1.1: Commonsense Psychology: Not Necessarily “Common” or “Sense”

• Uncritical acceptance: The tendency to believe claims because they seem true or because it would be nice if they were true.

• Confirmation bias: The tendency to remember or notice information that fits one’s expectations, while forgetting or ignoring discrepancies.

  • occurs unconsciously (cherry picking)

• Superstition: Unfounded belief held without evidence or in spite of falsifying evidence.

• Pseudoscience: Unfounded belief system that seems to be based on science.

• Science: An objective approach to answering questions that relies on careful observations and experiments.

1.2: What Psychologist Do

• Psychologist: A person highly trained in the methods, factual knowledge, and theories of psychology.

  • Masters/doctorate

  • Post grad training

  • Teach, research

  • Consult, therapy

Psychological Research

• Basic Research: Seek knowledge to understand

• Applied Research: Solving immediate problems

• Animal Research: Working with animals to relate to humans

• Animal model: In research, an animal whose behavior is studied to derive principles that may apply to human behavior.

Helping People

• Clinical psychologist: A psychologist who specializes in the treatment of psychological and behavioral disturbances or who does research on such disturbances.

• Counseling psychologist: A psychologist who specializes in the treatment of milder emotional and behavioral disturbances.

Beyond Psychologist: Other Mental Health Professionals

• Psychiatrist: A medical doctor with additional training the diagnosis and treatment of mental and emotional disorders.

• Psychoanalyst: A mental health professional (usually a medical doctor) trained to practice psychoanalysis.

• Counselor: A mental health professional who specializes in helping people with problems that do not involve serious mental disorders.

1.3: The History of Psychological Science: A Trip Through Time

• Scientific observation: An empirical investigation structured to answer questions about the world in a systematic and intersubjective fashion (i.e., observations can be reliably confirmed by multiple observers).

Introspection and Structuralism

• Stimulus: Any physical energy that an organism senses.

• Introspection: Personal observation of your own thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

• Structuralism: Study of sensations and personal experience analyzed as basic elements.

Wilhem Wundt (1832-1920): Wundt is credited with making psychology an independent science, separate from philosophy. Wundt’s original training was in medicine, but he became deeply interested in psychology. In his laboratory, Wundt investigated how sensations, images, and feelings combine to make up personal experience.

The Shortcoming of Introspection

• Imageless thought: An old term describing the inability of introspections to become subjectively aware of some mental processes; an early term describing the cognitive unconscious.

• Cognitive unconscious: The part of the mind of which we are subjectively unaware and that is not open to introspection.

Gestalt Psychology

• Gestalt psychology: Study of thinking, learning, and perception in whole units, not by analysis into parts.

• Max Wertheimer (1880-1941): Wertheimer first proposed the Gestalt viewpoint to help explain perceptual illusions. He later prompted Gestalt psychology as a way to understand not only perception, problem solving, thinking, and social behavior, but also art, logic, philosophy, and politics.

Functionalism

• Functionalism: School of psychology that considers behaviors in terms of active adaptions.

• Natural selection: Darwin’s theory that evolution favors those plants and animals best suited to their living conditions.

William James (1842-1910): William James was the son of philosopher Henry James, Sr., and the brother of novelist Henry James. During his long academic career, James taught anatomy, physiology, and psychology, at Harvard University. James believed strongly that ideas should be judged in terms of their practical consequences for human conduct.

Behaviorism

• Behaviorism: School of thought in psychology that emphasizes study of observable actions over study of the mind.

• Response: Any muscular action, glandular activity, or other identifiable aspect of behavior.

John B. Watson (1878-1958): Watson’s intense interest in observable behavior began with his doctoral studies in biology and neurology. Watson became a psychology professor at Johns Hopkins University in 1908 and advanced his theory of behaviorism. He remained at Johns Hopkins until 1920 where he left for a career in the advertising industry!

• Radical behaviorism: A behaviorist approach that rejects both introspection and any study of mental events, such as thinking, as inappropriate topics for scientific psychology.

