HSP3U

Social Science

Is the study of people as individuals and as members of groups such as families, tribes, and communities.

Psychology

is the study of the mind and behaviour

- can range from the functions of the brain, mental illnesses, the actions of nations, child development, to caring for the aged.

Sociology

Is the study of human social relationships and institutions.

- social causes and consequences of romantic love, racial and gender identity, family conflict, deviant behaviour, aging, and religion.

- examines crime and law, poverty and wealth, prejudice and discrimination, schools and education, business firms, urban community, social movements.

- population growth and war

Anthropology

Study of various aspects of humans within past and present societies, cultures, beliefs, practices, values, ideas, and social organizations

Physical Anthropology

Deals with the evolution of humans and their adaptions

Cultural Anthropology

is the study of past and present human cultures, their beliefs, practices, values, ideas and social organization.

Social Anthropology

the study of the ways in which people live in different social and cultural settings across the globe

Archaeology

The study of human history through the excavation and the analysis of artifacts and other physical remains

Scientific Method of Inquiry

Question

Hypothesis

Gather Data

Analyze Data

Draw Conclusions

Five Methods of Inquiry

Case Studies

Interviews

Experiments

Surveys

Observations

Case Study

is the observation of an individual, a situation or a group over a period of time.

Interview

is a conversation between two or more people where questions are asked by the interviewer to elicit facts or statements

Structured Interview

Fixed format interview in which all questions are prepared beforehand and are put in the same order to each interviewer

Semi-Structured Interview

Is a qualitative method of inquiry that combines a predetermined set of open questions with the opportunity for the interviewer to explore further responses

Unstructured Interview

An interview where questions are not prearranged. They are more flexible as questions can be adapted and changed depending on the interviewee

Experiment

A method of inquiry to determine how one factor is related to another, for example - could one factor be caused by another?

Survey

is a method for collecting info or data as reported by individuals

Empirical Data

Is information acquired by observation or experimentation

Observation

Is a social research technique that involves the direct observation of phenomena in their natural setting

Structured Observation

Planning beforehand what will be observed and noted, and keeping a list of things to look for

Unstructured Observation

Involves studying people without a predetermined idea of what to look for

Participation Observation

Is a technique used mainly by anthropologists. The researcher not only observes the group but also participates in the group's activities

Subjectivity

How someone's judgement is shaped by personal opinions and feelings instead of outside influences

Objectivity

lack of bias, judgement, or prejudice

Ethnocentrism

Evaluation of other cultures according to preconceptions originating in the standards and customs of one's own culture

Ethics

Moral principles that govern a person's or a group's behaviour. (what is morally good or bad)

Consequences of not following ethics for universities

lose ability to grant degrees, prof can be fired, student could lose funding and not get degree, hurt rep. of school, face fines and penalties under law

Consequences of not following ethics for businesses

Risk legal penalty, penalty or lack of approval from Health and Welfare Canada (e.g. drugs) negative press and public outcries

Control Group

Is the group in a study that does not include the thing being tested and is used as a benchmark to measure the results of the other group

Dependent Variable

The factor affected by the change

Independent Variable

The factor to be changed in the experiment

Reliability

Is the degree to which an assessment tool produces stable and consistent results

Validity

The quality of being logically or factually sound; soundness or cogency

Qualitative Research

Is primarily exploratory research, it is used to gain an understanding of underlying reasons, opinions, and motivations. It provides insights into the problem or helps to develop ideas or hypotheses.

Quantitative Research

Methods emphasize objective measurements and the statistical, mathematical, or numerical analysis of data collected through polls, questionnaires, and surveys, or by manipulating pre-existing statistical data using computational techniques.

Code of Ethics

1. Researchers should be objective and honest

2. Researchers should respect the privacy and dignity of their subjects

3. Research subjects must be protected from personal harm

4. Researchers should disclose sources of financial support

5. Researchers should not misuse their role as a researcher

6. Participants are free to back out at any time

7. Responsibilities of investigator and participants should be made clear from the beginning

8. The investigator should protect participants from physical and mental discomfort, harm and danger. Participants should be informed of all risk

Monkey Drug Trials

(1969) A large group of monkeys and rats were trained to inject themselves with an assortment of drugs: morphine, alcohol, codeine, cocaine, amphetamines.

