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Psychology 1101A
May-June 2011
Lecture 1
Today’s Lecture
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01/05/2011
Heather Poole
email: hpoole@uottawa.ca
Important Dates
http://www.registrar.uottawa.ca/Default.aspx?tabid=3895#Spring
May 13: Last day to drop a course get all your money back
June 3: Last day to drop a course without having it recorded as a failure (no $ credit)
June 6: Midterm 2
Textbook
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Evaluation
• Midterm 1: 22%
• Midterm 2: 29%
• Final exam: 45%
• Experiment participation: 4%
Experiment participation
• Earn up to a maximum of 4% of your final grade!
– Participate in experiments in the psychology department
AND/OR
– Watch movies on psychology (then short questionnaire)
• Each 45-60 minute session = 1% bonus
http://www.socialsciences.uottawa.ca/psy/eng/ispr.asp
Grading Scheme
A+ 90 – 100%
A 85 – 89%
A- 80 – 84%
B+ 75 – 79%
B 70 – 74%
C+ 66 – 69% Passing grade: D (50%)
C 60 – 65%
D+ 55 – 59%
D 50 – 54%
E 40 – 49%
F 0 – 39%
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Course outline
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1. Your studying should be active, not passive. You want your studying to be similar to the
situation you'll be facing in the exam. That means you want to have to draw the
information out of your memory during studying, not off the page. In the exam, you
won't have the information on the page!
2. You should spread your studying out. Cramming doesn't work. Figure out what time
you can devote to this course (remember, this is in addition to reading the textbook and
attending lectures). Maybe try to find 15 minutes 5 days a week to spend actively
studying for this course. You don't have to be at your desk to study - do it on the bus,
while you're cooking dinner, or while you're eating breakfast. Get creative with your
time - if you're watching TV, try reading a section of a lecture during the first ad
segment, then see if you can write down what you read at the next ad segment. (But
don't do all your studying in front of the TV!) Once the exam gets closer, you'll spend
more time in a day studying for this course, but if you've already been studying a bit
every day, you'll find that final push a lot easier.
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Psychology
Clinical Experimental
Psychology Psychology
Researches
Helps with
behaviour & the
behaviour
nervous system
problems
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A. Dualism
B. Phrenology
C. Structuralism
D. Empiricism
E. Nativism
F. Behaviourism
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A. Dualism
• Dualism (1600’s):
humans consist of a
material body and an
immaterial soul
– Soul controlled most
abilities
• Descartes: the body
actually drives most
behaviours; the soul
controls only thought
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Dualism
• The mind and body are separate – there are
‘threads’ in the body that control movement
– now we call these nerves
• Some behaviours happen without thought
– now we call these reflexes
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B. Phrenology
• German doctor, Franz Josef
Gall, 1800’s
• the belief that each part of
the brain controls a particular
part of the personality
• can detect someone’s relative
abilities and weaknesses by
measuring the bumps on their
head
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C. Structuralism
• Attempted to break our conscious experience
down into basic elements to understand the
structures of the mind
• Used introspection to attempt to determine
how the mind worked
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D. Empiricism
• The mind as a ‘blank slate’
• Experience is everything
E. Nativism
Some knowledge or rules of operation are
inborn in humans
– a priori knowledge
– a posteriori knowledge
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http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/sze_muelue/index.html
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F. Behaviorism
• Focused on observable behaviour
• Behaviours develop through their
consequences
– +ive consequences: behaviour increases
– -ive consequences: behaviour decreases
• Absolutely no focus on mental processes
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Cognitive revolution
• Behaviorism was eventually abandoned because it
too strictly excluded mental processes
• The cognitive revolution brought psychology to a
stage where it was acceptable (and in fact desirable)
to study mental processes, but to do so in a
scientifically controlled manner
• Present-day psychology: ‘the scientific study of
behavior and mental processes’
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• STUDIED SCIENTIFICALLY
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Thinking critically
• Psychology is a science
• Scientists form hypotheses based in logical
theory and evidence
• Scientists demand rigorous evidence to
support hypotheses before they believe them
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Conflicting hypotheses
• Both seem to make sense – we can’t rely on
intuition only – we need evidence
• Often our intuitions are correct (and then
we’re not too surprised – hindsight bias)
– but just as often, they might not be!
