https://canvas.liberty.edu/courses/639581/pages/watch-introductionto-cognitive-psychology?module_item_id=67326535
Welcome to Introduction to Psychology, also known as Psychology
310, which is offered by the Department Psychology at Liberty
University. Chapter 1, overview. Cognitive psychology is the study
of how our minds receive, store, and use information.
This includes theory in research about perception, attention,
memory, language use, decision-making and problem-solving.
The primary development of Cognitive psychology began in part as
a reaction to the behaviorist tradition within psychology. But it's
also a reflection. Optimal developments within their discipline
including biology, linguistics, and computer science. Explanations
of cognitive processes have been developed within
three general approaches: Representationalist, embodied, and
biologically motivated. Three main types of research design are
employed and research and cognition. Case studies, correlational
studies, and experiments.
There are a range of behaviors studied by cognitive psychologists.
Some common measures. Our accuracy for a task, as well as a toll to
go to sleep a task. They are also behavior specific to an area of
cognitive psychologist. such as, measurement of brain activity and
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cognitive neuroscience. The primary learning objectives for Chapter
1 include addressing
what is cognitive psychology? How have cognitive psychologists
approach the study of cognition? What types of research
methods are useful in the study of cognition? What behaviors to
psychologists observe to study cognition?
Some of the concepts in Chapter 1 include defining what cognition
is. Beyond just thinking about mental processes. For example, our
perceptions of the world around us. To our senses. Attentional
processes that allow us to focus on a particular stimulus while not
attending to others. Things like how memory operates to allow us to
remember information and intentions. Our language processes that
help us communicate our thoughts and ideas, not just to others, but
also within our own thinking. cognitive psychology also includes
research and work in decision-making. And allowed this is
underscored by arching brain activity that controls all of these
processes. In many ways, cognitive psychology bridges cognition
with all other areas of psychology to that and that this course has a
real benefit to students in that not only are you learning a very, very
important, important applied area of psychology, but the area of
cognitive psychology civically should teach you and help you
understand the ways in which you can be a better learner. And that
includes being more efficient and more effective at what you do. So
throughout this course, you should be able to apply core concepts
and ideas to the work that you're doing in this class and other
classes. Because cognitive psychology is all about our thinking, This
also applies directly to you and your unique developmental point in
time. So hopefully by the time this course is over, you will have in
hand skills at understanding your own ways of understanding with
approaches to improve them. And of course, the better you
understand your own thinking, you'll be able to apply that to the
thinking of others. There's, there's no area of psychology that's not
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more beneficial than cognitive psychology, especially in the
workforce. Now of course, the Bible has a lot to say about our
thinking about what's in our hearts and what's in our minds, not as
reflected in the way the Bible talks about. Do, DO ways in which we
think and act. For example, Philippians four, for rejoice in the
Lord always again, I will say rejoice that your reasonableness be
known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious
about anything, but in everything by prayer, supplication with
thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the
peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard
your hearts and your minds. Christ, Jesus, bombing, brothers,
whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just,
whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable.
There's any excellence. If there's anything worthy of praise,
think about these things. What you have learned and received
and heard and seen in me, practice these things. And the God of
peace will be with you.
As you can see in this scripture, the entire focus of it is on our
thinking, because our thinking becomes our reality. So the Bible
asks us to focus on Christ and having a Christ-like mindset and to
model that.
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https://canvas.liberty.edu/courses/639581/pages/watch-howreliable-is-your-memory-dr-elizabeth-beth-loftus-ted-talk-on-falsememories?module_item_id=67326545
I'd like to tell you about a legal case that I worked on involving a
man named Steve Titus. Titus was a restaurant manager. He was 31
years old. He lived in Seattle, Washington. He was engaged to
Gretchen, about to be married. She was the love of his life. And one
night the couple went out for a romantic restaurant meal. They were
on their way home and they were pulled over by a police officer.
You see Titus, his car sort of resembled a car that was driven earlier
in the evening by a man who raped a female hitchhiker. And Titus
kind of resembled that rapist. So the police took a picture of Titus.
They put it in a photo lineup. They later showed it to the victim and
she pointed to Titus his photos. She said That one's the closest. The
police and the prosecution proceeded with a trial. And when Steve
Titus was put on trial for rape, the rape victim gone on the stand and
said, I'm absolutely positive, that's the man. And Titus was
convicted. He proclaimed his innocence. His family screamed at the
jury. His fiance collapsed on the floor sobbing, and Titus is taken
away to jail. So what would you do at this point? What would you
do? Well, Titus lost complete faith in the legal system, and yet he
got an idea. He called up the local newspaper. He got the interests of
an investigative journalist. And that journalist actually found the
real rapist, a man who ultimately confessed to this rape. A man who
was thought to have committed 50 rapes in that area. When this
information was given to the judge, the judge set Titus free. And
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really that that's where this case should've ended. That should have
been over a Titus should have thought of this as a horrible year, a
year of accusation and trial, but over, it didn't end that way. Titus
was so bitter. He'd lost his job. He couldn't get it back. He lost his
fiance. She couldn't put up with his persistent anger. He lost his
entire savings, and so he decided to file a lawsuit against the police
and others whom he felt were responsible for his suffering. And
that's when I really started working on this case, trying to figure out
how did that victim go from That one's the closest to I'm absolutely
positive. That's the guy. While Titus was consumed with his civil
cases. And he spent every waking moment thinking about it. And
just days before he was to have his day in court, he woke up in the
morning, doubled over in pain and died of a stress-related heart
attack. He was 35 years old. So I was asked to work on Titus his
case because I'm a psychological scientist. I study memory. I've
studied memory for decades. And if I meet somebody on an
airplane, it has happened on the way over to Scotland. If I meet
somebody on an airplane and we ask each other, what do you do?
What do you do? And I say I study memory. They usually want to
tell me how they have trouble remembering names or they've got a
relative who's got Alzheimer's or some kind of memory problem.
But, but I have to tell them. I don't study. When people forget. I
study the opposite when they remember, when they remember
things that didn't happen, or remember things that were different
from the way they really were. Study false memories. Unhappily.
Steve Titus is not the only person to be convicted based on
somebody's false memory. In one project in the United States,
information has been gathered on 300 innocent people, 300
defendants who were convicted of crimes they didn't do. They spent
10, 20, 30 years in prison for these crimes. And now DNA testing
has proven that they're actually innocent. And when those cases
IBM and analyzed, three quarters of them are due to faulty memory,
faulty eyewitness memory. Well, why? Like the jurors who
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convicted those innocent people and the jurors who convicted Titus.
Many people believe that that memory works like a recording
device. You just record the information. Then you call it up and play
it back when you want to answer questions or identify images. But
decades of work in psychology has shown that this just isn't true.
Our memories are constructive, they're reconstructive. Memory
works a little bit more like a Wikipedia page. You can go in
there and change it. But so can other people. I first started
studying this constructive memory process in the 1970s. I did my
experiments that involve showing people simulated crimes and
accidents and asking them questions about what they remember. In
one study, we showed people a simulated accident and we asked
people how fast were the cars going when they hit each other. And
we asked other people how fast were the cars going when they
smashed into each other? And if we asked the leading smashed
question, the witness has told us the cars were going faster. And
moreover, that leading smashed question caused people to be
more likely to tell us that they saw broken glass in the accident
scene when there wasn't any broken glass at all. In another
study, we showed a simulated accident where a car went
through an intersection with a stop sign. And if we asked a
question that insinuated it was a yield sign. Many witnesses told
us they remember seeing a yield sign at the intersection, not a
stop sign. And you might be thinking, well, you know, these are
filmed events. They're not particularly stressful with the same
kind of mistakes be made with a really stressful event. In a study
we published just a few months ago, we have an answer to this
question. Because what was unusual about this study is we arranged
for people to have a very stressful experience. The subjects in the
study were members of the US military who were undergoing a
harrowing training exercise to teach them what it's going to be like
for them if they are ever captured as prisoners of war. And as part
of this training exercise, these soldiers are interrogated in an
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aggressive, hostile, physically abusive fashion for 30 minutes.
And later on they have to try to identify the person who
conducted that interrogation. And when we feed them
suggestive information that insinuates it's a different person.
Many of them misidentify their interrogator, often not
identifying someone who doesn't even remotely resemble the
real interrogator. And so what these studies are showing is that
when you feed people misinformation about some experience
that they may have had, you can distort or contaminate or
change their memory. Well out there in the real-world,
misinformation is everywhere we get miss information. Not only
if we're question in a leading way, but if we talk to other witnesses
who might consciously or inadvertently fetus some erroneous
information. Or if we see media coverage about some event we
might have experienced. All of these provide the opportunity for this
kind of contamination of our memory. In the 1990s, we began to see
an even more extreme kind of memory problem. Some patients
we're going into therapy with one problem. Maybe they had
depression, eating disorder, and they were coming out of therapy
with a different problem. Extreme memories for her horrific
brutalization, sometimes in satanic rituals, sometimes involving
really bizarre and unusual elements. One woman came out of
psychotherapy believing that she'd endured years of ritualistic abuse
where she was forced into a pregnancy and that the baby was cut
from her belly. But there were no physical scars or any kind of
physical evidence that could have supported her story. And when I
began looking into these cases, I was wondering where do these
bizarre memories come from. And what I found is that most of the
situations involved some particular form psychotherapy. And so I
asked where some of the things going on in this psychotherapy,
like the imagination exercises or dream interpretation, or in
some cases hypnosis, or in some cases, exposure to false
information where these leading these patients to develop these
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very bizarre, unlikely memories. And I designed some
experiments to try to study the processes that were being used in this
psychotherapy. So I could study the development of these very rich
false memories. In one of the first studies we did, we use suggestion,
a method inspired by the psychotherapy we saw in these cases, we
use this kind of suggestion and planted a false memory that when
you were a kid five or six years old, you were lost in a shopping
mall. You were frighten, you were crying. You were ultimately
rescued by an elderly person and reunited with a family. And we
succeeded and planting this memory in the minds of about a
quarter of our subjects. And you might be thinking, well, that's not
particularly stressful. But we and other investigators have planted
rich false memories of things that were much more unusual and
much more stressful. So when a study done in Tennessee,
researchers planted the false memory that when you were a kid,
you nearly drowned and had to be rescued by a lifeguard. And
in a study done in Canada, researchers planted the false
memory that when you were a kid, something as awful as being
attacked by a vicious animal happened to you, succeeding with
about half of their subjects. And in a study done in Italy,
researchers planted the false memory. When you were a kid,
you witnessed demonic possession. I do want to add that it might
seem like we are traumatizing these experimental subjects in the
name of science. But our studies have gone through thorough
evaluation by research ethics boards that have made the decision
that the temporary discomfort that some of these subjects might
experience in these studies is outweighed by the importance of this
problem for understanding memory processes and the abuse of
memory that is going on in some places in the world. Well, to my
surprise, when I publish this work and began to speak out against
this particular brand of psychotherapy. It created some pretty bad
problems for me. Hostilities primarily from the repressed memory
therapists who felt under attack and by the patients whom they had
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influenced. I had sometimes armed guards at speeches that I was
invited to give people trying to drum up letter writing campaigns to
get me fired. But probably the worst was I suspected that a woman
was innocent of abuse. That was being claimed by her grown
daughter. She accused her mother of sexual abuse based on a
repressed memory. And this accusing daughter had actually allowed
her story to be filmed and presented in public places. I was
suspicious of this story, and so I started to investigate and eventually
found information that convinced me that this mother was innocent.
I published an expose a on the case. And a little while later, the
accusing daughter filed a lawsuit. Even though I'd never mentioned
her name. She sued me for defamation and invasion of privacy. And
I went through nearly five years of dealing with this messy, an
unpleasant litigation. But finally, finally it was over and I could
really get back to my work in the process, however, I became part of
a disturbing trend in America where scientists are being sued for
simply speaking out on matters of great public controversy. When I
got back to my work, I ask this question. If I plant a false memory in
your mind, does it have repercussions? Does it affect your later
thoughts, your later behaviors? Our first study planted a false
memory that you've got sick because a child eating certain foods,
hard-boiled eggs, dill pickles, strawberry ice cream. And we found
that once we planted this false memory, people didn't want to eat the
foods as much at an outdoor picnic. The false memories aren't
necessarily bad or unpleasant. If we planted a warm, fuzzy memory
involving a healthy food like asparagus, we could get people to want
to eat experiments more. And so what these studies are showing is
that you can plant false memories and they have repercussions that
affect behavior long after the memories take hold. Well, along with
this ability to plant memories and control behavior, obviously come
some important ethical issues. Like when should we use this mine
technology and should we ever ban its use? Therapists can't
ethically plant false memories in the minds of their patients, even if
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it would help the patient. But there's nothing to stop a parent from
trying this out on their overweight or obese teenager. And when I
suggested this publicly, it created outcry again. There she goes.
She's advocating the parents lie to their children. Hello, Santa Claus.
I mean, another way to do well, another way to think about this is
which would you rather have a kid with obesity diabetes, shortened
lifespan, all the things that go with it. Or a kid with one little extra
bit of false memory. I know what I would choose for a kid of mine,
but maybe my work has made me different from most people. Most
people cherish their memories, know that they represent their
identity, who they are, where they came from. And I appreciate that.
I feel that way too. But I know from my work how much fiction is
already in there. If I've learned anything from these decades of
working on these problems, it's this just because somebody tells you
something and they say it with confidence, just because they say it
with lots of detail. Just because they express emotion when they say
it. It doesn't mean that it really happened. We can't reliably
distinguish true memories from false memories. We need
independent corroboration. Such a discovery has made me more
tolerant of them everyday memory mistakes that my friends and
family members make. Such a discovery might have saved Steve
Titus, the man whose whole future was snatched away by a false
memory. But meanwhile, we should all keep in mind. We do well to
that memory. Like liberty is a fragile thing. Thank you. Thank you
very much.
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https://canvas.liberty.edu/courses/639581/pages/watch-cognitionhow-your-mind-can-amaze-and-betray-you-crash-coursepsychology-number-15?module_item_id=67326555
Why do smart people make dumb decisions? Do conspiracy
theorists think that we didn't land on the moon or that Hillary
Clinton is a space alien. And why won't Bernice admit that the new
Superman movie just isn't very good. And we've talked about
cognition before. We usually refer to it as the process that we used
to think and solve crossword puzzles and stuff. But really, cognition
involves knowing, remembering, understanding,
communicating, and to a certain extent, learning and as truly
wonderful as our brains are, we can be spectacularly bad at all
of these things. We used to think that our cognition worked like a
computer logically processing information. But that cabin sized
chunk of pink wet brain matter in your skull can do a lot more than
math. And the things that it does are certainly not always logical.
Many experts argue that it's cognition that makes us truly human.
That everything that comes with it, our preferences, prejudices, fears
and intuitions are what make us the individuals that we are not the
only animals that show some evidence of cognition. Of course,
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chimps and gorillas exhibit insight and planning. Crows use tools,
elephants teach each other, but our capacity as humans to figure
stuff out is matched only by our ability to totally misjudge stuff as
prone as we are to brilliance and insight, we're equally likely to
succumb to irrational thinking and false intuition. So to borrow a riff
from Rene Descartes, you think therefore you are, which means you
are brilliant a lot of the time. And sometimes you just kinda look
stupid. We all want to make sense of the world. And one of the
major ways our cognition allows us to do that is by forming
concepts, mental groupings of similar objects, people, ideas or
events, we like to lump things together. Concepts simplify our
thinking in such a fundamental way that we usually don't have to
stop and think about using them. They're just there. And yet without
concepts, we'd need a unique name for everything. You couldn't just
ask me to shake the angler fish because there'd be no concept of
shake or fish, let alone stuffed blue angler fish. And if I told you that
I was devastated that I lost my angler fish, which I probably would
be also have to explain my emotions, their intensities, even the
words themselves that I had to use. So basically, without concepts,
no one would ever get anything done. We'd all be like a bunch of
ants taking all morning to say. We often organize our concepts by
forming prototypes, mental images or pinnacle examples of a
certain thing. For example, if I say bird, the general shape of a
songbird probably pops into your head before like a penguin or
chicken or emu. Because robins and cardinals more closely
resemble our bird prototype. Still, if I show you a picture of some
crazy creature you've never seen before and you note that it has
feathers and a beak. You'll probably file it under the bird category
because it more closely resembles your concept of bird than your
concept of rodent or overcoat or footstool. Concepts and prototypes
speed up our thinking, but they also can box our thinking in then
lead to prejudice if we see something that doesn't fit our prototypes.
A 100 years ago, the sight of a female doctor might have caused
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some heads to explode because in peoples tiny minds, the prototypes
of doctor and women didn't have any overlap. And actually some
people today still feel that way haters going to hate. So it's important
to actively keep your mind open to make room for evolving
concepts. And remember that concepts may sometimes hurt as much
as they help. One of the biggest ways our cognition works to our
benefit though, through our ability to solve problems, we use our
problem-solving skills all the time How to assemble Scandinavian
furniture, bake muffins with a missing ingredient or handle the
crushing disappointment of the new Superman movie. And we
approach problem-solving in different ways. Sometimes we value
speed, other times accuracy, some problems we figure out using trial
and error and try something and if it doesn't work, try a different
way and keep at it until something works. Trial and error is slow
and deliberate, which may be good or bad depending on the
problem. We can also use algorithms and heuristics to come up with
some solutions. Algorithms are logical, methodical, step-by-step
procedures that guarantee an eventual solution. They may be
slow to work through. Heuristics, on the other hand, are more
like mental shortcuts, simple strategies that allow us to solve
problems faster, although they're more error-prone than
algorithms, say at a grocery store, I'm looking for a family size
bottle of sriracha. You could use an algorithm and methodically
check every shelf and aisle store or you could use heuristics and first
search the Asian or condiment sections, the places that make the
most sense based on what you already know. Heuristics may be
way faster, but the algorithmic approach guarantees you won't
overlook the sauce along the way because they stuck it in the
deli or whatever dumb thing they did this week. So algorithms,
heuristics and trial and error are problem-solving strategies
that involve a plan of attack. But sometimes we get lucky while
puzzling out a problem and out of nowhere, a sudden flash of insight
that solve the problem. I'll use orange in the muffin recipe instead of
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lemon or sriracha. It lives in the Mexican section. For some reason,
neuroscientists have actually watched that kind of sudden happy
brain flash on neuroimaging screens. In one experiment, they gave
subjects a problem to solve What word can be added to the three
words, crab, pine, and sauce to create a new compound word. Then
they asked the subjects to press a button when they had the answer
or the subjects thought about it, scans showed activity in their
frontal lobes, the areas involved in the focused attention of typical
problem-solving. But right at that aha moment, just as they pushed
the button, there was a clear burst of activity. Just above the ear in
the right temporal lobe, which among many other things, is involved
with recognition. The answer, by the way, we already gave you the
hint earlier in the episode. Where the fish, those sudden bursts of
insight are awesome, but you can't always count on them to solve all
your problems. And just because something feels right doesn't mean
it's truly correct. Because as inventive and smarty pants as we may
be, our cognition often leads us astray in all kinds of ways. For
instance, we often look for and favor evidence that verifies our
ideas. While we're more likely to avoid or ignore contradictory
evidence, a tendency known as confirmation bias. This is really
similar to the overconfidence we've talked about when you're
basically more confident than you are correct, when this kind of
cognitive bias takes hold, you might cling to your initial conceptions
in a kind of belief perseverance, even in the face of clear proof to
the contrary, this happens all the time and it can be maddening for
people watching it happen. People still think that the earth is flat. It's
like what, how theirs space pictures probably don't need to tell you.
People can get really weird and defensive when they evade facts and
choose to see only the information that confirms their beliefs, they
may even become functionally fixed, unable to view a problem from
a new perspective. Instead, they just keep approaching a situation
with the same mental set, especially if it's worked in the past. So
you gotta now thicken out from a board and you're like, I need to
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take care of that. There's rocks and bricks all around you. But
because of your functional fixedness on the idea that only hammers
work on nails. You don't even consider hitting it with the brick, and
instead you waste a bunch of time looking for the hammer in your
garage and you're angry, frustrated, and there's still a nail sticking
up the board. So our mental set predisposes how we think, just as
you'll remember that our perceptual set predisposes how we
perceive fence is what makes heuristics, those super convenient
mental shortcuts that we all use so easily fallible. And the 19
seventies cognitive psychologists, Amos Tversky and Daniel
Kahneman researched how we make snap judgments and
discovered one way, smart people make dumb decisions. They
found that people believe an event will be more likely to occur if
they can conjure up examples or memories of it, especially if
those examples are particularly vivid, scary, or awesome. So say
you're in a casino and you win $2 at a slot machine, suddenly every
flashing light and ringing bell in the place goes off but when you
lose. The vast majority of the time. It's just crickets and all their
lights and noise making the casino makes sure that wins are super
vivid and memorable while losses just go away unacknowledged
that way. The next time you're standing there with a 100 bucks
in your pocket, you're more likely to overestimate your chances
of winning because the memories of winning are more striking,
the more mentally available those memories are, the more it
seemed that it's going to happen. Again, this is known as the
availability heuristic and it can warp our judgements of people
too. If we keep remembering news footage that shows people of a
given group shooting guns, that can shape our impression of the
entire group, even if what we saw was only a tiny minority within
that group. Essentially, we are great at fearing the wrong things. We
worry about being killed in a plane crash or getting bitten in half by
a shark or accidentally choking on a dumpling. Thanks to our brains
be role of horrific images we come to fear what's actually very rare
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instead of worrying about much more common but less memorable
ends like car accidents, cancer and heart failure are thinking can also
be swayed by framing or how an issue is presented. Imagine you're
considering climbing Everest or getting a nose job or eating a bowl
of raw Blowfish. I can frame the risks in different ways, telling you
that you've got a 95 percent chance of survival sounds a lot different
than saying five out of a 100 people die doing this activity. The
information is the same. Our cognitive minds are capable of
incredible intellectual feats and tremendous failures. We can solve
problems better than any organism on the planet. But given the
chance, we can also mess up a pretty simple judgment every day of
the week. But if we're mindful of our capacity for air and if we
honor our ingenuity and intellect, I think our ability to solve any
problem is nearly infinite, and that gives me a lot, I hope seriously
though, where is my fish today, you learned how we use concepts,
prototypes, and our mental sets to think and communicate and how
algorithms, heuristics and insight help us solve problems. You also
learned about how fixation, the availability, heuristic, fear,
overconfidence, and belief perseverance can get in the way of
good decision-making and thinking. Thank you for watching,
especially to our sub-level subscribers who make this whole channel
possible. If you'd like to sponsor an episode of Crash Course, get a
special Laptop Diego, or even be animated into an upcoming
episode. Just go to separable.com slash Crash Course. This episode
was written by Kathleen Yale, edited by Blake de best Dino and our
consultant is Dr. Ranjit Bhagwati. Our director and editor is
Nicholas Jenkins. The script supervisor is Michael Rhonda, who is
also our sound designer. And the graphics team is Thought Cafe.
