Chapter 1
Introduction
,What is Psychology?
- The study of the mind, behaviour, and brain and the interactions among them.
- We tend to look for authorities when wanting to obtain facts
- Consensus doesn’t necessarily mean correct
Chapter 1 - HISTORY + APPROACHES
INTROSPECTION
Willhelm Wundt
- Founding father
- Used Introspection - to look within and analyze one’s mind as objectively as they can
- Established structuralism - mind works by combining subjective emotions and objective
sensations
-
William James
- Functionalism - gave function to wundt’s structures: how subjective emotions and
objective sensations function together
Mary Whiton Calkins
- Studied with James and became president of american psychological association
Margaret Washburn
- First women phd in psych
G. Stanley Hall
- Pioneered child development first president of apa
GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY
- Didn’t want to separate thought and behaviour
- Examine total experience as a whole, not just individual parts
- Max Wertheimer
PSYCHOANALYSIS
- Sigmund Freud - psychoanalytic theory
- Studied; unconscious mind - we don’t have control, determines how we think and
behave
- Repression - pushing anxiety and stress factors into the unconscious mind
- Examines unconscious mind through dream analysis, word association…
- Criticized for being unscientific and being not verifiable
,BEHAVIORISM
- John Watson - studied Ivan Pavlov
- Said psychology is only a science if it can be proved and observed
- Behaviorists: psychology should be about stimuli and response and not about
unconscious and the subjective
- BF Skinner - reinforcement - environmental stimuli encourages or discourages certain
responses
ECLECTIC
Perspective 1: Humanism
- Abraham Maslow + Carl Rogers: individual choice + free will
- Contrast with deterministic: all behaviour dictated by past conditioning
- Believe we are guided by physical emotional or spiritual needs
- Hierarchy of needs
Perspective 2: Psychoanalytic
- Unconscious mind: repression
- Need to examine like freud did
Perspective 3: Biopsychology perspective (neuroscience)
- Strictly looks at biology
- Cognition and reactions caused by genes and hormones and neurotransmitters
- Extraversion introversion comes from genes
Perspective 4: Darwinian Perspective
- Also called sociobiologist: examine thoughts and actions from natural selection
- Survival of the fittest (charles darwin’s evolution)
- Person’s traits are survival advantages, may be passed down fro ancestors
Perspective 5: Behavioural
- Explains everything in terms of conditioning
- Environment rewards and punishes if you are a certain way
Perspective 6: Cognitive
- Examines in terms of how we interpret process and remember events
Perspective 7: Social-cultural
- Cultural differences in thoughts and behaviors
- Emphasize cultural influence
Perspective 8: Biopsychosocial
- Combination of biological, psychological, and social factors\
- Eclectic, combines the 3
,Chapter 2
METHODS
,Research Methods
Hindsight bias - tendency to think they knew it all along. After something happens, it’s easy to
explain why it happened
Applied research - practical and used on real world
Basic Research - based on interests and not for immediate use
TERMINOLOGY
Hypothesis and variables
Hypothesis - relationship between the 2 variables, grows out of theories
Theory - aims to explain some phenomenon
Independent variable - the subject of the study that is manipulated or changed
Dependent variable - the outcome that depends on the independent variable
Validity and Reliability
Good research needs to be 1) valid - it measures what the researcher originally intended to
measure and 2) reliable - it can be replicated and is consistent
Sampling
Individuals on which experiment is conducted - participants, sample = group of participants
Process that selects participants - sampling
Anyone possibly selected to be in sample - population
, Goal in sample: for it to be representative of a larger population
To ensure representation:
1. random selection: everyone has equal chance of being selected, can increase
likelihood of representation and the ability to generalize
2. Stratified sampling: dividing population into subgroups and using random selection
within these subgroups to ensure sample is representative of them. This is another way
of increasing representation.
*on exam, when asked to design own research, be sure to specify sample size and avoid huge
sizes
Introduction
,What is Psychology?
