Ch2-Psychology Flashcards
What is psychology?
Goals of psychology Description (what) Explanation (why) Prediction Control Improvement of quality of life
Psychology is good at predicting averages but not individual behaviour.
What Psychology studies
Affect (emotion,feelings)
Behaviour (something we can observe)
Cognition(thinking,memory,decision making,judgement)
And the social and biological substrates for these.
What psychologists do (part1)
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)
What psychologists do (part2)
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)
What psychologists do (part3)
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)
What psychologists do (part 4)
Psychologists are sometimes:
Psychoanalysts (a specific type of psycho therapy who studies mental health issues)
Current schedule perspective in Psychology
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.)
Hi do we know what we know?
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
Common sense(is very important and useful but not often right)
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
What is a theory?
Theory (statement that makes them make sense )
Organizes facts
Guides research
A good theory
Accounts Well for current knowledge I the area
Can predict new findings
The scientific method
Observation Theory Hypothesis Test Making it public Peer review /publication (way to control quality of the research) Replication
Statistics
We can’t measure or test everybody
Take a sample
Our sample may not be an accurate representation of the population
Math can help
Correlations
A causes B
B causes A
c causes B and A
Remember that surveys can ONLy give correlation
Practicing correlation
+ work-> + grades
+ grades-> + work
Need for achievement ->+ grades
+ work
\+ exercise-> + grades
\+ grades-> +exercise
Parental influence-> +grades
\+exercise
OR
Bad health-> - grades
-exercise
Showing causality
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
Random selection
People that represent a bigger population
Experiment
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
Other kinds of Research
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)
Some problems in research
Saying vs doing Wording of questions Random samples Understanding/meaning Demand characteristics Researcher bias
A complication,but maybe a good thing…
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)