Page 16 of 165
An Introduction to Applied Cognitive Psychology with Christian &
Ethical Integration
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
▸
Define cognitive psychology and review major areas of study
within cognitive psychology.
▸
Explain why cognitive psychology is ideally suited for ethical
integration.
▸
Explain why cognitive psychology is ideally suited for Christian
integration.
▸
List and elaborate on the goals of psychology and cognitive
psychology.
▸
Define and describe the importance of a worldview in the
context of psychology.
▸
Differentiate between different religious worldviews, including
their unique benefits and challenges.
▸
Identify major historical influences on the development of
cognitive psychology.
▸
Compare and contrast various ethical positions and their
relationship with science and cognitive psychology.
Page 17 of 165
▸
Explain the approach of the textbook and the topics to be
covered.
▸
Discuss the importance of critical thinking, ethical reasoning,
and scientific understanding.
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
Course Description
This course investigates the principal theories and contemporary
scientific findings in perception, memory, and thought, including
sensations, attention, knowledge representation, problemsolving, reasoning, language, information processing, decisionmaking, creativity, and intelligence. The course will also focus on
disorders of memory, perception, and cognition as well as
strategies for improving these processes across development.
The neural basis underlying these processes will be emphasized in
the context of real-life situations. An important addition to this
course is the inclusion of Christian and ethical integration; such
inclusion provides a more comprehensive approach to help address
contemporary ethical debates.
Course Learning Objectives
1.Describe the history, assumptions, and major concepts of
cognitive psychology.
2.Explain how people interact with and process information.
3.Evaluate the current research in cognitive psychology from a
biblical worldview.
4.Apply cognitive psychology to improving real-world challenges.
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5.Think through and develop conclusions about contemporary
ethical issues in cognitive psychology.
APPROACH OF THE TEXTBOOK
Writing a textbook is a difficult and time-consuming task. However,
it is our position that a good textbook is critical to a student’s
development. In this textbook, we have attempted to provide
multiple tools for understanding and comprehending the material.
First, throughout the book, bolded terms will be defined both in the
context of the passage and independently of the passage to help
build content knowledge. Additionally, tables summarizing concepts
have been created as a guide for study and quick referencing. Each
chapter will also contain five types of breakout boxes, which are
described in more detail below. Each is intended to enhance core
content in cognitive psychology as well as learn how to apply it to
your personal and professional life. The book and its contents were
developed around the current best practices in learning acquisition.
Biblical Integration
All biblical/Christian integration will be boxed and highlighted in
yellow/ gold. These boxes will consist of relevant Bible verses and
Christian commentary on relevant cognitive psychology topics.
These sections are intended to help you connect your faith to
important content in the broader field of cognitive psychology. For
the most part, these sections include Scripture in its context, so it is
less about a verse being added here or there and more about building
a deeper, transformative understanding of biblical thinking.
Cognitive psychology is about thinking, and much of the Bible
references aligning our mind, heart, and spirit to our internal dialogs
and metacognition. (That is our thinking about our own thinking.)
These sections are intentional in terms of bringing the Word of God
to the forefront of our thinking. In fact, even in this section, let’s
take a moment and consider a prayer for spiritual strength.
Ephesians 3:14-21
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14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,
15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,
16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be
strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you,
being rooted and grounded in love,
18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the
breadth and length and height and depth,
19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,
that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that
we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,
21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all
generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Expert Commentaries
All expert commentaries will be boxed and highlighted in blue.
These sections highlight an expert’s thinking about a particular topic
in cognitive psychology (e.g., AI, decision-making, loneliness,
cognitive behavioral therapy, etc.). The goal of these commentaries
is to help you understand how various experts consider topics in
cognitive psychology and apply that content to their personal and
professional lives.
Personal Application
Understanding cognitive psychology has the potential to truly be
transformative for your personal and professional life. Throughout
the book, practices, procedures, and processes for improving your
cognitive skills will be highlighted in orange. These boxes will
consist of questions and activities aimed at improving your
understanding and application of the materials—these are intended
to help you understand yourself in the context of this material.
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Doing these brief active learning applications will help you learn the
material more efficiently and effectively.
Annotated Bibliographies
This textbook will have numerous references, but too often, the
importance or application of those referenced studies is not brought
to life for readers. To enhance understanding of the science of
cognitive psychology, select articles will be reviewed in more detail
with emphasis on personal application. All article annotated
bibliographies will be boxed and highlighted in light green. These
boxes will consist of a paragraph summarizing the details of a
journal article or study in cognitive psychology and the implications
gained from the article.
Brief Summary and Self-Assessment
One proven strategy for knowledge and skill acquisition is real-time
assessment of knowledge and skill gains. The more frequently you
can assess your own learning, the more effectively you can adapt
and ensure you are learning the material. These sections allow for
rapid self-assessment of material. Be sure that you can not only
select the correct answer but also explain why it is the correct
answer. Furthermore, explain why each of the other options is not
correct.
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
What is the most valuable commodity (i.e., product, good, or
service) in the world? While indispensable necessities like water,
food, medicine, and gasoline might come to mind, I would argue
that perhaps the most valuable commodity is information (and I
would argue further still that one of the most important skills is how
to use it). Industries demonstrating significant growth are often
directly associated with the exchange of information (e.g., internet
search engines, AI applications, email, social media, video sharing
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websites, electronic medical records, online course management
systems, etc.). Although it is possible to survive without these
tools—humans did for many years—the question arises as to why
one would choose to do so.
Information, and whoever possesses it, becomes increasingly
important in times of crisis. For example, who would visit you if
you were sick? Where would you take your car if it broke down
before an important trip? Who would you call first if you were
arrested? While the answers to these questions are obvious—a
physician if you were sick, a mechanic if your car was not working,
and an attorney if you had legal troubles—we do not often pay
attention to the reasoning behind these answers. We seek out highly
trained people for specific problems because they possess the right
information and experience. There is often a direct relationship
between the cost of professional services and the relative scarcity of
the information and skills. For this reason, taking your car to the
neighborhood mechanic is generally cheaper than taking it to a
transmission specialist. Similarly, seeing a family physician is less
expensive than seeing a neurologist. Naturally, this arrangement is
advantageous if one possesses the sought-after information and
skills. For example, everyone seems to have funny and derogatory
lawyer jokes, but such jokes cease to be funny when you need a
lawyer; and you are certainly going to hire the very best one you can
afford under the circumstances.
There is a widely recognized axiom that states, “Knowledge is
power.” While a person may still question the ultimate utility of
information, contemplate the value one would assign to knowledge
about the future. Imagine the significance of possessing future
information when it comes to stock investments or predicting the
success of future relationships, such as marriage.
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Society generally rewards those who have information and use their
skills and/or experience. Often this is the foundation for a better
quality of life, or at least a better income. Ultimately, as a student, is
this not one of the reasons why you are taking this class? Similarly,
are you not taking this class to satisfy a requirement while trying to
earn a college degree? While I am sure there are students who take
classes for the sheer joy of learning, most are considerably more
practical. College graduates usually earn more money during their
lifetime when compared to those individuals who do not attend
college. Still, there is some confusion around this issue. People think
having a degree is what provides the increased earning; when in
reality, it is the information and skills that do. (So, if your goal is to
just get a degree or “piece of paper,” then it is unlikely such an
experience will be as transformative or result in high wages.)
We tend to equate information with earning potential; hence, the
more information you have, the greater the earning potential. This
helps to explain why we have associates, bachelor’s, master’s,
doctoral degrees, and post-doctoral fellowships as well as a variety
of certificates, licenses, and continuing education options. It sounds
so easy. “If I just earn a degree, then I will make more money.”
However, earning that degree, or learning for that matter, is not so
easy. It often takes a lot of dedication, effort, and creativity to make
the most of a formal education. Learning and education,
unfortunately, can be very different things. It takes even more work
to translate education and learning into a successful career and
life—to be clear, success is not defined as income, status, or power.
The transformative potential of education and learning raises the
question: “What is the most challenging aspect of a college course?”
Is it the difficulty of acquiring countless concepts? Or is it simply
memorizing the innumerable terms inherent to advanced areas of
study? One of my greatest frustrations as a college student was
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translating my efforts in studying into effective learning. I would
study for many hours each day, for several days straight, and yet,
while I was pleased with myself for being disciplined, I could not
even remember the three most important points of what I was
studying—or even recall the title of the chapter I was reading. I
wondered, “Was all that effort for nothing?” Sadly, most of my
study efforts did not immediately increase my clarity or lead to an
epiphany. Instead, I simply realized I had a great deal more work to
do. Learning is often hard, slow, and uncomfortable; while there are
not any “shortcuts,” there are proven strategies to facilitate more
effective and efficient learning. A significant portion of this
textbook will be focused on helping you learn how to learn, which
will have lifelong value.
As a scientist, psychologist, professor, and public health expert, I
know that engagement stands out as one of the most crucial aspects
of learning. As student engagement increases, so does the capacity
for learning. Furthermore, engagement is often directly connected
with the practical value of the learning experience. Students tend to
achieve higher grades in courses they perceive to provide practical
knowledge and tangible skills. While this textbook offers
comprehensive information and rich content on cognitive
psychology, it also incorporates relevant examples, strategies to
enhance personal learning and functioning, discussions on various
topics, and considerations of ethical and biblical integration. The
hope is that this content is engaging and transformative for your
mind and soul.
Annotated Bibliography*
Do Students Accurately Perceive the Quality of Their Learning in
Different Lecture Environments? A Review of Deslauriers et al.
(2019).
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Article Review by Liliana Grace Mejia
Surprisingly, the amount we feel we learn in a course may not
accurately represent how well we truly comprehend the course
material as we learn it. Deslauriers and colleagues at Harvard
University (2019) found students often misinterpret the feeling of
initial difficulty when approaching new information as an indication
of poor learning. This misconception could lead to a decreased
motivation to engage in learning activities, especially those proven
to be the most effective (i.e., active learning strategies).
In this study, the researchers split college physics students into two
groups using randomization and identical class resources. Their goal
was to compare a passive with an active learning environment to
determine if students ’self-perceived learning was accurate. The
results demonstrated that students who are actively engaged in the
classroom (rather than taking a passive role during a lecture)
learned more, despite feeling they learned less. Active
engagement included answering questions, working on problems in
small groups, and speaking directly with the professor. The
instructor provided targeted feedback to students after each group
activity, which resulted in about half the class time consisting of
relevant mini lectures. Conversely, passive engagement was
considered sitting in a PowerPoint-led lecture without any overt
student participation (i.e., conventional activities, like taking notes,
is considered a passive activity). In the passive control group, the
professor walked through the physics examples, and students
observed while following along on their worksheets. The primary
difference between the two groups was that the students were either
told how to solve the problem (passive lecture) or offered the chance
to try to find the answer themselves in small groups before the
answers were explained (active lecture).
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Deslauriers et al. (2019) elevated the methodological strength of the
study by incorporating several control measures. The experiment
was structured cohesively, with both the control and experimental
groups using the same PowerPoint and materials. In contrast to
previous research evaluating the efficacy of active learning, both
groups within this study had proficient professors teaching the same
information with different teaching styles (passive and active). The
researchers also designed this study with a crossover design,
allowing for each group of participants to experience both the active
and passive lectures in various orders. This controlled for the
potential confounding of active learning and varying class content.
Students who asserted favoring one method of instruction over the
other may have been reacting to variations in the course materials or
topic, professor preference, or variations in the level of active
participation. Thus, the rigorous methodology and precise controls
used in this study allowed for high statistical power and
consequently, reliable results.
By assessing the discrepancies between the students ’feeling of
learning (FOL) and objective tests of learning (TOL), this study
revealed that all students felt they learned more in the passive
lecture, despite the opposite being true. Within the active
learning group, there were significantly higher TOL scores (P <
0.001), demonstrating a substantial increase in learning when
active engagement was included in the classroom. (The
researchers took an extra step to confirm that these significant
results were unconfounded by student differences and varying levels
of their background understanding in physics. Thus, three measures
were provided to evaluate this concern, followed by descriptive
statistics, which confirmed successful student randomization.)
Other research also supports these findings, emphasizing that
amateurs in a subject are poor judges of their own learning
(Freeman et al., 2014; Nguyen et al., 2017). To compensate for their
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inaccurate perception, many novice students use the “flow” of the
lesson or the instructor’s fluency or expertise to estimate how
much they learned. Students resist taking more responsibility
for their own learning, as we all tend to favor the path of least
effort. However, though cognitive effort is uncomfortable, research
suggests it is vital for true learning to occur.
So, what can you do with this information? When you are tempted
to become distracted and disengaged, remember that your learning
success depends on the cognitive effort you are willing to exert. The
empirical evidence provided in this study supports the notion that
students who are actively engaged during class learn more than
those who are passive. Simply acknowledging that active learning
leads to deeper understanding can greatly benefit your class
experience (despite feeling as though the opposite is true)
(Deslauriers et al., 2019). Your perception of how much you are
learning is not a strong indicator of the depth of your understanding.
References
Deslauriers, L., McCarty, L. S., Miller, K., Callaghan, K., & Kestin,
G. (2019). Measuring actual learning versus feeling of learning in
response to being actively engaged in the classroom. Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences, 116(39), 19251-19257.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1821936116
Freeman, S., Eddy, S. L., McDonough, M., Smith, M. K.,
Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H., & Wenderoth, M. P. (2014). Active
learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and
mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
111(23), 8410-8415. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1319030111
Nguyen, K. A., Husman, J., Borrego, M., Shekhar, P., Prince, M. J.,
DeMonbrun, M., Finelli, C. J., Henderson, C. R., & Waters, C.
(2017). Students ’expectations, types of instruction, and instructor
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strategies predicting student response to active learning.
International Journal of Engineering Education, 33, 2-18.
*Contributed by Liliana Grace Mejia. © Kendall Hunt Publishing
Company.
THE BIG QUESTIONS
[Do you ever stare toward the heavens and wonder if science can
ultimately answer all our questions? Can science continue to
transform mysteries into facts? Think about how much progress we
have already made. Is it not rather amazing that we have detailed
maps of distant planets and even know the content of their
atmospheric gases? Robots are currently driving across Mars, taking
pictures, and sending them to Earth. Farther away, distant galaxies
have been identified, some ten thousand and counting, and the
number of stars currently visible exceeds seventy sextillion (7
followed by 22 zeros). Scientists even determined the relative
size of the universe and have it measured at approximately 93
billion light-years in diameter. Even now, plans are underway to
develop interplanetary travel, a feat that is in the process of
occurring during your lifetime. In many ways, what we used to call
“science fiction” just a few years back is now a historical note or
scientific fact.
While some scientists gaze across the universe, others have recently
delved deep into the human body, unlocking one of its greatest
mysteries: the human genome. For the first time, the complete
genetic blueprint for building a human being is available. The
human genome is made of 46 chromosomes, between twenty
thousand and twenty-five thousand genes, and over three billion
DNA base pairs. In fact, it took a multinational effort over 13
years to sequence it. Knowledge of the very building blocks that
provide structure, organization, and function to our bodies offers
enormous potential for not just treating but curing diseases.
Understanding DNA allowed scientists to clone a sheep known as
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“Dolly.” Despite enormous controversy, people have continued to
consider human cloning.
What may be even more controversial is genetic engineering. If
science has the capability to genetically engineer crops, then why
not people? Honestly, who would not like to be just a little more
intelligent, athletic, and/or attractive? From the universe that carries
us to the molecules that bind us, advances within every scientific
discipline continue to accelerate at astonishing, unprecedented rates.
© vchal/Shutterstock.com
The moral and ethical dilemmas extending from these advancements
develop just as quickly. Yet, there is often a lack of attention to
serious ethical discussions on new technologies. This may partly be
because there are great financial incentives for technology
innovation, while there is comparatively little for establishing a
sophisticated ethical understanding of the new technologies that
result. The potential benefits of an invention are often just too
attractive for us to wait until we grasp its implications before blindly
using it. But scientific and technological advances give us tools that
can be used for evil or good—and the more powerful they are, the
more powerfully evil or good they can be. Just because it can be
done, does not mean it should be done.
One of the most impactful moral effects of scientific and
technological advancement is on our sense of self. As each new
mystery is solved, do you ever feel increasingly indistinct,
irrelevant, and uncertain? Many people do. While science does not
set out to diminish our significance, it often seems to do just that. It
appears the natural progression is that, as our scientific
knowledge increases, our inherent self-worth decreases. Does
the objective search for facts interfere with our subjective sense
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of meaning? This might be inimitably true in cognitive
psychology.
I, as well as many others, would argue that the greatest scientific
mystery, across all of time and space, is yet to be solved. That
mystery resides in you. So, while there may be times when you feel
unimportant, especially in comparison to the near-infinite expanse
of the universe, one of the most significant questions of all time
deals with the nature of your very own perceptions and conscious
experiences. Therefore, this makes you and your very thoughts and
perceptions exceedingly important, especially as an area of scientific
study. Thus, while attempting to unravel the details of the universe,
incredibly important advances like the human genome will
eventually pale in comparison to comprehending the final frontier of
consciousness. Understanding consciousness is foundational to
cognitive psychology.
Despite our prospects for dramatic scientific advancement, it is
important to keep our limitations in perspective. Some parts of the
human experience have always seemed accessible to observation
and study. Human behavior, for all its complexity, seems easy to
observe as long as we devote enough attention and care.
Neurological activity, once seemingly as mysterious and
inaccessible as the farthest reaches of the universe, now appears to
be observable, even if we lack the tools to completely observe it at
this time. But some parts of human experience, like first-person
experience, remain unexplained and outside of scientific
investigation. According to philosophy, the “hard problem of
consciousness” has puzzled the most scientifically minded
thinkers. We can know all there is to know about neurological
activity, and yet there seems to be something more about
consciousness that we still do not know. For example, we know
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what it is like to have human consciousness, but can we know about
bat consciousness?
Even if we know everything about a bat’s neurological activity from
the outside, is there not something additional the bat knows about
having its mind that we could never know (Nagel, 1974)? So far, at
least, science cannot give us an answer regarding this kind of
question, and some wonder if it ever can. Yet, even if such a thing
were true, the study of the brain is a step toward understanding the
mind, our consciousness.
The very nature of consciousness—the mind—is an area of study
encompassing all others, which is why a cognitive psychology
course is required in nearly every psychology program in the
country (and the world). Since psychology and neuroscience deal
with how we perceive and understand the universe, I would argue
these fields of study combine all the other disciplines. Scientific
advancements and all human achievements are housed in the mind.
Where else could they be located? So, the study of the mind or
thinking is one of the single most important areas of study and often
one with the most directly transferable benefits.]3
Cognitive psychology is the study of stimulus-brain-behavior
relationships and what happens in between processes.
Advancements in this field have furthered our understanding of how
we perceive, remember, and respond to the world around us and the
changes within us. Considering how far our understanding of
cognitive psychology has developed in the last 50 years, it raises the
following question: How far will it take us, and do we really want to
take that journey? There are important moral and ethical issues to
such advances because who we are is essentially what we think. So,
changing human thinking changes who we are by default—this is
not a trivial issue. More specifically, imagine for a moment how far
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science will advance in its understanding of the neural mechanisms
underlying our every perception, memory, response, and,
eventually, our most sacred beliefs like our understanding of “self.”
Cognitive Psychology: The scientific study of information
processing in the mind.
Imagine that our understanding of the brain advances so much that
we can program the brain as readily as we can program a
computer—adding and deleting content at will. While this idea
might seem ridiculous, consider how the idea of a mobile phone
would have seemed 300 years ago.
Scientists have already implanted electrodes in a pigeon’s brain
to control its flight. The implants activate specific areas of the
pigeon’s brain using electrical signals. These signals are sent by the
scientists via computer, mimicking the natural signals generated by
the brain. Even now, scientists are making enormous strides in
understanding and replacing natural organs with artificial ones. For
example, those who have lost their hearing can be fitted with an
artificial cochlea. Those who have lost their sight can have an
artificial retina implanted in their eye. People who have lost an
arm or a leg can have a new, bionic one fitted to their body.
Neural Link, a human computer brain implant, has been
approved by the Food and Drug Administration for human
trials. While these devices are relatively crude now, soon they
may even surpass our body’s natural abilities. It is one thing to
fix something that is not working but something else altogether to
create or build a life. While controversial, scientists have for the
first time created human embryo-like structures with just stem
cells and let the embryo live up to 14 days (Oldak et al.; 2023
Weatherbee et al., 2023).
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Personal Application
Develop a short description of what you think humankind will be
living like in 300 years. How will humans be using technology at
that point in time? How will our daily living change? Do you see
these advances ultimately improving our quality of life or worsening
it? Explain your answer. Are you more concerned or excited about
future technological advances?
While much of our knowledge of stimulus-brain-behavior
relationships can be used to improve the human condition (e.g., the
point of this textbook), this knowledge can also detract from it.
Advances in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and biochemistry
have enabled humankind to further develop and refine methods used
to alter consciousness. Some have been for good, like treatments for
children with autism, but also some for bad, like increasing the
potency of addictive drugs. Scientists too often focus on what can be
done and too infrequently consider the intended and unintended
consequences of such advances. Scientists and clinicians should be
given more training on formal ethics and given more opportunity to
reflect upon their work—emphasizing this is a major point of this
textbook. But how can a person think ethically if they have not been
taught how to think? This is another major point of this textbook.
To proactively move you toward more effective and efficient
learning and thinking—which is a continuous and never-ending
effort—this book will cover a variety of tangible strategies intended
to improve content knowledge, critical thinking, and creative
applications. The hope is that this book will help you construct a
personalized, continuous learning method that will be useful beyond
this course and its contents.
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Biblical Integration
Corinthians 1:18-31
18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. 19 For it is
written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the
discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is
the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of
the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not
know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of
what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand
signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach
Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to
Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks,
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the
foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God
is stronger than men.
26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were
wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful,
not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish
in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the
world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and
despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to
nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast
in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ
Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness
and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is
written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Have you ever been in a professor’s, lawyer’s, or doctor’s office? I
have many times over as well as in many different states and several
countries. There is a generally established pattern to their office
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décor—their diplomas, licenses, certificates, accolades, and
honorable distinctions are ornately framed and displayed
prominently, often on the wall behind their desk. This is a highly
encouraged practice, and the argument goes it helps instill
confidence when the student, client, or patient notices all the
accomplishments. These professionals, as just examples, put
significant dedication, education, and cost into their professional
development and often have their identity joined to their occupation.
