Introduction to Psychology

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Essentials of
Understanding
Psychology
RobertS. Feldman| TwelfthEdition

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Chapter 1
Introduction to Psychology

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MODULE 1 - Psychologists at Work
• What is the science of psychology?
• What are the major specialties in the field of
psychology?
• Where do psychologists work?

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Introduction
• Psychology: Scientific study of behavior and mental
processes

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Subfields of Psychology
Behavioral
Genetics
Behavioral
Neuroscience
Clinical
Psychology
Clinical
Neuropsychology
Cognitive
Psychology
Counseling
Psychology
Cross-cultural
Psychology

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Subfields of Psychology
Developmental
Psychology
Educational
Psychology
Environmental
Psychology
Evolutionary
Psychology
Experimental
Psychology
Forensic
Psychology
Health
Psychology

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Subfields of Psychology
Industrial/
organizational
Psychology
Personality
Psychology
Program
Evaluation
Psychology of
Women
School
Psychology
Social Psychology
Sport Psychology

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Biological Foundations of Behavior
• People are biological organisms
• Behavioral neuroscience
• Subfield of psychology
• Focuses on how the brain, nervous system, and other biological
aspects of the body, determine behavior

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How do People Sense, Perceive, Learn, and
Think About the World?
• Experimental psychology
• Studies the processes of sensing, perceiving,
learning, and thinking about the world
• Subspecialty
• Cognitive psychology - Focuses on higher mental
processes, such as thinking, memory, and problem-
solving

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What are the Sources of Change and Stability in
BehaviorAcross the Life Span?
• Studies how people grow and change from the moment of
conception through death
Developmental psychology
• Focuses on consistency in people’s behavior over time and
traits that differentiate one person from another
Personality psychology

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How do Psychological Factors Affect
Physical and Mental Health?
• Explores the relationship between psychological factors and
physical ailments or disease
Health psychology
• Deals with the study, diagnosis, and treatment of
psychological disorders
Clinical psychology
• Focuses primarily on educational, social, and career
adjustment problems
Counseling psychology

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How do our Social Networks Affect
Behavior?
• Social psychology
• Study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and
actions are affected by others
• Cross-cultural psychology
• Investigates the similarities and differences in
psychological functioning in and across various
cultures and ethnic groups

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Expanding Psychology’s Frontiers
• Evolutionary psychology
• Considers how behavior is influenced by our
genetic inheritance from our ancestors
• Stems from Darwin’s On the Origin of Species
• Behavioral genetics
• Seeks to understand:
• How we might inherit certain behavioral traits
• How the environment influences whether we
actually display such traits

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Expanding Psychology’s Frontiers
• Clinical neuropsychology
• Unites the areas of neuroscience and clinical
psychology
• Focuses on the origin of psychological disorders in
biological factors

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Figure 3: The Breakdown of Where U.S. Psychologists Work

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Psychologists: A Portrait
• Historically, women actively discouraged from
becoming psychologists
• Women now outnumber men in the field
• Consequences of racial and ethnic minority
underrepresentation among psychologists:
• Field is diminished by lack of diverse perspectives
and talents
• Deters new members from entering the field
• Minorities possibly underserved: people tend to
prefer to receive therapy from their own ethnic
group

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The Education and Careers for a
Psychologist
• Education
• PhD – Doctor of philosophy
• PsyD – Doctor of psychology
• Master’s degree
• Bachelor’s degree
• Careers
• Administrator
• Serving as a counselor
• Providing direct care
• Education
• Business
• Government

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MODULE 2 - A Science Evolves: The Past,
the Present, and the Future
• What are the origins of psychology?
• What are the major approaches in contemporary
psychology?
• What are psychology’s key issues and
controversies?
• What is the future of psychology likely to hold?

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The Roots of Psychology
• Structuralism - Wilhelm Wundt
• Study the building blocks of the mind
(structure of the mind); study of conscious
experience
• Focused on uncovering the fundamental mental
components of consciousness, thinking, and other
kinds of mental states and activities
• Introspection: Procedure used to study the
structure of the mind in which subjects are asked
to describe in detail what they are experiencing
when they are exposed to a stimulus

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The Roots of Psychology
• Criticisms of structuralism
• Introspection was not a scientific technique; Can’t
be confirmed by others
• People had difficulty describing some kinds of
inner experiences
• These drawbacks led to the development of
newer approaches

