provide you with the knowledge
to consider different pathways for your future studies and employment.
The following are examples of people who have applied the skills and knowledge they gained in
their study of psychology to their role in the workplace:
• Nadine completed an undergraduate degree in psychology and then decided to seek employment
before pursuing further studies. She worked in events management, where she was able to
effectively use her excellent oral and written communication skills, knowledge of human
behaviour, and problem-solving ability in a timely and ethical manner. After a year in the workforce,
Nadine decided to study counselling at a postgraduate level.
• Mary has a passion for supporting migrant and refugee communities and groups. After graduating
with her undergraduate degree in psychology she obtained work in her local migrant resource
centre supporting immigrants and refugees to settle in Australia.
• As an Aboriginal man Dennis was determined to make a difference to the health outcomes of his
community in remote Western Australia. After completing his undergraduate degree in psychology
he undertook further training as an Aboriginal Health Practitioner and obtained work in the
Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Service in his home community.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Following completion of her honours degree in psychology, Eleanor went on to do a PhD, during
which she completed ground-breaking 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.
These people 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. Whatever your eventual career choice, we think you will benefit from
the deeper understanding of human behaviour learnt during your study of psychology. 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 competencies of the Accreditation Standards for Psychology Programs (Standards) and
the Accreditation Standards: Graduate Competencies. The Australian Psychology Accreditation
Council (APAC) is the accrediting authority for psychology programs (APAC, 2019a). The graduate
competencies are divided into foundational competencies for those undertaking a Bachelor
degree in psychology, pre-professional competencies for those taking a fourth-year level program
such as an Honours degree, and professional competencies at a Masters or Professional Doctoral
01_H50875_Bernstein3e_txt.indd 3 14/08/20 5:50 PM

4 CHAPTER 1 > INTRODUCING PSYCHOLOGY
degree level. An important aspect of this text is the focus on using psychological knowledge,
and the development of psychological literacy, which we discuss further toward the end of this
chapter.
1.1 THE WORLD OF PSYCHOLOGY: AN OVERVIEW

psychology the science that Psychology is the science that seeks to understand human behaviour, social interaction and mental
seeks to understand behaviour processes, taking into account physical attributes and interaction with the environment. Generally, the
and mental processes and to goals of psychology are to understand, explain and predict human behaviour in different contexts to
apply that understanding in the
service of human welfare promote a healthy life and human welfare.
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 complete 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. And of course, psychology is interested in the ways that people interact and engage with one
another. We are not just the sum total of our behaviour and mental processes. People are inherently
social (for more see Chapter 14 on social psychology).
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
positive psychology a field right, on the things that make life most worth living, has become known as positive psychology
of research that focuses on (Donaldson & Rao, 2017; Lopez, Pedrotti, & Snyder, 2014), and you will see many examples of it in
people’s positive experiences the research described throughout this book.
and characteristics, such
as happiness, optimism and
resilience
Subfields of psychology
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 that have been endorsed (that is, recognised) by the
Psychology Board of Australia, and that 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 47 special interest groups (e.g., 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 that members may join:

1.1 > T h e w o r l d o f ps y c h o l o g y: a n o v e r v i e w 5
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. If you are fully registered with one society,
you will be able to apply to register with the other society. 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.
We will now 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. Bear in mind though, that use of the term ‘psychologist’
to describe yourself is restricted to those who satisfy the requirement of the Psychology Board of
Australia for registration and practice, otherwise you will be in breach of the Health Practitioner
Regulation National Law Act 2009.
Biological psychology
Biological psychologists, also called physiological psychologists, use high-tech scanning devices
and other methods to study how biological processes in the brain affect, and are affected by,
behaviour and mental processes (see Figure 1.1). Have you ever had the odd feeling that a new biological psychologists
experience, such as entering an unfamiliar house, has actually happened to you before? Biological psychologists who analyse
the biological factors
psychologists studying this illusion of déjà vu (French for ‘already seen’) suggest that it may be
influencing behaviour and
due to a temporary malfunction in the brain’s ability to combine incoming information from mental processes; also called
the senses, creating the impression of two ‘copies’ of a single event (Brown, 2004). In Chapter 3, physiological psychologists
‘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
TRY THIS Stop reading for a moment and look left and right. Your ability to follow this suggestion, to
recognise whatever you saw, and to understand the words you are reading right now are the result of cognitive psychologists
mental, or cognitive, abilities. Those abilities allow you to receive information from the outside world, psychologists whose research
understand it and act on it. Cognitive psychologists study mental abilities such as sensation and focuses on analysis of the
perception, learning and memory, thinking, consciousness, intelligence and creativity. Cognitive mental processes underlying
judgement, decision-making,
psychologists have found, for example, that we do not just receive incoming information – we mentally problem-solving, imagining
manipulate it. Notice that the drawing in Figure 1.2 stays physically the same, but two different and other aspects of human
versions emerge, depending on which of its features you emphasise. thought or cognition

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 psychologists special interest is engineering psychology – also known as human factors – has helped designers
psychologists who study human create computer keyboards, mobile phones, MP3 players, websites, aircraft instrument panels, car
factors in the use of equipment navigation systems, nuclear power plant controls, and even TV remotes that are more logical, easier to
and help designers create better
versions of that equipment use and less likely to cause errors. You will read more about human factors research and many other
aspects of cognitive psychology in several chapters of this book.
Developmental psychology
developmental Developmental psychologists describe the changes in behaviour and mental processes that
psychologists psychologists occur from birth through old age and try to understand the causes and effects of those changes
who seek to understand, (see Figure 1.3). Their research on the development of memory and other mental abilities, for
describe and explore how
example, is used by judges and lawyers in deciding how old a child has to be in order to serve as
change over the course of a a reliable witness in court or to responsibly choose which divorcing parent to live with. Chapter 10,
lifetime ‘Human 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 psychology
personality psychologists Personality psychologists study individuality – the unique features that characterise each of us.
psychologists who focus on Using personality tests, some of these psychologists seek to describe how your own combination
people’s unique characteristics of personality traits, like your fingerprints, differs from everyone else’s in terms of traits such as
openness 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 or apply research on the causes and clinical and counselling
treatment of mental health issues and offer services to assist people to overcome those disorders. psychologists psychologists
Research is improving our understanding of the genetic and environmental forces that shape who seek to assess, understand,
modify and prevent behaviour
disorders ranging from anxiety and depression to schizophrenia and autism, and provides guidance disorders
to therapists about which treatment methods are likely to be most effective with each category of community psychologists
disorder. psychologists who work with
Community psychologists focus on the prevention of psychological disorders by promoting all types of communities and
people’s resilience and other personal strengths. They also work with communities, non-government individuals and strive for change
organisations and neighbourhood organisations to reduce crime, poverty and other stressful in social systems
conditions. Community psychologists try to understand the individual and systems interactions, and
work from a preventative systemic orientation. They are experts in needs analysis for communities
at risk, such as immigrant groups and rural and remote communities; community asset mapping of
social capital and related resources; community-generated problem-solving based on collaboration
and social justice; community capacity building to manage change and address risks and threats;
evaluation of psycho-social environments with respect to sense of community, quality of life, social
support networks, resilience, etc.; and social impact assessment related to environmental issues, such
as drought and climate change (Australian Psychological Society, 2019).
Health psychologists study the relationship between risky behaviours, such as smoking or lack of health psychologists
exercise, and the likelihood of suffering health issues, such as heart disease, stroke, cancer or hearing psychologists who study the
loss. They also explore the impact that illnesses, such as diabetes, cancer and multiple sclerosis, can effects of behaviour and mental
processes on health and illness,
have on people’s behaviour, thinking, emotions and family relationships. Their research is applied in
and vice versa
programs that help people to cope 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 (see the Snapshot ‘Getting ready
for surgery’).
Getting ready for surgery SNAPSHOT

Health psychologists have learnt that when
Dorothy Littell Greco/The Image Works

patients are mentally prepared for a surgical
procedure, they are less stressed from
undergoing the procedure and recover more
rapidly. Their research is now routinely applied
in hospitals through programs in which children
and adults are given helpful information about
what to expect before, during and after their
operations.
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 11, ‘Health, stress and
coping’, and in Chapter 13, ‘Psychological disorders and treatment’.
Educational and school psychology

Educational psychologists conduct research and develop theories about teaching and learning. educational psychologists
The results of their work are applied in programs designed to improve teacher training, refine school psychologists who study
curricula, reduce truancy rates, and help students learn more efficiently and remember what they methods by which instructors
teach and students learn, and
learn. For example, they have supported the use of the ‘jigsaw’ technique, a type of classroom who apply their results to
activity in which children from various ethnic groups must work together to complete a task or solve improve those methods
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
teachers and students, assist in and satisfaction in school. They are also involved in activities such as the early detection of students’
identifying students’ academic
challenges and opportunities, mental health issues or concerns, and crisis intervention.
provide counselling to students,
and set up programs to improve
Social psychology
students’ achievement and Social psychologists study the ways in which people socially interact with those around them, how
aspirational growth they think about themselves and others, and how people influence one another. Their research on
social psychologists persuasion has been applied to the creation of safe-sex advertising campaigns designed to stop
psychologists who study how the spread of AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) or quit smoking campaigns. Social
people influence one another’s
behaviour, social interactions
in groups that although we may pride ourselves on not being prejudiced, we may actually hold unconscious
Chapter 14, ‘Social psychology’, describes these and many other examples of research in social
psychology.
SNAPSHOT Got a match?

