©2002 Prentice Hall What is Psychology?. ©2002 Prentice Hall What is Psychology? The Science of Psychology What Psychologists Do Critical and Scientific

©2002 Prentice Hall

What is Psychology?


What is Psychology?

The Science of Psychology What Psychologists Do Critical and Scientific Thinking in Psychology Descriptive Studies: Establishing the Facts Correlational Studies: Looking for Relationships The Experiment: Hunting for Causes Evaluating the Findings


The Science of Psychology

Psychology, Pseudoscience, and Common Sense

The Birth of Modern Psychology

Psychology's Present


Defining Psychology

Psychology is the discipline concerned with behavior and mental processes and how they are affected by an organism's physical state, mental state, and external environment


Empirical Evidence

Evidence gathered by careful observation, experimentation, and measurement.


Psychology, Pseudoscience, and Common Sense

Scientific Psychology bears little relationship to "Pop" Psychology

Fortune telling, numerology, graphology, and astronomy are not part of psychology

Psychology is not just a fancy name for common sense

Psychological research often produces findings that contradict popular beliefs


Bumpy Logic

Phrenology was a 19th-century pseudoscience No scientific basis

Phrenology linked bumps on the skull with character traits


The Birth of Modern Psychology

Functionalism: An early psychological approach that emphasized the function or purpose of behavior and consciousness

Psychoanalysis: A theory of personality and a method of psychotherapy, originally formulated by Sigmund Freud, which emphasizes unconscious motives and conflicts


Psychology's Present

Biological Perspective Learning Perspective Cognitive Perspective Sociocultural Perspective Psychodynamic Perspective


Biological Perspective

A psychological approach that emphasizes bodily events and changes associated with actions, feelings, and thoughts


Learning Perspective

A psychological approach that emphasizes how the environment and experience affect a person's or animal's actions: It includes behaviorism and social-cognitive learning theories


Cognitive Perspective

A psychological approach that emphasizes mental processes in perception, memory, language, problem solving, and other areas of behavior


Sociocultural Perspective

A psychological approach that emphasizes social and cultural influences on behavior


Psychodynamic Perspective

A psychological approach that emphasizes unconscious dynamics within the individual, such as inner forces, conflicts, or the movement of instinctual energy


What Psychologists Do

Psychological Research

Psychological Practice

Psychology in the Community


Psychological Research

Basic Psychology: The study of psychological issues in order to seek knowledge for its own sake rather than for its practical application

Applied Psychology: The study of psychological issues that have direct practical significance; also the application of psychological findings.


Psychological Practice

Psychotherapist Person who does psychotherapy; credentials and training vary

Clinical Psychologist

Has a doctoral degree: Ph.D., Ed.D., or Psy.D.

Psychoanalyst Has specific training in psychoanalysis after an advanced degree (usually M.D. or Ph.D.)

Psychiatrist A physician (M.D.) with specialization in psychiatry

Other professionals

Licensing requirements vary by state; generally at least an M.A. Can be social worker (LCSW), counselor (MFCC), or other.


Critical and Scientific Thinking in Psychology


Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking: The ability and willingness to assess claims and make objective judgments on the basis of well-supported reasons and evidence, rather than emotion or anecdote


Critical Thinking Guidelines

Ask Questions: Be willing to wonder Define Your Terms Examine the Evidence Analyze Assumptions and Biases Avoid Emotional Reasoning Don't Oversimplify Consider Other Interpretations Tolerate Uncertainty


Hypothesis

A statement that attempts to predict or to account for a set of phenomena; scientific hypotheses specify relationships among events or variables and are empirically tested.


Operational Definition

A precise definition of a term in a hypothesis, which specifies the operations for observing and measuring the process or phenomenon being measured.


Principle of Falsifiability

The principle that a scientific theory must make predictions that are specific enough to expose the theory to the possibility of disconfirmation; that is, the theory must predict not only what will happen, but also what will not happen.


Theory

An organized system of assumptions and principles that purports to explain a specified set of phenomena and their interrelationships.


Descriptive Studies: Establishing the Facts

Case Studies

Observational Studies

Tests

Surveys


Case Studies

A detailed description of a particular individual being studied or treated.


Observational Studies

Studies in which the researcher carefully and systematically observes and records behavior without interfering with that behavior; it may involve either naturalistic or laboratory observation.


Tests

Standardize: To develop uniform procedures for giving and scoring a test.

Norms: Established standards of performance.

Reliability: Consistency of scores derived from a test.

Validity: The ability of a test to measure what it was designed to measure.


Surveys

Survey: Questionnaires and interviews that ask people directly about their experiences, attitudes, or opinions.

Representative Sample: A group of subjects, selected from a population, which matches the population on important characteristics.


Correlational Studies: Looking for Relationships


Correlation

Correlation: A measure of how strongly two variables are related to one another

Variables: Characteristics of behavior or experience that can be measured or described by a numeric scale


Types of Correlations

Positive correlation: Increases in one variable are associated with increases in the other; decreases are likewise associated

Negative correlation: Increases in one variable are associated with decreases in the other


The Experiment: Hunting for Causes

Experimental Variables

Experimental and Control Conditions

Experimenter Effects

Advantages and Limitations of Experiments


Experimental Variables

Independent Variable: A variable that an experimenter manipulates.

Dependent Variable: A variable than an experimenter predicts will be affected by manipulations of the independent variable.


Experiments

Experiment: A controlled test of a hypothesis in which the researcher manipulates one variable to discover its effect on another.


Experimental and Control Conditions

Experimental Condition: In an experiment, a condition in which subjects are exposed to manipulations of the independent variable.

Control Condition: A comparison condition in which subjects are not exposed to the same treatment as in the experimental condition.


Experimental Design

Hypothesis: Nicotine in cigarettes impairs driving.

All conditions kept the same for both groups except nicotine. Control condition is

given placebo (inactive) cigarettes

Number of collisions is measured.


Experimenter Effects

Unintended changes in subjects’ behavior due to cues inadvertently given by the experimenter

Double-Blind Study: Experiment where neither subjects nor people running the study know which subjects are in the control group and which are in the experimental group until after results are tallied.


Advantages and Limitations of Experiments

Experiments allow conclusions about cause-effect relationships.

Participants in experiments are not always representative of larger population. Much psychology research is carried out

using colleges students as participants. Field Research: Descriptive or

experimental research conducted in a natural setting outside the laboratory.


Evaluating the Findings

Why Psychologists Use Statistics

From the Laboratory to the Real World


Why Psychologists Use Statistics

Descriptive Statistics: Organize and summarize data

Inferential Statistics: Assess how meaningful results are, such as differences between groups. Significance tests assess how likely it is that a

study’s results occurred merely by chance


From the Laboratory to the Real World

Choosing the Best Explanation Sometimes there are competing explanations

for the same events Judging the Result’s Importance

Statistical significance does not prove that a result is important, only that it is reliable

Meta-analysis combines and analyzes data from many studies


Different Research Methods

Cross-Sectional Study: Subjects of different ages are compared at a given time.

Longitudinal Study: Subjects are followed and periodically reassessed over a period of time

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©2002 Prentice Hall What is Psychology?. ©2002 Prentice Hall What is Psychology? The Science of Psychology What Psychologists Do Critical and Scientific