Psychology Unit 1 People to Remember

Unit One Study Guide People to Remember • Wilhelm Wundt: conducted first psychological experiment in late 1800s in Germany • Hippocrates: believed in Mind Body Dualism (our mind & soul reside in the brain, but neither are physical) • Plato: believed that who we are is innate (we’re born the people we are) • Rene Descartes: also believed in Mind Body Dualism and that we’re born who we are • Aristotle: mins & soul come from anatomy and who we are is based on experiences • John Locke: believed that we are born a “blank slate” • Edward Bradford Titchener: introduced structuralism & the concept of introspection • William James: believed strongly in functionalism and even wrote about it in the very first psychology textbook • Mary Calkins: was mentored by William James and was denied the Ph.D. for psychology because she was a woman • Margaret Floy Washburn: first woman to receive Ph.D. in psychology • Sigmund Freud: believed in psychoanalysis and had odd theories • John B. Watson: believed in behaviorism and led the 4th wave of psychology by defining psychology as “the scientific study of observable behavior” • B.F. Skinner: also believed in behaviorism • Albert Maslow: believed in humanistic psychology • Carl Rogers: believed in humanistic psychology • Charles Darwin: created natural selection which is very much associated with evolutionary psychology • Albert Ellis: cognitive psychologist • Aaron T. Beck: cognitive psychologist Prologue Notes • Psychology: the study of behavior and mental processes • Psychology’s 3 biggest debates: o Nature v. nurture o Stability v. change o Continuity v. change • First psychological experiment was that people would press a button when they heard a ball hit the floor • The act of trephination (cutting holes into people’s skulls to release evil spirits) during the Stone Age proves that the concept of psychology has existed for more than just 200 years • • • • • Waves of psychology o Wave one: introspection ▪ Started with Wilhelm Wundt’s first psychological lab & introspection experiment ▪ William James wrote the Principles of Psychology about functionalism o Wave two: Gestalt psychology ▪ Led by Max Wertheimer, these psychologists focused on how we experience the world, not on how we feel (also includes Wolfgang Kohler) ▪ Experiences as whole can be more vital than the sum of its parts o Wave three: psychoanalysis ▪ Started with Sigmund Freud in early 1900s ▪ People believed that most feelings come from a hidden place in the mind called the unconscious ▪ We use defense mechanisms to protect ourselves from our real feelings o Wave four: behaviorism ▪ During early to mid 1900s, your behavior was all that mattered, not your feelings ▪ Social appearance mattered the most during conservative 1950’s ▪ John Watson & B.F. Skinner o Wave five: eclectic ▪ Psychologists pick & choose what theories to use depending on the situation and the client ▪ Made up of seven perspectives/schools  Biopsychology/neuroscience: all feelings and behaviors have an organic root such as the brain, body chemistry, etc.  Evolutionary: focuses on Darwinism & we behave the way we do b/c we inherited those behaviors from our ancestors  Psychoanalytic: focuses on unconscious mind and we repress many of our true feelings w/o knowing it  Behavioral: focuses on observable behaviors while putting feelings to the side and we behave the ways we do b/c we’ve been conditioned to do so  Humanistic: peaked in 1960s & 1970s and focused on spirituality, self-actualization, and free will  Cognitive: focuses on how we think & cognitive therapists attempt to change the way you think  Social-cultural: says that much of your behavior and your feelings are dictated by the culture you live in Structuralism: one of the first psychological ways of thinking that mainly focused on studying the elements of people’s minds to explain how it is that their sensations, feelings, and images were related to one another Functionalism: a psychological school of thought that, unlike structuralism, it focuses on how the human mind and its processes actually work Behaviorism: a belief that the science of psychology should be based solely on the way humans act & that it should remain objective Introspection: examination of one’s own mental & emotional processes • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Humanistic psychology: a point of view that mainly focused on people growing to be the best person they can be & healthy mentally and physically Cognitive neuroscience: the study of linking the nervous system’s activity to the cognitive functions Levels of analysis: the three ways in which any psychological situation may be analyzed o Biological influences on behavior & mental processes ▪ Natural selection of adaptive traits ▪ Genetic predispositions responding to environments ▪ Brain mechanisms ▪ Hormonal influence o Psychological influences on behavior and mental processes ▪ Learned fears and other learned expectations ▪ Emotional responses ▪ Cognitive processing and perceptual interpretations o Social-cultural influences in behavior and mental processes ▪ Presence of others ▪ Cultural, societal, and family expectations ▪ Peer and other group influences ▪ Compelling models like the media