Warm Up
(Biological, Evolutionary, Cognitive, Psychodynamic, Humanistic,
Behavioral, Socio-cultural)
1. A psychologist believes her 40 year-old patient is severely
depressed because of a chemical imbalance in her brain
2. Tim, a 25 year old husband and father of 3 has been arrested 5
times for domestic violence and has been ordered to see a
psychologist. His psychologist believes his aggressive and
abusive behavior stems from repressed memories of domestic
violence in his childhood
3. According to Dr. Hossen, a well known psychologist, people’s
sexual desires come from their natural desire to procreate and
survive as a species.
4. Beth feels like she needs to be perfect in all aspects of her life.
She believes she must be attractive, skinny, a good mother and
wife, because of the way society portrays women on TV and in
magazines
5. Johnny does not hit his sister when he is angry because he fears
he will receive a spanking from his father.
6. Ken is having trouble in school, especially with long term
memory. The school psychologist thinks he might have a leaning
disability based on the way his mind encodes and stores
information.
7. Karen’s parents have always believed in her, so Karen feels
confident in her ability to succeed in college.
8. Mrs. Alfieri believes that her husband's irritability toward her
results from his unconscious feelings of hostility toward his own
mother. Mrs. Alfieri is interpreting her husband's behavior from
a(n) ________ perspective
9. Mrs. Thompson believes that her son has become an
excellent student because she consistently uses praise
and affection to stimulate his learning efforts. Her
belief best illustrates a ________ perspective
10. Which perspective is most concerned with the unique
ways in which individuals interpret their own life
experiences?
11. Professor Lopez believes that severe depression
results primarily from an imbalanced diet and abnormal
brain chemistry. Professor Lopez favors a ________
perspective on depression
12. Dr. Mills engages in basic research on why individuals
conform to the behaviors and opinions of others. Which
specialty area does his research best represent?
Notebook Tabs
1. Prologue/Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapters 3 and 4
4. Chapters 5 and 6
5. Chapters 7
6. Chapter 8
7. Chapters 9 and 10
8. Chapters 11 and 15
9. Chapters 12 and 13
10. Chapters 14
11. Chapters 16 and 17
12. Chapter 18
Warm Up
 1. Get out your HW
 2. Write down your HW
 3. Pick up warm off of front desk. You have 20
minutes to complete it.
AP PSYCHOLOGY: CHAPTER 1:
THINKING CRITICALLY WITH
PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Discussion Questions
1. Why are answers that flow from the scientific
approach more reliable than those based on intuition
and common sense?
2. What is descriptive research?
3. Describe a Case Study? Come up with 1 pro and 1 con
of a case study.
4. Describe a Survey. Come up with 1 pro and 1 con of a
Survey.
 5. Describe naturalistic observation? Come up with 1
pro and 1 con of naturalistic observation.
 6. How do a Hypothesis and Theory differ?
 7. How does a sample differ from a population?
Discussion Question
 What is critical thinking?
 How does it relate to
psychology and this
course?
Solve ME
 A man is found shot to death in a
room with a table, four chairs, and
53 bicycles. Why was he
murdered?
 There are 52 Bicycle playing cards
in a normal deck. He was playing
with an extra ace.
Solve ME
 A man is traveling from work and
wants to go home. He will not go
home because there is another man in
a mask waiting there for him. What
does the first man do for a living?
 The man is a runner at third base and
he is trying to score a run
Let’s Make A Deal!
 One Volunteer is
Needed for A
chance to win
1,334,499
Turkish
“dollars!”
Let’s Make A Deal Shows Us That:
 Human Intuition is highly limited.
 Critically thinking rarely comes easily to us!
 Critical Thinking: thinking that does not blindly
accept arguments and conclusions
 examines assumptions
 discerns hidden values
 evaluates evidence
 An awareness to our own vulnerability
Lack of Intuition
 Hindsight Bias: tendency to believe,
after learning an outcome, that one
would have foreseen it.
 the “I-knew-it-all-along”
phenomenon
Lack Of Intuition
 Overconfidence: we tend to think we
know more than we do.
 We can't always trust our common
sense or intuition we need research
Research Strategies
 Theory
 an explanation using an integrated set of principles
that organizes and predicts observations
 Low self esteem contributes to depression
 Hypothesis




a testable prediction
often implied by a theory
Allows us to test and reject or revise the theory
People with low self esteem score higher on a
depression scale
Scientific Method
theories
lead to
generate or refine
lead to
research and
observations
hypothesis
How to check our bias
 Operational Definition
 a statement of procedures (operations)
used to define research variables
 You want to be clear enough so that the test and
observations can be replicated
 To give the study more credibility it is
usually done with different subjects in
different situations
 Make sure studies are valid and reliable
Research Strategies
 1. Descriptive- making observations
that describe behavior
 2. Correlational- detecting
relationships that help predict
behavior
 3. Experimental-doing studies that
help explain behavior
Research Methods- Descriptive
 Case Study
 an observation technique in which one
person , or a small group, is studied in
depth in the hope of revealing universal
principles
 Longitudinal Cross Sectional Drawbacks of case study: individuals can
be atypical and lead to false findings.
