Introduction To Psychology 6e

Transcription

Introduction to Psychology 6eAdapted by Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French

Introduction to Psychology 6th EditionAdapted by: College of Lake County Faculty: Martha Lally and SuzanneValentine-French(Revised July 2021, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014)This project was funded by a grant from the College of Lake County Foundation.Adapted College of Lake County text can be found sychologyText.pdfOriginal text materials for Introduction to Psychology by Stangor 2011 (non-HCC version) on%20to%20Psychology.pdfAdapted by: Houston Community College Faculty: Carol Laman, Sandra Greenstone, Huong Ho,Jennifer Suarez, Sheila Weick, Kenneth Woodruff, Robert Morecook, Eileen Mello, Saundra Boyd, IlijaGallego, Karen Saenz (Revised May, 2013).Houston Community College 2013 revision for Introduction to Psychology by Stangor, 2011 Original Publication Under the following license:This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 unportedlicense to view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or send a letter toCreative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.2

Table of Contents Chapter 1 -- Introducing Psychology Chapter 2 -- Psychological Science Chapter 3 – Brain and Behavior Chapter 4 – Learning Chapter 5 – Memory and Cognition Chapter 6 – Intelligence and Language Chapter 7 – Lifespan Development Chapter 8 – Personality Chapter 9 – Social Psychology Chapter 10 – Mental Health Disorders Chapter 11 – Treating Mental Health Disorders3

Contents. 1Introduction to Psychology . 2Table of Contents . 3Chapter 1 Introducing Psychology . 6Psychology as a Science . 7The Evolution of Psychology: Central Questions, History, and Contemporary Perspectives . 11The Many Disciplines of Psychology . 26Chapter 2 Psychological Science . 38Psychologists Use the Scientific Method to Guide Their Research . 39Descriptive, Correlational, and Experimental Research Designs . 48Factors that Contribute to Credible Research . 58Chapter 3 Brain and Behavior. 66The Neuron Is the Building Block of the Nervous System. 66The Brain . 74Psychologists Study the Brain Using Many Different Methods . 85The Nervous System and the Endocrine System . 90Sleeping and Dreaming . 96Chapter 4 Learning . 112Classical Conditioning . 113Operant Conditioning . 120Cognition and Conditioning . 128Other Forms of Learning based on Cognition. 129Chapter 5 Memory and Cognition . 141Encoding and Storage: How Our Perceptions Become Memories . 142Retrieval . 154The Biology of Memory . 157Cues to Improving Memory . 160Cognition and Cognitive Biases . 162Problem-Solving Strategies . 172Chapter 6 Intelligence and Language . 180Defining and Measuring Intelligence . 180Group Differences in Intelligence . 191The Development and Use of Language . 198Chapter 7 Lifespan Development . 2174

Conception and Prenatal Development . 218Physical Development across the Lifespan . 223Cognitive Development across the Lifespan . 228Social Development across the Lifespan . 241Chapter 8 Personality . 264Personality as Traits . 264Studying the Nature of Personality . 270Studying the Nurture of Personality . 277Personality Assessment .282Chapter 9 Social Psychology . 299Social Cognition . 299Social Influences . 309Social Relationships . 325Chapter 10 Defining Mental Health Disorders . 345Defining a Mental Health Disorder. 346Anxiety, OCD, and PTSD . 351Depressive and Bipolar Disorders . 358Schizophrenia . 365Personality Disorders . 370Disorders Originating in Childhood . 375Chapter 11 Treating Mental Health Disorders. 389Psychotherapy . 390Biomedical Therapy . 400Social and Community Therapy . 407Eclectic Approach to Therapy and Seeking Treatment. 4125

Chapter 1 Introducing PsychologyLearning Objective1. Define psychology.Psychology is the scientific study of mind (mental processes) and behavior. The word“psychology” comes from the Greek words “psyche,” meaning life, and “logos,” meaningexplanation.Because we are frequently exposed to the work ofpsychologists in our everyday lives, we all havean idea about what psychology is and whatpsychologists do. In many ways your conceptionsare correct. Psychologists do work in forensicfields, and they do provide counseling andtherapy for people in distress. But there arehundreds of thousands of psychologists in theworld, and many of them do other types of workMany psychologists work in research laboratories,hospitals, and other field settings where theystudy the behavior of humans and animals.Psychologists also work in schools andbusinesses, and they use a variety of methods,including observation, questionnaires, interviews,and laboratory studies, to help them understandbehavior.This chapter introduces the broad field ofpsychology and the many approaches thatpsychologists take to understanding humanbehavior. We will consider how psychologistsFigure 1.1conduct scientific research. We will look at somePsychology is in part the study of behavior.Why do you think these people are behaving theof the most important approaches used and topicsway they are?studied by psychologists. We will consider thevariety of fields in which psychologists work andSources: “The Robot: It's not a dance, it's a lifestyle!” photo courtesy of /. Other photos Thinkstock.the careers that are available to people withpsychology degrees. You may find that at leastsome of your preconceptions about psychology will be challenged and changed, and you willlearn that psychology is a field that will provide you with new ways of thinking about your ownthoughts, feelings, and actions.6

