INTRO TO PSYCHOLOGY PSY 100 - STUDY MATERIAL & NOTES, APRIL 2020
1. Know the six approaches to Psychology and the focus of each
a. Psychoanalytic (Freud) – unconscious mind that effects our behavior, childhood & se
on personality development
b. Behavorial (Watson, Skinner) – concentrates on what the subject does rather tha
feels
c. Gestalt (Kohler, Wertheimer) – whole experience is the sum of the parts, need all
consciousness to understand
d. Humanistic (Maslow, Rogers) – all humans are motivated to reach full potential
e. Cognitive – study cognition instead of behavior
f. Biological/Medical/Physiological – interdisciplinary work
2. Understand the basic scientific approach as outlined in class, and the important difference
between a true experiment and the correlational approach.
Modify
Support
True Experiment Correlational Method
1) Randomly Divide Subjects 1) Measure Two Variables
2) Manipulate the Independent 2) Calculate the Relationship
Variable
3) Measure the Dependent Variable
Example: Mean Coffee gp = 75 bpm Example: Pearson’s correlation = +.90
Mean no Coffee gp = 65 bpm
May infer that coffee CAUSED an increase in Support for hypothesis but cannot infer Causal
Heart Rate
, 3. William James, Whilhelm Wundt, Charles Darwin, Sir Francis Galton, James Watson, Titche
a. William James – functionalism focusing on consciousness not the structure (disag
with structuralism), Stream of Consciousness where you may focus on something
then find yourself thinking of something else
b. Whilhelm Wundt – introspection
c. Charles Darwin – evolution, natural selection, no matter what there is normal distribut
d. Sir Francis Galton – Darwin’s cousin, Hereditary Genius (book) saying certain things s
as intelligence ran in families, anthrometric (measuring everything they could a
humans)
e. James Watson – Little Albert study (scared orphan by putting rat in front of child and
loud noise behind head to prove that phobias were learned)
f. Tichener – student of Wundt, came to US and brought introspection, Structura
attempting to study consciousness by breaking it into basic structures and elements
4. What is introspection?
a. To look within, examine your own thoughts
5. A testable hypothesis must be disconfirmable or falsifiable so that an experiment can eith
support it or not. Some people might instead explain one outcome with one explanation and
second outcome with a second explanation and a third with a third and so on. They mak
attempts to disprove anything. They just find alternate explanations. It is always easy to offer a
explanation of any finding after the fact. The trick in science is to make a prediction and ONL
THEN collect the data to see if it comes out as predicted. .
6. We begin a true experiment by randomly dividing subjects into 2 or more groups in order
get groups that are equal on uncontrollable variables such as age, Intelligence, gender and s
on. By doing this we have equaled the effect of all such extraneous variables. We have n
actually controlled those variables, just evened out any effect they might have on the Depende
variable. If we don’t do this, any of those extraneous (third) variables might explain any effect w
observe on the dependent variable and we could not infer causality.
7. We randomly select subjects in some research in order to get a sample that represents
population of interest. This allows us to generalize any findings from the sample to the larg
population
8. understand the important difference between True Experiments and Correlational Studie
and how that relates to causation
True Experiment Correlational Method
1) Randomly Divide Subjects 1) Measure Two Variables
2) Manipulate the Independent 2) Calculate the Relationship
Variable
3) Measure the Dependent Variable
Example: Mean Coffee gp = 75 bpm Example: Pearson’s correlation = +.90
Mean no Coffee gp = 65 bpm
1. Know the six approaches to Psychology and the focus of each
a. Psychoanalytic (Freud) – unconscious mind that effects our behavior, childhood & se
on personality development
b. Behavorial (Watson, Skinner) – concentrates on what the subject does rather tha
feels
c. Gestalt (Kohler, Wertheimer) – whole experience is the sum of the parts, need all
consciousness to understand
d. Humanistic (Maslow, Rogers) – all humans are motivated to reach full potential
e. Cognitive – study cognition instead of behavior
f. Biological/Medical/Physiological – interdisciplinary work
2. Understand the basic scientific approach as outlined in class, and the important difference
between a true experiment and the correlational approach.
Modify
Support
True Experiment Correlational Method
1) Randomly Divide Subjects 1) Measure Two Variables
2) Manipulate the Independent 2) Calculate the Relationship
Variable
3) Measure the Dependent Variable
Example: Mean Coffee gp = 75 bpm Example: Pearson’s correlation = +.90
Mean no Coffee gp = 65 bpm
May infer that coffee CAUSED an increase in Support for hypothesis but cannot infer Causal
Heart Rate
, 3. William James, Whilhelm Wundt, Charles Darwin, Sir Francis Galton, James Watson, Titche
a. William James – functionalism focusing on consciousness not the structure (disag
with structuralism), Stream of Consciousness where you may focus on something
then find yourself thinking of something else
b. Whilhelm Wundt – introspection
c. Charles Darwin – evolution, natural selection, no matter what there is normal distribut
d. Sir Francis Galton – Darwin’s cousin, Hereditary Genius (book) saying certain things s
as intelligence ran in families, anthrometric (measuring everything they could a
humans)
e. James Watson – Little Albert study (scared orphan by putting rat in front of child and
loud noise behind head to prove that phobias were learned)
f. Tichener – student of Wundt, came to US and brought introspection, Structura
attempting to study consciousness by breaking it into basic structures and elements
4. What is introspection?
a. To look within, examine your own thoughts
5. A testable hypothesis must be disconfirmable or falsifiable so that an experiment can eith
support it or not. Some people might instead explain one outcome with one explanation and
second outcome with a second explanation and a third with a third and so on. They mak
attempts to disprove anything. They just find alternate explanations. It is always easy to offer a
explanation of any finding after the fact. The trick in science is to make a prediction and ONL
THEN collect the data to see if it comes out as predicted. .
6. We begin a true experiment by randomly dividing subjects into 2 or more groups in order
get groups that are equal on uncontrollable variables such as age, Intelligence, gender and s
on. By doing this we have equaled the effect of all such extraneous variables. We have n
actually controlled those variables, just evened out any effect they might have on the Depende
variable. If we don’t do this, any of those extraneous (third) variables might explain any effect w
observe on the dependent variable and we could not infer causality.
7. We randomly select subjects in some research in order to get a sample that represents
population of interest. This allows us to generalize any findings from the sample to the larg
population
8. understand the important difference between True Experiments and Correlational Studie
and how that relates to causation
True Experiment Correlational Method
1) Randomly Divide Subjects 1) Measure Two Variables
2) Manipulate the Independent 2) Calculate the Relationship
Variable
3) Measure the Dependent Variable
Example: Mean Coffee gp = 75 bpm Example: Pearson’s correlation = +.90
Mean no Coffee gp = 65 bpm
