• 22SEP2015
• psyche = soul/ logos = study
• schools of thought on psychology
◦ Structuralism: Wilhelm Wundt (1879 first psych lab) breaks
down mind into basic elements like Mendeleev.
Introspection to describe sensory elements of
experience. Primarily interested in perception. Class
example: describing Hershey’s Kisses without similes.
Edward Titchener
◦ Functionalism: William James. John Dewey. Consciousness
should be studied not for structure but for function.
Basic elements of chocolate experience don’t matter,
but why do we like chocolate. Where our emotions
come from,
◦ Gestalt: Max Wertheimer. Experience is more than the sum
of its parts. Class example: optical illusion where line is
same length, appears so because of our experience
with corners. Can’t undo preexisting biases.
◦ Psychoanalytic: Sigmund Freud. behavior driven by
unconsciousness. uses dreams and free-association to
uncover unconscious desires and conflicts. a lot of behavior
is unconscious. personality development
◦ Behaviorism: Watson, Skinner, Pavlov. studying behavior more
important than inferring whats going on inside. Idea that people
come out as blank slate, tabula rasa. Skinner raise own
daughter in box. Primary area is learning.
◦ Humanistic: Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers. Don’t like Freudians or
Behaviorists. Both former schools imply that we don’t have free
will. Humanists think behavior is determined by free will.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, idiot. Focus on present rather
than past, can choose to change behavior, aren’t driven by past
◦ Cognitive Revolution: George Miller, Wolfgang Köhler, Edward
Tolman. thinking about mind as a computer. Mind as
information processor
◦ Social Revolution: Kurt Lewin. must understand individual person
and social pressures to fully predict behavior. B=f(P,E) or
behavior is a function of a person and their environment.
primary area social and cultural psychology
• Most psychologist don’t fall into one camp anymore. Intersectionality
,• Depression strikes 17 million americans each year. more than cancer,
AIDs or heart attacks
• 29SEP2015
•
• 4 canons of science
◦ Determinism: the universe is orderly, effects have causes
◦ Empiricism: importance of observation - theories should be based
on data, not mere intuition
◦ Parsimony: simpler is better. comes from Occam’s Razor: “shave
off unnecessary entities in explanation - if
two competing theories predict the dame phenomena equally
well - choose the simpler.
◦ Testability: importance of falsifiability no amount of experimentation
can ever prove the theory wrong
• Scientific method of psychology
◦ observation of psychological association
◦ hypothesis of a relationship among the variables
◦ variables: measurable conditions, events
◦ a hypothesis is a guess about a relationship between two variables
◦ translation of the hypothesized variable into specifics
◦ operationalization: the concrete measurable or manipulable
definition of the variable of interest
◦ variable: fondness - operations? How would you measure it?
▪ reported relationship satisfaction
▪ frequency of gazing, touching, eye contact, and smiling
observed in a laboratory setting
◦ case study
▪ pros: real life observations and rich description
▪ cons: limited generalizability,
▪ Case studies used for rare phenomena, as well as for those
that cannot be ethically manipulated (eg. serial killers)
▪ H.M. study, dude had brain surgery and can’t form new
memories
◦ choose a research format
▪ survey: question many participants concerning phenomena of
interest
▪ pros: greater generalizability, can ask about a wide variety of
events
▪ cons: people may not always feel comfortable, self report
, biases, lack of insight, tests are correlational in nature
◦ Correlational research
▪ sign, positive or negative, reflects pattern of relationship
▪ positive correlation means as A increases, B increases
▪ negative correlation means A increase and B decreases
▪ magnitude: can vary from 1 to -1
▪ Absolute magnitude reflects strength of the relationship
▪ -.87 is stronger relationship than .23
▪ Correlation can never tell us about causation
▪ Why? A causes b —increasing absence reduces
fondness
▪ Opposite is also true
▪ B causes A, decreasing fondness = increasing absence
▪ C causes both A and B: third variable —financial stress,
drug addiction etc
▪ Experiment:
▪ manipulation of variables in order to assess causal
effects on other variables
▪ manipulate indépendant variable, the one we think is
causal
▪ Hallmark of an experiment is random assignment —
placing participants into conditions randomly, can’t
ask for volunteers
▪ Hallmarks of good research
▪ avoid confounds
▪ avoid bias (experimenter or participant)