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The Roots of Psychology
• Functionalism - William James
• Concentrated on what the mind does and how it
functions
• What role of behavior in allowing people to adapt
to their environments
• Eg. How does the function of emotion of fear help
us prepare in emergency situations?
• How people satisfy their needs through behavior
• How our stream of consciousness – the flow of
thoughts in our conscious minds – permit us to
adapt to our environment

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The Roots of Psychology
• Gestalt psychology - Hermann Ebbinghaus, Max
Wertheimer
• Focuses on the organization of perception and
thinking in a whole sense rather than on the
individual elements of perception
• “The whole is different from the sum of its parts”
• Our perception or understanding of objects is greater nd more
meaningful than the individual elements that make up out
perception

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Figure 2: Major Perspectives of Psychology

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The Neuroscience Perspective: Blood,
Sweat, and Fears
• Neuroscience perspective: Views behavior from the
perspective of the brain, the nervous system, and other
biological functions
• How hereditary and evolution affect us
• How inheritance from parents and ancestors influences
behavior
• How the functioning of our body affects hopes and fears;
which behaviors are instinctual
• Contribution: drug treatments for deafness and severe mental
disorders

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The Psychodynamic Perspective:
Understanding the Inner Person
• Psychodynamic perspective - Sigmund Freud
• Behavior is motivated by unconscious inner forces
and conflicts over which the individual has little
control
• Dreams and slips of tongue are indications of what
the person is truly feeling

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The Behavioral Perspective: Observing
the Outer Person
• Behavioral perspective - John B. Watson; B. F.
Skinner
• Suggests that observable, measurable behavior
should be the focus of study
• Watson believed that you can bring about any type
of behavior by controlling a person’s environment
• Skinner focused on behavior could be learned

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The Cognitive Perspective: Identifying the
Roots of Understanding
• Cognitive perspective
• Focuses on how people think, understand, and know
about the world
• Information processing
• Focus on learning how people comprehend and
represent the world; and how our ways of thinking
about the world influence us
• How people make decisions; is multitasking
possible?

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The Humanistic Perspective: The Unique
Qualities of the Human Species
• Humanistic perspective - Carl Rogers; Abraham
Maslow
• Suggests individuals naturally strive to grow,
develop, and be in control of their lives and
behavior
• Seek and reach fulfillment
• Emphasis is on free will
• Contrasts to determinism (behaviour is caused or
determined by things beyond a person’s control)

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Figure 3: Key Issues in Psychology

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Psychology’s Key Issues and
Controversies
• Nature: genetically determined, inherited
• Nurture: influences of the physical and social
environments in which a person is raised

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Psychology’s Key Issues and
Controversies
• Conscious: forces of which we are fully aware
• Unconscious: forces that are not accessible to
the conscious mind

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Psychology’s Key Issues and
Controversies
• Observable behavior: objective behavior that
can be seen by outside observers
• Internal mental processes: unseen processes
involved in thinking

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Psychology’s Key Issues and
Controversies
• Free will: Idea that behavior is caused primarily
by choices that are made freely by the individual
• Determinism: Idea that people’s behavior is
produced primarily by factors outside of their
willful control

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Psychology’s Key Issues and
Controversies
• Individual differences: a person’s unique and
special qualities
• Universal principles: factors that underlie the
behavior of all humans

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Psychology’s Future
• Psychology will become increasingly specialized
• Neuroscientific approaches will likely influence
other branches of psychology
• Influence on issues of public interest will grow
• Psychologists will follow increasingly strict ethical
and moral guidelines
• Public’s view of psychology will become more
informed
• Issues of diversity will become more important
to psychologists

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MODULE 3 – Research in
Psychology
• What is the scientific method?
• What role do theories and hypotheses play in
psychological research?
• What research methods do psychologists use?
• How do psychologists establish cause-and-effect
relationships in research studies?

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The Scientific Method
• Approach through which psychologists
systematically acquire knowledge and
understanding about behavior and other
phenomena of interest

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Figure 1: The Scientific Method

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Theories
• Broad explanations and predictions concerning
phenomena of interest
• Provide a framework for understanding the
relationships among a set of unorganized facts or
principles
• Example: diffusion of responsibility
• With more bystanders in an emergency situation, the
smaller the share of the responsibility each person feels
• Developed by Bibb Latané and John Darley

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Hypotheses: Crafting Testable
Predictions
• Hypothesis: A prediction, stemming from a theory, stated
in a way that allows it to be tested
• Operational definition: Translation of a hypothesis
into specific, testable procedures that can be measured and
observed

