Domain 1 Scientific Inquiry

Part 1: Introduction to Psychology

Defining Psychology

What is psychology? What does a psychologist do?

Psychology

• The systematic study of behavior and mental processes

• Systematic – systematic collection and examination or data to support or disprove hypotheses

• Behavior – directly observable or measurable – Ex: reading, talking, listening

• Mental processes – not directly observable or measurable– Ex: thoughts and emotions

Behavior or Mental Process?1. dreaming 2. getting excited about going out 3. having a toothache 4. singing a song 'in your head' 5. worrying about your performance on a test6. planning an excuse to get out of a date7. singing a song aloud 8. writing a letter 9. doing arithmetic 'in your head' 10. experiencing 'butterflies in the stomach‘11. Scratching you leg 12. Reading the time on your watch

1. Mental 2. Mental 3. Mental 4. Mental 5. Mental 6. Mental 7. Behavior 8. Behavior 9. Mental 10. Mental 11. Behavior 12. Behavior

Of Psychology

1.Describe –tell what is happening 2.Explain – tell why it is happening 3.Predict – tell what will likely happen to

others in the future4.Control – influence the behavior or mental

process

The Origin of Psychology

• 600s B.C. Psamtik I, the king of Egypt, conducts the first psychological study.

• 400s – 300s B.C. Greek philosophers conclude that it is neither god nor demons that control behavior but rather the mind of the individual themselves.

• 5th-15th century (middle ages) Europeans believed that problems such as agitation and confusion were signs of possession by demons.

Psamtik I

Witch Hunts

• 14th-18th century (Renaissance) brought great scientific and intellectual advances

– Nicolaus Copernicus – suggested that the earth

revolved around the sun

– Sir Isaac Newton – formulated the laws of gravity and motion

– John Locke – theorized that knowledge is not inborn but rather learned from experience

– Antoine Lavoisier – founded the science of chemistry

– Rene Descartes – wrote about dualism

Nicolaus Copernicus

Sir Isaac Newton

John Locke

Antoine Lavoisier

Rene’ Descartes

• 1879 Modern Psychology is born – Wilhelm Wundt established the first psychology laboratory

in Leipzig Germany

Historical Approaches to Psychology

• An approach is a perspective (i.e. view) that involves certain assumptions (i.e. beliefs) about human behavior: – Structuralism – Functionalism – Inheritable Traits – Gestalt Psychology

Structuralism

• Wilhelm Wundt and Edward B. Titchener • Focused on breaking down mental

processes into the most basic components. Interested in the basic elements of human experience

• Used a method known as introspection - the detailed mental examination of your own feelings, thoughts, and motives

• What are the elements(structures) of psychological processes

Wundt

Titchener

Functionalism

• William James • Concerned with how mental

processes help organisms adapt to their environment

• What are the purposes (functions) of behavior and mental processes?

James

The Principles of Psychology – considered to be the first modern psychology textbook

Inheritable Traits

• Sir Francis Galton • Interested in how heredity

(inherited traits) influences a person’s abilities, character, and behavior

• Errors were identified in Galton's theories Galton

Gestalt

• Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler, Jurt Koffka

• Perception is more than the sum of its parts – it involved the “whole pattern” or Gestalt

• Studies how sensations are assembled into perceptual experiences

What is this a picture of?

How do you know?

Contemporary Approaches to PsychologyApproach What influences behavior? Sample research question People

Psychoanalytic Unconscious motivations influence our behavior.

How have negative childhood experiences affected the way I handle stressful situations?

Sigmund Freud

Behavioral Events in the environment (rewards and punishments) influence our behavior

Can good study habits be learned? Ivan Pavlov John B. WatsonB.F. Skinner

Humanistic Individual or self-directed choices influence our behavior.

Do I believe that I can prepare for and pass the test?

Abraham Maslow Carl Rogers Rollo May

Cognitive How we process, store, and retrieve information influences our behavior.

How does caffeine affect memory? Jean Piaget Noam Chomsky Leon Festinger

Biological Biological factors (genes, hormones, nervous system, and brain) influence our behavior.

Do genes affect your intelligence and personality?

Sociocultural Ethnicity, gender, culture, and socioeconomic status influence our behavior.

