The Story of Psyche

• “Greek goddess of the Soul”

• Began as mortal – in love with the god, Eros

• Required to complete 4 tasks– Sort grains

– Retrieve the Golden Fleece

– Fill a bucket of water from the River Styx

– Retrieve a sleeping potion from Persephone

So what IS psychology?

The discipline concerned with behavior and mental processes and how they are affected by an organism’s physical state, mental state, and external environment.

Psychology is a lot like…

What psychology is NOT!

1) _______________

example: playing Mozart makes babies

smarter

2) ________________

3) ________________

Above All…

Psychology is an

EMPIRICALEMPIRICAL science!

What does that mean?

How does psychology affect our World?

Student Becomes YoungestAmerican Rhodes Scholar

Coral Gables, FL, December 11, 2003. Devi Sridhar, 18, has become the youngest U.S. Rhodes scholar in the organization’s 100-year history. The University of Miami student was named one of 32 Americans to receive the prestigious scholarship to Oxford University. Sridhar, the daughter of two doctors, speaks five languages and is coauthor, with her siblings, of a book on Indian mythology. She joins a group of select Americans who have been Rhodes scholars, including former President Bill Clinton and Supreme Court Justice David Souter.

Teens Arrested in Hate CrimeYorba Linda, CA, March 4, 2003. Two

teenagers have been charged in the vicious beating of an 18-year-old Arab-American man. The victim, Rashid Alam, was left with a broken jaw and shattered bones in his face. Alam’s friends say he was attacked by a mob of up to 20 people yelling white-supremacist slogans, and that some of the assailants were armed with bats, a golf club, and beer bottles. There are conflicting accounts, however, about who brought the weapons and whether why were used. Police contend that the fight was an arranged showdown between rival groups, but Alam’s supporters say the attack was unprovoked and was motivated by anti-Arab feeling.

Zaniness on Parade in Pasadena Pasadena, CA, November 22, 2003. The 27th annual Doo Dah

Parade, a joyful celebration of wacky weirdness, will take place tomorrow in Pasadena. Known as “the other parade” (the more famous one being Pasadena’s Rose Parade), the event has entertained thousands of spectators over the years. Participants get to shed their inhibitions and dress as outrageously as they can. A Doo Dah Queen is chosen in public tryouts, which are open to “all women and men ofany age, color, shape, and mentalstate,” and is presented with acrown of foam Cheetos and abouquet of fake flowers.

McDonald’s Sued for Causing Obesity

New York, NY, November 22, 2002.

A lawsuit filed today on behalf of several overweight teenagers charges McDonald’s, the fast-foodcompany, with contributing to the young people’sobesity and health problems. The suit, one ofseveral, brought recently against fast-food chains, alleges that McDonald’s deliberately misledconsumers into thinking their hamburgers and frenchfries were nutritious. The mother of one plaintiff, a 15-year-old who weighs more than 400 pounds, wrotein papers filed with the courts, “I [had] alwaysbelieved McDonald’s was healthy for my son.

Geographic Breakdown of

the obesity epidemic in

America

Bottomless Soup Bowl Experiment