psychology

been carefully developed from the results of other studies, or maybe from inductive researches.

Scientists use a special term for ideas which are put to the test in this way: they call them hypotheses. A hypothesis is a prediction about what will happen in a particular situation. It is always based on a theory, and expresses what the experimenter thinks will happen if the theory is true. So the forming of hypotheses is a vital part of this types of scientific method. Once the hypothesis has been formed, the researcher sets up a systematic study in order to test the hypothesis and see if it holds up. The results of that study allow the researcher either to reject the hypothesis or to accept it. If it is accepted, it is used to support the theory. If it is rejected, it suggests that the theory may not be appropriate and new theory may be needed.

observations

theory

research

Research findings

Figure 1. - The Research cycle

The inductive approach.The inductive approach doesn‘t begin with a theory. It begins with the collection of data. But, this data collection has to be from an original source because if the psychologist were to use reports, or other people‘s descriptions, they would have the types of bias that we looked at just now. Psychologists use interview data has been collected, the psychologist analyses it, looking for common themes and principles which it might reveal. This type of analysis is a lengthy and demanding process because it goes through several stages: it is sometimes harder to do good –quality, rigorous inductive research than it is to do a hypothetico –deductive study.

Inductive research is generally used when psychologists are exploring a completely new area, and particularly if that area is concerned with human experience.

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3. Types of Research

Naturalistic Observation.

Observing behavior in their natural environment

Often involves counting behaviors, such as number of aggressive acts, number of smiles, etc.

Advantages: Behavior is naturally occurring and is not manipulated by a researcher and it can provide more qualitative data as opposed to merely quantitative information.

Limitations: Even the presence of someone observing can cause those being observed to alter their behavior. Researcher‘s beliefs can also alter their observations. And, it is very difficult to coordinate multiple observers since observed behaviors must be operationally defined (e.g. what constitutes an aggressive act)

Case Study

Following a single case, typically over an extended period of time can involve naturalistic observations, and include psychological testing, interviews, interviews with others, and the application of a treatment or observation

Advantages: Can gather extensive information, both qualitative and quantitative and it can be helpful in better understanding rare cases or very specific interventions

Limitations: Only one case is involved, severely limiting the generalization to the rest of the population. Can be very time consuming and can involve other problems specific to the techniques used, including researcher bias.

Survey

Everyone has probably heard of this and many of you have been involved in research involving surveys. They are often used in the news, especially to gather viewer opinions such as during a race for president.

Advantages: Can gather large amounts of information in a relatively short time, especially now with many surveys being conducted on the internet.

Limitations: Survey data is based solely on subjects‘ responses which can be inaccurate due to outright lying, misunderstanding of the question, placebo effect, and even the manner in which the question is asked.

Psychological Testing

Utilizing testing to gather information about a group or an individual

Advantages: Most tests are normed and standardized, which means they have very reliable and valid results. Popular with businesses looking for data on employees and with difficult or specific therapy cases

Limitations: Tests which are not rigorously normed and standardized can easily result in inaccurate results.

CorrelationalStudies

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Correlation means relationship, so the purpose of a correlational study is to determine if a relationship exists, what direction the relationship is, and how strong it is.

Advantages: Can assess the strength of a relationship. Is popular with lay population because it is relatively easy to explain and understand.

Limitations: Can not make any assumptions of cause and effect (explain how third a variable can be involved, or how the variables can influence each other).

Questions

1.What are the main methods of investigation available to psychologist?

2.What are the main disadvantages of these methods? What are the advantages of these methods?

3.What is the experimental method? Why has it been used so often in psychological research?

4.What are the main features of ethical research? Why is it important for experiments to be ethical?

Practical Task

Exercise 1 Pattern Recognition

One of the first decisions that psychology researchers must make is how to study their target behavior. Correlation methods involve studying behaviors as they are. These approaches involve careful observation, measurement, and interpretation of behaviors to uncover relationships among the factors that influence behavior. Correlational methods can be employed in case studies, surveys, and field work.

In contrast, experimental methods involve procedures that manipulate the conditions surrounding the behavior being studied. In effect, the experimenter interferes with normal behavior to narrow down the causes of behavior. By establishing equivalent conditions and systematically varying a specific factor, the experimenter determines the impact of that factor. This is chief advantage of experimentation; experimental methods cannot. Experiments can be conducted using a single subject or many participants. The key to determining cause-effect conclusions is providing good controlled conditions and making accurate comparisons across conditions.

Read the following examples and judge whether the procedure described would be considered a correlational (non-interfering) approach or an experimental (interfering) approach.

A) The Problem of Child Abuse. Social scientists study the backgrounds of children who have been assigned to foster care. They discover that the majority of children who receive foster care have experienced physical punishment methods in their prior homes that would be severe enough to qualify as abusive.