B.F. Skinner (1904-1990): Skinner studied simple behaviors under carefully controlled conditions. In addition to advancing psychology, Skinner hoped that his radical brand of behaviorism would improve human lives.

Psychoanalytic Psychology

• Dynamic unconscious: In Freudian theory, the parts of the mind that are beyond awareness, especially conflicts, impulses, and desires not directly known to a person.

• Psychoanalysis: Freudian approach to psychotherapy emphasizing the exploration of the unconscious using free association, dream interpretation, resistances, and transference to uncover unconscious conflicts.

• Neo-Freudians: Psychologists who accept the broad features of Freud’s theory but have revised the theory to include the role of cultural and social factors while still accepting some of its basic concepts.

• Psychodynamic theory: Any theory of behavior that emphasizes internal conflicts, motives, and unconscious forces.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939): For over 50 years, Freud probed the unconscious mind. In doing so, he altered contemporary views of human nature. His early experimentation with a “talking cure” for hysteria is regarded as the beginning of psychoanalysis. Through psychoanalysis, Freud added psychological treatment methods to psychiatry.

Cognitive Psychology

• Cognitive psychology: The study of information processing, thinking, reasoning, and problem solving.

• Operational definition: Defining a scientific concept by stating the specific actions or procedures used to measure it. For example, hunger might be defined as the number of hours of food deprivation.

Humanistic Psychology

• Determinism: The idea that all behavior has prior causes that would completely explain one’s choices and actions if all such causes were known.

• Free will: The ability to freely make choices that are not controlled by genetics, learning, or unconscious forces; the idea that human beings are capable of making choices or decisions themselves.

• Humanistic psychology: Study of people as inherently good and motivated to learn and improve.

• Self-actualization: The process of fully developing personal potentials,

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970): As a founder of humanistic psychology, Maslow was interested in studying people of exceptional mental health. Such self-actualized people, he believed, make full use of their talents and abilities. Maslow offered his positive view of human potential as an alternative to the schools of behaviorism and psychoanalysis.

1.4: Contemporary Psychological Science and the Biopsychosocial Model

• Psychology: The scientific study of behavior and mental processes.

• Biopsychosocial model: An approach acknowledging that biological, psychological, and social factors interact to influence human behavior and mental processes.

The Biological Perspective

• Biological perspective: The attempt to explain behavior in terms of underlying biological principles.

• Evolutionary psychology: Approach that emphasizes inherited, adaptive aspects of behavior and mental processes.

• Neuroscience: The broader field of biopsychologists and others who study the brain and nervous system, such as biologists and biochemists.

The Psychological Perspective

• Psychological perspective: The traditional view that behavior is shaped by psychological processes occurring at the level of the individual.

The Social Perspective

• Social perspective: The focus on the importance of social contexts in influencing the behavior of individuals.

• Social norms: Rules that define acceptable and expected behavior for members of a group.

Human Diversity and the Biopsychosocial Model

• Gender bias in research: A tendency for females and female-related issues

to be underrepresented in research, whether psychological or otherwise.

• Cultural relativity: The idea that behavior must be judged relative to the values of the culture in which it occurs.

Margaret Washburn (1871-1939): In 1908, Washburn published the Animal Mind, an influential textbook on animal behavior. In 1921 she became the second female to serve as President of the American Psychological Association (Mary Whiton Calkins was the first).

Francis Cecil Sumner (1895-1954): Sumner served as chair of the Psychology Department at Howard University and wrote articles critical of the underrepresentation of African Americans in American colleges and universities.

Inez Beverly Prosser (c. 1895-1934): Prosser was one of the early leaders in the debate about how to best educate African-American children.

1.5: The Core Features of Psychological Science

Psychology’s Goals

• Scientists ultimate goal is to benefit humanity

• Psychology’s goals are to describe, understand, predict, and control behavior

Description

• Description: In scientific research, the process of naming and classifying.

Understanding

• Understanding: In psychology, being able to state the causes of a behavior.

Prediction

• Prediction: In psychology, an ability to accurately forecast behavior.

Control

• Control: In psychology, altering conditions that influence behavior.

