4. • Different kinds of psychologists
– Different kinds of behavior
• Different levels of explanation
Levels of Explanation
5. • Example: Depression
– Molecular level: variations in genes, predispose to depression
– Neurochemical level: brain’s chemical messengers tnfluence
mood
– Neurological/Physiological level: size and functioning of brain
structures related to mood
– Mental level: depressed thoughts (e.g., I’m a loser), sad feelings,
ideas of suicide
– Behavioral level: decrease in pleasurable activities, moving and
talking slowly, withdrawing from others
– Social level: loss of important personal relationships, lack of
social support
Levels of Explanation
6. • Everyday sources of information about human
behavior (“common sense”)
• Often not only wrong, but backward
Popular Psychology
8. • Trust common sense: naïve realism
– Belief that we see world exactly as it is
• Important function
• Also problematic
• Common sense: We accurately capture everything we’ve
seen
Naïve Realism
9. • Sometimes, common sense is right
• Guides us to truth and future research ideas
– Snap judgments:
Common Sense
10. – Generate hypotheses, later test through
rigorous investigations
• Example: More women receiving university
degrees than men. Why?
– Think like scientific psychologists:
• When to trust common sense, when not to
Common Sense
11. • As source of information, pop psych useful
• As source of misinformation, pop psych problematic
Popular Psychology
12. • What is science?
• Communalism: sharing
• Disinterestedness: objectivity
• Safeguard against bias
Psychology as a Science
13. • Confirmation bias: tendency to seek out
evidence that supports our hypothesis,
neglect/distort contradicting evidence
• Example?
Science as a safeguard against bias
14. • Belief perseverance: Tendency to stick to
initial beliefs even when evidence
contradicts them
• We don’t want to believe we’re wrong –
reluctant to give up beliefs
• Example?
Science as a safeguard against bias
15. • Recognizing that we might be wrong:
• Initial scientific findings often wrong
• Scientific knowledge is tentative and
open to revision, updates
Science as a safeguard against bias
16. Scientific TheoryScientific Theory
• Important for scientific understanding
• Theory: Set of formal statements that explains how
and why certain events are related to one another
• Hypothesis: Tentative testable prediction about some
phenomenon
17. • Stabbed repeatedly and raped in 1964
• Multiple attacks – screams scared him away,
but no one came to help, so her attacker
returned
• Heard by up to 38 neighbours, yet no one
assisted (by the time police were called she
was dead)
• Media argued for moral decay and the
dehumanization produced by an urban
environment
Example: Kitty Genovese
18. • Observation: Kitty Genovese murdered while
multiple bystanders did not help
• Hypothesis: Tentative explanation
• Testing: Conduct research, gather evidence
– “Emergency” situation communicating through
intercoms (person has a fake seizure)
Theory Generation:
Steps in the Scientific Process
19. • Analyze Data: What are the findings?
– 100% of people alone helped within 3 minutes
– 80% of people with one other person present
– 60% of people with four others present
– Conclusion: Findings support diffusion of
responsibility hypothesis and shows that common
sense (safety in numbers) can be faulty
Example: Theory of Social Impact
20. • Theory building (and further research)
– Across all social situations (50 replications done in labs and
other natural settings with other emergency situations)
– Combine with other knowledge of how people act in social
situations to arrive at Theory of Social Impact
Example: Theory of Social Impact
21. Scientific AttitudesScientific Attitudes
• Curiosity, skepticism, open-mindedness = driving forces
behind scientific inquiry
• Already understand interplay between observing and
explaining (i.e, theory generation)
• As scientists, should demonstrate scientific skepticism
22. • Some fields of psychology:
– Physiological: physiological basis of behavior
– Comparative: evolutionary adaptation to environment
– Behavior genetics: role of genetics
– Cognitive: mental processes and complex behaviors
(perception, learning, memory, etc.)
