Psychology

Science of behavior and mental processes concerned with everything a person does, thinks, and feels.

Psychologist

A person who holds several advanced degrees and an additional year or two in a specialized area of research. Doesn't prescribe drugs.

Psychiatrists

Perform the same actions and have the same qualifications as a psychologists but they are able to prescribe drugs and their patients usually have physical and mental problems.

Psychoanalysts

Specialized psychiatrists that study unconcious motives and dreams

Clinical Psychologist

Work with people with mental disturbances

Who is the best person to go to when seeking therapy?

Licensed Psychologists

Specialized areas can be broken down into 2 sub-areas...

Human service field

&

Experimental fields

Human Service or Experimental?

Clinical psychologist

HSF

Human Service or Experimental?

Counseling psychologist

HSF

Human Service or Experimental?

Community psychologist

HSF

Human Service or Experimental?

School psychologist

HSF

Human Service or Experimental?

Physiological Psychologists

EF

Human Service or Experimental?

Developmental Psychologists

EF

Human Service or Experimental?

Social Psychologists

EF

Human Service or Experimental?

Educational Psychologists

EF

Human Service or Experimental?

Industrial/ Organizational Psychologists

EF

Human Service or Experimental?

General Experimentalist

EF

Clinical Psychologists

deal with patients w/ psychological disturbances usually in private-practice or hospital settings

Counseling psychologists

Patients w/ much less severe problems including marriage, job, and child rearing

Commmunity Psychologists

Consults with city to help community and it's institutions adjust to problems. Ex. (AIDS, drugs, domestic violence)

School Psychologists

Work exclusively in education settings

Physiological Psychologists

Study how the brain affects behavior

(brain Functions, brain chemistry, hormonal output, effects of narcotics)

Developmental Psychology

Study changes that occur over a lifetime

(Concentrating largely on child development)

Social Psychologists

Study how individuals react in their social environment

Educational Psychologists

Study how different activities and programs can affect a child's educational process

(Affect of watching Sesame Street)

Industrial Psychologists

Study the psychology of work behavior

General Experimentalists

Smaller subarea specialists of sensation/perception, social cognition, and enginering psychology

Wilhelm Wundt

Most strongly asscoiated with the psychology. Considered the father of psychology.

Introspection

Structuralists method of research also known as self examination

Functional approach

Stressed not what was happening in concious thought but rather how our brains worked and functioned. Led by William James through animal research.

William James

Led the functional approach movement.

Gestalt Psychology

The study of the total experience of the individual. It's not about each individual part or function but rather how it works and functions as a whole.

Sigmund Freud

Medical doctor living in Vienna, Austria.

First individual to develop theory of mental instability. Also developed Treatment Psychoanalysis which was techniques of free association and dream interpretation to treat hysterical patients.

Europe's early forms of Psychology

                          1. Gestalt

2. Psychoanaysis

U.S. early forms of psychology

1. Structuralism

2. Functionalsim

3. Behavioralism

John B. Watson

Head of behavioralist movement

Behavioralism

Believed psychologists shouldn't try to study the mind but rather what can be seen and observed. (Behavior)

Modern Psychology is rooted in these principles.

Theory

An explanation of why things happen and are used to predict future happenings.

Examples of theories

You ask someone out and they turn you down.

Why? What are examples of theories?

1. Bad breath

2. Bad B.O.

3. They're mean

4. Out of your league

5. Bad personality

Hypothesis

Specific predictions based on theories.

Four major methods of research

 1. Controlled lab experiment

2. Field experiment

3. Quasi experiment

4.Field Study

Independent Variables

Variables that are changed in an experiment.

Dependent Variable

The unchanged variable in the experiment. IV is manipulated to see it it affects the DV.

Quasi Experiment

The manipulation in a Quasi experiment is not controlled by the scientist.

(Ex. How a movie manipulates your ideas about certain topics?)

Field Study

Measure 2 variables on each person and determine of the variables are related.

(Ex. Is height related to leadership ability?)

Correlation

A measure of the degree of linear association between two variables. The closer the correlation is to either -1 or +1 the stronger the relationship.

Descriptive Stats

Describe and reduce data

Inferrential Stats

Test performed on descriptive stats.

Mode

Most frequently occuring number.

Mean

Average

Median

Score at which 50% of scores fall above or below.

Measures of central tendency? (3)

1. Mean

2. Median

3. Mode

Measures of variability? (2)

1. Standard deviation- avg. score dev. from mean

2. Variance- Std. deviation squared

Ivan Pavlov

Started vast amount of research focusing on understanding the human brain.

