Wilhelm Wundt
- Established psych as independent field in Germany
William James
- Brought psychology from Germany to America - “father of modern psychology”
Edward Titchner
- Wundt’s student
- Pioneered structuralism and introspection
Structuralism
- 1st
- Pioneered by Edward Titchner
- Break the psyche down into individual parts
(think chem and molecules). - Individual parts found via introspection – trained individuals reflect on their own experiences
- Weaknesses: experience is subjective
Psychoanalytic Theory
- 2nd
- Freud
- General theory that emphasizes influence of unconscious feelings, thoughts, etc
- Conscious thoughts and feelings motivated by secret desires or anxieties
- The unconscious: part of mind containing info that ppl are unaware of
Functionalism
- 3rd
- Mental states and actions should be understood with evolution in mind (adaptive significance)
- Weakness: doesn’t account for individuality
Behaviorism
- 4th
- John Broadus Watson
- Study ONLY observable behavior and not cognitive processes (i.e., stim and response)
- Weakness: didn’t account for neurological processes
- Popularized by Skinner box experiment
Cognitive psychology
- 5th
- Pushed back against behaviorism – “cognitive processes are important too”
Phineas Gage
- Rail tamp went through head –> damaged frontal lobe –> afterwards, his behavior changed to mean, poor executive functioning, etc
- First patient revealing association between behavior and part of brain
- Caveat: not observed by scientists in the years after the accident and initial behavior changes; some accounts described him as nice and pleasant
Cross-Cultural psychology
- Draw comparisons btw individual/group behaviors across populations
- 96% of psych study populations are WEIRD despite only being 12% of global pop
Why psychology is WEIRD
W - white
E - Educated
I - Industrialized
R - Rich
D - Democratic
Basic vs applied research
Basic: things we do for the sake of science (not necessarily a clear application)
Applied: we can use the results to solve real-world problems (clinical, educational, forensic, etc)
Hindsight bias
Belief that an outcome was foreseeable after it had already occurred (e.g. “I KNEW he shouldn’t have built that rocket)
Scientific method
- Standardized procedure to reduce bias
- Theory –> hypothesis –> research –> results either support or refute theory
Operational variable
Description of a property in concrete terms (e.g. measuring wealth in terms of yearly income, net worth, etc)
Power vs reliability
Power: presence of change
Reliability: absence of change
Good detector detects power, not reliability
Construct validity
Operations of definitions generally seen as good indicators for that def (e.g. smiles is generally seen as good indicator of happiness)
Correlational vs experimental design
Correlational: OBSERVATION; researchers don’t manipulate variables and just observe relationship btw two variables
- Can only infer correlation and NOT causation, but can inspire experimental study
Experimental: researchers actively MANIPULATE DV to est CAUSAL relationship
- Controlled lab settings can make real-world application difficult
Correlational design
- Observation of the relationship btw two variables
- Establishes correlational relationship
- Variables called the PREDICTOR and OUTCOME/CRITERION (not IV and DV)
- Results can inspire future experimental studies to est a causal relationship
Different kinds of correlations
Direct/positive correlation: x and y in same direction
Indirect/negative correlation: x and y in different directions
Zero correlation: one var not predictably related to the other
Correlation strength
- Pearson’s R (r) – coefficient to represent correlation strength
- Ranges from -1 to 1
- Certinanity based on absolute value; closer to 0 means less of a correlation
- Pearson’s R represents the data’s fit to the line, NOT slope
Experimental design
- Researchers actively manipulate IV to find causal relationship to DV
Random assignment
- Randomly assign participants to different lvls of IV
- Increases chance that characteristics will be spread out
Population vs sample
Population: EVERYONE in the group a study is interest in (e.g. all white ppl, all ppl with low income, etc)
Sample: subset of the population of interest
