2. Psychology
 What is psychology?
 What kinds of questions do psychologists
ask?
 Where does psychological theory come from?
 Why is psychology important?

3. Topics
 Research/Science
 Biology
 Learning
 Memory
 Cognition
 Development
 Health & Stress
 Social Interactions
 Personality
 Psychological
Disorders
 Treatments

4. Cautions
 Things aren’t always as they seem.
 Your world is not everyone’s reality.
 We are interested in the big picture, overall,
population.
 Exceptions are not the rule.
 People are complex.

5. The Science of Psychology

6. What is Psychology
 The scientific study of behavior and mental
processes
 Scientific Study – Systematic methods to observe,
describe, predict, and explain behaviors
 Behavior – that which is readily observable (overt)
 Mental Processes – thoughts, feelings, and
motives that are not directly observable (covert)

7. Goals of Psychology
 Description: What is happening?
 Explanation: Why is it happening?
 Prediction: When will it happen again?
 Control: How can it be changed?

8. Historical Figures and Perspectives
History of Psychology

9. Roots of Psychology -
Philosophy
 What is the nature of the soul/mind, and how does it
relate to the physical body?
 Plato – the mind, body, and soul are all one entity, but the
brain is the source of mental processes
 Considered emotions, reasoning, and morality
 Aristotle – all living things have a soul, and the mind is the
part that understands
 Considered emotions and reasoning
 Descartes – the mind/soul and body are separate but
interact
 Considered the function of the brain and perception

10. Roots of Psychology -
Science
 Medical doctors, physiologists
 How are the brain and body related?
 Late 1800’s: Structuralism, functionalism, gestalt
psychology, psychoanalysis
 Early 1900’s: behaviorism

11. Structuralism
 Every experience can be broken down into more
basic elements (e.g., thoughts, emotions)
 Describe the structure of the mind
 Wilhelm Wundt (physiologist)
 First to apply scientific principles to the study of the mind
(“father” of modern psychology)
 Objective introspection – Objectively examining and
measuring one’s own sensory experiences
 Edward Titchner
 Objective introspection can be applied to thoughts as well
as sensations

12. Functionalism
 William James (physiologist)
 How does the mind allow people to function?
 How does the mind allow people to work, play, and
adapt to their surroundings?
 Interaction of environment and behavior
 Explain why behavior occurs
 Heavily influenced by Darwin’s natural selection

13. Gestalt Psychology
 Psychological events cannot be broken down
into smaller elements (e.g., structuralism)
and still be properly understood
 Focus on the whole instead of the individual parts
 Focused on sensation and perception
 People naturally seek out patterns in sensory
information

14. Psychoanalysis
 Sigmund Freud
 Neurologist
 Nervous disorders with no identifiable physical
cause
 Proposed the unconscious mind
 Repressed urges = nervous disorders
 Adult nervous or personality problems rooted in
childhood experiences
 Psychoanalysis – therapy based on Freud’s ideas
 Basis for much of modern psychotherapy

15. Behaviorism
 Focus entirely on observable behavior, because
consciousness is subjective (not objective
science)
 Ivan Pavlov
 Behaviors can be conditioned
 Reflexive responses to neutral stimuli can be
learned through repetitive experiences
 John Watson
 All behavior is learned

16. Modern Psychological
Perspectives

17. Modern Psychological
Perspectives
 Psychodynamic
 Behavioral
 Humanistic
 Cognitive
 Sociocultural
 Biopsychological
 Evolutionary

18. Psychodynamic Perspective
 The unconscious mind and early childhood
experiences influence conscious behavior
 We don’t necessarily consciously know why we do
what we do
 Therapy focused on the development of a sense
of self and understanding motivations
underlying behavior
 Freudian concepts cannot be empirically tested
 No way to prove or disprove

19. Behavioral Perspective
 Classical conditioning principles persist
 Operant conditioning – behavioral responses
can also be learned as a result of
consequences
 Environment does contribute to behavior

20. Humanistic Perspective
 Abraham Maslow & Carl Rogers
 Emphasis on human potential
 People have free will – the ability to choose their own
destiny
 Each person has the ability to become the best person
that s/he can be
 Self-actualization – achieving one’s full potential or ideal
self
 Very influential in modern psychotherapy

21. Cognitive Perspective
 Focuses on how people think, remember,
store, and use information
 Memory, intelligence, perception, thought
processes, problem solving, language, and
learning

22. Sociocultural Perspective
 Focuses on the relationship among behavior,
social environment, and culture
 How people behave is influenced by their social
environment and culture
 Social Psychology – the study of groups, social
roles, and rules of social actions and relationships
 Cultural Psychology – the study of cultural norms,
values, and expectations

23. Biopsychological
Perspective
 Human and animal behavior is the direct
result of bodily events
 What is the biological explanation for a
behavior?
 Hormones, heredity, brain chemicals, diseases

