Psychology in the 21st century

Introduction

The key message of this unit is that different psychologists focus on different aspects of human behaviour in different ways. Take the topic of learning, some psychologists will study what happens in our brain when we learn, while others will consider how we learn within a social context. This unit will first highlight how psychology is now a very visible part of everyday life and then explore its diverse roots in medicine, philosophy, biology, psychoanalysis and ethnography. It will show that there is no single way of answering psychological questions and that psychology is a multifaceted discipline, drawing on a range of methods and data. The unit covers a lot of ground so you may wish to read through the material several times.

This unit is an adapted extract from the course Exploring psychology (DSE212) [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]