1. Introduction To Psychology

2. At the end you will be able to answer the following questions: A B C D
Why study Psychology? B
What is Psychology? C
What are the goals of Psychology? D

3. Who are we?
What produces our thoughts? Our feelings? Our actions?
How could we understand and manage those around us?

4. A) Why study Psychology?
It helps you to understand yourself, why do you do things that you do?
Understand your relationship with and reaction to other people.
Understand the connection between your brain and your body.
Better understand the world in which we live in.

5. B) What is Psychology?
Psychology’s main concern: Observable behavior and inner thoughts and feelings.
That’s why we define Psychology as:
The Scientific study of behavior and mental process.

6. Scientific? Behavior? Mental processes?
Prevent possible biases from leading to faulty observations.
Precise and careful measurement.
Behavior?
Overt actions and reactions.
Mental processes?
Internal, covert activity of the mind.

7. C) What are the goals of Psychology?
Description:
What is happening?
Explanation:
Why is it happening?
Prediction:
Will it happen again?
Control:
How can it be changed?

8. Why psychology considered a science?
Psychologists uses the empirical approach which means, their information is based on evidence gathered from experiments and careful observations.

9. The steps in using the scientific methods:
Perceiving the question.
Forming a hypothesis.
Testing the hypothesis.
Drawing conclusions.
Report your results.

10. The Scientific Method

11. Descriptive Methods Naturalistic Observation
Watch animals or humans behave in their normal environment
Advantage:
Realistic picture of behavior

12. Descriptive Methods Naturalistic Observation Disadvantages:
Observer effect
People or animals behave differently when they know they are being observed
May reduce observer effect through participant observation

13. Descriptive Methods Naturalistic Observation Disadvantages:
Observer bias
Observers see what they expect to see
May reduce observer bias through use of blind observers
Each naturalistic setting is unique
Observations may not hold

14. This researcher is studying the behavior of a group of lemurs
This researcher is studying the behavior of a group of lemurs. Is this naturalistic observation? Why or why not? Photo credit: Cyril Ruoso/Photolibrary

15. Descriptive Methods Laboratory Observation Advantages:
Watching animals or humans in a laboratory setting
Advantages:
Control over environment
Allows use of specialized equipment
Can lead to the development of hypotheses

16. Descriptive Methods Disadvantage:
Artificial situation that may result in artificial behavior

17. The researcher in the foreground is watching the children through a one-way mirror to get a description of their behavior. Observations such as these are just one of many ways that psychologists have of investigating behavior. Why is it important for the researcher to be behind a one-way mirror? Photo credit Jeff Greenberg/The Image Works

18. Descriptive Methods Case study Study of one individual in great detail
Advantages:
Tremendous amount of detail
Good for studying rare conditions
Disadvantages:
Cannot apply results easily to similar individuals
Vulnerable to bias of researcher

19. Descriptive Methods Survey
Researcher asks a series of questions about the topic under study
Given to a representative sample
Population
Randomly selected sample of subjects from a larger group

20. Descriptive Methods Survey Advantages: Disadvantages:
Data from large numbers of people
Study covert behaviors
Disadvantages:
Have to ensure representative sample (or results not meaningful).
People not always accurate (courtesy bias)

21. Finding Relationships
Correlation
Measure of the relationship between two variables
Variable
Anything that can change or vary

23. Features of the Experiment
Experimental Group
Receives the manipulation
Control Group
Not subjected to the independent variable
Controls for other factors (confounds) that may affect the outcome

24. Ethics in Psychological Research
Common ethical guidelines:
Rights and well-being of participants must be weighed against the study’s value to science.
Participants must be allowed to make an informed decision about participation.
Deception must be justified.
Participants may withdraw from the study at any time.

25. Ethics in Psychological Research
Common ethical guidelines:
Participants must be protected from risks or told explicitly of risks.
Investigator must debrief participants, telling the true nature of the study and expectations of results.
Data must remain confidential.

26. Ethics in Psychological Research
Animal research
Attempt to answer questions not obtainable with human research
Avoid exposure to unnecessary pain or suffering
Animals are used in approximately 7% of psychological studies

27. History Of Psychology
German physiologist Wilhelm Wundt participates in an experiment in his laboratory as students look on. Courtesy of General Information Center

28. History Of Psychology:
Wilhelm Wundt “The Father Of Psychology”
Established first psychology laboratory
Leipzig, Germany in 1879
Developed objective introspection
Examine and measure personal thought and mental activities.
- Structuralism and Functionalism

29. Structuralism Structuralism: An early school of Psychology.
Explore the structure or basic elements of the mind.
Edward Titchener used introspection to search for the mind structural elements.