Psychology as a ScienceLearning Objective1. Describe the differences among opinions, values and facts, and explain how thescientific method is used to provide evidence for facts.Despite the differences in their interests, areas of study, and approaches, all psychologists haveone thing in common: They rely on the scientific method. Research psychologists use scientificmethods to create new knowledge about the causes of behavior. Practitioners, such as clinical,counseling, industrial-organizational, and school psychologists, primarily use existing researchto help solve problems.In a sense all humans are scientists. We all have an interest in asking and answering questionsabout our world. We want to know why things happen, when and if they are likely to happenagain, and how to reproduce or change them. Such knowledge enables us to predict our ownbehavior and that of others. We may even collect data, or any information collected throughformal observation or measurement, to aid us in this undertaking. It has been argued that peopleare “everyday scientists” who conduct research projects to answer questions about behavior(Nisbett & Ross, 1980). When we perform poorly on an important test, we try to understandwhat caused our failure to remember or understand the material and what might help us do betterthe next time. When our good friends Monisha and Charlie break up, we try to determine whathappened. When we think about the rise of terrorism around the world, we try to investigate thecauses of this problem by looking at the terrorists themselves, the situation, and others’responses.The Problem of IntuitionThe results of these “everyday” research projects can teach us many principles of humanbehavior. We learn through experience that if we give someone bad news, they may blame useven though the news was not our fault. We learn that people may become depressed after theyfail at an important task. We see that aggressive behavior occurs frequently in our society, andwe develop theories to explain why this is so. These insights are part of everyday social life. Infact, much research in psychology involves the scientific study of everyday behavior (Heider,1958; Kelley, 1967).Unfortunately, the way people collect and interpret data in their everyday lives is not alwaysscientific. Often, when one explanation for an event seems “right,” we adopt that explanation asthe truth. However, this reasoning is more intuitive than scientific. Intuition is thinking that ismore experiential, emotional, automatic, and unconscious, and does not lead to careful analysisof all the variables in a situation (Kahneman, 2011). Other explanations might be possible andeven more accurate. For example, eyewitnesses to violent crimes are often extremely confidentin their identifications of criminals. But research finds that eyewitnesses are just as7

confident when they are wrong as when they are right (Cutler & Wells, 2009; Wells & Hasel,2008). People may also believe in extrasensory perception (ESP), or the predictions of astrology,when there is no evidence for either (Gilovich, 1993). Furthermore, psychologists have alsofound that there are a variety of biases that can influence our perceptions. These biases lead usto draw faulty conclusions (Fiske & Taylor, 2007; Hsee & Hastie, 2006). In addition, mostindividuals listen to people they know and trust to give them accurate information rather thandoing research to determine what scientific studies show. In summary, accepting explanationsfor events without testing them thoroughly may lead us to think that we know the causes ofthings when we really do not.Hindsight BiasOnce we learn about the outcome of a given event, such as when we read about the results of aresearch project, we frequently believe that we would have been able to predict the outcomeahead of time. For instance, if half of a class of students is told that research concerningattraction between people has demonstrated that “opposites attract” and the other half is told thatresearch has demonstrated that “birds of a feather flock together,” most of the students willreport believing that the outcome that they just read about is true, and that they would havepredicted the outcome before they had read about it. Of course, both of these contradictoryoutcomes cannot be true. In fact, psychological research finds that “birds of a feather flocktogether” is generally the case. The problem is that just reading a description of research findingsleads us to think of the many cases we know that support the findings, and thus makes themseem believable. The tendency to think that we could have predicted something that has alreadyoccurred that we probably would not have been able to predict is called the hindsight bias.Why Psychologists Rely on Empirical MethodsAll scientists, whether they are physicists, chemists, biologists, or psychologists, use empiricalresearch to study the topics that interest them. We can label the scientific method as the set ofassumptions, rules, and procedures that scientists use to conduct empirical research. Empiricalresearch methods include collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data, reaching conclusions, andsharing information.Figure 1.2Psychologists use a variety of techniques to measure and understand human behavior.Sources: Poster photo courtesy of Wesleyan University, /psychposter11.jpg. Language lab photo courtesy of Evansville b.jpg. Other photo Thinkstock.8

