d and p ppt chapter 1 6e

Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.,Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved. 1-1

6th Edition

PsychologyStephen F. Davis

Morningside College Joseph J. Palladino

University of Southern IndianaPowerPoint Presentation by

Fred W. WhitfordMontana State University

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6th Edition

Psychology, Research, and You

Chapter 1


Becoming a Psychological Detective

• Psychology is the science of behavior and mental processes.

• When we try to understand events in the world around us, we sometimes turn to what is known as folk wisdom.

• Such efforts to explain events are usually presented in ways that can never be proved wrong.

• Hence folk wisdom provides answers for all situations but explains none.



• To understand our world, we can look for insights and explanations through psychological research methods.

• Psychologists are trained to ask good questions, to gather useful information, to arrive at appropriate conclusions, and to develop and ask further questions based on the information collected.



• After World War I, spiritualism (a belief in the supernatural) sparked interest on both sides of the Atlantic.

• Almost every city had several mediums—people who claim that they can contact the spirit world and communicate with the dead during a séance.



• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the master detective Sherlock Holmes, was deeply interested in spiritualism.

• In May 1920, Doyle heard reports that fairies had been photographed; he greeted the reports with enthusiasm because they seemed to confirm his belief in the existence of the spirit world.



• The case of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the photographs of alleged fairies teaches us the importance of asking good questions.

• Modern technology has shown the fairies to be a hoax.

• The case demonstrates the importance of being aware of how bias can influence the questions we ask and the conclusions we draw.



• Bias refers to beliefs that interfere with objectivity.

• The law of parsimony is a principle that simple explanations of phenomena are preferred to complex explanations.



• By asking good questions, collecting useful data, arriving at defensible conclusions, and being aware of our own biases and those of others, we can become good consumers of psychological research.



• In evaluating causal or research claims, we should ask the following questions:

• What is the statement or claim, and who is making it?

• Is the statement or claim based on scientific observations?

• What do statistics reveal?



• Are there plausible alternative explanations for the statement or claim?

• Cause and effect relationships.

• Placebo effects are positive effects associated with a person’s beliefs and attitudes about a drug, even when it contains no active ingredients.


Research Methods in Psychology

• The goals of psychology are to describe, predict and control behavior.

• These goals are accomplished by using the scientific method.



• The scientific method is a system of investigation in which a person makes careful observations of a phenomenon, proposes theories to explain the phenomenon, makes hypotheses about future behaviors, and then tests these hypotheses through more research and observation.



• A theory is an explanation for a phenomenon based on careful and precise observations.

• A hypothesis is a prediction about future behaviors that is derived from observation and theories.



• Psychologists use a number of research methods, including case studies, naturalistic observations, and experiments.

• Each method has strengths and weaknesses; all of them contribute to our knowledge of claims and events.

• The choice of the specific method used usually is determined by the type of problem being investigated.



• A case study is an in-depth analysis of one person.

• The goal of a case study is to use the information obtained from one person to understand the behaviors of others.

• One potential disadvantage of the method is that what we learn by studying one person may not necessarily apply to other people.



• The goal of naturalistic observation is to describe the settings, frequency, and characteristics of certain behaviors in the real world.

• When psychologists make naturalistic observations, they observe behaviors as they occur, without intervening or altering the behaviors in any way.



• The observers must be careful not to affect the behaviors they observe and record.

• Observations that interfere with the behavior being studied are termed reactive.



• Correlational research tells whether the values of two variables are related.



• Keep in mind, though, that just because two variables are correlated, even highly correlated, one variable does not cause the other.



• A correlation coefficient is a number ranging between -1.00 and +1.00 that represents the degree and direction of relation between two variables.

• The number tells you the strength of the correlation, and the sign tells you the direction of the relation.



• The higher the number, the stronger the relation.

• A plus sign tells us that as the values of one variable increase, so do the values of the other.

• Thus values of both variables are headed in the same direction; they are positively correlated.



• By contrast, a minus sign tells us that the values of the two variables travel in opposite directions; they are negatively correlated.

• As the values of one variable increase, the values of the other tend to decrease.



• The survey method is a research method that involves collecting information from a selected group of people who are representative of a larger group.

• When conducting a survey, researchers must obtain a representative sample—one that is selected to reflect the characteristics of a larger group (the population).



• By asking questions of a representative sample, researchers using the survey method can provide useful information about a much larger population.

• The wording of the questions can influence participants’ responses.



• Qualitative research is a type of holistic research that seeks to prove a complete narrative description of an entire phenomenon or culture



• The experimental method involves manipulating independent variables to determine how they affect dependent variables.

• Because it can generate cause-and-effect statements, many psychologists believe that the experimental method is the most powerful research approach.



• By manipulating an independent variable (the cause), the researcher determines whether it influences the dependent variable (the effect).



• An independent variable is manipulated by a researcher to determine its effects on a dependent variable.

