Unit 1: What Psychological Science Is
Why intuition about the mind is not enough, and how the scientific method turned philosophy of mind into an experimental discipline.
4 topics · 12 questions
Each topic is a path, not a menu: work down it in order and every question builds on the one above. Click any of them to watch the answer draw itself.
Folk Psychology vs. Psychological Science
- How it worksHow does psychological science turn a gut feeling about the mind into a testable claim?
- Common mistakeWhy doesn't being a person automatically make you an expert on how people think?
- Going furtherWhat happens to a folk belief about the mind, like venting anger cools you down, once someone actually measures it?
Your turn1 of 2
A student argues that psychology hardly needs careful research methods, since everyone already has direct, firsthand access to their own mind and to how people around them behave every day. Why doesn't being a person automatically make someone an expert on how people think?From Behaviorism to the Cognitive Revolution
- How it worksHow did Skinner explain a pigeon's behavior using only stimuli, responses, and reinforcement, with no mention of a mind?
- How it worksHow did computers and the idea of information processing give psychologists a way to talk about thought again?
- Common mistakeWhy isn't the cognitive revolution just psychoanalysis with new vocabulary for the unconscious?
Your turn1 of 2
B.F. Skinner explained a pigeon's pecking behavior entirely in terms of stimuli, responses, and reinforcement history, without ever proposing what the pigeon might be thinking or wanting. A student assumes any explanation of behavior must include some claim about the animal's inner mental state to really count as a full explanation. How did Skinner explain behavior without mentioning a mind at all?Evolutionary Psychology as a Framework
- How it worksHow does natural selection shape a mental adaptation the same way it shapes an eye or a hand?
- Going furtherWhat happens when a mental adaptation built for the ancestral environment fires in a modern one it was never built for?
- Common mistakeWhy doesn't calling a behavior evolved mean it is good, inevitable, or impossible to change?
Your turn1 of 2
Infants show a fear response to snake-like shapes even without ever having encountered a real snake before. A student assumes such a specific fear must have been learned somehow, perhaps from a parent's reaction, since nothing about the mind seems built in before birth. How does natural selection shape a mental adaptation like this one the same way it shapes a physical trait like an eye?Nature and Nurture Are Not Opposites
- How it worksHow do genes and environment interact rather than add up to produce a trait like intelligence or personality?
- Common mistakeWhy isn't a highly heritable trait therefore a trait that environment can't change?
- Going furtherWhat happens to a trait's heritability estimate once everyone in a population grows up in the same environment?
Your turn1 of 2
Identical twins raised in different homes show a trait concordance correlation of 0.704, while fraternal twins raised in different homes show a correlation of 0.397. Using the simplified doubling formula, heritability equals twice the difference between these two correlations. Find the estimated heritability.