1. What Is Psychology?
2. A History
3. Research Methods
Learning Outcomes
• Define psychology.
• Psychology seeks to
– describe
– explain
– predict, and
– influence behavior and mental processes
What Psychologists Do
7. What Do Psychologists Do?
• Research
– Pure research, or basic
– Applied research
• Practice (clinical, counseling)
• Teaching
8. Fields of Psychology
• Clinical • Experimental
• Counseling • Industrial
• School – Organizational
• Educational – Human Factors
• Developmental – Consumer
• Personality • Health
• Social • Sport
• Environmental • Forensic
Where Psychology Comes
From: A History
Lecture 2.
1. Ancient Contributors to Psychology
• William James
• Functionalism focused on behavior in addition to
mind and consciousness
• Used direct observations to supplement
introspection
• Influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution or
natural selection
5. Behaviorism
• Sigmund Freud
• Psychoanalysis
– Influence of
unconscious motives
and conflicts
– Theory of personality
– Therapy
11. Cognition Affects Behavior
• Research on memory
• 1957- George Miller launched the cognitive
revolution in psychology.
• Ulric Neisser - Cognitive Psychology (1967)
• C. Ps. is concerned with higher-order mental
functions such as intelligence, thinking,
language, memory, and decision making
• Computers-information processing theories
How Psychologists Study
Behavior and Mental
Processes
Research Methods
Lecture 3
12. Principles of Critical Thinking
• Be skeptical
• Insist on evidence (sugar study) (Wolraich, Wilson, and White 1995).
• Examine definitions of terms
• Examine the assumptions or premises of
arguments (example of Mozart effect)
• Be cautious in drawing conclusions from
evidence
13. Principles of Critical Thinking (continued)
• Test the hypothesis ( respond to statements: “I’m fun to be with, or I have good
ideas’
• Random sample
– Each member of population has equal chance
of selection
• Stratified sample
– Subgroups are represented proportionally
• Volunteer bias
– Bias represented by studying people who
volunteer to participate
18. Methods of Observation
• Case Study
– Gather information about individuals or small
groups
– Sometimes used to investigate rarities
• Survey
– Used to collect information that cannot be
observed directly
19. Methods of Observation
• Naturalistic Observation
– Observe subjects in their natural environment
– Unobtrusive measure
– Observers bias
– Limitations: No cause-effect & wait for event to
occur
• Laboratory Observation
20. Correlational Method
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