Perspectives in Psychology and Scientific Thought and Study

Introduction

Perspectives in Psychology and Scientific thought and study.

Psychology and Behavior defined

Psychology is the study of behavior. Behavior is defined as the way people think, feel or act, so psych is the study of that.

Different schools of thought in Psychology approach that study for varying perspectives or approaches. More on that later…..

Types of Psychologists

Industrial/organizational: help people and businesses by more efficient.
Developmental: study how people develop through a lifetime.
Research: does research, often in colleges.
Applied: applies the research, like Industrial/organizational
Clinical: treats people with disorders.
Psychiatrists: M.D.s, they are the only ones who can perscribe drugs, often work with clinicals.

Psychology’s Big 3
Issues

Stability Vs. Change: were you shy or outgoing when a child, are you now, willyou be when your 80?
Rational vs. Irrational? Ever told yourself that you shouldn’t eat that? Did you? Ever argue so much it’s counter-productive?
Nature vs. Nurture? How much of who you are is genetic? How much learned from the environment?

Current Perspectives: The ways people study behavior.

Neurobiological: Anything to do with the brainor body.
Evolutionary: Behavior is designed to get your genes to the next generation.
Behaviorism: Behavior is learning through reinforcements. Interested in observable behaviors.
Psychodynamic: Early Childhood Experiences, UNCONSIOUS impulses; Sex and Aggression.
Behavior-Genetics: How much of any behavior is Learned and how much inherited/genetics.

Current Perspectives: Continued.

Cognition: that little voice in your head that makes decision. Think Thinking.
Sociocultural: How behavior is affected by the group membership.
Humanism: People are good; Free Will; SELF.
Eclectic:the most often used. A combination of the above, used in a complimentary fashion.

Your are on a boat that overturns. It contains your 5-year old and your 1 year old children (of the same sex). The boat sinks and you can only safe one. Which one do you save?
The same boat (you are slow learner) contains your 40 year old and 20 year old children. Boat sinks. Which one do you save?

When you get married, would you prefer someone five years older, or five years younger?
Of the following six, choose the three top characteristics of your future spouse:

Will make a lot of money.
Good sense of humor
Caring and responsible
Really hot
Ambitious
Exciting personality

You and your spouse are the proud parents of a new child. The Grandparents are really happy. Which set will be kinder to the child:
The mother of the mother
The mother of the father.

Who will mourn more at the death of a child:
Father Mother
Parents of the father Parents of mother
Younger parents older parents

Which will elicit more grief:
Death of a son death of a daughter
Death of unhealthy child or healthy child.

Scientific method offsets limits to intuition.

Overconfidence: People think they are right more often than they are.
Hindsight Bias: I knew it all along. This is why you need hypothesis.
Random events often appear organized.
False consensus: we overestimate how much others agree with us.

More limits to intuition, not on this test.

Belief bias: We will twist logic to make our beliefs work.
Belief perseverance: takes overwhelming amount of contradictory info to change established belief. First impressions really do count.
Confirmation Bias: seeking out supporting info for our beliefs, ignoring contrary info.
Attention to vivid BIG examples: availability heuristics.
In group Bias: our group is good their’s is bad “mirror image effect.”
Fundamental attribution error: they did because they’re bad, I did because the situation called for it.
More Invested, the more committed.

Skepticism and humility

These are all reasons you must look at the world with skepticism and humility. The brain has evolved to survive, not to be correct.

Scientific Study

Theory: Principle that help to organize, predict, and explain facts, based on previous study: a statement of belief.
Operational Definitions:

Defines the abstract terms in the study: what is love? What is aggression? (door slamming? Cutting? Kicking a trash can? Hitting the steering wheel/?)
Also, spells out the specific procedures in the study.
Allows for replication: repeating the study by other researches.

Types of studies

Descriptive Studies

No variable manipulated.

Case Studies: lots of information from one person; often intake interviews. Usually not generalizable.(test answer)
Naturalistic observations: watching chimps in the wild; children behind two way mirrors; teens at the mall.: no manipulation, just observation and recording

Correlational Studies: Surveys

Surveys seek to measure links between groups of individuals, groups and their attitudes, behaviors and values.
Often rely on self-reports.
No manipulation, recorded, looking for relationships.
The Purpose of surveys is to be able to make Predictions:

If I know you are a depressed, I can predict you have low self esteem.
If you are a democrat, you are more likely to believe the government should help the poor.
Are the reverse of these true to; maybe, maybe not.

Correlation DOES NOT mean Causation

Correlation only measure the relationship between two things: say:

Smoking cigarettes and dying of lung cancer.

What is the Operational Definition of Sex? (college students)

Deep kissing?
Oral Contact with Breasts?
Touching genitals?
Oral Contact with Genitals?
Anal Intercourse?
Vaginal Intercourse

Terms to know

Population: This is the entire group being studied. In the sex example: that would be teenagers.
Random Sample: if you guys had been selected randomly, you would be representative of the population, teenagers, and received the survey.

