CHAPTER 1:PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS AND RESEARCH

METHODS

Psychology’s Biggest Question Nature – Nurture – the longstanding

controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors.

Today’s science sees traits and behaviors arising from the interaction of nature and nurture.

Psychology’s Roots Psychology – the scientific study of

behavior and mental processes.

Goals of Psychology: Explain behavior Predict behavior Control behavior

Structuralism Structuralism – an

early form of psychology that used introspection to explore the structural elements of the human mind.

William Wundt focused on elements and atoms of the mind and studied it using introspection (self-reflection).

Wundt established the 1st laboratory of psychology in 1879 at Leipzig, Germany.

Functionalism Functionalism – focuses

on how our mental and behavioral processes function; how they enable us to adapt, survive, and flourish.

William James suggested it would be more fruitful to consider evolved functions of our thoughts and feelings.

James suggested that the function of thoughts and feelings was adaptive and necessary to our survival.

The Unconscious Mind Sigmund Freud

emphasized the importance of the unconscious mind and its effects on behavior.

His theories would late develop into psychodynamic theory.

Freud’s Conception of the Mind

Id – acts on the Pleasure Principle

Ego – Reality Principle moderates id and superego

Superego – internalized ideals

Behaviorism

Defined psychology as the science of behavior and demonstrated conditioned responses on a baby.

Believed that psychology should be objective.

Emphasized the study of overt, observable behavior as the subject matter of scientific psychology.

Later became famous for his “Rat in a Skinner Box” experiment.

John Watson B.F. Skinner

Humanistic Psychology Abraham Maslow & Carl Rogers

Humanistic Psychology – emphasizes the importance of current environmental influences on our growth potential, and the importance of having our needs for love and acceptance satisfied.

Rejects psychoanalytic theory and does not focus on the meaning of early childhood memories.

3 Levels of Analysis

Psychological PerspectivesPerspective Focus Sample Questions

Neuroscience/Biological1950s-presentOlds, Sperry

How the body and brain enable emotions.

How are messages transmitted in the body? How is blood chemistry linked with moods and motives?

Humanistic1950s-presentRogers, Maslow

Humans are free, rational beings with the potential for personal growth, and they are fundamentally different from animals.

How do we have our needs for love and acceptance met? How do I achieve self-fulfillment?

Evolutionary1960s-presentBuss

How much our genes and our environments influence our individual differences.

To what extent are psychological traits such as intelligence, personality, sexual orientation, and vulnerability to depression attributable to our genes or environment?

Psychological PerspectivesPerspectiv

eFocus Sample Questions

Psychodynamic1900-presentFreud, Jung, Adler

How behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts.

How can someone’s personality traits and disorders be explained in terms of sexual and aggressive drives or as disguised effects of unfulfilled childhood traumas?

Behavioral1913-presentWatson, Pavlov, Skinner

How we learn is observable.

How do we learn to fear things? What is the most effective way to alter behavior?

Cognitive1950s-presentPiaget, Chomsky, Siimon

How we encode, process, store, and retrieve information.

How do we use information for remembering, reasoning, & problem solving?

Socio-Cultural

How behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures.

How are we alike as humans? How does social context influence our differences?

The Need for Psychological Science Intuition and Common Sense. Many people believe that intuition and

common sense are enough to bring forth answers regarding human nature.

Intuition and Common Sense may aid us in finding some answers, but they are not free of error.

For Example Job interviewers are likely to be

overconfident in their gut feelings about a job applicant.

Limitations of Common Sense Which hand are you more likely to be

dealt?

Limitations of Common Sense The odds are Exactly the Same. Your chances of being dealt either hand

is precisely the same: 1 in 2,598,960

Let’s Try It I am going to show you a list of three

words that are scrambled.

When I show you the 3 words, simply tell me how long that you think it will take you to unscramble them.

Ready…

How long do you think that it will take you to unscramble these words?

WREATETYRNGRABE

Overconfidence WREAT = WATER ETYRN = ENTRY GRABE = BARGE

Most people believe that it will take themselves only about 10 seconds to unscramble the words, yet on average, a person takes about 3 minutes.

The Hindsight Bias The Hindsight Bias is also know as the “I

knew it all along” phenomenon. After learning about the outcome of an

event, many people believe that they could have predicted that very outcome.

Think about it. Have you ever watched a movie, saw the

ending, and then said, “I knew it was going to end like that”

Why Use Psychological Science The science of psychology helps us

understand how people feel, think, and act.

