PSYCH 101

Psychology by Ciccarelli - Chapter 1 Notes

Psychology
Study of behaviour and mental processes of humans and
animals
Behaviour includes our outward actions and reactions
Mental processes internal activity of our minds
Goals:
o Description
Observing a behaviour and noting everything
Provides the observations
o Explanation
Theory general explanation of a set of
observation or facts
Helps build the theory
o Prediction
Determining what will happen in the future
o Control
Change or modify a behaviour from an
undesirable one to a desirable one
History of Psychology
Aristotle relationship of the soul to the body
Plato the soul could exist separately from the body
Wilhelm Wundt (Father of Psychology)
o Objective introspection process of objectively
examining and measuring ones own thoughts and
mental activities
Structuralism by Edward Titchnener
o Focus of study was the mind
o Believed that every experience can be broken down
into its basic elements
o Objective introspection could be used on thoughts as
well as on physical sensations
o Margaret Washburn first woman to receive a PhD
in psychology
Functionalism by William James
o Importance of consciousness to everyday life rather
than just its analysis

How the mind allows people to function in the real

world
o Mary Calkins first female president of the APA
o Francis Cecil Sumner first African American to
earn a PhD
Gestalt Psychology
o Max Wertheimer believed that psychological
events such as perceiving an sensing could not be
broken down into any smaller elements and still be
properly understood
o Perception can only be understood as a whole, entire
event
o The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
o People naturally seek out patterns
o Gestalt psychology focused on studying whole
patterns rather than small pieces of them
Part of the study cognitive psychology (field
focusing not only on perception but also on
learning, memory, thought processes, and
problem solving)
Sigmund Freuds Theory of Psychoanalysis
o Sigmund Freud
Neurologist
Proposed that there is an unconscious mind
into which we repress all our threatening
urges and desires
Believed that these repressed urges created
nervous disorders
Stressed the importance of early childhood
experiences as personality was formed in the
first 6 years of life
o Psychoanalysis
Basis of psychotherapy, where a trained
psychological professional helps a person gain
insight into and change his or her behaviour
Behaviourism
o Ivan Pavlov
Reflex (involuntary reaction) could be
caused to occur in response to a formerly
unrelated stimulus
Conditioning a learned response
o JB Watson
o

Ignore the whole consciousness issue and

focus only on observable behaviour,
something that could directly be seen or
measured
Freud believed that all behaviour stems from
unconscious motivation whereas Watson
believed that all behaviour is learned
Freud: phobia irrational fear as a symptom
of underlying repressed conflict :: Watson:
phobia learned through the process of
conditioning
Little Albert conditioning
Little Peter (by Mary Jones)
counterconditioning

Modern perspectives
Psychodynamic perspective
o Emphasis on the development of a sense of self,
social and interpersonal relationships, and the
discovery of other motivations behind a persons
behaviour
Behavioural perspective
o BF Skinner (operant conditioning)
explain how voluntary behaviour is learned
behavioural responses that are followed by
pleasurable consequences are strengthened
or reinforced
Humanistic perspective
o Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers
o Reaction to both psychoanalytic theory and
behaviourism
o Focus on peoples ability to direct their own lives
o People have free will, freedom to choose their
destiny, and strive for self actualization, achievement
of ones full potential
Cognitive perspective
o Focuses on how people think, store, remember, and
use information
o Memory, intelligence, perception, thought processes,
problem solving, language, and learning

Cognitive neuroscience study of the physical

workings of the brain and nervous system when
engaged in memory, thinking, etc
Sociocultural perspective
o Combines social and cultural psychology
o Social psychology study of groups, social roles,
and rules of social actions and relationships
o Cultural psychology study of cultural norms,
values, and expectations
o Both are about the effect that people have on one
another, either individually or in a larger group such
as a culture
o Reminds people that the way they or others behave
is also influence by social norms, fads, class
differences, etc
o Cross-cultural research contrasts and
comparisons of a behaviour or issue are studied in at
least two or more cultures
o Presence of other people lessened the chances that a
person in trouble would receive help aka bystander
effect as a result of diffusion of responsibility
Biopsychological perspective
o Study of the biological bases of behaviour and
mental processes
o Aka physiological psychology, psychobiology,
etc
o Part of a larger field called neuroscience
o Human and animal behaviour is seen as a direct
result of events in the body
o Sleep, emotions, aggression, sexual behaviour,
learning etc
o Schizophrenia mental disorder involving
hallucinations
Evolutionary perspective
o Biological bases for universal mental characteristics
that all humans share
o Seeks to explain general mental strategies and traits
o Evolutionary psychologists study the
evolutionary origins of human behaviour
o

