Psychology's roots

Psychology is a science

Critical Thinking and the Scientific Attitude

• Psychologists scientifically study how people act, think, and feel by applying critical thinking and a scientific approach

• Critical thinkers do not blindly accept arguments and conclusions

• Science-aided thinkers challenge old beliefs and forge new, fact-related paths

Critical Thinking - thinking that does not automatically accept arguments and conclusions. Rather, it examines assumptions, assesses the source, uncovers hidden values, weighs evidence, and assesses conclusions.

Psychology’s Science birth and Development

Wilhelm Wundt - Established the first psychology lab at University of Leipzig, Germany

Many different Psychologists came from different scientific disciplines

Psychology’s Earliest Explorers: Magellan’s of the Mind

• Wilhelm Wundt -

• Charles Darwin - British naturalists, research led to evolutionary psychology

• Ivan Pavlov - Russian physiologist, studied how we learned

• Jean Piaget - Swiss Biologist, studied children’s developing minds

• William James - American philosopher, wrote the first psychology textbook

• Mary Whiton Calkins - First female president of the American Psychological Association

• Margret Floy Washburn - First woman to receive a PhD in Psychology helped found animal biology research

Contemporary Psychology

• John B Watson - thought that psychology should be the study of behavior without learning about mental processes

• B.F. Skinner - through that psychology should be the study of behavior without learning about mental processes

• Sigmund Freud - Austrian Physician, personality theorist and therapist.

Branches of Psychology

• Structuralism - focus on structure of the mind

• Functionalism - focused on how the mind functions

• Behaviorism - the view that psychology (1) should be an objective science that (2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes. Most psychologists today agree with (1) but not with (2).

• Humanistic Psychology - an earlier psychological perspective that emphasized human growth potential.

• Cognitive Psychology - the study of the mental processes involved in perceiving, learning, remembering, thinking, communicating, and solving problems.

• Cognitive Neuroscience - the interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked with cognition (including perception, thinking, memory, and language).

Unpacking the Definition of Psychology

Psychology - Science of behavior and mental processes

Behavior

• Any action that can be observed and recorded

• Anything a human or nonhuman animal does

Mental Processes

• Internal states that are inferred from behavior

• Include thoughts, beliefs, and feelings

Psychology’s current perspectives

Psychology Today

• Today’s psychologists builds upon the work of many earlier scientists and schools of thought

• Psychology is growing and globalizing

  • Globally more than 1 million psychologists who share a common goal: describing and explaining behavior and the mind underlying it

• Psychology influences modern cultures and transforms people

• Psychology also relates to many other fields.

  • Biological psychology - links between brain and mind

  • Developmental psychology - studying changes from womb to tomb

  • Cognitive psychology - how we think, perceive and solve problems

  • Personality psychology - Investigating our persistent traits

  • Social psychology - How we view and affect one another

  • Health psychology - the psychological, biological, and behavioral factors that promote or impair our health.

  • Industrial-organizational psychology - studying and advising on workplace-related behaviors and system and product designs.

Modern Psychology’s Big Idea:

The Biopsychosocial Approach

Culture - the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions shared by a group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next.

Biopsychosocial Approach - an approach that integrates different but complementary views from biological, psychological, and social-cultural viewpoints.

Biopsychosocial Approach

• Shared Biologically-rooted human nature

• Individual differences in traits, abilities, and identities

• Members in a larger social system, a family, an ethnicity, a cultural group

Levels of analysis provide insight into a behavior or mental process; “kin beneath the skin”;

WEIRD research participants

• Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic

• Sometimes phycologist researchers think that their findings apply to all people rather than the people of the WEIRD cultures

3 Different Levels of Analysis:

• Biological

• Psychological

• Social-cultural

Nature vs Nurture

An age-old controversy over the relative influence of genes and experiences in the development of psychological traits and behaviors

• Todays psychological sciences views traits and behaviors arising from the interaction of nature and nurture

• In most cases, nurture works on what nature provides

• In some instances, epigenetics influences genetic expressions

Nature made Nature-Nurture Experiment

• Identical twins have the same genes

  • This make them ideal participants in studies designed to shed light on hereditary and environmental influences on personality, intelligence, and other traits

• Fraternal twins have different genes, but often share a similar environment
  

Dual Processing With Our Two-Track Minds

Dual Processing - the mind processes information at the same time on separate conscious and unconscious tracks

• Example: Vision is a two-track system

  • A visual perception track enables an individual to think about the world

  • A visual action track guides an individuals movement to movement actions

Psychology: a science and a profession

Psychology is a helping profession (Clinical Psychology)

• Psychology is also a profession that helps people

  • Counseling Psychology - a branch of psychology that assists people with problems in living (often related to school, work, or relationships) and in achieving greater well-being.

