Define Psychology The Scientific study of thought and behavior Five Basic Goals of Psychology Exam 1 Review Guide 1 Desribe Observe and describe behavior in minute detail as objectively as 2 Explain Psychologists must explain their observations why did the subject possible do what he or she did 3 Predict once we know what happens and why it happens we can begin to speculate what will happen in the future 4 Control once we know what happens why it happens and what will happen in the future we can exert control over it Preventing someone from choosing another abusive partner 5 Improve Psychologists want to improve people s lives through these experiments Theories of Behavior Social Cognitive Your behavior is a function of your knowledge attitudes and motivations Ex When your phone makes a sound you know it is ringing you believe it will let you have a conversation and you assume you have a positive attitude towards the person calling you you are motivated to answer Sociobiological Theory Behavior founded on patterns that on average maximize the reproductive potential for our species Ex You buy Uggs to increase the chances you will acquire a mate and reproduce Learning Theory Behavior determined by its positive or negative consequences Ex Touch a hot stove and experience pain you just learned not to touch hot things Wear clothes and get compliments now you are more likely to wear those clothes again Sociocultural Theory Your behavior is influenced by wanting to meet the expectations of others to fit in Ex It may be accepted for women to be more assertive in our society but it may be out of the ordinary and looked down upon if a girl is assertive in Iran Using Sociobiological Theory to explain war and prostitution Male displays and bravado evolved as a reproductive strategy to impress females Why do men go to war Because Women are watching Prostitution because women do most of the work to bring children into the world they are in the position of sellers in a scarce market of which men line up to buy Even a dominant male can t afford to alienate the most precious of resources a willing female Men have many chances for sex and have no maintenance while women have limited time and lots of maintenance Watson s Study On fear everyone arrives in the world a clean slate and most everything is learned Specifically fear is learned from experience Little Albert was exposed to a white rat with a clanging noise and started crying Eventually Albert became afraid of all furry things even without the clanging noise This proves that fears are learned not inherited Bandura s study on aggression Aggression is learned from observation it is not inherited The Children observed other people acting on a clown whether it was nicely or aggressively and the children acted like the people they observed Research Methods Naturalistic Observation A researcher unobtrusively collects information without the participant s awareness Ex Seatbelt observations of people by demographic Advantages The researcher doesn t influence the participant s behavior Disadvantages not everything can be observed in a naturalistic environment expensive and time consuming Structured Observation Researcher s set up a situation and observe the participant s behavior Ex Mother leaving her kid in the room with a stranger Gives researchers idea about child s attachment style Advantages Researcher has more control of the situation and can put more variables under control can collect other info from participants Disadvantages The participant is aware of the researcher and may be influenced by the artificial situation of their beliefs about what the researcher expects to find Self Report Participants are asked to provide information or responses to questions on a survey Ex Students reporting GPA and what they eat for breakfast if anything Advantages Inexpensive and efficient in collecting data easy to create and score Disadvantages Participant may misinterpret the questions asked they may be unable or unwilling to answer the questions Controlled Experiment Researchers make a controlled environment in which they can manipulate one variable to test its effect on another Ex testing the effect of a depression pill by comparing its results with another depression pill Advantages The researcher can be sure that whatever change was observed was caused by what was being studied and not something else Disadvantages Not everything can be manipulated in an experiment Longitudinal Researchers periodically collect data from the same participant s over a period of time Ex affect of marijuana use on memory later in life Advantages you can track changes over time Disadvantages length of the study Attrition not all the people who start the study will finish it Cross Sectional Researchers can gather participants of different ages and look for differences between the groups Ex Studying different ages of kids to see when they start swearing Advantages researchers examine the effect of time and experience in much less time than longitudinal Attrition not an issue Disadvantages Cohort Effects younger kids may have a different experience than the older kids when they were that age Case Study Research can have a detailed analysis on a particular group person business etc Ex someone could track the progress of someone receiving an innovative treatment for cancer Advantages You can study rare unusual participants in depth research can reveal new areas of study for the future Disadvantages what happens with one case may not generalize to other cases Archival Researcher examines data that has been collected for other purposes Ex examining temperature data and crime statistics to find out that more crimes happen on warmer nights Advantages conduct research on large data sets without collecting anything Disadvantages data may be missing incomplete Correlation When one thing Causes Another for example girls who watch soap operas are more likely to have eating disorders Causation when something causes something else but all other variables have been eliminated first Ex Smoking causes lung cancer because other possible variables were tested including sleep deprivation and alcohol intake Positive Correlation As one increases the other increases too sleep and GPA Negative Correlation As one increases the other decreases More sleep less anxiety The limitation from correlational findings is that multiple variables can be factors in the equation meaning that multiple
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