Week 1 — The Science of Psychology

Welcome to your Week 1 Start Here page.

Why this matters

Every job that involves people runs on claims about why they act as they do. A nursing student reading a worried person's face and a future teacher wondering why a student stalls both need to ask how anyone would know.

In plain language

Psychology is the science of what people do and what goes on inside their heads. This week you will learn what the field studies, where it came from, and the six main ways psychologists explain the same behavior. You will see why the field tests its ideas with evidence instead of trusting common sense (the everyday beliefs about people that feel true without being checked). You will also learn to tell a theory (a broad explanation already backed by evidence) from a hypothesis (a specific prediction that data could prove wrong). Those two habits, asking for evidence and asking for a testable prediction, are what make psychology a science.

• This week: what psychology studies, its history in six moves, the six perspectives, and why the field relies on evidence rather than common sense.
• How they connect: this chapter is the foundation, so there is no earlier week to lean on; every later week uses the lenses and habits you build here.
• Where we're going next: Week 2, Research Methods & Ethics, turns the habit of asking for evidence into the tools psychologists use to gather it.

Focus

How does psychology know what it claims about people? You meet the field, its six lenses, and its habit of testing ideas.

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

• [ ] tell a behavior from a mental process
• [ ] summarize reaction times with a mean, median, and range
• [ ] explain one behavior from two of the six perspectives
• [ ] tell a theory from a falsifiable hypothesis

To-do

Plan your week

1. Read Chapter 1 (about 35 minutes), then the lecture and slides.
2. Work the lecture tutorial (60–90 minutes) and the practice set (about 20 minutes).
3. Do the Analysis Workshop (about 90 minutes), the discussion, and the assignment.
4. Take the quiz.

This week's checkpoint: explain one everyday behavior from two perspectives and write one falsifiable hypothesis about it.

You've got this

Every later week builds on this one. Take it in order, and ask your instructor if a step snags.

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