▪ uses reliable and valid measures
▪ psychologically real
▪ control experiments rigidly
▪ Rosenthals rats (tells some grad students that rats are smart,
others are normal. the rats he told grads were geniuses,
learned faster cause grads were nicer to genius rats)
▪ replicated study in school by telling teachers some
students were smarter and students he said were
smarter did better
◦ Participation bias exists as well: social desirability
◦ must make experiments double blind, keep everybody in the dark
◦ must be able to replicate findings over and over
◦ a good experiment feels real, even though you know you’re in an
, experiment
▪ Ex. different boxes of Trix, kids cereal characters are looking
down at kids cause kids like eye contact
◦ Resisting temptation experiment: surrounded by chocolate, told to
eat radishes instead for taste test
◦ Experiment of how people respond to emergencies; fill room with
smoke as people are doing experiment, peoples response to
smoke spend on those around them
◦ Research ethics: can’t hurt volunteers. IRBs — institutional review
boards
▪ informed consent
▪ ability to withdraw at any time
▪ deception studies get more scrutiny from IRB
▪ have to tell you as soon as study is over
• 01OCT2015
• why do clones freak us out?
• Behavioral genetics
◦ genes: segments of Dna that guide the proaction of proteins to
carry out specific tasks
▪ genes are the unit of heredity, how traits are passed down
through families
▪ can be “on” or “off”, environmental stimuli also capable of
turning them on or off
▪ even if you have the same genetic sequence, maternal diet
can turn that particular gene off
◦ genotype v phenotype
▪ genotype: actual genetic constitution - the two mice are
identical in genotype
▪ phenotype: observable expression of characteristic, results
from genes and environment
▪ as long as you have one gene for tongue rolling, you can roll.
only if you have two recessives
◦ role of hereditary
▪ Galton notes intelligence runs in families or does it depend on
environment
▪ want know about inheritability of humor: look at fraternal twins
correlation between how hilarious they are, and DZ twins.
if theres no correlation then its environment
▪ heritable ranges:
• psyche = soul/ logos = study
• schools of thought on psychology
◦ Structuralism: Wilhelm Wundt (1879 first psych lab) breaks
down mind into basic elements like Mendeleev.
Introspection to describe sensory elements of
experience. Primarily interested in perception. Class
example: describing Hershey’s Kisses without similes.
Edward Titchener
◦ Functionalism: William James. John Dewey. Consciousness
should be studied not for structure but for function.
Basic elements of chocolate experience don’t matter,
but why do we like chocolate. Where our emotions
come from,
◦ Gestalt: Max Wertheimer. Experience is more than the sum
of its parts. Class example: optical illusion where line is
same length, appears so because of our experience
with corners. Can’t undo preexisting biases.
◦ Psychoanalytic: Sigmund Freud. behavior driven by
unconsciousness. uses dreams and free-association to
uncover unconscious desires and conflicts. a lot of behavior
is unconscious. personality development
◦ Behaviorism: Watson, Skinner, Pavlov. studying behavior more
important than inferring whats going on inside. Idea that people
come out as blank slate, tabula rasa. Skinner raise own
daughter in box. Primary area is learning.
◦ Humanistic: Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers. Don’t like Freudians or
Behaviorists. Both former schools imply that we don’t have free
will. Humanists think behavior is determined by free will.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, idiot. Focus on present rather
than past, can choose to change behavior, aren’t driven by past
◦ Cognitive Revolution: George Miller, Wolfgang Köhler, Edward
Tolman. thinking about mind as a computer. Mind as
information processor
◦ Social Revolution: Kurt Lewin. must understand individual person
and social pressures to fully predict behavior. B=f(P,E) or
behavior is a function of a person and their environment.
primary area social and cultural psychology
• Most psychologist don’t fall into one camp anymore. Intersectionality
,• Depression strikes 17 million americans each year. more than cancer,
AIDs or heart attacks
• 29SEP2015
•
• 4 canons of science
◦ Determinism: the universe is orderly, effects have causes
◦ Empiricism: importance of observation - theories should be based
on data, not mere intuition
◦ Parsimony: simpler is better. comes from Occam’s Razor: “shave
off unnecessary entities in explanation - if
two competing theories predict the dame phenomena equally
well - choose the simpler.
