Download introductiontopsychology

Psychology
AN INTRODUCTION
AIMS OF LESSON
 To develop an understanding of what Psychology is
and what Psychology isn’t
 To explore how Psychology has shaped our world
 To have some fun with some simple experiments
What is psychology?
 Psyche = Mind;
Logos = Knowledge or Study
 Once defined as study of the mind
 Now broader definition to include behaviour too
 Psychologists study mind and behaviour
scientifically
What is the Mind?
 Refers to experiences or the mental processes and
experiences that cannot be directly observed.
 any response that is internal or hidden from view and
cannot be directly observed
 Psychology relies on inferences, or assumptions, about
underlying processes on the basis of observable behaviour.
 An inference is a logical conclusion which is based on
available evidence.
What is behaviour?
Behaviour
 refers to any observable action made by a living person
or animal.
 is best described as any kind of response that can
actually be seen and measured.
Examples of behaviour include:
Eating
Sleeping
Sneezing
Watching T.V.
Running
What is Behaviour?
Consider each activity listed below and state whether or not
you think it is a behaviour.
Experiencing butterflies in the stomach
Dreaming
Blinking
Heartbeat
Toothache
Planning an excuse to get out of a date
Singing a song aloud
Writing a letter
Experiencing an itch
Reading the time on your watch
Ψ is the symbol for
Psychology
Ψ is the Greek letter psi and it is
the international shorthand symbol
for the word Psychology.
 You will often see it in text books
or anything relating to the subject.
Is Psychology just common sense?
Ψ It might be common sense to say that some football fans
behave badly because they are hooligans….
Ψ How do we know this?
Ψ Do we have evidence for this explanation?
ΨHas anyone done any research on this topic?
- effects of crowds/groups on individuals: deindividuation
- Effects of alcohol on individuals
Scientific Study
Scientific study refers to the approach which is
used in psychology.
Psychologists use the highly disciplined methods of
science e.g. experimentation and carefully
controlled observation.
Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Psychology differ
in what they study, yet each uses the scientific
method trying to achieve common goals of:
description, prediction, explanation and control
What is Research?
Ψ Research is a way of investigating something. We
look at it in depth.
There are several Research Methods
Ψ Laboratory Experiment
Ψ Field Experiment
Ψ Natural Experiment
Ψ Observation
Ψ Survey
Ψ Correlation
Ψ Case Study
Some psychological research
topics:
 Importance of love in childhood
 development of language
 accuracy of eyewitness testimony
 PRO SOciAL HELPING BEHAVIOUR
 TREATMENT OF DEPRESSION
 causes of ADDICTION
Say the colour of the words in
the next slide.
GREEN
BLUE
YELLOW
BLACK
BLUE
YELLOW
RED
WHITE
GREEN
RED
BLACK
BLUE
RED
YELLOW
ORANGE
GREEN
PURPLE
GREEN
BLACK
YELLOW
The effect you experienced is the
STROOP INTERFERENCE EFFECT.
TO THINK ABOUT AND DISCUSS:
 Some behavior is AUTOMATIC. It’s
impossible NOT to read color words.
 Would a person who cannot read
experience the effect?
 WHEN MIGHT THIS BE A USEFUL TOOL TO
USE?
Now we are going to do a simple
activity involving letters of the
alphabet.
Based on your gut feelings, quickly
write down:
1.Your six FAVOURITE letters
2.Your six LEAST FAVOURITE
letters
Look over each list and circle
all of the letters that occur
in your own first name. Count
the number of circled letters
in each list.
Which list included more of the
letters from your own first
name??
The preference for the letters in one’s
own name is the name letter effect.
TO THINK ABOUT: Would people be
more likely to purchase a product if the
product resembled his or her name?
Which center circle is
larger?
Here are the same
circles again.
Do you see the flashing dots?
The flashing is all in your head.
What do Psychologists do?
 They explain behaviour
 But how do they explain it?
 Many different APPROACHES or PERSPECTIVES to
explaining behaviour
BEHAVIOURAL APPROACH
Ψ Perhaps we learn behaviour….
