Discover psychology 2.0 a brief introductory text

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If you’re wondering why we’re bringing you a new edition of Psychology: Core Concepts . . .

1 In the new seventh edition, we feature new cutting-edge research on the neuroscience of social interaction, cul- tural influences on perception, daydreaming, taste, and meditation, as well as updates on bullying, the slower rise of IQ scores (the Flynn effect) in developed coun- tries, the myth of multitasking, and much more. We also introduce readers to a groundbreaking modification of Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs, newly framed by evolutionary psychologists.

2 Our lead author Philip Zimbardo has recently published a detailed description and analysis of his famous Stanford Prison Experiment in The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. We are pleased to include in Psychology: Core Concepts some of the insights he presented in Lucifer—particularly the notion of the effect of impersonal social systems, as well as social situations, on human behavior. Ours is the only introductory text in which you will find a discussion of how these social systems, such as organizations and bureaucracies, create a context that can profoundly influence the behavior of groups and individuals.

3 Dr. Zimbardo has also done important new work on the differences among people in their time perspective, re- ferring to a focus on the past, the present, or the future. This text is the only introduction to psychology to dis- cuss the powerful influence of time perspective on our decisions and actions.

4 In this edition, Read on MyPsychLab icons appear in the margins indicating that additional readings are

available for students to explore. For example, one of the Read features in Chapter 3 (Sensation and Percep- tion) deals with the classic study of backward masking. In Chapter 12 (Disorders and Therapy), you can read more about an African perspective on mental disorder.

5 One of our goals in this new edition is, again, to help you learn to “think like psychologists.” To do so, we have placed new emphasis on two kinds of psychological think- ing: (1) problem solving and (2) critical thinking. Every chapter begins with a Problem and ends with a critical analysis of an important psychological question, such as gender differences or repressed memory.

6 We have made a special effort in the seventh edition to provide clues throughout the chapter to help you un- derstand the solution to the chapter-opening Problem— which proved to be a popular feature in the last edition. The Chapter Summary now gives a brief “answer” to the problem as well.

7 We have designed the Critical Thinking applications at the end of each chapter to build upon a set of critical thinking skills introduced in Chapter One. Each of these focuses on an issue that is popularly misunderstood (e.g., the Mozart Effect) or contentious within the field (e.g., the evidence- based practice debate within clinical psychology). In this edition, we have also included the gist of the Critical Thinking section in the Chapter Summary.

8 Reflecting advances in multicultural and cross-cultural research, we have added even more coverage of culture and gender throughout the text. Our goal here is two- fold: We want you to see the relevance of psychology in your life, and we want you to understand that psychol- ogy is the science of behavior and mental processes that both generalizes and differs across cultures.

Why Do You Need This New Edition?

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Psychology

Philip G. Zimbardo Stanford University

Robert L. Johnson Umpqua Community College

Vivian McCann Portland Community College

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Seventh Edition

Core Concepts

Student Edition ISBN-10: 0-205-18346-8

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Zimbardo, Philip G.

Psychology : core concepts / Philip G. Zimbardo, Robert L. Johnson, Vivian McCann. -- 7th ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-205-18346-3

ISBN-10: 0-205-18346-8

1. Psychology. I. Johnson, Robert L. (Robert Lee) II. McCann, Vivian. III. Title.

BF121.Z53 2012

150—dc23

2011027587

1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

1 Mind, Behavior, and Psychological Science 2 2 Biopsychology, Neuroscience, and Human Nature 40 3 Sensation and Perception 86 4 Learning and Human Nurture 132 5 Memory 170 6 Thinking and Intelligence 212 7 Development Over the Lifespan 264 8 States of Consciousness 322 9 Motivation and Emotion 362 10 Personality: Theories of the Whole Person 412 11 Social Psychology 458 12 Psychological Disorders 514 13 Therapies for Psychological Disorders 554 14 From Stress to Health and Well-Being 596 Glossary G-1 References R-1 Answers to Discovering Psychology Program Review Questions A-1 Photo Credits C-1 Name Index I-1 Subject Index I-7

B R I E F C O N T E N T S

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C O N T E N T S

CHAPTER 1 Mind, Behavior, and Psychological Science 2

PROBLEM: How would psychologists test the claim that sugar makes children hyperactive? 3

1.1 What Is Psychology—And What Is It Not? 4 Psychology: It’s More Than You Think 4 Psychology Is Not Psychiatry 6 Thinking Critically about Psychology

and Pseudo-Psychology 7

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Using Psychology to Learn Psychology 10

1.2 What Are Psychology’s Six Main Perspectives? 11 Separation of Mind and Body and the Modern Biological

Perspective 12 The Founding of Scientific Psychology and the Modern

Cognitive Perspective 13 The Behavioral Perspective: Focusing on Observable

Behavior 16

The Whole-Person Perspectives: Psychodynamic, Humanistic, and Trait and Temperament Psychology 17

The Developmental Perspective: Changes Arising from Nature and Nurture 19

The Sociocultural Perspective: The Individual in Context 19 The Changing Face of Psychology 20

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Psychology as a Major 22

1.3 How Do Psychologists Develop New Knowledge? 23 Four Steps in the Scientific Method 24 Five Types of Psychological Research 27 Controlling Biases in Psychological Research 31 Ethical Issues in Psychological Research 32

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: The Perils of Pseudo-Psychology 33

CRITICAL THINKING APPLIED: Facilitated Communication 35

Chapter Summary 36 Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide 38

PROBLEM: What does Jill Bolte Taylor’s experience teach us about how our brain is organized and about its amazing ability to adapt? 42

2.1 How Are Genes and Behavior Linked? 43 Evolution and Natural Selection 43 Genetics and Inheritance 45

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Choosing Your Children’s Genes 48

2.2 How Does the Body Communicate Internally? 49 The Neuron: Building Block of the Nervous System 50 The Nervous System 56 The Endocrine System 58

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: How Psychoactive Drugs Affect the Nervous System 60

2.3 How Does the Brain Produce Behavior and Mental Processes? 62 Windows on the Brain 63 Three Layers of the Brain 65 Lobes of the Cerebral Cortex 69 Cerebral Dominance 73

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Using Psychology to Learn Psychology 79

CRITICAL THINKING APPLIED: Left Brain versus Right Brain 80

Chapter Summary 81 Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide 84

CHAPTER 2 Biopsychology, Neuroscience, and Human Nature 40

CHAPTER 3 Sensation and Perception 86

PROBLEM: Is there any way to tell whether the world we “see” in our minds is the same as the external world—and whether we see things as most others do? 88

3.1 How Does Stimulation Become Sensation? 89 Transduction: Changing Stimulation to Sensation 90 Thresholds: The Boundaries of Sensation 91 Signal Detection Theory 93

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Sensory Adaptation 93

3.2 How Are the Senses Alike? How Are They Different? 94 Vision: How the Nervous System Processes Light 94 Hearing: If a Tree Falls in the Forest . . . 100 How the Other Senses Are Like Vision and Hearing 104 Synesthesia: Sensations across the Senses 108

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: The Sense and Experience of Pain 109

3.3 What Is the Relationship between Sensation and Perception? 112 Perceptual Processing: Finding Meaning in Sensation 112 Perceptual Ambiguity and Distortion 114 Theoretical Explanations for Perception 117 Seeing and Believing 124

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Using Psychology to Learn Psychology 125

CRITICAL THINKING APPLIED: Subliminal Perception and Subliminal Persuasion 126

Chapter Summary 128 Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide 130 vii

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CHAPTER 4 Learning and Human Nurture 132

PROBLEM: Assuming Sabra’s fear of flying was a response she had learned, could it also be treated by learning? If so, how? 134

4.1 What Sort of Learning Does Classical Conditioning Explain? 136 The Essentials of Classical Conditioning 137 Applications of Classical Conditioning 139

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Taste Aversions and Chemotherapy 142

4.2 How Do We Learn New Behaviors By Operant Conditioning? 142 Skinner’s Radical Behaviorism 143 The Power of Reinforcement 143 The Problem of Punishment 149 A Checklist for Modifying Operant Behavior 152 Operant and Classical Conditioning Compared 153

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Using Psychology to Learn Psychology 155

4.3 How Does Cognitive Psychology Explain Learning? 156 Insight Learning: Köhler in the Canaries with Chimps 157 Cognitive Maps: Tolman Finds Out What’s on a

Rat’s Mind 158 Observational Learning: Bandura’s Challenge to

Behaviorism 159 Brain Mechanisms and Learning 161 “Higher” Cognitive Learning 162

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Fear of Flying Revisited 162

CRITICAL THINKING APPLIED: Do Different People Have Different “Learning Styles”? 164

Chapter Summary 166 Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide 168

CHAPTER 5 Memory 170

PROBLEM: How can our knowledge about memory help us evaluate claims of recovered memories? 172

5.1 What Is Memory? 172 Metaphors for Memory 173 Memory’s Three Basic Tasks 174

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Would You Want a “Photographic” Memory? 175

5.2 How Do We Form Memories? 177 The First Stage: Sensory Memory 178 The Second Stage: Working Memory 180 The Third Stage: Long-Term Memory 184

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: “Flashbulb” Memories: Where Were You When . . . ? 189

5.3 How Do We Retrieve Memories? 190 Implicit and Explicit Memory 190 Retrieval Cues 191 Other Factors Affecting Retrieval 193

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: On the Tip of Your Tongue 194

5.4 Why Does Memory Sometimes Fail Us? 195 Transience: Fading Memories Cause Forgetting 196 Absent-Mindedness: Lapses of Attention Cause

Forgetting 198 Blocking: Access Problems 198 Misattribution: Memories in the Wrong Context 199 Suggestibility: External Cues Distort or Create Memories 200 Bias: Beliefs, Attitudes, and Opinions Distort Memories 201 Persistence: When We Can’t Forget 202 The Advantages of the “Seven Sins” of Memory 202 Improving Your Memory with Mnemonics 203

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Using Psychology to Learn Psychology 204

CRITICAL THINKING APPLIED: The Recovered Memory Controversy 206

Chapter Summary 207 Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide 210

C O N T E N T S ix

CHAPTER 7 Development Over the Lifespan 264

PROBLEM: Do the amazing accounts of similarities in twins reared apart indicate we are primarily a product of our genes? Or do genetics and environment work together to influence growth and development over the lifespan? 266