Although scientific research is an important method of studying human behavior, not allquestions can be answered using scientific approaches. Statements that cannot be objectivelymeasured or objectively determined to be true or false are not within the domain of scientificinquiry. Scientists generally do not attempt to prove values, beliefs, or opinions to be true orfalse. Values are personal statements such as “Abortion should not be permitted in thiscountry.” Religious beliefs include statements such as “I will go to heaven when I die.”Opinions are individual ideas such as “It is important to study psychology.” Facts are objectivestatements determined to be accurate through empirical study. The following are two examplesof facts. “There were more than 21,000 homicides in the United States in 2009.” “Researchdemonstrates that individuals who are exposed to highly stressful situations over long periods oftime develop more health problems than those who are not.”Because values cannot be either true or false, science cannot prove or disprove them.Nevertheless, as shown in Table 1.1, research can sometimes provide facts that can help peopledevelop their values. For instance, scientists may be able to objectively measure the effect ofcapital punishment on the crime rate in the United States. This factual information can andshould be made available to help people formulate their values about capital punishment. Peoplealso use values to decide which research is appropriate or important to conduct. For instance, theU.S. government has recently provided funding for research on HIV, AIDS, and terrorism, whiledenying funding for some research using human stem cells.Table 1.1 Examples of Values and Facts in Scientific ResearchPersonal valueScientific factThe United States government should provide The U.S. government paid 32 billion in benefits in 2016.financial assistance to its citizens.Handguns should be outlawed.There were 33,599 deaths caused by handguns in the United States in2014.Blue is my favorite color.More than 35% of college students indicate that blue is their favoritecolor.It is important to quit smoking.Smoking increases the incidence of cancer and heart disease.Scientific procedures do not necessarily guarantee that the answers to questions will be unbiased.However, since information from scientific research is shared, knowledge is continuallychallenged. New research follows, and scientific facts can be modified when new evidence isfound. Particularly in fields involving human behavior, scientists may find it necessary to updatetheir research on a regular basis. Norms for behavior 50 years ago may no longer be “facts”today. Cell phones and the internet are now part of everyday communications. Psychologistsmust update their research on relationships to include online dating, multitasking, and cyberbullying.9

The Challenges of Studying PsychologyPsychological experiences are extremely complex. The questions psychologists pose are asdifficult as those posed by other scientists, if not more so (Wilson, 1998). A major goal ofpsychology is to predict behavior by understanding its causes. Making predictions is difficultbecause people vary and respond differently in different situations. Individual differences arethe variations among people on physical or psychological dimensions. For example, mostpeople experience negative events at some time in their lives. Some individuals handle thechallenges, while other people develop symptoms of a major depression. Other importantindividual differences discussed in future chapters include: differences in intelligence, selfesteem, anxiety, and aggression.Because of individual differences, we cannot always predict who will become aggressive or whowill perform best on the job. The predictions made by psychologists (and most other scientists)are only probabilities. We can say, for instance, that people who score higher on an intelligencetest will, on average, do better at school. However, we cannot make very accurate predictionsabout exactly how any one person will perform.There is an additional reason that predictions are difficult. Human behavior is influenced bymore than one variable at a time, and these factors occur at different levels of explanation. Forinstance, depression is caused by genetic factors, personal factors, and cultural factors. Youshould always be skeptical about people who attempt to explain important human behaviors,such as violence or depression, in terms of a single cause.Furthermore, these multiple causes are not independent of one another and when one cause ispresent, other causes tend to be present as well. This overlap makes it difficult to pinpoint whichcause or causes are operating. For instance, some people may be depressed because of biologicalimbalances in neurotransmitters in their brain. The resulting depression may lead them to actmore negatively toward other people around them. This then leads those other people to respondmore negatively to them, which then increases their depression. As a result, the biologicaldeterminants of depression become intertwined with the social responses of other people,making it difficult to disentangle the effects of each cause.Key Takeaways Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior.Though it is easy to think that everyday situations have commonsense answers, scientificstudies have found that people are not always as good at predicting outcomes as theythink they are.The hindsight bias leads us to think that we could have predicted events that we could nothave predicted.People are frequently unaware of the causes of their own behaviors.Psychologists use the scientific method to collect, analyze, and interpret evidence.10

