Chapter 1 : An introduction to Psychology
Psychology is not
- Therapy
- Lying down on a couch thing
- Always about mental illness being violent
- Dr. Phil
- Astrology
What is Psychology?
- The scientific study of behavior and mental processes
Areas of Specialization
- Clinical / counseling
- Biology / experimental
- Developmental
- School
- Educational
- Social / personality
- Cognitive
- Health
- Forensic
- Industrial / organizational
Psychologists
- Scientists who work in a variety of psychology subfields
APA
- American Psychological Association
APS
- Association of Psychological Science
Where Psychologists work
- Independent practice
- Outpatient / nursing care
- Business / government
- Social assistance
- Hospital
- Higher education
- K-12 schools
Basic research
- Gather knowledge for the sake of knowledge
Applied research
- Focuses on changing behaviors and outcomes in real
world settings
4 goals of Psychology
- Describe
- To describe or report what is observed
- Explain
- To organize and make sense of research findings
- Predict
- To predict behaviors or outcomes
- Change
- To modify or change behavior
Is Psychology common sense?
- No, it is a science
- Follows the scientific method and uses critical
thinking
Critical thinking
- Weighing pieces of evidence and considering the source
and quality of information before accepting it as valid
One must distinguish between psychology and real science
from pseudo psychology or pseudo science
- Pseudo → fake / false
More false things
- Facial structure and personality
- Talking to spirits
- Parts of the brain are responsible for certain personality
traits
- Hypnosis / mesmerism
The roots of Psychology
- Beginnings
- Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)
- A German psychologist and the “father of
modern psychology”
- Established first psychology laboratory in 1879
- Introspection
- Examining one’s conscientiousness
through effortful reflection of one’s
experienced sensations, feelings, and
images
- Structuralism and Functionalism
- Edward Titchener (1867-1927)
- Set up a lab at cornell in 1893
- Structuralism
- Used introspection to determine the structure
and the most basic elements of the mind
- William James (1842-1910)
- Offered the first classes of psychology at
Harvard in the late 1870s
- Functionalism
- Focused on the function of thoughts, feelings,
and behaviors, how they help us adapt
Diversity in Psychological history
- Mary Whiton Calkins (1890)
- First female grad student
- Margaret Floy Washburn (1905)
- First woman PhD
- Francis C. Sumner (1920)
- First black man PhD
- Inez Beverly Prosser (1933)
- First black woman PhD
- Kenneth Clark (1950s)
- Important black psychologist
- Mamie Phipps Clark (1950s)
- Important black psychologist
- Martha Bernal (1962)
- First latina PhD
- Carolyn Attneave (1970s)
- First native PhD
Major Perspectives in Psychology
- Psychoanalytic
- Underlying conflicts influence behavior
- Behavioral
- Behavior is learned through our experiences
- Humanistic
- Humans are inclined to grow in a positive direction
- Cognitive
- Behavior is driven by cognitive processes
- Evolutionary
- Humans have evolved to adapt to their environment
- Biological
- Behavior and mental processes arise from
physiological activity
- Sociocultural
- Social interactions and culture influence behavior
and mental processes
- Biopsychological
- Behavior and mental processes are shaped by
bio-psycho-social factors
Chapter 2 : Research methods
The scientific method
- Process for gathering empirical (not subjective) evidence
from observations or experiments
5 steps to scientific method
1. Develop a question
2. Develop a hypothesis
3. Design a study and collect data
4. Analyze data
5. Share the findings
Develop a question
- Stems form something interesting or something
previously studied
- Examples
- Does stress affect memory recall?
- Does smiling increase happiness?
Develop a hypothesis
- Hypothesis
- Testable statement of what the researcher predicts
will be the outcome of the study
- Examples
- We hypothesize that participants under stress will
perform poorly in a memory task
- Theory
- More established and supported by a body of
scientific evidence
Design a study and collect data
- Example research designs
- Survey research
- Experiments
- Your chosen research design tests your hypothesis
- Data is collected and organized
Analyze data
- Descriptive statistics
- Organize and present data through tables, graphs,
and charts.
