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Psychology 7e in Modules 1
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IntroductoryPsychology
PSY 120 (3)
Prof. Kipling WilliamsPurdue University
Spring 2008
Teaching Assistants:
Jackie Schram
Jim Wirth
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Going over the Syllabus
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Going over the Syllabus
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Going over the Syllabus
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Class Calendar
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FAQQ “Can I use the Nairne book instead of the Myers book?”
A “No.”Q “Can I attend the other sections instead?”
A “No.”Q “I’m going to miss a class. Can you give me a private
lecture?”A “No.”
Q “Will lectures be put up on your website?”A “Yes, soon.”
Q “Is the Final cumulative?”A “No.”
Q “I wasn’t able to sign up on the SONA system. Why not?”A “It isn’t up and running until next week. Sorry.”
Psychology 7e in Modules 2
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My website• http://www2.psych.purdue.edu/~kip/120/index.htm
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Thinking Critically withPsychological Science
Chapter 1
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Thinking Critically with PsychologicalScience
The Need for PsychologicalScience The limits of Intuition and
Common Sense The Scientific Attitude The Scientific Method
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Thinking Critically …
Description The Case Study The Survey Naturalistic Observation
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Thinking Critically …
Correlation Correlation and Causation Illusory Correlation Perceiving Order in Random
Events
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Thinking Critically …
Experimentation Exploring Cause and Effect Evaluating Therapies Independent and Dependent
Variables
Psychology 7e in Modules 3
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Thinking Critically …
Statistical Reasoning Describing Data Making Inferences
FAQs About Psychology
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Impression of PsychologyWith hopes of satisfying curiosity, many peoplelisten to talk-radio counselors and psychics to
learn about others and themselves.
Dr. Crane (radio-shrink)
http://ww
w.nbc.com
http://ww
w.photovault.com
Psychic (Ball gazing)
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The Need for Psychological Science
Intuition & Common Sense
Many people believe that intuition and commonsense are enough to bring forth answers regarding
human nature.
Intuition and common sense may aid queries,but they are not free of error.
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Limits of Intuition
Personal interviewers mayrely too much on their “gut
feelings” when meetingwith job applicants.
Taxi/ Getty Im
ages
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Errors of Common Sense
Try this !
Fold a piece of paper (0.1 mm thick) 100 times.How thick will it be?
800,000,000,000,000 times the distance betweenthe sun and the earth.
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Hindsight Bias is the “I-knew-it-all-along”phenomenon.
After learning the outcome of an event, manypeople believe they could have predicted that veryoutcome. We only knew the dot.com stocks would
plummet after they actually did plummet.
Hindsight Bias
This is why you don’t look at the answersbefore you commit yourself on practice tests.
Psychology 7e in Modules 4
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OverconfidenceSometimes we think we
know more than weactually know.
Anagram
BARGEGRABE
ENTRYETYRN
WATERWREATHow long do you think itwould take to unscramble
these anagrams?
People said it would takeabout 10 seconds, yet on
average they took about 3minutes (Goranson, 1978).
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Psychological Science1
How can we differentiate betweenuninformed opinions and examinedconclusions?
The science of psychology helps makethese examined conclusions, which leadsto our understanding of how people feel,think, and act as they do!
1One of the premier journals in our field is also called PsychologicalScience. It’s Editor is Robert Kail, Professor of PsychologicalSciences, Purdue University!
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The Scientific Attitude
The scientific attitude is composed of curiosity(passion for exploration), skepticism (doubtingand questioning) and humility (ability to accept
responsibility when wrong).
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Critical Thinking
Critical thinking doesnot accept arguments
and conclusions blindly.
It examinesassumptions, discerns
hidden values,evaluates evidence and
assesses conclusions.
The Amazing Randi
Courtesy of the James R
andi Education Foundation
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Scientific Method
Psychologists, like all scientists, use thescientific method to construct theories that
organize, summarize and simplifyobservations.
