Chapter 1 Introduction

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The human being, as far as any human being can tell, is the only creature that contemplates itself. We not only think, feel, dream, and act, but also wonder how and why we do these things. Such contemplation has taken many forms, ranging from just plain wondering to folk tales and popular songs, to poetry and literature, to formal theologies and philosophies. A little more than a century ago, human self-contemplation took a scientific turn, and we call that science psychology.

Welcome! Welcome to Psychology and to psychology—that is, to this book and to the field of study it is about. We hope you will enjoy them both. The principal questions of psychology are among the most fascinating that anyone can ask: Why do people feel, think, and behave the way they do? Are we the result of our genes, or of our experiences? How important are our goals versus our past in determining what we do? Is there a separation between mind and body? In this book you will read of many ways by which psychologists go about trying to answer such questions, and you will discover many dozens of findings and ideas that help to answer them.

It is useful to begin with a formal definition of our subject: Psychology is the science of behavior and the mind. In this definition, behavior refers to the observable actions of a person or an animal. Mind refers to an individual’s sensations, perceptions, memories, thoughts, dreams, motives, emotions, and other subjective experiences. It also refers to all of the unconscious knowledge and operating rules that are built into or stored in the brain and that provide the foundation for organizing behavior and conscious experience. Science refers to all attempts to answer questions through the systematic collection and logical analysis of objectively observable data. Most of the data in psychology are based on observations of behavior because behavior is directly observable and the mind is not, but psychologists often use those data to make inferences about the mind.

Psychology is also an applied discipline—one of the “helping professions.” Clinical psychologists and others who work in applied areas of psychology often help people cope with everyday problems. They may also see clients with more serious mental or behavioral problems such as phobias (unreasonable fears), excessive anxiety, obsessive-compulsive behavior and thought, or depression. We will talk more about the different disciplines within psychology toward the end of this chapter and will discuss mental disorders and their treatment in Chapters 16 and 17. It’s worth noting here that most discussion in this book will deal with the science of typical behavior and thought: how most people think and behave most of the time and the factors that influence such actions. However, we will also examine individual differences in thought and behavior. In some cases, we will look at differences within the typical, or normal, range of functioning, such as some people being more outgoing than others, or sex differences in aggression or sensory abilities. In other cases, we will examine atypical thought and behavior, such as in autism, schizophrenia, or extreme reactions to stress like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

In this opening chapter, we do three things, all aimed at helping to prepare you for the rest of the book. First, we present you with a tiny bit of the history and philosophy that predate and underlie modern psychology. More specifically, we describe the historical origins of three ideas that are so basic to our science that we refer to them as “fundamental ideas for psychology.” Second, we describe the scope of modern psychology, especially the various explanatory concepts, or levels of analysis, that psychologists use in their attempts to understand behavior and mind. Third, we describe the features of this book and how you might use them to maximize your enjoyment of it and your ability to learn from it. We put that section last because we thought you might learn more from it after you have read a bit of the book than you would if it came first. If you prefer to read that section first, please do. It starts on page 22.

There is one feature of the book that we want you to notice right now, however. In the margins of the text, throughout the book, you will find numbered focus questions. The first such question appears in the margin next to the paragraph you are reading right now. These are the questions that the text tries to answer, and they are also good self-test questions. An effective way to study this book is to read and think about each focus question as you come to it, before you read the adjacent paragraphs of text, which are aimed at answering that question. This method of study will help you focus your attention on the text and understand and remember what you read. If you read with the active intention of answering the focus questions, your attention is less likely to drift, and you are more likely to understand and think about what you read than if you read passively just to “learn” or “absorb” the material. In addition, after reading the whole chapter or a section of it, you might review by rereading each focus question and answering it in your own words.