PSYC 1010

Psychology

the scientific study of behavior and mental processes

Nature vs. nurture both contribute to how

YOU are not one more than the other

The 4 goals of psychology

description, explanation, prediction, and change

Description

look at what IS occuring

Explanation

WHY the behavior is occuring

Prediction

identifying under what conditions a behavior is likely to occur

Change

applying psychological knowledge to prevent unwanted outcomes or reach desired goals

Psychology is split in 2

clinical and experimental

Clinical

studies AND treats psychological disorders

Experimental

studies all aspects of psychology

Psychology has roots in?

philosophy, biology, and physiology

Plato believed

our senses could trick us and came up with the term nativism

Nativism

we all possess an innate knowledge 

• Genetically based but environmentally triggered

Who came up with dualism?

Socraties and Plato

Dualism

the mind does not cease to exist when the body dies, so thoughts and ideas can exist separately from the body

John locke

believed in tabula rosa; your born with a black slate

Empiricism

the systematic study; can only study things you can directly observe

What did William Wundt do?

founded psychology, the first psych lab in Germany in 1879, and used introspection for structuralism

Introspection

want to break down your consciousness; detailed report of your thoughts

Structuralism

identify structures of the mind

Mary Whiton Calkins

first woman president of APA

Charles Henry Turner

first black American to conduct psychological research

Inezz Beverly Prosser

first black american woman to receive a PhD in psychology

Problems with structuralism

• Introspectionsist disagreed on their subjective reports 

• Individuals engage in “imageless thought” - 

  • thinking unaccompanied by conscious experience 

• Why we moved away was by of unconscious thinking

Functionalism

purposes of mind and behaviors (mind’s interaction with outside world)

Stream of consciousness

writing w/ no punctuation; basically just thinking

William James

Founded functionalism which was influenced by evolution

Structuralism vs. functionalism 

• Functionalism asks WHY? 

• Structuralism looks at the function of pain

Charles Darwin

?

7 different contemporary approaches to psych

Psychodynamic, Behavioral, Humanistic, Cognitive, Biological, Evolutionary, and  Sociocultural

Psychodynamic Approach

• Focus on unconscious thought and founded by sigmund freud 

• Behavior driven by

  • Unconscious sexual and aggressive impulses 

  • Conflict between biological drives and demands of society 

  • Early childhood family experiences

Psychoanalysis

unlocking unconscious conflicts in your body

Behavioral approach 

• Founded by John Watson, B.F. skinner, and ivan pavlov 

• Focus on visible interactions with the environment - behaviors 

• What people do - not what they think or feel 

• Behavior is the result of environmental determinants

Humanistic approach 

• Focuses on positive human qualities 

• Behavior is not controlled by environment or unconscious impulses 

• People have the capacity to choose their behavior - free will 

• Theorist: Carl Rodgers and Abraham

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Cognitive approach 

• Focuses on cognitions and mental processing 

• Mental processes 

  • Attention, perception, memory, and problem solving 

• Information processing 

  • How humans interpret incoming info., weigh it, store it, and apply it 

• Consciousness 

  • Inner, mental life

Biological approach 

• Focus on the body, notably the brain and nervous system

• The brain is the psychological basis of all thoughts and emotions

Neuroscience

• study of the nervous system 

  • Structure, function, development, genetics, and biochemistry

Evolutionary approach 

• Focus on evolution as origin of behavior 

• Evolutionary explains 

  • Adaptation, reproduction, and natural selection 

• David buss

Sociocultural approach 

• Focus on social and cultural environments 

• Understanding behavior requires knowing about the cultural context in which the behavior occurs 

• Comparing cultures 

  • Between ethnic and cultural groups 

  • Within and across countries

Careers in psychology 

• Practice/ applied 

• Research 

• Teaching

Most psychologist work in?

25% work in schools, state, local, and private 

3 main psychologist 

Clinical, applied, and academic 

Clinical

• Diagnosis causes and treatment of mental and behavioral problems 

  • School psychologist 

  • Neuropsychologist 

  • Counseling psychologist

Applied

• Use psychological theory and practice to target real-world problems 

  • I/O  

  • Forensic

  • Sports

  • Health

Academic

• Divide time between teaching and research 

  • Developmental

  • Abnormal

  • Social

  • Personality

  • Cognitive - study thinking and mental processes like a computer

Scientific method

• Science is a method

• It's not what you study but how you study it 

• Using the scientific method is what makes psychology a science 

• Psychologists use the scientific method to gain knowledge about mind and behavior

Steps of the scientific method

1. Identify the problem 

2. Conduct background research 

3. Formulate a hypothesis 

4. Test the hypothesis 

5. Analyze the results 

6. Results either 

   A. support - report results 

   B. don’t support the hypothesis - formulate a new hypothesis

Method 1

• Scientist propose theories to explain the world 

• A theory is a system of ideas that attempts to explain observations and make predictions about future observations 

