PSYCH 101 NOTES

MODULE 1: PSYCHOLOGY AS A SCIENTIFIC METHODS

SCIENCE ● Naturalistic Observation
○ Observer effect
Psychology ○ Observer bias
● Objective and scientific study of ● Laboratory Observation
behavior and mental processes ● Survey
○ Based on observation ● Correlation
(common sense & intuition) ● Experiment

ABC OF PSYCHOLOGY Pseudopsychology

● Affect
○ Mental processes HISTORICAL FIGURES IN PSYCHOLOGY
○ Internal, covert activity of our ● Rene Descartes
minds ○ Heredity
○ Has a behavioral component ● John Locke
● Behavior ○ Tabula rasa
○ Outward or overt actions & ● Gustav Fechner
reactions ○ Psychophysics
● Cognition ● Wilhelm Wundt
○ Introspection
● Edward Titchener
Wilhelm Wundt ○ Structuralism
● Father of Psychology ○ Focused on the
● Generated ideas on psychology but structure/basic elements of
never tested them the mind
● Established the first psychology lab ○ Building blocks of conscious
in Germany to study elements of thought
consciousness ● Functionalism
○ Natural selection
FOUR GOALS OF PSYCHOLOGY ○ How the mind allows people
● Description to adapt
○ What is happening? Where? ○ Influenced IO Psych,
To whom? Under what Educational Psych
circumstances? ● Max Wertheimer
● Explanation ○ Gestalt (wholes; sensation &
○ Why is it happening? perception)
○ Development of theories ○ Zeigarnik effect
■ General explanation ○ Empty chair technique
of a set of ● Sigmund Freud
observations/facts ○ Psychoanalysis
● Prediction ○ How early childhood
○ Will it happen again? experiences affect adulthood
● Control & personality development
○ How can it be changed? ● Early Behaviorism
○ Changing undesirable ○ Ivan Pavlov, John Watson
behavior to a desirable one in ○ Focused on observable
an ethical manner behavior only which could be
seen and measured
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■ Devoid of thought, ○ Some perspectives
only behavior fundamentally negate each
■ No distinction other
between conscious ○ Eclectic perspective -
and unconscious combination (kahit 2 lang);
can be cognitively
MODERN APPROACHES IN PSYCHOLOGY overwhelming as a research
● Psychodynamic framework
○ Development of the sense of ○ Collaboration to explore
self specific segments of the
● Behavioral framework
○ Conditioning ○ Publication as a way to open
● Humanistic framework to criticism
○ Free will & self-actualization ● Therapy - checking if a technique
● Cognitive works, often only 1 perspective at a
○ Memory, intelligence, time
perception, mental processes ○ Can be comparative across
● Sociocultural perspectives but only 1
○ Social psychology, cultural applied at a time or per group
psychology ● Therapists main concern should be if
● Biopsychological client is progressing, getting better
○ Genetic and biological ○ Technique is informed by
influences various perspectives
● Evolutionary ○ Transference (ano tingin ng
○ Biological bases of universal client)
mental characteristics ■ therapeutic alliance
○ Adaptive & survival value ○ Countertransference (ano
tingin ng therapist)
Psychologist
● Works under psych paradigm
● More on assessment, therapy

Psychiatrist
● Medical doctor
● In the PH at least, prescribes
medicine
● Can offer therapy but not necessarily

➔ Not all subfields are clinical

➔ Only clinical do therapy & counseling

GRAND ISSUES OF PSYCHOLOGY

● Stability vs. change
● Nature vs. nurture
● Rational vs. irrational

CLOSING POINTS
● Research
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MODULE 2: SENSATION AND
PERCEPTION Gustation & Olfactory
● 5 basic tastes
Sensation - detecting ● Factors affecting taste
Perception - interpreting ● Relationship between taste & smell

