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AP Psychology
Intro To Psychology
What is psychology all about?
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Memory
 Stress
 Therapy
 Love
 Persuasion
 Hypnosis
 Perception
 Death
 Conformity
 Creativity
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Learning
 Personality
 Aging
 Intelligence
 Sexuality
 Emotion happiness
 …mental illness
 Sensation
 Biological elements
 Treatment of disorders
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Link to good
info
Psychology
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Psych is a science and a profession
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Uses Scientific collection/observation of data
In order to answer questions about behavior.
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“Scientific Study of behavior and mental
processes.”
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To answer questions about the mind and
behavior.
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Psychologists try to solve problems.
Psychologists
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Describe (observe)
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Understand
• (Causes)
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Predict
• (Forecast)

Control
Behavior
Behavior
 Is
anything you do, eating, sleeping,
talking (Psychology endeavors to explain
behavior, causes, motivations)
 Overt

behavior-
Observable actions & responses
 Covert

behavior-
Private internal activities (thinking
remembering)
Chapter 1
History and Approaches
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Module 1 “Psychology’s History”
Module 2 “Psychology’s Big Issues and
Approaches” Pages 9-19
Module 3 “Careers in Psychology” Pages 20-28
Module 5 The Scientific Method and Description
Pages. 38-45
Module 6 Correlation and Experimentation Pages
46-55
Module 7 Statistical Reasoning in Everyday Life
Pages 56-63
Module 8 Frequently Asked Questions About
Psychology Pages 64-69
Approaches to Psychology
(AP Outline)
 Biological
 Behavioral
 Cognitive
 Humanistic
 Psychodynamic
 Socio-cultural
 Evolutionary
History of Psych: Family Album
 1879-
Wilhelm Wundt“Father of Psychology”
 Identified Introspection
(looking inward) as a way to
understand sensation,
feelings, images, personal
experiences
 Used experimental selfobservation- made
psychology a science
Web site
History of Psych: Family Album
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1880’s Edward Titchener
Followed up Wundt’s ideas and found
Structuralism- “of the mind”
A structure of mental life, “building blocks”
Identified parts of the mind.
Will later be discredited
Used introspection
Asked participants to relate experiences with
sensations
Used science- stimulated the subjects- and
asked questions
History of Psych: Family Album
 1890-
William James- founded
Functionalism- “of the mind”
 Questioned,
how the mind helped us
survive, adapt- habits, perceptions,
emotions, related to survival?
 Adapt,
consciousness
Gestalt Psychology=
Max Wertheimer
Said it was a “mistake to analyze psychological
events into pieces.”
 “the whole pattern or form” – German
 Approach to psychology where the whole of
psychology is used to understand behavior.
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Uses thinking, learning, problem solving, social
behavior, and perception to understand behavior
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“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
Psycho-Dynamic Psychology
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Psycho-Analysis
Freud
Ice Berg Metaphor
Conscious
Unconscious
Repression
Psycho Therapy
Personality- Ego, Id,
Super-Ego
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Freudian Slip
 Psycho-Sexual
Stages of
Development
 Anal, Phallic, Latent,
Genital,
 Oedipal Complex
Neo-Freudians
 Psychoanalytical-
exploring the
unconscious causes of behavior
 Adler web site
 Horney
 Jung
 Rank
 Erikson
Humanistic Psychology
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Tries to understand subjective human
experience
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Problems, ideals and potentials
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Carl Roger and Abraham Maslow
 Stress free will= choice
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Not deterministic
Environment does impact behavior but people can
improve
Attainment of needs are the basis of healthy
psych
Humanistic
 Each
of
us is
motivated
by needs.
 Needs forlove, self
esteem,
belonging,
Behaviorism
 The
study of observable behavior
 1920’s- John B. Watson- Rejected
introspection
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Believed in observing behavior
Stimuli: i.e., environmental aspects
Responses: muscles, glands
in Pavlov’s experiments with
dogs- concept of Classical Conditioning to
explain behavior (1849
 Believed
Who Said This?
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Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my
own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee
to take any one at random and train him to become any
type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist,
merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief,
regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies,
abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going
beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the
advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for
many thousands of years.
Little Albert
Behaviorism
F. Skinner- 1950’s
 Ignored the role of thinking and mental
processes
 Found environmental factors
 Reward = positive reinforcers
 Related to learning
 Found laws of behavior apply to animals
and humans
 B.
“Skinner Box”
 Used
experiments to
study behavior of rats
 Operant Conditioning“A behavioral response
has an environmental
outcome”
 Push a button ----get some food.
Behavior Modification
 Uses
conditioning principles
 Concept says, problems are the product of
learned habits
 Learned habits can be un-learned by
behavioral methods.
