Midterm 1 Flashcards
Sources of Psychology
- many people learn about psychology from popular culture
examples:
- social media platforms (Twitter, Tik Tok, Instagram)
- streaming platforms (YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime)
- TV/Movies, News Channels, Blogs
-popular psychology knowledge is not always true and because of this, we must conduct scientific studies
Definition of Psychology
the scientific study of the mind, brain, and behaviour
Levels of Analysis
-biological to social
-must consider multiple levels of analysis and how they interact with one another
-bi-directional influences (can go either way)
- social culture influences: social or behavioural level: involves relating to others (observable behaviour)
- psychological: mental level: involves thoughts, feelings, and emotions
- biological: molecular or neurochemical level: involves molecules and brain structure
example: depression
1. social: what is going on in this person’s life that triggers their depression
2. psychological: how do their thoughts differ?
3. biological: depressed vs. non-depressed– how do biological neurons differ
-no level of analysis is “better”
Five Main Challenges in Psychology: 1. Actions are multiply determined
-any human behaviour is due to multiple human factors
-occurs at different levels of explanation
-be cautious of single variable explanation
example: effect of environmental factors on children’s IQ (multi-level)
-place of residence
-physical activity
-education of mother and father
-occupation of father
-family income
-IQ level is not determined by a singular factor, rather many factors contribute
Five Main Challenges in Psychology: 2. Psychological influences are rarely independent
-factors may be highly associated with one another
-difficult to pinpoint which cause or causes are operating
example: factors that may contribute to anorexia nervosa
-perfectionism
-excessive concern with body image
-exposure to thin models in the media
-compulsive exercise
-gender
-anxiety
-variables are dependent on one another
-all may contribute to whether or not one develops anorexia
-challenging for experimenter to design study looking only at 1 variable
-difficult to determine what the cause is
Five Main Challenges in Psychology: 3. Individual differences among people
- people are different in terms of: thinking, emotion, personality, and behaviour
- gender, ethnicity, age
- challenging to come up with explanations that apply to everyone
Five Main Challenges in Psychology: 4. People influence one another through reciprocal determinism
-Albert Bandura (1973) said: we mutually influence each other’s behaviour
-involves personal factors, behaviour, environment
example: behaviour of a child at school
1. personal factors: child doesn’t enjoy school
2. behaviour: acts out in class
3. environment: teacher makes child sit alone
-a cyclical relationship
Five Main Challenges in Psychology: 5. Behaviour is shaped by culture
-Takahiko Masuda and colleagues (2008) eye tracking study:
-surrounding people had same or different emotions
-Western participants looked more at the target person
-Japanese participants looked more at surrounding people
-surrounding emotions influenced Japanese participant’s perception more than the target person
-different cultures have different perceptions of behaviour
Scientific Theory
The explanation for a large number of findings in the natural world
example: negative attentional bias in depression
Hypothesis
Testable prediction derived from a scientific theory
example: depressed individuals will focus more on negative words in a memory test compared to non-depressed individuals
Confirmation Bias
Tendency to seek out evidence that supports hypotheses and deny, dismiss, or distort evidence that contradicts them
example: if a person is left handed, they tend to be highly creative
Belief Perseverance
-Tendency to stick to our initial beliefs even when evidence contradicts them
-not budge on opinion even when presented with evidence
example:
-people who believe they are “overweight” and when told they are not, they stick to their belief
Pseudoscience
a set of claims that seems scientific, but isn’t
example: acupuncture treatment
-testable
Metaphysical Claims
assertions about the world that we cannot test
examples:
-astrology
-diet regiments
-pyramid schemes
-nutrition– weight loss products
-Goop
-ESP
Three Dangers of Pseudoscience: 1. Opportunity Cost
people may forgo opportunities to seek effective treatments
-indirect harm
example: buying crystals to solve an issue like solving anxiety instead of seeking professional medical advice
Three Dangers of Pseudoscience: 2. Direct Harm
can cause psychological or physical harm (even death)
example:
-rebirthing therapy for behavioural problems
-conversion therapy
Three Dangers of Pseudoscience: 3. An inability to think scientifically as citizens
need scientific skills to reach education decisions about:
-psychological claims
-global warming
-genetic engineering
-vaccinations
-new medical treatment
-parenting practices
-teaching practices
Three Warning Signs of Pseudoscience: 1. Overreliance on anecdotes
Anecdote: a story about a single person
-second hand evidence: “I know a person who practices yoga daily for three weeks and hasn’t had a day of depression since”
-first hand evidence: “I have been drinking green tea for a week straight and I lost 10lbs”
-don’t provide information on cause and effect (can’t determine cause of behaviour from an anecdote)
-don’t tell us how representative the cases are (would this apply to everyone? does it only work for this person?)