7.1 What Innate Abilities Does the Infant Possess? 268 Prenatal Development 268 The Neonatal Period: Abilities of the Newborn Child 269 Infancy: Building on the Neonatal Blueprint 271

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Not Just Fun and Games: The Role of Child’s Play in Life Success 277

7.2 What Are the Developmental Tasks of Childhood? 279 How Children Acquire Language 279 Cognitive Development: Piaget’s Theory 282 Social and Emotional Development 288

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: The Puzzle of ADHD 294

7.3 What Changes Mark the Transition of Adolescence? 296 Adolescence and Culture 296

Physical Maturation in Adolescence 297 Adolescent Sexuality 298 Neural and Cognitive Development in Adolescence 299 Moral Development: Kohlberg’s Theory 300 Social and Emotional Issues in Adolescence 302

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Using Psychology to Learn Psychology: Cognitive Development in College Students 304

7.4 What Developmental Challenges Do Adults Face? 305 Early Adulthood: Explorations, Autonomy, and Intimacy 306 The Challenges of Midlife: Complexity and Generativity 308 Late Adulthood: The Age of Integrity 310

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: A Look Back at the Jim Twins and Your Own Development 313

CRITICAL THINKING APPLIED: The Mozart Effect 315

Chapter Summary 316 Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide 320

CHAPTER 6 Thinking and Intelligence 212

PROBLEM: What produces “genius,” and to what extent are the people we call “geniuses” different from others? 214

6.1 What Are the Components of Thought? 215 Concepts 215 Imagery and Cognitive Maps 217 Thought and the Brain 218 Intuition 219

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Schemas and Scripts Help You Know What to Expect 221

6.2 What Abilities Do Good Thinkers Possess? 223 Problem Solving 223 Judging and Making Decisions 227 Becoming a Creative Genius 229

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Using Psychology to Learn Psychology 232

6.3 How Is Intelligence Measured? 233 Binet and Simon Invent a School Abilities Test 234 American Psychologists Borrow Binet and Simon’s Idea 235 Problems with the IQ Formula 236 Calculating IQs “on the Curve” 237 IQ Testing Today 238

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: What Can You Do for an Exceptional Child? 239

6.4 Is Intelligence One or Many Abilities? 242 Psychometric Theories of Intelligence 242 Cognitive Theories of Intelligence 243 The Question of Animal Intelligence 247

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Test Scores and the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy 249

6.5 How Do Psychologists Explain IQ Differences Among Groups? 250 Intelligence and the Politics of Immigration 251 What Evidence Shows That Intelligence Is Influenced

by Heredity? 251 What Evidence Shows That Intelligence is Influenced

by Environment? 252 Heritability (Not Heredity) and Group Differences 253 PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Stereotype Threat 256

CRITICAL THINKING APPLIED: The Question of Gender Differences 258

Chapter Summary 259 Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide 262

CHAPTER 8 States of Consciousness 322

PROBLEM: How can psychologists objectively examine the worlds of dreaming and other subjective mental states? 324

8.1 How Is Consciousness Related to Other Mental Processes? 324 Tools for Studying Consciousness 326 Models of the Conscious and Nonconscious Minds 327 What Does Consciousness Do for Us? 329 Coma and Related States 330

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Using Psychology to Learn Psychology 331

8.2 What Cycles Occur in Everyday Consciousness? 332 Daydreaming 332

Sleep: The Mysterious Third of Our Lives 333 Dreaming: The Pageants of the Night 338

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Sleep Disorders 341

8.3 What Other Forms Can Consciousness Take? 344 Hypnosis 345 Meditation 347 Psychoactive Drug States 348

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Dependence and Addiction 354

CRITICAL THINKING APPLIED: The Unconscious—Reconsidered 356

Chapter Summary 358 Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide 360

x C O N T E N T S

CHAPTER 10 Personality: Theories of the Whole Person 412

PROBLEM: What influences were at work to produce the unique behavioral patterns, high achievement motivation, and consistency over time and place that we see in the personality of Mary Calkins? 414

10.1 What Forces Shape Our Personalities? 415 Biology, Human Nature, and Personality 416 The Effects of Nurture: Personality and the Environment 416 The Effects of Nature: Dispositions and Mental

Processes 417 Social and Cultural Contributions to Personality 417 PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Explaining Unusual People

and Unusual Behavior 418

10.2 What Persistent Patterns, or Dispositions, Make Up Our Personalities? 420

Personality and Temperament 421 Personality as a Composite of Traits 422 PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Finding Your Type 426

10.3 Do Mental Processes Help Shape Our Personalities? 428 Psychodynamic Theories: Emphasis on Motivation

and Mental Disorder 428

Humanistic Theories: Emphasis on Human Potential and Mental Health 439

Social-Cognitive Theories: Emphasis on Social Learning 442

Current Trends: The Person in a Social System 445 PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Using Psychology to Learn

Psychology 445

10.4 What “Theories” Do People Use to Understand Themselves and Others? 447

Implicit Personality Theories 447 Self-Narratives: The Stories of Our Lives 448 The Effects of Culture on Our Views of Personality 449 PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: The Personality of Time 450

CRITICAL THINKING APPLIED: The Person–Situation Controversy 453

Chapter Summary 454 Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide 456

CHAPTER 9 Motivation and Emotion 362

PROBLEM: Motivation is largely an internal and subjective process: How can we determine what motivates people like Lance Armstrong to work so hard at becoming the best in the world at what they do? 364

9.1 What Motivates Us? 364 Why People Work: McClelland’s Theory 365 The Unexpected Effects of Rewards on Motivation 367 PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Using Psychology to Learn

Psychology 368

9.2 How Are Our Motivational Priorities Determined? 369 Instinct Theory 369 Drive Theory 370 Freud’s Psychodynamic Theory 371 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs 372 Putting It All Together: A New Hierarchy of Needs 373

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Determining What Motivates Others 374

9.3 Where Do Hunger and Sex Fit into the Motivational Hierarchy? 375 Hunger: A Homeostatic Drive and a Psychological

Motive 376 The Problem of Will Power and Chocolate Cookies 379

Sexual Motivation: An Urge You Can Live Without 380 Sex, Hunger, and the Hierarchy of Needs 384

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: The What and Why of Sexual Orientation 385

9.4 How Do Our Emotions Motivate Us? 387 What Emotions Are Made Of 388 What Emotions Do for Us 389 Counting the Emotions 389 Cultural Universals in Emotional Expression 390

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Gender Differences in Emotion Depend on Biology and Culture 391

9.5 What Processes Control Our Emotions? 392 The Neuroscience of Emotion 393 Arousal, Performance, and the Inverted U 396 Theories of Emotion: Resolving Some Old Issues 397 How Much Conscious Control Do We Have Over Our

Emotions? 399

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Detecting Deception 403

CRITICAL THINKING APPLIED: Do Lie Detectors Really Detect Lies? 405

Chapter Summary 407 Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide 410

C O N T E N T S xi

CHAPTER 11 Social Psychology 458

PROBLEM: What makes ordinary people willing to harm other people, as they did in Milgram’s shocking experiment? 461

11.1 How Does the Social Situation Affect Our Behavior? 462 Social Standards of Behavior 463 Conformity 465 Obedience to Authority 471 Cross-Cultural Tests of Milgram’s Research 475 Some Real-World Extensions of the Milgram Obedience

to Authority Paradigm 477 The Bystander Problem: The Evil of Inaction 478 Need Help? Ask for It! 480

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: On Being “Shoe” at Yale U 482

11.2 Constructing Social Reality: What Influences Our Judgments of Others? 483 Interpersonal Attraction 484 Loving Relationships 488

Making Cognitive Attributions 490 Prejudice and Discrimination 492

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Stereotype Lift and Values Affirmations 498

11.3 How Do Systems Create Situations That Influence Behavior? 500 The Stanford Prison Experiment 500 Chains of System Command 502 Preventing Bullying by Systematic Changes and Reframing 504

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Using Psychology to Learn Psychology 507

CRITICAL THINKING APPLIED: Is Terrorism “a Senseless Act of Violence, Perpetrated by Crazy Fanatics”? 508

Chapter Summary 510 Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide 512

PROBLEM: Is it possible to distinguish mental disorder from merely unusual behavior? That is, are there specific signs that clearly indicate mental disorder? 516

12.1 What Is Psychological Disorder? 517 Changing Concepts of Psychological Disorder 518 Indicators of Abnormality 521 A Caution to Readers 522

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: The Plea of Insanity 522

12.2 How Are Psychological Disorders Classified in the DSM-IV ? 524 Overview of the DSM-IV Classification System 524 Mood Disorders 526 Anxiety Disorders 530 Somatoform Disorders 534 Dissociative Disorders 535 Schizophrenia 537

Developmental Disorders 541 Personality Disorders 542 Adjustment Disorders and Other Conditions: The Biggest

Category of All 544 Gender Differences in Mental Disorders 544

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Shyness 544

12.3 What Are the Consequences of Labeling People? 545 Diagnostic Labels, Labeling, and Depersonalization 546 The Cultural Context of Psychological Disorder 546

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Using Psychology to Learn Psychology 547

CRITICAL THINKING APPLIED: Insane Places Revisited—Another Look at the Rosenhan Study 548

Chapter Summary 550 Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide 552

CHAPTER 12 Psychological Disorders 514

xii C O N T E N T S

Glossary G-1 References R-1 Answers to Discovering Psychology Program Review Questions A-1 Photo Credits C-1 Name Index I-1 Subject Index I-7

CHAPTER 14 From Stress to Health and Well-Being 596

PROBLEM: Were the reactions and experiences of the 9/11 firefighters and others at the World Trade Center attacks typical of people in other stressful situations? And what factors explain individual differences in our physical and psychological responses to stress? 598

14.1 What Causes Distress? 600 Traumatic Stressors 601 Chronic Stressors 606

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Student Stress 611

14.2 How Does Stress Affect Us Physically? 613 Physiological Responses to Stress 614 Stress and the Immune System 617

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Cognitive Appraisal of Ambiguous Threats 619

