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While Asian and African psychologists primarily work to understand behavior and American psychologists work to control behavior, no one goal is fundamentally better than the other.

William James wrote this text in 1890 and many experts considered it to be the most important psychology text every written.

Reductionism was a criticism of structuralism not functionalism.

Gestalt psychology moved away reductionism by exploring people's relationships to stimulus groupings rather than all of the intricate pieces of the stimulus.

Many psychologists seek answers to the fundamental question: What is human nature? Psychology is the scientific study of the behavior of individuals and their mental processes.

Functionalism is the perspective on mind and behavior that focuses on the examination of their functions in an organism’s interactions with the environment.

To further examine the diversity of psychological inquiry, take a look at Table 1.2 on page 14 of your text.

A causal prediction specifies the conditions under which behaviors will change. A scientific prediction is based on an understanding of the ways events relate to one another, and it suggests what mechanisms link those events to certain predictors.

Gestalt psychology moved away reductionism by exploring people's relationships to stimulus groupings rather than all of the intricate pieces of the stimulus.

While self-awareness may be a goal for many students in psychology, psychology is defined as "the scientific study of the behavior of individuals and their mental processes."

Basic science research, as compared with applied research, focuses on describing, explaining, predicting, and controlling behavior.

In order to appreciate behavior, it must be examined from many different viewpoints. These viewpoints might include large social networks or neurochemical reactions; regardless, a full understanding of behavior must include research along this entire continuum.

Genetics certainly play a role in explaining behavior, and this variable would be included in the broader category of organismic variables.

The scientific exploration of behavior is aimed at improving people's lives through by gaining a better understanding into how and why certain choices are made, and than helping people to make better choices.

Because psychology is such a diverse discipline, it draws from a variety of other fields. Psychologists study psychology as both a social science as well as a natural or biological science. In many cases the information gained from these two divisions of psychology can be used to improve the quality of one’s life via improvements in medicine, education, and environmental studies.

Making predictions that go beyond one’s data or what can be observed (i.e., generalizing) is the definition of an explanation.

William Wundt has been given the honor of being the first to develop a formal laboratory dedicated to psychology. His laboratory was established in 1879 in Leipzig, Germany.

While philosophy and psychology may explore many of the same concepts, psychology is separated from philosophy because it is concerned with experimentally based, reproducible results concerning behavior and mental processes, which can only be obtained through the use of the scientific method.

Structuralism was based, in part, on introspection. The goals of this approach was to reveal the underlying structure of the human mind by analyzing the constituent elements of sensation and other experience that form an individual's mental life.

Functionalists asked, what is the function or purpose of any behavioral act, which was partly a response to the development of Darwin's theory of evolution.

Biological psychologists are interested in how genes, the brain, the nervous system, and the endocrine system impact on behavior. Because drugs influence one or more of these processes, they would be of interest to biological psychologists.

Sigmund Freud fully developed this perspective and sought to understand the inner forces that control behavior.

Introspection was actually a major component to structuralism. Introspection relied on psychologist examining individual’s reaction to particular sensory experiences.

Although each of the areas might be an important component to the question concerning what babies know and don't know during their first month of maturation, this question would most likely be asked by a developmental psychologist.

Approximately 34% of all psychologists work in academic settings, 24.5% in Hospitals, Clinics, and human service, 22% in private practice, 13% in Business and Government, 3.7% in schools and other educational settings, and about 3% in places not otherwise specified.

Around 1970 women were earning only about 25% of doctoral degrees; however, in 1997 over 60% of doctoral degrees in psychology were earned by women.

The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest with about 155,000 members, while the American Psychological Society has only 16,000 members. Organizations outside of Western industrialized nations tend to be considerably smaller, but ever increasing.

While it is possible to find each of the psychologists listed at a Fortune 500 company, one is MOST likely to find an Industrial/Organizational or Human Factors psychologist. This branch of psychology is specifically interested in how people function in their job and how people relate to equipment/machines.

John Dewey founded the school of thought called functionalism. His concern for the practical uses of mental processes led to important advances in education.

In order for data to be discussed across a diverse group of scientists there has to be some unifying principles. These two models provided a framework so discussions and experimentation could be explored.