Three Warning Signs of Pseudoscience: 2. Meaningless “psychobabble”
uses scientific sounding words that don’t really mean anything
examples: “sine-wave filtered auditory stimulation is carefully designed to encourage maximally orbitofrontal dendritic development”
-hard to understand
-need to avoid psychobabble and be clear about what they mean
Three Warning Signs of Pseudoscience: 3. talk of “proof” instead of “evidence”
-science provides evidence that supports/contradicts ideas
-can use language that instead says “results provide evidence that…”
example: “our new program is proven to reduce social anxiety by at least 50%
-need to ask: does the language imply 100% certainty?
Scientific Skepticism
approach of evaluating all claims with an open mind, but insisting on persuasive evidence before accepting them
Cynicism
dismissal of claims, without evaluation
Scientific Thinking Principle 1: Ruling out rival hypotheses
-have the important alternative explanations for findings been excluded?
-many psychological findings may fit multiple explanations
-does X cause Y or does Z cause Y
Scientific Thinking Principle 2: Correlation Isn’t Causation
correlation-causation fallacy: error of assuming that because one thing is associated with another, it must cause the other
-variable is anything that can vary
examples: height, weight, age, intelligence quotient (IQ), extroversion, anxiety ratings, memory scores, brain activity
-the taller you are, the more you weigh
-increased study time, less errors on a test
Scientific Thinking Principle 3: Falsifiability
capable of being disproven
-theory can be proven wrong if there were certain types of evidence against it
what makes a good theory:
-a theory that explains everything, in reality explains nothing
-theories must predict certain outcomes, but not others
risky prediction: forecast that stands a good chance of being wrong
Scientific Thinking Principle 4: Replicability
when a study’s findings are able to be duplicated, ideally by independent investigators
-important to know study’s methods and participants
-if it can’t be duplicated, it increases the odds it was due to chance
-psychologists have become aware of difficulties in replicating certain findings
Scientific Thinking Principle 5: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
David Hume (18th century Scottish Philosopher): the more a claim contradicts what we already know, the more persuasive the evidence must be to accept it
example of extreme claim: “this medication/program is guaranteed to help everyone”
-need enough data to back this up
Scientific Thinking Principle 6: Occam’s Razor/ Principle of Parsimony
14th century British philosopher and monk, Sir William of Occam: if two explanations account equally well for a phenomenon, we should generally select the more parsimonious (simpler) one
example: crop circles, aliens, pranksters
-the simple explanation
-guideline, not a rule
What did the ancient Greeks think about?
Ancient Greek philosophers: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle debated:
-mind vs. body
-nativism vs. empiricism
-psychology’s roots in Greek philosophy
psychology= psyche + logos
Mind Body Problem
Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
-Some human behaviour is mechanistic
-Other behaviour appears to be based on reason
-Proposed idea of dualism
-Mind and body interacted at pineal gland
example: modern day mind vs. body research
-Lorina Naci, Adrian Owen, and colleagues (2014) study:
-Healthy participants and brain
injured patient
-Sam- vegetative state for 16 years
-Watched a suspenseful 8 minute clip
of Hitchcock’s Bang! You’re Dead
-Moment to moment activity in
relation to movie content was highly
similar
Donder’s Reaction Time Experiment
Reaction Time (RT): how long it takes to respond to stimulus
Choice RT - Simpler RT = Decision Time
-interested in determining how long it takes for a person to make a decision
-choice reaction time took one tenth of a second longer than simple reaction time, Donder concluded that it took one tenth of a second to decide which button to push
Wilhelm Wundt
developed the first psychological lab in Leipzig, Germany
-wanted to scientifically examine consciousness
research questions:
-how different must two colours be to tell them apart?
-how long does it take to react to a sound?
-what thoughts occur when we solve a math problem?
methods:
1. RT experiments
2. Introspection: method by which trained observers carefully reflect and report their mental experiences
-auditory tones or visual stimuli
Structuralism: Edward Titchner (1867-1927)
-structuralism aimed to identify basic elements of psychological experience
-used introspection
-wanted comprehensive mad of elements of consciousness
problems:
1. reports were subjective
2. imageless thought
-brought up by Oswald Kulpe, German psychologist
-thinking that occurs without images or sensory content
lasting scientific influences:
-correctly emphasized importance of systemic observation
-methods used qualitative and quantitative data
Memory and Forgetting: Ebbinghaus (1885)
-read lists of nonsense syllables aloud
example: DAX, QEH, LUH, ZIZ
-repeated this until he had no errors
-1000 seconds to learn list for the first time
-after a break, he relearned the list
Savings= (original time to learn the list) - (time to relearn list after delay)
Functionalism: William James
-influential American psychologist
-Principles of Psychology (1890)
-observations based on functions of his own mind, not experiments
-“Millions of items… are present to my senses which never properly enter my experience. My experience is what I agree to attend to… It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others”
-Structuralists asked “what” questions
-Functionalists asked “why” questions
