exam Flashcards
Overt & covert behaviours
Overt: Behavioiur which is directly observable
Covert: Processes that are internal - cognitive, mental, emotions
Structuralism
Main founder(s), focuses.
Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920).
Introspection.
“Father of psychology”. First research lab in Leipzig, Germany.
Vision, touch, hearing, attention and emotion.
Edward Titchener.
Issues: Test-retest reliability was low. Reductionistic. Elemental. Reliance on verbal reports.
Reductionistic
Elemental
Reductionistic = Centered on the belief that we can best explain something by breaking it down into it’s individual parts
Functionalism
William James.
focused on the purpose, the function rather than the structure.
Heavily influenced by natural selection.
Penned the first text book.
Consciousness exists because it serves a function.
James focused on psychological knowledge from those whose minds do not function adequately.
Frequency distribution
A method of organizing the data to show how frequency participants received each of the many possible scores
Measures of central tendency
Mean, median and mode
Variability
How much the participants scores differ from one another. Range and SD
Percentile scores
Percentage of scores that fall below a score
Statistical significance
Helps determine whether the results of a study are likely to have occurred by chance. p value
Effect size
The magnitude of the experimental effect or the strength of a relationship. Effect size indices are of two groups:
1. Indices that compare differences between treatment means
2. Indices that are based on measures of association such as correlation and explained variance.
Main goals of research
- Description: Being able to summarise the data your research has produced in a way that is easily understandable.
- Prediction: using the outcome of your research to produce what would happen in the future.
- Understanding: Identifying why that would happen - the causal factors that led to the results.
- Application: Apply to the real world.
Scientific method (x 5)
- Theory
- Hypothesis
- Test
- Evidence
- Conclusion
6 steps in conducting an experiment
- Framing a hypothesis
- Operationalizing variables (turning an abstract concept into a concrete variable)
- Developing a standardised procedure
- Selecting and assigning participants
- Applying statistical techniques to the data
- Drawing conclusions
Localisation of function
the idea that some functions (language, emotions) have certain locations or areas within the brain
Paradigm:
A broad system of theoretical assumptions that a scientific community uses to make sense of its domain of study. Components: includes a set of theoretical assertions that provide a model, or an abstract picture, of the object of study. Second, a paradigm includes a set of shared metaphors that compare the subject to something else that is readily apprehended. Third, a paradigm includes a set of methods that scientists agree will produce valid and useful data.
Tabula rasa:
John Locke (1632-1704) contended that at birth the mind is a blank slate.
Empiricism:
The belief that the path to scientific knowledge is systematic observation and, ideally, experimental observation.
Empiricism:
The belief that the path to scientific knowledge is systematic observation and, ideally, experimental observation.
Ethology
Studies animal behaviour from a biological and evolutionary perspective
Psychodynamic perspective:
3 key premises:
- People’s actions are determined by the way thoughts, feelings and wishes are connected in their minds.
- Many of these mental events occur outside of consciousness.
- Mental processes may conflict with one another, leading to compromises among competing motives.
- Childhood experiences play a role.
- Mental representations
- Mental processes operate simultaneously and in parallel, so individuals can have conflicting feelings
- Personality development involves not only learning to regulate sexual and aggressive feelings and wishes, bit also moving from an immature state to a mature/dependent one.
Behaviourist perspective:
John Watson, B.F Skinner, Pavlov)
The way objects or events in the environment (stimuli) come to control behaviour through learning.
- Watson is the researcher who believed he could take 12 newborns and make them into anything he wanted.
Skinner = Reinforce and punishment.
Primary method is experimental
Humanistic
Rogers and Maslow
Cognitive perspective
Rene Descartes
Evolutionary perspective
Charles Darwin
Darwin – natural selection
Paternity uncertainty research:
Mother’s mother (highest)
Father’s father (lowest)
Mother’s father and father’s mother (intermediate)
Lazarus & Folkman
theory of stress and coping.
A theoretical framework:
Systematic way of organising and explaining observations. Hypothesis that flows from the theory or from an important question
A standardised procedure:
Procedure that is the same for all participants except where variation is introduced to test a hypothesis
Generalisability
Sample that is representative of the population. Procedure that is sensible and relevant to circumstances outside the laboratory.
Objective measurement:
Measures that are reliable (the produce consistent results). Measures that are valid (that asses the dimensions they purport to assess)
Quantitative & Qualitive
Quantitative: Surveys. Large sample size representative of the population. High reliability. More objective and using standardised techniques. Takes a deductive and objective approach.
