Chapter One Review (NOT ASSIGNED, USE TO STUDY FOR TEST. You may need your class notes to answer some questions )

Vocabulary: introspection, empirical evidence, hypothesis, variable, replication, theory, random assignment

Learning Objectives:

  1. Define psychology and explain why it is more than just “common sense,” in other words, why psychology is a science.
  1. For each of the major schools in the history of psychology, give:
  1. a basic statement of the perspective of that school
  2. the name(s) of a famous person(s) in that school
  3. contributions each school made to the history of psychology

The major schools are:

  1. structuralism
  2. functionalism
  3. behaviorism
  4. psychoanalysis
  5. humanistic
  6. cognitive psychology (no famous people for this school)
  7. biological (no people)
  8. evolutionary
  9. cross-cultural (no people)
  1. Summarize the steps of the scientific method.
  1. List and explain the 4 goals of psychology.
  1. Compare and contrast descriptive and experimental methods
  1. Explain the three descriptive methods (observation, survey and case study) listing the advantages and disadvantages of each.
  1. Explain what a correlation coefficient is and what it measures.
  1. Distinguish between positive and negative correlation (direction) and between strong, moderate and weak correlation (strength).
  1. Be able to recognize the strength and direction of a correlation by its numerical value.
  1. Explain why the relationship between correlated variables is not necessarily causal and be able to apply this knowledge to examples of correlated variables.
  1. Explain the experimental method and the advantages and disadvantages of using this method.
  1. Distinguish between dependent and independent variables.
  1. Distinguish between control and experimental groups.

Ch1: Example Studies

Example Study:

Dr. Scotch designs an experiment to test the effects of caffeine on memory. He designs an experiment with two groups: Group A is given a potent caffeine pill and group B is given a harmless inert pill. Subjects are assigned to groups by chance. Each group is then given a long list of words to remember and is later tested on memory for the words.

What is the Independent Variable?______

What is the Dependent Variable?______

Group A is the ______group and Group B is the ______group.

What is the term for assigning subjects to groups by chance? ______.

Because Dr. Scotch has used the experimental method, if he does find a significant difference between the groups memories for the words he can conclude that the difference is BECAUSE of the independent variable.

Example Study:

Dr. Keela designs a study to assess whether a relationship exists between being exposed to high voltage power lines and cancer. Since she cannot assign people to live next to power lines she decides to conduct a survey. She gathers a random sample of people who have lived in various proximities to power lines and surveys them on the incidence of cancer in their families.

Dr. Keela has done a survey, which is one example of a ______method.

What are the two variables in this study?______and ______.

(Note that there are no independent or dependent variables since Dr. Keela is not using the experimental method).

Dr. Keela uses statistics and finds that there is a relationship between the two variables. If the relationship between the two variables is found to be +.80 that would indicate a strong positive relationship. The number +.80 is referred to as a(n) ______. (a number that can vary from -1.00 to 0 to +1.00 and indicates the strength and direction of the relationship).

In terms of the direction that would mean that as one variable increases, the other would ______.

Because Dr. Keela has not used the experimental method, if she does find there is a strong relationship between her variables she CANNOT conclude that the change in one variable is causing the change in the second variable. Specifically this is because there are a number of things that could lead to finding that result (see class notes).

Ch1: Theories/Perspectives Matching Exercise

Statement / Perspective
I believe that by changing environmental factors, increasing the use of rewards and praise for correct behavior, and providing corrective feedback that I can change people’s behavior.
I study how people of all ages learn. In particular, I stress the roles played by thinking, problem solving, memory, and mental imagery.
I believe that the main causes of mental illness are either genetic or due to some malfunction in the central nervous system or endocrine system. I often prescribe medications and order medical procedures.
I often travel to different countries to research people’s attitudes and group relations. My research tends to show that many behavioral patterns- for instance, the amount of personal space people require to feel comfortable- vary from one country to another.
I believe that unconscious conflict, early childhood experiences, and repressed sexual and aggressive feelings make us who we are.
Although my perspective no longer exists, the founder of my perspective was Tichener and we used introspection to study conscious experience.
I believe that humans have free will and the ability to change their destinies
Physiological process that have helped individuals adapt to their environment have also helped them to survive, reproduce, and pass those abilities onto their offspring.
Although my perspective no longer exists, the founder of my perspective was William James and my perspective focused to studying the purpose of behavior and mental experiences.

Perspectives:

Structuralism, Functionalism, Psychoanalysis, Behaviorism, Humanistic, Biological, Cognitive, Cross-Cultural, Evolutionary