1. September 1/2, 2014
OBJECTIVE: Students will review the nature/nurture debate and discuss the biopsychsocial model in order to demonstrate vocabulary and key term comprehension on the Unit 1 Vocabulary Quiz.
WARM UP: Turn in your FRQ and Celebrity Perspectives Analysis to the AP Psychology Bin!
1. Take out and complete your P-3 Handout from last class.
2. Reverse your answer value (1=5; 2=4; 3=3, 4=2; 5=1)
3. Once you have reversed values, add up the total of your new values.
HOMEWORK: 1) Watch the CrashCourse Psychology Video #1 and write a 1 paragraph review. (Due A-9/8, B-9/9)
2) Write the Subfield Psychologist Dialogue. (Due A-9/8, B-9/9)
3) Work on Unit 1 Cornell Notes (Due A-9/8, B-9/9)

2. Nature v. Nurture
What is the “Nature-Nurture” controversy facing Psychology?
Which factor do you feel is more influential on human thought and behavior? Do you feel they are equally influential?

3. The Dualism Scale by Keith Stanovich
Complete Handout P-3 After your done, we will calculate your score by following these directions: 1) Reverse your answer value (1=5) 2) Once you have reversed values, add up the total of all your new values.

4. Plato: Ideas such as “the good” and “beauty” are inborn.
Aristotle:
All knowledge comes through the senses.
Descartes: Some ideas are innate.
Nature
Nurture
vs.
Charles Darwin: Some traits, behaviors, and instincts are part of the nature of the species.
John Locke:
The mind is a blank slate (blank chalkboard or screen) “written on” by experience.
Click to reveal five bubbles of different perspectives.

5. We have differences that are shaped by our environment
We share a common origin that gives us an inborn human nature in common.
We have differences that are shaped by our environment
Nature
Nurture +
Click to reveal the new nature and nurture bubbles.
This interplay of nature and nurture may be more complex in humans than any other species.
Another way of looking at this, suggested in the text: Behaviors can be seen as “pushed” (constrained, really) by biology, and “pulled” (influenced) by the environment.

6. Cognitive perspective
There are many perspectives for describing psychological phenomena:
From different angles, you ask different questions:
Cognitive perspective
Social-cultural
Behavioral genetics
Neuroscience
Psychodynamic
Behaviorist
Evolutionary
How reliable is memory? How can we improve our thinking?
Could our behavior, skills, and attitudes be “downloads” from our culture?
Could our behavior, skills, and attitudes be genetically programmed instincts?
What role do our bodies and brains play in emotions? How is pain inhibited? Can we trust our senses?
Click to reveal each box of questions.
Do inner childhood conflicts still plague me and affect my behavior?
How are our problematic behaviors reinforced? How do our fears become conditioned? What can we do to change these fears and behaviors?
Why are humans prone to panic, anger, and making irrational judgments?

7. Contemporary Approaches to Psychology: “The Outrageous Celebrity”
Part I.: Background Information
Which celebrity did you choose and why?
Part II.: 7 Contemporary Approaches to Psychology
Biological Psychology
Evolutionary Psychology
Psychodynamic Psychology
Behavioral Psychology
Cognitive Psychology
Humanistic Psychology
Social-Cultural Psychology

8. Biopsychsocial Reading
When you have finished and turned in your Unit 1 Vocabulary Quiz, follow the directions below;
Pick up Presnell’s Body Dissatifacton article from the stool.
Read the article.
Respond to the questions (located on the last page) on a separate sheet of paper.

9. Psychology’s Subfields
Type of research
Biological
Developmental
Cognitive
Personality
Social
Positive Psychology
Applied
Clinical Psychology
Counseling Psychology
Educational Psychology
Industrial-Organizational
Community Psychology
No animation.
Instructor: This slide lists categories that are covered in more depth in the next two slides.

10. Psychology’s Subfields Research Examples
Type of research
Biological
Developmental
Cognitive
Personality
Social
Positive Psychology
Explore the structural problems in the brain that may be part of autism
Study how the stages of cognitive and emotional development vary in autism
Clarify the difficulties autistic children have with understanding sarcasm
Decide whether traits like neuroticism need to be measured differently in autism
Click to reveal an example for each type of research.
Find how autistic children can learn social skills as procedures if not by intuition
Explore what motivates people and contributes to life satisfaction

11. Psychology’s Subfields Applied
Clinical Psychology
Counseling Psychology
Educational Psychology
Industrial-Organizational
Community Psychology
Use exposure therapy to decrease phobic reactions in a traumatized client
Help someone achieve career goals despite family conflict and self-doubt
Evaluate aptitudes and achievement to plan for a student with learning problems
Figure out how a factory can improve coordination of tasks, roles, and personalities
Click to reveal an example of each type of applied psychology.
Instructor: This slide lists categories that are covered in more depth in the next two slides.
Help coordinate a city’s efforts to understand and prevent elder abuse
Use exposure therapy to decrease phobic reactions in a traumatized client

