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6 STUDY SKILLS FOR PSYCHOLOGY STUDENTS
Figure 1.1. The scientific model.
nature of things from an armchair, and until fresh experiments have been
performed we do not know what their results will be. The confident dogmatisms
about human nature which fall so readily from pulpits, newspaper
editorials, and school prize-givings are not for us. Rather, we must be
prepared to live with an incomplete knowledge of behaviour but with
confidence in the power of objective methods to give us that knowledge
some day.
(Broadbent, 1961, p. 200)
Take dreaming, for example. Why do we dream? In the 1950s, Kleitman observed
that there are periods of rapid eye movements (REM) during sleep, and that
if the sleeper is woken during these episodes they are likely to report dreams
(Aserinsky & Kleitman, 1953). Freud (1991) thought that dreams were a product
of the brain working through the events and emotions of the previous day, and
trying to absorb and come to terms with them. A more pragmatic explanation
based on information processing theory sees dreams as analogous to clearing a
memory store by processing memories at an unconscious level, preparing us for