~ Psyc103 ~ Introduction to Psychological Science Dr. Jen Cole Wright MWF, 9:00-9:50am Education Center Room 118

i<clickers! Are you HERE this morning? –A) Yes, absolutely! –B) No, definitely not. –C) Hard to say – I could be having a nightmare. –D) Uh…what do you mean by “HERE”? –E) All of the above.

history of psychology… Since it’s inception, psychology has grappled with many core questions concerning human nature. Question #1: How does the mind develop? –Knowledge –Optimal function –Well-being Question #2: How do we study the mind?

roots of psychology: Q #1 Nature vs. Nurture –Which parts of our minds are set and which are malleable (through experience)? –How much of our personalities, our values, our actions, our well-being is determined by our genes and how much by our environments? In between nature and nurture, is there any room for the individual ? –To what extent are people in control of, or responsible for, who they are and what they do?

roots of psychology: Q #1 Is our knowledge about the world innate (hard- wired) or learned? –Plato – nativist learning is just “remembering” –Aristotle - empiricist –Locke – empiricist tabula rasa (“blank slate”)

contemporary debate Jean Piaget (& others) – empiricist –Children start with nothing (basic reflexes only) –Knowledge develops over time through the child’s active exploration of and interaction with the physical and social world. Alison Gopnik (& others) – nativist –Children are born with a surprising amount of “naïve” knowledge (theories) built-in.

conservation of quantity (1)

conservation of quantity (2)

Maxi “false-belief” task ? ?

appearance-reality task

naïve physics Yet, infants have a surprisingly sophisticated understanding of how the physical world works.

understanding intentions They also have some understanding of how the psychological world works –e.g., they understand that there are goals and intentions and that only certain creatures can have them.

primitive morality? ?

branches of psychology Evolutionary psychology –To what extent is the development of individual cognition/behavior driven by evolutionary pressures ? Developmental psychology –To what extent is the development of individual cognition/behavior driven by interaction between genes and environment ?

Social psychology – study of individuals within groups –To what extent is individual cognition/behavior driven by other people ? Cultural psychology – study of individuals within cultures –To what extent is individual cognition/behavior driven by cultural traditions/norms ? branches of psychology

roots of psychology – Q #2 How do we study the mind? Should we study the brain? Gall - phrenology Descartes - pineal gland Harlow - Phineas Gage Broca/Wernicke –language areas New technology E.g., EEG, PET, fMRI

Should we study conscious mental states? Introspection ? –Wundt/Tichener (structuralists) Break conscious experience down into its basic parts; its “raw” elements –Wertheimer (gestalt) Conscious experience is organized stimuli Can’t understand parts without the whole

Gestalt by example: optical illusions

James (functionalist) –Mental processes are adaptive –Understood in terms of their function (what they were “designed” to do) Freud (psychoanalyst) –Most of the mind is beyond introspective access Subconscious/Unconscious processes –Many mental processes are maladaptive Humanist response Maslow & Rogers Lower and higher needs; human potential. Birth of positive psychology conscious mind unconscious mind

behaviorist response Stop looking for a (non-observable) mind and just study (observable) behavior ! Behaviorism: –Pavlov –Watson –Skinner stimulus response Nobody home!

Our behavior is merely a product of past and present positive and negative reinforcement and punishment patterns. Sophisticated reward- punishment system in brain. Free will is an illusion!

contemporary view The mind is not adaptive so much as adapted. –It is best understood as a (cumulative) response to evolutionary pressures. Automatic processes Rational irrationality Heuristics/biases –

Imagine that the U.S. is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. Assume the exact scientific estimate of the consequences of the programs are as follows: –Alternative A: 200 people will be saved. –Alternative B: There is a one- third probability that 600 people will be saved, and a two-thirds probability that no people will be saved. use i<clickers! Imagine that the U.S. is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. Assume the exact scientific estimate of the consequences of the programs are as follows: –Alternative A: 400 people will die. –Alternative B: There is a one-third probability that nobody will die, and a two-third probability that 600 people will die.

