1. Psychology Rachel Lyn Rumson 207-332- 7224 rrumson@andovercollege.edu

2. Agenda Business Items Psychology of Studying Lecturette Activity
-Break-
Assignment review

3. Business Items Wiki Textbook companion site Office hours – required
Textbook companion site
Office hours – required
No late work

4. Term Timeline Four quizzes Midterm - Jan. 5
Term paper (Final Project) – Feb. 3
Final Exam – Feb. 9

5. Psychology of Studying

6. Self Reflection Where do you do most of your studying?
Where do you do you best work?
What are your goals for this term? (Learning, academic growth, study habits, survival)
How will you know when you are on target? Or off?

7. Are you a Procrastinator or a Perfectionist?

8. Psychology of Studying
SQR4 and LISAN methods (p.3)
What in common?
What is different?
Turn to your Neighbor
names
family
where you live
The program you’re in

9. What works? Time management Buddy system Meetings with me Community
SQR4 and LISAN methods

10. Turn to your Neighbor Find someone you do not know Share your Names
Family status
Were you live
The program you’re in

11. Outline for today Psychology - Spotlight on behavior
History of Psychology
Contemporary Perspectives
What Psychologists Do
How they Think
Research Methods
Critical Thinking
Pseudo-psychologies

12. Introducing Psychology and Research Methods

13. Psychology
Spotlight on Behavior

14. What Is Psychology? Psychology
Psyche: Mind
Logos: Knowledge or study
Definition: The scientific study of behavior and mental processes

15. Behavior Types Directly observable actions and responses
Overt; i.e., can be directly observed (crying)
Covert; i.e., cannot be directly observed (remembering); private, internal

16. Empirical Evidence
Information gathered from direct observation

17. Psychological Research
Scientific Observation: A systematic empirical investigation that is structured to answer questions about the world
Research Method: Systematic approach to answering scientific questions

18. What Might a Psychologist Research?
Development: Course of human growth and development from conception to death
Learning: How and why it occurs in humans and animals
Personality: Traits, motivations, and individual differences
Sensation and Perception: How we come to know the world through our five senses

19. What Might a Psychologist Research? Continued
Comparative Psychologists: Study and compare behavior of different species, especially animals
Biopsychologists: How behavior relates to biological processes, especially nervous system activities
Cognitive: How reasoning, problem solving, and other mental processes relate to human behavior
Gender Psychologists: Study differences between females and males

20. What Might a Psychologist Research? Continued
Social: Human social behavior
Cultural: How culture affects human behavior
Evolutionary: How our behavior is guided by patterns that evolved during human history

21. Goals of Psychology?
Description of Behaviors: Naming and classifying various observable, measurable behaviors
Understanding: The causes of behavior(s)
Prediction: Forecasting behavior accurately
Control: Altering conditions that influence behaviors
Positive Use: To control unwanted behaviors, (e.g., smoking, tantrums, etc.)
Negative Use: To control peoples’ behaviors without their knowledge

22. A Brief History of Psychology
Family Album

24. Beginnings Wilhelm Wundt: “Father” of Psychology
1879: Set up first lab to study conscious experience
Stimulus: Any physical energy that affects the person and provokes a response
Introspection: Looking inward (i.e., examining and reporting your thoughts, feelings, etc.)
Wundt’s ideas brought to the U.S. by Tichener and renamed Structuralism

25. Introspection Activity
6 Volunteers??
H.O. 1.2

26. Small Group Debrief
Groups of 3
5 min
H.O. 1.2

27. William James and Functionalism
Functionalism: How the mind functions to help us adapt to our environment
Functionalists admired Darwin and his theory of Natural Selection:
Animals keep physical features through evolution that help them adapt to environments

28. Behaviorism Watson and Skinner
Psychology must study observable behavior objectively
Watson studied Little Albert with Rosalie Raynor; Skinner studied animals almost exclusively

29. Gestalt “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
Key names: Wertheimer, Perls
Wertheimer: Mistake to analyze psychological events into pieces; many experiences cannot be broken into smaller units

31. Psychoanalytic Psychology: Freud
Our behavior is largely influenced by our unconscious wishes, thoughts, and desires, especially sex and aggression
All thoughts and actions are determined; nothing is an accident
Freud performed dream analysis and was an interactionist (combination of our biology and environment make us who we are)
Recent research has hypothesized that our unconscious mind is partially responsible for our behaviors

32. Repression
Unconscious thoughts held out of awareness because they are threatening

33. Humanism
Rogers
Goal of psychology is to study unique aspects of the person; focuses on subjective human experience.
Each person has innate goodness and is able to make free choices (contrast with Skinner and Freud).
Maslow: Self-actualization: Develop one’s full potential and become the best person you can be

