Psychology 9/7A4 – 01 – 2010

• Announcements

• Short history of psychology continued

• Chapter 1 – Thinking Critically with Psychological Science

Announcements• Next Tuesday we will be participating in a

research survey during the lecture period• You should have received notification about a

quiz that you need to take• You must take the quiz before next Tuesday• The quiz will close Tuesday morning at 8am• Regarding extra-credit – you may earn a total of

20 points of extra-credit toward your final grade in this class ---in any combination

Announcements cont.

9 Introduction to Psychology Introduction to field of psychology, Same as Psychology 7A. No credit for Psychology and Social Behavior 9/Psychology 7A if taken concurrently with, or after, any of the following: Psychology and Social Behavior 11A, B, or C,

Psychology 9A, B, or C. Formerly Psychology and Social Behavior P9. (III)

11A, B, C Psychology Fundamentals Designed to provide freshman Psychology and Social Behavior majors with an in-depth survey of general psychology. Same as Psychology 9A, B, C. No credit for Psychology and Social Behavior 9/Psychology 7A if taken concurrently with, or after, any of the following: Psychology and Social Behavior 11A, B, or C, Psychology 9A, B, or C. Formerly Psychology and Social Behavior P11A, B, C. (III)

Announcements cont.

• Discussion Sections – you must enroll in both the lecture and a discussion section

• The discussion sections are all full?

• Bring an add card and we will sign it

A 15 Minute History of Psychology

• The story of psychology reaches all the way back to Ancient Greece – where they believed that the mind was separate from the body and lived on after death

A 15 Minute History of Psychology

• Aristotle – used principles of logic and observation that all still used today

• Deductive reasoning - An example of a deductive argument and hence of deductive reasoning:

1. All men are mortal

2. Aristotle is a man

3. (Therefore,) Aristotle is mortal • AKA – syllogisms

Darkness, War, Fighting

Renaissance

The Age of Enlightenment

A 15 Minute History of Psychology

Rene Descartes – 1596 – 1650

• Proposed a mechanism for response to external events

• Dualism – mind and body

• Pineal gland – believed this is where the mind and body “met”

A 15 Minute History of Psychology

• Francis Bacon – 1561 - 1626

• founder of the scientific method was fascinated by our human desire to perceive meaning in random events

• Inductive reasoning falsifiable hypotheses

• A requirement of the scientific method

A 15 Minute History of Psychology

• John Locke – helped found empiricism – the view that knowledge originates in experience and that science should therefore rely on observation and experimentation for adding to knowledge – he argued that at birth the mind is a “blank slate” or “Tabula Rasa”

• Empiricism – knowledge originates in experience and that science should therefore, rely on observation and experimentation

A 15 Minute History of Psychology

Wilhelm Wundt –

• Developed the first psychological apparatus

• Widely considered the “father of experimental psychology”

• Established first psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig

A 15 Minute History of Psychology

Edward Titchener

• Student of Wundt’s

• Introduced “Structuralism” to attempt to discover the elements of the mind

• Introspection – the method of self-reflection from which mental elements could be discovered

A 15 Minute History of Psychology

William James –

• Functionalism – the function of mental processes (as opposed to the structure)

• 1890 – Publishes The Principles of Psychology

• Describes psychology as the “science of mental life”

A 15 Minute History of Psychology

Sigmund Freud –

• Founder of the psychoanalytic approach

• Free associations, analysis of dreams, and fantasies

• The conscious and unconsciousness mind The ego, id, and superego

• Psychosexual personality theory

A 15 Minute History of Psychology

The Behaviorists – • John Watson and B. F. Skinner• Redefined psychology as the “Scientific study of

observable behavior”• They believed this made psychology more

“scientific” • It took the mind out of psychology• Dominant Perspective in psychology from 1920s

until the 1960s

Psychology’s Big Debate

• The Nature/Nurture debate

• Going back to Plato – believed that character and intelligence are inherited (nature)

• Locke – believed that we are a blank slate (nurture)

• Descartes believed it was some of both

The 3 Levels of Analysis

Two Types of Research

• Basic research = research that adds to the knowledge base and seeks to understand phenomena for their own sake

• Applied research = research that is design and conducted in an attempt to solve a practical problem

• Both types of research inform each other

The Scientific Approach

• Sometimes there is a well “duh” reaction to psychology

• Just confirming to common sense teaches• “just confirms what I already knew”• Hindsight Bias - the inclination to see events that

have occurred as more predictable than they really are

• On Monday – everyone knew the Saints were going to beat the Colts

Obviously?

• If you want to teach a habit to persist, reward the desired behavior every time, not just sometimes

• Traumatic experiences are typically repressed• Fears of harmless objects like flowers are just as

easy to acquire as fears of potentially dangerous objects, like snakes

• If you give someone a small gift or do them a favor they will like you more

We are so smart…

Anagrams –

• Wreat Water

• Etryn Entry

• Grabe Barge

• Seilnt Silent

• Cine Nice

…When we know the answer

Anagrams –

• Unorfed

= founder

• Nicesec

= science

• Dirty room

= Dormitory

• Cash lost in 'em

= Slot machines

The Scientific Attitude

• Be Curious – be willing to investigate without leaping to conclusions

• Be Skeptical – when someone says the question is settled wonder why Science requires that the question be ongoing

• Be Open minded – this is the hardest one – for a bunch of reasons that we are going to talk much more about later

The Scientific Method

• Scientific theory – Uses an integrated set of principles that organize and predict behavior

• Operational definitions – what are you measuring?