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A Theory is an explanation that integratesprinciples and organizes and predicts
behavior or events.
For example, low self-esteem contributes todepression.
Theory
Psychology 7e in Modules 5
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A Hypothesis is a testable prediction, oftenprompted by a theory, to enable us to
accept, reject or revise the theory.
People with low self-esteem are apt to feelmore depressed.
Hypothesis
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Research would require us to administertests of self-esteem and depression.
Individuals who score low on a self-esteemtest and high on a depression test would
confirm our hypothesis.
Research Observations
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Research Process
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Description
Case StudyA technique in which one person is studied in
depth to reveal underlying behavioral principles.
Is language uniquely human?
Susan Kuklin/ Photo Researchers
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Case Study
A clinical study is aform of case study inwhich the therapist
investigates theproblems associated
with a client.
http://behavioralhealth.typepad.com
Clinical Study
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Survey
A technique for ascertaining the self-reportedattitudes, opinions or behaviors of people
usually done by questioning a representative,random sample of people.
http://ww
w.lynnefeatherstone.org
Psychology 7e in Modules 6
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Survey
Wording can change the results of a survey.
Q: Should cigarette ads and pornography be on television?
Wording Effect
forbiddenallowed
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Survey
A tendency to overestimate the extent towhich others share our beliefs and
behaviors.
False Consensus Effect
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Survey
Random Sampling
If each member of apopulation has an equal
chance of inclusion into asample, it is called a
random sample(unbiased). If the survey
sample is biased, itsresults are not valid. The fastest way to know about the
marble color ratio is to blindlytransfer a few into a smaller jar and
count them. 34
Naturalistic ObservationObserving and recording the behavior of animals in thewild and recording self-seating patterns in a multiracialschool lunch room constitute naturalistic observation.
Courtesy of Gilda M
orelli
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Descriptive Methods
Case studies, surveys, and naturalisticobservation describe behaviors.
Summary
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Correlation
When one trait or behavior accompaniesanother, we say the two correlate.
Correlation coefficient
Indicates directionof relationship
(positive or negative)
Indicates strengthof relationship(0.00 to 1.00)
r = 0.37+
Correlation Coefficient is astatistical measure of therelationship between two
variables.
Psychology 7e in Modules 7
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Perfect positivecorrelation (+1.00)
Scatterplot is a graph comprised of points that aregenerated by values of two variables. The slope ofthe points depicts the direction, while the amountof scatter depicts the strength of the relationship.
Scatterplots
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No relationship (0.00)Perfect negativecorrelation (-1.00)
The Scatterplot on the left shows a negative correlation,while the one on the right shows no relationship between
the two variables.
Scatterplots
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DataData showing height and temperament in people.
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Scatterplot
The Scatterplot below shows the relationshipbetween height and temperament in people. There
is a moderate positive correlation of +0.63.
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or
Correlation and Causation
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Illusory Correlation
The perception of a relationship where no relationshipactually exists. Parents conceive children after adoption.
Confirmingevidence
Disconfirmingevidence
Do notadopt
Disconfirmingevidence
ConfirmingevidenceAdopt
Do notconceiveConceive
Michael N
ewm
an Jr./ Photo Edit
Psychology 7e in Modules 8
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Given random data, we look for order andmeaningful patterns.
Order in Random Events
Your chances of being dealt either of these hands isprecisely the same: 1 in 2,598,960. 44
Order in Random Events
Given large numbers of random outcomes, a feware likely to express order.
Angelo and Maria Gallina won twoCalifornia lottery games on the same day.
Jerry Telfer/ San Francisco Chronicle
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Experimentation
Like other sciences, experimentation is thebackbone of psychology research. Experiments
isolate causes and their effects.
Exploring Cause and Effect
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Many factors influence our behavior. Experiments(1) manipulate factors that interest us, while other
factors are kept under (2) control.
Effects generated by manipulated factors isolatecause and effect relationships.
