Outline of Chapter 1

What is Psychology?

  • Definition: the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
  • 2 major divisions
    • Behaviorists - limit study to observable (overt) behavior
    • Cognitive psychologists - mental images we form of the world

What psychologists do

  • Seek to describe, explain, predict, and control the processes involved in areas such as perception, learning, memory, motivation, emotion, intelligence, personality, and the formation of attitudes
  • Research psychologists
    • Pure
    • Applied - designed to find solutions to specific personal or social problems
  • Clinical and counseling psychologists
    • Help people with psychological problems adjust to the demands of life
    • (This is usually what I think of when I image a psychologist)
    • Techniques utilized
      • Psychotherapy - The systematic application of psychological knowledge to the treatment of problem behavior
      • Behavior therapy - Application of principles of learning to the direct modification of problem behavior
  • School and educational psychologists
    • Help school systems identify and assist students who encounter problems that interfere with learning
    • Improve course planning and instructional methods to optimize classroom conditions to facilitate learning
  • Developmental psychologists - study the physical emotional, cognitive and social changes that occur throughout the lifespan
  • Personality, social, and environmental psychologists
    • Personality - define and explain human traits, influences on thoughts and feelings, and patterns of behavior
    • Social - look for social or external influences on thoughts, feelings, and behavior in social situations
    • Environmental - focus on how behavior influences and is influenced by the physical environment
  • Experimental psychologists - research fundamental processes relevant to more applied specialties
  • Psychologists in industry
    • Industrial and organizational - work in business forms to enhance productivity
    • Consumer - attempt to predict and influence shoppers' behavior
  • Emerging fields
    • Forensic psychology - within the criminal justice system
    • Health psychology - examine how behavior and mental processes are related to physical health

Historical schools of thought in psychology

  • Ancient Greece
    • Aristotle
      • Book = Peri Psyches
      • Humans are motivated to seek pleasure and avoid pain
    • Socrates
      • Know thyself
      • Introspection - an objective approach to describing one's mental condition
  • Structuralism
    • Birth of modern psychology
      • Some historians peg at 1860 with Fechner's Elements of Psychophysics
      • Most set at 1879 with Wundt's psychological laboratory
    • Wilhelm Wundt, Edward Bradford Titchener
    • The mind consists of 3 basic elements: sensations, feelings, and images
    • Objective sensations (sight, taste)
    • Subjective feelings (emotions, memories)
  • Functionalism
    • William James (The Principles of Psychology), John Dewey
    • Emphasizes the uses or functions of the mind rather than the elements of experience
    • Dealt with observable behavior as well as conscious experience
    • Focus is on habits
    • Adapted Darwin's idea of the survival of the fittest to behavior
      • more adaptive behavior patterns are learned and maintained, and others are 'discontinued'
      • The 'fittest' behaviors become automatic in response to a stimulus and are called habits
  • Behaviorism
    • John B. Watson, Ivan Pavlov, B. F. Skinner
    • Rejects quantification of consciousness, focuses only on the learning of measurable responses (observable reactions to environmental stimuli)
    • Organisms learn to act in certain ways because they have been reinforced (rewarded or punished) for specific actions (Skinner)
  • Gestalt
    • Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Köhler
    • Humans perceive separate pieces of information as integrated wholes; thus human nature cannot be understood by focusing on clusters of overt behavior
    • Learning is more often achieved by insight - the sudden reorganization of perceptions, allowing the solution of a problem
  • Psychoanalysis
    • Sigmund Freud
    • Unconscious processes, especially primitive sexual and aggressive impulses, are more influential than concious thought in determining human behavior
    • Freud's theory = psychodynamic (underlying forces of personality determine our thoughts, feelings, and behavior)
    • Method of psychotherapy = psychoanalysis

