Introduction to Psychology: January 12, 2015

3 Main Problems of Psychology 1) Determinism vs. Freewill * The idea that everything that happens has a cause (determinism) versus the belief that behavior is cause by a person’s independent decisions (freewill) 2) The Mind-Brain Problem * The philosophical question of how experience relates to the brain. 3) The Nature-Nurture Issue * “How do differences in behavior relate to differences in heredity and environment?”

Intro to Psych: Wednesday, January 14 2015

Three major philosophical issues with psychology:
Free Will vs. Determinism
- Determinism: Everything that happens has a cause.
- Free Will: the belief that behavior is cause by a person’s independent decisions

The Mind-Brain Problem
- The philosophical question of how experience relates to the brain.
- How is brain activity linked with our experienced?
- There is a close relationship with brain activity and psychological events
- “Do we feel first, or do we think first?”

Nature-Nurture Issue
- “How do differences in behavior relate to differences in heredity and environment?”

Milgram and the shock experiment test

Psychiatry
- different from psychology in the way that a psychiatrist can prescribe medication and psychologists can not.
- branch of the medical field that focuses on the brain and mental disorders

**Get to know both of the “What Psychologists Do” handouts from class

Quick History of Psychology
Early era psychology:
- Aristotle
Modern day psychology:
- Freud
Psychology started in 19th century - Main focus was on sensation and perception
Wilhelm Wundt
- Created the first psychological lab
- “What are the components of experience or mind?”
- Tested conscience experience
Edward Titchener
- Thought that the most important psychological question was about the nature of experience
- Structuralism: belief that the mind has different types of structures.
- No longer a consideration in modern psychology
William James
- Functionalism: actions that the mind performs
- “How does the mind produce useful behaviors?”
Darwin
- Had a big influence in Freud
- Believed that people came from animals and that the study of animals would help him understand people.
- Natural Selection had a major role in the growth of psychology
Francis Galton
- Studied human intelligence and different characteristics. (Heretics)

*Psychology is always changing. It might be true now but it might not be true in the future

Mary Calkins*
- played an important female role in the psychology world
- *Recommended to learn more about.

Freud:
- had a major influence
- Contributed:
- Id: animalistic drive, survival, focuses on reproduction and food.
- Super-ego: the “conscience” of a person
- Ego: the thing that attempts to satisfy both the id and the super-ego
- Freudian Slip: an unintentional error regarded as revealing subconscious feelings

40’s & 50’s:
B. F. Skinner
- on of the most radical members of behavioralism
- also introduced operant conditioning.
- operant conditioning: rewards and punishment
John B. Watson
- Founder of Behaviorism
- “Psychology is a science, it needs to be empirical. It needs to be measured.”
Pavlov
- Attributed conditioning.
- Known for the conditioning of a dog with a bell and the dog’s food. This example is known as classical conditioning.

Modern:
- Psychology is very diverse. It is everywhere i.e.: sports psychology, social psychology, industrial psychology

Intro to Psychology: January 19, 2015

Research and Statistics
- Video about exposing frauds
- What do we do with the supernatural and unexplainable?
- Psychology is concerned with using research methods
- We as psychologists want to know the evidence behind certain claims
- Hypothesis need to be testable
- Since we test it - we can predict what will happen
1) Have a hypothesis
2) Method
3) Results
4) Interpretation
- Validity and reliability
- Validity: am I measuring what I think I am measuring?
- Reliability: am I getting the same results
- If I don’t get the same results then I have to change something

One Goal: Establish Theories
We want to be able to explain what we absorb
- A good theory is premiums/simple
- Can product something and is stated in its simplest form
- Relates to ESP of JFK
- Research needs operational definitions
- Sampling: its not practical to ask everyone - so a smaller number is drawn
- Convenient sample: chosen because it can be easily studied - only appropriate when studying principles for all people
- Representative Sample: represents the population
- Experimenter basis
- We are human so we influence results
- Blind studies help with this
- Placebo effect: to see if someone is actually being affected - has to do with sugar pills
- Double blind is when no one knows

Observational Research Designs
- A naturalistic observation: observing something in its natural conditions
- Its hard to isolate theories from natural observation
- Case histories or case studies: relies on natural observation but focuses on individual
- Surveys: a way of studying prevalence of beliefs and behaviors
- We need to know if we are asking the right questions
- Who are we asking? - Competence
- How are we asking?

January 21, 2015

Research and Statistics

Correlational studies: can suggest a relationship between variables
Correlational Coefficient: an estimate of strength, can either be a positive or a negative of 1. For example: instead of saying 95% sure it is said as less than 5% chance.
- Correlation allows scientists to predict
Illusory Correlation: (“full-moon madness”) it seems like there is a relationship between variables but there isn’t
Correlation is not equal to causation

Experiments
- when a variable is studied
- DV: Dependent Variable (measured)
- IV: Independent Variable (manipulated)
- Demand characteristics: clues that the researcher wants to find or hints at to the person being studied.
- Ethical considerations: informed consent
- Ethical concerns with animal testing
- Descriptive statistics: descriptive, standard deviation (mean median and mode)
- Inferential statistic: numerical way of showing results

Introduction to Psychology: Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Quiz on Chapter 3 on Monday

Neurotransmitters:
- Small molecule:
- Dopamine
- turns on other neurotransmitters
- Serotonin
- involved with moods, specifically depression and bipolar
- Neuropenipheron
- tells the body what it should do and not do
- Epinephrin
- Also known as adrenaline
- Otto Loewi discovered the first neurotransmitter

