Unit 1 overheads: Evolution of Psych & Research in Psych
Unit 1: Chapters 1 and 2
Psychology (Greek): [psyche  soul] + [logos  the study of…]
● descends from philosophy and physiology
● Wilhelm Wundt: established psychology as an independent field
 1879: established the 1st formal psychology laboratory
 psychology should be a science, modeled after physics and
chemistry, but focused on consciousness: the awareness of
immediate experiences.
● G. Stanley Hall: the father of North American psychology
 1883: America’s 1st research laboratory in psychology
 launched America’s first psychology journal
 helped found the American Psychological Association, 1892
Schools of Thought in psychology
Structuralism (Edward Titchener): the task of psychology is to
analyze consciousness into its basic elements and investigate how
these elements are related; i.e. to identify and examine the
fundamental components of conscious experience
● method of introspection
Functionalism (William James): psychology should investigate the
function or purpose of consciousness.
● influenced by Darwin’s concept of natural selection
● the important question about consciousness should be, what
is its function?
● consciousness is a continuous flow or stream of thoughts
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Behaviorism (John Watson) : scientific psychology should only study
observable behavior.
● focus only on behaviors that can be directly observed.
● mental processes cannot be objectively measured.
● Psychology needs to become the science of behavior.
Behavior: any overt response or activity by an organism
● behaviour is governed primarily by the environment
“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own
special world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take
any one at random and train him to become any type of
specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchantchief, and yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his
talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of
his ancestors.”
● also called stimulus-response (S-R) psychology.
● animal research
● laws of learning are the same for all organisms
Psychoanalytic Perspective (Sigmund Freud): people’s problems
derive from conflicts in a part of their mind that they do not have
conscious access to, called the unconscious.
● based on observations of his patients:
 “slips of the tongue”
 dreams
● most unconscious issues are sexual
Behaviorist camp “regenerated” in the 1950s by B.F. Skinner
● we don’t need to know about internal events to explain behaviour.
● organisms tend to repeat responses that lead to positive
outcomes, and they tend not to repeat responses that lead to neutral
or negative outcomes.
● we can control behaviours by manipulating the consequences of the
behavior.
Unit 1 overheads: Evolution of Psych & Research in Psych
● wrote “Beyond Freedom and Dignity” in 1971: all behavior is fully
governed by external stimuli.
● people are controlled by their environments, not by “free will”
The Humanistic Perspective
Humanism: emphasizes the unique qualities of humans, especially
their freedom and their potential for personal growth.
● Carl Rogers: Humans are fundamentally different than animals
● Rogers and Abraham Maslow: People have a basic need to grow
and to fulfill their potentials
Cognitive Psychology
● psychology must study internal mental events to fully understand
behaviour.
● Cognition: the mental processes involved in acquiring knowledge
● Jean Piaget: studied the cognitive development of children
● Noam Chomsky: studied the origins of language
● Herbert Simon: interested in how we problem-solve
Biological/Physiological Psychology
Behavior is a function of our genes, brains, & nervous systems
● James Olds: electrical stimulation of the brain can evoke pleasure
and rage in animals
● Roger Sperry: the right and left halves of the brain are specialized
● David Hubel & Torsten Wiesel: how visual signals get processed
Evolutionary Psychology (David Buss):
● the human mind was sculpted by natural selection
● we have the brains we have because these qualities conferred an
adaptive advantage for us
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7 Major Research Areas in Psychology
1. Developmental Psychology: human development across the
life span: from conception to death
2. Social Psychology: interpersonal behaviour and the role of
social forces in governing behaviour
3. Experimental Psychology: sensation, perception, learning,
conditioning, motivation, emotion
4. Physiological Psychology: influence of genetic factors, role of
the brain, nervous system, endocrine system, bodily chemicals
in the regulation of behaviour.
5. Cognitive Psychology: “higher” mental processes like memory,
reasoning, information processing, language, problem solving,
decision making, creativity
6. Personality: describing and understanding peoples’ tendency
to behave the same way across situations and over time
7. Psychometrics: measurement of behaviour and capacities
Professional Specialties in Psychology
Clinical Psychology: evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of
people with psychological disorders and people with less severe
behavioural and emotional problems.
Counseling Psychology: work with people struggling with
everyday problems of moderate severity.
