Unit 0

History, Approaches & Research Methods

Structuralism/Introspection

Edward Bradford Titchener and William Wundt; aim to classify and understand elements of mind's structure; train people to be self reflective or introspective; bad technique - high variability and low reliability

Functionalism

explore how mental and behavioral processes function and how they enable an organism to adapt, survive, and flourish; William James and Charles Darwin

Empiricism

idea that knowledge comes with experience; observation and experimentation enable scientific knowledge

Psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud; emphasize how unconscious mind and childhood experiences affect our behavior typically through talk therapy

Behaviorism

Pavlov, Watson, Thorndike, and Skinner; Looking only at people’s behavior to understand how they learn and what they learn; Classical (involuntary) vs. Operant (voluntary); difference comes down to stimulus and response and when either is introduced

Socrates and Plato

mind separable from body and continues after body dies; knowledge is innate and born with us

Aristotle

use data; knowledge is not preexisting and grows from experiences stored in memories

Renes Descartes

nature

John Locke

nurture; tabula rasa: blank slate

Francis Bacon

mind's hunger to percieve patterns in random events

Humanistic Psychology

Personal growth and fulfillment

Cognitive psychology

encode, process, store, and receive information

Evolutionary psychology

natural selection and gene survival

Biological Perspective

Genes, body, and brain affect our emotions, memories, or sensory experiences

Sociocultural perspective

variation across cultures

Biopsychosocial model

integrated approach that includes bio, psycho, and socio-cultural viewpoints

Hindsight Bias

predictability, inevitablity, and memory distortion from experimenter pov (after study)

looking back and saying “i knew that was going to happen”; if something bad happens saying “how did you not see the signs → looking back didn’t know outcome so couldn’t predict

Confirmation bias

the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories.

cherrypick things, only looking at details that confirm what you believe, only seeing things from ur pov (start of the study)

Overconfidence bias

a cognitive bias in which a person's subjective confidence in their judgments is reliably greater than their objective accuracy

Illusory Correlation

people believe a relationship exists between two variables or events that are not actually related

Case Study

Looking deeply and fully into one particular situation or person; close look on specific issue; hard to replicate findings and can't generalize

Naturalistic Observation

To study a subject in their natural environment; may yield more authentic results; may not display the behaviours you hope to see so makes causation impossible since behavior changes when watched

Survey method

Cheap, easy, usually quick, and anonymous so more honesty; Impersonal - often lacking in detail or context, people will often lie

Longitudinal Study

To study a group or person over a long period of time to understand change throughout the life span; Hard to keep track of people, some may leave or drop out of study, which can invalidate some of the results

Experiment Method

The most restrictive of all studies, where most aspect of the study are controlled  by the experimenter; can infer causation; behavior may be unnatural because the setting is so fixed

Hypothesis

a research question

Independent Variable

the thing you change

Dependent Variable

the thing you measure

Experiment Groups

the group that gets treatment

Control Group

the group that gets no treatment or a placebo; baseline data to compare

Placebo

a sugar pill that has no medicinal value

Placebo Effect

the idea of treatment is enough to cause a 

measurable effect

Single Blind

subject doesn't know which treatment they are recieving

Double Blind

subject and experimenter don't know which treatment is recieved, common in medical experiments

Positive Correlation

both factors move in the same direction (increase OR decrease together)

Negative Correlation

factors move in opposite directions (one increases while the other decreases)

No Correlation

factors do not seem to have a relationship; Correlation does not equal Causation

Standard Deviation

1. Calculate the mean (x̄):

2. Find the squared difference from the mean for each data point: 

3. Sum the squared differences: 

4. Calculate the variance:

   1. Divide the sum of squared differences by n-1. So, if there are 4 data points, n-1 = 3. 

5. Calculate the standard deviation (s):

   1. Take the square root of the variance.

Informed Consent

person's right to autonomy and self-determination, ensuring they receive comprehensive, understandable information about a medical or research procedure to make a free and voluntary decision

Debriefing

researchers fully inform participants about the study's goals, procedures, and any deception used, while also providing support for any distress experienced

Confidentiality

duty to protect privileged or sensitive information shared within a professional relationship, ensuring it is not disclosed without consent

Protection from Harm

requires minimizing risks and preventing harm to participants; mental or physical

Use of Deception

requires a strong scientific justification, minimal risk to participants, a lack of non-deceptive alternatives, and comprehensive debriefing