What is Psychology?

Book) The scientific study of the overt and covert behavior of living organisms—with emphasis on animals and especially humans. (Along with the factors that influence each form of behavior.)

The scientific Study of mental processes, behaviors, and other unseen process that go in inside the organism. (Study Guide and review sheet Number 1)

What are the missions of Psychology?

The field of Psychology as two primary missions:

• To understand behavior in all its forms;
• To predict its (behavior) course;
• And perhaps control behavior.

What is the difference between basic and applied psychology?

Many psychologist are concerned with only basic science , or knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Others are chiefly interested in applied science, or the pursuit of knowledge that has practical uses.

Basic Science: the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake.

Focusing primarily on basic science are:

• Cognitive Psychologist: are interested in the ways humans perceive and understand the world around them and in processes such as learning and memory.
• Comparative Psychologist: concentrate on relating animal behavior patterns to those found in humans.
• Physiological Psychologist: (psychobiologists and neuroscience) study the role of the body and especially brain functions in behavior.
• Developmental Psychologist:
  study how individuals grow and change throughout their lives
  
• Personality Psychologist:
  study how people differ in their enduring inner characteristics and traits.
  
• Social Psychologist: study how people influence and are influenced by others.
  
• Evolutionary Psychologist: focus on psychological tendencies inherent in being human.
  

Applied Science: the pursuit of knowledge that has specific practical uses.

Focusing primarily on applied science are:

• School Psychologist: test and evaluate students, analyze learning problems, and counsel both teachers and parents.
• Educational Psychologist: are concerned with all aspects of the educational process.
• Industrial/organizational Psychologist: work on a wide variety of issues in work settings.
• Environmental Psychologist:
  deal with ecological problems such as pollution and overcrowding.
  
• Community Psychologist: deal with aspects of the social environment and how social institutions could better serve human needs.
  
• Forensic Psychologist: work on behavioral issues important in the legal, judicial, and correctional systems.
  
• Health Psychologist: focus on ways to improve health by altering behavior.

1. Academic and Experimental Psychology: in terms of basic psyche

What is the difference between clinical and counseling psychology?

A traditional distinction is between experimental Psychologist and clinical Psychologist, but this distinction has become somewhat blurred.

• Clinical Psychology : the primary endeavor is the diagnosis and treatment of mental and behavioral disorders.
  • Clinical Psychologist help diagnose and treat psychological problems through a general approach known as psychotherapy.
  • Work sometimes with individuals and small groups, including families. Their approach is known as psychotherapy and it can take many forms.
• Counseling Psychology : work with people who have less severe and more specific problems of social and emotional adjustment.

1. Early Schools of thought: various approaches: strengths and weaknesses of each who the founders were or important people part of those schools (look at handout)
2. historical context
3. Pavlov and reflexology classical condition
4. Watson’s adoption of classical conditioning and the rise of behaviorism know something about Watson work and ideas
5. Thorndike, the various laws he developed: primacy, recency, over learning, and most important the law of effect: why is said the he preceded Pavlov in that rather important discovery.
6. Thorndike’s known as instrumental learning
7. need to know about skinner, operant conditioning: a method developed by skinner derived from instrumental work by Thorndike for changing voluntary behavior, things we chose to do, the things we decide to do
8. Classical conditioning: largely concern with changing automatic reflex behaviors the involuntary stuff that we do.
9. Freud Sigmund: iceberg metaphor, personality

What research methods do Psychologist use?

In studying behavior, Psychologist employ naturalistic observation, interviews, case histories, questionnaires, surveys, standardized tests, physiological measures, correlation, and experiments.

Observation Methods:

• Naturalistic Observation: a method of study in that involves observing behavior in normal, everyday settings.

  Participant observation: Psychologist that take an active part in a social situation, perhaps deliberate role playing to see how other people behave.

• Controlled/ Structured Observation:
  
  

Survey Methods

• Questionnaire: a highly structured pencil and paper interview
  
• Structured Interview: An in-depth question and answer session in which an individual’s life or problems are probed.

  Case Histories: a compilation of the history of an individual based on the interviews and other sources of information.

• Telephone Survey : The administration of a questionnaire to relatively large numbers of people.

Experimental Methods

• Co-Twin Method:
  
• Modern Experimental Method:
  

What is correlation and what does it tell us?

Correlation: a statistical technique for describing the extent and direction of the relationship between pairs of scores on some measure. , does not indiact what causes what

What can psychological experiments tell us?

