PSİKOLOJİ - Deneme Sınavı - 3

Science has to either prove or refute the knowledge that it produces.

Science is objective not subjective.

The social sciences include sub-branches such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, ethnology, economics, and law. Physiology is classified as a physical science.

Measurement refers to symbolic representation, especially digital, of the characteristics, qualities, and objects—in other words, the variables—through observation.

It is relevant to reaching a general truth.

Gathering Information about the Problem

Some researchers in documentaries start living with the members of a tribe in order to get to know and understand their culture better. This kind of studies are examples for ethnography.

There are four main ethical principles that researchers have to follow:

• Not harming the participants

• Granting written consent from the participants

• Preserving confidentiality

        • Avoiding scientific deception

In order to understand behavior, psychology holds five aims: to describe,
to explain, to predict, to control, and to improve the behavior. Explaining refers to uncovering the causes of behavior (e.g., authoritarianism develops in people with controlling parents).

Psychology separated from philosophy and became a discipline on its own right in the late nineteenth century. It has come to be accepted as an independent discipline with the foundation of its own laboratory and development of its own methodology.

Table 1.2 'Other disciplines interested in human behavior', on page 5.

Beginning of modern psychology dates back to the late nineteenth century, when Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) founded the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany (Photo1.1). He had been educated as a physician but developed interest in psychology.

Materialism is a philosophical approach, which rejected the idea of mind and body as separate entities. According to materialism, the mind is not something spiritual or nonphysical. The mind is just a part of the body. That is, the roots of the mind can be found in the body.

The psychoanalysis approach, founded by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), suggested that psychology should study human mind by discovering the unconscious processes.

According to Gestalt psychology, individual elements of any experience cannot explain the experience itself. It suggested that elements of any experience interact with each other and humans perceive a pattern or a whole of these interactions, which takes place across time and/or space. Thus, psychology should consider the whole in order to understand its parts because the whole of anything is greater than its parts.

Developmental psychology studies human behavior in the context of aging. It aims to understand how human behavior changes with aging across life. Developmental psychology has particular interest in the study of what influences
development in the childhood. Some developmental psychologists focus on the life span development instead of the development in age periods, such as childhood and adolescence.

Social psychology studies human behavior in relation with others’ behavior. It aims to understand how others influence humans’ behaviors, thoughts, and feelings.

Social motives - which include being together, need for achievement, power and affiliation-are about interpersonal relationships.