AP Psychology Unit 1

Psychology

Scientific study of behavior and mental processes

Behavior

Organism's action that is observed and able to be recorded

Mental Processes

Personal experiences assumed from behavior

Socrates and Plato

Greek philosophers that believed: (1) mind and body is separated, (2) when the body dies, the mind continues on, (3) knowledge is innate

Aristotle

Plato's student that believed: Humans get their knowledge through logic and systematic observation of the physical world

Rene Descartes

A psychologist who believed: (1) the mind and body is separated, which he coined the term as dualism, (2) all animals behave like machines (mechanistically) where "spirit fluids" controlled the animals behavior, (3) Humans do not act like machines because the brain and body are connected

Francis Bacon

Founder of Modern Science and experimental psychologist

John Locke

A psychologist who believed: (1) humans are born with a tabula rasa and learn through empirics by learning and experiencing the physical world

Thomas Hobbes

A psychologist who coined the term "Materialism" where the only things that exist in the world are things you can observe, record, and measure, such as behavior

Wilhelm Wundt

Considered to be the father of modern scientific psychology who conducted the first psychological experiment in 1879 (Measuring the reaction time between a ball hitting a table and the pushing of a button); coined the term "voluntarism" meaning our attention is selective and we need motivation

Edward Bradford Titchner

A student who studied under Wundt that believed: (1) we can use introspection to study our consciousness, (2) our mind can broken into three parts: physical sensations, feelings, and images; also coined the term "structuralism"

William James

A psychologist who opposed structuralism and developed functionalism: the three functions of conscious: (1) help to remember past, (2) adapting to the present, (3) plan for the future

Mary Whiton Calkins

A student of William James who studied in memory research and later became the first woman president of the American Psychological Association in 1905

Margaret Floy Washburn

The first Ph.D. student of Titchener, the first woman to get a Ph.D. in psychology and the American Psychological Associations second woman president

Carl Rogers / Abraham Maslow

Developed humanistic psychology, maximizing human potential by focusing on love and acceptance; additionally developed cognitive psychology which focused on taking in, processing, storing, and retrieving information

Nature vs. Nurture

A psychological question which asks whether human characteristics are innate or learned

Natural Selection

A psychological question which asks why our genes are naturally selected (theory by Charles Darwin)

Person-Situation

A psychological question which asks why we react in certain ways to different situations

Stability-Change

A psychological question which asks if we stay the same for our entire lives

Diversity-Universality

A psychological question which asks what makes us similar or different from each other

Biopsychosocial Approach

A psychological approach which combines three levels of analysis

Biological Approach

A psychological approach which includes hormones, neurotransmitters, genes, predisposition, genetic mutations or abnormalities, brain abnormalities

Psychological Approach

A psychological approach which includes expectations, fears, emotional responses

Social-cultural Approach

A psychological approach which includes expectations form parents, culture, society, teachers

Evolutionary Approach

A psychological approach which explains behavior through the survival of genes

Behavioral Approach

A psychological approach which examines the behavior and actions of an individual

Psychodynamic Approach

A psychological approach which explains behavior through repressed drives and motives

Cognitive Approach

A psychological approach which explains situations through the process of explaining how we store, retrieve, and process information

Biological Psychologist

Connection between the mind and body

Developmental Psychologist

How people grow psychologically

Cognitive Psychologist

How we think and perceive information

Personality Psychologist

Traits that make us us and make others others

Social Psychologist

How social groups affect us

Educational Psychologist

Teaching strategies and learning styles

Industrial/Organization Psychologist (IO)

Helping the work force

Human Factors Psychologist

How people interact with technology

Psychiatrists

Psychologists with medical school that can prescribe medication

Clinical and Counseling Psychologists

Psychologists that evaluate an individual, diagnose a disorder, figure out the cause of it, and treat it; also can be family, marital, and career counselors

Hindsight Bias

"I knew it all along": Predictable after knowing, viewing outcomes as inevitable, predictable after knowing outcome

Overconfidence

Being more confident about knowledge that you're not completely sure about being correct and overestimating accuracy of beliefs and judgements

Scientific Method

A method that includes observation, theories, hypotheses, testing of the hypotheses, and operational definitions

Case Study

A study that is only for a small group or one person

Case Study Advantages

(1) Get unusual, infrequent behaviors (2) Thorough description of behaviors

Case Study Disadvantages

(1) Observer Bias (2) Can't generalize findings (3) Not representative of greater population (sample size is small) (4) Not cause-effect relationship