Thinking Critically to Meet Psychology’s Goals

• Critical thinking: In psychology, a type of reflection involving the support of beliefs through scientific explanation and observation.

  • Requires an open mind

  • Judging quality of evidence

Critical Thinking Principles

• Falsification: The deliberate attempt to uncover how a commonsense belief or scientific theory might be false.

Using the Scientific Method to Meet Psychology’s Goals

• Scientific method: A form of critical thinking based on careful measurement, controlled observation, and repeatable results.

The Six Steps of the Scientific Method

1. Examine Past Research

2. Define the Question

3. Propose a Hypothesis

• Hypothesis: Predicted outcome of an experiment, or an educated guess about the relationship between variables.

4. Gather Evidence/Test Hypothesis

5. Build Theory

• Theory: Comprehensive explanation of observable events.

6. Publication and Replication of Results

Self-Report Data

• Self-report data: Information that is provided by participants about their own thoughts, emotions, or behaviors, typically on a questionnaire or during an interview.

Surveys and Sampling

• Survey: Descriptive research method in which participants are asked the same questions.

• Population: The entire group of people from which a sample is drawn.

• Sample: Subset of a population being studied.

• Representative sample: A small, randomly selected part of a larger population that accurately reflects characteristics of the whole population.

• Social desirability: Deliberate tendency to provide polite, socially acceptable responses.

  Observational Data

• Observational data: Data that come from watching participants and recording their behavior.

• Naturalistic observation: Observing behavior as it unfolds in natural settings.

• Structured observation: Observing behavior in situations that have been set up by the researcher.

• Observer effect: Changes in an organism’s behavior brought about by an awareness of being observed.

• Observer bias: The tendency of an observer to distort observations or perceptions to match his or her expectations.

  Physiological Data

• Physiological data: Data that come from participants’ physiological processes (including measures of the brain and heart, muscles, and the production of hormones.)

  • Quantitative

1.6: Experimental Research: Where Cause Meets Effect

• Variable: Factor or characteristic manipulated or measured in research.

• Experiment: A study in which the investigator manipulates at least one variable while measuring at least one other variable.

  Experimental Variables

• Independent variable: Variable manipulated by the researcher in an experiment.

• Dependent variable: The element of an experiment that measures any effect of the manipulation.

  Experimental Groups and Random Assignment

• Extraneous variable: A condition or factor that may change and is excluded from influencing the outcome of an experiment.

• Experimental subjects: Humans (also referred to as participants) or animals whose behavior is investigated in an experiment.

• Experimental group: Group that receives the treatment the study is designed to test.

• Control group: Subjects in an experimental study who do not receive the treatment being investigated.

• Random assignment: Use of chance to place subjects in experimental and control groups.

  Evaluating Experimental Results

• Statistically significant: Experimental results that would rarely occur by chance alone.

• Meta-analysis: A statistical technique for combining the results of many studies on the same subject.

  Research Participant Bias

• Research participant bias: Changes in the behavior of study participants caused by the unintended influence of their own expectations.

• Placebo effect: Changes in behavior due to participants’ expectations that a drug (or other treatment) will have some effect.

• Placebo: Inactive substance or treatment that is distinguishable from a real, active substance or treatment.

• Single-blind study: Research in which the subjects do not know which treatment they receive.

  Researcher Bias

• Researcher bias: Changes in participants’ behavior caused by the unintended influence of a researcher’s actions.

• Self-fulfilling prophecy: A prediction that prompts people to act in ways that make the prediction come true.

• Double-blind study: Research in which neither the observer nor the subjects know which subjects received which treatment.

  1.7: Nonexperimental Research: Losing (a Bit of ) Control

  Quasi-Experiments

• Quasi-experimental study: A descriptive study in which researchers wish to compare groups of people, but cannot randomly assign them to groups.

  Correlational Research

• Correlational research: Descriptive study that quantifies the degree to which events, measures, or variables are associated.

• Correlation: The existence of a consistent, systematic relationship between two events, measures, or variables.

  Understanding Associations Using Correlation Coefficients

• Correlation coefficient: A statistical index ranging from –1.00 to +1.00 that indicates the direction and degree of correlation.

