Unit 1 Psychology ~ Part 1
What sorts of correlation coefficients would be more typical in actual research?
0.2, 0.3, or 0.5
What would be an example?
0.5 x 0.5 = 0.25 1/4 can be predicted from their ACT score
What normal activities promote neurogenesis?
1) exercise 2) sleep 3) sex 4) non-stressful stimulation
negative correlation
as one variable goes in one direction the other goes in the opposite direction
How did an eminent Harvard University astronomer describe the human brain?
by far the most complex psychical object we know of in the entire cosmos (universe)
What are the three main parts of a neuron?
cell body, dendrites, axon
Neurontransmitters
chemical "messengers" that are released into the synaptic gap when a sending neuron fires (when the action potential reaches the tip of the axon of the sending neuron)
synapse
the area where the tip of sending (firing) neuron comes together with the dendrites (or something the cell body) of the receiving neuron
plasticity
the brain's ability to change, by building nre neural pathways based on experience, and/or by reorganizing the way it accomplishes things after parts of the brain are damaged or removed
cell body
the central part of the neuron, that contains the nucleus of the nerve cell and regulates the cell's biochemical reactions that act as life support for that cell
positive correlation
as one variable changes the other changes in the same direction
What is one way to summarize plasticity?
"The brain you were born with is not the brain you die with."
glia (glial cells)
"support" cells that surround, nourish, support, and protect neurons
What would be some examples?
-A positive correlation between the length of a man's marriage and him being bald. The longer he's married, the more the hair falls out. As men get older, they tend to lose their hair. It has nothing to do with their marriage. -Self-esteem and depression. When self-esteem is high, depression tends to be below. If self-esteem is low, depression will be high. This is a negative correlation or could the depression be causing the self-esteem. Abuse can also impact both depression and self-esteem.
How do anecdotes mislead us about evidence? What must we remember?
-Anecdotes are not evidence. -Everyone loves a good story.
What are three general approaches to research in psychology?
-Descriptive/observational: observing and describing/recording what we see -Correlational: measuring how different things occur/change together -Experimental: performing a controlled study to see if one thing is causing another
How do we use critical thinking? What questions must we ask?
-How do we know? What is factual, scientific evidence? -Does this evidence come from a reliable source? -Is the source open and unbiased, or is it pushing an agenda? -What assumptions are being made, and how do we put these to a test? -Are we being logical, factual, and scientific in our beliefs, or are we making leaps of faith and intuition? -Have we considered and tested other possible explanations? -Are we willing to replace our favorite beliefs with more accurate ones?
What would be some examples of wording effects in surveys of important social issues?
-When people campaign (very likely, not likely, maybe) -"welfare" ~ "aiding the needy" -"pornographic scenes" ~ "censored scenes"
How do we use the scientific method?
-make observations -form theories to explain the observations -come up with specific hypotheses and predictions to test the theory -make new observations to test whether the facts support the theory, hypotheses, and predictions -Use new observations (the facts, the evidence) to modify and improve the theory and come up with new hypotheses and predictions to test *This is a continuous process involving critical thinking.*
How does neural firing vary?
-the rate (e.g., the number of times per second) an individual neuron fires -the number of different neurons in a particular area that are firing at a given time
If two things are correlated, what would be the three possible explanations for this?
1. 1 then is causing the 2nd one 2. The 2nd thing is causing the 1st thing 3. They may both be caused by some other factor
What did she find?
1. 7/10 women were having affairs. 2. 95% of the women's husbands were emotionally abusive.
In general, what may common sense seem to do well, and what does common sense often do much less well?
1. Explaining things that have already happened. 2. Not that good at predicting the future.
What three questions must we ask (and have "yes: answers to) before we accept and use a research finding in psychology?
1. Is this set of results statistically significant? 2. Is the magnitude of the results you got practically significant? 3. Can you replicate this finding? -statistical significance -meaningful magnitude -replication
What would be some examples?
1. Jane Goodall 2. Anthropologists 3. Big data (i.e., your phone, social media posts, ads)
What happens then when people try to stop taking the opiate drugs?
1. Low levels of natural endorphins 2. Withdrawl symptoms
How did Shere Hite fail to use a random sample in her study of gender attitudes and marital behaviors among American women?
1. Sent out 100,000 copies of her sample. 2. The results are not randomly sampled because only lonely people would be more likely to respond
What does a .01 level of statistical significance mean?
