AP Psychology

AP PsychologyHistory, Approaches, and research

methodsPrologue and Unit 1

Pgs. 1-53

Reminder of assignments

• Aug. 22- Wiki HW due• Aug. 28- Vocabulary quiz• Aug. 29- Wik HW due• Sept. 3- Unit test

Psychology’s Roots

• Humans have always wondered who we are, where do our thoughts come from, why do we feel the way we feel, why do we act the way we act, and how can we possibly control or influence the behavior of others

• Buddha, Confucius, ancient Hebrew scripture, Socrates, and Plato have all tried to explain human behavior *


• Aristotle was be the first to use observations to develop his ideas, everyone before him used logic

• Augustine wrote about how the condition of the body influences the mind, and the mind influences the body

• Francis Bacon was one of the founders of modern science as he used experiments to develop and test his ideas *


• Phrenology was one of the earliest beliefs in psychology– It basically stated that each region of the skull

controlled different aspects of a person’s behavior and personality and a bump in that region of the skull could tell you something about a person’s personality or behavior *


• John Locke believed that we are all born with a blank slate that is written on by experience

• Locke’s ideas helped form the idea of empiricism– Empiricism- the view that knowledge comes from

experience via the senses, and science flourishes through observation and experiment

– What do you think about this idea? *

Psychology is born

• Wilhelm Wundt conducted the first psychological experiments in Germany

• Psychology would quickly gain popularity and organize itself into different branches or approaches

• Two of the earliest approaches were structuralism and functionalism *

Structuralism

• Introduced by Edward Titchner• Defined as an early school of psychology that

used introspection to explore the elemental structure of the human mind

• Introspection is self reflective and is used to get people to look inside

• He would ask people to self-report elements of their experience as they looked at a rose or listened to music *

Structuralism

• Introspection lost popularity quickly because it required smart, verbal people

• As introspection lost popularity so did structuralism• It was unreliable because the findings varied from person

to person and experience to experience• It also lost popularity because people realized that we

often don’t why we feel what we feel and do what we do• Structuralism tried to assemble the brain by looking at its

elements– Its like trying to understand how a car works by examining its

disconnected parts *

Functionalism

• William James thought it was more useful to look our evolved functions of our thoughts and feelings

• He knew the brain thought and the nose smelled things but he wanted to know why they did this

• James was heavily influenced by Darwin’s ideas of behaviors developing because they were adaptive and helped in survival *

Functionalism

• James believed behaviors served a function and wanted to find out those purposes

• Functionalism- focuses on how mental and behavioral processes function- how they enable the organism to adapt, survive, and flourish

• James would write the first textbook for psychology based on his findings

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW6nm69Z_IE *

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW6nm69Z_IE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW6nm69Z_IE

Psychology

• Psychology- the science of behavior and mental process– Behavior is anything an organism does that can be

observed and recorded– Mental processes are the internal subjective

experiences we infer from behavior *

Psychology’s big issues

• Stability vs change- do our individual traits persist as we age or do people change?

• Rationality vs irrationality- how deserving are we of our name homo sapiens- wise humans?

• Nature vs nurture- do our human traits develop through experience or do we come equipped with them– Nature- influence of genes on behavior– Nurture- influence of the environment on our behavior

*

Nature vs Nurture

• Charles Darwin was one of the first to study this debate

• wrote Origin of Species• He believed nature selects those that best enable an

organism to survive and reproduce in a particular environment- called natural selection

• Darwin was one of the first to start this debate and it is still one of the most discusses debates in psychology today– Why does it matter? *

Psychology’s perspectives

• Neuroscience perspective- studies the brain circuits that produce a certain physical state

• Evolutionary- analyzes how a behavior influences the survival of a species

• Behavior genetics- studies how heredity and experience influence our individual differences in our behavior

• Psychodynamic- views a behavior as an outlet for unconscious hostilities

• Behavioral- studies observable behaviors that accompany a feeling or try to figure out what external stimuli result in what acts *

Psychology’s perspectives

• Cognitive- studies how our interpretations of a situation affects our feelings and how our feelings effect our thinking

• Social-cultural- explores which situation produces the strongest feelings, and how expressions of a particular feeling vary across cultural contexts *

Psychology subfields

• Basic research- pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base– Studying to gain more information

• Applied research- scientific study that aims to solve practical problems– Taking concepts and developing ways to use those

concepts effectively *

Psychology subfields

• Clinical Psychologists- studies, assesses, and treats people with psychological disorders– Usually requires a masters

• Psychiatry- a branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders; practiced by physicians who sometimes provide medical treatments as well as psychological therapy– Requires medical school

Why do we need psychology?

• Helps to satisfy our curiosity about people• Helps to provide explanations for our behavior

and our differences• Any other ideas? • Psychology is the study of behavior and

mental processes– Why is it considered a science? *

Hindsight Bias

• Is it easier to hit a bulls eye before or after you shoot an arrow?