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Hypotheses: Crafting Testable
Predictions
• Psychologists rely on formal theories and
hypotheses for many reasons
• Permits them to place bits of observations within
a coherent framework
• Help psychologists to make deductions about
unexplained phenomena
• Develop ideas for future investigation

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Psychological Research
• Research
• Systematic inquiry aimed at the discovery of new
knowledge
• Key to understanding the accuracy of hypotheses
and theories
• Descriptive research
• Systematic investigation of a person, group, or
pattern of behavior
• Several types of descriptive research

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Archival Research
• Existing data are examined to test a hypothesis
• Census documents
• College records
• Online databases
• Newspaper clippings
• Advantage - Inexpensive
• Disadvantage - Problems with using existing data
• Data may not be in a form that allows the
researcher to test a hypothesis fully

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Naturalistic Observation
• Investigator observes some naturally occurring
behavior
• Does not make a change in the situation
• Advantage - Sample of what people do in their
natural habitat
• Disadvantage - Inability to control any factors of
interest

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Survey Research
• People are asked a series of questions about
their behavior, thoughts, or attitudes
• Advantage - can infer how a larger group would
respond, if a representative sample is surveyed
• Disadvantage - results will be inconsequential if the
sample is not representative
• Survey respondents may not want to admit to
holding socially undesirable attitudes

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The Case Study
• In-depth, intensive investigation of an individual
or a small group of people
• Often include psychological testing
• Advantage - can use insights to improve our
understanding of people in general
• Disadvantage - unique individuals make it
impossible for generalizations

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Correlational Research
• Research in which the relationship between two
sets of variables is examined to determine:
• Whether they are associated, or correlated
• Variables: Behaviors, events, or other
characteristics that can change, or vary, in some
way

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Correlational Research
• Correlation coefficient - Represents the strength and
direction of the relationship between two variables
• Value can range from +1.00 to -1.00
• Positive - As the value of one variable increases, so will
the value of the other variable
• Negative - As the value of one variable increases, value
of the other variable will decrease
• Lack of relationship - Value near 0 indicates no
relationship
• Disadvantage - Inability to demonstrate cause-and-
effect relationships

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Figure 2: Aggression and TV Viewing

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Experimental Research
• Experiment: Investigation of the relationship
between two (or more) variables by:
• Producing a change in one variable in a situation
and observing the effects on the second variable
• Experimental manipulation: Change that an
experimenter deliberately produces in a
situation

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Experimental Research
• Experimental groups and control groups
• Treatment
• Manipulation implemented by the experimenter
• Experimental group
• Any group participating in an experiment that
receives a treatment
• Control group
• Group participating in an experiment that receives
no treatment

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Experimental Research
• Independent variable: The variable that is manipulated
by an experimenter
• Dependent variable: The variable that is measured
• Expected to change as a result of changes in the
independent variable
• Dependent on the actions of the research participants
that are taking part in the experiment

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Experimental Research
• Random assignment to condition: Participants are
assigned to different experimental groups or conditions on the
basis of chance
• Significant outcome: Statistically meaningful results
• Makes it possible for researchers to feel confident that they have
confirmed their hypotheses
• Replicated research: Research that is repeated, in other
settings and with other groups of participants, to increase
confidence in prior findings

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Figure 3: True Experiments

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MODULE 4 - Critical Research
Issues
• What major issues confront psychologists
conducting research?

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The Ethics of Research
• Guidelines that protect participants
• Protection of participants from physical and mental harm
• Right of participants to privacy regarding their behavior
• Assurance that participation in research is completely voluntary
• Necessity of informing participants about the nature of
procedures before their participation in the experiment
• All experiments must be reviewed by an independent panel
before being conducted

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The Ethics of Research
• Informed consent: A document signed by participants
• Affirms that they have been told about the basic outlines of the
study and are aware of what their participation will involve
• Debriefing: Participants receive an explanation of the study
and the procedures that were involved

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Should Animals Be Used in Research?
• Researchers must make every effort to minimize
discomfort, illness, and pain
• Procedures that subject animals to distress are
permitted:
• When an alternative procedure is unavailable
• When the research is justified by its prospective value
• Provides greater experimental control over nonhumans
• Procedures that might not be possible with people can
be carried out

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Threats to Experimental Validity:
Avoiding Experimental Bias
• Experimental bias: Factors that distort the way
the independent variable affects the dependent
variable
• Experimenter expectations
• Participant expectations

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Threats to Experimental Validity:
Avoiding Experimental Bias
• Placebo: A false treatment without any
significant chemical properties
• Double-blind procedure: Keeping experimenter
and participant blind to the nature of the drug
administered