Chapter 1: Thinking Critically with Psychological Science
Learning Objectives
1. Explain each of the major components of the definition of psychology.
Psychology is the science of behavior and mental processes
2. Exp
...
Chapter 1: Thinking Critically with Psychological Science
Learning Objectives
1. Explain each of the major components of the definition of psychology.
Psychology is the science of behavior and mental processes
2. Explain how the three main components of the scientific attitude relate to critical
thinking.
Curious skeptical and humble they help make modern science possible
3. Describe some important milestones in psychology’s early development.
Wilhelm Wundt establish the first psychological laboratory in 1879 in Germany. Two
early school in psychology were structuralism and functionalism. Structuralism promoted
by Wundt and Titchener, used self-reflection to learn about minds and structure.
Functionalism, promoted by James, explored how behavior and thinking function.
4. Describe how psychology continued to develop from the 1920s through today.
Early researchers defined psychology as a science of mental life. In the 1920s under the
influence of john b Watson and the behaviorists, the fields focus changed the scientific
study of observable behavior
5. Discuss how our understanding of biology and experience, culture and gender, and
human flourishing has shaped contemporary psychology.
Our growing’s understanding of biology and experience has fed psychology’s most
enduring debate. The nature- nurture issue centers on the relative contributions of genes
and experience and their interaction in specific environments. Cross- cultural and genre
studies have diversified psychology’s assumptions while also reminding us of our
similarities.
6. Summarize the nature-nurture debate in psychology.
The longstanding controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience
make top the development of psychological traits and behaviors todays science sees traits
and behaviors arising from the interaction of nature and nature.
7. Identify the three main levels of analysis in the biopsychosocial approach, and explain
why psychology’s varied perspectives are complementary.
the biopsychosocial approach integrated information from the biological and social
cultural levels of analysis. Psychologists study human behavers and mental processes
from mint different perspectives evolutionary behavior genetics psychodynamic
behavioral cognitive and social cultural. Research rebates a more complete understanding
of behaviors and mental processes than would be available from any one viewpoint alone.
8. Identify psychology’s main subfields.
Social, personality, industrial/ organizational, evolutionary, development, counseling,
cognitive, behavioral, clinical
9. Explain how our everyday thinking sometimes leads us to a wrong conclusion. Explain
how the scientific attitude encourages critical thinking.
Hindsight bias which is the I knew it all phenomenon believing after learning the
outcome that we would have foreseen it. Overconfidence is the human tendency to be
more confident than correct. We perceive order in random events due to our natural
eagerness to make sense of our world. Lead us to overestimate our intuition and common
sense then becomes the wrong conclusion.
10. Describe how theories advance psychological science
Psychological theories are explanations that apply an integrated set of principles to
organize observations and generate hypotheses- by testing that researchers can confirm
reject or revise their theories
11. Describe how psychologists use case studies, naturalistic observations, and surveys to
observe and describe behavior, and explain why random sampling is important.
Descriptive methods which include case studies, naturalistic observations and surveys
show us what can happen and they may offer ideas for farther study. The best basis for
generalizing about population is a repetitive sample. Descriptive methods cannot show
cause and effect because researchers cannot control variables.
12. Describe positive and negative correlations, and discuss why correlations enable
prediction but not cause-effect explanation.
in a positive correlation, two factors rise or fall together in a negative correlation one item
rises as the other falls. Scatterplots can help us to see correlations. A correlation
coefficient can describe the strength and direction of a relationship between two
variables, from +1.00 (a perfect positive correlation) through zero (no correlation at all)
to −1.00 (a perfect negative correlation). A correlation can indicate the possibility of a
cause-effect relationship, but it does not prove the direction of the influence, or whether
an underlying third factor may explain the correlation
13. Describe the characteristics of experimentation that make it possible to isolate cause and
effect.
To discover cause-effect relationships, psychologists conduct experiments, manipulating
one or more factors of interest and controlling other factors. Using random assignment,
they can minimize confounding variables, such as preexisting differences between the
experimental group (exposed to the treatment) and the control group (given a placebo or
different version of the treatment). The independent variable is the factor the
experimenter manipulates to study its effect; the dependent variable is the factor the
experimenter measures to discover any changes occurring in response to the
manipulations. Studies may use a double-blind procedure to avoid the placebo effect and
researcher's bias.
14. Discuss whether laboratory conditions can illuminate everyday life.
Researchers intentionally create a controlled, artificial environment in the laboratory in
order to test general theoretical principles. These general principles help explain everyday
behaviors.
15. Explain why psychologists study animals, and describe the ethical guidelines that
safeguard human and animal research participants. Discuss how human values influence
psychology.
Some psychologists are primarily interested in animal behavior other want to better
understand the physiological and psychological processes shared by humans and other
species. Government agencies have established standards for animal care and housing.
Professional associations and funding agencies also establish guidelines for protecting
animas well-being.
16. Describe well-known examples of research ethics failures, and describe the ethical
safeguards currently in place to prevent future failures from occurring.
17. Explain how psychological principles can help you learn and remember
Repeated self-testing, rehearsal of previously studied material helps a lot. The SQ3R
(Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review) method, and by using four additional study
tips: Distributing study time, learning to think critically, Processing information actively,
and Overlearning can be used
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