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[ psychology ]
1. The science that deals with mental processes and behavior.
2. The emotional and behavioral characteristics of an individual or group.
- American Heritage Dictionary

many of us spend a large fraction each day engaging in psychological activities. contemplating ourselves. worrying about what someone thinks of us. judging people we see walking down the street. flirting with someone over dinner. deciding whether to give money to someone in need. comforting a friend. persuading a client. psychology is concerned with all of these things and more. to me, it's just about real life. after taking an introductory psych class at berkeley last year, i was impressed by how applicable my new knowledge was to the real world. simply acquiring a language for describing psychological phenomena made me more aware of when i was using stereotypical thought, why people perceived me the way they did, or why people would engage in different behaviors. the fruits of psychological research also include sound strategies for attacking many ubiquitious problems, from raising kids to studying for exams.

this site is a small psychology curriculum consisting of ideas that i have found most useful while studying psychology at uc berkeley. i will add to it once in a while, and i hope you find it useful.

special thanks to my social psychology professors, dr. dacher keltner and dr. serena chen, for giving the interesting lectures that i based many of these webpages on.

note: other articles to come, sometime before i die: emotions, manipulation, altruism, complexity.

written by William Wu, mostly in the summer of 2002
page last modified Monday, 23-May-2005 02:19:06 PDT

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comments? e-mail wwu at ocf.berkeley.edu or write to the forum
copyright w.wu 2002