Introduction to psychology Holley Simmons Walden University Introduction to psychology Psychology deals with the scientific study of the mind and the behavior of a person. The word psychology is derived from two Greek words, “psyche” and “logos” which mean life and explanation respectively. Therefore, psychology generally is the meaning of life where we endeavor to understand life. In everyday life we apply psychology either knowingly or unknowingly with popular television shows such as Dr. Phil utilizing psychologists to help people understand what they are going through. There are many types of psychologists, each dealing with a certain specific aspect of life (Mangal, 2019). Examples of this include school counselors, marriage and family therapists, religious therapists among many others. Engagement statements/ questions: · What is your opinion on what psychology is? · What do you expect to learn in this course? Point 1. Why is using intuition about everyday behavior insufficient for a complete understanding on the causes of behavior? Psychologists rely on existing research which is based on scientific methods to understand the causes of a behavior. Therefore, utilizing intuition to carry out an activity which is achieved using scientific methods is not possible. However, human being is often compelled to utilizing their intuition to understand their behavior and in essence, they get to learn the principles of human behavior (Ross, 1977). Examples of this instances include: · Tendency to be depressed after failing at something important · Giving bad news often leads to being blamed even in instances where one is not responsible for the bad news. Scientific data is based mostly on these observations. However, it is not advisable to utilize intuition because it is not particularly thorough. Often one explanation of a behavior is taken as long as it seems right, however, there exists other explanations which are not taken into consideration. An example of this is where eyewitnesses are overconfident in the identification of a crime perpetrator. However, research has shown that they are often overconfident in incidences where they are wrong. When using intuition, there are cognitive and motivational biases which may influence the way we interpret a behavior. This often led to drawing of erroneous conclusions. Therefore, it is important to accept the explanations of events after they have been scientifically tested to ensure that the conclusion made is not erroneous but the facts. More often, after being presented by the results of a scientific research, one believes that they would have made a similar inference. Therefore, many people tend to disregard the importance of research since they believe that research arrives at similar conclusions as theirs. However, this feeling is caused by hindsight bias where after learning the results, we often connect it with examples in real life which support the findings. These examples may not come in.

1. Introduction to psychology
Holley Simmons
Walden University
Introduction to psychology
Psychology deals with the scientific study of the mind and the
behavior of a person. The word psychology is derived from two
Greek words, “psyche” and “logos” which mean life and
explanation respectively. Therefore, psychology generally is the
meaning of life where we endeavor to understand life. In
everyday life we apply psychology either knowingly or
unknowingly with popular television shows such as Dr. Phil
utilizing psychologists to help people understand what they are
going through. There are many types of psychologists, each
dealing with a certain specific aspect of life (Mangal, 2019).
Examples of this include school counselors, marriage and
family therapists, religious therapists among many others.
Engagement statements/ questions:
· What is your opinion on what psychology is?
· What do you expect to learn in this course?
Point 1. Why is using intuition about everyday behavior
insufficient for a complete understanding on the causes of
behavior?
Psychologists rely on existing research which is based on
scientific methods to understand the causes of a behavior.
Therefore, utilizing intuition to carry out an activity which is
achieved using scientific methods is not possible. However,
human being is often compelled to utilizing their intuition to
understand their behavior and in essence, they get to learn the
principles of human behavior (Ross, 1977).
Examples of this instances include:
· Tendency to be depressed after failing at something important

2. · Giving bad news often leads to being blamed even in instances
where one is not responsible for the bad news.
Scientific data is based mostly on these observations. However,
it is not advisable to utilize intuition because it is not
particularly thorough. Often one explanation of a behavior is
taken as long as it seems right, however, there exists other
explanations which are not taken into consideration. An
example of this is where eyewitnesses are overconfident in the
identification of a crime perpetrator. However, research has
shown that they are often overconfident in incidences where
they are wrong.
When using intuition, there are cognitive and motivational
biases which may influence the way we interpret a behavior.
This often led to drawing of erroneous conclusions. Therefore,
it is important to accept the explanations of events after they
have been scientifically tested to ensure that the conclusion
made is not erroneous but the facts.
More often, after being presented by the results of a scientific
research, one believes that they would have made a similar
inference. Therefore, many people tend to disregard the
importance of research since they believe that research arrives
at similar conclusions as theirs. However, this feeling is caused
by hindsight bias where after learning the results, we often
connect it with examples in real life which support the findings.
These examples may not come into mind without having read
the examples and consequently, one may not have arrived at
similar conclusions as the research (Krueger & Funder, 2004).
Questions for interaction:
· Can you provide examples where hindsight bias might come
into play?
· An exercise of this is where students are presented with
findings on a research on the attraction between people. 50% of