  Correlation and Causation

• Causation: The act of causing some effect.

• Correlation does not equal causation

• Case study (clinical method): In-depth analysis of the behavior of one person or a small number of people.

  1.8: Psychology and Your Skill Set: Information Literacy

  Separating Fact from Fiction in the Media

• Suggestion 1: Consider source of information

• Suggestion 2: Beware of poor or carefully selected information

• Suggestion 3: Consider alternative explanations and remember things happen by chance

• Suggestion 4: Check to ensure that reported studies had a control group

• Suggestion 5: Distinguish between correlation and causation

• Suggestion 6: Beware of oversimplifications

Chapter in Review:

Commonsense Psychology: Not 1.1 Necessarily “Common” “Sense”

Explain why people fail to recognize that “Common-sense” beliefs are often false

Commonsense beliefs are often false, but people fail to recognize this because they do not tend to evaluate them critically (uncritical acceptance) and because we seek evidence that confirms, and avoid evidence that contradicts, our beliefs (confirmation bias), regardless of the quality of that evidence.

Distinguish between superstition, pseudoscience, and science

Superstitions are unfounded beliefs that change little over time because they are held without objective evidence or in the face of falsifying evidence. Scientific-sounding superstitions are referred to as pseudoscience. Science requires that we take an objective approach to answering questions using careful observations and experiments.

1.2 What Psychologists Do

Name some of the areas in which psychological scientists do research

Some psychologists work primarily as researchers, and psychological research can be basic or applied. Researchers may study animals either because they are interested in animal behavior or because animals provide a model of human behavior. The field of psychology now has dozens of specialties, including developmental, forensic, community, environmental, and industrial/organizational.

Describe the work carried out by clinical and counseling psychologists

Some psychologists work primarily as clinicians, helping other people with mental health issues. They often work alongside other mental health workers (e.g., psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and counselors” whose training and methods differ considerably. Clinical psychologists treat mental disorders and emotional problems; counseling psychologists treat milder problems including difficulties at work or school.

1.3 The History of Psychological Science: A Trip Through Time

Explain the method that Wundt and Titchener used to study conscious experience and the limitations of this method

Wilhelm Wundt used introspection (personal observation of mental events) to study conscious experience. His student, Titchener, took those methods to the United States and referred to his approach as structuralism, a kind of “mental chemistry” based on introspective.

However, introspection is of limited use as a research method since there is little consistency between the introspective reports of different people and because people may be subjectively unaware of their own mental processes and the cognitive unconscious.

Contrast Titchener’s structuralist approach to psychology with:

1. The Gestalt approach developed by Werthimer

Gestalt Psychologists such as Wertheimer believed in the value of introspection, but disagreed with structuralists like Titchener about the experience. While structuralists valued the idea of analyzing psychological events in terms of their individual components, Gestalt theorists felt that these events could only be studied as whole units.

2. The functionalist approach developed by James

William James saw mental events as continuous stream of events rather than the static building blocks proposed by Titchener’s structuralist approach. He developed functionalism in an effort to better understand how behavior helped us to adapt to the environment. His interest in adaption created a natural bridge with Darwin’s views of natural selection of evolution.

3. The behaviorist approach developed by Watson and Skinner

Behaviorists rejected introspection and structuralism, choosing instead to study objective behavior. Radical behaviorists rejected the study of mind altogether.

4. The psychoanalytic approach developed by Freud

Sigmund Freud distrusted introspection and developed psychoanalysis to emphasize the unconscious origins of behavior and the importance of properly interpreting the hidden meaning of conscious thoughts.

5. The cognitive approach

The cognitive approach involved studying mental processes, just as Wundt and Titchener did. However, cognitive psychologists approach the study of mental processes more objectively that Wundt and Titchener by operationally defining them in terms of objective measures.

6. The humanists’ approach developed by Maslow and Rogers

Humanistic psychology embraced conscious experience, human potential, and personal growth. Though they believed in the importance of mental events, they did not believe they could be subdivided into individual building blocks, as Titchener’s structuralist approach suggested.

