Unit 0

1A. Psychological Perspectives

Psychodynamic Perspective

  • developed by Sigmund Frued

    • believed personalities shaped by unconscious motives

    • observed using free association

      • free association: word/image triggers another word/idea/picture in head

        • explore deep-seated emotional issues, unresolved conflicts, impact of early experiences on adult personalities

  • originally called Psychoanalytic theory

  • could better understand subconscious by analyzing dreams, speaking openly about expressions, trying to access repressed memories & feelings

  • still practiced today

  • focuses on unconscious mind & early childhood experiences

  • criticism → cannot truly be studied, seeks to study hidden things

Behaviourism

  • John B. Watson, Ivan Pavlov, B.F. Skinner

  • observable behaviour

  • psych should be objective science

    • not referencing mental processes

  • role of environment in shaping behaviour through reinforcement & punishment

  • how we observe other indiv, model our behav off their actions, consequences

  • modify behav through conditioning techniques, often used in therapy & education

Sociocultural Perspective

  • person’s experiences & influences in their life

    • better understand how cultures shape indiv

  • cultural norms: shared expectations & rules, often guide behav within groups

  • how behav shaped by societal expectations & indiv → how does society shape us?

  • can kind of measure when looking at interactions we have with people/things

  • provide insight into diff behav across cultures

Humanistic Perspective

  • potential as humans to grow as indiv

  • Carl Rodgers & Abraham Maslow

    • think behaviourism too limited → focus on potential growth

  • focus on free will, optimistic, person’s desire to move towards self-actualization

    • self-actualization: motivation to strive to reach full potential

  • used in therapy to achieve personal growth, inc self-esteem

Cognitive Perspective

  • interpret, process, remember info → inner thoughts

  • how one processes & stores info, how this influences behav

  • Q. how to study thought processes in objective & observable manner? → psychological processes

  • used in cognitive behavioural therapy

Biological Perspective

  • link b/w biological & psychological processes

  • focus on brain, neurons, hormones, nerv sys role influencing thoughts & actions

  • how nerve system → mental processes, behav

  • to understand neurological conditions, mental disorders, med effects on behav

Biopsychosocial Perspective

  • interconnect biological, psychological, social factors in understanding behav & mental processes

  • sociocultural + biological perspective

  • used in treatment → encourage to consider patient’s emotional state & social env

Evolutionary Perspective

  • natural selection & adaptation influencing human behav

  • Charles Darwin → bodies, behav shaped through nervous system

  • where certain behav (ex. fear response) come from

1B. Cognitive Perspectives & Culture Reshaping Behaviour

Culture Norms, Expectations, Circumstances

  • to consider when looking at experiments

  • cultural norms: shared guidelines & rules within within community, dictate appropriate & acceptable behav

    • ex. traditional vs. modern

  • expectations: anticipated behav & rules indiv expected to fulfill based based on c.norms

  • circumstances: situations in which indiv find themselves in

    • inc. socio-economic factors, historic events → outside of one’s control

    • ex. less comm opportunities, lack of support

  • gain insight into diff. factors that influence behav & mental processes

!! We are always being influenced by external factors

Cognitive Biases

  • everyone has biases → impacts how we view diff. events, indiv, groups, research/studies

  • conf, hindsight, overconf bias impact thoughts & actions

Confirmation Biases

  • tendency to seek out info that aligns with our POV, dismissing info that challenges our beliefs

  • easily believe evidence that supports views, reject evidence that contradicts perspective

  • can lead to polarized, thinking, prevent consideration of new info that might challenge beliefs

Hindsight Bias

  • tendency to think one could’ve anticipated outcome of event/experiment AFTER it alr occurred

  • info less surprising once you know it

  • learn = make connections to other info you know, see patterns

  • distort memories, afect how indiv learn from past exp

  • overestimate ability to predict future events

Overconfidence

  • overestimate knowledge, likelihood of being correct, abilities to perform certain tasks

  • can underestimate work needed to put in, make poor decisions, risky behaviour

Application of Psychological Concepts

  • applying concepts & theories in innapropriate manner & discriminatory way have significant, ethical, social, practial implicants

  • cultural biases/outdated stereotypes → misdiagnose → ineff/harmful treatment

    • cherry-pick data to support biases

  • must correctly apply, identify biases for diff indiv/situations/etc.