Neuron

Major Neurotransmitters (7)

1. Acetylcholine

2. Dopamine

3. serotonin

4. Endorphins

5. Norepinephrine

6. GABA

7. Hypocretin

Synapse

Space between each neuron.

The two parts of the human nervous system

1. Central nervous system- brain and spinal cord

2. Peripheral Nervous system

Corpus Collusum

Hemispheres are connected by these thick bundles of neurons.

Cortex

Wrinkely exterior covering both hemispheres.

Responsible for our higher level thinking.

Hindbrain

1. Medulla- responsible for heartrate and breathing

2. Reticular formation- arousal, walking, excretion

3. PONS- sleeping and dreaming

4. Cerebellum- Coordination and balance

Forebrain

1. Diencephelon

a. Thalmus -relay center

b.Hypothalmus- motivation, pleasure, emotion, eat

2. Telencephelon

a. Basal Ganglia- movement, posture

b. Corpus Collusum- hemisphere relay

c. Cortex- complex thinking, coordination of senses

Limbic System

Best understood structure in the brain. Plays a role in several disorders.

Hypothalmus

Pleasure center of the brain.

Amygdala

Controls our emotions

Hippocampus

Aids in storage of new memories through the brain.

Left Brain damage can result in...

1. Aphasia- written and spoken language

2. Apraxia- skilled movement lost w/o paralysis

3. Agnosia- Inability to recognize familiar objects by sight, touch, sound

4. left/right body confusion

5. mood disorders

6. Dyslexia

7. right side weakness

Right brain damage can result in...

1. Left neglect syndrome

2.Hand eye coordination

3. Difficulty in dressing

4. Impaired sense of direction

5. Altered humor

6. Left side weakness

Right side of the Brain controls left side of the brain and vice versa!!!

Right side of the Brain controls left side of the brain and vice versa!!!

Emotional Development

Research demonstrates how touch affects the emotional development of children.

Touch deprivation can be extremely harmful.

Harlow's research

Led to the holding of babies in hospital ICU's. He took monkeys and experimented on how touch affects a newborn child.

Tiffany Field

Child Psychologist who found massaging infants 15 min. a day 3 times a day made them gain weight 47% faster. They were more alert and interactive and slept deeper and longer.

Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

1.Sensorimotor-object permanence, stranger anxiety

2. Preoperational- pretend play, egocentrism

3. Concrete Operational- conservation

4. Formal Operation- abstract logic, moral reasoning

Object Permanence

When an object is covered it still remains in existence. Learned by age two.

Concrete Operational

Appropriate use of logic like the ablity to sort objects based on color, size, shape and the ability to recognize relationships between objects.

Social Development

Childs degree of interaction w/ their parents and family strongly affects their social development until they enter school

Child Development by age

Before age 1

-Child is very demanding

- Luckily most time is spent sleeping (18-20 hrs.)

Child Development by age

Age 1

-View themselves as seperate from parents

- Stranger anxiety develops

- Lack of patience

-Very intelligent but lack of language skills

Child Development by age

At age 2

- Understand they are truly seperate beings

- "No" period starts

- Play alone or side-by-side

- Better at controlling emotions

Child Development by age

From age 3-5

- Children forced to interact w/ others to satisfy needs

Child Development by age

Age 5

- Children interact w/ others in a responsible manner

Fathers role in child rearing

Criteria for high quality daycare

1. Staff should be educated and experienced

2. Low child to staff ratio

3. Low turnover

4. Stimulating activity

Baruth's 10 research based steps for single parents

1. Be honest about situation

2. Assure child it's not their fault

3. Be honest about own feelings

4. Maintain same routine and surroundings

5. Don't try to be Mom and Dad

6. Don't encourage children to hope for reconciliation

7. Reassure children that they will be loved

8. Don't use child as bargaining power

9. Make use of other family

10. Seek companionship from other single parents

James J. Gibson

Argued that perception and sensation should be viewed as diff. parts of the same process and not seperate as previously thought.

Perceptual Systems

Structure, function, and operations by which people percieve the world. To develop fully they need varied experience to learn how to work together. The absense of regular sensory stimulation changes the behavior patterns of humans.

The Human Visual System

Perceptual system that recieves the most research attention. Any perceptual process starts with:

a. Stimulus

b. System that responds to that stimulus

Visual system is light.

Response system is the human eye.