Welcome to Psychology!

Ms. Zendrian

What is Psychology?

Studying psychology helps us to understand who we are, where our thoughts come from, our actions, and how we understand the world around us.

Psychology- the scientific study of behavior and mental processes

Psychology is the study of the brain! The brain tells us when we are hungry, determines

out sleeping and dreaming patterns, and allows use to express and control our emotions

Where did psychology come from?

300 BC- Aristotle- theorized about learning, memory, motivation, emotion, perception, personality

Wilhelm Wundt- German- launched the first psychological laboratory

Other important psychologists: Charles Darwin, Ivan Pavlov, Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, and William James

Psychology as a study of behavior

B. F. Skinner- “the scientific study of observable behavior” Behaviorists study how people react

Humanistic psychology- emphasizes the importance of current environmental influence on our growth, and the importance of meeting our needs for love and acceptance Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow

Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Is it Nature or is it Nurture?

Psychology’s big historic issue: nature-nurture Do human traits develop through experiences or do

we come equipped with them?

Biopsychosocial Approach

Biopsychosocial approach- an integrated approach that incorporates biological, psychological, and social-cultural levels of analysis Psychology’s varied perspectives ask different

questions and have their own limits One perspective may stress the biological,

psychological, or socio-cultural level more than another

Different Psychological Perspectives

Neuroscience

Evolutionary

Behavior genetics

Psychodynamic

Behavioral

Cognitive

Socio-cultural

What do different psychologists do?

Biological psychologists

Developmental psychologists

Cognitive psychologists

Personality psychologists

Social psychologists

Psychologists or Psychiatrists?

Psychologists use the science of behavior and mental processes to better understand why people think, feel, and act as they do

Psychiatrists are medical doctors who are licenses to prescribe drugs and treat psychological disorders

Hindsight Bias and Overconfidence

“I-knew-it-all-along” phenomenon

The tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it

We tend to be more confident than correct

Hindsight bias and overconfidence lead us to over estimate our intuition

The Scientific Method and Psychology

People are naturally curious about the world around them

When an experiment is conducted, there is a community that checks and rechecks the findings and conclusions

Critical thinking- examines assumptions, discerns hidden value evidence, and assess conclusions

Theory- an explanation using integrated set of principles that organized observations and predicts behaviors or events

Scientific Theory

A good theory must have a hypothesis

Operational definitions- a statements of the procedures used to define research variables

Replication- repeating the essence of research study, typically with different participants

Different types of research methods

Case study

Survey

Random sample

Naturalist Observation

Correlations

A positive correlation- indicates a direct relationships meaning that two things increase together or decrease together

A negative correlation- indicates an inverse relationship as one thing increases the other decreases

Correlation DOES NOT equal causation!

Illusory correlation- the perception of a relationship where none exist

Experiments

Experiment a research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors (independent variables) to observe the effect on some behavior or mental processes (the dependent variable)

No single experiment is conclusive

Independent variables- the experimental factor that is manipulated

Dependent variables- the outcome factor

Experiments

Random assignment

New drug treatments Double-blind procedure Placebo effect Control group

Experiments: SQ3R

SQ3R: Survey Question Read Rehearse Review

Animal testing

Animal experiments are used for psychological, biological, and medical research