14.3 Who Is Most Vulnerable to Stress? 620 Type A Personality and Hostility 622 Locus of Control 623 Hardiness 624

Optimism 625 Resilience 626

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Using Psychology to Learn Psychology 628

14.4 How Can We Transform Negative Stress Into Positive Life Strategies? 629 Psychological Coping Strategies 630 Positive Lifestyle Choices: A “Two-for-One” Benefit to Your

Health 634 Putting It All Together: Developing Happiness and Subjective

Well-Being 637

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Behavioral Medicine and Health Psychology 639

CRITICAL THINKING APPLIED: Is Change Really Hazardous to Your Health? 641

Chapter Summary 643 Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide 646

CHAPTER 13 Therapies for Psychological Disorders 554

PROBLEM: What is the best treatment for Derek’s depression: psychological therapy, drug therapy, or both? More broadly, the problem is this: How do we decide among the available therapies for any of the mental disorders? 556

13.1 What Is Therapy? 556 Entering Therapy 557 The Therapeutic Alliance and the Goals of Therapy 557 Therapy in Historical and Cultural Context 559

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Paraprofessionals Do Therapy, Too 560

13.2 How Do Psychologists Treat Psychological Disorders? 561 Insight Therapies 562 Behavior Therapies 568 Cognitive–Behavioral Therapy: A Synthesis 571 Evaluating the Psychological Therapies 574

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Where Do Most People Get Help? 576

13.3 How Is the Biomedical Approach Used to Treat Psychological Disorders? 577 Drug Therapy 577

Other Medical Therapies for Psychological Disorders 581 Hospitalization and the Alternatives 583

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: What Sort of Therapy Would You Recommend? 584

13.4 How Do the Psychological Therapies and Biomedical Therapies Compare? 585 Depression and Anxiety Disorders: Psychological versus

Medical Treatment 587 Schizophrenia: Psychological versus Medical

Treatment 587 “The Worried Well” and Other Problems: Not Everyone Needs

Drugs 588

PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Using Psychology to Learn Psychology 588

CRITICAL THINKING APPLIED: Evidence-Based Practice 589

Chapter Summary 592 Discovering Psychology Viewing Guide 594

P R E FA C E xiii

T O T H E S T U D E N T . . .

There is one simple formula for academic success, and the following demonstration will show you what it is. Study this array of letters for a few seconds: I B M U F O F B I C I A

Now, without peeking, write down as many of the letters as you can (in the correct order).

Most people remember about five to seven letters correctly. A few people get them all. How do these exceptional few do it? They find a pattern. (You may have noticed some familiar initials in the array above: IBM, UFO, FBI, CIA.) Finding the pattern greatly eases the task because you can draw on material that is already stored in mem- ory. In this case, all that needs to be remembered are four “chunks” of information instead of 12 unrelated letters.

The same principle applies to material you study for your psychology class. If you try to remember each piece of information as a separate item, you will have a difficult time. But if instead you look for patterns, you will find your task greatly simplified— and much more enjoyable.

USING PSYCHOLOGY TO LEARN PSYCHOLOGY So, how can you identify the patterns? Your friendly authors have developed several learning features that will make meaningful patterns in the text stand out clearly:

Core Concepts We have organized each major section of every chapter around a single big idea called a Core Concept. For example, one of the four Core Concepts in Chapter 5, Memory, says:

Core Concept 5.4 Human memory is an information-processing system that works constructively to encode, store, and retrieve information.

The Core Concept, then, becomes the central theme around which about 10 pages of material—including several new terms—are organized. As you read each chapter, keep- ing the Core Concept in mind will help you encode the new terms and ideas related to that concept, store them in your memory, and later retrieve them when you are being tested. To borrow an old saying, the Core Concepts become the “forest,” while the details of the chapter become the “trees.”

Key Questions Each Core Concept is introduced by a Key Question that also serves as a main heading in the chapter. Here, for example, is a Key Question from the Memory chapter:

5.4 KEY QUESTION Why Does Memory Sometimes Fail Us?

Key Questions such as this will help you anticipate the most important point, or the Core Concept, in the section. In fact, the Core Concept always provides a brief answer to the Key Question. Think of the Key Question as the high beams on your car, helping

xiii

xiv T O T H E S T U D E N T

you focus on what lies ahead. Our Key Questions should also serve as guides for you in posing questions of your own about what you are reading.

Both the Key Questions and the Core Concepts later reappear as organizing fea- tures of the Chapter Summary.

Psychology Matters Psychology has many captivating connections with events in the news and in everyday life, and we have explored one of these connections at the end of each major section in every chapter. To illustrate, here are some examples from the Memory chapter:

• Would You Want a “Photographic” Memory? • “Flashbulb” Memories: Where Were You When . . . ? • On the Tip of Your Tongue

Such connections—practical, down to earth, and fascinating—will help you link your study of psychology with your real-life experiences. They will also help you critically evaluate many of the psychological ideas you encounter in the media—as when you see news stories that begin with “psychological research shows that . . .” By the end of this course, you will become a much wiser consumer of such information.

Psychology Matters: Using Psychology to Learn Psychology A special Psychology Matters section in every chapter explains how you can apply new knowledge from the chapter to make your studying more effective. For example, in Chapter 2, Biopsychology, Neuroscience, and Human Nature, we tell you how to put your understanding of the brain to work for more efficient learning. Similarly, at the end of Chapter 9, Motivation and Emotion, we explain how to use the psychological concept of “flow” to boost your academic motivation. Thus, Using Psychology to Learn Psychology not only reinforces points that you have studied but also brings the material home with immediate and practical applications to your life in college.

Do It Yourself! Throughout the book we have scattered active-learning demonstrations like the one in which you were asked to memorize the letters I B M U F O F B I C I A. Besides being fun, these activities have the serious purpose of illustrating important principles discussed in the text. In Chapter 5, for example, one Do It Yourself! box helps you find the capacity of your short-term memory; another lets you test your “photographic memory” ability.

Check Your Understanding Whether you’re learning psychology, soccer, or the saxophone, you need feedback on your progress, and that’s exactly what you will get from the Check Your Understanding quizzes. These quizzes appear at the end of every major section in the chapter, offering you a quick checkup indicating whether you have assimilated the main points from what you have read. Some questions call for simple recall; others call for deeper analysis or application of material. Some are multiple- choice questions; some are short-answer essay questions. These exercises will help you determine how well you have mastered the material.

MyPsychLab Integration Throughout the text, you will find marginal icons that link to important videos, simulations, podcasts, and activities you can find on MyPsychLab. New to this edition, we have developed reading activities (called Read on MyPsychLab) that will allow you to explore interesting topics more deeply. There are many more resources on MyPsychLab than those highlighted in the text, but the icons draw attention to some of the most high-interest materials. If you did not receive an access code with your text, you can purchase access at www.mypsychlab.com.

Connection Arrows Links to important topics discussed in other chapters are often cross-referenced with an arrow in the margin, as you can see in the sample here. These links will help you integrate your new knowledge with information you have already learned, or will show you where in a later chapter you can find out more

Study and Review at MyPsychLab

Read the Document at MyPsychLab

Simulate the Experiment at MyPsychLab

Explore the Concept at MyPsychLab

Watch the Video at MyPsychLab

Listen to the Podcast at MyPsychLab

www.mypsychlab.com
T O T H E S T U D E N T xv

about what you are reading. Connecting these concepts in your mind will help you remember them.

Marginal Glossary The most important terms appear in boldface, with their glossary definitions readily accessible in the margin. We list these key terms again in the Chapter Summary. Then, at the end of the book, a comprehensive Glossary gathers together all the key terms and definitions from each chapter in one easy-to-find location.

Chapter Summaries We have written our Chapter Summaries to provide you with an overview of main points in each chapter—to help you preview and review the chapter. The summaries are organized around the Key Questions and Core Concepts introduced within the chapter to facilitate review and mastery of chapter material. But we offer one caution: Reading the Chapter Summary will not substitute for reading the entire chapter! Here’s a helpful hint: We recommend that you read the summary before you read the rest of the chapter to get a flavor of what’s ahead, then reread the summary after you finish the chapter. Reading the summary before will provide a framework for the material so that it can be more easily encoded and stored in your memory. And, naturally, reviewing the summary after reading the chapter will reinforce what you have just learned so that you can retrieve it when needed on an examination.

THINKING LIKE A PSYCHOLOGIST Learning all the facts and definitions of psychology won’t make you a psychologist. Beyond the facts, thinking like a psychologist requires learning some problem-solving skills and critical thinking techniques that any good psychologist should possess. With this goal in mind, we have added two unique features to this book.

Chapter-Opening Problems Each chapter begins with an important problem that you will learn how to solve with the tools you acquire in your reading. Examples of the chapter- opening problems include testing the claim that sweet treats give children a “sugar high,” evaluating claims of recovered memories, and judging the extent to which the people we call “geniuses” are different from the rest of us.

Critical Thinking Applied At the end of each chapter, you will be asked to consider issues disputed among psychologists and issues raised in the media, such as the nature of the unconscious mind and the effects of subliminal persuasion. Each of these issues requires a skeptical attitude and the application of a special set of critical thinking skills that we will introduce in Chapter 1.

DISCOVERING PSYCHOLOGY VIDEOS At the end of each chapter, you will notice viewing guides for Discovering Psychology, a 26-part video series produced by WGBH and Annenberg Media and narrated by the lead author of this textbook, Phil Zimbardo. The videos provide an overview of his- toric and current theories of human behavior and feature many of the researchers and studies introduced in this textbook. You can access the Discovering Psychology videos and additional viewing resources through MyPsychLab (www.mypsychlab.com), the online companion to this textbook.

We have one final suggestion to help you succeed in psychology: This book is filled with examples to illustrate the most important ideas, but you will remember these ideas longer if you generate your own examples as you study. This habit will make the information yours as well as ours. And so we wish you a memorable journey through the field we love.

Phil Zimbardo Bob Johnson

Vivian McCann

www.mypsychlab.com
T O T H E I N S T R U C T O R . . .

