PSY2012 - Chapters 1-3 - Newland UF

Psychology

scientific study of the mind, brain, and behavior.

has vast span of techniques, and perspectives

Multiple levels of analyses

from social to biological

social - loss of personal relationships

behavioral - decrease in pleasurable activities

mental - depressed thoughts

neurological/physical - size and functioning of brain structures related to mood

neurochemical - levels of brain's chemical messengers that influence mood

molecular - genes that predispose people to depression

What makes psych distinctive?

individual differences - we all have a unique personality

reciprocal determinism - we mutually influence each other's behavior

cultural differences - makes it hard to place generalizations about human nature

multiply determined - many factors cause our actions and they tend to be interrelated

naive realism

belief that we see the world precisely as it is "seeing is believing"

cant always trust what we see

scientific theory

explanation for a large number of findings in the natural world, including the psychological world

it must lead to novel predictions that researchers can test

can be falsified and updated - aren't the written law

hypothesis

a testable prediction derived from a scientific theory

metaphysical claim

assertion about the world that's not testable - if we can't test something scientifically does that make it false?

still important

confirmation bias

tendency to seek out evidence that supports our beliefs and deny, dismiss, or distort evidence that contradicts them - mother of all biases

belief perseverance

tendency to stick to our initial beliefs when evidence contradicts them

pseudoscience

a set of claims that seems scientific but isn't

lacks the safeguard against confirmation bias and belief perseverance that characterize science

patternicity

the tendency to percieve meaningful patterns in their absence - in some ways adaptive, but doesn't always work

ad hoc immunizing hypothesis

an escape hatch that defenders of a theory use to protect it from being disproven

lack of self-correction

• Never adjust claims when contrary evidence is published unlike science which weeds out incorrect claims eventually. Proponents cling to claims stubbornly

overreliance on anecdotes

knows one person that it helped and overrelies on them

psychobabble

buzzwords taken from psychological terminology but used out of context

terror management theory

our awareness of our own inevitable death leaves many of us with an underlying sense of fear, even dread. We cope with these feelings of terror, advocates of this theory propose, by adopting cultural worldviews that reassure us that our lives possess a broader meaning and purpose—one that extends well beyond our vanishingly brief existence on this planet.

emotional reasoning fallacy

error of using our emotions as guides for evaluating the validity of a claim

"The idea that day care might have negative emotional effects on children gets me really upset, so I refuse to believe it"

Bandwagon Fallacy

error of assuming that a claim is correct just because many people believe it

"A lot of people I know believe in astrology, so there's got to be something to it."

not me fallacy

the error of believing that we're immune from errors in thinking that afflict other people

"My psychology professor keeps talking about how scientific methods are important for overcoming biases. But these biases don't apply to me because I'm objective."

appeal to authority fallacy

error of accepting a claim merely because an authority figure endorses it

"the mayor says it's true, so it must be true"

circular reasoning fallacy

error of basing a claim on the same claim reworded in slightly different terms

"this claim is true because it is correct"

Dangers of Pseudoscience

opportunity cost, direct harm, inability to think scientifically

OC - spending money to cure your depression on a fake treatment which impedes on you to get real treatment

DH - lobotomy

ITTS - share fake info to kids and harm future generations from thinking scientifically

Scientific Skepticism

approach of evaluating all claims with an open mind but insisting on persuasive evidence before accepting them

critical thinking

set of skills for evaluating all claims in an open-minded and careful fashion

1. ruling out rival hypotheses

have important alternative explanations for findings been excluded?

2. Correlation vs. Causation

Can we be sure that A causes B?

correlation-causation fallacy - error of assuming that because one thing is assosiated with another, it must cause the other

3. Falsifiability

Can the claim be disproved?

4. Replicability

Can the results be duplicated in other studies?

decline effect- fact that the size of certain psychological findings appears to be shrinking over time

5. Generalizability

do these findings and conclusions reflect the diversity of the human experience

6. Extraordinary claims

is the evidence as strong as the claim?