- Mean
- Median
- Mode
- Standard deviation
- Range
- inferential statistics
- Goes beyond simply describing the data set; allows
researchers to make predictions and test
hypotheses
- The results tell us whether our hypothesis is supported or
not
Share your findings
- Publishing a research article in a research journal and / or
presenting one’s research
- Getting published is hard
- There is a peer review process
Research basics
- Variables
- Measurable characteristics that can vary, or change,
over time or across individuals
- Personality characteristics
- Shyness
- Friendliness
- Cognitive characteristics
- Memory
- Number of siblings in a family
- Gender
- socioeconomic status
- Operational definition
- Specifies the precise manner that something is
measured with
- Population
- Overall group the researcher wants to examine
- Sample
- A subset of the population that the researcher wants
to study
- Best are random and representative
Descriptive research methods
- Type of research that is primarily concerned with simply
describing a characteristic of a population
- Types
- Naturalistic observation
- Systematic observation of participants in their
natural environments
- Key is to not be noticed
- Pros
- Observing tourist self
- Cheaper
- Cons
- No control over who is their
- Observer bias
- Errors in observation due to a researcher’s
expectations or attitudes
- Can be prevented by using multiple
observers
- Case study
- A detailed examination of an individual or small
group
- Good for a rare occurrence
- Phineas Gage
- Pros
- Able to understand brain damage without
causing more
- Study someone who has the injury
without causing it
- Understand rare occurrences
- Cons
- Hard to replicate
- Survey method
- Uses questionnaires or interviews to gather
data
- Administered on paper, in person, via
cellphone, tablet, and other digital devices
- Pros
- Cheap
- Cons
- Hard to get honest answers
Correlational research method
- Examines relationships among variables
- Any relation?
- Correlation
- Relationship or link between variables
- 3 types
- Positive
- Both going in the same direction
- Up
- Negative
- Going in opposite directions
- Down
- No / zero
- Not related
- Strengths
- Strong
- Variables are closely related
- Moderate
- Variables are somewhat related
- Weak
- Variables are not closely related
Experimental method
- Primarily concerned with establishing cause and effect
relationships
- Manipulate one variable
- independent variable
- Observe change in the other
- dependent variable
- Simple design
- Random sample of participants
- Classical music during class
- IV
- Test scores
- DV
- Complex design
- Random sample participants
- random assignment
- Control
- 50%
- Placebo
- Experimental
- 50%
- Receive treatment
- Observe changes in DV
Research must be Ethical
- APA ethical guidelines
- Provides written guidelines their members agree to
follow
- 1. Confidentiality
- Ensures participant information is safe and
secure
- Some things do have to be reported
- 2. Obtaining informed consent
- Before a participant can join a research study
- 3. Debriefing
- Researchers provide participants with a full
explanation if they are deceived
The institutional Review board
- Approves all experiments on humans and animals to
ensure the highest ethical standards
- No harm
- More strict on what you can do with animals than
with people
Chapter 3 : Biology and Behavior
Trephination
- Drilling holes into one’s head to let the demons out
- Not done anymore
Understanding the brain today
- EEG
- Measuring brian waves
- CAT scan
- Uses x-rays
- MRI / fMRI
- electromagnetic waves
- PET
- Activity in the brain
Neurons
- Nerve cell
- Cells that transmit info to other cells in the body
- Found across the nervous system
- Nearly 100 billion in your brain alone
Synapse
- Area where the axon terminal of a sending neuron meets
a dendrite of a receiving neuron
- Neurotransmitter
- The chemical messages exchanged by neurons
- Receptor sites
- Openings where neurotransmitters are received
- Reuptake
- Once neurotransmitters convey their message, they
are reabsorbed into the sending axon terminal
Neurotransmitters
- Acetylcholine
- Muscle movement
- Memory
- Arousal
- Attention
- Dopamine
- Coordination of muscle movement
- Attention
- Pleasure
- Endorphins
- Natural pain reliever
- GABA
- Inhibitory
- Produces calming effects
- Glutamate
- Promotes communication between neurons
- Learning
- Norepinephrine
- Fight or flight response
- Arousal and alertness
- Serotonin
- Mood
- Sleep
- Hunger
The nervous system
- Central nervous system
- Brain
- spinal cord
- Bundle of neurons that allows communication
