PS 101 QUIZ 1A Study Guide Definition of Psychology Psychology the scientific study of the behavior of organisms including cognitive mental processes Psychology is a science Gathers information in a scientific way unlike religion or philosophy Behavior is studied NOT MIND No way to tell what s going on in someone s mind can t be measured Can only measure what we observe behavior Can measure brain activity behavior brain biology but still doesn t always explain observable behavior Originally psychology did mean the study of the mind History of Psychology 1879 Germany Wilhelm Wundt Set up laboratory in Leipzig Germany Classified himself as a structuralist psych should study structures of mind NOT BRAIN how your mind structures organizes information Said the way we can get info is through experiments a lot of them were sensory 1900 1920 s Functionalists What the mind can do more practical Developed first IQ test 1920 s 1960 s Behaviorists John Watson Psych can only study behavior 1938 B F Skinner Wrote a book on behaviorists approach Most work was with animals rats and pigeons 1910 1940 Psychoanalyst Freud Developed psychoanalysis 1960 1970 s Humanists Group therapy is important human beings are social 1980 s now Medical Biological model Todays Schools Philosophies Medical Biological model Behaviorists Humanists Cognitive thinking Freudians Eclectic Blend Zeitgeist spirit of the times what are we going to do about our culture ex terrorist attacks immigrants Types of Psychologists MD Psychiatrist physician gone to med school bachelors of bio chem etc can prescribe Psychologists BA PhD in psychology cannot prescribe School Psychologists BA MA 6th year Social Worker Masters of social work six years can get licensed clinical social work All protected by the law cannot call yourself these titles without the training schooling Specializations Basic Academic Psych Teach at university and do research Experimental experimentation on animal behavior and apply to human behavior Developmental study stages of human development Social studies the individual in relation to social groups events occurring in culture Applied Psych Apply psych to help people or organizations Clinical diagnosis and treatment of serious mental disorders Counseling diagnose and treat more everyday life problems marriage counseling etc School diagnose and treat school related disorders in students learning disabilities etc Industrial Organizational employed by industries businesses advertising employee relations etc Self fulfilling Prophecy Part 1 Our observations are influenced by Needs Values Desires Experiences Expectations what we expect to see we often do see Selective perception perceive what s important in that moment ex hearing in class Part 2 Poor expectations motivate bad behavior ex teacher to student gets to say I was right Our expectations effect our behavior our behavior than effects behavior of others usually to conform with our original expectation Robert Rosenthal did most of the research on the self fulfilling prophecy in the late 1960 s Maze bright maze dull rats Bred the bright ones and bred the dull ones selective breeding once the babies were mature experiment was re done continued for 10 generations Conclusion it was all a lie gave the students an expectation treated smart rats like pets encouragement affection and dull ones like animals no encouragement no affection Intellectual Bloomers study Gave an IQ test to grades 1 8 Gave the teachers the real scores but told them that 20 of the kids would make tremendous growth represented by a star next to their name created an expectation Re gave the test at the end of the year the children that were labeled as bloomers did in fact make more growth They created an expectation to look for the good However by 7th 8th grade the expectation didn t do anything students no longer are affected by a cheerleader teacher Experimental Method We want truth and facts How to find the truth 1 Ask experts good place to start but experts do disagree 2 Common sense wisdom of the ages still disagreements 3 Observation part of science seeing is believing not objective ex eye witness testimony Clarity and precision are essential Operational definitions define a term using the operations methods that measure the term always must have a measurement ex to define overweight you could use BMI Pre test Post test same participants are used throughout the study as a single group Test everyone the first time give treatment or program test a second time Compare first and second time Major problem is self fulfilling prophecy expectations don t actually know what causes outcome since its over a period of time To fix this you need a controlled experiment with at least 2 groups Selection random or representative Normally random is ideal Steps for a controlled experiment 1 Introduction Hypothesis specific statement about behavior or mental processes that is testable through research 2 Design should be clear enough that you can replicate it Participants Methods Procedures what did you do Apparatus instruments materials 3 Results Data analysis statistics 4 Discussion Conclusion summarize your research talk about what you found implications in future If you don t get statistically significant outcome you critique your study where it went wrong what could be improved 5 References Most studies can fit into The effect of independent variable on dependent variable An experiment is a comparison between 2 or more groups Everything about the participants and the treatments must be identical except what your interested in finding out about Experimental group group that receives the treatment Control group group that does not receive treatment receives placebo Placebo a fake treatment that has the appearance of being real Independent variable a condition that is manipulated so its effects may be observed Dependent variable a measure of an assumed effect of an independent variable not changed P value tells you the probability that your results are meaningful Probability statistics mathematical tests that determine if the differences between your groups is meaningful Experimental Errors issues that are difficult to avoid Time sequence error if you observe A and then B and then C you cannot assume A caused B and B caused C Just because two or more events follow each other in sequence does not mean the first cause the second etc A B C not always cause and effect Correlational error just because 2