Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION AND
BASIC CONCEPTS
Maria Marissa B. Del Pilar
What is Statistics?

▪ Statistics is defined as a branch of Mathematics which

deals with the collection, organization, presentation,
analysis, and interpretation of numerical data for the
purpose of assisting in making a more effective
decision.
HISTORICAL ROOTS OF
PSYCHOLOGICAL STATISTICS
▪ Psychology is a Science that deals with the study of
human behavior and cognition or mental process.
▪ People in the early period believed that thoughts
came from the gods in the heaven. Such belief led
them to think that humans have little control over their
emotions and actions.
▪ The Great Greek triumvirates Socrates, Plato, and
Aristotle believed otherwise.
Socrates (469-399 B.C.E)
▪ His influence in psychology is his belief that thoughts and knowledge come from
within us, and the understanding of self allows one to live a virtuous life.

Plato (427-347 B.C.E)

▪ introduced to us that human is a rational being, that we are born with the ability to
understand the relationship of events around us

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E)

▪ stressed on the importance of experience rather than reasons, that man’s
reasoning is a form of making generalizations from experiences and observations
made.
The origin of experimental psychology can be traced back to 1796

Dr. Nevil Maskelyne (1732-1811)

▪ He was the first person to scientifically measure the mass of the planet Earth

Friedrich Bessel (1784-1846)

▪ Introduced the concept of “personal equation” which is an attempt to correct for
the constant errors of particular observers, and his measurement led to the
general realization that perceptual and cognitive processes took a quantifiable
time

Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-1887)

▪ claimed to be the one who started the formal beginning of experimental
psychology. He worked out the rationale for measuring sensation indirectly in
terms of the unit of just noticeable difference between two sensations, developed
his three basic psychophysical methods (just noticeable differences, right and
wrong cases, and average error).
Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand Helmholtz also known as Hermann von Helmholtz
(1821-1894 )
▪ He made his most fundamental contributions to the newly emerging experimental
psychology in his work “The Optik” wherein he made a comprehensive theory of
color vision and famous unconscious inference theory of perception.

Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

▪ In 1859, his theory of evolution, established the continuity between animal and
human, it made comparative psychology important.

Franciscus Cornelis Donders (1818-1889)

▪ Between 1865 and 1868, he assimilated the reaction-time procedure to
psychology, employing it to study the time taken up by mental operations.
 Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)
▪ considered the “Father of Psychology.” Wundt established the very first psychology
laboratory in Leipzig, Austria, and it is because of him that psychology became
accepted as a scientific discipline. He worked toward the conception of
physiological psychology that was to serve as the basis for his systematic
approach to experimentation.
William James (1842-1910)
▪ He formed a psychology laboratory at Harvard University and was considered to
be the “Dean of American Psychologist.”

Granville Stanley Hall (1846-1924)

▪ In 1883, he created the first experimental psychology lab in the United States at
John Hopkins University. He was also the first president of the American
Psychological association.
 James McKeen Cattell (1860-1944)
▪ First professor of Psychology in the United States at the University of Pennsylvania

Edward Bradford Titchener (1866-1927)

▪ He published the “Experimental Psychology: A Manual Practice.”

Francis Galton (1822-1911)

▪ In 1884, he established his anthropometric laboratory in London. He invented the
statistical technique of correlation and develop the index, to be named the
coefficient of correlation.
Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850-1909)
▪ He pioneered the experimental study of memory and is known for his discovery of
the forgetting curve and the spacing effect.
Another body of influence in psychology came from medicine and psychiatry,
especially from the treatment of the mentally ill.

Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815)

▪ A German physician who theorized that there was a natural energetic transference that
occurred between all animated and inanimate objects, he called it animal magnetism,
sometimes later referred to as mesmerism.

James Braid (1795-1860)

▪ Scottish physician, who in 1843, proposed the term hypnosis for a technique
derived from animal magnetism; today this is the usual meaning of mesmerism.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939 )

▪ An Austrian physician who was the founding father of psychoanalysis, a method
for treating mental illness and also a theory which explains human behavior.
IMPORTANCE OF STATISTICS
IN PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology like other scientific field has general goals that guide its investigation
about human nature. These main goals of psychology are the following.

1. To describe the different ways of how people behave.

2. To explain the various causes of why certain
processes and behavior occurs.
3. To predict and determine how the organism will
behave in a certain situation.
4. To control or change an organism’s behavior and
mental processes by learning how to modify or alter
undesirable behavior.
 Relevance of Statistics in the Field of Psychology

1. To scientifically accomplish the goal of psychology, there is a

strong need to undergo, explore, and adopt the common
practices of scientists in coming up with a conclusion based on
empirical studies and researches. Statistics is the acceptable
instrument that binds all the scientific study into a universally
valid, reliable, and accepted new discovered knowledge.
2. Psychological research is the cornerstone of the field, an
experimental research is very important to provide better
strategy of treatment and better methods. Statistics are
essential for determining if the certain treatments or methods
are effective or not.
 Relevance of Statistics in the Field of Psychology

3. Psychologists need to keep up with the fast phasing and ever-

changing lifestyle, literature, entertainments, and environmental
development. Statistics provide methods and procedure that will aid
psychologists and researchers how and what are the important
factors to gather in order to cope up with the above-mentioned
reality.
4. Statistics enables the researcher to draw general conclusions:
With the use of statistics, the researcher are forced to use precise
procedures and methods in the conduct of research to have a result
that can supply valid and reliable conclusions; hence, it will clarify
and determine the cause and effect on the occurrence of behavior.
 Relevance of Statistics in the Field of Psychology

5. Statistics enables the researcher to predict “how much” of a thing

will happen under conditions he knows and has measured.
6. Statistics is everywhere. If you are planning to pursue graduate
studies, higher or sophisticated statistical tools will be introduced to fit
with the demands of the degree you are pursuing. If you are planning
to be a professional, then, you have to take the board exam. A
component of the board exam will inquire your knowledge about
statistics. If you are practicing your profession in the field or in the
academe you need to conduct research. So, no reasons for us to
dislike statistics, but to put our hearts into it, and everything will be in
place.
CATEGORIES OF STATISTICS
 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS

▪ Refers to the field of statistics that includes the

methods of collecting, classifying, graphing, and
averaging the data.
▪ The objective is simply describing and summarizing
the important features, properties or characteristics of
the data on hand without attempting to give inference.
 INFERENTIAL STATISTICS

▪ Demands a higher order of critical judgment and

mathematical methods.
▪ Its main concern is to analyze the organized data
leading to prediction of inferences.
Some differences to remember
No. Descriptive Statistics
1 Concerned with describing the target
population
2 Organize, analyze, and present the
data in a meaningful manner.
3 Final results are shown in form of
charts, tables, and graphs
4 Describe the data which is already
known
5 Tools: Measures of central tendency
(mean, median, mode), Spread of
data (range, standard deviation, etc.)
Inferential Statistics
Make inferences from the sample and
generalize them to the population
Compares, tests, and predicts future
outcomes
Final result is the probability scores.
Tries to make conclusions about the
population that is beyond the available
data
Tools: hypothesis tests, Analysis of
variance, etc.