34. Who are these ladies?

35. Three Contemporary Perspectives
Psychology Today
Three Contemporary Perspectives

36. Psychology Today
Biological
Psychological
Sociocultural

37. Psychology Today
Biopsychology: Our behavior can be explained through physiological processes
Uses brain scans to gather data (CT, MRI, PET)
Looks at neurotransmitters
Positive Psychology: Study of human strengths, virtues, and optimal behavior

38. Sociocultural Perspective
Many thoughts and behaviors are influenced by our culture
Psychologists need to be aware of the impact cultural diversity may have on our behaviors
What is acceptable in one culture might be unacceptable in another

39. Sociocultural Perspective
Cultural Relativity: Behavior must be judged relative to the values of the culture in which it occurs
Social Norms: Rules that define acceptable and expected behavior for members of various groups

41. Psychologists
What are they Doing?

42. Psychologists
Usually have masters or doctorate. Trained in methods, knowledge, and theories of psychology
Clinical Psychologists: Treat psychological problems or do research on therapies and mental illnesses
Counseling Psychologists: Treat milder problems, such as poor adjustment at work or at school

43. Figure 1.3c: This chart shows the main activities psychologists do at work (APA, 2000). Any particular psychologist might do several of these activities during a work week. As you can see, most psychologists specialize in applied areas and work in applied settings.
Fig. 1-3c, p. 28

44. Psychiatrists
MD; usually use medications to treat problems; generally do not have extensive training in providing “talk” therapy

45. Many Flavors of Psychologists
Psychoanalysts: Receive additional Freudian psychoanalytic training post-Ph.D. or post-M.D. at an institute
Counselors: Advisers who help solve problems with marriage, career, school, or work
Psychiatric Social Workers: Many have masters degrees and perform psychotherapy
Use social science principles
Presently a very popular profession
Not all psychologists perform therapy!

46. Table 1-3a, p. 27

47. Table 1-3b, p. 27

48. How to Think Like a Psychologist
Scientific Research
How to Think Like a Psychologist

49. The Scientific Method Six Basic Elements Observing Defining a problem
Proposing a hypothesis (an educated guess that can be tested)
Gathering evidence/testing the hypothesis
Publishing results
Building a theory

51. Hypothesis
Predictable outcome of an experiment or an educated guess about the relationship between variables
Testable
Operational Definition: States exact procedures used to represent a concept. Allows abstract ideas to be tested in real-world terms

52. Operational Definitions
Are used to link concepts with concrete observations.
Operational definitions vary in how well they represent concepts.
For this reason, many different experiments may be necessary to draw clear conclusions about hypothesized relationships in psychology.

53. Do you think the examples given are reasonable operational definitions of frustration and aggression?

54. Who was Clever Hans?
Case study

55. Research Methods
Specific hypotheses can be tested in a variety of ways, including:
naturalistic observation,
correlational studies,
controlled experiments,
clinical studies, and
the survey method.

56. Publishing
(That’s right APA style)
Psychologists revise their theories to reflect the evidence they gather.
New or revised theories then lead to new
observations,
problems, and
hypotheses.

58. Just like your
Final Projects!!

59. Research Methods
Specific hypotheses can be tested in a variety of ways, including:
naturalistic observation,
correlational studies,
controlled experiments,
clinical studies, and
the survey method.

60. Naturalistic Observation
Observing a person or an animal in the environment in which the person or animal lives

61. Limitations
Observer Effect: Changes in a subject’s behavior caused by an awareness of being observed
Observer Bias: Occurs when observers see what they expect to see or record only selected details
Anthropomorphic Error: Attributing human thoughts, feelings, or motives to animals, especially as a way of explaining their behavior (e.g., “Anya my cat is acting like that because she’s feeling depressed today.”)

63. Correlations
Existence of a consistent, systematic relationship between two events, measures, or variables

64. Coefficient of Correlation
Statistical index ranging from to that indicates direction and degree of correlation
Closer the statistic is to –1.00 or to +1.00, the stronger the relationship
Correlation of 0.00 demonstrates no relationship between the variables

65. Positive Correlation
Increases in one measure are matched by increases in the other measure

66. Negative Correlation
Increases in one measure are matched by decreases in the other measure

67. Correlation and Causation
Correlation does not demonstrate causation: Just because two variables are related does NOT mean that one variable causes the other to occur

68. What does the correlation coefficient tell us?

69. What does the correlation coefficient tell us?
how strongly two measures are related

70. The Psychology Experiment
Where Cause meets Effect
H.O. 1.6

71. Experiments
A formal trial to confirm/disconfirm a hypothesis and to identify cause and effect relationships

72. Performing an Experiment
Directly vary a condition you might think affects behavior
Create two or more groups of subjects, alike in all ways except the condition you are varying
Record whether varying the condition has any effect on behavior

73. FIGURE 1. 1 Results of an empirical study
FIGURE 1.1 Results of an empirical study. The graph shows that aggravated assaults in Los Angeles become more likely as air temperature increases. This suggests that physical discomfort is associated with interpersonal hostility (Data from Simister & Cooper, 2005.)

