Introduction to Psychology 6e - College of Lake County

Introduction to Psychology 6e

Adapted by Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French

Introduction to Psychology 6th Edition

Adapted by: College of Lake County Faculty: Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French

(Revised July 2021, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014)

This project was funded by a grant from the College of Lake County Foundation. Adapted College of Lake County text can be found at: Original text materials for Introduction to Psychology by Stangor 2011 (non-HCC version) at: Adapted by: Houston Community College Faculty: Carol Laman, Sandra Greenstone, Huong Ho, Jennifer Suarez, Sheila Weick, Kenneth Woodruff, Robert Morecook, Eileen Mello, Saundra Boyd, Ilija Gallego, Karen Saenz (Revised May, 2013). Houston Community College 2013 revision for Introduction to Psychology by Stangor, 2011 at:

Original Publication Under the following license:

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 unported license to view a copy of this license, visit or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1 -- Introducing Psychology Chapter 2 -- Psychological Science Chapter 3 ? Brain and Behavior Chapter 4 ? Learning Chapter 5 ? Memory and Cognition Chapter 6 ? Intelligence and Language Chapter 7 ? Lifespan Development Chapter 8 ? Personality Chapter 9 ? Social Psychology Chapter 10 ? Mental Health Disorders Chapter 11 ? Treating Mental Health Disorders

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Contents

...................................................................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction to Psychology ....................................................................................................................................................... 2

Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................................................................... 3 Chapter 1 Introducing Psychology ......................................................................................................................................... 6

Psychology as a Science .......................................................................................................................................................... 7 The Evolution of Psychology: Central Questions, History, and Contemporary Perspectives .............11 The Many Disciplines of Psychology ...............................................................................................................................26 Chapter 2 Psychological Science ............................................................................................................. 38 Psychologists Use the Scientific Method to Guide Their Research ...................................................................39 Descriptive, Correlational, and Experimental Research Designs ....................................................................48 Factors that Contribute to Credible Research ...........................................................................................................58 Chapter 3 Brain and Behavior................................................................................................................. 66 The Neuron Is the Building Block of the Nervous System.....................................................................................66 The Brain.....................................................................................................................................................................................74 Psychologists Study the Brain Using Many Different Methods ...........................................................................85 The Nervous System and the Endocrine System.......................................................................................................90 Sleeping and Dreaming.........................................................................................................................................................96 Chapter 4 Learning................................................................................................................................ 112 Classical Conditioning ........................................................................................................................................................ 113 Operant Conditioning........................................................................................................................................................ 120 Cognition and Conditioning ............................................................................................................................................. 128 Other Forms of Learning based on Cognition......................................................................................................... 129 Chapter 5 Memory and Cognition......................................................................................................... 141 Encoding and Storage: How Our Perceptions Become Memories.................................................................. 142 Retrieval ................................................................................................................................................................................... 154 The Biology of Memory...................................................................................................................................................... 157 Cues to Improving Memory ............................................................................................................................................. 160 Cognition and Cognitive Biases ..................................................................................................................................... 162 Problem-Solving Strategies ............................................................................................................................................. 172 Chapter 6 Intelligence and Language ................................................................................................... 180 Defining and Measuring Intelligence ........................................................................................................................... 180 Group Differences in Intelligence ................................................................................................................................. 191 The Development and Use of Language ..................................................................................................................... 198 Chapter 7 Lifespan Development ......................................................................................................... 217

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Conception andPrenatal Development...................................................................................................................... 218 Physical Development across the Lifespan ............................................................................................................. 223 Cognitive Development across the Lifespan ........................................................................................................... 228 Social Development acrossthe Lifespan ................................................................................................................... 241 Chapter 8 Personality............................................................................................................................ 264 Personality as Traits ........................................................................................................................................................... 264 Studying the Nature of Personality ............................................................................................................................. 270 Studying the Nurture of Personality ........................................................................................................................... 277 Personality Assessment...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................282 Chapter 9 Social Psychology ................................................................................................................. 299 Social Cognition..................................................................................................................................................................... 299 Social Influences ................................................................................................................................................................... 309 Social Relationships ............................................................................................................................................................ 325 Chapter 10 Defining Mental Health Disorders..................................................................................... 345 Defining a Mental Health Disorder............................................................................................................................... 346 Anxiety, OCD,andPTSD...................................................................................................................................................... 351 Depressive and Bipolar Disorders ................................................................................................................................ 358 Schizophrenia ........................................................................................................................................................................ 365 Personality Disorders ......................................................................................................................................................... 370 Disorders Originating in Childhood ............................................................................................................................ 375 Chapter 11 TreatingMental Health Disorders...................................................................................... 389 Psychotherapy ....................................................................................................................................................................... 390 Biomedical Therapy............................................................................................................................................................ 400 Social and Community Therapy .................................................................................................................................... 407 Eclectic Approach to Therapy and Seeking Treatment...................................................................................... 412

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Chapter 1 Introducing Psychology

Learning Objective

1. Define psychology.

Psychology is the scientific study of mind (mental processes) and behavior. The word "psychology" comes from the Greek words "psyche," meaning life, and "logos," meaning explanation.