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
identify personality dimensions that influence how well two people are
suited to one another.
eHarmony
organisational
psychologists psychologists Organisational psychology
who study ways to improve
efficiency, productivity and
sport psychologists and employee selection methods. Learning more about how businesses and organisations work – or
psychologists who explore fail to work – allows organisational psychologists to make evidence-based recommendations to help
the relationships between businesses work better. Today, companies all over the world are applying research from organisational
athletic performance and
psychology to promote the development of positive organisational behaviour. The results include
forensic psychologists and reasonable evaluation tools, and incentive systems that motivate and reward outstanding
selection, evaluate defendants’
trial, and deal with other issues Our list of psychology’s subfields is still not complete. Sport psychologists use visualisation and
involving psychology and the law relaxation training programs to help athletes reduce excessive anxiety, focus attention and make
environmental other changes that let them perform at their best. Forensic psychologists (see the Snapshot ‘Linking
psychology and law’) may assist police and other agencies in understanding criminals, evaluating
physical environment on the mental competence of defendants, providing psychological reports for court processes, and
behaviour and mental processes performing many other tasks related to psychology and the law. Environmental psychologists
cultural and cross-cultural study the effects of the environment on people’s behaviour and mental processes. The results of
psychologists psychologists their research are applied by architects and interior designers as they plan or remodel university
who help us to better residences, shopping malls, auditoriums, hospitals, prisons, offices and other spaces to make them
understand the way culture
more comfortable and functional for the people who will occupy them. Cultural and cross-cultural
affects our lives and to better
understand our, and others’, psychologists study the interactions between differing cultural groups. This is increasingly important
place in the world in a globalised world where people are travelling more and encountering people from a wide range of

1 .1 > T h e w o r l d o f ps y c h o l o g y: a n o v e r v i e w 9
countries and cultural backgrounds. Cultural psychologists can also help us to better understand the
experiences of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers as they work to build new lives for themselves,
often in places that are very unfamiliar to them.
Linking psychology and law SNAPSHOT

Forensic psychologists research the types of
training required to appropriately carry out an
iStock/Getty Images Plus/Ogdum

investigative interview in the context of courts of
law. With high representations of Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander people 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 (https://www.psychology.org.au) and
the New Zealand Psychological Society (https://www.psychology.org.nz).
Where do the psychologists in all these subfields work? Table 1.1 contains a summary of where
the approximately 24 000 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. As we noted earlier, many people who study psychology do not become
psychologists. Psychology courses also provide excellent background for students planning to enter medicine, law, business, teaching
and many other fields.
Percentage of psychologists Work setting Typical activities
Universities and Teaching, research and writing, often in collaboration
professional schools with colleagues from other disciplines
Mental health facilities Testing and treatment of children and adults
(e.g., hospitals, clinics,
counselling centres)
Private practice Testing and treatment of children and adults;
Other:
6.4% (alone or in a group of consulting with business and other organisations
psychologists)
Business, etc.:
5.8% Business, government Testing potential employees; assessing employee
and other organisations satisfaction; identifying and resolving conflicts; improving
leadership skills; offering stress management and other
Education:
Mental health employee assistance programs; improving equipment
32.4%
facilities: design to maximise productivity and prevent accidents
19.2%
Schools (including Testing mental abilities and other characteristics;
those for intellectually identifying children with problems; consulting with
Private practice: Schools: disabled and emotionally parents; designing and implementing programs to
33.1% 3.1% disturbed children) improve academic performance
Community organisations Working with community groups and organisation to enhance
and not for profit (including community resilience; developing prevention programs and
local government) other community initiatives to enhance quality of life
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
Source: Employment characteristics of APA members by membership status, 2015.

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. For example, when developmental psychologists
study the changes that take place in children’s thinking skills, their research is linked to the research of
cognitive psychologists, and particularly social 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. Cultural psychologists
work closely with clinical and counselling psychologists to provide support for cultural groups in our
diverse society. 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 as a whole. Each chapter has a special Linkages section
subfields as you read this book, you will come away not that discusses the ties between material covered in the
only with threads of knowledge about each subfield but chapter, or the interrelation with another psychological
also with an appreciation of the fabric of psychology subfield.
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCING PSYCHOLOGY
Can subliminal messages Does psychotherapy work? What makes some people
help you lose weight? so aggressive?
CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER 13 CHAPTER 14

Sensation and perception Psychological disorders and Social psychology
treatment
The questions listed in this diagram highlight just three of the many ways in which psychology’s subfields are linked
to one another.

To understand psychology as a whole, it is essential 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
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
one of the questions in each diagram by discussing it in a special ‘Linkages’ section. If you follow the
linkages in these diagrams, the relationships among psychology’s many subfields will become much
clearer. We hope that you find this kind of detective work to be interesting and that it will lead you to
look for the many other linkages that we did not mention. Tracing linkages might even improve your
results in the course, because it is often easier to remember material in one chapter by relating it to
linked material in other chapters.
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
APPLYING
researchers from other disciplines. For example, psychologists are working with computer
PSYCHOLOGY
scientists to create artificial intelligence systems that can recognise voices, solve problems and Psychologists are able
make decisions in ways that will equal or exceed human capabilities (Haynes, Cohen, & Ritter, to work in a variety of
2009; Wang, 2007). Psychologists are also collaborating with specialists in neuroanatomy, settings, such as mental
neurophysiology, neurochemistry, genetics and other disciplines in the field known as health facilities, schools,
neuroscience (see the Snapshot ‘Professor Harry Ellie Reef’). The goal of this multidisciplinary
private practice, and so
research enterprise is to examine the structure and function of the nervous system in animals and
forth. What are some
humans at levels ranging from the individual cell to overt behaviour.
Many of the links between psychology and other disciplines appear when research conducted
other settings for which
in one field is applied in the other. For example, biological psychologists are learning about psychology provides an
the brain with scanning devices developed by computer scientists, physicists and engineers. excellent background?
Physicians and economists are using research by psychologists to better understand the
thought processes that influence decisions (both good and bad) about caring for patients and
neuroscience the
choosing investments. In fact, in 2002 the psychologist Daniel Kahneman won a Nobel prize in scientific study of all levels
economics for his work in this area. Other psychologists’ research on investigative interviewing of the nervous system,
has influenced how professionals in criminal investigations gather evidence in court proceedings including neuroanatomy,
(Powell, 2002). Psychological studies of the effects of ageing and brain disorders on people’s neurochemistry, neurology,
neurophysiology and
vision, hearing and mental abilities is shaping doctors’ recommendations about whether and
neuropharmacology
when elderly patients should stop driving cars. This book has many examples of other ways
in which psychological theories and research have been applied to health care, law, business,
engineering, architecture, aviation and sports, to name just a few.
Professor Harry Ellie Reef SNAPSHOT

Professor Reef was a neurologist who studied the relationship between
human behaviour and the brain. He was a leading researcher in brain-related
disorders and worked extensively in the field of neuroscience.
He worked in South Africa and Australia with clinical and
neuropsychologists.