• A dependent variable is a variable that shows the outcome of an experiment by revealing the effects of an independent variable.



• Researchers are careful to offer clear and precise definitions for both the independent and dependent variables.

• Such definitions, known as operational definitions, allow other researchers to replicate (repeat) an experiment exactly as it was originally done in order to verify the findings.



• Some participants in the experiment are exposed to the independent variable; they constitute the experimental group.

• Other participants are not exposed to the independent variable; they constitute the control group that will be compared with the experimental group on the dependent variable.



• If you hold all other variables that could also influence the results of the experiment—known as extraneous variables—constant, you may identify the cause of the behavior under consideration.

• One way to accomplish this objective is to use the procedure called random assignment, or assignment of participants to two or more groups on the basis of chance.



• Random assignment usually results in two groups that are quite similar in many characteristics.

• However, random assignment does not solve all problems and make all research perfect.



• Statistics is a branch of mathematics that involves the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data.

• Descriptive statistics are procedures used to summarize any set of data.

• Inferential statistics are procedures used to analyze data after an experiment is conducted to determine if an independent variable had a significant effect.



• Measures of central tendency provide information about the typical score in a set of numbers.

• Measures of variability provide information about the amount of variability or spread in a set of data.



• The American Psychological Association has adopted ethical guidelines that prescribe standards of conduct for the professional work of psychologists in their roles as researchers, clinicians, and teachers.

• These guidelines include several general principles.



• For example, psychologists must maintain high standards of competence in their work, including recognizing the limitations of their expertise.

• They also must show respect for the rights and dignity of people, such as rights to privacy and confidentiality.



• The ethical guidelines for conducting research require that all research proposals be reviewed to ensure compliance with the guidelines.

• Each proposal must be approved by an institutional review board (IRB) established by a college, university, or other organization where research is conducted.



• The ethical guidelines state that psychologists who conduct research using human participants must ensure that they are protected from physical and psychological harm.

• The ethical guidelines also require that any research records associated with a person’s name or identity be kept confidential.



• Participants, including college students in introductory courses, must be told that their participation in research is voluntary and give written informed consent.

• When psychologists use deception in their research, their participants must undergo a debriefing session immediately after the study in which they are given a complete explanation of the research that has used deception.



• Participants in psychological research have the right to end their participation at any time.

• Researchers cannot use any form of threat or intimidation to force them to complete tasks in a study.

• The American Psychological Association lists seven areas of concern in the ethical treatment of animals in psychological research.



• Researchers who use animals in their research are subject to a long list of regulations, including local, state, and federal laws.

• These regulations seek to define under what circumstances it is acceptable to sacrifice animals for research.

• Moreover, the regulations often mandate certain requirements concerning food, cage space, and veterinary care.


The Origins of Modern Psychology

• Wilhelm Wundt established the first psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig in Germany in 1879.

• Wundt and his student Edward B. Titchener, who brought Wundt’s type of psychology to the United States, wanted to study psychology in the same way that a person would study physics or chemistry. Titchener coined the term structuralism.



• Titchener’s research depended on a method called introspection, in which participants gave verbal reports of their conscious experiences.



• Contemporary psychologists have rediscovered conscious experience. This area is called cognitive psychology, which studies higher mental process such as thinking, knowing and deciding.



• A new approach to psychology developed in the United States in the late 1800s.

• Functionalism was concerned not with the structure of the mind but with the purposes of consciousness—what the mind does and why.

• Functionalists wanted to see how people use information to adapt to their environment.



• A group of psychologists who termed their approach Gestalt psychology, which was noted for emphasizing that perception of a whole differs from that of the individual stimuli that make up the whole, spearheaded the challenge to the structuralists’ notion that conscious experience could be broken down into elements.

• The key members of this group were Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, and Kurt Koffka.



• The behavioral perspective focuses on observable behaviors; thus it does not speculate about mental processes such as thinking.

• This perspective emphasizes the importance of learning in understanding how various behaviors occur.

• The American psychologist John B. Watson believed psychology should be concerned not with the mind or consciousness but solely with observable behaviors.



• Sigmund Freud and his followers developed the psychodynamic perspective, which suggests that both normal and abnormal behaviors are determined primarily by unconscious forces.

• The term psychodynamic is used because these forces are believed to interact with one another.



• Freud also focused on early childhood experiences as a major influence on personality development.

• The treatment approach for maladaptive behavior that he eventually developed, known as psychoanalytic therapy, attempts to bring unconscious causes of distress to the conscious level.

• Once the sources of distress are brought to awareness, they can be changed.



• Dissatisfaction with both the behavioral and the psychodynamic perspectives led psychologists Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow to develop the humanistic perspective.

• Emphasizing free will and individuals’ control of their own behavior, the humanistic perspective was characterized by a distinctly positive view of human nature.



• Humanistic psychologists viewed themselves as a “third force” because they were an alternative to the behavioral and psychodynamic perspectives in psychology.

