Intro to Psychology

1. Intro to Psychology Van Geons- Period 5 – 2009-2010

2. Assignments Due • MONDAY, AUGUST 24, 2009 -NiceNet Assignment Due: Psychology Journal- Assignment 1 • Friday, August 28, 2009- Chapter  1 Assessment via Nicenet Due Friday • Assessment contains - Chapter 1 #4 pg. 13, Pg. 22 #4, pg. 28 #4, Pg. 30 Critical Thinking #1 and #2 • Please type and spell-check before you turn it in on NiceNet.

3. What is Netiquette? • “Netiquette” refers to one’s etiquette while on the internet. • For our purposes, it is the way in which you interact on our virtual classroom (NiceNet)

4. Expectations • Writing in all caps is YELLING. Please do not yell. • If you write in all lower case or do not punctuate, it demonstrates that you do not care about your own work or how your work is perceived by others. Spell check is your friend. Type your responses in Microsoft Word, spell check it, then copy and paste it into NiceNet.

5. expectations • Participate regularly in class discussions. This is a simple tip, but a crucial one. It takes some time for discussions to build up momentum, so you'll need to return to a discussion frequently to track and channel its development. • Don't disappear after posting your comment. A discussion should be more than a series of e-mail postings. Someone may reply to your comment, asking for clarification or presenting a difference of opinion. Check the discussion's progress a day or two after you've posted your comments, and address other participants' response to your initial post. • Stick to one topic at a time. If you have several different ideas to bring into a discussion, start a new thread for each idea, and give each thread a clear descriptive title. This way, other classmates can engage with each idea in depth, and participants can easily find the topics that most interest them.

6. Expectations continued… • Engage directly with the ideas of other participants. If each participant in the discussion makes a special effort to relate ideas to those voiced by other participants, the discussion will maintain a sense of coherence. Whenever possible, briefly mention which points of a previous posting you are responding to. • Choose provocative, informative subject lines for your posts. Which would you be more inclined to read: a message called "Thoughts" or one called "My biased opinion on Question 2"? Which title is more informative: "Re: re: initial post" or "My disagreement with Thesis X“? • Take time to organize your thoughts before posting.

7. And finally… • Avoid discussion posts that offer little more than "I agree“ or “I disagree”. Explain yourself. Raise new questions, and keep track of issues that have not been fully investigated in previous posts. • Remember that discussion is an exchange, not a lecture. Solicit feedback from your classmates. You should take a clear position in your post, but it is a good idea to invite alternative perspectives. What new questions or problems arise from the position you're taking? How does your position relate to the position taken by other participants? Your postings should be thorough and thoughtful. Just posting an "I agree disagree with your comment" or an "I think the same" to someone else's thoughts is not considered to be an adequate response.

8. Hello, Psychology Apprentices! • Let’s Review….

9. Psychology is: • 1- scientific /empirical • 2- practical • 3- theoretical • 4- continually evolving

10. Psychology is the study of behavior and cognition. • 1) Behavior - any observable activity. • 2) Cognition - any mental process. (types of cognitive processes - problem solving, learning, forgetting, etc)

11. The literal Greek definition of Psycho-logy is “the study of the soul or mind. “

12. From Introducing Psychology • Chapter One: • Section One-“Why Study Psychology?” • Physiological vs. Cognitive • Psychology- What exactly is it?

13. Continued • Goals of Psychology • Description • Explanation • Prediction • Influence i. Basic Science vs. Applied Science a. Basic Science = research b. Applied Science= taking psychological principles and applying them to solve immediate problems (also used in marketing, designs for companies, etc)

15. Retail AnthropologyWhat color has market research found about colors: • Red: • Blue: • Yellow: • Orange: • Green: • Purple: • Pink: • White: • Brown: • http://blog.thefolderstore.com/2008/09/27/color-meaning-psychology/

17. Marketing and the IKEA Effect • Labor is not just a meaningful experience - it's also a marketable one • Shop for AT LEAST three hours • Size – “lost” • Retail Anthropology – right or left side of the store? • http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/predictably-irrational/200902/marketing-and-the-ikea-effect

18. Chapter One: Section Two- “A Brief History of Psychology” • Origins of Psychology • Phrenology • Greeks and Early Philosophers • Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)/Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) • Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

19. II. Schools of Thought • Structuralism • William Wundt- founder of first “psychology lab” • School of thought that sought to identify the components (structure) of the mind. • Basic Premise was: the whole is = to the sum of the parts • INTROSPECTION • Conscious - feelings, thoughts and sensations that you are aware of at that moment. These things make up the conscious. • Introspection - To look within and examine your own thoughts or feelings. • BUT, introspection relies on subjective or self-report data which is a week methodological form of data collection.

20. Functionalism i. William James (1842-1910) ii. Functionalism - Moved away from focusing on the structure of the mind to a concern with how the conscious is related to behavior... How does the mind affect what people do? iii. WHAT FUNCTION DOES A BEHAVIOR HAVE?

21. c. Inheritable Traits i. Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911) ii. role of heredity on a person’s character, abilities, and behavior. iii. Galton was a relative of Darwin and in 1860s Galton went out to understand how much “genius” is hereditary. Iv. “Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we could get rid of less desirable people?”

22. Behavioral Psychology • Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) • Learners are not passive, they are actively doing something • The environment shapes and reinforces the behaviors overtime • How does our behavior results from the stimuli both in the environment and within ourselves? • They study, often in minute detail, the behaviors we exhibit while controlling for as many other variables as possible.

