Psychology concepts

• Psychology is the study of research, mind, and behavior.
• Chemical imbalances are believed to control psychology.
• The mind refers to mental activity resulting from biochemical reactions.
• Behavior includes the actions of animals and humans.
• Human experiences and aspects influence the mind.
• Psychology increases diversity by including different races, cultures, genders, and sexual orientations.
• Cultural psychology attempts to integrate culture into society.
• There is now more openness about mental health issues.
• Advances include brain imaging, genetics, and epigenetics.
• Damage to Broca's region in the brain can affect speech and language.

Electroencephalography

• Measures brain activity.
• Functional magnetic imagining measures brain activity based on blood flow.
• The Human Connectome Project created in 2010, facilitates collective research.
• Psychology has transitioned from observing behavior to using brain scanning and technology, and is evolving into a science

Nature vs. Nurture

• The debate focuses on whether psychological characteristics are innate or acquired through surroundings.
• Aristotle and Plato discussed the nature versus nurture concept.
• They thought the relationship between nature and nurture was inseparable.

Peer-Reviewed Publications

• Critical thinkers trust peer-reviewed publications to have a well-designed study and appropriately addressed questions.

William James

• Founder of modern psychology.
• Abandoned studying medicine for psychology.
• Taught at Harvard and encouraged students to ask questions.
• A physiologist and philosopher who spoke about mental processes.
• Authored the first psychology book, "Principles of Psychology" in 1890.
• Operated on the idea of functionalism.
• Trained Mary Whiton Calkins.

John Stuart

• Published "A System in Logic" in 1843.
• Believed environment influences people.
• His approach to psychology was more philosophical.
• Psychology should separate from philosophy and become its own science.
• He explained "the science of the elementary laws of the mind".
• Recognized the stream of consciousness.

Mary Whiton Calkins

• First woman to set up a psychological laboratory.
• First woman president of the American Psychological Association.

William of Occam

• Proposed the Law of Parsimony.
• The simpler theory is preferred when two theories are proposed.
• The shortest, most straightforward answer is the better option.

Schools of Thought

• Schools of psychology were functionalism, structuralism, and behaviorism.

Functionalism

• Concerned with the adaptive purpose or function of mind and behavior.
• William James coined the phrase "stream of consciousness" to describe a person's continuous series of ever-changing thoughts.
• The mind is too complex to be thought of in parts; it should be viewed as a whole.
• The mind developed over human evolution because it helps to ensure survival.
• Natural selection: physical or mental traits are passed down due to environmental factors.

Behaviorism

• Emphasizes environmental influences on observable behaviors.
• Culture influences how people remember stories, grammar develops, and how people interpret the world differently at each life stage.

Cognitive Biases

• Confirmation bias involves prioritizing evidence aligning with beliefs and ignoring contradictory evidence.
• Confirmation bias ex: selectively sampling information that matches pre-existing beliefs.
• Casual relationships: Believing a causal connection exists between unrelated events.
• Casual relationships ex: global warming is believed to have decreased piracy with rising temperatures and a decline in piracy over the last 200 years
• Accepting after-the-fact explanations involves being better at explaining the past but poor at predicting the future.
• Accepting after-the-fact explanations ex: Shooting at 2016 Pulse nightclub Orlando Florida, and the shooters' history of violence against women that was unpredicted.
• Taking mental shortcuts using heuristics, can lead to biased outcomes.
• Availability heuristics are shortcuts to making decisions.
• Availability heuristics ex: child abductions are more reported, leading to over-concern, than other accidents, like bicycle accidents, food poisoning, etc.

Dunning-Kruger Effect

• In a study on college students' academic performance, those in the lowest percentile overestimated their abilities.
• The top percentile underestimated their intelligence.
• This is because people are unaware of their weaknesses, start with positive self-views, and beginners overestimate their abilities.
• Teaching life skills allows people to be more self-aware.
• People can improve weaknesses by identifying them.

Mind-Body Problem

• Aristotle and Plato debated human psychology, such as nature versus nurture.
• Dualism: mind and body are separate but intertwined (Rene Descartes).
• The mind and body contribute to mental activity and behavior.
• Nature and nurture are inseparable.

Culture

• Culture includes shared customs, religion, traditions, and a way of life among the group.
• Functional magnetic resonance imaging uses machines to record brain patterns using scanning and pictures.

Electroencephalography (EEG)

• Measures brain activity through changes in electrical activity caused by changes in the magnetic field.

Types of Psychology

• Clinical: Characterizes and treats mental illnesses through research and therapy.
• Cognitive: Fundamental mental behavior skills, like memory, sensation, and perception.
• Cultural: Explores how geography, tradition, and religions influence psychology, linking to sociology and anthropology.
• Developmental: Studies human development from childhood through adolescence.

Health Psychology

• Investigates the impact of psychology on health.
• Stress, loneliness, and compulsivity negatively impact someone; social support and happiness positively affect someone.
• Industrial and organizational involves interpersonal relationships during work, management, communication, and marketing.
• The science of psychology researches relationships, friendships, or partnerships.
• Social personality research is related to thoughts, feelings, and factors influencing it.
• Critical thinking involves systematically questioning and evaluating information with evidence.
• Amiable skepticism requires being open to new ideas but wary of unsupported findings.
• Biases stem from personal or political agendas; needing critical thinking to analyze.

