Psychology Notes PDF

Chapter 1 - Roots of psychology - Psyche - Breath, spirit, soul - Logos - Study of - Psychology = philosophy + physiology - Definition of psychology - The scientific study of both behavior and mind -...

Chapter 1 - Roots of psychology - Psyche - Breath, spirit, soul - Logos - Study of - Psychology = philosophy + physiology - Definition of psychology - The scientific study of both behavior and mind - Scientific study: knowledge is discovered through empirical observation - Behavior: any kind of observable action (words, gestures, responses, biological activity) - Mind: the contents of conscious experience(sensations, perceptions, thoughts, emotions) - The goal of psychology is to describe, explain, predict, change - Describe: particular behaviors by making careful scientific observations - Explain: behaviors by conducting experiments to determine their causes - Predict: when the behavior being studied will occur in the future - Change: inappropriate behavior of circumstances - What psychologists do - Clinical psychologist - Focus: diagnosis and treatment of psychological problems - Setting: Clinical and academic - Applied psychologist - Focus: extending psychological principles to practical problems in the world - Setting: private industry, schools, academic - Research psychologist - Focus: conduct research to discover the basic principles of behavior and mind - Setting: academic, private industry - Theories - Dualism and Descartes - Mind and body are separate - The mind is inherently unknowable - The mind is a result of brain activity - Nativism vs Empiricism - Nature vs Nurture - Its a mix of both! - Empiricism - The idea that knowledge comes directly from experience - Charles darwin (1809-1882) came up with the theory of natural selection - Traits that improve the likelihood of survival are more likely to be passed down through generations - Wilhem Wundt - Father of modern psychology - 1879- University of Leipzig, Germany - Structuralism - Wilhem Wundt and Edward Titchener - Study the structure of mind by breaking it down into elementary parts - sensations and feelings - Used systematic introspection - An early technique used to study the mind; it required people to look inward and describe their own experiences - Functionalism - William James and James Rowland Angell - The idea that mental processes and behaviors exist because they serve a purpose in helping individuals adapt to their environment - (Might ask why do we have the capacity to taste flavors and textures? How do flavors influence memories? - Behaviorism - John B Watson and BF Skinner - A school of psychology proposing that the only proper subject matter of psychology is observable behavior rather than immediate conscious experience - Focused on only observable behavior - Rejects the study of consciousness, thoughts and feelings - Psychoanalysis - Sigmund Freud - A neurologist out of Vienna - Freud’s method of treatment that attempts to bring hidden impulses and memories, which are locked in the unconscious, to the surface of awareness, thereby freeing the client from disordered thoughts and behaviors - The first major movement in clinical psychology - Humanism - Carl Roger, Abraham Maslow, and Martin Seligman - A movement in psychology that focuses on people’s unique capacities for choice, responsibility, and growth - Focused on positive aspects of the human condition and capacity for change - Mary Whiton Calkins - William Jame’s student - First woman to have a research lab and be an APA president - Psychology as the study of self - Self is an adaption to the environment  - Modern psychology - Eclectic approach - Selecting and adopting information from many different theories - The idea that it’s useful to select information from several sources rather than to rely entirely on a single perspective or school of thought - Cognitive revolution - The shift away from strict behaviorism, begun in the 1950s, characterized by renewed interest in fundamental problems of consciousness and internal mental processes - Heavily influenced by technology - Evolutionary psychology - Focuses on how thoughts and behaviors are molded by the pressures of evolution - Examples: mate selection, language development, avoidance of incest - Some say that environment can also account for these phenomena - Experiential Learning - Lev Vygotsky - A movement proposing that we’re born with mental processes and “software” that were acquired through natural selection in our ancestral past and help us to solve specific adaptive problems - Learning comes from close interactions like parents - Intersectionality - Impact of culture on behavior - Cultures are based on: gender, race, nationality, affinities (political standing) Chapter 2 - Steps of scientific method - Observe - Detect regularities - Generate hypothesis - Observe - Operation definition - Definitions that specify how concepts can be observed and measured - The specific measurement of an observation - Intelligence → score on an IQ test - Depressive symptoms → score on a self report questionnaire - Scientific method in depth - Research question - Literature review - Form hypothesis - Design a study - Conduct a study - Analyze data - Resort results - Theory vs hypothesis - Theory - A model of interconnected ideas or concepts that explains what is observed and makes predictions about future events - Based on empirical evidence - Hypothesis - A specific, testable prediction, narrower than the theory it is based on - Three primary research designs - Descriptive: observable behavior - Research methods that involve observing behavior to describe hat behavior objectively and systematically - Case studies - A descriptive research method that involves the intensive examination of an unusual person or organization - Observational studies - Participant observation - The researcher is involved in the situation - Naturalistic observation - The researcher is a passive observer and separate fron the situation - Reactivity and Observation bias - Reactivity - When behavior changes as a result of the observation process - Observation bias - Errors in observation that occur due to observers expectations - Self report method - Methods - Survey - Self report questionnaire - Interviews - Can gather data on many individuals - Psychological tests - Designed to measure differences among people - IQ test - Aptitude - Personality - Mental health  - Correlation: predict behavior - A statistic that indicates whether two variables vary together in a systematic way; correlation coefficients vary from +1.00 to −1.00 - RESEARCHERS CANNOT DRAW CAUSAL CONCLUSIONS - Direction of correlation - Zero correlation (value of 0) - When two variables are not predictably related to one another - Positive correlation (value of 0 or +1) - A relationship between two variables in which they move in the same direction - Negative correlation (value of 0 or -1) - A relationship between two variables in which they move in opposite directions - CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL CAUSATION - Directionality problem - A problem encountered in correlation studies - There is a relationship between two variables but no understanding of which variable caused the changes in the other variable - Third Variable problem - The researcher cannot directly manipulate variables - Another unmeasured variable can be the cause of changes - Experimental: understand the cause of behavior - A technique in which the investigator actively manipulates the environment to observe its effect on behavior - - Variable - Something in the world that can vary and that a researcher can manipulate and or measure - Types of variables  - Independent variable - The variable that gets manipulated - Dependent variable - The variable that gets measured - Operational definition - Qualifies (describes) and quantifies (measures) and variable - Experimental group - The participants who receive the treatment - Control group - The participants who receive no intervention - Confounding variable - Anything that affects a dependent variable - Random sampling - A procedure guaranteeing that everyone in the population has an equal likelihood of being selected for the sample - Random assignment - A technique ensuring that each participant in an experiment has an equal chance of being assigned to any of the conditions in the experiment - Ethics of research - Institutional review board - Groups of people responsible for reviewing proposed research to ensure it meets ethical standards - Informed consent - People who volunteer for psychological research have the right to know what will happen to them during the course of the study - People under 18 cannot consent - Privacy - Confidentiality - Personal identifying information about participants cannot be shared with others - Anonymity - The researchers do not collect personal identifying information - Types of validity - Construct validity - The extent to which variables measure what they are supposed to measure - External validity - The degree to which the findings of a study can be generalized to other people, settings, or situations - Internal validity - The degree to which the effects observed in an experiment are due to the independent variable nd not confounds - Measures of central tendency - Mean  - Average of a set of scores - Median - Middle point of an ordered set of scores - Mode - Most frequently score in a set of scores - Variability - In a set of numbers, how widely dispersed the values are from each other and from the mean - Standard deviation - A statistical measure of how far away each value is, on average, from the mean