Nervous System
- ANS - Autonomic Nervous System
- regulates the body, tells the heart to beat, lungs to breathe
- part of the peripheral nervous system
- helps us with fight or flight response, or the rest and digest response (main two functions)
- Divided into three different parts
- sympathetic: the fight or flight part of the nervous system
- parasympathetic: the rest and digest part of the nervous system, found in the spinal cord in the modula.
- enteric: a meshwork of nerve fibers that innervate the viscera (pancrease, digestive tract)
- The peripheral nervous system supports the rest of the body
- Fight or flight response is found in the amygdala

Introduction to Psychology: Monday, January 26, 2015

Main Topic: Biology

Genes and Behavior
- Genetic factors have a large degree of influence on a wide range of behaviors.
- Many studies have used twins separated at birth to test the nature nurture problem
- Genes are sections of chromosomes that determine some of the offsprings characteristics
- Chromosomes and genes pair up to either become homogenous or heterogenous
- There are dominant genes that take over, like eye color
- Phenotype genes: genes that are passed on through the family lineage
- Sex-linked genes: associated with sex chromosomes, (sex chromosomes determine the gender of the baby) color blindness,
- Technology has given us the capability to find the genes that are for a specific purpose
- To assess heritability researchers compare and look at identical twins to find similar abilities or behaviors.
- Adopted children are also used to assess heritability from both biological and adoptive parents
- Environment still has a say in the way that people act or like certain things
- In other words, an environment influences what we like or dislike.

Social Biology
- Field that tries to relate the social behaviors of a species to its biology.

Cells in the Nervous System
- Difference between neurons and nerve cells
- There is no difference!
- Neurons receive information and transmit it to other cells by conducting electrochemical impulses
- Dendrites receive information and send it to the Neuron
- Glial cells support the neurons by insulating and protecting and removing waste
- Neurons are made up of three main parts: a cell body, dendrites, and the axon
- Axons send information to other neurons by a neurotransmitter
- Neurons vary in shape and size but all have the three main parts
- We are constantly growing new dendrites and losing old ones
- Crystallized intelligence is based more on experience
- Fluid intelligence is based on grasping a new idea

- Action Potential
- Messages are electrochemicals, they are electrically charged. It is an electrical signal. The electrical charges are called ions
- Ions are sodium and potassium (positive ions) and chloride and protein molecules (negative ions)
- Resting potential: the electrical potential of a neuron or other excitable cell relative to its surroundings when not stimulated or involved in passage of an impulse
- Action Potential: the change in electrical potential associated with the passage of an impulse along the membrane of a muscle cell or nerve cell.
- Action potential happens because of depolarizing. At negative 55 millivolts there is a threshold for action potential
- A disturbance is caused when different ions cross the membrane.
- Synapse: the specialized junction between one neuron and another, a neuron releases a chemical that either excites or inhibits the next neuron
- contains a small gap
- consists of a presynaptic ending a postsynaptic ending and the synaptic cleft or the space that is in between the two.

Introduction to Psychology: February 2, 2015

Sensation & Perception
- different in the way of how we end up sensing our world compared to how we perceive it
- Sensation:
- Biological
- Light that is visible to the eye is just a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum (the range of wavelengths or frequencies over which electromagnetic radiation extends)
- When it comes to the structure of the eye, light is reflected through the pupil, the pupil can change in size depending on the level of lighting
- The iris contains the muscle tissue that makes the pupil constrict and dilate
- The cornea is a rigid and transparent layer of cells that cover the outer surface of the eyeball. It focuses light in a uniform fashion and sends it back to the lens.
- The lens allows the eye to adjust to things like the distance of an object.
- Light passes through the pupil, strikes the lens, travels through the vitreous humor and then travels to the retina.
- Retina is where there are two main visual receptors (rods and cones)
- The macro and micro are connected to the rods and cones
- Disorders
- Can develop:
- myopia (nearsightedness): inability to focus on objects further away
- hyperopia (farsightedness): where the eye loses its oval shape and becomes more flat
- glaucoma: caused by increasing amounts of pressure in the eyeballs, can damage the optic nerve and takes away the peripheral vision
- Two types of visual receptors
- Cones: for color, vision, and detail
- help with daytime vision
- help with detailed vision (to see texture)
- concentrated in the center of the retina
- Rods: for vision in dim light, or at night
- concentrated around the outside of the retina
- Adapting to the dark will always be a gradual process
- Cones adapt faster than the rods
- M Cells (Macro)
- connected to rods
- males usually have more than females
- P Cells (Micro)
- connected to the cones
- usually thicker in females compared to males
- Cones and rods regenerate chemicals at different rates. Rods take longer.
- Visual Pathway:
- A pathway over which a visual sensation is transmitted from the retina to the brain. A pathway consists of an optic nerve, the fibers of an optic nerve traveling through the optic chiasm to the lateral geniculate body of the thalamus, and optic radiations terminating in an occipital lobe. Each optic nerve contains fibers from only one retina. The optic chiasm contains fibers from the nasal parts of the retinas of both eyes. These fibers cross to the opposite side of the brain at the optic chiasm. The fibers from the temporal part of each eye do not cross at the optic chiasm, pass through the lateral geniculate body on the same side of the brain, and continue back to the occipital lobe.Thus the optic tracts, occipital lobe, lateral geniculate bodies of the thalamus, and optic chiasm each contain nerve fibers from both eyes.If the right optic tract were destroyed, a person would lose partial vision in both eyes-the right nasal and the left temporal fields of vision.
- All vision happens in the cerebral cortex
- The brain does a lot of interpretation as to what we see, we see things the way we do because of perception
- Trichromatic Theory
- Definition: According to the Young-Helmholtz theory of color vision, there are three receptors in the retina that are responsible for the perception of color. One receptor is sensitive to the color green, another to the color blue, and a third to the color red. These three colors can then be combined to form any visible color in the spectrum.
- This is possible because of the interpretation of the different wavelengths, (long medium and short) that correspond with the three different colors (red, green, and blue)
- Doesn’t explain all of the colors, assigns the wavelengths according to interpretation
- Opponent-Process Theory
- Definition: a psychological and neurological model that accounts for a wide range of behaviors, including color vision. This model was first proposed in 1878 by Ewald Hering, a German physiologist, and later expanded by Richard Solomon, a 20th-century psychologist.
- Retinex Theory
- The retinex theory of color, proposed by Edwin Land in the 1980s, offered an explanation of our ability to perceive color in ambient-colored environments. This effect is known as color constancy and was unexplainable by earlier theories of color vision. The term retinex is a combination of the words retina and cortex, which are the two areas responsible for the processing of visual information
- all three theories are combined to explain how and why we see color
- Red/Green color blindness is the most common type