IN REVIEW
The world of psychology: an overview
SUBFIELDS FOCUS
Biological Biological factors influencing behaviour and mental processes

Clinical Seeking to assess, understand and change abnormal behaviour
Cognitive The mental processes underlying judgement, decision-making, problem-solving, imagining and other aspects of
human thought or cognition
Cultural Study the interactions between differing cultural groups. Help us to better understand the experiences of
migrants, refugees and asylum seekers as they work to build new live
Developmental Seeking to understand, describe and explore how behaviour and mental processes change over a lifetime
Educational The study methods by which instructors teach and students learn, and who apply their results to improving those
methods
Organisational Ways to improve efficiency, productivity and satisfaction among workers and the organisations that employ them
Social How people influence one another’s behaviour and mental processes, individually and in groups
OTHER
Community Working with communities and individuals to prevent psychological issues by striving for change in social systems
Environmental Effects of the physical environment on behaviour and mental processes
Forensic Issues involving psychology and the law
Health Effects of behaviour and mental processes on health and illness, and vice versa
Personality The characteristics that make individuals similar to or different from one another
CHECK YOUR UNDERSTANDING
1 Psychology is the science that seeks to understand , social and

processes, taking into account attributes and the interaction with the
.
2 Cognitive psychologists focus on of the mental processes underlying judgement,

-making, -solving, imagining, and other aspects of human thought and
.
3 Clinical psychologists seek to assess, , modify and behaviour disorders.
4 Social psychologists study how people influence one another’s , social and
, individually and in .
5 Cultural and cross-cultural psychologists help us to better understand the way affects our lives
and can help us to better understand ours and others in the world.
6 Community psychologists work with all types of and and strive for
in social systems.

1. 2 > A b r i e f h i st o r y o f ps y c h o l o g y 13
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 have 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 have even debated whether it is possible to study such things scientifically.
A philosophical view known as empiricism was particularly important to the development of
scientific psychology. Beginning in the 1600s, proponents of empiricism – especially the British
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 almost 140 years, empiricism has guided psychologists in seeking knowledge about
behaviour and mental processes through observations governed by the rules of science, rather than
speculation.
Wundt and the structuralism of Titchener

The ‘official’ birth date of modern psychology in the Western philosophical traditions 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
vision and other sensory and perceptual processes that empiricism identified as the channels through
which human knowledge flows. Fechner’s work was especially valuable because he realised that one could
study these mental processes by observing people’s reactions to changes in sensory stimuli. By exploring,
for example, how much brighter a light must become before we see it as twice as bright, Fechner discovered
complex but predictable relationships between changes in the physical characteristics of stimuli and
changes in our psychological experience of them. Fechner’s approach, which he called psychophysics, paved
the way for much of the research described in Chapter 4, ‘Sensation and perception’.
Wundt, too, used the methods of laboratory science to study sensory–perceptual systems, but the
focus of his work was consciousness, the mental experiences created by these systems. Wundt wanted consciousness the
to describe the basic elements of consciousness, how they are organised, and how they relate to one awareness of external stimuli
another (Schultz & Schultz, 2004). He developed ingenious laboratory methods to study the speed and our own mental activity
of decision-making and other mental events, and in an attempt to observe conscious experience,
Wundt used the technique of introspection, which means ‘looking inward’. After training research
participants in this method, he repeatedly showed a light or made a sound and asked them to describe
the sensations and feelings these stimuli created. Wundt concluded that ‘quality’ (e.g., cold or blue)
and ‘intensity’ (e.g., brightness or loudness) are the two essential elements of any sensation, and that
feelings can be described in 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]’).
Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) SNAPSHOT

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
Alamy/INTERFOTO
to release. Wundt reasoned that the additional response time reflected how long it took to
perceive the colour and decide which hand to move. As noted in Chapter 8, ‘Thought, language
and intelligence’, the logic behind this experiment remains a part of research on cognitive
processes today.

Edward Titchener, an Englishman who studied under Wundt, later used introspection in his
own laboratory at Cornell University (see Figure 1.4). 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.
FIGURE 1.4 A stimulus for introspection

TRY THIS Look at this object and try to ignore what it is. Instead, try to describe
only your conscious experience, such as redness, brightness and roundness, and
how intense and clear the sensations and images are. If you can do this, you would
have been an excellent research assistant in Titchener’s laboratory.
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 do not 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 apparently 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 Germany 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 had 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 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

1. 2 > A b r i e f h i st o r y o f ps y c h o l o g y 15
means universally accepted, partly because they were based on a small number of medical cases,
not on extensive laboratory experiments. Freud also had some interesting things to say about
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that do not stand up to scrutiny today (see Chapter 16
‘Indigenous psychology’). 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 so forth.
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 observed 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
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 approach, 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 (e.g., 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.
Today, we also have a better understanding of the ways that psychological understandings,
theories and methods emerged from a range of intellectual, philosophical and cultural traditions.
This is certainly true of indigenous psychologies (which we discuss in more details later in the
chapter and in Chapter 16, ‘Indigenous psychology’), which draw on everything from Confucianism
to Taoism, Buddhism and Hinduism for their philosophical base. Indigenous psychologies challenge
us to remember that psychological understandings are not just those from the dominant cultural
groups, but can arise in different ways in different cultural settings (Wen li, Hodgetts, & Hean Foo,
2019). Reading about these different psychological traditions provides a fascinating insight into the
development of psychology around the world.
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.

1. 3 > App r o a c h e s t o t h e s c i e n c e o f ps y c h o l o g y 17
IN REVIEW
A brief history of psychology
SCHOOL OF
EARLY ADVOCATES GOALS METHODS
THOUGHT
Structuralism Edward Titchener, trained To study conscious experience and its Experiments; introspection
by Wilhelm Wundt structure
Gestalt Max Wertheimer To describe the organisation of mental Observation of sensory–perceptual phenomena
processes: ‘The whole is different from
the sum of its parts’
Psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud To explain personality and behaviour; Study of individual cases
to develop techniques for treating
mental disorders
Functionalism William James To study how the mind works in Naturalistic observation of animal and human
allowing an organism to adapt to the behaviour
environment
Behaviourism John B. Watson, To study only observable behaviour Observation of the relationship between
B. F. Skinner and explain behaviour through learning environmental stimuli and behavioural responses
principles
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
Why don’t all psychologists explain behaviour in the same way? 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 (e.g., Cacioppo, Berntson, Sheridan, & McClintock, 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.
Biological approach
As its name implies, the biological approach to psychology assumes that behaviour and mental biological approach the
processes are largely shaped by biological processes. Psychologists who take this approach study the view that behaviour is the result
of physical processes, especially
psychological effects of hormones, genes and the activity of the nervous system, especially the brain
those relating to the brain
(see the Snapshot ‘What can brain mapping tell us?’). For example, if they are studying memory, they and to hormones and other
might try to identify the changes taking place in the brain as information is stored there (Figure 7.15, chemicals

in Chapter 7, ‘Memory’, shows an example of these changes). If they are studying thinking, they might
look for patterns of brain activity associated with, for example, making quick decisions or reading a
foreign language.
Research discussed in nearly every chapter of this book reflects the enormous influence of the
biological approach on psychology today. To help you better understand the terms and concepts used
in that research, see Chapter 18 (online), ‘Behavioural genetics’, and Chapter 3, ‘Biological aspects of
psychology’.
SNAPSHOT What can brain mapping tell us?

Science Photo Library/University
of Durhum/Simon Fraser
Biological psychologists are able to provide further

understanding to many areas of psychology, such as
reasoning and decision-making, because of technology’s
increasing sophistication.
Evolutionary approach
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
natural selection the that evolution occurs through natural selection, which promotes the survival of the fittest
evolutionary mechanism individuals. Those whose behaviour and appearance allow them to withstand the elements,
through which Darwin said the avoid predators and mate are able to survive and produce offspring with similar characteristics.
fittest individuals survive to
reproduce 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 characteristics and behaviours that are adaptive
and useful in a certain environment will enable the creatures that inherit them to survive and
reproduce, thereby passing those genes on to the next generation. According to evolutionary
theory, many (but not all) of the genes that animals and humans possess today are the result of
natural selection.
evolutionary approach a The evolutionary approach to psychology assumes that the behaviour and mental processes
view that emphasises the of animals and humans today are also the result of evolution through natural selection.
inherited, adaptive aspects of Psychologists 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 through which genes survive in future generations (Griskevicius et al.,
2009). The evolutionary approach has generated a growing body of research (e.g., Buss, 2009;
Confer et al., 2010); in later chapters, you will see how it is applied in relation to topics such as
helping and altruism, mental disorders, temperament and interpersonal attraction.
Psychodynamic approach
psychodynamic approach The psychodynamic approach to psychology offers a different slant on the role of inherited
a view developed by Freud that instincts and other biological forces in human behaviour. Based on Freud’s psychoanalysis,
emphasises the interplay of
this approach assumes that our behaviour and mental processes reflect constant and mostly
unconscious mental processes
in determining human thought, unconscious psychological struggles within us (see Figure 1.5). Usually, these struggles involve
feelings and behaviour conflict between the impulse to satisfy instincts (e.g., for food, sex or aggression) and the need
to follow the rules of civilised society. For example, psychologists taking the psychodynamic
approach might see aggression as a case of primitive urges overcoming a person’s defences
against expressing those urges. They would see anxiety, depression or other disorders as overt
signs of inner turmoil.
Freud’s original theories are not as influential today as they once were (Mischel, 2004), but you
will encounter modern versions of the psychodynamic approach in other chapters when we discuss
theories of personality (see Chapter 12, ‘Personality’), psychological disorders and psychotherapy (see
Chapter 13, ‘Psychological disorders and treatment’).

