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AP Outlines, 2016
Prologue – What Is Psychology?
Psychology’s Roots:
(Prescientific Psychology – big questions / possible answers:
-Socrates Plato  Descartes – dualism; Aristotle  Bacon, Locke -- monism, empiricism)
Psych Science Is Born:
The problem:
 Structuralism -- Wilhelm Wundt, Edward Titchener; physical plus “strained introspection”
 Functionalism: Calkins, Washburn
-William James, Principles of Psychology; Darwin; influenced Gestalt, Cognitive
 Behaviorism: Ivan Pavlov, John B. Watson, B.F. Skinner
 Freudian Psychology AKA Psychoanalysis: Sigmund Freud
 Humanistic -- Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers
 Cognitive -- Jean Piaget, Albert Ellis, Gestalt -- Fritz Perlz
Modern Definition of Psychology (with issues from the past):
Contemporary Psych:
Evolutionary psych, natural selection
Behavior Genetics
Cross-cultural, Gender psych, Positive psych
Psych’s Perspectives / levels of analysis; 3-d view – bio-psycho-social approach: neuroscience, evolutionary, behavior
genetics, psychodynamic / psychoanalytic, behavioral, cognitive, social-cultural (table 1, pg. 10)
Psych’s Subfields: Basic research -- biological, developmental, cognitive, personality, social,
Applied research -- industrial / organizational psychologists, counseling, clinical, psychologists versus
psychiatrists, positive psychology, community psychology
Improve Your Retention (and grades!)
-the testing effect, SQ3R; distributed learning, overlearning
Chapter 1 – Thinking Critically with Psychological Science - We need it!!!
-intuition, hindsight bias / I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon, overconfidence, perceiving order in random events /
coincidence
The Scientific Attitude: components, James Randi, critical thinking
The Scientific Method: theory  hypothesis; operational definitions / replication ( description / correlation,
INFERENCE!)
1. Description: know types / pros and cons for each -- case study, naturalistic observation, survey, experiment
-wording effects, sampling issues: population, random sample, representative sample
Correlation: prediction / relation only, plus direction and strength of relationship; “r: correlation coefficient; -1  0  +1;
on scatterplot / “line of best fit”
-regression to the mean, correlation does not prove [or even address] causation!!!;
Experimentation: causation, control issues; terms - double blind, placebo effect, experimental versus control
conditions, random assigning (not the same as random sampling!!!!!), independent versus dependent variable (versus
confounding / extraneous variables)
Other Issues: Predicting real behavior?
research ethics – APA guidelines for animal studies:
APA guidelines for human studies:
experimenter bias and values / potential for abuse…
(Complete Notes)
Prologue –
Psychology’s Roots – developed from both philosophical and biological backgrounds
Presumed (nontested / philosophical) answers – ancient writings; Buddha – sensation and perception; Confucius – the power
of ideas; Hebrews – mind and emotion linked to the body – incorrectly paired thought with the heart and emotion with the
bowels (guts)
The Greek philosophers: Socrates (through his student Plato): mind and body separable, built-in genetic predispositions and
knowledge through intuition, the soul continues after death (DUALISM / NATURE)
-Aristotle emphasized the opposite – knowledge not preexisting; the power of the physical world, empiricism –
scientific / physical testing (MONISM / NURTURE)
(1,200 years later,) Rene Descartes – innate knowledge like Socrates / Plato, and the scientific method; thought that “animal
spirits” flowed through the nerves
-shows how scientific knowledge changes; Descartes didn’t know what is obvious to the average 12 year old today
Francis Bacon – one of the founders of the scientific method
John Locke – emphasized nurture; we are born “blank slate / white paper / “tabula rosa”
-like Aristotle, Bacon, test the physical world: empiricism / NURTURE / our experience
Psychological Science Is Born: the problem is how to make it objective without losing the subjective
1. Structuralism -- Wilhelm Wundt, 1879, Germany – first psychological experiment, first psych laboratory; tested what he
called “atoms of the mind”
-he tested both physical reactions and introspection – trained volunteers reported as objectively as possible their
inner thoughts and feelings / mental states
-Edward Titchener brought structuralism to the United States
-structuralism died out because the very act of thinking about thinking/ feeling can change the experience (example -the more dating couples analyze their feelings towards each other, the less their initial feelings predict the length of their
relationship)
2. Functionalism – William James; not just WHAT is in our experience, but WHY;
-how our way of experiencing adapted as a race – very influenced by Charles Darwin’s views of natural selection /
evolution
-pragmatism: tested truth by its practical consequences (not just the theoretical); our own individual experiences of
free will, habits, memories, emotions (ie, how our way of experiencing helps us as individuals)
-Mary Calkins: James’ student; first female president of the American Psychological Association / would have been
the first woman PhD in psychology except for sexism (Margaret Flow Washburn received it instead)
