Psych Quiz

Define psychology

It's the scientific study of behavior and mental processes and the connection between them.

What was psych before it was officially psychology?

- People were always curious about how the mind worked and would use techniques like trephination and phrenology.

- Trephination is the process of cutting holes into a person's skull to let the evil thoughts/spirits out.

- Phrenology was used in the victorian age, it was a procedure where they would feel your head to tell your future (fortune telling)

Official beginnings

- Started with a man named William Wundt. He had his first psych lab in Leipzig Germany where he created the concept of introspection (Introspection is the examination of someone's emotional and mental processes). 

- This also included structuralism, the concept of consciousness in the mind. 

- A man named Williams James wrote "The Principles of Psychology" which discussed functionalism in the brain. 

- These ideas are outdated. 

Gestalt

- Means shape or form

- The founders of the Gestalt school were Max Wertheimer and Wolfgang Kohler

- The idea that context influences people's interpretation of information

- The whole is greater than the sum of the parts of Perception

Freud and Psychoanalysis

- Psychoanalysis is the focus on unconscious motives and internal conflicts to determine human behavior

- Includes repression, the process of pushing away thoughts and feelings

- Freudianslip is when you say something on accident that has an underlying meaning

- Freud's theory includes dream analysis, his theory says that repressed thoughts are what our dreams are about

- His theory talks about the Id, ego, and superego and how they affect our actions

- He talks about defense mechanisms, the ways of coping with conflict or uncomfortable situations or thoughts. 

Behaviorism

- John Watson believed that psychology must be limited to observable, measurable events/behaviors

- Behaviorism is the scientific study of observable behavior 

BF Skinner and Pavlov

- When reinforced or rewarding animals, they're more likely to repeat these actions (Humans learn the same way)

- Invan Pavlow believed in classical conditioning

Biological Perspective

 All of your feelings and behaviors have an organic route (body, brain, genetics, etc)

Evolutionary Perspective

We behave the way we do due to inheritance (ancestral survival)

- Focuses on Darwinism

- Sociobiological (relationship between culture and society)

Psychoanalytic Perspective

 - Focuses on the unconscious mind

- We repress many of our true feelings and are not aware of them

- In order to be better, we must bring forward our true feelings we have in our subconscious

Behavioral Perspective

- Focuses on observable behaviors while putting feelings to the side

- We behave in ways because we have been conditioned to do so

- The change is to recondition

Humanist Perspective

- Focuses on spirituality and free will

- Peaked in the late 1960's and 1970's

- Strive to be our best strives "self actualization" 

- Happiness is defined through self concept and ideal self

- Growth potential is needing to accept and love and to have our basic needs met

- Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers were both humanists

Cognitive Perspective

- Focuses on how we think/encode information

- How we see the world

Social-Cultural Perspective

- Much of your behavior and your feelings are dictated by the culture you live in

- Individualism vs Collectivism

Scientific Method

1. Form a question or theory

2. Form a hypothesis

3. Research/Experiment

4. Analysis Data

5. Conclusion

Types of data collection

- Case studies

- Survey (wording effect)

- Naturalistic observation

- Longitudinal study (long term study)

- Cross-sectional study (section/demographic of people)

- Experiments (cause and effect)

Hypothesis

Expresses a relationship between two variables

Independent variable 

- What's being manipulated in an experiment 

Dependent variable

What's being measure in an experiment

Operational definitions

Explain what you measured in the experiment

Sampling

• Identify the population you want to study

• The sample must be representative of that population

Experimental method

Cause = effect / Lab vs field experiments

Confounding variables

The object of an experiment is to prove that A causes B

Random assignment

 Having a random sample then randomly assigning them into two groups that help control for confounding variables

Hawthorne experiment

When you're aware that you being in an experiment, will cause change 

Correlation/correlational coefficient

- A number that measures the strength of a relationship (range from -1 to +1)

- The relationship gets weaker the closer you get to 0

Mean

Average #

Median

Middle #

Mode

number that appears the most

Standard Deviation

The variance of scores around the mean

Range

Distance from highest to lowest scores

APA Ethical Guidelines

- APA (American Psychological Association

- IRB (International Review Board)

- Both for humans and animals

- Need to be treated in a humane way

- Needs a clear purpose

- Least amount of suffering possible

- Needs to be obtained legally (for animals)

- Need to consent (for humans)

Genie documentary

- Was neglected from the second she was born

- Cant talk, can't read, can barely walk

- With years and years of learning she was unable to learn how to grammatically write and speak