Introduction to Psychology
History & Research Methods
Caroline M. Clements, Ph.D.
The University of North Carolina at Wilmington
Department of Psychology
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What is Psychology?
• Psychology is the science of brain
processes and behavior
The Goals of Psychologists
• Psychologists engage in the study of
psychology in order to understand,
explain and predict and control
behavior.
Lecture Overview
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History of Psychology
Modern Perspectives in Psychology
Psychology as a Career
Doing Research in Psychology
Historical Background
• Nativist (nature) vs Empiricist
(nuture)
– Are a person’s characteristics mostly
inborn or learned?
Historical Background
• Plato – (427-347)
– Plato was interested in moral
philosophy and despised natural
philosophy (that is, science) as
an inferior and unworthy sort of
knowledge.
– Believed we are born with
complete knowledge within our
soul.
– Learning – a process of inner
reflection to discover the
knowledge within us.
Democritus of Abdera 460-370
BC
• Democritus explained all changes in
the world as changes in motion of the
atoms, or the way that they were
packed together.
• This brought mathematics into a
fundamental physical role since the
whole of the structure proposed by
Democritus was quantitative and
subject to mathematical laws.
• Another fundamental idea in
Democritus's theory is that nature
behaves like a machine, it is nothing
more than a highly complex
mechanism.
History
• Aristole – (384-322)
– Knowledge acquired
through experience.
• Four Laws of
Association
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Law of similarity
Law of Contrast
Law of Contiguity
Law of Frequency
History
• Descartes- (1596-1650)
– Mind body dualism
– Reflexes
– Behavior controlled by
the mind or will.
• Dualistic notion of human
behavior suggested at least
some components of
behavior could be
scientifically investigated.
History of
Psychology
Early History of
Psychological Thought
• Greeks
– how does the “soul/mind” give rise to memory,
sensation, movement, etc.
– where is the “soul/mind” located
• Descartes (1600s)
– dualism (mind/body problem)
• how does physical matter give rise to thought, sensation,
etc.
– mechanistic view (e.g., reflexes)
– pineal gland as the interface between soul and
body
Phrenology: Franz Gall (1758-1828)
First Psychologists
(late 1800s-early 1900s)
–Wilhelm Wundt
father of
experimental
psychology
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first psychology
laboratory in Leipzig,
Germany, 1879
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studied reaction time
to simple and twochoice stimuli
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The First Psychologists
–E. Bradford Titchener
• popularized Wundt’s psychology and brought
it to U.S.
• used introspection to uncover components of
thought
The First Psychologists
–William James
first important textbook:
The Principles of Psychology
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the mind is a stream of
consciousness
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William James
Principles of Psychology
“We know of nothing … which can be in the
remotest degree compared with the stream of
thought that accompanies the brain’s material
secretions.”
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/index.htm
The Early Era and Roots of
Psychology
• Psychophysics
– Early psychologists, doing research on
sensation and sensory experience, noticed
interesting aspects of the functioning of the
senses.
– For example, the perception of a stimulus’
intensity is not directly proportional to the
actual physical intensity of the stimulus.
The Early Era and Roots of
Psychology
• Psychophysics
– A sound that is half as loud (in physical
terms, in decibels) as another sound may
not sound that way to the listener.
– Psychophysics attempts to provide a
mathematical description of the
relationship between the actual physical
properties of the stimulus and its perceived
properties.
The Early Era and Roots of
Psychology
• The enormous impact of Darwin: The origin of species
(1859); The descent of man (1871)
– In his presentation of compelling evidence that
humans and other animal species were related,
Charles Darwin forced scientists and thoughtful
people working in many disciplines to consider the
basic features held in common by many or all
animals, such as thinking and intelligence.
– Comparative psychologists, who use this
perspective, are specialists who compare different
animal species.
The Early Era and Roots of
Psychology
Women in Psychology
In the early days of psychology,
opportunities for women were
limited.
Mary Calkins was one of the
pioneering women in the field.
She never received the Ph.D. that
she earned from Harvard
She went on to do research, study
the function of memory, and
serve as the president of the
American Psychological
Association 1905.
The Early Era and Roots of
Psychology
• Women in Psychology
– Other early contributing women in the field of
psychology were:
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Christine Ladd-Franklin –color vision
Margaret Washburn -first woman to receive Ph.D.
Karen Horney
Anna Freud
– The latter two were followers of Sigmund Freud
and the Psychoanalytic school of psychology.