Educational and School Psychology: curriculum design,
achievement testing, teacher training, counseling/testing children
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Industrial & Organizational Psychology: how to improve staff
morale, attitudes, productivity, increase job satisfaction and
productivity, improve organizational structure and procedures
1. Psychology is empirical
● empiricism: knowledge acquired through observation
● conclusions are based on direct observation
● research to test our ideas
● healthy skepticism and critical thinking.
2. Psychology is theoretically diverse
● a theory is a system of interrelated ideas used to explain a
set of observations
● human behavior is complex; theoretical diversity reflects this
3. Psychology evolves in a sociohistorical context
● trends, issues, and values in society influence psychology’s
evolution
● progress in psychology affects trends, issues, and values in
society
4. Behaviour is determined by multiple causes
● behavior is complex & determined by more than one cause:
multifactorial causation of behaviour
5. Behaviour is shaped by cultural heritage
● culture: customs, beliefs, values, norms, institutions, and
other products of a community that are transmitted socially
across generations
● culture exerts considerable influence over behaviour
6. Heredity and Environment jointly influence behaviour
● most psychologists agree that both are important.
● still argue about the relative contributions of both factors
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7. People’s experience of the world is highly subjective
● even true of elementary perception of sights and sounds
● people sometimes see what they want to see
● people also sometime see what they expect to see
Improving your Reading
● SQ3R method
Step 1: Survey. Before you read a chapter, have a look at the
topic headings so you have a sense of where the chapter is
going to be going. This will help you organize as you go on.
Step 2: Question. After getting an overview, proceed through
the chapter one section at a time. Take a look at the 1st heading
in the first section, and convert it into a question.
Step 3: Read. Read the specific section you’ve decided to tackle,
and answer the question you just came up with.
Step 4: Recite. Recite the answer out loud in your own words.
Step 5: Review. Go back over the key points and answer the
questions you created without looking at your notes.
Getting more out of Lectures:
● poor attendance is associated with poor grades.
● attentive note-taking helps students to identify and remember the
most important points of the lecture.
To take good notes:
● be an active listener
● prepare for the lecture by reading the chapter in advance
● write down the information in your own words
● pay attention to clues about what’s important
● ask questions
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Improving Test Taking Strategies:
Testwiseness: the ability to use the characteristics and format of a
test to maximize your score.
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set up a mental schedule for getting through the test
don’t waste too much time on a really hard question
don’t overanalyze the questions.
at the end go back and review your answers and reconsider
the ones you were unsure of
Multiple Choice
● anticipate the right answer
● read the question completely
● quickly eliminate options that are implausible
● select “all of the above” when you know for sure that 2
options are right, unless you also know for sure that another
one is wrong.
● words like often, sometimes, perhaps, may, and generally
tend to show up in correct answers
Essay Exams
● be time-conscious
● answer the ones you know first.
● organize your answer!
3 goals of Psychology
1. Measurement and description
 develop ways of measuring phenomena that make it
possible to describe behaviour clearly and precisely
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2. Understanding and prediction
 explain why the phenomenon occurs
 A hypothesis: a tentative statement about the relationship
between two or more variables.
 Variables: any measurable conditions, events, characteristics, or
behaviours that are controlled or observed in a study.
3. Application and control
 once we understand phenomenon, we may have control over it
Steps in the Scientific Method
Step 1: formulate a testable hypothesis
● operational definition: describes the actions or operations that
will be used to measure or control a variable; establishes
precisely what is meant by each variable as it is measured in
THAT STUDY.
Step 2: Select the research method and design the study
● depends a lot on what kind of question you’re asking
● Participants/subjects: the people or animals whose behaviour
you will systematically observe in the study
Step 3: collect the data
● Different data collection techniques:
direct observation
questionnaires and interviews
psychological tests
physiological recordings
medical records and other archival information
Unit 1 overheads: Evolution of Psych & Research in Psych
Step 4: Analyze the data and draw conclusions
● observations are converted into numbers
● statistical analyses to decide if the hypothesis is supported.
● then cautiously, conservatively interpret
Step 5: report the findings.
● publication in a psychology journal.
Techniques for Data Collection:
● Direct Observation
● Questionnaires
● Interviews
● Psychological tests
● Physiological recordings
● Archival records
Research Methods:
● Experimental Research
 investigator manipulates a variable under carefully
controlled conditions and observes whether any changes occur
in a second variable as a result.
 lets researchers draw conclusions about cause and effect
 purpose is to find out whether changes in one variable, X,
cause changes in another variable, Y
 X is the independent variable: the thing the experimenter
manipulates
 Y is the dependent variable: the thing we measure after the
manipulation
● two groups of subjects exposed to different levels of the IV:
(1) the experimental group: people who get some special
treatment in regard to the IV
(2) the control group: people who do not receive any special
treatment regarding the IV
 groups must be alike except for exposure to the IV
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extraneous variables.
 variables that might screw things up, if the 2 groups were
different on them
 confounding of variables: when 2 variables are linked
together in a what that makes it hard to sort out their different
effects.
 make sure subjects are randomly assigned to the
experimental and control groups.