Would this conclusion be derived from a correlational study or an experiment? Why?

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B) Charlle’s Weight Loss. Charlie is trying hard to lose his ―spare tire‖ before his wedding. He has two months to get ready for the event. He decides to go about his weight loss systematically. The first week, Charlie exercises vigorously. The second week? He gives up meat. The third week, he drinks large amounts of water. The fourth week, he eats just bananas. He continues to vary his approach each week. At the end of his eight-week experiment, he concludes that that his best weight loss comes from exercise.

Would Charlie’s conclusion be derived from a correlational study or an experiment? Why?

C)The Curious Teacher. Ms. Tucker decides that she wants to evaluate which of her teaching methods might make the biggest impact on her students. For the first half of the semester, she teaches using a lecture format. She evaluates what students have learned using a 50 point multiple choice test. For the second half of the semester, she teaches using demonstrations and active learning exercises. She evaluates the second half using a 50 point multiple choice test. She discovers that her students have better test scores when using active learning strategies.

Would Ms. Tucker’s conclusion be derived from a correlational study or an experiment? Why?

D)The Lucky Pen. Peter noticed that every time he used his special pen with

green ink, something wonderful would happen to him. First, he got an A on his history exam. When he loaned his pen to Amy, she later agreed to go out on date with him. While he was carrying his pen, he bought a lottery ticket that later won $2,000. He decided that his pen truly had lucky powers and he put it away so he wouldn‘t lose it.

Would this conclusion be derived from a correlational study or an experiment? Why?

Literature:

Gonic, L.&Wheelis, M. (1991). The Cartoon Guide to Genetics. New York: HarperPerennial.

Gould, S.J. (1981). The Mismeasure of Man. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Gregory, R.L. (1991). Eye and Brain.4thedn. London: Weidenfeld&Nicholson. Hayes, N. (1993). Principles of Comparative Psychology. London: Erlbaun. Hayes N. (1995). Psychology in Perspective. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Hayes, N. (1993). A First Cource in Psychology. London: Nelson.

Walker, S. (1984). Learning Theory and Behavior Modification. London: Methuen.

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Theme 3: Psychological methods and means to improve the effectiveness and quality of instruction in modern conditions

Content

1.Psychology of Learning.

2.Theories of learning.

3.Varieties of learning.

1.In psychology, learning is defined as a process by which a relatively lasting change in behavior is introduced through practice and experience.

The psychology of learning is concerned with the various types of learning and the reasons and causes that allow learning to occur.

To provide for effective learning the teacher needs some knowledge of the psychological factors which operate in stimulating a desire to learn and those which interfere with the process.

He needs to know how best to help students to memorize subject matter, or in what ways to present concepts, principles, and their applications so that they will be understood and used intelligently.

2.Theories of learning. During the first half of the twentieth century, the school of thought known as behaviorism rose to dominate psychology and sought to explain the learning process.

The three major types of learning described by behavioral psychology are classical conditioning, operant conditioning and observational learning.

Behaviorism was the school of thought in psychology that sought to measure only observable behaviors. Founded by John B. Watson and outlined in his seminal 1913 paper Psychology as the Behaviorist View It, the behaviorist standpoint held that psychology was an experimental and objective science and that internal mental processes should not be considered because they could not be directly observed and measured.

Classical conditioning is a learning process in which an association is made between a previously neutral stimulus and a stimulus that naturally evokes a response. For example, in Pavlov's classic experiment, the smell of food was the naturally occurring stimulus that was paired with the previously neutral ringing of the bell. Once an association had been made between the two, the sound of the bell alone could lead to a response.

Operant conditioning is a learning process in which the probability of response occurring is increased or decreased due to reinforcement or punishment. First studied by Edward Thorndike and later by B.F. Skinner, the underlying idea behind operant conditioning is that the consequences of our actions shape voluntary behavior.

Observational learning is a process in which learning occurs through observing and imitating others. As demonstrated in Albert Bandura's classic "Bobo Doll" experiments, people will imitate the actions of others

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without direct reinforcement. Four important elements are essential for effective observational learning: attention, motor skills, motivation and memory.

Cognitivism

The cognitivist revolution replaced behaviorism in 1960s as the dominant paradigm.

Cognitivism focuses on the inner mental activities – opening the ―black box‖ of the human mind is valuable and necessary for understanding how people learn. Mental processes such as thinking, memory, knowing, and problemsolving need to be explored. Knowledge can be seen as schema or symbolic mental constructions. Learning is defined as change in a learner‘s schemata.

Constructivism

A reaction to didactic approaches such as behaviorism and programmed instruction, constructivism states that learning is an active, contextualized process of constructing knowledge rather than acquiring it. Knowledge is constructed based on personal experiences and hypotheses of the environment. Learners continuously test these hypotheses through social negotiation.

