Intro to Psychology

What is Psychology?

Introducing Psychology
History of Psychology

Scientific study of behavior and the mind
Scientific
Behavior
Mind

Philosophical roots
Physiological roots y g
Psychological roots

Cognitive revolution
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Turing test
Connectionism

Research methods in Psychology
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Plato (427 – 347 B.C.)

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Aristotle (385 – 322 B.C.)

Mind is a gift from God
Rationalism

Empiricism
The father of all sciences
Used b
U d observation and logic to ti dl i t draw conclusions

Infer the truth by
I f th t th b applying l i principles of logic
No experiments needed
All rationalists are nativists
Chomsky

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

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Rationalism vs. Empiricism

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René Descartes (1596 – 1650)
Father of modern dualism
Articulated the mechanistic stance Founded the Cartesian plane in mathematics Raphael
Plato – in Haven
Aristotle – on Earth

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Cartesian Dualism

John Locke (1632 – 1704)
Empiricist
Tabula Rasa stance
Planted th
Pl t d the seeds for the d f th contemporary Nature /
Nurture debate

There are two (DUAL) kinds of things in the universe: physical objects and the mind.
Mind = spiritual (soul) i d i i l ( l)
Body = physical

Fundamental question:
Can consciousness ever be reduced to purely physical components?
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Tabula Rasa

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Kharkhurin. General Psychology: Introducing Psychology and its Methods

Primary and Secondary Ideas

The mind is completely empty and devoid of information at birth
A baby learns everything that it needs from the environment (nurture)
This point of view was adopted by the behaviorist movement

APPLE
Primary idea (objective) roundness Secondary idea (subjective) color, taste

Berkeley, George (1685 – 1753)
Only subjective perception

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Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679)

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Mechanism
Only human beings are sentient
All forms of life are merely mechanisms, like clocks
Animals have no feelings or emotions and are not conscious
They do however act as if they possessed these qualities
What are the traces of monism in the modern psychology?

Monism
Everything is physical
Modern science i all here
M d i is ll h

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Philosophical Roots

Hermann Von Helmholtz (1821 – 1894)
Measured impulse in nerve Socrates Plato Aristotle

Electrical
Speed = 43 m/s

Descartes

Locke

Hobbes

Dualism

Tabula rasa

Monism
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Gustav Fechner (1801 – 1887)

Theory of evolution
Evolutionary psychology
The i d
Th mind evolved gradually as l d d ll a result of adapting to the environment Animal research in psychology

A study of mind as a physical entity

Ψ = k . log S
Dr. Mises
Effect of the physical stimulus on perception
Poetry
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Physiological Roots

Fechner

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Charles Darwin (1809 – 1882)

Started psychophysics

Helmholtz

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Wilhelm Wundt (1832 – 1920)
1879. University of
Leipzig (Germany) – modern Psychology birthday First psychological laboratory founded
Scientific study of mind – psychological experiment
Invented introspection

Darwin

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William James (1842 – 1910)

Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939)
Psychoanalysis

1874. The first class of
Psychology in America
My first act of free will is to believe in free will
1890. “Principles of
Psychology”

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Theory of personality and methods of psychotherapy

After Darwin
Sex and aggression

Unconscious forces
Most influential school of thought in modern history

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Ivan Pavlov (1849 – 1936)

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B.F. Skinner (1904 – 1990)
Behaviorism

1906. Beginning of behaviorism Dogs salivate in anticipation Study of observable behavior

Profoundly influenced by
Locke
All psychological traits are learned from the environment

Discovered Operant
Conditioning
Tests on rats and pigeons

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Max Wertheimer (1880 – 1943)

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Cognitive Revolution

Phi phenomenon
Gestalt psychology

Cognition = mental processes Computer metaphor
AI

The h l i
Th whole is greater than the t th th sum of its parts

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Computer metaphor

Intelligent computer
Alan Turing (1912 – 1954)

Mind as computer
Symbolic mental representation

British mathematician, logician, cryptographer
Father of modern computer science Significant and provocative contribution to the debate regarding artificial consciousness Symbol is a piece of matter that carries information about some idea, concept, or event

If mind operates on symbols, computers that have symbolic representation should show behavior similar to humans
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Turing Test
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Turing Test

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Connectionism and the Brain

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Connectionist Network

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Areas of Specialization
Biological Roots
Cognitive Processes
Human Development
Social Psychology
Clinical Psychology

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Practical Applications

The Scientific Method

Health
Education
Psychology in the Workplace
Consumer Behavior
The Environment
The Human-Machine Interface
Kharkhurin. General Psychology: Introducing Psychology and its Methods

Hypothesis

Theory

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Theories. Hypotheses. Experiments

The requirement that the procedures and subject matter of investigation should be formulated so that they could, in principle, be agreed on by everyone
Use of objective methods allows other scientists to replicate a study, and it reduces bias
Focus on behavior that is observable, measurable, and quantifiable

An organized set of principles that describes, predicts, and explains some phenomenon.

