Chapters 1-3 Flashcards
Psychology
The scientific study of mental processes and behaviour
Mental Processes
activities of our brain when engaged in thinking, observing, and using language
Behaviour
Observable activities of an organism
Four Goals of Psychologists
- Description of what we observe
- Explanation of these observations
- Prediction of the circumstances that lead to the expression of a specific behaviour
- Controlling behaviour
Level of Analysis
Mental processes and behaviours can be studied at multiple levels of analysis:
- The Brain (brain structure and function)
- The person (thoughts and feelings)
- the group (family, friends, culture)
Psychology’s Roots in Philosophy
- Ancient Greek philosophers asked questions about the human mind – approx. 400 B.C.E. (Mind-body relation; nature-nurture question)
- It wasn’t just what they asked, but how – they developed scientific methods
Francis Bacon
Created empiricism- the view that all knowledge comes from experience
Descartes
He contemplated mind-body dualism - mind as distinct from the body and connected to the body via the pineal glad
John Locke
argued we are born with a tabula rasa and that we learn by experience
Psychophysics
the study of the relationship between physical stimuli and their psychological effects
Psychology’s Roots in Psychophysics:
Johannes Muller
Psychophysics was pioneered by Johannes Muller in the 1800s
Psychology’s Roots in Psychophysics:
Herman Von Helmholtz
measured the speed of neural impulses
Psychology’s Roots in Psychophysics:
Gustav Fechner
one of the founders of experimental psychology; showed how mental events can be quantified
Wilhelm Wundt
- Opened the first psychology lab in 1879 in Leipzig, Germany
- Made psychology a science by adding:
Carefully measured observations and Experiments
G. Stanley Hall
- 1883 – established the first psychology lab in North America
- 1887 – launched America’s first psychology journal
- 1892 – major player in establishing the American Psychological Association (APA)
James Mark Baldwin
1890 – established the first psychology lab in Canada at UofT
Battle of the ‘schools’ – what should be the focus of psychology?
Structuralism
- led by Edward Titchener
- sought to understand the basic elements of consciousness
- relied on introspection (reporting on sensations and other elements of experience, not very scientific)
Battle of the ‘schools’ – what should be the focus of psychology?
Functionalism
- Led by William James
- Sought to understand the function or purpose of consciousness
- wrote principles of psychology (published in 1890)
- Led to other schools of thought (behaviourism, and applied psychology)
Gestalt psychologists
- Said consciousness cannot be broken down into elements
- We perceive things as whole perceptual units
-The whole is
greater than the
sum of its parts - Learning is tied to what we perceive
Perspectives on behaviour = different vantage points for analyzing behaviour and its causes
Major perspectives in psychology:
- Psychoanalysis
- Behaviourism
- Humanistic psychology
- Cognitive psychology
- Psychobiology/ neuroscience
Psychoanalysis
- Founded by Sigmund Freud in the early 1900’s
- Focused on the role of the unconscious (Drives, wishes, needs, and desires of which we are not aware)
- Emphasized the importance of early childhood experiences
Behaviourism
- Dominant school of thought in the early 1900’s
- Founded by John B. Watson
- Emphasized psychology’s focus on observable behaviour
- Showed that phobias can be learned (Little Albert)
Ivan Pavlov
- Studied classical conditioning in dogs
B. F. Skinner
- Showed how consequences of behaviour can influence future behaviour
- Studied rats and pigeons
Albert Bandura
- Described learning by social observation
Humanistic psychology:
- Argued that psychoanalysis and behaviourism were de-humanizing
- Emphasized the unique qualities of humans
- Focused on freedom and personal growth
- Led by Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers
Cognitive Psychology
Cognition = mental processes involved in acquiring knowledge
- 1950’s and 1960’s – Neisser, Miller, and Chomsky (to name a few):
- Applied the scientific method to study the mind
- Became the dominant perspective in psychology
Psychobiology/neuroscience:
Explained behaviour in terms of physiological processes – highly dependent on technology
- Karl Lashley (1950’s): observed behavioural changes in rats after removing parts of their brain
- Donald Hebb (1950’s): cell assemblies describe neural networks
- Wilder Penfield (1970’s): mild electrical stimulation of different areas of the brain evokes different responses
- Roger Sperry (1980’s): left and right brain functions
Why Do We Need Psychological Research?
- our natural thinking style can fail
- using science makes us objective and accurate
- not influenced by the person measuring, the device, it is completely objective and accurate
Natural thinking mistakes in research
- Hindsight bias: a finding may seem obvious after the fact (if we have a belief that biases us)
- Overconfidence error: we overestimate how accurate and skilled we are
- Mistakenly perceiving order in random events: makes us think we can make predictions from a random series
- We can “see” pattern events. When actually you have no clue because it is random.
Five Characteristics of Good Research
- Use of objective measures
- Generalizability of results
- Reducing sources of bias
- Reporting the findings
- Replication
Use of Objective Measures
- The measure is consistent across instruments and observers
- Make things as objective as possible
- Use of operational definitions helps with objectivity
- The measure must be valid – does it actually measure what it claims to measure?
- The measure must be reliable – do we get the same score over time and across observers?
- Test-retest reliability: If you took the same test over a period of time (that you dont really remember) if the test is reliable you should get roughly the same score
- Alternate-forms reliability: you could give someone the same the same test with the questions in a different order and that should not effect their score
- Inter-rater reliability: the score should not depend on who is testing or scoring you