– Neuroscience: brain mechanisms responsible for
psychological functions
– Developmental: changes in capacities as function of age
and experience
– Social: effects people have on each others’ behaviors
– Cross-cultural: impact of culture on behavior
Psychology Today
23. • Some applied fields of psychology:
– Clinical neuropsychology: identify and treat behavioral
consequences of nervous system disorders/injuries
– Clinical: ID, assess, treat mental disorders
– Community: welfare of individuals in social system
(disadvantaged)
– Industrial/Organizational: behavior in
industry/organizational work environments
– Health: behaviors that affect health and lifestyle
– School: behaviors in school settings
– Forensic: behavior related to legal and justice system
Psychology Today
24. • Ties to philosophy:
• Ancient Greeks: rational speculation
about nature
– Socrates: “Know thyself”
• Must think clearly and rationally,
recognize our own ignorance
– Plato, Aristotle: Nature of human
knowledge
• Relationships among body, mind,
soul
History of Psychology
25. – Descartes: “I think therefore I am”
• Mind-body distinction: dualism
– Reality = two entities – mind and
matter
– BUT causal link between mind/body
– Locke: Tabula rasa
• Arrive in world as blank slates (nothing
innately present in mind – learn
through experience)
History of Psychology
26. • 1700-1800s: contributions of a variety
of philosophers and scientists
• From late 1800s, psychology makes
the shift to science
– Wundt: First full fledged psychology lab
in Germany
History of Psychology
27. • Structuralism (contents of consciousness):
– Wundt and Titchener: Scientific method to answer
psychological questions
– Structure of mind: Conscious experiences should
be organized in our minds in predictable, human
ways
• Inner workings of mind, what these elements of human
conscious look like (describe own experiences)
History of Psychology/Early Traditions
28. • Functionalism (how does mind work?):
– Not just mind’s structures…how structures work
to adapt to our environments (processes)
• Perceiving and learning
– James: how conscious guides behavior
– Studying animals, applying psychology in practical
areas such as education, experiments with overt
behavior rather than just mental processes
– Mind and body part of same entity (no distinction)
History of Psychology/Early Traditions
29. • Psychoanalysis (probing unconscious):
– Freud: theory of emotional disturbance
– Unconscious mental processes and drives direct
daily behavior (sexuality and aggression)
– “Structures” of mind = Id, Ego, Superego
– Techniques to explore those unconscious
processes: free association and dream
interpretation
History of Psychology/Early Traditions
30. • Behaviorism (laws of learning):
– Psychological science = objective, not subjective
– Watson: General principles of learning underlying
human and animal behavior
– Directly observable behaviors = measured
– Human mind is a black box: We know what goes
into and what comes out, don’t need to worry
about what’s in between
– Skinner: Relationships between events in
environment (stimuli) and person’s reactions
(responses), and establishing learned connection
between two (conditioning)
History of Psychology/Early Traditions
31. • Gestalt Psychology (examining wholes):
– Necessary to study person’s total experience, not
just parts of experience (the mind or behavior)
– Wertheimer and Koffka: Conscious experience is
more than simply sum of individual parts (just as
hard to understand how a car runs by just
studying parts)
– Need to analyze patterns of a person’s
perceptions and thoughts to understand the mind
History of Psychology/Early Traditions
32. • Cognitivism (opening the black box):
– Thinking affects our behavior
– Piaget: Children conceptualize world differently
than adults
– Not just reward and punishment, interpretation
crucial determinant of behavior
– Information processing: info from senses,
processed by different systems in brain
– Perception, learning, memory, and thinking
History of Psychology/Early Traditions
33. • Humanism:
– Belief that behaviorism had dehumanized
psychology
– Finding, emphasizing, and studying positive
human values
– People are inherently good and striving to fulfill
themselves
– Motivated by self-actualization (level of
psychological development where we minimize ill
health, feel self-acceptance, fully function as a
human being)
History of Psychology/Early Traditions