Hypothesis
A specific testable prediction, often derived from a theory Experiment
Empirical study of hypothesis using an experimental method 33

The Irony of Experimental Methods
“No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.” 34

Kharkhurin. General Psychology: Introducing Psychology and its Methods

The Essential Tension
“At the heart of science is an essential tension between two seemingly contradictory attitudes – an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new.”

Albert Einstein

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Objectivity

Theory

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Experiment

Carl Sagan

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Types of Research

Basic vs. Applied Science

Basic Research
“There are no such things as applied sciences, only applications of i l li i f science.”

“Pure science” research that tests theories and builds f b ild a foundation of knowledge d ti fk l d

Applied Research

Louis Pasteur

Research that aims to solve practical human problems Kharkhurin. General Psychology: Introducing Psychology and its Methods

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Scientific Methods

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Research Settings

Research Settings
Psychological Measurements
Research Designs

Laboratory Research
Research conducted in an environment that can be b regulated and in which subjects can be l t d d i hi h bj t b carefully observed

Field Research
Research that is conducted in real-world locations Kharkhurin. General Psychology: Introducing Psychology and its Methods

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Psychological Measurements

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Research Design

Self-Report

Descriptive research
Correlational studies
Experiments

A method of observation that involves asking people to describe their own thoughts, feelings, or behavior

Archival Records
A form of research that relies on existing records of past behavior Behavioral Observation
A form of research that is based on the firsthand observation of a subject’s behavior

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Descriptive Research

Correlational Studies

Case studies

Correlation
A statistical measure of how closely two variables are associated

A type of research that involves making in-depth observations of individual person

Correlations can range from -1.0 to +1.0

Surveys
A research method that involves interviewing or giving questionnaires to a large number of people

Naturalistic observations
The observation of behavior as it occurs naturally in realworld settings

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Explaining Correlations

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Experiments

X and Y are correlated: X Y
Y X
X–Y

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A type of research in which the investigator varies some factors, keeps others constant, and measures the effects on randomly assigned subjects

Z

Correlations show patterns, not causes
Correlation does not imply causation!!!
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Variables

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Ethical Issues

Independent Variable (IV)

Physical injury
Psychological harm
Violations of privacy

Any variable that the researcher manipulates in an experiment The proposed cause of change in the dependent variable

Dependent Variable (DV)
A variable that is being measured in an experiment
Proposed to be affected by the independent variable

Experimental vs. Control groups
Random group assignment
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The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

The Milgram Study
Obedience to Authority Experiment
(1961)

1932 – 1972
Untreated syphilis in 412
African American men in rural Alabama
Physical injury

“Effect of punishment on learning”

“Many subjects will obey the y j y experimenter no matter how vehement the pleading of the person being shocked, no matter how painful the shocks seem to be and no matter how much the victim pleads to be let out”.
About 2/3 of the people
65% delivered the ultimate punishments 450 V

Psychological harm
Video
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The Milgram study

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Stanford Prison Experiment
A study of the psychological effects of prison life
Philip Zimbardo et al. (1971)
24 male students were randomly divided in two groups: prisoners and guards
2-week experiment had to be terminated after 5 days
The participants took it for real
WWW: http://www.prisonexp.org/
Das Experiment

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Protecting Human Research
Participants

Post-Study Interview

Informed Consent

“I began to feel that I was losing my identity, that the person that I called "Clay," the person who put me in this place, the person who volunteered to go into this prison -- because it was a prison to me; it p g p still is a prison to me. I don't regard it as an experiment or a simulation because it was a prison run by psychologists instead of run by the state. I began to feel that that identity, the person that I was that had decided to go to prison was distant from me -- was remote until finally I wasn't that, I was 416. I was really my number.” Kharkhurin. General Psychology: Introducing Psychology and its Methods

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Prospective participants should receive enough information to let them decide freely whether to participate i i

Freedom to withdraw at any time
Minimize discomfort
Keep data confidential
If deception is necessary, debriefing must occur
Guard against gender, cultural, and ethnic bias in research 53

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Dealing with Ethical Issues

Animal Research Ethics
Animal Welfare

Imagine that you are conducting a research study on the sexual attitudes and behaviors of adolescents. What ethical safeguards should you use in conducting the study?

Proper care, minimization of pain and stress, and humane treatment are universally supported
Allegations of mistreatment in laboratories are rarely supported by facts
Studies in which animals were mistreated cannot be published in reputable journals

Animal Rights
There is no consensus over whether animals have similar rights as humans

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