 If you did not take Chapter 1 Quest on Friday, you must make it up today after school.

 Extra Credit Opportunity  Help with hanging up work in classroom after school today.

 Syllabus, Parent Letter, and Ethics Pledge  Chapter 1 Notes and Vocabulary Cards  Chapter 2 Notes and Vocabulary Cards  Chapter 3 Notes and Vocabulary Cards  Chapter 6 Notes and Vocabulary Cards  Pgs: 195-207  Assignment 2.1: Annotation of “Knock Wood”  Assignment 2.2.: Summary of Skinner Experiment  Assignment 2.3.: Behavior Modification Experiment  Assignment 3.1.: Operant Conditioning Free Response  Putting perspective into Practice: Greg  AP Psychology Scavenger Hunt

 Introduction of Kyla  Chapter 1 Quest Review  Tour of Course Website  Twitter 101

AP Psychology Chapter 1 Quest Results Twitter 101 AP Psychology Course Website Tour

   I study the relationship between people and work, and more specifically, how to increase productivity. I believe that by changing environmental factors, increasing the use of rewards and praise for correct behavior, and providing corrective feedback, workers’ over behavior can be changed.

I study how people of all ages learn, and I develop instructional methods and materials to help the learning process. In particular, I stress the roles played by thinking, problem-solving, memory, and mental imagery.

I work mostly with people who suffer from mental disorders, and I believe that the main causes of mental illness are either genetic or due to some malfunction in the central nervous system or endocrine system.

 I often travel to different countries to research people’s attitudes and group relations. My research tends to show that many behavioral patterns—for instance, the amount of personal space people require to feel comfortable—vary from one country to another.

 I believe that unconscious conflicts, early childhood experiences and repressed sexual and aggressive feelings make us who we are, and I use this point of view in my work on individual differences and in trying to determine which characteristics make each of us unique.

 I focus on the relationships between psychological factors and health, in particular on how people cope with stress in their lives. It is not what happens to us that is important; rather, how we perceive and think about potentially stressful events determines our well-being.

 My research keeps me in the lab most of the time, and I focus on the principles and conditions of learning and motivation. Recently, I have been investigating how quickly rats learn the layout of a maze as a function of either large or small amounts of reinforcement.

 Psychological processes that have helped individuals adapt to their environment have also helped them to survive, reproduce, and pass those abilities to their offspring. I adopt this point of view in my investigations of interpersonal attractions, prejudice, and aggression.

 Answer the following question in your notebook: Create a list of questions that can be scientifically tested. Next to your question, explain which field of science would investigate this question.

    What parts of our brain do we use to feel happy?

How do we see color?

What happens in the brain when we dream?

In what ways does background noise affect our ability to pay attention?

 Answer the following question in your notebook: Do you have a behavior that is based on superstition? If so, why was it developed?

What is the most ridiculous superstition that you have heard of? Why do humans develop superstitions?

 Answer the following question in your notebook: Does behavior depend on one's culture and gender? If so, how?

 Answer the following question in your notebook: True or False: Explain your answer. The answers that flow from the scientific approach are more reliable than those based on intuition and common sense.

 Answer the following question in your notebook: How effective is the study of animals to understand human behavior?

 Did random assignment help control for confounding variables like IQ or gender?  Did knowing which group got the independent variable introduce more confounding variables? Why or why not?  In what ways could this experiment be conducted better?

 Describe how research design drives the reasonable conclusions that can be drawn (e.g., experiments are useful for determining cause and effect; the use of experimental controls reduces alternative explanations).

 Identify independent, dependent, confounding, and control variables in experimental designs.

 Distinguish between random assignment of participants to conditions in experiments and random selection of participants, primarily in correlational studies and surveys.

 Predict the validity of behavioral explanations based on the quality of research design (e.g., confounding variables limit confidence in research conclusions).

 Distinguish the purposes of descriptive statistics and inferential statistics.

 Apply basic descriptive statistical concepts, including interpreting and constructing graphs and calculating simple descriptive statistics (e.g., measures of central tendency, standard deviation).

Research Methods in Psychology - Part 1 Research Methods in Psychology - Part 2 Research Methods in Psychology - Part 3

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8 Guidelines to Critical Thinking:

Ask questions; be willing to wonder.

(What questions do you want to ask further?)

Define your terms

(and explain specifically how you will measure what you are hoping to measure).

Examine the evidence

(What does the research or data out there say & what might be some of the limitations of that evidence?)

Analyze assumptions and biases.

(Is there a slant or preconceived notion?)

Avoid emotional reasoning.

(Don’t go by your gut feelings and think about this logically and analytically.)

Don’t oversimplify.

(Is it really that simple or more complex?)

Consider other interpretations

. (How else might you explain what happens or happened?)

Tolerate uncertainty.

test and remain open.) (Some things we may never know for sure or be able to

Homeless people ended up in their situation because they are lazy. Poor people are happier people.

Facebook is responsible for lower test scores in school children. They spend too much time socializing, instead of studying.

