UNIT: 0 AP PSYCH (intro and research methods)

Psychology

The science of behavior and mental processes

Basic research

Gaining basic knowledge in the area of psychology (the big picture)

Psychology

The science of behavior and mental processes

Basic research

Gaining basic knowledge in the area of psychology (the big picture)

Applied research

Looking in detail at a specific, real-world problem (small picture and specific)

counseling psychologist

Helps people deal with difficult challenges in life

ex: death of a loved one

Clinical psychologist

(PH.D)

helps people be diagnosed with and talk through psychological disorders

ex: depression, day to day issues

Psychiatrist

Medical professionals who use treatments like drugs and therapy to treat psychologically diseased patients

severe issues (m.d)

Clinical

• applied

  • studies, assesses, and treats people with psychological orders

Counseling

helps people cope with academic, vocational, and martial challenges

• applied

Educational

Studies and helps individuals in school and educational settings

• applied

Industrial educational

Studies and advises on behavior in the workplace, how to make workplace more happy and productive

Biological

Explores links between brain and mind

• basic

Developmental

Studies changing abilities from womb to tomb

• basic

Cognitive

Studies how we perceive, think, and solve problems

Personality

Investigates our persistent traits

• basic

social

Explore how we view and affect one and another

• basic

Psychodynamic

focus on how unconscious drives and desires influence our thoughts and actions

• childhood experiences

• sigmund freud

• unconscious; childhood; past; underlying drives or desires

cognitive

focus on how we process, store, and use information

• and how it influences our thinking, language, problem solving, and creativity

  • behavior is influenced by a variety of mental processes including perceptions, memories, and expectations

• memory; thinking; processing information; problem-solving; language

behavioral

Focuses on observable behavior

• only cares about the behaviors that get in the way of our living, and attempts to change them

• Watson and skinner

  • how are behavior learned through interaction with the environment

• Observable; learn or learning; classical conditioning; operant conditioning

Humanistic

Focuses on human growth and potential and what factor allow a person to reach their full potential

• full potential; self actualization; human or personal growth; love; acceptance

Biological

Focuses on how our physiology contribute to a situation and influence our behavior, thoughts, and feelings.

• nature side of nature vs. nurture

• brain;body; nervous system; harmones, neurotransmitters; genes or genetics, heredity

Social-cultural

Focuses on how our actions and thinking are shaped by our cultural, ethnic similarities and differences.

• membership in social/ cultural groups and that impact

• culture;social; others influencing you; differences between groups/cultures/regions

Evolutionary

Focuses on how we adapt to survive

• natural selection of genes

• instinctual behavior

• how our personalities and individual differences evolved over time to promote survival and reproduction of our species?

• instincts, survival

testable hypothesis

hypothesis that can be proved or disproved as a result of experimentation or observations

• is called falsifiable if it is possible to conceive of an experimental observation that disproves the idea in question

experiments

• controlled setting where psychologists can manipulate one variable at a time to see the result

• ONLY THIS CAN PROVE CAUSATION BTWN 2 VARIABLES

• positive: experiments can prove causation

• negatives: results might not be able to be generalized to the real world; other variables might play a role in the results

double blind study

neither the participant nor researcher knows who is receiving the independent variable

• reduces bias in both participant and experimenter

reduce bias in experiments

• random assignment

• single-blind study (participant bias reduced)

• peer review

operational definition

Detailed definitions of your variables

• purpose of these is to clearly indicate how to measure or quantify a concept

  • ex: “happy” is defined as 5 smiles for 30 minutes or giving themselves a rating of 7 or higher on a moody survey scaled from 1-10

naturalistic observation

a descriptive method of observing and recording people or animals in their natural environment

• positive: shows subjects in natural environment

• negative: does not explain behavior; subjects might act differently if they know they are being watched

Case study

descriptive research where detailed information gathered over time on a specific individual or group

• positives: gets lots of in depth information on individual

• negatives: can’t be generalizable; time consuming

Survey

Descriptive method to collect attitudes, opinions, or behavior by asking questions to a representative sample of a certain population

• positive: can collect a lot of data quickly

• negative: results can be biased; data is skewed if there is no equal representation; questions can frame to influence answers

self-reporting bias

People give inaccurate answers, often due to social desirability

sampling bias

Flow in sampling skew data

• random sampling for survey to eliminate this

framing

the wording used for the questions influence the interpretation and response to them

meta analysis

the statistical procedure for analyzing the results from 2+ separate studies to reach an overall conclusion

• positives: increases precision in findings; can settle controversies or conflicting claims

• negatives: not using new information and may be missing potentially useful information from original research if not reported

correlation study

looking at two variables to see if there is a statistical connection or relationship

(data from any types of research)

• positives: correlation proves some sort of relationship or lack of statistics.

• +1.0 positive correlation with strongest relationship

• correlation does not prove causation

• -1.0 strongest relationship with negative correlation

illusory correlation

sometimes we believe there is a relationship between 2 things when there actually is not

• it rains always right after a car wash

ex-post facto

looking back at something after it happened

Longitudinal study

looks at the same group of people at different points over their lives.

cross sectional study

looks at people at a variety of ages all at the same time