Introductory Psychology Lecture Notes

Psychology: scientific study of the mind & behavior

Why they think/do what they do
- predict what they would do/likelihood of their actions
- Ex: guess if the 1st date will turn to a 2nd date

Iclicker:

Left brain people more logical, right brain people more creative
- True or False
Different people have different “learning styles”
- True or False
Memories work like video recordings
- True or False

Some abilities laterized on left side of brain; some abilities lateralized on the right side of brain
- Laterization/specialties in different part of brain
- No left/right brain people
  - Humans use both sides of brain;both sides are connected to each other/function together
People do have learning preferences
- Ex: prefer visual learning/auditory learning
- was no difference in teaching visual learners through visuals vs. teaching auditory learners w/ visuals
Memories not like video recording; cannot replay memories
- memories are selective

LO:

Understand the types of questions psychologists ask and how they attempt to answer those questions.
To learn to critically evaluate psychological research claims and to assess how they could apply to your everyday life
How to study/make info stick

*Try Study Questions on outlines on Cavas*

*Summary Notes are better than Verbatim*

Historical Roots of Psychology

Influence of Evolution: 1800s

Evolution by natural selection
- “survival of the fittest”
- Behaviors are shaped by natural selection
- Charles Darwin

Influence of Medicine: 1800s

localization of brain function studied using Phrenology
Case studies of brain injury
- Phineas Gage
  - Phineas Gage was important to the history because he suffered a severe head injury and survived, and after that brain injury, he went from being hard-working and dependable to having a childlike behavior, having difficulties sticking to a plan. There were some overall changes to his demeanor and personality. There was damage to the frontal lobe and saw those changes in his behavior after.

Contemporary Psychology

Structuralism vs. Functionalism

Structuralism

attempted to analyze conscious experience by breaking it down into basic elements
Wilheml Wundt was a big proponent of structuralism, along with Edward Titchener, his student.
trying to answer how is the mind structured; what are the different aspects of somebody’s experience (perceptual experience) and can we break down those experiences into basic elements
influenced by the field of Chemistry
- have a periodic table and can break down a compound into its elements
- tried to do something similar in psychology
- thought people experiences were made up of a limited amount of sensations (like periodic table of sensations)
- they came up with a lot; thought you could combine these basic sensations to experience some more complex sensation
- how do you break down somebody’s perceptual experience
they used technique called Introspection
- trained people to be an observer and to observe their own experiences
- trained to identify those components of their perceptual experiences
  - i.e. an apple; what are the taste components, visual components, etc.
Weaknesses:
experience is subjective
difficult to access subconscious aspects of cognition

Functionalism:

the study of the purpose and function of behaviors and mental processes
purpose and function; why do we show particular behaviors as humans? Why do we show certain types of mental processes? What is the purpose?
Purpose of certain behaviors was adaptive purpose
- certainbehaviors helped a certain person or helped people to survive and thrive as a species
- Influenced by Darwin’s Theory of Evolution
- evolutionary based purpose: like attachment
One big proponent was William James
What does the mind do?

Structuralism → what are all the parts/components?

Functionalism→ what are its function/what does it do/purpose?

Behaviorism:

study only observable behavior
argued it is less subjective and more scientific
if there is a stimulus, what is the behavioral response?
- i.e. giving a dog a treat
argues that you could take very complex behaviors and distill it down to simple stimulus response type associations
John B. Watson

Cognitive Psychology:

argued that those mental processes, whats happening in the brain like language, memory, problem-solving, play a role in psychology
how do we think? What type of decisions do we make under certain circumstances?
study mental processes and highlight the importance of these mental processes
greater diversities in terms of key players in psychology as a field
- usually white male, after 50s and 60s, now have women
- Brenda Milner and Elizabeth Loftus

Psychoanalytic Perspective

Sigmund Freud
- more in the area of clinical psychology
attempts to explain how behavior and personality are influenced by unconscious processes
the mind is like an iceberg;things you’re aware of are like the tip of the iceberg, but there are a bunch of things in your unconscious mind; things you are not aware of are influencing your thoughts and behaviors
unconscious mind important to study
- might influence your behaviors, but also different types of mental health issues

Cross-Cultural Psychology

a field that draws comparisons about individual and group behaviors across cultures
WEIRD: describing participants
- Western population, Educated participants, Industrialized countries, Wealthy participants, Democratic nations
96% of samples tested from western industrialized countries, which only makes up 12% of the world’s poopulation
- generalizing that all people might think that way
- making a generalization based on the 12% and applying it to the rest of the 88% population

Cartesian dualism