Each person has a different interpretation and construction of knowledge process. The learner is not a blank slate (tabula rasa) but brings past experiences and cultural factors to a situation.

3. Varieties of learning in modern conditions. Kinesthetic Learning

o Participating in activities meant to be learned as opposed to being told how to perform an activity is kinesthetic learning. Kinesthetic learning incorporates both physiological and cognitive processes facilitating internalizing new knowledge for later recall (learning). For example, seemingly simple tasks involving common physiological motions at one point had to be learned kinesthetically: making a sandwich, tying your shoes or typing involved a direct interaction with an object and a series of proactive requirements, consciously completed, in a particular order prior any automation.

ConstructionistLearning

o Assimilating, restructuring and incorporating new information into prior knowledge involves a constructionist learning process. Furthermore, constructionist learning involves learning specific to how knowledge is relevant and therefore how it can be connected to prior insight. For example, constructionist learning is expressed when an individual brings public speaking skills acquired from years of church participation into the corporate world assisting in presenting alternative business models to an employer. This crosspollination of talent allows prior speaking skills to assimilate into new environments acting as a basis for achieving competence in new areas.

Memory Consolidation

o Memory consolidation is a process when knowledge is internalized, stabilized and isolated for later recall. Furthermore, memory consolidation is a dual process involving: (1) knowledge consolidating into declarative memory, which is assessable through conscious exertion, and (2) over a span of

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yearsbecomes tacit knowledge that is assessable unconsciously, automatically and fully internalized. For example, presenting facts regarding how to ride a bike is declarative knowledge; riding a bike is a manifestation of tacit knowledge.

CollaborativeLearning

o Working to cultivate skills as a team, group or social setting; collectively participating toward a common theme is collaborative learning. Leaning resulting through an act of cooperation and agenda sharing are main characteristics that set collaborative learning apart from other types of learning styles. For example, teachers assigning students to write a 5,000-word essay to divide, among themselves, portions of the essays to be completed individually but part of a net-sum collaborative effort is collaborative learning.

MultimediaLearning

o Knowledge restructured into an audio-visual narrative presentation to facilitate learning involves multimedia learning. For example, reasoning, deductive logical and inferring strategies performed by a student when investing the meaning of a video documentary is a multimedia experience. Furthermore, the psychology of learning is concerned with how multimedia learning recruits various cognitive processes involved in how learning itself is achieved.

Design-Based Research Methods (DBR).

In recent years, educators have been trying to narrow the chasm between research and practice. Part of the challenge is that research that is detached from practice ―may not account for the influence of contexts, the emergent and complex nature of outcomes, and the incompleteness of knowledge about which factors are relevant for prediction‖ (DBRC, 2003).

Originators: A. Brown (1992), A. Collins (1992), DBR Collective, and others According to Collins et al. (2004), Design-based Research intends to address several needs and issues central to the study of learning, including the following:

The need to address theoretical questions about the nature of learning in context

The need for approaches to the study of learning phenomena in the real world situations rather than the laboratory

The need to go beyond narrow measures of learning.

The need to derive research findings from formative evaluation.

Characteristics of design-based research experiments include:

 addressing complex problems in real, authentic contexts in collaboration with practitioners

 applying integrating known and hypothetical design principles to render plausible solutions

 conducting rigorous and reflective inquiry to test and refine innovative learning environments

 intertwined goals of (1) designing learning environments and (2) developing theories of learning

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research and development through continuous cycles of design, enactment, analysis, and redesign

research on designs that must lead to sharable theories that help communicate relevant implications to practitioners and other educational designers

research must account for how designs function in authentic settings

development of such accounts relies on methods that can document and connect processes of enactment to outcomes of interest (DBRC, 2003).

Questions:

1.What is classical conditioning?

2.What are some of the main phenomena of classical conditioning?

3.What is operant conditioning?

4.What are some of the ways in which operant conditioning has been applied in the real world?

Practical Task

Exercise 1 Pattern Recognition

In most classical conditioning examples, we should be able to identify an involuntary response at the core of the learning process. In Pavlov‘s original conditioning experiment, the dog‘s salivary reflex was the involuntary response.

When food is presented to a hungry dog, the dog will salivate. This connection is natural and unlearned, or unconditioned. It is the brain‘s way of readying the digestive tract and it assist in our survival. We might say that this is a ―hardwired‖ feature of dog design. Food is am unconditioned stimulus (UCS) and the salivation is an unconditioned response (UCR) – a natural and unlearned one.