Because we are frequently exposed to the work of psychologists in our everyday lives, we all have an idea about what psychology is and what psychologists do. In many ways your conceptions are correct. Psychologists do work in forensic fields, and they do provide counseling and therapy for people in distress. But there are hundreds of thousands of psychologists in the world, and many of them do other types of work

Many psychologists work in research laboratories, hospitals, and other field settings where they study the behavior of humans and animals. Psychologists also work in schools and businesses, and they use a variety of methods, including observation, questionnaires, interviews, and laboratory studies, to help them understand behavior.

This chapter introduces the broad field of

psychology and the many approaches that

psychologists take to understanding human

behavior. We will consider how psychologists conduct scientific research. We will look at some

Figure 1.1 Psychology is in part the study of behavior.

of the most important approaches used and topics Why do you think these people are behaving the

studied by psychologists. We will consider the

way they are?

variety of fields in which psychologists work and the careers that are available to people with

Sources: "The Robot: It's not a dance, it's a lifestyle!" photo courtesy of Alla,

. Other photos ? Thinkstock.

psychology degrees. You may find that at least

some of your preconceptions about psychology will be challenged and changed, and you will

learn that psychology is a field that will provide you with new ways of thinking about your own

thoughts, feelings, and actions.

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Psychology as a Science

Learning Objective

1. Describe the differences among opinions, values and facts, and explain how the scientific method is used to provide evidence for facts.

Despite the differences in their interests, areas of study, and approaches, all psychologists have one thing in common: They rely on the scientific method. Research psychologists use scientific methods to create new knowledge about the causes of behavior. Practitioners, such as clinical, counseling, industrial-organizational, and school psychologists, primarily use existing research to help solve problems.

In a sense all humans are scientists. We all have an interest in asking and answering questions about our world. We want to know why things happen, when and if they are likely to happen again, and how to reproduce or change them. Such knowledge enables us to predict our own behavior and that of others. We may even collect data, or any information collected through formal observation or measurement, to aid us in this undertaking. It has been argued that people are "everyday scientists" who conduct research projects to answer questions about behavior (Nisbett & Ross, 1980). When we perform poorly on an important test, we try to understand what caused our failure to remember or understand the material and what might help us do better the next time. When our good friends Monisha and Charlie break up, we try to determine what happened. When we think about the rise of terrorism around the world, we try to investigate the causes of this problem by looking at the terrorists themselves, the situation, and others' responses.

The Problem of Intuition

The results of these "everyday" research projects can teach us many principles of human behavior. We learn through experience that if we give someone bad news, they may blame us even though the news was not our fault. We learn that people may become depressed after they fail at an important task. We see that aggressive behavior occurs frequently in our society, and we develop theories to explain why this is so. These insights are part of everyday social life. In fact, much research in psychology involves the scientific study of everyday behavior (Heider, 1958; Kelley, 1967).

Unfortunately, the way people collect and interpret data in their everyday lives is not always scientific. Often, when one explanation for an event seems "right," we adopt that explanation as the truth. However, this reasoning is more intuitive than scientific. Intuition is thinking that is more experiential, emotional, automatic, and unconscious, and does not lead to careful analysis of all the variables in a situation (Kahneman, 2011). Other explanations might be possible and even more accurate. For example, eyewitnesses to violent crimes are often extremely confident in their identifications of criminals. But research finds that eyewitnesses are just as

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confident when they are wrong as when they are right (Cutler & Wells, 2009; Wells & Hasel, 2008). People may also believe in extrasensory perception (ESP), or the predictions of astrology, when there is no evidence for either (Gilovich, 1993). Furthermore, psychologists have also found that there are a variety of biases that can influence our perceptions. These biases lead us to draw faulty conclusions (Fiske & Taylor, 2007; Hsee & Hastie, 2006). In addition, most individuals listen to people they know and trust to give them accurate information rather than doing research to determine what scientific studies show. In summary, accepting explanations for events without testing them thoroughly may lead us to think that we know the causes of things when we really do not.

Hindsight Bias

Once we learn about the outcome of a given event, such as when we read about the results of a research project, we frequently believe that we would have been able to predict the outcome ahead of time. For instance, if half of a class of students is told that research concerning attraction between people has demonstrated that "opposites attract" and the other half is told that research has demonstrated that "birds of a feather flock together," most of the students will report believing that the outcome that they just read about is true, and that they would have predicted the outcome before they had read about it. Of course, both of these contradictory outcomes cannot be true. In fact, psychological research finds that "birds of a feather flock together" is generally the case. The problem is that just reading a description of research findings leads us to think of the many cases we know that support the findings, and thus makes them seem believable. The tendency to think that we could have predicted something that has already occurred that we probably would not have been able to predict is called the hindsight bias.

Why Psychologists Rely on Empirical Methods

All scientists, whether they are physicists, chemists, biologists, or psychologists, use empirical research to study the topics that interest them. We can label the scientific method as the set of assumptions, rules, and procedures that scientists use to conduct empirical research. Empirical research methods include collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data, reaching conclusions, and sharing information.

Figure 1.2

Psychologists use a variety of techniques to measure and understand human behavior.

Sources: Poster photo courtesy of Wesleyan University, . Language lab photo courtesy of Evansville University, . Other photo ? Thinkstock.

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