For a sample to be random, each member of the population needs to have an equal chance of being drawn: that’s the test answer.
Samples DO NOT have to be equally balanced by race, gender, intelligence, socio-economic group etc., just chosen randomly

Correlation: shows the relationship between group and attitude and strength of that relationship.

In our case, there is a very strong correlation between teens and the belief that anal/vaginal intercourse is sex. There also is a correlation between teens and the belief that oral sex is sex, but it’s not as strong.
Correlation coefficients: a statistical measure that shows the strength and direction of the relationship.

Correlation coefficients

Are measured on a scale of: -1…..0……+1;
The number gives you the strength of the relationship; whether it is positive or negative gives you the direction of the relationship (more on that later).
+1 or (-1) means a 100% lock of a relationship, all teens think intercourse is sex or (no teen thinks that intercourse is sex). 0 means the relationship doesn’t exist and therefore isn’t predictive.
Anytime a coefficient exceeds .2 (or -.2) there is a relationship; .5 (-.5)or higher a very strong relationship. In our example probably a .95, meaning I can pretty much predict if you’re a teen, you think intercourse as sex. As for oral sex…hmmmm…maybe a .3 or .4.

Correlation Coefficients: Positive and negative.

The relationship can be measured in either direction. Sometimes the more a behavior happens, the less something else happens: that’s a negative correlation.
If both items go up OR DOWN at the same time, it’s a positive correlation. If one goes up and the other down or one goes down and the other up, it’s negative.

The more antioxidants you take, the lower your cancer rate. Antioxidants go up, cancer goes down: a negative correlation.
The more exercise you get, the happier you are, both go up: a positive correlation.

Examples: you guess, positive or negative or 0 (meaning no relationship)

The relationship between:
Your first test score and final grade.
The speed in which you take a test and your score.
Wearing seat belts and dying in car accidents.
Good looks and happiness.
Ice cream consumption and crime rates in a Midwestern town.
Hair loss and length of marriage.
Self-esteem and depression.
Between drinking diet coke and obesity.

The other way correlation can be described: Scatterplots.

Ilusory Correlations: seeming correlations that aren’t.

Catching a cold and cold weather or being wet and cold.
Full moon and bizarre behavior.
Not studying and getting good grades.
Old people/women and bad driving.
Making three shots in a row and being on a hot streak.

Problems with Survey

Wording effect: Different results because of how survey is worded:
77% percent interested in plants and trees, 39% interested in botany.
Difference between saying “prohibiting abortion” and “protecting the life of an unborn child, changes responses by 20%.
A majority of Americans agree we “should not allow speeches against democracy” but a minority were in favor of “forbidding” the same.

Same is true using the same wording for x-rated movies, peep shows and putting salt on highways.

Other wording effects

Might not understand the words.
The order in which the statements are given.

The person asking the questions can even affect results:

When asked “whether the problems faced by black Americans were brought on by themselves.” When white interviewer 62% agree, with black interviewer 46%

When asked if they were pro choice: when a man asked 64% of women agreed; when a woman asked 84% agreed.

People more likely to “help someone in need, than support welfare.”

Other issues

Halo effect: people answer the way they think they should.
Sample size: sample must be big enough to be representative. How big a sample do you think is necessary for whole U.S.?
About 1500. That’s all.
If you had to play Tiger for a million bucks would you play 18 holes or a single putt from 20 yards. Why?

Correlation doesn’t mean Causation!!!! Just that a predictive relationship exists.

Aggression and playing violent video games. Pos or neg? Alternative?
Obesity and tv viewing? Pos or Neg? Alternative?
Obesity and diabetes? Pos or Neg? Alternative.
I.Q and being a college athlete? Pos and Neg? Alternative?

Experimentation

The ONLY study method designed to uncover cause and effect.
Most often done in labs for better control.
Often DO NOT emulate real life conditions.
Studies one variable (independent variable) and compares it to another condition that does not have that variable (control condition).

Sample Experiment

Let’s say we have a THEORY, an educated idea about a subject, that people with low self-esteem are more aggressive. First we have to figure out how to measure self-esteem and aggression. How we define those terms specifically within the experiment is called our Operational Definition. You must spell out your operational definition, so others can replicate (redo) your experiment.

Sample Experiment

Step 1: Population: this is the group you want to find out information about, in this case, people in general. But it could be girls, boys, teens, Americans, Senegalese, anybody, but it must be stated.
Hypothesis: Stated prediction of how we think the experiment will come out: People with low self esteem will exhibit more aggression than those with moderate or high self-esteem.
Essay help:
When in doubt about experimental parts you are trying to figure out, look at the hypothesis.