The scientific attitude is composed of curiosity (passion for exploration), skepticism (doubting and questioning), and humility (ability to accept responsibility when wrong).

This kind of critical thinking does not accept conclusions blindly, it examines assumptions, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions.

Psychological Research Theory – an

explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes observations and predicts behaviors and events.

Hypothesis – a testable prediction, often implied by a theory.

Descriptive Research Methods Case Study – an observational technique

in which one person is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles.

Often suggest directions for further studies.

Can be misleading if the individual is atypical.

Descriptive Research Methods Survey – a technique for ascertaining the

self-reported attitudes or behaviors of a particular group, usually by questioning a representative, random sample of the group.

Surveys are not perfect…

What are the effects of self-reporting Wording of the survey influences results

Wording Effects People are more likely to respond

favorably to…

Government Restriction … Government Censorship

Aid to the Needy … Welfare Affirmative Action … Preferential

Treatment Revenue Enhancers … Taxes

More on the Survey Random Sampling – each member of a

given population has an equal chance of being included in a sample.

The goal is to produce results that are Generalizable to the Population.

Descriptive Research Methods Naturalistic Observation – observing and

recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate and control the situation.

Examples… Videotaping parent-child interactions. Watching chimpanzee societies in the

jungle. Recording racial seating patterns in the

school lunch room.

Correlation Research Correlation – a measure of the extent to

which two factors vary together, and thus of how well either factor predicts the other.

Correlation Coefficient – a statistical index of the relationship between two things (from -1 to 1).

Scatterplots A scatterplot is a

graph comprised of points that are generated by values of two variables. The slope of the points depicts the direction, while the amount of scatter depicts the strength of the relationship.

Perfect Positive Correlation (+1.00)

ScatterplotsPerfect Negative Correlation (-1.00)

No Correlation

Data showing height and temperament of a group of people

Subject Height in Inches Temperament1 80 752 63 663 61 604 79 905 74 606 69 427 62 428 75 609 77 8110 60 39

Scatterplot The Scatterplot below shows the

relationship between height and temperament in people. There is a moderate positive correlation of +0.63

Correlation does not mean Causation!

Illusory Correlation An Illusory Correlation is a perception of

a relationship where none exists. For example… Some people believe that infertile

couples are more likely to conceive if they adopt a baby first.

You are more likely to find it noteworthy if this situation happens, as opposed to when nothing happens.

Experimentation Experiment – a research method in

which an investigator manipulates one or more factors (independent variables) to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process (the dependent variable)

Experiments Can Prove Causation!

Experimentation Random Assignment – assigning

participants to experimental and control groups by chance, thus minimizing preexisting differences between the groups.

Experimental Group – the group that is exposed to the treatment, that is, to one version of the independent variable.

Control Group – the group that is NOT exposed to the the treatment

Experimentation Double-Blind Procedure – an experimental

procedure in which both the research participants and the research staff are unaware about whether the participants have received the treatment or a placebo.

Placebo Effect – experimental results caused by expectations alone.

For example, if in a new anxiety study, the control group receives a placebo (sugar pill), then report feeling less anxious.

Independent Variable Independent Variable – the experimental

factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect is being studied.

Dependent Variable – the outcome factor; the variable that may change in response to manipulations of the independent variable.

For Example If a study was interested in examining

the effects of breast feeding on intelligence.

Breast Feeding = Independent Variable Intelligence = Dependent Variable

Review of Research MethodsMethod Basic

PurposeHow Conducted

What is Manipulated

Weaknesses

Descriptive To observe and record behavior

Case studies, surveys, naturalistic observation

Nothing No control of variables; single cases can be misleading

Correlational

To detect naturally occurring relationships; to assess predictability

Compute statistical association

Nothing Does not specify cause and effect

Experimental

To explore cause and effect

Manipulate one ore more factors

Independent Variable(s)

Sometime not feasible; may not generalize; ethical considerations

Measures of Central Tendency Mode – the most frequently occurring

score in a distribution.

Mean – the average score in a distribution.

Median – the middle score in a rank-ordered distribution.

A Skewed Distribution

Measures of Variation Range – the difference between the

highest and lowest scores in a distribution.

Standard Deviation – a computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean.

Reliability and Validity Reliability – the extent to which a test

yields consistent results.

Validity – the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to.

Ethical Considerations To what extent is it ethical to experiment

on people?

To what extent is it ethical to experiment on animals?

What cultural considerations must be considered?