1. Chapter 1 Introduction to Psychology

2. Beginnings of Psychology
Philosophical Roots
Germany, 1870s
What is reality: Phenomenology
How body sensations come into mental awareness
“Arm-chair psychology”: Subjective reality

3. Roots of Psychology, continued
Structuralism: Edward Tichiner (1890s)
Influenced by German thinking: Subjective experience is focus of study
Method: Introspectionism
Goal: Analyze the basic elements of consciousness
Identify components of sensations, feelings, & images
Reaction time for awareness and movement

4. Roots of Psychology, continued
Functionalism: William James (1890s)
Reaction to the nonobservable focus of study by the structuralists
Purpose of study is to study the intent of behavior: birth of applied psychology
First to use observation: birth of behaviorism
Lasting impact on psychology: empirical science

5. Roots of Psychology: Early 1900s
Watson: Brought in the Scientific Method (1920s)
Everyone born with a blank slate “tabula rasa”
Human behavior should be the focus of study
Findings in psychology must be testable and replicable
Laid basic tenet of Behaviorism: Environment is most powerful factor in shaping a person
Focus of study must be observable (not unique to one person’s testimony).

6. Roots of Psychology, continued
Freud (1930s): Father of Psychoanalysis
Vienna, Austria: Hypnosis of great interest
Physician treating mental illness: anxiety, irrational fears, strange loss of function, and obsessions
Patients were wealthy socialites, sexually repressed Victorian society
Causes of Behavior are unconscious!! (not observable)

7. Roots of Psychology, continued
Behaviorism: Skinner (1950s)
American psychology: schism of Europe/US
Environment shapes behavior through process of reward and punishment.
Parenting, socialization, intelligence
No Free Will
Mental Processes not important or testable

8. Roots of Psychology, continued
Humanism: Carl Rogers (1960s)
Person has Free Will, essentially good
Person’s fate determined by conscious choices
Drive for unconditional self-acceptance, clarity of self
Healthy relationships important to development
Tremendous impact in the treatment of mental illness.

9. Modern Views of Psychology
Unifying themes to current psychology
Psychology aims to be empirical.
Theoretically Diverse: Multiple perspectives on the same phenomenon
Medical science: greater agreement
Exp: Multiple views on causes of Depression
Behavioral
Biological
Psychoanalytic
Systems

10. Modern Psychology
Psychology evolves in a sociocultural context
Norms, expectations
Stressors
Context is important
Concepts of Poverty, Health, SES, Social support, Acculturation, Identity, are important

11. Modern Psychology, continued
Nature and Nurture are both important
Genetics, Biology, Environment
Not all or nothing
Intelligence, pathology, personality
Psychology is “the science that studies behavior and the physiological and mental processes that underlie it, and it is the profession that applies the accumulated knowledge of this science to practical problems.”

12. Research Areas in Psychology
Developmental Psych: Life span, changes due to maturation, intelligence, cognitive, personality
Social Psych: social forces affecting behavior: attitude, decision making, conformity, attraction)
Educational Psych: best teaching methods
Health Psych: mind-body connection, illness/tx
Physiological Psych: impact of biology on behavior
Experimental Psych:traditional role of psych, sensation perception, conditioning
Cognitive Psych: Memory, reasoning, perception
The material in this section (slides 13-31) relate to APA Goal 2: Scientific inquiry and Critical Thinking. In particular, these slides explain the specifics of APA subgoal 2.4: Interpret, design, and conduct basic psychological research.

13. Specialties in Psychology
Doctoral Level
Clinical Psychology
Counseling Psychology
Industrial/Organizational
Masters Level
School Psychology

14. The Scientific Approach, continued
The Commitment to empiricism
Empiricism is “the premise that knowledge should be acquired through observation.”
Thus, the conclusions of scientific psychology are based on careful, systemic observation rather than speculation or “common sense.”

15. The Scientific Approach, continued
Advantages of the scientific approach:
Emphasis on observable, measurable and replicable findings
No reliance on anecdotal evidence
Scientific facts = repeated confirming findings
Scientists’ ideas are subjected to empirical tests.
(Freud’s concepts nonobservable/testable)
Their ideas and research are scrutinized by other scientists.

16. The Scientific Approach, continued
Experimental research: looking for causes.
The experiment is “a research method in which the investigator manipulates one variable under carefully controlled conditions, and observes whether any changes occur in a second variable as a result.”
Psychologists aim to depend on this method more than any other.

17. Steps of Scientific Investigatiion
Formulate a Testable Hypothesis:
must be measurable
Describes predicted relationships
Exp: Therapy can reduce depressive symptoms
Able to be replicated by others
Operational Definition: what is intended to be measured is clearly defined. (exp: # depr Sx)

18. Examples of Research Qs
Exposure to videogames in childhood and effect on attention ability
Effects of Stress on Depression
Relationship between study time and grades
Does High school popularity predict emotional health in college?
Relationship beween social skills and mental health.