Employing the scientific method allows the scientist to collect empirical data objectively,which adds to the accumulation of scientific knowledge.Psychological phenomena are complex, and making predictions about them is difficultbecause of individual differences and because they are determined by multiple factors.Exercises and Critical Thinking1. Can you think of a time when you used your intuition to analyze an outcome, only to besurprised to find that your explanation was completely incorrect? Did this surprise helpyou understand how intuition may sometimes lead us astray?2. Describe the scientific method in a way that someone who knows nothing about sciencecould understand it.Videos and ActivitiesIf you would like to watch videos about the topics in this book, you can watch 26 free online,30-minute programs at ogy/. Most, but notall topics from the text will be illustrated and discussed. In addition, supplemental introductorylevel information on psychology is presented by Philip Zimbardo, past president of theAmerican Psychological Association, researcher, lecturer, and text author.The Evolution of Psychology: Central Questions, History, and ContemporaryPerspectivesLearning Objectives1.2.3.4.5.Identify the central questions in psychology.Describe the historical roots of psychology.Explain the major theoretical perspectives in the field.Identify important women in the history of psychology.Describe the subfields of psychology and related professions.In this section, we will review the history of psychology with a focus on the important questionsthat psychologists ask and the major perspectives, or approaches, of psychological inquiry. ThePsychological perspectives that we will review are summarized in Table 1.2.The perspectives that psychologists have used to assess the issues that interest them have changeddramatically over the history of psychology. Perhaps most importantly, the field has movedsteadily toward a more scientific approach as the technology available to study human behaviorhas improved (Benjamin & Baker, 2004).11

Table 1.2 Important Perspectives of orical ContributorsStructuralismUses the method of introspection to identify the basicelements or “structures” of psychological experienceWilhelm Wundt,Edward B. TitchenerFunctionalismAttempts to understand why animals and humans havedeveloped the particular psychological aspects that theycurrently possessWilliam JamesPsychodynamicFocuses on the role of our unconscious thoughts,feelings, and memories, and our early childhoodexperiences in determining behaviorSigmund Freud, CarlJung, Alfred Adler, ErikErickson, Karen HorneyBehaviorismBased on the premise that it is not possible to objectivelystudy the mind, and therefore that psychologists shouldlimit their attention to the study of behavior itselfJohn B. Watson, B. F.SkinnerBiologicalHumanisticFocuses on the role of biology (genetics,neurotransmitters, hormones, and the brain) on humanbehavior and mental processesEmphasis is placed on the individual’s potential forpersonal growthMichael GazzanigaCarl Rogers, AbrahamMaslowThe study of mental processes, including perception,thinking, memory, and judgmentsHermann Ebbinghaus,Sir Frederic Bartlett,Jean PiagetSocial-culturalThe study of how the social situations and the cultures inwhich people find themselves influence thinking andbehaviorFritz Heider, LeonFestinger, StanleySchachterEvolutionaryFocuses on adaptation and survival as the basis ofbehavior and mental processesCharles Darwin, DavidBuss, Richard Dawkins,Steven PinkerCognitive12

Psychology’s Central QuestionsPsychology has changed dramatically over its history, but the most important questions thatpsychologists address have remained constant. Some of these questions follow, and we will discussthem both in this chapter and in the chapters to come: Nature versus nurture: Are genes or environment most influential in determining thebehavior of individuals and in accounting for differences among people? Most scientistsnow agree that both genes and environment play crucial roles in most human behaviors.Yet we still have much to learn about how nature, our biological makeup, and nurture,the environment and experiences that we have during our lives, work together (Harris,1998; Pinker, 2002). The proportion of differences that is due to genetics is known as theheritability of the characteristic. We will see, for example, that the heritability ofintelligence is very high (about .85 out of 1.0), but we will also see that nature and nurtureinteract in complex ways. Given this complex interaction, psychologists now considerthe question of how they interact to produce behavior as more relevant than whethernature or nurture is more important. Free will versus determinism: This question concerns the extent to which people havecontrol over their own actions. Are we the products of our environment, guided by forcesout of our control, or are we able to choose the behaviors we engage in? Most of us liketo believe that we are able to do what we want. Our legal system is based on the conceptof free will. We punish criminals because we believe that they have choice over theirbehaviors and freely choose to disobey the law. But as we

3 Table of Contents Chapter 1 -- Introducing Psychology Chapter 2 -- Psychological Science Chapter 3 – Brain and Behavior Chapter 4 – Learning Chapter 5 – Memory and Cognition Chapter 6 – Intelligence and Language Chapter 7 – Lifespan Development Chapter 8 – Personality Chapter 9 – Social