4 major goals of psychology

1.     Describe how people and animals behave

2.     Understand and explain the causes of behavior

3.    Predict behaviors/ reactions across situations

4.    Control behavior through understanding its causes and consequences 

Scientific Thinking Principles

·       Extraordinary claims: the more a claim contradicts what we already know, the more persuasive the evidence for this claim must be before we should accept it

·       Falsifiability: Claims must be capable of being disproved

·       Occam’s Razor: If two hypotheses explain a phenomenon equally well, we should generally select the simpler one

·       Replicability: A finding must be capable of being duplicated by independent researchers following the same “recipe” 

·       Ruling out rival hypotheses: findings consistent with several hypotheses require additional research to eliminate these hypotheses

·       Correlation vs. Causation: the fact that two things are associated with each other doesn’t mean that one causes the other 

Scientific methods of psychology

Psychodynamic:

o   Behavior is explained in terms of inherited instincts, biological drive and attempts to resolve conflicts

o   Focus is on unconscious 

Scientific methods of psychology

·       Behaviorist:

o   Primarily concerned with observable behavior that can be objectively recorded

Scientific methods of Psychology:

Humanistic

o   Emphasizes an individuals inherent capacity for making rational choices and developing to a maximum potential

o   Self- actualization 

Scientific Methods of Psychology:

Cognitive

o   Human thought and the process of knowing and thinking

o   Behavior occurs because people think 

Scientific Methods of Psychology

     Biological 

o   Focuses on the functioning of the genes, brain, nervous system and endocrine system

o   Behavior is explained in the terms of underlying physical structures and biochemical processes 

Scientific Methods of Psychology: 

Evolutionary

o   Importance of behavioral and mental adaptiveness

o    Natural selection: those who solve problems survive 

Scientific Methods of Psychology: 

Sociocultural

o   Cross-cultural differences in the causes and consequences of behavior 

Theoretical Frameworks of Psychology

Structuralism

Psychoanalysis: 

Basic: examining how mind works

applied: using basic research to solve real-world problems 

1.social > personal relationships

2.Behavioral > what you do

3.Mental > thoughts, feelings

4.Neurological > brain structure + fn

5.Neurochemical > neurotransmitters

6.Molecular > genes

o   watching behavior in “real world” settings

Adv: High in external validity

Disadv: doesnt allow causation inferral

o   research design that examines one person or a small number of people in depth over an extended time 

Adv: can provide existence proofs

disadv: cant generalize to whole pop. Typically anecdotal, no causation inferall

  research designs that examine the extent to which two variables are associated/ co-relate 

Positive: means that as the value of one variable goes up, so does the other one

Negative:means that as the value of one variable goes up, the other goes down

zero:means that the variables don’t go together

Adv: Help to predict behavior

Disadv: cant infer causation 

o   research design characterized by random assignment of participants to conditions and a manipulation of an independent variable

o   requires 2 things:

1.     random assignment of participants to conditions

2.     manipulation of an independent variable 

Adv: can infer causation/high internal validity

disadv:low in external validity

o   highly unreliable and invalid

o   BUT easy to administer

o   HOWEVER its risky to assume people possess enough insight into their own personality to accurately report and that people will be honest

randomly sorting participants into two groups 

   in an experiment, the group of participants that revives the manipulation

o   in an experiment, the group of participants that doesn’t receive the manipulation 

variable that experimenter manipulates 

variable that an experimenter measures to see whether the manipulation has an effect

o   any difference between the experimental and control groups other than the independent variable 

o   procedure that ensures every person in a population has an equal chance of being chosen to participate

KEY TO GENERALIZABILITY

o   extent to which we can generalize findings to real-world settings 

threats: 

o   extent to which we can draw cause-and-effect inferences from a study

threats: 

o   improvement resulting from the mere expectation of improvement 

o   Phenomenon in which participants knowledge that they’re being studied can effect their behavior

cues that participants pick up from a study that allow them to generate guesses regarding the researchers hypothesis 

o   phenomenon in which researchers hypotheses lead them to unintentionally bias the outcome of a study

-solve by using double bline

-both experimenter and participant dont know

informing participants of what is involved in a study

o   after a study to tell participants what happened

numerical characterizations that describe data 

allow us to determine whether we can generalize finding from our sample to the population 

·       happens less then 1 in 20 (.05)and it means its believable, applies to real world 

a finding that may be statistically significant yet has to importance, no real world value 

investigation of the consistency of patters of results across large numbers of studies conducted in different laboratories 

consistency of measurement

test-retest: high reliability if both tests have same results

Interrator reliability: high if both experimenters have same results

·       extent to which a measure assess what it purports to measure

·       Reliability leads to validity (not the other way around) 

·       399 African American men with syphilis

·       Wanted to learn about the natural course of syphilis

·       Researchers didn’t tell them they had syphilis, nor that there was a treatment for it

·       By the end of the study 28 men died from syphilis, 100 died from complications from syphilis   

1. actions are multiply determined; produced by many factors

2.psychological influences are rarely independent of eachother

3. individual differences

4. ppl influence eachother (reciprocal determinsm)

5.behavior shaped by culture

emic: study cultural behavior from "native" perspective

etic: study behavior from outsider perspective

tendency to perceive meaningful images in meaningless visual stimuli

tendency to seek out evidence that supports our hypothesis 

Stick to initial beliefs even when evidence says otherwise

seemingly scientific claims: 

ad-hoc immunizing hypothesis: defenders of theory use loophole to prevent falsification

lack of self-correction

exaggerated claims

overreliance on anecdotes

absence of connectivity to other research

lack of scholarly review

talk of proof instead of evidence

the perception of a statistical association btwn 2 variables where none exists

-superstition

-people dont remember "non-events"

method where trained observers reflect and report mental experiences

terror management theory: fear of death causes adoption of paranormal or religious beliefs

Emotional reasoning fallacy: refusing to believe somehting because it makes you upset

bandwagon fallacy:believe something because everyone does

Not me fallacy:believing you are objective and have no biases 

Scientific Skepticisim:approach of evaluating open mindedly but insisting on persuasive evidence before acceptance occurs. 

mental shortcut that streamlines our thinking and helps us make sense of the world. 

representative heuristic:judge probability of event by superficial similarity to prototype

-like goes with like 

-must always consider the base rate

availability heuristic: "off the top of my head" 

systematic errors in thinking. 

ex: hindsight biases

overconfidence