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Stimulus and response
Cognitive Psychology
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Mental Processes
Problem Solving
Thinking processes
Consciousness
Perception
Memory
Language
Attention
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Judgement
 Decision Making
 Intelligence
Cognitive Behaviorism
Includes thinking
+ conditioning
Example:
Expectations
pleasure
Nature/Nurture
 “Nurture
works on what nature endows”
 Big question
 What is the seat of behavior, Genetics or
Environment?
Evolutionary
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Darwinian theory
“Changes in life forms that occur over many generations”
Natural selection (in psych)
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Genes
“Genes that result in characteristic and behaviors that are
adaptive and useful in a certain environment will enable the
creatures that inherited than to survive and reproduce…”
• The behavior of animals and humans today is the resulted evolution
through natural selection
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Examples:
Cooperation is an adaptive survival strategy
Aggression as a form of territory protection
Gender differences in male selection – preferences reflect
strategies that have been successful in previous generations
Eclectic Psychology
 Psychodynamic
 Behavioristic
 Humanistic
 Cognitive
 Bio-psychological
Biopsychosocial
 The
combination of
Developmental Psychology
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Age Related behavior
changes
 Researches:
 Bio/psycho/social
 Cognitive changes
over human lifespan
Eric Erikson WEB
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Neo-Freudian
 Theory of Psycho-Social
Stages of Development
 Erikson's stages of
development, is a
psychoanalytic theory which
identifies
eight stages through which a
healthily developing human
should pass from infancy to
late adulthood.”
Cultural Issues in Psychology
 Psychology
is dependent on culture
 Cultural Relativity: Behavior that is
acceptable in one culture may be
abnormal in another.
 Social
Norms- impact the view of
behavior.
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Rules that define acceptable behavior
Psychologists/Researchers
 Use
Scientific Method- Process for evaluating
ideas using observation and analysis.
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Observation
Hypotheses
Gather evidence
Test hypotheses
Publish Results
 Look
for cause and effect relationships in
for behavior
Scientific Method
 Making
observations
 Defining a problem
 Proposing a hypothesis
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Is a testable prediction, based on a theory
It is very specific about results that support
and oppose a theory.
 Gathering

evidence/testing the hypothesis
Naturalistic Observation, Survey, Experiments
 Publishing
results
Research Methods in Psychology
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(AP Outline)
Descriptive,
Correlational and
Experimental
Methods
Operational Definition
Population/Sample
Random Sample
Representative
Sample
Replication
Reliability
Case Study
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Descriptive Methods
Correlational Methods
Illusory Correlation
Correlation Coefficient
Experiential Methods
Naturalistic Observation
Observer Effect
Surveys
Statistics
Ethics in Research
Descriptive Methods
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Describes behavior
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Case studies
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Surveys
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Naturalistic observation
Correlational Methods
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Associate different factors
or variables
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Anything that contributes
to a result
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Experimental
Methods
•
Manipulates variables to
discover their effects
Case Studies
Subject – person
 In-depth study of all aspects of a
single subject (not an
experiment)
 Single
 Example
of Phineas Gagehttp://www.damninteresting.com/
?p=231
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When Dr. John Martyn Harlow arrived, Phineas was conscious and had a regular heartbeat, and both of his pupils
reacted to light normally. He was reported to be "in full possession of his reason, and free from pain." He was
under the care of Dr. Harlow for ten weeks, at which point he was sent home to Lebanon, New Hampshire. But
while he was recovering, the doctor noted some changes in the man's demeanor and personality. People who had
known him before the accident described him as hard-working, responsible, and popular with his workers, but after
the traumatic injury, Phineas Gage was not the same man.
In regards to his patient, Dr. Harlow wrote:
Gage was fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the
grossest profanity (which was not previously his custom),
manifesting but little deference for his fellows, impatient
of restraint or advice when it conflicts with his desires, at
times pertinaciously obstinate, yet capricious and
vacillating, devising many plans of future operations,
which are no sooner arranged than they are abandoned
in turn for others appearing more feasible. A child in his
intellectual capacity and manifestations, he has the
animal passions of a strong man. Previous to his injury,
although untrained in the schools, he possessed a wellbalanced mind, and was looked upon by those who
knew him as a shrewd, smart businessman, very
energetic and persistent in executing all his plans of
operation. In this regard his mind was radically changed,
so decidedly that his friends and acquaintances said he was 'no longer
Gage'.
Naturalistic Observation
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Descriptive Method
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Records behavior in
natural environment
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Only describes
behavior not
causation
 Examplechimpanzees in the
Jungle
Observer Effect
 Observer
Effect: Problem when subjects
are aware of the observation, behavior
may be influenced.
 Example: People being observed for
study habits when they know they are
being observed will tend to do more (thus
changing their behavior, which will skew
the study)
Observation Bias
 Problem
when researchers consciously or
inadvertently influence the collection of
data or observations.