Other Biases

  • experimentor bias

  • social desireability bias

  • sampling bias

  • self report bias

2. Research Designs

Experimental Design

  • systematic, controlled conditions

  • goal → test hypothesis, establish causal relationship between independent & dependent variable

  • explain behav

Non-Experimental Methods

  • used in research where controlled experiment not possible/ethical

  • used to describe behav, NOT explain

  • can’t extablish causal relationship → correlation =/= causation

  • ex. case studies, correlation studies, meta-analysis, naturalistic observation

  • case study: examine indiv, group of people, event, situation

    • provide detailed info/insight

    • can be impacted by Hawthorne effect

      • Hawthorne effect: subject of study alters behav b/c are aware they are being observed

  • correlational study: researchers gain insight into relationship b/w 2 variables

    • can help determine strength of relationship → NOT show cause & effect

    • third variable problem: outside (3rd) variable impacts study, not accounted for when creating study parameters

  • meta-analysis: statistical technique, combines results of multiple studies on same topic to reach conclusion

    • studies studies

  • naturalistic observation: researcher observes indiv in real world setting, environ

    • goal → gather authentic data

    • issues → how long observation? → might not have proper ocntext

How to Design a Study

  1. State hypothesis: specific, testable prediction about relationship b/w ≥ 2 variables

    • NOT theory: supported by data from completed reearch, explains question/thought/phenomena

      • based on tested hypothesis

      • can make predictions about how things are, what might happen

    • must be falsifiable: proven wrong

  2. Identify operational definition: outline exact procedures used, how var measured/manipulated

    • other researchers can replicate study → same conditions

    • independent variable: manipulated/controlled, the cause

    • dependent variable: outcome measured, effect

    • confounding variable: factors other than indep var that could impact dep var

      • cannot remove from experiment/study

    • more control → less conf var

      • but risk inauthentic env

Participants

  • population: entire group research is studying

  • sample: selected group of indiv in pop, selected to represent pop in study

    • random sampling: each indiv in pop equal chance of participating

    • stratified sampling: pop divided into subcategories, random sample taken from each subcategory

    • goal → to create representative sample: study’s sample group represents all diff people in pop

    • sampling bias: sample group representing pop in study doesn’t represent entire pop accurately

      • flawed process of picking sample group if certain ppl more likely to be chosen

Why does Sampling Bias Happen?

  • convenience sampling: indiv selected to participate in study based on availability

    • can limit generalizability of results

  • generalizability

    extent of which findings of a study can be applied to larger population

  • experiment group: receives indep variable

  • control/placebo group: given placebo

  • placebo: smth as close to indep var as possible but missing key component of indep var

  • random assignment: participants randomly assigned to be part of control/exp group

    • to choose who in exp/control group

    • NOT random selection: part randomly selected to be part of study

!! A study that has an appropriate representation has a sample that accurately represents demographics and characteristics of pop studies

  • higher chance generalizable, valid results

  • less chance bias impacting study

  • quasi-experiment: experiment doesn’t include random assingment of participants

    • cannot determine cause & effect → differences b/w groups not controlled by random assignment

    • !! experimental method needs r.a, involves ind/dep var, non0exp don’t always use r.a.

Procedures

  • single-blind procedures: participant don’t know whether they’re in exp/cont group

    • helps prevent social desireability & placebo effect → indiv in dark

      • social desirability bias: part skew answers to create more favourable impressions of themselves → think study supposed to reach certain conc.

      • placebo effect: indiv believe believe taking real drug → ment/phys state improves after taking placebo

  • double-blind procedure: part & researchers don’t know who is in exp/cont group

    • helps counter social desirability & experimenter bias

      • experimenter bias: researcher expectations, preferences, or beliefs influence outcome of study

        • happens unknowingly

Measurements

  • qualitative measures: collect non-numerical data, provide detailed & descriptive insights into part thoughts, feelings, behav

    • ex. structured interviews: researchers ask open-minded questions, allow part to provide in-depth, answers about perspective & exp

    • often descriptive & subjective → hard to replicate

  • quantitative measures: collect numerical data, can be statistically analyzed to identify diff relationships, patterns, differences

    • ex. likert scale: part rate agreement w/ statements on scale to provide researcher w/ quant. data on part attitudes/opinions → ex. strongly agree, disagree, neutral

    • more objective, focus on numbers for statistical analysis, study can be replicated

Protecting Participants

  • informed consent: researchers must give adequate info to part so they understand risks of study, can make rational decision

