Module 1

How psychology is a science, the history of it (see printed documents)

E-BOOK

Psychology is a science

Empirical approach: evidence-based method that draws on observation and experimentation

Putting a scientific attitude into practice (skeptical but not cynical, open-minded but not gullible,
humility ie. awareness of vulnerability to error and openness), what matters is the truth, not the
opinion

 Curiosity: does it work? Can its predictions be confirmed?

 Skepticism: what do you mean? How do you know?
 Humility: that was unexpected, let’s explore further.
o Predicts helpfulness and realistic academic confidence
o Knowing what we don’t know

Critical thinking

Curiosity + skepticism + humility

Examines assumptions, appraises the source, discerns hidden biases, evaluates evidence, and
assesses conclusions

Can debunk popular presumptions, identify effective policies

Psychological science is born

1. Aristotle: theorized about learning, memory, motivation, emotion, perception,

personality, his guesses were not always right but the questions he asked were
interesting
2. Wilhelm Wundt: 1879, Germany, the machine they created measured the time is took
for people to press a telegraph key after hearing a ball hit a platform
3. Schools of thought: structuralism and functionalism
a. Structuralism (proved unreliable): Wundt and Edward Bradford Titchener, used
introspection to reveal the structure of the human mind, aimed to classify and
understand elements of the mind’s structure
i. Proved unreliable bc requires smart, verbal people, results vary from
people to people
b. Functionalism (studied still today): William James (influenced by Darwin),
explored how mental and behavioral processes function (how they enable the
organism to adapt, survive and flourish), assumes that thinking developed bc it
was adaptive (consciousness serves a fct: consider past, adjust to present, plan
future)
First women

1890: James admitted Mary Whiton Calkins into his seminar over the objections of Harvard,
other men students dropped out, so she was privately tutored, great scores but Harvard denied
her degree, became a memory researcher and first female president of the APA (American
Psychological Association)

First woman to receive an official psychology Ph.D.: Margaret Floy Washburn (gender still barred
doors, couldn’t join an all-male organization founded by Titchener, her own graduate adviser)

Now, more women in the field, though still gender gaps in publishing journals

Psychological science matures

Definition of psychology: the science of mental life

1920: psychology redefined by John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner as the scientific study of
observable behavior  Behaviorism (observation, cannot observe a feeling, a thought, etc. but
you can observe behavior as people are conditioned)

Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic psychology  Unconscious mind and childhood experiences

affect behavior

1960: humanistic psychology lead by Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow rejects behaviorism,
focuses more on our growth potential, our needs for love and acceptance, the environments
limiting or nurturing personal growth

Psychologist Schools of thought Approach

Wilhelm Wundt Structuralism Introspection to structure the mind
Titchener Structuralism (continued) proved unreliable
William James Functionalism Inspired by Darwin, how mental and behavioral
processes function (how they enable the organism
to adapt, survive and flourish)
John B. Watson Behaviorism Focuses on observable behavior
Skinner Behaviorism Focuses on observable behavior
Sigmund Freud Freudian, Unconscious mind and childhood experiences
personality theory affect behavior
Carl Rogers Humanistic Rejects behaviorism, focuses on growth
Abraham Maslow Humanistic (continued) needs for love, acceptance,
environment

Contemporary Psychology

Cognitive revolution in 1960 (cognitive psych: study of mental processes involved in perceiving,
learning, remembering, thinking, communicating, solving problems, anxiety, depression, etc.)

Today: cognitive psychology and neuroscience  cognitive neuroscience (studies the brain
activity underlying mental activity)
Definition today: the science of behavior (actions) and mental processes (internal, subjective
experiences)

Psychology has roots in many disciplines and countries

Shaped by biology, experience, culture, gender, human flourishing

Evolutionary Psychology and Behavior Genetics

Nature (Plato) versus nurture (Aristotle)  Darwin’s natural selection and evolution

How are humans alike due to our shared biology and evolutionary history? EVOLUTIONARY
PSYCHOLOGY

How do humans individually differ because of differing genes and environment? BEHAVIOR
GENETICS