1. 3 > App r o a c h e s t o t h e s c i e n c e o f ps y c h o l o g y 19
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 Chapter 12,
‘Personality’, we discuss the value of personality
tests based on this assumption.
Photodisc
Behavioural approach
The assumptions of the behavioural approach to psychology contrast sharply with those of the behavioural approach a
psychodynamic, biological and evolutionary approaches. The behavioural approach is rooted view based on the assumption
that human behaviour is
in the behaviourism of Watson and Skinner, which, as already mentioned, focused entirely on
determined mainly by what
observable behaviour and on how that behaviour is learnt. Accordingly, psychologists who take a person has learnt in life,
a strict behavioural approach concentrate on understanding how past experiences with rewards especially through rewards and
and punishments act on the ‘raw materials’ provided by genes and evolution to shape observable punishments
behaviour into what it is today. 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. Because they believe that behavioural 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?’).
Why is he so aggressive? SNAPSHOT

Psychologists who take a cognitive-behavioural approach suggest that
behaviour is not shaped by rewards and punishments alone. For example,
they say that children’s aggressiveness is learnt partly by being rewarded
(or at least not punished) for aggression but also partly by seeing family
and friends acting aggressively. Furthermore, attitudes and beliefs about
Shutterstock.com/Lopolo
the value and acceptability of aggressiveness can be learnt as children
hear others talk about aggression as the only way to deal with threats,
disagreements and other conflict situations (e.g., 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 learnt
cognitive patterns affect overt behaviour.
cognitive approach a
Cognitive approach way of looking at human
behaviour that emphasises
The growth of the cognitive-behavioural perspective reflects the influence of a broader cognitive view research on how the brain
of psychology. This cognitive approach focuses on how we take in, mentally represent and store takes in information, creates
perceptions, forms and
information; how we perceive and process that information; and how all these cognitive processes
retrieves memories, processes
affect our behaviour. Psychologists who take the cognitive approach study the rapid series of mental information and generates
events – including those outside of awareness – that accompany observable behaviour. For example, integrated patterns of action

in analysing an aggressive incident in a cinema ticket queue, these psychologists would describe
the following series of information-processing events: first, the aggressive person (1) perceived
that someone had cut into the ticket queue, then (2) recalled information stored in memory about
appropriate social behaviour, (3) decided that the other person’s action was inappropriate, (4) labelled
the person as rude and inconsiderate, (5) considered possible responses and their likely consequences,
(6) decided that shoving the person is the best response, and (7) executed that response.
Psychologists who take a cognitive approach focus on these and other mental processes to
understand many kinds of individual and social behaviours, from decision-making and problem-
solving to interpersonal attraction and intelligence, to name but a few. In the situation just described,
for example, the person’s aggression would be seen as the result of poor problem-solving, because
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 (see the Snapshot ‘Cognitive science at work’). 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. Some of their
progress in creating artificial intelligence in computers is described in Chapter 8 ‘Thought, language
and intelligence’.
SNAPSHOT Cognitive science at work

Psychologists and other cognitive scientists are working on
‘computational theories of the mind’ in which they create
computer programs and robotic devices that simulate
how humans process information. Chapter 8 ‘Thought,
Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images
language and intelligence’ describes some of their progress

in creating artificial intelligence in computers that can help
make medical diagnoses and perform other complex tasks,
including the internet searches you perform using Google and
other search engines.
Humanistic approach
humanistic approach the Mental events play a different role in the humanistic approach to psychology (also known as the
view that personality develops phenomenological approach). Psychologists who favour the humanistic perspective see behaviour as
through an actualising tendency determined primarily by each person’s capacity to choose how to think and act. They do not see these
that unfolds in accordance
with each person’s unique
choices as driven by instincts, biological processes, or rewards and punishments but rather by each
perceptions of the world individual’s unique perceptions of the world. Therefore, if you see the world as a friendly place, you
are likely to be optimistic and secure; if you perceive it as full of hostile, threatening people, you will
probably be defensive and fearful.
Like their cognitively oriented colleagues, psychologists who choose the humanistic approach
would see aggression in a cinema queue as stemming from a perception that aggression is justified.
Whereas the cognitive approach leads psychologists to search for laws governing all people’s thoughts
and actions, humanistic psychologists try to understand how each individual’s unique experiences
guide that person’s thoughts and actions. In fact, many who prefer the humanistic approach claim that
because no two people are exactly alike, the only way to understand behaviour and mental processes
is to focus on how they operate in each individual. Humanistic psychologists also believe that people
are essentially good, that they are in control of themselves, and that they have an innate tendency to
grow towards their highest potential.
The humanistic approach began to attract attention in North America in the 1940s through
the 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 12 ‘Personality’, and

1. 4 > Hu m a n d i v e r s i t y a n d ps y c h o l o g y 21
his psychotherapy methods in Chapter 13 ‘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 9, ‘Motivation and emotion’, and Chapter 12, ‘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
Biological Emphasises activity of the nervous system, especially of the brain; the action of hormones and other chemicals;
and genetics
Evolutionary Emphasises the ways in which behaviour and mental processes are adaptive for survival
Psychodynamic Emphasises internal conflicts, mostly unconscious, which usually pit sexual or aggressive instincts against
environmental obstacles to their expression
Behavioural Emphasises learning, especially each person’s experience with rewards and punishments; the cognitive-
behavioural approach adds emphasis on learning by observation and the learning of certain ways of thinking
Cognitive Emphasises mechanisms through which people receive, store, retrieve and otherwise process information
Humanistic Emphasises individual potential for growth and the role of unique perceptions in guiding behaviour and mental
processes
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

How does your cultural background influence your behaviour? 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, 2011); as shown in the Snapshot ‘Women
in psychology’. 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’).

SNAPSHOT Women in psychology

Mary Whiton Calkins (1863–1930; pictured to the left)
Courtesy of Wellesley College Archives, Library &

studied psychology at Harvard University, where William
James described her as ‘brilliant’. Because she was a woman,
though, Harvard refused to grant her a doctoral degree unless
Technology Services, photo by Pastridge

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 female president
of the American Psychological Association (APA). Margaret
Washburn (1871–1939) encountered similar sex discrimination
at Columbia University, so she transferred to Cornell and
became the first woman to earn a doctorate in psychology. In
1921, she became the second female president of the APA.
The Psychology Board of Australia publishes a statistical breakdown of registered psychologists

in the country. At the end of 2019, women comprised 80 per cent of this group and men 20 per cent.
The most represented age group was that between the ages of 35 and 39 years (Psychology Board of
Australia, 2019). In 2016 the New Zealand psychologist workforce comprised approximately 70 per cent
women and 29 per cent men, with 16 per cent of psychologists in the over-60 age group (the largest
age grouping) (NZ Ministry of Health, 2016). A breakdown in terms of cultural identity indicated that
about 5 per cent were Māori. In Australia, the Australian Indigenous Psychologists Association (AIPA)
currently has 44 Indigenous psychologists as members who are registered with the AHPRA (Australian
Health Practitioner Regulation Agency). In 2012, the Australian Bureau of Statistics recorded 81
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander psychologists in Australia, representing 0.4 per cent of the
profession (ABS, 2012).
Impact of sociocultural diversity on psychology

Another aspect of diversity in psychology lies in the wide range of people that psychologists study and
serve (Rosmarin, 2016). This change is significant because most psychologists once assumed that all
people were very much alike, and that whatever principles emerged from research or treatment efforts
with one group would apply to everyone, everywhere. They were partly right, because people around
the world are alike in many ways. They tend to live in groups, have religious beliefs and create rules,
music, dances and games. The principles of nerve cell activity or reactions to heat or a sour taste are
the same in men and women everywhere, as is their recognition of a smile. However, not all people’s
moral values, achievement motivation or communication styles are the same. These and many other
sociocultural factors social aspects of behaviour and mental processes are affected by sociocultural factors, including people’s
identity and other background gender, ethnicity, social class and the culture in which they grow up. These variables create many
factors, such as gender, significant differences in behaviour and mental processes, especially from one culture to another (e.g.,
ethnicity, social class and
culture Matsumoto & Juang, 2016).
SNAPSHOT Professor Carmen Mary Lawrence

Carmen Lawrence was born on 2 March 1948. She was
awarded a doctorate in psychology in 1983 and went on to
Fairfax Syndication/
pursue a career in politics, from which she retired in 2007.