Non Visual Senses
- Hearing
- The frequency of a sound wave is the number of cycles it goes through in a second, hertz (Hz)
- Pitch is the psychological interpretation of frequency
- Loudness is a perception that depends on amplitude of a soundwave
- The three bones (hammer, anvil, stirrup) in your ear make up the eardrum that strengthens the intensity of the sound. The stirrup transmits the signal to the cochlea, the vibrations cause hair cells along the membrane that begins the axons sending messages to the auditory nerve
- Pitch perception depends on the soundwave of the interpretation
- Higher frequencies, are the volley principle (vibrations produce action potentials), and they can reach up to 4,000 hertz.
- Loudness and frequency helps us to determine relative distance and localization
- Reverberation provides information about the absolute distance

Introduction to Psychology:
Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Monday: Quiz on Chapter 4

Sensation (Continued)
Skin senses
- Also known as touch
- Skin is the largest organ of the body
- Epidermis is on the outside (outer layer of skin)
- holds hair follicles
- Dermis is underneath (inner layer of skin
- holds the nerve endings/pressure cues
- Pain receptors are bare nerve endings
- pain is an experience that is complex. We have theories of how it works but it is a complex interaction between nerve signals, different cells, how we actually sense it and how it is incorporated with our emotions
- Pain serves a function
- If it lasts for a long time it can be a disruption
- those that suffer with chronic pain typically suffer from depression and other mental illnesses
- Controlling the section of pain is of great interest
- Threshold = stimuli
- When pain is recognized, the brain either shuts down or fights it
- Pain is never the enemy, denial is the enemy
- Theories of Pain
- Gate Theory of Pain:
- pain just passes through a gate, it opens or closes
- the spinal cord is able to block messages relating to pain
- other neurons, endorphins, get released and counteract each other
- Chemical Senses
- Taste and smell
- Olfactory receptors are receptors in the nose that are accustomed to airborne molecules.
- Works alongside with the taste

Perception
- Subliminal messages do not work. Our brains cannot pick it up
- Gestalt
- our brains automatically look for patterns

Introduction to Psychology: Monday, February 9, 2015

Nature, Nurture, & Human Development

Decades of Life Interaction Sheet

Could our environment be the result of the biological rather than the way that we think of it?

Prenatal development
- everybody starts life as a fertilized egg
- what happens before birth
- fertilized egg is called a zygote, proceeds through the stages of bastilla, gastria and then to the embryo
- embryo turns into a fetus about eight weeks from conception
- growing baby receives nutrients from the mother
- low birth weight is related to impaired brain development (not sure of this relationship)
- low birth weight not a serious problem
- the brain does repair itself over time
- newborns have very little control over their muscles, only able to control their mouth and eyes
Newborns
- newborn vision
- their eye movement is directed to the same type of objects that an adult would
- female babies concentrate faces
- male babies concentrate on movement

- infants begin to show fear of heights shortly after beginning to crawl
- visual motor coordination develops quickly, critical periods in the early development periods
- hearing wise, the infant needs to be introduced to a sounds over and over again
- learning and memory: they enter into a REM sleep at about 6 months of age in the womb
- infants respond differently to stimulus because of previous experiences with it.
- infants as young as 2 months of age can remember how to pull on a string or ribbon, or kick their legs
- some evidence that infants can show that they remember some things from within the womb

thinking and reasoning when it comes to the development of thinking and reasoning