In fact, in the United States, it is a matter of practice when you meet
someone new to ask, “Who are you?” or “What do you do?” or
“Tell me about yourself.” Regardless of how it is phrased, the
question is almost always about what you do for a living and
informing about your relative societal status. This is vanity.
All the wisdom of the world will get you no closer to heaven and,
in fact, can interfere with salvation. This Bible passage
specifically notes that to the world, the gospel will seem strange
and maybe even silly—especially, to the wise of the world. But,
to those willing to humble themselves, they will recognize what
is truly important. God is the source of life. God’s foolishness is
wiser than the culmination of all human wisdom; God’s
weakness is stronger than the totality of all human strength.
This is why we need wisdom beyond what we can access on our
own; this is why we need the Bible and the Holy Spirit. Judging
knowledge or success from a worldly perspective will ultimately
result in dissatisfaction. God will do what He promises to do,
and if you let Him, He will bring you into this promise.
What does such “folly” look like? In Charleston, SC on June 17,
2015, a deranged 21-year-old went into a historically Black church
and shot and killed nine people during a Wednesday Bible Study.
This is such a disgustingly grotesque act. There are really no words
to fully describe it.
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The Chief Magistrate stated, “Charleston is a very strong
community. We have big hearts. We’re a very loving community.
We’re going to reach out to everyone, all victims, and we will touch
them” (Nahorniak, 2015). He went on further to note that there were
victims on both sides of this tragedy, referring specifically to the
young man’s family. “Nobody would have ever thrown them into
the whirlwind of events that they have been thrown into. We must
find it in our heart, at some point in time, not only to help those that
are victims but to also help his family as well.” The families of the
victims responded to these comments with unwavering clarity. The
daughter of Ethel Lance, one of the nine church members murdered,
stated, “I forgive you. You took something really precious away
from me. I will never talk to her ever again. I will never be able to
hold her again. But I forgive you and have mercy on your soul. It
hurts me, it hurts a lot of people but God forgives you and I forgive
you.” Anthony Thompson, speaking for the family of Myra
Thompson, followed with this: “I forgive you, and my family
forgives you. We would like you to take this opportunity to repent.
Repent. Confess. Give your life to the one who matters the most,
Christ, so he can change your ways no matter what happens to you,
and you will be OK. Do that and you will be better off than you are
right now.” Yet another speaker came forward, Felecia Sanders, and
said, “We welcomed you Wednesday night in our Bible study with
open arms. You have killed some of the most beautifullest people
that I know. Every fiber in my body hurts, and I will never be the
same... Tywanza was my hero. But as they say in the Bible study,
we enjoyed you, but may God have mercy on your soul.”
The news reporters and the rest of the world, for that matter, could
hardly understand this reaction. This is beyond most people’s
comprehension and compassion—to respond to such blind hate with
such overwhelming faith, hope, and love. No amount of education
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could prepare anyone for such a reaction, only Christ. This is what it
means when the Bible says, “For the word of the cross is folly
to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the
power of God.”
James 3:17
17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle,
open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.
Reference
Nahorniak, M. (2015, June 19). Families to roof: May God ‘Have
mercy on your soul’. USA Today.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/06/19/bond-courtdylann-roof-charleston/28991607/
PSYCHOLOGY DEFINED
[From your general or introductory psychology course, you should
have learned that psychology is defined as the scientific study of
measurable mental activities and observable behaviors.
Psychology initially distinguished itself from philosophy by
applying the scientific method to understanding, predicting, and
controlling behavior. This started rather rudimentarily by
examining the relationship between sensations and perceptions
but has now grown to include the study of motivation,
development, emotion, cognition, learning, social relationships,
and psychopathology, as well as how our biological, social, and
psychological systems influence each other. Psychologists study
every aspect of human experiences and often employ animal
models to help explain biopsychosocial phenomena. Cognitive
psychology is one part of psychology but in many ways should be
seen as foundational to the field of psychology because it explains
how we think and come to understand knowledge and convert our
knowledge to skills.
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Psychology: The scientific study of measurable mental processes
and observable behaviors.
Many people enter the study of psychology thinking it will
mostly reveal or explain commonsense experiences or serve as
foundational content for counseling or clinical psychology.
These two expectations do not fully capture the field of
psychology. Psychology is an increasingly complex area of study
and is unique compared to other sciences because it integrates
many subdisciplines and perspectives to help explain behavior
and mental processes. For example, the study of psychology is
simultaneously a biological, social, and cognitive-behavioral
science. Biological psychologists are interested in how genes, the
brain, the nervous system, and the endocrine system impact
behavior. Because drugs influence one or more of these processes,
they would be of interest to biological psychologists too. Social
psychologists are interested in how interpersonal and group
dynamics affect behavior as well as more specific topics like
social media, prejudice, religion, bullying, and criminal activity.
Cognitive-behavioral psychologists study important phenomena
like learning, memory, decision-making, rewards, and
behavioral modification. As you would imagine, none of these
areas operate in isolation, so the study of human behavior
involves addressing every psychological topic from a biological,
social, and cognitive-behavioral (psychological) approach while
simultaneously considering how people change and grow across
a lifespan (Figure 1.1).]2
Source: Brian Kelley
Figure 1.1
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Areas of Science Within Psychology2
Biological psychologists: Psychologists interested in how genes,
the brain, the nervous system, and the endocrine system impact
behavior.
Social psychologists: Psychologists interested in how
interpersonal and group dynamics affect behavior, including
specific topics like social media, prejudice, religion, bullying,
and criminal activity.
Cognitive-behavioral psychologists: Psychologists who study
phenomena like learning, memory, decision-making, rewards,
and behavioral modification.
Personal Application
Select a topic of interest to you in the field of psychology and list at
least five factors for each of the major areas noted in the below
diagram (Figure 1.1). Explain why you think these factors are
important to the behavior of interest. How would these
biopsychosocial factors change across the lifespan?
Pick several developmental milestones and note the relation
between the three areas of development.
[While the science of psychology simultaneously considers
biological, social, and psychological influences on behavior,
psychology is also unique as a discipline because it is concurrently a
basic science, translational science, clinical science, and prevention
science. More specifically, even the sub-discipline of cognitive
psychology addresses each of these levels of scientific inquiry. The
goal of basic scientists is to describe, explain, predict, and control
behavior with the aim of understanding phenomena; and this occurs
without any clear clinical objective (e.g., What does this
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neurotransmitter do?). Often, it is referred to as research for the sake
of knowledge. Research in basic science helps explain the big
“what” and “why” of a phenomenon. It is more focused on
describing behavior and factors that cause things to occur.
Translational science is an effort to build on basic scientific
research to create new therapies, medical procedures, or
diagnostics (e.g., How can we use our understanding of this
neurotransmitter to positively impact autism?) The goal of
translational scientists is to translate the basic facts about a
phenomenon discovered by basic scientists into a treatment or
procedure to help some human condition.
Basic science: Science that aims to describe, explain, predict,
and control behavior with the goal of understanding
phenomena.
Translational science: Science that builds upon the knowledge
obtained in basic science to create new therapies, medical
procedures, or diagnostics.
Clinical science: Science that develops and improves specific
treatments for conditions.
Prevention science: Science focused on studying how to prevent
and/or reduce negative medical, social, and emotional impacts of
phenomena before they occur.
Clinical scientists build upon this translational research to improve
the human condition or a person’s quality of life, often through
improving or creating specific treatments (e.g., What are the
necessary parameters for changing neurotransmitter levels for
symptom reduction in autism?).
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Thus, clinical researchers are concerned with the big “how,”
meaning how we can use the information to make treatments or
interventions to help people. They are more concerned with
solving practical problems. Prevention science is a framework
for studies on how to prevent and/or reduce negative medical,
social, and emotional impacts before they occur; it is often an
extension of clinical work in the sense that scientists work to
prevent the occurrence or reoccurrence of a particular problem
like depression or substance abuse (e.g., How can our
understanding of neurotransmitters and diet impact the reduction in
children developing autism?). However, prevention science could
also be focused on community issues such as human trafficking,
gang activity, or teen pregnancy. Almost always, advances in basic
science lay the groundwork for translational science that works to
advance clinical science.]2
GOALS OF THE FIELD OF PSYCHOLOGY
[The field of psychology is complex and includes the study of many
different topic areas with the overarching goal of improving the
human condition. As such,
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there are two main goals of the field of psychology:
1. Conduct research in psychological phenomena for the purpose of
understanding, explaining, predicting, and controlling human
behavior, cognition, and experience.
2. Use the knowledge gained from psychological research to
promote human well-being (through counseling, interventions,
social programs, etc.).
These two goals of the field of psychology can be seen in the goal
statements of the leading professional organizations in the field.
According to the Association for Psychological Science (APS),
psychological science “has the ability to transform society for
the better and must play a central role in advancing human
welfare and the public interest” (Association for Psychological
Science [APS], 2022, p. 1).
Through promoting psychological science, the APS seeks to further
our understanding of psychological principles for the purpose of
improving the welfare of individuals. Similarly, the American
Psychological Association (APA) states that they promote research
in psychology for the purpose of making a positive impact on social
and individual issues (American Psychological Association [APA],
2020). As reflected by both national organizations, the field of
psychology aims to understand psychological phenomena for the
purpose of improving the welfare of all people. As a student in
psychology, you will learn about the major theories and principles
that relate to a variety of human experiences as you grow in your
understanding of how to use psychological knowledge to help
others.
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Consistent with the two overarching goals above, the APA (2020)
has asserted five goals for you, a student in a psychology course. As
you go through the material in each chapter, keep these goals in
mind:
Goal 1: Knowledge Base in Psychology
You will demonstrate fundamental knowledge and comprehension
of the major concepts, theoretical perspectives, historical trends, and
empirical findings to discuss how psychological principles apply to
behavioral problems.
Goal 2: Scientific Inquiry and Critical Thinking
You will demonstrate scientific reasoning and problem-solving,
including effective research methods.
Goal 3: Ethical and Social Responsibility in a Diverse World
You will apply ethical standards to evaluate psychological science
and practice, and you will develop ethically and socially responsible
behaviors for professional and personal settings in a landscape that
involves increasing diversity.
Goal 4: Communication
You will demonstrate competence in writing and oral and
interpersonal communication skills.
Goal 5: Professional Development
You will apply psychological content and skills to career goals and
develop a meaningful, professional direction for life after
graduation.
If you are interested in learning more about the mission and work of
different organizations in psychology, please visit the following
websites:
•American Psychological Association (APA): www.apa.org
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•Association for Psychological Science (APS):
www.psychologicalscience.org
•American Association of Christian Counselors (AACC):
https://www.aacc.net
•Christian Association for Psychological Studies (CAPS):
https://new.caps.net]2
Personal Application
Explain how your program of study is addressing or not addressing
these five goals. Are there any important goals that are missing? If
so, what would you add to this list? Go to the American
Psychological Association’s website and review their Topics page
which includes numerous topic areas in the field. Explain which
interests you the most and why. How do the APA and APS differ in
their overall mission and goals? Compare one of those organizations
with one of the Christian organizations. How are they similar versus
different in their goals and approach?
Brief Summary and Self-Assessment
Information and skills are crucial during crises; they enable
individuals to make informed decisions and seek appropriate
expertise. The value of information and skills is reflected in the cost
of professional services and earning potential associated with
different degrees and certifications.
Possessing knowledge provides advantages in various aspects of
life, including investments and relationships.
Learning is challenging but can be facilitated through effective
strategies that enhance engagement. This textbook on cognitive
psychology aims to engage students by providing comprehensive
information, practical examples, learning strategies, and
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considerations of ethics and biblical integration. While scientific
advancements continue, mysteries like the human genome and
consciousness pose moral and ethical dilemmas. Cognitive
psychology focuses on stimulus-brain-behavior relationships,
perception, memory, and responses to the world, with the
potential for further advancements. This textbook emphasizes
strategies for learning and thinking, improving content
knowledge, critical thinking, and creativity, extending beyond
the course itself.
Psychology integrates various subdisciplines and perspectives to
understand behavior and mental processes, contributing to both
basic and translational science.
Cognitive psychology plays a fundamental role in understanding
human thinking and knowledge acquisition. Ultimately, possessing
information and skills enhances outcomes, and psychology,
particularly cognitive psychology, offers valuable insights for
personal and societal well-being.
1.What does the author argue is the most valuable commodity in the
world?
a.Water
b.Food
c.Medicine
d.Information (Correct Answer)
2.Which industries are directly associated with the exchange of
information?
a.Agriculture and farming
b.Manufacturing and production
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c.Internet search engines, AI applications, email, social media, video
sharing websites, electronic medical records, and online course
management systems
d.Transportation and logistics
Answer: c) Internet search engines, AI applications, email, social
media, video sharing websites, electronic medical records, and
online course management systems
3.Why do we seek out highly trained people for specific problems?
a.Because they are more expensive
b.Because they have experience
c.Because they possess the right information and skills
d.Because they are more trustworthy
Answer: c) Because they possess the right information and skills
4.What does cognitive psychology study?
a.Learning, memory, and decision-making
b.Social dynamics and interpersonal relationships
c.Genetic engineering and biotechnology
d.Stimulus-brain-behavior relationships and what happens in
between
Answer: d) Stimulus-brain-behavior relationships and what happens
in between
5.What does the study of psychology integrate to explain behavior
and mental processes?
a.Biological, social, and cognitive perspectives
b.Physical, chemical, and mathematical principles
c.Economic, political, and historical factors
d.Art, literature, and cultural practices
Answer: a) Biological, social, and cognitive perspectives
WHY ETHICAL INTEGRATION?
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Among the sciences, psychology is relatively young, and like most
sciences, it grew out of philosophical inquiry and matured into an
independent discipline. Yet, it is important to remember the
“why” of psychology that sparked its independence.
The study of the human brain is crucial for our understanding
of the meaning of human life and the nature of human
flourishing, and these are questions to which full investigation
still belongs to a significant degree to philosophy and theology.
If we are to progress in our understanding of the human condition,
we need to uncover not only the limits of human nature through the
study of psychology but also the character of a good human life
through the study of ethics.
On a more practical level, there are many reasons why it is crucial
that ethics and psychology are conversant with each other.
Below are just a few of these.
1. Psychology deals with subject matter that has a uniquely
powerful impact on persons (e.g., the mind, behavior, habits,
inner compulsion, etc.).
Since humans are the primary subjects of psychology, it is
imperative that psychologists exercise caution in how they conduct
their research and practice. Every human deserves to be treated with
dignity, and that poses a unique constraint on what psychologists are
permitted to do in their pursuit of truth.
2. Practitioners in any health science have a special relationship
with vulnerable patients.
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The health sciences are especially subjected to ethical constraints
because of the vulnerability their practitioners encounter daily.
Those who suffer from medical ailments are in need. Likewise,
psychologists, along with any others in the health sciences, have a
special mandate to not only attend to the needs of those who may
feel neglected or shunned but also to maintain a strong commitment
to seeing their dignity and treating them according to it.
3. Psychology has a heightened burden to avoid repeating the
ethical abuses of the past.
Psychologists can be fairly honest about their discipline’s ethical
abuses from the past, but it is also easy to forget the possibility that
if we are not careful, some current practices may one day be looked
at with disdain and incredulity. The only way to avoid falling into
similar patterns of unethical practice is to use heightened vigilance
about ethics.
4. Public perceptions of psychology impact the effectiveness of
professional interactions with the community and its members.
Practitioners and scientists in psychology represent their field
whether they like it or not. For that reason, at least some in the
general public will remember the field only by the small interactions
they have with the individuals who represent it.
5. Close historical and conceptual ties exist between psychology
and moral philosophy (ethics).
Philosophy begins with wonder, and humanity offers one of the
richest sources of wonder that we may investigate. Even as
psychology was in its infancy, philosophers around the world were
discussing the meaning of our lives, the extent of our freedom to
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choose, the weight of our responsibility, the limits of our
capabilities, the rightness of our actions, the effectiveness of our
social structures, etc. Psychology has taken some of the burdens
once carried by philosophy alone, but the two fields remain
mutually dependent in their pursuit of truth.
6. Christians have special ethical mandates.
Jesus pushed ethical matters beyond the superficial conduct that was
the focus of many of his contemporaries. For example, where the
people were taught not to commit adultery or murder, Jesus taught
them not to lust or hate. However we interpret the ethical burdens
Jesus placed on us, he highlighted the importance and difficulty of
ethics. Further, he made it clear that Christians must not only strive
for what is right but must also consistently remember their inability
to meet the standards requires on their own. “No one is righteous.
No, not one” (English Standard Bible, Romans 3:10).
Of course, ethics and psychology ought to interact for many reasons.
Beyond those given above is perhaps the most important reason why
ethics is important for psychology: The study of ethics is
instrumental for the full life of any moral agent. Academic
disciplines may produce discrete and insular conclusions about very
different aspects of the universe, but their service to human life
should not be understated. The ability to prioritize those conclusions
for an ordered human life is one of the building blocks of a
meaningful existence.
Personal Application
Explain why you think it is important to consider ethics and morals
within the framework of studying a science. Explain further why
you think this is even more important when studying cognitive
psychology. Provide three descriptions of why you think cognitive
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psychology and ethics relate. What do you think, right now, is the
most important ethical issue in cognitive psychology?
Biblical Integration
What does it mean to act ethically or even morally? At the most
foundational level, it would seem acting or behaving beyond
yourself would be one of the most important features of ethics and
morals. Most of the time, this would be hard to determine as we do
not have direct access to people’s thoughts or feelings. We only see
outward behavior and must make judgments about what a person is
thinking based on these behaviors. Is a person appearing kind so
they can impress others vs. behaving kindly because that is who that
person is? We cannot tell. It sure does seem that, overwhelmingly,
people’s first inclination is toward ugliness, not kindness. If this
were not the case, why are children so mean to other children
different than themselves, especially those children with
disabilities? It is rare to see a child stand up against bullies or
unkindness when they are not the direct target of it. Consider now
that many years ago, children born with disabilities were thought to
have been born as a punishment for their parents ’sins. Imagine how
these children were treated, especially when the world was so much
more difficult to navigate and survive.
Mark 2:1-12
Jesus Heals a Paralytic
1 And when he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was
reported that he was at home. 2 And many were gathered together,
so that there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was
preaching the word to them. 3 And they came, bringing to him a
paralytic carried by four men. 4 And when they could not get near
him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and
when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the
paralytic lay. 5 And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the
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paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” 6 Now some of the scribes
were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, 7“Why does this man
speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God
alone?” 8 And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they
thus questioned within themselves, said to them, “Why do you
question these things in your hearts? 9 Which is easier, to say to the
paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven, ’or to say, ‘Rise, take up your bed
and walk’? 10 But that you may know that the Son of Man has
authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic— 11 “I
say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.” 12 And he rose
and immediately picked up his bed and went out before them all so
that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw
anything like this!”
The paralyzed man, obviously unable to approach Jesus on his own,
had to rely on four other men to bring him to Christ. Not only did
those men bring the paralyzed man to Christ, but they also had to
really put some work into the process, including climbing on a roof,
breaking up the roof, getting rope, and lowering the paralyzed man
to Jesus.
What are the five miracles in this story?
1. The man had abundant faith.
2. Jesus forgave the man’s sins.
3. Jesus understood the thoughts of the paralyzed man and scribes.
4. Jesus healed the man.
5. A man in that period of time, paralyzed from birth, had four
caring friends.
Mother Teresa said, “The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the
feeling of being unloved.”
Psalm 68:3-6
3 But the righteous shall be glad;
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they shall exult before God;
they shall be jubilant with joy!
4 Sing to God, sing praises to his name;
lift up a song to him who rides through the deserts;
his name is the Lord;
exult before him!
5 Father of the fatherless and protector of widows
is God in his holy habitation.
6 God settles the solitary in a home;
he leads out the prisoners to prosperity,
but the rebellious dwell in a parched land.
Let us all be the type of friends noted in the story and engage with
those around us so that people can see the love of Christ.
WHY CHRISTIAN INTEGRATION?
[At this point, you may be wondering how the Bible fits into all of
this. It seems from the definition of the field and the goals of the
American Psychological Association presented so far that the field
of psychology is a secular science, and researchers are focused on
developing theories and treatments based on science and science
alone. As for psychology, you would be correct to draw these
conclusions about the current field as a whole.
However, as Christian psychologists, through this textbook, we will
be offering another perspective on the field of psychology and the
study of psychological phenomena. In this text, you will learn about
the field and science of psychology through a biblical worldview.
You will learn what it means to integrate the Bible with
psychological science to understand the truth about human
phenomena and to get a more accurate understanding of human
behavior. Consistent with the goals of the
Christian Association for Psychological Studies (CAPS),
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the purpose of this textbook is this:
(1) to understand psychological topics from the integration of
Christianity and the behavioral sciences at both theoretical
and applied levels and
(2) to promote research and educational opportunities
advancing mental health are as means of ministry in and to
the world (Christian Association for Psychological Studies
[CAPS], 2020).
As Christians in the field of psychology, it is our responsibility to
understand the science and theories of the field while also
understanding what God says about psychological concepts so we
can most accurately discuss psychological topics and, therefore,
fully help our neighbors. Throughout this textbook, you will learn
about the theories and science of psychology while also
investigating what the Bible says about different topics. You will be
challenged to think about different areas of life and how both the
field of cognitive psychology and the Bible talk about them. You
will also be directed to search for truth on topics by integrating what
God says in the Bible with what He reveals (and we study) in
creation, especially across different contemporary ethical issues.
As we begin, there are some important terms and foundations to set
as we embark on an exploration of psychology from a biblical
worldview. First and foremost, what is a biblical worldview?
Biblical worldview: A worldview informed, constrained, and
enhanced by the Bible as a guiding source.
WHAT IS A WORLDVIEW?
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[Simply stated, a worldview is the cognitive framework by which
we organize our sensory information—hence, the preeminent
emphasis in this chapter.
While the sensory information our body detects is objective
(e.g., quantitative and, as such, measurable), the perceptual
processes making sense of all this disparate information are
subjective (e.g., qualitative and, as such, distinctive).
This is why two people can have nearly the same experience (i.e.,
sensory) and, yet, have very different interpretations (i.e.,
perception).
Reacting to temperature is a simple example. Two people can be in
the exact same room wearing nearly identical clothes, and one
person complains it is too hot while the other complains it is too
cold. Flavor is yet another example. What tastes good to one person
compared to another is influenced by a variety of complex factors,
most notably experience, context, and hunger. Two people eating
the exact same food might come to opposite conclusions about the
experience with one noting it is too spicy and the other saying it is
not spicy enough. If you grew up in a home that ate spicy food
frequently then you would be accustomed to it and find it enjoyable.
