Ch2-Psychology

Question 1

What is psychology?

Answer 1

Goals of psychology 
Description (what)
Explanation (why)
Prediction 
Control 
Improvement of quality of life 

Psychology is good at predicting averages but not individual behaviour.

Question 2

What Psychology studies

Answer 2

Affect (emotion,feelings)
Behaviour (something we can observe)
Cognition(thinking,memory,decision making,judgement)
And the social and biological substrates for these.

Question 3

What psychologists do (part1)

Answer 3

Clinical psychologists (work directly with people that have mental issues but cannot prescribe medication)
Biological psychologists (hormones)
Experimental psychologists (lab,animal)
Cognitive psychologists (focus on the thinking)
Developmental psychologists (study people’s development over the life span)
Social psychologists (study how we interact with others)

Question 4

What psychologists do (part2)

Answer 4

Neuropsychologist (brain function)
Industrial/organizational psychologists (work within organization to make the organization work better.Example1:if at a work place many people are complaining about the boss being mean and unfair they send an industrial/organizational psychologists to see what’s going on)
Educational psychologists (study and work on how to improve learning)
Health psychologists (study on how to help people Chang their behaviour so they can become healthier )
Sports psychologists (study on how to help you keep your head in the game ;helps you maintain motivation when you lose)
Forensic pathologist (study how criminality works)

Question 5

What psychologists do (part3)

Answer 5

Who psychologists are Not
Psychiatrist (medical doctors)
Social workers (help people with practical problem of their life)
Sociologist (Group behaviour)
Neurologists (medical doctor of the brain and nervous system)
Anthropologist (study historical human culture in the past and diversity around the world)

Question 6

What psychologists do (part 4)

Answer 6

Psychologists are sometimes:

Psychoanalysts (a specific type of psycho therapy who studies mental health issues)

Question 7

Current schedule perspective in Psychology

Answer 7

Cognitive (psychologists are really interested in what you are thinking)
Biological (biological substrate(foundation) of our thinking behaviour
Evolutionary (things changing over time;trying to adapt due to circumstances)
Sociocultural (how social and culture impact our behaviour,emotions etc.)

Question 8

Hi do we know what we know?

Answer 8

Authority
Intuition (uncontinuous thinking,process that’s tries to tell you something)
Logic
Observation/experience
Research-systematic observation (organized and structured)
Verified and verifiable
Our current best understanding

Question 9

Common sense(is very important and useful but not often right)

Answer 9

Advantages-> you won’t do something that don’t seem right
Disadvantages(2)
1. Sounds logical and common sense maybe wrong until you do the research
2. Often contradictory until you do the research

The only solution?Carry our a research
Gather data
Analyze it
Keep improving it

Question 10

What is a theory?

Answer 10

Theory (statement that makes them make sense )
Organizes facts
Guides research

Question 11

A good theory

Answer 11

Accounts Well for current knowledge I the area

Can predict new findings

Question 12

The scientific method

Answer 12

Observation 
Theory 
Hypothesis
Test
Making it public 
   Peer review /publication (way to control quality of the research)
   Replication

Question 13

Statistics

Answer 13

We can’t measure or test everybody
Take a sample
Our sample may not be an accurate representation of the population
Math can help

Question 14

Correlations

Answer 14

A causes B
B causes A
c causes B and A

Remember that surveys can ONLy give correlation

Question 15

Practicing correlation

Answer 15

+ work-> + grades
+ grades-> + work
Need for achievement ->+ grades
+ work

\+ exercise-> + grades 
\+ grades-> +exercise 
Parental influence-> +grades
                                     \+exercise 
                    OR
Bad health-> - grades
                        -exercise

Question 16

Showing causality

Answer 16

Experiment
Specific research method
2 groups that’s start out the same and are treated the same,except for the possible casual factor you want to test.
If outcomes are different for the 2 groups,then you can conclude that it was that factor that caused the difference.

Random assignment to groups -> pool of people and split into group and you do it by change(example: coin - flip it -head tail) so you could end up with a similar group

Question 17

Random selection

Answer 17

People that represent a bigger population

Question 18

Experiment

Answer 18

Random assignment to groups 
  Experimental group and control group 
Independent variable 
   Possible,casual factor- ‘normal’ for control group, ‘new’ for experimental group 
Dependent variable 
   Outcome or results 
Differences on DV?
   Stats

Question 19

Other kinds of Research

Answer 19

Qualitative:not measuring with numbers
Case studies , Single N design (treatment study for 1 person at a time)
Surveys;common research
Give correlations only(disadvantage)

Question 20

Some problems in research

Answer 20

Saying vs doing
Wording of questions 
Random samples 
Understanding/meaning
Demand characteristics
Researcher bias

Question 21

A complication,but maybe a good thing…

Answer 21

The placebo effect (non active fake treatment)
In research,hard to control for
In reality,may be helpful
Ethical issues

Recession toward the mean -> people usually get better on their own (placebo effect)