74. Variables
Any condition that can change and that might affect the outcome of an experiment

75. Independent Variable
Condition(s) altered by the experimenter; experimenter sets their size, amount, or value. These are suspected causes for behavioral differences

76. Dependent Variable
Measures the results of the experiment; Condition is affected by independent variable

77. Extraneous Variables
Conditions that a researcher wants to prevent from affecting the outcomes of the experiment (e.g., number of hours slept before the experiment)

78. Figure 1.9 Experimental control is achieved by balancing extraneous variables for the experimental group and the control group. For example, the average age (A), education (B), and intelligence (C) of group members could be made the same for both groups. Then we could apply the independent variable to the experimental group. If their behavior (the dependent variable) changes (in comparison with the control group), the change must be caused by the independent variable.

79. Groups
Experimental Group: The group of subjects that gets the independent variable
Control Group: The group of subjects that does NOT get the independent variable
Random Assignment: Subject has an equal chance of being in either the experimental or control group

80. FIGURE 1.8 Elements of a simple psychological experiment to assess the effects of music during study on test scores.

81. Placebo A fake pill (sugar) or injection (saline)
Placebo Effect: Changes in behavior that result from expectations that a drug or other treatment will have some effect; the belief that one has taken an active drug

82. Experiment Types
Single Blind: Only the subjects have no idea whether they are in the experimental or control group
Double Blind: The subjects AND the experimenters have no idea whether the subjects are in the control or experimental group
Best type of experiment if properly set up

83. Experimenter Effects
Changes in subjects’ behavior caused by the unintended influence of the experimenter’s actions
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: A prediction that leads people to act in ways to make the prediction come true

84. The Clinical Method
Data by the Case

85. The Clinical Method
Case Study: In-depth focus of all aspects of a single subject
Natural Clinical Tests: Natural events, such as accidents, that provide psychological data

86. Some of the earliest information on the effects of damage to frontal areas of the brain came from a case study of the accidental injury of Phineas Gage.

87. The Survey Method
Using public polling techniques to answer psychological questions
Representative Sample: Small group that accurately reflects a larger population
Population: Entire group of animals or people belonging to a particular category (e.g., all married women)
Courtesy Bias: Problem in research; a tendency to give “polite” or socially desirable answers

88. Critical Thinking
healthy skepticism

89. Critical Thinking
Ability to analyze, evaluate, compare, critique, and synthesize information

90. Critical Thinking Principles
Few truths transcend the need for empirical testing
Judging the quality of evidence is crucial
Authority or claimed expertise does not automatically make an idea true
Critical thinking requires an open mind

91. How to Critically Evaluate New Information
Ask the following:
What claims are being made?
What test (if any) of these claims has been made?
Who did the test; how good is the evidence?

92. How to Critically Evaluate New Information Continued
Ask the following:
What was the nature and quality of the tests? Are they credible and can they be repeated?
How reliable and trustworthy were the investigators?
How much credibility can the claim be given?

93. Palms, Planets and Personality
Pseudo-Psychologies
Palms, Planets and Personality

94. Pseudo-Psychologies
Pseudo means “false.” Any unfounded “system” that resembles psychology and is NOT based on scientific testing
Phrenology: Personality traits revealed by shape of skull and bumps on your head
Palmistry: Lines on your hands (palms) predict future and reveal personality

95. Pseudo-Psychologies Continued
Graphology: Personality traits are “revealed” by your handwriting
Astrology: The positions of the stars and planets at the time of your birth determine your personality and affect your behavior
Extremely popular today (“What’s your sign?”)

96. Uncritical Acceptance:
Tendency to believe positive or flattering descriptions of yourself

97. Fallacy of Positive Instances
When we remember or notice things that confirm our expectations and forget the rest

98. Barnum Effect “Always have a little something for everyone.”
Tendency to consider a personal description accurate if it is stated in very general terms

99. Psychology in the Media: Separating Fact from Fiction
Be skeptical
Consider the source of information
Ask yourself, “Was there a control group?”
Look for errors in distinguishing between correlation and causation (are claims based on correlational results yet passed off as causations?)

100. Separating Fact from Fiction Continued
Be sure to distinguish between observation and inference (e.g., Robert is crying, but do we know why he is crying?)
Beware of oversimplifications, especially those motivated by monetary reasons
“For example” is no proof, i.e., one example is not proof

101. Homework Get acquainted with the wiki Look at textbook companion site
Sign up (use your best account)
Look at textbook companion site
Open extra credit for work done
Just it to me from the site!
“What is psychology?” due Monday