Survey

The use of pre-prepared questions to a pre-selected group

Survey Advantages

(1) Can get a lot of information

Survey Disadvantages

(1) Nor sure if people represent the target group (2) Response Bias (3) False-Consensus Effect (4) Not cause-effect relationship

Naturalistic Observation

Studying behavior in a natural environment

Naturalistic Observation Advantages

(1) Behavior is spontaneous (not forced) (2) More study ideas for future use

Naturalistic Observation Disadvantages

(1) Behavior will only take place once (2) Hawthorne Reactivity Effect (3) Observer Bias (4) Increased need for selection (5) Not cause-effect relationship (6) Risk of Participant Observation

Correlation

Investigating, clarifying naturally occurring relationships and variables

Correlation Advantages

(1) Descriptive (2) Predictable

Correlation Disadvantages

(1) No causality

Illusory Correlation

Perceiving relationship among variables when none exists

Experimentation

Experimenters manipulate events/circumstance and measure effects manipulations had on behavior

Random Sampling

Any person ever in the history of time can be used

Representative Sampling

Any person with the specific traits needed for the experiment

Stratified Sampling

(1) Divide population in to non-overlapping groups (2) Use random sampling to pick subjects from each group (3) Number of subjects chosen from each group must be proportional to total number in the category

Experimental Group

The group that will get the independent variable's effect (getting the real pill)

Control Group

The group that will not get the independent variable's effect (getting the fake pill)

Double-Blind Procedure

Neither experimenter or subjects know what group they are in; eliminates experimenter bias

Single-Blind Procedure

Subjects does not know what group they are in; eliminates demand characteristics

Independent Variable (IV)

Variable that experimenter is able to change or manipulate

Dependent Variable (DV)

Variable that is being measured by the experimenter

Confounding Variable

Variable that will affect the study just by chance

Statistics

Studying techniques/procedures for describing, interpreting quantitative information

Descriptive Statistics

Statistics that summarize, organize, describe, and quantify data

Inferential Statistics

Statistics that determine if findings of study apply to large population of where sample is found

Mean

The average of the scores; Most sensitive to outliers - extreme scores

Median

The middle number

Mode

The number that occurs the most

Frequency Distributions

Orderly arrangement of scores that indicate how frequently each set of scores occurs

Positively Skewed Distribution

Mean pulled to right of median and mode; Mean is higher than median and mode

Negatively Skewed

Mean pulled to left of median and mode; Mean less than median and mode

Variability

Dispersion; describes spread of scores in data set

Range

Highest and lowest scores subtracted

Variance

Take the square root of the standard deviation; for multiple, add up standard deviations and take square root

Standard Deviation

How far scores fall from mean, variance squared

Z-Scores

Relative position above/below mean

Hypothesis Alternative

In the experiment, the independent variable did have an effect on the experimental group

Null Hypothesis

In the experiment, the independent variable did not have an effect on the experimental group

Significance Tests

Seeing if differences between two groups effected are due to independent variables or confounding variables

Rejecting of Hypothesis

Results come back as cut-off point or less

Accepting of Hypothesis

Results come back as cut-off point or more

Type I Significance Test Error

Experimenter accidentally rejects a true, null hypothesis; false-positives, saying there is a difference between groups but there's really not; have p-value

Type II Significance Test Error

Experimenter accidentally accepts the hypothesis; false-negatives, saying there is no difference when there really is

Animal Research Ethics

(1) Study general behavior principles that apply to humans (2) Comparisons (3) Unethical to use humans

Animal Research Issues

(1) Human's well-being higher than well-being of animals (2) Priority to animals' well-being in research

Ethical Guidelines

Guidelines that include a review board, informed consent, coercion, anonymity, confidentiality, risk, and debriefing, in order to conduct research of people

Review Board

Submit a proposal to the review board to make sure the proposal is ethical and approve/deny/suggest it

Informed Consent

Have the subjects consent, tell what will happen, but not the true purpose

Coercion

You cannot force the subjects to stay

Anonymity

The experimenter is not to collect identifying information about the subjects

Confidentiality

The experimenter is not allowed to disclose information about the subjects to the public

Risk

You cannot hurt your subjects

Debriefing

The experimenter must disclose the true purpose to the subjects after the experimenter is done testing