Perspectives in Psychology

1. Perspectives in Psychology • Psychodynamic • Behavioral • Humanistic • Biological • Cognitive

2. Psychodynamic Perspective (Freud) • Human behavior is motivated by the unconscious processes of which we may not be aware • Within the unconscious there exist basic biological urges & drives that affect much of our behavior

3. Behavioral Perspective • Only concerned with psychological processes that could be observed directly and measured • Focused on how humans & animals developed learned associations between a stimulus & a response through use of rewards & punishments

4. Humanistic Perspective • Argued that human beings are dehumanized when you try to reduce their behavior down to learned associations dictated by environment • Believed humans have free will, are self-determined, & set their own goals which they seek throughout lifetime

5. Biological Perspective • This perspective has always been with psychology (Freud) • Attempt to understand the nature of brain functioning & its relations to behavior • Try to understand other biological influences on human behavior

6. Cognitive Perspective • Newest area to emerge in psychology • Try to understand how the brain is organized • activities involved in thinking, reasoning, decision making, memory, problem solving, & all other forms of higher mental processes

7. Two things to remember about the field of psychology • Began as a scientific effort to understand normal human behavior & thinking. Applications to disordered behavior came much later • Even though psychology has many perspectives, most psychologists tend to be eclectic

8. What do psychologists do? Areas of Psychological Study • Clinical & counseling psychologists • Education & school psychologists • Developmental psychologists • Biopsychologists & experimental psychologists • Industrial/organizational psychologists • Social & personality psychologists

9. The Scientific Attitude • Curiosity: Passion to explore & understand without misleading • Skepticism • What do you mean? • How do you know? • Humility: Must be able to reject own ideas

10. Scientific Research • Hypothesis: Specific, testable proposition about something one wants to study • Stated to establish in clear,precise termswhat one believes may be true, and how one will know if it is not • Operational Definitions: Statements describing the exact operations or methods used in research investigation • Variables: Specific factors or characteristics that are manipulated and measured in research • Confirmation Bias: Looking only for evidence that confirms a hypothesis • Must look for contradictory as well as supporting evidence for all hypotheses

11. Assessing the Quality of Evidence: Reliability & Validity in Scientific Research • Reliability: The degree to which the evidence is repeatable • Validity: The degree to which the evidence accurately assesses the topic being studied

12. Role of Theories • The goal of the scientific method is to decide which of many hypotheses BEST explains available data. • The hypothesis one adopts is the “BEST GUESS” based on current evidence, not necessarily the “final truth.” • A theory is an organized set of hypotheses that is widely accepted as a TENTATIVE explanation for a phenomenon.

13. Four Main Goals of the Scientific Method • Describe the phenomenon • Make predictions about the phenomenon • Control the phenomenon to ask specific questions about it • Explain the phenomenon

14. Scientific Method • Observe • Form theory • Generate Hypothesis • Research & Observations • Operational Definitions • Interpret Results • Disseminate Results • Replication

15. Research Methods • Naturalistic Observations • Case Studies • Surveys • Correlational Method • Experimentation

16. Naturalistic Observation • Systematic study of behavior in natural settings • Various aspects of behavior are carefully observed in the settings where such behavior naturally occurs

17. Pros & Cons of Naturalistic Observation + Can observe behavior in “real world” + Participants likely to act normally - Can’t assume cause & effect of observed behavior • researcher has no control over any variables • can only describe (not explain) observed behavior

18. Case Studies • Detailed information about individuals is used to develop general principles about behavior

19. Pros & Cons of Case Study Method + Can offer valuable insights about unusual behavior - Researchers’ emotional attachments to individuals can reduce their objectivity - Difficult to generalize results/information from one or a few people to others

20. Survey Method • Ask large numbers of individuals to complete questionnaires designed to yield information on specific aspects of their behavior & attitudes

21. Advantages of Survey Method • Large amounts of information can be easily gathered • Shifts over time can be noted • Can provide accurate predictions about events

22. Disadvantages of Survey Method • People may not respond accurately or truthfully • People may not accurately remember • People included must be truly representative of larger groups to whom the findings are to be generalized • Wording of questions may affect results

23. Correlational Method • Observing/measuring two or more variables in order to determine whether changes in one are accompanied by changes in the other

24. Key points on Correlational Method • Measure two existing variables (nothing is manipulated by researcher) • Yields a correlation coefficient • indicates the strength of the relationship (from -1.0 to + 1.0) • indicates the direction of the relationship (positive or negative)

25. Advantages of Correlational Method • Can be used to study behavior in many real life settings • Highly efficient & can yield large amounts of data in short time • Can be extended to include many variables at once

26. Disadvantage of Correlational Method • Findings are not conclusive with respect to cause-and-effect relationships

27. Experimentation • Systematically alter one or more variables in order to determine whether such changes will influence some aspect of behavior

28. Key Elements of Experimental Method • Random Assignment to experimental conditions • Control Group & Experimental Group(s) • Independent Variable • Dependent Variable

29. Problems with Experimental Method • Experimenter effects: Unintentional influence exerted by researchers on research participants • Demand Characteristics: Implicit pressure on research participants to act in ways consistent with a researcher’s expectations • Double-blind procedure • May lack real world validity

30. Selecting Human Participants for Research • Sampling: Process of selecting participants to study from the overall population • For the study of results to apply, or GENERALIZE, to the entire population, a RANDOM SAMPLE should be selected. Truly random samples (rarely achieved) allow every member of a population an equal chance of being selected • A BIASED SAMPLE is a nonrandom selection of participants from the population • REPRESENTATIVE SAMPLES are random selections of participants from a presumed “typical” segment of the population • RANDOM ASSIGNMENT is the practice of assigning participants to experimental conditions by chance, in order to minimize preexisting differences between those assigned to the different groups