CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY & RESEARCH …



CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY & RESEARCH METHODS

I. Psychology – Spotlight on Behavior – both a science and a profession.

A. Defining Psychology – the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.

1. overt behavior – an action or response that is directly observable.

2. covert behavior – a response that is internal or hidden from view.

B. Empiricism – information gained from direct observation.

C. Psychological Research – uses the scientific method.

1. It also involves the use of scientific observation: an empirical investigation that is structured so that it answers questions about the world ( hypotheses).

2. research method – a systematic approach to answering scientific questions.

D. Science and Critical thinking (an ability to evaluate, compare, analyze, critique, and synthesize information.

E. Research Specialties

1. developmental psychologist

2. learning theorist

3. personality theorist

4. sensation and perception psychologist

5. comparative psychologist

6. biopsychologists

7. cognitive psychologists

8. gender psychologists

9. social psychologists

10. cultural psychologists

11. evolutionary psychologists

F. Animals and Psychology – use of animal models: an animal whose behavior is used to derive principles that may apple to human behavior.

G. Psychology Goals – describe, understand, predict, & control behavior.

1. description – the process of naming and classifying.

2. understanding – is achieved when the causes of a behavior can be stated.

3. prediction – ability to accurately forecast behavior.

4. control – altering conditions that influence behavior.

II. A Brief History of Psychology – Psychology’s Family Album

A. Into the Lab – in 1879 Wilhelm Wundt (father of psychology) set up the first psychological laboratory to study conscious experience. To find out how people form sensations, images, and feelings, Wundt observed and measured stimuli of various kinds. Stimulus (any physical energy sensed by an organism (light, sounds, weights). He then used introspection (to look within; to examine one’s own thoughts, feelings, or sensations) and careful measurement to study this process. He called his approach experimental self-observation.

B. Structuralism – Titchener brought Wundt’s ideas to the US and developed structuralism (concerned with analyzing sensations and personal experience into basic elements).

C. Functionalism – concerned with how behavior and mental abilities help people adapt to their environments. William James’s Principles of Psychology helped establish psychology as a serious discipline. Also influenced by Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection (evolution favors those plants and animals best sited to their living conditions).

D. Behaviorism (emphasizes the study of overt, observable behavior)

1. John Watson

2. stimuli (events in the environment)

3. responses (muscular action, glandular activity, or other identifiable aspect of behavior)

4. conditioned response (reflex response that has become associated with a new stimulus)

5. Radical Behaviorism – B. F. Skinner stated that behavior is shaped and maintained by its consequences

6. Cognitive Behaviorism (approach that combines behavioral principles with cognition to explain behavior)

E. Gestalt Psychology – emphasizing the study of thinking, learning, and perception in whole units, not by analysis into parts.

F. Psychoanalytic Psychology – Sigmund Freud

1. unconscious – contents of the mind that are beyond awareness, especially impulses and desires not directly known to a person.

2. repression – unconscious process by which memories, thoughts, or impulses ore held out of awareness (to reduce anxiety).

3. Freud believed that all thoughts, emotions, and actions are determined (not by accident).

4. “The child is the father of the man.”

5. psychoanalysis – Freudian approach to psychotherapy emphasizing the exploration of unconscious conflicts.

6. neo-freudians – psychologists who accepts the broad features of Freud’s theory but has revised the theory to fit his/her own concepts.

7. psychodynamic theory – emphasizes internal conflicts, motives, and unconscious forces.

G. Humanistic Psychology – focuses on human experience, problems potentials, and ideals.

1. determinism – idea that all behavior has prior causes that would completely explain one’s choices and actions if all such causes were known.

2. free will – idea that human beings are capable of freely making choices or decisions.

3. self-image – total subjective perception of oneself, including images of one’s body, personality, capabilities, and etc.

4. self-evaluation – positive and negative feelings held toward oneself.

5. frame of reference – mental or emotional perspective used for judging and evaluating events.

6. self-actualization – ongoing process of fully developing one’s personal potential.

III. Psychology Today—Five Views of Behavior

A. Five Major Perspectives: Psychodynamic, Behavioristic, Humanistic, Biopyschological (Neuropsychological), and Cognitive View.

B. Eclectic

C. Positive Psychology – study of human strengths, virtues, and effective functioning.

IV. Appreciating Social and Cultural Differences

A. The Impact of Culture

1. Cultural Relativity – idea that behavior must be judged relative to the values of the culture in which it occurs.

2. social norms – unspoken rules that define acceptable and expected behavior for members of a group.

V. Psychologists—Guaranteed Not to Shrink

A. Psychologists – person highly trained in the methods, factual knowledge, and theories of psychology.

1. clinical psychologist – psychologist who specializes in the treatment of psychological and behavioral disturbances or who does research on such disturbances.

2. counseling psychologist – psychologist who specializes in the treatment of milder emotional and behavioral disturbances.

3. **professor’s note – the State of Florida does not recognize any differences between the people who are trained as clinical vs. counseling psychologists. You are licensed as a psychologist. Also in the real world, you will find both individuals doing the same thing who have been trained either as a clinical or counseling psychologist.

B. Other Mental Health Professionals

1. psychiatrist – medical doctor with additional training in the diagnosis and treatment of mental and emotional disorders.

2. psychoanalyst – mental health professional trained to practice psychoanalysis.

3. counselor – mental health professional who specializes in helping people with problems not involving serious mental disorder (marriage, career, or school counselors).

