Behavior and Psychology
Exploring the Origins of Approaches in
Psychology
At various moments in our lives, we all think about behavior--trying to
better understand our own actions, or those of others. As a discipline,
psychology seeks to understand behavior through systematic study, drawing
upon the traditions of Western science. As Approaches to Psychology
discusses, psychology uses various frameworks to explain the way we
behave. To understand this, one needs to explore several issues, including
the history of the discipline, the role of perception in
behavior, and the various methods used in research on behavior.
The Origins of Psychology
Psychology is a relatively young discipline in formal terms, with the first university departments having been created just over a hundred years ago. Not surprisingly, its origins can be linked to philosophy and medicine, though its development has also been influenced by biology and other fields (including the even-younger field of computer science).
Resources
Classics in the History of Psychology--Excellent on-line archive of classic articles in psychology, maintained by Christopher Green of York Univ., Toronto, Canada
Resources in the History of Psychology--Maintained by Cheiron, the International Society for the History of Behavioral and Social Sciences
As noted in the text, perceptual processes play a large role in our everyday behavior, and also help us to understand why psychology developed as a series of distinctive approaches. While the question of whether theories are an objective descriptor of the world, or simply a result of perceptual and social processes (see Chapter 10 of text), there are many examples of how perception influences our experience.
Some further examples of ambiguous figures:
Old Woman or Young Woman?
Resources
Sensation and Perception Tutorials--Site maintained by David Krantz, Univ. of New Hampshire; contains examples related to Gestalt theory, as well as a variety of other material.
The Joy of Visual Perception--A Web-based book by Peter Kaiser, York University, Canada; emphasizes sensory aspects of vision, but also contains information about perception and illusions.
Perception - From the Exploratorium in San Francisco--Some on-line demonstrations from a museum which is famous for its hands-on science exhibits.
Doing experiments does not necessarily require a laboratory full of equipment. Instead, the essence of an experiment requires the ability to manipulate an independent variable, and sufficient control of the situation to avoid problems like poor sampling, confounding variables, and measurement errors. (See Chapter 1 and the Appendix for more on these subjects.) For those inclined to engage in some personal research, the following demonstration is easy and fun.
Taste preferences
Most people have preferences when it comes to beverages, and claims of significant differences between competing brands (such as Coke and Pepsi) are often fostered by the companies themselves. But can people really distinguish the difference? In order to find out, you can conduct a taste test with several friends, using the brand of cola as the independent variable. (Note you could also do this with other foods, such as different brands of potato chips or crackers.) There are various ways to carry this out, but in planning your experiment, you should consider the following questions:
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Who are your participants, and how do you select them?
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Should participants know what they are drinking? If not, how do you make it a single blind design?
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Could the experimenter bias the outcome if he/she knows what each sample contains? If so, how do you make it a double blind design?
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Does the order in which participants taste the products matter? If if does, how does one control for possible order effects? (Hint: can one counterbalance the order?)
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Should prior preferences be considered in analyzing the results?
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What exactly are you trying to measure? Taste preferences, or correct identification of brand, or both, or what? (I.e., you must determine your dependent variable(s).)
You might find the results surprising, but before you rush to submit your study for publication, think about whether it is well-designed, or are there ways you could have improved it? (Designing good research studies requires both knowledge and creativity.)
Resources
Psychological Experiments on the Internet--This site at the University of Mississippi offers both a chance to do some on-line experiments, and provides resources related to the growing use of the Web as a means of recruiting participants for serious psychological research. (One issue to consider: are samples drawn from Web users likely to be representative of the general population? In what circumstances might that matter or not?)