• Experiments, which is psychology’s most powerful tool, assesses cause and effect through strictly controlled procedures and manipulations.
• Experiment: a careful and controlled study of cause and effect through manipulation of the conditions participants are exposed to.
• Internal Validity: the extent to which an experiment permits statements about cause and effect.
• External Validity: the extent to which an experiment applies to real-life behavior.

1. experimental method (3 )
   1. experimental groups: similar and different to
   2. control groups
      1. co-twin method of study: abandoned
      2. modern experimental method:
   3. The universe of potential subjects: all of those people we can draw upon to be apart of our experiment form which we select our population.
   4. Need to know how we select them
   5. stratified random sampling: representative group not just a random group
   6. independent variable
   7. dependent variable
   8. replication
   9. validity
   10. reliability how is it determined
   11. Clinical / case study method (hybrid method) :applied science
   12. Clinical evidence:
   13. Research data:
   14. Clinical interview and structure interview what are the differences?
   15. Chapter 4 Classical and Operant conditioning
   16. Shaping behavior
   17. Primary and secondary reinforcement
   18. Different types of reinforcement schedules
   19. Ratio
   20. Ethical standards

History of psychology like Wundt, James, Watson, Freud, Wertheimer (look at handout)

History of Psychology:

It is important that the history of psychology be reviewed, beginning with the founding of psychology as an independent “scientific discipline” (i.e. formal academic discipline).

1879: Wilhelm Wundt: the first Experimental Laboratory in Psychology (at Leipzig University in Leipzig Germany) and the first school of thought in psychology, Structuralism,

• Structuralism: (1^st school of thought is psychology) an approach that emphasized breaking down consciousness and mental activity into structural components and analyzing them individually.

1889: William James established the first American school of psychology at Harvard University, call Functionalism.

• Functionalism: an approach that stressed how modern human thought might result from progressive adaptations our ancestors experienced.

Then psychology was influenced by the foundation of Psychoanalysis, by Sigmund Freud
(Psychoanalytic theory 1^st force in Psychology).

• Psychoanalysis: Analysis of the unconscious motives and conflicts of patients in an attempt to develop insight into their present mental or behavioral problems.

Then Max Wertheimer established the Gestalt school of thought in psychology.

• Gestalt psychology: an approach that examines patterns of thought and behavior, emphasizing the situation or context in which they occur.

Followed by the “shift in focus” in American psychology to the study of observable behavior, resulting from John Watson’s establishment of Behaviorism, and subsequently drawing on the later work of B.F. Skinner.

• Strict Behaviorism: (2^nd force of Psychology) an approach that considers only overt behavior to be appropriate subject matter for psychology.

Still later, Psychology was influenced by two of the most contemporary schools of thought in psychology with the emergence of the Humanistic (3^rd force of Psychology) school resulting from the work of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rodgers
(with its focus on the uniqueness of human beings, and the development of human potentialities);

• Humanistic Psychology: (3^rd force of Psychology) an approach that emphasizes human values, goals, and desire for growth, fulfillment, and peace and happiness.

And the rise of the Cognitive school resulting from the original pioneering work of Jean Piaget

• Cognitive approach: a contemporary trend, based largely on the information-processing model that emphasizes mental and intellectual processes such as learning, memory, and thought.

Past, Present, and Promise is the first program in the DISCOVERING PSYCHOLOGY series. It provides an introduction to and overview of psychology, from its origins in the nineteenth century to current study of the brain’s biochemistry. You’ll explore the development of psychology in general and some of the paths scientists take to determine relationships among the mind, the brain, and behavior.

Psychology is defined as the scientific study of the behavior of individuals and their mental processes. Like many sciences, psychology has evolved with technology, giving doctors and researchers new tools to measure human behavior and analyze its causes.

In this program, Dr. Mahzarin Banaji from Yale University uses the Implicit Association Test (IAT) to measure how quickly positive or negative values are associated with white or black faces. Her subjects are shown a series of words and pictures and instructed to respond immediately by pushing a button to indicate their most automatic, reflex-like reactions. For example, they may be told to press a button in their right hand if the automatic association is good and to press a button in their left hand if the association is bad. The speed with which the subjects respond is an important element of the experiment because these quick, unconscious connections can reveal biases that differ from conscious beliefs.

The IAT results are matched against functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data to track activity in the amygdala, the region of the brain that responds to fearful or negative images. By correlating data on the buttons subjects pushed with fMRI information about activity in the amygdala, Dr. Banaji and her colleagues have found some interesting results. The majority of the white American respondents showed an unconscious association of white with good and black with bad, while the African American respondents showed mixed results. Half more quickly associated black with good, and the other half associated white with good.

Tracking brain activity in controlled experiments reveals not only the region of the brain at work, but also the power of images and messages in our culture on the subconscious human psyche, bringing psychologists one step closer to understanding human behavior.