 Anecdotal Stories
Research Methods- Descriptive
and Correlation
 Survey
 technique for ascertaining the self-
reported attitudes or behaviors of
people
 usually by questioning a
representative, random sample of
them
Components of Survey
 Population: all the individuals you are interested
in knowing something about.
 Sample: the individuals you actually question.
 Sampling should always be taken randomly from
the population so that it is representative, meaning
each individual in the population had an equal
chance of being selected.
Drawbacks of Surveys
1.) Improper Sampling
2.) Question Wording Can Effect the results of a
survey.
Ex: Should cigarette ads or pornography be
allowed on television?
Ex. Mississippi River- Is the Mississippi River longer
or shorter than 500 miles? How long is the
Mississippi River?
Is the Mississippi River longer or shorter than 3000
miles? How long is the Mississippi River?
Importance of Proper Sampling
 False Consensus Effect: tendency to
overestimate the extent to which
others share our beliefs and behaviors.
 Overgeneralizing extreme examples
can lead you to false conclusions!
Types of Research-Descriptive
 Naturalistic Observation: observing
and recording behavior in naturally
occurring situations without trying to
manipulate and control the situation
 Drawbacks: hard to identify any type of
causation since there is no controls.
Discussion Question
 What is descriptive research?
 Discuss the various descriptive research
strategies (Survey, Case Study, naturalistic
observation) and come up with 1 limitation
and 1 strength of each type of descriptive
research.
Discussion Question
 What are positive and negative correlations,
and why do they enable prediction but not
cause-effect explanation?
Correlation Research
 Correlation Research: research that
looks at a relationship between two
things. How well does one factor predict
the other?
 Ex: Consumption of Ice Cream and
Drowning.
Types of Correlations
 Positive Correlation: a relationship in which
increases in one variable leads to increases in
the other.
 Ex: Amount of fat burned is positively
correlated with amount of sit-ups completed
 Negative Correlation: a relationship in which
increases in one variable leads to decreases in
the other.
 Ex: As tooth brushing goes up, tooth decay goes
down
Some More Correlation Examples
 Married people tend to have higher measures of
happiness.
 Children who watch high amounts of television are
more aggressive.
 People with low self-esteem are more likely to be
depressed.
What meanings can we make of these examples?
Correlations Continued
 Correlation Coefficient: the statistical measure of
the extent to which two factors vary together and
thus how well either factor predicts the other.
(number that measures strength of the
correlation).
 STRONGEST CORRELATIONS are +1 and –1. +1 is
a perfect positive correlation while –1 is a perfect
negative correlation.
 Correlations are always between –1 and +1. A
correlation of Zero means there is no relationship.
Correlation Scatterplots
Perfect positive
correlation (+1.00)
No relationship (0.00)
Perfect negative
correlation (-1.00)
Indicates direction
of relationship
(positive or negative)
Correlation
coefficient
r = +.37
Indicates strength
of relationship
(0.00 to 1.00)
 R=+.37
 R=-1.00
 R=+.17
 R= -.08
Correlation Measures
 Scatterplot
 a graphed cluster of dots, each of which
represents the values of two variables
 the slope of the points suggests the direction
of the relationship
 the amount of scatter suggests the strength of
the correlation
 little scatter indicates high correlation
 also called a scattergram or scatter diagram
95
Temperament 90
scores 85
80
75
70
65
60
55
50
45
40
35
30
25
Height in inches
Height and Temperament of 20 Men
Height in
Subject Inches Temperament
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
80
63
61
79
74
69
62
75
77
60
75
66
60
90
60
42
42
60
81
39
Height in
Subject Inches Temperament
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
64
76
71
66
73
70
63
71
68
70
48
69
72
57
63
75
30
57
84
39
Correlation and Causation
 Correlation does not prove causation
 Ex- negative correlation between self-esteem and
depression
 Heredity and brain chemistry might play a role
 Among men, length of marriage correlates positively
with hair loss- because both are associated with a third
factor.
 Age
 Correlation indicates the possibility of a cause and
effect relationship, but DOES NOT prove causation
Intuition Limit #976
 Illusory Correlation: the
perception of a relationship where
none exists.
 Sugar makes kids more hyperactive
 Wet hair and cold hair cause a cold
 Don’t overgeneralize extreme cases
GET THE DATA!!
Warm Up
 1. Get out HW
 2. Write Down HW
 3. take 10 mins to finish
gathering data
One last check……………..
You need to make sure your study is
reliable and valid.
1. Reliability-if your study was
replicated would you get the same
results?
2. Validity- Does the study or
experiment test what it is designed
to test.
Summing Up Surveys, Naturalistic
Observation, Case Studies, and
Correlation Research
 All of these methods look to describe
the behavior not to explain it!
