Psycholody

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The Nature of the Psychological Inquiry – Chapter 2

- Naturalistic Observation (Unobtrusive measures) – No artificial conditions when experimenting. Occurs in the natural setting.

- The psychologist does not get involved

- Weaknesses:

- If he sees us every day coming to class, he cannot determine what our causes are for coming to class. What drives people?

- A danger of bias. The researcher may record certain behaviors and ignore others

- Makes use of reports and records of which the participant is completely unaware

- Case Studies – An in depth analysis of a single individual used most often by clinicians

- To build the case, one may interview the people around the person to gain data

- The researcher also interviews the patient themselves and then comes up with a diagnosis

- Weaknesses:

- One cannot generalize from a study when n=1. Just because you have an idea of why a specific 5 year old is afraid of death, you cannot generalize or create a set of theories.

- Correlation Approach – interested in seeing how two variables relate to one another

- A perfect correlation is either +1.00 or -1.00, but even +. 90 is powerful

- If you have a correlation is somewhere close to one, you can accurately predict the y variable

- The correlation between High School GPA and University GPA is .40

- Greater variance = low correlation (r)

- Weaknesses:

- A correlation does not tell you how two variables are causally related, there may be third variable that count for the fluctuations in both variables

- Experimental Method

- Rational – Uses logic

- Empirical – Uses observation

- Self-Correcting – essentially revisionist

- Objective

- Quantitative

- Aims to explain behavior, as all psychology does

- What are the variables that lead to a particular phenomenon? What is the result, and what are the forces that lead to this behavior?

- Behavior is always the dependent variable, so we must find the root of the behavior, the independent variable(s).

- Understand how to identify the independent and dependent variables

- Ex. The dependent variable is us being present on this campus, but what are the independent variables responsible for us being here

- What are the causal factors the lead to complex behavior?

- The weakness is that experimentation usually takes place in a laboratory, which is extremely artificial

- Independent Variables:

- Stimulus variables – Certain stimuli can affect the outcome. What is in the environment and how will that affect the behavior.

- Organismic variables – Has to do with the organism, not with the environment

- Past responses may also predict behavior. Our society puts a lot of faith in the idea that past responses will influence those to come.

The Brain

Breakdown of the Test- 50 questions

Chapter 1: 12 questions (history, schools)

Chapter 2: 20 questions (identify dependent vs. Independent/ correlation)

Chapter 3: 18 questions

Appendix B: NOT ON TEST

- The brain has different parts that work together to complete tasks

- Uses both hemispheres to work together

- Corpus coliseum is the part in between left and right hemisphere

- 1 ½ kilo

- Children’s brains are highly plastic

- 4 weeks after conception, embryo is producing ½ million neurons every minute, next few weeks cells migrate to parts of brain and creating interactions, 1 and 2 trimesters, neurons reach out tentacles and reach out to others, 2million/second, 3 months before birth you have more neurons than ever in your life, 2 weeks before birth groups of cells compete with each other, some neurons drop off if they are not recruited, birth you remember the voices of your mother and your father/nursery rhymes you were sung while in your moms stomach

- Vision is the last sense, located in back of the head, 2 days old you recognize your mothers face, babies are seeking information, soaking up world around them learning machines

- “Self” pre frontal cortex (forehead) extending to the ears

- First memories start at the age of 4 years, hippocampus is the area of the brain where memories are stored

- Amiggdala: where the painful memories are stored, fear

- Female cortex is thickest at age 11, male at age 12 ½

- Pre frontal cortex-slowest to develop, helps design plans, control behaviour, not developed until age 25

- Head weighs 7 kilos, brain weights 1 ½ kilos (1 pound of brain for 50 pounds of tissue)

- Spinal cord is 50 times less than the brain

Neuron

- Cell membrane

- Dendrites are the little cords coming off the main part

- Axon is the heaviest part, sends impulses to adjacent neurons

- Dendrites accept impulses from others

- Sensory neurons (emotion) sensitive to the skin, vision

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