CHAPTER ONE

PSYCHOLOGY is the scientific study of behaviour and mental processes. BEHAVIOUR: external. vs. METAL PROCESSES: internal. PSYCHOLOGYS GOALS DESCRIPTION: observing behaviour and noticing everything about it, including details. EXPLANATION: why is this happening? PREDICTION: an approximation of the frequency of the behaviour. CONTROL: how can it be changed? Involves modification of behaviour. HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY ARISTOTLE: thought about the relationship of the soul to the body. PLATO: created DUALISM, or belief that a soul could exist separately from the body. WILHELM WUNDT: father of psychology. Laboratory in Leipzig, Germany. Main point: objectivity. OBJECTIVE INTROSPECTION: process of objectively examining own thoughts and mental activities. EDWARD TITCHENER: created STRUCTURALISM, which gave importance to the structure of the mind. Every experience can be broken down into emotions and sensations. WILLIAM JAMES: created FUNCTIONALISM, which focused on how the mind allows people to function. GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY MAX WERTHEIMER: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Gestalt is German, meaning an organized whole or configuration.

 Focused on perception and sensation. Now under cognitive psychology. SIGMUND FREUD proposed that there is an UNCONSCIOUS, an unaware state of mind, where we repress all urges or desires. PSYCHOANALYSIS: theory and therapy All behaviour stems from unconscious motivation. IVAN PAVLOV: dog saliva conditioning. JOHN WATSON: ignore the consciousness crap and go with observable behaviour; this, BEHAVIOURISM, which is the science of behaviour that focuses on only observable behaviour. All behaviour is learned. E.F. SKINNER: Conditioned behaviour with rewards and punishments.

MODERN PERSPECTIVES: You dont need to use just one perspective per experiment. 1. PSYCHODYNAMIC PERSPECTIVE: development of sense of self and the discovery of other motivations for behaviour. 2. BEHAVIOURAL PERSPECTIVE: behavioural responses are enforced [OPERANT CONDITIONING, wokay]. 3. HUMANISTIC PERSPECTIVE: people have free will and potential. 4. COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE: focuses on how people think, remember, store and use informationmemory, intelligence, perception, thought processes, problem solving, language, learning. Studying the process of thought. COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE: physical workings of the brain and nervous system. 5. SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE: about the effect people have on one another. How people behave or think as influenced by being alone or being with friends or in a crowdsocial norms, fads, class differences, ethnic identity. DIFFUSION OF RESPONSIBILITY: tendency to feel that, in a group, someone else is responsible.

6. BIOPSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE: behaviour is seen as a result of events in the body. 7. EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE: focuses on the biological bases for universal mental characteristics. Taste is hereditary? SCIENTIFIC METHOD: You have to see whats really there, not what your biases want you to see. 1. QUESTION: look for a problem. 2. HYPOTHESIS: formulate an educated theory as an answer to the problem. 3. EXPERIMENTATION: testing hypothesis, depending on what kind of answer you think youre gonna get. 4. CONCLUSION: analyze experiment to figure out if hypothesis was correctif not, go back to square one. 5. RESULTS: write up what you did, why you did it, how you did it, what you found, etc. Dont hide yer failure. =)) DESCRIPTIVE METHODS: different ways to investigate answers. DESCRIPTION NATURALISTIC OBSERVATION Watching subjects in natural environment. OBSERVER EFFECT: subject knows theyre being watched so theyll act differently anyway. Each natural setting is unique, and many factors change. Things may not hold true for another time. ADVANTAGES Picture of realistic behaviour. DISADVANTAGES OBSERVER BIAS: when the person observing has a particular opinion about what he will see or not see.

PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION: join the subjects as one of them. BLIND OBSERVERS: have people who dont know the question observe LABORATORY OBSERVATION More complicated research? Whatever would be difficult to naturally set up. CASE STUDIES One individual studied in great detail. All the detail it provides may be the only way to get certain information. Can study things that are rare, like multiple personalities. SURVEYS Privately ask behaviour questions in case questions are too personal. Amount of control observer has.

Different conditions.

Artificial situation might result in artificial behaviour.

Results dont always apply to everyone.

Lots of data from REPRESENTATIVE lots of people. SAMPLE: as much diversity in a group as possible. Results may not apply to everyone.

Use phone, Internet, questionnaire, interview. COURTESY BIAS: Participants will tell experimenter what they think they want to hear. Answers will not always be accurate. FINDING RELATIONSHIPS: going beyond descriptions of behaviour, these are the only ways to know what happenedcorrelations and experiments. CORRELATION Measure of the relationship between two or more variables. VARIABLE: anything that can change or vary. CORRELATION COEFFICIENT: represents direction and strength of relationship. DIRECTION OF THE RELATIONSHIP: the value of one variable versus another. If positive, direct proportion. If negative, indirect proportion. STRENGTH OF THE RELATIONSHIP: actual number, -1.00 < x < +1.00, but going in both directions, only minding the positive and the negative. The closer to zero, the weaker the correlation. Does not prove causation. EXPERIMENT Only research method that will allow researchers to determine the cause of a behaviour. Variable that may be causing behaviour is manipulated, while leaving the other variables the keep the results consistent. VARIABLES

 deciding on the variable to manipulate affects the entire experiment. OPERATIONAL DEFINITION: definition of a variable in order for it to be measured. INDEPENDENT VARIABLE: variable manipulated in the experiment, cause its independent of anything the participants do. DEPENDENT VARIABLE: variable that represents the measurable response or behaviour of the subjects in the experiment. GROUPS CONFOUNDING VARIABLE: variables that interfere with each other and their possible effects on other variables. EXPERIMENTAL GROUP: group exposed to the independent variable. CONTROL GROUP: group that gets no treatment, so it can be used as the basis for the experimental group. RANDOM ASSIGNMENT: equal chance of being assigned to each condition. EXPERIMENTAL HAZARDS 1. PLACEBO EFFECT: Expectations and biases of participants in a study affect their behaviour. 2. EXPERIMENTER EFFECT: Expectations of the experimenter are conveyed to the participant. Behaviour of the experimenter caused the participant to change reaction patterns. 3. SINGLE-BLIND STUDY: participants dont know whether they are in the experiment or control group. 4. DOUBLE-BLIND STUDY: neither the experimenter or the subjects know which is the experiment and which is the control group. JOBS PSYCHIATRIST: diagnosis and treatment of disorders. Can prescribe medicine. Provides therapy and counseling.

PSYCHOANALYST: training in theories and methods of Freud. PSYCHIATRIC SOCIAL WORKER: environmental conditions that impact mental disorders. PSYCHOLOGIST: picks a field to specialize in.