Psychology Test #4 Part 1

What is psychology?

The scientific study of behavior and mental processes.

Is psych really just a matter of common sense and intuition?

No! There are plenty of ways your “common sense and intuition” can lead you astray.

Psychology details with experiments and real data to draw conclusions about the human experience.

What is hindsight bias?

Once an outcome is known, the tendency to believe it was obvious and predictable (the “I knew it all along” phenomenon)

Example of hindsight bias:

Long distance relationships: Some say that “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” Well, that makes sense. You enjoy the time you have together more.

But others recognize that since you’re both missing out on opportunities, more obstacles arise and weaken the relationship. This also sounds like common sense, but both can’t be true.

In general, what may common sense seem to do well, and what does common sense often do much less well?

1. Good at explaining what’s already happened

2. Bad at predicting what will happen in the future

How do we use the scientific method?

a. Make observations

b. Form theories to explain the observations

c. Come up with scientific hypotheses and predictions to test the theory

d. Make new observations to test whether the data/facts/evidence support the theory, hypotheses, and predictions

e. Use the new observations (data/facts/evidence) to modify and improve the theory and come up with new hypotheses and predictions to test.

** Continuous process involving critical thinking

How do we use critical thinking? What questions must we ask?

How do we know? What are the data and the factual scientific evidence? (You need proof)

Does this evidence come from a reliable source?

Is the source objective and unbiased, or is it pushing an agenda? (Like political publications or news stations)

What assumptions are being made, and how do we put these to a test? (Challenge what is taken for granted)

Are we being logical, factual, and scientific in our beliefs, or are we making leaps of faith and intuition? (You might be stretching too far to prove something you want to be true… Confirmation bias)

Have we considered and tested other possible explanations? (Is there something more effective?)

Are we willing to replace our favorite beliefs with more accurate ones? (Belief perseverance cannot continue)

What is a theory?

A set of principles that organizes and predicts observations

What is a hypothesis?

A specific prediction that we can put to a test, generally derived from and/or implied by a theory; something that — if tested — could partly confirm or disconfirm the theory

Replication:

SOMEONE ELSE CAN FIND SIMILAR RESULTS USING YOUR INSTRUCTIONS

repeating an experiment to see if a similar result is obtained by keeping the essential elements of the experiment the same (setup and preparation) but with new, different subjects (the animals or people being studied) and different experimenters.

Why is replication important?

Confirms that your work represents a general rule rather than an exception. The results are not by random chance.

What are 3 general approaches to research in psych?

Descriptive/observational (No intervention in behavior — just watching and describing). Simply recording what you see.

Correlational: measuring how different things occur/change together (How weather and grades tend to change together)

Experimental: performing a controlled study to see if one thing is causing another

3 methods used in Descriptive research:

Case study, survey, and naturalistic observation

Case study:

Key point: NOT generalizable.

Dr. C’s example was interviewing Gracie about her experience as a first-year student at MS State and then applying her results to all other first-year students. This wouldn’t be accurate because Gracie is a girl queen Aerospace Engineer, and other first-year students just aren’t.

The real definition: a single individual (or a single group among many individuals) is studied in depth in the hope of discovering things that would be true of those beyond that individual or group.

How do anecdotes mislead us about evidence?

ANECDOTES ARE NOT EVIDENCE

Just because peepaw smoked since the 3rd grade and lived to be 93 doesn’t mean that you should try that, too. In reality, there’s only a 5% chance of living to 85 if you smoke that heavily.

Naturalistic Observation:

behavior is observed and recorded in its natural setting with no attempt to manipulate or change it.

Biological Anthropologist Jane Goodall and the Great Apes of Africa. She lived among them and simply watched.

A young professor blends in with first-year students and lives among them for a year.

Advertising and marketing companies record your online presence.

How do men’s and women’s word clouds differ?

Women: shopping, love, cute, adorable

Men: football, fighting, cursing

Survey:

the self-reported attitudes, behaviors, etc. of a group are gathered and analyzed.

Survey population:

Everyone in the group you are studying.

Political polls typically have a population of the entire nation, but they obviously don’t get responses from literally everyone!

Instead of a population, what do surveys actually study to generalize to the whole population?

A sample

Random sample:

a fair representation of the total population where all members of the total group have an equal chance of being included in the sample.

Why is a random sample so important?

Without it, you can’t be sure if your research is representative or valid. Your research is basically useless without a random sample.

Shere Hite

Studied gender attitudes and marital behaviors among American women but didn’t use a random sample.