1.3 The People

Wilhem Wundt (1832-1920). Wundt is credited with making psychology an independent science, separate from philosophy. Wundt’s original training was in medicine, but he became deeply interested in psychology. In his laboratory, Wundt investigated how sensations, images, and feelings combine to make up personal experience.

Max Wertheimer (1880-1941). Wertheimer first proposed the Gestalt viewpoint to help explain perceptual illusions. He later prompted Gestalt psychology as a way to understand not only perception, problem solving, thinking, and social behavior, but also art, logic, philosophy, and politics.

William James (1842-1910). William James was the son of philosopher Henry James, Sr., and the brother of novelist Henry James. During his long academic career James taught anatomy, physiology, psychology, at Harvard University. James believed strongly that ideas should be judged in terms of their practical consequences for human conduct.

John B. Watson (1878-1958). Watson’s intense interest in observable behavior began with his doctoral studies in biology and neurology. Watson became a psychology professor at Johns Hopkins University in 1908 and advanced his theory of behaviorism. He remained at Johns Hopkins until 1920 where he left for a career in the advertising industry!

B.F. Skinner (1904-1990). Skinner studied simple behaviors under carefully controlled conditions. In addition to advancing psychology, Skinner hoped that his radical brand of behaviorism would improve human lives.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). For over 50 years, Freud probed the unconscious mind. In doing so, he altered contemporary views of human nature. His early experimentation with a “talking cure” for hysteria is regarded as the beginning of psychoanalysis. Through psychoanalysis, Freud added psychological treatment methods to psychiatry.

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970). As a founder of humanistic psychology, Maslow was interested in studying people of exceptional mental health. Such self-actualized people, he believed, make full use of their talents and abilities. Maslow offered his positive view of human potential as an alternative to the schools of behaviorism and psychoanalysis.

1.4 The People

Margaret Washburn (1871-1939). In 1908, Washburn published the Animal Mind, an influential textbook on animal behavior. In 1921 she became the second female to serve as President of the American Psychological Association (Mary Whiton Calkins was the first).

Francis Cecil Sumner (1895-1954). Sumner served as chair of the Psychology Department at Howard University and wrote articles critical of the underrepresentation of African Americans in American colleges and universities.

Inez Beverly Prosser (c. 1895-1934). Prosser was one of the early leaders in the debate about how to best educate African-American children.

1.4 Contemporary Psychological Science and the Biopsychosocial Model

Explain the three perspectives that comprise the biopsychosocial model

The three perspectives include: biological (behavior is the result of biological and evolutionary processes, such as genetics and the nervous system), psychological (behavior is the result of psychological processes, such as thinking and memory), and social (behavior is the result of social contexts, such as culture.

Explain the advantages of the biopsychosocial model for explaining complex behavior

The biopsychosocial model holds that human behavior and mental processes are best understood by combining insights from biology (including biopsychology and evolutionary psychology), psychology (including culture, access to education, and poverty). Because it considers the three perspectives simultaneously, it is better able to explain complex human behavior (such as eating disorders) and the full range of human diversity.

Explain why early psychological research was prone to gender and culture bias

Gender bias was inadvertently introduced into psychological research because more early psychologists were Caucasian men, and because the participants in much of the early research were men. Similarly, culture bias stems from an overreliance on research participants who are from WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) societies.

1.5 The Core Features of Psychological Science

Explain the goals of contemporary psychology

Psychologists’ goals are description (name and classify behavior through detailed records), understanding (state causes of behavior), prediction (forecast behavior), and **control (**after conditions that influence behavior).

Define critical thinking, and identify the five principles of critical thinking

Critical thinking in psychology is a type of openminded reflection involving the support of beliefs with scientific explanation and observation.

