Psychology Notes - Unit 1 PDF

Chapter 1 · Current definition of Psychology - Its the science that studies behavior and the physiology and cognitive processes that underlie behavior - The profession that applies the accumulated knowledge if this science to practical problems · Pre-19th century...

Chapter 1 · Current definition of Psychology - Its the science that studies behavior and the physiology and cognitive processes that underlie behavior - The profession that applies the accumulated knowledge if this science to practical problems · Pre-19th century o Mind body problem The mind and the soul are one. Meaning the mind is a material thing that interacts with the body · 19th century and beyond o Wilhelm Wundt Founding of psychology - Combined what areas of research to create psychology Combined philosophy with psychology - What year did he build a lab, which we designate as psychology’s birthday? Built a lab in 1879 - First definiti-on of psychology “Scientific study of conscious experience” aka consciousness What is consciousness The state or quality awareness or of being aware of an external object or something within oneself o The first debate: - Edward Titchener and Structuralism · What does a structuralist study? Or how do they define consciousness? concentrates on the elements of consciousness - William James and Functionalism · How do they define consciousness -​ Consciousness is a stream not something to be broken into pieces o Sigmund Freud - Psychodynamic Approach  · Behavior is governed by what? o Skinner & Watson - Behaviorism · What should psychological research study? · What is the behavior? o Rogers & Maslow - Humanism · What do they believe? · What do they think about the psychoanalytic and behaviorist theory? -​ Humanism is a theoretical orientation that emphasizes the unique qualities of humans, especially their freedom and their potential for personal growth. -​ Optimistic view of human nature · Modern History o Clinical Psychology - How was it born? - What is it? o Cognitive Revolution - Define Cognition o Culture · Themes o Empirical o Theoretically Diverse o Socio-historical context o Behavior has multiple causes o Culture and heritage shape behavior Chapter 2 · Scientific method 1. ​ Formulate a testable question and hypothesis -​ Hypothesis: a tentative prediction. About relationship between 2 or more variables  a. Identify variables -​ Factors or characteristics manipulated and measured (ex: eyes open or closed and measure violent acts) b. operational definition -​ Describes the actions and/or operations that will be used to measure or control a variable how things are measured in an experiment. You are stating how you are going to measure it. Example Includes: You are interested in whether people feel stressed while public speaking -​ You measure their heart rate, or the amount of time they say um 2. ​ Select the research method and design the study a. Primary Methods -​ Experiments and Descriptive(does not manipulate variables) or Correlational Research Methods Examples Include: -​ Case study: analyzes of special individuals -​ Survey: asking people questions -​ Naturalistic observations: observes natural behavior 3. ​ Collect the data 4. ​ Analyze the data and draw conclusions 5. ​ Report the findings -​ findings/experiments are published in journals -​ The work is peer reviewed · Experiment o definition -​ Allows for detection of cause-and-effect relationships. Manipulates variables to observe whether any changes occur in a 2nd variable. o IV vs DV -​ Independent variable: manipulated by the experimenter -​ Dependent variable: affected by the manipulation of the IV Examples: -​ Mode of viewing (IV) -​ Violent act count (DV) o Experimental group vs control group (placebo) -​ Experimental group: treated with the independent variable -​ Control: don't get treated with independent or receive a placebo -​ Placebo: substance or treatment that has no therapeutic effect (a sham) o Extraneous variables -​ Any variable other than the independent variable that may influence the dependent variable \ -​ Aka safeguard  Examples: caffeine IV affect mario kart performance DV -​ Extraneous variable could be the gaming skills o Random assignmentà Controls for what? -​ Any participant in the study has an equal chance of being assigned to any condition (experimental or control) in the study -​ Equally distributes extraneous variables across conditions -​ Essential part of experimental research · Descriptive/correlational methods o Naturalistic observation- - Definition: Careful observation of behavior without intervening directly with the study subjects. Behavior is allowed to unfold naturally (without Interference) in its natural environment - Advantage: Allows researchers to study behavior under conditions that are less artificial than experiments. Another is that engaging in naturalistic observation can be a good starting point when little is known about the behavior under study. Can be used to study many aspects of animal behavior - Less artificial than in experiments - Good starting point- if not much is known about a behavior - Disadvantage: researchers often have trouble making their observations unobtrusively so they don't affect their participants behavior - subjects become aware of being observed -known as reactivity- subject behavior is altered by the presence of an observer -Hard to transform observations into useable data · Reactivity: Occurs when a subject's behavior is altered by the presence of an observer o Case Study - Definition: an in-depth investigation of an individual subject. A variety of data collection techniques can be used in case studies. - Advantage - Disadvantage o Survey - Definition: questionnaires or interviews that gather information about specific aspects of participants background, attitudes, beliefs, or behavior - Advantage: Used to obtain information on aspects of behavior that are difficult to observe directly. Make it ebay to collect data on attitudes and opinions from large samples of participants  - Disadvantage: surveys are declining which lead to sampling bias increasing. · Correlations o What is it? Two variables are related to each other. o Direction (pos & neg) Positive: indicated that two variables covary (change together) in the same direction. Meaning high scores on variable X are associated