- Jean Piaget
- believed that children form like new mental process as they interact with their environment
- behavior is based on schema (a representation of a plan or theory in the form of an outline or model)
- in other words children end up organizing and categorizing
- Ages were culturally dependent, age is not important but the sequence of transitions are.
- Four stages of development:
1) Sensorimotor Stage
a) happens from birth to one and a half years of age
b) a simple motor response to stimuli
c) children gain some sense of self as the progress through this stage
2) Preoperational Stage
a) happens in early childhood
b) children’s capacity to form logical operations isn’t there
i) do not understand the measure of length or numerical value of an object
3) Concrete Operational Stage
a) happens in later childhood (7 years old)
b) children begin to understand the conservation of physical properties
i) children perform logical operations using symbols (like numbers)
4) Formal Operational Stage
a) happens from adolescence into adulthood
b) where we start to use logic and deductive reasoning,
c) Piaget felt that children reached this stage at the age of 11.
i) from research we have learned that children reach this stage before they are 11 or they may never reach this stage of development
- Some research has been cast down on Piaget’s theories
- main discussion is the set ages, even though Piaget gave those ages only as a suggestion
- Progression from one of these stages to the next is gradual

Introduction to Psychology: Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Stages of Development
Erikson's Stages of Development
- there will always be tension when transferring from one stage of development to the next
- would be emotionally stuck in the transition if it wasn’t fully developed
1) Ages 0-1: Infants struggle between trust and mistrust.
2) Ages 1-3: Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt
a) “How much do we allow them to do things by themselves?””How much do we help, or how much do we let them fail?
3) Preschool Childhood: Works to Achieve Initiative vs. Guilt
a) Learning to respect the rights of others
b) Recognizes that not everything belongs to me
4) Middle Childhood: Industry vs. Inferiority
a) This is where children start to compare themselves
b) This is where they start to feel competent and productive but it comes from the comparisons of their peers
c) Pecking order starts around this age (bullying or picking out differences begins)
5) Adolescence: Identity vs. Role Confusion
a) Kids are looking for somewhere to belong. Cliques are a great example.
b) Adolescents are searching for who they are
c) There is role confusion because they are trying to figure out where they belong
6) Young Adulthood: Intimacy vs. Isolation
a) They begin to look for someone to marry and to become intimate with
b) They have to decide whether to become intimate or isolate themselves
7) Middle Adulthood: General Activity vs. Stagnation
a) This stage is where the adult needs to contribute something to the world
b) A stage of reevaluation “Have I done everything in life that I want to do?”
8) Old Age: Ego Integrity vs. Despair
a) This is where we ask ourselves if we have really made a good use of our time
b) Old people experience regrets (the despair part) or they think “I did well” (ego integrity)
- Modern psychologists accept this model of development as descriptive, useful, but yet recognize its limits in how to explain how people actually change over the life cycle.

Make sure you read about Harlow’s study (baby monkeys)

Alfred Adler came up with the concept of birth order

Interests, dislikes, how do you approach a crisis, how do you approach something good in your life.

Intro to Psych Notes: Monday, February 23, 2015

Midterm on March 4, 2015

Learning
Behaviorism
- “The theory that human and animal behavior can be explained in terms of conditioning, without appeal to thoughts or feelings, and that psychological disorders are best treated by altering behavior patterns.”
- Insists that psychologist should study only observable measurable behaviors not the mental process that cannot be directly observed
- Radical Behaviorism (Skinner) to Methodological Behaviorism (Theories)
- Rose out of the structuralism
- Stimulus response was a type of study the first had in Behaviorism
- Behavior is a product of an individual's past history
- Believe in determinism. They assume that every behavior has an ultimate cause.
- Behaviorists will avoid mental terms and explanations
Classical Conditioning
- Unconditioned stimulus produces an unconditioned response
- Conditioned stimulus produces a conditioned response
- Classical conditioning has everything to do with association
- Pavlov
- conditioning the dog’s salivation
Operant Conditioning
- Has everything to do with rewards and punishment
- Thorndike developed a concept called “Law of Effect”
- The process of altering behavior by following a response/response with a reward
- Differs from classical condition in that the subjects behavior determines the outcome
- Get to know these words:
- Extinction
- Generalization
- Discrimination
- If an individual is responding to one stimulus but not to the other they are discriminating the stimulus
- Discriminative stimuli
- Learning depends greatly on belongingness
- “Figuring out what goes or belongs together.”

- B.F. Skinner
- Shaping: new responses can be learned or gradually created by reinforcing successive application.
- For Skinner there is reinforcement (an event that increases the probability of a response) and punishment (an event that decreases the probability of a response)
- Positive reinforcement is the presentation of an event that increases the occurrence of a behavior
- Positive punishment is also referred to as a passive avoidance learning
- Omission training occurs when the failure to produce a certain response produces reinforcement
- a.k.a. Negative punishment
- Negative Reinforcement is also referred to as active avoidance learning

Introduction to Psychology Notes: February 25, 2015

Midterm NEXT Thursday!

Memory
- Lots of different ideas of how it works
- Ebbinghaus
- German Psychologist
- First one to study systematic psychology (human memory)
- Findings showed that there was a sharp decline in his memory
- He did this study on himself
- Proactive Interference: the difficulty of remembering recent information
- Retroactive Interference: when newly learned information increases the loss of older information.
- The importance of distinctiveness
- we tend to remember distinctive or unusual material (the Van Rostrough effect)
- Dependence of memory
- it depends to the extent of how memory is actually tested
- Recall Memory
- Queued Recall Memory
- Recognition Memory
- Relearning Memory
- The human brain can only house about seven items in short term memory.
- Information Processing Theory
- Memory works like a computer. We process and then store the information
- Sensory Store View
- It has more to do with the way we perceive our world.
- Long term memory has more to do with permanent storage.
- Most of it is meaningful information.
- Dependence on retrieval cues: reminders or hints
- used for information that is stored in the long term memory
- Short term memory has a smaller capacity
- Chunking is about putting things together as far as making things into bigger sections
- Short term memory is impacted over time, it decays early
- we lose short term memory by distraction
- Encoding: the levels of processing principles
- The S.P.A.R
- Survey
- Process meaningfully
- Ask questions
- Review
- Effects of Spacing:
- put things into chunks
- the more you review, the more likely it will be stored in long term memory
- change the order of the review to store information better

Introduction to Psych Notes: Monday, March 2, 2015

MIDTERM this Wednesday (3-4-15)!!