She sent 100,000 surveys but got less than 5% to respond, and the people who got the 100,000 surveys were part of a particular women’s group, making them atypical citizens to begin with.

What did Shere Hite find?

70% of all women married 5 years or longer were so dissatisfied that they’d commit adultery. 2/3 of us have mothers cheating on their husbands

95% of all married women said that their husbands were emotionally abusive.

When legitimate social scientists investigated the same subject with true random samples, what’d they find?

Only 7% cheating! NOT 70%

Can you use volunteers as subjects?

NO because normal people don’t volunteer.

If you used a true random sample of adult Americans, how many people would you have to survey in order to accurately predict the attitudes and opinions (such as candidates they intend to vote for) of all Americans?

With 250 million adult Americans total, only survey 1,500 people.

Wording effects:

the effects that even small changes in the wording of questions have on the way people taking surveys answer them.

What would be some examples of wording effects in surveys on important social issues?

In favor of helping people in need VS welfare

In favor of having diverse inclusion VS favor for some in the workplace

In favor of government control of your body VS protecting human life

In favor of rights and the freedom of choice VS unnecessary killing of unborn babies

Correlation:

When 2 variables that can change or vary tend to change together (If they change together, then knowing one of them allows you to predict the other)

Positive Correlation:

Change in the same direction. Track together. If one thing increases, the other does, too.

Negative Correlation:

Connected but change in opposite directions. One thing increases and another decreases as a result.

Does a negative correlation between 2 things mean that there is not a significant correlation between them?

NO, they’re absolutely changing together but not in the same direction.

Correlation coefficient:

A mathematically calculated index (statistic) of how much 2 things are correlated (the extent to which they change together and thus the extent to which one can be predicted from the other)

ACT — there’s a significant positive correlation between ACT scores and grades. High scores correlated with college success. Correlation coefficient is 0.5

What is the possible range of correlation coefficients?

From -1.00 to +1.00

In social sciences, how often do we see correlation coefficients at extreme ends of the possible range?

Almost never. A correlation of 0.5 is very high, and numbers typically range from 0.2 - 0.4

To interpret how much of the variability of one thing is connected to (accounted for, predictable from) variability in the other, what must we do with correlation coefficient?

Square it. Multiply by itself.

0.5: 0.5 × 0.5 = 0.25. Therefore, only 25% of variability in college performance is connected to how well a student does on the ACT, so 3/4 is NOT connected to ACT score but other factors.

Does correlation determine causation?

Not necessarily!

Correlation only says they change together NOT that one factor causes the other. They may change together because an outside factor is motivating both of them.

If 2 things are correlated, what would be the 3 possible explanations for this?

A causes B

B causes A

Neither A nor B cause one another, but there’s a 3rd factor

Examples of correlations without causation:

Length of a man’s marriage and his going bald. The longer he’s married, the more he loses hair, but this is just an effect of aging.

Low self-esteem and depression:

1. Low self-esteem causes high levels of depression.

2. If you’re depressed, your memories reinforce negative experiences, leading to self-esteem.

3. Child abuse might cause both.

Regression toward the mean:

Tendency for extreme events or results to be followed by ones closer to average.

Cold spell in February followed by warmer temperatures.

Sports Illustrated curse: Put athletes on the front cover, and they never perform as well again. That’s because the team or player just had an abnormally-good season.

Because correlation can’t tell us about causation, what can?

Experimentation (The experimental approach to psychological research; experimental method)

What is an experiment?

A research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors (independent variables) while keeping everything else the same to observe the effect on behaviors or mental processes (dependent variables). Studying what changes occur in a person as different environmental factors change.

Subjects:

People or animals being studied or experimented on… NOT the topics or what the experiment was about

Variables:

Things that can change (vary).

ACT scores, the temperature outside, self-esteem/depression

Independent Variables:

the factors (variables) being manipulated or changed in the experiment by the experimenter; the variables the experimenter controls

Dependent Variables:

results the experimenters are examining. the factors the experimenters expect may change when the independent variables are changed

Experimental conditions and experimental groups:

Parts of the experiment that expose subjects to the treatment, to one version of the independent variables; these subjects are experimental groups — the subjects you try out the independent variables on, often the subjects you try something new on.

Control conditions and control groups:

Natural environments without manipulation. Conditions you use for comparison to see if the experimental condition changed the dependent variables.

Did the experimental groups change in a meaningful way in which the control groups did NOT change on the dependent variables?

How must subjects be assigned to the experimental groups or the control groups?

RANDOMLY. Each subject has an equal chance of being in the experimental group or the control groups.

