Psychologist

Education-Ph.D. or Psy.D.

(B.A. plus 5+ years)

Focus-Ph.D. - research

Psy.D.- clinical

Psychiatrist

Education-M.D. =  B.A., med school, 3 yrs. residency (B.A. plus 7-8 years)

Focus-Prescribes medications

Social Worker

 Education- MSW(B.A. plus 3 years)

 Focus-Family systems, counseling, less research

Psychiatric Nurse

Education- R.N., M.A., Ph.D. in Nursing

Focus- Hospital settings

Paraprofessional

Education- some specialized training but no degree (i.e., B.A.)

Focus- Cert. drug and alcohol counselor

Health Psychologist

psychological factor involved in health (i.e., coping with stress, addictions)

Counseling psychologist

“normal” or high   functioning individuals, career guidance 

Clinical psychologist

more severe disorders

Community psychologist

work with schools,  community-based groups, etc.

 Industrial/organizational psychologist

 psychology and business, how to improve worker productivity, satisfaction

Neuroscience Approach

§Focus: how brain and bodily events influence feelings, thoughts, behaviors.

Behavior genetics

§Focus: examines contribution of genes vs. environmental factors in determining behavior, thoughts, emotions

Psychodynamic Approach

§Focus§based on Freud §uncovering the unconscious motivations for behavior

§Focus: observable behavior, environmental determinants of behavior

Cognitive Approach

Evolutionary Approach

§Focus: how our ancestors adapted to their environments in the past explains our current behavior

Sociocultural Approach

Scientific approach

Skepticism

-accept findings only if verified repeatedly

Scientific approach

Open-mindedness

-commitment to changing one’s views if they are inaccurate

Scientific approach

Critical Thinking

- questioning evidence, assumptions, and conclusions of “statements” presented as fact

Intuition/common sense

Casual observation

– can be misleading

Intuition/common sense

              Anecdotal evidence

storytelling

Intuition/common sense

                     Authority

experts can be wrong

Pitfalls of Common Sense (Non-Critical Thinking)

illusory correlations

perceived relationships when none exist (i.e., astrology, etc.)

Pitfalls of Common Sense (Non-Critical Thinking)

confirmatory bias

attend data that confirms, disregard data that disconfirms our beliefs

Critical Thinking

correlation

a measure of the extent to which two events vary together, and thus of how well either one predicts the other

Critical Thinking

causation

Importantly, critical thinkers distinguish between correlation and causation

Critical Thinking

correlation coefficient

mathematical expression of the relationship, ranging from -1 to +1

Wihelm Wundt

established the first psycholog laboratory at the University of Leipzig, Germany in 1879

Margaret Floy Washburn

Became the first womanto receive a psychology Ph.D. She focused on animal behavior research in The Animal Mind

Sigmund Freud

Controversial ideas of this famous personality theorist and therapist influenced humanity's self-understanding

Willliam James 

A legendary teacher-writer of psychology.

Mary Whiton Calkins

John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner

B. F. Skinner

Leading behaviorist who rejected the idea of studying inner thoughts and feelings. He studied how consequences shape behavior.

Behaviorism

The view that psychology (1) SHOULD BE AN OBJECTIVE SCIENCE THAT (2) STUDIES BEHAVIOR WITHOUT REFERENCE TO MENTAL PROCESSES. MOST RESEARCH PSYCHOLOGISTS TODAY AGREE WITH ONE BUT NOT WITH TWO

humanistic psychology

emphasized the growth potential of healthy people and the individual's potential for personal grrowth

cognitive neuroscience

the interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked with mental activity (including perception, thinking, memory, and language)

Psychology

the science of behavior and mental processes

bipsychosocial approach

an intergrated appraoch that incorporates different but complementary view from biological, psychological, and social-cultural perspectives

culture

the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next

nature-nurture issue

The longstanding controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors. Todays psych science sees traits and behaviors arise form the interaction of nature and nurture

Dual Processing

the principal that information is often simultaneously processed on seperate conscious and unconscious tracks

positive psychology

The scientific study of the human functioning, with the goals of discovering and promoting strenghths and virtues that help individuals and communities thrive

hindsight bias

the tendacy to believe, after learning an outcome, that we could have predicted it.

(Also know as the I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon)

theory

an explanation using an intergrated set of principles that organizes observations and predicts behaviors or events

hypothesis

a testable preditction, often implied by theory

operational definiton

a statement of the procedures (operations) used to define research variables. For example, human intelligence may be operationally defined as what an intelligence test measures

replication

repeating the essence of a research study, ususally with different participants in different situations, to see wether the basic finding extends to other participants and circumstances

case study

a descriptive technique in which one person is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles

survey

a descriptive technique for obtaining the self-reported attitudes ofr behaviors of people, usually by questioning a repersentative, random sample of a population

random sample

a sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion

naturalistic observation

a desciptive technique of observing and recording behavior in naturally occuring situations without trying to change or control the situation

experiment

a method in which researchers vary one or more factors (independent variables) to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process (the dependent variable)

random assignment

assigning participants to experimental and control groupsby chance, thus minimizing any differences between the groups

experimental group

the group in an experiment that is exposed to the treatment, that is, to one version of the independent variable

control group

the group in an experiment that is not exposed to the treatment and therefore seves as a comparison with the experiemental group for evaluating the effect of the treatment

placebo

Latin for "I shall please"

an inactive substance or condition that is sometimes given to control group members in place of the treatment given to the experimental group

double-blind procedure

a procedure in which participants and research staff are ignorant (blind) about who has received the treatment or a placebo

independent variable

the experimental factor: that is manipulated: the variable whose effect is being studied

dependent variable

the outcome factor: the variable that my change in response to manipulations of the independent variable

Positive correlation

Negative correlation

r indicates direction of relationship and strength