- They tried to escape and broke their arms

- Tore off their own fingers

- Fur pulling

- Death

Landis' Facial Expressions Experiment

(1924) Carney Landis: experiment to see whether different emotions create facial expressions specific to that emotion.

- Students' faces painted with black lines

- Stimuli: Smelling ammonia, look at pornography, put their hands into a bucket of frogs, made to behead or watch the beheading of a live rat. (1/3 did it)

A Psychologist's Questions

Wonder about the mental and physical state of the person:

- Was the person suicidal?

- Depressed?

- On medication to cause disorientation?

- Medication that would react with alcohol consumption?

- Given a harmful drug?

- Any past physical/mental trauma?

A Sociologist's Questions

Wonder about social conditions, including institutions:

- With friends or people who knew the person before the accident occurred?

- Economic background?

- Live in a less safe area?

- Raised in a violent home?

- Resources of support for friends, family?

- Emergency workers, police, the courts and/or prison system every involved with the person?

An Anthropologist's Questions

Wonder about the culture of which the person is a part of:

- Cultural norms for treatment of males and females compared to others?

- Safe in this culture?

- Parental Concerns?

- Parental actions and rules?

- Different cultural expectations?

- Violence part of the culture?

Psychology Defined

The scientific study of behaviour and mental processes, and the factors that influence these processes.

Psychoanalysis

Founded by Sigmund Freud: A process designed to uncover patients' unconscious thoughts by encouraging them to discuss their background, feelings and experiences with a trained psychologist

Developmental Psychology

Scientific study of how and why human beings develop over the course of their life. This field examines topics such as; motor skills, cognitive development, moral understanding, language acquisition, social change and personality development

Behaviourism

Studied how individuals react to the environment. Believed that all behavioral responses are the result of environmental stimuli

Cognitive Psychology

The study of mental processes involved in memory, learning, and thinking. Topics include things such as decision-making, problem-solving, learning attention, memory and forgetting

Neuroscientist

A scientist who specializes in the study of the human brain

Phineas Gage Accident

25 year old railroad construction worker. 1848, set off an explosive which propelled a rod through his left cheek and out his skull. Survived, but his behaviour completely changed. First case demonstrating the relationship b/w the brain and behaviour.

Left Hemisphere

Communication and language, logic, mathematical abilities

- Controls right side of the body

Right Hemisphere

Receives and analyzes information, facial recognition, spatial awareness, visual imagery.

- Controls left side of the body

Left Brain

Logic, analysis, sequencing, linear, mathematics, language, facts, think in words, words of songs, computation

Right Brain

Creativity, imagination, holistic thinking, intuition, arts (motor skill), rhythm (beats), non verbal, visualization, tune of songs, daydreaming

Cerebrum

The largest and most developed portion of the brain, which is responsible for controlling memory, understanding, logic, intelligence and many emotions.

Frontal Lobe

Is involved in speaking and planning actions

Brain Stem

Breathing, blood pressure, heartbeat, swallowing

Corpus Callosum

Large circular structure connecting hemispheres

Temporal Lobe

Analyzes sounds to make sense of speech

Hippocampus

Transfers information into memory. Stores the names of people and things... Short and long term memory.

Amygdala

Two almond-shaped neutral clusters regulating how emotion can affect memory and creating "fight or flight" response to fear

Parietal Lobe

Concerned with the reception and processing of sensory info from the body

Occipital Love

Concerned with vision

Membranes

Contains fluid to cushion the skull

Hypothalamus

Controls many instincts such as hunger and thirst

Pituitary Gland

Makes many hormones which control body systems directly or indirectly

Skull

Protection of the delicate brain

Medulla Oblongata

Controls many basic reflexes of life such as breathing. (also controls aggression: the bigger, the more aggressive)

Perception

process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting our sensations

Filling in the Gaps

The brain works on a set of assumptions and fills in the gaps by making educated guesses.

Closure

Occurs when the info given to the brain is incomplete. The brain fills in the missing information on a set of assumptions and educated guesses.

Perceptual Sets

A mix of what our senses take in and what our experiences suggest. Your tendency to perceive one thing and not another

Teen Brain

Brain is still developmental mode when comparing to adult brain; they are better at learning new things but are not as rational. Ages 10-25

Perceptual Constancy

perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent shapes, size, lightness, and color) even as illumination and retinal images change.

