Introduction to Psychology History

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Introduction to Psychology History Research
MethodsCaroline M. Clements, Ph.D.The
University of North Carolina at
WilmingtonDepartment of Psychology
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Index Card Information

• Name
• Student Number
• Code for posting exam scores
• Local Phone Contact
• Email address

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What is Psychology?

• Psychology is the science of brain processes and
  behavior

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The Goals of Psychologists

• Psychologists engage in the study of psychology
  in order to understand, explain and predict and
  control behavior.

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Lecture Overview

• History of Psychology
• Modern Perspectives in Psychology
• Psychology as a Career
• Doing Research in Psychology

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Historical Background

• Nativist (nature) vs Empiricist (nuture)
• Are a persons characteristics mostly inborn or
  learned?

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Historical Background

• Plato (427-347)
• Plato was interested in moral philosophy and
  despised natural philosophy (that is, science) as
  an inferior and unworthy sort of knowledge.
• Believed we are born with complete knowledge
  within our soul.
• Learning a process of inner reflection to
  discover the knowledge within us.

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Democritus of Abdera 460-370 BC

• Democritus explained all changes in the world as
  changes in motion of the atoms, or the way that
  they were packed together.
• This brought mathematics into a fundamental
  physical role since the whole of the structure
  proposed by Democritus was quantitative and
  subject to mathematical laws.
• Another fundamental idea in Democritus's theory
  is that nature behaves like a machine, it is
  nothing more than a highly complex mechanism.

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History

• Aristole (384-322)
• Knowledge acquired through experience.
• Four Laws of Association
• Law of similarity
• Law of Contrast
• Law of Contiguity
• Law of Frequency

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History

• Descartes- (1596-1650)
• Mind body dualism
• Reflexes
• Behavior controlled by the mind or will.
• Dualistic notion of human behavior suggested at
  least some components of behavior could be
  scientifically investigated.

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History of Psychology
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Early History of Psychological Thought

• Greeks
• how does the soul/mind give rise to memory,
  sensation, movement, etc.
• where is the soul/mind located
• Descartes (1600s)
• dualism (mind/body problem)
• how does physical matter give rise to thought,
  sensation, etc.
• mechanistic view (e.g., reflexes)
• pineal gland as the interface between soul and
  body

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Phrenology Franz Gall (1758-1828)
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First Psychologists (late 1800s-early 1900s)

• Wilhelm Wundt
• father of experimental psychology
• first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany,
  1879
• studied reaction time to simple and two-choice
  stimuli

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The First Psychologists

• E. Bradford Titchener
• popularized Wundts psychology and brought it to
  U.S.
• used introspection to uncover components of
  thought

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The First Psychologists

• William James
• first important textbook The Principles of
  Psychology
• the mind is a stream of consciousness

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William JamesPrinciples of Psychology

• We know of nothing which can be in the
  remotest degree compared with the stream of
  thought that accompanies the brains material
• secretions.
• http//psychclassics.yorku.ca/index.htm

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• Psychophysics
• Early psychologists, doing research on sensation
  and sensory experience, noticed interesting
  aspects of the functioning of the senses.
• For example, the perception of a stimulus
  intensity is not directly proportional to the
  actual physical intensity of the stimulus.

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• Psychophysics
• A sound that is half as loud (in physical terms,
  in decibels) as another sound may not sound that
  way to the listener.
• Psychophysics attempts to provide a mathematical
  description of the relationship between the
  actual physical properties of the stimulus and
  its perceived properties.

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• The enormous impact of Darwin The origin of
  species (1859) The descent of man (1871)
• In his presentation of compelling evidence that
  humans and other animal species were related,
  Charles Darwin forced scientists and thoughtful
  people working in many disciplines to consider
  the basic features held in common by many or all
  animals, such as thinking and intelligence.
• Comparative psychologists, who use this
  perspective, are specialists who compare
  different animal species.

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• Women in Psychology
• In the early days of psychology, opportunities
  for women were limited.
• Mary Calkins was one of the pioneering women in
  the field.
• She never received the Ph.D. that she earned from
  Harvard
• She went on to do research, study the function of
  memory, and serve as the president of the
  American Psychological Association 1905.

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• Women in Psychology
• Other early contributing women in the field of
  psychology were
• Christine Ladd-Franklin color vision
• Margaret Washburn -first woman to receive Ph.D.
• Karen Horney
• Anna Freud
• The latter two were followers of Sigmund Freud
  and the Psychoanalytic school of psychology.