● Impossible to separate the two Touch

● Gate-control theory of pain
SENSATION & PERCEPTION PROCESS ● Phantom limb pain
● Stimulus energy
● Sensory receptors PROCESSING OF STIMULI
● Neural Impulses ● Transduction
○ Transduction - Conversion of ● Sensory Adaptation
receptor energy into neural ○ Adoptive process in response
impulses that can be to repeated/constant
understood by the brain stimulation
● Brain ● Habituation
○ Travel to sensory lobes of ○ Tendency of the brain to stop
each organ (as meaningless attending to constant,
information) unchanging information
○ Travel to prefrontal cortex for ● Sensory Reduction
interpretation ○ Filter & analyze sensory
■ Includes retrieval of information
information from long- ■ Not everything that is
term memory sensed is picked up
by the brain unless
➔ More than 5 human senses changes are
➔ Each sense is distinct and non- significant
overlapping due to different nerve
pathways Psychophysics
● Relationship between physical
Prosopagnosia (face blindness) vs. properties of stimuli & sensory
Synesthesia experiences
● Difference threshold
Vision ○ Just noticeable difference
● Hue ○ Smallest change in stimulus
● Brightness that we can detect
● Saturation ● Absolute threshold
● Depth Perception ○ Smallest amount of stimulus
○ Binocular disparity that can be detected
○ Monocular cues ○ Can be different for each
○ Visual Cliff Experiment person

Auditory Perception
● Loudness ● Top-Down processing
● Pitch ○ Using existing knowledge
● Timbre towards developing an
● Auditory Localization explanation
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○ Constructed by cognition
● Bottom-Up processing
○ Rarely happens in adults
○ No base information
○ Directs cognition
PERCEPTUAL PROCESS
● Select
○ Attention is selective
○ Attention is “shiftable”
■ Can be conscious or
unconscious
○ Without attention, there is
nothing to interpret
● Organize
○ Proximity Rule
○ Similarity Rule
○ Continuity Rule
○ Closure Rule
○ Figure-Ground Rule
○ Ambiguous Figure
○ Perceptual Set
○ Context
● Interpret
○ Factors affecting
interpretation
Subliminal perception
● Perceiving without awareness
● No empirical evidence to prove that
subliminal persuasion has any effect
on behavior
● Persuasion works best when
messages are presented above-
threshold
Extrasensory perception (ESP)
● Perception without the mediation of
senses
● Has not been scientifically
demonstrated
MODULE 3: EMOTIONS, STRESS, AND
HEALTH
Alexithymia
● Inability to recognize/describe one’s
emotions
○ Very restricted emotions
○ Mas nakakaramdam ng
negative emotions
○ Often unaware when they
feel these emotions
○ Will attribute to something
else
● Present in about 10% of the
population
● More prevalent in men
● No documented case of an individual
devoid of all emotion
Emotions
● Complex phenomenon in both
humans & animals
● Innate to all at us
● Directed at someone/something
(narrow focus)
● Human emotions have different
levels
● Can give rise to other emotions and
get merged
● Often arise from a significant source
Transitory
● Rise abruptly (surprised)
● Lifespan of emotions is 90 seconds
○ Mood disorders - passing of
emotions takes longer
○
Narrow focus
● Exemptions: when drunk/high, yung
reactions ng pagtawa ganon
COMPONENTS OF EMOTION
● Physiological arousal
○ Brain
■ Limbic System
● Amygdala
■ Cerebral Cortex
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● Left - positive, ○ Solely looking at facial
motivation expression can be unreliable
● Right - in detecting emotion
negative,
withdrawal
○ Sympathic nervous system Affective forecasting
■ Calmed down by the ● People have difficulty predicting
parasympathetic emotion for future events
division ○ Pwedeng ibang emotion,
● Expressive behavior ibang intensity, ibang
● Cognitive interpretation duration
○ Labeling of emotional state
○ Attribute source of arousal CATEGORIES OF EMOTIONS
○ Becomes more complex as a ● Primary
child matures ○ In response to an event
○ Cognitive appraisal ○ Easy to identify
sometimes does not happen ○ Transient
■ Our system detects ● Secondary
threat pero hindi na ○ Feelings you have about the
inaalam ano to & ano primary emotion
gagawin, wal anang ■ Learned
process of analysis ● Not innate
■ Nagkikick in yung ● Learned from
flight response socialization
○ Counterfactual thinking ■ Instrumental
■ What if scenarios for ● Emotion used
what didnt happen to lead to a
■ Ginagawa lang in different
response to negative emotion
events
■ Might bring happiness VARIETY OF EMOTIONS
down ● Positive
● Negative