Psychology has undergone remarkable changes since 2008, when we finished writing the previous edition of Psychology: Core Concepts. Here are just a few examples of the new developments we have included in this seventh edition:

• The brain’s “default network,” involving parts of the temporal lobe, the prefrontal cortex, and the cingulate cortex, becomes active when people focus their attention internally—when they are remembering personal events, making plans, or imagin- ing the perspectives of others. Unfortunately, daydreamers activating this default network while studying will probably not remember the material they have just studied.

• New research shows that analgesics such as Tylenol, normally used to treat physical pain, can reduce the painful psychological sensations resulting from social rejection and ruminating about unhappy relationships.

• Also in the realm of sensation, taste researcher Linda Bartoshuk has discovered a “Rosetta Stone,” enabling her to compare objectively the intensities of taste sensations experienced by different individuals.

• Meanwhile, perceptual psychologists have recently used brain scans to confirm the assertion that Americans and Asians perceive scenes differently.

• Brain scans have also enabled researchers to assess patients who have been classi- fied as in persistent vegetative states—and predict which ones might improve.

• In healthy individuals, scans have detected changes in the brains of volunteers who have undergone intensive training in meditation. The changes are most obvious in brain areas associated with memory, emotional processing, attention, and stress reduction.

• As cognitive psychologists continue to puzzle over the Flynn effect, IQ scores con- tinue to rise—but new studies show that the rise is slowing in developed countries of the West.

• Cognitive research also shows that one in four auto accidents results from the driver failing to notice hazardous conditions while using a cell phone—a bad decision probably deriving from a mistaken belief in multitasking. (Perhaps future research will determine whether the IQs of these drivers fall above or below the rising average.)

• New research by our own Phil Zimbardo shows that decisions can also be influenced by a personality trait that he calls time perspective—referring to a past, present, or future orientation.

• However, the ultimate influence on our decisions lies in natural selection, accord- ing to evolutionary psychologists—who have recently proposed a major new and controversial modification of Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs.

In all, we have included some 350 new references in this new edition—gleaned from literally thousands we have perused. Which is to say that psychological knowledge continues to grow, with no end in sight. As a result, many introductory textbooks have grown to daunting proportions. Meanwhile, our introductory courses remain the same length—with the material ever more densely packed. We cannot possibly introduce students to all the concepts in psychology, nor can our students possibly remember everything.

The problem is not just one of volume and information overload; it is also a prob- lem of meaningfulness. So, while we have aimed to cover less detail than do the more encyclopedic texts, we have not given you a watered-down “brief edition” book. The result is an emphasis on the most important and meaningful ideas in psychology.

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Our inspiration for Psychology: Core Concepts came from psychological research: specifically, a classic study of chess players by Dutch psychologist and chess master Adriaan de Groot (1965). His work, as you may recall, involved remembering the locations of pieces on a chessboard. Significantly, when the pieces were placed on the board at random, chess experts did no better than novices. Only when the pat- terns made sense—because they represented actual game situations—did the experts show an advantage. Clearly, meaningful patterns are easier to remember than random assignments.

In applying de Groot’s findings to Psychology: Core Concepts, our goal has been to present a scientific overview of the field of psychology within meaningful patterns that will help students better remember what they learn so that they can apply it in their own lives. Thus, we have organized each major section of every chapter around a single, clear idea that we call a Core Concept, which helps students focus on the big picture so they don’t become lost in the details.

From the beginning, our intention in writing Psychology: Core Concepts has been to offer students and instructors a textbook that combines a sophisticated introduc- tion to the field of psychology with pedagogy that applies the principles of psychology to the learning of psychology, all in a manageable number of pages. Even with all the new material we have included, the book remains essentially the same size—which, of course, meant making some tough decisions about what to include, what to delete, and what to move into our extensive collection of ancillary resources.

Our goal was to blend great science with great teaching and to provide an alter- native to the overwhelmingly encyclopedic tomes or skimpy “brief edition” texts that have been traditionally offered. We think you will like the introduction to psychol- ogy presented in this book—both the content and the pedagogical features. After all, it’s a text that relies consistently on well-grounded principles of psychology to teach psychology.

NEW TO THIS EDITION This edition of Psychology: Core Concepts is certainly no perfunctory revision or slap- dash update. And here’s why . . .

We have reconceptualized our goal of helping students learn to “think like psychologists.” These days, of course, everyone emphasizes critical thinking. The new edition of Psychology: Core Concepts, however, gives equal weight to that other essen- tial thinking skill: problem solving.

To encourage the sort of problem solving psychologists do, every chapter begins with a Problem, a feature we introduced in the last edition. The Problem grows out of the opening vignette and requires, for its solution, material developed in the chapter. In this edition, we have focused on helping readers discover, throughout each chapter, the “clues” that lead to the solution of the problem.

But we have not neglected critical thinking. Throughout the text, we deal with common psychological misconceptions—such as the notion that venting anger gets it “out of your system” or the belief that punishment is the most effective way of chang- ing behavior. And in our Critical Thinking Applied segment at the end of each chapter, we also focus on an important psychological issue in the popular media or an ongoing debate within the field:

• Can “facilitated communication” help us understand people with autism? • Left vs. right brain: Do most of us use only one side of the brain? • Can our choices be influenced by subliminal messages? • Do people have different “learning styles”? • The recovered memory controversy: How reliable are reports of long-forgotten

memories of sexual abuse? • Gender issues: Are we more alike or more different? • The “Mozart Effect”: Can music make babies smarter?

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• The Unconscious reconsidered: Has modern neuroscience reshaped Freud’s concept of the unconscious mind?

• Do lie detectors really detect lies? • The person-situation controversy: Which is the more important influence on our

behavior? • Is terrorism “a senseless act of violence, perpetrated by crazy fanatics”? • Insane places revisited: Did Rosenhan get it right? • Evidence-based practice: Should clinicians be limited by the tested-and-true? • Is change really hazardous to your health?

But that’s not all. We have made extensive updates to the text (in addition to the new research listed above). And we have improved the pedagogical features for which Psychology: Core Concepts is known and loved. To give a few examples, we have:

• added MyPsychLab icons throughout the margins to highlight important videos, simulations, podcasts, and additional resources for students to explore online. New to this edition, we have created Read on MyPsychLab activities that allow students to read and answer questions about many interesting topics more deeply online.

• shifted the focus of psychology’s six main perspectives to practical applications, giving a concrete example of a real-life problem for each.

• clarified and updated our discussion of the scientific method to reflect more accurately how research is done in a real-world context.

• added material on interpreting correlations—to help students use the notions of correlation and causation more accurately in their everyday lives.

• simplified and consolidated our discussion of the split-brain experiments. • updated material on flashbulb memories, using up-to-date examples. • created a new section on cognitive theories of intelligence. • added a new Psychology Matters piece entitled “Not Just Fun and Games: The

Role of Child’s Play in Life Success,” telling of the growing role of self-control in life success, and how parents and teachers can help nurture this important ability.

• added new material on Vygotsky’s theory, including scaffolding and the zone of proximal development, plus new material on neural development in adolescence.

• revised and expanded the sections on daydreaming and on both REM and NREM sleep to reflect important new research.

• changed the order of topics in the Motivation and Emotion chapter, bringing in new material on practical ways of motivating people, updating the section on sexual orientation, and presenting a revised hierarchy of needs based in evolutionary psychology.

• added new material on cross-cultural differences in shyness, Carol Dweck’s research on mindset, and individual differences in time perspective.

• updated the section on positive psychology. • updated the Heroic Defiance section, including new examples from the recent

Egyptian protests and new material on events at the Abu Ghraib prison. • added new examples of recent replications of Milgram’s obedience experiment. • added new material on bullying, the jigsaw classroom, and stereotype lift. • reconceptualized depression in terms of Mayberg’s model, which emphasizes three

factors: biological vulnerability, external stressors, and abnormality of the mood- regulation circuits in the brain. Also presented the new studies on the value of exercise in combating depression and the anxiety disorders.

• added new material on psychopathy—which is attracting increasing interest but is not a DSM-IV disorder.

• discussed the growing rift within clinical psychology (and between APA and APS) over empirically supported treatments and empirically based practice.

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• updated the information on telehealth therapy strategies. • connected the discussion of traumatic stress to the 2011 earthquake in Japan. • added a new Do It Yourself! The Undergraduate Stress Questionnaire: How Stressed

Are You?

We think you will find the seventh edition up-to-date and even more engaging for students than the previous edition. But the changes are not limited to the book itself. Please allow us to toot our horns for the supplements available to adopters.

TEACHING AND LEARNING PACKAGE The following supplements will also enhance teaching and learning for you and your students:

Instructor’s Manual Written and compiled by Sylvia Robb of Hudson County Community College, includes suggestions for preparing for the course, sample syllabi, and current trends and strategies for successful teaching. Each chapter offers integrated teaching outlines, lists the Key Questions, Core Concepts, and Key Terms for each chapter for quick reference, an extensive bank of lecture launchers, handouts, and activities, crossword puzzles, and suggestions for integrating third-party videos, music, and Web resources. The electronic format features click-and-view hotlinks that allow instructors to quickly review or print any resource from a particular chapter. This resource saves prep work and helps you maximize your classroom time.

Test Bank Written by Jason Spiegelman of Community College of Baltimore County, has provided an extensively updated test bank containing more than 2,000 accuracy- checked questions, including multiple choice, completion (fill-in-the-blank and short answer), and critical essays. Test item questions have been also written to test student comprehension of select multimedia assets found with MyPsychLab for instructors who wish to make MyPsychLab a more central component of their course. In addition to the unique questions listed previously, the Test Bank also includes all of the Check Your Understanding questions from the textbook and all of the test questions from the Discovering Psychology Telecourse Faculty Guide for instructors who wish to reinforce student use of the textbook and video materials. All questions include the correct answer, page reference, difficulty ranking, question type designation, and correlations to American Psychological Association (APA) Learning Goal/Outcome. A new feature of the Test Bank is the inclusion of rationales for each correct answer and the key distracter in the multiple- choice questions. The rationales help instructors reviewing the content to further evaluate the questions they are choosing for their tests and give instructors the option to use the rationales as an answer key for their students. Feedback from current customers indicates this unique feature is very useful for ensuring quality and quick response to student queries. A two-page Total Assessment Guide chapter overview makes creating tests easier by listing all of the test items in an easy-to-reference grid. The Total Assessment Guide organizes all test items by text section and question type/level of difficulty. All multiple- choice questions are categorized as factual, conceptual, or applied.

