Introduction to Psychology

• Psychology is the scientific study of mental processes and behavior.

Mental Processes

• Mental processes include things going on in our mind that are not observable to another.
• Mental processes consist of language use, memory recall, problem-solving, reasoning, and imagining.

Behavior

• Behaviors consist of things that can be observed by another.
• Behaviors consist of biking, talking, eating, sleeping, washing dishes, calling a cab, and studying.

Four Goals of Psychologists

• Description: Observe what's happening (e.g., what is depression?).
• Explanation: Understand why observations occur (e.g., what causes depressive symptoms?).
• Prediction: Determine when a behavior will occur (e.g., when are depressive symptoms more likely?).
• Control: Influence behavior (e.g., how can depressive symptoms be prevented?).

Levels of Analysis

• Mental processes and behaviors can be studied at multiple levels.

The Brain

• Examine the brain structure and function for analysis.
• Examine how the neurotransmitter serotonin is related to depression.

The Person

• Examine thoughts and feelings for analysis.
• Examine how thought patterns influence feelings of depression.

The Group

• Examine family, friends, and culture for analysis.
• Examine how a social support system influences depression.

Gestalt Psychology

• The mind naturally organizes things into wholes or patterns, focusing on the "big picture" first.
• This rejects structuralism, which breaks down experiences and focuses on small parts, instead of how the whole experience feels
• The mind creates meaning by seeing whole forms.
• "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."
• Illusions showcase how perception can differ from reality.
• It is exemplified by seeing a smiley face in dots, instead of just seeing 'dots'.

Psychoanalysis Theory

• A lot of our thoughts and feelings come from the unconscious mind, which we're not aware of.
• The unconscious, which is the hidden mind, consists of a place where memories, desires, and feelings stay without us knowing.
• Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
• Unconscious thoughts influence behavior
• Early childhood experiences shape individuals
• Mental illnesses come from buried (repressed) childhood memories.
• A person who fears relationships might be influenced by a childhood memory they don't remember.
• The "talking cure" was utilized to uncover hidden problems, by asking people to talk freely about thoughts and dreams.
• Case studies were performed over experiments for information.
• Hard to test with scientific methods.

Behaviorism Definition

• Psychology should only study observable behavior and not thoughts or feelings inside.
• A stimulus causes a change, such as a loud sound.
• A response is the action or reaction to a stimulus, such as flinching.

Ivan Pavlov

• Ivan Pavlov studied how dogs learned to associate a bell with food in classical conditioning.
• Classical conditioning is learning through association; a neutral stimulus, like a bell, is paired with something meaningful, like food, until the dog responds to the bell alone.

John Watson

• Children can be taught to fear things using classical conditioning in humans, which was demonstrated in the Little Albert experiment.
• A child was conditioned to fear a white rat by pairing it with a loud noise.

B.F. Skinner and Edward Thorndike

• Studied how rewards and punishments shape behavior in operant conditioning.
• Operant conditioning is learning through consequences where behaviors followed by rewards are more likely to be repeated, and those followed by punishments are less likely.
• Skinner Box: A chamber with a lever an animal can press to get food or avoid a shock and used to study reinforcement.
• Law of effect: If something you do leads to a good result, you are likely to do it again (studying)
• Positive Reinforcement: Adding something good, such as food.
• Negative Reinforcement: Removing something bad, such as stopping a shock.
• Punishment: Adding something bad or removing something good to reduce behavior.
• A rat presses a lever to get food (positive reinforcement) or to turn off a loud noise (negative reinforcement).

Albert Bandura

• Albert Bandura shows how social observation is used where a child behaves with a doll after watching a model play with the doll; therefore, learned behaviors result from observation.

Humanistic Psychology

• It concerns free will, human potential, and personal growth.
• It is believed people are naturally good and capable of self-improvement.

Abraham Maslow

• Developed Self-actualization: becoming the best version of one's self and is the highest human need.