between the brain and the peripheral nervous
system
- 2 main functions
- Receives info from the body and sends it to
the brain
- Receives info from the brain and sends it
to the body
- Spinal reflex arc
- Your spinal cord’s ultrafast involuntary
response to a painful stimulus
- Sensory neuron
- Receives sensory info and sends it to
the spinal cord
- Motor neurons
- Carry info from CNS to various parts of
the body
- Interneurons
- Act as a bridge between sensory and
motor neurons
- peripheral nervous system
- Somatic nervous system
- Controls the skeletal muscles responsible for
voluntary movement
- Includes sensory and motor neurons
- Autonomic nervous system
- Controls involuntary processes within the body
- Connects the CNS to the parts of the body you
control involuntarily
- Regulates any bodily functions you don’t think
about
- Sympathetic nervous system
- Initiates the fight or flight response
- Prepares the body to deal with a crisis
- Increases heart rate and respiration, slows
down digestion and dilates the pupils
- Caffeine actives your fight or flight
response
- Parasympathetic nervous system
- Initiates the ‘rest and digest’ process
- Works to bring the body into noncrisis
mode
- Reverses activity initiated by the
sympathetic nervous system
- Lowers heart rate and respiration,
increases digestion and constricts pupils
The Brain and its parts
- Neuroscience
- The study of the brain and nervous system
- The brain
- Cerebrum
- Includes all parts of the brain except for the
brian stem
- Has 2 unique hemispheres
- Corpus callosum
- Thick band of nerve fibers that connect the left
and right cerebral hemispheres
- Cerebral hemispheres
- Each hemisphere controls the opposite half of
the body
- Laterization
- Tendency for the left and right hemispheres to
excel at certain activities
- Left
- Language processing
- Right
- Visual spatial tasks
- However, most people’s differ only slightly
Split brain operation
- Disconnects the right and left hemispheres
- Used as a treatment for seizures
Left Hemisphere
- Broca’s area
- A region that is critical for speech production
- Wernicke’s area
- Region that is critical for language comprehension
Right hemisphere
- Identifying mirror images, spatial relationships, mentally
roataing images
- Recognizing facial expressions
The Brain : Cerebral Cortex
- The cerebrum’s outermost layer
- Frontal lobes
- responsible for higher cognitive functions
- Thinking
- Perception
- Impulse control
- Defines personality characteristics
- Phineas Gage
- Includes Broca’s area
- Motor cortex
- Works with other area to plan and execute
voluntary movements
- Parietal lobe
- Receive and process sensory information like touch,
pressure, temperature, and spatial orientation
- Somatosensory cortex
- Receives and integrates sensory information
from all over the body
- Pain, temperature
- Occipital lobe
- Processes visual information
- Primary visual cortex
- Receives, interprets, and processes visual
information
- Color
- Shape
- motion
- Temporal lobe
- Processes auditory stimuli and language
- Includes wernicke’s area
- Auditory cortex
- Receives information from the ears and allows
us to ‘hear’ sounds
The Brain : Limbic System
- Thalamus
- Processes and relays sensory info to the appropriate
cortex
- Hypothalamus
- Keeps the body’s system in a steady state
- Blood pressure
- Temperature
- Hunger
- Thirst
- Sleep
- Amygdala
- Processes aggression, basic emotions, and fearful
memories
- Hippocampus
- Primarily responsible for processing and forming
new memories
The Brain : brainstem and Cerebellum
- Forebrain
- Includes cerebrum and the limbic system
- Midbrain
- Includes the midbrain and reticular formation
system
- Hindbrain
- Includes the pons, medulla, and cerebellum
Midbrain
- Midbrain
- Plays a role in arousal
- reticular formation
- responsible for levels of consciousness
- Awake, dozing off, distracted
Hindbrain
- Pons
- Regulates sleep-wake cycles and coordinates
movement between left / right sides of the body
- Medulla
- Oversees vital functions
- Breathing
- Heart rate maintenance
- Cerebellum
- responsible for muscle coordination and balance
The endocrine system
- Set of glands that use hormones (instead of neurons) to
send messages
- Hormones
- Chemicals released into the bloodstream by
endocrine glands
- pituitary gland
- Controls other glands
- Promotes growth through its own hormone
- Pineal gland
- Secretes melatonin
- Controls sleep-wake cycles
- Thyroid gland
- Regulates the rate of metabolism
- Adrenal gland
- Involved in stress response
- Adrenaline
- Ovaries / testes
- Secrete sex hormones which cause the differences
in male and female development