The Test Bank comes with Pearson MyTest, a powerful assessment-generation program that helps instructors easily create and print quizzes and exams. Ques- tions and tests can be authored online, allowing instructors ultimate flexibility and the ability to efficiently manage assessments anytime, anywhere! Instructors can easily access existing questions and then edit, create, and store them using simple drag-and- drop and Word-like controls. Data on each question provide information relevant to dif- ficulty level and page number. In addition, each question maps to the text’s major section and learning objective. For more information, go to www.PearsonMyTest.com.

NEW Interactive PowerPoint Slides These slides, available on the Instructor’s Resource DVD (ISBN 0-205-58439-7), bring the Psychology: Core Concepts design right into the classroom, drawing students into the lecture and providing wonderful interactive

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activities, visuals, and videos. A video walk-through is available and provides clear guidelines on using and customizing the slides. The slides are built around the text’s learning objectives and offer many links across content areas. Icons integrated throughout the slides indicate interactive exercises, simulations, and activities that can be accessed directly from the slides if instructors want to use these resources in the classroom.

A Set of Standard Lecture PowerPoint Slides Written by Beth M. Schwartz, Randolph College, is also offered and includes detailed outlines of key points for each chapter supported by selected visuals from the textbook. A separate Art and Figure version of these presentations contains all art from the textbook for which Pearson has been granted electronic permissions.

Classroom Response System (CRS) Power Point Slides Classroom Response System questions (“Clicker” questions) are intended to form the basis for class discussions as well as lectures. The incorporation of the CRS questions into each chapter’s slideshow facilitates the use of “clickers”—small hardware devices similar to remote controls, which process student responses to questions and interpret and display results in real time. CRS questions are a great way to get students involved in what they are learning, especially because many of these questions address specific scientific thinking skills highlighted in the text. These questions are available on the Instructor’s Resource DVD (ISBN 0-205-85439-7) and also online at http://pearsonhighered.com/irc.

Instructor’s Resource DVD (ISBN 0-205-85439-7) Bringing all of the Seventh Edition’s instructor resources together in one place, the Instructor’s DVD offers both versions of the PowerPoint presentations, the Classroom Response System (CRS), the electronic files for the Instructor’s Manual materials, and the Test Item File to help instructors customize their lecture notes.

The NEW MyPsychLab The NEW MyPsychLab combines original online materials with powerful online assessment to engage students, assess their learning, and help them succeed. MyPsychLab ensures students are always learning and always improving.

• New video: New, exclusive 30-minute video segments for every chapter take the viewer from the research laboratory to inside the brain to out on the street for real-world applications.

• New experiments: A new experiment tool allows students to experience psychol- ogy. Students do experiments online to reinforce what they are learning in class and reading about in the book.

• New BioFlix animations: Bring difficult-to-teach biological concepts to life with dramatic “zoom” sequences and 3D movement.

• eText: The Pearson eText lets students access their textbook anytime, anywhere, in any way they want it, including listening to it online.

• New concept mapping: A new concept-mapping tool allows students to create their own graphic study aids or notetaking tools using preloaded content from each chapter. Concept maps can be saved, e-mailed, or printed.

• Assessment: With powerful online assessment tied to every video, application, and chapter of the text, students can get immediate feedback. Instructors can see what their students know and what they don’t know with just a few clicks. Instruc- tors can then personalize MyPsychLab course materials to meet the needs of their students.

• New APA assessments: A unique bank of assessment items allows instructors to assess student progress against the American Psychological Association’s Learning Goals and Outcomes. These assessments have been keyed to the APA’s latest pro- gressive Learning Outcomes (basic, developing, advanced) published in 2008.

Proven Results Instructors and students have been using MyPsychLab for nearly ten years. To date, more than 500,000 students have used MyPsychLab. During that time,

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three white papers on the efficacy of MyPsychLab were published. Both the white papers and user feedback show compelling results: MyPsychLab helps students succeed and improve their test scores. One of the key ways MyPsychLab improves student outcomes is by providing continuous assessment as part of the learning process. Over the years, both instructor and student feedback have guided numerous improvements, making MyPsychLab even more flexible and effective.

Please contact your local Pearson representative for more information on MyPsychLab. For technical support for any of your Pearson products, you and your students can contact http://247.pearsoned.com.

NEW MyPsychLab Video Series (17 episodes) This new video series offers instructors and students the most current and cutting-edge introductory psychology video content available anywhere. These exclusive videos take the viewer into today’s research laboratories, inside the body and brain via breathtaking animations, and onto the street for real-world applications. Guided by the Design, Development and Review team, a diverse group of introductory psychology instructors, this comprehensive series features 17 half-hour episodes organized around the major topics covered in the introductory psychology course syllabus. For maximum flexibility, each half-hour episode features several brief clips that bring psychology to life:

• The Big Picture introduces the topic of the episode and provides the hook to draw students fully into the topic.

• The Basics uses the power of video to present foundational topics, especially those that students find difficult to understand.

• Special Topics delves deeper into high-interest and cutting-edge topics, showing research in action.

• In the Real World focuses on applications of psychological research. • What’s in It for Me? These clips show students the relevance of psychological

research to their own lives.

Available in MyPsychLab and also on DVD to adopters of Pearson psychology text- books (ISBN 0-205-03581-7).

Discovering Psychology Telecourse Videos Written, designed, and hosted by Phil Zimbardo and produced by WGBH Boston in partnership with Annenberg Media, this series is a perfect complement to Psychology: Core Concepts. Discovering Psychology is a landmark educational resource that reveals psychology’s contribution not only to understanding the puzzles of behavior but also to identifying solutions and treatments to ease the problems of mental disorders. The video series has won numerous prizes and is widely used in the United States and internationally. The complete set of 26 half-hour videos is available for purchase (DVD or VHS format) from Annenberg Media. The videos are also available online in a streaming format that is free (www.learner.org), and, for the convenience of instructors and students using Psychology: Core Concepts, links to these online videos have been included in the MyPsychLab program that accompanies the textbook. A student Viewing Guide is found at the end of every chapter within Psychology: Core Concepts, with additional Viewing Guide resources also available online within MyPsychLab.

Discovering Psychology Telecourse Faculty Guide (ISBN 0-205-69929-4) The Telecourse Faculty Guide provides guidelines for using Discovering Psychology as a resource within your course. Keyed directly to Psychology: Core Concepts, the faculty guide includes the complete Telecourse Study Guide plus suggested activities; suggested essays; cited studies; instructional resources, including books, articles, films, and websites; video program test questions with answer key; and a key term glossary. Test questions for Discovering Psychology also reappear in the textbook’s test bank and MyTest computerized test bank.

Student Study Guide (ISBN 0-205-25299-0) This robust study guide, written by Jane P. Sheldon of University of Michigan-Dearborn, is filled with guided activities and in-depth exercises to promote student learning. Each chapter includes worksheets that

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give students a head start on in-class note taking; a full list of key terms with page references; a collection of demonstrations, activities, exercises, and three short practice quizzes; and one comprehensive chapter exam with critical-thinking essay questions and concept maps to help you study for your quizzes and exams. The appendix includes answers to all of the practice activities, tests, and concept maps.

ACCESSING ALL RESOURCES

For a list of all student resources available with Psychology: Core Concepts, Seventh Edition, go to www.mypearsonstore.com, enter the text ISBN (0-205-18346-8), and check out the “Everything That Goes with It” section under the book cover.

For access to all instructor supplements for Psychology: Core Concepts, Seventh Edition go to http://pearsonhighered.com/irc and follow the directions to register (or log in if you already have a Pearson user name and password). Once you have registered and your status as an instructor is verified, you will be e-mailed a log-in name and password. Use your log-in name and password to access the catalog. Click on the “online catalog” link, click on “psychology” followed by “introductory psychology,” and then the Zimbardo/Johnson/McCann, Psychology: Core Concepts, Seventh Edition text. Under the description of each supplement is a link that allows you to download and save the supplement to your desktop.

You can request hard copies of the supplements through your Pearson sales representa- tive. If you do not know your sales representative, go to http://www.pearsonhighered.com/ replocator/ and follow the directions. For technical support for any of your Pearson prod- ucts, you and your students can contact http://247.pearsoned.com.

A NOTE OF THANKS Nobody ever realizes the magnitude of the task when taking on a textbook-writing project. Acquisitions Editor Amber Chow and Executive Editor Stephen Frail deftly guided (and prodded) us through this process. The vision of the seventh edition con- fronted reality under the guidance of Deb Hanlon, our tenacious Senior Development Editor, who made us work harder than we had believed possible. Assistant Editor Kerri Hart-Morris managed our spectacular ancillaries package.

The job of making the manuscript into a book fell to Shelly Kupperman, our Production Project Manager at Pearson Education; Andrea Stefanowicz, our Senior Project Manager at PreMediaGlobal; and Kim Husband, our copyeditor. We think they did an outstanding job—as did our tireless photo researcher, Ben Ferrini.

We are sure that none of the above would be offended if we reserve our deepest thanks for our spouses, closest colleagues, and friends who inspired us, gave us the caring support we needed, and served as sounding boards for our ideas. Phil thanks his wonderful wife, Christina Maslach, for her endless inspiration and for modeling what is best in academic psychology. He has recently passed a milestone of 50 years of teaching the introductory psychology course, from seminar size to huge lectures to more than 1,000 students. Phil continues to give lectures and colloquia to college and high school groups throughout the country and overseas. He still gets a rush from lec- turing and from turning students on to the joys and fascination of psychology. His new “psych rock star” status comes mostly from generations of students who have grown up watching him perform on the Discovering Psychology video series in their high school and college psychology courses.

Bob is grateful to his spouse, best friend, and best editor Michelle, who has for years put up with his rants on topics psychological, his undone household chores, and much gratification delayed—mostly without complaint. She has been a wellspring of understand- ing and loving support and the most helpful of reviewers. His thanks, too, go to Rebecca, their daughter, who has taught him the practical side of developmental psychology—and now, much to her own astonishment and an undergraduate lapse into sociology, pos- sesses her own graduate degree in psychology. In addition, he is indebted to many friends,

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most of whom are not psychologists but who are nevertheless always eager to raise and debate interesting issues about the applications of psychology to everyday life. Readers will find topics they have raised throughout the book and especially in the chapter-opening “problems” and in the critical thinking sections at the end of each chapter.

