1 Psychology Is a Way of Thinking

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A boy looking up while standing in the center of a prison hall.

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A man sits on the edge of his seat with perfect posture in a classroom. His arms rest on his knees, and his eyes are closed.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

A year from now, you should still be able to:

1. Explain what it means to reason empirically.
2. Appreciate how psychological research methods help you become a better producer of information as well as a better consumer of information.
3. Describe five habits that define the work of scientists.

THINKING BACK TO YOUR introductory psychology course, what do you remember learning? You might remember that dogs can be trained to salivate at the sound of a bell or that people in a group fail to call for help when the room fills up with smoke. Or perhaps you recall studies in which people administered increasingly stronger electric shocks to an innocent man although he seemed to be in distress. You may have learned what your brain does while you sleep or that you can’t always trust your memories. But how come you did not learn that “we use only 10% of our brain” or that “hitting a punching bag can make your anger go away”?

You learned some principles and not others because psychological science is based on research done by psychologists. Like other scientists, psychologists are empiricists. Being an empiricist means basing one’s conclusions on systematic observations. Psychologists do not simply think intuitively about behavior, cognition, and emotion; they know what they know because they have conducted studies on people and animals acting in their natural environments or in specially designed situations. Research is what tells us that most people will administer electric shock to an innocent man in certain situations, and it also tells us that our brains are usually fully engaged—we use much more than 10%. To think like a psychologist, you must think like a researcher, and taking a course in research methods is crucial to your understanding of psychology.

This book explains the types of studies psychologists conduct as well as the potential strengths and limitations of each type of study. You will learn not only how to plan your own studies but also how to find research, read about it, and ask questions about it. While gaining a greater appreciation for the rigorous standards psychologists maintain in their research, you’ll find out how to be a systematic and critical consumer of psychological science.