Transcript Pick Your Favorite Dessert

What is psychology?
The discipline concerned with
behavior and mental processes and
how they are affected by an
organism’s physical state, mental
state, and external environment.
[p4]
Empirical
Relying on evidence gathered by careful
observation, experimentation, or measurement
[p4]
Pick Your Favorite Dessert
Angel food cake
 Brownies
 Lemon meringue
 Vanilla with chocolate icing
 Strawberry shortcake
 Chocolate on chocolate
 Ice cream
 Carrot cake

Angel food cake

Sweet, loving, cuddly. You love all
warm and fuzzy items. A little nutty at
times. Sometimes you need an ice
cream cone at the end of the day.
Others perceive you as being childlike
and immature at times.
Brownies

You are adventurous, love new ideas,
are a champion of underdogs and a
slayer of dragons. When tempers flare
up, you whip out your saber. You are
always the oddball with a unique
sense of humor and direction. You
tend to be very loyal.
Ice cream

You like sports, whether it be baseball,
football, basketball, or soccer. If you
could, you would like to participate,
but you enjoy watching sports. You
don’t like to give up the remote
control. You tend to be self-centered
and high maintenance.
Chocolate on chocolate

Sexy, always ready to give and
receive. Very creative, adventurous,
ambitious, and passionate. You have
a cold exterior but are warm on the
inside. Not afraid to take chances.
Will not settle for anything average in
life. Love to laugh.
Lemon meringue

Smooth, sexy, and articulate with your
hands, you are an excellent afterdinner speaker and a good teacher.
But don’t try to walk and chew gum at
the same time. A bit of a diva at
times, but you have many friends.
Vanilla with chocolate
icing

Fun-loving, sassy, humorous. Not very
grounded in life; very indecisive and
lack motivation. Everyone enjoys
being around you, but you are a
practical joker. Others should be
cautious in making you mad.
However, you are a friend for life.
Strawberry shortcake

Romantic, warm, loving. You care
about other people and can be
counted on in a pinch. You tend to
melt. You can be overly emotional
and annoying at times.
Carrot cake

You are a very fun-loving person who
likes to laugh. You are fun to be with.
People like to hang out with you. You
are a very warm-hearted person and a
little quirky at times. You have many
loyal friends.
Psychology, pseudoscience,
and common sense
Psychobabble and psychology
Not just common sense
The birth of modern
psychology:
A brief history
Roots of Psychology:
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Philosophy
Natural sciences
Natural Sciences
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Charles Darwin
Natural selection:
Organisms best
adapted to their world
are most likely to
survive, reproduce,
and pass on
characteristics to their
offspring [see
evolutionary
psychology, p8]
Philosophy

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William James
Functionalism
Early approach
that emphasized
the function or
purpose of
behavior and
consciousness
[p7]
Psychology
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Wilhelm Wundt
1st psych laboratory
Trained introspection:
A process by which
individuals were taught
to carefully observe,
analyze, and describe
their own sensations,
mental images, and
emotional reactions
[p7]
Psychology

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Sigmund Freud
Psychoanalysis: A
theory of personality
and a method of
psychotherapy,
originally formulated
by Sigmund Freud
Emphasizes
unconscious motives
and conflicts [p7]
Five current
perspectives
in psychology
Major psychological
perspectives
Biological perspective
Learning perspective
Cognitive perspective
Sociocultural perspective
Psychodynamic perspective
The biological perspective
Psychological approach that focuses
on how bodily events affect
behavior, feelings, and thoughts [p8]
This perspective involves
Hormones
Brain chemistry
Heredity
Evolutionary influences
The learning perspective
Emphasizes how the environment
and experiences affect the
behavior of any organism [p8]
This perspective involves
Behaviorism
Social cognitive learning theory
The cognitive perspective
Psychological approach that
emphasizes what goes on in
people’s heads [pp8-9]
This perspective involves
Problem solving
Perception
Attention
Remembering
Thinking
The sociocultural
perspective
Psychological approach that
emphasizes social and cultural
forces outside the individual
[p9]
This perspective involves
Social psychology or the study of rules, roles,
groups, and relationships
Cultural psychology or the study of cultural
norms, values, and expectations
chapter 1
The psychodynamic
perspective
Psychological approach that
emphasizes unconscious dynamics
within the individual, such as inner
forces, conflicts, or the movement
of instinctual energy [p9]
This perspective involves
Unconscious thoughts, desires, conflicts
Eclectic psychology
Psychological approach
that selects the best
features of each
approach, depending on
the problem at hand.
What psychologists do
[pp10-13]
chapter 1
Research and teaching
Examples:
Experimental psychologists
Educational psychologists
Developmental psychologists
Industrial/organizational psychologists
Psychometric psychologists
chapter 1
Health and mental health
services
Counseling psychologists help people deal
with problems associated with everyday life.
School psychologists work with parents,
teachers, and students to enhance student
performance.
Clinical psychologists diagnose, treat, and
study mental or emotional problems.
Psychologists in other
settings
Sports
Consumer issues
Advertising
Organizational problems
Environmental issues
Public policy
Opinion polls
Military training
Animal behavior
Legal issues
Careers in psychology:
http://www.psychwww.com/careers
Critical and scientific
thinking
Critical thinking guidelines
 Ask questions
 Define your terms
 Examine the evidence
 Analyze assumptions and biases
 Avoid emotional reasoning
 Don’t oversimplify
 Consider other interpretations
 Tolerate uncertainty
 Ask questions; be willing
to wonder

