psych 101 exam 1

Contemporary Perspectives of psychology

Different approaches in explaining behavior

Neuroscience View

- Due to internal physiological, chemical, and biological processes

- Nervous system, brain activity, genetics, endocrine system and biochemistry

Evolutionary View

- Result of evolution process

- Use of evolution principles based on natural selection

- Cross-cultural similarities

Behavior Genetics

- How much individual influence does our genes and environment have

- Look at behavior and traits

Behavioral View

- Shaped and controlled by one's environment

- Study of observable behavior and effects of learning

- Influence of external rewards and punishments

Cognitive View

- Understood in terms of mental processing of information

- Examines how one thinks, perceives, understands info, decision-making, and memory

Psychodynamic

- Result of forces within one's personality - unconscious level

- Forces are impulses, desires, conflicts

Sociocultural

Influenced by one's social and cultural context

Biopsychosocial Approach

Use of various levels of analysis in order to understand behavior or mental activity

Biological

- Hormones

- Brain mechanics

- Genetics

- Neuroscience

- Evolutionary

Psychological

- Emotional response

- Cognitive processes

- Cognitive

- Psychodynamic

Social-Cultural

- Presences of others

- Environment

- Media

- Behavioral

- Sociocultural

- Behavioral Genetics

Psychiatrist

- Medical school (M.D.)

- Specialize in diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders

- Can prescribe medication in addition to therapy

Psychologist

- Graduate school (Ph.D.)

- In some states can provide medication

- Can diagnose

Scientific Method

System of gathering data so that bias and error in measurement are reduced

Descriptive Methods

Only allow us to describe behaviors - doesn't tell us the cause

Case study

- Study an individual or phenomena in great depth

- e.g. trial of medication combination for Autistic child

- e.g. Phineas Gage - personality changed after a brain injury

Advantages of case study

- Provides detailed descriptions of specific and rare cases

- Potential to develop novel hypothesis/experiment

Disadvantages of case study

- Can't test hypothesis

- Can't draw cause and effect relationship

- Can't generalize to wider population

Survey

- Report behaviors or opinions

- Conduct in person or via questionnaire

- Have many cases with less in-depth studying

Advantages of survey

- Can get private information

- Cover a lot of material

- Survey hundreds or people

- Inexpensive

Disadvantage of survey

- Careful of wording of questions

- Social desirability

- In order to generalize results, need to have a representative sample of cases/individuals (No random sampling)

Naturalistic Observation

- Observe individual in everyday environment

- Recording everything the person is doing without making changes in their environment

Advantages of naturalistic observation

- Realistic behavior compared to lab

- Naturally occurring behavior

- High external validity (if you see this today, it's safe to assume you'll see it every other day as well)

Disadvantages of naturalistic observation

- Observer effect - subject knows they're being watched (behavior could change) Only happens when there's an observation component

- Observer bias - observer has particular opinion about what they will see/expect to see

- Difficult to capture rare behaviors

Can't control extraneous variables

Descriptive Methods

Case study

Descriptive Methods

Survey

Descriptive Methods

Naturalistic Observation

Experimental Studies

Only scientific method that allows researchers to determine cause of behavior

Random assignment

- The physical process of assigning participants to either the experimental or control group

- Helps to control for confounding variables (Gender, etc)

Experimental group

- Group that receives experimental manipulation

- Independent variable

Control group

No treatment or some kind of treatment that should have no effect

Manipulation of a variable

- Manipulating a variable while holding others constant

- Thus, if get changes, know it's due to manipulated variable

Independent variable (IV)

Manipulated variable

Dependent variable (DV)

Behavior that is observed, measured and tested (the outcome)

Single-Blind Design

- Participants are blind if they are in experimental or control group

- Just controls Placebo

Double-Blind Design

- Experimenter and participants don't know if participants are in experimental or control group

- Controls both Placebo and Experimenter

Correlation Studies

- Relationship between 2 or more variables

- Does NOT imply causation

- Knowing the value of 1 variable allows is to predict value of the other variable

- Direction of relationship and its strength

Random Sampling

- Equal representation

- Anyone could be chosen

Correlational Coefficient

Ranges from -1 to +1

Strength of relationship

- Closer the value is to -1 or +1, the stronger the relationship

- Closer the value is to 0, the weaker the relationship

+-0.7

Strong correlation

+-0.4 - +-0.6

Moderate correlation

+-0.3

Weak correlation

Placebo Effects

- Expectations of participants in study can influence behavior

- e.g. the control group receives sugar pills that "reduces headaches" - they'll believe it helps

- How to find out if they have a placebo effect?

- If significant amounts of control group reports headache to go down

Experimenter Expectancy Effect

- May give clues to participants as to how to respond via body language, tone of voice

- Might not be intentional

Hawthorne Effect

- Participants knowledge of being studied which then affects their behavior

- Difficult to eliminate, most studies try to minimize it

Potential Limitations in Research

1. Observer Bias

2. Observer Effect

3. Experimenter Expectancy Effect

4. Experimental Setting

- Needs to be consistent

- Light, noise, type of people present

5. Experimental Procedures

- Needs to be consistent

- Time of day, measurement

6. Small sample size (n)

7. Homogeneous sample size

- Be care how you generalize results - don't generalize beyond bounds of experiment

- Race, gender, age, class

8. Fatigue Effects

- Participants slow down (behaviorally, mentally, etc) when the study tires them out

9. Practice Effects

10. Confounding Variables

- Gender, age range, IQ