Preface Book Notes

Front 1

What is psychology?

Back 1

The scientific study of behavior?

Front 2

What is the natural science approach?

Back 2

Endeavors to study the objective variables that determine behavior

Front 3

What are the three general themes in the book?

Back 3

1- all behavior is determined by a combination of evolutionary, physiological, and environmental variables

2- many traditional explanations of behavior are fundamentally inadequate and therefore will likely not produce an effective behavior-change technology

3- an effective behavior-change technology derived from a natural science approach and based on manipulation of environmental variables has been developed

Front 4

What is the overall objective of the book?

Back 4

To teach students of psychology to think critically/scientifically about the topic of behavior

Front 5

How is the book organized?

Back 5

Contains 13 chapters divided into three sections

Front 6

What are the three general sections?

Back 6

1- Scientific Psychology
2- Behavioral causation
3-Applications of Scientific Psychology

Front 7

What is the Scientific Psychology section about?

Back 7

Introduces relationship between psychology and science.

Provides students with standards by which to judge info.

Presents overview of most important practices of science.

Front 8

What is the Behavioral Causation section about?

Back 8

Considereds at three different levels what causes humans and other organisms to behave as they do.

1. Genetic (evolutionary)
2. Physiological
3. Environmental

Front 9

Genetic

Back 9

Evolution determines the range of behaviors that members of a species can acquire and their ease of acquisition.

Front 10

Physiological

Back 10

role that the central nervous system plays in determining behavior.

Brain-behavior interactions

Front 11

Environmental

Back 11

How behavior is affected by events outside the organism

Operant conditioning

Front 12

What is the Applications of Scientific Psychology section about?

Back 12

Deals with topics traditionally of importance to psychologists.

E.g. human language, cognitive phenomena, human development, traditional content areas (intelligence, personality, social psychology)

Front 13

What is the caveat?

Back 13

The book material may be difficult, but so is science.

Concepts of scientific psychology may clash with everyday conceptions in which behavior is assumed to be solely the result of mental activity.

Front 14

What two things are required of the student?

Back 14

-Willingness to accept an analysis of human behavior that shares little with commonsense notions

-Willingness to accept the fact that even though human behavior is complex, it can still be explained as a function of objective variables

Front 15

What are helpful organizational tools in the book?

Back 15

-all important terms in bold face
-glossary
-chapter outline
-chapter summary
-chapter study questions

Front 16

Why do scientists make claims that are tentative and testable?

Back 16

Scientists recognize that observations are not exact and it is not easy to detect or summarize important relationships among variables.

Front 17

Is science self-correcting?

Back 17

Yes.