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Description, Explanation, Prediction and Control

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Psychology's goals

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What is happening? Observe the behavior and note down as much as possible about it. Goal is to provide description

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Description

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Why is it happening? Come up with a theory of why it is happening, and explain it.

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Explanation

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When will it happen again?

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Prediction

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Figure out how to change the behavior into something more desirable

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Control

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Mostly done by philosophers, medical doctors, and physiologists (people who study the physical workings of the body and its systems) who did psychological research before the 19th century. Two major ones were Gustav Fechner and Hermann von Helmholtz.

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Origins of Psychology

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Structuralism, Functionalism, Behaviorism, Gestalt Psychology, Psychoanalysis. None are used straight from the source, but all but structuralism influenced modern perspectives on psychology and all helped lead towards what we know today.

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Different perspectives of early psychology

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Studying an object and describing sensations caused by the objects while doing so objectively. Objectively obersving one's thoughts and activities. First attempt to bring objectivity and measurement to psychology. Proposed by Wilhelm Wundt.

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Objective introspection

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Focuses on the study of the mind. Every experience could be broken down into its individual emotions and sensations. Objective introspection can be used on thoughts as well as objects. Proposed by Wilhelm Wundt and brought to America by Edward Titchener. Died out in early 1900s

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Structuralism

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Focuses on how animals and people behavior helps them survive and pass it on to offspring by heredity/teaching. Focus on how the mind allows us to adapt, work, play, etc. Ex: avoiding the eyes of others in an elevator as a way of protecting one's personal space, may have roots in need to protect one's shelter and food/water source. Proposed by William James. Influenced modern fields of educational psychology, evolutionary psychology, and industrial/organizational psychology.

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Functionalism

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Focus on studying whole patters instead of part of them. "good figure" psychology. Started by Max Wertheimer. Some ideas now part of cognitive psychology. Influenced evolutionary perspective of modern psychology.

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Gestalt Psychology

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Sigmund Freud's proposal. Theory and therapy based on his work. Proposed the idea of a unconscious mind in which we repress all our memories. The belief was this caused the nervous disorders with no known physical cause. Personality was formed in the first six years of life. Belief that children were attracted to the opposite sex parent. Basis of more modern psychotherapy. Phobias are symptoms of childhood trauma. Influenced the psychodynamic perspective of modern psychology.

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Psychoanalysis

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Creating a learned reflexive response in a person or animal by associating something that is desirable/undesirable by associating it with something that the person or animal considers desirable/undesirable. Example is Pavlov's studies with dogs salivating at the sound of a metronome because he caused them to associate it with food. Two more examples are the Little Albert and Little Peter studies.

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Conditioning

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Science of behavior that focuses on observable behavior only. Must be directly seen and measured. Proposed by John B. Watson. Belief that phobias are learned through the process of conditioning. Proved that they can be by Little Albert study. Influenced the Behavior Perspective of modern psychology.

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Behavorism

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Removing a conditioned phobia by associating the thing that the person or animal is phobic of with something viewed as positive. Mary Cover Jones did a similar study to "Little Albert" called "Little Peter" but added training to cancel out the phobia. This was successful, proving that conditioning could be countered.

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Counterconditioning

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Psychodynamic, Behavioral, Humanistic, Cognitive, Socialcultural, Biopsychological, and Evolutionary. Most psychologist/psychiatrists/etc. use a mix of them.

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Modern perspectives of psychology

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Focuses on the unconscious mind and its influence over conscious behavior. Emphasizes motivations for a person's behavior. Influenced by Freud's psychoanalysis.

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Psychodynamic Perspective

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Emphasis on how voluntary behavior is learned. Influenced by traditional behaviorism

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Behavioral Perspective

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Hold the view that humans have free will and therefore can make their own choices and strive for self-actualization. Major founders were Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers.

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Humanistic Perspective

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Focus on memory, intelligence, perception, thought processes, problem solving, language, and learning. Gestalt Psychology was influential to this field. Also, cognitive neuroscience is closely related to this perspective.

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Cognitive Perspective

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Combination of Social Psychology and Cultural Psychology. Abou the effect that people have on one another, both alone and as a group. Also included cross-cultural research. Examples of use: Lev Vygotsky's use of concepts in his sociocultural theory, John Darley and Bibb Latané's finding of diffusion of responsibility, and Lieutenant-Commander George Shorley's research.

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Sociocultural Perspective

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Study of the biological bases of behavior and mental processes. Part of the larger filed of neuroscience. Example: evidence continues to mount for a genetic cause for schizophrenia

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Biopsychological perspective

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Focuses on the biological basis of universal mental characteristics that all humans share. Influenced by functionalism. Example is not eating substances that have a bitter taste because was an adaptive behavior that helped early humans avoid eating poisonous plants.

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Evolutionary perspective

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Has no medical training but has a doctorate degree. Many different kinds.

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Psychologist

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Clinical, Cognitive, Counseling, Experimental, School, Industrial, Organizational, Social and personality, Developmental, Educational, General, and many others

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Different kinds of psychologists

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University/College, Schools, Self-employed, Private for profit, Private not for profit, State government, Local government, Federal government, and others

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Where psychologists work

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Has a medical degree and is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment (including the prescription of medication) of psychological disorders

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Psychiatrist

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A system of reducing bias and errors. Five steps.