  • Clinical Psychology - a branch of psychology that studies, assesses, and treats people with psychological disorders.

  • Psychiatry - a branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders; practiced by physicians who provide medical (for example, drug) treatments as well as psychological therapy.

  • Community Psychology - a branch of psychology that studies how people interact with their social environments and how social institutions (such as schools and neighborhoods) affect individuals and groups.

Positive Psychology

Positive Psychology - the scientific study of human flourishing, with the goals of discovering and promoting strengths and virtues that help individuals and communities to thrive

Methods to explore:

• Positive Emotions

• Positive Character Traits

• Positive Institutions

The Need for Psychological Science: Limits of Common Sense

The Limits of Common Sense

Research shows that Thinking, memory, and attitudes operate on conscious and unconscious levels

• Most people’s Mental life happens automatically, but intuition can lead them astray

Common Flaws in Commonsense thinking:

• Hindsight bias

• Overconfidence

• Perceiving order in Random Events

Hindsight Bias - the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that we could have predicted it. (Also known as the I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon.)

Overconfidence - the tendency to be more confident than correct — to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.

• People tend to think they know more than they do

Perceiving Order in Random Events

• Humans have innate eagerness to make sense of the world

• We have a desire to see patterns in the world

Psychological Sense in a post-truth world

• Post-truth occurs when many people’s emotions and personal beliefs tend to override acceptance of objective fats

  • EX: “The US Crime Rate is Rising” or “Many Immigrants are Criminals”

• Political party bias also colors American’s thinking

  • Extremely liberal and extremely conservative Americans, both with similar self-confidence, view their beliefs as superior

Influences

Identifying Negative Influences

• False News

• Believe what others say

• Repetition

• Availability of powerful examples

• Group identity and the echo chamber of like-minded

• Want to confirm our own beliefs

How to “keep the truth afloat” with Psychology

• Slow, deliberate thinking vs gut reaction

• Awareness of personal biases

• Discussion before dismissal

• Debunking

• Predebunking - protect people from any future misinformation

Scientific Method

Terms to Consider and learn

• Theory - an explanation using principles that organize observations and predict behaviors or events.

• Hypothesis - a testable prediction, often implied by a theory.

• Operational definition - a carefully worded statement of the exact procedures (operations) used in a research study. For example, researchers may operationally define helping as how many dollars people donate.

• Replication - repeating the essence of a research study, usually with different participants in different situations, to determine whether the basic finding can be reproduced.

• Preregistration - publicly communicating planned study design, hypotheses, data collection, and analyses.

Features of a Good Theory

• Effectively organizes observations

• Leads to clear predictions that anyone can use to check the theory or to create practical applications of it

• Often stimulates replications and more research that support the theory

  • Want to get the same results

• Leads to a revised theory that better organized and predicts what we observe

Ways to test hypotheses and Refine Theories

• Descriptive Methods

  • Describe behaviors, often by using case studies, naturalistic observations, or surveys

  • Describe what is going on. Case studies are helpful when stuff is rare, but it is only one person so results can vary. Naturalistic Observations is when you observe a person in their “natural habitat”

• Correlation Methods

  • Associate Different Factors

  • Every exam has a bonus question about this

  • How two things are related

• Experimental Methods

  • Manipulate, or vary, factors to discover their effects

  • Generally happen in a lab, not in the wild/natural setting

  • Always try to replicate natural setting though

Case Study - a descriptive technique in which one individual or group is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles

Naturalistic Observation - a descriptive technique of observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without changing or controlling the situation.

Descriptive Technique: Survey

Survey: Descriptive techniques for obtaining self-reported attitudes or behaviors of a group, usually by questioning a representative, random sample

• Wording affects

  • Do not use leading words/questions

  • (do you enjoy snowboarding → bad question )

  • Bad questions can prime the brain, which gives bad answers

    • Bunny story causes people to see a bunny instead of a duck

• Random Sample

  • Survey must be given to a random group in order to get accurate data. Random is better, more generalized is better

  • BIG SAMPLE GROUP, RANDOMLY PLUCK FROOM THAT    

• Population

  • The bigger group that you are plucking from

How do psychologists ask and Answer Questions?