The enjoyment is complex because it might be that eating such food
occurred at a family dinner each night wherein the family had a
chance to talk, laugh, and bond. So, food is not just food but part of
a developmental and cultural experience. On the other hand, if you
had limited exposure to such food, then it might literally be a painful
experience with an upset stomach, burning mouth, and watering
eyes and nose. In both cases though if you are hungry enough, it
might change the overall food experience. So, how we experience
the world is complicated.
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Worldview: Frameworks of beliefs, values, expectations, etc., by
which people operate to understand the world around them.
Now, imagine trying to apply this process to developing a political
position, a religious commitment, or a philosophical argument. How
many factors would be involved in such a determination? So, in a
more complex way, a worldview is how we make sense of and
organize all our perceptual experiences. To this end, our worldview
changes as we change and grows in complexity as we grow in
complexity. Going back to a simple definition of a complex idea, a
worldview can be described as the cumulative total of our beliefs
about the world and our place in it—it is the lens through which we
view and interpret the world. People do not have perfect lenses, nor
do any two people have the same lens.
Everyone has a worldview. While some may argue they do not have
a worldview, such a claim is ingenuous, erroneous, and dangerous.
It triggers the famous quote from Alexander Hamilton: “Those
who stand for nothing fall for everything.” Our worldview serves
several purposes, such as being a filter that allows us to screen and
sift the world into things with which we agree or disagree. By
extension, it helps us identify the differences between right and
wrong or good and bad. To say you have no worldview effectively
dampens the filter component of the worldview, and instead of
discriminating and separating information, you just absorb it like a
sponge.
A sponge approach is dangerous because it just soaks up
everything—the good and the bad. Perceptually, if we are
sponges this allows all information to come in and build
perceptions without needed understanding.
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Related, it is the default position of our perceptual experience to
build the world around ourselves, in our image, and with ourselves
as the center of it. People who say they have no worldview typically
just have a permissive one, where there is no critical way to separate
truth from falsehood. Carrying this out consistently is impossible to
sustain and irresponsible to attempt. Attempting to escape the
difficulty of developing a mature and sophisticated worldview does
not relieve you of the responsibility of interpreting the world well. It
renders your interpretation ill-formed and simplistic.
We all will have to actively work and struggle to build a cohesive
and comprehensive worldview for which we are an integral part of
the world but not the center of it. As Francis Schaeffer wrote,
“Most people catch their presuppositions from their family and
surrounding society the way a child catches measles. But people
with more understanding realize that their presuppositions
should be chosen after careful consideration of what worldview
is true.” More positively, Frances Moore Lappe stated, “Each of
us carries within us a worldview, a set of assumptions about how
the world works—what some call a paradigm—that forms the
very questions we allow ourselves to ask and determines our
view of future possibilities.” One of the important factors in
education, generally, and cognitive psychology, specifically, is to
understand yourself and even more so to understand how you come
to understand yourself.
A major goal of this textbook is to provide the necessary content
knowledge, critical analysis, and creative application of information
for you to better understand yourself and, secondarily, understand
cognitive psychology. It was eloquently stated by Alister McGrath:
If worldviews or metanarratives can be compared to lenses,
which of them brings things into the sharpest focus? This is not
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an irrational retreat from reason. Rather, it is about grasping a
deeper order of things which is more easily accessed by the
imagination than by reason.
Reflecting upon your worldview is the first and most important step
in cognitive psychology because, if the above information is correct,
it will serve as the lens or filter versus a sponge in terms of how
the rest of the content is recounted, synthesized, and applied.
Worldviews play a critical role in the simplest issues like defining
what happiness might look like. People alive today are almost
constantly bombarded with messages of happiness—mostly on how
to access it. Most modern advertising is centered around this central
premise. Does our worldview simply define happiness for us or is it
more than that, and does ethics simply mean to consider others as
you seek out your own happiness? This is especially important
regarding the contemporary ethical issues presented throughout the
book. How can you address and reach conclusions on complex
ethical issues without considering your worldview?
The diagram below (Figure 1.2) captures a simple way of
considering what contributes to the development of a worldview.
Worldview formation can be conceptualized into
four broad categories:
dispositional,
ideological,
spiritual, and
philosophical.
Each of the categories can be made up of many variables.
Furthermore, many of these variables can fall along a continuum
(e.g., mild, moderate, and severe; low to high; completely disagree
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to completely agree, etc.). To make matters even more complex, not
everyone has put considerable thought into their, well, thoughts. So,
people might not fully appreciate the dispositional, ideological,
spiritual, or philosophical underpinnings of their views or even daily
decisions—do you? Much of the learning around these categories
and related variables is also un- or sub-consciously being subtly
influenced by culture and language. Any one of these categories and
the related variables would give rise to a near-infinite number of
permutations (i.e., consider just dispositional variables).
Consequently, imagine how complex it would be to consider all of
them and then to further consider all of them across time and space.
This is the reason why no two people share the same exact
worldview. There are just too many variables influencing worldview
development, and we rarely have direct access to the cognitive
processes involved in worldview development.]2
Contributing Factors to the Development of a Worldview
Personal Application
A worldview can be a great mechanism for interpreting and making
sense of the world. Explain three potential benefits of having a welldefined worldview. How does this add value to your life? Explain
three potential problems with a well-defined worldview. Lastly, a
worldview can be conceptualized as a mission statement, much
like for a business. Consider your worldview and in about 250
words, write your own personal mission statement.
[While no people share the exact same worldview, there can be
general agreement about important matters, and that agreement can
serve as an opportunity for shared vision and values and, as such,
norms, rules, and laws. Too often we focus on the minor areas
where our worldview does not align and miss the larger areas where
they do. Worldview development, for those and other reasons, is of
critical importance. Socrates is known for saying, “True wisdom
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comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand
about life, ourselves, and the world around us.”
Similarly, Aristotle noted that “knowing yourself is the
beginning of wisdom.” King Solomon says in Proverbs 9:10
(English Standard Bible) that “The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is
insight.” Another good application is to consider
Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do
not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways
acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”]2
Annotated Bibliography*
The Happiest States in the U.S.
Article Review by Blake Fraser
Does where people live have an impact on their perceived
happiness? Similarly, what states are the happiest? As reported by
numerous top news outlets, the top five happiest states are
Massachusetts (most happy), Illinois, Connecticut, New Jersey,
and New York while the bottom five happiest states are West
Virginia (least happy), Arkansas, Mississippi, Kentucky, and
Louisiana (KHQA Staff, 2023; Kyler, 2023; Lazar, 2023).
Whether it is a scientific journal article, a news article, or something
you see on social media, you should always think critically and ask
how the definitions and data support the conclusions.
In this example, these news reports simply repeated conclusions
from a scholarship company named Scholaroo. In the data report,
Scholaroo (2023) detailed the methods by which they gathered
evidence and made conclusions. Happiness was scored using 7
categories: 1) personal finance, 2) leisure activities, 3) mental
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health, 4) physical health, 5) employment, 6) personal relationships,
and 7) social policies. There were 54 specific metrics across these
categories that contributed to the happiness score, some of which
included state productivity rate, movie theater visits, hotels and
motels, beauty salon visits, depression rates, average income,
divorce rates, dating app searches, friendship app searches, drug
legalization and drug use, LGBT rights, LGBTQI+ youth protection,
and cannabis ’legal status. For example, definitions and data
included the frequency of people visiting a musical instrument store
per capita, the percentage of households who have a pet, the
frequency of people visiting airports per capita, and the frequency of
people visiting cosmetic and perfume stores per capita. While some
of these metrics may seem relevant for happiness, others seem
irrelevant or political. Many of these metrics leaned heavily toward
upscale urban environments and actively scored any more rural
areas lower. Perhaps the worldview of the study’s authors impacted
their ability to effectively manage such a study. Worldviews impact
how people see the world and define their experiences.
High-quality research requires abstract constructs, like
happiness, to be transformed into something measurable,
known as operationalization (Morling, 2017).
However, sometimes these operationalizations are not a valid
(i.e., accurate) measure of the construct; in fact, evidence is
necessary to show an operationalization of a construct is valid.
Scholaroo’s (2023) operationalization of happiness is not valid and
has no support from scientific literature. Ironically, data show
people are leaving the “most happy” states and migrating to the
“least happy” states and doing so in large numbers (Atlas, 2023;
North American Moving Services, 2023). When there is poor
operationalization, the construct being measured (i.e.,
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happiness) is misrepresented for something else, likely whatever
the researchers want it to be.
This is the opposite goal of science, which aims to gain an accurate
understanding of the natural world without bias or manipulation. So,
next time you see a bold claim about a construct (e.g., happiness,
loneliness, depression, love, etc.), figure out how the researchers
operationally defined the construct of interest and if it has
empirical support.
References
Atlas. (2023). 2022 migration patterns study.
https://www.atlasvanlines.com/resources/migration-patterns
KHQA Staff. (2023, May 15). Happy place: Illinois ranked 2nd
happiest state in the country, per new study. News Channel ABC 20.
https://newschannel20.com/news/local/happy-place-illinois-ranked2nd-happiest-state-in-the-country-per-new-study
Kyler, E. (2023, May 15). Don’t worry, be happy—Maryland is 6th
happiest state in the country, per new study. Fox 45 News.
https://foxbaltimore.com/newsletter-daily/dont-worry-be-happymaryland-is-6th-happiest-state-in-the-country-per-new-study
Lazar, K. (2023, May 29). Which U.S. states have the happiest
residents? CBS Los Angeles.
https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/which-u-s-states-havethe-happiest-residents/
Morling, B. (2017). Research methods in psychology (3rd ed.). W.
W. Norton.
North American Moving Services. (2023). Where did Americans
move in 2022? https://www.northamerican.com/migration-map
Scholaroo. (2023, May 11). Happiest states in the U.S.
https://scholaroo.com/report/ happiest-states/.
*Contributed by Blake Fraser. © Kendall Hunt Publishing
Company.
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Biblical Integration
The Bible does not spend a lot of time focused on the broader
concept of happiness, but it does spend significant time discussing
joy. First, what is the difference?
Happiness is typically explained in terms of a response to a
pleasurable or satisfying experience while joy tends to capture a
more enduring state of emotions resulting from well-being,
success, or good fortune or by the prospect of getting what one
hopes for. More simply, happiness tends to be controlled by
external circumstances and is reactive while
joy occurs despite external circumstances and is proactive.
The Bible does capture this more critically with happiness being a
more external and fleeting state brought about by bodily
satisfaction—the Bible warns against focusing on this state. In
contrast, joy is connected to a relationship with Jesus Christ. The
former is unpredictable and fleeting while the latter is consistent
and eternal.
1 John 2:15-16
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves
the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in
the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and
pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.
Matthew 6:19-21
19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and
rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for
yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys
and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your
treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Galatians 5:16
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16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires
of the flesh.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all
circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Isaiah 61:10
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord;
my soul shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful
headdress,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
Philippians 4:11-13
11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in
whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought
low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I
have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and
need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
Romans 5:1-11
5 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have
also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand,
and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but
we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces
endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character
produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s
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love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who
has been given to us.
6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the
ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though
perhaps for a good person, one would dare even to die— 8 but God
shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died
for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood,
much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For
if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of
his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved
by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our
Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now
received reconciliation.
Religion, Morality, and Worldview
Religion and morality have central positions in informing the
character of our worldviews. Our values are placed and
prioritized according to what has been called our
“comprehensive conceptions of the good” (Rawls, 1996). “It is
comprehensive when it includes conceptions of what is of value
in human life, and ideals of personal character, as well as ideals
of friendship and of familial and associational relationships, and
much else that is to inform our conduct, and in the limit to our
life as a whole” (p. 13). These comprehensive conceptions may
include our religious views and any related or independent moral
views about the good. “Many religious and philosophical
doctrines aspire to be general and comprehensive” (p. 13). Since
religion and morality have such an important place in our
worldviews, it is important to survey a rough overview of the
prominent categories available in the contemporary world.
The suffix “ism” in the English language is a powerful one. “Isms”
refers to powerful, persuasive, and pertinent worldviews having
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widespread consequences across individuals, communities, and
entire nations. An “ism” cannot be understood in isolation because
each one is not completely mutually exclusive from other concepts,
consequences, or cultures. But, for the purposes of simplification, it
is a good starting point to consider the “ism” around belief in God or
the lack thereof. Table 1.1 on the following page captures some of
the critical components of various “isms.” You can tell from careful
review that many have overlapping features, but it is the distinctions
that make the “isms” more so than the similarities.
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Major Religious Worldviews
Again, a worldview consists of a set of expectations one holds about
reality; it is a lens through which you understand and translate
everything around you (e.g., Why am I here?). Emerging from your
worldview is a set of assumptions or beliefs about the basic
constitution of reality, about your purpose, good versus evil, and the
afterlife (e.g., How I should live?). Extending our definition further,
a worldview is a collection of attitudes, values, histories, and
expectations about the world around us, which inform our every
thought and action. Worldview is expressed in ethics, religion,
philosophy, scientific beliefs, and so on (Sire, 2004). Collectively
and cumulatively, a worldview is how a culture works out in
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individual practice and daily living. When you encounter a situation
and think, “That is unfair, unjust, or just wrong,” your worldview is
working.
We have an innate inclination to assume what we believe is
normal and natural. We too often view opposing positions as
backward and superstitious. Your views are a result of how you
were brought up (e.g., my views are rational, balanced, and
accurate). Worldviews readily create in-groups and out-groups. If
our experiences are limited and our exposure to different people and
people groups is narrow, we often do not even realize the ubiquitous
nature of our worldview in defining and interpreting our reality; in
fact, it is not in our general nature to question our reality (Why
would we?). Too often, we become aware of worldviews and their
corresponding values only when there is a clash or crisis (Fulford,
2011). Now that people of different faiths can readily travel around
the world and live in culturally mixed communities, there are
increasing opportunities for such conflicts. This is most easily
recognizable when it comes to a religious view or a political view.
This is why it is said that “polite company” does not discuss such
things.
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Biblical Integration
Science has its overarching goals. Psychology, as a scientific
discipline, has its goals. Most organizations, associations, or
societies like the American Psychological Association, the
Association for Psychological Science, the American Counseling
Association, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the
Association for Behavioral Analysis International, the Society for
Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and the Society for
Neuroscience each has their own focus area, their own charter, and
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mission. To be a member of one of these groups, you will need to
understand their area of focus and requirements for admission.
What does it mean to be a member of the Christian faith? What does
it mean to have a Christian or Biblical Worldview? Included below
are some core scriptures regarding converting larger worldview
issues into actionable items.
John 3:16
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that
whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Romans 10:9-10
9 Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord
and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you
will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and
with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
Ephesians 2:4-5
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with
which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our
trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have
been saved.
When it comes to creating a charter and mission, we can learn a lot
from two critical passages: one from the Old Testament and one
from the New Testament.
Exodus 20:1-17
The Ten Commandments
1 And God spoke all these words, saying,
2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of
Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
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3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness
of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or
that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to
them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous
God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third
and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing
steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my
commandments.
7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for
the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall
labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to
the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your
son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or
your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in
six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in
them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the
Sabbath day and made it holy.
12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long
in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
13 “You shall not murder.
14 “You shall not commit adultery.
15 “You shall not steal.
16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet
your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or
his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”
Mathew 5:1-11
The Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes
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1 Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat
down, his disciples came to him.
2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for
they shall be satisfied.
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of
God.
10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness ’sake,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and
utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
The Ten Commandments serve as a moral framework, providing
guidance on righteous conduct. Jesus, as the Son of God, directly
imparts the Beatitudes to the New Testament children of God. The
Beatitudes present a spiritual roadmap for attaining eternal life by
fostering a closer relationship with God. Subsequently, Jesus ’entire
Sermon on the Mount and his ministry over the following three
years demonstrate how Christians should embody this spiritual
guidance through acts of love. Every individual is called to strive for
sanctity.
The Ten Commandments are universally acknowledged as the
fundamental moral laws to which all Christians must adhere. They
instruct us on how to remain steadfast in our devotion to God on
physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual levels. Conversely, the
Beatitudes elucidate how we can establish the kingdom of God on
Earth and partake in the heavenly realm. They reveal the values that
hold significance to Jesus. In accordance with the catechism, the
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Beatitudes occupy a central position in Jesus ’teachings. They
demonstrate that those who are marginalized and overlooked in
society are, in fact, blessed by God and will receive His eternal love.
Both the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes direct Christians to
love God and their fellow human beings. Love is the central theme
in Christian values, for God Himself is love. This love fosters the
presence of God’s kingdom on Earth, as authentic Christianity
revolves around the love we share with one another. The Beatitudes
encapsulate the essence of the Ten Commandments; they
express what is implicit in the commandments. This
interrelation signifies that God’s laws (commandments) are
indications of His love and the happiness that stems from
abiding by them (beatitudes).
Personal Application
Regardless of worldview, people can and should focus on kindness.
Mohamad Safa is recognized for saying the following: “Our
world is not divided by race, color, gender, or religion. Our
world is divided into wise people and fools. And fools divide
themselves by race, color, gender, or religion.” Nelson Mandela
stated, “No one is born hating another person because of the color of
his skin or his background or his religion. People must learn to hate,
and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love. For love
comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”
Use the internet to search and find 5 inspirational quotes that will
help you stay motivated throughout this course.
Explaining a Biblical Worldview
[To understand what a biblical worldview is, we need to briefly
revisit the definition of a worldview. Everybody has a certain way
they look at the world—certain truths and frameworks they use,
consciously or unconsciously, to understand the world around them.
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According to Wolters (Lee 2011), a worldview is “the
comprehensive framework of one’s basic beliefs about things.” It
may sound broad, but that is truly the purpose of this definition.
Your worldview, according to Wolters, “speaks centrally to
everything in your life and world, including technology, economics,
and science” (p. 2). It is your basic framework of everything. It is
what you believe to be true about everything and anything in life. It
includes from where you believe truth comes, who decides what is
true, and how you think about ideas and concepts.]2
We take a strong view of a “biblical worldview,” meaning that we
assume some propositions about the Bible’s place in such a
worldview that some who use it as a casual guide or just “one of
many sources” may reject. [A biblical worldview asserts that truth
originates with God, and God shares truth about the world, us, and
Himself through the Bible and the world around us. When you hold
a biblical worldview, you believe the Bible is the foundation for
understanding what is true about the world. Someone adhering to a
biblical worldview believes God created the world and the order
by which it operates, and He has revealed truth through His
Word (the Bible, or Scripture) and through His Works (the
world around us that can be studied systematically to
understand the truth about the world). A biblical worldview is a
framework of what is true for mankind as outlined in the Bible and
begins with God being the creator of the world (Genesis 1:1) and
mankind (Genesis 2:7-25).
© joshimerbin/Shutterstock.com
In Genesis 1:1, we see the creation story begin, and in Genesis 1 and
2, we see the creation of mankind in Adam and Eve. We see that
they were created in the image of God and were placed in the
Garden of Eden where they were given dominion over the rest of
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creation, and they were in perfect relationship with God (Genesis
1:26-27). God gave them freedom in the garden to live and thrive
perfectly; God also gave them a command to not eat of a certain tree
in the garden (Genesis 2:16-17). Unfortunately, Adam and Eve
disobeyed God and chose to do exactly what He commanded them
not to do, and as a result, sin entered the world. This sin broke the
perfect relationship between mankind and God and introduced
brokenness and death into everything. Because of sin, our bodies,
our minds, our relationships, our psyches, our churches, our
organizations, our countries, and ourselves are all broken. Nothing
exists in this world or in our human experience that has not been
touched and broken in some way by sin. Further, we know from
Romans 3:23 that the penalty for sin is death and eternal separation
from God.
Fortunately, however, the story does not end there. The Bible says
God had a plan before the foundation of the world to fix this
brokenness due to sin and to restore us to perfect relationship with
Himself again (Ephesians 1). His plan was to send his son, Jesus
Christ, to pay the price for sin through his own death on the cross
and resurrection from the dead so that we could be freed from the
penalty of death and Hell for our sins (John 3:16-18; 1 Corinthians
15:3-4; Ephesians 2:1-6). Because of Jesus ’death and resurrection,
our sins are forgiven and paid for, and we can be restored to perfect
relationship with God in Heaven for all of eternity. All we need to
do is accept this gift from God (John 3:16-18; Ephesians 2:8-9).
The drama of Scripture can be divided into the four-act
structure of creation, sin, redemption, and restoration. This
Grand Narrative helps us see the bigger story of what God is doing
throughout history to bring about His purposes, which culminate in
the person and work of Jesus Christ. While many may see the Bible
as just a collection of individual stories or moral guidelines, the
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Bible is actually one continuous story of God’s love for His creation
and His active work to restore His creation to Himself. The Bible
reminds us how sin and brokenness have affected all things on this
earth (ourselves included) but that Jesus has come to bring hope to
our brokenness. This Grand Narrative is the basis of a biblical
worldview and is a valuable perspective from which we can view all
things in the field of psychology and the world. Our understanding
of psychology is informed by our biblical understanding of God
being the creator of the world, of sin entering the world and creating
brokenness in all things, of Jesus coming to redeem us and give us
hope for the future, and of our future restoration to God. The Bible
contains the truth about human nature, God, and our call as
Christians to help others. We can trust the Bible as a legitimate
source of truth as we are studying biological, psychological, and
social phenomena. We can think through any concept in psychology
(and in this textbook) using the creation, fall, redemption, and
restoration narrative.
Grand Narrative: The metanarrative of the Bible that tells the story
of mankind including Creation, Fall due to sin, Redemption through
Jesus Christ, and Restoration of mankind to God.
This contrasts with the dominant worldview today. Many believe
truth only comes from science, logic, and critical thinking.
Someone with a modern, secular worldview values data we
collect from the natural world over spiritual authority.
Someone who would say they had a modern, secular worldview
would emphasize empirical, evidence-based ways of justifying
beliefs about what is real. They would claim beliefs based on
evidence (or science) are more reliable and objective compared to
those based on uncorroborated intuition, revelation, religious
authority, or sacred texts like the Bible. This belief in science as the
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foundation for truth has truly dominated the modern era. Chances
are, even if you come from a Christian background, you have
modern, secular thinking about the authority of research in your
thinking patterns.