3. Psychoanalysis – Freud, the power of dreams, the unconscious mind, the effect of repressed traumatic memories
4. Behaviorism – focus on objective, specific behavioral responses and how to change -- not on the mental!
5. Cognitive – focus on the mental – expectations, beliefs, way we process info
6. Humanistic – focus on human potention
Psychological Science Develops
Wundt and James both philosopher and physiologists; Ivan Pavlov – learning and physiology; Sigmund Freud – personality
theorist and physician; Jean Piaget -- biology and developmental theory
 this blend of physical analysis and internal speculation made psychology “the science of mental life” until the 1920s
 Then behaviorist (and all-around creep) John Watson redefined it as “the science of observable behavior” ONLY, since
internal states are impossible (as he saw it) to study
 this lasted in the U.S. until the 1960s
 today we define it as BOTH the science of physical behavior AND mental processes
Contemporary Psychology
Psychology’s Big Issues:
*nature versus nurture: how much of us is innate / biology and how much is experience – also known as nature versus
nurture
*natural selection:
*Stability versus change – do people more often change as they grow up / get older, and / or what aspects of their
personalities stay the same?
*Rationality versus irrationality –is our way of thinking / experiencing as human beings more often correct or are we more
often fooled?
Psychology’s Perspectives (TABLE 1, page 11): neuroscience – the body and brain’s influence; evolutionary – natural
selection to help the race; behavior genetics – how much is nature and how much is nurture; psychodynamic / psychoanalytic
– the influence of unconscious drives and conflicts; behavioral – the observable; cognitive – how we think / process
information; social-cultural – the influence of our culture /society
-each perspective can only capture part of the picture – like the top or side view of a cylinder (figure 2, page 12)
Psych’s Subfields:
1. basic research – biological, developmental, cognitive, personality and social research
2. applied research – practical application such as industrial/organizational – for better working conditions, and
clinical – testing and helping the mentally troubled
 two types of clinicals: psychologists and psychiatrists; the difference is that psychiatrists are medical doctors
and thus can prescribe medicine as well as give therapy
Close-Up: Your Study of Psychology
Use the research you read about to help yourself.
-to best learn, actively process – PRTR – Preview to organize the info, Read, Think about actively and often, and
Review
-distributed / long-term review is best
-actively listen
-overlearn
-take advantage of every memory aid on a test (such as looking at the written first so that you can gain from
reminders on the multiple choice)
Chapter 1 – Thinking
Critically with Psychological Science
The Need for Psychological Science
I. The Limits of Intuition and Common Sense:
1. Our notions of common sense make mistakes.
A. Did We Know It All Along? The Hindsight Bias
1. Psychologists call the 20/20 hindsight vision the hindsight bias, also known as the I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon.
2. Unanticipated scientific results and historical happenings can indeed seem like common sense.
a. in police context, eyewitnesses feel uncertain about what the suspect looks like and make a false identification.
Misleading results.
B. Overconfidence
1.We are more confident than correct.
2. A study shows that students were 100% sure of themselves, but only correct 71% of the time.
3. When people get the answers they feel that they were basically right or “almost right”
II. The Scientific Attitude
1.Underlying all science is a passion to explore and understand without being misleading or being misled.
2. The scientific approach has a long history, back when Moses used the approach.
3. Psychologists approach the world of behavior with a curious skepticism such as “show me the evidence.”
4. It also involves humility, because we may have to reject our own ideas- where “the rat is always right.”
5. The ideal that unifies psychologist with all scientists is the curious, skeptical, humble scrutiny of competing ideas.
6. The scientific attitude prepares us to think smarter, called critical thinking. It examines assumptions, discerns hidden
values, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions.
7. Psychology’s critical inquiry has been open to surprising findings, and critical inquiry has debunked popular presumptions.
III. The Scientific Method.
1. The scientific method: making observations, forming theories, and then refining their theories in the light of new
observations.
2. A scientific theory explains through an integrated set of principles that organizes and predicts behaviors or events.
3. By organizing isolated facts, a theory simplifies things.
a. ex. Low self-esteem contributes to depression.
4. hypothesis: testable predictions
5. By enabling us to test and reject or revise the theory, such predictions give direction to research.
6. Checking if the experiment has biases, psychologists report their research precisely enough- with clear operational
definitions of concepts- to allow others to replicate their observations.
7. If replication is successful, then the confidence in the finding grows.
8. A theory is useful if it:
a. effectively organizes a range of self-reports and observations
b. implies clear predictions that anyone can use to check the theory or to derive practical applications.
9. We test hypotheses and refine our theories by making observations that describe behavior, detecting correlations that help
predict behavior, and doing experiments that help explain behavior.
IV. The Case Study
1. case study: psychologists study one individual in great depth in the hope of revealing things true of us all.
