PSYCH HL: What is psychology? 1.1

Goals of Psychology

study behavior, study cognition, study individuals (and societies), take a scientific approach, and make careful conclusions (have reasons)

What is behavior?

Observable actions

Individuals and societies maintain ethical standards that define good and bad behavior

What is cognition?

Mental thinking processes

Internal thought processes that occur either unconsciously and consciously.

Why do psychologists study cognition?

our thinking processes are central to the human experience

Why do psychologists study behavior?

because it’s tightly linked to cognition, and what we think about becomes what we believe

B, C, SC

Biological, Cognitive, and SocioCultural

Anthropology

Focus on role of individuals within a society

Sociology

Focus on how a society impacts its members

How to come to more valid and reliable conclusions?

Study many individuals even though challenges may arise.

What affects one’s behavior and mental processes? (are overlaps)

Society and culture

Generalizations

conclusions made from research to apply to a group or majority of a group. they help us recognize patterns. However, because individual differences exist we must be careful how we make the generalizations.

Stereotypes

generalizations of how people behave

What is typical and usual?

Average

Norm

A standard or range that helps define what is typical for an individual or group

generalization terms

rarely, sometimes, might/may, tend to, often, usually

Conforming

The average person will often behave with the standards/ rules of a group (sometimes via peer pressure)

compliance

changing behavior while disagreeing with the group

Identification

conform to the expectations of a social role

Internalization

genuine acceptance of group norms; changing behavior to change internally

Bystanderism

The average person is less likely to help someone in need when there are other people present. (because we believe that someone else will help them)

Empirical Evidence

The findings of a study have been directly observed or experienced using the scientific method. Observation, experimentation.

Anecdotal Evidence

Evidence that has been observed from someone’s personal experience, or repeated from what they’ve heard others say.

Validity

The extent of reliability of the instruments used to measure exactly what you want to measure.

Reliability

The extent to which the outcomes are consistent when the experiment is repeated more than once.

The scientific method

identify the problem, gather data, create a hypothesis, test the hypothesis (experiment), does the new data agree?

Subjective

personal, information is anything that is based on personal opinion, judgement, feelings, or point of view

Objective

observation, information is factual and based on observations and measurements

Confirmation Bias

biased towards people who will confirm your beliefs. Comfortable in the untruths.

The tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one’s prior beliefs or values.

signs of confirmation bias

not seeking out objective facts, interpreting information to support your existing belief, only remembering details that will uphold your belief, ignoring information that challenges your belief.

Individualist cultures

self goals

Collectivist cultures

community goals

understanding context in psychology

we might do things differently compared to others, psychology is more about causes/influences on behavior

ethics

we might be right/wrong

others might be right/wrong

biological course focus

individual, physiological causes

evolutionary course focus

natural selection

cognitive

mental processes, thinking process

cross cultural

social environment and its effect on individuals

humanistic

free will and choice

behavioral

learned behavior

psychodynamic

unconscious mind