Zimbardo alternated down the line to assign guards and prisoners.

What does randomly assigning subjects accomplish?

Creates an environment where the differences observed between the two groups are most likely to have been caused by the independent variables.

Evaluating a drug designed to treat the common cold. What design proves whether or not the drug was effective and ensures that the drug caused improvement in subjects with colds? (Subjects, independent variable, dependent variable, method of assignment etc.)

Subjects: Healthy people who are induced with a cold at the same time and by the same cultured virus.

Independent Variable: Whether they get the drug or not

Dependent Variable: How quickly they get better or if they get better

Assign subjects to experimental and control groups RANDOMLY

Experimental groups get the drug, and control groups do not

If you gave subjects in the experimental group the drug but gave the control group nothing, would the drug be the only difference between the 2 groups?

NO! You give the drug, and the experimental group will expect to get better, and they’ll have both physiological effects and psychological expectations.

Thinking they’ll get better will distort how they report their experiences.

What would be the other difference between the 2 groups if you simply gave. one group the drug and the other group nothing?

One group would not expect to get better.

What would you have to give the control group in order to make the drug the ONLY difference between the experimental group and the control group?

A placebo: a neutral, harmless, inconsequential substance or treatment designed to make subjects THINK they are getting the real thing.

What’s the purpose of a placebo, and what does it control for?

It controls for the expectations of subjects.

Double Blind procedure and its function:

Neither the subjects nor the experimenters gathering the results are aware of who is receiving the treatment who is receiving the placebo at the time the experiment is being carried out.

This procedure establishes the function of preventing bias in the experimenters.

How would you know if the drug was effective or not?

Record the difference in health between the 2 groups. If the experimental group gets significantly better, the drug works.

What very important general principle is illustrated in studies like this?

Expectations (of BOTH subjects AND experimenters) must be controlled for.

In psychological research, should the people who create the experiments be the people who actually carry them out to gather the data?

NO! Confirmation bias

Should people gathering the data for the experiments be aware of the hypotheses for the experiments?

Also no.

If you are a subject in a psychological study, what must you give beforehand, and what must you receive afterwards? What do these two requirements entail?

Must give informed consent and receive a debriefing.

Informed consent: A subject’s permission to be studied and to be given only after the subject has been clearly and completely informed of any potential risks and any other information that would reasonably be expected to affect their choice as to whether or not to participate.

Debriefing: explaining to subjects that the exact purpose of the study, informing them of any deceptions that may have occurred, ensuring that they leave the experiment in at least as good a psychological (and physical) state as when they entered it and offering to share the results of the study with the subjects when it has been completed and analyzed.

What mistake do mathematical statistics protect us from in psychological research?

Failure to recognize when results/observations are random and due to chance rather than being part of a reliable, systematic pattern. We often look for meaning in results, even if they’re entirely random. When there is no pattern, statistics help us know when the results are random.

Without using statistics, how good are we at recognizing when events and patterns of results are random (happening just by chance rather than in a significant, predictable pattern)?

We’re pretty bad at it

Statistical significance:

The odds that the results observed, often differences between groups or correlations between variables, could have happened naturally just by chance an d through entirely random variation.

Example illustrating the need for statistical significance:

ESP. Extra sensory perception. Kore was able to guess the number Dr. C was holding up when he had the options to choose between 1 and 2. There’s a 50% chance this happened randomly and that Kore just guessed.

What are the 2 generally accepted levels of statistical significance in psych research?

0.05 and 0.01

What does a 0.05 level of statistical significance mean?

1. Odds of getting the result naturally are only 5%

2. 95% chance that it didn’t happen randomly

What does a 0.01 level of statistical significance mean?

1. Only 1% chance to get the same result randomly.

2. 99% sure the results weren’t by chance

What 3 questions must we ask before we accept and use a research finding in psychology?

1. Was that result statistically significant? 5% or 1%

2. Is the magnitude of this result important and meaningful?

3. Has the finding been replicated? Can you do the experiment over and find similar results when using new samples of subjects?

If you answer all of these with “yes,” you have significant information

Is it possible for a finding to be statistically significant but not meaningful and useful? Example?

Yes!

Drug for cold shortened symptoms by half a day.

Finding out that Swedish men are typically taller than American men.

How did an eminent Harvard University astronomer describe the human brain?

By far the most complex physical object we know of in the entire universe

What is the relationship between psychological and biological aspects of behavior and mental processes?

Everything psychological is simultaneously biological. There are no exceptions to this; there is no purely psychological events.

These systems work concurrently.

What is a neuron?