    • indiv understand necessary info to make informed decisions, understand risks of study, be free to choose participation

  • informed assent: part not legally able to provide full consent on own b/c (typically) are minors

    • must agree along w/ parent/guardian

!! Researcher should also have ethical studies → create (+) environment for subjects, have transparency w/ part (ex. debrief at end of study), have integrity

Ethical Concerns Timeline:

  • 1892: APA est as governing board to study behav

  • 1947: created 1st ethical committee to create standards, psych research must follow

  • 1974: Institutional Review Board created to protect human part

    • college/unis use IRB to conduct studies in Psych

    • looks at proposed res studies that have human part → will reject if don’t believe people protected

  • IACUC (International Animal Care & Use Committee)

    • oversees & regulates animal care, research teaching & testing with animals

    • created ethical standards, must be followed by all researchers

Conclusions

  • peer review: other experts in field assess methodology, data, conclusions, before publishement

    • evaluate outcome

    • ensure findings reliable & valid

  • replication: other indiv conducting study again

    • others to check original findings, verify results

  • allow sci. research to evolve, helps ensure standards of experiments remain high

3. Data Interpretation

Quantitative Statistics

  • quant not up for interpretation → can come from census

    • ex. city pop, median income of area

  • qual up for interpretation, describes qualities/characteristics

Descriptive Statistics

researchers organize & describe data

desc data that is collected

Inferential Statistics

  • researchers make predictions abt data & indep var

  • helps researchers determine if data from sample can be applied to pop

  • uses techniques to make generalizations abt pop based on sample of data

  • help test hyp, provide insight into study results

    • see if there was bias in stdy, if results statistically sig

Hypothesis

  • null hyp: claim no effect/diff b/w var → serves as baseline for testing

  • alternate hyp: claim is effect/diff b/w var → what study is trying to show

  • to test hyp, look at p-value

  • p-value → provides insight into statistical sig of resutls

    • range of 0-1, lower value = higher strong evidence against null hyp

    • high p val = more likely results by chance

    • let researchers know if should accept/reject null hyp

    • ≤0.5 → results statistically significant, likely not caused by chance/luck

  • statistically sig: if results matter

Descriptive Statistics

  • frequency distribution table: see how often sets of data occur

  • freq polygon: visual rep of fdt

    • highlights diff connections b/w points on scatter plot

  • histogram: display data → bar graphs, show freq through vert columns

    • no space b/w bars

  • pie chart: data sectionsed, represent proportion of whole

Central Tendency

  • mean, mode, median

  • regression towards mean: outliers followed by results closer to avg

    • more extreme outlier → more likely regression is to occur

  • provide snapshot of data collected

Measures of Variability

  • range & standard deviation

  • normal distribution not most common → more likely positive(right)/negative(left) skews

  • bimodal

  • z-score, percentile

Correlational Studies (Correlation Range)

  • make predictions, what will happen in study

  • positive correlation/rel: ↑ var, ↑ other var

    • coefficient b/w 0 & 1

  • negative correlation/rel: ↑ var, ↓ other var

    • inverse rel

    • coeficient b/w 0 & 1

  • if no correlation → no rel b/w var

4. Justifying Psychological Claims

Defensible Claim

  • defensible claim: statement/argument supported by logical reasoning/evidence

    • to be supported in debate/discussion

  • clearly state your position on topic

  • avoid vague language

  • don’t overcomplicate position

  • consider counterarguments/opposing evidence when creating claim

    • help anticipate resistance claim may face

  • presented as truth

Scientifically Derived Evidence

  • scientifically derived evidence: info, data, conclusions obtained through scientific methods (ex. controlled experiment)

  • objective, can be replicated, went through peer review

  • findings ↑ reliable, based on factual procedures (not anecdotal/speculative claims)

Is It SDE?

  • evidence should come from source

    • ex. expert in field, research institutions, peer reviewed journals

  • check study methodology → falsifiable hyp, clear operational definition set, controlled experiment, limit conf var, how reduce study bias?

  • can evidence be replicated?

    • ↑ same results, ↑ reliable evid is

Claims

  • support: provide evid/reasoning, explains why claim should be upheld

  • refute: evid that contradicts claim, show why claim should be refuted

  • modify: make adjustments to original claim based on new evid

    • when original has some validity but needs to be adjusted to accurately reflect new info