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Theory: an organized system of
assumptions and principles that tries
to explain a certain set of phenomena
and their interrelationships [p18]
Example: “Boys are rougher than
girls”
 Define your terms
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Hypothesis: a statement that attempts to
predict or account for a set of phenomena.
[p15]
Example: “Toys that are played with by
boys will show more signs of wear than toys
that are played with by girls”
Operational definition: a precise definition of
a term in a hypothesis [p15]
 Examine the evidence
 Analyze assumptions and
biases
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Assumption: belief that is taken for
granted [p16]
Bias: assumption that keeps us from
considering the evidence fairly [p16]
 Avoid emotional
reasoning
 Avoid oversimplifying

Argument by anecdote: generalize
from a personal experience or from a
few examples to everyone [p17]
Consider other
interpretations
 Tolerate
uncertainty
Collecting data:
Research methods
Observational studies
[p21]
Researchers carefully
and systematically
observe and record
behavior without
interfering with
behavior
Naturalistic observation
Purpose is to observe how people
or animals behave in their natural
environments.
Laboratory observation
Purpose is to observe how people
or animals behave in a more
controlled setting.
chapter 1
Descriptive methods
Methods that yield descriptions of
behavior, but not necessarily causal
explanations [p20]
Include
Observational studies
Case studies
Psychological tests
Surveys
Case studies
A detailed description of a particular
individual being studied or treated,
which may be used to formulate
broader research hypotheses [p20]
Most commonly used by clinicians;
occasionally used by researchers
Surveys
Questionnaires and interviews that
ask people about experiences,
attitudes, or opinions [p23]
Social desirability: the tendency of
participants to respond in a way
they think is socially acceptable or
desirable rather than how they truly
feel or think
Psychological tests
Procedures used to
measure and evaluate
personality traits,
emotional states, aptitudes,
interests, abilities, and
values [p22]
Standardization
The test is constructed to include
uniform procedures for giving and
scoring the test.
In order to score tests in a
standardized way, an individual’s
outcome or score is compared to
norms.
[p22]
Correlational study
A descriptive study that looks
for a consistent relationship
between two phenomena [p24]
Correlation
A statistical measure of how strongly two variables are related
to one another. [p24]
Correlational coefficients can range from -1.0 to +1.0.
Direction of correlations
[pp24-25]
Positive correlations
An association between
increases in one variable and
increases in another, or
decreases in one variable and
decreases in the other.
Negative correlations
An association between
increases in one variable and
decreases in another.
Explaining correlations
Correlations
show
patterns, not
causes.
Experimental research
 Allows psychologists to
determine the cause of a
behavior [p26]
and

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An experiment
A controlled test of a
hypothesis in which the
researcher manipulates one
variable to discover its
effect on another. [p26]
Variables of interest [p28]
Independent
variables
Variables the
experimenter
manipulates
Dependent variables
Variables the
experimenter predicts
will be affected by
manipulations of the
independent variable(s)
Violent cartoons
Nonviolent cartoons
Representative sample

A subgroup that accurately reflects the
population about which the researcher
wishes to draw conclusions [p20]
Experimental condition

Group that is exposed to the variable
of interest
Control conditions
In an experiment, a
comparison condition in
which subjects are not
exposed to the same
treatment as in the
experimental condition.
Random assignment
Each individual participating
in the study has the same
probability as any other of
being assigned to a given
group. [p28]
Experimenter effects [p29]
Unintended changes
in subjects’ behavior
due to cues
inadvertently given
by the
experimenter.
Strategies for
preventing
experimenter
effects include
single- and doubleblind studies.
Placebo effect
Occurs when participant
expectations, rather than
the experimental
treatment, produce the
desired outcome.
 Placebo: an inactive
substance or fake
treatment. [p28]

Evaluating findings
Descriptive statistics
Statistical procedures that
organize and summarize
research data [p31]
Inferential statistics
Statistical procedures that allow
researchers to draw inferences about
how statistically meaningful a study’s
results are. [p32]
The most commonly used inferential
statistics are significance tests.
Statistical tests that show how likely it is that a
study’s results occurred merely by chance [p32]