Exploring Cause & Effect
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An Independent Variable is a factor manipulatedby the experimenter. The effect of the independent
variable is the focus of the study.For example, when examining the effects of breastfeeding upon intelligence, type of feeding (breast
feeding versus feeding a formula) is theindependent variable.
Independent Variable
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A Dependent Variable is a factor that may changein response to an independent variable. In
psychology, it is usually a behavior or a mentalprocess.
For example, in our study on the effect of breastfeeding upon intelligence, intelligence is the
dependent variable.
Dependent Variable
Psychology 7e in Modules 9
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In evaluating drug therapies, patients andexperimenter’s assistants should remainunaware of which patients had the real
treatment and which patients had the placebotreatment.
Evaluating Therapies
Double-blind Procedure
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Assigning participants to experimental (Breast-fed) and control (formula-fed) conditions byrandom assignment minimizes pre-existing
differences between the two groups.
Evaluating Therapies
Random Assignment
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ExperimentationA summary of steps during experimentation.
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ComparisonBelow is a comparison of different research
methods.
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Statistical Reasoning
Statistical procedures analyze and interpret dataallowing us to see what the unaided eye misses.
Composition of ethnicity in urban locales 54
Describing DataA meaningful description of data is important in
research. Misrepresentation may lead toincorrect conclusions.
Psychology 7e in Modules 10
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Measures of Central Tendency
Mode: The most frequently occurring scorein a distribution.
Mean: The arithmetic average of scores in adistribution obtained by adding thescores and then dividing by the numberof scores that were added together.
Median: The middle score in a rank-ordereddistribution.
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Measures of Central Tendency
A Skewed Distribution
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Measures of Variation
Range: The difference between the highest andlowest scores in a distribution.
Standard Deviation: A computed measure of howmuch scores vary around the mean.
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Standard Deviation
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Making Inferences
A statistical statement of how frequently anobtained result occurred by experimental
manipulation or by chance.
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Making Inferences
Representative samples are better than biasedsamples.
Less variable observations are more reliablethan more variable ones.
More cases are better than fewer cases.
When is an Observed Difference Reliable?
Psychology 7e in Modules 11
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Making Inferences
When sample averages are reliable and thedifference between them is relatively large, we say
the difference has statistical significance.
For psychologists this difference is measuredthrough alpha level set at 5 percent.
When is a Difference Significant?
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FAQ
Q1. Can laboratory experiments illuminateeveryday life?
Answer: Artificial laboratory conditions arecreated to study behavior in simplistic terms. Thegoal is to find underlying principles that govern
behavior.
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FAQQ2. Does behavior depend on one’s culture?
Answer: Even when specific attitudes and behaviorsvary across cultures, as they often do, theunderlying processes are much the same.
Am
i Vitale/ G
etty Images 64
FAQ
Q3. Does behavior vary with gender?
Answer: Yes. Biology determines our sex, andculture further bends the genders. However, in
many ways woman and man are similarly human.
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FAQQ4. Why do psychologists study animals?
Answer: Studying animals gives us theunderstanding of many behaviors that may have
common biology across animals and humans.
D. Shapiro, © Wildlife Conservation Society66
FAQ
Q5. Is it ethical to experiment on animals?
Answer: Yes. To gain insights to devastating andfatal diseases. All researchers who deal withanimal research are required to follow ethical
guidelines in caring for these animals.
Psychology 7e in Modules 12
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FAQ
Q6. Is it ethical to experiment on people?
Answer: Yes. Experiments that do not involve anykind of physical or psychological harm beyondnormal levels encountered in daily life may be
carried out.
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FAQ
Q7. Is psychology free of value judgments?
Answer: No. Psychology emerges from people whosubscribe to a set of values and judgments.
© Roger Shepard
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FAQ
Q8. Is psychology potentially dangerous?
Answer: It can be, but it is not. The purpose ofpsychology is to help humanity with problemssuch as war, hunger, prejudice, crime, family
dysfunction, etc.