Biopsychosocial approach: an integrated approach that incorporates biological, psychological, and social-cultural levels of analysis Basic research: collection of data to simply increase knowledge and form a more solid base of facts Applied research: collection of scientific data meant to address or solve certain situations Biological psychologists explore link between brain & mind Developmental psychologists study changing abilities from womb to tomb Cognitive psychologists see how we think, perceive, & solve problems Personality psychologists investigate our persistent traits Social psychologists explore how we view and affect one another Counseling psychologists: people who help others that are encountering problems in their lives or relationships and assist them in reaching a solution Clinical psychology: branch of psychology that deals with people who have a mental disorder and are studied to be treated accordingly Psychiatry: a medical branch that’s involved in the studying and treating of psychological disorders; patients are usually treated with medications SQR3: a study method incorporating 5 steps: Survey, Question, Read, Rehearse, Review Chapter One Notes • Three hurdles that skew logic o Hindsight bias: tendency to believe, after learning the outcome, that you knew it all along o Overconfidence: tendency to think we know more than we do • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • o Barnum effect: tendency for people to accept very general or vague characterizations of themselves and think they’re accurate Hypothesis: testable prediction that expresses a relationship between 2 variables Variable: anything that can vary among participants in a study Independent variable: whatever is being manipulated in the experiment Dependent variable: whatever is being manipulated in the experiment Operational definition: explains what is meant in the hypothesis and how the variables will be measured in “real-life terms” Sampling: identify population you want to study; the sample needs to be representative of the population and random Experimental method: looks to prove casual cause-effect relationships; uses laboratory v. field experiments Confounding variable: anything that could change the dependent variable that isn’t the independent variable Once you have a random sample, randomly assigning them into 2 groups helps control for confounding variables (groups should match) Experimental group: gets I.V. and control does not Hawthorne Effect: when the control group still experiences changes and just the fact that you know you are in an experiment can cause change Experimenter bias: not a conscious act and requires the Double-Blind Procedure to prevent it Double-Blind Procedure: neither researcher nor patient knows if they got the placebo or actual treatment Placebo effect: process in which a placebo can sometimes improve a patient’s condition simply because the person expects it to be helpful Order effects: refers to how the positioning of questions or tasks in a survey, test, etc. can influence the outcome; designed to measure whether the order of questions affect the outcome Correlational method: correlation expresses a relationship between two variables but doesn’t show causation Positive correlation: variables go in same direction Negative correlation: variables go in opposite direction Correlation coefficient: a number that measures the strength of a relationship; range is from -1 to +1; relationships get weaker as they approach zero Survey method: most common type of psychological study and it measures correlation (cheap and fast but a good random sample is needed, and it has low response rates) Naturalistic observation: watching subjects in natural environments (no Hawthorne Effect but doesn’t show cause & effect) Case study: detailed report of one or a few subjects (only descriptive research & doesn’t give correlation data) Statistics: recording results from studies (usually shown with math to make it easy for anyone to understand) Descriptive statistics: describes sets of data through frequency polygons, histograms, or scatterplots (most used) • • • • • • • • • • • Central tendency includes mean, median, & mode o Mean: average of a data set o Median: middle number (if amount of numbers if even, take the 2 middle ones & find the average) o Mode: number that appears the most in a data set Range: difference between smallest and biggest number Normal distribution: mean, median, and mode are all the same Standard deviation: how much something varies from the mean Distributions: outliers skew distributions If a group has one high score, the curve has a positive skew to the right (has more low scores) If the group has one low score, the curve has a negative skew to the left (has more high scores) The American Psychological Association has ethical guidelines for any experiment (all must be approved by the IRB) To perform animal research… o There must be a clear purpose o The animals have to be treated humanely o Very little suffering Human research requires no coercion, informed consent, anonymity, no significant mental or physical risk, and must debrief Statistical significance: the likelihood of a relationship between 2 or more variables actually being caused by something and not just by chance