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PS 101 INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY ALL STUDY GUIDE NOTES FOR EXAM 1 WILFRID LAURIER UNIVERSITY
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PS 101 INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY ALL STUDY GUIDE NOTES FOR EXAM 1 WILFRID LAURIER UNIVERSITY
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lOMoAR cPSD| 42147428PS 101 INTRODUCTION TO
PSYCHOLOGY ALL STUDY GUIDE
NOTES FOR EXAM 1 WILFRID
LAURIER UNIVERSITY
, lOMoAR cPSD| 42147428
Chapter One - The Study of the Mind
Psychology is the study of behavior and mental processes such as thought and emotion.
Levels of analysis
When studying why a certain behavior or mental process occurs, one can study the influences of:
- The brain: neural activity
- The person: emotions, ideas, thoughts
- The group: friends, family, culture
The change: Wilhelm Wundt
- Founder of psych (acclaimed)
- 1879, Leipzig, Germany
- Wilhelm Wundt conducted the first documented psych study
- Conducted experiments, but not like today
o Questioned experience
o Immediate conscious
o Belief that all experience could be reduced to basic elements
- Goal: understand how the simplest elements of structure of conscious experience combine to
createmore complex perceptions and behaviors
Wilhelm Wundt’s experiments
- So what did they do in their experiments
o Reaction times
o Attention span
o Perception of visual stimuli, touch and hearing
Two schools of thought
1. Structuralism 101
- Titchener – student of Wundt continues the tradition
- Belief that all “experience” could be reduced to basic elements
- Could identity the structures (e.g., chemical water = H2O
- Used introspection: the careful reflective and systematic observation of the details of
mentalprocesses and how simple thoughts combine into complex ideas
- Problem: lost of critics – not objective (stimulus stays the same but reported experience could
change,changes within and cross people)
2. Functionalism:
- Focus not on structure of consciousness but with how mental processes function
- How do we use mental processes to adapt/survive in a changing environment
William James and Functionalism
- Functionalists proposed that the mind was shaped by natural selection; modern
evolutionarypsychology is one descendant of James’ ideas
Functionalism opens the doors
- Scope of psychology increases
o Includes behavior (as well as mental processes)
o Includes children, animals, intellectually challenged
- Why??
o These groups excluded because couldn’t be trained to do introspection
- Darwin: on the origin of species by natural selection
, lOMoAR cPSD| 42147428
- Galton: Genetic inheritance on mental abilities
Who won the battle?
- Most historians give the edge to James and the functionalists
- Depending on introspection does not allow for any independent objective evaluation of a claim
- Today, psychologists are not really categorized as structuralism or functionalist
Gestalt psychologist
- Consciousness cannot be broken down into elements
- We perceive things as whole perceptual units
- The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
- Learning is tied to what we perceive
Chapter 2 – research method
- Science as a way of knowing
o Introspection
o Science
o Feelings
- Science
o Systematic observation
o Experimentation
- Introspection
o Used by philosophers
Why is psychology a science?
o Psychology is the scientific study of the mind, brain, and behavior
o Why do we need scientific method to study psychology
o It’s a set of safeguard against two human tendencies: dismiss or distort evidence that
doesn’t =confirmation bias
o To cling to our beliefs despite contrary evidence = belief of perseverance
Two types of Research
- Basic: examines how the mind works
o We detect/see lime-yellow object easier in the dark
o What are the attention span and impulse control of young children
- Applied: examines how we can use basic research to solve real-world problems
o Lime-yellow fire trucks are only about half as likely to be involved in traffic accidents as
redfire trucks
o Does playing with technology (e.g., leap pad, iPod) promote language or math learning
inyoung children?
What are the 4 goals?
- Description of what we observe
o Usually the first step in understanding behavior or mental processes
o Answers what question
o Observe, record, generate data
o Naturalistic observation & laboratory observation, case study
- Explanation – for explanation – for example why do we eat?
o Researchers try to understand the causes of the behavior/mental processes
o Answer “why” some thing occurs
, lOMoAR cPSD| 42147428
o Requires testing, re-testing, confirmation
- Prediction of the circumstances that lead to the expression of a certain behavior
o When researchers can specify conditions which will likely cause the behavior or
cognitiveprocess to occur
o Answers the when question
o Cause and effect – experiment/quasi-experiment
- How can we control behavior
o When researchers can change a condition or manipulate something to bring about
desiredoutcomes
o Prevent some behaviors; increase others
o Experiment/quasi experiment
Methods to achieve the goals
- Naturalistic and laboratory observations
o Playground verses big brother
- Case studies
o Special samples (e.g., Genie in linguistic isolation)
Locked in a closet from 20 months old; no exposure to language; discovered at age 13
o At age 17, vocabulary level = 5 years old
- Surveys
o Big samples/self-report
Pros of descriptive methods
- Naturalistic observation
o Seeing behavior in natural setting, spontaneously produced
o Ethical issues prevent other methods
- Laboratory observation
o As above, more controlled
- Case study
o Select or limited populations
Cons of descriptive methods
- Naturalistic Observations
o Have to wait for an event to happen
o Observer bias
o Hawthorne effect
- Laboratory observations
o Loss of spontaneity
o Same as above
- Case studies
o Limited sample size, low generalizability
o Researcher bias
- Surveys
o Participant bias
NO CAUSE AND EFFFECT
Experimental research methods
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