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Scientific Method

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Perceiving the Question, Forming a Hypothesis, Testing the Hypothesis, Drawing Conclusions, and Reporting Your Results

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Five steps of the Scientific Method

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Figure out what information you want and how to obtain it, derived from the goal of description, and make observations about it

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Perceiving the Question

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Form an educated guess on the explanations for your observations

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Forming a Hypothesis

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Trying to determine if the factor you suspect has an effect and that the results weren't due to luck or chance. Goal is to get an explanation of a behavior. Risk of confirmation bias.

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Testing the Hypothesis

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Figure out if your results support your hypothesis. If they don't, need to find a new hypothesis that supports your results. Analyzed by statistics.

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Drawing Conclusions

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Report what you found to other scientists so that more knowledge of what you studied is added to the collective knowledge, allowing others to build on what you found. You want to make it so that your study can be replicated by other by writing up exactly what you did, why you did it, and what you found.

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Report your results

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Naturalistic observation, Laboratory observation, case study, and survey

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Methods of researching behavior

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Watch people or animals in natural environment. Advantage is allows researchers to get a realistic picture of how behavior occurs because they are watching it in its natural setting. Disadvantages are vulnerable to observer effect and observer bias and difficult to replicate because researcher's don't have control over what happens.

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Naturalistic observation

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Doing the observation in a laboratory. Advantage is great deal of control. Disadvantages are vulnerable to observer bias and the artificial environment often means artificial behavior. Can help lead to a hypothesis.

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Laboratory observation

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One individual is studied in great detail. Advantages are tremendous detail provided, sometimes is the only way to get information, and good way of studying things that are rare. Disadvantage is not necessarily applicable to other people because of individual differences and very vulnerable to observer bias. Story of Phineas Gage example of case study.

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Case study

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Researchers ask a series of questions about topic they are studying. Advantages are that it allows researchers to ask a lot of questions to a lot of people and ask about private information. Drawbacks are that they aren't necessarily representative, that people often won't give accurate answers because of courtesy bias, and that the order and wording of the questions matter.

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Survey

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Measurement of the relationship between two or more variables. Useful for determining whether there is a relationship between two or more things. However, must remember that correlation does not equal causation. The correlation is determined by the correlation coefficient.

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Correlation

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Just because one thing has a strong correlation with another thing does not mean it is the cause. It does mean that there might be though, and therefore finding a correlation between two things is a good reason to investigate whether one causes the other via an experiment.

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Correlation does not equal causation

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The only way to determine whether one thing causes another. Researchers deliberately manipulate the variable that they think is causing some behavior while holding all other variables constant and unchanging. This means that if they get an effect they know that those changes must be due to the manipulated variable.

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Experiment

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The best way to determine participants is through random selection to minimize the effect of unwanted variables.

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Selection for an experiment

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Determine the independent and dependent variable. Figure out an operational decision for every variable being measured.

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Variables

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Minimize confounding/extraneous variables via experimental and control groups. Determine who gets into which groups randomly to minimize confounding/extraneous variables.

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Groups of participants

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Placebo effect and experimental effect, avoid by single and double blind studies and by proper use of the experimental group and control group.

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Experimental Hazards

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Rights and well being of participants must be valued higher than the research. Participants must be allowed to make an informed decision about participation. Deception must be justified. Participants may withdraw from the study at any time. Participants must be protected from risks or told explicitly of risks. Investigators must debrief participants, telling the true nature of the study and expectation of results. Data must remain confidential. If for any reason a study results in undesirable consequences for the participant, the researcher is responsible for detecting and removing, or correcting, these consequences.

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Ethical Guidelines to working with people

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Must have informed consent. If single or double-blind study must tell them what will happen if they are in the control group and what will happen if they are in the experimental group.

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Participants must be allowed to make an informed decision about participation

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Only use deception if required for the experiment. Participants must be told why the deception was necessary after the study.

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Deception must be justified

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The participant must be allowed to drop out for any reason, even if it mens the researches have to get new participants.

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Participants may withdraw from the study at any time

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The results must be given in such a way so that the participants cannot be associated with their result. Often done by only giving group results. Freud accomplished this via false names.

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Data must remain confidential

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If it happens, the researcher must also find some way to help the participant overcome the impact.

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If for any reason a study results in undesirable consequences for the participant, the researcher is responsible for detecting and removing, or correcting, these consequences.

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Greater ability to look at long-term effects because live shorter lives. Scientists have greater control over animal's life than human's. Allowed to do more to animals than people because important way to do research that can't be ethically done to people. Many important vaccines and treatments only possible because of this.

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Animal research

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Allowed to do more to animals than people because important way to do research that can't be ethically done to people. However, researchers must avoid causing necessary pain or suffering and if death is required it must be accomplished humanely.

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Animal research ethical guidelines

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Making reasoned judgments, and therefore ones that are logical and well thought out.

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Critical thinking

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There are very few "truths" that do not need to be subjected to testing. All evidence is not equal in quality. Just because someone is considered to be an expert does not make everything that person says is automatically true. Critical thinking requires an open mind.

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Basic criteria for critical thinking

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Be willing to accept things that you have seen the evidence of and have seen that the evidence adequately supports the conclusion. Critical thinking requires a balance between skepticism and being willingness to accept possibilities

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Critical thinking requires an open mind

Psychology 201 Chapter 1 Concepts – Flashcards

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