wk1_L2. History & Methods 1

Question 1

Which approach is most important in Psychology?

Answer 1

Scientific

Question 2

Huge industry in pop-psychology. Some examples may be?

Answer 2

Self-help books, exaggerations or personal experiences without proven scientific evidence. Some authored by religious persons pushing beliefs.
‘Quick-fix’ promises. Downplay significant factors relating to depression/low self esteem.

Question 3

Which method is applied in the field of Psychology when acquiring knowledge?

Answer 3

The Scientific Method

Question 4

Multiple levels of analysis required to obtain the complete picture. List the levels of analysis…

Answer 4

Social (No. 1 on list)
Behavioural
Mental
Neuro/Physio
Neurochem
Molecular (No. 6 on list)

Question 5

Core area - SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY is?

Answer 5

How we’re affected by others or situations

Question 6

CORE area - PERSONALITY & INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES is?

Answer 6

Extent to how the same we are & qualities measured. Introvert/Extrovert

Question 7

CORE area - DEVELOPMENTAL is?

Answer 7

Changes across lifespan

Question 8

CORE area - COGNITIVE is?

Answer 8

Internal mental processes, how we think

Question 9

CORE area - PERCEPTION is?

Answer 9

How we process sensory info

Question 10

CORE area - LEARNING is?

Answer 10

Changes in behaviour as a result of experience

Question 11

CORE area - BIOPSYCHOLOGY is?

Answer 11

Biological, physiological, genetic variables & their relation to psychological or behavioural variables

Question 12

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY - CLINICAL is?

Answer 12

Assessment & treatment of conditions

Question 13

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY - ORGANISATIONAL is?

Answer 13

Occupation, behaviour, job stability

Question 14

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY - HEALTH is?

Answer 14

Promoting health, prevention/treatment

Question 15

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY - NEUROPSYCHOLOGY is?

Answer 15

Assessments, treatments neuro injury

Question 16

APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY - EDUCATIONAL is?

Answer 16

How people learn, teaching methods

Question 17

Give some examples of challenges faced in studying Psychology as opposed to Physics or Biology for instance…

Answer 17

Almost always multiple factors involved
Causes rarely independent of each other
People are different
People influence each other
Culture shapes behaviour

Question 18

What are the 4 parts of The Scientific Method in order?

Answer 18

THEORY - HYPOTHESIS - RESEARCH - OBSERVATION

Examples;

Theory - we have the emotion of disgust to protect us from disease pathogens
Hypothesis - (specific prediction generated from theory). Fate of hypothesis accepts/rejects/modifies theory. Faeces/pus study to prove disgust emotion theory. Check other hypothesis also to check this is not a result of social learning.

Research - do closest human relatives (chimps) show same signs? Are all cultures having the same reaction?

Question 19

Commonsense (intuition) V Science.

Relying on The Scientific Method avoids pitfalls such as?

Answer 19

CONFIRMATION BIAS: tendency to seek out info that supports our beliefs while dismissing contradictory info.

BELIEF PERSEVERANCE: once developed, difficult to demolish

PSEUDOSCIENCE: not derived using Scientific Method. E.g. Astrology

Question 20

Asch (1951; 1955) Line Judgement Task.

Classic example of scientific evidence.

Answer 20

Investigating extent to which people withstand group pressure.

Asked participants to make simple line judgements.

Investigated other variables such as group size, anonymity etc

*my thoughts were this experiment may be very different now to how it played out in the 1950’s, firstly that long ago people a lot more likely to conform. A lot of variables.