Psychology for Dummies Read Online Free PDF Page B

exposed her brain? Would you find all those psychological concepts then?
    I think you’d be pretty disappointed. When you open up someone’s skull to see her brain, all you’re going to see is a wrinkled and convoluted mass of grayish-pinkish-whitish tissue. There’s no visible thoughts, feelings, or beliefs. Where are they then? We all know that they exist because we experience them every day.
    The question of where the mind, the home of psychological concepts, exists is an age-old philosophical question. Is the mind in the brain? Is the mind somewhere other than the brain? Are the brain and the mind the same thing? Most scientists today hold the position that the mind and the brain are one in the same. Scientists taking this position, known as
monism,
believe that the key to understanding the human mind, with all of its psychological concepts, lies in understanding the body, specifically the nervous system. Carlson states, “What we call the ‘mind’ is a consequence of the functioning of the human body and its interactions with the environment.” This is a powerful idea — the key to unlocking the mysteries of such psychological concepts as thinking and feeling is in the development of a thorough understanding of biology.
     

     
    The idea that all of human psychology can be reduced to biology is known as
reductionism.
I’ve had a lot of students protest this idea over the years. It seems to insult our sense of free will, self-awareness, and consciousness. How can all this complex stuff going on inside our minds be reduced to a hunk of flesh resting between our ears? If you feel this way, maybe you’re not a
monist,
a believer in monism. For the sake of this chapter, however, I’m going to be a monist. I focus on understanding human biology as the key to understanding human psychology.

Believing in Biology
    We didn’t always believe that human behavior and mental processes were the consequences of biology. In the times of the ancient Greeks and Romans, human behavior was seen as the consequence of supernatural forces, namely the whims and passions of the gods. But somewhere along the line, we started suspecting that maybe our bodies had something to do with it. Where would we get such an idea, that our behavior and mental processes are the consequences of our biology?
    The history of research in this area is long, and I won’t bore you with all the details. But, at the core of all of this research lies a very simple observation. Changes in our biology result in changes in our behavior and mental processes.
    Let’s take alcohol consumption, for example. People obviously act differently when under the influence of alcohol. They may flirt, dance like a wild man, get emotional and sentimental, or even become angry. Alcohol has a chemical effect on the brain; it alters the biology of the drinker’s brain. It goes something like this:
    Alcohol consumption → Chemical effect on brain → Thinks he’s Don Juan
    What about more serious changes in our biology like brain damage? People who suffer from brain damage can exhibit drastic changes in their personality and thinking. They may go from being very organized to very messy. Or, they may have been a very laid-back, easygoing person, but now they fly into a rage at the slightest frustration.
    I think most of us have an intuitive understanding that what goes on within our bodies has an effect on our behavior and mental processes.
Biological psychologists
are a group of psychologists who have extended this intuitive belief and these casual observations, using the techniques and methods of modern science to investigate the idea that changes in biology lead to changes in psychology.
    Although a lot of this seems logical, you may be thinking, “I still think there’s more to me than just biology.” That’s just the dualist in you acting up. My suggestion is to try and not struggle with it too much, at least while you read this chapter. Even if I think that we’re