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• Psychology


  Derived from physiology (biology) and philosophy
• functionalism

  • need to analyze the purpose of behavior
• Approaches key words

  • Psychoanalytic/dynamic - unconscious, childhood
  • Behavioral - learned, reinforced
  • Humanistic - free will, choice, ideal, actualization
  • Cognitive - Perceptions, thoughts
  • Evolutionary - Genes
  • Biological - Brain, NTs
  • Sociocultural - society
  • Biopsychosocial - combo of above
• People

  • Mary Calkins: First Fem. Pres. of APA
  • Margaret Floy Washburn–1st fem. PhD
  • Charles Darwin: Natural selection & evolution
  • Dorothea Dix: Reformed mental institutions in U.S.
  • Stanley Hall: 1st pres. of APA1st journal
  • William James: Father of American Psychology – functionalist
  • Wilhelm Wundt: Father of Modern Psychology – structuralist
• Basic research


  Purpose is to increase knowledge (rats)
• Applied research


  Purpose is to help people
• Psychologist


  Research or counseling – MS or PhD
• Psychiatrist


  Prescribe medications and diagnose – M.D.
• Experiment


  • Researcher controls variables to establish cause and effect
  • Difficult to generalize
• Independent Variable


  Purposefully altered by researcher to look for effect
• Independent Variable


  • Experimental Group: received the treatment (part of the IV); can have multiple exp, groups
  • Control Group: placebo, baseline (part of the IV); can only have 1
• Placebo Effect


  Show behaviors associated with the exp. group when having received placebo
• Dependent Variable


  Measured variable (is DEPENDENT on the independent variable)
• Blinding

  • Double-Blind: Exp. where neither the participant or the experimenter are aware of which condition people are assigned to (drug studies)
  • Single-Blind: only participant blind – used if experimenter can't be blind (gender, age, etc)
• Quasi-experimental design


  Random assignment to conditions is impossible (can't randomly assign gender)
• Operational Definition


  Clear, precise, typically quantifiable definition of your variables – allows replication
• Confound


  Error/ flaw in study
• Random Assignment


  Assigns participants to either control or experimental group at random –increase chance of equal representation among groups (spreads the lefties across both groups)
• Random Sample (selection)


  Method for choosing participants for your study –everyone has a chance to take part, increases generalizability
• Assignment and sampling


  Can be done via names in a hat, computer generation, etc
• Representative Sample


  Sample mimics the general pop. (ethnic, gender, age)
• Stratified Sampling


  If you need to ensure a rep. sample you can separate your population before you sample (ex. make sure get 80% women, 20% men)
• Correlation


  • Identify relationship between two variables
  • No cause and effect (CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL CAUSATION)
• Positive Correlation


  Variables increase & decrease together
• Negative Correlation


  As one variable increases the other decreases
• Strength of correlation


  The stronger the # the stronger the relationship REGARDLESS of the pos/neg sign. Cannot be < or > than 1. Stronger relationships = tighter clusters on graph
• 3rd variable problem (lurking variable)

  Different variable is responsible for relationship (breast implants & suicide)
• Illusory correlation


  Belief of correlation that doesn't exist (old man predicts rain from arthritis)
• Surveys


  • Usually turned into correlation
  • Subject to social desirability - ppl lie to look good
  • Subject to wording effects - how you frame the question can impact your answers
• Naturalistic Observation


  • Real world validity (observe people in their own setting)
  • No cause and effect
• Case Study


  • Studies ONE person (usually) in great detail – lots of info
  • No cause and effect
• Descriptive Statistics


  Shape of the data
• Measures of Central Tendency

  • Mean: Average (use in normal distribution)
  • Median: Middle # (use in skewed distribution)
  • Mode: occurs most often
• Skews


  • Neg skew = left skew
  • Pos skew = right skew
• Inferential Statistics


  Establishes significance (meaningfulness)
• Statistical Significance


  Results not due to chance, exp.manipulation caused the difference in means
• Ethical Guidelines (IRB Approval Needed for Ppl)

  • Confidentiality: names kept secret
  • Informed Consent: must agree to be part of study
  • Debriefing: must be told the true purpose of the study (done after for deception)
  • Deception must be warranted
  • No harm– mental/physical
• Psychology is derived from physiology (biology) and philosophy
• The Wealth of Nations was written in 1776
• In classical economic theory, the word 'rational' means that economic agents are able to consider the outcome of their choices and recognise the net benefits of each one