§  It is the empirical study or scientific study of the behavior and mental processes of the individual 

It is a set of procedures for objectively and systematically observing facts. It is the same set of procedures as used in other.

These are private behaviors and experiences that are not directly observable by other people

eg. Thoughts and emotions

We can infer your thoughts and feelings from your behavior

·         Conceptually

·         Operational definition

¨       We have to have a more concrete definition of a more abstract concept

Ø  EX. Intelligence=IQ score

§  Accurately describe the phenomenon of interest.

§  It is the first step that one must do.

§  Not as easy as it sounds

§  Understanding why things work or happen the way they do.

§  Some people will respond to only certain drugs and others will respond to them all.

·         It is all controlled by a bunch of processes and it varies from person to person a lot of time.

§  Adding a causal reason to our explanation.

·         When disasters happen people seek each other’s company. 

Comfort, safety, reassurance

§  Once we understand the cause of the phenomenon, we can then do things to change and control it.

·         EX. Poor children doing worse in school>Once you understand it> You can develop programs to help them succeed.

§  Can be used for good or evil

·         The entire groups of people that we are trying to describe, predict or understand.

·         Sometimes you can bring the entire population in for study but other times you cant

·         It is a subset of the population that are going to participate in the research.

·         The goal is to get a representative sample.

Ø  If you don’t use random sampling, you run the risk of having a biased sample.

§  When you go to generalize the results, you will have a problem because of the biased sample.  

Maze Bright vs Maze Dull Rats

(experiment)

Experimenter Bias example

¨       The students are the actual participants in the study

¨       They are told that they are the rat they received were maze bright or maze dull rats based on genetics.

¨       They all got the same type of rat.

¨       The students, who were told that their rat was maze bright, had rats that solved the maze much more quickly than the rats of students who were told that their rats were dull.

¨       There are a lot of things that we do, that we don’t like to do in public.

Ø  They may be socially unapproved of or personal or we may anticipate people not approving of them.

Ø  There are things that scientists don’t want to watch

¨       Careful crafting of the questionnaire so that the most truthful response is obtained.

¨       Assure the people who are in the study, confidentiality or anonymity            

Ø  People will tend to be more truthful with anonymity

¨       Sometimes the participants will be told that the study is about something other than the thing being tested.

Ø  Ex. Aggression research- delivering electric shock to another person.

·         +1.00>p>-1.00  range

r

§  It is the strength and direction of the two variables

§  To what extent and in what ways are they related.

§  As one of the variables increases, the other variable increases

§  They rise and fall together

§  As unresolved tension builds, the likelihood of divorce increases

§  As one variable increases, the other variable decreases

§  As expression of affection increases, the likelihood of divorce decreases

§  Alcohol increases, coordination decreases

¨       No correlation between the number of trees in your yard and your likelihood of getting a divorce

Ø  Correlation

Ø  Temporal Order

Ø  Absence of rival explanations 

Independent Variable

Dependent Variable

Condition

·         Experiential Condition

·         Control Condition

·         1+ Exp. Conds

True Experiment 

Tv show ratings experiment

·         The ratings themselves were the dependent variable

·         Watching tv shows with a specific facial expression to then have the participants rate the funniness of the show.

§  Compare average scores on DV across conditions

¨       Conditions 1- smile/teeth condition

Ø  Average (mean)- 5.14 of funniness

¨       Control-non dominant hand-

Ø  Mean-4.77

¨       Condition 3

Ø   (lips/frown) mean-4.32

·         The Hypothesis

¨       Fear or Anxiety causes an increase in the desire in people to seek each other’s company. 

Results

¨       People who were scared by the prospect of painful electric shock, were much more likely to go to the other room with other people

Ø  Things about the participants that could influence their DV score.

§  Eg. Gender, demographics, age,  personality, happy/depressed, experienced etc.

Ø  Random assignment means that everyone in the sample has an equal chance of being assigned to any given condition.

§  Can be as simple as flipping a coin.

§  The goal is to spread out all those initial conditions among the experiment groups

·         You want the groups to be functionally equivalent.

