Psychology 2 - Notes PDF

**CHAPTER 1** **PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC THINKING** **Theme**: What is the need for psychology **What is psychology?** - Why we do what we do - The study of the brain from a social perspective - Behaviour Most people use only 10% of their brain - false Hypnosis enhances the accuracy o...

**CHAPTER 1** **PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENTIFIC THINKING** **Theme**: What is the need for psychology **What is psychology?** - Why we do what we do - The study of the brain from a social perspective - Behaviour Most people use only 10% of their brain - false Hypnosis enhances the accuracy of our memory - false The lie detector (polygraph) test is 90 to 95% accurate - false **Defining Psychology** - The scientific study of the mind, brain, and behavior **Levels of analysis** - Social culture influences → social or behavioural level - Psychological → Mental or neurological - Biological → molecular or neurochemical **Naive Realism** - believing the world is as we see it - We have a rich representation of the world around us - We have a sense that we have a robust, fluid, veridical representation of the world - We 'see' the entire world - We are aware of our surroundings **Five Main Challenges of Psychology** 1. Human behaviour is difficult to predict - Actions are multiply determined 2. Psychological influences are rarely independent 3. Individual differences among people 4. People influence one another - Reciprocal determinism (the idea that people influence each other) 5. Behaviour is shaped by culture - Emic (focused on one culture) vs. etic (cross-cultural) approaches **Thinking Scientifically** \- Not all common sense is wrong \- Science is not a body of knowledge \- Science is an approach to evidence **Scientific Theory** - An explanation for a large number of findings in the natural world - From a theory, one can develop a testable prediction, called a hypothesis **Some Misconceptions** A Theory... - Explains just one event - Is just an educated guess **Bias Awareness** Confirmation Bias - The tendency to seek evidence that supports our hypothesis - Neglecting or distorting contradicting evidence - "Once you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail" **Belief Perseverance** - The tendency to stick to our initial beliefs even when evidence is contradictory - \- Also known as the "don't confuse me with the facts" bias **Metaphysical Claims** - Assertions about the world that are just not testable **PSEUDOSCIENCE - IMPOSTERS OF SCIENCE** Set of claims that seem scientific but lack defenses from bias Ex. self-help books **Warning Signs of Pseudoscience** \- exaggerated claims \- Over reliance on anecdotes \- absents of connectivity to other research \- Lack of peer review \- Meaningless cycle ballble which are words that sounds scientific but are meaningless \- Talk of proof instead of evidence \- Lack of self-correction **Why are we susceptible to Pseudoscience** Apophenia -- tendency to perceive meaningful connections among unrelated phenomena Pareidolia -- seeing meaningful images in meaningless visual stimuli Common Fallacies: Emotional Reasoning Fallacy -- using emotions rather than evidence Bandwagon Fallacy -- lot of people believe it so it must be true Not Me Fallacy -- other people may have those biases, but not me. Believing we are immune from the errors others think **Why should we care about Pseudoscience?** 3 major reasons: - Opportunity cost (doing things without evidence. ex. Buying medicine without asking a doctor) - Direct harm (ex. The rebirthing story) - Inability to think scientifically **Scientific Skepticism** A willingness to: - Keep an open mind to all claims - Insist on persuasive evidence before accepting claims - Accept claims only after researchers have subjected them to careful scientific tests - "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" - Carl Sagan **Critical Thinking --** exercising through judgment or observation (analysis) 6 principles of critical thinking: 1. Ruiling out rival hypothesis - Important alternate explanations should be considered 2. Correlation vs. Causation - Can we be sure A causes B Examples: - The more firefighters at a fire, the more damage is done. - Children who get tutored get worse grades than those who do not get tutored 3. Falsifiability - Can the claim be disproven 4. Replicability - Possible to duplicate scientific findings? 5. Extraordinary Claims - Is the evidence as convincing as the claims? 