Psychology, Research and You

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Psychology, Research and You

• Chapter 1
• George S. Robinson, Jr., Ph.D.
• Department of Psychology
• North Carolina AT State University

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Becoming a Psychological Detective

• Psychology Defined
• The science of behavior and mental processes
• science, not common sense
• evaluate evidence, form hypotheses, make
  deductions

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Arthur Conan Doyle ( 1920) - Photographs of
Fairies

• Why did he believe?
• Knowledge base, authority figure
• Spiritualism
• sons death, bias (preconceptions), spirit world
• Frances Griffiths - cardboard cutout fairies
• little girl, could not make it up
• book The Coming of the Fairies

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Mentalism Revealed

• Kreskins transmission of thoughts
• simple mathematical trick
• simple geometric figures (circle, square or
  triangle)
• Law of Parsimony
• the simpler of two accounts is preferred
• Psychics, communicating with the dead, Raelians
  and cloning

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Guidelines for the Psychological Detective

• What is the claim and who is making it?
• Is the statement or claim based on scientific
  observations?
• What do statistics reveal?
• Are there plausible alternative explanations for
  the statement or claim?
• Placebo effect

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Research Methods in Psychology

• Scientific method
• theories
• hypotheses
• test hypotheses via psychological research
• support or no support for the original theory
• revised or new theory

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Research Methods - cont.

• Case Study
• Naturalistic Observation
• Correlational Research
• correlation coefficient r -1.00 to 1.00
• direction
• positively correlated
• negatively correlated
• scatter plot

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Research Methods - cont..

• Survey Research
• representative sample
• total population
• biased sample
• T.V. and Internet survey research
• problems?

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The Experimental Method

• independent variable
• dependent variable
• operational definition
• experimental group
• control group
• extraneous variables
• random assignment
• Double-blind procedure participants and
  researchers are unaware of group assignments

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Statistics and Psychology

• Descriptive statistics
• summarize data
• measures of central tendency
• mean
• mode
• median
• Measures of variability
• range
• variance
• standard deviation
• Inferential statistics
• used to determine if the independent variable had
  a significant effect

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Research Ethics

• Ethical Guideline - IRB (Institutional Review
  Board)
• protection from harm
• confidentiality
• voluntary participation
• informed consent
• deception and intimidation
• debriefing

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Research Ethics - cont.

• Research with animals
• Do animals have rights?
• Should we do research on animals?
• PETA
• People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals
• What are the benefits of animal research?

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Origins of Modern Psychology

• Wilhelm Wundt (1832 - 1920)
• first psychological laboratory in 1879
• Edward B. Titchner (1867 - 1927)
• Wundts student
• established psychology in the United States
• structuralism
• introspection
• cognitive psychology

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Origins of Modern Psychology - cont.

• Functionalism
• William James (1842 - 1910)
• stream of consciousness
• how people use information to adapt to their
  environments
• first applied psychologists

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Origins of Modern Psychology - cont.

• Gestalt Psychology
• our perception of a whole is different from our
  perception of the individual stimuli
• The whole is greater than the sum of its parts
• Max Wertheimer (1880 - 1943)
• apparent motion, perception
• Wolfgang Kohler (1887 - 1967)
• Kurt Koffa (1886 - 1941)

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Origins of Modern Psychology - cont.

• The Behavioral Perspective
• observable behavior
• learned nature of behavior
• Ivan Pavlov (1849 - 1936)
• John B. Watson (1878 - 1958)
• B.F. Skinner (1904 - 1990)

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Origins of Modern Psychology - cont.

• Sigmund Freud and the Psychodynamic Perspective
• normal and abnormal behaviors are determined by
  unconscious forces
• slips of the tongue
• dreams
• driven by sexual motives
• psychoanalytic therapy

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Origins of Modern Psychology - cont.

• The Humanistic Approach
• free will, choices
• personal growth
• unique individual
• Abraham Maslow (1908 - 1970)
• Carl Rogers (1902 - 1987)

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Origins of Modern Psychology - cont.

• The Physiological perspective
• the biological aspects of behavior and mental
  processes
• neurons
• neurotransmitters

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Origins of Modern Psychology - cont.

• The Cognitive perspective
• how thoughts occur
• memories
• information processing

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Origins of Modern Psychology - cont.

• The Cultural and Diversity perspective
• Mary Whiton Calkins (1863 - 1930)
• completed work at Harvard, yet was not awarded a
  degree because she was a woman
• first woman president of the APA

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Origins of Modern Psychology - cont.

• Christine Ladd-Franklin
• denied a academic position because she was married

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Origins of Modern Psychology - cont.

• Francis Sumner (1895 - 1954)
• first African American to receive a Ph.D. in
  psychology in 1920, Clark University in
  Worcester, Massachusetts
• established the psychology department at Howard
  University

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Origins of Modern Psychology - cont.

• Inez Beverly Prosser (1897 - 1934)
• first African American woman to receive a
  doctoral degree in educational psychology
• University of Cincinnati in 1933

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Origins of Modern Psychology - cont.

• Ruth Winifred Howard (1900-)
• Ph.D. in psychology from University of Minnesota,
  1934
• first person to publish research on triplets

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Origins of Modern Psychology - cont.

• Kenneth Clark (1914 -)
• first African American to be elected as president
  of the APA in 1970
• effects of segregation, brown versus the board of
  education
• Mamie Phipps Clark (1917 - 1983)
• racial identification in Negro children

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Origins of Modern Psychology - cont.

• Richard Suinn
• first Asian American elected president of the APA
  in 1997

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Even the Rat was White
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Even the Rat was White Partial Table of Contents

• Part I Psychology and Racial Differences
• The Noble Savage and Science
• Brass Instruments and Dark Skin
• Psychometric Scientism
• Psychology and Race

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Even the Rat was White Partial Table of
Contents cont.

• Part II Psychology and Psychologists
• The Psychology of Survival and Education
• Black Psychologists Training, Employment, and
  Organizations
• Production of Black Psychologists in America
• Francis Cecil Sumner Father of Black American
  Psychologists

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Even the Rat was White Partial Table of
Contents cont.

• Part III Conclusion
• The Past is Prologue
• The Myth of Mental Measurement
• Psychology and Politics
• Old Wine, New Bottles
• The Bell Curve Round and Round We Go

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Psychological Specialties

• Clinical psychology
• Ph.D. or Psy. D.
• Diagnosis and treatment of psychological
  disorders
• Psychiatry
• M.D. (Medical Doctor)
• Diagnosis and treatment of psychological
  disorders
• Can prescribe medication
• Counseling psychology
• Ph.D.
• treats less serious problems

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Other Research Specialties

• Animal behavior
• Biopsychology / Neuropsychology
• Cognitive processes
• Cross-cultural
• Developmental
• Educational
• Motivation

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Other Research Specialties - cont

• Personality
• Psychometrics
• Sensation and Perception
• Social

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Other Applied Specialties

• School psychologist
• Industrial / Organizational psychologist
• Consumer psychology
• Health psychology
• Forensic psychologist
• Sport psychologist
• Neuropsychologist

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