Understanding Perspectives: Exploring Psychological Approaches

1. Warm Up (Biological, Evolutionary, Cognitive, Psychodynamic, Humanistic, Behavioral, Socio-cultural) • A psychologist believes her 40 year-old patient is severely depressed because of a chemical imbalance in her brain • Tim, a 25 year old husband and father of 3 has been arrested 5 times for domestic violence and has been ordered to see a psychologist. His psychologist believes his aggressive and abusive behavior stems from repressed memories of domestic violence in his childhood • According to Dr. Hossen, a well known psychologist, people’s sexual desires come from their natural desire to procreate and survive as a species.

2. 4. Beth feels like she needs to be perfect in all aspects of her life. She believes she must be attractive, skinny, a good mother and wife, because of the way society portrays women on TV and in magazines 5. Johnny does not hit his sister when he is angry because he fears he will receive a spanking from his father. 6. Ken is having trouble in school, especially with long term memory. The school psychologist thinks he might have a leaning disability based on the way his mind encodes and stores information. 7. Karen’s parents have always believed in her, so Karen feels confident in her ability to succeed in college. 8. Mrs. Alfieri believes that her husband's irritability toward her results from his unconscious feelings of hostility toward his own mother. Mrs. Alfieri is interpreting her husband's behavior from a(n) ________ perspective

3. 9. Mrs. Thompson believes that her son has become an excellent student because she consistently uses praise and affection to stimulate his learning efforts. Her belief best illustrates a ________ perspective 10. Which perspective is most concerned with the unique ways in which individuals interpret their own life experiences? 11. Professor Lopez believes that severe depression results primarily from an imbalanced diet and abnormal brain chemistry. Professor Lopez favors a ________ perspective on depression 12. Dr. Mills engages in basic research on why individuals conform to the behaviors and opinions of others. Which specialty area does his research best represent?

4. Notebook Tabs 1. Prologue/Chapter 1 2. Chapter 2 3. Chapters 3 and 4 4. Chapters 5 and 6 5. Chapters 7 6. Chapter 8 7. Chapters 9 and 10 8. Chapters 11 and 15 9. Chapters 12 and 13 10. Chapters 14 11. Chapters 16 and 17 12. Chapter 18

5. Warm Up • 1. Get out your HW • 2. Write down your HW • 3. Pick up warm off of front desk. You have 20 minutes to complete it.

6. AP Psychology: Chapter 1: Thinking Critically With Psychological Science

7. Discussion Questions • Why are answers that flow from the scientific approach more reliable than those based on intuition and common sense? • What is descriptive research? • Describe a Case Study? Come up with 1 pro and 1 con of a case study. • Describe a Survey. Come up with 1 pro and 1 con of a Survey. • 5. Describe naturalistic observation? Come up with 1 pro and 1 con of naturalistic observation. • 6. How do a Hypothesis and Theory differ? • 7. How does a sample differ from a population?

8. Discussion Question • What is critical thinking? • How does it relate to psychology and this course?

9. Solve ME • A man is found shot to death in a room with a table, four chairs, and 53 bicycles. Why was he murdered? • There are 52 Bicycle playing cards in a normal deck. He was playing with an extra ace.

10. Solve ME • A man is traveling from work and wants to go home. He will not go home because there is another man in a mask waiting there for him. What does the first man do for a living? • The man is a runner at third base and he is trying to score a run

11. Let’s Make A Deal! • One Volunteer is Needed for A chance to win 1,334,499 Turkish “dollars!”

12. Let’s Make A Deal Shows Us That: • Human Intuition is highly limited. • Critically thinking rarely comes easily to us! • Critical Thinking: thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions • examines assumptions • discerns hidden values • evaluates evidence • An awareness to our own vulnerability

13. Lack of Intuition • Hindsight Bias: tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it. • the “I-knew-it-all-along” phenomenon

14. Lack Of Intuition • Overconfidence:we tend to think we know more than we do. • We can't always trust our common sense or intuition we need research

15. Research Strategies • Theory • an explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes and predicts observations • Low self esteem contributes to depression • Hypothesis • a testable prediction • often implied by a theory • Allows us to test and reject or revise the theory • People with low self esteem score higher on a depression scale

16. theories lead to generateor refine research and observations hypothesis Scientific Method lead to

17. How to check our bias • Operational Definition • a statement of procedures (operations) used to define research variables • You want to be clear enough so that the test and observations can be replicated • To give the study more credibility it is usually done with different subjects in different situations • Make sure studies are valid and reliable

18. Research Strategies • 1. Descriptive- making observations that describe behavior • 2. Correlational- detecting relationships that help predict behavior • 3. Experimental-doing studies that help explain behavior

19. Research Methods- Descriptive • Case Study • an observation technique in which one person , or a small group, is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles • Longitudinal- • Cross Sectional- • Drawbacks of case study: individuals can be atypical and lead to false findings. • Anecdotal Stories

20. Research Methods- Descriptive and Correlation • Survey • technique for ascertaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of people • usually by questioning a representative, random sample of them

21. Components of Survey • Population:all the individuals you are interested in knowing something about. • Sample:the individuals you actually question. • Sampling should always be taken randomly from the population so that it is representative, meaning each individual in the population had an equal chance of being selected.