Qualitive: In-depth analysis of relatively few participants. Subjective. About describing or interpreting human phenomena.
Continuous & categorical variables
Continuous: Placed on a continuum (such as, degree of optimism)
Categorical: Groupings (such as, state, species)
Sampling bias
When the sample is not representative of the population as a whole.
Valid test
Requires 2 criteria. Must employ methods that convincingly test the hypothesis; called internal validity. The findings can be generalised to the situations outside; called external validity.
Reliability
Three kinds.
Test retest = same scores over time.
Internal consistency = if several ways of asking the same question yield similar results.
Interrater reliability = if two different interviewers rate an individual on some dimension, both should give the person similar scores.
Tests are considered biased if two conditions are met
If systematic differences are found between the mean score of different groups and if the test scores make incorrect predictions in real life.
Independent & Dependent variables:
Independent variables: The variable the experimenter manipulates.
Dependent variables: the variable the experimenter measures.
Quasi-experimental designs:
Share many of the features of the experimental method but do not allow as much control over all relevant variables, such as random assignment of participants to different conditions.
Researcher bias (observer)
Researcher bias (observer): Researchers see what they expect to see.
Naturalistic:
Jane Goodall’s study of aps showed that they also reconciled. Primary describes behaviours.
Stratified random sample:
Specifies the percentage of people to be drawn from each population category and then randomly selects participants from within each category.
Correlation coefficient
measures the extent to which two variables are related. Vary between –1 and +1
Electroencephalogram (EEG):
Developed in 1930’s.
Measures: Electrical activity towards the surface of the brain (near the skull).
Used for: Diagnosing disorders such as epilepsy, as well as to study neural activity during sleep.
Neuroimaging techniques
Uses computer programs to convert data taken from brain-scanning devices into visual images of the brain.
Computerised axial tomography (CAT scan)
A CAT scanner rotates an x-ray tube around a person’s head, producing a series of x-ray pictures. A computer then combines these pictures into a composite visual image. These can pinpoint the location of abnormalities such as neuronal degeneration and abnormal tissue growths.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI):
Neuroimaging technique that produces similar results without using x-rays.
Positron emission tomography (PET):
A neuroimaging method that involves injecting a small quantity of radioactive glucose (too small of a dose to be dangerous), into the bloodstream. Nerve cells use glucose for energy, and they replenish their supply from the bloodstream. As these cells use glucose that has been radioactively ‘tagged’, a computer produces a colour portrait of the brain, showing which parts are active.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI):
Uses MRI to watch the brain as an individual carries out tasks such as solving math equations. Functional MRI works by exposing the brain to pulses of a phenomenally strong magnet (strong enough to lift a truck), and measuring the response of chemicals in blood cells going to and from various regions, which become momentarily ‘lined up’ in the direction of the magnet.
The Psychology Board of Australia 2 main principles:
Respect for the rights and dignity of people, and peoples; propriety; and integrity.
Three key principles underpin critical thinking:
Skepticism, objectivity and open-mindedness.
Fallacies in arguments:
A straw man
Approach involves authors deliberately attacking an opposing argument in order to strengthen their own argument. Authors create a straw man – a decoy – that will be deliberately destroyed.
Fallacies in arguments:
Appeals to popularity:
Appeals to authority:
Refers to the fallacy that a popular and widespread argument is true.
Refers to the fallacy that an argument must be true because of the authority of the person making it.
Fallacies in arguments:
Arguments directed to the person:
Refers to the approach in which authors try to strengthen their own position by attacking the authors of alternative arguments.
Context of discovery:
Phenomena are observed, hypotheses are framed, and theories are built
Context of discovery:
Phenomena are observed, hypotheses are framed, and theories are built
Context of justification:
Hypotheses are tested empirically.
Chi-square test:
t-test:
analysis of variance (ANOVA):
Chi-square test: Compares the observed data, with the results that would be expected by chance and tests the likelihood that the difference between observed and expected are accidental. Need to be categorical.
analysis of variance (ANOVA): Compare the means among three or more groups
t-test: Compare the means of 2 groups. Part of an ANOVA.
Falsifiability criterion =
the principle that a proposition or theory could only be considered scientific if in principle it was possible to establish it as false. (i.e., Freud’s theory lacks falsifiability)
Cartesian dualism
Associated with the thought of Rene Descartes.
That there are two kinds of foundation: mental and physical. This philosophy states that the mental can exist outside of the body, and the body cannot think.