- Optical illusions

Correlation

A measure that indicates a relationship between two factors but does not indicate causation; in positive correlation, one variable goes up as the other goes up; in a negative correlation, one variable goes up precisely as the other goes down.

Psychodynamics

An approach to psychology that emphasizes the study of the psychological forces that underline human behaviour, feelings, and emotions, and how they might relate to early experience. It focuses on resolving a patient's conflicted conscious and unconscious feelings. It is especially interested in the dynamic relations between conscious motivation and unconscious motivation.

Conscious

Information that we are always aware of; our conscious mind performs thinking when we take in new info.

Unconscious

Infor in our minds that we are not aware of; Freud believes it holds our unacceptable thoughts, feelings and memories

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

Field: psychoanalytic, personality; Contributions: id/ego/superego, Oedipus/Electra complex, defense mechanisms, psychoanalysis

Ego

The rational part of the mind; operates on principal

Id

The pleasure part of our mind; always wanting pleasure; our devil

Superego

The moral center of our mind; our angel

Defence Mechanism

Coping techniques that reduce anxiety that arises from unacceptable or potentially harmful impulses by distorting reality.

Repression

Burying a painful feeling e.g. forgetting your father's funeral

Denial

Not accepting reality because it is too painful e.g. you are arrested several times for drunk driving but refuse to accept you have an alcohol addiction

Displacement

Channeling a feeling or thought from its actual source to something or someone else

Free Association

A method used in psychoanalysis where a patient relaxes and says whatever comes to mind

Projection/Transference

Attributing your own unacceptable thoughts or feelings to someone or something else.

Freud's Psychosexual Stages

oral stage, anal stage, phalic stage, latency stages, puberty gental stage: If we do not go through these stages there are consequences later in life

Psychosexual Stage: Oral

Birth to 1 year: Baby's sucking activities to breast or bottle. If not met, individual may develop such habits as thumb sucking, fingernail biting, and pencil chewing in childhood and overeating and smoking in later life.

Psychosexual Stage: Anal

1 to 3 years: Toddlers and preschoolers enjoy holding and releasing urine and feces. Toilet training becomes an issue. If parents insist that children be trained before they are ready or if they make too few demands, conflicts about anal control may appear in the form of extreme orderliness and cleanliness or messiness and disorder

Psychosexual Stage: Phallic

3 to 6 years: As preschoolers take pleasure in genital stimulation, Freud's Oedipus conflict for boys and Electra conflict for girls arise: Children feel a sexual desire for the other-sex parent and hostility toward the same-sex parent. To avoid punishment and loss of parental love, they suppress these impulses and, instead, adopt the same-sex parent's characteristics and values. As a result, the superego is formed, and children feel guilty whenever they violate its standards.

Psychosexual Stage: Latency

6 to 11 years: Sexual instincts die down and the superego develops further. The child acquires new social values from adults and same-sex peers outside the family.

Psychosexual Stage: Genital

Adolescence: With puberty, the sexual impulses of the phallic stage reappear. If development has been successful during the earlier stages, it leads to marriage, mature sexuality, and the birth and rearing of children. This stage extends through adulthood.

Fixation

The continued fixation on an earlier stage of psychosexual development due to an unresolved conflict at oral, anal, or phallic stage.

Oedipus Complex

Feelings of rivalry with the parent of the same sex and sexual desire for the parent of the other sex, occurring during the phallic stage and ultimately resolved through identification with the parent of the same sex.

Castration Anxiety

The fear that a boys father will castrate him in retaliation for pursuing his mother.

Electra Complex

Freudian theory; when a girl wants the attention and affection of her father and sees her mother as competition, usually strongest around phallic age

Penis Envy

A girl notices they don't have an external appendage like their dad or brother; they want one because boys have more power (sexism) & they wonder when they'll get one.

Freudian Slip

Slip of the tongue by which it is thought a person unintentionally reveals his or her true feelings

Female Hysteria

Unmanageable emotional excesses. Symptoms included faintness, nervousness, insomnia, fluid retention, heaviness in abdomen, muscle spasm, shortness of breath, irritability, loos of appetite for food or sex, tendency to cause trouble

Treatments: Psychotherapy, hypnosis, manipulating pressure points on the forehead, insane asylums, hysterectomy, genital massage and "hysterical paroxysm" (causing orgasm)

Freud Dreams: Displacement

When the desire for one thing or person is symbolized by something or someone else