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Ethnic Minorities in Psychology

• Gilbert Jones - 1901, First black male Ph.D.
• Inez Possner - 1933, First black female Ph.D.
• Kenneth Clark 1971, First Black president APA
• Norman Anderson 2002, First Black CEO APA

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• Behaviorism John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner
• structuralism was abandoned because it was
  difficult to study the subjective perception of
  experience.
• Behaviorism concentrates on observable,
  measurable behaviors and not mental processes.
• Behaviorists primarily seek to study the
  observable behaviors associated with learning.

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• Behaviorism John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner
• Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a
  purely objective experimental branch of natural
  science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction
  and control of behavior. -- John B. Watson,
  1913

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The Early Era and Roots of Psychology

• Behaviorism and Studies of Learning
• The early question posed by behaviorists in the
  mid-20th century, such as Clark Hulls work with
  rats in the area of maze learning, have given way
  to complex questions about how humans learn to be
  aggressive and violent.
• This is just one of many interesting questions
  with complex answers that have yet to be fully
  revealed.
• Even modern behaviorists have left behind the
  hope of discovering simple universal principles
  of behavior. But their principles are
  nonetheless interesting and useful, as you will
  soon see.

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Study of Psychology Today

• Psychology is the scientific study of behavior
  and mental processes.
• Psychology values
• empirical evidence
• critical thinking
• systematic research methods
• Goals of psychology include
• description of behavior using careful
  observations
• explanation identifying the cause(s) of behavior
• prediction allows for specification of the
  conditions under which a behavior will or will
  not occur
• facilitating changes in behavior (e.g., therapy)

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Modern Psychology Views

• Psychoanalytic view emphasizes the unconscious
  mind
• Behaviorism focuses on objective and measurable
  behaviors
• Humanistic psychology emphasizes the inner-self
  and the importance of subjective feelings
• Cognitive psychology focuses on mental function
  and reasoning

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Modern Psychology Views

• Psychobiology views behavior as reflecting brain
  processes
• Evolutionary psychology asserts that certain
  behavioral characteristics are subject to natural
  selection
• Cultural psychology examines the influence of
  culture and ethnic practice on peoples behavior

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Positive Psychology

• A recent addition to the field
• Focuses on the characteristics that make people
  happy and successful
• Asserts that psychology has, in the past,
  focused too much on the negative

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Areas of Psychology

• Clinical psychotherapy, assessment, diagnosis
• Developmental how do we develop across life?
• Social how do people behave in groups?
• Biopsychology what is the brain basis of
  behavior?
• Cognitive how do we think and perceive?
• Personality what basic traits make up a
  persons personality?

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Psychology Degrees By Area
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Careers in Psychology

• Clinical work e.g., psychotherapist
• Academic e.g., professor/researcher
• Business e.g., industrial psychologist
• Journalism e.g., science writer
• Technology e.g., software developer
• requires graduate degree
• requires license

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Psychology as a Science

• Attempts to describe, predict, control and
  explain thought and behavior.
• Uses scientific method

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Science vs. Common Sense
Objective data collection
Subjective data collection
Systematic observation
Hit or miss observation
Reliance on evidence
Ignores counterevidence
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Science versus Pseudo-Science

• Systematic
• Testable
• Reliable
• Unbiased
• Self-Correcting

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Extending Evidence

• Specific truths are deduced from general truths
• General truths are induced from specific truths

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Science Proof

• A deduction is proven if the general premise is
  true and the logic is valid.
• An induction goes beyond the known data, and thus
  can never be proven.

Science, then does not prove things, because all
information about the outside observable world is
inductive.
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Science

• Terminology
• Hypothesis - a possible way things could be
• Theory - an explanation for the way things are,
  usually supported by a lot of data.
• Advantages of science
• Scientific methods are deductive
• Science is more systematic, and less subject to
  human bias

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Judging Theories

• Fit to the data
• Quality of the data
• Ability to predict
• Ability to explain
• Ability to control

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Pseudo-science

• Why people believe
• People like excitement
• People are prone to wishful thinking
• People are naïve and trusting
• People remember hits, ignore misses

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Psychological Research

• Two forms of psychological research
• Basic research seeks answers for the purpose of
  increasing knowledge.
• e.g. What role do the frontal lobes play in
  memory?
• Applied research seeks answers for specific
  problems.
• e.g. What types of memory strategies and
  rehabilitation strategies are most effective for
  people with frontal lobe injuries?

