Exploring Psychology: Science, Growth & Diversity

1. Chapter 1 The Science of Psychology

2. Outline • What is Psychology? • The Growth of Psychology • Human Diversity • Psychology as a Science • Research Methods in Psychology • Ethics in Psychology

3. What Is Psychology? • Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes • Behaviors - refers to observable actions orresponses in bothhumans and animals • Mental processes - not directly observable, refer to a widerange of complex mental processes, such as thinking,imagining, studying, and dreaming • Psychologists are interested in every aspect of human thought, feeling and behavior.

4. GOALS OF PSYCHOLOGY • Describe • first goal of psychology is to describethe different ways that organisms behave • Explain • second goal of psychology is to explainthe cause of behavior • Predict • third goal of psychology is to predict howorganisms will behave in certain situations • Control • the fourth goal of psychology is to controlan organism’s behavior

5. Fields of Psychology • Seven of the largest subfields of Psychology include: • Developmental • Physiological • Experimental • Personality • Clinical and Counseling • Social • Industrial and Organizational

6. Developmental Psychology • Studies human physical, mental, social and emotional growth from conception to death • Child psychologists • Adolescent psychologists • Life-span psychologists

7. Physiological Psychology • Investigates the biological basis of human behavior, thoughts and emotions • Neuropsychologists • Psychobiologists • Behavioral geneticists

8. Conduct research on basic psychological processes including: Learning Memory Sensation Perception Thinking Motivation Emotion Experimental Psychology

9. Personality Psychology • Study the differences among individuals in such traits as: • Sociability • Conscientiousness • Emotional stability • Self-esteem • Agreeableness • Aggressive inclinations • Openness to new experiences

10. Clinical and Counseling Psychology • Seek to help people deal more successfully with their lives • Clinical psychologists • Interested primarily in the diagnosis, causes, and treatment of psychological disorders • Counseling psychologists • Concerned primarily with “normal” everyday problems of adjustments in life

11. Social Psychology • Study how people influence one another • Study examples: • Interpersonal attraction • Persuasive communications • Attitude formation • Obedience to authority • Conformity to group norms • Interaction of work team members

12. Industrial and Organizational (I/O) Psychology • Psychology applied to the workplace • Study examples: • Selecting and training personnel • Improving productivity and working conditions • Impact of computerization and automation on workers

13. Enduring Issues in Psychology • All psychologists share a common interest in five enduring human issues: • Person/Situation • Nature/Nurture • Stability/Change • Diversity/Universality • Mind/Body

14. How do psychologists answer questions? • Approaches (6) to understanding behavior include: • Biological • Cognitive • Behavioral • Psychoanalytic • Humanistic • Cross cultural

15. Outline • What is Psychology? • The Growth of Psychology • Human Diversity • Psychology as a Science • Research Methods in Psychology • Ethics in Psychology

16. HISTORICAL APPROACHES • How did psychology begin? • Structuralism: Elements of the Mind • Functionalism: Functions of the Mind • Gestalt Approach: Sensations versus Perceptions • Behaviorism: Observable Behaviors

17. The Growth of Psychology • The history of psychology can be divided into three main stages: • The emergence of a science of the mind • The behaviorist decade • The “cognitive revolution”

18. The "New Psychology:" A Science of the Mind • Psychology was born in 1879 when Whilhelm Wundt founded the first psychological laboratory at the University of Leipzig in Germany • In the public eye, a laboratory = “science”

19. Structuralism: Wundt and Titchener • Wundt was interested in studying thoughts and developing a way to study them scientifically • Titchener broke down consciousness into their simplest components: physical sensations, feelings, and images • Developed into an approach called Structuralism • Concerned with identifying the units of conscious experience (“thought”) and how they can be combined and integrated

20. Functionalism: William James • William James challenged structuralism • Pure sensations without associations do not exist in real-life experience • Consciousness cannot be broken into elements it flows in a continuous stream • Functionalism was concerned with the ongoing use of conscious experience • Interested in learning and the impact of experience on the brain

21. Psychodynamic Psychology: Sigmund Freud • Freud believed that we are motivated by unconscious instincts and urges that are not available to the rational, conscious part of our mind • Psychodynamic theory laid that foundation for the study of personality and psychological disorders

22. Redefining Psychology: The Study of Behavior • Psychology saw itself as the study of mental processes • Primary method of collecting data was introspection or self-observation • Behaviorism challenged this idea and focused on behaviors that can be observed and measured

23. Behaviorism: Watson and Skinner • Watson founded behaviorism on the belief that if you cannot locate or measure something (i.e. consciousness), it cannot be the object of scientific study • All mental experiences – thinking, feeling, awareness of self – are nothing more than physiological changes in response to accumulated conditioning or learning • Skinner focused on the role of reinforcement • By rewarding certain behavior, we become an active participant in our conditioning or learning

24. The Cognitive Revolution • By the 1960’s psychologists came to view behaviorism as only one piece of the explanation of human behavior and mental processes • Began to see humans as active learners not passive recipients of life’s events • Two schools of thought paved the way for the Cognitive Revolution: • Gestalt Psychology • Humanistic Psychology

25. The Cognitive Revolution • Gestalt Psychology • Concerned with perception – our tendency to see patterns, to distinguish an object from it’s background, etc. • Wertheimer, Köhler, and Koffka were interested in tricks of perception. • Humanistic Psychology • Emphasizes human potential, the importance of love, belongingness, self-esteem, etc. • Maslow was concerned with feelings and yearnings

26. Cognitive Psychology • Concerned with mental processes: thinking feeling, learning, remembering, decision making, etc. • Concerned with how we acquire, process, and use information to solve problems • Believe that mental processes can be studied scientifically by observing behavior and making inferences about the kinds of cognitive processes that underlie the behavior

27. New Directions in Psychology • Today, psychologists are more flexible in considering other approaches • New theories and initiatives are emerging: • Evolutionary Psychology • Positive Psychology

28. Multiple Perspectives Today • Contemporary psychologists tend to see different perspectives as complementary. • Each perspective contributes to understanding human behavior • Most agree that the field advances with the addition of new evidence to support or challenge existing theories.