If you present a neutral stimulus – one that has no particular meaning, such as a bell – to a dog just prior to presenting the food, and if you present this pair of stimuli often enough, you are likely to see a new learned connection develop. The bell will come to signify that the food is one its way. Since the bell had no effect initially, the meaning of the bell had to be conditioned. Therefore , it is called the conditioned stimulus (CS). When the researcher has successfully conditioned the dog to respond to the bell, the dog will salivate in the absence of food. This salivation is called the conditioned response (CR). Note that the unconditioned response and the conditioned response are virtually the same. They are likely to differ only in intensity. (Even dogs are smart enough to know you shouldn‘t eat a bell).

Now it‘s your turn. Four examples of classical conditioning are outlined in the following paragraphs. Each describes a situation in which an unconditioned stimulus, an unconditioned response, a conditioned stimulus, and a conditioned response occur. Can you identify the components in each example?

A) The Troublesome Shower: Martin likes to take a shower in the men‘s locker room after working out. During one such shower, he hears someone flushing a nearby toilet. Suddenly, boiling-hot water rushes out of the shower

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head, causing Martin serious discomfort. As he continues the shower, he hears another toilet flush and immediately jumps out from under the shower head.

What is the unconditioned response (UCR)? (The UCR is the involuntary,

“hard-wired” reaction that does not need to be learned.)

What is the unconditioned stimulus (UCS)? (The UCS is the event that automatically elicits the involuntary response.)

What is the conditioned response (CR)? (The CR is the new behavior that is a acquired through learning)

What is the conditioned stimulus (CS)? (The CS is the event that like on new meaning through conditioning)

B)The Water Show: Jeanette was happy when she heard about her family‘s plan to go to a water sports show. Then she hesrd the weather report, which predicted temperatures exceeding 100 degrees. Jeanette suspected that the weather would be hard to bear, but she went to the show. As she watched the water skiers perform taxing routines to the blaring organ music, she got more and more swety and uncomfortable. Eventually, she fainted from the heat. After the family outing, Jeanette could never again hear organ music without feeling a little dizzy.

Unconditioned response (UCR): Unconditioned stimulus (UCS): Conditioned response (CR):

Conditioned stimulus (CS):

C)The trouble With Tuna: Brain was really looking forward to lunch. His mother had prepared a tuna salad sandwich. Unfortunately, the mayonnaise she used had been left out too long and was tainted. Not long after eating, Brain felt extremely nauseated and had to rush to the bathroom. Thereafter, the mere mention of a tuna sandwich would send Brain scurrying to the bathroom with a rolling stomach.

Unconditioned response (UCR): Unconditioned stimulus (UCS): Conditioned response (CR):

Conditioned stimulus (CS):

D)Captain Hook’s Time Problem: Captain Hook had a nasty encounter with a crocodile in Never-Never Land. As a result of the battle, he lost his hand to the croc, which also swallowed an alarm clock. Fortunately for Hook, any clock‘s ticking now ushers in a full-blown anxiety attack. (Be careful here)/

Unconditioned response (UCR): Unconditioned stimulus (UCS): Conditioned response (CR):

Conditioned stimulus (CS):

Literature:

Beaumont, J.G. (1998) Understanding Neuropsychology. Oxford: Blackwell.

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Bloom, F.E.&Lazerson, A. (1988). Brain, Mind and Behavior 2ndedn. NewYork: W.H. Freeman.

Theme 4: Personality as a subject of psychology

Content:

1. Individual and Individuality.

2 Self concept.

3.Gender identity.

4.Theories of Gender Development

1.The Individual and Individuality.

Individual: a single human being, as distinguished from a group. A distinct, indivisible entity; a single thing, being, instance, or item.Biology : a single organism capable of independent existence.

Individuality: 1. the particular character, or aggregate of qualities, that distinguishes one person or thing from others; sole and personal nature: a person of marked individuality.

Personality

Is defined as an individual‘s consist patterns of feeling, thinking, and behaving

is the sum total of the physical, mental, emotional, and social characteristics of an individual.

is the organized pattern of behavioral characteristics of the individual.

Distinctive and relatively stable pattern of behaviors, thoughts, motives, and emotions that characterizes an individual

2 The Self concept.

Self-concept is the image that we have of ourselves. This image is formed in a number of ways, but is particularly influenced by our interactions with important people in our lives.

Components of Self-Concept

Carl Rogers (1959) believes that the self concept has three different components:

•The view you have of yourself (Self image)

•How much value you place on yourself (Self esteemor self-worth)

•What you wish you were really like (Ideal self)

Self Esteem and Self Worth

HIGH SELF ESTEEM i.e. we have a positive view of ourselves.

•Thistendstoleadto

•Confidenceinourownabilities

•Selfacceptance

•Not worrying about what others think

•Optimism

LOW SELF ESTEEM i.e. we have a negative view of ourselves.

•Thistendstoleadto

•Lackofconfidence

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