Asian disease scenario When faced with the first scenario, most people (72%) of people are risk averse. –They will choose Option A. When faced with the second scenario, most people (78%) will take risks on the chance of no losses. –They will choose Option B. Yet, both scenarios are the same. Our Class Option A Option B 1st Scenario (200 saved) 49.0 %51.0% 2nd Scenario (400 died)36.0% 64.0%

use i<clickers! The VP of a company went to the chairman of the board and said, ‘We are thinking of starting a new program. It will help us increase pro fi ts, but it will also harm the environment.’ The chairman of the board answered, ‘I don’t care at all about harming the environment. I just want to make as much pro fi t as I can. Let’s start the new program.’ They started the new program. Sure enough, the environment was harmed. –Did the chairman of the board harm the environment intentionally? –A) Yes –B) No The VP of a company went to the chairman of the board and said, ‘We are thinking of starting a new program. It will help us increase pro fi ts, and it will also help the environment.’ The chairman of the board answered, ‘I don’t care at all about helping the environment. I just want to make as much pro fi t as I can. Let’s start the new program.’ They started the new program. Sure enough, the environment was helped. –Did the chairman of the board help the environment intentionally? –A) Yes –B) No

Knobe Effect Participants ’ dominant (70- 80%) response was to say that in HARM the chairman did harm the environment intentionally, whereas in HELP the chairman did not help the environment intentionally. Yet, once again, these two scenarios are the same. Intentional?YesNo Harmed Environment 69.0%12.0% Helped Environment 31.0%88.0%

Important Studies

The BIG FIVE…. 1.The Asch Conformity Experiment (1953) 2.The Good Samaritan Experiment (1973) 3.Bystander Apathy Experiment (1968) 4.The Stanford Prison Experiment (1971) 5.The Milgram Experiment (1961) ( plus one more! ) 6.The Bobo Doll Experiment (1961)

The Asch Conformity Experiment (1953) Which line in Exhibit 2 is the same length as 1? ?

The Asch Conformity Experiment (1953) Asch’s conformity experiment suggests that you would go along with everyone else – even if you knew they were giving an obviously wrong answer!

The Good Samaritan Experiment (1973) Imagine you were on your way to work one day and you encountered someone who was obviously sick or wounded on the side of the road… –Do you stop to help them?

Apparently, it depends. Were you late for work? Or maybe in a hurry to give a Good Samaritan lecture ? Did you just found a dime in a phone booth? Was the person standing outside a Cinnabuns? Was there a loud noise in the back ground? Was the person attractive? Or your same gender or race? Were you the only person there or were there others?

Bystander Apathy Experiments (1968) On March 13, 1964 Kitty Genovese was murdered outsider her apartment in NYC while 38 neighbors watched and/or listened, but did “nothing”. BAEs found that people are significantly less likely to aid others in an emergency situation when other people are present. –diffusion of responsibility This is called the bystander effect.

The Stanford Prison Experiment (1971) If you were asked to pretend to be a prisoner or a guard in a mock prison experiment, how would you behave? –If you were a guard, would you mistreat the prisoners? –If you were a prisoner, would you stop eating and become suicidal? In Zimbardo’s prison experiment, the participants adopted their assigned roles to such an extreme extent that the experiment had to be cancelled after only six days (less than ½ way through).

The Milgram Experiments (1961) Would you knowingly inflict pain on another person just because someone told you to? Milgram’s experiments indicate that you probably would: Shocks started at 45 volts –Increased in 15-volt increments Participants started expressing pain after a few rounds. –Yet, 65% went all the way to the end (over 450 volts!). Even when they were told the participant had a heart condition! – Only one participant refused to continue below 300 volts

Bobo Doll Experiment And then there’s Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiment, which show that even children are evil little buggers...