SMH/Pat Scala
Professor Lawrence was the first woman to become the

premier of a state of Australia.

Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
“mere incidents.” From the review given below, in Chapter XIII, it is
clear that the main determinants of American culture accumulation,
after the first primitive start, were internal; and the case seems as
clear for metal working as for any phase.
109. Zero
One of the milestones of civilization is the number symbol zero.
This renders possible the unambiguous designation of numbers of
any size with a small stock of figures. It is the zero that enables the
symbol 1 to have the varying values of one, ten, hundred, or
thousand. In our arithmetical notation, the symbol itself and its
position both count: 1,234 and 4,321 have different values although
they contain the identical symbols. Such a system is impossible
without a sign for nothingness: 123 and 1,023 would be
indistinguishable. Our zero, along with the other nine digits, appears
to be an invention of the Hindus approximately twelve or fifteen
hundred years ago. We call the notation “Arabic” because it was
transmitted from India to Europe by the Arabs.
Fig. 28. Maya symbols for zero: a, monumental; b, c, cursive. (From Bowditch.)
Without a zero sign and position values, two methods are open for
the representation of higher numerical values. More and more signs
can be added for the high values. This was done by the Greeks and
Romans. MV means 1,005, and only that. This is simple enough; but
1,888 requires so cumbersome a denotation as MDCCCLXXXVIII—
thirteen figures of six different kinds. A simple system of multiplying
numbers expressed like this one is impossible. The unwieldiness is
due to the fact that the Romans, not having hit upon the device of
representing nothingness, employed the separate signs I, X, C, M for
the quantities which we represent by the single symbol 1 with from
no to three zeroes added.
The other method is that followed by the Chinese. Besides signs
corresponding to our digits from 1 to 9, they developed symbols
corresponding to “ten times,” “hundred times,” and so on. This was
much as if we should use the asterisk, *, to denote tens, the dagger,
† , for hundreds, the paragraph, ¶, for thousands. We could then
represent 1,888 by 1 ¶ 8 † 8 * 8, and 1,005 by 1 ¶ 5, without any risk
of being misunderstood. But the writing of the numbers would in
most cases require more figures, and mathematical operations
would be more awkward.
The only nation besides the Hindus to invent a zero sign and the
representation of number values by position of the basic symbols,
were the Mayas of Yucatan. Some forms of their zero are shown in
Figure 28. This Maya development constitutes an indubitable parallel
with the Hindu one. So far as the involved logical principle is
concerned, the two inventions are identical. But again the concrete
expressions of the principle are dissimilar. The Maya zero does not
in the least have the form of our or the Hindus’ zero. Also, the Maya
notation was vigesimal where ours is decimal. They worked with
twenty fundamental digits instead of ten. Their “100” therefore stood
for 400, their “1,000” for 8,000.[17] Accordingly, when they wrote, in
their corresponding digits, 1,234, the value was not 1,234 but 8,864.
Obviously there can be no question of a common origin for such a
system and ours. They share an idea or a method, nothing more. As
a matter of fact, these two notational systems, like all others, were
preceded by numeral word counts. Our decimal word count is based
on operations with the fingers, that of the Maya on operations with
the fingers and toes. Twenty became their first higher unit because
twenty finished a person.
It is interesting that of the two inventions of zero, the Maya one
was the earlier. The arithmetical and calendrical system of which it
formed part was developed and in use by the time of the birth of
Christ. It may be older; it certainly required time to develop. The
Hindus may have possessed the prototypes of our numerals as early
as the second century after Christ, but as yet without the zero, which
was added during the sixth or according to some authorities not until
the ninth century. This priority of the Maya must weaken the
arguments sometimes advanced that the ancient Americans derived
their religion, zodiac, art, or writing from Asia. If the zero was their
own product, why not the remainder of their progress also? The only
recourse left the naïve migrationist would be to turn the tables and
explain Egyptian and Babylonian civilization as due to a Maya
invasion from Yucatan.
110. Exogamic Institutions

In many parts of the world nations live under institutions by which
they are divided into hereditary social units that are exogamous to
one another. That is, all persons born in a unit must take spouses
born in some other unit, fellow members of one’s unit being regarded
as kinsmen. The units are generally described as clans, gentes, or
sibs; or, where there are only two, as moieties. In many cases the
sibs or moieties are totemic; named after, or in some way associated
with, an animal, plant, or other distinctive object that serves as a
badge or symbol of the group. Often the association finds expression
in magic or myth. Since under this system one is born into his social
unit, cannot change it, and can belong to one only, it follows that
descent is unilateral. It is impossible for a man to be a member of
both his father’s and his mother’s sib or totem; custom has
established everywhere a rigid choice between them. Some tribes
follow descent from the mother or matrilinear reckoning, others are
patrilinear.[18]
Institutions of this type have a wide and irregular distribution. They
are frequent in Australia, New Guinea, and Melanesia; found in parts
of the East Indies and southeastern Asia; quite rare or stunted in the
remainder of Asia and Polynesia; fairly common in Africa, though
they occur in scattered areas; characteristic again of a large part of
North America, but confined to a few districts of South America. At a
rough guess, it might be said that about as many savage peoples,
the world over, possess totemic-exogamous clans or moieties as
lack them. The patchiness on the map of exogamic institutions
argues against their being all the result of a wave of culture
transmission emanating from a single source. Had such a diffusion
occurred, it should have left its marks among the numerous
intervening tribes that are sibless. Further, both in the eastern and
western hemispheres, the most primitive and backward tribes are,
with fair regularity, sibless and non-totemic. If therefore a
hypothetical totem-sib movement had encircled the planet, it could
not have been at an extremely ancient date, else the primitive tribes
would have been affected by it; and since records go back five
thousand years in parts of the Mediterranean area, the movement, if
relatively late, should have left some echo in history, which it has not.
Fig. 29. Distribution of types of exogamic institutions in Australia: 2M, two classes,
matrilinear; 4M, four classes, matrilinear; 4P, four classes, patrilinear; 8P,
eight classes, patrilinear; black areas, no classes, patrilinear exogamic
totems; X, totems independent of classes; Y, totems replace sub-classes; Z,
no organization; ?, uninhabited or unknown. (After Thomas and Graebner.)
It is therefore probable that totem-sib institutions did not all