How do people of different genders and ethnicities interact?

Careers in Psychology

• U.S. Department of Labor predicts employment opportunities to increase

Quick Facts: Psychologists

2010 Median Pay$68,640 per year $33.00 per hour

Number of Jobs, 2010 174,000

Job Outlook, 2010-2022% (Faster than average)

Employment Change, 2010-20 37,700

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2012-13 Edition, Psychologists, on the Internet at http://www.bls.gov/ooh/life-physical-and-social-science/psychologists.htm (visited January 10, 2013).

Psychologist Vs. Psychiatrist

Fields of PsychologyField of Psychology Description

Clinical

Counseling

Developmental

Educational

Community

Industrial/Organizational

Environmental

Psychobiologist

Forensic

Health

Experimental

Part 2:Research Methods

Why is psychological research important?

• Psychologists do more than just wonder about human behavior

• Psychological research has an enormous impact on all facets of our lives– how parents choose to discipline their children – how companies package and advertise their products– how governments choose to punish or rehabilitate

criminals• Understanding how psychologists do research is vital to

understanding psychology itself.

Scientific MethodQuestion

Hypothesis

Test Hypothesis

Results

Conclusions

Theory

Additional hypothesis Reject and revise

hypothesis

Other psychologist replicateand test their theories

Research Methods

Correlations • Used to describe how two sets of data relate to each

other – Ex: students grades and number of hours slept

• Correlation coefficient measures the strength of the relationship between two variables. – Always a number between –1 and +1. – The sign (+ or –) of a correlation coefficient indicates the

nature of the relationship between the variables.

• A positive correlation (+) means that as one variable increases, the other does too.

• Example: The more years of education a person receives, the higher his or her yearly income is.

• A negative correlation (–) means that when one variable increases, the other one decreases.

• Example: The more hours a high school student works during the week, the fewer A’s he or she gets in class.

• No correlation – variables do not relate

• The higher the correlation coefficient, the stronger the correlation. – A +0.9 or a –0.9 indicates a very strong correlation – A +0.1 or a –0.1 indicates a very weak correlation. – A correlation of 0 means that no relationship exists

between two variables.

• correlation is not the same as causation. Two factors may be related without one causing the other to occur. Often, a third factor explains the correlation.– A psychologist uses the survey method to study the

relationship between balding and length of marriage. He finds that length of marriage correlates with baldness. However, he can’t infer from this that being bald causes people to stay married longer. Instead, a third factor explains the correlation: both balding and long marriages are associated with old age.

Experimental Method

HypothesisDependent variable

Independent variableControl group

Experimental group

Extraneous Variables in Experiments

• Variables other than the independent variable that could affect the dependent variable are called extraneous variables. – Example: An educational psychologist has developed a new learning

strategy and is interested in examining the effectiveness of this strategy. The experimenter randomly assigns students to two groups. All of the students study text materials on a biology topic for thirty minutes. One group uses the new strategy and the other uses a strategy of their choice. Then all students complete a test over the materials.

Dealing With Extraneous Variables

• Random Assignment – participants have an equal chance of being placed in each group.

Advantages of Experimental Method

• Can show cause-and-effect relationships between variables

Disadvantage of Experimental Method

• Can not be generalized to the real world because an artificial situation.

• Cant be used to study everything– Cant control variables – Unethical

Bias in Research

• Bias is the distortion of results by a variable. – Sampling bias occurs when the sample studied in an experiment

does not correctly represent the population the researcher wants to draw conclusions about.

– Subject bias - Research subjects’ expectations can affect and change the subjects’ behavior, resulting in subject bias. Such a bias can manifest itself in two ways:

• Placebo effect • Social desirability bias

– Experimenter bias occurs when researchers’ preference or expectations influence the outcome of their research. Researchers see what they want to see.

• Double-blind experiment

APA Ethical Guidelines for Research

• In the past, researchers performed all kinds of questionable experiments in the name of science.

• Now psychologist must submit their research proposals to the Institutional Review Board (IRB)- Procedural errors - Ethical Violations

*For humans and animals*

Human Research

1. Informed Consent – participants must know hat they are involved in research and give their consent or permission

2. Deception – if the participants are deceived in any way about the nature of the study, the deception must not be so extreme as to invalidate the informed consent. Also, researchers must be very careful about the trauma deception may cause.