• Hypothesis testing – what are you predicting?• Reporting research• Peer review • Psychology Journals

Replication

• The ability of others to reproduce research findings

• When different studies replicate findings they are said to have convergent validity

• The more the findings replicate the more certain we become that we are witnessing an actual phenomenon – not just an anomaly

Psychology Research

• Case Studies – One person is studied in great detail

• Sigmund Freud – used this method to study mostly Viennese women

• What is a weakness of this type of research?

Psychology Research

• Naturalistic Observation

• Describes behavior

• Does not explain it

• Can still be very interesting and revealing

• Ethnography – systematic study of a naturally occurring phenomenon

Psychology Research cont.

Surveys

• A fairly easy way to collect a lot of data

• Random sampling – increases ability to generalize about the population

• Large survey samples approach population beliefs better than small ones

Wording Effects in Surveys

How much do you agree with the following?• “Free healthcare for all people is a good idea”• “Healthcare for all that will cost trillions of dollars

in additional taxes and only insures about half of those uninsured is a good idea”

• “Given that free healthcare is a human right, the recent health care initiative providing healthcare for all is an idea whose time has come”

Wording Effects in Surveys

• Please give 3 examples of when you have been assertive

OR

• Please give 10 examples of when you have been assertive

In general how assertive are you?

• Availability effects

Biased Questions

• How fast was the car going when it hit the other car?

OR

• How fast was the car going when it smashed into the other car?

Bias Resulting from the Sample

• In survey sampling, bias refers to the tendency of a sample statistic to systematically over- or under-estimate a population parameter

• A statistic is a characteristic of a sample. Generally, a statistic is used to estimate the value of a population parameter

• A parameter is a measurable characteristic of a population, such as a mean or a standard deviation

Bias Resulting from the Samplecont.

A good sample is representative. This means that each sample point represents the attributes of a known number of population elements

• Undercoverage - occurs when some members of the population are inadequately represented in the sample

• Nonresponse bias. Sometimes, individuals chosen for the sample are unwilling or unable to participate in the survey

Order Effects in Survey

• “How interested are you in politics?”Or• “What is the name of your congressman?”And then• “How interested are you in politics?”• People who did not know the name of their

congressperson reported less interest in politics

Types of Survey Research

• Cross sectional – this is a snapshot in time of how people feel at a given moment

• Cross sectional research tells us little about causation

• Longitudinal – asks the same people the same questions multiple times – allows the researchers to examine changes over time

Responses to September 11

Silver et al., 2002• Survey research can inform us about population reactions to

important events• Nationally representative sample (n=1069)• People across the country experienced PTSD like symptoms

after 9/11• 17% outside NY city reported 9/11 related PTSD symptoms 2

months after the attacks and 5.8% did 6 months later• Psychological effects of a major nationwide trauma not

limited to those directly exposed• Disengaging from coping can signal psychological difficulties

up to 6 months after the trauma

Correlation

• The relationship between two things• How much do two variables vary together• Correlation can be positive or negative• Correlation versus causation• Illusory correlation• Correlation coefficient, “r” – a statistic that

tells us how closely two things vary together

Scatterplots

= r

More Correlation

Perceiving Order in Random Events

• People often impose order where there is none

• Uncertainty is scary

• The “just world”

Experiments

• Key condition of experiments is random assignment

• Experimental designs

• Mundane vs. Psychological realism

• Causality revisited

Motivated Skepticism

Ditto & Lopez, 1992 (experiment 2)• University students exposed “test strips” to saliva (n = 51)• Some were told if the strip stayed the same color it

indicated an enzyme deficiency – others were told just the opposite – in reality none of the strips changed color

• Color reaction was supposed take about 20 seconds• Subjects in the enzyme deficient group waited longer to

submit their test strips back to researchers and also conducted replications to confirm the non-desirable outcome

• Conclusion – people often search for alternative explanations for negative, but not positive outcomes

Describing Data

• Statistics

1. Measures of central tendency

2. Measures of variation

3. More cases versus less cases

4. Significant differences

Average Home Price in L.A.

100k + 100k + 125k+ 150k + 100k + 175k +

200k + 150k + 100k + 5million

Equals = $6,200,000

Divided by 10 = $620,000

Is this a good measure of the “average”

Ethics in Research

• Animals in research

• IRBs

• Are these studies ethical?

Neuroscience and Behavior

• Everything “psychological” is also “biological”

• Early assumptions

• Interplay of biology and psychology

Neural Communication

•The body’s information system

A motor neuron

Action Potential

• Neuron fires impulse• The impulse called the “action potential, is a brief

electrical charge • Action potential

Neurotransmitters

• Acetylcholine

• Norepinephrine

• Dopamine

• GABA

• Glutamate

• Serotonin

The Peripheral Nervous System

• The somatic nervous system

• The autonomic nervous system

a. The sympathetic system

b. The parasympathetic system

Central Nervous System

• Two components

1. The spinal cord

2. The brain

The Brain

The Forebrain

The Cerebrum

The Split Brain

Nature/Nurture