Correlation - a measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and thus of how well either factor predicts the other

• Correlation does not prove causation

  • EX: Going to class every day does not cause a 100%, other factors are involved.

• Correlation =/= causation

Correlation Coefficient

• Mathematical expression of the relationship

• Ranges from -1.00 to +1.00

  • 0 Indicates no relationship

  • -1 and +1 are a perfect relation

  • +1 means both things go up

    • Class attendance and Grade go up

  • -1 means one goes up, other goes down

    • Less sick days, grade goes up

Correlation and Causation

• Correlation indicates the possibility of a cause-effect relationship, but it does not prove causation

  • knowing that two events are associated does not reveal which event causes the other

Experiment

• a method in which researchers vary one or more variables (independent variables) to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process (the dependent variable). By random assignment of participants, researchers aim to control other variables that may change the research outcome.

  • Independent Variable goes Into the experiment,

  • Dependent variable depends on what happens in the experiment

Random Assignment

• Assigning participants to experiment and control groups by chance, thus minimizing any preexisting differences (age, gender) between the groups.

  • Experimental group - gets the real thing

  • Control Group - gets placebo

Procedures and the placebo effect

• Aids in elimination of Bias

• Both the participants and the research staff are ignorant about who has received the treatment or a placebo

Defining Terms

• Placebo - fake medication, probably a sugar pill

• Placebo Effect - person in control group knows ahead of time that they could end up in control or experiment group, but don’t know which one they are in. Person hopes they benefit from the experiment, and so the person is more positive and this affects the results.

• Double-Blind Procedure - The best way to do research. only way to prove causation. Means the researcher and the participants don’t know who has the placebo and who has the real med.

Independent and Dependent Variables

Variables

• In an experiment, those variables or elements that are likely to change or vary

Independent Variable

• Variable that is manipulated, whose effect is being studies

Confounding Variable

• Variable other than the variable being studied that might influence a study’s result (variable outside the study). Always try to limit them, as they can change the result of study

Dependent Variable

• Variable that is measured; variable that may change when the independent variable is manipulated

Predicting Everyday Behavior

• The Purpose of an experiment is to test theoretical primciples

• The resulting principles, rather than the specific findings, help explain everyday behaviors

• Psychological Sciences

  • focus less on specific behaviors

  • Focus more on revealing general principles that help explain many behaviors

Psychology research Ethics: Studying and Protecting Animals

• The study of animals allows phycologists to understand humans better

• Animal protection movements protect the use of animals in psychological, biological, and medical research

• Use of animals for research is debated among psychologists

  • is it right to place the well-being of humans above that of other animals?

  • What safeguards should protect the well-being of animals in research?

    • British Psychological Society (BPS)

    • American Psychological Association (APA) - ethics governing body

  • Even though Animals and humans share DNA, they are not the same, therefore the results might not be the same if the experiment was done on humans

• Benefits of animal research for animals

  • Intervention of handling and stroking methods to reduce stress and ease dog’s move to adoptive home

  • Improvement of care and management in animals’ natural habitats

  • Increased empathy and protection for other species

Studying and protecting Humans

The APA and BPS ethics codes urge researchers to:

• Obtain participants’ informed consent to participate

  • Tell participants what the project is doing, possible effects

• Protect participants from out of the ordinary harm and discomfort

• Keep information about individuals participants confidential

• Fully Debrief participants

  • Tell participants about the experiment and what happened

Ensure Scientific Integrity

Mistakes happen in science, and those are forgivable

Fraud is not acceptable and is unforgivable

Psychology Speaks

In making its historic 1954 school desegregation decision, the US supreme court cited the expert testimony and research of psychologists Mamie Phipps Clark and Kenneth Clark (1947)

• studied on race. Able to prove it enough that desegregation was upheld

Psychology research ethics: Values in Psychology

• Values impact

  • Which material is studied

  • How the material is studied

  • How results are interpreted

• Applied psychology contains hidden values

• Psychology has the power to deceive, though its purpose is to enlighten

  • Outliers skew the data

Use Psychology to become a stronger person and a better student

• Use psychology

  • think, consider, and improve

• Incorporating evidence-based suggestions

  • manage your time to get a full nights sleep

  • Make space for exercise

  • Set long term goals, with daily aims

  • Maintain a growth mindset

  • Prioritize relationships

Testing Effect - enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simply rereading, information. Also sometimes referred to as a retrieval practice effect or test-enhanced learning.

• Distribute your study time

• Learn to think critically

• Process class information actively

• Overlearn