emanate from one origin, but developed independently several
times. The question then becomes, how often, and where?
The evidence for America has been reviewed in another
connection (§ 185). It can be summarized in the statement that at
least two of the three sib areas[19] of North America, and probably
the two principal ones of South America, seem to have resulted from
a single culture growth which perhaps centered at one time, although
subsequently superseded, in the middle sector of the double
continent. This movement may have had first a patrilinear and then a
matrilinear phase, though at no great interval of time. The third North
American area may have got its patrilinear sib institutions from the
same source but probably developed its matrilinear ones locally as a
subsequent growth. If so, this would be an instance of convergence
on the same continent—a rather rare phenomenon.
For Australia, New Guinea, and Melanesia, the geographical
proximity is so close as to suggest a single origin for the whole area.
Patrilinear and matrilinear descent are both found in Australia as well
as Melanesia. This fact has been interpreted as the result of an
earlier patrilineal and a later matrilineal phase of diffusion. It is
interesting that this conclusion parallels the tentative one
independently arrived at for America, although in both hemispheres
further analysis and distributional study must precede a positive
verdict.
In the principal other sib area, Africa, the reckoning is so
prevailingly patrilineal, that the few cases of matrilineate can
scarcely be looked upon as anything but secondary local
modifications. As to whether the totemism and exogamy of Africa
can be genetically connected with those of Australia-Melanesia, it is
difficult to decide. The more conservative attitude would be to regard
them as separate growths, although so many cultural similarities
have been noted between western Africa and the area that stretches
from Indo-China to Melanesia, as to have raised suspicions of an
actual connection (§ 270). Yet even if these indications were to be
confirmed, thus sweeping most or all the Old World sib institutions
into a single civilizational movement, the distinctness of this from the
parallel development of the New World would remain.
It is significant that in the three successive continents of America,
Oceania, and Africa the patrilinear and matrilinear phases of the sib
type of society exist side by side, and that the same duality even
holds for each of the separate areas in America. That is, the
Northwest American sib area includes matrilinear as well as
patrilinear tribes; the Southwest area includes both; and so on.
A similar tendency toward geographical association is found in
other phases of social structure: the clan and moiety, and again
totemism and exogamy.
The clan or multiple form of sib organization is logically distinct
from the moiety or dual form. Under the plural system, a person,
being of clan A, may marry at will into clans B, C, D, E, F. Three of
his four grandparents would normally be of other clans than his own,
but of which they were members, would vary in each individual case.
In a patrilineal society, one member of clan A would have his
maternal uncles of clan B; the next, of clan C; a third, perhaps of
clan F; according to the choices which their fathers had made of
wives.
Under the dual system, however, a member of moiety A may just
as well be regarded as having a wife of moiety B prescribed or
predestined for him as being forbidden an A wife. Two of his
grandparents, say his father’s father and his mother’s mother, are
inevitably of his own moiety, the two others of the opposite one.
Every possible kinsman—his maternal uncle, his cross cousin, his
father-in-law, his wife’s brother-in-law, his daughter’s son—has his
moiety affiliation foreordained. Where descent is paternal, for
instance, everybody knows that his future mother-in-law must be of
his own moiety. Evidently the effect of this dual system on the
relations between kinsfolk, on social usages, on the individual’s
attitude of mind toward other individuals, should normally tend to be
profoundly different from the influence of a multiple clan system. On
theoretical grounds it might seem likely that the dual and multiple
schemes had nothing to do with each other, that they sprang from
distinct psychological impulses.
Yet such a belief would be ungrounded, as the facts of distribution
promptly make clear. In every multiple sib area of any moment,
moieties also occur, and vice versa. In the California-Southwest
region, for instance, tribes like the Miwok are divided into moieties
only, the Mohave and Hopi into clans only, the Tewa and Cahuilla
into moieties subdivided into clans. So in the Eastern, the Plains,
and the Northwest areas of North America, clan tribes and moiety
tribes live side by side; whereas as soon as these regions are left
behind, there are vast districts—much of Mexico, Texas, the Great
Basin and Plateau, northern Canada and the Arctic coast—whose
inhabitants get along without either clans or moieties. So again in
Melanesia and in Australia (Fig. 29), the two types of organization
exist side by side, while most of Polynesia, Asia, and Europe are
void of both. Only Africa shows some development of multiple clan
institutions but no moieties. In short, as soon as areas of some size
are considered, they prove in the main to be of two kinds. Either they
contain both clan tribes and moiety tribes, or they contain neither.
That is, the clan institution and the moiety institution are correlated or
associated in geography, as patrilinear and matrilinear descent are
correlated, which indicates a community of origin for them.
A similar relation exists between exogamic units, be they moieties
or clans, and totemism. The first constitutes a scheme of society, a
method of organization; the second, a system of symbolism. Sibs are
social facts, totems a naming device with magico-religious
implications. There is no positive reason why they should be
associated. They are not always associated. There are American
tribes like the Navaho and Gros Ventre that live under unilateral and
exogamic institutions without totems. Placenames or nicknames
distinguish the groups. In Australia, the Arunta possess unilaterally
reckoning exogamic groups as well as totems, but the two are
dissociated; a person takes his group by descent, his totem wholly
irrespective of this according to place of birth or conception. In Africa
there are no less than six tribes or series of tribes in which exogamy
and totemism are thus dissociated; a person takes his totem from his
father, his exogamic unit from his mother, so that the two ordinarily
do not coincide for parent and child. Exogamy and totemism, then,
are theoretically separate factors.
Yet since they are distinct, it is remarkable that in probably seven
or eight tenths of all cases they coincide, and that in each of the
continents or areas containing them they are found associated. If
exogamy and totemism had grown out of separate roots, one could
expect at least one considerable area somewhere in which one of
them appeared without the other. But there is no such area.
Wherever social exogamy appears among a larger group of nations,
social totemism also crops out; and vice versa.
It must then be concluded that exogamy and totemism,
matrilineate and patrilineate, multiple and dual sibs, all show a strong
tendency toward association with one another. In other words, their
correlation is positive and strong. Even where they seem mutually
exclusive in their very nature, like matrilinear and patrilinear
reckoning, ways have been found by unconscious human ingenuity
to make them coexist among one people, as when one reckoning is
attached to the exogamy, the other to the totemism; and still more
often they occur among adjacent tribes.
111. Parallels and Psychology

Such associations as these are common enough in the history of
civilization. A number are touched upon elsewhere in this volume
under the name of culture trait associations or complexes (§ 97,
149). But usually such a complex or nexus consists of culture
elements that have no necessary connection: Christianity and
trousers, for instance. It is accident that first throws them together;
association ties them one to the other; once the cluster is
established by usage, its coherence tends to persist. But there is
something arbitrary about this cohesion, generally. There is no
inherent reason why a hundred American tribes that grow maize
should also grow beans and squashes and nothing else; but they do
limit themselves to the three. The distinctive feature of the sib-
complex is that it has an almost reasonable quality. Its elements,
however separate or even opposite logically, do have a certain
psychological affinity to one another. Also, the arbitrary maize-
beans-squash complex and other complexes are generally not
duplicated. But the intricate and psychologically founded totemism-
exogamy-descent complex looks as if it might have been triplicated
or quadruplicated. This parallelism, if the facts prove to substantiate
it, is parallelism raised to a higher power than any yet considered.
Heretofore the discussion has been of the parallelism of single
culture traits. Here it is a case of parallelism of a complex of culture
traits. Such complex convergence might suggest something peculiar
to or inherent in the human mind, leading it, once it is stimulated to
commence the development of one of the factors of the complex, to
follow with the production of the other factors.[20]
Similar instances would be the tendency of agriculture to be
followed by town life, if it could be demonstrated, though this seems
doubtful; of settled living to be accompanied by migration legends; of
religions with personal founders to become propagandizing and
international but in time to die out among the nations in which they
were originated.
In regard to all such cases it may be said first of all that an
exhaustive analysis is necessary to ascertain whether the seeming
association or correlation is borne out by the facts. Second, the
possibility of diffusion must be eliminated. If Melanesian and African
totem-exogamy are both products of one culture growth, they cannot
be counted as two examples of the same association. If they should
ultimately both prove to be linked with the American system by a
wave of migration or culture contact, as has, indeed been maintained
in two separate hypotheses recently advanced, parallelism is of
course disproved altogether. But such views are as yet
undemonstrated and seem extreme; and if, after continued search of
the evidence, two or more such associations or complex parallels as
the exogamic-totemic scheme of society stand as independent
growths, it is evident that they will be something in the nature of
cultural manifestations of psychological forces. In short, we should
then be beginning to grasp specific psychological determinants for
the phenomena or events of civilization. But as yet such a causal
explanation of the data of anthropology by the mechanism of
psychology has not been achieved.
112. Limitations on the Principle

From the evidences reviewed in this and the last chapter, the
conclusion is confirmed which social philosophers had long since
reached, that imitation is the normal process by which men live, and
that invention is rare, a thing which societies and individuals oppose
with more resistance than they are ever aware of, and which
probably occurs only as the result of the pressure of special
circumstances, although these are as yet little understood. Not only
are a hundred instances of diffusion historically traceable for every
one of parallelism, but the latter is regularly limited in scope.
Something tends to make us see phenomena more parallel than
they actually are. They merely spring from the same impulse, they
inhere in the properties of objects or nature, they bear resemblance
at one point only—and differ at all other points. Yet they tend to
impress us, in some mysterious way, as almost identical. The history
of civilization has no more produced two like cultures, or two
separately developed identical culture traits, than has the evolution
of organic life ever duplicated a species by convergently modifying
two distinct forms. A whale may look fishlike, he is a mammal. The
Hindu and the Maya zero are logically the same; actually they have
in common nothing but their abstract value: their shapes, their place
in their systems, are different. The most frequent process of culture
history therefore is one of tradition or diffusion in time and space,
corresponding roughly to hereditary transmission in the field of
organic life. Inventions may be thought of as similar to organic
mutations, those “spontaneous” variations that from time to time
arise and establish themselves. The particular causes of both
inventions and mutations remain as good as unknown. Now and
then a mutant or an invention heads in the same direction as another
previously arisen one. But, since they spring from different
antecedents, such convergences never attain identity. They remain
on the level of analogous resemblance. Substantial identity, a part
for part correspondence, is invariably a sign of common origin, in
cultural as well as organic history.
CHAPTER X
THE ARCH AND THE WEEK
113. House building and architecture.—114. The problem of spanning.—