Statistics

• Mean is the mathematical average of a data set.
• Median: The central value in a data set, falling between the lowest and highest values.
• Mode: The most frequent score or value in a data set.
• Difference between biological, cultural, and individual viewpoints.
• Social level analysis focuses on interpersonal behavior and social cognition.
• Social level studies: groups, relationships, persuasion, influence, workplace, attitudes, stereotypes, perceptions.

William Wundt

• The father of psychology.
• His approach was structuralism, to analyze the mind's structure which could be broken down into basic sensations and emotions.
• Introspection describes a person's thoughts and feelings in response to stimulation.
• Critical thinking requires systematically questioning and evaluating information using validated evidence.
• Replicability: Repeating a prior research study to confirm results.
• Size and diversity of the sample matter (larger, more diverse=accurate representation of population).

Big Data

• Uses tools from computer science to draw data and find patterns in psychology.

Different Levels for Analysis

• Biological: brain systems, neurochemistry, and genetics.
• Biological studies neuroanatomy, animal research, brain imaging, neurotransmitters, hormones, animals studies, drug studies, gene mechanism, heritability, twin, and adoption studies.
• Individual Level: individual differences, perception, cognition, and behavior.
• Individual studies- personality, gender, developmental age groups, self-concept, thinking, decision making, language, memory, seeing, hearing, observable actions, responses, physical movements.
• Social level: interpersonal behavior and social cognition.
• Social studies groups, relationships, persuasion, influence, workplace, attitudes, stereotypes, and perceptions.
• Cultural level: thoughts, actions, behaviors in different societies and cultural groups.
• Cultural studies: norms, beliefs, values, symbols, and ethnicity.

Naturalistic observation

• Any study conducted when the researcher is not involved.
• Participant observation: the researcher is directly involved.

Natural Selection

• Natural Selection: adaptation more likely passed down.
• Epigenetics: The study of biological or environmental influences on gene expression.
• Divergent thinking: finding multiple solutions through creativity and collaboration.
• Divergent thinking ex: Brainstorming and thinking 'outside the box'.
• Convergent thinking: selecting the best option by evaluating.
• Convergent thinking ex: Evaluating and narrowing options.
• Case studies: examine an atypical individual or a pre-existing case that researchers describe.
• Case studies detect certain precursors to events.
• Experimental studies and naturalistic correlations can also be types of studies.
• Research method categories: case studies, correlational studies, etc.

Inferential Statistics

• Inferential statistics enable researchers to decide whether any differences between 2+ groups are due to true differences or chance variations.
• Descriptive measures: observing behavior to determine a behavior objectively, scientifically describing human and animal behavior.
• Descriptive ex: An observer could record the types of food people eat, count penguin mating behaviors, or tally the number of mentions for poverty or mental illness.
• Correlation reads with trends between the two measurements.
• Positive correlation indicates that the trend increases gradually, negative the opposite.
• Research design: Natural observation is a descriptive of cases with passive reserachers making no changes.
• Hypothesis: A testable prediction that is narrower than the theory.

Observational Definitions

• Observational definitions- defines something by how it is measured.
• Third variable problem with directly manipulated ones, therefore unmeasured variable might be the cause.
• Experimental biases- using handpicked samples, which could be up to the experiment.
• Independent variable: The one being manipulated.

Dependent Variable

• The measurable outcome after manipulating a variable.
• Control group in an experiment: participants receiving no intervention that is unrelated to the independent variable being investigated.
• Experimental group: The participants in an experiment who receive the treatment.
• Confound: Anything disrupting an experiment by introducing an unknown, uncontrolled variable.
• Four levels of analysis include: biological, individual, social, and or cultural.

Scientific Method

• The scientific method uses systematic dynamic procedure of observing/measuring phenomena, to describe prediction, control, and explanation.
• The IRB ensures fair, safe, treatment of the patient and respect for persons.
• Ethical research ensures people avoid experiments that are physically harmful, are given information to volunteer, and ensures deception is not used to trick the participants.
• Informed consent form: assuring there are no dangerous elements and a guarantee of privacy.
• Random assignment vs selection is different
• Random assignment places participants into different conditions for the experiment to give all levels of independent selection.
• Random selection means every person has an unequal chance of being selected.
• IRB (institutional review boards) conduct to make sure risks are not possible to people during study.
• Hypothesis has many steps, and the theory explains interconnected ideas or concepts (empirical evidence).

Direction of Correlation

• Direction of correlation have values between -1.0 and +1.0
• A perfect correlation makes a straight line graph.
• Confidentiality is meant to protect PII.
• Debriefing is informing after the research is done what the actual question was.
• Anonymity does not require that you collect identifying information.
• With risk/ benefit and Justice the risks have to be known and fair to all.

Type of Reliability

• Types include: testing more than once, and it has to be valid(measure what is supposed to be measured).
• There are also construct/ external internal validities.
• If something looks wrong throw it off
• Utilize your common sense, it may work
• Never stay on a question for too long.

Test your knowledge of psychology concepts. This quiz covers topics such as the focus of psychology, the nature vs. nurture debate, brain regions, research projects, and cognitive biases.