Chapter 1 - Science of Psychology

Section 1: Defining Psychology and Exploring Its Roots

Psychology - scientific study of behavior and mental processes

  • From the Greek - “psyche” (mind) + “logia” (study of)

Science - use of systematic methods to observe natural world (ie: human behavior to draw conclusions)

  • ie: Describe, *predict, and explain *human behavior

        Behavior - Everything we do that can be directly observed

Mental Processes - Thoughts, feelings, and motives people experience privately that we cannot directly observe

  • ie: Thinking, feeling, memory

Psychological Frame of Mind

  • Psychologists approach big questions as scientists using research and data to draw conclusions
  • Four attitudes of scientific approach: critical thinking, curiosity, skepticism, objectivity

Critical Thinking - Process of thinking deeply & actively, asking q’s, eval evid

  • One who is questioning and testing facts to be true

        Curiosity - making observations and finding the why

        Skeptical - challenging whether facts are actually true

  • Psych research is often counterintuitive, contradicting our initial impressions
  • Experiment Example - Selling chocolate bars that were “blemished” for discount people bought more than just discounted alone

Empirical Method - Gaining knowledge through observation of events, data collection, & logical reasoning, used to get objective evidence

  • Looking at evidence instead of following gut instinct

  • Psychology is filled with debate and controversy, it’s natural

  • Narcissism - condition of intense, unhealthy self-love

Psychology in Historical Perspective

  • Emphasis on supernatural
  • Skulls from 6500 BC have holes drilled to release “evil spirits”
  • Ancient Cultures - Dreams sent by gods as reward or punishment, telling them when to harvest or go to war
  • First Psychology Experiment - Psamtik I, King of Egypt, Hypothesized that children would speak inborn language (native language to humans, he thought egyptian) if they didn’t learn from their parents
  • Ca. 6th Century B.C. - Writers in India, China, & Greece first talked about the mind
  • Before the concept of the mind, it was believed the gods were speaking as your thoughts
  • Ex: Buddha - India, Confucius - China, Xenophanes - Greece

Roots in Philosophy

  • Philosophy - The rational investigation of the underlying principles of being and knowledge
  • Greatly impacts contemporary psychology even today
  • ie: Descartes → Emotion, Aristotle → Happiness
  • Greeks:
  • Socrates - “Know thyself” (Encouraging introspection)
  • Aristotle - “Peri Psyches” (About the Mind)
  • Hippocrates - Abnormal behavior caused by abnormal (1st to think this)
  • Pre Scientific Psychology - Are the mind & body connected, Are ideas innate or is the mind a “blank slate”, Do people have souls

History of Psychology

  • Middle Ages - Demonic possession (deemed the reason for abnormal behavior)
  • “Water-float test”, torture, exorcism
  • If float → possessed
  • Still drilling holes in head

Psychological Science is Born

  • Enlightenment - 17th/18th Centuries
  • Empiricism - knowledge come from experience via the senses
  • John Locke (1632 - 1704) - tabula rosa (“blank slate)
  • 17th Century: Scientific Revolution - Focus on observations, not superstitions
  • 19th: Phrenology (Franz Gall) - Examining shape of head or skull could reveal mental abilities (like tarot cards or psychics of the time, correlated to certain spots on the skull)

Structuralism - Wilhelm Wundt’s (1832-1920) approach to discovering the basic elements, or structures, of mental processes; looking inside the brain introspection - Looking within their own minds; the “what”

  • Sensation, emotion, ideas
  • Consciousness = sum of all mental experience at one time
  • Wundt is deemed the founding father of modern psych, 1st to open psych lab in SEPT 1879 for scientific study of mental processes
  • Shifted psychology from Philosophy → Science
  • Believed in rigid structure of mind
  • G Stanley Hall - American student of Wundt opened 1st American psych lab at Johns Hopkins U

Functionalism - William James’ (1842 - 1910) approach, emphasizing the functions and purposes of the mind behavior in the individual’s adaptation to the environment; the “why”

  • Believed mind was flexible and fluid; constantly changing stream of consciousness

Natural Selection - Darwin’s principle of an evolutionary process in which organisms that are best adapted to their environment will survive and produce offspring aka “survival of the fittest”

Section 2: Contemporary Approaches to Psychology

        Gestalt Psychology - Max Wertheimer

  • Gestalt = “shape, form”
  • Studied the person’s whole experience, not just pieces of it
  • “Whole greater than sum of its parts”

Biological Approach - Focused on the body, especially brain & nervous system

Neuroscience - Scientific study of the structure, function, development, genetics, & biochemistry of the nervous system. Emphasizing that the brain/nervous system are central to understanding behavior, thoughts, and emotion.

Behavioral Approach - Focused on the scientific study of observable behavior only

  • Visible interactions w/ environment, not thoughts or feelings
  • B.F. Skinner & John B Watson were behaviorists, used this approach
  • Skinner - rewards & punishments drive behavior
  • Seen as most influential psychologist ever
  • Cognition - thought processes

Psychodynamic Approach - Focused on unconscious thought, the conflict between biological drives and society's demands. Sexual & Agressive impules drive how people think, feel, and behave.

