Why study Psychology?  Perhaps by studying psychology we can get a better understanding of why people act the way they do, or maybe you want to learn more about your thoughts and feelings, we might even find more effective ways to handle, or to help others handle the stresses of daily life.  The study of psychology will give you new ways to look at, and interpret the world and the people who live in it.

Psychology: Is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. Behavior: Is an action that other people can observe or measure ( walking, talking, sleeping, pressing a switch) This also includes automatic body functions :such as heart rate, blood pressure, digestion and brain activity.

Mental Processes (Cognitive activities) These activities include dreams, perceptions, thoughts and memories. Psychologists are also interested in studying people´s emotions and feelings, remember that emotions can affect both behavior and mental processes.

The Goals of Psychology  Scientists seek to observe, describe, explain, predict and control the events they study, psychologists have the same goals, they observe and describe behavior and mental processes to better understand them, this understanding enables psychologists to explain, predict, and control behavior.

 Imagine that you are a profesional  basketball player, you´ve been  practicing for the day when you  play in a Super Bowl. When your  team had an opportunity to win the game with a field goal, you missed, handing the victory to the other team, this can be very hard on a person´s self –esteem and self-confidence.  For this kind of situation sports psycologists help athletes handle performance problems by applying the goals of psychology.

 They observe and describe the behavior, by measuring athlete´s heart rates and other body processes, they know the problems that might occur when atheletes are highly excited, interviews reveal that they often feel very anxious during big games and they might become distracted by cheers of the crowd and loose concentration.  Psychologists explain the behavior in terms of the feelings of anxiety and the distractions that affected his performance, a little anxiety is a good thing, it motivates us, but too much is harmful it makes us shaky and distracts us from the task at hand.

 Psychologists next predict that athletes will do best when anxiety is moderate and will falter when anxiety becomes too intense.  Finally they help athletes change, by teaching them ways to controll their behavior and mental processes by teaching them ways of keeping their anxiety at a tolerable level.  They also teach athletes how to filter out the sounds of the fans, so they can focus on their task, helping the team win the game.

Psychology as a science  Like natural scientists, psychologists seek to answer questions by following the steps involved in the scientific research. These steps include conducting surveys and experiments, collecting and analyzing data. and drawing conclusions. Research: As a science psychologists test ideas through varios methods. Surveys Experimentation

Psychological Theories  Psychologists organize their research about behavior and mental processes into theories.  A theory is a statement that attemps to explain why things are the way there are and happen the way they do.  Psychological theories discuss principles that govern behavior and mental processes.  A principle is a rule or law, such as the principle that you will get better grades if you study more.

Section Review 1. What is psychology? 2. What is a behavior? Give examples. 3. What are the five goals of psychology? 4. Why is psychology defined as a science? 5. Define theory and principle.