PERCEIVING EMOTIONS
● Emotions are accompanied by Robert plutchik
physiological changes ● 8 basic emotions
● Changes are associated with specific ● When combined, it gives rise to more
emotions, can also apply across complex emotions
different emotions ● Insight into complex emotions, what
their subcomponents are
WAYS OF PERCEIVING EMOTION
● Body posture James russell
● Proximity ● Different way of mapping out
● Speech patterns emotions
● Gestures ● Pleasantness & level of arousal
● Facial expressions ● Misconception that low arousal is
negative & vice versa
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○ Debunked by russell’s model
Emotional Intelligence
● Ability to perceive, control, evaluate
emotions
● 4 factors (Salovery & Mayer)
○ Perceiving
○ Reasoning with
○ Understanding
○ Managing
Stress
● Process by which we perceive &
respond to certain events (real or
imagined) we deem as threatening or
challenging
○ Process, not an event
○ Can also be a stimulus or a
response
COMPONENTS OF STRESS
● Stressor
○ Events alone do not cause
stress, but our perception of
them & reaction to them do
○ Social, biological, physical,
environmental, life changes,
internal
● Cognitive appraisal
● Body response
● Coping strategies
TYPES OF STRESS
● Distress
○ Acute stress
■ Fight or flight
response
○ Chronic stress
■ Ongound stressful
situations
■ Can result in burnout
● Eustress
TYPES OF CONFLICT
● Approach-approach conflict
○ 2 desirable goals
● Avoidance-avoidance
○ 2 undersirable goals
● Approach-avoidane
○ Must choose or not choose a
goal with both positive &
negative aspects
○ Double, multiple
Transaction model of stress - between the
person & situation
RESPONSES TO STRESS
● Fight or flight
● General adaptation syndrome
○ Alarm
○ Resistance
○ Exhaustion
Cognitive factors of stress - how we actively
participate in stress
● How people think about a stressor
determines in part how stressful the
stressor will become
● How do we assess the event - how
potentially harmful is the threat
● Pag very rigid yung tao maaaring
mataas ang assessment nila ng
event
● Kung masyadong mataas ang
assessment of threat, higher
likelihood of inadequate coping
mechanisms
○ Kulang ang resource to cope
Two fold effects
● Immune system
● Unhealthy behavior
○ Can give temporary relief
butmight lead into more
stress down the line
“Psychosomatic” is an outdated term
● Mas psychophysiological
DEALING WITH STRESS
● Coping strategies
● Problem-focused
● Emotion-focused
● Religion
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ABC OF STRESS ● Walter cannon & philip bard
● Awareness ● Emotion & physiological response
● Balance occur more or less at the same time
● Control ● the sensory information that comes
into the brain is sent simultaneously
Asian societies tend to use more emotion (by the thalamus) to both the cortex
focused and the organs of the sympathetic
Western more problem focused nervous system
● Experienced at the same time
Stress excited brain cells, but too much can ● LIMITATION - thalamus is not that
lead to killing brain cells sophisticated
○ Initially thought that people
did not need feedback from
organs to experience
emotion
THEORIES OF EMOTION ○ But the alternative pathway’s
existence (vagus nerve)
COMMON SENSE THEORY OF EMOTION
● Stimulus - feeling/emotion -
arousal/stimulation - behavior

SCHACTER-SINGER - COGNITIVE AROUSAL

THEORY
JAMES-LANGE THEORY OF EMOTION ●
● William james ● Physical arousal &labeling of the
● Carl lange arousal based on cure from the
● Stimulus produces physiological surrounding environment
reaction - arousal (then interpreted ○ These have to happen before
as emotion) - behavior emotion occurs
○ Reaction is the arousal of the
fight or flight sympethic
nervouc system
○ Reaction produces bodily
sensations
○ Physcial arousal led to the
labeling of the emotion
● LIMITATION - spinal cord injuries