24. Evolutionary Perspective
 Focuses on the biological bases for universal
mental characteristics that all humans share
 Universal behaviors are largely determined by
survival needs/adaptation
 The mind adheres to the same processes of
natural selection as the body

25. Example: Exercise
Perspective Type of Explanation Possible Questions
Biological Physical process What effect does exercise have on the
nervous system? Do the chemicals
released during exercise affect
behavior?
Behavioral Learning – Observable behavior Can exercise behaviors be taught
through reward or observation?
Evolutionary Survival, adaptation,
reproduction
Does exercise have an effect on mate
potential?
Humanistic Growth, maximizing potential Is exercise important for overall well-
being and a solid sense of self?
Psychodynamic Unconscious conflict, childhood
experiences
Unconscious conflict creates anxiety –
sublimating
Sociocultural Social and cultural environment Does your social environment
influence your exercise habits?

26. Professions and Specializations
Careers in Psychology

27. Psychological Professionals
 Psychiatrists – medical doctor who
specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of
psychological disorders
 Private practice, hospitals
 Psychoanalysts – psychiatrist or psychologist
with specialized training in Freudian
techniques/theory
 Private practice, hospitals

28. Psychological Professionals
 Psychiatric Social Workers – focus on effect
of environmental conditions (e.g., poverty,
stress, drug abuse) on mental disorders
 Master’s or professional degree
 Work in clinics, hospitals, social service org.
 Psychologist – intense academic training in a
psychological specialization area
 Doctoral degree
 Not necessarily focused on counseling individuals

29. Specialization Areas
 Clinical Psychology
 Assess, treat, and study emotional, mental, and behavioral
disorders
 Counseling Psychology
 Assist individuals in dealing with life stressors, developing
coping skills, etc
 Not necessarily disorders
 Cognitive Psychology
 Study human perception, thinking, and memory
 E.g., Problem solving, decision making, intelligence,
information processing

30. Specialization Areas
 Developmental Psychology
 Studies human psychological development/change
throughout the lifespan
 Can specialize in a particular time period (e.g. childhood)
 How do biological and environmental factors contribute
to human development?
 Educational Psychology
 Explores effective teaching methods and how learning
occurs
 E.g., ability levels, learning environments, Motivation

31. Specialization Areas
 Environmental Psychology
 Focuses on how human behavior is influenced by the
physical environment (e.g., office, school, hospital)
 Focused on the particular setting of the behavior
 Forensic Psychology
 Explore how psychological principles apply to legal
issues
 E.g., Jury selection, jury decision making
processes/behaviors, evaluation of eyewitness
testimony, evaluations of fitness to stand trial

32. Specialization Areas
 Health Psychology
 Focuses on the relationship between human
behaviors, stress, and physical health
 Goal: to maintain good health, prevent/treat illness
 Industrial-Organizational Psychology
 Focuses on the relationship between people and their
work environment
 E.g., maximize efficiency/productivity, increase morale,
good hiring decisions

33. Specialization Areas
 Personality Psychology
 Study differences in stable aspects of personality
among individuals
 Physiological Psychology
 Focuses on the biological basis of human behavior
 Quantitative Psychology
 Focus on how to design psychological experiments
and analyze psychological data
 Develop and evaluate statistical models used in
psychological research

34. Specialization Areas
 School Psychology
 Apply results of research in the school system
 Work with children – assessment, diagnosis of educational
problems
 Consult with teachers, parents, administrators
 Social Psychology
 Focuses on how human behavior is affected by the presence of
others
 Sports Psychology
 Focuses on helping athletes and others involved in sports
activities to prepare mentally for events
 Maximizing performance

35. The Science of Psychology
Psychological Research

36. The Scientific Method
 Perceiving the question
 Observe phenomena and develop a question for which you would
like an answer
 Forming a hypothesis
 Make an educated guess about the answer to your question, and
put it into a statement that can be empirically tested
 Testing the hypothesis
 Design and execute a study to test your hypothesis
 Drawing conclusions
 Aggregate the data from your study and determine if your
hypothesis was supported or not
 Reporting your results
 Write up exactly what you did and what you found so that others
could replicate, and learn from, your project

37. Decisions in Research
 Selecting people to take part in the study
 Choosing a research design/type of research
 Choosing appropriate statistical technique to
analyze the data

38. Selecting Participants
 Population: entire group of people of interest
 Typically do not have access to all people in the group
 Sample: individuals who are selected to take part
in the study
 Representative Sample – sample of people who
accurately represent the population of interest
 Random sampling – randomly selecting individuals
from the greater population
 Convenience sampling – using people who are readily
available (not random)

39. Types of Research
 Choice of method is based on research
question
 Descriptive
 Correlational
 Experimental
 Meta-analysis

40. Descriptive Research
 Purpose: to describe a phenomena, but not
explain why it happens
 Naturalistic Observation
 Laboratory Observations
 Case Studies
 Surveys