19. Scientific Investigation
Study Designs
Causal Relationships: Experimental Designs
Must have an Independent Variable that is manipulated by the experimenter. (causal variable)
Exp: the treatment being tested
The Dependent Variable is the measure
Exp: the measurement of symptoms

20. The Scientific Approach, continued
Independent and dependent variables.
An independent variable – “is a condition or event that an experimenter varies in order to see its impact on another variable.”
It is the variable the researcher manipulates in the experiment.
The dependent variable – “is the variable that is thought to be affected by the manipulations of the independent variable.”
It is usually a measurement of behavior that is operationally defined.

21. Operational Definition
Psychological Constructs: no agreed method of measuring the Dependent Variable
Multiple methods of measuring
Observe behavior
Self report
Physiological measures
Example, How do you measure these?:
anxiety, wellbeing, love, satisfaction, anger, sadness, stress, attraction, etc.

22. Operational Definition
Example: Experimenter wants to study the effect of physical arousal on attraction:
How will she operationally define Attraction?
Ratings by subjects of from scale of 0-100
Observation of eye dilation
Time spent smiling, looking, attending
Whether subjects agreed to meet person for a date
Each one has its limitation

23. Scientific Investigation
Types of Experimental Designs:
Pre-Post : before the treatment and after
Problems:
Placebo effect: respond to idea of tx
Selection Effects: groups diff on demogr
Hawthorne effect: Experimenter bias
Social Desirability: Subject bias

24. Experimental Design
2. Pre-Post +Placebo group: Evaluates Placebo effects
3. Random Assignment: eliminate selection effects, or differences between groups
4. Blind and Double Blind Studies: Subjects and Experimenter does not know who is in what group, Avoids bias by both affecting results

25. Scientific Investigation
The Experimental Design is the gold standard of empirical investigation, particularly, randomized-double blind studies.
The best experiment is one that eliminates as many confounds as possible
Confounds: alternative explanations for the change in the dependent variable rather than the experimenters manipulation of the independent variable.

26. Scientific Investigation
Review of Confounds discussed
Selection : groups differ by demographics
Placebo effect
Social Desirability/Self-Serving Bias
Hawthorne effect

27. Figure 1. 1 The basic elements of an experiment
Figure 1.1 The basic elements of an experiment. This diagram provides an overview of the key features of the experimental method, as illustrated by Schachter’s study of anxiety and affiliation. The logic of the experiment rests on treating the experimental and control groups alike except for the manipulation of the independent variable.

28. The Scientific Approach, continued
Determining cause and effect in experiments.
The study is experimental because it has an independent variable (high or low shock message)
the dependent variable is desire to affiliate
the difference in their response must be due to the independent variable (e.g., fear of the painful shock).

29. The Scientific Approach, continued
The advantage of using experiments is that
precise control allows cause and effect conclusions to be drawn.
The disadvantage of using experiments is that
there are some variables of interest that cannot, for ethical reasons, be manipulated in an experiment.
Exp: Want to study the impact of childhood trauma on adult onset depression. Unethical to induce trauma on subjects.

30. Scientific Investigation
Who are the subjects?
They represent the population of people the study hopes to understand.
Does the sample represent the population?
Sampling Bias: the sample not representative
Cure: Random Selection
Psychology has done a poor job of having representative samples in their studies.

31. Random Selection
1. If you want to generalize your findings to college students, how do you select your subjects?
2. If you want to generalize your findings to all females with panic disorder, how do you select your subjects?
3. If you want to generalize to all children with ADHD, how do you select your subjects?

32. The Scientific Approach, continued
Correlational Research: Looking for links
A correlation exists when two variables are related to each other.
Measuring Correlation.
A correlation coefficient is “a numerical index of the degree of relationship that exists between two variables."
It provides two pieces of information:
How strongly related two variables are.
The direction (positive or negative) of the relationship.

33. The Scientific Approach, continued
Positive Correlations – “indicate that two variables covary in the same direction”
High scores on variable x are related to high scores on variable y, and low scores on variable x are related to low scores on variable y.
Negative Correlations – “indicate that two variables covary in the opposite direction”
High scores on variable x are related to low scores on variable y (see Figure 1.2).

34. Figure 1. 2 Positive and negative correlations
Figure 1.2 Positive and negative correlations. Variables are positively correlated if they tend to increase and decrease together and are negatively correlated if one variable tends to increase when the other decreases. Hence, the terms positive correlation and negative correlation refer to the direction of the relationship between two variables.

35. The Scientific Approach, continued
Strength of the correlation is indicated by the size of the correlation coefficient.
Correlation coefficients can range from 0 to (if positive) and from 0 to (if negative).
Coefficients near 0 indicate there is no association between variables.
Coefficients near either or -1.00, indicate strong associations (see Figure 1.3).

