PSYCH 111 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Ap Psychology, Psychological Science, Critical Thinking
Hank Chau
AP Psychology
Greg Jones
September 3, 2015
Chapter 1 Outline
1. Purpose: Using psychology to understand how people feel:
a. Behaviorist psychology
b. Structuralism psychology
c. Functionalist psychology
2. The Need for Psychological Science:
a. Hindsight Bias: Did we know it all along?
i. “I knew that was going to happen.”
b. Overconfidence: We assume the capability of ourselves
c. Perceiving order in random events: We assume there’s a pattern to things
when there really isn’t.
3. The Scientific Attitude:
a. Curious: Curiosity leads us to observations
b. Skeptical: By doubting the world around us, we are able to come up with new
questions that conflict with our assumptions, which leads to discoveries and
innovations
c. Humble: Reserved or bold statements leads us to form our own hypothesis
d. Critical Thinking: Critical thinking is essential for the scientific attitude, as we
self-evaluate and examine assumptions, etc.
4. How do Scientists ask questions:
a. The Scientific Method: Observation and hypothesis
i. We take note of something we observe and form a logical/testable
hypothesis or explanation of the occasion
ii. Operational definitions: Definitions we set so that an experiment can
be conducted
b. Naturalistic Observations: Observing and recording behaviors and occurences
in the natural environment
i. Explain, not describe
c. Random Sampling: Pick and measure samples in a population to inference the
characteristics of the population as a group
d. Correlation vs. Causation:
i. Correlation is something that is related while causation means the two
have a direct impact on each other
e. Experimental group vs. Control group
f. Variables:
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