• After seeing the first World Trade Center collapse should the people in the second tower have evacuated immediately?

• Hindsight Bias- the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it– I knew it all along phenomenon *

Hindsight Bias

• Psychologists have found that separation weakens romantic attraction. Out of sight out of mind.– Explain why this is true.– Is this idea surprising to you? *

Hindsight Bias

• How does hindsight bias show why we need psychological research instead of just using common sense?– Just asking how and why someone felt or acted as

they did can sometimes be misleading because it is after the fact

– Psychological research looks at trying to predict what might happen and common sense looks at what has happened *

Hindsight vs common sense

• Research findings often go against our common sense

• Research can inspire and overturn popular ideas *

Confidence

• How can being overly confident hinder your thinking?

• We tend to think we know more than we do• We are often more confident about our

answers than we are right *

Confidence

• How long do you think it would take you to have completed unscrambling these words?– WREAT WATER– ETRYN ENTRY– GRABE BARGE *

Confidence

• Most people say they would have completed the task in 10 seconds, when in reality the average subject spent 3 minutes

• Unscramble OCHSA• Even we are wrong we make excuses for why

we were wrong or we think we were still basically right *

Confidence

• Using psychological research to develop theories or predictions can help guard against our overconfidence

• One thing you must remember in psychology is nothing is finite(absolute)

• Psychology consists of theories- theories are constantly being tested and sometimes they are supported and sometimes they are found to be flawed *

Scientific Attitude

• Curiosity is the fuel of all sciences• Humans are naturally curious• We like to believe in things that have been

tested• No matter how crazy a theory sounds, if its been

tested and confirmed then the theory will be believed

• I want you to think outside the box in this class but always back your ideas with research*

Scientific Attitude

• Why did most people use to believe the world was flat?

• Why was the idea of the world being round sound so far fetched?

• How was it proven that the world was in fact round?

• In psychology you must approach the world with curious skepticism– Always ask what do you mean and how do you know *

Scientific Attitude

• Besides being skeptical, a person must have humility when studying something scientifically

• Sometimes you must reject your own ideas• In science, it does not matter who is right but

that our findings are the truth• In psychology, it is said that “the rat is always

right”– What does this mean? *

Scientific Attitude

• Curiosity, skepticism, and humility make modern science possible

• Why has religion and science been enemies for much of history?

• It is ok to have your beliefs but be willing to adapt those beliefs if research does not support your ideas *

Critical Thinking

• Critical thinking- thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions

• It examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions

• Dating will require a lot of critical thinking– Why? *

Critical Thinking

• No matter what you read, always ask questions about it

• Never take it for fact• Why can you not assume it is fact? *

The Scientific Method

• Psychologists use the scientific method to develop, test, and refine their theories

• Using the scientific method is what make psychology a science

• Psychologists use the scientific method to form theories– Theory- an explanation using an integrated set of

principles that organizes and predicts observations *


• Theories help to organize and simplify things and ideas

• No matter the theory, it must be put to the test • Theories must imply testable predictions- What

does this mean?• Hypothesis- a testable prediction, often implied

by a theory– Educated guess? *


• Testable predictions gives direction to research

• When testing our own theory we need to be aware that our subjective observations can be biased

• To keep their biases in check, psychologists report their research precisely using operational definitions *


• Operational definitions- a statement of the procedures used to define research variables- example defining what the researcher means by the word intelligence and how they measure intelligence

• By using operational definitions in their reports, other psychologists can replicate the original study *


• Replicate- repeating the essence of a research study, usually with different participants in different situations, to see whether the basic finding extends to other participants and circumstances

• If the study is replicated with different participants and the findings are similar, then our confidence in the finding’s reliability grows *


• A theory is useful if it does 2 things– Effectively organizes a range of self-reports and

observations– Implies clear predictions that anyone can use to

check the theory or to derive practical applications

– Theories try to help describe, predict, and explain behavior *

Self-fulfilling prophecy

• The self-fulfilling prophecy is a statement that alters actions and therefore comes true.

• For example, a person stating “I’m probably going to have a lousy day,” might alter his actions so that such a prediction is fulfilled by his actions.

• This may be an unconscious gesture. A person may use a self-fulfilling prophecy in a positive way “I’m going to have a great day,” they might act in ways that will actually make this prediction true.

Description

• The starting point of any science is description• How do we use description in our everyday

life?• Psychologists use description but are more

object and systematic in using it *

Description

• Case study- an observation technique in which one person is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles– Can be misleading if the subject is atypical– They are time consuming and expensive– Can offer possible ideas for a larger population but

require further study *

Description

• Survey- a technique for ascertaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of people, usually by questioning a representative, random sample of them– Looks at many cases in less depth– Wording effects can impact the answers in surveys

pg. 27 *

• When was the last time you upgraded your computer and printer?

• Now that you've seen how you can save time, would you buy our product?

• Do you approve of the President’s oppressive immigration policy

Description

• When we wonder how many people hold a particular belief we first think of those that think like we do– Why is that?