As a Christian in psychology, it is important to recognize God has
shared many truths about human behavior in the Bible. Due to our
belief in the authority of God and His Word, we can receive those
truths with confidence. We can also study His creation with good
science and see how He has created us and the truths in human
behavior. As a Christian student studying psychology, knowing
what the Bible says and what good research shows about human
behavior is important to understanding psychological phenomena.
For the Christian student, it is important to understand what the field
presents about human behavior, but you also need to be aware that
science is not the ultimate source of truth. Science is the study of
the world around us and is dependent on measuring constructs
well, analyzing data well, and coming to the correct conclusions
(e.g., the flaw in the happiness study noted previously). Because
science is a human phenomenon, it is prone to error. As you will
notice, scientific findings and conclusions on topics frequently
change as new evidence emerges or as new theoretical perspectives
emerge. Therefore, we must always be cautious and think critically
when evaluating research. One way we can think critically is by
comparing it to the Word of God. Using the “Biblical Integration”
boxes throughout the textbook, you will be shown how to
accomplish this in various areas of cognitive psychology.]2
Personal Application
How is a Christian or biblical worldview different from the other
worldviews presented so far? Explain the most important factors in
a biblical worldview and their impact on your daily living. If not a
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biblical worldview, then select another and explain that view’s
impact on your daily living. Lastly, explain how your worldview has
changed across your development thus far. What life events have
impacted your worldview development (e.g., graduating from high
school, getting married, having children, becoming ill, starting your
career, etc.)?
[As we start our exploration of the field of psychology, we want you
to keep the following things in mind:
1. As a human endeavor, there is always a chance in psychology that
we are wrong in the conclusions we draw from the science we are
conducting. We need to be humble in our science and cautious when
we draw conclusions about various topics in the field.
2. Additionally, while the Bible is infallible (i.e., has no errors),
sometimes man’s interpretation of the Bible can have errors.
Therefore, we need to be careful in our interpretation of the Bible as
well and make sure we apply good study techniques when
understanding what God is saying in His Word about human
behavior and the world.
3. Whenever we begin comparing the science of psychology to what
God says in the Bible, we can sometimes find areas that do not seem
to agree. That can lead us to wonder what is true. Keep in mind that
God’s truth is always superior to anything we may determine in our
own logic or study. God is the creator of the world, and He knows
how His creation works best. We can believe Him even when our
minds cannot understand how it all fits together.
As we begin our study of cognitive psychology, we will review the
history of the field and some of the founding theorists and
researchers in the field. We will then discuss the science of
psychology and things to be aware of when learning about cognitive
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psychology. Moreover, we will conclude this introductory chapter
with an overview of the major ethics positions.
Additionally, in this chapter and subsequent chapters, we will guide
you to expand your understanding of cognitive psychology to
include a biblical worldview. As noted in the diagram above (Figure
1.3) and throughout our text, we will not just consider complex
behaviors from the biological, social, and cognitive-behavioral
perspectives across the life- span (as is typically done in our field),
but we also will ground it all in the truth of the Bible. Throughout
our examination of different topics, we will show you that our
present reality and the study of human behavior must consider the
divine creation and redemption story outlined in the Bible in
addition to any biological, social, psychological, or developmental
frameworks. Having a biblical worldview or framework states
that we ground all our biological, psychological, social, and
developmental theories in the truth (and story) of the Bible. As
noted previously, the Bible tells us much about the origin of man,
the nature of man, and how we operate; it provides valuable insight
to us as we search for truth about human behavior, specifically
about areas relevant to cognitive psychology. As we go through
various topics in cognitive psychology, we will show you how to
integrate biblical truth with psychological science to help you grow
in the field and your understanding of human behavior.]2
Figure 1.3
Overview of the Overlapping Components of a Biblical Worldview
Across the Lifespan
The Effect of a Biblical Christian Paradigm*
Pastor Scott Budde
Pastor at Mount Carmel United Brethren in Christ, Fulks Run, VA
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How you perceive reality colors information. If your reality is
foundationally confrontational, even cornflake cereal can be a
potential enemy to your very existence, but if reality is
foundationally an adventure to be experienced, even a skiing
accident can be an enchanting and wonderful journey of discovery.
The Bible puts it this way: “To the pure, You show Yourself
pure” (New International Bible, Psalm 18:25-26). An easily
frightened person will be scared of a beetle, and a laid-back person
will barely be affected by a near-death experience. Paradigm is the
color of your world.
What if the color of your world was not consistent? What if the
foundation of your reality was not a cornerstone, but a prism:
fractured, indistinguishable, and shifting like the sand of the
seashore? Jesus contrasted the two models—the cornerstone and the
sand—in His parable in Matthew 7:21-27 (New International Bible).
He begins by warning the religious crowd that not everyone
building on religion would be received by Him in the Judgment:
“Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy
in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name
perform many miracles? ’Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never
knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” (v. 22-23). Next, He
picks up the beginning of the parable by saying, “Therefore,”
meaning the reason for the parable is found in the warning about the
Judgment. In short, Jesus warns them to build on the Cornerstone,
not on man’s fractured teachings about religion. For centuries,
possibly millennia, secularists have tried to reconcile the fractured
religions of the world through force, coercion, compromise,
manipulation, and even treaty. All have failed, on the macro and
micro scale. Sure, there have been individuals who changed their
hearts, but the fallout was usually more fractures, not fewer. The
inconsistency of a worldview within larger, less-defined worldviews
continues to ruin minds and divide brothers and countrymen. But
what of the Cornerstone, Jesus?
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Despite the shifting sands of fractured thinking, there are really
only two paradigms: Biblical and everything else. The Biblical
paradigm calls all other views of reality into account as the
offspring of a primordial rebellion against God called “sin.” It
rests in a rejection of God as the definition of reality Himself. The
Bible testifies against man that he has rejected the reality that IS for
a reality of his own invention. As Stephen pointed out to the
Sanhedrin in Acts 7:51-53 (New International Bible), they resist
God as reality Himself by rejecting His attempts to bring them
to a proper ontological foundation through law, prophecy, and
even angels. These religious men were so enraged that they
killed him (Stephen) who dared to suggest that they had no right
to their own version of reality. Men are violent when it comes to
defending their foundational concepts. These are more personal
and carefully guarded than all other treasures, but the Bible
testifies that those concepts are “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6).
Therefore, we will either be working with those who have
courageously embraced the Bible as reality or those who have
rejected God and are attempting to twist the fabric of reality and
bend it to their own will.
The Bible gives us three groupings to expect from society:
1) those who will reject God’s Word outright,
2) those who see God as a means to an end, and
3) those who respect God’s Word but view it as essentially
powerless to aid them in their goals (See the parable of the
Sower, [New International Bible, Matthew 13:18-22]).
However, there is a
4) fourth kind: a people intentionally transformed by God, plowed
and cultivated through heartache and suffering to receive the
seed of His Word into the deepest parts of their hearts (Matthew
13:23).
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The first three are on a common quest to invent reality for
themselves. The fourth kind is disciples of the works of God and His
Son, Jesus (John 17:3). It is the first three groups that need morals—
guidelines to keep them governed—so that in their pursuit of a
tailored, fictitious reality, they do not destroy everyone around
them. These are capable of morality, mutual respect, and patience
but cannot and will not become Christlike (Romans 9:16).
The value of transformative thinking—God supernaturally bringing
the dead in trespasses and sin to life (New International Bible,
Ephesians 2:1)—is found in the Cornerstone, Jesus, and finding a
foundation already laid in what is true. The born-again disciple is
then built as a living stone into the building—the temple—that relies
upon the sure foundation. That Christian also builds a life on Christ
using sometimes the materials of the flesh (i.e., wood, hay, and
stubble) and sometimes the materials of the Spirit (i.e., gold, silver,
precious stones). Each round of discipleship is tested with fire, and
God brings greater heat as He refines them. The end result is
promised in God’s glory—that they will shine like the stars in the
heavens, with an incorruptible and immortal glory. This is the
ultimate reward for repentance from that primordial rebellion into
which they were born (1 Corinthians 3:11-15; 1 Peter 2:5; 1 Peter
1:7; Philippians 2:15; 1 Corinthians 15:52-53; Genesis 15:1).
So then, Biblical Christian thought is transformative in nature. It
brings you into the reality that IS and denies you the right to all
other experiments with reality. While the sciences try to make sense
out of the fracturing of the mind racked with pride and despair, there
is an explanation as to the cause and even hope for those who have
rejected God. However difficult it may be, the doctrines, morals,
ethics, and even laws of the Bible can give those who embrace and
respect religion at least a means to manage sin and live a good life,
even if they ultimately refuse to ask God for mercy and
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transformation. But, the polarization of the gospel aptly preached
will cause them a constant baring of the soul and put most out to
invent a compromised religion with which they can live.
As Paul said, “I pray to God that not only you but all who are
listening to me today may become what I am, except for these
chains” (New International Bible, Acts 26:29). As you study
through this textbook, you will likely confront many fractures of
reality and how they misinform decision-making. Christian
thinking counters all attempts at localized ontology. Part of the
futility of good work with damaged materials is that the end result
can only stand up under so much pressure before it again gives way
to its sandy foundations.
Brief Summary and Self-Assessment
This text discusses the integration of psychology and a biblical
worldview. It acknowledges that mainstream psychology is a secular
science focused on developing theories and treatments based on
scientific principles. However, it emphasizes the perspective of
Christian psychologists who seek to understand psychological
phenomena through the lens of the Bible. The text aims to provide
an understanding of psychology from a biblical worldview by
exploring the intersection of psychological science and biblical
teachings. It highlights the importance of worldview in shaping our
perception of the world and how it influences our beliefs, values,
and interpretations. The text also explains that everyone has a
worldview and that it plays a crucial role in filtering and making
sense of information. It further discusses various “isms” and their
impact on worldview formation, including religious and political
beliefs. The concept of a biblical worldview is introduced,
emphasizing that truth originates from God and is revealed through
the Bible and the world. The text presents the biblical creation story,
the introduction of sin, and the plan of redemption through Jesus
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Christ. Overall, the text encourages readers to explore the
integration of psychology and a biblical worldview to gain a deeper
understanding of human behavior and promote mental health from a
Christian perspective.
1.According to the text, what is a worldview?
a.A comprehensive framework of one’s basic beliefs about things
b.A set of rules and regulations for understanding the world
c.A religious doctrine that dictates one’s actions and beliefs
d.An individual’s perspective on a specific topic
Answer: a) A comprehensive framework of one’s basic beliefs about
things
2.According to Socrates, when does true wisdom come to us?
a. When we understand everything about life and the world
b. When we realize our limitations in understanding
c. When we have a well-defined worldview
d. When we have knowledge of the Holy One
Answer: b) When we realize our limitations in understanding
3.What is the four-act structure that defines the biblical narrative?
a. Creation, sin, redemption, and restoration
b.Birth, growth, decline, and rebirth
c.Observation, hypothesis, experimentation, and conclusion
d.Perception, cognition, behavior, and motivation
Answer: a) Creation, sin, redemption, and restoration
4.According to the text, what should be kept in mind when studying
psychology?
a.Psychology is a flawless science with infallible conclusions.
b.
The Bible discusses all important scientific findings.
c.Human interpretations of the Bible are always correct.
d.Psychology and the Bible can provide complementary insights.
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Answer: d) Psychology and the Bible can provide
complementary insights
5.How does a biblical worldview inform the study of cognitive
psychology?
a.By emphasizing biological and social factors over psychological
ones
b. By excluding developmental frameworks from the study of
cognition
c. By grounding all theories in the truth and story of the Bible
d.By dismissing scientific research as irrelevant to cognitive
processes
Answer: By grounding all theories in the truth and story of the Bible
BRIEF HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY
Beginnings of Psychology
[Psychology is a field that combines both ancient and modern
elements. Its origins can be traced back to classic philosophers who
explored topics relevant to human nature and behavior. However,
psychology as a formal discipline emerged in the late 19th
century with the work of Wilhelm Wundt and Sigmund Freud.
To understand the origins of psychology, it is important to review
the contributions of key philosophers and physiologists who laid the
groundwork for the field.]2
Philosophers like Plato and Aristotle made significant contributions
to psychology. [
Plato believed that all knowledge and understanding could be
attained through introspection and looking inward. He
proposed a model of the human psyche consisting of impulses,
reasoning, and behaviors.
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Aristotle, on the other hand, focused on the external influences
on human behavior and argued that the mind was shaped by
experience and external factors. His ideas influenced the naturenurture debate and shaped our understanding of the structure
of the mind.
In the 17th century, Rene Descartes introduced the concept of
mind-body dualism, suggesting that the mind and body are
distinct but interconnected. He proposed a bidirectional
relationship between the mind and body, where each can
influence the other. Descartes ’ideas on the mind-body
connection and involuntary actions have had lasting influences
on theories of perception, emotion, and behavior.]1
While philosophy provided a historical foundation for psychology,
physiology also played a crucial role in its development. In the late
19th and early 20th centuries, medical doctors trained in
physiological research began applying scientific principles to
psychological topics. This led to a shift in psychology toward
systematic study and the use of the scientific method. Researchers
began examining sensation, memory, and other mental processes
through empirical observation. The integration of physiological
research methods transformed psychology into a field that
relied on systematic testing and empirical evidence to
understand human behavior.
In summary, psychology has a rich historical background rooted in
philosophy, with contributions from philosophers such as Plato,
Aristotle, and Descartes. However, it was the incorporation of
physiological research methods in the late 19th century that paved
the way for the modern field of psychology. This interdisciplinary
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approach, combining philosophy and physiology, allowed for a
more rigorous and scientific understanding of human behavior.
Early Schools of Thought
Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) was one of the very first scientists
to study psychological principles. Following graduation from
medical school in 1855, Wundt worked as an assistant in many
early psychophysics and physiology research laboratories in
Western Europe. It was during this time that Wundt began to
develop his ideas for a new scientific discipline: psychology.
Although others helped to contribute along the way, Wundt is
considered the founder of modern psychology due to his
publication of the first psychology book, Principles of
Physiological Psychology, in 1874. Five years later, Wundt
established the world’s first psychological laboratory at the
University of Leipzig in 1879, which remained active until 1910.
It was from this laboratory that Wundt trained the first
generation of psychologists who would go out into the world and
make psychology the discipline it is today (Benjamin Jr., 2008).
© Timofeeff/Shutterstock.com
In addition, while establishing the field of psychology, Wundt also
made several contributions, which led to the separation of
psychology from philosophy. To make this separation complete,
Wundt stressed the scientific exploration of conscious
experience through the use of empirical methods. To do this,
Wundt developed an empirical method, which he called
introspection. Introspection is the examination of one’s own
mind to inspect and report on personal thoughts or feelings
about conscious experiences. In order to properly use this
technique, Wundt would rigorously train individuals over months
and sometimes years. During the introspective process, individuals
were presented with a physical stimulus and were to report on the
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size, intensity, and duration of their conscious experience. Wundt
used the results of each experiment to draw inferences about the
elements and processes of conscious experience.
Introspection: This school of thought emphasized the
examination of one’s own mind to inspect and report on
personal thoughts or feelings about conscious experiences.
[Can you see any problems with this technique?
Unfortunately, much of the criticism of Wundt’s early work
centered on his use of introspection. Many researchers disapproved
of the introspective method. Specifically, researchers argued there
were problems with a method in which results could vary by
different observers for the same stimulus, thus leading people to
wonder which introspection was correct. Furthermore, since
introspection is a private, personal method of study, how can the
results be replicated? Despite these issues, Wundt is still considered
to be the most important figure in the history of psychology,
primarily because of his founding psychology as a science, rejecting
nonscientific thinking, publishing extensively on the topic, and
training the first generation of psychologists.]1
Structuralism
[Edward Titchener (1867-1927) established the first brand of
psychology (or school of thought) known as structuralism.
Titchener developed structuralism at Cornell University in New
York shortly after receiving his Ph.D. from Wundt in 1892.
Titchener believed psychology was to be used to study the
structure of the mind. Structuralism is the breaking down of
conscious experience into its fundamental elements: sensations,
feelings, and images. As with Wundt, Titchener sought to use
introspection to accomplish this task. However, unlike Wundt
who was interested in the whole of the conscious experience,
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Titchener was more concerned with the parts of the experience that
made up the whole (Goodwin, 2008). Titchener suffered from the
same criticism as Wundt and when Titchener died, so did
structuralism.]1
Structuralism: This school of thought views understanding the
mind as a breakdown of conscious experience into its
fundamental elements: sensations, feelings, and images.
Functionalism
[Around the same time that Titchener was developing
structuralism, William James (1842-1910), known equally well
for his contributions to a philosophical school of thought called
American Pragmatism, and colleagues at the University of
Chicago were developing the second school of thought in
psychology: functionalism. Functionalism was a deliberate
protest against the work of Wundt and Titchener. Functionalists
believed that the work of Wundt and Titchener was narrow in
scope and could not be applied to the real world. To overcome
these limitations, James and colleagues adapted their work from
the work of Darwin and his principles of evolution. Specifically,
rather than focusing on the conscious experience only,
functionalism sought to study how the mind of an organism
adapted to the current environment (Goodwin, 2008). This was a
major change from Wundt and Titchener, who did not care about
the outside environment, only the internal state.
Functionalism: The school of thought seeks to study how the
mind of an organism adapted to the current environment rather
than just focusing on the conscious experience.
With the advent of functionalism, psychologists were able to
expand the scope of psychology to children, the mentally
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impaired, and even animals. These populations were not used
with structuralism because it was believed they were unable to
be trained in introspection. Unfortunately, as with structuralism,
functionalism lost ground around the 1920s with the death of James
and the introduction of behaviorism. However, some similarities do
exist between functionalism and a contemporary perspective
known as evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology
analyzes an information processing system as a biological
system evolves through natural selection. In this model, the
system will encounter environmental selection pressure and
experience cognitive adaptation (e.g., Cosmides & Tooby,
1995).]1
Behaviorism
[In the early 1920s, concurrent with the popularity of a
philosophical school of thought called logical positivism, a major
shift occurred in psychology with the introduction of behaviorism
by John Watson (1878-1958). Watson and colleagues (such as B.
F. Skinner, 1904-1990) believed that psychology should move
away from using subjective procedures (i.e., introspection) and
begin to engage in objective procedures. Watson’s solution was
behaviorism, which is the scientific study of the prediction and
control of behavior. In behaviorism, anything that could not be
observed—such as mental processes, thoughts, and feelings—
could not be studied.
Behaviorism: A scientific study of the prediction and control of
behavior.
Behaviorists were focused on how humans and animals acquired
and modified behavior, which they called learning, because of their
environment. Behaviorists believe people’s development is little
more than a result of learning that occurs in their world. While
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seemingly like functionalism, behaviorism focused solely on
behavior and ignored the mind or mental interaction with the
environment. However, behaviorists such as Watson and
Skinner differed on the type of learning that led to the
development of people (Goodwin, 2008). Behaviorism was the
dominant theory in American psychology until the early 1960s
when other contemporary ideas began reshaping the
psychological landscape.]1
Reductionism
The world around us, how we perceive it, how we react to it, as
well as every thought we have is solely dependent upon the way
in which the neurons/cells in our brains are organized. This view
is called reductionism.
From a scientific viewpoint there is no such thing as the “mind,”
only a complicated network of cells, which when working
properly allow us to think, speak, read, walk, and perform other
complex tasks.
Consciousness is merely a naturally occurring byproduct of our
brain’s neural activity. Based on these assumptions concerning
the brain, and given enough time and resources, scientists
should be able to determine exactly how the brain functions,
even to the point of manipulating thought processes (i.e., with
drugs, electric current, and artificial sensory experiences).
Reductionism: The scientific position that all behaviors will
eventually be explained by smaller and smaller particles and
processes.
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
The Cognitive Revolution
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Before we move forward, it is important to understand exactly what
cognitive psychology is. The term cognitive psychology was first
coined by Ulric Neisser (1928-2012) in his 1967 book, Cognitive
Psychology. Cognitive psychology is defined as the scientific
study of information processing in the mind.
It assumes three things:
(1) mental processes exist,
(2) mental processes can be studied scientifically, and
(3) people are active processors of information.
[Outside of the United States, psychologists in Germany and Austria
were forming a new school of thought, partially in opposition to
ideas such as structuralism and functionalism. Gestalt psychology
emphasized the role of patterns and structure in perception and
was known for stating that the whole is greater than the sum of
its parts. What is important to note right now is that ideas outside of
behaviorism were occurring, and as World War II (WWII) forced
many psychologists to relocate to the United States (such as Max
Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler, and Kurt Koffka), they brought
these ideas with them. There were others in psychology looking at
cognitive-type ideas before the so-called revolution occurred. For
example, in 1932, Frederick Barlett was exploring how memory
is reconstructive in nature and how existing schemas shape how
information is recalled. In addition, even in the late 1800s,
Hermann Ebbinghaus (1885) was using himself as a participant
to study learning and forgetting.
Gestalt psychology: The school of thought that emphasized the
role of patterns and structure in perception. It is known for
stating that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Within the United States following WWII, the dominant issue in
psychology was the search for generalized laws of human behavior.
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There was a small group of researchers who found this debate
increasingly irrelevant to understanding human cognition. This
group was influenced by several factors:
1.
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1. Dissatisfaction with stimulus-response tradition as it was too
limited to understand complex behavior (e.g., see Breland &
Breland, 1961).
2.The inability of academic psychologists involved in WWII efforts
to apply behaviorism concepts and principles to solve problems of
attention and vigilance in military personnel (for review, see
Lachman et al., 1979).
3. Research by George Miller (1956) demonstrating limitations in
information processing.
4. Chomsky’s (1959) review of B. F. Skinner’s work on language
acquisition, dispelling the notion that stimulus-response psychology
can explain language acquisition and usage.
5.Use of computer systems as a metaphor for how the human mind
operates.]1
All these factors created a perfect storm if you will. Psychologists
were ready to explore other explanations for human behavior,
outside of those provided in behaviorism’s stimulus-response
paradigm. Many of the historically significant psychologists are
included below in Table 1.3. Understanding the history of science
and scientists adds value in terms of understanding not just their
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specific contribution in terms of content but the context in which it
occurred.
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Key Christian Contributors
[In addition to the field of psychology tracing back to philosophers
like Plato and Aristotle or more recent theorists and researchers such
as Wundt, Freud, and Watson, several key individuals have
contributed to the investigation of psychology from a Christian
worldview (Table 1.4). These Christian contributors include classic
philosophers and more recent researchers and theologians. As
secular philosophers and researchers were presenting their ideas
explaining human behavior and existence, these Christian
philosophers and researchers were also presenting ideas of how the
Bible helps inform our understanding of human life and how we can
discern and know truth.