36. Figure 1. 3 Interpreting correlation coefficients
Figure 1.3 Interpreting correlation coefficients. The magnitude of a correlation coefficient indicates the strength of the relationship between two variables. The closer a correlation is to either or -1.00, the stronger the relationship between the variables. The square of a correlation, which is called the coefficient of determination, is an index of the correlation’s strength and predictive power. This graph shows how the coefficient of determination and predictive power goes up as the magnitude of a correlation increases.

37. The Scientific Approach, continued
Other descriptive research, qualitative
Naturalistic observation – “careful observation of behavior without intervening directly with the subjects”
Observing in group / outgroup dynamics of a school playground
Case studies – “in-depth investigation of an individual participant”
Good for new or rare cases
Surveys – “structured questionnaires designed to solicit information about specific aspects of participants’ behavior”: attitudes, beliefs, etc.

38. The Scientific Approach, continued
Advantages and Disadvantages of Correlations.
Advantages of using correlations
They allow us to explore variables not suitable for/or ethical to manipulate in experimental research.
(e.g., the effect of psychological trauma on males versus females)
Thus, correlations allow investigation of a broader array of psychological phenomena than is possible in experimental research.

39. The Scientific Approach, continued
Disadvantages of using correlations.
Correlations only tell us that two variables are related, not how the two variables are related.
Third Variable Problem:
Exp: Positive Correlation between number of churches and and number of bars
Does one cause the other?
Or, Does something else cause both?
Thus, we cannot determine cause and effect from correlations alone.

40. Figure 1. 5 Possible causal relations between correlated variables
Figure 1.5 Possible causal relations between correlated variables. When two variables are correlated, there are several possible explanations. It could be that x causes y, that y causes x, or that a third variable, z, causes changes in both x and y. As the correlation between relationship satisfaction and sexual satisfaction illustrates, the correlation itself does not provide the answer. This conundrum is sometimes referred to as the “third variable problem.”

41. Descriptive Research
Naturalistic observation – “careful observation of behavior without intervening directly with the subjects”
Observing in group / outgroup dynamics of a school playground
Case studies – “in-depth investigation of an individual participant”
Good for new or rare cases
Surveys – “structured questionnaires designed to solicit information about specific aspects of participants’ behavior”: attitudes, beliefs, etc.

42. Example of Empirical Findings
Interesting correlational findings….
Money – the correlation between income and happiness is very weak (between .12 and .20) in U.S.
Age – is unrelated to happiness.
However, young adults and the elderly are a bit happier than middle-aged adults.
Gender – also accounts for less than 1% of variation in reported happiness.

43. The Roots of Happiness, continued
Parenthood – good and bad aspects of parenthood offset each other.
Intelligence – there is no association between IQ and happiness.
Physical attractiveness – attractive people enjoy many advantages in society, but the relationship with happiness is very weak.

44. The Roots of Happiness, continued
What is somewhat important?
Health – health and happiness have a positive correlation of .32.
Social activity – people who are satisfied with their friendships and are socially active report above-average levels of happiness.
Religion – people with sincere religious convictions are more likely to be happy.
Culture – more affluent nations are more likely to be happy.

45. The Roots of Happiness, continued
What is very important?
Love, marriage, and relationship satisfaction – across cultures, for men and women, married people are happier than people who are single or divorced.
Work – job satisfaction is strongly related to happiness.
Genetics and personality – extraversion (or positive emotionality) is a strong predictor of happiness, while neuroticism (an anxious temperament) is negatively correlated with happiness (see Figure 1.9).

46. The Roots of Happiness, continued
Conclusions.
Subjective feelings of happiness are more important than objective measures.
Happiness is relative.
We evaluate our happiness relative to what others around us have, and
We evaluate our happiness relative to our own expectations.
It is hard for people to predict what will make them happy.

47. Improving Academic Performance, continued
Developing sound study habits.
Set up a schedule for studying (see Figure 1.10).
Find a place to study where you can concentrate.
Reward your studying.

48. Figure 1. 10 Example of an activity schedule
Figure 1.10 Example of an activity schedule. One student’s general activity schedule for a semester is shown here. Each week the student fills in the specific assignments to work on during the upcoming study sessions.

49. Improving Academic Performance, continued
Improving your reading.
Preview reading assignments section by section.
Actively process the meaning of the information.
Identify the key ideas of each paragraph.
Carefully review key ideas after each section.
Use text chapter outlines, summaries and learning objectives.

50. Improving Academic Performance, continued
Tips for getting more out of lectures.
Use active listening procedures.
Prepare for lectures by reading ahead.
Write down the lecturers’ thoughts in your own words.
Look for subtle clues about what the instructor thinks is important.
Ask questions during lectures.

51. Improving Academic Performance, continued
Applying memory principles.
Engage in adequate practice.
Use overlearning – “continued rehearsal of material after you have first appeared to master it."
Use distributed practice – breaking up studying is more effective than cramming.
Organize information – outline material from your text to enhance retention.

52. Improving Academic Performance, continued
Emphasize deep processing – try to make material personally meaningful.
Use mnemonic devices (memory strategies).
Use verbal mnemonics such as acronyms.