6. Occam's Razor - Also known as principle of parsimony or KISS - Does a simpler explanation fit the data equally well? **HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY** **Psychology emerged from philosophy and originally considered a part of philosophy** - William Wundt created the first psychology laboratory (1879) - William James is considered the first North American psychologist - Considered a breaking away from spiritualism - Many early psychologists looked, but couldn\'t find evidence of psychic abilities **Theoretical Perspectives** 1. Structuralism - Wiliam Wundt and E.B. Titchner - Aim: identify the most fundamental elements of psychological experience 2. Functionalism - William James, heavily influenced by Charles Darwin - Aim: Understand the adaptive purposes of psychological characteristics 3. Psychoanalysis - Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung - Aim: Uncover internal processes that we are unaware of 4. Behaviorism - John Watson and B.F. Skinner - Aim: Uncovering the general laws of learning by focusing on external observable elements - Described the mind as a black box - Believed that you cannot measure the mind, but you can measure the output (behaviour) 5. Cognitivism - John Piaget and Ulric Neisser - Aim: Understand mental process underlying thinking in a variety of contexts **What can we take away?** Structuralism: insisted on systemic data collection and empiricism Functionalism: using evolutionary theory in modern psychology Psychoanalysis: starting point for conceiving mental processes outside of conscious awareness Behaviorism: helped to understand learning and the importance of scientific rigour Cognitivism: focus on our interpretation of events **Modern Psychology** - Clinical: mental disorders - Counselling: temporary or situational - Experimental: research - School: working with teachers, parents, and children - Development: how people change over time - Biopsychologists: how people change over time - Forensic: prison inmates or research on eyewitnesses or juries **Two Broad Categories of Research** Basic Research: - Examines how things work (e.g., mind, brain, memory, perception) Applied Research: - Utilize the research in everyday life **The Great Debate** Nature vs. Nurture - Are our behaviors a result of our genes or our environment? Free Will vs. Determination - Do we have free will? Or determined by environmental influence? **CHAPTER 2 - RESEARCH METHODS** **Facilitated Communication** - Means for non-verbal children on the autism spectrum to communicate - Autism was thought to be a motor disorder - At first, there was stunning progress - Soon after there were allegations of sexual abuse against parents, despite no physical evidence Research Design Matters - Helps eliminate bias - At all costs, avoid subjective impressions **Prefrontal Lobotomy** - Used for severe mental disorders - Cut fibers connecting the frontal lobe and thalamus - Controlled studies showed it didn't work **Two Modes of Thinking** System 1 (intuitive): fast, instinctive, emotional - Ex. Opening doors System 2 (analytical): slow, deliberate, logical - Ex. Studying textbooks **Common Heuristics** Representative Heuristics - Assume homogeneity (that all members of a category are the same) - "Like goes with like" - Assume that each member of a category is representative of that category - Stereotypes Ignoring the Base Rate - We are not very good with Base Rates Consider the following: - Henri is a quiet man, who likes the read poetry - Is he more likely to be and English professor or a truck driver? - People normally say "English professor" due to representatives - But people tend to ignore the Base Rate Availability Heuristic - Used to judge the frequency of events - The judgement is based on how easily and example comes to mind - Plane crashes vs. Car crashes **Cognitive Biases** - Systematic [errors in thinking] that can lead to confidence in false conclusions Hindsight Bias: - People think after the fact they would have known something before the fact - Turing vague statements into solid predictions after the fact - "I knew it all along", "I told you so" Overconfidence Bias: - Tendency to overestimate our ability to make correct predictions How do we avoid biases and heuristics - Test specific hypotheses derived from broader theories - Theories are never proven, but hypotheses can be confirmed or disconfirmed **The Scientific Toolbox** [Naturalistic Observation:] - Watching behaviour in real-world settings - High external validity -- findings are generalizable to the real world - Low internal validity -- ability to draw cause-and-effect inference - You do not interfere with the study [Case Study:] - Studying one or a small number of people for an extended period of time - Used to study brain damage or mental illness - Excellent for existence proofs, but can be misleading or anecdotal [Self-Report Measures and Surveys:] - Self-report measures assess characteristics such as personality or mental illness - Surveys ask for opinions or abilities - In order for these measures to be accurate certain protocol must be met: random selection, validity, and reliability Reliability: Consistency of measurement Types of Reliability: - Test-retest reliability: similar scores over time - Interrater reliability: two raters should produce similar scores Validity: Extent to which a measure assesses what it claims to measure **[A test must be reliable to be valid, but a reliable test can still be completely invalid ]** Pros of Self-Report Measures: - Easy to administer - Direct (self) assessment of a person's state Cons of Self-Report Measures: - Accuracy is skewed for certain groups - Potential dishonesty - Response sets -- tendency of participants to distort their responses - Positive impression management - Malingering Rating Data - Can ask someone who knows the participant will to evaluate them - Avoids some of the problems with self-report but can cause new problems - Halo effect: tendency of ratings of one positive characteristic to spill over to influence the ratings of other characteristics [Correlation Designs:] Examine the extent to whfich two variables are associated Correlations range from --1 to +1 - Positive: as one increases so does the other - Negative: As one increases, the other decreases - Zero: no relationship between variables [Experimental Designs:] Experiments need\... - Random assignment or participants to: - Experimental Group -- receives the manipulation - Control Group -- does not receive manipulation - The independent variable is manipulated - The dependent variable is measured - Independent causes dependent Issues: Confounds -- differences between the experimental and control groups other than the independent variable Cause and Effect -- is possible to infer, with random assignment and manipulation of an independent variable Between-group -- 2+ non-overlapping groups given different treatments (e.g., measuring depression in drug and placebo groups) Within-group -- a single group given 2+ treatments (e.g., measuring mood before and after music). Each subject acts as their own control Why are we so susceptible to illusory correlations? Correlation vs. Causation - Just because two things are related, does not mean that one causes the other **Experimentation Pitfalls** Placebo effect -- improvement because you expect improvement Nocebo effect -- harm resulting from the expectation of harm - Participants must be blind (double blind study) Demand characteristic -- cues that participants pick up allowing them to guess the researchers' hypothesis - Disguising the study's purpose can decrease this Experimenter expectancy effect -- researchers\' hypothesis lead them to unintentionally bias the outcome - Double blind design can overcome this **Ethical Issues** Tuskegee Study (1932-1972) - Men diagnosed with syphilis - Never given treatment in order to study the disease **Modern Ethics for Human Research** Research Ethics Board (REB) - Informed Consent - Justification of Deception - Debriefing of Participants afterwards Canadian Council of Animal care (CCAC) - 7-8% of research is psychology uses animals - Majority are rodents, fish, and birds **Statistics** Descriptive Statistics -- numerical characteristics of the nature of the data Inferential Statistics -- mathematical methods so we can generalize findings from our sample to the population Central Tendency -- where the group tends to cluster - Mean: average of all scores - Median: middle score in the data - Mode: the most frequent score in the data Variability -- how loosely or tightly bunched the scores are Range -- difference between the highest and lowest scores Standard Deviation -- variance of a data set **Inferential Statistics** Statistical significance -- finding would have occurred by chance less than 1 in 20 times Practical Significance -- real-world importance - "a difference is a difference that makes a difference" **Peer Review** Process to help identify and correct flaws in research and its conclusion **Evaluating Media** - Most reporters are not scientists - Consider the source - Tabloids vs. Science magazines Beware -- sharpening leveling and pseudosymmetry Sharpening -- tendency to exaggerate the gist or central message of a study Leveling -- tendency to minimize the less central details of a study Pseudosymmetry -- creating an appearance of controversy where none exists **CHAPTER 8 -- LANGUAGE, THINKING AND REASONING** Language -- arbitrary system of communication that combines symbols Some functions: - Communicate information - Social -- express out thoughts - Emotional -- express our feelings Why do we develop language? - Small case study in a village in Israel - 1/5 of the population is born deaf - Mutation on a gene that is passed down - Relatively isolated community - Community ended up making their own sign language Why did language evolve? - Need to communicate - Low social motivation = slower learning Features of Language - Highly practiced and automatic process Four levels of analysis that must coordinate: [Phonemes]: sounds of language - "Ingredients of a meal" - Categories of sounds - Probably around 100 - Each language = subset of them - 40-45 in English, range from 15-60 worldwide [Morphemes]: - smallest units of meaningful speech - "The menu items" - Sometimes includes whole words or parts of words - Created by stringing phenoms together - Convey information about semantics -- meaning derived from words and sentences - Most words are full words ("dog", "happy") - Some modifiers ("re", "-ish") [Syntax]: - rules (i.e., grammar) - "Putting the meal together" - The set of rules to construct sentences - Word order, morphological markers, and sentence structure [Extralinguistic information]: - important for interpretation - "Overall dining experience" - Not content of language - Critical to interpreting meaning - Facial expressions, tone of voice, previous statements by others - Helps interpret ambiguous information Pragmatics - Turn taking - Using polite language - Interesting stories, funny jokes - Opening/closing and conversation Paralinguistic - Vocal and non-vocal codes to signal attitude or emotion, to clarify or provide additional information - Intonation, stress, rate of delivery, pause Language Dialect - Variations of the same language - Use consistent syntax rules - "Where you at?" vs "What are you doing?" How and why? Language disadvantages: - Long learning period - Hefty brain power - Vocal tract increases choking Advantages must be useful - Communication of complex ideas - Coordinates social interactions - Assists in complex activities Studying language evolution complicated Phonemes, morphemes, and syntax are usually arbitrary Arbitrary nature of language allows flexibility Learning Language - Native language recognition before born - Various components learned in parallel - Babbling = practice using vocal tracts - Phoneme recognition during this time Learning Words - Comprehension precedes production, sometimes by months - Limited ability to coordinate sounds to produce words Milestones: - Recognize own name by 6 months - Comprehend other words by 10-12 months - Begin to produce words around 1 year - Tend to over and under extend word meaning Syntactic Development - Refers to combining words into phrases - First = one-word stage - 2 years = combine two words - Comprehend basic syntax rules before they can display them Pragmatics - Joint attention - Sharing interests - 9-12 months How Adults Talk to Children - Motherese, short, simple - Words paired with object - Expand child's speech Motherese - 4-month-olds prefer it - May help children attend - May simplify sounds into units Sign Language - Similar to spoken language in that it has its own set of phonemes (cheremes), words, syntax, and extralinguistic information - Same brain areas are involved (with some additional areas associated with spatial processing) - Devlopmental stages are the same as spoken language, including babbling with hands Bilingualism - The earlier the better - Usually have one dominant language, but proficient in both - Pass through same stages as monolinguists, although syntax is slowed - Heightened metalinguistic insight and tend to perform better on language tasks - It learned early = same brain areas - If learned later = different brain areas Language Deprivation - Cases like "Genie" and homesigners - Influence of nature and nurture - Not a strict critical period, but a sensitive period - Younger you are the better you will learn a new language ("less is more" theory) Theories of Language Acquistion: Imitation - Suggests babies hear language used in systematic ways and learn to use language as adults use it - Doesn\'t account for generative nature or language Nativist - Suggests that children born with some basic knowledge - Chomsky\'s language acquisition device - Difficult to falsify Social Pragmatics - Suggests that specific aspects of the social environment structure language learning - Requires assuming that infants have insight into others' thoughts General Cognitive Processing - General skills children apply across a variety of activities - Puzzle: Children learn language better than adults while adults overall better at learning things - Specific brain areas are recruited during language Broca's areas is involved in talking Wernicke's area is involved in comprehension Nonhuman Animal Communication - Animal species differ in the complexity and type of communication - Scent, visual, vocal - Most communication is geared towards mating and aggression (Ex. Honeybees and vervet monkeys) Teaching Human Language - Many attempts to teach non-humans or language, with mixed results (Ex. Chimpanzees, Bonobos, African grey parrot) - Humans appear unique in our ability to use language in sophisticated ways Linguistic Determinism - The view that we represent all thinking linguistically - Can thought exist without language? - Studies paralyzing vocal cords and using neuroimaging support that it can Linguistic Relativity - A less radical view, where characteristics of language shape our thought processes - Studies suggest language shapes some aspects of perception, memory, and thought - Difficulty in separating language from cultural differences MIDTERM FORMAT - Chapters 1, 2, 8, and 9 - 35-40 multiple choice - 10 term definition matching - 2 short answers, choose a or b Reading - Like language it becomes an automatic process - We often can't turn it off, even if we want to - Say aloud the colour of the ink in these examples Learning to Read We must learn four things prior to