41. Naturalistic Observation
 Observe individuals/animals under naturally
occurring circumstances
 Benefit: get a realistic picture of how behavior
actually occurs in that setting
 Disadvantages:
 Observer Effect – people will change their behavior when
they know that they are being watched
 Participant observation – observer becomes part of the setting
 Observer bias – observer may only attend to information
that confirms preexisting opinions/beliefs
 Blind observers
 Each setting is unique – not controlled conditions

42. Laboratory Observation
 Observe behaviors in an artificially created
setting
 Advantage: researchers can control
conditions
 Disadvantage: artificial situation may result in
artificial behavior – different behavior in a lab
than in a natural setting

43. Case Studies
 A single individual is studied in great detail
 Learn everything possible about a given person
 Advantages
 Amount of details available
 May be the only way to gather certain information
(e.g., rare phenomena)
 Disadvantages
 Cannot be generalized to other individuals
 Vulnerable to bias on the part of the researcher

44. Surveys
 Ask participants a series of questions about the topic
of interest
 Interviews, questionnaires, in-person, internet, by mail
 Advantages
 Easy to collect a lot of information from many people
 Allow researchers to access private information more easily
 Disadvantages
 Self-report measures may yield inaccurate results
 Faulty memories, distorting the truth, outright lying, social
desirability
 Wording and order of the questions can affect results

45. Correlational Research
 Purpose
 To describe how variables change together
 Variables are not manipulated
 Cannot determine cause-and-effect relationships
 Third variables
 For example
 Do people become more self-confident as they get
older?

46. Correlation
 Describes the relationship between two variables
 Do scores for two variables simultaneously change in a
systematic fashion?
 Direction – in what way do the scores change
together?
 Magnitude – how strong is the relationship?

47. Direction of Relationship

48. Strength of Relationship

49. Experimental Design
 Purpose: To determine cause and effect
 Must use an experiment to control/manipulate
situations
 Hold everything but the potential cause constant,
and manipulate the hypothesized causal variable
 Thus, know that any changes in the outcome are
due to the hypothesized causal variable

50. Experimental Design
 Variable – any characteristic that takes on
different values/changes
 Independent variable – the variable that is
manipulated
 Hypothesized causal variable
 Dependent variable – the outcome that is measured
 Hypothesized affected variable
 Confounding variable – variables that are not
controlled and could possibly affect the variables of
interest

51. Experimental Design
 Experimental Manipulations
 Experimental Group – participants who are exposed to
the treatment
 Control Group – individuals who do not receive the
treatment
 Random assignment – each participant has an equal
chance of being in either group
 Minimizes the chance of other systematic differences
between groups

52. Experimental Design
 Biases/Hazards
 The placebo effect – expectations of the participant affects
his/her behavior
 I believe that a drug will help me, so my symptoms improve
 Single-blind study – the participant doesn’t know which group
s/he is in
 Experimenter effects – expectations of the experimenter
unintentionally affects the results of the experiment
 E.g., clues about condition membership, treating people
differently
 Double-blind study – neither the participant nor the person
measuring the outcome knows group membership

53. Experimental Design Example
 A new anti-depressant drug – does it effectively
reduce depression symptoms?
 Randomly assign 30 depressed people to receiving 50
mg of the drug and 30 people to receiving placebo
 Independent variable – drug
 Dependent variable – depression symptoms
 Experimental condition – the 50 mg of the drug
 Control condition – placebo

54. Meta-Analysis
 Purpose
 Combine multiple studies to determine overall
relationship/effect
 Method
 Gather information from all existing studies on a
topic
 Statistically combine results

55. Example Topic: Empathy
Design Example
Descriptive Measure levels of empathy, and get an estimate of how
empathetic a group is
Correlational Measure levels of empathy and relationship satisfaction, and
then determine if the scores change together, systematically
Experimental Randomly assign individuals to a high and low stress condition
and compare their empathy levels after the stress induction
Meta-analytic If we gather all relevant studies and combine the results, how
much of a relationship is there between empathy and
happiness, overall?

56. Ethics in Research
 All psychological research must adhere to certain
guidelines
 Institutional review board (IRB)
 Guidelines
 Informed consent/decision
 Deception must be justified
 Participants may withdraw at any time
 Must be protected from, or told explicitly of, risks
 Must debrief participants
 Confidentiality

57. Critical Thinking
 The ability to make reasoned judgments
 Four criteria
 Everything needs to be tested
 Evidence varies in quality
 Claims by experts and authorities do not
automatically make something true
 Keeping an open mind

58. Conclusion
 Psychology is a science
 There are several branches of psychology
 Psychologists consider a wide variety of
behavior and mental processes from multiple
perspectives
 Well-designed research is the basis for solid
scientific theory
 Critical thinking is the basis for logical
conclusions