Random assignment: all subjects have an equal chance of
being assigned to any group or condition in the study
When We Can’t Do an Experiment:
 use descriptive/correlational research methods
 describe patterns of behaviour and discover links or associations
between variables
● Naturalistic Observation
* careful observation of behavior without intervening
directly with the subjects
● Case Studies
* in-depth investigation of an individual subject.
● Surveys
 questionnaires/interviews to gather information about specific
aspects of subjects’ behaviour
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Advantages and Disadvantages of Correlational Research
● overall biggest advantage: can explore questions that we couldn’t
look at with experimental procedures
● overall biggest disadvantage: we can’t isolate cause and effect.
Method
Naturalistic
Observation
Case Studies
Advantages
Minimizes
artificiality
Disadvantages
Sometimes hard to be
unobtrusive
Good for when little
is known about the
phenomenon
Good for certain
phenomena
Doesn't help us
explain WHY
Subjective
Unrepresentative
Surveys
Provides compelling
illustrations to
support a theory
Can get data on hard- Self-report data can
to-observe
be unreliable for
behaviours
many reasons
Easy to collect data
from large samples
Correlation: when 2 variables are related to each other.
● quantify the strength and direction of the relationship by
calculating the correlation coefficient.
● correlation coefficient: a number reflecting the degree of
relationship between 2 variables, showing both the direction (positive
or negative) and the strength of the relationship.
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● positive correlation: the 2 variables co-vary in the same direction
● negative correlation: as one variable increases the other decreases
- varies between -1 and +1.
- if negative, means the relationship is negative; if positive, means the
relationship is positive
- the closer it gets to +1 or -1, the stronger the relationship is.
- the closer to 0, the weaker the relationship is.
 The bigger the correlation, the better our ability to predict.
 However, correlations cannot tell us whether X CAUSES Y
Inferential statistics: to interpret data and draw conclusions.
● uses the laws of probability
● evaluate the possibility that findings might be due to chance
● Statistical Significance: when the probability that the observed
findings are due to chance is very low (e.g. less than 5 chances in 100)
Sampling bias
● sample: the collection of subjects selected for observation
● population: the much larger collection of individuals that
you want to generalize about
● when a sample is not representative of the population you’re
interested in you have sampling bias
Placebo Effects
when participants’ expectations lead them to experience some
change even though they receive empty, fake, or ineffectual
treatment.
can be a big problem in research.
so include a fake version of the treatment (a placebo condition)
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Experimenter Bias
 researcher’s preferences about the outcome of a study may
influence the results
● experimenters may see what they WANT to see
● they may inadvertently influence their subjects
 can use a double-blind procedure: neither subjects nor
experimenters know who is in the treatment group and who is in the
control group.
Ethical Issues with Human Subjects
The APA guidelines for research with human subjects:
 participation has to be voluntary and based on informed consent
 participation must not be coerced
 should be permitted to withdraw at any time
 should not be exposed to harmful/dangerous procedures
 procedures with modest risk of moderate mental discomfort may
be acceptable
 if deception is necessary, it has to be revealed as soon as possible
in a “debriefing” session
 subjects’ right to privacy is inviolable
Research with animals:
● psychologists use animals for several reasons:
 to learn more about the animal
 to see if certain laws of behavior apply to both animals and
humans
 because they can expose them to treatments that would be
unacceptable with human subjects
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Some say:
 it’s unethical to subject animals to harm or pain for research
purposes.
 most of these studies are frivolous and a waste of time
because the results can’t apply to humans
 animals are entitled to the same rights as humans
Others argue:
 big advances due to this research (treatment of mental
disorders, neuromuscular disorders, strokes, brain injuries,
visual defects, headaches, memory defects, high blood
pressure, chronic pain)
APA guidelines for animal research:
 harmful or painful procedures must be thoroughly justified
in terms of the knowledge to be gained form the study
 lab animals are entitled to decent living conditions spelled
out in specific rules relating to housing, cleaning, feeding, etc.