Week 1

Question 1

Wilhelm Wundt

Answer 1

• Established psych as independent field in Germany

Question 2

William James

Answer 2

• Brought psychology from Germany to America - “father of modern psychology”

Question 3

Edward Titchner

Answer 3

• Wundt’s student
• Pioneered structuralism and introspection

Question 4

Structuralism

Answer 4

• 1st
• Pioneered by Edward Titchner
• Break the psyche down into individual parts
  (think chem and molecules).
• Individual parts found via introspection – trained individuals reflect on their own experiences
• Weaknesses: experience is subjective

Question 5

Psychoanalytic Theory

Answer 5

• 2nd
• Freud
• General theory that emphasizes influence of unconscious feelings, thoughts, etc
• Conscious thoughts and feelings motivated by secret desires or anxieties
• The unconscious: part of mind containing info that ppl are unaware of

Question 6

Functionalism

Answer 6

• 3rd
• Mental states and actions should be understood with evolution in mind (adaptive significance)
• Weakness: doesn’t account for individuality

Question 7

Behaviorism

Answer 7

• 4th
• John Broadus Watson
• Study ONLY observable behavior and not cognitive processes (i.e., stim and response)
• Weakness: didn’t account for neurological processes
• Popularized by Skinner box experiment

Question 8

Cognitive psychology

Answer 8

• 5th
• Pushed back against behaviorism – “cognitive processes are important too”

Question 9

Phineas Gage

Answer 9

• Rail tamp went through head –> damaged frontal lobe –> afterwards, his behavior changed to mean, poor executive functioning, etc
• First patient revealing association between behavior and part of brain
• Caveat: not observed by scientists in the years after the accident and initial behavior changes; some accounts described him as nice and pleasant

Question 10

Cross-Cultural psychology

Answer 10

• Draw comparisons btw individual/group behaviors across populations
• 96% of psych study populations are WEIRD despite only being 12% of global pop

Question 11

Why psychology is WEIRD

Answer 11

W - white
E - Educated
I - Industrialized
R - Rich
D - Democratic

Question 12

Basic vs applied research

Answer 12

Basic: things we do for the sake of science (not necessarily a clear application)

Applied: we can use the results to solve real-world problems (clinical, educational, forensic, etc)

Question 13

Hindsight bias

Answer 13

Belief that an outcome was foreseeable after it had already occurred (e.g. “I KNEW he shouldn’t have built that rocket)

Question 14

Scientific method

Answer 14

• Standardized procedure to reduce bias
• Theory –> hypothesis –> research –> results either support or refute theory

Question 15

Operational variable

Answer 15

Description of a property in concrete terms (e.g. measuring wealth in terms of yearly income, net worth, etc)

Question 16

Power vs reliability

Answer 16

Power: presence of change

Reliability: absence of change

Good detector detects power, not reliability

Question 17

Construct validity

Answer 17

Operations of definitions generally seen as good indicators for that def (e.g. smiles is generally seen as good indicator of happiness)

Question 18

Correlational vs experimental design

Answer 18

Correlational: OBSERVATION; researchers don’t manipulate variables and just observe relationship btw two variables
- Can only infer correlation and NOT causation, but can inspire experimental study

Experimental: researchers actively MANIPULATE DV to est CAUSAL relationship
- Controlled lab settings can make real-world application difficult

Question 19

Correlational design

Answer 19

• Observation of the relationship btw two variables
• Establishes correlational relationship
• Variables called the PREDICTOR and OUTCOME/CRITERION (not IV and DV)
• Results can inspire future experimental studies to est a causal relationship

Question 20

Different kinds of correlations

Answer 20

Direct/positive correlation: x and y in same direction

Indirect/negative correlation: x and y in different directions

Zero correlation: one var not predictably related to the other

Question 21

Correlation strength

Answer 21

• Pearson’s R (r) – coefficient to represent correlation strength
• Ranges from -1 to 1
• Certinanity based on absolute value; closer to 0 means less of a correlation
• Pearson’s R represents the data’s fit to the line, NOT slope

Question 22

Experimental design

Answer 22

• Researchers actively manipulate IV to find causal relationship to DV

Question 23

Random assignment

Answer 23

• Randomly assign participants to different lvls of IV
• Increases chance that characteristics will be spread out

Question 24

Population vs sample

Answer 24

Population: EVERYONE in the group a study is interest in (e.g. all white ppl, all ppl with low income, etc)

Sample: subset of the population of interest

Question 25

Convenience sampling

Answer 25

Sampling ppl conveniently available (usually uni students)

Question 26

Random sampling

Answer 26

EVERY person in the population has an equal chance of being chosen

Question 27

What makes a good hypothesis

Answer 27

• Must be FALSIFIABLE – able to be disproven
• Includes variables and predicted relationship