The Science of Psychology 01 22 2013 Psychology scientific study of behavior and mental processes What is Psychology Psychology s goals Description Explanation o Girls put more emphasis on their parents than boys o Explain an observation with a theory influence of the media Prediction o Make a guess Control o Reduce exposure and control the problem History of Psychology objectively Structuralism not really reliable but first to think of psychology o Study structure of basic elements of mind o Wundt Germany 1879 objective introspection examining and measuring one s own mental activities o Titchener American named it structuralism Student was Margaret Washburn 1st female PhD in Psychology Functionalism o Study how mind functions how it allows up to adapt live work o William James influences by Darwin Thinking like everything else about humans developed because it is adaptive Studied consciousness which is always flowing so you cannot objectively study your consciousness mind Psychoanalysis o Emphasizes unconscious mind repression early childhood shaping adult behavior o Freud neurologist Adler Jung Anna Freud Basis for modern psychotherapy The patient sits and talks with a therapist the talking treatment All behavior comes from unconscious Behaviorism o Focused on scientific study of observable behavior you can t observe your feelings or thoughts you can only observe someone s actual behavior o Pavlov reflex conditioning in dogs classical conditioning o Watson termed behaviorism behavior is learned Little Albert o Behavior is learned phobia Gestalt Psychology parts o Focus on sensation and perception whole greater sum of o Wertheimer o We can t break things down into parts we see it as a whole Early psychology perspectives main focus and main people o Structuralism o Functionalism o o Psychology Now Psychodynamic perspective o Modern version of psychoanalysis o Focused on development of sense of self o Less emphasis on sexual motivations Behavioral perspective o Skinner operant conditioning how reinforcement affect o What you receive after your behavior punishment reward Humanistic perspective o Third force reaction to psychoanalytic theory and behavior behaviorism o Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers o Aimed at self understanding and self improvement o Emphasizes self actualization and free will Cognitive perspective o Evolved from Gestalt computers Piaget Chomsky s analysis of Skinner s views of language o Focus on memory intelligence perception thought processes problem solving language and learning o Includes cognitive neuroscience o Thought process underlying language Sociocultural perspective o Combines social psychology study of groups social roles and rules of social actions and relationships and cultural psychology study of cultural norms values and expectations Biopsychological perspective o How human and animal behavior occur due to biological o Focuses on biological evolutionary basis of human behavior events in the body Evolutionary perspective Look at chart What is a Psychologist Psychiatrist o A medical doctor who has specialized in the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders Psychiatric Social Worker o A social worker with some training in therapy methods who focuses on the environmental conditions that can have an impact on mental disorders such as poverty overcrowding stress and drug abuse Psychologist o A professional with an academic degree and specialized training in one or more areas of psychology o Can do counseling teaching and research and may specialize in any one of a large number of areas within o Areas of specialization in psychology include clinical counseling developmental social and personality among psychology others Types of Psychologists Many careers in psychology with new ones emerging constantly When thinking about a career just like marketing a product think about where there is a need or demand not being met Tailor your career goals to meet those demands Speak to psychologists and get advice Things are always evolving therefore be in the know and be creative The Scientific Method Scientific Method o System of gathering data so that bias and error in measurement are reduced Steps in the Scientific Method o Perceive the question o Form a hypothesis tentative explanation of a phenomenon based on observations o Test the hypothesis o Draw conclusions o Report your results so that others can try to replicate or repeat the study or experiment to see whether the same results will be obtained in an effort to demonstrate reliability of results Descriptive Methods Naturalistic Observation watching animals or humans behave in their normal environment o Major advantage Realistic picture of behavior o Disadvantages Observer effect tendency of people or animals to behave differently from normal when they know they are being observed Participant observation a naturalistic observation in which the observer becomes a participant in the group being observed to reduce observer effect Observer bias tendency of observers to see what they expect to see Blind observers people who do not know what the research question is to reduce observer bias Each naturalistic setting is unique and observations may not hold Laboratory Observations watching animals or humans behave in a laboratory setting o Advantages Control over environment Allows use of specialized equipment o Disadvantage Artificial situation that may result in artificial behavior Case Study study of one individual in great detail o Advantage Tremendous amount of detail o Disadvantage Cannot apply to others o Famous case study Phineas Gage Surveys researchers will ask a series of questions about the topic under study o Population o Given to a representative sample randomly selected sample of subjects from a larger population of subjects The entire group of people or animals in which the researcher is interested o Advantages Data from large number of people Study covert behaviors o Disadvantages Researchers have to ensure representative sample or the results are not meaningful People are not always accurate Correlation a measure of the relationship between two variables scatterplot things o Variable anything that can change or vary o Measures of two variables go into a mathematical formula and produce a correlation coefficient r which represents two The direction of the relationship sign The strength of the relationship number o Knowing the variable of one variable allows researchers to predict the value
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