Carl Rogers

• Unconditional Positive Regard = Accepting and valuing someone without judgment.
• Client-Centered Therapy: Therapy where the therapist listens and supports the client without leading.
• Believed people are naturally good and can grow.
• Created client-centered therapy and emphasized unconditional positive regard.
• The therapist mirrors your feelings and helps you find your own answers.
• Abraham Maslow created the Hierarchy of Needs pyramid.
• The Levels consist of: Physiological, Safety, Love/Belonging, Esteem, and Self-Actualization (top).
• Goals: You must meet lower needs before reaching your full potential

Definition of Cognitive Psychology

• The study of mental processes like thinking, remembering, problem-solving, and understanding.

Meaning of Cognition

• Cognition or thinking is the way information is processed, stored, and used.

Neuroscience / Psychobiology

• How brain and biology affect thoughts, emotions, and behavior.
• Cognitive neuroscience looks at how brain activity is linked to thinking and memory.
• Social neuroscience looks at how the brain is involved in empathy, relationships, and social actions.
• Brain scans show that specific brain areas become active when people feel sad.
• Neurons: Brain cells that carry messages.
• The Reward center (James Olds and Peter Milner) is a brain area that makes something feel good.
• Split-brain (Roger Sperry) occurs when brain hemispheres are disconnected.
• Cell assembly (Donald Hebb) describes groups of neurons that work together to form memories or learning.

Main points of cognitive psychology

• The mind is like a computer: It takes in information, processes it, stores it, and uses it.
• Looks at how people learn, remember, and make decisions.

Specific people in cognitive psychology and what they are known for

• Karl Lashley: Studied memory by removing parts of animal brains
• Finding: Memory isn't stored in one exact spot but rather showed how complex and spread out brain functions really are.
• Donald Hebb: Created the idea of cell assemblies, which a groups of brain cells that strengthen with use.
• James Olds & Peter Milner: Discovered the reward center in rats' brains where rats kept pressing a lever for brain stimulation like they would for food.
• Roger Sperry: Split-brain research.
• Left and right brain hemispheres have different roles and can work separately and changed how we understand brain specialization like language, logic, creativity, etc.
• Wilder Penfield: Showed that mild electrical stimulation of different areas of the brain evoked different responses.

Evolutionary Psychology

• Looks at how evolution and natural selection shaped human behavior and thinking.
• Traits like fear, language, and attraction evolved because they helped people survive and reproduce.
• Some behaviors are seen in all cultures, which is called cultural universality.
• Focuses on what traits humans inherited from ancestors because those traits were useful.
• Edward O. Wilson believed that much of human social behavior, like protecting family or avoiding danger, has a genetic and evolutionary base
• He introduced the idea that behaviors can be inherited just like physical traits.
• Fear of snakes is common in many people because, in ancient times, avoiding snakes helped people stay alive, so that fear was passed on.

Sociocultural Psychology

• Studies how culture and society influence behavior and thoughts.
• Behavior is shaped by social norms, cultural traditions, and expectations.
• People learn what is acceptable or not through interactions with others.
• Collectivist cultures: Focus on the group, community, and family where group goals come before personal desires.
• Individualistic cultures: Focus on independence and personal success where personal goals are more important.
• In some cultures, career choices are based on what benefits the family, while in others, people choose jobs based on personal passion.

Positive Psychology

• Definition: The study of what makes life happy, meaningful, and fulfilling.
• Positive emotions like happiness, gratitude, and hope are examined.
• Traits like resilience (bouncing back from difficulties) and optimism are studied.
• Mental wellness is promoted, instead of just treating illness.
• Positive psychotherapy helps people focus on what is going well in their lives.
• During COVID-19, thanking essential workers helped both the workers and the people expressing gratitude feel more positive.
• Martin Seligman started the positive psychology movement.
• Psychology should study what makes people thrive, not only what makes them suffer, he believed .

Terms and Concepts

• Psychologists use theories to explain behavior and guide research, which is called Theory-Driven.
• Every major approach has its own ideas.
• Psychology relies on research and evidence, not just opinions, which is called Empirical.
• Ideas must be tested.
• Multi-Level: Behavior is explained at three levels: brain (biology), person (thoughts), or group (social influences).
• Psychology changes with time, tools, and culture, which is called Contextual.
• New technologies and ideas shape how we study the mind.
• Introspection: Looking inside your mind to describe thoughts and feelings and used by structuralists.
• Self-actualization is becoming your best self, which is Maslow’s top goal.

