Ch. 1 - Psychology + the Scientific Method

What is psychology?

• The study of behaviour, thoughts, and experiences ← the brain

What is the scientific method?

• A way of learning about the world through collecting observation

What is a hypothesis? (1.2)

• A testable prediction about processes - can be measured

  • Must be falsifiable

  • Stated in precise + clear terms

What is a theory? (1.3)

• An explanation for a broad range of observations that generate new hypotheses + findings → a whole

  • must be updatable

  • must be falsifiable

  • built from hypotheses

What is critical thinking?

• Exercising curiosity + skepticism when evaluating claims of others with our own assumptions + beliefs

What does critical thinking mean for psychologists? (4)

• Applying the scientific method

• Examining assumptions + biases of others and our own

• Considering alternative viewpoints

• Tolerating ambiguity when evidence is inconclusive 

What is the principal of parsimony?

• The simplest of call competing explanations of a phenomenon should be the one we accept

What are the fundamental beliefs of scientific thought? (2)

• Empiricism

• Determinism

What is empiricism?

• A philosophical tenet that knowledge comes through experience

What is determinism?

• The belief that all events are governed by lawful cause-and-effect relationships

What is Zeitgeist? (1.1)

• A general set of beliefs of a particular culture @ a specific time in history

  • delayed the science of psychology

What is materialism?

• The belief that humans + other living beings are composed only of physical matter

What is Hippocrates influence on psychology? (2.4)

• Considered the father of western medicine

• Thought 4 humours contributed to our health + personality:

  • blood

  • yellow bile

  • black bile

  • phlegm

What was Aristotle’s influence on psychology? (2)

• Tabula Rasa

• Para Psyche

What does Tabula Rasa mean?

• Man begins life with a blank slate - who they become depends on experiences

What is Para Psyche?

• The first text in history about psychology

What is psyche?

• The mind - the source of all human behaviour

  • no differentiation between mind and soul

What did ancient greeks believe about the brain? (1.1)

• It cooled the blood + played no role in behaviour

  • memory was stored in the heart

What did Rene Descartes contribute to psychology? (1.1.1)

• Proposed ‘Cartesian Dualism’ - a solution to the mind-body problem

  • it suffered from the ‘problem of interactionism’

    • tried to resolve it via the pineal gland

What is interactionism?

• The idea that the mind + body are distinct but casually ineractive substances

What is dualism?

• Both a nonmaterial mind + material body drive behaviour

What did Gustav Fechner contribute to pscyhology?

• Psychophysics

What is psychophysics?

• The study of the relationship between the physical world + the mental representation of that world

What is response expansion?

• A perceptual response increases faster than the stimulus intensity

What is response compression?

• A stimulus’s perceived magnitude increases slower than the actual stimulus intensity

What is Charles Darwin’s contribution to psychology? (1.1)

• The theory of evolution by natural selection

  • evolution can select for behaviours

What is brain localization?

• Certain parts of the brain control specific mental abilities

What is phrenology? (1.1)

• The idea that the brain consists of 27 organs - each associated with a personality trait

  • the size of the organ corresponded to development of trait

Who came up with phrenology? (2)

• Franz Joseph Gall

• Johann Spurzheim

What did Paul Broca contribute to psychology?

• He identified the brain region associated w/ speech production

What did Carl Wernicke contribute to psychology?

• Identified brain region associated with speech comprehension

What did Franz Mesmer contribute to psychology?

• Believed magnets could redirect the flow of metallic fluids in the body to cure diseases

• Directed fluids by ‘mesmerizing’ the patient w/ hand movements (ex. trance)

What is hypnosis?

• The phenomenon of inducing trances

What is psychoanalysis?

• A psychological approach that attempts to explain how behaviour + personality are influenced by unconscious processes

  • developed by Sigmund Freud

What did Sigmund Freud believe?

• The unconscious mind guided our behaviours

What are the parts of the unconscious mind? (3)

• Id

• Super-ego

• Ego

What is the Id?

• Instincts

What is the Super-ego?

• Morality + critical thinking

What is the Ego?

• Organized part that mediates the desires of the Id and Super-ego

What are the criticisms of Freud?

