AP Psych: Unit 1

What are the components of a Scientific Attitude?

What are the components of a Scientific Attitude?

DEF: curiosity, healthy skepticism, humility, and critical thinking

What are the components of critical thinking?

DEF: examining assumptions, evaluating sources, unearthing hidden biases, incorporating evidence, and assessing conclusions

Socrates and Plato believed in:

Logic: the mind is separable from the body; knowledge is innate (nature).

Aristotle believed in:

Observation: knowledge grows from experiences stored in memory (nurture).

René Descartes believed in:

Cartesian dualism: reality can be divided into mind and matter.

(“animal spirits” flow to the muscles to create movements; memories form as a result)

Francis Bacon believed in:

Scientific method

John Locke believed in:

Tabula Rasa: blank slate

Empiricism: knowledge comes from experiences, which is aided by observation and experimentation.

Structuralism:

Focuses on what the mind is.

Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Bradford Titchener trained people to look inward (introspection) in order to understand their own psychological processes.

EX: Making someone look at a long list of numbers for 10 seconds and then asking them why they think they forgot most of them

Functionalism:

Tries to figure out how the mind works.

William James who was influenced by Charles Darwin studied the functions of emotions, memories, etc. to understand their purpose in evolution (changing of species over time).

Behavioralism:

Study of observable human behavior.

John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner believed psychology to be an observable science that studies behavior.

EX: Observing facial expressions after making someone angry

Freudian Psychology (Psychoanalytic)

Sigmund Freud studied the influences of the unconscious and of childhood experiences on later behaviors.

Humanistic Psychology

Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow’s form emphasized the human potential for personal growth.

Nature:

genetically passed down.

Nurture:

environmental impacts around you.

Cartesian dualism:

DEF: reality can be divided into mind and matter.

Empiricism:

DEF: knowledge comes from experiences, which is aided by observation and experimentation.

Tabula Rasa:

DEF: blank slate

Cognitive Psychology:

DEF: the study of mental processes involved in perception, learning, memory, communication, problem solving, etc. Considers the effects of cognition on disorders.

Psychology:

Science of behavior and mental processes.

Behavior:

Actions of an organism that are observable and recordable.

Mental Processes:

Internal, subjective experiences.

EX: sensations, perceptions, thoughts, feelings, etc

Cross-Cultural Gender Psychology:

Both biology and culture shape human behaviors

Understanding our own cultural biases can prevent us from making assumptions of others.

Across the sexes, men and women are similar and different in their biological and psychological characteristics

Most psychological studies are based on WEIRD participants (western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic people)

Biopsychosocial Approach:

An approach to psychology that considers biological, psychological and social-cultural perspectives.

Behavioral Perspective:

DEF: observable responses; every behavior is learned.

EX: learned to face the door of the elevator by observing others

Biological Perspective:

DEF: Influence of genes and environment on individual differences; passed down from parents

hint- medical perspective/treatments

EX: parents passed down a chemical imbalance in the brain

Cognitive Perspective:

DEF: Encoding, processing, storing, and retrieving information; internal processes

EX: a person’s brain stores information poorly, leading to bad memory recall

Evolutionary Perspective:

DEF: Natural selection’s influence on genes; passed down from ancestors

EX: Your ancestors ran away from all spiders bc they didn’t know which ones were poisonous. So now, you run away from spiders bc this trait helped your ancestors survive so it was passed down to you

Humanistic Perspective:

DEF: Personal growth and self fulfillment; everyone wants to be their best selves

EX: having low self esteem, so you try to find ways to feel better about yourself in life

Psychodynamic Perspective:

DEF: Influence of unconscious motivations and childhood experiences; childhood trauma makes you who you are

EX: neglected by parents when younger, so now they act out to try to gain at least one person’s attention, although they may be unaware of this

Social-Cultural Perspective:

DEF: Variations in thinking and behaviors across cultures and gender; societal norms and peer pressure

EX: in America it is the norm to wear or feel pressured to wear crop tops/in other countries it may be seen as inappropriate to wear crop tops

Basic Research:

Purpose is to build psychology’s knowledge base.