Ethnic Minorities in
Psychology
• Gilbert Jones - 1901, First black male Ph.D.
• Inez Possner - 1933, First black female Ph.D.
• Kenneth Clark – 1971, First Black president
APA
• Norman Anderson – 2002, First Black CEO
APA
The Early Era and Roots of
Psychology
• Behaviorism – John B. Watson and B.F.
Skinner
– structuralism was abandoned because it was
difficult to study the subjective perception of
experience.
– Behaviorism concentrates on observable,
measurable behaviors and not mental processes.
– Behaviorists primarily seek to study the
observable behaviors associated with learning.
The Early Era and Roots of
Psychology
• Behaviorism – John B. Watson and B.F.
Skinner
“Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely
objective experimental branch of natural science.
Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of
behavior.” -- John B. Watson, 1913
The Early Era and Roots of
Psychology
• Behaviorism and Studies of Learning
– The early question posed by behaviorists in the mid20th century, such as Clark Hull’s work with rats in
the area of maze learning, have given way to complex
questions about how humans learn to be aggressive
and violent.
– This is just one of many interesting questions with
complex answers that have yet to be fully revealed.
– Even modern behaviorists have left behind the hope of
discovering “simple universal principles of behavior.”
But their principles are nonetheless interesting and
useful, as you will soon see.
Study of Psychology Today
• Psychology is the scientific study of behavior
and mental processes.
• Psychology values:
– empirical evidence
– critical thinking
– systematic research methods
• Goals of psychology include:
– description of behavior using careful observations
– explanation identifying the cause(s) of behavior
– prediction allows for specification of the conditions
under which a behavior will or will not occur
– facilitating changes in behavior (e.g., therapy)
Modern Psychology Views
• Psychoanalytic view emphasizes the
unconscious mind
• Behaviorism focuses on objective and
measurable behaviors
• Humanistic psychology emphasizes the innerself and the importance of subjective feelings
• Cognitive psychology focuses on mental
function and reasoning
Modern Psychology Views
• Psychobiology views behavior as reflecting
brain processes
• Evolutionary psychology asserts that certain
behavioral characteristics are subject to
natural selection
• Cultural psychology examines the influence
of culture and ethnic practice on people’s
behavior
Positive Psychology
• A recent addition to the field
• Focuses on the characteristics that make
people happy and successful
• Asserts that psychology has, in the past,
focused too much on the negative
Areas of Psychology
• Clinical – psychotherapy, assessment,
diagnosis
• Developmental – how do we develop across
life?
• Social – how do people behave in groups?
• Biopsychology – what is the brain basis of
behavior?
• Cognitive – how do we think and perceive?
• Personality – what basic traits make up a
person’s personality?
Psychology Degrees By Area
Careers in Psychology
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Clinical work – e.g., psychotherapist*^
Academic – e.g., professor/researcher*
Business – e.g., industrial psychologist*^
Journalism – e.g., science writer*
Technology – e.g., software developer
*requires graduate degree
^requires license
Psychology as a Science
• Attempts to describe, predict, control and
explain thought and behavior.
• Uses scientific method
Science vs. Common Sense
Objective data collection
Subjective data collection
Systematic observation
Hit or miss observation
Reliance on evidence
Ignores counterevidence
Science versus Pseudo-Science
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Systematic
Testable
Reliable
Unbiased
Self-Correcting
Extending Evidence
• Specific truths are deduced from general
truths
• General truths are induced from specific
truths
Science & Proof
• A deduction is proven if the general
premise is true and the logic is valid.
• An induction goes beyond the known data,
and thus can never be proven.
Science, then does not prove things,
because all information about the
outside observable world is
inductive.
Science
• Terminology:
• Hypothesis - a possible way things could be
• Theory - an explanation for the way things are,
usually supported by a lot of data.
• Advantages of science:
– Scientific methods are deductive
– Science is more systematic, and less subject to human
bias
Judging Theories
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Fit to the data
Quality of the data
Ability to predict
Ability to explain
Ability to control
Pseudo-science
• Why people believe:
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People like excitement
People are prone to wishful thinking
People are naïve and trusting
People remember hits, ignore misses
Psychological Research
• Two forms of psychological research:
– Basic research seeks answers for the
purpose of increasing knowledge.
• e.g. What role do the frontal lobes play in
memory?
– Applied research seeks answers for specific
problems.
• e.g. What types of memory strategies and
rehabilitation strategies are most effective for
people with frontal lobe injuries?