12. Psychology in context with other professions
Psychiatrists are physicians, M.D.s or D.O.s. They can prescribe medication.
In addition to psychologists, professionals in social work, counseling, and marriage and family therapy may be trained to do psychotherapy.
Click to reveal two bubbles.
Instructor: Below is the content of this slide in more detail, for your lecture/discussion:
Psychiatrists are physicians, M.D.s or D.O.s. Unlike psychologists in most states, psychiatrists can prescribe medication.
In addition to psychologists, the marriage and family therapy, counseling, and social work professions include people with a Master’s degree who can diagnose and treat mental disorders, although they are usually not trained to do intelligence testing.

13. First Application of Psychology: Improving your test performance
Scientific studies show us that:
testing yourself boosts retention of material.
The retrieval practice effect/testing effect
actively processing material helps master it.
Put it in your own words, make connections
spaced rehearsal, interspaced with other subjects, is more efficient than cramming.
Click to reveal each study result and advice that goes with it.
Spread studying over multiple days
people tend to overestimate their mastery.
If the concept looks familiar… not good enough

14. Unit 1 Quiz Rules Your cellphone should be off/away.
No talking or communicating.
Don’t be a jerk. 

15. How do psychologists conduct scientific research, and how do they apply their findings to better understanding human behavior?

16. When our natural thinking style fails:
Hindsight bias:
“I knew it all along.”
Overconfidence error:
“I am sure I am correct.”
The coincidence error, or mistakenly perceiving order in random events: “The dice must be fixed because you rolled three sixes in a row.”
Click to show three circles.
Instructor: There is a series of slides explaining these concepts, not all of which are necessary.
The middle error on this slide can also be described as “mistakenly thinking that a random sequence of events is a meaningful pattern.”

17. Hindsight “Bias” Why call it “bias”?
The mind builds its current wisdom around what we have already been told. We are “biased” in favor of old information. For example, we may stay in a bad relationship because it has lasted this far and thus was “meant to be.”
Optional slide.
Click to reveal second graphic and text box.
Further explaining the bias: We are “biased” in favor of old information; we give old knowledge more weight than new information because we feel as if we have always known it to be correct.
Explaining the target image: Hindsight bias is like watching an arrow land and then drawing a target around it, saying “that was what we were aiming at.”

18. Overconfidence Error 1: Performance
Overconfidence Error 2: Accuracy
We are much too certain in our judgments.
We overestimate our performance, our rate of work, our skills, and our degree of self-control.
We overestimate the accuracy of our knowledge. People are much more certain than they are accurate.
Overconfidence is a problem in eyewitness testimony.
Overconfidence is also a problem on tests. If you feel confident that you know a concept, try explaining it to someone else.
Test for this: “how long do you think it takes you to…” (e.g. “just finish this one thing I’m doing on the computer before I get to work”)?
Optional slide.
Click to reveal all bullets in each column.
Instructor:
Overconfidence Error 1: The example in the text of unscrambling the anagrams is a version of “performance overestimation.”
“Still think you’d unscramble the words faster than it says in the book? And you peeked at the answer for “COSHA”? How about : HEGOUN (Enough) or “ERSEGA” (Grease)…” [I made those up, so I doubt they’ll have seen them]
Overconfidence Error 2:
Familiarity error: You may feel you know a concept from the psychology text because it looks familiar. However, then you might get surprised on the exam when it’s hard to choose between two similar answers. I suggest asking students, “do you understand?” The call on someone who nodded/raised hand to explain the concept.”
Demonstration of misjudging our accuracy: Any trivia quiz in which the answers are numbers (the diameter of the earth, the age of a famous historical figure when they died, etc.) allows you to test overconfidence; give students a chance to create a 90 percent confidence interval (90 percent sure that the correct answer is between x and y), and they may still get a lot wrong, showing overconfidence. Here’s a sample online:
And your unscrambling speed?
HEGOUN
ERSEGA

19. Homework for Next Class
Watch and review CrashCourse Psychology’s 1st episode (or any episode of your choosing, if you reviewed this video for the Summer Assignment.)
Complete the Psychology Dialogue activity for next class, individually or with a partner.
FOR NEXT MONDAY/TUESDAY: Finish reading the Prologue and Chapter 1 AND your Unit 1 Cornell Notes.

20. Credit Mr. P. McCormick, Columbia H.S.
Mr. Foley, University of Wooster