  • Sigmund Freud theorized personality was influenced by early relationships and experiences. Basis for therapy known as psychoanalysis - unlocking unconscious conflicts through talking
  • Behavior influenced by unconscious thoughts
  • Internal Conflicts
  • Sex & Aggression are important drives

Humanistic Approach - Focused on a person’s positive qualities, the capacity for positive growth, free will and self-determination. Believed people were innately good.

  • People choose to leave by higher values such as altruism - unselfish concern for other people’s well-being
  • Abraham Maslow & Carl Rogers

Cognitive Approach - Focused on the mental processes involved in knowing: how we direct our attention, perceive, remember, think, and problem solve.

  • Mental processes control behavior not external environmental forces

Evolutionary Approach - Centered on evolutionary ideas such as adaptation, reproduction, and natural selection as the basis for explaining behavior

  • Believe that their approach provide unifying umbrella for the diverse fields of psych; highly criticized for inadequate depiction gender roles & cultural diversity
  • Argues humans have evolved both physically & psychologically

Sociocultural Approach - Examines influences of social groups and culture on behavior.

  • Cross-cultural research - comparing individuals in various cultures to see how they differ on important psychological attributes

Section 3: Psychology’s Scientific Method

Five Steps:

  1. Observing some phenomenon

Variable - Anything that can change.

  1. Formulating hypotheses & predictions

Theory - Broad idea or set of closely related ideas that attempts to explain observations and to make predictions about future observations

  1. Testing through empirical research

        Hypothesis - Testable prediction that derives logically from a theory

  1. Drawing Conclusions

Operational Definition - Provides and objective description of how a variable is going to be measured and observed in a particular study

  1. Evaluating Conclusions

Section 4: Types of Psychological Research

Descriptive Research - describes phenomenon

  • But cannot prove phenomenon on its own but can reveal behavior
  • No variable manipulation or case/effect conclusions
  • Includes the following:
  • Observation - Knowing what to look for specifically and how to communicate them
  • Naturalistic - watch behavior natural occurring situation
  • ie: cell phone use in crosswalks
  • Laboratory
  • Surveys, Interviews, & Questionnaires
  • Lots of data, short time, efficient
  • Self - Reported
  • People answer what they think the researcher WANTS to hear
  • Case Study - Or Case history - an in-depth look at a single individual
  • Useful in the case of unique situations or rare disorders

Correlative Research - examines relationships between variables, whose purpose is to examine whether & how two variables change together.

  • Correlation Coefficient, r, describes the relationship between two variables (-1, +1)
  • Scatter Plots - used to graph correlations

Third Variable Problem aka confounds - Circumstance where a variable that has not been measured accounts for the relationships between two other variables.

  • Experience Sampling Method (ESM) - study people in their natural settings, reporting data whether qualitative or quantitative at given intervals

Longitudinal Design - special kind of systematic observation, involving obtaining measures of specific variables in multiple waves over time

Experimental Research

Experiment - carefully regulated procedure in which the researcher manipulates one or more variables that are believed to influence some other variable.

  • Can show cause & effect relationship

Independent Variable (IV) - A manipulated experimental factor, the variable that the experimenter changes to see what its effects are.

Dependent Variable (DV) - the outcome, the factor that can change in an experiment in response to changes in the independent variable.

Random Assignment -  Participants are assigned to groups by chance, reducing the likelihood that an experiment’s results will be due to preexisting differences between groups.

  • Sample - large enough, representative population, random assignment
  • Operational Definition - how will variables be measured?
  • Participants in study must be alike on all variables except IV

Confederate - person given a role to play in a study so the social context can be manipulated.

Experimental Group - participants in an experiment, exposed to independent variable

Control Group - participants in an experiment who are as much like the experimental group as possible and treated exactly the same, NOT exposed to the independent variable

  • Within-Participant Designs - Participants serve as their own control groups, experiencing various conditions of the study
  • Quasi-Experimental Designs - “as if design” - No random assignment to groups bc it's impossible or unethical

Validity - soundness of the conclusions a researcher draws from an experiment

  • External - degree to which an experimental design actually reflects real-world issues it’s supposed to address
  • Internal - degree to which

Expectancy Effects

Self Fulfilling Prophecy - Researchers’ expectations unknowingly create a situation that affects the results

Experimenter Bias - influence of the experiment’s expectations on the outcome of research

Demand Characteristics - any aspects of a study that communicate to the participants how the experimenter wants them to behave , Systematic biases are also called confounds

Research Participant Bias - influence of participants’ expectations & thoughts about how they should behave, on their behavior

Placebo Effect - situation where participants’ expectations, rather than the experimental treatment produce an experimental outcome

Placebo - harmless substance that has physiological effect, given to participants in a control group so that they are treated identically to the experimental group except for the active agent.

Double-Blind Experiment -  an experimental design in which neither the experimenter nor the participants are aware of which participants are in the experimental group & which are in the control group until the results are calculated

  • Done as often as possible in psychology
  • Must be done in ANY research on medical treatments

*Good table to reference on page 27

Conducting Ethical Research

  • APA’s rules concerning research conduct
  • For Humans -
  • Informed Consent
  • Can’t be coerced
  • Can drop out at any time
  • Confidentiality

Section 5: Research Samples & Settings

The Research Sample

        Population -