Basic Cognitive Psychology Research
Baldo et al. (1998)
Basic Cognitive Psychology Research
LEFT
Baldo et al. (1998)
Applied
Cognitive
Psychology
The Scientific Method
The Experiment
• An experiment involves a set of controlled
conditions that aim to confirm a
hypothesis.
• Hypothesis refers to a statement of cause
and effect:
• “Higher environmental temperatures lead to more
aggression.”
• “Exposure to marijuana increases appetite.”
Experimental Variables
• To test a hypothesis, an experimenter defines
the variables of the hypothesis:
– Cause: Independent variable (IV)
• marijuana: plain cigarette versus cigarette containing 5
mg of THC (the active ingredient in marijuana)
– Effect: Dependent variable (DV)
• appetite: grams of ice cream consumed in 1 hour
• The experimenter “manipulates” the IV and
measures the DV to test the hypothesis.
Experimental Issues
• Controls are important for determining causality
– the only difference between the experimental and
control groups is the presence or absence of the IV.
• Placebo effects represent changes in behavior that are
related to expectations of a treatment.
– placebo effects are controlled by a “blind” control
group
• Experimenter bias refers to expectations that influence
a participant’s behavior.
– example: Clever Hans, the horse who could do math
– can be controlled using double blind procedures
Non-Experimental Research
• Naturalistic observation refers to systematic recording of
behavior in a natural state or habitat.
– e.g. observing apes in the wild
• Surveys are instruments designed to sample attitudes or
behaviors.
– e.g., asking students at a rally how they feel about
animal rights issues
• A case study is an in-depth study of a single person.
– e.g., Freud used the case study method to study anxiety
• Correlations refer to looking at the relationship between
two variables without manipulating them.
Correlation Techniques
• The correlation technique assesses the degree
of association between 2 variables.
• Correlations vary in direction:
– Positive association: increases in the value of
variable 1 are associated with increases in variable
2 (e.g., smoking and risk of cancer)
– Negative association: increases in variable 1 are
associated with decreases in the variable 2 (e.g.,
years of education and risk of Alzheimer’s disease)
– No relation: values of variable 1 are not related to
variable 2 (e.g., years of education and height)
• Correlations also vary in strength of the
relationship.
Interpreting Correlations
Fig. 1.5
Correlation Take Home Line:
Correlation does NOT imply causation!
Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Study
• 1963 social psychology experiment,
subjects thought they were shocking another
person to promote “learning”
• Many subjects delivered high level shocks
and were upset when they later learned the
true nature of the experiment
• This study, and other factors, led to much
more stringent APA resarch guidlines
APA Ethical Guidelines (humans)
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informed consent
awareness of risks
confidentiality
deception can be used ONLY if benefits justify
it and there is no other way to do the study
APA Ethical Guidelines (animals)
• Researchers must ensure “appropriate
consideration of [the animal’s] comfort,
health, and humane treatment.”
• Animals may not be subjected to “pain or
stress” when an alternative procedure is
available.
Ethical Issues in Research
• Respecting the rights of human research
participants involves:
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Informed consent is an explanation of a study and
the responsibilities of experimenter and participant.
Confidentiality of study information must be
maintained.
Debriefing refers to explaining the research process
to the participants at the end of the study.
• Deception involving participants must be
justified.
• Animal research must be justified and must
minimize discomfort and pain.
Issues of Gender and
Cultural Diversity
• Traditionally not studied in psychology
– Why?
– Is it important to study—why?
• How can diversity be studied?
• Are there any potential risks to studying
diversity?
Modern Psychology Views
• Psychoanalytic view emphasizes the unconscious
mind
• Behaviorism focuses on objective and
measurable behaviors
• Humanistic psychology emphasizes the inner-self
and the importance of subjective feelings
• Cognitive psychology focuses on mental function
and reasoning
Modern Psychology Views
• Psychobiology views behavior as reflecting
brain processes
• Evolutionary psychology asserts that
certain behavioral characteristics are
subject to natural selection
• Cultural psychology examines the influence
of culture and ethnic practice on people’s
behavior
Take Home Concepts
• Hypothesis
• What type of study?
– experimental, correlational, naturalistic
observation, case study
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Independent variable(s) (IV)
Dependent variable(s) (DV)
Control group
Were participants randomly sampled
and assigned?
• Ethical concerns
• Gender and cross-cultural issues
• Potential experimenter and participant bias