• Rather than attempting to develop general principles, Rogers and Maslow sought to understand each person as a unique individual.



• The physiological perspective focuses on the underlying biological bases of all forms of behavior.

• Physiological psychologists have a special interest in the functioning of the brain and the rest of the nervous system.



• The evolutionary perspective focuses on why a particular behavior or physical structure developed and how that behavior or structure aids in adaptation to the environment.



• Charles Darwin, who popularized the theory of evolution, maintained that evolution unfolds according to the principle of natural selection, which states that the strongest or most fit organisms are those that have adapted best to their environment.



• The cognitive perspective focuses on the study of how thought occurs, how our memories work, and how information is organized and stored.



• In the past, numerous barriers limited access to the field of psychology for women and ethnic minorities; this is studied by the cultural and diversity perspective.



• For example, Mary Whiton Calkins completed her work at Harvard University, where she was a student of William James, but the university refused to award the doctoral degree she had earned because it did not grant degrees to women.



• Despite this setback, Calkins had a distinguished career in teaching, founded one of the first psychology laboratories in the United States, and was the first woman to be elected president of the American Psychological Association.

• In some cases, marital status and family ties hindered the careers of the first female psychologists.



• The noted researcher Christine Ladd-Franklin “was not considered a suitable candidate for any regular academic position” because she was married.

• Similarly, the tradition of the eldest daughter taking care of her aging parents cut short the budding career of Milicent Shinn, the first woman to receive a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1898.



• Robert Guthrie (1998) summarized the struggles of African-American psychologists in his influential book Even the Rat Was White.

• It wasn’t until 1920 that Francis C. Sumner became the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in psychology.

• Doctoral degrees in psychology were not granted to African-American women until the 1930s.



• Inez Beverly Prosser was the first African-American woman to receive a doctoral degree in educational psychology; she received this degree from the University of Cincinnati in 1933.

• Ruth Winifred Howard received her Ph.D. in psychology in 1934 from the University of Minnesota.

• Until recently, few members of racial minority groups obtained jobs in psychology.



• The impact of different cultures and diversity on psychology is seen in contemporary psychological literature.

• It is important for all of us to appreciate how cultural factors moderate our psychological processes.

• At the same time, we need to know what kinds of cross-cultural similarities exist in psychological principles and basic processes.



• The later 20th century witnessed an increasing concern for the effects of overpopulation on the quality of life and the quality of our environment.

• These concerns are responsible for the development of a new perspective in psychology: the environmental, population, and conservation perspective.

• In short, these psychologists are applying psychological principles to help save the planet.


Present Day Psychology

• Present-day psychologists do not align themselves strictly with any of the approaches outlined earlier.

• Instead they tend to choose the approach they consider appropriate to each issue under consideration.

• Because they use several approaches, many psychologists have adopted an eclectic approach to psychology.


Present Day Psychology

• Most psychologists earn an advanced degree, usually a doctorate.

• Although many psychologists teach and engage in research, a growing number provide direct services to clients.


Psychological Specialties

• Psychologists involved in clinical psychology specialize in helping people with behavioral or emotional problems adjust to the demands of life.

• By contrast, psychiatrists are medical doctors; they have earned an M.D. degree.



• A specialty that has much in common with clinical psychology is counseling psychology; counseling psychologists also administer psychological tests and provide therapy.

• One difference between clinical and counseling psychologists involves the types of clients they see.

• Counseling psychologists often work with clients who have less serious problems than those of patients seen by clinical psychologists.



• You may hear the term experimental psychologist used to describe psychologists who conduct experiments; however, because many different types of psychologists conduct experiments, the term research psychologist is more appropriate.



• Because modern psychology is identified so closely with the United States, we may have a tendency to view our psychological research as applying to all other cultures.

• The view that other cultures are an extension of one’s own is called ethnocentrism.

• Cross-cultural psychology is a branch of psychology that seeks to determine if research results are universal (that is, if they can be generalized or applied to other cultures).



• School psychologists are employed by school systems as consultants to other educational personnel.

• Industrial and organizational psychologists (also known as I/O psychologists) are concerned with all aspects of work and the structure and function of organizations.



• Some I/O psychologists are involved in the design of equipment and manufacturing plants.

• When they design equipment, they take into consideration the relation between the worker and the equipment, as well as the capabilities of the worker.

• These psychologists are also called human factors psychologists, and they work in a specialty called ergonomics.



• Consumer psychology is the scientific study of the behavior of consumers.

• Health psychology is a diverse and rapidly growing specialty concerned with the relations between psychological factors and health.

• Forensic psychologists work within the legal system; they may work in a prison to evaluate incoming prisoners or assist in selecting a jury for a trial.



• Sport psychologists apply the theories and knowledge of psychology to enhance athletes’ performance.

• Neuropsychologists are trained to diagnose disorders of the brain.

• Careers in psychology.

d and p ppt chapter 1 6e

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