Critical thinking requires:

1. Performing logical analysis/empirical testing

2. Refusing to believe information based on claimed expertise

3. Evaluating the quality of the evidence

4. Evaluating evidence for and against the claim with an open mind

5. Seeking to falsify claims

Outline the six steps of the scientific method

1. Make observations

2. Define the problem

3. Propose a hypothesis

4. Gather evidence/test hypothesis

5. Build theory

6. Publish results

Describe three types of data gathered by psychological scientists, including the challenges faced by psychologists who use them

1. Self-report, including interviews, tests, questionnaires, and surveys

Self-report data may be compromised if the sample of respondents is not representative (that is, it does not accurately reflect the large population), or if participants provide answers that are socially desirable rather than truthful.

2. Observational data, including natural and structured observations

Observational data can be compromised by the observer effect (changes in a subjects behavior as a result of being watched) and observer bias (observers seeing what they want or expect to see).

3. Psychological data, including measures of heart rate, brain activity, and hormones

Psychological data are often more expensive to collect because they require specialized equipment. In addition, these measures are often indirect assessments of the variables that they attempt to assess.

1.6 Experimental Methods: Where Cause Meets Effect

Differentiate between independent, dependent, and extraneous variables in an experiment

Independent variables are assumed to be the “cause” in a cause-and-effect relationship between variables, and are controlled by the researcher (in the sense that the researcher randomly assigns participants to experience one version, or level, of the independent variable).

Dependent variables are assumed to be the “effect” in a cause-and-effect relationship between variables, and are measured by the researcher.

Extraneous variables are variables (other that the independent variable) that are believed to influence the dependent variable. They are controlled by the researcher, who attempts to keep the, the same for all participants in the study.

Explain how experiments allow psychological scientists to make statements about cause and effect

Experiments involve comparing two or more groups of subjects that differ only regarding the independent variable. Random assignment helps to ensure that the groups are equivalent in all ways except for their experience of the independent variable. Effects in the dependent variable are then measured. All other conditions (extraneous variables) are held constant. Because the independent variable is the only difference between the experimental group and the control group, it is the only possible cause of a change in the dependent variable.

Outline how psychological scientists evaluate the results of an experiment

To be taken seriously, the results of an experiment must be statistically significant (they would occur very rarely by chance alone). Put another way, the control group and the experimental group must demonstrate a difference on the dependent variable that is large enough it is unlikely to have occurred by chance. It also strengthens an experimental result if the research can be replicated.

Describe two problems associated with experiments, and how they can be controlled

1. Research participant bias (changes in participant behavior based on their expectations), including the placebo effect. To control for this problem, researchers can ensure that they give a placebo to the control group, and they can make use of single-blind procedures, which means that participants do not know whether they are in the experimental or control group.

2. Researcher bias (changes in participant behavior brought about by researcher influence). To control for this problem researchers can make use of double-blind procedures, which means that neither the research participants nor the researchers collecting data know who was in the experimental group or the control group.

1.7 Nonexperimental Methods: Losing (a Bit of) Control

Differentiate between quasi-experiments and true experiments

As in case with a true experiment, quasi-experiments involve comparing two or more groups to establish whether they differ on the dependent variable. Unlike true experiments, it is either unethical or impossible to randomly assign participants to groups. As a result, it is not possible to establish cause-and-effect relationships using quasi-experiments.

Explain what is meant by correlational research, and how the degree of association between two variables is assessed in correlational research

In correlational research, psychologists try to assess the degree of association between two variables. A correlation coefficient is computed to gauge the strength of the relationship between those variables. Correlation coefficients range from –1.00 to +1.00. The magnitude of the number (ignoring the sign) describes how strong the association between the variables is (that is, how well you can predict one variable from the other). The sign ( - or + ) tells you whether the relationship is positive (as the value of one variable increases, the other also increases) or negative (as the value of one variable increases, the other decreases).

Describe the conditions under which case studies are useful

Case studies—an in-depth analysis of one person or a small number of people—are most often employed when psychologists are interested in studying rare events.

1.8 Psychology and Your Skill Set: Information Literacy

Name six ways that people can critically evaluate information found in the popular press and on social media

1. Consider the source of information, reading laterally

2. Beware of poor or carefully selected information

3. Consider alternative explanations and remember things happen by chance

4. Check to ensure that reported studies had a control group

5. Distinguish between correlation and causation

6. Beware of oversimplifications