Introduction to Psychology: Goals and Structuralism

• Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
• Behavior is outward/overt actions and reactions.
• Mental processes are internal/covert activities of our minds.
• Psychology, as a science, prevents possible biases from observations using precise, careful measurements.

Psychology's Four Goals

• Psychology's first goal is Description: What is happening?
• Psychology's second goal is Explanation: Why is it happening?
• A theory is a general explanation of a set of facts or observations.
• Psychology's third goal is Prediction: Will it happen again?
• Psychology's fourth goal is Control: How can it be changed?

Structuralism

• Structuralism is focused on the structure, or basic elements, of the mind.
• Wilhelm Wundt's psychology laboratory was in Germany in 1879.
• Wundt developed objective introspection, which objectively examines and measures one's thoughts and mental activities.
• Edward Titchener was Wundt's student, and brought structuralism to America.
• Margaret Washburn was Titchener's student, and the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in psychology.
• Structuralism died out in the early 1900s.

Functionalism

• Functionalism explains how the mind allows people to adapt, live, work, and play.
• William James proposed functionalism.
• Functionalism influenced the modern fields of: educational, evolutionary, and industrial/organizational psychology.

Gestalt Psychology

• Gestalt is a "good figure" psychology.
• Gestalt began with Wertheimer, who studied sensation and perception.
• Gestalt ideas are now part of cognitive psychology, a field studying learning, memory, thought processes, and problem-solving.

Psychoanalysis

• Psychoanalysis is the theory and therapy based on Sigmund Freud's work.
• Freud believed his patients suffered from nervous disorders with no physical cause.
• Freud proposed the unconscious mind, into which we push, or repress, threatening urges and desires.
• Repressed urges that try to surface create nervous disorders.
• Freud stressed the importance of early childhood experiences.

Behaviorism

• Behaviorism is the science of behavior that focuses on observable behavior only, which must be directly seen and measured.
• John B. Watson proposed behaviorism.
• Behaviorism is based on Ivan Pavlov's work, which demonstrated a reflex could be conditioned/learned.
• Watson believed phobias are learned, referencing the "Little Albert" case, who was taught to fear a white rat.

Modern Perspectives

• Psychodynamic perspective is a modern version of psychoanalysis.
  • It is more focused on the development of a sense of self and discovery of motivations, rather than sexual motivations.
• The behavioral perspective was created by B. F. Skinner, who studied operant conditioning of voluntary behavior.
  • Behaviorism became a major force in the twentieth century.
  • Skinner introduced the concept of reinforcement to behaviorism.
• Humanistic perspective owes far more to philosophy.
  • Humanists believe people have free will, and the freedom to choose their destiny.
  • The early founders of this perspective were Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers.
  • Focuses on human potential, the ability of each person to become the best they can be.
  • Self-actualization is achieving one's full potential or actual self.
• Cognitive perspective focuses on memory, intelligence, perception, problem-solving, and learning.
• Sociocultural perspective focuses on the relationship between social behavior and culture.
• Biopsychological perspective attributes human and animal behavior to biological events like genetic influences, hormones, and the activity of the nervous system.
• Evolutionary perspective focuses on the biological bases of universal mental characteristics that all humans share.
  • Looks at the way mind works and why it works as it does.
  • Sees behavior as having an adaptive or survival value.

Types of Psychological Professionals

• Psychiatrist: A medical doctor specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders.
• Psychoanalyst: A psychiatrist or psychologist with special training in Sigmund Freud's theories and psychoanalysis.
• Psychiatric social worker: A social worker with training in therapy methods, who focuses on the environmental conditions that impact mental disorders, such as poverty, stress, and drug abuse.
• Psychologist: A professional with an academic degree and specialized training in psychology.
  • Can provide counselling, teaching, and research and may specialize in a large number of areas in psychology.
  • Clinical, counseling, developmental, social, and personality are some areas of specialization in psychology.

Psychology and the Scientific Method

• Scientific method: a system of gathering data so that bias and error in measurement are reduced.

Steps in the Scientific Method

• First, perceive the question.
• Second, form a hypothesis; a tentative explanation of a phenomenon based on observations.
• Third, test the hypothesis.
• Fourth, draw conclusions.
• Fifth, report your results so that others can try to replicate, repeating the study to see if the same results are obtained to demonstrate reliability.