• Was subjective

• Dismissed claims of SA as constructions of our unconscious mind

• Theory suggested lack of free will

What did Freud contribute to medicine? (4)

• Introduced the potential for unconscious mental processes

• Made the medical model

• Incorporated evolutionary thinking by acknowledging physiological needs + urges

• Emphasized experiences during development influence adult behaviour

What is the medical model?

• The use of medical ideas to treat psychological disorders

What did Sir Francis Galton do + believe? (2)

• Investigated nature + nurture relationships

• Believed heredity explained psychological differences

What did Sir Francis Galton investigate?

• how nature + nurture influence behaviour + mental processes

What is eminence?

• The combination of ability, morality, and achievement resulting from good genes

  • justified eugenics based on beliefs

What were Galton’s primary contributions? (2)

• Initiated debate on nature vs nurture

• Promoted use of statistical methods to quantify psychological traits

What did Wilhelm Wundt contribute to psychology? (2)

• Set up first lab dedicated to studying human behaviour

• Used introspection to describe psychological sensations

What is introspection?

• A process of ‘looking within’

What is structuralism?

• Analyzing conscious experience by breaking it down → basic elements + understanding how they work together

What are reaction time methods for the study of thought? (1.2)

• Participants were asked to react to the sound of metal balls hitting one another

  • participants reacted after ~1/8 a second

  • mental activity was not instantaneous

What did Edward Titchener contribute to psychology? (3)

• Adopted Wundt’s method of introspection

• Described mental experiences composed of elements

• Different combinations of elements responsible for more complex experiences

What did William James contribute to psychology? (3)

• Wrote first modern textbook

• Influenced by Darwin’s evolutionary principles

• Proposed functionalism

What is functionalism?

• The study of the purpose + function of the behaviour + conscious experience

What did Edwin Twitmyer contribute to psychology?

• Discovered conditioned reflexes

What did Ivan Pavlov contribute to psychology? (2.1)

• Trained dogs to salivate in response to a metronome

• Won Nobel Prize for discovering classical conditioning

  • Behaviourism

What is classical conditioning?

• Learning process occurring when two stimuli are repeatedly paired

What is behaviourism?

• The study of observable behaviour w/ little to no reference to mental events/instincts as possible influences on behaviour

What did John B. Watson contribute to psychology? (2.1)

• Only observable changes in behaviour and the environment should be studied scientifically 

• All behaviour could be explained by conditioning

  • Revolutionized marketing principles

What did B.F. Skinner contribute to psychology? (2)

• Believed in fundamental rules of learning shared among all animals

• Operant conditioning

What is operant conditioning? (1.1)

• Strengthening or weakening a behaviour by punishment and reward

  • left little room for free will

What is humanistic psychology? (1.3)

• Focuses on the unique aspects of each individual human - each person’s freedom to act, their rational thought, and belief that humans are fundamentally different from animals

  • focuses on positive aspects of psychology

  • meaning of experience

  • self-actualization

Who focused on humanistic psychology? (2)

• Carl Rogers

• Abraham Maslow

What was Karl Lashley’s contribution to psychology? (1.2.1)

• Tried to locate ‘engram’ - found two principles

  • non-localization

  • principle of mass action

    • concluded that memory isn’t stored in one place; other areas compensate

What is non-localization?

• Exact location of damage isn’t important

What is the principle of mass action?

• Size of damage corresponds with impairment

What did Donald Hebb contribute to psychology?

• Hebb’s law - “cells that fire together, wire together”

What did Wilder Penfield contribute to psychology?

• Electrically stimulated brains of patients under local anesthetic

  • Mapped sensory and motor cortices

What did Hermann Ebbinghaus contribute to psychology?

• Forgetting curves

What did Frederick Barltett contribute to psychology?

• Memory is an interpretive process

What is Gestalt Psychology? (1.1)

• Emphasizes need to focus on perception + experience as a whole, rather than its parts

  • the whole is greater than the sum of its parts

What did Kurt Lewin contribute to psychology? (1.1)

• The founder of modern social psychology

  • Said behaviour is a function of individual and environment