Chapter 1 Psych

How do you figure out the cause of something?

Do an experiment

confounding variable (Follow up: How do you prevent this)

A variable that can skew results because it wasn’t planned for and interferes with the experiment (Follow up answer: have two different test groups)

operationalization

EVERYTHING in your experiment must be defined and measured (can’t operationalize the word “wrong)

experimenter effect

the person running the experiment acts a certain way and causes the participant to change their behavior

single-blind study

the person in the experiment doesn’t know what group they are in

double-blind study

the person in the experiment AND the one running it doesn’t know the groups

behavior

outward actions and reactions

Wilhelm Wundt

Father of Psychology (because started the idea of looking inward - what psychology is all about), Consciousness can be broken down into OBJECTVE INTROSPECTION

objective introspection

objectively looking at your own thoughts without bias

Edward Titchener

structuralism, every experience can be broken into moments and sensations

structuralism

structure of the mind

William James

REJECTED Wilhelm Wundt’s idea that consciousness can be studied (He believed that consciousness is changing in every moment and it isn’t possible), his idea is FUNCTIONALISM

functionalism

how the mind allows us to live, how behavior traits aid in our survival (not only based on physical traits

Max Wertheimer

REJECTED structuralism, saw that perceiving and sensing couldn’t be broken down, developed gestalt psychology

Gestalt Psychology

Studying the WHOLE of things and not small pieces

Sigmund Feud

We repress our unwanted thoughts into an unconscious mind, the repressed urges caused disorders in his patients, formed the idea of PSYCHOANAYLSIS

Psychoanaylsis

exploring one’s unconscious thoughts and how that might influence behavior

Ivan Pavlov

you can create a reflex for something that wasn’t related before, developed CONDITIONING

conditioning

making someone have a reflex for something that was completely unrelated before

John B. Watson

Was against everything (structuralism, functionalism, psychoanalysis), developed BEHAVIORISM, saw all behavior as learned, used a rat to prove phobias are learned through conditioning, agreed with PAVLOV

Behaviorism

observable behavior ONLY (no conscious or thoughts or emotions)

Mary Cover Jones

Counterconditioning (used a rat too in order to make it not scared and used to the rabbit)

7 Modern Perspectives in Psychology

1. Psychodynamic = motivations behind behavior, early childhood, development of self

2. Behavioral = observable behaviors, OPERANT CONDITIONING

3. Humanistic = we have free will and can reach SELF ACTUALIZATION

4. Cognitive = how we think, remember, and store information

5. Sociocultural = how the people around us influence us

6. Biopsychological = our behavior is the direct result of the events in the body (something inside my body happened to make me act/be this way)

7. Evolutionary = mental characteristics we humans all share

operant conditioning

how voluntary behavior is learned, behavior with good consequences will happen again and be strengthened (think baby crying and getting candy)

self-actualization

reaching one’s full potential

goals of psych

1. describe EVERYTHING

2. Explain why these things are happening

3. Predict when it will happen again

4. Control how it can be changed

5 steps of scientific approach

1. Perceive or notice the question

2. Develop a hypothesis

3. Test your hypothesis

4. Draw conclusions

5. Report your results

confirmation bias

only noting or confirming things that go along with your way of thinking

descriptive methods

• naturalistic observation = seeing animals in their natural habitat and observing their behavior (room for observer bias)

• participant observation = being actively involved with the subject but secretly observing their behavior

• laboratory observation

• case studies = observing one person in great detail (disadvantage: can’t apply results to other people because specific to this person)

• surveys

courtesy bias

don’t give your real opinion because you don’t want to offend or make anyone upset (ME literally)

correlation coefficient

• if closer to 0 than weaker

• if both are going up or down then CC is positive

• if one is going up and the other is going down then CC is negative

• signified with “r”

value assertions

saying things are right or wrong but what does “right” or “wrong” really mean

correlation DOES NOT equal causation because…

• there could be confounding variables

• no directionality

  • unclear

  • correlation won’t specific WHY this is happening but it will just show you there is a relationship between them

correlation

• can be positive or negative

• how closely 2 variables are related