Answer: Nurture works on what nature provides. (plasticity/ learn and adapt and every
psychological event is also a biological one)

Cross-Cultural and Gender Psychology

Culture: shared ideas and behaviors that one generation passes to the next

Culture shapes behavior (promptness, frankness, casual, formal, eye contact, hand gestures,
etc.), but still the same underlying processes for all

Studying people from different cultures (and gender identities) helps discern similarities and
differences

Positive psychology: troubles (anxiety, depression, etc.) are still being studied but also human
flourishing now (thrive)

Happiness is a by-product of a pleasant, engaged, and meaningful life

Psychology’s three main levels of analysis

Biological, psychological and social-cultural together (biopsychosocial approach)

Theoretical perspectives:

 Neuroscience: how the body and brain enable emotions, memories, sensory experiences
 Evolutionary: how the natural selection of traits has promoted the survival of genes
 Behavior genetics: how our genes and environment influence our individual differences
 Psychodynamic: how behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts
 Behavioral: how we learn observable responses
 Cognitive: how we encode, process, store, retrieve info
 Social-cultural: how behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures

Subfields: basic research, applied research (practical), counseling, clinical (treats ill patients but
no medication), psychiatrists (medication, physical aspects of illnesses), community, ALL
DESCRIBE AND EXPLAIN BEHAVIOR AND THE MIND UNDERLYING IT
Module 2
Slide:
1. Research strategies, the need for psychological science
2. The need for psychological science: Roadblocks to critical thinking
a. Hindsight bias: I knew it that I was going to be accepted at St-Lawrence
after you get the letter)
b. Overconfidence: Lead to thinking errors and conflicts
c. Perceiving patterns in random events: Make us feel more secure in the real
world (illusion)
d. These 3 tendencies make us overestimate our capabilities and makes our
common sense unreliable
3. Post-truth: in denial to feel more safe and secure, not think about it, not consider
all elements because it’s easier to live with
a. Why are we so vulnerable to believing untruths:
i. Fake news (TikTok is shut down): given false info and believe
without questioning anything, no critical thinking, method used in
elections
ii. Repetition: when we hear sth over and over again, we tend to
believe it after some time
iii. Availability of powerful examples: more likely to believe sth if it is
shocking and leaves an impact
iv. Group identity and the echo chamber of the like-minded:
unfollowing people on social media when we don’t agree
b. We don’t question what do you mean, we have to be more proactive
4. The Scientific Method: process of evaluating ideas by analyzing
5. Useful Theories: explanation that organizes results and predicts events,
framework to understand sth (example: motivation theory, extrinsic vs intrinsic, if
certain qualities are present, then motivation is this type)
a. Organize observations
b. Imply predictions
c. May stimulate further research: anyone can verify and push future
research which can refine or support past theories
6. Representation of the scientific method
a. Informal observations: intrigues us, leads us to formulate
b. A Research question based on observations, then
c. We will look at literature (past studies, how did they measure this data,
etc.), which either
d. Refines the research question OR formulation of hypotheses (what you
want to test), then
e. Operational definition (procedure, how do you measure sth), after
f. Conduct the empirical study (collect data), then
g. Data analysis
 h. Conclusions
i. Go back to literature to strengthen and support the conclusions
j. In a perfect world: Replication of the study (doing the same test with
another group)
7. Research methods:
a. Description: describes behavior through case studies
b. Correlation: association between two factors and experimental methods
c. Experimentation
8. Description:
a. Gives us a portrait of the situation
b. Case studies: when you study one or a group of individuals in depth, often
about particular things, could mislead (generalization), need to do studies
after to confirm
9. Case study example
a. Secluded in her room, Jenny did not have any social interaction, neglect,
beaten, malnourished
b. Animal-like behavior
c. Researchers did different studies
d. Past the age of ten when you learn a different language, you cannot be
fluent live a native, so there are some mechanisms that she never
developed
10. Naturalistic observation (another way of using description)
a. Important not to give any signs that those people are being observed
because could bias
b. Not possible to control certain variables
c. Can only describe what we are observing, not bring correlations
11. Big Data: use data from phones, technological footprints
12. Surveys and interviews (another way of using description)
a. Statistic Canada
b. Self-reported
c. Drawbacks: we’re complicated creatures, words (order) can influence
d. Make sure that your sample is representative, no preference
i. Size
ii. Random element: each member has an equal chance of
participation, best representation, eliminates common factors
between certain groups
iii. Representative
13. Correlation: most widely used in social sciences
a. Measures how well the factors influence each other
b. Only looking at 2 variables, so only explains a part of the correlation
c. Not manipulating anything
d. Correlation coefficient, rarely 1 (never perfect)
14. Correlation coefficient
 a. Positive: age and years in school, both increase, from 0-1
b. Negative: inverse relationship, one variable goes up, one goes down, the
more you spend the less you have in your bank account, from 0-(-1)
c. No correlation
15. Numbers meaning of correlation coefficient
a. 0: weaker correlation
b. Closer to 1 or -1: stronger
c. Correlation cannot explain
16. Negative
17. Positive
18. Negative
19. No correlation
20. Things to consider: can’t talk about causation, just how two things relate to one
another (donut and high school graduate, correlation but isn’t pertinent)
21. Form
22. Different types of research
23. Experimentation: isolate effects of certain factors and variables (give
medication), manipulates a factor of interest, controls other factors
a. Groups: experimental group receives treatment, control group does not
(comparison group)
24. Samples: random sampling vs random assignment (everyone in a sample has an
equal chance of being put in the experimental group or the control group,
minimizes other factors)
25. Random assignment: why is it important? To eliminate all other factors,
confidence
Recap:
 Research methods
o observation:
 case study
 surveys
 naturalistic observations
 Roadblocks to critical thinking
 Post-truth section
 Correlation vs causation
 Experimentation: isolating the effects of one variable, random assignment to a
control group (placebo) or an experimentation group

