Psychology in Everyday Life

1. Psychology in Everyday Life

2. Psychology’s Roots, Big Ideas, and Critical Thinking ToolsChapter 1

3. Psychological Science is Born Freud (1856-1939) Sigmund Freud, and his followers emphasized the importance of the unconscious mind and its effects on human behavior. His views became the basis for the psychodynamic perspective in psychology.

4. Psychological Science Develops Behaviorists- Behavioral Perspective Skinner (1904-1990) Watson (1878-1958) Watson and later Skinner emphasized the study of overt behavior as the subject matter of scientific psychology.

5. Psychological Science Develops Humanistic Psychology- Humanistic perspective Maslow (1908-1970) http://facultyweb.cortland.edu Rogers (1902-1987) http://www.carlrogers.dk Maslow and Rogers emphasized current environmental influences on our growth potential and our need for love and acceptance.

6. Psychology Today We define psychology today as the scientific study of behavior (what we do) and mental processes (inner thoughts and feelings). We use science- observation and evaluation, to draw conclusions about behavior and mental processing.

7. Psychology’s Current Perspectives

8. Psychology’s Current Perspectives

9. Psychology’s Current Perspectives

10. Four Big Ideas in Psychology • Critical Thinking is Smart Thinking • Behavior is a Biopsychosocial Event 3. We Operate with a Two-Track Mind (Dual Processing) 4. Psychology Explores Human Strengths as Well as Challenges

11. Critical Thinking Critical thinking does not accept arguments and conclusions blindly. It examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence and assesses conclusions. “4 out of 5 students prefer Miss King as their social studies teacher.” Ask, who did they survey? Who were the students polled? How was the question worded? All of these will change the results of the survey!

12. Psychology’s Three Main Levels of Analysis

13. Nature vs. Nurture • Controversy over the relative contributions that genes (nature) and experience (nurture) make to the development of psychological traits and behavior • Nurture works on what nature endows

14. The Two-Track Mind • Dual Processing- information is processed on two levels; conscious and the unconscious (information that is processed without awareness) • Visual Perception- recognize things and future actions • Visual Action- guides our moment to moment actions

15. Psychology’s Subfields: Research

16. Psychology’s Subfields: Research Data: APA 1997

17. Psychology’s Subfields: Applied

18. Psychology’s Subfields: Applied Data: APA 1997

19. Clinical Psychology vs. Psychiatry A clinical psychologist (Ph.D.) studies, assesses, and treats troubled people with psychotherapy. Psychiatrists on the other hand are medical professionals (M.D.) who use treatments like drugs and psychotherapy to treat psychologically diseased patients.

20. Why Do Psychology? • How can we differentiate between uniformed opinions and examined conclusions? • The science of psychology helps make these examined conclusions, which leads to our understanding of how people feel, think, and actas they do!

21. What About Intuition & Common Sense? Many people believe that intuition and common sense are enough to bring forth answers regarding human nature. Intuition and common sense may help answer questions, but they are not free of error. Why are the answers reached by thinking critically more reliable than ordinary common sense?

22. Limits of Intuition Personal interviewers may rely too much on their “gut feelings” when meeting with job applicants.

23. Hindsight Bias Hindsight Bias is the “I-knew-it-all-along” phenomenon. After learning the outcome of an event, many people believe they could have predicted that very outcome. We only knew the housing market would plummet ONLY after it actually did plummet. • “Anything seems commonplace, once explained.” Dr. Watson to Sherlock Holmes. • Two phenomena – hindsight bias and judgmental overconfidence – illustrate why we cannot rely solely on intuition and common sense.

24. Overconfidence Sometimes we think we know more than we actually know. How long do you think it would take to unscramble these anagrams? Anagram WREAT WATER People said it would take about 10 seconds, yet on average they took about 3 minutes On the next slide, estimate how long it will take you to unscramble five anagrams. ETYRN ENTRY GRABE BARGE

25. Try it! • TTIIINNOU • RlGNELAN • I E P C R • TANTOTSR • MSLESL

26. The Scientific Attitude The scientific attitude is composed of curiosity (passion for exploration), skepticism (doubting and questioning) and humility (ability to accept responsibility when wrong).