3. the students are presented with research findings that opposites
attract while the other 50% are presented with research findings
that birds of a feather flock together. In both instances, the
students are likely to agree with the findings of the research and
would believe that they would have arrived at a similar
conclusion. However, it has been proven that the findings of
birds of a feather flock together is the correct inference.
Point 2. Difference between values and facts and how scientific
method is used to differentiate between the two
Values are personal statements which are not based on facts
while facts are objective statements which have been proven to
be accurate trough an empirical study.
Ask the class to provide examples of statements that portray
values and those that portray facts (Cohen, 2011).
Examples
· Values: Studying psychology is important, I am a good person
· Facts: the heart normal resting heart rate is 60 to 100 beats per
minute
Values should not be the basis for the creation of facts.
However, people often utilize facts to create their values. This
would consequently inform their decision-making process. An
example of how facts may impact values is an incidence where
research has proven that capital punishment leads to a reduction
in the crime rate. Making this research finding known may lead
to people developing the value that capital punishment is good.
Research may prove a point and it is taken as a fact. However,
advances in technology and upon further research, this may be
proven to be incorrect and hence it be classified as a value
rather than a fact. This proves that scientific methods are not
always correct, however, they provide the best approach to
drawing objective conclusions and understanding what is going
on around us (Cohen, 2011).
Psychology utilizes levels of explanation which provides

4. perspectives towards understanding a behavior. The lower levels
explanation is influenced by biological factors such as genes
and hormones, the middle levels explanation is influenced by
individual characteristics while the higher-level explanation is
influenced by social groups, organizations, and cultures. While
intuition may take one approach only, psychology takes a
multilevel integrative analysis which enables the conclusion to
be more reliable (Cohen, 2011). Examples of this levels using
depression:
· Lower level. Depression is partly influenced by genetics
· Middle level. Depressed people interpret events in a negative
manner.
· Higher levels. Women are more susceptible to depression than
men.
The application of the results of a research in psychology may
prove to be problematic. The predictions which are made are
mostly probabilistic. An example of this is where people who
score highly in intelligence tests are predicted to do better as
compared to those who score lower. This might be the case for a
majority of the people, but there is a defiant population where
even with a high score in the intelligence tests, they do not do
better when compared to those who score lower.
Point 3: The many disciplines of psychology
Contrary to the belief of many, psychology is not one but rather
a collection of many sub disciplines. They share a common
some common approaches and exchange knowledge to arrive at
one coherent discipline known as psychology (Gangestad, &
Tybur, 2016). They include:
· Cognitive psychology. This is field of psychology which
utilizes brain imaging and reaction time to study memory,
language and thinking.
· Developmental psychology. These deals with the cognitive,

5. notional and social changes which take place in the life of an
individual.
· Health psychology. These deals with the impact that biology,
behavior and social situations impact health and illness.
· Personality psychology. These aim at understanding people
and the differences which occur between them.
· School and educational psychology. This field helps to study
how people learn in school, the effectiveness of the school
programs and the psychology of teaching.
Give the class an opportunity to provide other examples of sub
disciplines of psychology.
As you can see, there are many areas in which one can choose to
study psychology. This is an interesting field and it allows one
to get an understanding of what happens in a specific area of
life.
Activity
The activity to utilize in this case is the use of a quiz to test the
understanding of the students. The score of the quiz will be
used to determine whether or not the students have been able to
understand the learning activities. The answer the the quiz will
be graded depending on how comprehensive it is.
1. What is psychology?
2. Why is using intuition insufficient to predict everyday life?
3. Why is it important to utilize psychology to predict everyday
life?
4. What are the differences between values and facts?
5. What are the disciplines of psychology?
Rationale

6. The approach taken in this lesson is systematic and allows for
the students to be introduced to the topic slowly. With the
examples, the students are given an opportunity to better
understand the concepts which are being introduced. There is
also the use of questions during the lecture to encourage
interaction rather than just dictating to the students. Each part
of the lecture will be carried out for 10 minutes allowing for the
contributions of the students. Being a large class of 200
students, 20 minutes will be allowed for interaction with the
class where the students will be allowed to ask any questions
they might be giving. The quiz will be a takeaway quiz which
will allow the students to extensive reading and hence
comprehensive answers will be required.
References
Cohen, M. F. (2011). An introduction to logic and scientific
method. Read Books Ltd.
Gangestad, S. W., & Tybur, J. M. (2016). Editorial overview:
Evolutionary psychology.
Krueger, J. I., & Funder, D. C. (2004). Towards a balanced
social psychology: Causes, consequences, and cures for the
problem-seeking approach to social behavior and cognition.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 27(3), 313-327.
Mangal, S. K. (2019). An introduction to psychology. Sterling
Publishers Pvt. Ltd.
Ross, L. (1977). The intuitive psychologist and his
shortcomings: Distortions in the attribution process. In
Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 10, pp. 173-
220). Academic Press.

7. © 2013 Laureate Education, Inc.
8