- The study of the mind, behaviour, and brain and the interactions among them.
- We tend to look for authorities when wanting to obtain facts
- Consensus doesn’t necessarily mean correct
Chapter 1 - HISTORY + APPROACHES
INTROSPECTION
Willhelm Wundt
- Founding father
- Used Introspection - to look within and analyze one’s mind as objectively as they can
- Established structuralism - mind works by combining subjective emotions and objective
sensations
-
William James
- Functionalism - gave function to wundt’s structures: how subjective emotions and
objective sensations function together
Mary Whiton Calkins
- Studied with James and became president of american psychological association
Margaret Washburn
- First women phd in psych
G. Stanley Hall
- Pioneered child development first president of apa
GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY
- Didn’t want to separate thought and behaviour
- Examine total experience as a whole, not just individual parts
- Max Wertheimer
PSYCHOANALYSIS
- Sigmund Freud - psychoanalytic theory
- Studied; unconscious mind - we don’t have control, determines how we think and
behave
- Repression - pushing anxiety and stress factors into the unconscious mind
- Examines unconscious mind through dream analysis, word association…
- Criticized for being unscientific and being not verifiable
,BEHAVIORISM
- John Watson - studied Ivan Pavlov
- Said psychology is only a science if it can be proved and observed
- Behaviorists: psychology should be about stimuli and response and not about
unconscious and the subjective
- BF Skinner - reinforcement - environmental stimuli encourages or discourages certain
responses
ECLECTIC
Perspective 1: Humanism
- Abraham Maslow + Carl Rogers: individual choice + free will
- Contrast with deterministic: all behaviour dictated by past conditioning
- Believe we are guided by physical emotional or spiritual needs
- Hierarchy of needs
Perspective 2: Psychoanalytic
- Unconscious mind: repression
- Need to examine like freud did
Perspective 3: Biopsychology perspective (neuroscience)
- Strictly looks at biology
- Cognition and reactions caused by genes and hormones and neurotransmitters
- Extraversion introversion comes from genes
Perspective 4: Darwinian Perspective
- Also called sociobiologist: examine thoughts and actions from natural selection
- Survival of the fittest (charles darwin’s evolution)
- Person’s traits are survival advantages, may be passed down fro ancestors
Perspective 5: Behavioural
- Explains everything in terms of conditioning
- Environment rewards and punishes if you are a certain way
Perspective 6: Cognitive
- Examines in terms of how we interpret process and remember events
Perspective 7: Social-cultural
- Cultural differences in thoughts and behaviors
- Emphasize cultural influence
Perspective 8: Biopsychosocial
- Combination of biological, psychological, and social factors\
- Eclectic, combines the 3
,Chapter 2
METHODS
,Research Methods
Hindsight bias - tendency to think they knew it all along. After something happens, it’s easy to
explain why it happened
Applied research - practical and used on real world
Basic Research - based on interests and not for immediate use
TERMINOLOGY
Hypothesis and variables
Hypothesis - relationship between the 2 variables, grows out of theories
Theory - aims to explain some phenomenon
Independent variable - the subject of the study that is manipulated or changed
Dependent variable - the outcome that depends on the independent variable
Validity and Reliability
Good research needs to be 1) valid - it measures what the researcher originally intended to
measure and 2) reliable - it can be replicated and is consistent
Sampling
Individuals on which experiment is conducted - participants, sample = group of participants
Process that selects participants - sampling
Anyone possibly selected to be in sample - population
, Goal in sample: for it to be representative of a larger population
To ensure representation:
1. random selection: everyone has equal chance of being selected, can increase
likelihood of representation and the ability to generalize
2. Stratified sampling: dividing population into subgroups and using random selection
within these subgroups to ensure sample is representative of them. This is another way
of increasing representation.
*on exam, when asked to design own research, be sure to specify sample size and avoid huge
sizes