reading 1. Writing it meaningful 2. Writing moves in a specific direction 3. Recognizing letters of the alphabet 4. Printed letters correspond to specific sounds Once those are learned, we must master two more skills to become experts 1. Hoe words look on a page -- whole word recognition 2. How to sound out unfamiliar words -- phonetic decomposition Speed Reading - The average student reads 200-300 words per minute - The faster you read above 400 words per minute, the more your level of comprehension drops below 50% - Speed reading courses work by making you read faster, but you don't understand as much Thinking and Reasoning Thinking: any mental activity or processing of information Includes: - Learning, remembering, perceiving, communicating, believing, and deciding - Fundamental aspects of cognition Our brains are cognitive misers Top-Down Processing - Streamlines cognitive functioning by utilizing pre-existing knowledge - Includes use of concepts and schemas - Less cognitive effort over basic information = resources for complex reasoning Bottom-Up Processing - Loud noise capturing your attention - Things that automatically catch your attention Higher Order Cognition -- Decision-Making - The process of selecting among a set of possible alternatives - Many of our daily decisions are made implicitly and based on cognitive economy, - Crucial not to follow our gut when evaluating scientific evidence - Framing has an impact on decisions even when the underlying information relevant to these decisions is identical Higher order Cognition -- Problem Solving - Generating a cognitive strategy to accomplish a specific goal - We often rely on algorithms to solve problems - Step-by-step learned procedure - If those steps don't work, try breaking a problem down into easier subproblems - Can also attempt to draw an analogy between current and past problems Obstacles to Problem Solving 1. Salience of surface similarities 2. Mental sets 3. Functional fixedness Models of Mind - Thought the mind worked like a computer in the past, but not so much now - Embodied accounts of thinking seem to better explain our thinking and reasoning abilities - Knowledge organized and accessed in manner that enables us to simulate out actual experiences **CHAPTER 9 -- INTELLIGENCE AND IQ TESTING** Definitional Confusion - Cannot agree on a precise definition of intelligence - How do you know if someone is smart? - What about your pet Intelligence as Sensory Capacity - Galton's theory - Better senses acquire = more knowledge - Research findings: - Different sensory capacities only weakly related - These measures are not highly related to intelligence Intelligence as Abstract Thinking - Binet and Simon's 1905 first intelligence test - Focused on higher mental processes -- reasoning, understanding, judgemnet - Most agree intelligence related to: - Abstract thinking - Adapting to novel environment circumstances - Ability to acquire knowledge - Ability to benefit from experience General vs. Specific Abilities - Positive correlations among all items on IQ tests led to Spearman's development of g and s - General intelligence (g) accounts for overall differences in intellect among people - Our particular skills are reflected in our specific abilities Is there more than one type of IQ? Fluid and Crystalized Intelligence - Cattell and Horn theorized that "intelligence" = mix of 2 capacities 1. Capacity to learn new ways of solving problems, or fluid intelligence 2. Accumulated knowledge, or crystallized intelligence Multiple Intelligence - Gardner's "frames of mind" - ways of thinking about the world - Argued that autistic savants provided support for different types of IQ Chris Langan - Estimated IQ score of 195 - Perfect SAT score - Dropped out of two colleges - Works on a farm Daniel Tammet - Diagnosed with Aspergers - Incredible memory - Incredible calculation - Can learn languages very quickly Linguistic -- speak and write well Logico-mathematical -- use logic and mathematical skills to solve problems, such as scientific questions Spatial -- think and reason about objects in three-dimensional space Musical -- perform, understand, and enjoy music Bodily-kinesthetic -- manipulate the body in sports, dance, or other physical endeavors Interpersonal -- understand and interact effectively with others Intrapersonal -- understand and possess insight into self Naturalistic -- recognize, identify, and understand animals, plants, and other living things Gardner's Multiple Intelligence Mixed scientific reaction to this model - Virtually impossible to falsity - Not clear why certain abilities classify as intelligences - No good evidence these intelligences are truly independent Triarchic Model - Sternberg theorized 3 largely distinct types of intelligence - Analytical (book smart) - Practical (street smart) - Creative (creativity) - Believes having one does not ensure that you have others - Several weaknesses - Practical intelligence not independent of g - We all possess strengths and weaknesses, but might not be a distinct as theorized Biological Bases of Intelligence - Brain volume correlates with IQ (0.3 and 0.4) - Moderate correlation -- may not be directly causal - Third variable? Nutrition? - Evidence cerebral cortex development is slower in gifted children - IQ may reflect effficency of mental processing - Working memory is also closely related to IQ - Correlation of about 0.5 - Prefrontal cortex is especially active during highly "g-loaded" tasks Testing Intelligence - Can't just ask people how smart they are - Self-reports only correlate 0.2 to 3.0 with objective measures of IQ Standardization High School - Average student -- a large variety University - Average student = higher achievement Tests thousands of people and compare scores to data base Ensures scores are comparable Calculating IQ - Norms allow us to compare a person's results on a test to others - Binet's concept of mental age led to the development of the intelligence - Works for children and not adults Eugenics Movement - Soon after IQ tests developed, began to be abused - Led to worry about "low IQ" in certain groups, and the eugenics movement - Forcible sterilization and immigration laws IQ Testing Today - Most commonly used IQ test for adults is the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scare (WAIS) - Consists of 15 subtests that give five scores: - Overall IQ - Verbal comprehension - Perceptual reasoning - Working memory - Processing speed Culture-Fair IQ Test - Consists of abstract-reasoning items that don't depend on language - Raven's Progressive Matrices Post-Seconday Admissions Tests - Designed to test overall competence in a specific domain or predict academic success - SAT scores correlate highly (0.7 to 8.0) with IQ Reliability of IQ Scores - In adults, scores tend to be highly stable over long periods of time - Prior to age three, though, IQ tests are very unstable and poor predictors of adults IQ Validity of IQ Scores - Moderately successful at predicting grades - But because this correlation is much lower than 1.0 - Success also depends on motivation, intellectual curiosity, effort and mental energy - Predict performance across wide variety of occupations and associated with health-related outcomes (health literacy) - Hold up even when social class (i.e., socioeconomic status) is accounted for Intellectual Disability Defined as: - Onset prior to adulthood - IQ below 70 - Inadequate adaptive functioning (e.g., feeding oneself, communicating, etc) - About 1% of the population - The more severe the intellectual disability, the less likely it is to run in families - Over 200 different causes, most common are Fragile X syndrome and Down syndrome Mental Giftedness - Refers to the top 2% of IQ scores - Large portion occupy certian professions: doctors, lawyers, engineers, professors - Terman's "Termites" showed that prodigies do not "burn out" or have higher rates of mental illness What makes a genius? - Genetic factors play a role, but so does practice and dedication - Intellectual brilliance with little effort is very unrealistic Nature vs. Nurture Genetic Influences on IQ - Family studies confirm that IQ runs in families - Sibling IQs correlate at 0.5, cousins at 0.15 - Twin studies: - Identical -- 0.7 to 0.8 - Fraternal -- 0.3 to 0.4 - High levels of environmental deprivation may swamp out effects of genes - Twins reared apart are as similar in IQ as twins reared together - Adoption studies point to the influence of environment, but still strongly support importance of genetics on IQ Environmental Influences on IQ - If you think IQ is fixed -- tend to take less academic risks - Children from larger families have slightly lower IQs than children from smaller families - Amount of schooling seems to exert a causal influence on IQ - Early intervention programs (Head Start) produce short-term increases in IQ - Do result in lower rates of high school dropouts and being helf back in schools - Small impact of expectancy effects by teachers on IQ (lower number of dropouts) Poverty and IQ - Jensen's cumulative deficit study - Lack of proper nutrition and exposure to lead may lead to lower IQs - Scientific controversy regarding impact of breastfeeding on IQ Flynn Effect - The average IQ of the population has been rising by about 3 point/10 years - Most likely the result of environmental changes 1. Increased test sophistication 2. Increased complexity of modern world 3. Better nutrition 4. Changes at home and school Sex Differences in IQ - Most research finds few or no average differences between males and females - But, males are more variable in their scores - Consistent differences in terms of specific mental abilities - Females tend to do better on some verbal tasks and recognizing emotions in others - Males tend to do better on spatial ability test, like mental rotation and geography Causes of Sex Differences - Some may be biological - Most appear to be due to environmental differences - Infants show few or no differences - Sex differences in problem solving strategies