22. Drawbacks of Surveys 1.) Improper Sampling 2.) Question Wording Can Effect the results of a survey. Ex: Should cigarette ads or pornography be allowed on television? Ex. Mississippi River- Is the Mississippi River longer or shorter than 500 miles? How long is the Mississippi River? Is the Mississippi River longer or shorter than 3000 miles? How long is the Mississippi River?

23. Importance of Proper Sampling • False Consensus Effect:tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors. • Overgeneralizing extreme examples can lead you to false conclusions!

24. Types of Research-Descriptive • Naturalistic Observation: observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate and control the situation • Drawbacks:hard to identify any type of causation since there is no controls.

25. Discussion Question • What is descriptive research? • Discuss the various descriptive research strategies (Survey, Case Study, naturalistic observation) and come up with 1 limitation and 1 strength of each type of descriptive research.

26. Discussion Question • What are positive and negative correlations, and why do they enable prediction but not cause-effect explanation?

27. Correlation Research • Correlation Research: research that looks at a relationship between two things. How well does one factor predict the other? • Ex: Consumption of Ice Cream and Drowning.

28. Types of Correlations • Positive Correlation: a relationship in which increases in one variable leads to increases in the other. • Ex: Amount of fat burned is positively correlated with amount of sit-ups completed • Negative Correlation: a relationship in which increases in one variable leads to decreases in the other. • Ex: As tooth brushing goes up, tooth decay goes down

29. Some More Correlation Examples • Married people tend to have higher measures of happiness. • Children who watch high amounts of television are more aggressive. • People with low self-esteem are more likely to be depressed. What meanings can we make of these examples?

30. Correlations Continued • Correlation Coefficient: the statistical measure of the extent to which two factors vary together and thus how well either factor predicts the other. (number that measures strength of the correlation). • STRONGEST CORRELATIONS are +1 and –1. +1 is a perfect positive correlation while –1 is a perfect negative correlation. • Correlations are always between –1 and +1. A correlation of Zero means there is no relationship.

31. Perfect positive correlation (+1.00) No relationship (0.00) Perfect negative correlation (-1.00) Correlation Scatterplots

32. Indicates strength of relationship (0.00 to 1.00) Indicates direction of relationship (positive or negative) Correlation coefficient r = +.37

33. R=+.37 • R=-1.00 • R=+.17 • R= -.08

34. Correlation Measures • Scatterplot • a graphed cluster of dots, each of which represents the values of two variables • the slope of the points suggests the direction of the relationship • the amount of scatter suggests the strength of the correlation • little scatter indicates high correlation • also called a scattergram or scatter diagram

35. 95 90 85 80 75 70 65 60 55 50 45 40 35 30 25 Temperament scores Height in inches

36. Height and Temperament of 20 Men Height in Inches Height in Inches Temperament Temperament Subject Subject 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 80 63 61 79 74 69 62 75 77 60 75 66 60 90 60 42 42 60 81 39 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 64 76 71 66 73 70 63 71 68 70 48 69 72 57 63 75 30 57 84 39

37. Correlation and Causation • Correlation does not prove causation • Ex- negative correlation between self-esteem and depression • Heredity and brain chemistry might play a role • Among men, length of marriage correlates positively with hair loss- because both are associated with a third factor. • Age • Correlation indicates the possibility of a cause and effect relationship, but DOES NOT prove causation

39. Intuition Limit #976 • Illusory Correlation:the perception of a relationship where none exists. • Sugar makes kids more hyperactive • Wet hair and cold hair cause a cold • Don’t overgeneralize extreme cases GET THE DATA!!

40. Warm Up • 1. Get out HW • 2. Write Down HW • 3. take 10 mins to finish gathering data

41. One last check…………….. You need to make sure your study is reliable and valid. • Reliability-if your study was replicated would you get the same results? • Validity- Does the study or experiment test what it is designed to test.

42. Summing Up Surveys, Naturalistic Observation, Case Studies, and Correlation Research • All of these methods look to describe the behavior not to explain it! • Experimental Designed research is the only research that gets at causation…NEXT TIME!

43. Warm Up • Get out your homework • 5 – 8 mins to finish up your correlation study. • Write down your hw

44. Random Sequences • Your chances of being dealt either of these hands is precisely the same: 1 in 2,598,960.

45. Warm Up • For the following research methods list one positive and one negative • 1. Corelational Study • 2. Case Study • 3. Naturalistic Study • 4. Survey • 5. Experiment

46. Experimentation and Statistics

47. Experiments

48. Experimentation • Experiments are the best way to isolate cause and effect • the investigator manipulates one or more factors (independent variables) to observe their effect on some behavior or mental process (the dependent variable) while controlling other relevant factors by random assignment of subjects • by random assignment of participants the experiment controls other relevant factors. • Breast Milk Example

49. Experimentation Research Strategies • Double-blind Procedure • both the subject and the research staff are ignorant (blind) about whether the subject has received the treatment or a placebo • commonly used in drug-evaluation studies • 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 • Placebo Effect- the effect of positive thought and willpower on an experiment

50. Experimentation Research Strategies • Experimental Condition • The group that is exposed to the treatment, that is, to one version of the independent variable ( real drug) • Control Condition • The group that contrasts with the experimental treatment . Get the placebo, or possible nothing • serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment • Example- Viagra