28. Procedures and placebo effect

a. Double-blind procedure: both the research participants and the staff are
ignorant about who receives a placebo or not
 i. Limits the effects of staff (more empathetic if someone really
wants to be in the real treatment, etc.)
b. Placebo effect: experimental results caused by expectations alone
29. Variables: factors that can vary
a. Independent variable (IV): is manipulated, is being studied
b. A confounding variable: a factor that might influence the study’s results (a
way to prevent their influence is to randomly assign the samples)
c. Dependent variable (DV): measured, may change when the IV is
manipulated
30. Experimentation enables us to:
a. Understand
b. Control confounding variables
c. Manipulate the independent variable
d. Measure the dependent variable
e. NOTE: sometimes we are not able to control
f. Limitations:
i. Not feasible
ii. Not ethical (drug that saves lives not administered to some
patients)
iii. Not always able to generalize results
31. How to choose:
a. Think of research question
b. Three main things that the experimental designs allow: observation,
experimentation, correlation
c. Measure the behaviour or mental process being studied
d. Interpret the results
e. It’s usually a long process
32. Selecting a research design:
a. Pam wants to learn about people’s beliefs on electric cars: surveys or
interviews
b. Axel wonders if practicing gratitude is more common among those who
journal: correlational study
c. Hilary is intrigued about how pigs are treated on farms: naturalistic
observations
d. Bob is worried that working night shifts compared to day shifts can affect
your overall abilities to perform on tasks: experimental (take on group
make them work the day shift and look, make another group do the same
but with the night shift)
33. Video
34. Based on all the research done, are we able to predict everyday behavior? No,
psychology helps us understand general phenomena, test theoretical principles,
but not predict behavior
35. Ethics: a way to monitor all the research that is done
 36. Ethics info:
a. Animals: understand differences and similarities to investigate treatment
for human diseases, used in psychological, biological, and medical
b. Is it right to place the well-being of humans above that of other animals?
Which safeguards the rights of the animals
c. Shifts today to make experiments for the well-being of animals for
themselves
37. Research ethics: don’t want to repeat the electric shock experiment
a. Protecting Human Research Participants
b. Informed consent
c. Protect from greater-than-usual harm and discomfort
d. Confidentiality
e. Debrief: offer them additional support if needed
f. University ethics committee guidelines (rules have to be respected):
review board
g. This can influence the type of experiment you could do
38. Scientific integrity and honesty: avoid plagiarism, not to take credit if it’s not
yours, consequences on future research
39. Values influence what we study, biases the results, may be hidden or unconscious
a. Purpose of research is to enlighten
40. Stronger Person and a better student:
a. Full night’s sleep
b. Exercise
c. Set long-term goals, with daily aims
d. Growth mindset
e. Prioritize relationships
41. Study strategies
a. Self-testing and rehearsal (testing effect, retrieval practice, etc.)
b. Spacing studying
c. Critical thinking
d. Overlearning
QUIZ: Next Wednesday, 50 questions, 50 minutes, multiple choice questions, no notes,
module 1 and 2, Achieve, in-class
E-BOOK

