Chapter 1
Long Tradition
• Eternal Questions
– Who are we?
– Why do we act the way we do?
– How can we understand and manage others?
Short History
• Wilhelm Wundt (1879)
– First Lab
– Used introspection
• Charles Darwin
– Voyage around the world
– Naturalist
– Origin of the Species
Short History
• Sigmund Freud
– 19th century Vienna
– Jewish MD
– Hypnosis
– Emphasized the unconscious
• Early Women in Psychology
– Mary Calkins and Margaret Floy Washburn
Short History
• Humanistic Psychology
– Another response to behaviorism
– Carl Rogers and Abram Maslow
– “self-” is indicative of humanistic psychology (e.g.,
self-esteem, self-image, self-actualization
– Brought human agency back into psychology
Short History
• Behaviorism
– Begun by John B. Watson
– (think of him at Walmart checkout)
– Fully developed by B. F. Skinner
– Brought animals back into psychology (especially
rats and pigeons)
Short History
• The (so called) Cognitive Revolution
– More of an evolution
– Begins around 1945
– Computer and Computer metaphor
– Computer is hardware
– Thinking is software
Science
• Attitude
– Naturalistic explanations
• Method
– Each science has its own methods (e.g., geologists
and rock hammers)
– All methods are objective and data driven
– Psychology methods covered near end of chapter
Contemporary Psychology
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Neuroscience—Chap 2
Evolutionary—Chap 2
Behavioral Genetics (hot area)—Chap 2
Psychodynamic (Freud, etc.)-Chaps 11, 12, 13
Behavioral—Chap 6
Cognitive—Chap 7
Social Cultural—We will not cover
Big Ideas
• Critical Thinking-(e.g., happiness)
• Biosocial Approach-biology, psychology, and
sociocultural
• Two-track Mind (conscious-unconscious)-blind
woman who can still grab objects
• Human Strengths-positive psychology: +
emotions, +character, +groups, communities,
and cultures
Why Do Psychology?
• Limits of Intuition and Common Sense
– Hindsight Bias
– Overconfidence
• Scientific Attitude
– Curiosity
– Skepticism
– Humility
How We Ask and Answer Questions
• The Scientific Method
– Theories
– Hypotheses
– Operational Definitions
– Replications
• Types of Psychological Research
– Descriptive
– Correlational
– Experiments
Descriptive Methods
• Case Studies
– Close study of person or group
• Surveys
– Most common method
– Sampling is key (random samples)
• Naturalistic Observation
– Observing people or animals in their natural habitat
• Participant Observation*
– Inserting self into a naturalistic situation
Correlations
•
•
•
•
•
Relationship between two or more variables
Range from -1.00 to + 1.00
Positive vs. Negative (show cheerleader i.e.)
Cannot show cause and effect
Illusory Correlations
Experiments
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Two group minimum
Independent Variable (IV)
Dependent Variable (DV)
Control and Experimental Groups
Single and Double Blind
Placebos
Toothpaste and Nox-Out©
FAQs About Psychology
• Does lab research reveal general principles?
• What are the ethical safeguards for human
and animal research?
– See APA Ethical Standards
• Is psychology value free?
Advantages of Science
• Rapid Communication
– Internet, Meetings, Journals, Books
– “invisible university”
• Reliable Data
– Replication helps avoid issues like “cold fusion”
• Intellectual Freedom
– Freedom to follow ideas and data
Disadvantages of Science
• Information Overload
– PsycINFO and other databases to the rescue
•
•
•
•
•
Scientific Fraud
Anti-Scientific Bias
Politics (e.g., global warming, evolution)
Popularity (stiff academic requirements) STEM
Moral (e.g., Hobby Lobby, evolution)
Cross-Cultural Psychology
• Psychology criticized in past for being “the
study of American college sophomores”
• Social Cultural values affect behavior and
mental life
• Brazil and Clocks
– Levine found that Brazilians have a different sense
of time
– Follow up studies of bank clocks confirmed that
Cognitive Science
• Newer area; serves as “umbrella for:
– Psychology, computer science, linguistics, AI, logic,
and neuroscience
• Includes humans, animals, and machines
• Chess, AI, and Deep Blue
– Deep Blue defeated Kasparov in chess
• Robotics and Autonomous Navigation
– Would you board a driverless bus?
Mind-Body Problem
• Mind = internal; Body = external
• Descartes separated the two into equal and
co-acting parts: “interactionism”
– Could not supply a physiological mechanism
• Alternatives to interactionism include:
idealism and materialism
• Psychology must deal with both halves
What Psychologists Do
• Ask Questions
– Motivational Questions
• Jim Jones or Heaven’s Gate
– Ecological Questions
• How, Where, How Often
• Report Findings
– Internet, meetings, articles, books
• Interpret Findings
Test 1
• 20 True-False
– Not tricky
• 20 Multiple Choice
– Four choices each time
• 10 Matching
– 5 people
– 5 things
– Strategy explained