• Theories provide a basis for research studies

Hypothesis

an educated guess that derives logically from a theory; a prediction about relationships between 2 or more variables and how those variables are related

Method 2

A good hypothesis takes a clear position that can be supported or not supported by the evidence - testing hypothesis can lead scientist to provisionally accept the theory that generate the hypothesis, reject the theory outright, or revise it

Method 3

• Test through the empirical method - gaining knowledge through the observation of events, the collection of data, and logical reasoning 

• Empiricism

Variable

Empiricism

systemic (plan for data collection), objective (not biased) data is collected

Variable

anything that can change

Operational definition

precise definition that provides an objective description of how a variable is going to be measured and observed in a particular study

Method 4

• Does the data support your hypothesis? 

Third variable

Third variable

something that is going to affect the experiment but not thought of at the experiment

Method 5

• Theories are revised based on accumulation of new knowledge 

• Replication

  • A direct replication employs the very same methods as the original study. Conceptual replication employs different methods to test the same prediction.

  • Meta-analysis

Types of research

1. Observation 

2. interviews/ surveys 

3. Case studies

Descriptive research

research that determines the basics of a phenomenon - defining what it is, how often it occurs, and so on

Observation

• Observation w/o manipulating variables 

Researchers must know 

• What they are looking for 

• Who they are observing 

• Where and when the observations will take place 

• How observations will be made

Surveys

presents a standard set of questions or items to obtain people's self-reported attitudes or beliefs about a topic

Interviews

similar to a survey, but a researcher is verbally asking the questions to the participant

Likert scale

scale of 1 (“not at all”) to 7(“very much”) 

• Pros - easy to administer to a large group of peopl

• Cons - people are not always self-aware and may not know the truth about themselves, people can be dishonest, people can answer with a socially desirable response

  • (participants answer questions in a way that will make them look good rather than in a way that communicated what they truly think and feel)

Case studies

an in-depth look at a single individual

Value of descriptive research 

• Help us learn about the world and people 

• Descriptive research allows researcher to get a sense of what “something is”, but cannot answer questions about how and why it became that way

Correlation research

• How 2 variables change together 

• Correlation coefficient - measures strength and direction of relationship 

• Correlation coefficient: r 

• -1.00 < r < 1.00

Positive correlations 

• r>0

• Variables move in the same direction, so if one variable increases, the other variable increases also, and if one variable decreases, the other variable decreases as well

Negative correlations

• r<0 

  • Variables move in different directions so that if one variable increases, the other variable decreases

Zero correlations 

• r=o 

  • No relation between the variables

Scatterplots

each dot represents an individual data point

Correlation does not equal?

Causation

Correlation types

• cross sectional data

• longitudinal data

Cross sectional data

one data point per perso

Longitudinal

multiple data points per person per (time period/ time #1 & #2)

Experimental research

the only type of research that allows us to make cause-and-effect inferences 

• Researchers conducting experimental designs manipulate variables

Random assignments in experimental research

• Experimental groups

• Control groups

Experimental group

receive the manipulation (drug, treatment, etc)

Control group

do not receive manipulation, acts as a standard to compare both groups

Variables of experimental research

• Independent variables

• Dependant variables

Independent variables

variable that is manipulated

Dependent variables

variable that is measured

Validity in experimental research

• external validity

• internal validity

External validity

the degree to which an experiential design actually reflects the real-world issues it is supposed to address

Internal validity

the degree to which changes in the dependent variable are due to the manipulation of the independent variable

Bias in experimental research

• experimenter bias

• demand characteristics

• research participant bias

• placebo affect

• double blind experiment

Experimenter bias

the influence of the researchers expectations affect the outcome of the study

Demand characteristics

any aspect of a study that communicates to the participants how the experimenter wants them to behave

Research participant bias

how the participants bias affects the outcome of the study

Placebo affect

the expectations of the participants produce an outcome but not the treatment

Solution: Double blind experiment

the researcher doesn't know who's in what group and participants don’t know either (control/ experimental)

Stroop test experiment

your 2nd time increased b/c you were reading the color not the word

Population

entire group about whom conclusion is to be drawn

Sample

portion of population actually observed for the study

Random sample

each individual has equal chance of being selected improves chances that the sample represents the population/ minimizes

“Artificial” world

laboratory settings, controlled setting

“Real” world

natural setting, naturalistic observation

Advantages vs. disadvantages of lab & real

• people may act different in either world

• variables can/ can’t be controlled

Descriptive statistics

mathematical procedures that are used to describe and summarize sets of data in a meaningful way

Measures of central tendency

mean - average score

median - midpoint; half above, half below

mode - most frequent score