 Experimental Designed research is the
only research that gets at
causation…NEXT TIME!
Warm Up
 Get out your homework
 5 – 8 mins to finish up your
correlation study.
 Write down your hw
Random Sequences
Your chances of
being dealt either of
these hands is
precisely the same:
1 in 2,598,960.
Warm Up
 For the following research methods list one





positive and one negative
1. Corelational Study
2. Case Study
3. Naturalistic Study
4. Survey
5. Experiment
Experimentation
and
Statistics
Experiments
Experimentation
 Experiments are the best way to isolate cause
and effect
 the investigator manipulates one or more factors
(independent variables) to observe their effect
on some behavior or mental process (the
dependent variable) while controlling other
relevant factors by random assignment of
subjects
 by random assignment of participants the
experiment controls other relevant factors.
 Breast Milk Example
Experimentation
Research Strategies
 Double-blind Procedure
 both the subject and the research staff are ignorant (blind)
about whether the subject has received the treatment or a
placebo
 commonly used in drug-evaluation studies
 Placebo
 an inert substance or condition that may be administered
instead of a presumed active agent, such as a drug, to see if it
triggers the effects believed to characterize the active agent
 Placebo Effect- the effect of positive thought and
willpower on an experiment
Experimentation
Research Strategies
 Experimental Condition
 The group that is exposed to the treatment, that
is, to one version of the independent variable (
real drug)
 Control Condition
 The group that contrasts with the experimental
treatment . Get the placebo, or possible nothing
 serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect
of the treatment
 Example- Viagra
Experimentation
Research Strategies
 Random Assignment
 assigning subjects to experimental
and control conditions by chance
 minimizes pre-existing differences
between those assigned to the
different groups
 Want similar age, attitudes…….
Experimentation
Research Strategies
 Independent Variable
 the experimental factor that is manipulated
 the variable whose effect is being studied
 Dependent Variable
 the experimental factor that may change in response to
manipulations of the independent variable
 in psychology it is usually a behavior or mental process
 It can vary depending on what happens during the
experiment
 Cause/effect…… If/Then
Experimentation
 Confounding Variables-
 Variables that cause changes in the DV
besides the IV
 Breast Feeding Example
 Operational Definitions
 Example Viagra
 IV- Viagra or placebo- time, amount
 DV- Sex- ………………………..
Experimentation
Problems Sometimes not feasible or ethical
 1. Obtain consent
 2. Protect from harm
 3. Confidential
 4. Fully explain research after the exp.
 Animals?
 Results may not overgeneralize to other
contexts
Warm UP
 1. get out HW
 2. Pick up warm up off of the
front bookcase- goes on
page 10
Statistics
Describing Data
 Researchers first need to organize
their data
 Pie Chart, Bar graph
 Descriptive Statistics- describe
the data, but don’t focus or the
relationship
Percentage
still functioning
after 10 years
100%
99
98
97
96
95
Our Brand Brand Brand
Brand
X
Y
Z
Brand of truck
Percentage
still functioning
after 10 years
100%
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Our Brand
Brand
X
Brand Brand
Y
Z
Brand of truck
Measure of Central Tendency
 3 measures of Central Tendency- Mode ,
Mean and Median
 Mode- the most frequently occurring score
 Mean- average
 Median- the middle score, when you
arrange the score in order from the highest
to lowest
 Be Careful- can a few extreme score through off any
one of the central tendencies?
 What's wrong with- income for 62% is below average
15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
90
475
70
Mode Median
One Family
Mean
Income per family in thousands of dollars
710
Measures of Variation
 Need to know the variation in the
data, how diverse or similar the scores
are.
 2 ways- Range and Standard Deviation
 Range– the gap between the highest
and lowest score
 Remember extremes scores can skew
the data
 475,000 and 710,000
 Find the mean, median, mode and
range
5, 16, 2, 7, 4, 11,2,2
Measures of Variation
 The more useful measure is Standard
Deviation
 It gauges if scores are packed together or
dispersed
 Uses info from each score
 Smaller Standard Deviation for more
similar Data
 Higher Standard Deviation for more
diverse Data
 Results are not consistent
 Standard deviation is the square root of
variance
Sample Question
 Question: What would be the
percentage breakdown for one standard
deviation of 10 points on an IQ test with
the mean of 100
Example Question: one standard deviation of 10
points on an IQ test with the mean of 100 , would
mean 68% of your results are within 90 and 110
points
When is an Observed Difference
Reliable?
 1. Representative samples are better
than biased samples
 2. Less variable observations are more
reliable than those that are more
variable
 Score are more consistent
 Low small standard deviation or
low range
 3. More Cases Are better than few
When is Difference
Significant?
 statistical significance (p) is a measure of the
likelihood that the difference between groups
results from a real difference between the 2
groups rather than from chance
 If statistically significant …..the differences are
probably not due to chance
 Statistical significance indicates the likelihood
that a result will happen by chance. It does not
indicate the importance of the result
Ethics