Psychology 101  Introduction to Psychology  Dr. Jacob Leonesio

What is psychology the study of?

Some Types of Psychologists  Research Psychologists (academic ) –Biological (neuroscientists) –Cognitive Psychologists –Social Psychologists –Personality Psychologists –Educational Psychologists –Some Clinical Psychologists

Some Types of Psychologists  Applied Psychologists –Clinical Psychologists –School Psychologists –Industrial/Organizatonal and Human Factors Psychologists

Academic Degrees  M.S.W  M.A  Ph.D.  Ed.D.  M.D.

Some Perspectives on the Causes of Human Experience and Behavior: zBiological yNeuroscience (brain, genes, behavior) zCognitive (internal mental processes are studied, the structure and flow of information) zBehavioral (study of observable responses to observable stimuli) Classical and operant conditioning

Some Perspectives on the Causes of Human Experience and Behavior:  Social-Cultural Perspective –Social Psychology –Cross Cultural Research  Psychodynamic (unconscious motives, conflicts, defenses) –Case Study –Early Childhood experience  Humanistic Perspective –Experiential Research –Clinical Techniques

How is Knowledge Obtained?

Classic Ways of Knowing  Tenacity (not a ‘method’)  Authority (not a ‘method’)  Intuition  Reason (deduction and induction)  Empiricism

The Scientific Method  Rational empiricism  A dynamic method that combines systematic empiricism with rational inference.

Not all questions can be answered scientifically.  Academic psychology only addresses those questions that can be answered scientifically.  Academic Psychology is only about 130 years old (1879 to the present).

William Wundt (1832 – 1929) Established the first psychology laboratory in 1879.

William James published ‘Principles of Psychology’ in American psychologist and philosopher at Harvard.

Herman Ebbinghaus 1850 – 1909 first measured human memory via the method of ‘savings’. Published his revolutionary results in 1880.

Mary Calkins ( ) invented the ‘paired associate’ to measure memory. Studied under William James but was not given her Ph.D. after she completed her brilliant work.

John Watson (1863 – 1929) published his behaviorist manifesto in 1913.

B. F. Skinner (1904 – 1990) developed ‘operant conditioning’ and defended ‘behaviorism’ as a philosophy of science.

Case Study  Single participant  Historical/qualitative analysis  Useful for generating hypotheses to be tested with further studies and experiments.

Correlational Study  Many participants  Operational definitions  Descriptive statistics, quantitative data (means, medians, correlation coefficients)  Inferential statistics, the probability that the result of at least this size is due to chance is calculated (p<.05, p<.01)  Can determine a significant relationship, but NOT whether one variable CAUSES changes in another variable

Operational Definition  A variable is defined by the precise series of steps that describe how a variable is measured.  This series of steps must result in a NUMBER.

Correlation Coefficient  Positive correlation: high score on one variable is associated with a high score on another variable.  Negative correlation: high score on one variable is associated with a low score on another variable. Varies between -1 to +1.

A linear relationship is assumed

Significance A finding is significant if it can be shown that it is not due to chance. (Significant does not mean important)

Significance is always expressed as a probability. p <.05 means that the likelyhood that the experimental finding is due to chance is only 5 out of 100.

Experiment  Many participants  Operational definitions  The independent variable is MANIPULATED and alternative hypothesis are eliminated (often by using RANDOM ASSIGNMENT to conditions)  Descriptive statistics  Inferential statistics  CAN DETERMINE if one variable CAUSES changes in another variable

Random Assignment: Every research participant had an equal chance to be in the experimental group or the control group. Therefore: 1)Both groups are (on average) identical except for the manipulated independent variable. 2)The manipulated independent variable must have caused any differences that exist between the two statistically identical groups.

Therefore, you can generalize your findings (from your small sample) to a larger population. Random Sampling: Every research participant is some larger group had an equal chance to be in the study.

Dependent Variable  The value of the dependent variable depends on the value of the independent variable. It is the variable that is believed to be affected by the independent variable.

If the Dependent Variable is Degree of Violence  There are a number of possible operational definitions. Here is one example: –Mean (average) volume of participants voice measured in decibels by a sound meter over a 20 min period while responding to a set of provocative questions

Measures of Central Tendency  10,000,000  50,000  40,000  30,000  12,000  10,000  Mean = 10,154,000/7 = 1,450,  Median = 30,000  Mode = 12,000