PSYC 001 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Operational Definition, Standard Deviation, Percentile
Methods
Psychology: explaining the causes of human behavior and mental processes
● Research Perspectives:
○Biological perspective: view psychological hardware (brain/nervous system)
and genetics/evolution as the main determinant of mental processing
■ Ex: depression comes from the deficiency of a chemical, so it can be
solved with an antidepressant drug
○Cognitive perspective: views mental processes like
perception/memory/problem solving as the main explanation
■ Ex: When people say “fruit” people automatically think of apples and
oranges. We define things based on the most common objects in the
category (the prototypes for the category)
○ Behavioral perspective: focuses on how external things in our environment
affect our behavior
■ Classical: making associations based on past events, like Pavlov’s dog
salivating when a bell rings bc it usually comes with food
■ Operant: making associations based on reinforcement/punishments, like
a carrot and a stick
○ Sociocultural perspective: how our social context influences our
behavior/processing
■ Ex: bystander effect. If a bunch of people witness a murder and nobody
does anything, everyone else will conform and also not do anything
● Research Methods:
○ Descriptive Methods: provides an objective/detailed description of
behavior/mental processes
■ Observational Techniques: naturalistic: observing behavior in a natural
environment (runs the risk of people acting differently) / participant
observation: acting like you are one of them
■ Case Studies: doing an in-depth study of an individual overtime (can’t be
used to make statements, only to formulate hypotheses)
■ Survey Research: uses questionnaires/interviews. Needs a relevant and
representative sample of a population (one good strategy is random
sampling)
○ Correlational Studies: when 2 variables are measured to see if they are related
(a variable is any factor that can take more than 1 value-age,height, iq)
■ Correlation Coefficient: a value from -1 to +1 that tells the type/strength
of the relationship
● Strength: the closer to 1 the stronger the relationship (0=none at
all)
● Positive: direct (both go up) Negative: inverse (one up, one
down)
■ Regression Towards the Mean: If you get an extreme measurement of
a value, it’s very likely that the next one will be closer to the average.
Document Summary
Psychology: explaining the causes of human behavior and mental processes. Biological perspective: view psychological hardware (brain/nervous system) Ex: depression comes from the deficiency of a chemical, so it can be and genetics/evolution as the main determinant of mental processing solved with an antidepressant drug. Cognitive perspective : views mental processes like perception/memory/problem solving as the main explanation. Ex: when people say fruit people automatically think of apples and oranges. We define things based on the most common objects in the category (the prototypes for the category) Behavioral perspective: focuses on how external things in our environment. Classical: making associations based on past events, like pavlov"s dog affect our behavior salivating when a bell rings bc it usually comes with food. Operant: making associations based on reinforcement/punishments, like a carrot and a stick. Sociocultural perspective: how our social context influences our behavior/processing.