29. Where Are The Women? • Women have contributed to psychology from its beginnings • Women presented papers and joined the national professional association as soon as it was formed in 1892 • Women faced discrimination • Some colleges and universities did not grant degrees to women • Professional journals were reluctant to publish their work • Teaching positions were often closed to them

30. Where Are The Women? • Today women outnumber men in the field: • Receive ¾ of the baccalaureate degrees in psychology • Represent approx. ¾ of psychology graduate students • Earned two out of three doctorate degrees in psychology awarded in 1997 • They perform key research in all of the psychology subfields

31. Percentage of Women Recipients of Ph.D.s in Psychology

32. Outline • What is Psychology? • The Growth of Psychology • Human Diversity • Psychology as a Science • Research Methods in Psychology • Ethics in Psychology

33. Human Diversity • Little attention was paid to human diversity throughout most of the 20th century • Today, understanding human diversity is essential • Psychologists have begun to examine how culture, gender, race, and ethnicity can affect human behavior

34. The Value of Studying Diversity • Understanding cultural, racial, ethnic and gender differences in thinking and behavior: • Reduces interpersonal tensions • Separate fact from fiction • Understand how and why groups differ in their values, behaviors, approaches to the world, thought processes and responses to situations • Increase appreciation of the many universal features of human behavior

35. Gender • Gender is the psychological and social meaning attached to being biologically male or female • We have ideals about gender roles – the cultural expectation of acceptable behavior for each gender • The study of gender similarities and differences has become part of mainstream psychology • Feminist Theory explores how the views on social roles of women and men influence treatment of people, especially women

36. Race and Ethnicity • Race shapes people’s social identities, sense of self, experiences and even health • Psychologists study why race is important and how individuals select or create an ethnic identity and respond to stereotypes • Most ethnic minorities are still underrepresented among the ranks of psychologists

37. Culture • Culture provides modes of thinking, acting, and communicating about how the world works and why people behave as they do • Culture influences values, attitudes, behaviors and beliefs • Psychologists study how culture impacts human behavior and thought

38. Outline • What is Psychology? • The Growth of Psychology • Human Diversity • Psychology as a Science • Research Methods in Psychology • Ethics in Psychology

39. Science and the Scientific Method • All scientific fields are based on empirical observation • Phenomena of interest can be observed and measured • All scientific fields rely on the scientific method as the basis of study • A systematic method of generating hypotheses (educated guesses), collecting data, and explaining the data • Data is explained using theories to organize known facts and predict relationships • Allow scientists to formulate new hypothesis to expand on the scope of the theories

40. Outline • What is Psychology? • The Growth of Psychology • Human Diversity • Psychology as a Science • Research Methods in Psychology • Ethics in Psychology

41. Research Methods • To collect data systematically and objectively, psychologists use a variety of research methods including: • Naturalistic Observation • Case Studies • Surveys • Correlational Research • Experimental Research

42. Naturalistic Observation • Observing and recording the behavior of humans or animals in their natural environment • Advantages • Observed behavior is likely to be more accurate, spontaneous and varied than in a laboratory • Disadvantages • Observer bias • May not be able to generalize to other settings or people

43. Case Studies • Intensive description and analysis of a single individual or a few individuals • Advantages • Can yield a great deal of detailed, descriptive information • Disadvantages • The individual or group is unique – difficult to draw conclusions from a single case • Can be time consuming and expensive • Observer bias

44. Surveys • A research technique in which questionnaires or interviews are administered to a selected group of people • Advantages • Large quantity of information quickly • Relatively inexpensive • Disadvantages • Must pay close attention to the survey questions • Respondents may not be representative • Response biases • Truthfulness of responses

45. Correlational Research • A research technique based on the naturally occurring relationship between two or more variables • Advantages • Description and prediction are possible • Disadvantages • Does not identify what causes a relationship to exist

46. Experimental Method • A research technique in which an investigator deliberately manipulates selected events or circumstances and then measures the effects of those manipulations on subsequent behavior

47. Experimental Research • Independent variables • The variable that is manipulated by the experimenter to test its effects • Dependent variables • The variable that is measured to see how it is changed by the independent variable

48. Experimental Research • Experimental group • The group subjected to a change in the independent variable • Control group • The group not subjected to a change in the independent variable

49. Experimental Research • Advantages • Can draw conclusions about cause-and-effect relationships • Disadvantages • Lab setting may influence subjects’ behavior • Unexpected and uncontrolled variables may confound results • All variables cannot be controlled and manipulated

50. Multimethod Research • Many psychologists overcome the limitations of using a single research method by using multiple methods to study a single problem