ABSTRACT
Why do people do what they do? How do biology, personality, personal history, growth and development, other people, and the environment affect the ways people think, feel, and behave? As you have learned from your other behavioral science courses, there are many ways to go about answering questions such as these, ranging from the casual observation of daily life that leads to the development of personal theories of behavior (for example, Wegner & Vallacher, 1977) to systematic empirical observation leading to the development of formal theories of behavior. As you have also learned, the casual observation approach, also sometimes called “ordinary knowing” (Hoyle, Harris, & Judd, 2002), is prone to errors that stem from basic cognitive processes (for example, Gilovich, 1991). Therefore, behavioral science takes the more systematic, scientifi c approach to knowing, which is designed to minimize the effects of those biases.
