As People Age, They Change in a Myriad of Ways — Both Biological and Psychological. Some of These Changes May Be for the Better, and Others Are Not. This Book Primarily Concerns the Normally Aging Brain, the

Since psychology aims to discover how and why people behave in certain ways and formulate theoretical frameworks to explicate normative, adaptive and maladaptive behaviors, psychology relies upon the scientific method to investigate research questions (Baker, McFall, & Shoham, 2009; Plante, 2005, p. 75; Hogan, 2007, p. 585-587). Drawing upon numerous disciplines and lenses to view human behavior, circumstance, the interactions between nature and nurture and the ways combinations can engender or delimit mental illness and/or physical illness, psychology is both formal and applied science (Baker, McFall, & Shoham, 2009; Plante, 2005, p. 75; Hogan, 2007, p. 585-587). Because of this its practice and research require a synthesis of art and science, inquiry and investigation and the statistical evaluation of data gathered. In this way, psychology seeks ways to quantify qualitative measures and apply psychometrics to almost every facet of behavior and its exploration (Plante, 2005, p. 75). As Aron, Aron, & Coups (2009) contend this process not only hones a researcher’s intuition and reasoning but also applies directs the formulation of research questions, validation and negation of hypotheses and the exploration of unaddressed areas and/or underlying factors. Challenged by the difficulties of observation, predicting and measuring human behavior across cultures, regions and the like, the scientific method assists psychologists and researchers because it engages one process. As Aron, Aron & Coups (2009) explain, observation leads to inquiry, and hypothesis formation. Hypothesis formation alternately leads to methodology for structured observation and data gathering. Using psychometrics or other measurement tools such as Likert scale, all behaviors and attitudes can be measured and analyzed statistically (Plante, 2005). After all, statistical evaluation either proves the hypothesis or refutes it. It also illuminated whether the variables selected were

References: Aron, A., Aron, E., & Coups, E. J. (2009). Statistics for psychology. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Funder, D.C. (2006). Towards a resolution of the personality triad: Persons, situations and behaviors Plante, T. G. (2005). Contemporary clinical psychology. New York: Wiley.