Studied by 20 peopletabula rasa
John Locke wrote a one-[age essay on our own abilities and 20 years later, he completed one of history’s greatest papers that said that the mind at birth is a tabula rasa (blank slate) and experiences shape us.
importance of wilhelm wundt
He was a professor that created a device with the help of 2 other men that measured the time between people hearing a ball hit a platform and presing a key. People responded fasted when asked to hit the key as soon as the sound occused comparedc to when asked to do so when they were consciously aware of the sound
was able to measure “atoms of the mind”
Stated the first psychological laboratory in Leipzig, Germany 1879
Had two famous students: G. Stanley Hall & Edward Bradford Tichener
Was a structuralist
what is structuralism and what are its problems?
early school of thought promoted by Wundt and Titchener
used introspection to reveal the strucutre of the human mind
Tichener’s method made people look inwards (self-reflective introspection) and report elements of their expewrience when experiencing different things
introspection varies greatly per person and have errors
How does functionalism differ from structuralism and who were its supporters
William James (who studeid the evolved functions of our thoughts and feelings + believed it was adaptive, counsciousness served a purpose) was a functionalist
early school of through influenced by Darwin; explored how mental and behavioral processes function - how they enable the organism to adapt, survive, and flourish.
James explored down-to-earth emotions, memories, willpower, habits, moment-to-moment streams of consciousness
nature vs nurture
the longstanding controvesrt over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors. Today’s science sees traits and behaviors arising from the interaction of nature and nurture
psychology’s most persistent issue
What are the 7 approachwes/perspectives of psychology
Behavioral, Psychodynamic, Humainism, Cognitie, Biological (Biomedical), Evolutionary, Soci-Cultural
Behavioral
Supporters: Pavlov, Watson, Skinner
Focus: How we learn responses
Example: How do we learn fears? How do we alter our behaviors?
Biological
aka biomedical/neuroscience
Focus: How the body and brain enable emotion, memories, experiences + How genes and the environement influence us
Example: How does pain go from hand to brain? How much is intelligence, personality, etc. attributable to our genes (or environment)?
Cognitive
Focus: How we encode, process, store, and retrieve information
Example: How do we use information in remembering? Reasoning? Problem Solving?
Evolutionary
Focus: How natural selection promotes gene survival
passed down traits
Example: How does evolution influence behavior tendencies?
Humanistic
Focus: How we obtain love, acceptance, & self-fulfillment
Example: How can we fulfill our potential? How can we overcome barriers to personal growth?
Psychodynamic
Supported: Sigmond Freud(emphasized the ways emotional responses to childhood experiences and our unconscious thought process affect our behavior
Focus: How behaviour springs from uncounscieous drives & conflicts (what happened to you as a child)
Example: How can trauma and wishes explain personality and disorder?
Socio-cultural
Focus: How behavior and thinking vary across culture + situation
Example: How are we all alike? How do we differ?
Careers in psychology
psychometrics: scientfic study of human abilities, attitudes, and traits
some psycholgists conduct basic research that builds knowledge base
biological: exploring link between brain and mind
developmental: Changing abilities through life
cognitive: now we perceive, think, and solve problems
educational: Infivenes on teaching and learning
personality: Investigating our persistent traits
social: how we view + affect one another
Psychologists may also conduct applied research to tackle practical Problems
industrial-organizational (I/o) psychologists apply psychological concepts and methods to optimize human behavior in the workplace
Human factors psychologists focus interaction of people, machines, and physical environment
psychology is best bases such interventions on evidence of effectiveness
counseling psychologists help people cope with challenges and crises and improve personal & social functioning
clinical psychologists assess and treat mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders
both administert + interpret tests, provide counseling & therapy, and conduct (b&a) research
Psychiatrists (may provide psychotherapy) are medical doctors licensed to perscribe drugs and treat physical causes of psychological disorders
positive psychology: scientific study of humane functioning, with the goal of disocring and promoting strengths & virtues that help individuals and communities thrive
Community psychologists: study how people interact with their social environment and how social institutions affect individuals and groups
Hindsight bias
aka “i knew it all” syndrom
the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it
Overconfidence
humans tend to think we know more than we do
when asked many factual questions we tend to be more confident than correct
knowing the answer and then asked how long do you think it would take you to find the answer, we often become overconfident
results partly from our bias to seek information that confirms them
A theory
explains behaviors or events by offering ideas that organize what we observe
an explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes observations and predicts behaviors or events
A good theory produces hypotheses (what results would support or cast doubt on the theory)
theories can bias observation
a good theory organizes reports and observations, leads to clear hypotheses, and stimulates research that leads to revision + replication
we can test our hypotheses and refine our theories in several ways: descriptive, correlational, experimental
A hypothesis
testable predictions
helps test theories
often implied by a thoery
operational definition
phsychologists use them
carefully worded statement of the exact procedures (operations) used in a research study
example: human intelligency may be operationally defined as what an intelligence test measures
example: sleep deprived defined as x hours less than the person’s natural sleep
why is replication important in the research process
reliability
descriptions allow people to replicate (repeat) the research
to verify findings
case study (define, pros+cons)
a descriptive technique in which one individual or group is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles
pros: lots of information and indepth
cons: may mislead us if the individual is atypical, unrepresentative information can lead to mistaken judgement + false conclusions; cannot be generalized because it is only about a specific group
naturalistic observation
observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate and control the situation
does not explain but describes
offers interesting findings but does so without controlling for all the variables that may influence
pros: don’t need to be manipulated or controlled, not artificial
cons: will not give tru causation, or actual variables effecting
survey
a technique for ascertaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors or a particular group usually by questioning a representative, random sample of the group
used to find estimates about a whole population
answers often depend on chosen respondents and how the question is asked (WORDING IS KEY*)
pros: fast and inexpensive, can be generalized
cons: affected by wording, non-reponse error, BIAS*
population of a study vs sample
population: all those in a group being studied, from WHICH samples may be drawn
random sampling
**random sample: a sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion (any study needs random sampling**)
large samples are better than small ones, but 100 representatives samples are better than 500 unrepresentative
correlation
measure of the extend to which 2 variables change together and thus of how well either variable predicts the other
correlation coefficient
a statistical index of the relationship between 2 variables (from -1.0 to 1.0)
negative says nothing about the strength but tells if inverse
reveals the extent to which 2 things relate. the closer the score gets to -1 or +, the stronger the correlation
illusory correlation
the perception of a relationship where none exists
we are likely to notice and recall instances that confirm our belief
THOUGHT there was a relationship
we are especially likely to remember dramatic or unusual events which leads to untrue superstitions and correlations
prone to percieving patterns, whether they’re there or not
does correlation prove causation?