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Basic Cognitive Psychology Research
Baldo et al. (1998)
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Basic Cognitive Psychology Research
LEFT
Baldo et al. (1998)
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Applied Cognitive Psychology
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The Scientific Method
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The Experiment

• An experiment involves a set of controlled
  conditions that aim to confirm a hypothesis.
• Hypothesis refers to a statement of cause and
  effect
• Higher environmental temperatures lead to more
  aggression.
• Exposure to marijuana increases appetite.

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Experimental Variables

• To test a hypothesis, an experimenter defines the
  variables of the hypothesis
• Cause Independent variable (IV)
• marijuana plain cigarette versus cigarette
  containing 5 mg of THC (the active ingredient in
  marijuana)
• Effect Dependent variable (DV)
• appetite grams of ice cream consumed in 1 hour
• The experimenter manipulates the IV and
  measures the DV to test the hypothesis.

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Experimental Issues

• Controls are important for determining causality
• the only difference between the experimental and
  control groups is the presence or absence of the
  IV.
• Placebo effects represent changes in behavior
  that are related to expectations of a treatment.
• placebo effects are controlled by a blind
  control group
• Experimenter bias refers to expectations that
  influence a participants behavior.
• example Clever Hans, the horse who could do math
• can be controlled using double blind procedures

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Non-Experimental Research

• Naturalistic observation refers to systematic
  recording of behavior in a natural state or
  habitat.
• e.g. observing apes in the wild
• Surveys are instruments designed to sample
  attitudes or behaviors.
• e.g., asking students at a rally how they feel
  about animal rights issues
• A case study is an in-depth study of a single
  person.
• e.g., Freud used the case study method to study
  anxiety
• Correlations refer to looking at the relationship
  between two variables without manipulating them.

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Correlation Techniques

• The correlation technique assesses the degree of
  association between 2 variables.
• Correlations vary in direction
• Positive association increases in the value of
  variable 1 are associated with increases in
  variable 2 (e.g., smoking and risk of cancer)
• Negative association increases in variable 1 are
  associated with decreases in the variable 2
  (e.g., years of education and risk of Alzheimers
  disease)
• No relation values of variable 1 are not related
  to variable 2 (e.g., years of education and
  height)
• Correlations also vary in strength of the
  relationship.

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Interpreting Correlations
Fig. 1.5
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Correlation Take Home Line
Correlation does NOT imply causation!
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Stanley Milgrams Obedience Study

• 1963 social psychology experiment, subjects
  thought they were shocking another person to
  promote learning
• Many subjects delivered high level shocks and
  were upset when they later learned the true
  nature of the experiment
• This study, and other factors, led to much more
  stringent APA resarch guidlines

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APA Ethical Guidelines (humans)

• informed consent
• awareness of risks
• confidentiality
• deception can be used ONLY if benefits justify it
  and there is no other way to do the study

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APA Ethical Guidelines (animals)

• Researchers must ensure appropriate
  consideration of the animals comfort, health,
  and humane treatment.
• Animals may not be subjected to pain or stress
  when an alternative procedure is available.

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Ethical Issues in Research

• Respecting the rights of human research
  participants involves
• Informed consent is an explanation of a study and
  the responsibilities of experimenter and
  participant.
• Confidentiality of study information must be
  maintained.
• Debriefing refers to explaining the research
  process to the participants at the end of the
  study.
• Deception involving participants must be
  justified.
• Animal research must be justified and must
  minimize discomfort and pain.

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Issues of Gender and Cultural Diversity

• Traditionally not studied in psychology
• Why?
• Is it important to studywhy?
• How can diversity be studied?
• Are there any potential risks to studying
  diversity?

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Modern Psychology Views

• Psychoanalytic view emphasizes the unconscious
  mind
• Behaviorism focuses on objective and measurable
  behaviors
• Humanistic psychology emphasizes the inner-self
  and the importance of subjective feelings
• Cognitive psychology focuses on mental function
  and reasoning

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Modern Psychology Views

• Psychobiology views behavior as reflecting brain
  processes
• Evolutionary psychology asserts that certain
  behavioral characteristics are subject to natural
  selection
• Cultural psychology examines the influence of
  culture and ethnic practice on peoples behavior

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Take Home Concepts

• Hypothesis
• What type of study?
• experimental, correlational, naturalistic
• observation, case study
• Independent variable(s) (IV)
• Dependent variable(s) (DV)
• Control group
• Were participants randomly sampled
• and assigned?
• Ethical concerns
• Gender and cross-cultural issues
• Potential experimenter and participant bias