William Wundt (1832-1920)

opened first psychology lab in 1879 - separated psych from philosophy

investigated mental experiences through reaction time procedures and introspection (reflect and report on mental experiences)

E B Titchener - Structuralism

Why am i anxious before an exam - asks what exactly are u experiencing

Structuralism - uses introspection to identify basic elements or "structures" of experience

-emphasis on the importance of systematic observation to the study of conscious experience

problems : subjective and imageless thoughts

William James - Functionalism

Why am I anxious before an exam? asks what purpose might your anxiety serve

To understand the functions or adaptive purposes of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

influences by charles darwin's natural selection

lasting contribution: evolutionary framework and has been absorbed into psychology and continues to influence it indirectly in many ways

nature vs nurture debate

John B Watson + BF Skinner - Behaviorism

Why am I anxious before an exam? asks have u had past experiences where exams led to negative consequences?

focuses on uncovering the general principles of learning underlying both human and animal behavior

lasting contribution : emphasized need for more objective research

free will-determinism debate

Jean Piaget + Ulric Neisser - Cognitivism

Why am i anxious before an exam? asks how are u interpreting the situation

-examine the role of mental process (the black box) on behavior

lasting contribution - language, intelligence, memory

Sigmund Freud; Carl Jung; Alfred Adler - Psychoanalysis

Why am i anxious before an exam? asks could something outside ur conscious awareness be influencing u

To uncover the role of unconscious psychological processes and early life experiences in behavior

Diffucult to falsify unconscious processes and hard to prove or observe things

Understanding that much of our mental processing goes on outside of conscious awareness

Nature - Nurture Debate

Are our behaviors attributable mostly to our genes (nature) or to our rearing environments (nurture)?

The Free WIll-Determinism Debate

To what extent are our behaviors freely selected rather than caused by factors outside our control?

System 1 Thinking

the intuitive, automatic, unconscious, and fast way of thinking

System 2 thinking

Analytical thinking, slow and reflective

Heuristic

a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms

case study

researchers examine one person or a small number of people, often over an extended period of time

-existence proof and allows u to study rare phenomena

-low external and internal validity

"what can happen but not what will happen"

response sets

tendencies of research participants to distort their responses to questionnaire items

malingering

Deliberate faking of a physical or psychological disorder motivated by gain.

naturalistic observation

watching behavior in real-world settings without trying to manipulate the situation

high in external validity, low in internal validity

external validity

extent to which we can generalize findings to real-world settings

internal validity

extent to which we can draw cause-and-effect inferences from a study

correlational design

examines the extent to which two variables are associated

illusory correlation

the perception of a relationship where none exists

Experimental Design

A design in which researchers manipulate an independent variable and measure a dependent variable to determine a cause-and-effect relationship

experiment

1. random assignment of participants to conditions

2. manipulation of an independent variable

operational definition

a working definition of what they're measuring

placebo effect

experimental results caused by expectations alone; any effect on behavior caused by the administration of an inert substance or condition, which the recipient assumes is an active agent.

experimenter expectancy effect (rosthenal effect)

ccurs when researchers' hypotheses lead them to unintentionally bias a study's outcome

demand characteristics

cues in an experiment that tell the participant what behavior is expected

variablity

in a set of numbers, how widely dispersed the values are from each other and from the mean

inferential statistics

numerical data that allow one to generalize- to infer from sample data the probability of something being true of a population

Electroencephalohtaph

a device— still widely used today—that measures electrical activity generated by the brain. Patterns and sequences in the EEG allow scientists to infer whether a person is awake or asleep, dreaming or not, and to tell which regions of the brain are active during specific tasks

non invasive

good at telling when but not where

measures electrical activity generated by the brain

computed tomography

3D reconstruction of multiple X-rays through the brain

MRI

uses magnretic fields to visualize brain structure

superiror to CT scans for soft tissue (brain, tumors)

PET

invasive

measures consumption of glucose like molecules

fMRI

uses magnetic fields to visualize brain activity using changes in blood oxygen level

extremely sensitive to motion

magnetoencephalography

meausres tiny magnetic fields produced by electrical activity in the brain by extremely sensitve devices

deep brain stimulation

electrodes and a battery source are implanted in the brain to deliver electricity to specific brain areas

invasived

used to treat epilepsy, tremors, acute depression. OCD

TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation)

applies strong and quickly changing magnetgic fields to temporarily enhance or disrupt brain function

only noninvasive technique that allows us to infer causation

neurons

cells specialized for communication

soma

cell body

dendrites

Branchlike parts of a neuron that are specialized to receive information.

axons and axon terminal

transmits signal to other neurons

myelin sheath

A layer of fatty tissue segmentally encasing the fibers of many neurons; enables vastly greater transmission speed of neural impulses as the impulse hops from one node to the next.