4. psychiatric social worker- mental health professional trained to apply social science principles to help patients in clinics/hospitals.

C. Profession of Psychology

1. State licensing boards

2. Ethics

D. Specialties in Psychology

1. basic research – scientific study undertaken without concern for immediate practical application.

2. applied research – scientific study undertaken to solve immediate practical problems.

VI. Scientific Research—How to Think Like a Psychologist

A. The Scientific Method – testing the truth of a proposition by careful measurement and controlled observation.

1. hypothesis – predicted outcome or educated guess about the relationship between variables.

2. operational definition – defining a scientific concept by stating the specific actions or procedures used to measure it. Ex: hunger might be defined as “the number of hours of food deprivation.”

3. theory – system of ideas designed to interrelate concepts and facts in a way that summarizes existing data and predicts future observations.

4. publication

5. summary: observation-define problem-hypothesis-test hypothesis-reject/accept hypothesis-publish-theory building.

B. Research Methods – various ways psychologists gather evidence and test hypotheses; five basic approaches:

1. naturalistic observation – observing behavior as it unfolds in natural settings.

2. correlational method – making measurements to discover relationships between events/variables.

3. experimental method – investigating behavior through controlled experimentation.

4. clinical method – studying psychological problems and therapies in clinical settings.

5. survey method – using questionnaires and surveys to poll large groups of people.

VII. Naturalistic Observation

A. Natural setting – environment in which an organism typically lives.

B. Limitations

1. observer effect – changes in a person’s behavior brought about by an awareness of being observed.

2. observer bias – tendency of an observer to distort observations or perceptions to match his/her expectations.

3. anthropomorphic error – error of attributing human thoughts, feelings, or motives to animals, especially as a way of explaining their behavior.

C. Recording Observations – observational record is a detailed summary of observed events or a videotape of observed behavior.

VIII. Correlational Studies

A. Correlational Study – nonexperimental study designed to measure the degree of relationship between two or more events, measures, or variables.

1. correlation – existence of a consistent, systematic relationship between two events, measures, or variables.

B. Correlation Coefficients

1. coefficient of correlation – statistical index ranging from –1.00 to +1.00 that indicates the direction and degree (amount) of correlation (relationship).

2. positive correlation – statistical relationship in which increases in one measure are matched by increases in the other.

3. negative correlation – statistical relationship in which increases in one measure are matched by decreases in the other.

4. causation – the act of causing some effect.

C. Relationships in Psychology

1. Graphical data

a. linear relationships – relationship that forms a straight line when graphed.

b. curvilinear relationship – relationship that forms a curved line when graphed.

IX. The Psychological Experiment

A. Experiment – formal trial undertaken to confirm of disconfirm a fact or principal

1. used to identify cause-and-effect relationships.

2. experimental subjects – humans/animals whose behavior is investigated in an experiment.

B. Variables/Groups

1. independent variable (IV) – in an experiment, the condition being investigated as a possible cause of some change in behavior. The values (levels, groups) that this variable takes are chosen by the experimenter.

2. dependent variable (DV) – in an experiment, the condition (behavior) that is affected by the IV.

3. extraneous variables – conditions/factors excluded from influencing the outcome of an experiment.

4. experimental group – group of subjects exposed to the IV or experimental condition.

5. control group – the group of subjects exposed to all experimental conditions except the IV.

6. experimental control – controlled by randomly assigning people to groups.

7. random assignment – use of chance to assign subjects to experimental and control groups.

8. cause and effect – in carefully controlled experiments, the IV is the only possible cause for any effect noted in the DV.

C. Evaluating Results

1. statistical significance – experimental results that would rarely occur by chance alone.

2. replication – repeating observations or experiments to confirm prior conclusions.

3. meta-analysis – statistical technique for combining he results of many studies on the same subject.

X. Placebo Effects

A. Placebo (an inactive substance given in the place of a drug in psychological research or by physicians who wish to treat a complaint by suggestion).

B. Placebo effect – changes in behavior due to expectations that a drug (or other treatment) will have some effect.

C. Controlling placebo effects

1. single-blind experiment – arrangement in which subjects remain unaware of whether they are in the experimental group or the control group.

2. double-blind experiment – arrangement in which both subjects and experimenters are unaware of whether subjects are in the experimental group or the control group.

D. The Experimental effect – changes in subjects’ behavior caused by the unintended influence of an experimenter’s actions.

1. self-fulfilling prophecy – prediction that prompts people to act in ways that make the prediction come true.

XI. The Clinical Method

A. Case study – an in-depth focus on all aspects of a single person.

B. Natural clinical test – an accident or other natural even that allows the gathering of data on a psychological phenomenon of interest.

XII. Survey Method

A. Survey method – use of public polling techniques to answer psychological questions.

B. Sampling

1. representative sample – small, randomly selected part of a larger population that accurately reflects characteristics of the whole population.

2. population – an entire group of animals/people belonging o a particular category.

3. biased sample – subpart of a larger population that does not accurately reflect characteristics of the whole population.

4. gender bias – tendency to base conclusions solely on subjects of one gender, usually males.

5. internet surveys.

6. social desirability – courtesy bias: tendency to give “polite” answers; especially, the tendency to alter answers so as not to hurt an interviewer’s feelings.

XIII. Critical Thinking Revisited

XIV. Pseudo-psychologies

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