§  If you don’t use Random Assignment, you don’t know if your DV is what caused the differences among the control and experimental group. 

Ø  You force equivalence in the control/experimental group.

Ø  You will have a very hard time getting equivalence in the groups because of all the variables

Ø  You can only match on variables that you are suspicious of and can measure.

Ø  If you don’t anticipate it, then you can’t account for it.   

Ø  Within Subjects design uses the same people for the multiple conditions. 

Ø  Between subjects design uses different people for each group

¨       Once you have been measured, you have had practice doing the type of testing.

¨       You are not exactly the same as you were during the first condition 

¨       It might be simply because of the order that the conditions were done 

¨       We like to appear relatively consistent to other people especially psychologists

¨       You have to time things specifically

¨       Some questions are simply not within subject’s design. 

Very Young

150-170 years

Ø  Tabularasa

Ø  Tabularasa

§  Translates into blank slate

§  When we are born we are a blank slate and experience writes on us who we are.

§  We become socially acceptable individuals because of the exposure we had as we grew up

§  The environment molds you into who you are going to be

Ø  Jean Jacques Rouseau 

§  We are born with the seeds of who we are going to become

§  We don’t need adults interfering with our development

§  We are capable of figuring out how the world works and who we are on our own.

Is a certain time in life when a person is especially sensitive to external influence or factors

eg. Language Development 

Ø  You are never going to get a 6 month old to speak your native language.

Ø  Sounds that are not part of the babies native language

Ø  If you want to have a child learn multiple languages, the sensitive period is when they all need to be introduced. 

·         Is it in our genes or is it through experience

·         Most psychologists will tell you that it is both. 

the quantitative 

visual=slope

Something fairly dramatic changes

Visual=stairs/steps

• Qualitative difference 
• Stages must progress in an invariable sequence
• Stages are never repeated
• Developments that are made in a preious stage are incorportated into the new behavior at the next stage
• When you move from one stage to another, the change affects several other things simultaneously

Egocentrism

 (Preoperational Stage 2-7 years) 

Start off with the view that everyone sees the world as I do.

(Preoperational Stage 2-7 years)

Transductive Reasoning

Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)

·         Very susceptible to inferring causation from correlation

·         Better with reasoning when they can directly observe events

Animism

Preoperational (2-7 years)

Preoperational Stage 

Characteristics

• Iminent Justice
• Animism
• Transductive Reasoning
• Egocentrism

The belief that wrong is wrong and if they do something wrong, then there will be a punishment

-Bad acts will inevitably be punished

Piagel's Theory of Cognitive Development 

(Basics)

• Stages
• Based on changes in children's schemas
• Two Processes-Organization and Adaptation
• Two Processes of Adaptation-Assimilation and Accomodation
• 
  

¨       The process of adding new information into existing schemas 

¨       When we first discover something, we try to put it into a schema we already have

¨       It is the easier of the two

¨       We will even distort things and information

Ø  “close enough twist it a little and it’ll fit”

Accomodation

(Piagel's Theory of Cognitive Development)

¨       Create a new schema or modify an existing schema

¨       We move from one stage to the next through accommodation 

Organization

(Piagel's Theory of Cognitive Development)

¨       Some schemas are related.

¨       As we develop, we begin to combine and relate schemas

¨       Hierarchial, horizontal and vertical

Adaptation

(Piagel's Theory of Cognitive Development) 

• Abstract structure that organizes information and knowledge about something
• Generic representations

55-60% American 1 year olds

The infant will use the parent as a secure base to explore

Moderate separatation anxiety

Happy reunion

Slowly warm up to strangers

Separation Anxiety

Timeline-ages

6-12 months

Peaks 12-18 months

Decline 18-24 months

~15%

Even when mother is there, they are anxious to leave her side

·         Much more significant response of separation anxiety

·         When parent returns, baby seems angry and aren’t as comforted by the parent

·         Remain pretty anxious of strangers

PARENT-inconsistent with the child and depends on the mood of the adult

~15%

·         Not much interest in the parent’s return

·         Uninterested in strangers (relatively speaking)

·         PARENT- be non responsive and be rejecting and the parent is willing to say hostile things in the child’s presence