Ψ This explanation is called Learning Theory and is based
on Conditioning
Ψ There are two types of Conditioning
Classical Conditioning
Ψ Operant Conditioning
Ψ
Classical Conditioning. Ivan Pavlov
Unconditioned stiumulus
Unconditioned response
Conditioned stimulus
Conditioned response
ucs (food) +cs (bell)
cs (bell)
ucs (food)
ucr (salivation)
cs (bell)
cr (salivation)
ucr (salivation)
cr (salivation)
The dog sees the food and salivates. Then the dog sees the food at the same time as a
bell is rung. It salivates. Then the dog hears the bell, associates it with the food, and
salivates. The dog has been conditioned to salivate at the sound of the bell.
Have you been classically conditioned?
 At the dentist …are you frightened as you walk
through the door? As you sit in the chair?
 Going to the dentist is associated with pain – you
expect pain whenever you go to the dentist
Operant Conditioning
B F Skinner
The rat’s behaviour is ‘shaped’ until it ‘learns’ that it will be
reinforced (rewarded) if it presses the food lever!
Why Operant?
When an animal performs a behaviour, it operates on the environment.
Possible consequences of behaviour
Ψ positive reinforcement..pleasurable reward, so behaviour
will be repeated
Ψ negative reinforcement..performing a behaviour that will
stop an unpleasant stimulus
Ψ punishment .. an unpleasant response which will stop the
behaviour
Little Albert
Is your behaviour conditioned or learned?
Ψ What do you do when you hear a bell ring?
Ψ Could you touch a spider?
Ψ Have you ever been rewarded for a behaviour?
Psychoanalytic Theory
Ψ Sigmund Freud’s theory of personality
(Psychoanalytic Theory) and treatment for
abnormal behaviour called Psychoanalysis.
Ψ The theory explains human development in
terms of an innate drive (something we are born
with e.g. pleasure) and early experience (the
extent to which the desires were gratified)
Structure of the Freudian
Personality
Ψ Freud assumed that the mind is divided into 3
parts: Id, Ego and Superego
Defence Mechanisms
Ψ Repression: Keep threats out of consciousness.
Ψ Displacement: Move target of emotions e.g. aggression
to someone/something else.
Ψ Projection: Attribute undesirable characteristics to
someone else..”it’s not me it’s you”.
Ψ Denial: Refuse to accept the reality of an event.
Ψ Intellectualisation: Remove emotions from a
threatening event.
Ψ Examples?
Cognitive /Information Processing Theory
Cognitive Psychologists believe it is internal, mental
processes that can explain behaviour
Began in the 1950s around the time of the first
computers
Examples of processes
 Memory
 Attention
 Schemas
 Thinking
 Attribution
 Perception
 Information processing
 Social cognition
Biological Approach
 All behaviour normal and abnormal, is based in
physiological processes, especially the brain but also
including other parts of the nervous system and the
endocrine (glandular) system.
 THIS IS UNDOUBTEDLY TRUE !!
 What behaviour can you attribute to biology???
Examples
 Brain structure – link between Broca’s and
Wernicke’s area and language; the pineal gland and
biological rhythms
 Brain function: electrical activity – EEG stages of sleep
 Brain function: neurotransmitters – increase in
dopamine activity in schizophrenia, decrease in
serotonin in depression, increase in pleasure/euphoria
?
 Physiological arousal – skin conductance responses,
heart rate, increase with arousal state; hormones
(adrenaline)
Functional MRI (fMRI)
 Applies MRI technique to blood flow in the
brain. So can picture the brain ‘in action’, e.g.
look for variations in brain activity across
different areas during speech and other
behaviours
 Good spatial resolution (3 mm), no injections
or radioactivity; but strong magnetic field, so
any metal interferes
Positron Emission Tomography
 PET: injection of e.g.
radioactive glucose; taken
up by most active areas,
emits radioactivity which
can be recorded and built
into a picture of brain
activity
 Uses injections and
radioactivity, so number
of scans limited and only
adults used.
 Spatial resolution not as
good as fMRI
Compare and Contrast
 In pairs …
 Choose two perspectives from your text book and
read relevant sections
 Think about how they are similar and how they are
different – make notes
 Fill in the Compare and Contrast document