Table 1.4
Overview of Key Christian Contributors to Cognitive Psychology
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Augustine (354-430) was a prominent Christian philosopher of
the first millennium who exerted a profound influence on
Western philosophy and Christianity. Born to a pagan father and
devout Christian mother in Thagaste, Augustine displayed a fervent
passion for knowledge from an early age and engaged with various
philosophers of his time. In contrast to the skeptics of his era,
Augustine asserted that truth was eternal and unchanging. Central
to his theory of knowledge was the concept of divine revelation,
which he believed was conveyed through both the Bible and
natural phenomena. Augustine maintained that all truth
originated from God and relied on His revelation to humans,
including scientific truth. The famous phrase, “All truth is
God’s truth” originated from Augustine, encapsulating his
belief that truth emanates from God and is disclosed to
humanity.
Present-day Christian researchers continue to echo Augustine’s
convictions, affirming the existence of absolute truth that can be
discovered through God’s revelation in both the Bible and the study
of creation, including scientific endeavors.
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), known for merging the rational and
supernatural realms, wielded a significant influence in both secular
and sacred domains. By synthesizing Greek philosophy with
Christian doctrine, Aquinas proposed that rationality and the study
of nature constituted valid pathways to comprehend truths
pertaining to God. According to Aquinas, God revealed Himself
through the natural world, prompting the study of nature as an
avenue to explore and understand the divine. In contrast to the
dichotomy often perceived between philosophy and theology, as
well as science and theology, Aquinas perceived these disciplines
as complementary in the pursuit of truth. His perspective
fostered the integration of seemingly disparate fields, fostering a
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more harmonious relationship. Similar to Augustine, Aquinas
held that all knowledge was contingent upon divine revelation
from God.
Richard Baxter (1615-1691), an English Puritan pastor and
theologian, made substantial contributions to comprehending
psychological ailments from biological, psychological, and spiritual
perspectives. In his writings and teachings on depression, Baxter
delineated various factors that could contribute to the experience of
depression. He emphasized the need for individual evaluation to
identify the specific causes underlying an individual’s depression,
thereby enabling effective treatment. Baxter posited that depression
could stem from both biological disturbances and behaviors
inconsistent with God’s will, emphasizing a balanced approach that
accounted for both physical and spiritual aspects. As one of several
influential Puritans, Baxter significantly contributed to the
development of Christian psychology and biblical counseling. Their
reliance on Scripture’s authority, systematic diagnostic approaches
to identify root causes (spiritual, temperamental, and physical), and
utilization of the Gospel in treatment laid a solid foundation for
subsequent Christian scholars and counselors.
Fritz Kunkel (1889-1956), a German-born psychiatrist, played a
pioneering role in modern psychology by integrating psychological
and Christian perspectives. Collaborating with Alfred Adler in
Vienna, Kunkel emerged as one of the earliest proponents of
integrating psychology and theology. He coined the term
“integration” in 1953 to describe his work, which aimed to combine
psychological and theological principles. Kunkel is widely regarded
as a founding figure of the modern integration movement. His
research and practice emphasized the essential connection to God
for mental well-being. Kunkel established the Foundation for the
Advancement of Religious Psychology in California in 1951 and
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founded a Christian counseling center in Los Angeles, further
promoting the integration of psychology and theology. Since the
introduction of the term “integration,” it has acquired various
connotations, encompassing the integration of psychology and
theology in the pursuit of understanding human behavior and
incorporating theological truths into counseling practice to enhance
well-being.
Eric Johnson, a contemporary theologian and Christian
psychologist, is renowned for his book, Psychology and
Christianity: Five Views (Johnson, 2010). Johnson explores the
growth of the field of Christian integration in psychology since the
term’s initial usage in 1953. He elucidates several perspectives
regarding the intersection of psychology and Christianity. These
views encompass a spectrum ranging from the belief that secular
psychology, due to its inherent secular bias, should not be employed
in conjunction with the Bible to understand human behavior, to the
conviction that integrating secular scientific findings with biblical
teachings can be accomplished successfully under the guidance of
the Holy Spirit. This approach involves allowing divine revelation
to inform the interpretation of both Scripture and scientific
knowledge. Johnson’s ongoing work in communicating diverse
perspectives on how psychology and Christianity can be employed
to comprehend human behavior continues to shape the field.]2
IDEA DEVELOPMENT: REACTIONARY OR
REVOLUTIONARY
In many ways, humans, especially scientists, are more reactionary
than revolutionary. Often, it is easier to be critical of another
person’s model or theory compared to developing one of your own.
It is not surprising, then, that much of the advancement we see in the
sciences occurs through one person or group reacting critically to
the theories of others. Interestingly, as one person or group reacts to
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the prevailing view, over time, those reactions build momentum and
eventually bring forth new hypotheses, models, theories, and
practices. Those then-new hypotheses, models, theories, and
practices then get challenged, resulting in a continuous positive
feedback loop, often resulting in an overall advancement of the
field. However, holding too tightly to certain schools of thought can
impede progress.
For example, psychology emerged from dissatisfaction with
philosophy because philosophy lacked any reproducibility. This
gave rise to more laboratory-based work, but much of that work
was based too heavily on observation and lacked appropriate
controls. The reaction was to create a stimulus-response model
based on rewards and punishments, which was highly
controlled. The stimulus-response model lacked generalizability.
The reaction to this lack of generalizability was to consider
organisms, especially people, as thinkers, creators, and problem
solvers, which gave rise to cognitive psychology. But, even still,
cognitive psychology was criticized for being unable to explain
the fundamental mechanisms of thought.
This gave rise to cognitive neuroscience, which, in the simplest
terms, allows scientists to develop cognitive models (e.g.,
addressing the big “why”) and utilize neuroscience to help
explain the underlying physiology and chemistry (e.g.,
addressing the big “how”).
Over longer periods of time, scientists can begin to synthesize and
integrate the best ideas from the various schools of thought and
provide a more comprehensive understanding of human behavior—
like a biopsychosocial model across the lifespan. This is why being
a good critical thinker is exceedingly important as well as having
some perseverance, but neither of those will serve you well if you
do not have considerable content knowledge.
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Personal Application
Explain in what ways specifically you are dissatisfied with the field
of psychology. What improvements would you like to see in the
field and why? How will you help advance the field of psychology?
Explain how you see cognitive psychology adding value to this
process. Considering the schools of thought discussed thus far,
which best aligns with your thoughts on psychology, and which is
the most different?
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CONTEMPORARY COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
Cognitive psychology is an area of scientific study that examines
complex psychological phenomena such as perception, attention,
memory, learning, reasoning, problem-solving, decisionmaking, language, and creativity. While cognitive psychology is
still a relatively new field, it has been charged with undertaking
some of the most significant and complicated questions of our time.
For example, how the brain produces a conscious experience is one
of the most fundamental questions of human existence. Other
unanswered questions include how does the brain create a
perception from simple isolated stimuli? How are memories stored
in and subsequently retrieved from the brain? What is selfawareness and are people unique in their ability to consider who
they are? How are decisions made and how do decisions become
actions?
Cognitive psychology: The scientific study of information
processing in the mind.
As you move through this course, you will consider these questions
and many more and likely several of your own questions (curiosity
and introspection are also perplexing cognitive qualities). Due to the
complex and diverse nature of these questions, many different
scientists within psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, computer
science, and linguistics, contribute to our understanding of cognitive
processes. This diversity lends itself to many different areas of study
within the field of cognitive psychology, including but not limited to
these, which will be covered throughout this textbook:
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1.The influence of marketing on consumers ’spending.
2.How individuals decide whether to purchase a product online or in
stores.
3.Composition of police lineups and implications for identified
suspects.
4.Creating effective learning strategies.
5.Techniques for questioning eyewitnesses or victims of crimes.
6.Formation of false memories.
7.Second language acquisition during development.
8.How experts solve problems.
9.How to identify and combat misinformation.
10.Development and improvement of artificial intelligence.
Such diversity of perspectives can provide additional challenges for
students studying cognitive psychology; however, when you
consider that, ultimately, nearly every behavior is derived from a
cognitive process, it immediately brings to life the importance and
inherent value of developing a better understanding of how people
think. Throughout the textbook, we will explore these areas
together. Therefore, you might find cognitive psychology to be
surprisingly intellectually stimulating because it is very diverse in
scope, and, more than likely, there is at least one area of cognitive
psychology closely related to your primary interest in the more
general field of psychology. Concepts, terms, and theories from
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cognitive psychology surround you every day. It is just not always
apparent they are grounded in cognitive psychology. However, once
you see the connections, you will be able to relate what you are
reading to your personal and professional life.
For example, of great interest right now is the development and use
of artificial intelligence. Have you considered the impact of artificial
intelligence on our personal and professional lives? Do you think
artificial intelligence could replace professionals such as physicians
and psychologists? Professionals in these fields certainly do not
think so. While artificial intelligence might do more in the near
future along the lines of diagnosing and treatment planning, it would
not replace the importance of human-to-human interaction,
especially with important human traits like empathy. However, a
recent study showed this is exactly where artificial intelligence does
well. More specifically, ChatGPT outperformed physicians in not
only diagnosing but also with higher empathy (Ayers et al.,
2023). ChatGPT is an AI language model developed by OpenAI
capable of understanding and generating human-like text responses
to a wide range of queries, making it an advanced conversational
agent with diverse applications such as chatbot interactions, content
creation, and language understanding tasks. (This sentence was
written by ChatGPT.)
Annotated Bibliography*
AI Outperforms Doctors? A Review of Ayers et al. (2023).
Article Review by Virginia G. Cramer
As artificial intelligence (AI) technology continues to advance, AI
tools like ChatGPT have been shown to read, analyze, and generate
information with amazing speed and accuracy. This technology is
already being used to supplement (or even replace) the human
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workforce in data analysis, finance, advertising, graphic design,
education, and other fields (Abril, 2023). However, is it possible
that AI could take on the jobs of nurses, doctors, psychologists, and
therapists, whose jobs rely on ‘real ’interactions with patients? For
better or worse, this may soon become a reality. In their crosssectional study, researchers Ayers et al. (2023) demonstrated that AI
chatbot technology could provide more accurate and empathetic
responses than real doctors. Using 195 randomly drawn questions
from an online Reddit forum, r/AskDocs, physician answers were
compared to responses generated by ChatGPT. The quality and
empathy of each response were evaluated by three separate licensed
healthcare professionals. Not only did the evaluators prefer the
ChatGPT responses to the physician responses 78.6% of the
time, but the ChatGPT responses were also rated as
significantly higher in quality (t =13.3; P < .001) and empathy (t
=18.9; P < .001). The average rating of the physicians ’responses
was 21% lower in quality and 41% less empathetic than the
ChatGPT responses.
These findings suggest that AI may outperform real doctors at
responding to patient questions submitted through online portals. In
their conclusion, Ayers and colleagues (2023) suggest that
utilizing AI assistants to respond to patient questions may be
able to lighten the burden of busy healthcare workers.
Additionally, it could provide patients with responses that are
more detailed, accurate, and empathetic than an overworked
human doctor may be able to offer. While the real-life
performance of ChatGPT in clinical settings has not yet been tested,
it might not be long before patients speak with AI assistants rather
than doctors and nurses.
References
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Abril, D. (2023, March 20). AI isn’t yet going to take your job —
but you may have to work with it. The Washington Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/ interactive/2023/aijobs-workplace/
Ayers, J. W., Poliak, A., Dredze, M., Leas, E. C., Zhu, Z., Kelley, J.
B., Faix, D. J., Goodman, A. M., Longhurst, C. A., Hogarth, M., &
Smith, D. M. (2023). Comparing physician and artificial intelligence
chatbot responses to patient questions posted to a public social
media forum. JAMA Internal Medicine, 183(6), 589-596.
https://doi.org/0.1001/jamainternmed.2023.1838
*Contributed by Virginia Cramer. © Kendall Hunt Publishing
Company.
Cognitive psychology asks and answers many important questions
in the field of psychology. Cognitive science interfaces with a broad
range of other fields, especially artificial intelligence, making
cognitive psychology a highly sought-after area of knowledge. The
first step in building important content knowledge is being able to
ask the right questions because questions drive curiosity, and
curiosity drives innovation.
Cognitive psychology is a broad field covering many topic areas
related to perceiving, attending, thinking, and decision-making.
Table 1.5 below captures many of the major areas of focus when it
comes to understanding cognitive psychology. The domains below
encompass the core areas of this textbook. The table below provides
an excellent conceptual outline of the book along with definitions
and examples.
Table 1.5
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Major Areas of Study within Cognitive Psychology
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Personal Application
Looking at the top ten list above, what domain/sub-field is most
interesting to you and why? Write one extra question for each of the
ten domains/sub-fields within cognitive psychology. Explain how
each of these areas can be applied to your personal and professional
life. Lastly, explain what you think will be a prevailing ethical issue
in three of the areas.
Brief Summary and Self-Assessment
Psychology is a multifaceted field that has evolved through
contributions from ancient philosophers, key figures in the late 19th
century, and subsequent schools of thought. The origins of
psychology can be traced back to philosophers such as Plato and
Aristotle, who explored topics related to human nature and behavior.
Plato emphasized introspection and looking inward as a means to
attain knowledge, while Aristotle focused on external influences and
the role of experience in shaping behavior.
In the 17th century, Rene Descartes introduced mind-body dualism,
proposing that the mind and body are distinct yet interconnected.
This concept influenced theories of perception, emotion, and
behavior, highlighting the bidirectional relationship between the
mind and body.
The integration of physiological research methods in the late 19th
and early 20th centuries marked a significant shift in psychology.
Medical doctors with training in physiology began applying
scientific principles to psychological topics, leading to a more
systematic and empirical approach. This transformation allowed
researchers to study sensation, memory, and other mental processes
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through empirical observation, contributing to the emergence of
psychology as a scientific discipline.
Wilhelm Wundt is considered the founder of modern psychology.
He published the first psychology book, Principles of Physiological
Psychology, in 1874 and established the first psychological
laboratory in 1879 at the University of Leipzig. Wundt emphasized
the scientific exploration of conscious experience through
introspection, a method where individuals examine and report on
their own thoughts and feelings about conscious experiences.
However, introspection faced criticism due to its subjective nature
and varying results among different observers.
Edward Titchener developed structuralism, which aimed to break
down conscious experience into its fundamental elements such as
sensations, feelings, and images. Titchener also relied on
introspection as a method of study. William James and colleagues
developed functionalism as a response to the narrow scope of
Wundt and Titchener’s work. Functionalism focused on how the
mind of an organism adapted to the environment, expanding the
scope of psychology to include children, the mentally impaired, and
animals.
In the early 1920s, behaviorism emerged as a major shift in
psychology, led by John Watson. Behaviorists emphasized the
scientific study of behavior and rejected subjective procedures like
introspection. They focused on how behavior is acquired and
modified through learning, disregarding the role of the mind or
mental processes.
The reductionist view suggests that the brain is solely responsible
for all thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. It posits that understanding
the brain’s functioning will eventually lead to manipulating thought
processes through drugs, electric currents, and artificial sensory
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experiences. Reductionism aligns with the belief that psychology
will be reduced to biology and biology to chemistry as our
understanding of the brain advances.
Overall, psychology has a rich history intertwined with philosophy
and physiology. From its ancient roots to modern schools of
thought, the field continues to evolve, incorporating
interdisciplinary approaches and scientific methods to gain a deeper
understanding of human behavior.
1.Who is considered the founder of modern psychology?
a. Plato
b. Aristotle
c. Wilhelm Wundt
d. Sigmund Freud
Answer: c) Wilhelm Wundt
2. What method did Wundt develop to examine conscious
experience?
a) Behaviorism
b) Introspection
c) Structuralism
d) Functionalism
Answer: b) Introspection
3.Which school of thought focused on breaking down conscious
experience into its fundamental elements?
a. Behaviorism
b. Introspection
c. Functionalism
d. Structuralism
Answer: d) Structuralism
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4. Which school of thought emphasized the study of how the mind
adapts to the environment?
a. Structuralism
b. Introspection
c. Behaviorism
d. Functionalism
Answer: d) Functionalism
5. Reductionism in psychology suggests that:
a. The mind and brain are two different kinds of substances.
b. Consciousness is a byproduct of neural activity.
c. Psychology will eventually be reduced to biology.
d. Behavior is shaped by experience and external factors.
Answer: c) Psychology will eventually be reduced to biology.
AN ETHICS PRIMER
Scientific Practice and Ethics
Ethics is the study of right and wrong, or good and bad. Culture
sends mixed messages about what that means. On the one hand,
people tend to think right and wrong are just personal choices based
entirely on a person’s culture, upbringing, internal feelings, or
preferences. Is abortion okay? “Well, some people think it is and
others do not.” Is polygamy wrong? “It depends on your moral
code.” These kinds of responses make it seem as if there are no real
answers to questions about right and wrong. In short, they imply that
ethical answers are relative or subjective.
On the other hand, if we ask the right questions, we get very
different responses. Is racism okay? “No, absolutely not. We should
all be inclusive.” Is pedophilia wrong? “Yes, pedophiles should not
be able to act at will with children!” These kinds of responses make
it seem as if there are real answers. Ethical answers with this view
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are objective—they are true or false regardless of whether
people believe or practice them (Shafer-Landau, 2017, p. 597).
In this book, we work on the assumption that ethical answers are
objectively true or false, and they are not relative to individuals or
cultures. For example, even if an entire society and culture believed
that slavery was okay, we still think it would be unethical, or wrong.
Even if we assume ethics is objective, that does not make finding
ethical answers easy. Think about how we treat science. Science, as
most people believe, has objective answers. Earth is spherical even
if some (or even many) people believe it is flat. We believe,
similarly, in many scientific truths, but that does not mean that it has
been easy to find them. Some scientific truths have taken thousands
of years of investigation. (For example, for over 1,500 years, most
of the European civilization believed the sun orbited the earth.)
Even though we sometimes treat science as if we have discovered
everything there is to discover, this is far from the truth. We are
continually searching for new scientific truths, and we believe they
are “out there” for us to find. In this book, we treat ethics in a
parallel way. Right and wrong are not things we simply decide or
things our families and cultures can just tell us. We must
investigate; we have to work hard; and we have to discover what is
ethically true. Ethical truth, in other words, is out there in the world,
even though it can be really difficult to find it. This is why ethics is
so important in the study of psychology.
All forms of science can be useful and powerful. That we have such
power in our hands gives us the opportunity to do incredible good or
incredible evil. We will discuss
three main applications of ethics in psychology:
scientific discovery,
professional practice, and
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personal virtue.
Scientific Discovery and Ethical Practice
Most of the greatest atrocities of modern times have relied on the
tools of modern science. Modern weaponry alone has changed the
landscape of killing in war abroad and crime in our streets. We are
all familiar with the ways nuclear technology can be used as a threat
to humanity or how sophisticated weapons make it easier for those
with evil intent to commit terrible crimes. While those dangers are
important, they have become too familiar, especially in Hollywood
movies, and in many of our imaginations, they involve fields like
physics or chemistry—often portraying an evil scientist with
diabolical and criminal practices at the helm of a well-funded lab.
So, what do any of these dangers have to do with psychology? Well,
psychology has a checkered past, much like any other science.
Psychologists have conducted research in unethical ways.
Experiments with electroshock therapy, attempting to elicit
reactions by displaying progressively horrific images, lobotomy,
or even the use of orphans and other vulnerable populations are
all good reminders that the quest for discovery can sometimes
lead even well-meaning scientists astray. For example, in
experiments known as “Operation Midnight Climax,” the CIA
employed prostitutes in the 1950s and 60s to lure people into
safehouses where they would be administered drugs and
interrogated in the name of psychological discovery for the sake
of national security.
As another example, for over three decades, Dr. Walter Freeman
performed lobotomies by sticking a long narrow instrument
(like an ice pick) up through a patient’s eye socket to sever the
connection between the frontal lobes and the thalamus (Caruso
and Sheehan, 2017).
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You might further wonder what unethical experiments have to do
with more practices within the field of psychology. Most people
who study psychology will not end up conducting Nobel-prizewinning experiments. Even fewer will have the hubris to violate
experimental subjects ’rights just to produce novel results, but the
unethical behavior of individual researchers is not our only concern.
Anyone in the field is a representative of their community.
Psychology’s problems are problems for psychologists,
psychiatrists, neuroscientists, and counselors, at least to some
extent.
Public distrust in the sciences, for example, may affect public
opinion about psychology or general confidence in the effectiveness
of counseling. Trust in scientists has gone down in recent years
(Kennedy, 2022). It does not help that there has been a recent
high-profile “replication crisis” in psychology specifically that
has caused many to have negative perspectives about the
reliability of psychological science (Open Science Collaboration,
2015, p. 943). Anyone wishing to pursue a career in psychology
should be equipped with understanding and the ability to put
unethical conduct into perspective. What causes psychologists to
push the boundaries? Can we still use important data that is acquired
through unethical conduct? How do we talk about giants in the field
whose behavior raises serious ethical questions?
We need to take a sober look at unethical behavior from the past to
understand how we can proceed in a better way. This can only be
done if we have taken the time to consider some of these past
mistakes. For example, it is difficult to understand African
Americans ’distrust of general medical institutions unless you look
at the long history of mistreatment from medical professionals
toward the African American community in the last three centuries.
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In the twentieth century alone, there are shameful examples of
experimentation, neglect, and the violation of basic rights.
According to Pew Research, only 30% of Democrat or Democratleaning African Americans have “a great deal” of confidence in
medical scientists compared to 52% of Democrat or Democratleaning white Americans (Kennedy, 2022, p. 10).
Unethical behavior has long ripple effects in the sentiments of
cultures across the world. Deciding when to trust medical authorities
or scientists can turn on rumors and traditions that reverberate
through affected communities for decades or even centuries. This is
why ethics in scientific discovery is important for any practitioners
of the field, whether they work in a lab or with the daily concerns of
a steady clientele.
There are many mundane ethical decisions practitioners of
psychology must face on a regular basis. Sadly, many do not even
recognize them as ethical decisions at all. Because we worry so
much about high-stakes situations, like the patient who wishes to
self-harm, we forget to think through the things we encounter every
day. This brings us to the final application of ethics in psychology,
one that everyone faces inside or outside the field.
Personal Virtue
We all imagine ourselves on the right side of history when we are
not experiencing it in real time. Would you be a Nazi in 1930s
Germany? Of course not! If you were a physician treating a patient
from the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment (where researchers
persuaded physicians not to treat African American men who had
the disease) would you have the courage to stand up for them? Yes!
Who would not? Yet, we can say we would act ethically all we
want, and it means nothing until we are honest enough to admit our
weaknesses.