Vivian’s thanks go first to her husband, Shawn, and their sons, Storm and Blaze. All three of these amazing men are endless sources of love, support, inspiration, fun, and delight. They also generously allow Vivian to use them as examples of a multi- tude of concepts in her classes! Vivian also appreciates the many students, friends, and colleagues who have both encouraged and challenged her over the years.

We would especially like to thank Michelle Billies, Nikita Duncan, George Slavich, and Christina Zimbardo for their exceptional help as we revised and prepared this edition for print.

Many psychological experts and expert teachers of introductory psychology also shared their constructive criticism with us on every chapter and feature of the seventh edition of this text:

Thomas Beckner, Trine University Chris Brill, Old Dominion University Allison Buskirk-Cohen, Delaware Valley

College Christie Chung, Mills College Elizabeth Curtis, Long Beach City College Linda DeKruif, Fresno City College Meliksah Demir, Northern Arizona

University Roger Drake, Western State College of

Colorado Denise Dunovant, Hudson County

Community College Arthur Frankel, Salve Regina University Marjorie Getz, Bradley University Nancy Gup, Georgia Perimeter College Carrie Hall, Miami University Jeremy Heider, Stephen F. Austin State

University Allen Huffcutt, Bradley University Kristopher Kimbler, Florida Gulf Coast

University Sue Leung, Portland Community College Brian Littleton, Kalamazoo Valley

Community College Annette Littrell, Tennessee Tech University Mark Loftis, Tennessee Tech University Lillian McMaster, Hudson County

Community College

Karen Marsh, University of Minnesota–Duluth

Jim Matiya, Florida Gulf Coast University Nancy Melucci, Long Beach City College Jared Montoya, The University of Texas

at Brownsville Suzanne Morrow, Old Dominion

University Katy Neidhart, Cuesta College Donna Nelson, Winthrop University Barbara Nova, Dominican University of

California Elaine Olaoye, Brookdale Community

College Karl Oyster, Tidewater Community

College Sylvia Robb, Hudson County

Community College Nancy Romero, Lone Star College Beverly Salzman, Housatonic

Community College Hildur Schilling, Fitchburg State College Bruce Sherwin, Housatonic Community

College Hilary Stebbins, Virginia Wesleyan

College Doris Van Auken, Holy Cross College Matthew Zagummy, Tennessee Tech

University

We also thank the reviewers of the previous editions of Psychology: Core Concepts and hope that they will recognize their valued input in all that is good in this text:

Gordon Allen, Miami University Beth Barton, Coastal Carolina

Community College Linda Bastone, Purchase College, SUNY Susan Beck, Wallace State College

Michael Bloch, University of San Francisco Michele Breault, Truman State University John H. Brennecke, Mount San Antonio

College T. L. Brink, Crafton Hills College

xxiv T O T H E I N S T R U C T O R

Jay Brown, Southwest Missouri State University

Sally S. Carr, Lakeland Community College

Saundra Ciccarelli, Gulf Coast Community College

Wanda Clark, South Plains College Susan Cloninger, The Sage Colleges John Conklin, Camosun College (Canada) Michelle L. Pilati Corselli (Rio Hondo

College) Sara DeHart-Young, Mississippi State

University Janet DiPietro, John Hopkins University Diane Finley, Prince George’s

Community College Krista Forrest, University of Nebraska at

Kearney Lenore Frigo, Shasta College Rick Froman, John Brown University Arthur Gonchar, University of LaVerne Peter Gram, Pensacola Junior College Jonathan Grimes, Community College of

Baltimore County Lynn Haller, Morehead State University Mary Elizabeth Hannah, University of

Detroit Jack Hartnett, Virginia Commonwealth

University Carol Hayes, Delta State University Karen Hayes, Guilford College Michael Hillard, Albuquerque TVI

Community College Peter Hornby, Plattsburgh State

University Deana Julka, University of Portland Brian Kelley, Bridgewater College Sheila Kennison, Oklahoma State

University Laurel Krautwurst, Blue Ridge

Community College Judith Levine, Farmingdale State College Dawn Lewis, Prince George’s

Community College Deborah Long, East Carolina University

Margaret Lynch, San Francisco State University

Jean Mandernach, University of Nebraska, Kearney

Marc Martin, Palm Beach Community College

Richard Mascolo, El Camino College Steven Meier, University of Idaho Nancy Mellucci, Los Angeles

Community College District Yozan Dirk Mosig, University of

Nebraska Melinda Myers-Johnson, Humboldt

State University Michael Nikolakis, Faulkner State

College Cindy Nordstrom, Southern Illinois

University Laura O’Sullivan, Florida Gulf Coast

University Ginger Osborne, Santa Ana College Vernon Padgett, Rio Hondo College Jeff Pedroza, Santa Ana College Laura Phelan, St. John Fisher College Faye Plascak-Craig, Marian College Skip Pollock, Mesa Community College Chris Robin, Madisonville Community

College Lynne Schmelter-Davis, Brookdale

County College of Monmouth Mark Shellhammer, Fairmont State

College Christina Sinisi, Charleston Southern

University Patricia Stephenson, Miami Dade

College Mary Ellen Dello Stritto, Western

Oregon University Mario Sussman, Indiana University of

Pennsylvania John Teske, Elizabethtown College Stacy Walker, Kingwood College Robert Wellman, Fitchburg State

University Alan Whitlock, University of Idaho

Finally, we offer our thanks to all of the colleagues whose feedback has improved our book. Thanks also to all instructors of this most-difficult-to-teach course for taking on the pedagogical challenge and conveying to students their passion about the joys and relevance of psychological science and practice.

If you have any recommendations of your own that we should not overlook for the next edition, please write to us! Address your comments to Dr. Robert Johnson, CoreConcepts7@gmail.com.

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R S

Philip Zimbardo, PhD, Stanford University professor, has been teaching the introductory psychology course for 50 years and has been writing the basic text for this course, as well as the faculty guides and student workbooks, for the past 35 years. In addition, he has helped to develop and update the PBS-TV series, Discovering Psychol- ogy, which is used in many high school and university courses both nationally and internationally. He has been called “The Face and Voice of Psychology” because of this popular series and his other media presentations. Phil also loves to conduct and publish research on a wide variety of subjects, as well as teach and engage in public and social service activities. He has published more than 400 professional and popular articles and chapters, including 50 books of all kinds. He recently published a trade book on the psychology of evil, The Lucifer Effect, that relates his classic Stanford Prison Experiment to the abuses at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib Prison. His new book is The Time Paradox, but his new passion is helping to create wise and effective everyday heroes as part of his Heroic Imagination Project. Please see these websites for more information: www.zimbardo.com; www.prisonexp.org; www.PsychologyMatters.org; www.theTimeParadox.com; www.LuciferEffect.com; www.HeroicImagination.org.

Robert Johnson, PhD, taught introductory psychology for 28 years at Umpqua Community College. He acquired an interest in cross-cultural psychology during a Fulbright summer in Thailand, followed by many more trips abroad to Japan, Korea, Latin America, Britain, and, most recently, to Indonesia. Currently, he is working on a book on the psychology in Shakespeare. Bob is especially interested in applying psy- chological principles to the teaching of psychology and in encouraging linkages be- tween psychology and other disciplines. In keeping with those interests, he founded the Pacific Northwest Great Teachers Seminar, of which he was the director for 20 years. Bob was also one of the founders of Psychology Teachers at Community Colleges (PT@CC), serving as its executive committee chair during 2004. That same year, he also received the Two-Year College Teaching Award given by the Society for the Teaching of Psychology. Bob has long been active in APA, APS, the Western Psychological Association, and the Council of Teachers of Undergraduate Psychology.

Vivian McCann, a senior faculty member in psychology at Portland Community College in Portland, Oregon, teaches a wide variety of courses, including introductory psychology, human relations, intimate relationships, and social psychology. Born and raised in the California desert just 10 miles from the Mexican border, she learned early on the importance of understanding cultural backgrounds and values in effective communication and in teaching, which laid the foundation for her current interest in teaching and learning psychology from diverse cultural perspectives. She loves to travel and learn about people and cultures and to nurture the same passions in her students. She has led groups of students on four trips abroad, and in her own travels has visited 24 countries so far. Vivian maintains a strong commitment to teaching excellence and has developed and taught numerous workshops in that area. She has served on the APA’s Committee for Psychology Teachers at Community Colleges (PT@CC) and is an active member of the Western Psychological Association and APS. She is also the author of Human Relations: The Art and Science of Building Effective Relationships.

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www.zimbardo.com
www.prisonexp.org
www.PsychologyMatters.org
www.theTimeParadox.com
www.LuciferEffect.com
www.HeroicImagination.org
Mind, Behavior, and Psychological Science1

Psychology MattersCore ConceptsKey Questions/Chapter Outline

1.1 What Is Psychology—and What Is It NOT ? Psychology: It’s More Than You Think Psychology Is Not Psychiatry Thinking Critically about Psychology and

Pseudo-Psychology

Psychology is a broad field with many specialties, but fundamentally, psychology is the science of behavior and mental processes.

Using Psychology to Learn Psychology

In this book, Key Questions and Core Concepts help you organize what you learn.

1.2 What Are Psychology’s Six Main Perspectives?

Separation of Mind and Body and the Modern Biological Perspective

The Founding of Scientific Psychology and the Modern Cognitive Perspective

The Behavioral Perspective: Focusing on Observable Behavior

The Whole-Person Perspectives: Psychodynamic, Humanistic, and Trait and Temperament

The Developmental Perspective: Changes Arising from Nature and Nurture

The Sociocultural Perspective: The Individual in Context

The Changing Face of Psychology

Six main viewpoints dominate modern psychology—the biological, cognitive, behavioral, whole-person, developmental, and sociocultural perspectives—each of which grew out of radical new concepts about mind and behavior.