2. Case studies can lead to mistaken judgments and false conclusions.
3. Anecdotal cases-dramatic stories, personal experiences, even psychological case examples have a way of overwhelming
general truths. (numbers can be numbing)
V. The Survey
1. Survey: looks at many cases in less depth and asks people to report their behavior or opinions
A. Wording Effects
1. Subtle changes in the order or wording of questions can have major effects.
2. Because wording questions is such a delicate matter, critical thinkers will reflect on how the phrasing of a question might
have affected the opinions respondents expressed.
B. Sampling
1. False consensus effect: to overestimate others’ agreement with us.
2. Most surveys sample a target group.
3. Population: the whole group you wanted to study and describe.
4. random sample: one in which every person in the entire group has an equal chance of participating.
5. Large representative samples are better than small ones because it gives less chance for error.
6. The temptation to generalize from a few vivid but unrepresentative cases is nearly irresistible.
7. The random-sampling principle also works in national surveys.
a. unrepresentative sample: Women and Love (modest, self-selected return, and were part of a woman’s organization) >
misleading results
VI. Naturalistic Observation
1. Watching and recording the behavior of organisms in their natural environment.
2. It does not explain behavior, it describes it (ex. Chimps eating termites using a stick)
VII. Correlation
1. correlation coefficient: statistical measure of relationship. How closely two things vary together and how well one
predicts the other.
2. Scatterplots: each point plots the value of two variables.
3. a week correlation indicates little or no relationship
4. statistics help us see what the naked eye sometimes misses because we need statistical illumination.
5. Correlation shows us how two things relate but tell us nothing about cause and effect.
VIII. Illusory Correlations
1. correlations restrain our “seeing” relationships that actually don’t exist.
2. illusory correlation: a perceived nonexistent correlation. (ex. Infertile couples who adopt are more likely to conceive)
3. When we believe there is a relationship we notice and recall our belief.
4. When we notice random coincidences, we may forget that they are random and instead see them as correlated.
IX. Perceiving Order in Random Events
1. with data, we look for order, for meaningful patterns because random sequences often don’t look random.
2. Seeming patterns and streaks occur more often that people expect
3. the outcome of one toss gives no clue to the outcome of the next toss.
4. Outrageous things are likely to happen. (ex. Winning the lottery twice.)
X. Experimentation
1. Experiment: the clearest and cleanest way to isolate cause and effect.
2. Experiment by
a. manipulating the factors of interest
b. holding constant other factors.
XI. Evaluating Therapies
1. The double-blind procedure enables researchers to check a treatment’s actual effects apart from the research
participants; enthusiasm for it and from the healing power of belief.
2. Placebo effect: just thinking one is getting a treatment can boost one’s spirits, relax one’s body, and lead to symptom
relief.
3. The double-blind procedure creates an experimental condition in which people receive the treatment and a
contrasting control condition without the treatment.
4. Random assignment equalizes the two groups in age, attitudes, and every other characteristic.
5. independent variable: it can vary independently of other factors
6. dependent variable: the effect of one or more independent variables on some measurable behavior.
XII. F.A.Q about Psychology
A. Can Laboratory Experiments Illuminate Everyday Life?
1. our concerns lie less with particular behaviors than with the general principles that help explain many behaviors.
B. Does Behavior Depend on One’s Culture?
1. Culture: shared ideas and behaviors that one generation passes on to the next.
2. culture influences our standards and how we behave.
C. Does Behavior Vary with Gender?
1. Gender matters. researchers report gender differences in what we dream, how we express and detect emotions…
D. Why do Psychologists Study Animals?
1. Psychologists study animals b/c they want to understand how different species think and behave, but also to learn about
people or lead to treatment for human diseases.
E. Is it Ethical to Experiment on Animals?
1. Researchers use a fraction of 1 percent of the billions of animals killed annually for food.
2. Shelters kill 50 times as many animals that are experimented on.
3. Only 7% of psychology’s studies involve animals, where 95% were rats, mice rabbits or birds.
4. Some animals suffer but it can lead to a vaccine that can save millions of people from death.
5. Issue of placing humans above animals and well-being of animals in research.
F. Is it Ethical to Experiment of People?
1. Experiments must not let the participants know to confirm the researcher’s predictions. > leads to breaking ethical
principles.
G. Is Psychology Free of Value Judgments?
1. Psychology is no value-free.
2. Values affect what they study, how they study it, and how it’s interpreted.
H. Is Psychology Potentially Dangerous?
1. Although psychology does have the power to deceive, its purpose is to enlighten.
Statistics Notes, Worksheet
STATISTICAL REASONING –
1. Describing data: bar graphs, percentile rank, bell/ normal curve, averages, variation;
Measures of Central Tendency – mode, median, mean; pros and cons for each;
-positive and negative skews, effect on each
Measures of Variation – AKA variance, spread of scores, distribution, range of scores;
-range, standard deviation; pros and cons of each
The Normal Curve: areas +/- 1, 2, 3 standard deviations
2. Inferential: when is it reliable?
-5 issues: - representative / random, large sample, large difference, small variance, replicated / reliable
When is a difference statistically significant? (What does this actually mean?)