The Need for Psychological science

Most often, intuition is right, but sometimes common sense (informed by countless casual
observations) is wrong: research overturns popular ideas
Other things seem like commonsense truth bc they have been repeated often (easier to
process and remember, thus more truth-seeming)
Three roadblocks to critical Definition
 thinking
Hindsight bias Tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one
would have foreseen it (I knew it all along)
Overconfidence Leads to quick rather than correct thinking, only 2% of
people excel at predicting social behavior
(superforecasters, avoid overconfidence and gather facts,
balance arguments, etc.)
Perceiving patterns in Random sequences often don’t look random, this makes
random events it hard for people to generate random-like sequences
(explanation: for most people, a random, unpredictable
world is unsettling, making sense of our world relieves
stress and helps us get on with daily living)

Scientific inquiry can help us understand reality and disillusion

Psychological Science in a Post Truth World
Post-truth: modern culture where people’s emotions and beliefs often override their
acceptance of objective facts
Political party bias: both discriminate against other party
 False news: misinformation gets fed to us intentionally
o Most people can tell the difference between high-quality and low-quality
sources
o When using slow, deliberative thinking rather than gut, people better
discern fact from fiction
 Repetition: statements become more believable when they are repeated
o Becomes familiar, gets remembered, comes to seem true and worth
sharing
 Availability of powerful examples: if it bleeds, it leads
o Gruesome, vivid images
 Group identity and echo chamber of the like-minded
o Social identities matter, we tend to follow and read from similar ideas and
people
 (Cognitive ability: murders are available)
 (Confirmation bias: seek ideas similar to ours)
Solution: embracing a scientific mindset, mindful of our biases, listen, discuss, curiosity,
skepticism, humility, critical thinking
The Scientific Method: a self-correcting process for evaluating ideas with observation
and analysis
curiosity, skepticism, humility
Theory  test  if data supports its predictions, good, if not, theory revised/rejected
Peer reviews: other experts evaluate study’s theory, originality, accuracy
Preregistration to publicly communicate study design, hypotheses, data collection,
analyses (openness prevents change of hypothesis after)
1. Theory: explains behaviors/events by offering ideas that organize observations
using an integrated set of principles, summarizes and simplifies by using deeper
principles to organize isolated facts
a. Testable predictions (hypotheses) emerge, specify which results would
support theory and which will lead to rejection/revision of the theory
b. Our theories can bias our observations, urge to see what we expect
c. Useful if:
i. Organizes observations
ii. Implies testable predictions
iii. Stimulates further research leading to a revised theory
2. Operational definitions (procedure)
a. Replication by others, if similar results, then confidence grows
i. Bigger sample = better chance of replication
Exploratory research (inspires theories), then confirmatory research (test)
Meta-analysis: summarizes results of many previous studies, avoid problem of small
samples
3. To test hypotheses:
a. Descriptive: describe behavior, does not explain it
i. Case study: in depth analysis of individual/group in hope of
revealing things true of us all, suggest further directions but must
employ other research methods to find those general truths,
atypical individual cases may mislead (dramatic stories easily
remembered)
1. Brain damage
2. Children’s mind
3. Animal intelligence
ii. Surveys and interviews: asking people questions, self-reported,
looks at many cases in less depth, think critically before accepting
findings of a survey
1. Tricky: people shade their answers to make them more
socially accepted, wording of the question influences, how
respondents are chosen influences
2. Random sampling, every person in the entire group has an
equal chance, is key (sampling bias, generalizing), large
samples are better but cannot compensate for
unrepresentative sampling by bigger sample
 iii. Naturalistic observations: recording natural behavior of many