Descriptive Methods

• Naturalistic observation is watching animals or humans behave in their normal environment.
  • The major advantage is a realistic picture of behavior.
  • Disadvantages include the observer effect, where people/animals behave differently when they know they are being observed.
  • Participant observation is a naturalistic observation in which the observer becomes a participant in the group.
  • Observer bias is the tendency of observers to see what they expect to see.
  • Blind observers do not know the research question in order to reduce observer bias.
  • Each naturalistic setting is unique, so the observations may not hold true in all cases.
• Laboratory observation involves watching animals/humans behave in a laboratory setting.
  • Allows for control over environment and use of specialized equipment.
  • Disadvantage is the artificial situation, yielding artificial behavior.
• Descriptive methods lead to the formation of testable hypotheses.
• Case study: study of one individual in great detail.
  • The advantage is a tremendous amount of detail is learned.
  • The disadvantage is that the results cannot apply to others.
  • Phineas Gage is a famous case study.
• Surveys involve researchers asking a series of questions about a topic under study.
  • Surveys are given to a representative sample, a randomly selected sample of subjects from a larger population.
  • Population: the entire group of people or animals in which the researcher is interested.
  • Advantages: data from large numbers of people and study of covert behaviors.
  • Disadvantages: the necessity to have a representative sample and the fact that people are not always accurate due to courtesy bias.

Finding Relationships

• Correlation: a measure of the relationship between two variables.
• Variable: anything that can change or vary.
• Measures of variables go into a mathematical formula, producing a correlation coefficient (r).
  • Correlation coefficient represents the direction and the strength of a relationship.
• Knowing the value of one variable allows researchers to predict the value of the other variable.
• Correlation coefficient ranges from -1.00 to +1.00.
• Closer to 1.00 or -1.00 is a stronger relationship between variables.
  • No correlation: 0.0
  • Perfect correlation: -1.00 or +1.00
• Positive correlation: variables are related in the same direction.
  • As one increases, the other increases, and as one decreases, the other decreases.
• Negative correlation: variables are related in opposite directions.
  • As one increases, the other decreases.
• Correlation does NOT prove causation.

The Experiment

• Experiment: A deliberate manipulation of a variable to see if corresponding changes in behavior result, allowing the determination of cause-and-effect relationships.
• Operational definition: definition of a variable of interest that allows it to be directly measured.
• Independent variable (IV): variable in an experiment that is manipulated by the experimenter.
• Dependent variable (DV): variable in an experiment that represents the measurable response or behavior of the subjects in the experiment.
• Experimental group: subjects in an experiment who are subjected to the independent variable.
• Control group: Subjects in an experiment who are not subjected to the independent variable and who may receive a placebo treatment (controls for confounding variables)
• Random assignment: process of assigning subjects to the experimental or control groups randomly, so that each subject has an equal chance of being in either group.
  • This controls for confounding (extraneous, interfering) variables.
• Placebo effect: the phenomenon in which the expectations of the participants in a study can influence their behavior.
  • Single-blind study: subjects do not know if they are in the experimental or the control group, reducing the placebo effect.
• Experimenter effect: tendency of the experimenter's expectations for a study to unintentionally influence the results of the study.
  • Double-blind study: neither the experimenter nor the subjects knows if the subjects are in the experimental or control group, reducing placebo and experimenter effects.
• Quasi-experimental designs: not considered true experiments because of the inability to randomly assign participants to groups.

Ethics in Psychological Research

• Ethics committees: groups of psychologists and other experts who look over each proposed research study and judge it according to its safety and consideration for the participants in the study.

Common ethical guidelines

1. Rights and well-being of participants must be weighed against the study's value to science.
2. Participants must be allowed to make an informed decision about participation.
3. Deception must be justified.
4. Participants may withdraw from the study at any time.
5. Participants must be protected from risks or told explicitly of risks.
6. Investigator must debrief participants, telling the true nature of the study and expectations of results.
7. Data must remain confidential.

• Animal research is used to answer questions we could never do with human research.
  • Focus is on avoiding exposing them to unnecessary pain or suffering.
  • Animals are used in approximately 7% of psychological studies.

Critical Thinking

• Critical thinking: making reasoned judgments about claims.

Four Basic Criteria for Critical Thinking

1. There are very few "truths" that do not need to be subjected to testing.
2. All evidence is not equal in quality.
3. 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.
4. Critical thinking requires an open mind.

• Pseudopsychologies: systems of explaining human behavior that are not based on/consistent with scientific evidence.
  • Phrenology: reading bumps on the skull.
  • Palmistry: reading palms.
  • Graphology: analysis of personality through handwriting.