with high scores on variable Y Negative: indicated that two variables covary in the opposite direction. Meaning the people who score high on variable X tend to score low on variable Y. o Magnitude: Strength of the relationship is independent of its direction. Stronger correlations:more predictive power 0 to 1 or 0 to -1 o Correlation doesn't equal causation: Doesn't tell us whether a cause-and effect relationship exists between the two variables. If X and Y are correlated then we can conclude that - Third variable problem: X and Y could be related- but · Evaluating research o Sampling Bias: sampling that are not representative of the population Sample: collection of subjects selected for the study Population: is larger collection of people that researchers want to generalize to o Placebo Effects: thinking you're getting a treatment can change your behavior. Participants expectations lead them to experience some change even though they receive fake treatment o Distortions in self-report: Plagued by several kinds of distortion. They think they're doing something but their perception is distorted. Saying you do more of something when you aren't - Social desirability: tendency to give socially approved answers to oneself o Experimenter Bias: unintentional effect that experimenters may exert on their results. Really want to find something to get the results> our influences can have more effect on our results - Rat study: Rosenthal's study about Maze Bright and Maze dull rats Chapter 3 · Nervous system: your bodies massive, complex communication network, handles information o CNS (central nervous system) : brain and spinal cord o PNS (Peripheral nervous system): everything but the brain and spinal cord - Somatic: (voluntary) muscle movements - Autonomic (involuntary) muscle movements (heart rate, digestion system) · Sympathetic (fight or flight)– increases heart rate, decrease digestion · Parasympathetic (rest and digest)– decreases heart rate, increases digestion Vagus Nerve: a cranial nerve that plays a key role in signaling the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system. May help reduce some systems · Brain o Hindbrain: Basic biological essentials like breathing and heartbeat - Pons: sleep and arousal - Medulla: heart rate, digestion, breathing (if hurt or damaged, person could pass away). Essential life functions - Cerebellum: motor function & fine motor skills(writing), smoothe motor movements · Damaged cerebellum o Midbrain: Sleep and arousal -​ Aware and consciousness - reticular formation: runs through the hindbrain and midbrain up to the forebrain important for many vital functions like arousal( sleep and wakefulness) o Forebrain= largest part of the brain - Thalamus: sensory relay station - Limbic system - Thalamus: sensory relay station· Hypothalamus: Four F’s (feeding, fleeing, fighting, f******) o Damaged: cant modulate the hypothalamus behaviors and can lead to loss of different sensory · Amygdala: Where we learn knew fears responses and basic emotions responses o S.M. Case study of a woman who had her Amygdala damaged who can't learn new fears or display fears anymore. (No fear response) · Hippocampus: creates and stores new memories o H.M: patient had an experimental surgery to attempt to get rid of seizures. His seizures were gone but then they ended up being damaged to his Hippocampus which caused a severe memory impairment. He forgot everything as soon as it happened. (couldn't form new memories) - Cerebrum · Left and right hemisphere= connected by the corpus callosum (the nerve fibers within the longitudinal fissure which allows the neurons and cells to communicate with each other. If damaged leads to coordination issues) - Cerebral cortex · Occipital: (behind parietal lobe) o Vision · Parietal: ​ o Somatosensory-sense of touch and knowing where your body is (on the top middle) · Temporal o Auditory information(understanding language) When we hear something it goes here. (right next to or above the ear) o Fusiform gyrus (FFA) -​ Allows us to recognize faces - Damage to this area can result in (prosopagnosia) Face blindness · Frontal -​ Primary motor cortex, and important for controlling our behaviors -​ The size corresponds to the amount of cortex dedicated to control meaning a significant portion of your cortex is responsible for sensing and moving your face -​ Involved in motor function (primiary motor cortex), problem solving, spontaneity, memory, language initiation, judgement, impulse control, and social and sexual behavior o Phineas Gage: -Damage to his frontal lobe -”the intellectual balance between his human facilities and animal urges has been destroyed”  -Became irritable, drunkard, a brawler, swearer. Ended up becoming homeless because he couldn't keep a job o Prefrontal cortex: are executive functions. More slowly to develop -​ Attentional control- chose what to pay attention to -​ Inhibitory control- ability to override habits or dominant responses - Neuroplasticity (Taxi Drivers & Juggling) - The ability of the brain to form and reorganize synaptic connections, especially in response to learning or experience or following injury -When learning a new skill it changes your brain o Neurons: cells in our brains and are the building blocks and are the one of the main types of cells in the CNS and PNS -​ Every thought and behavior we have is because of neurons and their communication with each other - Neuron: (receive, process, and transmit info to other cells) vs Glia (helper cells for the neurons. They support, insulate, and get rid of waste materials in the CNS and PNS) - Neuronal Anatomy(Soma, Dendrites, Axon, Terminal button, Synapse)g Soma: Cell nucleus (control center) integrates the information received from all other cells Dendrites: where the neuron receives info from other neurons. Axon: long thick fiber where the information that is being sent travels along Terminal Buttons: terminals at the end of the axon that sends the neurotransmitters to other cells dendrites when activated Synapse: Quick recap: Neuronal structure: dendrites, cell body, axon, and terminal buttons Information travels from one neuron to another by neurotransmitters The interconnected activity of thousands of neurons together leads to cognition Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that have large impacts on behavior l