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