Contemporary views of psychology

  • The Biological perspective
    • Key focus = the Brain
    • Seeking links between events in the brain and mental processes
    • Specific indicators:
      • Certain parts of the brain are highly active when engaged in specific activities
      • Chemical influences
      • Electrical stimulation of the brain
      • Hormones (chemical substances that promote development of body structures and regulate various body functions)
      • Genetic influences (genes are the basic building blocks of heredity)
  • The Cognitive perspective
    • Key focus = the Mind
    • Focus on mental processes
    • Cognitive-developmental theory (Piaget)
    • Information Processing: The processes by which information is encoded, stored, retrieved, and manipulated to solve problems
  • The Humanistic perspective
    • Key focus = Consciousness
    • Assumes the existence of the self and emphasizes the importance of consciousness and self-awareness
    • Carl Rogers, Rollo May, Abraham Maslow
    • Phenomenological - having to do with the experience of observing the world
  • Psychodynamic
    • Neoanalysts - followers of Freud who focus less on the roles of unconcious impulses and more on conscious choice and self-direction
    • Karen Horney, Erich Fromm, Erik Erikson
  • Learning-Theory
    • Studying the effects of experience on behavior
    • The Behavioral perspective
      • John B. Watson
      • People do things because of their learning histories, situational influences, and the rewards involved rather than becuase of conscious choice - exemplified by experiments in conditioning.
    • The Social-Learning Perspective
      • Includes cognitive factors in the explanation and prediction of behavior
      • Albert Bandura, Julian Rotter, Walter Mischel

Methods of study

  • Scientific Method
    • Formulate a research question
    • Develop a hypothesis (a specific statement or assumption about behavior that is tested through research)
    • Test the hypothesis
    • Draw conclusions about the accuracy of the hypothesis
    • (Modify the hypothesis and repeat steps 3 and 4)
  • Naturalistic-Observation method
    • A scientific mehod in which organisms are observed in their natural environments
    • Observing behavior "in the field" without interfering with behaviors being observed (unobtrusive)
    • Nomenclature (fancy word for 'vocabulary')
      • Sample - the individuals or subjects observed in a study; part of a population
      • Population - a complete group of organisms or events
    • Correlational research - a scientific method that studies the relationships between variables
      • Correlational coeeficient: a number between +1.00 and -1.00 that expresses the stregnth and direction (positive or negative) of the relationship between the 2 variables
      • Positive correlation - a relationship between variables in which one variable increases as the other one also increases (positive slope)
      • Negative correlation - a relationship between variables in which one variable increases as the other one decreases (Negative slope)
      • IMPORTANT: correlation may suggest but does not verify cause and effect. Correlation does not imply causation. For example, both ice cream sales and the number of shark attacks on swimmers increase in the summer (and are thus correlated), but of course have nothing to do with causing one another.
  • The Experimental Method
    • The preferred method for answering questions concerning cause and effect.
      • Experimental participants, known as experimental subjects, receive treatments, while control subjects do not
      • Often, the control subjects receive a placebo - a bogus treatment that has the appearance of being genuine
      • The treatments introduce independent variables into the experimental subjects
      • Independent variables are conditions that can be manipulated so their effects may be observed
      • The measured results or outcomes in an experiment are dependent variables.
    • Many times participants and experimenters are unaware of the details of the experiment
      • Blind studies: the participants are unaware of the treatment they have received
      • Double-blind studies: the participants AND the experimenters are unaware of who has recieved the treatment
    • Generalizing from experimental results: scientists must be very cautious about inferring (drawing a conclusion) about the experiment's results on populations other tha those from whom the sample were drawn.
  • Survey
    • A scientific method in which large samples of people are questioned to learn about behavior that cannot be directly observed
    • Issues with surveys - 
      • Inaccurate recall
      • Purposeful misrepresentation
      • Answering in a perceived 'socially desireable' manner
      • Problems might arise if interviewers and those surveyed are from different gender, racial, or socioecoomic backgrounds
      • Random sampling: surveys must accurately represent the population they are intended to reflect
  • Testing
    • Measures various traits and characteristics among a population
    • Examples - intelligence, aptitude, personality
    • Many of the same issues as with surveys, try to correct with validity scales
    • Validity scales - groups of test items that suggest whether the test results are valid
  • Case Study
    • Carefully drawn biographies of individuals that may be obtained through interviews, questionnaires, and psychological tests
    • Psychologists seek out the factors that seem to contribute to notable patterns of behavior

Ethics in research and practice

  • Ethical = referring to one's system of deriving standards for determining what is moral
  • Research with human subjects
    • Must give informed consent - indicate that they have agreed to participate in research after receiving information about the purposes of the study and the nature of the treatment
    • Records of individual subjects are confidential - secret; not to be disclosed
  • Use of deception
    • Some experiments might not be able to be run without deceiving their human subjects
    • The American Psychological Association requires that deceived particiapants are debriefed - given information about the completed procedure to minimize any harmful effects
  • Research with animal subjects
    • Obviously controversial
    • Usually conducted when the belief is that the eventual benefits to people justifies the harm done to the animals
    • Limits are imposed on the discomfort that may be imposed on animals