Biological Psychologists:

Explores the links between the body and mind.

Developmental Psychologists:

Study changing abilities from birth to death.

Cognitive Psychologists:

Experiment with how humans think and solve problems.

Educational Psychologists:

Study influences on teaching and learning.

Personality Psychologists:

Investigate humans’ persistent traits.

Social Psychologists:

Explore how humans view and affect each other.

Experimental Psychologists:

Investigate basic behavioral processes in humans and other animals. Focus on motivation, learning, perception, and language.

Psychometric and Quantitative Psychologists:

Study math-related methods to acquiring psychological knowledge. Typically devise, administer, score, and interpret tests.

Applied Research:

Aims to solve practical problems.

Industrial-Organizational (I/O) Psychologists:

Help companies with behaviors in the workplace.

Human Factors Psychologists:

Explore how people and machines interact to make workplaces safer.

Counseling Psychologists:

Assist people with problems to achieve greater wellbeing

REQUIRES: Masters degree (2 yrs)

Clinical Psychologists:

Assess and treat people who have already been diagnosed with psychological disorders.

REQUIRES: Doctorate Degree (Psy D) (4-7 yrs)

Psychiatrists:

Medical doctors who treat the physical causes of psychological disorders. CAN Diagnose and prescribe medicine for psych disorders)

RQUIRES: Medical (MD) Degree (bachelors 4 yrs and medical school)

Community Psychologists:

Work to create healthy environments for all people.

Forensic Psychologists:

Legal issues

Health Psychologists:

Physical health

Neuropsychologists:

Neurology linked to behavior

Rehabilitation Psychologists:

Work with injured/newly disabled people

School Psychologists:

Work with INDIVIDUAL students

Sports Psychologists:

Help with psychological issues in sports

Hindsight Bias:

The tendency to believe that, after learning an outcome, one would have foreseen it. (I-knew-it-all-along-phenomenon)

Theory:

Explanations that apply an integrated set of principles to organize observations and generate hypotheses.

Hypothesis:

Predictions that can be used to check the theory or produce practical applications of it.

Operational Definition:

Carefully worded statement of the exact procedures used in a research study.

EX: if observing for “anxiety” in high school children, look for hyperventilation, shaking, excessive sweating, and inability to sit still/shifting in seat.

Replication:

To repeat/create something exactly the same as the original.

Why are theories useful?

They organize observations, imply predictions, and stimulate further research.

What are the three major categories of research methods used for psychological theories?

Descriptive, Correlational, and Experimental.

Descriptive (research method):

Describe behaviors: using case studies, surveys, or naturalist observations.

Correlational (research method):

Associate different factors (variables) with how well one can predict another.

Experimental (research method):

Manipulate variables to discover the effects.

Case Study (def+ex+stre+weak):

DEF: Examines one person or small group in extreme detail to reveal a truth about humanity as a whole.

EX: Phineas Gage was once kind and cautious, however after an accident damaged the frontal lobes of his brain, he changed to becoming very rude and irrational. Allowed for more information on the behavior of the frontal cortex in the brain.

Strength- Provides lots of details and observations

Weakness- Can lead to mistaken judgements and false conclusions; an anecdote does not constitute evidence

Naturalistic Observation (def+ex+stre+weak):

DEF: Observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate or control the situation.

EX: Using technology and social media to see if there is an increase in the number of negative posts made while the weather is rainy. Purpose is to see if the rainy weather causes people to be more negative. (describes that the weather makes people more negative, but doesn’t tell why)

Strength- Very accessible and realistic to people’s authentic lives (subjects aren’t acting differently as a result of knowing about the experiment).

Weakness- It does not control factors that may be influencing behaviors and therefore it only describes behavior, and does not explain them

Survey (def+ex+stre+weak):

DEF: Technique to obtain self-reported attitudes or behaviors of a group by questioning a representative/random sample.

EX: We asked 100 people in Indiana if they brush their teeth, twice a day, everyday. 85 percent said yes, 10 percent said only once a day, and 5 percent said never.

