1. Psychology’s Roots, Big Ideas,
and Critical
Thinking Tools
*Be sure to read the notes below the slides in
addition to the material on the slides

2. Chapter Objectives
After covering this chapter, you should be able to:
 Identify 4 big ideas that run throughout psychology.
 Describe psychology’s current perspectives, and identify some of
its subfields.
 Compare and contrast case studies, surveys, and naturalistic
observation, and explain the importance of random sampling.
 Describe positive and negative correlations, and explain how
correlational measures can aid the process of prediction but not
provide evidence of cause-effect relationships.
 Explain how experiments help researchers isolate cause and
effect, focusing on the characteristics of experimentation that
make this possible

3. Psychology’s Roots
 Wilhelm Wundt – 1879
 Psychology: the scientific study of behavior
and mental processes
 Behavior
 Mental Processes
 Psychology’s sub-fields

5. Critical Thinking
 The Case of Andrea Yates
 Read the case below and try to explain Andrea’s
behavior using as many perspectives as possible
on the previous slide.
 Why did she murder her children?

6. Four Big Ideas in Psychology
 Critical Thinking
 Behavior is a biopsychosocial event
 We operate with a two-track mind (dual
processing)
 Psychology explores human strengths as well
as challenges

8. Review
 A newspaper article describes how a “cure
for cancer has been found.” A critical thinker
probably will
a. dismiss the article as untrue.
b. accept the information as a wonderful breakthrough.
c. question the article, evaluate the evidence, and assess
the conclusions.
d. question the article but quickly accept it as true if the
author has an excellent reputation.

9. Why do Psychology?
 2 common flaws in intuitive thinking
 Hindsight bias
 Overconfidence

10. How do Psychologists Ask & Answer
Questions?
 Scientific method
 Theory
 Hypothesis
 Operational definitions
 Replication

12. How do Psychologists Ask & Answer
Questions?
 Description
 Case study
 The survey
 Wording
 Random sampling
 Naturalistic observation

13. How do Psychologists Ask & Answer
Questions?
 Correlation
 Correlation coefficient
 CORRELATION DOES NOT PROVE
CAUSATION
 Illusory correlations

14. Direction of correlations
Positive correlations
Negative correlations

15. Scatterplots
Correlations can be represented by
scatterplots.

16. Your turn
What kind of
correlation is
this?
1. Positive
2. Negative
3. No correlation

17. Name the Correlation

18. How do Psychologists Ask & Answer
Questions?
 Experimentation
 Variable
 Random assignment
 Experimental group
 Control group
 Double-blind procedure (eliminating bias)
 Placebo effect
 Independent variable
 Dependent variable

19. Name the independent and dependent
variables
 A researcher was interested in the effects of reward
on intrinsic motivation. Some children were told that
they would be given a special award for drawing
with magic markers (an activity they already
enjoyed). Other children were simply asked to draw
with the magic markers. One week later, the
children were unobtrusively observed for how much
time they spent drawing with the markers. The
children who expected and received a reward for
drawing with the markers were less likely to draw
with them later.

20. Review
 Descriptive and correlational studies
describe behavior, detect relationships, and
predict behavior. But in order to begin to
explain behavior, psychologists use
a. naturalistic observations.
b. experiments.
c. surveys.
d. case studies.

21. Chapter Objectives
After covering this chapter, you should be able to:
 Identify 4 big ideas that run throughout psychology.
 Describe psychology’s current perspectives, and identify some of
its subfields.
 Compare and contrast case studies, surveys, and naturalistic
observation, and explain the importance of random sampling.
 Describe positive and negative correlations, and explain how
correlational measures can aid the process of prediction but not
provide evidence of cause-effect relationships.
 Explain how experiments help researchers isolate cause and
effect, focusing on the characteristics of experimentation that
make this possible