Scientific Method

• This entails events being governed by some lawful order that can be observed, measured, and tested.
• Designed to help with the scientific process to remain as accurate and precise as possible
• Science is a way of understanding the world based on two beliefs:

Natural Laws

• The universe follows laws - for example, cause and effect.

Discoverable and Testable

• These laws can be studied through observation and testing.
• Psychology is a science because it follows the scientific method to study thoughts, emotions, and behaviours.

Hypothetico-Deductive Method

• A blend of two types of reasoning:

Deductive Reasoning

• Starts with a general idea and tests it in specific situations.

Inductive reasoning

• Starts with specific observations to build up to general conclusions.
• In psychology, researchers form a hypothesis, test it, and either accept, modify, or reject it.

Steps of the Scientific Method

Step 1

• Make Observations / Review Literature:
  • Start by noticing something in the real world.
  • Example: You notice your musician friends are good at math.
  • Then review past research or literature to see what already is known.

Step 2

• Develop a Testable Hypothesis:
  • Hypothesis: A prediction or educated guess about the relationship between two or more variables.
  • It is important for it to be objectively falsifiable, and it must be able to be proven wrong.
  • Define your variables clearly using operational definitions, so they can be measured/tested.
  • Example: “People with 10+ hours/week of music training (age 3–13) will score higher in Grade 12 math.”

Step 3

• Choose Participants, Select Method, and Collect Data for: -Participants and Sampling:
  • Population: The entire group researchers are interested in, for example, all Grade 12 students.
  • Sample: A small group selected from the population to participate in the study.
  • Goal: Sample should represent the population.

Random Sampling

• Every individual in the population has an equal chance of being selected.
• Reduces sampling bias, that is when the sample doesn’t reflect the population.

Research Methods

Descriptive (Correlational) Research Methods:

• These methods are used to describe behaviors and examine the relationships between variables.
• These methods do not involve manipulation of variables or only associations and so they cannot show cause and effect.

Correlation:

• A predictable relationship between two variables.
• Tells us whether two things change together but not whether one causes the other.
• For example, “When X changes, Y tends to change too.”
• Correlation is not the same as causation.
• Correlation does not signify one caused the other.
• The Correlation Coefficient (r): -A statistical number between -1.0 and +1.0 that shows.
  • The direction is either positive or negative.
  • Strength as measured between how closely related the variables are.

Type of Correlation:

• +1 Perfect Positive Correlation where as one increases, the other increases (exact same direction)
• 0 No Correlation as signifies No predictable relationship.
• -1 Perfect Negative Correlation as signifies as one increases, the other decreases (exact opposite direction).

Positive Correlation:

• Both variables increase or decrease together.

Examples:

• More hours studied → higher test scores
• More time exercising → more daily energy

Negative Correlation

• One variable increases while the other decreases.

Examples:

• More TikTok at night → less sleep
• More absences → lower grades

No Correlation

• Changes in one variable do not affect the other.

Example:

• Number of pets owned = how funny someone is

Useful of Correlation

• Helps predict behaviors or trends, Research on things that can’t be ethically tested like smoking and health can be done, and is often the First step before designing an experiment is to perform correlation.

Causation

• Ice cream sales and drowning deaths both rise in summer:
• An example that does not signify causation is and -Instead, the third factor is hot weather.

Experimental Research

• Example of Manipulating a Variable
  • In experimental research, a researcher manipulates a variable to see if it causes a change in another variable.
  • Example: You want to test if energy drinks improve memory where you create two groups::
  • Group A drinks an energy drink.
  • Group B drinks water.::
  • Then, both groups take the same memory test.
  • Manipulated Variable : What they drink (energy drink or water).
  • Measured Outcome: Memory test scores."

Description

This is different from correlational research, where people who already drink energy drinks and compare their memory—without assigning drinks to anyone or, otherwise stated, Descriptive or Correlational Research Methods.

