General Psychology

1. General Psychology

2. Scripture • Matthew 5:5 "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Happy are the meek - They that hold all their passions and affections evenly balanced. They shall inherit the earth - They shall have all things really necessary for life and godliness.

3. Is Psychology Just Common Sense? • We often understand our world based on a “naïve” psychology. • Not based on careful scientific analysis • Developed from everyday experiences and uncritical acceptance of other people’s views and opinions • Connecting on the assumption of our own preference. (Client with no internal dialogue)

4. The Need for Psychological Science Psychologists, like all scientists, use the scientific method to construct theories that organize observations and imply testable hypotheses* Monty Hall – First President http://www.stat.sc.edu/~west/javahtml/LetsMakeaDeal.html

5. Is Psychology Just Common Sense? • Implicit personality theory • People’s assumptions or naïve belief systems about which personality traits go together • Established bias – past personality assumptions. (That professor is difficult) • What will you name your children? • Hindsight bias • The tendency, once an event had occurred, to overestimate our ability to have foreseen the outcome • Jeopardy

6. Is Psychology Just Common Sense? • Scientific methods minimize error and lead to dependable generalizations. • Scientific method • A set of procedures used in science to gather, analyze, and interpret information in a way that reduces error and leads to dependable generalizations

7. Is Psychology Just Common Sense? • Conducting research is a process. • Sample • A group of subjects selected to participate in a research study • Stratified Sample • Population – OKWU Students - specific to OKWU not College students. • All the members of an identifiable group from which a sample is drawn • Random Selection • A procedure for selecting a sample of people to study in which everyone in the population has an equal chance of being chosen • This only works in a large enough pool – College students from OKWU would skew application beyond OKWU.

8. Is Psychology Just Common Sense? • Critical thinking • The process of deciding what to believe and how to act based on careful evaluation of the evidence

9. What Is the Process in Conducting Research?

10. What Is the Process in Conducting Research? • The first stage involves selecting a topic and reviewing past research. • Topics generally come from the following: • Someone else’s research • An incident in the daily news • Personal experience • Adoption studies • Psychologists generally investigate topics that have relevance to their own lives and culture.

11. What Is the Process in Conducting Research? • Once a topic has been selected, the following occurs: • Investigators search the scientific literature to determine whether prior investigations of the topic exist. • Literature searches use a number of computer based databases. • Searching for research literature may be thought of as a never-ending endeavor because it occurs throughout the study. • Many contradictory studies exist. • Scientist often have an inflated confidence in their own work – Critical Thinking – this book makes some assumptions based on overconfidence.

12. What Is the Process in Conducting Research? • The second stage involves developing a theory and hypothesis. • Theory • An organized system of ideas that seeks to explain why two or more events are related • Hypothesis • An educated guess or prediction about the nature of things based upon a theory

13. What Is the Process in Conducting Research?

14. Research Process

15. What Is the Process in Conducting Research? • The third stage involves selecting a scientific method and obtaining IRB approval. • Psychological research generally occurs in one of two settings: • Laboratory (a controlled environment) • Field (a natural setting) • Seek to determine the relationship between two or more factors known as variables.

16. What Is the Process in Conducting Research? • Variables • In scientific research, factors that can be measured and that can vary • Operational definitions • A scientist’s precise description of how a variable has been quantified so that it can be measured • Replication • Repeating a previous study’s scientific procedures using different participants in an attempt to duplicate the findings

17. Experimentation • Independent Variable • the experimental factor that is manipulated • the variable whose effect is being studied • There should only be one Independent variable for each experiment • Dependent Variable • the experimental factor that may change in response to manipulations of the independent variable • There may be several dependent variables • in psychology it is usually a behavior or mental process

18. The Need for Psychological Science • Operational Definition • a statement of procedures (operations) used to define research variables • Example- • intelligence may be operationally defined as what an intelligence test measures • I love tacos…

19. The Need for Psychological Science • Replication • repeating the essence of a research study to see whether the basic finding generalizes to other participants and circumstances • usually with different participants in different situations

20. Experimentation • Experiment • an investigator manipulates one or more factors (independent variables) to observe their effect on some behavior or mental process (the dependent variable) • by random assignment of participants the experiment controls other relevant factors

21. Experimentation • Placebo • an inert substance or condition that may be administered instead of a presumed active agent, such as a drug, to see if it triggers the effects believed to characterize the active agent • Double-blind Procedure* • both the research participants and the research staff are ignorant (blind) about whether the research participants have received the treatment or a placebo • commonly used in drug-evaluation studies

22. Experimentation • Experimental Condition • the condition of an experiment that exposes participants to the treatment, that is, to one version of the independent variable • Control Condition • the condition of an experiment that contrasts with the experimental treatment • serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment

23. What Is the Process in Conducting Research? • Institutional review board (IRB) • Purpose to ensure the health and safety of participants in psychological studies • Panel of both scientists and nonscientists who ensure the protection and welfare of research participants by formally reviewing the methodologies and procedures of proposed studies We will address some of the other assumptions in this book mentioned in this chapter.