wrong to assume than an association, sometimes presented as a correlation coefficient, proves causation
but no matter how strong the relationship is, it does not
remember; association does not prove causation, correlationindicates the possibility of a cause-effect relationship but does not prove such.
many associations are states as correlations, the famously worded principe is “correlation does not prove causation, → Also true of associations
example: even though crime rates increased as icecream sales increased, they don’t cause one another
why do we use experiments
researches can experiment to isolate cause and effect
experiment: a research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors (independent variables) to observe the effect on some behvairo or mental process (the depended variable). Experiment controls other variables through random assignment
why do we need a control group?
isolate the effects of one or more variables by (1) manipulating the variables of interest and (2) holding constant (“controlling”) other variables
an experimental group is one in which people recieve the treatment and a contrasting control group is one that does not receive treatment
how do we assign experimental and control group?
To minimize any preexisting differences between the 2 groups, randomly assigning people to the 2 conditions equalizes the 2 groups (splits people with similar characteristics equally within the groups)
This way if group differences occur, we can infer that the variable is having an effect
assign control with random assignment so that each group is random
** Random assignment and random sampling are different
importance of double blind procedure
an experimental procedure in which both the research participants and the research staff are ignorat (blind) about whether the research participants have received the treatment or a placebo
commonly used in drug-evaluation studies (research staff + participants don’t know)
** Independent vs confnounding vs dependent variables
independent
when a simple experiment manipulates just one factor this is the independent variable because we can vary it independently of other factors (think x)
confounding
other factors (other than the independent variable) that might produce an effect in an experiment
random assignment controls for the possibility of this
dependent
the outcome factor; the variable that may change in response to manipulations of the independent variable (think y)
Both x and y have to be given precise operational definitions that specify procedure that manipulates independent variable or measures dependent variable
validity
a key goal of experimental design is validity, which means the experiment will test what is is supposed to test
how accurate it is, ex: does the intelligence test actually measure intelligence?
definition: the extent to which a test or experiment measures or predicts what it is supposed to
why is it useful to understand statistics regarding psychology?
statistics are tools that help us see and interpret what the unaided eye might miss
accurate statistical understanding benefits everyone
false alarms underscore the need to teach statistical reasoning and to present statistical information more transparently
descriptive statistics
numerical data used to measure and describe characteristics of groups
includes measures of central tendency and measures of variation
used to organize data meaningfully
simple way is to create a bar graph/histogram
mode, mean, median, range
all measures of central tendency:
mode: simplest; most frequently occuring score(s)
mean: most common; arithmetic average
median: middle score
range: difference between highest and lowest scores
always note which measure of central tendency is reported. if it is a mean, consider whether a few atypical scores could be distorting it.
helps to know variation in the data - how similar or diverse the scores are
the range of scores provides onyl a crude estimate of variation
standard deviation
more useful standarf for measuring how much scores deviate is standard deviation
a computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean score
what shape is used to describe a normal curve
**in a symmetrical, bell-shaped distribution, the mmmr will be very similar or the same
large nuebrs of data often form a symmetrical, bell shaped distribution
example: height, weight, grades
this bell-shaped distribution is so typical that we call the curve it forms the normal curve
**roughly 68% of the cases fall within 1 standard deviation on either side of the mean, about 95% within 2
a study have been found to be statistically significant, what does that indicate about the results from the study?
**Inferencial statistics: numerical data that allows one to generalize - to infer from sample data the probability of something being true of a population (can we apply this to the larger population?)
to decide if it’s safe to generalize, keep this in mind: representative samples are better than biased samples, less-variable observations are more reliable, more cases are better than few
statistical significance: a statistical statement of how likely it is than an obtained result occured by chance
means you cna generalize your findings to the larger population
doe not say anything about the importance of the results
p-value and importance of it
statistical measure used to determine the likelihood that an observed outcome is the reuslt of chance
**needs to be 5% or less (most looking for 1%)
why do psychologists study animals
humans are not like animals, we are animals, sharing a common biology
therefore animal experiments lead to treatment for human diseases
ethical principles that one should follow when studying humans
obtain potential participant’s formal consent
protect them from any physical or emotional harm or discomfort
keep information about participants confidential
fully debrief people (explain resarch afterwards)
Note
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