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The fact is people act according to their character. If you have a
habit of lying, you will continue to lie. That does not mean you will
lie all the time, or that you will not have occasional moments of
candor. However, it does mean that consistent lying leads to greater
ease of lying in the future (Garrett et al., 2016, p. 1727). There is
nothing surprising about this. The implications of this fact are
immense. We often think of ourselves as “the good guys.” We
imagine ourselves as having morally virtuous character, even though
the objective evidence is to the contrary (Tappin & McKay, 2016, p.
630). Numbers do not lie. If even slightly more than half of people
believe they are better than average, then at least some of them must
be wrong. It is up to psychology to figure out why we self-inflate
our character. However, as moral agents, it is up to us to work
harder to counteract that tendency and to be more honest with
ourselves about our vices (i.e., our moral weaknesses).
Here, an old principle from Aristotle is helpful. If you lack virtue in
some area, such as courage, then the world will look different for
you than it should. If you are a coward, then bravery will look
excessive to you (Aristotle, 1999, p. 28). You might see someone
bravely rush into a burning building to save lives and think, “That
person is rash! He is going to get himself killed!” When we have a
vice, virtue looks out of place. That is why it is so important to
think hard about our own character. Do you merely assume you are
brave, or do you have actual evidence of it? Look at your own
behavior. Do you merely assume you are honest, or have you
actually told the truth, even when it was hard? Aristotle’s insight is
that bad habits change everything about the way we see the world.
The only way to make progress is to first admit to ourselves the
uncomfortable truth that in some respects, we are not good people.
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It is incredibly important to recognize our weaknesses before we are
tested with moral choices. Perhaps we think of ourselves as good
people. By an assumed transitivity, we believe we will be good
counselors, scientists, or teachers. This is a basic mistake. Instead of
thinking about whether we meet the minimum threshold for
membership in the “good person” club, it may be more beneficial to
assume we have at least some bad habits. What are they? If we
recognize those bad habits early, then we can work on them before
we are burdened with great professional responsibility. We will be
ready when we get to a place where our behaviors will hugely affect
patients, coworkers, or subordinates who encounter our professional
activity. And this is the point. Whether we like it or not, who we are
as professionals cannot be completely separated from who we are as
private people.
Transitivity: A property or relationship in which if one thing is
related to a second thing, and the second thing is related to a
third thing, then the first thing is also related to the third thing.
Personal Application
Reflect upon your life so far and consider what your greatest
strengths and weaknesses are. How has experiencing your strengths
and weaknesses impacted your development and, specifically, your
ethical and moral development? If you could send a 300-word moral
or ethical message back in time to your younger self, what would
that message be?
Consider this example. In 2008, a study was conducted on the
publication of data relating to the effectiveness of antidepressants
through clinical trials (Turner et al., 2008). The authors found that
94% of the trials published conveyed a positive result. However,
the FDA registry for such studies indicated that only 51% of
trials related to these approved antidepressants reflected a
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positive result. The discrepancy is accounted for by the fact that
31% of drug trials registered by the FDA for these
antidepressants were never published.
Since publication is the only way such data are typically
communicated to the general public as well as to medical
professionals, the effectiveness of the antidepressants in question
was inaccurately perceived by many who would rely on the data in
making important decisions. We do not know, of course, what
motives come from authors, funding sources, journal editors, or
others involved in the publication process, but we can point out
some ways in which such a lack of full knowledge about
pharmaceutical effectiveness applies to ethics.
First, even if everyone in the publication process has good motives,
the system itself may cause problems in the administration of
prescription drugs. Who is at fault if a medical professional
prescribes such drugs inappropriately (or without conveying an
accurate measure of their effectiveness to the patient)? Should they
be checking the FDA database regularly to see whether the
published material is reflective of the full set of results? Should the
drug companies promoting the drug go out of their way to point out
the danger of misperceptions about its drug? Should they act
contrary to what is best for the shareholders, even if the
misperception is unrelated to any of their positive actions?
A second problem relates to ethics codes and legality. Professions
that require a lot of training often also place a heavier burden of
responsibility on their practitioners. So, legal requirements and
ethics codes can seem oppressive and difficult. They are also quite
helpful for keeping professionals within the scope of good practice.
In fact, there is no indication that the selective publishing described
above violates any law or ethical code. However, ethics is
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ultimately in the hands of each individual moral agent. Whether
we like it or not, we are responsible for the choices we make, and
even when we follow the guidelines before us, such as the law or
ethics codes, we still have not fulfilled our moral burden. We must
think beyond these to determine the right course of action.
Finally, public perception is important in ethical practice. We may
not be misrepresenting the effectiveness of most drugs, but for
psychological treatments to be effective, there must be enough
public trust in the practice. If there is not, then whatever effective
treatments exist are useless if no one is willing to utilize them. There
are some fairly subtle ways that industrial interests can undermine
public trust. They may encourage consent or dissent that is favorable
to those interests even when they are not reliable, or they may rely
on a narrow understanding of trustworthiness (e.g., complying with
formalized/standardized procedures) when we have good reason to
suspect the process is unreliable in any particular instance (Pinto,
2020).
Biblical Integration
One of the important attributes of critical thinking is critical
feedback. What is the point of seeing a situation that is not optimal
and then keeping it to yourself? But unfortunately, that is the most
common response, it seems. For example, in nearly every new hire
onboarding training are processes and procedures for ethical
conduct. What those trainings do not actually accomplish is
helping people create effective strategies for critical feedback as
well as navigate intrapersonal and interpersonal discomfort.
Ethical behavior and thoughtful reflection are qualities that improve
with practice and feedback. If unethical behavior, even small, was
challenged earlier on, then it is very likely that many people would
behave more ethically. Just building a culture of pro-ethics instead
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of anti-wrong would help. People who engage in unethical behavior
do so, in part, because they have not been challenged on it or have
not been challenged on it in ways that are effective. Foundational to
academic and scientific work are critical feedback and the peerreview process. Doing this correctly starts with a change in spirit
from one focused on discipline to one focused on discipleship.
The Bible has a lot to say about ethical behavior and provides strong
recommendations for engaging with others. One of the reasons
people find it hard to correct others is because they do not want
to be corrected themselves. So, one of the best approaches if you
are a leader is to create an environment where feedback—critical
feedback—is the norm. Another reason people find it hard to
correct others is because of the pervasive notion of not judging
others. So, one of the approaches is for leadership to create an
environment where they model the highest ethical standards. This is
not to say that if you are not doing either of those activities, you
should not address unethical, immoral, or illegal behavior—you
should. It will be easier to do so though if you are living according
to the Scriptures. The first set of Scriptures is for you to help reset
yourself and the second set of Scriptures is for you to help reset
others.
Psalm 25
Teach Me Your Paths
1 To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
2 O my God, in you I trust;
let me not be put to shame;
let not my enemies exult over me.
3 Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame;
they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.
4 Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
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teach me your paths.
5 Lead me in your truth and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all the day long.
6 Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love,
for they have been from of old.
7 Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
according to your steadfast love remember me,
for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!
8 Good and upright is the Lord;
therefore, he instructs sinners in the way.
9 He leads the humble in what is right,
and teaches the humble his way.
10 All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,
for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.
Galatians 6:1-10
1 Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are
spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on
yourself, lest you too be tempted. 2 Bear one another’s burdens, and
so fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if anyone thinks he is something,
when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 But let each one test his
own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and
not in his neighbor. 5 For each will have to bear his own load.
6 Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the
one who teaches. 7 Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for
whatever one sows, that will he also reap. 8 For the one who sows to
his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who
sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. 9 And let us
not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we
do not give up. 10 So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to
everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
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Setting yourself right before God is important but so is helping set
someone else right before God. The person you challenge may not
thank you at that moment, but if they follow your correction, they
surely will eventually. Even if you are not thanked and their
behavior is unchanged, it is important to practice humble, critical
feedback.
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ETHICS OVERVIEW
Introduction
Traditionally,
ethics (i.e., moral philosophy) is
split into three categories:
metaethics,
normative ethics, and
practical ethics (also sometimes referred to as applied ethics).
Metaethics asks the most basic questions about the nature of ethics.
Metaethicists (i.e., people who practice metaethics) attempt to find
answers about what moral judgments really are, how they function
in linguistic expression, what their relationship to truth is, and other
subject matter broadly related to ethics.
Normative ethics moves the discussion to more fine-grained
questions about how we determine the status of ethical claims,
judgments, or principles. Ethicists on this level seek to find answers
about the best ways to understand the basis of our firmly held moral
judgments. What makes a person’s claim that “torture is wrong” true
or effective? Is there an overlap in the features that ground that
claim and those that ground other firmly held judgments? Various
theories seek to answer these questions and thereby offer a practical
guide for how to conduct oneself in a morally good way.
Finally, practical ethics seeks to find answers to ethical questions at
the most practical level. This usually involves addressing nuances of
a particular arena of human action. For example, the decisions made
by physicians or nurses might look very different from those made
by a businessperson. Nurses do not typically have to think about the
stakeholders of the organization they work for (though they are
often limited in their capacity to act by decisions made by those who
do consider stakeholders).
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Metaethics: The study of the theoretical foundations of ethics,
including the metaphysical, epistemological, psychological, and
linguistic presuppositions of the study and practice of ethics.
Normative ethics: The study of the criteria of right and wrong
(or good and bad) actions, intentions, or character.
Practical ethics: The study of right and wrong (or good and bad)
actions, intentions, or character in particular circumstances, on
particular subjects, or within particular areas of academic,
professional, or personal life.
The relationships between these three categories of ethics (Table
1.6) and the boundaries of each are quite controversial. Some ethical
theories may transcend these boundaries. For example, Divine
Command Theory rests on the claim that actions are right or
wrong insofar as they are commanded by God (or loved or
endorsed by God). This might be a normative theory because it
points to a feature that unifies all moral judgments, thus giving
us a guiding principle for morality. According to Divine
Command Theory, why is it wrong to torture? Because as a
principle, it is wrong to do what God commands us not to do,
and God has commanded us not to torture. Divine Command
Theory might also function on a different level as a metaethical
theory because it explains the nature of morality. What do we
mean by moral “rightness” or “goodness”? Just that those
actions, intentions, or habits have the property of being in
accordance with God’s commands.
Table 1.6
Brief Overview of the Three Categories of Ethics
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METAETHICS
Some Questions in Metaethics
1.What are moral judgments? Are they statements of fact?
Emotional responses? Commands?
2.Is there moral truth? Are there objectively true moral claims,
independent of people’s preferences or beliefs?
3.What are the foundations of moral statements? God’s commands?
Social agreement? Natural features of the universe?
*There is a bit of controversy over whether social and political
philosophy is a subdiscipline of ethics. Some consider it a sui
generis or independent field of normative philosophy.
It is also debatable how the three categories interact. There is
undoubtedly some interaction among them, but is it a necessary
interaction and under what conditions does one category affect
another? One example of controversy is whether we should call the
bottom level of ethics “practical” or “applied.” Some
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philosophers object to the term “applied” because it indicates
we are taking a theory from above—a normative theory—and
simply using its principles in a particular arena of action down
below, in a specific field of practical ethics. For example, if ethics
in medicine (i.e., biomedical ethics) is “applied” in this way, we
might conclude that doctors should just act according to our
preferred normative theory. Therefore, biomedical ethics is
dependent on and subservient to our normative theory. However,
many practical ethicists object to the idea that there is any such
dependency. In fact, some postulate that lower-level ethics, like
biomedical ethics, might be just as influential, or more, on
normative ethics than the other way around. For example, if we are
very confident that a doctor should not do some action, X, but a
normative theory says the doctor should do X, well, maybe that
normative theory is not our best option. In any case, philosophers
disagree on how the three categories of ethics interact.
Nevertheless, these categories are widely used, at least for practical
reasons. Most of the discussion in this book centers on normative
and practical ethics. This is partly because cognitive psychology as
taught is a practical endeavor. Given its practical nature, it is
probably more fruitful to see connections between cognitive
psychology and ethics on a practical level all around. Having said
that, there will be some exploration into metaethics. In fact, there
already has been some at the very beginning of this section of this
chapter. The discussion of the “Scientific Practice and Ethics”
section above begins with a metaethical question—whether there are
objectively true moral standards. Below, we turn to normative
ethical theories.
Normative Ethics
Since normative ethics plays a significant role in this textbook, it is
important to give a brief overview of some of the major theories in
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use today. In this chapter, we discuss all three of the normative
ethics categories. First, utilitarianism in its modern form was
most famously endorsed by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart
Mill, English philosophers of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Bentham is famous for developing the hedonistic calculus, the
basic principle underlying his form of utilitarianism, which says
that pleasure determines moral good. Actions are right insofar
as they promote “the greatest happiness of the greatest number
[of people],” where happiness is just the presence of pleasure
and the absence of pain (Bentham, 1891 p. 93). Thus, to
determine the right act in a given situation, we must figure out the
consequences of the act.
This is where the term “consequentialism” applies.
Consequentialism is a family of theories that define right action
according to its consequences (Anscombe, 1958, p. 12). As a
theory that determines right action solely by its production of
pleasure, utilitarianism is a famous example of consequentialism.
There are other consequentialist theories as well. For example,
egoism may also take pleasure in being what makes actions right,
but its concern is only with the actor’s pleasure, not the pleasure of
the greatest number of people. If you are an egoist, you do not
care about others ’pleasure, only your own. If you are a
utilitarian, you care about your pleasure and everyone else’s as
well. So, utilitarianism is one form of consequentialism that
many ethicists have found to be appealing.
Mill departed from Bentham in a few ways. First, he
distinguished between quantity of pleasure and quality of
pleasure. For Bentham, it seems the pleasure calculus is
simple—the more the better. Mill noticed that there is
something unique about different kinds of pleasures. Can we just
compare the pleasure amounts of watching a well-crafted film and
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eating cotton candy? Even if you get a lot of pleasure from eating
cotton candy, is it really as good as watching a great film? Mill
thought there were higher and lower pleasures (Mill, 2001, p. 89). This might explain why people can sometimes go for extended
periods without food if they are engaged in a fulfilling activity.
They would prefer to experience a more fulfilling pleasure, even if
they get a lot of pleasure from eating. For Mill, the higher pleasures
are associated with intellectual activities (i.e., those that engage the
“higher faculties”) and the lower with non-intellectual activities. It
is preferable, according to Mill, to experience the higher pleasures
over the lower ones, though he did not work out in great detail how
this works in practice.
Another disagreement between Mill and Bentham is whether the
focus of a utility calculation should be on individual acts or broader
rules that govern individual acts. Act Utilitarianism, endorsed by
Bentham, indicates that we should assess the morality of individual
acts by each of their individual sets of consequences, by their ability
to promote the greatest pleasure compared to alternatives. We
should only care about this act in particular, not the general practice
of acting this way. Rule Utilitarianism, arguably endorsed by Mill,
indicates that actions are right if they comply with rules that would
if followed, promote the greatest pleasure. Imagine a set of rules that
would create the most pleasure for the greatest number. Does the act
comply with that set of rules? Then it is right.
Briefly, you can see how these come apart. You might think that as
a policy it is bad to lie to your friends just for your own benefit. If
you believe that this rule would produce the most pleasure
compared to other rules about honesty and then you always follow
the rule, even when you think it might produce more pleasure to
violate it on occasion, then you are using Rule Utilitarianism.
However, if you violate the rule at times when you know it will
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produce more pleasure to violate it than to follow it, you are
really (ideally) assessing each act individually and using Act
Utilitarianism.
There are some perceived problems with accounts like
utilitarianism. Perhaps the most significant is that it is difficult for
utilitarianism to account for justice, specifically the protection
of rights (Rawls, 1999, p. 23-24). To use a famous example, is it
right for a surgeon with five patients who are dying of organ failure
to kill a healthy individual of the same blood type to harvest his
organs and save the five? (Thomson, 1985, p. 1396). If you are an
Act Utilitarian, as long as the conditions are right, it is difficult
to say why the surgeon should not do it. Especially if the
patients are contributing members of society, their lives will
probably produce more pleasure overall than the one whose
organs are harvested. The temptation is to say that it could never
happen that way, and there are probably very few instances that are
even close to something like that in real life. However, the point of
the hypothetical is to expose a flaw in utilitarianism, whether
anything like that would ever happen or not. The point is that you
should feel a revulsion to the very idea of organ harvesting for the
purpose of pleasure production. The fact that we are even
considering it seems contrary to justice.
Mill attempted to solve some of these problems with Rule
Utilitarianism. Justice, he believed, could be accounted for by
appealing to rules that would produce the most amount of
pleasure. As a general rule, it is not pleasure-increasing to go
around harvesting the organs of innocent people so that others can
be saved. In fact, that kind of practice sounds dystopian and
intensely frightening. So, according to Mill, we can come up with
principles of justice by thinking about the most pleasure-producing
rules and following those without deviation. There are objections to
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his view and much literature about whether Rule Utilitarianism is
workable, but such matters are beyond the scope of this text.
While concerns about justice were part of the motivation for Mill to
develop Rule Utilitarianism, there is a more straightforward
response in Deontology. Deontological ethics define right action
in terms of what corresponds to duties, or moral requirements.
This means that right or wrong action can sometimes be right or
wrong entirely independent of the consequences. It might be
wrong for you to take someone else’s property even if you would
get much more pleasure from it than they do. The wrongness of
your taking it might have nothing to do with the pleasure that
would be gained or lost. It is just not right.
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher who did most of his
work in the 18th century. He believed that moral duties could be
derived from principles of rationality for any rational being, and his
work produced a long line of adherents to what we now call
Kantianism. He is famous for developing the idea of the
Categorical Imperative—a requirement that is not dependent on
your plans, desires, preferences, or whatever. It is a requirement
for any rational being regardless of their particular goals. While
he characterized the Categorical Imperative in a number of
ways, here we just focus on two.
First, he says you should “act only in accordance with that maxim
through which you can at the same time will that it become a
universal law” (Kant, 2008, p. 31). A “maxim” is just the rule by
which you act, including your reasons for doing it. If you cannot
rationally take that rule (i.e., the maxim) and have everyone else
act similarly, it is morally prohibited. To take an example from
Kant, can you borrow money from another with the intention of not
paying it back? The rule or “maxim” of your action is just that it is
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okay to borrow money with the intention of not paying it back on
the basis of your self-benefit. Now, as long as you are the only one
doing it, there are no problems with rationality. You get their
money, and you do not even have to pay it back. But imagine if
everyone did it. What would happen? Kant points out two problems.
First, your main motivation for borrowing with the intention of not
paying it back is to benefit yourself at the expense of others.
However, if everyone acted that way, then anytime you lent money
out, you would also not get paid back. Thus, universalizing that rule
would undermine your self-benefit, which was the very motivation
for doing it in the first place. Additionally, the very notion of
borrowing would be undermined if everyone acted that way. The
whole basis for the social practice of borrowing money is the
promise and assurance that the lender will get it back. Yet, if
everyone “borrows” money with the intention of not paying it back,
it is not really borrowing at all. In fact, we would have completely
eliminated the practice of borrowing from society. So, says Kant, it
is wrong to borrow money with the intention of not paying it back.
The maxim above also fails on another formulation of Kant’s
Categorical Imperative. He writes, “So act that you use
humanity...always at the same time as an end, never merely as a
means” (Kant, 2008, p. 38). In other words, in any interaction you
have with others, you must act consistently with their goals, not
simply your own. When we borrow with the intention of not
paying it back, we treat the lender as a means of achieving our
own goals, but their welfare is completely ignored. If we were to
imagine what they want, we would realize that they would not give
us the money in the first place if they knew we did not plan to pay it
back. If they did not expect it back, they would have just given it as
a gift. So, by using the language of borrowing, we know that the
person has as their goal to receive that money back. Thus, it would
be wrong for us to borrow it and not pay it back.
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There are, of course, problems with Kantianism as well as
utilitarianism. Nonetheless, these theories make up the most
widely defended versions of deontology and consequentialism,
respectively. Kantianism’s focus is on moral duties that are not
always determined by consequences. Utilitarianism’s focus is
entirely on the consequences of our actions. Kantianism and
utilitarianism dominated philosophy in the English-speaking
world for much of the 19th and early 20th centuries. However, a
revival of an ancient ethical framework occurred in the second
half of the 20th century, to which we turn now.
A third major category of ethics focuses on virtue. While there are
many types of virtue ethics, the most widely known comes from
the ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle. Aristotle’s unique kind
of virtue ethics is what we call Eudaimonism. The word comes
from the Greek, “eudaimonia.” Eudaimonia, often translated
simply as “happiness,” is a fuller sense of happiness, well-being,
or thriving. Aristotle hypothesized that humans are directed toward
a certain kind of life, and it is morally better to live consistently
with that “end” or goal. The best kind of life for humans, what
makes us unique from other creatures, is the life of virtue. The life
of virtue is fine, pleasant, and beneficial. It is also characterized by
patterns or habits of action, not just singular actions and not a
person’s inherited capabilities. Just like you cannot be said to be a
good guitar player without practice and continual play, you cannot
be virtuous without practice and continual virtuous habits of action.
What makes us able to do this is that we are creatures of reason and
self-reflection; we do not act primarily on instinct like other
creatures.
Virtue is also inexact, according to Aristotle. Now, we must be
careful not to read that to mean it is arbitrary because it is not. He
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means it is inexact in the same way as medicine—where health
looks different in different people and there may be slightly
different ways to be healthy. Imagine two friends, one seven feet tall
and 250 pounds, and the other five feet tall and 105 pounds. The
doctor tells a seven-foot-tall person to consume around 3,500
calories per day. If that friend reports the recommendation to their
five-foot-tall friend, should that friend also consume 3,500 calories
per day? Of course not. Yet just because the amount they consume
is different does not mean it is arbitrary. In fact, what makes us
distinctive physically is what makes our standards of health
appropriate. This is also true of virtues. If you encounter someone
being mugged in an ally, should you intervene? Well, it depends. If
you are very good at recognizing danger, if you have a strong ability
to de-escalate stressful situations, if you are a good fighter, then
perhaps you should intervene. If none of that characterizes you, then
perhaps the virtuous thing is to call for help and just try to distract
the mugger. But just because virtue calls one person to intervene
and another to find other means does not make virtue arbitrary.
Aristotle attempts to capture virtue by the Golden Mean. Every
virtue, he says, lies between a vice of excess and a vice of
deficiency. The excesses and deficiencies are identified relative to
the specific element about which behavior is virtuous or vicious. For
example, bravery is a virtue relating to courage. To be virtuous, you
should neither have too much courage nor too little. You can have
too much courage either by (1) having courage about the right kind
of thing, but having too much of it, or (2) by having courage about
the wrong kind of thing. It is virtuous to have courage in battle but
not if you have so much that you rush irrationally into extremely
dangerous situations. It would also be a mistake to have the courage
to swim in a vat of hungry sharks just for the pure adrenaline rush.
