Download AP Psych Chapter 1 notes

Hart 1
AP Psych Chapter 1 Notes:
Developmental Psychologist:
Are babies born with their personalities and temperaments?
How do infants become attached to their parents?
When do sex differences in behavior emerge?
How does puberty affect young people?
What ways do adults adjust to partnership, parenting, middle age, retirement and
death?
Physiological Psychologist:
Brain and nervous system studies
What happens when a person has a stroke?
Looks at hormones, psychoactive meds, social drugs and their affect on people
Changes in hormone level cause mood swings
To what degree is intelligence hereditary? Shyness?
Does alcoholism and depression run in families?
To what extent do men and women think differently and respond differently?
Stress and health is an exciting part of contemporary societies study.
Are certain racial groups more vulnerable to certain types of illnesses or
conditions?
Does stress affect your health?
Does an experience with prejudice cause a constant state of vigilance?
Experimental Psychologist:
How do people remember, and what makes them forget?
How do people make decisions and solve problems?
Do men and women go about solving problems in the same way?
Why are some people more motivated than others?
Personality Psychology:
Differences among individuals in such traits as anxiety,
Sociability, self-esteem, the need for achievement, and aggressiveness.
Why are some people optimists and some pessimists?
Are there consistent differences between men and women in anxiety,
conscientiousness, and amiability?
Clinical and Counseling Psychology:
The therapist. Clinical psychologists interested in cause and treatment of patients
Counseling psychologists concerned with “normal” problems of adjustment that
most face at some point in time.
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Drugs v. psychotherapy
New meds – Thorazine, Valium and prozac reflect advances in our knowledge of
Biochemical basis of psych disorders.
What are some recent drugs that are used in the treatment of psychological
disorders?
Is drug therapy a substitute for psychotherapy? Why or why not?
What is the controversy around ADHD and drug use? And gender?
Social Psychologists:
How do people influence each other?
First impressions, interpersonal attractions, how attitudes get formed and
maintained. What causes some people to resist peer pressure? Do ethnic
social organizations promote mutual tolerance or contribute to maintaining
social distance?
Industrial and Organization Psychology
Selecting and training personnel, improving productivity and working conditions,
and impact of automation on workers
Can we determine in advance who will be good as a sales person or airline pilot?
Do organizations operate differently under female / male leadership?
How do you improve group morale?
Enduring Issues:
Person- Situation: How much behavior is caused by processes inside the person
and outside the person. Inside: thoughts, emotions, attitudes, values, personality
and genes. Outside: incentives, cues in the environment, and presence of other
people?
Heredity – Environment -- nature vs nurture
Stability-Change – To what extent do people stay the same throughout their lives?
How much do we change?
Can you teach old dogs new tricks?
Diversity: To what extent is every person like everyone else and what was are we
like some others and what ways are we unique?
Consider gender, racial or ethnic groups societies?
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Mind-Body
Relationship between thoughts and feelings and biological processes – activity in
the nervous system>
Psychology as a Science:
Rely on the scientific method
Collect data carefully through observation
Attempt to explain what they have observed by developing theories
Make new predictions based on those theories
Systematically test those predictions thorough more observations and
experimentation to see if correct
Use the scientific method to:
 Describe
 Understand
 Predict
 Achieve control over study
Example of aggression in males vs. females
Studies show males more aggressive
Explanations may vary: a physiological psychologist would think differences are
due to genetics or body chemistry
A developmental psych looks at the way a child is taught to behave “like a boy”
or “like a girl:
Social psychologists might explain differences as a function of cultural restraints
against aggressive behavior in women.
Explanations become theories about the causes of sex differences in aggression
Each theory allows us to make a number of new hypotheses or predictions about
the issue in question.
Each predictions or hypotheses scan be tested through research – results should
indicate which theory is better than another at accounting for known facts and
predicting new facts.
Science vs Non-science:
Beware of “common sense” or “old wives tales” or our own personal observations
They are not scientific
Philosophy and religion – ethics human values, -- stuff that cannot be resolved
through research – they are matters of faith or belief.
Psych does not seek to compete or replace philosophy and religion.
Psychologists describe and explain human thought and behavior.
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Questions of what is right or wrong, good or evil, are value judgments and beyond
the scope of science
Astrology, palm reading, fortune telling and the like are pseudo-sciences.
Yet psychologists would study to figure out why some people believe in them and
others do not.
They would be interested in the power of persuasion.
Thinking critically:
Define problems, examine evidence, analyze assumptions, consider alternatives,
and find reasons to support or reject an argument, avoid oversimplifying, draw
conclusions carefully.
The growth of psychology:
What contributions did Darwin make to the study of psychology?
Showed humans are not above the laws of nature
Can be studied like other animals
Inspired others to apply the scientific method to our own species paving
the way for modern psychology
Wundt and Titchener: Structuralism
First formal lab – tried to study everything about perception – was a little over
ambitious – but his insistence on measurement and experimentation marked
psychology as a science
Titchener – wrote that psychology is the science of consciousness – broke
consciousness down into three basic elements:
Physical l sensation
Feelings
Images
Saw psychology’s roles as identifying these elements and showing how they can
be combined and integrated. Because it stresses the basic units of experience and
combinations thereof it is called structuralism
William James: Functionalism
First American born – linked physiology and philosophy.
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Felt our minds are constantly weaving associations. Perceptions, emotions and
images cannot be separated. Consciousness flows in a continuous stream.
Mental association allows us to benefit from previous experience.
When we repeat something our nervous systems are change – each repetition is
easier than the previous one.
He developed a functionalist theory of mental life and behavior. Interested in
how an individual learns to function in their environment.
Wrote first textbook.
Sigmund Freud: Psychodynamic Psychology
Humans are not as rational as they think
Free will is an illusion
Motivated by unconscious instincts and urges that are not available to the rational
conscious part of our mind
To uncover the unconscious – developed psychoanalysis
Dream interpretation and free association.
Stages of personality development
Can become fixated
Unconscious desires have their roots in sexual repression. Oedipal conflict
Controversial and shocking
Today the school of psychodynamic theory is modern Freudian.
John Watson: Behaviorism
Challenges structuralism, functionalist, and psychodynamic theories.
Only interested in the measurable, observable behavior
All behavior is a learned response to some stimulus in the environment
It is called conditioning
Did the famous “Little Albert” experiment.
Tabula Rasa – concept see quote on p. 15.
Mary Cover Jones worked on eliminating fears: early development of what is
today systematic desensitization.
B.F. Skinner: Behaviorism
Developed the idea of reinforcement. Rewarded subjects for behaving the way he
wanted them to behave.
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Gestalt Psychology
Wertheimer, Kohler, and Koffka – perception and tricks that the mind plays on
itself.
Gestalt psychology means “whole” or “form” tendency to see patterns, to
distinguish and object from its background and complete a picture from a few
cues
Existential and d Humanistic Psychology
Search for meaning in an indifferent or hostile world. Modern American are lost
souls – no myths and heroes. Laing believed in this world psychotic behavior is a
reasonable normal response to an abnormal world.
They guide people toward an inner sense of identity – take responsibility for their
actions and achieve freedom.
Humanistic
People must learn how to realize their human potential