Psych- Disciplines, Correlation vs. Causation (Lecture)

Psychoanalysis

Freud's theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions

-unfalsifiable
-pseudoscience
-anecdotal evidence (free association)

Falsifiability

a feature of a scientific theory, in which it is possible to collect data that will prove the theory wrong

Behaviorism

Study only observable behaviors
-We can't understand internal mental states
-Behaviors are 100% malleable (No free will)
People can be trained to do anything
-Humans are blank slates at birth

innateness

born with templates or rough drafts
-does not mean we are born with fear of snakes, just predisposed to it

Biological Perspective

evolution, instincts are adaptive

Drunken Monkey Hypothesis

Evolution from fruit-eating monkeys causes an evolutionary advantage to drinking alcohol (developed ADH4 enzyme)

Trait vs. State

Trait- personality characteristics that are stable, long-lasting, and within oneself. Traits are generally present consistently, and do not depend on the situation.

State- personality characteristics that are unstable, short-term and subject to change according to the environment

sociocultural perspective

norms

cognitive perspective

how we encode, process, store, and retrieve information
beliefs

Schema

a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information

descriptive research

understand one variable at a time (ex. marriage rate)

analytic research

used in psych
association between multiple variables
what affects divorce rate?

predictor variable

x-axis

outcome

y-axis

spurious correlation

an apparent but false relationship between two (or more) variables that is caused by chance

(robust) correlation

real relationship

reverse casuality

a situation in which the researcher believes that A results in a change in B, but B, in fact, is causing A

bidirectional causality

both variables cause each other

3rd variable causation

another factor is influencing both variables, resulting in the relationship we see