◦ Testability: importance of falsifiability no amount of experimentation
can ever prove the theory wrong
• Scientific method of psychology
◦ observation of psychological association
◦ hypothesis of a relationship among the variables
◦ variables: measurable conditions, events
◦ a hypothesis is a guess about a relationship between two variables
◦ translation of the hypothesized variable into specifics
◦ operationalization: the concrete measurable or manipulable
definition of the variable of interest
◦ variable: fondness - operations? How would you measure it?
▪ reported relationship satisfaction
▪ frequency of gazing, touching, eye contact, and smiling
observed in a laboratory setting
◦ case study
▪ pros: real life observations and rich description
▪ cons: limited generalizability,
▪ Case studies used for rare phenomena, as well as for those
that cannot be ethically manipulated (eg. serial killers)
▪ H.M. study, dude had brain surgery and can’t form new
memories
◦ choose a research format
▪ survey: question many participants concerning phenomena of
interest
▪ pros: greater generalizability, can ask about a wide variety of
events
▪ cons: people may not always feel comfortable, self report
, biases, lack of insight, tests are correlational in nature
◦ Correlational research
▪ sign, positive or negative, reflects pattern of relationship
▪ positive correlation means as A increases, B increases
▪ negative correlation means A increase and B decreases
▪ magnitude: can vary from 1 to -1
▪ Absolute magnitude reflects strength of the relationship
▪ -.87 is stronger relationship than .23
▪ Correlation can never tell us about causation
▪ Why? A causes b —increasing absence reduces
fondness
▪ Opposite is also true
▪ B causes A, decreasing fondness = increasing absence
▪ C causes both A and B: third variable —financial stress,
drug addiction etc
▪ Experiment:
▪ manipulation of variables in order to assess causal
effects on other variables
▪ manipulate indépendant variable, the one we think is
causal
▪ Hallmark of an experiment is random assignment —
placing participants into conditions randomly, can’t
ask for volunteers
▪ Hallmarks of good research
▪ avoid confounds
▪ avoid bias (experimenter or participant)
▪ uses reliable and valid measures
▪ psychologically real
▪ control experiments rigidly
▪ Rosenthals rats (tells some grad students that rats are smart,
others are normal. the rats he told grads were geniuses,
learned faster cause grads were nicer to genius rats)
▪ replicated study in school by telling teachers some
students were smarter and students he said were
smarter did better
◦ Participation bias exists as well: social desirability
◦ must make experiments double blind, keep everybody in the dark
◦ must be able to replicate findings over and over
◦ a good experiment feels real, even though you know you’re in an
, experiment
▪ Ex. different boxes of Trix, kids cereal characters are looking
down at kids cause kids like eye contact
◦ Resisting temptation experiment: surrounded by chocolate, told to
eat radishes instead for taste test
◦ Experiment of how people respond to emergencies; fill room with
smoke as people are doing experiment, peoples response to
smoke spend on those around them
◦ Research ethics: can’t hurt volunteers. IRBs — institutional review
boards
▪ informed consent
▪ ability to withdraw at any time
▪ deception studies get more scrutiny from IRB
▪ have to tell you as soon as study is over
• 01OCT2015
• why do clones freak us out?
• Behavioral genetics
◦ genes: segments of Dna that guide the proaction of proteins to
carry out specific tasks
▪ genes are the unit of heredity, how traits are passed down
through families
▪ can be “on” or “off”, environmental stimuli also capable of
turning them on or off
▪ even if you have the same genetic sequence, maternal diet
can turn that particular gene off
◦ genotype v phenotype
▪ genotype: actual genetic constitution - the two mice are
identical in genotype
▪ phenotype: observable expression of characteristic, results
from genes and environment
▪ as long as you have one gene for tongue rolling, you can roll.
only if you have two recessives
◦ role of hereditary
▪ Galton notes intelligence runs in families or does it depend on
environment
▪ want know about inheritability of humor: look at fraternal twins
correlation between how hilarious they are, and DZ twins.
if theres no correlation then its environment
▪ heritable ranges:
