Introduction to Psychology: Foundations Lecture Notes PDF

Lecture Notes Textbook INSTRUCTOR: DR. LORENA RUCI [email protected] PSYC 1101 D INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY: FOUNDATIONS...

Lecture Notes Textbook INSTRUCTOR: DR. LORENA RUCI [email protected] PSYC 1101 D INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY: FOUNDATIONS Autism-Vaccine Myth Tuskegee Syphilis Study: ETHICS IN PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH Doctor violated medical code by manipulating Intended to follow the natural and essentially creating data to prove that progression of syphilis Ethics is a set of general principles of how vaccines lead to autism, resulting in the anti- Offered free meals, treatment for “bad people should be educated, treated, and respected when participating in any study vaxx mindset that exists even today, causing blood” and burial insurance to African several diseases for which a vaccine is already participants, none of which were later discovered to still not be eradicated (e.g. Polio, given Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons under the Public Domain, for which vaccine was discovered in the 1930s)  *****need to be able to identify the principle being A. Research should strive to do good – GENERAL ETHICAL PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGISTS described in exams (A-E) beneficence - and avoid creating experiments that intentionally harm – maleficence. B. Maintaining the trust participants have on the Principle A: Beneficence and Nonmaleficence researcher; they must be honest and reliable Principle B: Fidelity and Responsibility Principle C: Integrity with participants, data, when and where The persistent Autism-Vaccines Myth findings are reported, etc. Potential risks and Principle D: Justice consequences of enrolling in the study must Principle E: Respect for People’s Rights and Dignity be made fully aware to the participants before enrolling. C. accurate, honest, and non-biased practices in the science, teaching, and practice of psychology. D. Establishing equality; not excluding any groups from the experiment unless relevant to the topic (e.g. female-centric studies do not require male participants) Inclusion criteria: attributes making participants relevant to a study Exclusion criteria: attributes preventing participants from entering a study E. each person is valued in the research process and researchers should take measures to respect and protect participants' rights, privacy, and welfare; participants must be made aware of the nature of the study in advance, and their privacy and confidentiality must be respected throughout; vulnerable populations must be protected IRB reviews research projects in the US to assess if it will be carried out in a way that is consistent with the general ethical principles: The proposed study will use sound research design. Risks associated with participation in the study are minimized and reasonable. The benefits of the research outweigh any potential risks. All participants can make an informed decision to participate in the study, and that decision may be withdrawn at any time without consequence to the participant. Safeguards are in place to protect the well-being of participants. All data collected will be kept private and confidential. Facebook Emotional Contagion Experiment: Altered the amount of positive vs. negative posts appearing in people’s feeds Those who saw more positive posts went on to create more positive posts of their own and vice versa – emotions are contagious  Outburst due to lack of informed consent for the participants whose privacy of personal information was compromised. Decisional impairment: a potential participant has diminished capacity to provide informed SPECIAL ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS consent, such as children and the mentally disabled, who may be unable to understand their rights and the associated risks of participation. Potential participants that are not able to legally give informed consent, such children or other individuals of special populations Situational vulnerability: freedom of choice to participate may be compromised due to the undue Two criteria for participation: influence of other factors, e.g. assumption of benefits such as food and medical care upon Informed consent from parent/guardian participation of disadvantaged populations, or prisoners who feel coerced to participate out of fear of Assent from potential participant punishment. Deception - When can we use it? Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons under the CCASA4.0 license These groups cannot be simply excluded from studies due to the Justice clause: No study should ever be conducted on vulnerable populations if the research question could be reasonably carried out using participants without these vulnerabilities. Researchers should be responsive to the needs, conditions, and priorities of these individuals. IRB committees should include members with expertise on these populations. In instances of decisional impairment, consent to participate in the research process requires that two types of consent are acquired: Parents and guardians must provide informed consent on behalf of the participant and the participant must provide assent (affirmative permission to take part in the study). In this case, both parties are needed to give the okay to participate before their participation can begin.  In cases of situational vulnerability, additional safeguards should be put in place to prevent exploitation. Deception: in the event of the study being compromised by making participants aware of something, IRB approval is required to engage in participant deception: 1. The research poses no more than a minimal risk to participants. 2. The deception does not affect the well-being and the rights of the participants throughout the study. 3. Researchers must provide justification that using deception is the only way to conduct the study. 4. After the participant’s role in the study is finished, participants should be debriefed by researchers and provided with information about what the researcher was investigating and how their participation will contribute to the research question. Participants should also be allowed to ask questions and seek clarification about any part of the study. This helps them leave the study in a similar mental state as to when they entered the study. Stanley Milgram's 1961 experiment tested obedience to authority by instructing participants to administer increasingly severe electric shocks to a "learner" (a confederate) for wrong answers. Although no real shocks were given, participants believed they were inflicting pain, and 65% delivered shocks up to 450 volts despite the learner's distress. The study demonstrated that people are likely to follow authority, even to the point of harming others, challenging assumptions about personal morality. However, the experiment caused psychological distress to participants, raising ethical concerns about deception and respect for participants' rights. Today, such studies require strict ethical oversight. CORRELATION Never draw causalities between variables CORRELATIONAL STUDIES Correlational method: statistical procedure for determining whether there is a relationship between two variables Correlation = numerical index of degree of relationship Designed to identify “what goes with what” in nature Major advantage: identify relationships among variables as they occur naturally  HOW ARE TWO VARIABLES RELATED? Correlation is the direction and strength of a relationship between two variables r = +1 r = -1 r = +0.5 CORRELATIONAL STUDIES Correlation expressed as a number between 0 and 1 Can be positive or negative Numbers closer to 1 (+ or –) indicate stronger relationship – 1 (perfect negative relationships) 0 (no relationship) + 1 (perfect positive relationship) Correlation does not indicate causation: two problems Negative Positive correlation correlation CORRELATIONS CAN BE MISLEADING SPURIOUS CORRELATIONS SPURIOUS CORRELATIONS DIRECTIONALITY  Simple random sample THIRD-VARIABLE PROBLEM Stratified random sample: a more careful approach to random sampling and is particularly useful when there are two or more identifiable subgroups in the population. A stratification divides the population first by subgroups, and then randomly takes samples in proportion to the population of interest (100 students with equal numbers of male and female students - first separate students by gender and then select an equal number from each gender group) Non-random sample: when not all individuals are equally likely to participate; selecting relevant sectors because of the nature of the research. Experimental group: the group that received the treatment of interest. Which correlation coefficient is the strongest? TEST YOUR a. 0.4 KNOWLEDGE b. -0.4 Control group: identical to the experimental group c. 2 d. -0.8 in all factors except they lack the treatment or effect of the study.  Interpret this correlation: - Correlation between the amount of daylight a person EXAMPLES gets, and their happiness scores is positive. What does this mean? Internal validity: there are no other explanations EXAMPLES for the relationship between an independent and dependent variable. There are no extraneous What is the “third” variable? The number of churches in metropolitan areas is POSITIVELY correlated variables present. with the number of crimes committed. Does going to church increase crime rates? Do criminals go to church after committing crimes? What is happening??? External validity: whether the results from the study can be applied beyond the scope of the original study, such as other settings, people, time periods, etc.  Raw Data Descriptive statistics: statistical information describing a dataset, including frequencies; LOOKING FOR CONCLUSIONS: STATISTICS AND RESEARCH measures of central tendency such as mean, Statistics – using mathematics to organize, summarize, and median, mode; and measures of variability, interpret numerical data including range, variance, and standard deviation. Descriptive statistics: Organize and summarize Inferential statistics: Interpret and draw conclusions Descriptive statistics: Mean: Arithmetic average of scores Inferential statistics: tests and analyses that Median: score falling in the exact centre Mode: most frequently occurring score allow to draw conclusions from data, such as whether there is a measurable difference between two groups. Describing Data Middle 1. Mode – most frequent value 2. Median – look at total number of values, divide in half, record value given for middle data point 3. Mean – average; center of dataset, skewed by outliers STATISTICS AND RESEARCH Outlier  Measures of central tendency: a value that best describes the entire set of values Describing Data Variability 1. Range – subtract lowest from Mean highest data value 2. Standard deviation – spread of data around mean; Median 3. Variance – average of squared deviation scores; (standard deviation)2 Mode Measures of variability: how well distributed the values are Range Standard deviation Variance = square of the standard deviation DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS: VARIABILITY Variability: by how much the scores vary from each other and from the mean Range= Highest score-lowest score Standard Deviation=Numerical depiction of variability  SAME MEAN; DIFFERENT SD INFERENTIAL STATISTICS: INTERPRETING DATA AND DRAWING CONCLUSIONS Hypothesis testing: do observed findings support the hypothesis Are the findings real or due to chance? Statistical significance: Very small probability that the observed findings are due to chance. Very low=Less than 5 chances in 100 (0.05 level) Very very low= Less than 1 chance in 100 (0.01 level) MAKING JUDGEMENTS WITH DATA Statistics and the 5% rule: If the probability of an event is less than 5%, we call that a “rare” event This gives us a guideline to detect differences META- ANALYSIS Replication: repeating a study hoping to duplicate results. Meta-analysis: A study of many other studies Important question: Are there gender differences in IQ? Ultimate Goal: Generalizability