Statistics Worksheet 1. The percentage of American college students whose GPAs fall within various performance intervals could be best
represented by a: a. standard deviation. b. bar graph. c. scatterplot d. correlation coefficient
2. In a distribution of 20 test scores, 5 of the scores were lower than Megan’s score. Megan’s score had a percentile rank of:
a. 5. b. 15. c. 20 d. 25 e. 75
3. The mode, median, and mean are measures of: a. correlation b. variation c. central tendency d. statistical significance
4. Six different junior high school students spent $20, $26, $4, $24, $26, and $8, respectively, on entertainment. The mode of
this group’s entertainment expenditures is: a. $18 b. $20 c. $22 d. $44 e. $26
5. Mr. and Mrs. Rogers have six children aged 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, and 16. The mean age of the Rogers children is: a. 5 b. 6
c. 6.5 d. 7 e. 8
6. During the past year, Sara and Nellie each read two books, but George read 9, Ali read 12, and Marsha read 25. The
median number of books read by these individuals was: a. 2. b. 9. c. 10. d. 12. e. 50.
7. Seven
7. 1 members of a boys' club reported the following individual earnings from their sale of cookies: $2, $9,
$8, $10,
. $4, $9, and $7. In this distribution of individual earnings a. the median is greater than the mean and
greater than the mode. b. the median is less than the mean and less than the mode. c. the median is greater
than the mean and less than the mode. d. the median is less than the mean and greater than the mode.
8. For which of the following distributions of scores would the median most clearly be a more appropriate
measure of central tendency than the mean? a. 10, 22, 8, 9, 6 b. 12, 6, 8, 5, 4 c. 12, 15, 12, 9, 12 d. 23,
7, 3, 27, 16
9. Central tendency is to variation as ________ is to ________.
distribution c. mean; standard deviation d. median; mode
a. scatterplot; correlation b. range; skewed
10. In a distribution of test scores, which measures of central tendency would likely be the most affected by a couple of
extremely high scores? a. median. b. range. c. mode. d. standard deviation. e. mean
11. During the last ECR basketball game, the starting five players scored 11, 7, 21, 14, and 7 points, respectively. For this
distribution of scores, the range is; a. 7. b. 11. c. 12. d. 14. e. 21.
12. Which measure of variation is affected most by a few extreme scores? a. mode b. standard deviation c. mean
d. median e. range
13. Although Kevin’s psychology class is sometimes longer or shorter than usual, on the average each class is 50 minutes. If
the lengths of these classes form a normal curve, which statistic would enable Kevin to estimate the probability that any
single class will last somewhere between 47 and 53 minutes? a. range. b. median. c. mode. d. correlation coefficient.
e. standard deviation.
-----------------------------14. A normal curve would approximate the distribution of a. males and females in the total American population.
b. American children enrolled in each of the first through sixth grades. c. the physical heights of all American women.
d. all of the above.
15. Approximately what percentage of the cases represented by the normal curve fall between –1 and +1
standard deviations from the mean? a. 16 b. 34 c. 68 d. 95
16. Although Philip once scored 41 points during a single basketball game, he was subsequently unable to beat or match this
record, no matter how hard he tried. His experience may be at least partially explained in terms of: a. regression toward the
mean b. the standard deviation c. an illusion of control d. the random sampling effect e. illusory correlation.
17. Statistical reasoning can help us to generalize correctly from a _____ to a _____. a. range; standard deviation
b. sample; population c. standard deviation; mean d. scatterplot; normal distribution.
18. A sample average can be used to estimate a population average with greater precision if the sample is
a. large. b. a skewed distribution. c. highly variable. d. vivid and memorable.
19. Which of the following events is the most probable? a. flipping 6 or more heads in 10 coin flips
b. flipping 60 or more heads in 100 coin flips c. flipping 600 or more heads in 1000 coin flips d. All these
events are equally probable.
20. One can most accurately estimate a population mean if a sample is _____ in size and _____ in variability. a. large; low
b. small; high c. large; high d. small; low.
21. Differences between two sample averages are most likely to be statistically significant if a. the difference
between the samples is large. b. the standard deviations of the samples are large. c. both samples are drawn
from the same population. d. the sample means are larger than the sample medians.
22. A statistically significant difference between two sample groups is not likely to be: a. a reflection of differences between
the populations they represent. b. due to chance variation within and between the sample groups. c. observed more than
five percent of the time the groups are compared. d. observed when the two groups are very large.