3. Coercion – participants cannot be coerced in any way to give consent to be in the study.

4. Anonymity – the identities and actions of participants must not be revealed in any way by the researcher.

5. Risk – participants cannot be placed at significant mental or physical risk. This clause requires interpretation by the review board.

6. Debriefing procedures –participants must be told of the purpose of the study and provided with ways to contact the researchers about the results.

Directions: Listen to the audio and then read the Reserve Police Battalion 101 handout. Once you have read the handout answer the following questions in your journal. 1.What part did peer pressure, opportunism and Anti-Semitism play in the massacre? 2.What other factors may have influenced participation?

Audio

Milgram Experiment

Milgram Experiment Original Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W147ybOdgpE

Milgram Experiment Video 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwqNP9HRy7Y

Stanford Prison Experiment

Description of ExperimentIRB Review Consent FormPrison Rules

Quiet Rage

Animal Research

1. Purpose- research must have a clear scientific purpose.

2. Care – animals must be cared for and housed in humane way.

3. Acquiring animals – animals must be aquired legally.

4. Suffering – experimental procedures must employ the least amount of suffering feasible.

5. Supervision – trained psychologist must supervise all animal research.

Monkey Drug Trials1969

• Addiction and drug use• Monkeys and rats were trained to inject themselves with an

assortment of drugs, including morphine, alcohol, codeine, cocaine, and amphetamines.

• Once the animals were capable of self-injecting, they were left to their own devices with a large supply of each drug.

• Some animals tried so hard to escape that they broke their arms in the process. The monkeys taking cocaine suffered convulsions and in some cases tore off their own fingers (possible as a consequence of hallucinations), one monkey taking amphetamines tore all of the fur from his arm and abdomen, and in the case of cocaine and morphine combined, death would occur within 2 weeks.

Learned Helplessness1965

• In 1965, psychologists Mark Seligman and Steve Maier conducted an experiment in which three groups of dogs were placed in harnesses.

• Dogs from group one were released after a certain amount of time, with no harm done. Dogs from group two were paired up and leashed together, and one from each pair was given electrical shocks that could be ended by pressing a lever. Dogs from group three were also paired up and leashed together, one receiving shocks, but the shocks didn’t end when the lever was pressed. Shocks came randomly and seemed inevitable, which caused “learned helplessness,” the dogs assuming that nothing could be done about the shocks. The dogs in group three ended up displaying symptoms of clinical depression.

• Later, group three dogs were placed in a box by themselves. They were again shocked, but they could easily end the shocks by jumping out of the box. These dogs simply “gave up,” again displaying learned helplessness.

The Well of Despair 1960• Dr. Harry Harlow is most well-known

for the experiments he conducted on rhesus monkeys concerning social isolation. Dr. Harlow took infant rhesus monkeys who had already bonded with their mothers and placed them in a stainless steel vertical chamber device alone with no contact in order to sever those bonds. They were kept in the chambers for up to one year. Many of these monkeys came out of the chamber psychotic, and many did not recover. Dr. Harlow concluded that even a happy, normal childhood was no defense against depression.

Qualitative Data

• Deals with descriptions • Data can be observed

but not measures

Quantitative Data

• Deals with numbers • Data can be measured

– Frequency Distribution • Histogram• Frequency polygon

Descriptive Statistics

More Descriptive Statistics

• Central Tendency– Mode – Median – Mean

• Variance– Range – Standard deviation

• Correlation coefficients

$25,000-Pam $25,000- Kevin$25,000- Angela$100,000- Andy$100,000- Dwight$200,000- Jim$300,000- Michael

Closer Look at Standard Deviation

• Standard Deviation: the variance of scores around the mean.

• The higher the variance or SD, the more spread out the distribution is.

• Do scientists want a big or small SD?

Example: There was a, now discredited, theory proposed that claimed in IQ tests Men and Women had the same average IQs but men had a larger standard deviation than women. That is that there were more male geniuses and mentally challenged people than women. While woman's IQs tended to sit more around the average.

Inferential Statistics

- Measures of Statistical Significance - Probability results are due to chance less than 5%

to be statistically significant