What do you think psychologists do? If you are like most people, when you think of a psychologist, you think of a therapist counseling people who have problems. If I asked you to name a psychologist, you would probably name Sigmund Freud. However, Freud and psychologists who work as therapists are not the focus of this book. They will be discussed, but they are only a part of psychology's story. Psychology is a science, not just a mental health profession. The subjects of this scientific study are you, me, all humans. Some psychologists may use other animals in their research, but their main goal is usually still to understand humans. Psychology is the science of behavior and mental processes. Psychologists attempt to understand all aspects of both our observable behavior, such as speech and physical movement, and internal mental processes, such as remembering and thinking, which cannot be directly observed. Psychologists may be found in any number of roles, including teaching, researching, consulting, and yes, counseling troubled people. This book, however, will focus on the research done by psychological scientists, the process by which they've accomplished that research, and what we've learned from their work.

Psychological researchers study everything about us from how our brain works and how we see and hear to how we reason and make decisions. The American Psychological Association lists 54 different divisions of psychology, and psychologists specialize in studying each of these different aspects of our behavior and mental processing. To learn more about these various subfields and careers in psychology, visit www.apa.org/careers/resources/guides/careers.aspx. Although there are many diverse areas within psychology, there are only four major research perspectives for studying these topics. We will begin with a general overview of these four perspectives and then provide descriptions of the major research methods that psychologists use regardless of their perspective. Understanding these perspectives and the research methods used by psychologists will allow you to start thinking like a psychologist (like a scientist).

Note that there are other perspectives in psychology that are primarily clinical in nature (related to psychological therapy). We will discuss the psychoanalytic perspective (which emphasizes the interaction of unconscious forces and childhood experiences in personality development) and the humanistic perspective (which emphasizes the personal growth motive) in Chapter 8, Personality Theories and Assessment.