Dedicated to people who like to ask strange and sometimes unanswerable questions.

What is Psychology?

Psychology is built on a pretty deep idea. The human brain, the driver of our consciousness and our self-identity, is incredibly powerful. But, the one thing the human brain knows very little about is itself! That is right! Our brain loves to wonder about itself. It is the culmination of all of these wonderings that we call Psychology, and psychology is built on the wonderings of the brain and the experiments on the brain that follow.

How do Psychologist conduct research?

Psychologist always start with a wondering and then a research question.

I wonder why my dog is salivating to the sound of my footsteps? Do animals and humans learn to form associations?

Once a psychologist asks a question, they try their best to answer the question with the information that they have. We call this answer, or an educated best-guess a hypothesis.

I bet my dog made a connection between me and the food I bring him!!! I bet my dog learned a new behavior ... and I can show you!

Hmmmm......I wonder how I can test my hypothesis? I've got it! I need to figure out what my Independent and Dependent Variables are!

Once a psychologist develops their hypothesis it is time to start thinking about an experiment. Remember, psychology is built on experiments! There is a couple of things you need to consider before you are ready for your experiment.

In psychology, experiments are controlled and organized ways to find if one thing (a drug, environment, experience etc.) has an affect on behavior. We call these things variables - parts of an experiment that you change and manipulate. You need to know two types: Independent and Dependent

Independent Variable - the variable in an experiment that you change and manipulate to try to affect behavior.

Dependent Variable - The variable in an experiment that you are hoping your independent variable will affect.

I like to think about it like this ... the Dependent Variable depends on the influence of the Independent Variable!