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Psychology 104
Chapter 1: Psychology and Scientific Thinking
Psychology: scientific study of mind, brain and behaviors Spans multiple levels of analysis Goals- understanding that causes of behavior
What makes Psychology Challenging? Actions are multiply determined (caused by many factors) Interrelated traits, influences are not independent o Makes it difficult to pinpoint cause-effect relationships Individual differences in thinking, emotion, personality etc. Mutually influence each others behavior o Reciprocal determinism: hard to know what’s causing what Culture shapes behavior o Emic: research from perspective of subject o Etic: from perspective of researcher
Naïve Realism: belief that we see the world precisely as it is, our beliefs shape our perspectives of the world
Psychology as a Science
- Science is an approach to evidence, begins with empiricism: knowledge acquired through observation
- Scientific theory: explanation for a large number of findings in the natural world
- Theory: general observation or explanations Misconceptions: o a theory explains one specific event o its just an educated guess
- Hypothesis: predictions from theories
Confirmation Bias: tendency to seek out evidence that supports out beliefs and ignore evidence that contradicts our beliefs “tunnel vision”
Belief Perseverance: tendency to stick to original beliefs even when evidence contradicts them “don’t confuse me with the facts”
Metaphysical Claims: boundaries of science Assertions about the world we cannot test Ex. God, soul, afterlife Good scientists avoid committing to definitive conclusions
Pseudoscience: science imposters
- appears to be scientific due to growth of popular psychology (self-help books)
- lacks safeguards against confirmation bias and belief perseverance
- can be tested to be disproved unlike metaphysical claims
- Ex. Astrologer, psychic
- Warning signs:
- Overuse of ad hoc immunizing hypothesis: loopholes that protect theory from being disproven o ESP- cannot preform in a lab but explain why they can’t
- Lack self correction: wrong claims never go away despite contrary evidence o Autism and perseverance
- Overreliance on anecdotes: second-hand evidence o “I lost 85lbs in 2 weeks”
Apophenia: perceiving meaningful connections among unrelated and even random phenomena
Pareidolia: seeing meaningful images in meaningless stimuli (looking at the clouds)
Hot Hand Case Study
When player makes 2-3 shots in a row they are “on a roll” Thomas Gilovich studied the probability Discovered hot hand is an illusion
Terror Management Theory: awareness of own inevitable death leaves us with underlying sense of terror, we cope by adopting reassuring cultural world views Reassure us that our lives possess meaning Mortality salience (extent to which thoughts of death are foremost in our minds) is manipulated to study theory
Logical Fallacies: traps in thinking that can lead to mistaken conclusions, seem to make intuitive sense, types are:
- Emotional Reasoning: using emotions are guides for evaluating validity o “I refuse to believe it…”
- Bandwagon Fallacy: correct because everyone else believes it o Opinion is not dependable
- Not me fallacy: immune from errors that afflict others o Bias blind spots, people are unaware of their biases
Pseudoscience is obstructive to scientific progress
Natural selection: allows for better survival and reproduction rates
Behaviorism: John B Watson (1878-1958) Studying laws of learning using observable behavior and objective Stimulus-response, what goes in and what goes out, not worried about the in- between (black box psychology)- ignored the cognitive mind
Cognitivism: Piaget and Neisser (1950’s-60’s) Thinking is central to understanding behavior Interpretations and insights were crucial Cognitive neuroscience: relationship between brain function and thinking Still a thriving approach used today
Psychoanalysis: Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Focuses on internal psychological processes; unconscious impulses, thoughts and memories Freud emphasized role of infant and childhood experiences and believed in symbolism (can be decoded to understand the mind) Contrasts behaviorism Controversial and difficult to test
Types of Psychologist: o Clinical- perform assessment, diagnosis, treat mental disorders, conduct research, work in colleges, mental health centers or private practice o Counselling- work on isolated problems (divorce, career help) o School- work with teachers, parents, children o Developmental- study how and why people change over time, research children, infants to view changes o Experimental- use research methods to study memory, language, thinking and social behaviors o Biological- examine physiological bases of behavior in animals and human o Forensic- work in prisons, jails, research eyewitness testimony or juries o Industrial/Organizational- companies and business, evaluate
Nature vs. Nurture
- Tabula Rasa (blank slate) John Locke believed we are shaped by our environment
Evolutionary Psychology
- applies Darwin’s theory of natural selection to human and animal behavior
- behaviors do not leave fossils
- predictions are difficult to falsify Anxiety is important for survival Male baldness is attractive=mature
Free-Will Determinism: to what extent are our behaviors freely selected rather than caused by factors outside of our control o Insanity defense: mental illness
Basic Research: studies how the mind works Applied Research: uses basic research to solve real world problems
Provide existence proofs: demonstrations that specific phenomenon can occur Offer insights to conduct further systematic investigations
Self Report Measures and Surveys
- Random selection: procedure to ensure every person in a population has an equal chance of being chosen to participate Key to generalizability
- Reliability: consistency of measures Test-retest reliability: same questionnaire has reliable results over time Inter-rater reliability: extent to which different experiments agree on measures, multiple psychologists agree on outcomes
- Validity: extent to which a measure assesses what its supposed to measure Must be reliable to be valid but validity isn’t necessary for reliability Phrasing of questions affects validity
Pros and Cons of Self-Report Measures: Work well for observable personality traits Assume participants have enough insight, report their traits honestly Response sets: tendency to distort responses to questionnaire items o Positive impression management- make ourselves seem better o Malingering- make ourselves seem psychologically disturbed
Rating Data Halo Effect: rating of one positive characteristic ‘spill over’ to influence ratings of other positive characteristics
Correlation Design
- research designs that examine the extent to which two variables are associated
- variable: anything that can take on a different value across individuals
- correlation coefficients (r): range from -1 to + o Strength of correlation determined by absolute value
- scatter plot: grouping of points on a two-dimensional graph, each dot is an individual, more linear a line on graph=stronger correlation
Illusionary Correlation: perception of statistical association between two variables when none exists, we ten to pay too much attention to events and ignore non-events Lunar lunacy effect- full moon and crime
Experimental Designs
- permit cause-effect inferences
- consists of:
- Random assignment of participants to conditions Randomly sorting participants into groups (after being chosen) Cancels out pre-existing differences i. Control group: does not receive manipulation ii. Experimental group: receives manipulation Subject designs: i. Between-subject designs: control and experimental group are made up of different participants ii. Within designs: each participant acts as own control
- Manipulation of independent variable Independent variable: experimenter manipulates Dependent variable: measured to test for the effect of the manipulation of the independent Operationally defined: working definition of what is being measures, differs for every experiment, not all scientists agree
- confounding variables: difference between control and experimental groups that is not the independent variable, questions internal validity of experiment
- placebo effect: improvement resulting from mere expectation of improvement o Controlled by dummy treatments, ex) sugar pill o Nocebo: harm resulting from expectation of harm
- blind: participants should be unaware of whether one is experimental or control group Experimenter Expectancy Effect/Rosenthal Effect Hypothesis leads to unintentional bias in outcome of study Double blind: neither researcher or participants know which group is which
Demand Characteristics: cues that participants pick up during study that allow them to guess the researcher’s hypothesis
Ethical Issues in Psychology
Tuskegee Study USA public health services, learn the natural cause of syphilis if left untreated Subjects: 399 poor African-American men diagnosed, never informed they had syphilis and were tracked by researchers 128 died, 40 wives infected, 19 infected babies born