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Science
• Scientists are skeptical, but not cynical
• They work to be curiously open to ideas, but
not gullible
• They base their beliefs on empirical data, not
unsupported claims
– Cathy with cured ‘lung cancer’ (Dr. Oz)
• Check out another test (like the one described
in your text):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZeQGld5QBU&feature=related
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Example
You’ve noticed that a few of your friends who
are good at math played music as kids.
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1. Formulate a theory.
Remember, this
may lead back 2. Formulate a hypothesis.
to more data 3. Select a research method.
collection or a
revision of your 4. Data collection.
hypothesis. 5. Data analysis.
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1. Formulate a theory.
2. Formulate a hypothesis.
3. Select a research method.
4. Data collection.
5. Data analysis.
6. Report findings.
7. Revise theory.
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High constraint
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Case study
• Case studies examine one
individual in great detail
• Savant: Leslie Lempke
• Severe MR, blind, limited
speech
• No musical training BUT
able to reproduce an entire
concerto after a single
hearing!
• And can sing in several
languages!
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• H.M.
• (Henry Molaison)
• Lobotomy in 1950’s to counteract epilepsy
• Could form no new long-term memories
• Studied throughout his life – now his brain is
being studied
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Case studies
Pros Cons
• Good for giving ideas for • Usually only descriptive, not
future research explanatory
• Extreme cases that would • Only studying one person –
be unethical to create may not be representative
• Often studied in natural of the population
conditions – Anecdotal evidence
• Hard to avoid influencing
behaviour of participants
• Can be time consuming
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Using a sample
• We want to draw conclusions about how a whole
population (everyone we’re interested in) would
behave, but it’s impractical to test everyone
• Instead we draw a representative sample of
people, test them, and generalize to the
population
• How do we know it’s representative?
– Random selection: everyone in the population has an
equal chance of being selected
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Naturalistic observation
• Classroom observation
• Jane Goodall – wild chimpanzees
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Naturalistic observation
Pros Cons
• Good for giving ideas for • Usually only descriptive, not
future research, explanatory
– e.g. People who live in cold
investigating new areas climates are more likely to die
• See people behave as they of heart disease. Why???
typically would • Sample not randomly selected
- may not be representative of
• Can be useful to verify the population
(possibly artificial) lab • Hard to avoid influencing
results. participants
• Time consuming
• Little control
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Correlational research
• Looking for the relationship between variables
• Often less control than experimental designs,
though often possible when experiment
impossible
• No implication of causality!
– Possibility of third factors
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On your own
• Make sure you look at how scatterplots
display correlational data (p. 26)
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Experimental designs
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Experiment example
Hypothesis:
Listening to music while studying improves students’
test performance.
Experimental Group Control Group
Study list of 20 words for Study list of 20 words for
2 minutes 2 minutes
Wear headphones to Wear headphones to
study study
Listen to music Listen to white noise
After 5 min, report words After 5 min, report words
from list from list
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Extraneous Variable
Any variable other than the independent variable that can
have an effect on the dependent variable.
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Experimental Research
Pros Cons
• Can establish causal • Artificial
relationship between • Not always ethical
variables
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On your own
• Read Describing Data (p.34-38) and make sure
you understand these concepts
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Remember…
• Scientists are curious skeptics who seek to
answer questions using logic (rationalism) and
evidence (empiricism)
• Good science follows the 7 steps of the
scientific method
• But science has many different faces,
depending on the constraints we place on the
design and the types of question we’re asking
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For Wednesday
• Read Prologue and Chapter 1 if you haven’t
already
• Read Chapter 2
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