For bravery, then, we might call the vice of excess rashness and
the vice of deficiency cowardice. You cannot live virtuously by
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being rash or by being a coward. Instead, you should have measured
courage in the right kinds of situations.
The cultivation of virtues is also supposed to be action-guiding,
according to Aristotle. If you want to know what you ought to do in
a particular situation, try to imagine what a virtuous person would
do. Do you want to know what is generous at this moment? Imagine
a generous person. That person will not be stingy but will also not
be wasteful. The person will probably not give money to anyone but
will not hoard it either. That is how we determine the right action.
While Aristotle gave examples of specific virtues, others have added
virtues, such as simplicity (Gambrel & Cafaro, 2012, p. 324) or
benevolence (Hursthouse, 1999, p. 8). Additionally, a tradition has
emerged relating twentieth-century feminist critiques of
deontological and consequentialist theories with a refocus on virtues
of care. The ethics of care tradition focuses on virtues related
specifically to relationships, such as sympathy, compassion, fidelity,
love, and friendship. These virtues, according to ethics of care, have
been seriously neglected in the literature on ethics (partly because
ethics was dominated by masculine virtues leading up to the midtwentieth century) (see Gilligan, 1987).
Personal Application
Think about a fairly uncontroversial moral claim, such as, “It is
usually wrong to torture, and always wrong to do it just for fun.”
Think of why this claim might be true according to some of the
major moral theories discussed above. Why might it be true
according to utilitarianism? How about Kantianism? Virtue ethics?
Are there any subtle differences between the way each of these
might have to change the claim in order to accept it?
Critical and Ethical Thinking and Science
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To be clear, critical and ethical thinking cannot be separated from
science. Effective learning and thinking often start with questions,
not answers. An important way to create active engagement is to
frequently ask questions about the content. So much of psychology
and ethics is not well-defined or absolute. Science is imperfect and
ethics is complex, so being able to think critically will do much to
advance your learning and thinking. There are several strategies for
critical thinking, but for now, let us keep it simple. You probably
learned way back in grade school how to think like a journalist or
detective, and this is a natural extension of that strategy. It is the
Who, What, Where, When, Why, How, and Are approach (Figure
1.4 and Table 1.7).
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Figure 1.4
The Who, What, Where, When, Why, How, and Are Approach to
Critical Thinking
Table 1.7
Overview of the Who, What, Where, When, Why, How, and Are
Approach to Critical Thinking
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François-Marie Arouet, who wrote under the widely known
pseudonym, Voltaire, was born on November 21, 1694, in Paris,
France, and died on May 30, 1778. He was considered one of the
greatest of all French writers. Voltaire had a famous quote that
seems especially fitting. He said, “Judge a man by his questions
rather than his answers.” It is impossible to know everything, and
it is equally impossible to know if everything we know is correct—
especially in science when facts evolve with improvements in
research. Therefore, fundamental to advancing science and ethics is
being able to ask good questions. Critical thinking might be one of
the most important skills you can develop across your education and
will serve you well, given how fast information is being presented
across various mediums like radio, television, internet, apps, etc.
The list of questions above should be very helpful as you go through
this book, specifically in addressing many contemporary ethical
issues.
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COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY IN THE REAL WORLD
Conceptual Approaches to Understanding
VIDEO
[In the 1970s and 1980s, a man named David Marr developed an
interesting way of looking at phenomena in science. Marr, a
neuroscientist interested in vision, was concerned with finding a
great way to describe the entire process of vision, from the bottom
to the very top. In order to describe the entire process, he soon
realized that he needed to think about vision as a system.
Specifically, it was an information processing system. Humans
take in information from the environment (light waves), then
process the information on biological structures in the eye
(retinas), and then finally process the information in ways that
can be useful for solving day-to-day problems (visual
perception).
To Marr, this was a clear case of something known as “multiple
levels of explanation.” Basically, there are many ways of
explaining the same phenomenon, and all are necessary to fully
understand it. However, in the realm of science, a particular
researcher may only focus on one level of explanation and then
later collaborate with others who are approaching the same
problem from a different level of explanation. Marr (1982) laid
out his framework to include three different levels of
explanation (Figure 1.5).
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be a very
complicated problem to solve; however, as you will discover in this
book, the rewards of many experiments show us that the human
mind is more fascinating than you can imagine!
The lowest level of explanation, according to Marr, is the physical
level. This is where we try to explain in a very concrete way where
an event is occurring. For our example, this might involve
neuroscientists exploring the literal changes in neuron structure and
function (a process called long-term potentiation), which
accompany the learning of new information.
Marr’s tri-level hypothesis is one of several different ways to
conceptualize the role of cognitive psychology in the larger field of
psychological science, or even science in general. It also shows how
different areas of psychology can help one another. In the example
of memory, evolutionary psychologists, cognitive psychologists, and
neuroscientists may all be studying the same problem but from
different perspectives. More importantly, the framework also clearly
points to the problem cognitive psychologists are uniquely trained to
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solve: How does the human mind really work? Therefore, just like
you may have been as a child who was curious about a new toy,
cognitive psychologists like to carefully look at things and try to
figure out how they work. Of course, unlike curious children, we do
not pull apart our participants to see how they work! We will look at
some examples of research from the past and present.
Training and Automaticity
Let us take a brief look at some examples of cognitive psychology
research. The first example dates back to 1935. In a series of
experiments, J. Ridley Stroop (1935) wanted to know what would
occur when a person was presented with a color word (e.g., red)
written in an incongruent ink color (e.g., green) (Figure 1.6). Would
the participants be able to ignore the interfering task? It was
considered an inference task because reading, after much training,
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practice, and experience, becomes automatic, at least in terms of
individual word identification.
For the first experiment, Stroop (1935) had a group of participants
read the words for Stimuli 1 (black ink) and Stimuli 2 (incongruent
ink). Interestingly, results showed no difference between these two
types of stimuli in terms of reaction time. That is, participants did
not demonstrate any challenges reading the color words when
printed in black or in a color inconsistent with the semantic meaning
of the word. Subsequently, Stroop had a group of participants
indicate the color of the ink used for each word (Stimuli 2) and for
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each set of blocks (Stimuli 3). The participants had to say the color
independent of the word written for Stimuli 2 and indicate the color
of the set of blocks. Unlike the first task, results for the second
experiment showed a large difference between Stimuli 2 and
Stimuli 3 in terms of reaction time. Specifically, participants had
a difficult time saying the color of the ink for Stimuli 2 as
compared to saying the color of the ink for Stimuli 3, leading to
longer reaction times. Stroop reasoned that the trained,
automatic response of reading was interfering with the
identification of the printed word’s ink color. Stroop’s study has
seen many variations since its original publication almost 80 years
ago. In fact, researchers have used a version of the Stroop Task
in well over 700 research experiments!
Framing and Decision-Making
Another well-known study in cognitive psychology is on judgment
and decision-making. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky (1984)
were interested in knowing if how a situation is presented to people
will impact the decisions that people make. Specifically, they asked
participants to imagine the United States was preparing for an
outbreak of an unusual disease, which was expected to kill 600
people. Next, they presented participants with two alternative
programs to combat the disease.
1.Option A: 200 lives will be saved.
2.Option B: 1/3 probability that 600 lives will be saved and a 2/3
probability that no people will be saved.
Results indicated most participants preferred Option A. What is
interesting, though, is the decision participants made when
presented with Options C and D.
1.Option C: 400 people will die.
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2.Option D: 1/3 probability that nobody will die and 2/3 probability
that 600 people will die.
In this situation, most participants preferred Option D. This is
surprising because Options A and C are identical in terms of the
number of lives saved. These results support the idea that
individuals ’decisions are impacted depending on how the situation
is framed. This is known as the framing effect, and we will
examine it in more detail later in this book. A great example of
the framing effect is noted in the picture below. If you had to select
one of the three ice creams with overall health in mind, which one
would you select and why? This is a powerful and frequently used
marketing tool.]1
Fallibility of Memory
Another example of research by cognitive psychologists explores
how our memory of events can change over time and even how false
memories can be created. Loftus and Pickrell (1995) asked 24
participants to recall childhood events. Participants were told the
events were provided to the researchers by a close relative. Three of
the four events were true while the fourth event was a false story
created by the researchers, and this made-up story was about being
lost in a shopping mall. The participants listened to all the stories
and were asked to write as many details about all events as possible.
Later, the participants were interviewed about the four events. When
asked to write about the events, seven of the 24 participants
remembered being lost in a shopping mall, although their relatives
confirmed participants had never been lost. In subsequent
interviews, six of the 24 participants continued to report details
surrounding the memory of the false event. This was one of the first
studies documenting the fallibility of memories, and this has
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important implications for our legal system, which relies on
eyewitness testimony.
Eyewitness testimony is a hallmark in our collective cultural psyche.
Just consider the relative comparison between how many times you
have actually been in a courtroom versus the number of times you
have seen it in a movie or on television. When we think about a
courtroom criminal case, we often also think about a savvy attorney
asking an eyewitness, on the stand and under oath, several questions
about their memory of events for a crime. There are, of course, some
discrepancies between real-life court cases and these fictionalized
versions on television and other forms of media. However, we still
have an uneasy relationship with eyewitness testimony in court
cases.
Robberies, assaults, and many other types of crimes occur quickly
and often without any type of warning. They also often occur in the
evening or at night and in areas with low levels of light. These
qualities exacerbate the intensity of surprise the victim or bystander
feels during the criminal act. While memory is obviously important
to accurately recalling these events, an often missed and critical
cognitive process that is missed is attention.
A recent meta-analysis (Marr et al., 2021) demonstrated that
high-stress situations may lead to lower identification accuracy
in eyewitness memory for faces. This reduction in memory is
also observed for eyewitness recall. Why? This has to do with
the hijacking of attentional resources during a stressful event.
When stress is at a very high level, this can reduce attentional
resources, thus resulting in less focus on any single event in the
surrounding environment. Since attention is an important
component of the encoding process in memory, limiting attentional
resources through stress can impair encoding and ultimately result in
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a diminished ability to retrieve accurate and detailed memories of an
event later.
Why is this important? It is important because most situations
involving robbery—and other crimes—also involve a high level of
stress or anxiety on the part of victims or even bystanders. This high
level of stress can have impairments on memory. Since eyewitness
memory can be an important piece in locating and convicting a
person in a criminal case, the accuracy of those memories should
always be assessed. Psychologists have also used information about
trauma and stress to create better treatments for those who have
experienced trauma including cognitive behavioral therapy and,
even more broadly, having a trauma-informed perspective of care.
This is an example of how cognitive psychologists can contribute to
serious discussions in the arenas normally reserved for experts in
criminal justice.
Crisis and Trauma Cognition*
Kenyon Knapp, Ph.D., LPC
Dean of the School of Behavioral Sciences, Liberty University
A crisis is by definition when an event or situation exceeds the
person’s current resources and coping mechanisms (Kleespies,
2009), and crises usually precede trauma. Trauma is “an
experience that causes a person to feel afraid, overwhelmed, out
of control, and broken. Trauma affects how people view
themselves, others, and the world around them” (Corrado,
2020). Crises and traumas can come from multiple sources, such
as a sudden health crisis, sexual assault, domestic violence,
school violence, natural disasters such as an earthquake or
hurricane, death of a loved one (particularly if it is a spouse or a
child), or a host of other situations. It is significant that every
year, millions of people experience the same crises and traumas
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and yet have very different reactions and outcomes to these
events. This is because how each of us perceives the crisis plays a
major role in how detrimental or even beneficial the given crisis
is for us (Callahan, 2009, p. 21).
Think about a crisis or trauma in your life…how did you react to it?
Did you believe that you were helpless, that this was a personal
attack on you because of some characteristic about you, that the
crisis would never end, and/or that this would ruin all your future
dreams? Or, did you view this as bad but something you could learn
from, something that was going to grow you as a person, and/or
something that God must have allowed for some reason or greater
purpose? This is the difference between those who suffer and then
descend into depression and other diagnosable conditions and those
who suffer and then experience“ Post-Traumatic Growth”
(Calhoun & Tedeschi, 1998).
This crucial difference in how people perceive a crisis or trauma is
an illustration of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), the most
research-validated theoretical approach in the mental health
field. CBT is very useful and effective in treating trauma
survivors (Aten, 2012) by helping them cope with trauma
symptoms, posttraumatic stress, anxiety, and depression
(Hamblen et al., 2006; Taylor & Weems, 2011). Fortunately, the
breadth, depth, and efficacy of trauma treatments have
increased dramatically in the last decade, both in assisting people
in finding meaning in their traumas and in symptom reduction.
Any discussion of crisis and trauma cognition also needs to address
how trauma burns the memory into our brains, and at the same time,
often blurs or distorts the memory. When confronted by a
threatening or actual traumatic situation, our brains pour epinephrine
(also known as adrenaline) into our bodies, triggering fast increases
in blood pressure, heart rate, and increased lung capacity, which
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sends more oxygen to the brain and increases the sharpness of sight,
hearing, and other senses (Harvard Medical School, 2020). It would
seem logical to assume that increased oxygen to the brain would
consistently produce more accurate cognitions, but this is often not
the case. Loftus (2019) notes that when research participants
watched a 30-second video of a bank robbery, the average
participant said the robbery lasted 147 seconds, and a follow-up
replication study found that 152 seconds was the participants ’
average estimation of the time. Traumatic moments often feel
‘slow motion ’in the memory of the traumatized person. Bornstein
(2017) found that when a weapon was present during a crime, it
decreased the ability of the witness to accurately identify a
perpetrator.
In more extreme abuse cases, victims frequently experience
depersonalization (a sense of being separated from your body
and watching your abuse occur, as if it were someone else),
derealization (a sense that what is occurring must not be real),
or other survival mechanism distortions such as Stockholm
Syndrome (where the victim develops a strong emotional bond
with the abuser [Brewster, 2002), such as the Elizabeth Smart
case]. Trauma experts theorize that depersonalization and
derealization are merciful, unconscious coping mechanisms that our
brains shift to when the present moment is too painful for the person
to fully experience in the moment. Later, with trauma-informed
therapy, the victim is often able to consciously reintegrate these
experiences that their brain segmented off in various ways.
Traumatic events cause people to ruminate about them as they try to
make sense of what happened. This rumination can be automatic in
the form of PTSD-style uncontrolled flashbacks, or more controlled
deliberate rumination where the person (often best done with a
trauma-informed therapist) consciously chooses to think about the
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trauma and cope with the memory in a better way. For many
Christians, their faith serves as a strong resiliency factor
(Pargament & Cummings, 2010) by helping them cope, make
meaning, adapt, or even grow from a difficult experience. Some
Christians take on the perspective of Paul, who said in 2
Corinthians 4:16-18 “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though
outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being
renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are
achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So
we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since
what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (New
International Bible).
You can see Paul’s perception of the crisis here is in a posttraumatic
growth perspective as he refers to “momentary troubles are
achieving for us an eternal glory,” and later when he says, “we fix
our eyes.” This is equivalent to deliberate rumination on the
redemptive process in his troubles. For a Christian, faith in the love
and purposes of God is also highly predictive of resiliency and
posttraumatic growth, though in no way denying or diminishing the
actual suffering.
The common refrain from all those who suffer is, “Why?” The
logical response for a person of faith is to develop their
theodicy—the theological explanation for the problem of evil
and suffering in the world (Aten et al., 2017). Developing a
comprehensive, coherent, and durable theodicy is a necessary
and bumpy process for most people, but many classic books
have developed on this topic over the millennia. Reading those
often helps people with this process. Having a ‘ministry of
presence’—being with someone through a very dark period, not
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with the ‘right words ’but with sincere empathy, listening, and
time—often gives the support the struggling person needs.
References
Aten, J.D. (2012). Disaster spiritual and emotional care in
professional psychology: A Christian integrative approach. Journal
of Psychology & Theology, 40, 131-35.
Aten, J.D., Schruba, A., Entwistle, D.N., Davis, E.B., Ranter, J.,
Hwang, J., Hook, J.N., Wang, D.C., Davis, D.E., & Van Tongeren,
D.R. (2017). In Gingrich, H.D. & Gingrich, F.C. (Eds.) Treating
trauma in Christian Counseling. Intervarsity Press Academic.
Bornstein, B. (2017). Popular myths about memory. Lexington
Books.
Brewster, M.P. (2002). Domestic violence theories, research, and
practice implications. In A.R. Roberts (Ed.) Handbook of domestic
violence: Intervention strategies (pp. 23-48). Oxford University
Press.
Calhoun, L. G., & Tedeschi, R. G. (1998). Posttraumatic growth:
Future directions. In R. G. Tedeschi, C. L. Park, & L. G. Calhoun
(Eds.), Posttraumatic growth: Positive changes in the aftermath of
crisis (pp. 215-238). Lawrence Erlbaum.
Callahan, J. (2009). Emergency intervention and crisis intervention.
In P.M. Kleespies (Ed.), Behavioral emergencies: An evidencebased resource for evaluating and managing risk of suicide,
violence, and victimization (pp.13-32). American Psychological
Association.
Corrado, M. (2020). Stress, Crisis & Trauma: Supporting
Individuals in Distress. Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and
Practice. https://www.ctipp.org/post/stress-crisis-and-traumasupporting-individuals-in-distress
Hamblen, J.L., Gibson, L.E., Mueser, K.T., & Norris, F.H. (2006).
Cognitive behavior therapy for prolonged disaster distress. Journal
of Clinical Psychology, 62, 1043-52.
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Harvard Medical School (2020, July 6). Understanding the stress
response. Harvard Health Publishing.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding-thestress-response
Kleespies, P.M. (2009). Behavioral emergencies: An evidencebased resources for evaluating and managing risk of suicide,
violence, and victimization. American Psychological Association.
Loftus, E.F. (2019). Eyewitness testimony. Applied Cognitive
Psychology, 33, 498-503.
New International Bible. (2011). The NIV Bible.
https://www.thenivbible.com (Original work published 1978)
Pargament, K.I. & Cummings, J. (2010). Anchored by faith:
Religion as a resilience factor. In J.W. Reich, A.J. Zautra, & J.S.
Hall (Eds.), Handbook of adult resilience (pp.193-210). Guilford
Press.
Taylor, L.K. & Weems, C.F. (2011). Cognitive-behavior therapy for
disaster-exposed youth with posttraumatic-stress: Results from a
multiple-baseline examination. Behavior Therapy, 42, 349-63.
*Contributed by Kenyon Knapp. © Kendall Hunt Publishing
Company.
WHY IS THIS STILL IMPORTANT?
Considering how complex our cognitive processes are and how little
insight we actually have into their underlying mechanisms, it makes
sense to consider the nature and structure of cognition as well as the
ethical and larger societal implications of understanding and using
information. Just consider the select examples above and how easy
it is to influence thinking. With the explosion of information sharing
across technology platforms, it is even more important to consider
what we think, what conclusions we reach about our thinking, and
whether those conclusions are ethical, moral, and right.
Biblical Integration
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The language of sin, righteousness, condemnation, and more
provide Biblical nuance to other moral concepts like wrong,
justification, blame, etc. Those who believe in the Bible will always
have their feet in two different worlds simultaneously. Christians
must navigate the language of morality shared by broader society,
even when they disagree with society’s values, in part so that they
can bring their own values to bear on their relationship with their
community and the ways they must be different from it.
One vivid way this occurs is in the fact that Christians must have a
different motivation for acting rightly than many others in their
society. While some pursue the right action to make themselves
righteous and justified or to retain their status as a “good person,”
Christians know they cannot rely on these motivations. The Bible
teaches that none are righteous by their own deeds. Right action
is the result of a motivation of justice for its own sake and out of
gratitude for the sacrifice Jesus made. We do right in the process
of our sanctification, not our justification.
Another vivid way is in the demands Christ gives to his followers.
Some actions that society views as “supererogatory” (above and
beyond the call of duty) are required by those who follow Jesus.
For example, the Sermon on the Mount moves from a focus on
outward actions to inward desires, intent, and character. The Bible
illustrates the need for Christians to do more for their neighbors than
non-believing members of society might demand.
Luke 10:25-37
25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying,
“Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to
him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 27 And he
answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your
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mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You
have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”
29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my
neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from
Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him
and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by
chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he
passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came
to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But
a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he
saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his
wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own
animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the
next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper,
saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will
repay you when I come back.’ 36 Which of these three, do you
think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the
robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus
said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
What does Jesus demand in this passage? Would someone who does
not believe in the truth of the Bible require what Jesus requires
here? Most likely not. A common understanding of our duties does
not often include going out of our way or enduring great
inconvenience to save someone that we do not know, especially if
we have done nothing to place that person in danger. The legal
demands of a country like the United States are even less onerous.
In most states, you are not required to move your foot even an inch
to nudge a life preserver off the edge of a pier to save a drowning
person below. The message in Luke is very different and radical.
Christians are expected to do more and for different reasons. Christ
does not offer eternal justification by works of moral good. He
offers himself as the justification and demands our whole person.
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Brief Summary and Self-Assessment
Ethics is the study of right and wrong, and it involves examining
questions about morality and determining ethical truths. There are
two contrasting views regarding ethical answers. The first view
suggests that ethical answers are relative or subjective, influenced
by culture, upbringing, and personal feelings. The second view
posits that ethical answers are objective and independent of
individual beliefs or cultural practices. While this book assumes that
ethical answers are objectively true or false, finding these answers is
not easy. It draws a parallel with science, which also seeks objective
truths but requires extensive investigation and discovery. Similarly,
ethics requires diligent inquiry and exploration to uncover what is
ethically true.
Psychology plays a crucial role in ethics because many modern
atrocities have been facilitated by advancements in scientific tools.
Psychology, like other sciences, has a history of unethical research
practices, such as electroshock therapy, inhumane experiments, and
the exploitation of vulnerable populations. The behavior of
individual researchers can impact public trust in the field, and
psychology has faced challenges due to a replication crisis and
negative perceptions regarding its reliability.
Ethical dilemmas are often discussed in ethics courses, with thought
experiments exploring fringe issues. However, it is important not to
overlook the ethical implications of everyday situations encountered
in fields like counseling. Professionals must be prepared to handle
ethical challenges, such as responding to patients expressing desires
for self-harm or managing the number of clients seen in a week. The
study of ethics also involves examining our own character and
weaknesses. People tend to have an inflated perception of their
moral virtues, but evidence suggests that individuals often act
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according to their character. Acknowledging our weaknesses and
striving for moral honesty is essential.
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