30. Functionalism
A school in Psychology that focused on how our mental and behavioral process function.
How do we Functions in the real world, How to adapt, live, work, and play
Proposed by William James: function our thoughts and feelings
Influenced modern fields:
Educational psychology
Evolutionary psychology
Industrial/organizational psychology

31. Gestalt Psychology Gestalt Max Wertheimer
German translated as “organized whole”
Max Wertheimer
Perception can only be understood as a complete event.
Understanding patterns, whole figures

32. Figure A Gestalt Perception The eye tends to “fill in” the blanks here and sees both of these figures as circles rather than as a series of dots or a broken line.

33. Psychoanalysis Developed by Sigmund Freud Trained as a physician
Worked with patients with nervous disorders

34. Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud walks with his daughter Anna, also a psychoanalyst. © Hulton Archive/Getty Images

35. Psychoanalysis Main Ideas Unconscious (unaware) mind
Where threatening impulses and desires are repressed
Repressed urges create nervous disorders

36. LO 1.3 Early Gestalt, psychoanalysis, and behaviorism
Freud’s concepts
Stressed importance of early childhood experiences
Formed the basis for modern therapy

37. Behaviorism Ivan Pavlov Russian physiologist
Studied digestive processes
Reflex can occur with new and unrelated stimulus
Conditioned dogs to salivate to metronome

38. Physiologist Ivan Pavlov uses a dog to demonstrate the conditioned reflex to students at the Russian Military Medical Academy. © Bettmann/Corbis

39. Behaviorism John B. Watson Developed the “science of behavior”
Psychology should focus on observable behavior
Must be directly seen and measured
Ignore notion of unconscious
Believed phobias were learned through conditioning.
Case of “Little Albert”
Child conditioned to fear a white rat

40. American psychologist John Watson is known as the father of behaviorism. Behaviorism focuses only on observable behavior. Courtesy of Underwood & Underwood/Bettmann/Corbis

41. Modern Perspectives Behavioral perspective B. F. Skinner
Developed theory of how voluntary behavior is learned
Introduced concept or reinforcement
Perspective was major force in the twentieth century

42. Behaviorist B. F. Skinner puts a rat through its paces
Behaviorist B. F. Skinner puts a rat through its paces. What challenges might arise from applying information gained from studies with animals to human behavior? Courtesy of Nina Leen/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

43. Modern Perspectives Humanistic perspective
People have free will to choose destiny
Early contributors:
Abraham Maslow
Carl Rogers
Self-actualization
Achieving one’s full potential or actual self

44. Modern Perspectives Humanistic perspective Modern Humanism
Used in psychotherapy
Assists in self-understanding

45. Modern Perspectives Cognitive perspective
Major force emerging in 1960’s
Focus on memory, intelligence, perception, problem-solving, and learning.
Cognitive neuroscience
Physical workings of brain and nervous system
Use imaging techniques
MRI, PET

46. These scans show loss of gray matter in the brains of individuals with very early-onset, adolescent schizophrenia over a five-year period, highlighting one focus of the biological perspective. Courtesy of The University of California, Los Angeles

47. Modern Perspectives Sociocultural perspective
Examines relationship between social behavior and culture

48. Types of Psychological Professionals
Psychiatrist
Medical doctor (M.D.)
Specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders.
Psychoanalyst
Psychiatrist or a psychologist
Special training in Freudian theory and psychoanalysis.

49. Types of Psychological Professionals
Psychiatric social worker
Social worker trained in therapy methods
Focus on the environmental conditions impacting mental disorders
Poverty, overcrowding, stress, and drug abuse.

50. Types of Psychological Professionals
Psychologist
Academic degree and specialized training in psychology
Work in counseling, teaching, and research
Specialization can include clinical, counseling, developmental, social, personality theory

51. Figure Work Settings and Subfields of Psychology (a) There are many different work settings for psychologists. Although not obvious from the chart,many psychologists work in more than one setting. For example, a clinical psychologist may work in a hospital setting and teach at a university or college. (Tsapogas et al., 2006) (b) This pie chart shows the specialty areas of psychologists who recently received their doctorates. (Hoffer et al., 2007)

52. Critical Thinking
Is making reasoned judgments about claims.

53. Critical Thinking Four Basic Criteria:
There are very few “truths” that do not need to be subjected to testing.
All evidence is not equal in quality.
Just because someone is considered to be an authority or to have a lot of expertise does not make everything that person claims automatically true.
Critical thinking requires an open mind.

54. Thank You!