The approach used by psychologists to

systematically acquire

knowledge and understanding about behavior and other phenomena of interest

Identify a Question of Interest Develop an explanation

Conduct Research

 Theories Broad explanations and predictions concerning phenomena of interest  Hypothesis A prediction stated in a way that allows it to be tested

Research

–Systematic inquiry aimed at the discovery of new knowledge

Operationalization

-Process of translating a hypothesis into specific, testable procedures that can be measured and observed

Archival research

Use of existing data in order to test a hypothesis

Naturalistic observation

– Observation of naturally occurring behavior without intervention

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Survey research

A sample of people are asked a series of questions about their behavior, thoughts, and attitudes in order to represent a larger population

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Case study

An in-depth, intensive investigation of an individual or small group of people

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Correlational research

 The relationship between two sets of variables is examined to determine whether they are associated, or “correlated”   Correlation does not mean “causation” Ranges from +1 to -1 

Variables

 Behaviors, events, or other characteristics that can change, or vary in some way

 Experiment The relationship between two (or more) variables is investigated by deliberately producing a change in one variable in a situation and observing the effects of that change on other aspects of the situation S. Wanke/PhotoLink/Getty Images

Control Group:

A group that receives no treatment

Experimental group:

Any group receiving a treatment

Treatment:

The manipulation implemented by the experimenter

Experimental manipulation:

The change that an experimenter deliberately produces in a situation

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Independent variable

The variable that is manipulated by the experimenter 

Dependent variable

The variable that is measured and is expected to change as a result of changes caused by the the experimenter’s manipulation of the independent variable

Confounding Variable  an extraneous variable whose presence affects the variables being studied so that the results you get do not reflect the actual relationship between the variables under investigation.  When conducting an experiment, the basic question that any experimenter is asking is: "How does A affect B?" where A is the probable cause, and B is the effect. Any manipulation of A is expected to result in a change in the effect.

It is known that throughout the year, murder rates and ice cream sales are highly positively correlated. That is, as murder rates rise, so does the sale of ice cream. There are three possible explanations for this correlation:  Possibility #1: Murders cause people to purchase ice cream. One could imagine a world where this is true. Perhaps when one is murdered, they are resurrected as zombies who primarily feed on ice cream.

 Possibility #2: Purchasing ice cream causes people to murder or get murdered. Again, one could imagine a world where this is true. Perhaps when one eats ice cream, those without ice cream become jealous and murder those with ice cream.

 Possibility #3: There is a third variable—a confounding variable—which causes the increase in BOTH ice cream sales AND murder rates. For instance, the weather. When it’s cold and Wintery, people stay at home rather than go outside and murder people. They also probably don’t eat a lot of ice cream. When it’s hot and Summery, people spend more time outside interacting with each other, and hence are more likely to get into the kinds of situations that lead to murder. They are also probably buying ice cream, because nothing beats the sound of an ice cream truck on a blazing Summer day.

 In this example, the weather is a variable that confounds the relationship between ice cream

sales and murder rates.

 You may also recognize this as the so-called third

variable problem, which refers to the fact that any

time we observe a relationship among two variables, there’s always the possibility that some third variable which we don’t know about is responsible for (“confounding”) the relationship.

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Random variable to experiment

Confounding variables in which uncontrolled or uncontrollable factors affect the dependent variable, along with or instead of the independent variable 

Random assignment to condition

Participants are assigned to different experimental groups or “conditions” on the basis of chance and chance alone; minimize the chance of data distortion 

Replication

Repetition of findings using other procedures in other setting 

Significant outcome

Use of statistical procedures in order to determine whether or not differences between groups are large enough to be significant

Placebo  A physical or psychological treatment that contains no active ingredient but produces an effect because the person receiving it believes it will Experimenter Bias  Another potential confounding variable which occurs when an experimenters unintentionally encourages participants to respond in a way that supports the hypothesis. Double-blind design  A research design in which neither the experimenter nor the participants know who is in the experimental group or the control group

 AP Psych Tweet 3 is due by Sunday, October 7 th by 11:59pm, “Red Enhances Men’s Attraction to Women”  Telling the Truth about Lie Detectors Forum Post is due on Sunday, October 7 th by 11:59pm.

Here are some recently reported correlations, with the interpretations drawn by journalists noted in parentheses. In the absence of experimental research, can you come up with other possible explanations for each of these?

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Attention disorder linked with drug abuse. (Interpretation: Children with ADHD have poor academic performance and peer difficulties which makes them susceptible to abusing drugs.) Toddlers who watch more than two hours of TV per day perform worse in school than those who watch less. (Interpretation: TV viewing makes children bad students.) Educated people live longer, on average, than less-educated people. (Interpretation: Education lengthens life and enhances life.) People who spend long hours on the Internet are somewhat less engaged with family and are lonelier and more depressed. (Interpretation: By isolating people from face-to-face contact, Internet absorption can be depressing.)

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Protection of participants from physical and mental harm The right of participants to privacy regarding their behavior The assurance that participation in research is completely voluntary The necessity of informing participants about the nature of procedures prior to participation in the experiment Informed consent

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Deception and debriefing

 Choosing participants who represent the scope of human behavior  Should animals be used in research?

 Experimental bias Factors that distort how the independent variable affects the dependent variable in an experiment   Experimenter expectations Participant expectations 

Placebo

A false treatment, such as a pill, “drug”, or other substance without any significant chemical properties or active ingredient

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What was the purpose of the research?

How well was the study conducted?

Are the results presented fairly?

Research Method

Descriptive Correlational

Basic Purpose How Conducted

To Observe and record behavior Case studies, surveys, or naturalistic observations To detect naturally occurring relationships; to assess how well one variable predicts another Compute statistical association, sometimes among survey responses

What is Manipulated?

Nothing Nothing Experimental To explore cause and effect Manipulate one or more factors ; use random assignment The independent Variable