Cognition and Language
- Stroop Effect: the tendency to read the word instead of saying the color of ink
- Cognition refers to the activities of thinking, gaining and dealing with knowledge
- Prototypes: familiar or typical examples (vehicles: car, bus, truck, airplane, train)
- Spreading Activation: when one concept leads to another
- Preattentive Process: when things stand out immediately
- Attentive Process: when it takes time to distinguish an item
- Priming: a concept gets it started. Reading or hearing one word makes it easier to think or recognize a related word. Seeing something makes it easier to recognize a related object
- Attentional Blink: during a brief time after perceiving one stimulus, it is difficult to attend to something else
- Experts do not have a superpower. They are able to recognize patterns better than others.
- Frequent Human Cognition Common Errors:
- having overconfidence
- premature about hypothesis
- heuristic
- framing questions
- schedules of reinforcement

Review for Test:
- Define what Psychology is. (book definition, what we have talked about)
- What do we mean by the scientific approach?
- Know the different tensions in psychology such as free will vs determinism, nature vs nurture, and the mind brain problem.
- Know the different jobs of psychology; i.e. school psychologist, forensic psychologist, difference between psychologist and psychiatrist, clinical psychologist. (possible handout)
- Know some of the history of psychology in the way of where it came from so that you will be able to tell the difference between psychoanalyst and psychologist.
- Know when and how psychology was first established.
- Know some of the major players at the beginning of psychology as a science
- Understand the history of behaviorism and who the major players were.
- Know the basic premise of science and what we actually mean by scientific psychology
- what do we mean by operational definition, dependent variable, independent variable (go over the chapter on this)
- Know about the central nervous system.
- Know about the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems.
- Know the different parts of the brain.
- Understand what we have gone over as far as the lobes and what they are responsible for.
- Know about the neuron and what it is made up of.
- Know what action potential is.
- Be able to know what a synapse is.
- Know the difference between sensation and perception.
- Be able to talk about our vision.
- What are the visual receptors? (Rods and cones)
- Understand our hearing.
- Gestalt Psychology
- Know the beginning of prenatal development (the basics)
- Know about Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
- Classical conditioning and who it was started by
- Know the difference between classical conditioning and operant conditioning and who is credited towards operant conditioning.
- When psychologists use the term memory what are they referring to?
- Know the difference between recognition, recall, and queue recall.
- Know the differences between the three types of memory. Episodic, Semantic, and Schematic
- Know the difference between long term memory and short term memory
- Know about cognition
- Make sure to read the chapter on language

Introduction to Psychology Notes: Monday, March 16, 2015

Don’t forget about the book response that is due April 29th
The final will not be cumulative.

Intelligence
IQ=(MA÷CA)×100
MA: Mental Age CA: Chronological Age

Does IQ matter? Is it a myth? If it matters, how do we define intelligence? If we define intelligence, how do we measure it?

SAT’s were developed in the early 20’s to help with placement into schools Intelligence testing started because of WWI It was because of leadership Instead of using written words, the first tests used puzzles (like the ones at restaurants like Perkins)

Spearman Came to a psychometric approach called the G-factor Measurement of the individual differences in behaviors and abilities Believed that performances on mental test ability was based on a single general ability factor. Termed as the “G” Factor Based this off of the concept that good performance on a wide variety of tasks was consistently positive. There are also other factors that come into play when it comes into the level of intelligence (health, sleep, eating habits) Fluid Intelligence involves reasoning and utilizing information Crystallized Intelligence involves the skills and experiences that we have already acquired and the ability to apply that knowledge to the present.

Gardner Proposed the idea that there are different types of intelligence The Seven Types: Language Abilities Musical Abilities Logical and Mathematical Reasoning Spacial Reasoning Kinetic Skills Self Control and Self Understanding Intelligence as far as Social Sensitivity

Sternberg Triarchic Theory of Intelligence It has more to do with how a person processes information Three different components Cognitive process Situations that require Intelligence How Intelligence relates to the External World

Struggles in Psychology Intelligence tests have very little to do with our intelligence theories What does creativity have to do with intelligence?

Introduction to Psychology: Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Intelligence & Intelligence Testing (cont.)
The WAIS Test
- The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
- Wechsler developed this in 1955
- Wechsler was a psychiatrist at Belview Mental Facility
-

Margaret Sanger
- The founder of Planned Parenthood
- Roots of Planned Parenthood came from an idea of genocide of African American children

Three things that need to be present in order for the intelligence to be good
1) Standardized
a) Everyone gets the same test. Uniform
2) Reliable
a) People will get the same test scores if they take it again.
3) Valid
a) Are we actually measuring what we say we are measuring?

