Psychology for Dummies Read Free

“acting” psychologists, analyzing and assessing human behavior every day.
    This part also contains a brief outline of the professional practice of psychology. I introduce the scientific nature of psychology and the different approaches psychologists use to investigate and understand people. Finally, I briefly touch on the different applicable areas of psychological knowledge from treatment to applied psychology.

Chapter 1

Why Do People Do What They Do?
In This Chapter
    Figuring ourselves out
    Using a little folk psychology
    Clearing things up
    M ost people I know have a certain idea in mind when they think about psychology. I’m a psychologist. But what’s that? Obviously, it’s someone who knows psychology. But is that all there is to it? When I get together with family and friends during the holidays, it seems like they still don’t know exactly what it is I do for a living. Some of my patients have said, “All you do is talk. Can’t you prescribe some medicine for me?” Still others grant me seemingly supernatural powers of knowledge and healing. I wrote
Psychology For Dummies
to clear things up about psychology.
    So what are some of those ideas that come to mind when people think about the topic of psychology? That all depends on who you ask. Sometimes, I imagine myself as a guest on a television talk show, like
Oprah.
I’m bombarded by questions from the audience that I can’t answer. My heart starts to pound. I start to sweat. I start to stand up so that I can run off the set, but then, something comes to me that keeps me in my seat. I’ll ask the audience what it thinks psychology is and why it thinks a psychologist can answer questions about psychology.
     

     
    Before I provide a definition of psychology, I want you to take a few minutes to jot down some of your ideas on what psychology is. Why did this book catch your eye? Looking for answers? Looking for advice? What’s the question that you want answered?
    “Why do we do what we do?” is the question that lies beneath a lot of the other questions that people ask of psychologists. Whether you’re a professional psychologist, a researcher, or a layperson, this one simple question seems to be the root issue.
    Why did that shooting happen?
    Why can’t I stop feeling sad?
    Why did she break up with me?
    Why are people so mean?
    These are examples of the motivating questions that drive the discipline of psychology. At a very basic level, psychology is a branch of knowledge. But this explanation just scratches the surface. The main topic of psychology is
people,
either as individuals or in groups. That’s why the title of this chapter isn’t “Why Do Elephant Seals Do What They Do?” However, some psychologists do actually study animal behavior and so they might actually be asking this question.
    To this point in the chapter, psychology is a discipline concerned with why people do what they do. Another fundamental question of psychology is the “how” question:
    How can I get a better grade on my final?
    How can I get my 2-year-old to stop throwing tantrums?
    How does the mind work?
    Still another question is the “what” question:
    What are emotions?
    What is mental illness?
    What is intelligence?
    These why, how, and what questions comprise the intellectual and philosophical core of psychology. Therefore,
psychology
can be defined as the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes. Psychology attempts to uncover what we do and why and how we do it.

Playing Armchair Psychologist
    In a way, each of us is an amateur psychologist of sorts. Professional psychologists aren’t the only ones who try to figure people out. When I started taking psychology courses, I had my own ideas about people. Sometimes, I agreed with the theories of Freud and others, and sometimes, I disagreed wholeheartedly. I’m sure that I’m not alone. Most of us seem to have our own ideas about what makes others tick.
    One of the neatest things about