individuals without manipulation or control of the situation, some
pave the way for later studies
1. Big data helps
b. Correlational: associate different factors, vary together, only explain part
of the variation, not causation, reveals relationships but doesn’t explain
them
i. Correlational coefficient: from +1.00 to -1.00
1. Positive: direct, increase of decrease together
2. Negative: inverse, one increases, other decreases
ii. How well one variable predicts the other
c. Experimental: manipulate factors to discover effects on behavior or mental
processes, random assignment controls other relevant factors
i. Experimental Manipulation: manipulate the factors of interest and
holding constant other factors
1. Experimental (treated) versus control group (not treated,
placebo, contrasts experimental group, serves as a
comparison)
2. Randomly assign: equalizes the experimental and control
group)
ii. Procedures and the placebo effect
1. One group receives a pseudotreatment (placebo), the other
a real treatment
2. Participants are “blind”, uninformed about what group they
are in
3. Double-blind procedure: both the participants and research
staff are ignorant, checks a treatment’s actual effects apart
from participant and staff belief
4. Placebo effect: results caused by expectations alone,
researchers must control for a possible placebo effect
iii. Independent and dependent variables with operational definitions
1. Independent (manipulate): factor that is being manipulated,
its effects are being studied, varies independently of other
factors
2. Confounding (control): factor other than the studied factor
could influence results, random assignments control for
possible confounding variables
3. Dependent (measure): outcome measured, may change
when the independent variable is manipulated
d. Research design
Research Purpose How What is Weaknesses
method conducted manipulated
Descriptive Observe and Case studies, Nothing No control of
 record behavior naturalistic variables,
observations or single cases
surveys may be
misleading
Correlational Detect Collect data on Nothing Cannot
naturally variables, no specify cause
occurring manipulation and effect
relationships;
to assess how
well one
variable
predicts
another
Experimental Explore cause Manipulate Independent Sometimes
and effect factors, use variable(s) not feasible,
random results may
assignment not generalize
to other
contexts; not
ethical to
manipulate
certain
variables
i. Only unethical questions are off-limits
ii. Scientists have to decide how to measure the behavior/mental
processes being studied
Predicting everyday behavior
The experimenter intends the lab environment to be a simplified reality, not to recreate
the exact behaviors of everyday life but to test theoretical principles
It is the resulting principles, not the specific findings that help explain everyday
behaviors
Research ethics
(1) Secure informed consent, (2) protect participants from harm and discomfort
(greater than usual), (3) debrief (explain research afterward including any
temporary deception), (4) confidentiality of info
 Animals should be protected
o Is it right to place the well-being of humans over that of animals?
o What safeguard should protect the well-being of animals in research?
Humane care
Guidelines: BPS, APA, European Parliament
o Animals have benefited from animal research
  Humans, ethics code, APA and BPS (see beginning of section)
o To enforce: Review Boards
Ensuring Scientific Integrity
No fraud, no plagiarism, no making up data
Scientific scrutiny and replication can inform and protect us
Values in Psychology
Values inform psychological science, which has the power to persuade
Purpose of psych: enlighten
Stronger person and better student
 Full night’s sleep: well-rested people live with greater happiness, energy and
productivity
 Exercise: Increases health and energy, depression and anxiety remedy
 Long-term goals with daily aims (habits)
 Growth mindset
 Relationships: happier and healthier when supported by caring friends
Student: Repeated self-testing and rehearsal of previously studied material (testing
effect), actively process info, SQ3R (survey, question, read, retrieve, review), distribute
study time (spaced practice) to enhance memory, interleaving, think critically, process
class info actively (notes by hand), overlearn