Like most psychologists, William James was particularly interested in human psychology, which he thought consisted of certain basic elements: thoughts and feelings, a physical world which exists in time and space, and a way of knowing about these things. For each of us, this knowledge is primarily personal and private. It comes from our own thoughts, feelings and experience of the world, and may or may not be influenced by scientific facts about things. For this reason, it is easy for us to make judgments about psycho1ogical matters using our own experience as a standard. We behave as amateur psychologists when we offer opinions on complex psychological phenomena. However, problems arise when two people understand these things differently. Formal psychology attempts to provide methods for deciding which explanations are most likely to be correct, or for determining the circumstances under which each applies. The work of psychologists helps us distinguish between inside information, which is subjective, and may be prejudiced and unreliable, and the facts: between our predictions and what is “true” in scientific terms.

　　Psychology, as defined by William James, is about the mind or brain, but although psychologists do study the brain, we do not understand nearly enough about its workings to he able to comprehend the part that it plays in the experience and expression of our hopes, fears, and wishes, or in our behavior during experiences as varied as giving birth or watching a football match. Indeed, it is rarely possible to study the brain directly. So, psychologists have discovered more by studying our behavior, and by using their observations to obtain hypotheses (假设) about what is going on inside us.

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