IM IN DISCUSSION GROUP A General Theoretical Perspectives Part 1 1 29 13 DEFINING PSYCHOLOGY The science of understanding human individuals Affect Behavior and Cognition the A B and C s of psychology Some people say Psychology isn t a science No tangible product It s more theoretical However we do apply the scientific method to psychology To things that are harder to apply it to than other sciences AFFECT Not like the verb affect A noun meaning feelings emotions COGNITION Thoughts thinking Processing information Perceptions ACTIVITY EXPLAINING UGGS Clicker questions about whether we re male female Whether we own UGGS Whether we think they re still in style That 3rd question points to the cognitive definition of psychology Can be skewed however based on if we re male or female FOUR THEORIES AREN T MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE 1 SOCIO BIOLOGICAL evolutionary Genetic chaos mutations people look differently Thoughts and behaviors can be inherited Are thoughts really genetic Studies of identical twins separated at birth Same nature different nurture Life is hard resources are limited We re all looking for food water and shelter Fittest survive and reproduce Much of what exists was is adaptive 1 Survive 2 Make your genes survive reproduce Example Using this theory why do people eat Reese s peanut butter cups Does it help them survive individually and help make their genes survive reproduce Using this theory explain the UGGS experiment You d have to say something about how the UGGS get you a mate to Not just that they re in fashion that s more socio cultural theory 2 SOCIO CULTURAL Group norms guide thought and behavior in an elevator there s a norm that you stand facing the door there s no LAW saying that True vs false Right vs wrong Attractive vs repulsive cultures teeth Women are considered attractive differently in many different In some African tribe it s hot for women to knock out their two front However in the majority of cultures men find long hair on women more attractive than short hair Since its common amongst cultures the attraction to long hair can be attributed to socio many Masculine vs feminine biological and a genetic attraction General Theoretical Perspectives Part 2 1 31 13 SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY BEHAVIORISM Learning as in behavior not education Organism are designed to seek pleasure and avoid pain Pleasure biological psychological need Pain something detrimental to well being More physical than psychological A behaviorist would say In order to a behavior to not happen a child not reaching for a boiling pot he or she must have to have had a prior experience of feeling pain when reaching for a pot Behavior determined by experience with outcome NOT BASED ON PLANNING The kid isn t sitting there thinking about the consequence of touching the pot Strict behaviorists don t really believe in thinking Skinner Box box with rat in it with red and green light When red light is on and rat pushes a lever food comes out When green light is on and rat pushes lever floor is electrocuted Eventually rat learns not to touch the lever when the green light is on Conclusion we are just like rats Similarly with the UGGS when a male would wear a pear of UGGS he would be looked weirdly upon so he learns from that to not wear UGGS anymore Some species can learn from observation You don t have to only learn from your own experiences Chimpanzees teach each other how to use tools like a piece of grass to fish out termites It s not that the baby chimpanzee just walks around and sticks a piece of grass in a termite mound he s taught by his mother This isn t true of ALL organisms SOCIAL COGNITIVE Thoughts and behavior are guided by Beliefs facts Attitudes evaluations of objects Expectations placebos Goals Memory Humans can plan their behaviors not just learn from past experiences We choose our own course by making decisions based on possible consequences and acting accordingly EX chimpanzee knowing he needs some kind of tool to extract termites from a mound The animal looks around sees the grass and processes in his head that he believes the termites will cling to the grass Knowing this he inserts the grass into the mound and gets termites DISCUSSION SECTION 2 1 13 RANDOM ASSIGNMENT Creating different groups of participants that can be assumed to be on average equal in every way As opposed to random sampling which creates a group of participants that can be assumed to be on average the same as the population CONTROLLING CONFOUNDING VARIABLES example of giving someone a pill to double their memory Aside from the drug what other variables might influence how well someone performs on a memory task Mood Natural intelligence Sleep deprivation Why can t we compare the group taking the drug and the control placebo group if they differ on one of those variables To be able to pinpoint the drug being the difference maker you need to set all other variables to be equal so that independent variable is truly being tested the one DEMONSTRATION CREATING GROUPS Every card on the table represents a human there are 5 decks of cards Population all humans you care about Sample participants in your study Group participants in the sample who get the same level of manipulation experimental group control group Step 1 Get sample of 40 cards Is that a random sample Yes he shuffled them all beforehand Step 2 Assign cards to 2 groups of 20 experimental and control group Two possible confounding variables Last night s sleep card suit diamonds 9 hours spades 5 hours clubs 2 hours hearts no sleep IQ card value face Ace 7 below average 8 king above average Count out the cards and these categories between the groups we recorded the data on a separate sheet RANDOMLY ASSIGNED EQUIVALENT GROUPS If nothing but the manipulated IV drug is different between the groups the manipulation must have caused differences on the measured DV memory performance Independent variable and dependent variable Why is this better than manual sorting We can anticipate some confounding variables but there s no way to be sure we ve thought of everything Language is one that you don t always think about In order to make sure experiment is still valid random assignment takes care of it Random sampling creates group equal to population Random assignment creates groups equal to each other among characteristics Correlation and Causation 2 5 13 WHAT CAN CAUSE US TO LOSE WEIGHT Cheerios commercial More grain less you Implies that the more grain you eat the less of you fat
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