Pearson Correlation Coefficient Equation:
Homework:
Look up:
- Gardner and his Seven Types of Intelligence
1. Linguistic Children with this kind of intelligence enjoy writing, reading, telling stories or doing crossword puzzles.
2. Logical-Mathematical Children with lots of logical intelligence are interested in patterns, categories and relationships. They are drawn to arithmetic problems, strategy games and experiments.
3. Bodily-Kinesthetic These kids process knowledge through bodily sensations. They are often athletic, dancers or good at crafts such as sewing or woodworking.
4. Spatial These children think in images and pictures. They may be fascinated with mazes or jigsaw puzzles, or spend free time drawing, building with Leggos or daydreaming.
5. Musical Musical children are always singing or drumming to themselves. They are usually quite aware of sounds others may miss. These kids are often discriminating listeners.
6. Interpersonal Children who are leaders among their peers, who are good at communicating and who seem to understand others' feelings and motives possess interpersonal intelligence.
7. Intrapersonal These children may be shy. They are very aware of their own feelings and are self-motivated.
-
- Sternberg's theory of Intelligence (Triarchic Theory)
One of Sternberg’s very succinct definitions of intelligence states: Intelligent behavior involves adapting to your environment, changing your environment, or selecting a better environment.” Say if you like them, which one you like more or which one you agree or disagree with and why.

Introduction to Psychology
Derrick Houle
March 23, 2015

Consciousness
Sleep

Sleep restores our body and brain.
Sleep is an active state it affects our physical and mental wellbeing

Stages of Sleep

There are two states of sleep; Rapid Eye Movement or REM state and Non-REM state.

There are 4 stages of sleep
Stage 1 and 2 – Light sleep

Stage 1 lasts 5-10 minutes. All four stages cycle through 90 minutes.
If you’re still in stage 1 or 2 when you are woke up you will feel like you never slept.
The 4th stage is the deepest sleep, if you are woken up during the 3rd or 4th stages you will feel groggy and disoriented. After middle age you enter the 4th stage less and sleep lighter.
Falling feeling, jerking awake – 1st stage of sleep.

Stage 2 is another period of light sleep. A lot of peaks and valleys between light and heavy sleep, again when woken from this stage we can feel as if we hadn’t slept.
Periods of muscle tightening and relaxing.
Biggest part: Heart rate slows, temperature drops. Body prepares to enter deep sleep.

Slow/Delta Waves or Stages 3 and 4 – deep sleep stages, only separation is that stage 4 is much more intense than stage 3. If we are woken in this stage we feel disoriented or groggy. During deep stages of Non-REM body repairs and builds tissues. If we have entered 3 and 4 we will feel good when we wake up in stage 2 because the body has repaired itself.
Repairs bones and muscles. Strengthens immune system.

Stages 1-4 is a 90 minute cycle and then we enter REM. After REM we go backwards through the stages to stage 2 and down to REM again.
REM is when our brain is the most active.
During REM our brains are as active as they are while fully awake
During REM our body becomes paralyzed.
Sleep isn’t very restful during the REM stage.

Introduction to Psychology Notes:
Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Sleep and Dreams
- When it becomes dark, our body gets into sleep mode or Circadian Rhythm
- Important when it comes to determining sleep patterns
- Causes of a circadian rhythm disruption
- Shift work
- Pregnancy
- Time zone changes
- Medications and alcohol
- Changes in routine
- More Common Sleep disorders
- Time zone changes
- Jet Lag
- Sleepiness
- General foggyness
- Shift Work Sleep Disorder
- Affects people who work shifts or who work at night
- Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome (DSPS)
- Disorder of sleep timing
- People fall asleep very late at night and have a difficulty waking up on time for engagements the next day
- Advanced Sleep Phase Syndrome (ASPS)
- Where a person goes to sleep earlier and then they wake up earlier than desired
- Non-24 Hour Sleep Wake Disorder
- Where a person has a normal sleeping pattern but they live in a “25 hour day”
- Insomnia
- not defined by the hours of sleep a person gets or how long it takes to fall asleep. Individuals vary normally in their need for, and their satisfaction with, sleep.
- may cause problems during the day, such as tiredness, difficulty concentrating and irritability
- Two types of Insomnia
- Primary Insomnia
- Means that a person is having sleep problems that are not directly associated with health problems
- Secondary Insomnia
- Means that the person is having sleeping problems because of something else.
- Sleep Apnea
- Occurs when a person’s breathing stops
- Where the brain and the rest of the body doesn’t get enough oxygen
- Two types:
- Obstructive Sleep Apnea
- More common out of the two
- Caused by a blockage of the airway, usually a soft tissue in the back of the throat
- Central Sleep Apnea
- The airways are blocked but the brain fails to signal to the muscles that they need to breath
- Can affect anyone at any age
- Risk factors for sleep apnea
- Males
- Being overweight
- Being over the age of 40
- Having large neck size
- Having large tonsils or having a small jaw bone
- Genetically
- Nasal obstruction

Introduction to Psychology Notes: April 1, 2015

Abraham Maslow
- Hierarchy of Needs Triangle
- Came about in 1943
- Only two percent reach self actualization
- Two different needs
- Basic needs:
- Physiological, safety, belonging
- Growth needs
- Esteem self actualization
- Must start from the bottom and work towards the top.
- It is innate within us to work our way up to the top but it can be disrupted if we fail to meet the lower needs.
- More was added on to the triangle:
Cognitive needs were about knowledge, creation of meaning
- Aesthetic needs become about the search for beauty and nature
- Where does the appreciation of beauty come from?
- Transcendent needs, our need to help others.
- Maslow believed that self actualization could be measured by peak experiences in a person’s life.

