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1: Introduction to Psychology

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    346348
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    • 1.1: Introducing and Defining Psychology
      Introducing and Defining Psychology
    • 1.2: Why Psychology Relies on Empirical Methods Rather Than Intuition
      Why Psychology Relies on Empirical Methods Rather Than Intuition
    • 1.3: The Scientific Method in Psychology
      Scientific research is a critical tool for successfully navigating our complex world. Without it, we would be forced to rely solely on intuition, other people’s authority, and blind luck. While many of us feel confident in our abilities to decipher and interact with the world around us, history is filled with examples of how very wrong we can be when we fail to recognize the need for evidence in supporting claims.
    • 1.4: Descriptive Methods
      There are many research methods available to psychologists in their efforts to understand, describe, and explain behavior. The methods discussed in this section are descriptive research methods.
    • 1.5: Correlational and Experimental Methods
      How do we determine if there is indeed a relationship between two things? And when there is a relationship, how can we discern whether it is attributable to coincidence or causation? Correlation means that there is a relationship between two or more variables (such as ice cream consumption and crime), but this relationship does not necessarily imply cause and effect. When two variables are correlated, it simply means that as one variable changes, so does the other.
    • 1.6: Ethics in Research Psychology
      Ethics in Research Psychology


    1: Introduction to Psychology is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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