Areas of Specialization

Psychologist no medical training but has a doctorate

degree
Psychiatrist has a medical degree and is a medical
doctor who has specialized in the diagnosis and treatment of
psychological disorders
Psychiatric social worker trained in the area of social
work and usually possesses a masters degree in that
discipline

The scientific methodology

Scientific method system for reducing bias and error in
the measurement of data
1. Perceiving the question description goal
2. Forming a Hypothesis form an educated guess or
tentative answer or explanation for the behaviour; can
be tested in some way
a. Confirmation bias people have a tendency to
notice only things that agree with their view of
the world
3. Testing the hypothesis explanation goal
4. Drawing conclusions analyzed with some statistical
method
5. Report your results will tell others what not to do in the
future
Descriptive methods
Naturalistic observation
o The best way to look at the behaviour of an animal or
person is to watch them behave in their normal
environment
o Observer should have a checklist of well defined and
specific behaviour to record
o Participant observation when the observer
participates
o Advantage/s:
Realistic picture of how behaviour occurs
o Disadvantage/s:
Observer effect people who know they are
being watched will not behave normally
Observer bias person doing the observing
has a particular opinion about what he or she

expects to see; recognizes only those actions

that support the preconceived expectation
Solution: blind observers dont
know question
Naturalistic setting is unique, observations
held at one time may not hold true for
another
Laboratory observation
o Advantage/s:
More controlled setting
o Disadvantage/s:
Results in artificial behaviour - animals and
people often act differently in the lab than in
the real world
Case studies
o Case study individual is studied in great detail; try
to learn everything about that individual
o Advantage/s:
Tremendous amount of detail it provides
Good when studying things that are rare
Sometimes the only way to find out other
things
o Disadvantage/s:
Researchers cant really apply the results to
similar people
Venerable to bias on the part of the person
conducting the study
Surveys
o Asks a series of questions about the topic
o Advantage/s:
Tremendous amount of data
o Disadvantage/s:
People arent always going to be given
accurate answers
People may misremember things or
deliberately give the answer they think is
more correct aka courtesy bias
o Representative sample representative of the
population
o Participants (part of the study)are selected randomly

Finding relationships

Correlations
o Measure of the relationship between two or more
variables
o Variable anything that can change or vary
o Correlation coefficient represents the direction and
strength of the relationship
+ increase in the same direction
- inverse relationship
+1.00 and -1.00 closer to 0 is a weak
relationship
o Correlation does not prove causation

The experiment
Operational definition specifically names operations to
control
Dependent variable
Independent variable
Confounding variables variables that interfere with each
other and their possible effects on some other variable of
interest should be controlled
Experimental group
Control group
Random assignment best way to ensure control over
other interfering or extraneous variables
Placebo effect expectations and biases of the
participants in a study can influence their behaviour
Experiment effect expectations of the experimenter;
they see what they expect to see

Single blind study participants are blind to the

treatment they receive
Double blind study both the participants and the
experimenters are blind

Ethics
Guidelines
o Rights and well being weighed against study
o Participants are allowed to make an informed
decision about participation
o Deception must be justified
o Participants may withdraw anytime
o Participants must be protected from risks
o Investigators must debrief participants
o Data must be confidential
o Results in undesirable consequence for participant:
researcher is responsible for correcting it
Critical thinking
o Making reasoned judgements
o Reasoned logical and well thought out
1. There are very few truths that do not need to be
subjected to testing
2. All evidence is not equal in quality
3. Just because someone is considered to be an
authority does not mean their claims are all
automatically true
4. Critical thinking requires an open mind