ATTRIBUTIONS

Internal Attributions – people infer that an event or a person’s behavior is due to personal factors such as traits, abilities or feelings.

External Attributions – people infer that a person’s behavior is due to situational factors.

Internal attributions tend to be made, when someone does something unexpected, about their personality or a characteristic about them, which can lead to misunderstanding between people of different cultures.

3 types of information

Consensus – general agreement

Consistency – conformity in the application of something, typically that which is necessary for the sake of logic, accuracy or fairness.

Distinctiveness - the quality or state of being different.

We automatically begin to gather information that way.

There are biases when it comes to those attributions

We tend to make internal attributions for others even when we see external influences.

i.e. When we see a twelve year old boy who is from one of the reservations (native) dad isn’t around, mom has trouble, in our school. Home life is bad. Something bad could have happened to him that morning. We have that internal attribution and we say “he is one of those red lakers.”

We used something about his personality.

When we do or hear someone else do that it is a fundamental attribution error.
Related to this actor-observer effect.

People are more likely to make internal attributions to the other persons character when they are an observer, more so than for their own behavior.

External has nothing to do with personality or characteristic.

Using attributions to control perceptions of ourselves is known as self-serving biases.

We adopt these biases because we want to maximize credit for a job well done or minimize the blame for failing. We try to protect our self image.

Another way is self-handicapping strategies where we make up excuses for why we failed “intentionally put themselves at a disadvantage to provide an excuse for failure.

Actor-observer is very similar to the fundamental but the actor-observer compares self’s actions.

04/13/15
ATTITUDES AND PERSUASION

Recommended watching – CRASH a movie about stereotypes WARNING strong language

Attitude- is a like or dislike that influences our behavior towards a person or thing.

Attitudes have an emotional, cognitive and behavioral component. Usually measured with a pencil-paper scale. Which leads to issues since different people have different ways of responding. Attitudes don’t always correlate well with behavior. Attitudes are very much related to perception.

2 routes of persuasion

Central route to persuasion – people take a great deal of time and effort to persuade.

Peripheral route to persuasion – we listen to a message on a topic that has little importance to us. We pay more attention to things like the speakers dress, reputation, points they have to say about something, rather than trying to understand the message.

Most attitudes fall on a continuum because it always will fall on a topic. People will vary from having a very strong or resistant attitude or beliefs that are based on almost no information at all. Most strong opinions are based on almost no information.

The Sleeper effect – when we previously reject a message but later on it has some sort of persuasive way with us. Also known as delayed influence.

Minority influence – a minority group proposes an idea. Rejected at first but embraced later on.

Ways of presenting or becoming persuasive. Most persuasive messages either appeal to us because of a good result or appeal to fear.
Fear is more persuasive.
Either there will be a good reward or a bad thing will happen.

Other forms of persuasion

Foot in the Door persuasion – Making a modest request and following with a larger second request.

If an agreement is made to a smaller request it’s easier to get agreement to the larger request.

Door in the face technique – we make an outrageous request to start with so that the next request seems reasonable.

Bate and switch or lowball technique – We offer an extremely favorable deal, after that is committed we add additional commands.

That’s Not All Technique – Someone makes an offer and then improves the offer before you have a chance to reply.

A lot of what we have as social psychology came after and because of the holocaust in Germany. How could one man influence a whole nation?

Introduction to Psychology Notes: Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Cooperation and Competition
The Bystander Effect
- The more people that are present, the less likely we are willing to go and help the person in need
- “The diffusion of responsibility”
- Pluralistic ignorance: a situation in which people say nothing, and each person falsely assumes that others have a better informed opinion.

Conformity: altering or maintaining behavior to match that of other people
- We all have interpersonal influences.
- Other people are vital when it comes to the source of influence because they provide information or misinformation about situations.
- Other people establish the norms for behavior in a variety of situations.
- Altering or maintaining behavior to match that of other people.
- Can serve as an informational function
- Ash and the line experiment
- Shows cross cultural variations.

Social Loafing
- The tendency to loaf, or to not work hard when we work with other people.

Introduction to Psychology: Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Personality

- Hereditary
- We have research that proves both sides of the five versus four theories
- Personality is a difficult concept to measure, and the complexity of human behavior makes research particularly challenging.
- Personality Assessment
- Variety of tests used to measure normal and abnormal personality
- Axis I disorders are known as clinical disorders that can be observed
- Axis II includes personality disorders and mental retardation
- Designing a good psychological test requires validity, reliability
- Standardized personality tests are created with rules that follow a set of guidelines
- Rorschach test is a subjective test that should be used with other tests
- Very reliable
- Its baseline is created from the population of the people with mental illnesses
- MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)
- Originated in Minnesota
- Bases line is based off of people with mental illnesses
- Has ten clinical scales that evaluate different aspects of the personality
- Also has separate scales that has a lie scale, a validity scale,
- Used for many reasons other than mental illnesses
- Projectives tests
- Rorschach Test
- TAT (Thematic Apperception Test)
- need to be used with other tests
- You want to look for emotional stroop: an implicit personality test, measures aspects of personality that is outside of awareness.
- Stroop Effect/Tests
- People respond quicker to pleasant situations than negative situations
- Personality tests can only measure a few aspects of personality

Barnum Effect: the name given to a type of subjective validation in which a person finds personal meaning in statements that could apply to many people.

