1. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for
authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any
manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated,
forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
1
Chapter 1
The Science of Psychology

2. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
2
Chapter Preview
• Defining psychology and exploring its roots
• Contemporary approaches to psychology
• Psychology’s scientific method
• Types of psychological research

3. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
3
Chapter Preview
• Research samples and settings
• Conducting ethical research
• Learning about psychology means learning
about you

4. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
4
Definition of Psychology
• Scientific study of behavior and
mental processes
• Key terms
• Science
• Behavior
• Mental processes

5. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
5
Figure 1.1 - Settings in Which
Psychologists Work

6. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
6
Psychology’s Beginnings
• Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)
• German philosopher-physician
• First psychology laboratory (1879)
• Though he was not the first to study behaviors or
mental processes,
• He Was the first use of the scientific method in his lab
• So, he is considered the “FATHER OF PSYCHOLOGY”

7. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
7
Psychology’s beginnings
• William James (1842-1910)
• American psychologist and philosopher
• Was the first to borrow Wundt’s ideas and use the
scientific method in his US Psychology lab
• So, he is considered, “the father of American
Psychology”

8. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
8
Contemporary Approaches
• Biological
• Behavioral
• Psychodynamic
• Humanistic
• Cognitive
• Evolutionary
• Sociocultural

9. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
9
Biological Approach
• Focus on brain and nervous system
• Neuroscience
• Structure, function, development, genetics,
biochemistry of nervous system
• Brain and nervous system are central to
understanding behavior, thought, and emotion
• Try to move your right arm and left leg clockwise, while
also moving your left arm and right leg
counterclockwise
• Biology prevents us from doing some behaviors!

10. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
10
Behavioral Approach
• Emphasis on observable behavioral responses
and their environmental determinants
• Notable behaviorists
• John B. Watson (1878-1958)
• B.F. Skinner (1904-1990)
• Imagine a kid in a store who throws a tantrum and
gets the candy they wanted. They have just learned
if they don’t get something, throw a tantrum and I’ll
get it. This is the behavioral approach

11. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
11
Psychodynamic Approach
• Emphasis on:
• Unconscious impulses
• Conflict between biological drives and society
• Childhood family experiences
• Founding father:
• Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
• He only gets the title “father of Psychodynamic
Psychology!”

12. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
12
Humanistic Approach
• Emphasis on:
• Positive human qualities
• Capacity for positive growth
• Freedom to choose any destiny
• **the opposite of all things Freud stood for
with his Psychodynamic approach

13. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
13
Cognitive Approach
• Emphasis on mental processes involved in
knowing
• How we:
• Direct attention
• Perceive, remember, think
• Solve problems

14. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
14
Evolutionary Approach
• Use of evolutionary ideas such as:
• Adaptation
• Reproduction
• Natural selection
• Used as a basis for explaining specific human
behaviors

15. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
15
Sociocultural Approach
• Examination of ways in which social and
cultural environments influence behavior
• Focus on comparisons of behavior across:
• Countries
• Ethnic and cultural groups within countries
• Think about how (what terms) you would use
to tell a story to your Grandmother versus
your best friend.

16. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
16
Figure 1.3 - Steps in the Scientific
Method

17. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
17
Scientific Method: Observation
• Choose a variable
• Phenomenon studied by scientists
• Anything that can change
• Develop a theory
• Idea that attempts to explain observations
• Seeks to explain why something happened
• Can be used to make predictions

18. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
18
Scientific Method: Hypothesis
• Formulate a hypothesis
• Educated guess derived from theory
• Prediction that can be tested
• Can lend credibility to theory

19. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
19
Scientific Method: Research
• Design study
• Establish an operational definition
• Objective description of variable
• Choose between design types
• Descriptive, correlational, experiment
• Implement study / Collect data
• Methods: Survey, observation, test data
• Analyze data &Number crunching

20. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
20
Scientific Method: Conclusions
• Draw conclusions
• Is theory supported?
• Should theory be changed?
• Evaluate conclusions
• Publication and review
• Ongoing research process

21. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
21
Types of Psychological Research
• Descriptive research
• Finding out about some variable
• Correlational research
• Discovering relationships between variables
• Experimental research
• Establishing causal relationships

22. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
22
Descriptive Research
• Describing some phenomemon, without
answering questions of how and why
• Demographics of who (gender, age, education
level, etc.)
• Number of occurrences (how many times a day, a
year, in your life)
• What something is (what does it mean to you to
“date someone”?” – and you would describe what
that means to you)

23. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
23
Correlational Research
• Examining whether and how variables are
related and change together
• Strength (accuracy of prediction of one variable by
knowing the other)
• Think no strength = guessing
• To strong strength = perfect predictions
• Direction (in which direction should you make the
prediction: same or opposite as other variable)
• Positive = same direction
• Negative = opposite direction

24. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
24
Figure 1.4 - Scatter Plots Showing
Positive and Negative Correlations

25. Correlation coefficient
• Statistical representation of the correlation
• Represented with a lower case r
• r = + .75
• Strength interpreted by looking at the VALUE of
the number (in this case: .75)
• Closer to 1.00 = perfect.
• Closer to 0.00 = no strength
• Direction interpreted by looking at the sign in
front of the value (+ or -)
• + = positive
• - = negative
© 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
25

26. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
26
Correlation and Causation
• Correlation ≠ causation
• Third variable problem
• Some other variable accounts for relationship
between two variables
• Third variables also called confounds

27. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
27
Experimental Research
• Determining whether causal relationship
exists between variables
• Experiment
• Manipulation of one or more variables that are
believed to influence some other variable
• Random Assignment
• Researchers assign participants to groups by
chance (to minimize third variable problems)

28. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
28
Experiments and Causation
• Random assignment helps establish causation
• Independent variables  manipulated
• Dependent variables  measured
• Experimental groups
• Experience manipulation
• Control groups
• Serve as baseline for comparison

29. “manipulating” the I.V.
© 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
29

30. “manipulating” the I.V. Option 2
© 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
30

31. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
31
Experimental Research: Bias
• Experimenter bias
• Demand characteristics
• Research participant bias
• Placebo effect
• Double-blind experiment

32. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
32
Figure 1.5 - Psychology’s Research Methods
Applied to Studying Social Media Use

33. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
33
Research Settings
• Laboratory research
• Control, but with some drawbacks
• Naturalistic observation
• Real-world setting

34. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
34
APA Ethics Guidelines
• Informed consent
• Confidentiality
• Debriefing
• Deception

35. © 2013 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized
instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This document
may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a
website, in whole or part.
35
Psychology and You
• Avoid generalizing based on little information
• Distinguish between group results and
individual needs
• Look for answers beyond a single study
• Avoid attributing causes where none have
been found
• Consider source of psychological information