Understanding Research is the second program in the DISCOVERING PSYCHOLOGY series. This program examines how we know what we know. You’ll explore the scientific method, the distinction between fact and theory, and the different ways in which data are collected and applied, both in labs and in real-world settings.

Research often begins with a question. Traditionally, answers have been found in lab experiments, surveys, test groups, and interviews.

This program provides an example of research in a field setting. Psychologist Dr. Christina Maslach of the University of California at Berkeley studies job burnout, what causes it, and what can be done to prevent it. Instead of using traditional lab settings, Dr. Maslach conducts her research where the burnout is happening, in the workplace, using a real-world setting as a lab.

By taking this “fly-on-the-wall” approach, Dr. Maslach studies stress as it occurs, relying on subjects’ live experiences rather than just their memories or perceptions of past experiences. In this case, she has developed a scale to measure job burnout and a scale to measure the health of the workplace environment. Scientific methods to ensure accuracy are part of her approach. She collects data from carefully controlled measurements and observations, and the research process is methodical. The experiment can then be reproduced and the data tested by other researchers. By sharing data through publishing results, psychologists provide new understandings and new tools, as well as fodder for new questions and debates.

Through this consistent, long-term work, Dr. Maslach’s research has shed light not only on individual employees’ behavior, but also on the behavior of an entire organization. The application of this research helps individuals develop mechanisms for coping with stress, and assists organizations in evaluating the health and effectiveness of the workplace.

The Behaving Brain is the third program in the DISCOVERING PSYCHOLOGY series. This program looks at the structure and composition of the human brain: how neurons function, how information is collected and transmitted, and how chemical reactions relate to thought and behavior.

The human brain is an extraordinarily complex organ made up of different regions and parts, each with its own function. Chemical molecules and electrical impulses constantly flow between regions of the brain, sending signals and messages to other parts of the brain and body. Much like an orchestra, brain functioning depends on many individual parts working together.

One example highlighted in this program is the brain’s role in our ability to remember. Psychologist Dr. Mieke Verfaellie studies the causes and effects of amnesia at the Memory Disorders Research Center in Boston. Her research draws on evidence of damage to the hippocampal region of the brain, the area responsible for laying down new memories.

Contrary to popular opinion, amnesia doesn’t result in the loss of all memory or identity. Amnesia affects our short-term, or anteograde memory, and our ability to learn and retain new information. What’s interesting and often surprising in amnesia cases is that other regions of the brain continue to function normally, such as long-term memory. But damage to even one area, such as short-term memory, can dramatically affect our ability to navigate through daily life.

Neuroscientists are learning from abnormal brain functioning, such as amnesia, to identify normal brain patterns. For instance, the interplay of brain regions and their role in thoughts, understanding, and behavior are now better understood.

For a more detailed breakdown of the human brain, go to the Brain Exploration feature of this site.

Dr. Verfaellie contributed to an article about memory distortions in amnesic patients, published in MIT’s Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, “When True Recognition Suppresses False Recognition: Evidence from Amnesic Patients.” http://mitpress.mit.edu/journals/JOCN/jcn10602.pdf.

he Responsive Brain is the fourth program in the DISCOVERING PSYCHOLOGY series. This program explores how the brain alters its structure and functioning in response to social situations. You’ll learn about the impact of different stimuli on human and animal brains, from the effect of human touch on premature babies to the effect of social status on the health of baboons.

Dr. Russell Fernald is a neuroethologist at Stanford University. Neuroethology integrates brain science with the study of behavior in natural habitats. The goal is to illustrate the interaction among brain, behavior, and environment. Dr. Fernald’s long-term work focuses on the African cichlid fish and how its social system regulates not only brain structures, but also bodily functions.

When a male cichlid fish recognizes an opportunity to become the dominant male, his body turns bright colors. The male fish then chases and attacks other male cichlid fish in an attempt to dominate and defend his territory. The physiological color change results from a response in the hypothalamus in the brain. In the cichlid fish, the signaling peptide cells grow eight times larger, sending the brain eight times the signal. The result is an enlargement of the fish gonads, physiologically preparing the fish to spawn with females.

When the cichlid fish loses control of the territory, he loses his bright coloring. Some fish, however, will then go into hiding, turn on the color signals of dominance, and pretend that they are still dominant for a period lasting up to three weeks.

The human brain also contains the hypothalamus. Neuroethologists hypothesize that behavioral responses parallel to those cichlid fish take place in humans, beginning at puberty. Dr. Fernald’s research illustrates one example of how animal and human brains receive and translate signals from the social environment, resulting in physiological change.

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