Essay Help

Remember to only select subjects from you population. Let’s say I was studying kids with hyperactive thyroids. Would I choose my subjects from kids? No, only kids with hyperactive thyroids, I’d then divide those kids up into two groups. Be careful, there is an essay like that.

Sample Experiment

Sample: the sample is the group you will actually be doing the experiment on, called the subjects,
The SUBJECTS should be chosen randomly from the population, so it is a RANDOM SAMPLE.

In a truly random sample each person in the population has to have an equal chance of being chosen. In experiments, that is rare because of logistics (you can’t just drag randomly chosen people in off the street), in surveys it’s a little easier. In reality, experiments generally use paid volunteers.

Essay Hint:

Essay Trap: Samples DO NOT have to be balanced by gender, intelligence, socioeconomic class, race, or ANY other quality of the subjects, just gathered randomly. This is often a mistake on essays. Don’t say: “maybe some people are smarter than others, true enough, but those types of qualities of the subjects are balanced by the random selection.

Sample Exp: Assignment of participants.

Next, the subjects are divided into two groups: the Experimental Group and the Control group. Again this must be done randomly. This is called ASSIGNMENT OF THE PARTICIPANTS.
Essay trap: Do not confuse the subject selection (random sample) with assignment of participants. Assignment is done AFTER you’ve selected subjects, when you subdivide them into control and experimental groups.

Sample Experiment: Variables.

Ok, we’ve got our experimental group, who will have their self esteem lowered, and the control group who won’t. We will compare the results of the experimental group with the controls.
Now the Independent Variable the manipulated part of the experiment.
In our case the IV is low self-esteem, so we have to figure out how to lower their self esteem.
We have our subjects write an essay and then have an unseen reader tell them they suck, the worst essay ever, lowering their self esteem, we hope.

With our control group, we have them write the same essay but tell them because of some technical glitch, their essays haven’t been scored.
Next, we measure each groups self-esteem by giving the a Self-Esteem inventory, designed to measure how they feel about themselves, If it worked, the experimental groups self esteem will be lower than the controls.

Sample Exp: Variables.

We find the group who was told that their essays sucked, feel worse about themselves, have lower self-esteem, than the control group.
We now measure their aggression level by allowing them to hold a button down that we tell all subjects is administering a shock to the supposed graders.

Sample Experiment: variables.

We now compare the difference in how long the experimental/low self esteem group holds down the button to the control groups. This is the results of our experiment called the DEPENDENT VARIABLE.

Let’s Check:

What is our hypothesis?
What is the Population?
How did we get our subjects? And from where?
How were the subjects assigned. Into what?
What is our independent variable?
What is our dependent variable?
What is our operational definition of low self esteem?
What is our operational definition of aggression?

Sample Exp: Statistic measure.

If the dependent variable, the length of time the experimental group holds down the shocker, is statistically significant, then our hypothesis is proven.
Statistical significance is a P score, which tells you that the difference between the two scores, the scores of the experimental and control groups, could not have happened by chance.
Essay Hint: always define statistical significance as “could not have happened by chance”

Confounding variables

Confounding variable are any variables that mess up your experiment.
#1 confounding variable: Experimenter BIAS: if I’m the experimenter and really want the experiment to work, maybe I unconsciously roll my eyes at the experimental group to make them more aggressive. This must be controlled.

DOUBLE BLIND: control for experimenter bias

WHENEVER you are asked to control for Experimenter BIAS (and you will be about a million times), ALWAYS answer Double Blind.
Double Blind: means neither the experimenter nor the subjects know who is in the experimental group and who is in the control group.
The boss of the experiment needs to hire someone who is “blind” to conduct the actual experiment.

Other confounding variables. These are in essays coming up.

If the person who is conducting the experiment is different for the two groups: hot guy in one group, fat old guy in the other. Could that get different results? Yes.
The time of day each group is tested: are you different in the morning than in the evening?
Assigning your groups by the first to arrive and those who arrive later.
ANYTHING where the controls are treated differently than the experimentals, (other than the Independent variable of course).

Placebos

Placebos are fake variables, so that the subjects don’t know which group they are in, always used in drug studies, where the fake pill is a sugar pill.
In our experiment, writing the essay is really a placebo, so they get the same treatment at the experimental group, except they aren’t told they suck.
Placebo effect: as many as 30% of subjects that receive a placebo get better!!!! Even in our experiment, just writing the unscored essay may reduce self esteem, a confounding variable.

Check again:

What is double blind?
What is statistical significance?
What is a confounding variable?
Name three possible confounding variables.
What is the dependent variable?
How do you control for experimenter bias?
What am I trying to avoid by making your write down your answers?

Measures of Central Tendency.

Mean: arithmetic average, like a GPA.
Median, the middle of a group of scores. It is better if you have a few outliers which affect the mean. Say you were assessing a small population with one billionaire, the mean income would be higher than the population indicates.
Mode; the most often occurring score.

Standard Deviation