Psychology In The Real World Flashcards
Aim of psychology
- Psychology aims to understand behaviour and mental processes of ourselves and others, to solve problems that arise on a human scale
Subfields of psychology
- Different subfields of psychology include: brain science + cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, experimental psychology, quantitative psychology, social psychology, clinical psychology, forensic, human factors and engineering, teaching and learning, sport and performance
Biological analysis in psychology
-biological (brain systems, neurochemistry, genetics) -> neuroanatomy, animal research, brain imaging, neurotransmitters and hormones, drug studies, gene mechanisms, heritability, twin and adoption studies
individual analysis in psychology
-individual (individual differences, perception and cognition, behaviour) -> studies personality, gender, developmental age groups, self-concept, thinking, decision making, language, memory, seeing, hearing, observable actions, responses, physical movements
social analysis of psychology
-social (interpersonal behaviour, social cognition) -> studies groups, relationships, persuasion, influence, workplace, attitudes, stereotypes, perceptions
cultural analysis of psychology
-cultural (thoughts, actions, behaviours – in different societies and cultural groups) -> studies norms, beliefs, values, symbols, ethnicities
Why is free will important:
Free will is important because;
-Psychology studies people’s biases; what they will do and why
-Punishment, blame, what should we blame people for?
-Self-construction is important and understudies -> how can you become the person you want to become?
-Narratives influence economics, self-control, self-fulfilling prophecies
-Cognitive science
Determinism (past predicts future) - no free will vs free will
-Determinism - no free will = hard determinists
-Determinism - free will = compatibilists (free will and determinism is compatible)
Indeterminism (past doesn’t predict future) - free will vs no free will
-Indeterminism - no free will = hard indeterminists
-Indeterminism - free will = libertarians
What is the paradox of free will?
-Free will can be defined as the ability to be free from one’s past and yet to simultaneously act in accordance with one’s will - but to have will is to have an historical identity and to be free is to somehow be ahistorical
Design features of neurocognitive free will - the free will you have
1 → the capacity to do otherwise (Hobbes, 1839)
2 → wanting what you want (Frankfurt, 1971)
3 → rational deliberation (Locke, 1768)
4 → Self-awareness — “the real self view” (Wolf, 1993)
5 → Consciousness, effortful (executive processing) - the worry is that the casual change leading up to our actions bypass the self (Knobe and Nichols 2011)
Free Will - Rational Deliberation
Rational deliberation: the consideration of alternatives and their consequences
-Vicarious trial and error learning
Rational Deliberation - Wolf, 1973
”One wants to be able to choose in light of the knowledge of one’s options and in light of the comparative reasons for and against these options (Wolf, 1973, Freedoms within reason)
Areas of the brain associated with rational deliberation/episodic future thinking self projection
-Hippocampus = hippocampal place cell, associated with a physical place
-VS (ventral striatum) = associated with reward
-Allows us to think about thing it has not done, is doing, or will do, without doing them
Result of hippocampal damage
Hippocampal damage;
-Eg HM and DB
-Difficulty recalling events
-But they also have difficulty imagining future events
The sense of self and reality monitoring
-Becomes a problem; imagining something unreal/not happened
-Patients with hippocampal damage also report having a degraded sense of self (eg Corkin 2002)
Homunculus?
Homunculus = assuming there is a decision maker in your brain (the little self)
Decision field theory
Decision field theory = a model of decision making based on evidence accumulation
->The decision maker is the process of information sampling and deciding
->Outcomes are drawn from memory which evaluate (striatal) information
What is generative self-construction?
Generative self-construction = whether determinism is true or not, you can create alternatives that did not exist before you searched for them and that no one could predict
→ We sample from memory and construct alternative futures. This is generative self-construction.
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) - free will
-Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) defined bad faith as a form of self-deception where people avoid their freedom and deny their potential as human beings
Defining will
The will: our capacity for coherent and robust self-representation -> part of our cognitive map
Consequence of information proliferation
Consequence of information proliferation;
-Creates a poverty of attention
-Information placed under the influence of an attention economy -> how info is distributed and allocated
What is cognitive selection?
Cognitive selection is the process for selecting information based on features valued by cognition -> dependant on what information is searched for, attended to, etc
What are the four forces for cognitive selection?
Four forces for cognitive selection;
-Selection for belief consistent information
-Selection for negative information
-Selection for social information
-Selection for predictive information
Selection for belief-consistent information
Belief-consistent information;
-Looking for evidence to support what we already know - thus amplifying biases
-Confidence of belief increases
Negativity Bias/Selection for negative information
Negativity Bias/Selection for negative information;
-Loss aversion: we fear losses more than we value equivelant gains
-Evolutionary selection for survival
-Social risk amplification/Dread risks
Social Bias/selection for social information
Social Bias/selection for social information;
-social learning theory (imitation of others)
-rejecting what we know when confronted with differing views
-Executive functioning turned off when given advice/varying views
Pattern Bias/Selection for predictive information
-Replication crisis = difficulty reproducing results of studies
-Increase of errors (type 1/false positive) when researching multiple hypotheses
-Selection bias in publishing amplifies errors
Four forces of cognitive selection and consequences
- Selection for belief consistent information → extremism
- Selection for negative information → fear/anxiety
- Selection for social information → Herding
- Selection for predictive information → replication crisis, risk seeking