115. The column and beam.—116. The corbelled arch.—117. The true
arch.—118. Babylonian and Etruscan beginnings.—119. The Roman
arch and dome.—120. Mediæval cathedrals.—121. The Arabs: India:
modern architecture.—122. The week: holy numbers.—123.
Babylonian discovery of the planets.—124. Greek and Egyptian
contributions: the astrological combination.—125. The names of the
days and the Sabbath.—126. The week in Christianity, Islam, and
eastern Asia.—127. Summary of the diffusion.—128. Month-thirds
and market weeks.—129. Leap days as parallels.
In exemplification of the principles discussed in the last two

chapters, the next two are given over to a more detailed
consideration of several typical ramifying growths whose history
happens to be known with satisfactory fullness. These are the arch,
the week, and the alphabet.
113. House Building and Architecture

The history of human building makes a first impression of an
endless tangle. Every people rears some sort of habitations, and
however rude these are, structural principles are involved. Obviously,
too, geography and climate are bound to have at least a delimiting
influence. The Eskimo of the Arctic cannot build houses of wood; the
inhabitants of a coral reef in the Pacific could not, however much
they might wish, develop a style in brick. In structures not used as
dwellings, their purpose necessarily affects their form. A temple is
likely to be made on a different plan from a court of law. Temples
themselves may vary according to the motives and rituals of the
religions which they serve.
Bewilderment begins to abate as soon as one ceases trying to
contemplate all buildings reared by human hands. Obviously a
dwelling erected by a small family group for the utilitarian purpose of
shelter is likely to be more subject to immediate adaptations to
climate than a large communal structure serving some purpose such
as the service of a deity. If consideration be restricted still further, to
religious or public buildings set up with the idea of permanence,
another class of causes making for variability begins to be
eliminated. A structure intended as an enduring monument is reared
with consideration to the impression that it will create in the minds of
future generations. Its emotional potentialities, be these evoked by
its mere size, by the æsthetic nature of its design, or by a
combination of the two, come into the forefront. Such permanent
buildings being in stone or brick, techniques which flourish in wood
or other temporary materials are eliminated. Finally, a monumental
structure is possible only at the hands of a community of some size.
An unstable group of nomads, a thinly scattered agricultural
population, cannot assemble in sufficient numbers even for periods
each year, to carry out the long-continued labors that are necessary.
The aggregation of numbers of men in one spot is always
accompanied by specialization in advancement of the arts.
Consequently the very fact that a structure is monumental involves
the probability that its builders are able to rise above the limitations
of mere necessity, and can in some degree execute products of their
imagination.
114. The Problem of Spanning

If now our attention be confined to large buildings of the more
massive and permanent sort, it becomes clear that one of the chief
problems which all their constructors have had to grapple with, is
that of roofing large spaces and spanning wide openings in walls. A
pyramid can be heaped up, or a wall reared to a great height, without
much other than quantitative difficulties being encountered. A four
hundred foot pyramid does not differ in principle from the waist-high
one that a child might pile up. The problems which it involves are
essentially the economic and political ones of providing and
controlling the needed multitudes of workers. Architecture as such is
in abeyance and the engineering problems involved are mainly those
of transporting and raising large blocks of stone. Much the same
holds of walls. The Incas, for instance, reared masonry of astounding
massiveness and exactness without ever seriously attempting to
solve architectural problems.
Once, however, a structure is planned to cover a wide space, it
becomes architecturally ambitious. The roof of a large dwelling can
be made easily of poles and thatch by such collaborators as a family
might muster. But to span a clear space of some size in stone
requires more than numbers of workers. The accomplishment also
yields definite sense of achievement which is strong in proportion as
the extent of the ceiling is great. The difficulties are diminished in
proportion as the mass of the structure is large and the clear space
is small, but the satisfying effect is correspondingly decreased. A
vault whose walls are thicker than its interior is wide, produces as
chief impression an effect of massiveness. One feels the solidity of
the structure, the amount of labor that has gone into it; but one is left
without the sense of a worth-while difficulty having been self-
imposed and mastered. Sooner or later, therefore, after men began
to hold themselves available for co-operative enterprises in numbers,
adventurous minds must have been fired with a desire to grapple
with problems of æsthetic construction, and to leave behind them
monuments of triumphant solution. The story of these voluntary and
imaginative endeavors is the history of monumental art.
Two principal methods have been followed in the solution of the
problem of covering large free spaces. The first is the method of the
column and the lintel; the second that of the arch or vault. The
column and lintel do not differ fundamentally from the idea of the wall
with superimposed roof beams. The elements of both are vertical
support and horizontal beam. In the arch, however, this simple
scheme is departed from, and the covering elements take on a
curved or sloping form. The apparently free float of the span is
stimulatingly impressive, especially when executed in a heavy and
thoroughly rigid material. The beam is subject to bending stress.
Timber makes a good material because of its strength against
breakage by bending. Stone is unreliable or outrightly weak against
a bending stress, besides adding to the stress by its own weight.
There are therefore inherent limitations on the space that can be
covered by a horizontal stone beam.
115. The Column and Beam

Most early architecture developed the column. Even so superb an
architecture as that of the Greeks never rose above it. The æsthetic
value of the Parthenon lies in the balance and feeling with which a
fundamentally simple plan has been elaborated, not in the daring
way in which an inherently ambitious problem has been met.
On account of its essential simplicity, columnar architecture grew
up among several historically unconnected nations. In the case of
most of them, there can be distinguished an early stage of building in
wood, when the column was the trunk of a tree, and a later stage in
which the post was replaced by a monolith, or by superimposed
drums of stone. This change appears to have taken place somewhat
independently in Egypt and in Greece, and wholly so in Mexico. It
has been thought that Greek architecture was derived from Egypt,
but there was probably little more than a transmission of stimulus,
since Greek temples were wooden pillared several thousand years
after the Egyptians were rearing huge stone columns. Furthermore, if
the Greeks had borrowed their column outright from Egypt, they
would probably have copied it slavishly at the outset. Yet their early
capitals are without the lotus flower head in which the Egyptian
column terminated. Here, then, and still more in Mexico, there was
parallel development.
The failure of the Greeks to pass beyond column and lintel
architecture may seem strange for a people that showed so unusual
an artistic faculty and so bold and enterprising a spirit as they
manifested in most departments of civilization. The cause appears to
lie not in any internal arrest of their artistic evolution, but in the
conditions that prevailed in another field of their culture: their political
particularity. The Greek state remained a city. All attempts to
establish larger political aggregates, whether on the basis of
confederation or conquest, failed miserably and speedily. The Greek
was ingrainedly addicted to an outlook that was not merely provincial
but literally municipal. The result was that really large coöperative
enterprises were beyond him. Paved roads, aqueducts, sewers, and
works of a like character were scarcely attempted on any scale of
magnitude. With the rather small numbers of individuals which at
best the Greeks assembled in one spot, such works were not
necessary, and undertaken in mere ambition, they would have
encountered public antagonism. Consequently Greek public
buildings were, by the standards of many other nations, mediocre in
size of ground plan, low in height, without endeavor to impress by
sweep of clear space. This fact illustrates the almost organic
interconnection existing between the several sides of the culture of
any people; it illustrates also the importance of knowing the whole of
a civilization before trying to provide an explanation for any one of its
manifestations.
116. The Corbelled Arch

The arch brings in an inherently new principle of architecture. It is
a device for carrying construction over an empty space without
horizontal beams. But it may take two principal forms: the corbelled
or “false” arch, and the “true” arch. Both are arches in form, but the
blocks that form the curvature of one are not self-supporting; in the
other they are.
The corbelled arch achieves its span through a successive
projection of the stones or bricks that abut on each side of the open
space. The stone at the end of the second course of masonry
extends part of its length beyond the end stone of the first course. At
the opposite side, the second course hangs similarly out above the
first. In the third course, the end blocks again project beyond those
of the second. The arrangement thus is that of two series of
brackets, or two staircases turned upside down. The higher the
masonry rises, the more do the clear space narrow and the two lines
of hanging steps approach until they meet and the arch is complete.
What keeps the projecting stones from toppling into the clear space?
Nothing, obviously, but such weight as is put on their inner or
embedded ends. Suppose a stone projects a third of its length
beyond the one below, so that its center of gravity is still above the
lower stone. It will then lie as placed. Suppose still another stone
again projects a third of its length beyond the second. Its center of
gravity now falling outside the lowest block, it will topple both itself
and the second one. Only if other blocks are inserted behind will
their counterweight hold up the projecting blocks. Obviously, there
will be more such counterweights needed the higher the side of the
arch rises. In general, the area of wall needed as counterweight is at
least as great as the area of overhanging. If the arch is to clear ten
feet horizontally—hanging over five feet from each side—there must
be five feet or more of masonry built up on each side of the clear
space. A corbelled arch forming a relatively small doorway in the
face of a wall presents no difficulty, but a corbelled arch that stands
free is impossible.
The same principle holds for the vault, which is a three-
dimensional extension of the virtually two-dimensional arch. The
hollow or half-barrel of the corbelled vault has to be flanked by a
volume of building material exceeding its own content. This need
eliminates corbelling as a possible method of rearing structures that
rise free and with lightness. Hence the clumsy massiveness of, for
instance, Maya architecture, which, so far as it employs the vault,
often contains more building material than spanned space.
Another difficulty, beyond that of counterweighting, which besets
the user of the corbelled arch, is that the projecting stones of each
course are subjected to the same bending strain as a beam. The
weight above strives to snap them in two.
The corbelled arch and vault have been independently devised
and have also diffused. They were employed in gigantic Bronze age
tombs at Mycenæ in Greece—the so-called treasure house of
Atreus,—in Portugal, and in Ireland (Fig. 41). These developments
seem historically connected. On the other hand the Mayas of
Yucatan also built corbelled arches, which must constitute a
separate invention. This parallel development differs from that of the
true arch, which seems everywhere to be derived from a single
original source.
117. The True Arch

