[Crash Course] Psychology I Intro II Method I Introduction The word 'psychology' comes from the latin for 'the study of the soul', but today we can safely call it 'the science of behaviour and mental processes.'
The term of 'psychology' was coined around the 16th century, and the science we called today established at around mid-18th century . But humans have always been curious about themselves and what's going on up the brain. Aristotle pondered the seed of human consciousness and decided that it was in the heart, not the head. (but today it seems totally wrong)
The field of psychology has been tackling some of the big questions, like: 1.How can humans commit genocide or torture other humans? And how come we know those things are horrible? 2.Do we have free will, or are we driven by our environment, biology, and nonconscious influences? 3.What is mental illness, and what can we do about it? 4.What is consciousness or the notion of self? If I lose my awareness of myself, am I still human?
Mainly ideas: 1.Structualism (1879, Germany, physician Wihelm Wundt) Tried to understand the structures of consciousness by getting patients to look inward, asking them how they felt when they watched the sunset or smelled the coffee or licked a kitten or whatever. (It relied so much on introspection that it became too subjective.)
2.Functionalism (1890, America, physician and philosopher William James) Inspired by Charles Darwin's idea 'that adapted behaviour are conserved through the evolutionary process'. Why we think and feel and smell and whatever. Focus on the function of behaviour.
3.Psychoanalysis (1913, Freud) To free associate. The radical kernel of psychoanalysis was the theory that our personalities are shaped by unconscious motives. Basically, Freud suggested that we are all profoundedly affected by mental processes that we are not even aware of. The subconscious, literally the thing below consciousness, was still discoverable. Even you cannot be aware of it, you could come to understand it through a therapeutic technique that used dreams, projections, and free association to root out repressed feelings and gain self-insight. – Behaviourism (Skinner) condition them to perform certain behaviours – Psychodynamic theories the importance of early experiences on shaping the unconsciousness and how that process affects our thoughts, feelings, behaviours and personalities
=========================================== II Methodology Hindsight bias (I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon): Our intuitive sense more easily describes what just happened than what will happen in the future. Our natural tendency toward overconfidence
Scientific Method: Step one: Operationalise your questions. Figure out how to ask general questions about your subject and turn them into measurable, testable propositions. (Question and a theory) Step two: Hypothesis, testable prediction. Step three: Test with a replicable experiment.
-Case studies: becuase by their nature they cannot be replicated. so, the run the risk of over-generalising. still, they're good at showing us what can happen and end up framing questions for more extensive and generalisable studies. story-telling device. -Naturalistic observation: where researchers just watch behaviour in a natural environment. let the subjects do their thing, without trying to manipulate or control the situation. -Survey. sampling bias/ random sample
Correlations predict the possiblity of cause-and-effect relationships, but they cannot prove them.
Experiments: allow investigators to isolate different effects by manipulating an independent variable, and keeping other variables constant. experimental group/ control group/ double-blind procedure
Example 1.Question: Do humans solve problems faster when given caffeine? 2.Hypothesis: Caffeine makes me smarter? x Adult humans given caffeine will navigate a maze faster than adult humans not given caffeine. √ 3.Independent variable: Caffeine dosage Dependent variable: Speed at which a subject navigates through this giant corn maze 4.Groups: (1)Control Group: Decaf (2)Experimental Group 1: 100mg (3)Experimental Group 2: 500mg 5.View the results and compare them just to see if there were any conclusive results.