Psychology as a Major

To call yourself a psychologist, you’ll need graduate training.

Psychologists, like all other scientists, use the scientific method to test their ideas empirically.

The Perils of Pseudo-psychology

Critical thinking failures often result in disastrous consequences.

CHAPTER PROBLEM How would psychology test the claim that sugar makes children hyperactive?

CRITICAL THINKING APPLIED Facilitated Communication

1.3 How Do Psychologists Develop New Knowledge?

Four Steps in the Scientific Method Five Types of Psychological Research Controlling Biases in Psychological Research Ethical Issues in Psychological Research

3

A FTER THE KIDS HAD ALL THAT SUGAR—THE CAKE, ICE CREAM, PUNCH, and candy—they were absolutely bouncing off the walls!” said one of our friends who was describing a birthday party for her 8-year-old daughter.I must have had a skeptical look on my face, because she stopped her story short and asked, “You don’t believe it?” Then she added, “You psychologists just don’t believe

in common sense, do you?”

I responded that what people think of as “common sense” can be wrong, reminding her

that common sense once held that Earth was flat. “Perhaps,” I suggested, “it might be wrong

again—this time about the so-called ‘sugar high’ people think they observe.

“It could have been just the excitement of the party,” I added.

“Think they observe?” my friend practically shouted. “Can you prove that sugar doesn’t

make children hyperactive?”

“No,” I said. “Science doesn’t work that way. But what I could do,” I ventured, “is perform

an experiment to test the idea that sugar makes children ‘hyper.’ Then we could see whether

your claim passes or fails the test.”

My timing wasn’t the best for getting her involved in a discussion of scientific experiments,

so let me pose the problem to you.

PROBLEM: How would psychology test the claim that sugar makes children hyperactive?

We invite you to think about how we might set up such an experiment. We could, for example,

give kids a high-sugar drink and see what happens. But because people often see only what

“

4 C H A P T E R 1 Mind, Behavior, and Psychological Science

they expect to see, our expectations about sugar and hyperactivity could easily influence our

observations. So how could we design an experiment about sugar and hyperactivity that also

accounts for our expectations? It is not an easy problem, but we will think it through together,

and by the end of this chapter, you will have the tools you need to solve it.

Every chapter in the book will begin with a problem such as this—a problem aimed at

getting you actively involved in learning psychology and thinking critically about some impor-

tant concepts in the chapter. Solving the problem with us, rather than just passively reading

the words, will make the concepts more meaningful to you and more easily remembered (see

Chapter 5 to find out why).

The important concept illustrated by the “sugar high” problem is one of the most fun-

damental concepts in all of psychology: using the scientific method to explore the mind and

behavior. But before we get into the details of the scientific method, let’s clarify what we mean

by the term psychology itself.

1.1 KEY QUESTION What Is Psychology—and What Is It NOT?

“I hope you won’t psychoanalyze me,” says the student at the office door. It is a frequent refrain and an occupational hazard for professors of psychology. But students need not worry about being psychoanalyzed, for two reasons. First, not all psychologists diagnose and treat mental problems—in fact, those who do are actually in the minority among pro- fessors of psychology. Second, only a few psychologists are actually psychoanalysts. The term psychoanalysis refers to a highly specialized and relatively uncommon form of ther- apy. You will learn more about the distinction between psychologists and psychoanalysts later in the chapter—but, in the meantime, don’t fret that your professor will try to find something wrong with you. In fact, your professor is much more likely to be interested in helping you learn the material than in looking for signs of psychological disorder.

So, you might wonder, if psychology is not all about mental disorders and therapy, what is it all about?

The term psychology comes from psyche, the ancient Greek word for “mind,” and the suffix -ology, meaning “a field of study.” Literally, then, psychology means “the study of the mind.” Most psychologists, however, use the broader definition given in our Core Concept for this section of the chapter:

Core Concept 1.1 Psychology is a broad field, with many specialties, but fundamentally psychology is the science of behavior and mental processes.

One important point to note about this definition: Psychology includes not only mental processes but also behaviors. In other words, psychology’s domain covers both internal mental processes that we observe only indirectly (such as thinking, feeling, and desiring) as well as external, observable behaviors (such as talking, smiling, and running). A second important part of our definition concerns the scientific compo- nent of psychology. In brief, the science of psychology is based on objective, verifiable evidence—not just the opinions of experts and authorities, as we often find in non- scientific fields. We will give a more complete explanation of the science of psychol- ogy in the last part of this chapter. For now, though, let’s take a closer look at what psychologists actually do.

Psychology: It’s More Than You Think Psychology covers more territory than most people realize. As we have seen, not all psychologists are therapists. Many work in education, industry, sports, prisons,

psychology The science of behavior and mental processes.

What Is Psychology—and What Is It NOT? 5

government, churches and temples, private practice, human relations, advertising, and in the psychology departments of colleges and universities (see Figure 1.1). Others work for engineering firms, consulting firms, and the courts (both the judicial and the NBA variety). In these diverse settings, psy- chologists perform a wide range of tasks, including teaching, research, testing, and equipment design—as well as psycho- therapy. In fact, psychology’s specialties are too numerous to cover them all here, but we can give you a taste of the field’s diversity by first dividing psychology into three broad groups.

Three Ways of Doing Psychology Broadly speaking, psychologists cluster into three main categories: experi- mental psychologists, teachers of psychology, and applied psychologists. Some overlap exists among these groups, how- ever, because many psychologists take on multiple roles in their work.

Experimental psychologists (sometimes called research psychologists) constitute the smallest of the three groups. Nevertheless, they perform most of the research that creates new psychological knowledge (Frincke & Pate, 2004).1 For example, an experimental psychologist would be well equipped to study the effects of sugar on hyperactivity in children. While some experimental psychologists can be found in in- dustry or private research institutes, the majority work at a college or university, where most also teach.

Teachers of psychology are traditionally found at colleges and universities, where their assignments typically involve not only teaching but also research and publica- tion. Increasingly, however, psychologists can be found at community colleges and high schools, where their teaching load is higher because these institutions generally do not require research (American Psychological Association, 2007b; Johnson & Rudmann, 2004).

Applied psychologists use the knowledge developed by experimental psychologists to tackle human problems of all kinds, such as toy or equipment design, criminal analy- sis, and psychological treatment. They work in a wide variety of places, ranging from schools, clinics, and social service agencies to factories, airports, hospitals, and casinos. All told, about two-thirds of the doctoral-level psychologists in the United States work primarily as applied psychologists (Kohout & Wicherski, 2000; Wicherski et al., 2009).

Applied Psychological Specialties Some of the most popular applied specialties include:

• Industrial and organizational psychologists (often called I/O psychologists) specialize in personnel selection and in tailoring the work environment to maximize productivity and morale. They may, for example, create programs to motivate employees or to improve managers’ leadership skills. I/O psychologists also conduct market research and examine current issues such as attitudes toward pregnancy in the workplace (Shrader, 2001).

• Sports psychologists help athletes improve their performance by planning effective practice sessions, enhancing motivation, and learning to control emotions under pressure. Some focus exclusively on professional athletes, and others work with recreational athletes. Sports psychologists may also, for example, study various types of personalities and their relation to high-risk endeavors such as firefighting, parachuting, or scuba diving.

1Throughout this book, you will find citations in parentheses, calling your attention to a complete bibliographic reference found in the References section, beginning on p. R-1, near the end of this book. These brief in-text citations give the authors’ last names and the publication date. With the complete references in hand, your library can help you find the original source.

experimental psychologists Psychologists who do research on basic psychological processes—as contrasted with applied psychologists. Experimental psychologists are also called research psychologists.

teachers of psychology Psychologists whose primary job is teaching, typically in high schools, colleges, and universities.

applied psychologists Psychologists who use the knowledge developed by experimental psychologists to solve human problems.

FIGURE 1.1 Work Settings of Psychologists

Source: 2009 Doctorate Employment Survey, APA Center for Workforce Studies. March 2011.

Independent practiceOther counseling

sevices

Other educational settings

Government

Business, Consulting, Other

Hospitals and HMOs

Universities, colleges, and medical schools

6% 6%

8%

33%21%

15%

11%

Read MyPsychLab

about I/O Psychology at

6 C H A P T E R 1 Mind, Behavior, and Psychological Science

• School psychologists are experts in teaching and learning. They deal with issues impacting learning, family or personal crises influencing school performance, or social conditions such as gangs, teen pregnancy, or substance abuse. They sometimes diagnose learning or behavioral problems and work with teachers, students, and parents to help students succeed in school. Many school psychologists work for school districts, where their work includes administering, scoring, and interpreting psychological tests.

• Clinical and counseling psychologists help people improve social and emotional adjustment or work through difficult choices in relationships, careers, or education. Almost half of all doctoral-level psychologists list clinical or counseling psychology as their specialty (Wichersky et al., 2009).

• Forensic psychologists provide psychological expertise to the legal and judicial system. One of the most recently recognized specialties in psychology, forensic psychology has gained rapid popularity due in part to such TV shows as

Criminal Minds, Profiler, and CSI. And, while a real day in the life of forensic psychologists may not be as glamorous or fast paced as their television counter- parts, the field is burgeoning with opportunities. Forensic psychologists may test inmates in prisons or forensic hospitals to determine readiness for release or fitness to stand trial, evaluate testimony in cases of rape or child abuse, or help with jury selection (Clay, 2009; Huss, 2001).

• Environmental psychologists aim to improve human interaction with our envi- ronment. They may, for example, study the impact of inner-city garden spaces on children’s academic performance or determine how best to encourage environmen- tally friendly behavior such as recycling. In private practice, environmental psy- chologists sometimes help clients maintain their commitment to sustainability or conduct workshops teaching people the mental health benefits of interacting with nature (Novotney, 2009).

More information on career possibilities in psychology can be found in Careers in Psychology for the Twenty-First Century, published by the American Psychological Association (2003a) and available online at www.apa.org/careers/resources/guides/ careers.pdf.

Psychology Is Not Psychiatry Just as beginning psychology students may think all psychologists are clinical psychol- ogists, they also may not know the distinction between psychology and psychiatry. So let’s clear up that confusion, just in case you encounter a test question on the topic.