Case Studies::

• In-depth investigation of one individual or a small group
• Tools: interviews, tests, historical records
• Pros: Good for rare or unusual cases
• Cons: Can’t generalize to others; may have researcher bias

Naturalistic Observation

• Watching people in their real environment, for example, home, school, playground
• Researchers do not interfere
• Pros: Realistic data; natural behavior
• Cons: No control over variables; Hawthorne Effect or people as they change their behavior when watched.

Surveys and Questionnaires

- Asking people questions , either written or interviews regarding thoughts, behaviors, or feelings.
- Pros: Fast with the ability to collect lots of data, and its cheap.
- Cons: People may lie, in what's called participant bias, misunderstand questions, or not know themselves well.

Experimental Research

• Method can demonstrate cause and effect.
• The independent variable (IV) is manipulated, while the dependent variable (DV) is measured.

Example

• An IV or musical training is used where there is either the presence or absence.
• A DV consists of math grades because
• You control who gets musical training and compare math outcomes.Groups in Experiments:.

Experimental Group:

• Experimental Group: Receives the IV, for example, gets musical training.

Control Group:

• Control Group: Does not receive the IV where there is no training, serving as a comparison.

Random Assignment

• Each participant has an equal chance of being in either group.-Helps ensure the only -difference between groups is the IV, so any effect on the DV must come from the IV.

Pros and Cons of Experimental Research :

Pros:.

Pros:

• Allows cause-and-effect conclusions
• Good control over variables. Cons:.

Cons:

• Ethical limits because doing harmful or unrealistic experiments is impermissible. Also because
• Artificial settings may not reflect real life.

Double-Blind Procedure

-Neither participants nor researchers know who is in which group and helps to avoid researcher bias and participant expectations.

Step -

• Analyze Data: Once the data is collected, psychologists use statistics to analyze the results and determine whether the findings support the hypothesis or occurred by chance, otherwise stated to either Accept or Reject Hypothesis

Average or Mean

-The average score of a set of numbers. and must be-: *:: Calculated by adding all the scores and dividing by the number of scores. *:: Example: Scores = 70, 80, 90 → Mean = (70 + 80 + 90) ÷ 3 = 80

Standard Deviation or SD -

-Measures how much scores vary around the mean *:: A small SD = scores are close to the average *:: If the SD = large, that shows that the scores vary widely *:: Example: Group A scores: 78, 79, 80, 81, 82 → Small SD Group B scores: 50, 65, 80, 95, 100 → Large SD.

T-Test / ANOVA -

Used to see if differences are statistically meaningful to compare group results *::

T-Test-

Comapres groups *::

ANOVA-

Compares or more groups *::

Example of

Analyzing if they are Statistically Meaningful: Comparing memory test scores of a group that drank coffee, to comparing that with a group that drank water.

Statistical Significance (p-value) -

• :: The p-value tells how likely it is that results happened by chance *::

Statistical Significance (Results)-

• If the p < .Results *::

Statistical Significance -

Example: Results *::

Statistical Significance (Interpreting Results - Hypothesis):

---Results" :* -The theory is strengthened** -May lead to further research or broader application Results" :* Results" :*

Statistical Significance - Theory -

• Is that to = to a general explanation for a set of observations? -If results hold across many studies, it indicated that the theory also Grows Stronger Results" could become and more broader Media" and, therefor also even even and more further strong .

Ethics of Analysis for Research -

Ethics in Psychological Research -* EthicaResults" :* -

Ethical Guidelines

• -Human Research:" :":
• Informed Consent::" is essential with the requirements that every Participant to know what the study involves and agree voluntarily." What are these ethical Results" , must never be more greater for those Results" and, with that goal, never less! Results" -

Human Ethics - The Right To Withdrawal at any time

• " -Human Ethics:
• Minimising Pain: Results"*
• Human vs Pseodo Ethics are and should never share any Ethical and or Results" A main goal in the Ethics is with .*.

That all goals have : 1*. Behaviours and. 2*. . 3. - Results" -.:.4 - Results"