CANNON-BARD THEORY OF EMOTION

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MODULE 4: LEARNING
Learning
● A relatively permanent change in
behavior brought about by
experience or practice
● Continuous process
● Largely results from nurture
○ Maturation enables certain
skills due to enhanced
physical capability
MAJOR TYPES OF LEARNING
● Classical Conditioning
● Operant Conditioning
● Cognitive Learning Theory
● Observational Learning
Classical Conditioning
● A neutral stimulus comes to bring
about a response after it is paired
with a stimulus that naturally brings
about that response
● Associating automatic behavior with
a stimulus
● Only relates to involuntary, automatic
reactions
○ Emotional responses
○ Biological reactions
COMPONENTS
● Unconditioned stimulus
○ Naturally causes a particular
response
● Neutral stimulus
○ Does not naturally cause the
subject to respond in a
certain way
PROPONENT: Ivan Pavlov (1890s)
● Russian physiologist
● Studying aspects of the digestive
process by observing salivation in
dogs
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF CONDITIONING
1. Order of stimulus presentation
2. Intensity (effectivity) of unconditioned
stimulus
3. Distinct conditioned stimulus
4. Frequency of pairing Conditioned
Stimulus and Unconditioned Stimulus
COMPONENTS
● Unconditioned stimulus
● Unconditioned response
● Conditioned stimulus
● Conditioned response
CONTINUATION: John B. Watson & Rosalie
Rayner (1920s)
● Little Albert experiment
● Classically conditioned a human
baby to fear the sight of white rats
Stimulus generalization
● Stimuli that are similar to the original
stimulus may produce the same
response
● A greater similarity produces a
greater likelihood of stimulus
generalization occurring
EX. Phobias
EXTINCTION OF RESPONSE: When the
conditioned stimulus is no longer paired with
the unconditioned stimulus
Extinction
● When a previously conditioned
response decreases in frequency
and eventually disappears
Spontaneous recovery
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● An extinct response can sometimes
reemerge after a period of time
● Without further conditioning
● The response may be physically
present in the brain through memory

Higher-order conditioning
● Occurs when a strong conditioned
stimulus is paired with a new neutral
stimulus
● New NS becomes a second CS
CONTINUATION: B.F. Skinner
● First to conduct controlled
Operant Conditioning
experiments on the behavioral
● A method of learning that occurs
effects of punishment and
through reinforcement and
reinforcement
punishment of behavior
● Results from conscious choices
Skinner Box
based on association of behaviors
● Conditioning chamber designed to
with certain consequences
teach rats to push a lever
○ Past experiences
Positive Reinforcement: Rats were
awarded with food when the lever
Reinforcement
was pressed
● Strengthens a response
Negative Reinforcement: Rats
● Makes a response more likely to
avoided electric shocks when the
recur
lever was pressed
Punishment
TYPES OF REINFORCEMENT
● Weakens a response
● Positive Reinforcement
● Makes a response less likely to recur
○ Adding something good to
increase the incidence of
PROPONENT: Edward Thorndike
behavior
● Law of Effect
● Negative Reinforcement
○ Trial and error learning in
○ Taking away something bad
novel environments
to increase the incidence of
○ Responses that result in
behavior
pleasant consequences are
likely to be repeated
TYPES OF PUNISHMENT
○ Utilized a puzzle box in the
● Positive Punishment
experiment
○ Adding something bad to
decrease the incidence of
behavior
● Negative Punishment
○ Taking away something good
to decrease the incidence of
behavior

