Objectives Chapter 1 Psychology and Scientific Thinking NOTE Our coverage of this chapter will be limited to Edition 3 pp 4 10 and pp 21 27 Edition 2 pp 2 10 and pp 20 37 Describe how the definition of psychology has changed from the time of the first psychology lab 1879 through today The first psychology lab was in Germany done by Wundt He wanted to know about The atoms in the mind and the structure in the mind Consciousness Mental processes Now psychology is not defined as the scientific study of the mind behavior and brain Know the five perspectives that influence psychology structuralism functionalism behaviorism cognitive and psychoanalysis Contrast structuralism and functionalism Structuralism an early school of psychology that focused on the structural elements of the human mind Interested in structure of the brain Functionalism what are the functions of our thoughts and feelings Highlighted the adaptive value of consciousness Asks WHY Explain why the behaviorists sought to change the focus of psychological research Introspection is unreliable too subjective Mentalism is unreliable too speculative Only human behavior is observable Science is rooted in observation Describe what the cognitive revolution beginning around the 1950s 1960s reintroduced to psychology Recaptured interest in the importance of the mental process Thinking is central Studies how does the way people think about things affect their behavior Look at the way people think about things Memory is a big cognitive topic Identify the main levels of analysis in psychological science consider how the focus of attention changes across levels Are the levels of analysis complementary Social level Behavioral level Mental level Neurologial physiological level Neurochemical level Molecular level All the levels build and influence each other The top levels of the latter focus on social influences and the bottom levels of the ladder focus on biological influences EX love We can look at it from a lot of different levels We can look at it from a behavioral level how do we express love At the mental level how do we think about it Neurochemical love looks at the chemicals in body related to love Any psychological concept we can look at different levels Know the top and bottom level social level and molecular level Name five major subfields of psychology hint our psychology department offers five Ph D programs Clinical Psychology Social Psychology Cognitive Psychology Developmental Psychology Neuroscience Distinguish between basic research and applied research Basic Research Tests theories and seeks to build a foundation of knowledge Tried to figure out more of human nature ex who falls in love quicker men or women Applied Research strives to solve specific problems For example what is the best therapy to treat alcoholism How can you get an A in this course Identify and explain the six principles of scientific thinking discussed by Lilienfeld et al 2011 see Figure 1 7 p 22 Scientific thinking is a set of skills for overcoming our own biases especially confirmation bias 1 Ruling out rival hypotheses Every psychological finding has multiple explanations So whenever we evaluate a psychological claim we should ask ourselves whether we ve excluded other plausible explanations for it 2 Correlation vs causation we should remember that a correlation between two things doesn t demonstrate a casual connection between them There could be a third variable that is correlating them 3 Falsifiability whenever we evaluate a psychological claim we should ask ourselves whether one could in principle disprove it or whether it s consistent with any conceivable body of evidence 4 Replicability Whenever we evaluate a psychological claim we should ask ourselves whether independent investigators have replicated the findings that support this claim otherwise the findings must be a one time only fluke 5 Extraordinary claims Whenever we evaluate a psychological claim we should ask ourselves whether this claim runs counter to many things we know already and if it does whether the evidence is as extraordinary as the claim 6 Occam s razor whenever we evaluate a psychological claim we should ask ourselves whether the explanation offered is the simplest explanation that accounts for the data or whether simpler explanations can account for the data equally well Describe the two great debates that have shaped the field of psychology these debates are first introduced in chapter 1 but we will also return to them later in the term e g we ll return to the nature nurture debate when we study behavior genetics in the biological psychology chapter and we ll return to the free will determinism debate when we confront Skinner s viewpoint in the learning chapter First debate nature vs nurture Are our behaviors attributable mostly to our genes or our rearing environments Second debate Free will vs determinism To what extent are our behaviors freely selected rather than caused by factors outside of our control Objectives Chapter 2 Research Methods NOTE Our coverage of this chapter will be limited to Edition 3 pp 44 70 Edition 2 pp 44 69 Explain why psychology is more than just common sense and explain how science serves as a safeguard against biases Psychology is more because common sense can fail because it is not always right Science is factual so when there are biases science can prove them wrong Thinking errors hinder our efforts to build an accurate body of knowledge however scientific inquiry helps us reduce error Covered 3 main problems with common sense They are conformation bias overconfidence bias scientific skepticism and hindsight bias Describe what na ve realism suggest about the value of intuitions versus scientific inquiry na ve realism was introduced by Lilienfeld et al in chapter 1 however I discuss it here because it s central to the argument for why we need reliable research methods Na ve realism thinking you see the world exactly how it is When we rely on intuitions we think it is how it is Example if friends with a couple that are opposites we think all couples have to be opposites to work out but this is wrong Explain how the representativeness and availability heuristics can cause us to underestimate or ignore important information Identify the pros and cons of heuristics it matches a certain population memory Judging things based on information currently available in Judging the likelihood of something based on how well Representative heuristic
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