1 / 11

Welcome to Psychology 242

Welcome to Psychology 242. Research Methods in Psychological Science 12128 LECT 0100-0150 M W 00C3 LC Keith Powell, PhD kdp@uic.edu. Why is Psychology One of the Most Popular Majors?.

johannes-jesse
Download Presentation

Welcome to Psychology 242

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Welcome to Psychology 242 Research Methods in Psychological Science 12128 LECT 0100-0150 M W 00C3 LC Keith Powell, PhD kdp@uic.edu

  2. Why is Psychology One of the Most Popular Majors? • Of all the disciplines that exist, psychology is one of the few that is explicitly concerned with understanding the way people behave, feel, and think.

  3. Why is Psychology One of the Most Popular Majors? • Many of the themes that have characterized intellectual inquiry over the years are studied by psychologists • free will and determinism • mind and matter • nature and nurture • love and loss • relationships and emotion • personality (growth and disorder)

  4. What Makes Psychology Different? • So, what is special about psychology, as opposed to the study of philosophy, literature, or history? • The critical difference is that modern psychology is based on the scientific method.

  5. Psychology the methods of psychology the themes of psychology Natural Science Psychology, like the humanities, is concerned with fundamental issues concerning human experience. However, psychologists use the methods of the natural sciences to better understand psychological phenomena. Philosophy & Humanities

  6. Why Does this Matter? • Why do we need the scientific method in order to study the human mind? • The methods we tend to use are subject to severe limitations—some of which we will review in our next class.

  7. Class Objectives • The objectives of this course are • to illustrate some of the limitations of non-scientific approaches to understanding psychology • to teach you how to use the scientific method as it applies to psychology • to foster your ability to think critically about psychological research (as well as other information)

  8. Grading and Syllabus • Class web site • Future updates and changes will be reflected in the online version of the syllabus. • Grading • Exams are worth 60% of final grade. • 5 exams of which 4 count. • NO make up exams. • discussion section activities and attendance are worth 20%. • weekly quizzes are worth 20%. • NO extra credit

  9. Warning • Disclaimer and open-mindedness • We will be discussing topics that have the potential to offend people (e.g., religion, alternative medicine, occult phenomena). • If you don’t think you can handle such discussions maturely and with an open mind, you should not take this class.

More Related