• False consensus effect- the tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors– Vegetarians will think there are more vegetarians

than meat eaters will think there are *

Description

• To guard against false consensus effect researchers look to gather a representative sample of people

• Surveys sample a target group- example a study of the average height of American men

• Because there are too many American men to survey them all you must select a representative sample from the population– Population- all the cases in a group, from which

samples may be drawn for a study *

Description

• How do you make a sample representative? You do this by taking a random sample

• Random sample- a sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion– How do you gain a random sample?– How can your sample positively and negatively

impact your study? *

Description

• Naturalistic Observation- observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate and control the situation

• It does not explain behavior but looks to describe behavior

Correlation

• Correlate- when it is revealed that one trait or behavior accompanies another– Correlation does not equal causation

• Correlation coefficient- a statistical measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and thus of how well either factor predicts the other– Looks at how closely two things are related

Correlation

• Perfect positive correlation = +1.00– One set of scores goes up as the other goes up

• No relationship = 0.00• Perfect negative correlation = -1.00– Relate inversely

• One set of scores goes up as the other goes down

• All of these rarely occur in the real world• These are shown in scatterplots– A graphed cluster of dots, each of which represents the

values of two variables

Correlation

Correlation

• Scatterplot activity

Correlation

• Correlation coefficient does not tell us anything about cause and effect

• It can help us see the world more clearly by revealing the actual extent to which two things relate

Illusory Correlations

• Sometimes we can see a relationship that is not really there

• Illusory correlation- the perception of a relationship where none exists

• When we believe there is a relationship between two things, we are likely to notice and recall instances that confirm our belief

• Illusory correlations help to explain superstitious beliefs• Sometimes random coincidences are just that, random-

don’t look at them too closely

Experimentation

• The most effective way to isolate cause and effect is to experiment– Experiment- an investigator manipulates one or

more factors to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process

– No single experiment is conclusive– Experiments help to eliminate alternative

explanations and supports the

Experimentation

• When conducting medicine studies the participants are usually blind(uniformed) about what treatment they are receiving if they receive any at all

• Some participants receive the treatment and some receive a placebo(a pill with no treatment)

Experimentation

• Sometimes neither the participant nor the research assistant collecting the data know who received what treatment– Double-blind procedure– Tries to protect against biases from either party

• Placebo effect- experimental results caused by expectations alone– Just thinking you are getting the treatment can

boost your thinking

Experimentation

• Experimental condition(group)- the condition of an experiment that exposes participants to the treatment, that is, to one version of the independent variable

• Control Condition(group)- the condition of an experiment that contrasts with the experimental condition and serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment

Experimentation

• Random assignment- assigning participants to experimental and control conditions by chance, thus minimizing preexisting differences between those assigned to the different groups– Equalizes the two groups in age, attitudes, and

other characteristics

Experimentation

• Independent variable- the experimental factor that is manipulated- the variable whose effect is being studied

• Dependent variable- the experimental factor that is being measured- the variable that may change in response to manipulations of the independent variable

• Extraneous variable- any unintended external variable that could affect your findings- etc. tiredness, hunger, temperature

Experimentation

• The independent and dependent variables must be given clear operational definitions which specify the procedures that manipulate the independent variable or measure the dependent variable

• Experiments look to manipulate the independent variable and measure the dependent variable

Measures of central tendency

• after gathering data, it must be organized in some form of a chart

• The data must be organized using the three measures of central tendency– Mode- the most frequently occurring score in a

distribution– Mean- the arithmetic average of a distribution– Median- the middle score in a distribution- half of

the scores are above and half or below

Measures of central tendency

• Sometimes the data can be lopsided or skewed

Measures of variation

• It is also important to know how similar or diverse the scores are

• Range- the difference between the highest and lowest scores in a distribution– The lower the range the higher the confidence the

scores will repeat themselves


• Standard Deviation- a computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean score– Gauges whether scores are packed together or

dispersed– The more similar a population the smaller the

standard deviation is


• When can you generalize from a sample?– Representative samples are better than biased

samples– Less-variable observations are more reliable than

those that are more variable– More cases are better than fewer

Making inferences

• When the sample averages are reliable and the difference between them is relatively large, the difference has statistical significance– A statistical statement of how likely it is that an

obtained result occurred by chance– Indicates the likelihood that a result will happen

by chance and not the importance of the result

Ethics of experiments

• Animal protection organizations protest the use of animals in experiments

• 7 percent of psychological studies involve animals• The experiments are often seen ok if they serve a

purpose that will help the larger population• There are limited guidelines on the use of animals

but they are being looked at because of the amount of protests in today’s society

Ethics of experiments

• When studying humans, deception must be limited and only used when necessary

• Informed consent must be obtained from potential participants

• Participants must be protected from harm and discomfort

• Treat information about individual participants confidentially

• Fully explain the research afterward

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AP Psychology