After completing this chapter you should be able to:

  1. Explain how awareness of personal bias and of the law of parsimony can help in assessing claims made by others.
  2. List and explain four guidelines for evaluating psychological information.
  3. Explain the evolutionary perspective
  4. Discuss the importance of the work of Charles Darwin
  5. Explain the significance of natural selection and how it applies to the study of psychology
  6. Explain the significance of structuralism, functionalism and the work of the Gestalt psychologists in the early history of psychology.
  7. Describe the behavioral perspective and summarize the contributions of Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner.
  8. Describe the psychoanalytic perspective and discuss the contributions of Sigmund Freud.
  9. Explain the humanistic perspective and discuss the contributions of Maslow and Rogers.
  10. Describe the goals of the physiological and cognitive perspectives.
  11. Explain the eclectic approach in modern-day psychology and describe the barriers that have limited the access to psychology for minorities and for women.
  12. Explain the importance of cross-cultural psychology and discuss the limits of the research results.
  13. Explain the importance of clinical and counseling psychology in modern psychology.
  14. Describe the followings areas of psychology: research psychology, school psychology, industrial and organizational psychology, consumer psychology, forensic psychology, sport psychology and neuropsychology.
  15. Describe the strengths and weaknesses of the case study method and naturalistic observation as research techniques.
  16. Explain the nature of correlational research and describe the type of information summarized in the correlation coefficient.
  17. List and describe the factors that influence the accuracy of survey research.
  18. Describe the components of the experimental method and explain why it is considered a powerful research technique.
  19. List and describe ethical principles relevant to research with human participants and with animals.