A single nerve cell in the entire nervous system that consists of billions of neurons (nerve cells). It’s the smallest building block of the nervous system.

What are the 3 main parts of a neuron?

Cell body, dendrite, and axon

Cell body:

Central part of the neuron that contains the nucleus of the nerve cell and regulates the cell’s biochemical reactions that act as life support for that cell

Dendrites:

structures on the input end (receiving info) of the neuron that are bushy, branching extensions from the neuron that allow it to receive and integrate incoming messages and conduct impulses toward the cell body

Axon:

An elongated structure on the output end of the neuron on the opposite end of the dendrites, ending in tiny, branching fibers that can pass messages to other adjacent neurons or to adjacent muscle cells or glands

Myelin Sheath and de-myelinating diseases:

a layer of segmented fatty tissue surrounding some axons that greatly speeds up the transmission of neural impulses and increases their effectiveness

The myelin is attacked and broken down. Causes trouble moving muscles and performing tasks like writing or holding things properly. Trouble walking and moving properly

Multiple sclerosis is the most frequent example

Glia:

“Support cells” that surround, nourish, support, and protect neurons

What mental functions can be facilitated by glia?

1. learning

2. memory

3. thinking

How do neurons “fire” and communicate with each other?

They use resting potential, which is the stable state of the neuron when it is not firing.

Action potential:

The actual energy release. A neural impulse: a very brief electrical charge, a wave of electro-chemical energy that travels very rapidly down the axon, always in the direction from the input end (dendrites) of the neuron toward the output end (axons)

What are excitatory neural impulses?

Neural impulses that when they reach another neuron’s dendrites, are designed to trigger the action potential (cause that neuron to fire)

Inhibitory neural impulses:

Neural impulses that when they reach another neuron’s dendrites are designed to stop the action potential (cause the neuron to NOT fire)

Threshold of neural firing:

the level of stimulation required to trigger neural firing when the incoming excitatory impulses significantly exceed the incoming inhibitory impulses

How is neural firing (the action potential) an all-or-none response, and what would be an analogy for this?

It won’t fire halfway. No in between. Either it fires, or it doesn’t.

It’s like a gun. It either fires full strength or does not fire at all. Approximately the same amount of energy is released each time it fires

How does neural firing vary?

The rate (the number of times per second) an individual neuron fires — difference between 50 times or 1000 times per second is very different

The number of different neurons in a particular area that are firing at a given time

Synapse

the area where the tip of the sending (firing) neuron comes together with the dendrites (or sometimes the cell body) of the receiving neuron

What is the Synaptic gap or Synaptic cleft, and how wide is it?

A tiny, fluid-filled space, less than one-millionth of an inch wide, separating the axonic fibers (output) of the sending neuron from the dendritic fibers (input) or the sometimes the cell body of the receiving neuron

What happens when the action potential reaches the tip of the sending axon?

Neurotransmitters are released through the synaptic gap

What are neurotransmitters?

Chemical “messengers” that are released into the synaptic gap when a sending neuron fires (when the action potential reaches the tip of the axon of the sending neuron)

What happens when the neurotransmitters are released, and how fast does it happen?

Within 1 ten-thousandth (1/10,000) of a second, the neurotransmitter chemicals cross the synaptic gap and may or may not bind to receptor sites on the adjacent receiving neuron, influencing whether or not that receiving neuron will fire

Reuptake:

If neurotransmitters do not bind to receptor sites on the receiving neuron, they are either broken down by enzymes in the synapse, or else those neurotransmitters are reabsorbed by the neuron that released them. That reabsorption process is called reuptake.

What is an example of a medical use of the reuptake process?

SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors)

Neurochemical imbalance can cause depression. If you have a low level of serotonin, these SSRIs leave serotonin in the synaptic gap, increasing neurotransmission and in effect, mood.

#LiveLaughLexapro

How many different neurotransmitters are there?

Dozens

Are all neurotransmitters present in all synapses?

No

What are endorphins?

Natural, opiate-like neurotransmitters produced in your own brain that are linked to pain control and to pleasure. An endorphin is a painkiller that is not a drug from outside the body but instead is a painkilling neurotransmitter produced inside the brain

Name comes from the term: Endogenous Morphine

Endorphins and “runner’s high”:

The runners start feeling the pain at some point but push through and then receive endorphins.

Relationship between taking opiate drugs (often for recreational pleasure, rather than medical necessity) and addiction to those drugs, and how does this involve the endorphins?

Opiate drugs reduce pain but encourage the brain to stop producing its own endorphins because the received drug is perceived as an input of endorphins