Primary reinforcer
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● Fulfill a basic biological need
EX. Food, water, touch
Secondary reinforcer
● Acquired reinforcing properties by
being associated with a primary
reinforcer
EX. Money, verbal affirmation
DRAWBACKS OF PUNISHMENT
● Avoiding the punisher rather than the
behavior being punished
● Encouraging lying
● Creating fear and anxiety rather than
learning
● Aggression (especially through
physically violent punishments)
MAKING PUNISHMENTS EFFECTIVE
● Applied immediately
● Clearly targets behavior and not the
individual
● Applied uniformly and consistently
● Limited in time and intensity
➔ Still best to avoid punishment and
instead provide alternative desired
reinforcer for target behavior
Discriminative stimulus
● Cues a certain response in order to
obtain reinforcement
Shaping
● Step-by-step trials (successive
approximations) are used to direct
the participant towards the end goal
SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT
● Continuous
○ Every time a certain behavior
is performed, a reward is
given
○ More effective when first
teaching behavior
● Partial
○ Behavior is rewarded at
random times
○ More effective in sustaining
behavior in the long term
TYPES OF PARTIAL REINFORCEMENT
● Ratio (number of correct responses)
○ Fixed ratio schedule
○ Variable ratio schedule
● Interval (lapsed period of time)
○ Fixed interval schedule
○ Variable interval schedule
EXTINCTION OF RESPONSE: Systematic
withholding of reinforcers which had
previously maintained behavior
● Behavior may still be continued and
incentivized through internal reward
mechanisms
Instinctive drift
● Tendency to revert to genetically
controlled patterns
● Difficult to control with conditioning
Cognitive Learning Theory
● Focuses on mental processes that
influenced observed behavior
KEY PROPONENTS
● Edward Tolman
● Wolfgang Köhler
● Martin Seligman
Edward Tolman
● Experimented with 3 groups of rats
running in a maze
● Groups that were rewarded for
completing the maze made a
cognitive map of its layout and
solved the maze almost immediately
when repeated
Latent learning
● Cognitive maps remain hidden until
provided with a reason to
demonstrate knowledge
● Learning can happen without
reinforcement then later affect
behavior
 PSYCH 101 NOTES
Wolfgang Köhler
● Experimented with chimps
● In order to get a banana that was out
of reach, the chimp managed to use
certain tools to its advantage in
various settings
● Insight
○ Rapid perception of
relationships evolved from
trial-and-error learning
Martin Seligman
● Founded the field of positive
psychology
● Conducted classical conditioning
experiments on dogs
○ Jumping over a hurdle in a
box resulting in electric
shocks associated with a
sound
Learned helplessness
● Tendency to fail to act to escape
from a situation because of a history
of repeated failures
Observational Learning
● Modeling, Social learning
● Replication of other individuals’
behavior through observation
PROPONENT: Albert Bandura
● Observed aggressive behavior in
preschool children who were playing
with a Bobo doll
○ Children learned aggressive
behavior by imitating a model
that was acting aggressively
towards the doll
● Direct reinforcement could not
account for all learning that occurs
● People learn from watching someone
else being rewarded or punished
● People do not simply imitate models
○ Ability to add to or modify
imitated behavior
Learning distinction
● Performance distinction
● Learning can take place without
actual performance
○ No reinforcement necessary
● A form of latent learning
Role models
● Individuals through which other
people imitate behavior
● People must be able to see
themselves in their role models
○ Not all role models exercise
the same level of influence or
produce the same effects in
an individual
ELEMENTS OF OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING
● Attention
○ Must pay attention to the
action and its consequence
○ Storing information in the
brain
○ Some factors may impact the
level of attention exerted
● Memory
○ Must be able to retain the
memory of what was done
● Imitation
○ Must be capable of
reproducing the actions of
the model
● Desire
○ Must have the motivation to
perform or imitate the action
○ Without it, the action risks
being forgotten or stopped
 PSYCH 101 NOTES
MODULE 5: MOTIVATION
Motivation
● Process by which activities are
started, directed, and continued so
that physical or psychological
needs/wants are met
● Extrinsic & Intrinsic
➔ Some experiences may dampen
motivation
➔ Motivation is not necessarily
consistent
➔ More motivational factors = less
chances of losing motivation
APPROACHES TO MOTIVATION
● Drive-reduction Theory
○ Maintaining psychological
homeostasis
○ Acting in order to reduce
tension
■ Attention is divided
when tension is felt
● Need for Affiliation
○ Birth order
■ Highly contested
theory
○ Belongingness
■ Optimum level of
similarities &
differences
● Need for Achievement
○ Challenging tasks
○ Social comparison
○ Internal standards
● Self-theory of Motivation
○ Carol Dweck
○ How we perceive our own
intelligence & capabilities
affects motivation
○ Fixed vs. growth mindset
● Optimum Arousal Theory
○ Seeking out own stimulation
○ Tension and sensation
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
● Maslow lang nagbigay ng paradigm
na ang needs are ordered
● A lower need has to be fulfilled
before moving into the next
○ But maslow revisited this and
mellowed down on the view -
lower needs have to be
partially fulfilled before
moving up the hierarchy
● Peak experiences - certain
shifts/changes shift their attention to
work on their lower tier needs
○ Going out of that peak
experience, they don't stay
here forever
○ Cyclical
○ When shifts happen, you
work on the tier that needs
attention & work way up
again then strive to have
another peak experience
● Criticism
○ Little scientific support
○ Got this from working with
clients (as a practitioner)
COMPLEMENTARY APPROACHES
● Equity theory
○ Balance between input &
output
● Justice theory
○ Fairness concerning larger
systems
➔ Short-term and long-term goals to
sustain motivation