Introduction to Psychology Notes: Monday, April 27, 2015

BOOK REVIEW IS DUE THIS WEDNESDAY
FINAL WILL BE ON TUESDAY AT 12:30

Abnormal Psychology
- Abnormal psychology deals with anything in between ADHD and schizophrenia and much more
- The concepts of deviants, distress , and disability were used to define what abnormal behavior is.
- Is it mild, moderate, or severe?
- Different disorders take place in different societies.
- There have been different ideas on abnormal psychology all throughout history
- Demon possession was a big topic, still is.
- The biopsychosocial model
- The predominate view when it comes to abnormal behavior
- Three aspects
- Biological factors
- Social factors
- Psychological factors
- DSM
- some people do not agree because it is hard to distinguish between normal and abnormal behavior.
-
- The 5 Axis:
- Axis I: Clinical Disorder (things that are observable)
- Axis II: Personality Disorders and Mental Retardation
- Axis III: General Medical Conditions
- Axis IV: Psychological, Social and Environmental Condition
- Axis V (GAF): Score ranges from 0-100, it is a snapshot of the client
- Psychotherapies for psychological disorders
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Primary focus of which is to reveal the unconscious content of a client's psyche in an effort to alleviate psychic tension
- Behavior Therapist
- Behavior is learned. If it is learned, it can therefore be unlearned
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
- Some therapists focus on changing thoughts and beliefs
- Person Centered Therapy (Motivational Interviewing)
- More of a humanistic theory
- Family Systems Therapy
- working with the entire family
- Group Therapy
- Group of people working toward a common goal and creating relationships
- Various types of therapy are about equally effective but some therapist are more effective in their theory with their clients.
- Deinstitutionalization: moving people from hospitals to home treatment centers
- Legal Issues
- Patients can be admitted against their will (involuntary commitment)
- typically have long term severe problem
- usually dangerous to themselves and others
- Tarasoff Case
- A duty to warn (mandatory reporting)
- Insanity is a legal term, not a professional term.

Introduction to Psychology Notes: Wednesday, April 29, 2015

FINAL ON TUESDAY AT 2:30

Popular Psychology (Pop psychology)
- most research presented is a lie
- Dr. Phil is a lie! (Sorry!)
- so are pharmaceutical commercials
- because of pop psychology, our society has started diagnosing ourselves and others
- Read more about this in book
Anxiety/Avoidance Orders
- Characterized mainly by fear (sometimes shame)
- Anxiety: feeling of being apprehensive (something might go wrong, someone might see)
- When anxiety gets in the way of everyday life it becomes a disorder
- GAD: constantly being worried
- Panic Disorders: periods of anxiety known as panic attacks
- no physical cause, all emotional
- treated with antidepressants and psychotherapy
- includes social phobias (people, public places) and agoraphobia (open spaces)
- Some disorders involve exaggerated avoidance
- Avoidance behaviors last longer than necessary
- Phobias: strong fears that interrupt daily life
- most phobias are learned (classical conditioning) or observed
- some are genetically predisposed
- Treatment
- desensitization: spider in a box the first time, spider out of the box next time, petting spider third time, spider crawling up client last time
- flooding: thrown into a pit of spiders
- Disorders treated with drugs that reduce tension and encourages sleep
- most deal with the neurotransmitters in the brain
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ( OCD)
- Checking locks/lights, cleaning hands
- Tends to run in families
- No such thing as an OCD gene, possibly learned
- Treated with psychotherapy and medication
- Exposure
- Anxiety disorders have a wide variety of causes
Substance Related Disoerders
- Alcoholism: substance dependence
- person cannot quit and is in a pattern of self destruction
- Addictive substances trigger dopamine levels
- Substance Dependence is considered a disease and is treated under the Disease Model
Mood Disorders
- Decrease in activities, no motivation, no pleasure
- Depression varies from one person to another
- looks at sleeping and eating (excessive or nonexistent)
- SAD (Seasonal Affected Disorder)
- occurs during one season of the year
- light therapy is an effective treatment
- Depression is a gender disorder
- affects women more often than men, possibly because women are more connected their emotions
- treated with pharmaceuticals and possibly cognitive therapy
- if bad, we use ECT ( Electroconvulsive Therapy) and it has shown that it is helpful with severe cases
- Go beyond the normal range of emotions, usually call for an intervention
- Schizophrenia
- a brain disorder
- not a DID
- characterized by hallucinations (visual and auditory)
- positive symptoms: present behaviors, thoughts being disordered
- negative symptoms: absent behaviors, lack of emotions
- Types of Schizophrenia
- Canatonic
- Disorganized
- Paranoid
- Residual
- has multiple causes
- possibly genetically predisposed
READ about Personality Disorders!

ON THE FINAL!
- Intelligence
- WISK
- G-Factor
- Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence
- Howard Gardner
- Sternberg
- Sleep
- Circadian Rhythm
- REM
- Morning/evening person
- Sleep cycle
- Hypnosis
- Motivation
- Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
- Definition of motivation
- Know about hunger
- Know about sexual behavior/motivation
- Sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system
- Fight or flight response
- Emotions
- PTSD
- Happiness
- Personality
- Freud’s personality theory
- Id, ego, and superego
- Carl Jung
- Collective unconscious
- DSM and the Axises