Virtually all psychiatrists, but only some psychologists, treat mental disorders—and there the resemblance ends. Psychiatry is a medical specialty, not part of psychology at all. Psychiatrists hold MD (Doctor of Medicine) degrees and, in addition, have special- ized training in the treatment of mental and behavioral problems, typically with drugs. Therefore, psychiatrists are licensed to prescribe medicines and perform other medical procedures. Consequently, psychiatrists tend to treat patients with more severe mental disorders (such as schizophrenia) and also to view patients from a medical perspective, as persons with mental “diseases.”

By contrast, psychology is a much broader field that encompasses the whole range of human behavior and mental processes, from brain function to social interaction and from mental well-being to mental disorder. For most psychologists, graduate training emphasizes research methods, along with advanced study in a specialty such as those listed earlier. Moreover, while psychologists usually hold doctoral degrees, their train- ing is not usually medical training, and thus they are not generally licensed to prescribe medications (Carlat, 2010; Practice Directorate Staff, 2005). Psychologists, then, work

C O N N E C T I O N CHAPTER 13

Clinical psychologists help people deal with mental disorders and other psychological problems (p. 558).

psychiatry A medical specialty dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders.

Applying psychological principles of learning and motivation, sports psychologists work with athletes to improve performance.

Explore the Concept Psychologists at Work at MyPsychLab

www.apa.org/careers/resources/guides/careers.pdf
www.apa.org/careers/resources/guides/careers.pdf
What Is Psychology—and What Is It NOT? 7

in a wide variety of fields, all of which view people from a psychological perspective. This perspective is il- lustrated by clinical and counseling psychologists, who are likely to view the people they are helping as clients rather than patients.

So, now you know that psychiatry is not psychol- ogy. Next, we’ll look at something else that often gets confused with psychology: pseudo-psychology.

Thinking Critically about Psychology and Pseudo-Psychology TV series like Medium and Supernatural continue a long tradition of programs that play on people’s fasci- nation with claims of mysterious powers of the mind and supernatural influences on our personalities. Your daily horoscope does the same thing—never mind that astrology has been thoroughly debunked (Schick & Vaughn, 2001). Neither is there any factual basis for graphology (the bogus science of handwriting analysis), fortune telling, or the supposed power of subliminal messages to influence our behavior. All these fall under the heading of pseudo-psychology: unsupported psychological beliefs masquerading as scientific truth.

Certainly horoscopes and paranormal claims can be fun as pure entertainment, but it is important to know where fact-based reality ends and imagination-based fantasy begins. After all, you wouldn’t want to stake an important decision about your health or welfare on false information, would you? Thus, one of the goals of this text is to help you think critically when you hear extraordinary claims about behavior and mental processes.

What Is Critical Thinking? Those who talk about critical thinking often find them- selves in the position of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who famously was unable to define pornography but concluded, “I know it when I see it.” Like Justice Stewart, your fearless authors (Phil, Bob, and Vivian) cannot offer a definition of criti- cal thinking with which everyone will agree. Nevertheless, we are willing to jump into the fray with a list of six critical thinking skills we wish to emphasize in this text. Each is based on a specific question we believe should be asked when confronting new ideas.

1. What is the source? Does the person making the claim have real expertise in the field? Suppose, for example, you hear a newscast on which a politician or pundit declares that juvenile lawbreakers can be “scared straight.” The story explains that, in the program, first-time offenders receive near-abusive treatment from felons who try to scare them away from a life of crime with tales of harsh prison life. Such programs have, in fact, been tried in several states (Finckenauer et al., 1999). But does the person making the claim have any real knowledge of the subject? Does the claimant have legitimate credentials, or is he or she merely a self-proclaimed “expert?” One way to find out is to go online and examine the individual’s ref- erences and standing within the field. Also, find out whether the source has something substantial to gain from the claim. If it’s a medical breakthrough, for example, does the claimant stand to make money from a new drug or medical device? In the case of a “scared straight” program, is the source trying to score political points or get votes?

2. Is the claim reasonable or extreme? Life is too short to be critical of everything, of course, so the trick is to be selective. How? As the famous astronomer Carl Sagan once said about reports of alien abductions, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” (Nova Online, 1996). Critical thinkers, then, are skeptical

pseudo-psychology Erroneous assertions or practices set forth as being scientific psychology.

critical thinking skills This book emphasizes six critical thinking skills, based on the following ques- tions: What is the source? Is the claim reasonable or extreme? What is the evidence? Could bias contaminate the conclusion? Does the reasoning avoid common fallacies? Does the issue require multiple perspectives?

Fortune tellers, astrologers, and other practitioners of pseudo-psychology don’t bother to verify their claims with careful research—nor do their clients engage in critical thinking about such practices.

8 C H A P T E R 1 Mind, Behavior, and Psychological Science

of claims touted as “breakthroughs” or “revolutionary.” Certainly, there are occasionally breakthroughs or revolutionary new treatments that work—but they are relatively rare. Most new scientific developments are extensions of existing knowledge. So, claims that conflict with well-established knowledge should raise a red flag. For example, beware of ads that promise to help you quit smoking or lose weight with little or no effort. In the case of “scared straight” programs or any other quick fix for a difficult problem, remember that simple solutions to complex problems rarely exist.

3. What is the evidence? This is one of the most important guidelines to critical think- ing, and you will learn more about what constitutes scientific evidence in the last section of this chapter. For now, though, beware of anecdotal evidence or testimoni- als proclaiming the dramatic effects of a new program. These first-hand accounts tend to be quite convincing, so they often lure us into believing them. Testimonials and anecdotes, though—no matter how compelling—are not scientific evidence. They merely represent the experiences of a few carefully selected individuals. It would be risky, and perhaps even dangerous, to assume that what seems true for some people must also be true for everyone.

What does the evidence say about “scared straight” programs? Not only do they not work, but they can also actually inoculate juveniles against fears about prison. Surprising as it may seem, the hard evidence indicates that teens exposed to such treatments, on average, subsequently get into more trouble than do those not given the “scared straight” treatment (Petrosino et al., 2003).

4. Could bias contaminate the conclusion? Critical thinkers know the conditions under which biases are likely to occur and can recognize common types of bias we will examine in this chapter. For example, they would question whether medi- cal researchers who are involved in assessing new drugs can truly remain unbiased if they are receiving money from the companies whose drugs they are testing (McCook, 2006).

The form of bias most applicable to our “scared straight” example is emotional bias: People not only fear crime and criminals but also are often in favor of harsh treatments for criminal behavior, as evidenced by the recent spate of “three strikes” laws (which mandate a lifetime in prison after three felony convictions). Accordingly, the “scared straight” approach may appeal to people simply because of its harshness. Also, people with a loved one who has gotten into some trouble may be especially vulnerable to promises of easy reform: Their desire for help can interfere with clear thinking.

Another common form of bias is confirmation bias, the all-too-human ten- dency to remember events that confirm our beliefs and ignore or forget contra- dictory evidence (Halpern, 2002; Nickerson, 1998). For example, confirmation bias explains why people persist in their beliefs that astrology works: They remember the predictions that seemed accurate and forget the ones that missed the mark. Confirmation bias also explains why gamblers have better recollections for their wins than for their losses, or why we persist in thinking a particular object is our lucky charm. Amazingly, recent research reveals this bias may be partly biological in nature. In a study done before a recent presidential election, people listened to their favorite politicians making statements that contradicted themselves. Upon hearing the contradictory statement, brain circuits associated with reasoning in the listeners suddenly shut down, while brain regions most in- volved with emotion remained active (Shermer, 2006; Westen et al., 2006). It was as though the brain was saying, “I don’t want to hear anything that conflicts with my beliefs.” Thus, we may have to exert extra effort and diligence to overcome this bias.

5. Does the reasoning avoid common fallacies? We will study several common logical fallacies in this book, but the one most applicable to the “scared straight” example is the assumption that common sense is a substitute for scientific evidence. In fact,

emotional bias The tendency to make judgments based on attitudes and feelings, rather than on the basis of a rational analysis of the evidence.

confirmation bias The tendency to attend to evidence that complements and confirms our beliefs or expectations, while ignoring evidence that does not.

anecdotal evidence First-hand accounts that vividly describe the experiences of one or a few people, but may erroneously be assumed to be scientific evidence.

What Is Psychology—and What Is It NOT? 9

in many cases there exists common sense to support both sides of an issue. For example, we hear that “Birds of a feather flock together”—but we also hear that “Opposites attract.” Similarly, we are told that “The early bird gets the worm,” but aren’t we also cautioned that “Haste makes waste?” Which, then, is true? Only an examination of the evidence can reliably provide the answer. Stay tuned later in this chapter, and in Chapter 6, for other common fallacies that derail critical thinking.

6. Does the issue require multiple perspectives? The “scared straight” intervention makes the simplistic assumption that fear of punishment is the best deterrent to delinquency, so inducing fear will prevent delinquency. A more sophisticated view sees delinquency as a complex problem that demands scrutiny from several perspectives. Psychologists, for example, may look at delinquency from the stand- points of learning, social influence, or personality traits. Economists would be interested in the financial incentives for delinquency. And sociologists would focus on such things as gangs, poverty, and community structures. Surely such a multi- faceted problem will require a more complex solution than a threatening program.

Thinking Critically about the Chapter Problem How would you apply these criti- cal thinking guidelines to the chapter-opening problem about whether sugar makes children hyperactive? First, consider the source: Is the mother of an 8-year-old an ex- pert on biological effects of sugar? Assuming she is not, you’d have to wonder if the source of her belief is a reliable one or if she is just repeating some “common sense” she’s often heard but never questioned. Second, examine the evidence: Have scientific tests been conducted to measure the effects of sugar on children? Third, could any bi- ases be at work? For example, if we expect children to be hyperactive after consuming sugar, that is likely what we will observe. Fourth, is the claimant avoiding common fallacies in reasoning? In this case, even if we can prove that kids who consume more sugar are more hyperactive, we can’t be sure that sugar is the cause: Alternatively, per- haps kids who are already hyperactive eat more sugar as a means of maintaining their high need for activity. Finally, we should recognize that there are probably other rea- sons kids get excited at parties. We will explore some of these competing perspectives in the second section of this chapter.