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    Goals of Psychology

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    ynnek0131
    The document outlines the four main goals of psychology: 1. Describe behavior by observing how organisms act. Psychologists describe behaviors of autistic children to understand autism. 2. Explain behavior by determining its causes. Explanations of autism have changed from parental issues to genetic and biological factors. 3. Predict behavior by anticipating how organisms will act in certain situations. Psychologists can predict challenges autistic children may face in school. 4. Control behavior by influencing it, both positively by teaching coping skills, and potentially negatively by controlling without consent. Psychologists establish guidelines to prevent abuse of control.

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    Goals of Psychology

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    ynnek0131
    328 views1 page
    The document outlines the four main goals of psychology: 1. Describe behavior by observing how organisms act. Psychologists describe behaviors of autistic children to understand autism. 2. Explain behavior by determining its causes. Explanations of autism have changed from parental issues to genetic and biological factors. 3. Predict behavior by anticipating how organisms will act in certain situations. Psychologists can predict challenges autistic children may face in school. 4. Control behavior by influencing it, both positively by teaching coping skills, and potentially negatively by controlling without consent. Psychologists establish guidelines to prevent abuse of control.

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    The document outlines the four main goals of psychology: 1. Describe behavior by observing how organisms act. Psychologists describe behaviors of autistic children to understand autism. 2. Explain behavior by determining its causes. Explanations of autism have changed from parental issues to genetic and biological factors. 3. Predict behavior by anticipating how organisms will act in certain situations. Psychologists can predict challenges autistic children may face in school. 4. Control behavior by influencing it, both positively by teaching coping skills, and potentially negatively by controlling without consent. Psychologists establish guidelines to prevent abuse of control.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    328 views1 page

    Goals of Psychology

    Uploaded by

    ynnek0131
    The document outlines the four main goals of psychology: 1. Describe behavior by observing how organisms act. Psychologists describe behaviors of autistic children to understand autism. 2. Explain behavior by determining its causes. Explanations of autism have changed from parental issues to genetic and biological factors. 3. Predict behavior by anticipating how organisms will act in certain situations. Psychologists can predict challenges autistic children may face in school. 4. Control behavior by influencing it, both positively by teaching coping skills, and potentially negatively by controlling without consent. Psychologists establish guidelines to prevent abuse of control.

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    of 1

    GOALS OF PSYCHOLOGY

    Presented by ; Hakiki Mahfuzh


    1 Describe Donna says that when she was a child, she
    wondered what people were saying to her because words were
    just lists of meaningless sounds. When people or things
    bothered her, she would endlessly tap or twirl her fingers to
    create movements that completely held her attention and helped
    her escape from a world that o"en made no sense.
    The first goal of psychology is to describe the different ways
    that organisms behave.
    As psychologists begin to describe the behaviors and mental
    processes of autistic children, such as difficulties in learning
    language, they begin to understand how autistic children behave.
    After describing behavior, psychologists try to explain behavior,
    the second goal.

    2 Explain Donnas mother believed that autism was caused
    by evil spirits. Donna thinks her autism may result from
    metabolic imbalance. !e second goal of psychology is to explain
    the causes of behavior.
    $e explanation of autism has changed as psychologists learn
    more about this complex problem. In the 1950s, psychologists
    explained that children became autistic if they were reared by
    parents who were cold and rejecting (Blakeslee, 2000). In the
    1990s, researchers discovered that autism is caused by genetic
    and biological factors that result in a maldeveloped brain
    (Courchesne et al., 2003). Being able to describe and explain
    behavior helps psychologists reach the third goal, which is to
    predict behavior.
    3 Predict Donna says that one of her biggest problems is
    being so overloaded by visual sensations that she literally freezes
    in place. She tries to predict when she will freeze up by
    estimating how many new stimuli she must adjust to. !e third
    goal of psychology is to predict how organisms will behave in
    certain situations.
    However, psychologists may have difficulty predicting how
    autistic children will behave in certain situations unless they have
    already described and explained their behaviors. For example,
    from the first two goals, psychologists know that autistic
    children are easily overwhelmed by strange stimuli and have
    difficulty paying attention. Based on this information,
    psychologists can predict that autistic children will have
    difficulty learning in a school environment because there are too
    many activities and stimuli in the classroom (Heflin & Alaimo,
    2006; M. Pittman, 2007). However, if psychologists can predict
    behavior, then they can o"en control behavior.

    4 Control Donna knows one reason she fears meeting
    people is that social interactions cause a tremendous sensory
    overload that makes her freeze up. She controls her social fear by
    making a rule to meet only one person at a time.
    For some psychologists, the fourth goal of psychology is to
    control an organisms
    behavior.
    However, the idea of control has both positive and negative
    sides. $e positive side is that psychologists can help people, such
    as Donna, learn to control undesirable behaviors by teaching
    better methods of self-control and ways to deal with situations
    and relationships (Eikeseth et al., 2007; Hall, 2008). $e negative
    side is the concern that psychologists might control peoples
    behaviors without their knowledge or consent. In Module 2,
    well discuss the strict guidelines that psychologists have
    established to prevent potential abuse of controlling behavior
    and to protect the rights and privacy of individuals, patients, and
    participants in experiments. Because many behaviors, such as
    autism, are enormously complex, psychologists use a
    combination of different approaches to reach the four goals of
    describing, explaining, predicting, and controlling behavior. To
    reach these goals, psychologists may use one or a combination of
    the following seven approaches.

    Read more : Intoduction to Psychology : by Rod Plotnik and
    Haig Kouyoumdjian published by Wadsworth

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