27. Scientific Method in Psychology Psychologists, like all scientists, use the scientific method to construct theories that organize, summarize and simplify observations.

28. Theory A theory isan explanation that integrates principles and organizes and predicts behavior or events. For example, low self-esteem contributes to depression.

29. Hypothesis A hypothesis is a testable prediction, often prompted by a theory, to enable us to accept, reject or revise the theory. People with low self-esteem are apt to feel more depressed.

30. Research Observations Research would require us to administer tests of self-esteem and depression. Individuals who score low on a self-esteem test and high on a depression test would confirm our hypothesis.

31. Research Process

32. Operational Definitions • A statement of procedures used to define research variables • Leads to Replication- repeating of research to see if the findings were accurate

33. Description Case Study A technique in which one person, or small group of people, is studied in depth to reveal underlying behavioral principles. Is language uniquely human?

34. Case Study • Suggest directions for further study • Show us what can happen • Individual cases may mislead us because they are atypical

35. Survey A technique for ascertaining the self-reported attitudes, opinions or behaviors of people usually done by questioning a representative, random sample of people.

36. Survey Wording Effects Wording can change the results of a survey. Q: Should cigarette ads and pornography be allowed on television? (not allowed vs. forbid)

37. Survey Random Sampling If each member of a population has an equal chance of inclusion into a sample, it is called a random sample (unbiased). If the survey sample is biased, its results are not valid. The fastest way to know about the marble color ratio is to blindly transfer a few into a smaller jar and count them.

38. Naturalistic Observation Observing and recording the behavior of animals in the wild and recording self-seating patterns in a multiracial school lunch room constitute naturalistic observation. Courtesy of Gilda Morelli

39. Descriptive Methods Summary Case studies, surveys, and naturalistic observation describe behaviors. They are known as descriptive methods of research>

40. Indicates direction of relationship (positive or negative) Correlation coefficient Indicates strength of relationship (0.00 to 1.00) Correlation When one trait or behavior accompanies another, we say the two correlate. Correlation Coefficient is a statistical measure of the relationship between two variables. r = + 0.37

41. Correlation • Positive Correlation- (0 and +1) direct relationship; two things increase and decrease together • Negative Correlation- (0 and -1) indicates an inverse relationship, one thing increases the other decreases • Zero Correlation- (around 0) weak relationship; little or no relationship

42. Correlation and Causation Correlation does not mean causation! or

43. Illusory Correlation The perception of a relationship where no relationship actually exists. Parents conceive children after adoption. Ex. Length of Marriage and Hair Loss

44. Order in Random Events Given random data, we look for order and meaningful patterns. Your chances of being dealt either of these hands is precisely the same: 1 in 2,598,960.

45. Order in Random Events Given large numbers of random outcomes, a few are likely to express order. Jerry Telfer/ San Francisco Chronicle Angelo and Maria Gallina won two California lottery games on the same day.

46. Experimentation Exploring Cause and Effect Like other sciences, experimentation is the backbone of psychological research. Experiments isolate causes and their effects.

47. Exploring Cause & Effect Many factors influence our behavior. Experiments (1)manipulate factors that interest us, while other factors are kept under (2) control. Effects generated by manipulated factors isolate cause and effect relationships.

48. Evaluating Therapies Double-blind Procedure In evaluating drug therapies, patients and experimenter’s assistants should remain unaware of which patients had the real treatment and which patients had the placebo treatment.

49. Evaluating Therapies Random Assignment Assigning participants to experimental (breast-fed) and control (formula-fed) conditions by random assignment minimizes pre-existing differences between the two groups.

50. Independent Variable An independent variable is a factor manipulated by the experimenter. The effect of the independent variable is the focus of the study. For example, when examining the effects of breast feeding upon intelligence, breast feeding is the independent variable.