Strength- Random sampling allow for fair representation of a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion.

Weakness- Generalizing from a few vivid but unrepresentative cases.

Population:

All those in a group being studied from which samples can be drawn. Large representative samples (random selection) are better than smaller ones.

Overconfidence:

Humans tend to think that they know more than they do; partly results from confirmation bias.

Confirmation Bias:

Tendency to seek only for information that confirms our previously held knowledge.

Perceiving Order:

People have an innate eagerness to make sense of the world around them.

Clustering Illusion:

Receiving patterns from random events.

Correlation:

A measure of the extent to which two variables are related and how well one can predict the other.

Correlational Coefficient:

A statistical measure of a relationship (always between -1.00 and +1.00)

Negative Correlation:

As one variable increases, the other variable decreases and vice versa. Have a negative slope.

EX: As temperature drops, winter coat sales increase

Perfect Negative Correlation:

-1.00

Perfect Positive Correlation:

+1.00

Positive Correlation:

As one variable increases, the other variable increases OR as one variable decreases, the other variable decreases. Have a positive slope.

EX: As the hours of the school day increase, so does a students exhaustion.

Correlation Strength:

The closer a correlation is to -1.00 or +1.00, the stronger the relationship.

Variables:

Anything that can vary and is feasible/ethical to measure.

Scatterplots:

Graphed cluster of dots, each one representing the value of two variables.

Correlation and Causation Relationship?

Correlation DOES NOT imply Causation.

It cannot and does not prove a cause-effect relationship, although it can predict them.

Illusory Correlations:

Perceiving relationships where none exists, or perceiving stronger than actual relationships.

EX: A person catches several fish in a certain area of a lake. After that day, they believe that the location was the reason they caught the fish compared to other spots. However, it may just be random events.

Regression Toward the Mean:

The tendency for extreme or unusual scores to fall back (regress) toward the average.

EX: A volleyball play who plays extremely well with little to no mistakes that day, will likely return back to their average when they play their next game.

Research Design (5 steps):

1. Find a testable question

2. Select the most appropriate research design

-experimental, correlational, case study, naturalistic observation, twin study, longitudinal, or cross sectional

3. Consider time, money, ethics, and other limitations

4. Decide on operational definitions

5. Consider confounding variables

Studying and Protecting Animals:

Animal experiments often lead to treatments for human diseases - humans and animals share a common biology.

(Think: is it right to place the wellbeing of humans above other animals? If yes, what safeguards should protect the wellbeing of animals in research?)

Studying and Protecting Humans:

Temporary stress and deception are allowed as long as it is essential to the experiment.

APA and BPS urge what 4 rules?

1. Informed consent

2. Protect the participants from greater than unusual harm and discomfort

3. Keep participants information and date confidential

4. Debrief

Informed Consent:

Giving potential participants enough information about a study to enable them to choose whether or not to participate.

Debrief:

Explain the study (including any deception and its purpose) to participants after the experiment has ended.

Institutional Review Boards

Organizations engaged in research have institutional review boards to screen proposals for ethical concerns and to safeguard participants.

Confounding Variables:

A factor other than the independent variable that may cause a result in the experiment.

Statistics:

The tools that allow psychologists to measure variables and interpret results. (big, round, undocumented numbers can mislead the public, bc most of them are statistically illiterate).

Descriptive Statistics:

Numerical data used to measure and describe characteristics of groups (shown via histogram).

Histogram:

Bar Graph (read the labels, esp. y-axis and note their range).

Measures of Central Tendency:

A single score that represents a whole set of data.

Mean:

The average distribution - most impacted by outlying scores.

Median:

The middle score of a distribution - minimally impacted by outlying scores.

Mode:

The most frequently occurring score in a distribution.

Skewed Distribution:

A representation of scores that lack symmetry around their average value.

EX: Bill Gates sitting in a café skews the average persons income.

The Need for Measures of Variation:

Measures of central tendency don’t report the amount of variation in the data.

What amount of variability is more reliable?

Low variability