 Example: Researcher is trying to prove
their theory by shaping the collection of
data.
Sample
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Population
 The group the study
is examining
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Sample: are the
representation of the
larger population
being studied
Random Sample
 Fairly represents a
population
Sample Bias
 Unrepresentative
sample
Anthropomorphic Error or fallacy
 Error
in identifying human attributes to
animals
 Example: identifying thoughts, feelings to
behavior of animals
Experimental Psychology
 Used
to answer the why questions in
psych
 Experiments
are formal trials to confirm or
disconfirm hypothesis
Correlational Studies
 Studies
that try to isolate behavior
causation and the relationship between
variables
 Finds
the degree of relationship between
two variables or traits.
 Results
of data are expressed or reported
in a Coefficient of Correlation
Coefficient of Correlation
 Data
that determines association of at
least two variables
 Expressed:
If 0 = then association is nonexistent or weak
If +1.00 = Perfect Positive Correlation=
Increase in one trait correlates to increase in
other.
If -1.00 = Perfect Negative = increase in trait
and decrease in the other trait
Represents values of two
variables
Slope:
Direction of the
relationship
Perfect Positive
 High level of
relationship
 Tend to rise together
Negative
Correlation
 If two sets of scores
relate inversely
 One set goes up the
other goes down
Scatterplots
Illusory Correlation
 Perception
exists
of a relationship where non-
Experiments
 Are
needed to isolate cause and effect
 Manipulates
 Isolates
variables
the effects of one or more
variables
3 Types of Experiment Variables
“Manipulate the independent variable, measure
the dependent variable”
 Independent Variables
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Dependent Variables
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Suspected cause of behavior
Conditions altered by experimenter
The experimental factor (variable) that is manipulated,
it’s effect is being measured.
Measures the results of experiment
Reveals the effects of Independent variable on
behavior
Extraneous Variable
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Outside variable – the researchers try to exclude from
Typical Experiment
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groups of subjects
Experimental Group- exposed to the
independent variable* that is being analyzed.
AKA the cause of the behavior.
Control Group: exposed to all the conditions
except the independent variable. (the variable
you are trying to measure… the medicine)
• Provides a reference for comparison, isolates the
impact of independent variable (the item being
investigated)
*Variable= is any condition that can change and might effect the
outcome of the experiment.
Placebo Effect
 Drug
studies may be influenced by
suggestion
 The act of taking a pill or injection may
influence behavior= psychosomatic
reaction.
 Expectation may be a factor
 To control the Placebo effect- single blind
and double blind experiments could be
used.
How can results of a study be
evaluated?
that are labeled “Statistically
significant” are studies that are reliable,
because the independent variable will
rarely occur by chance.
 Experiments
 Replicating
studies.
Results indicate reliability of
Single Blind and Double Blind
 Single
Blind- participants do not know if
they are receiving a placebo or the drug
 Double
Blind- Neither the participant nor
the researcher know which group recieves
the treatment (independent variable)
Survey Methods
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Polling psychological questions
Problem of wording- questions mus be clear and
appropriate
Pre-testing- questions may help insure good
questions
Sampling- representative sample- a small group
represents the larger population
Courtesy bias or Social desirability- people don’t
respond truthfully when talking about some
sensitive questions.
Race and Gender bias- can skew results
Statistical Analysis
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Data provides the basis for conclusions
Statistics summarizes and analyzes data
Helps interpret data
Inferential statistics help psychologist find more meaning
in the data
Measures of Central Tendency:
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Summarizes a set of data. A single score that represents a
whole set of scores.
the typical score or value in a set of data
Measures of Variability:
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Describes the spread or dispersion among scores/data
How similar or diverse are scores.
Statistical Analysis
 Mean-
average of the scores/data
 Median-
halfway point- shows ½ scores
are above ½ are below
 Mode-
score that occurs most frequently
Standard Deviation
 Creates
insight into how much individual
scores differ from the mean
Measures how much scores differ from each
other.
Ethics in Psych Research
 Animal
Studies- are they
ethical?
 Depends on your
interpretation If you believe in human
wellbeing over
animal’s…
 There are regulations-
Ethics in Psychology
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American Psychological Association (APA)
Calls for guidelines for Animal Research
Consider the “Comfort, Health and humane
treatment of animals and minimize infection,
illness and pain.”
 Laws govern Animals used in research. (WEB)
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Human Guidelines (APA)
1. Obtain potential
participants Informed
Consent
2. Protect participants from
physical or emotional
harm and discomfort
3. Debrief: Explain the
research afterward.
4. Confidentiality- keep
participants info
confidential
 Describe
risks to
subjects
 Voluntary
participation
 Minimize discomfort
 No invasion of
privacy
 Use deception only
when necessary
 Treat participants
with dignity and
respect