23. Gestalt Psychology i. "form or shape"- focused on perception & problem solving. ii. The school of thought claimed we perceive and think about wholes rather than simply about combinations of separate elements. iii. In other words...the whole is NOT = to the sum of the parts • Iv. Example: look at geese flying south for the winter in a "V" formation. If you look at individual geese, you do not see the "V" shape, only a couple of birds flying - but, if you look at the entire flock, you see the form and structure.

24. III. Contemporary Thought • Psychoanalysis • school of thought that focused on the importance of the UNCONSCIOUS mind (not consciousness). • In other words, psychoanalytic perspective dictates that behavior is determined by your past experiences. • Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

25. c. Cognitivism • Piaget, Chomsky, Festinger • Learners try to make sense of things based on what they know • Process of internal mental representation • Learners actively try to make sense of the worlds with the existing concepts

26. d. Humanistic Psychology • Came out of New England Transcendentalists (Emerson and Thoreau) and Existentialists like Sarte • Theories of “self enhancement” • Main psychologist associated with this is Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) who created a theory titled “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs”, what does a human need to find fulfillment?

27. e. Physiological Perspective - To understand behavior you must understand the roots of behavior, the working of the brain and nervous system. f. Sociocultural Perspective - To fully understand behavior you have to take into consideration the social and cultural environment in which it occurs.

28. Chapter One: Section Three “Psychology as a Profession” • What is a Psychologist? • Clinical Psychology • Counseling Psychology • School Psychology • Developmental Psychology • Educational Psychology • Cognitive Psychology • Industrial/Organizational • Psychobiology • Social Psychology • Experimental Psychology • Sports Psychology

29. Three Major Philosophical Issues in Psychology • Free-will versus Determinism. Is our behavior pre-determined for us or do we have a say in it? • The Mind-Body Problem. Is the mind (the psychological) separate synchronous or related to the body (physical)? The roots are in philosophy, but a number of early psychologists studied this problem. • Nature versus Nurture. Is behavior due to heredity (nature) or environmental influences (nurture)? A number of evidence goes both ways. This one is difficult to resolve. http://www.csun.edu/~vcpsy015/intro.htm

30. Introduction and Conditions for Free Will • What does it mean to have free will? • To have free will at least two conditions must obtain. 1. We must have two or more possibilities 'genuinely open' to us when we face a choice; and 2. our choice must not be 'forced'.

31. Determinism • Theory - argument to establish determinism for human actions: • P1:   No action is free if it must occur. • P2:   Human actions result from wants, wishes, desires, motivations, feelings, etc. • P3:   Human wants, wishes, desires, motivations, feelings, etc. are caused in turn by specific pre-conditions that ensure their occurrence.

32. If hard determinism is correct, then, • There can be no freedom in the sense required for morality. • There is no point in punishing or blaming or putting down those who do “wrong,” since they cannot help it. Indeed, there is no point in making value judgments of any kind about other people. People are not “better” or “worse”; they are only different. And if you differ from someone else, you differ, period. If you change, it's because you “have it in you” already to change; if you don't change, you simply “don't have it in you” and can't be blamed. • The notion of sin becomes incoherent. If sin is incoherent, then fundamental doctrines of Christianity (e.g., redemption from sin) are pointless. • Persons cannot be thought of as in any way “special” or “higher” than other animal species or physical objects. Thus, the interests of humans should not necessarily automatically be thought to override the interests of animals or plants.

33. The Mind-Body Problem • What is the relation between the mind and the body? • Our perceptions, thoughts, intentions, volitions, and anxieties directly affect our bodies and our actions. • States of the brain and nervous system, in turn, generate our states of mind. • The brain and nervous system seem clearly to be part of the physical world: tangible, visible, public, extended in space. • Thoughts, feelings, consciousness, and other states of mind strike us as mental: intangible, invisible, private, arrayed in time, but not in space. • If brain and mind are of fundamentally different kinds and if, in addition, the laws of causality require causes and effects to be of a similar kind, then it is clearly impossible for brain to generate mind or mind to affect brain.

34. Nature vs. Nurture? • Nature versus Nurture—do human traits develop through experience or are we equipped with them from birth? • Plato—ideas are inborn • Aristotle—there is nothing in the mind that does not first come in from external world through the senses. • Locke—rejected inborn ideas • Descartes- some ideas are innate  • Darwin—Natural selection, nature selects those who are best suited for survival (why is the polar bear white?)  • "the longstanding controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors" (Myers, 2005, p. 6)

35. Psychological Perspectives • Nature-nurture debate/issue • Neuroscience perspective • Evolutionary perspective

36. Psychological Perspectives • Behavior genetics perspective • Psychodynamic perspective • Behavioral perspective • Cognitive perspective • Social-cultural perspective

37. Consider the question: Why are women and men different? • Let’s look at the varying perspective approaches. • Neuroscience perspective • How are their brains different? • Are men biologically less able to control their impulses?

38. Evolutionary perspective • What is the survival function of the differences? • Does women's nurturance contribute to their babies' survival? • Does men's aggression contribute to their survival and/or reproduction?

39. Behavior genetics perspective • Are the differences genetically determined, for example in twin research? • Or do they vary depending on the environment in which people are raised?

40. Psychodynamic perspective • Do men and women have different unconscious motivations? • Behavioral perspective • What rewards and punishments result from the behavior? • Are men rewarded for living up to a "macho" image? • Are women rewarded for acting "feminine" instead of assertive?

41. Cognitive perspective • What do people think? Do they stereotype women and men? • Is an assertive woman considered unfeminine? • Is a sensitive man considered weak? • Social-cultural perspective • How do cultural roles influence all this? • Is women's role as a mother responsible for her behavior? • Does the expectation than men will earn more money lead to their greater privileges?

42. Discovering Psychology • http://www.learner.org/vod/vod_window.html?pid=1498 • Past, Present, and Promise