00:01
For this question, we're given a scenario and asked, why study science in psychology? so to start, let's read through the scenario, making sure to underline any pieces of information that seem relevant to the study of science in psychology.
00:17
So jennifer and bethany have been recently declared psychology majors.
00:22
One evening, as they're looking over their required courses, they start talking.
00:27
Jennifer says, i don't see why we have to learn statistics and research methods.
00:32
I'm never going to use them anyway.
00:34
I just want to be a counselor and i'm going to deal with each person as an individual.
00:39
Science treats everyone as if they are interchangeable and totally predictable.
00:45
In fact, i think people would be better counselors and teachers and social workers if they didn't take research classes at all because then they would treat everyone as individuals not clones.
00:57
Then bethany's response to this is people are a lot more predictable than you think.
01:03
Psychologists have learned so much about human behavior in the last 100 years or so using the scientific method.
01:10
I really believe that if you can figure out all the factors that are affecting someone's behavior you can be pretty accurate in figuring out what they're going to do.
01:21
I've decided that i want to be a researcher because i think i can help more people in the long run than you will as a therapist.
01:30
As a researcher, i can develop programs that will help lots of people who suffer from the same problem.
01:36
A therapist can only help one person at a time, and sometimes it takes years for a person to get better.
01:42
Now, following the passage, we're given a few questions to consider.
01:46
First, we need to consider the question, how do jennifer and bethany differ in their understandings of what people are like? who do you agree with more and why? so jennifer and bethany differ in a few different ways.
02:01
Let's go ahead and write out a table to compare and contrast their views towards people.
02:09
So jennifer clearly believes a lot in individuality and sees people as individuals, whereas bethany sees people more in terms of the group or categories that they belong to.
02:28
Jennifer also clearly believes that everyone really is unique and that your approach should be tailored to each person, whereas bethany believes that you can predict based on the the categories a person belongs to, potential outcomes might be.
02:45
So bethany sees people as being somewhat predictable.
02:53
Now to answer the follow -up question, who do you agree more with and why, you'll want to think about how do you see people in general...