The true arch differs from the corbelled in needing no
counterweight. The blocks that form the under surface or soffit of its
span are self-sustaining. The true arch thus yields an æsthetic
satisfaction which can be attained in no other way, especially when it
soars in magnitude. The fundamental principle of the true arch is the
integration of its elements. Such an arch is nothing until completed;
but from that moment its constituents fuse their strength. Each block
has a shape which is predetermined by the design of the whole, and
each is useless, in fact, not even self-supporting, until all the others
have been fitted with it. Hence the figure of speech as well as the
reality of the keystone: the last block slipped into place, locking itself
and all the others. The features of the blocks or “voussoirs” which
makes possible this integration, is the taper of their sides. Each is a
gently sloping piece of wedge instead of a rectangular block. When
bricks replace dressed stone, the mortar takes the place of this
shaping, being thinner toward the inner face of the vault and thicker
toward the interior of the construction.
A true arch in process of erection would instantly collapse if not
held up. It can be built only over a scaffold or “centering.” Once
however the keystone has wedged its parts together, it not only
stands by itself but will support an enormous weight. The greater the
pressure from above, the more tightly are the blocks forced together.
Instability in a true arch is not due to the bending stress coming from
the superimposed mass, as in the corbelled arch or a horizontal
roofing. The blocks are subjected only to crushing pressure, which
stone and brick are specially adapted to withstand. The weakness of
the arch is that it turns vertical into horizontal thrust. With more
weight piled on top, the sidewise thrust, the inclination to spread
apart, becomes greater, and must be resisted by buttressing. This is
what the Hindus mean when they say that “the arch never sleeps.”
118. Babylonian and Etruscan Beginnings
While the exact circumstances attending the invention of the true
arch are not clear, the earliest specimens preserved are from the
ancient brick-building peoples of Babylonia, especially at Nippur
about 3,000 B.C. Thence the principle of the arch was carried to
adjacent Assyria. Both these Mesopotamian peoples employed the
arch chiefly on a small scale in roofing doors and in tunnels. It
remained humble and utilitarian in their hands; its architectural
possibilities were scarcely conceived. They continued to rear their
monumental structures mainly with an eye to quantity: high and thick
walls, ramps, towers ascending vertically or by steps, prevailed.
The true arch and vault are next found in Italy, among a
prosperous city-dwelling people, the Etruscans, some seven or more
centuries before Christ. All through the civilization of this nation runs
a trait of successful but never really distinctive accomplishment. The
Etruscans were receptive to new ideas and applied them with
energy, usually only to degenerate them in the end. Whether they
discovered the arch for themselves or whether knowledge of it was
carried to Italy from Asia is not wholly clear, since history knows little
about the Etruscans, and archæology, though yielding numerous
remains, leaves the problem of their origin dark. The Etruscans, or
Tyrrhenians as the Greeks knew them, were however active traders,
and a number of features in their civilization, such as liver divination
(§ 97), as well as ancient tradition, connect them with Asia. It is
therefore probable that the principle of arch construction was
transmitted to them from its earlier Babylonian source. The
Etruscans also failed to carry the use of the arch far into monumental
architecture. They employed it in tombs, gates, and drains rather
than as a conspicuous feature of public buildings.
119. The Roman Arch and Dome

From the Etruscans their neighbors, the Romans, learned the
arch. They too adopted it at first for utilitarian purposes. The great
sewer of Rome, for instance, the Cloaca Maxima, is an arched vault
of brick. Gradually, however, as the Romans grew in numbers and
wealth and acquired a taste for public undertakings, they transferred
the construction to stone and introduced it into their buildings. By the
time their polity changed from the republican to the imperial form, the
arch was the most characteristic feature of their architecture. The
Greeks had built porticos of columns; the Romans erected frontages
of rows of arches. The exterior of their circus, the Coliseum, is a
series of stories of arches. Much of the mass of the structure also
rests upon arches, thus making possible the building of the huge
edifice with a minimum of material. On the practical side, this is one
of the chief values of the arch. The skill which evolved it eliminates a
large percentage of brute labor. Earlier peoples would have felt it
necessary to fill the space between the interior tiers of seats and the
outer wall of the Coliseum.
Once the fever of architecture had infected them, the Romans
went beyond the simple arch and vault. They invented the dome. As
the simplest arch, such as a doorway or window, a perforation in a
wall, is essentially two dimensional, and a vault is the projecting of
this plane area into the three dimensions of a half cylinder, so the
dome can be conceived as the extension of the arch into another
three-dimensional form, the half sphere. Their relations are those of
a hoop, a barrel, and a hollow ball. Imagine a vault revolved on a
central vertical pivot, and it will describe the surface of a dome. Two
intersecting arches can be served by a single keystone.
Theoretically, more and more arches can be introduced to intersect
at the same point, until they form a continuous spheroid surface.
Neither construction nor the evolution of the dome did actually take
place by this method of compounding arches, which however serves
to illustrate the logical relation of the two structures.
The Roman engineers put domes on their Pantheon, the tomb of
Hadrian, and other buildings. In the centuries in which the
Mediterranean countries were Romanized, the dome and the arch,
the vault and the row of arches set on pillars, became familiar to all
the inhabitants of the civilized western world. After Roman power
crumbled, the architectural traditions survived. Even when there was

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Psychology: Australian and New

Zealand edition Douglas A. Bernstein

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Cengage Learning New Zealand

For learning solutions, visit cengage.com.au

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CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5 CHAPTER 6 CHAPTER 7 CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9 CHAPTER 10 CHAPTER 11 CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13 CHAPTER 14 CHAPTER 15 CHAPTER 16

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCING PSYCHOLOGY 2

CHAPTER 2 RESEARCH IN PSYCHOLOGY 36

CHAPTER 3 BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 72

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CHAPTER 4 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION 124

CHAPTER 5 CONSCIOUSNESS 194

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Applications of hypnosis 217 Expectations and drug effects 221

CHAPTER 6 LEARNING 248

CHAPTER 7 MEMORY 294

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CHAPTER 8 THOUGHT, LANGUAGE AND INTELLIGENCE 352

CHAPTER 9 MOTIVATION AND EMOTION 430

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CHAPTER 10 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 494

CHAPTER 11 HEALTH, STRESS AND COPING 568

CHAPTER 12 PERSONALITY 606

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Prominent social-cognitive theories 622 Focus on research: Personality

CHAPTER 13 PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDERS AND TREATMENT 646

CHAPTER 14 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 738

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CHAPTER 15 CULTURE AND PSYCHOLOGY 810

CHAPTER 16 INDIGENOUS PSYCHOLOGY 842

CHAPTER 17 NEUROPSYCHOLOGY (ONLINE) 17-2

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CHAPTER 18 BEHAVIOURAL GENETICS (ONLINE) 18-2

CHAPTER 19 STATISTICS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH (ONLINE) 19-2

APPENDIX A: CAREERS FOR PSYCHOLOGY GRADUATES (ONLINE) 20-2

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LINKAGES FOCUS ON RESEARCH THINKING CRITICALLY

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THINKING CRITICALLY Learn to analyse the evidence and draw conclusions

psychologists who assist in jury performance.

FEATURES WITHIN CHAPTERS

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key chapter topics with the summary, LO4 CHEMISTRY OF PSYCHOLOGY

opening learning objectives. eurotransmitter system.

REFERENCES Assefi, N. P., Sherman, K. J., Jacobsen, C., Goldberg,

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Cengage is pleased to provide you with a selection of resources that will

COGNERO TEST BANK

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ARTWORK FROM THE TEXT

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