1. The odds of getting the results that you did are no more than .01 2. The odds are 99% are not random
What are the two generally accepted levels of statistical significance in psychological research? What does a .05 level of statistical significance mean?
1. The odds of you getting a result like the one you got just by chance are no more than 0.5 2. The odds are 95% that the results were not due to chance.
What are three methods used in descriptive research?
1. case study 2. survey 3. naturalistic observation
What attitudes must we take in psychology (and in any science)?
1. curiosity 2. skepticism 3. humility
What mental functions can be facilitated by glia?
1. learning 2. thinking 3. memory
What would be an example?
ACT scores and your grades in a university predict the kind of grades you'd make in college.
Where do many of our erroneous beliefs come from?
1. overconfidence 2. belief perseverance 3. counterfactuals
What would be some examples?
A golfer with a handicap of 2 averages a score of 73. This score represents the golfer's average score. On some days he goes wild and shoots a 63, but this is extreme. Over time the golfer will have many more scores around his average than far away from it as the scores tend to regress toward the mean of 73.
How do endorphins get their name?
A grammatical contraction from the phrase "endogenous morphine" (Endogenous means originating within, and morphine is a pain killing drug; an endorphin is a painkiller that is not a drug from outside the body, but instead it is a painkilling neurontransmitter produced inside the brain.)
experiment
A research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors called independent variables while keeping everything else the same, to observe the effect on behaviors or mental processes, which would then be called dependent variables
What is the synaptic gap (synaptic cleft) and how wide is it?
A tiny, fluid-filled space, less than one-millionth of an inch wide, separating the axonic fibers of the sending neuron from the dendrite fibers (or sometimes the cell body) of the receiving neuron
Does correlation demonstrate causation?
Correlation does NOT prove causation.
What condition are they designed to alleviate and why may they be effective?
Depression ~ it increases the level of serotonin in the brain
What is the relationship between psychological and biological aspects of behavior and mental processes?
Everything psychological is simultaneously biological. (There are no exceptions and no purely psychological events.)
What would be a simple example?
Ex. Flipping a coin 8 times. You get heads 4 times and tails 4 times. Both are random.
What very important general principle is illustrated in studies like this?
Expectations (of both subjects and experimenters) must be controlled for
Correlation cannot tell us about causation. What can tell us about causation?
Experimentation (the experimental approach to psychological research; the experimental method)
What mistake do mathematical statistics protect us from in psychological research?
Failure to recognize when results/observations are random, are just due to chance, rather than being part of a reliable, systematic pattern
Why is replication so important?
If an experiment cannot be replicated, then the results may not be accurate.
What would be a simple example illustrating the need for statistical significance?
If someone argues that "there's only one chance in a thousand this could have happened by coincidence," a 0.1% level of statistical significance is being implied.
What is the relationship between taking opiate drugs (often for recreational pleasure, rather than medical necessity) and addiction to those drugs, and how does this involve the endorphins?
If you take these drugs, chemically they are very similar to your naturally produced endorphins.
At what ages do we see the least plasticity in the brain?
In the older patients (elderly)
At what ages do we see the greatest plasticity in the brain?
In the youngest patients (children)
What effect do the opiate drugs have on pain?
It can reduce pain.
How is neural firing (the action potential) an all-or-none response, and what would be an analogy for this?
Like a gun, the neuron either fires, full strength, or it does not fire at all; approximately the same amount of energy is released each time it fires.
Are all neurontransmitters present in all synapses?
No
Can you use volunteers as subjects?
No
Can you usually study everyone in the population you are interested in?
No
Do most neurons (nerve cells) regenerate (get replaced by new nerve cells if the old nerve cells are damaged or destroyed)?
No
Is psychology really just a matter of common sense and intuition?
No
if you gave the subjects in the experimental group the drug, but you gave the subjects in the control group nothing, would the drug be the only difference between the two groups?
No
In general, in psychological research should the people who create the experiments be the people who actually carry them out to get the data?
No. People who don't know whether the subjects took the drug or the placebo.
Does a "negative correlation" between two things mean that there is not a significant correlation between them?
No. Say "no correlation".
Should people gathering the data for the experiments be aware of the hypotheses of the experiments?
No. Their data will be biased.
What does randomly assigning subjects to the experimental group or the control group accomplish?
Random assignment minimizes any pre-existing differences (differences before the experiment starts) between the experimental groups and control groups; this makes it highly likely that if there are any differences in the dependent variables (the results) between the experimental groups and the control groups, then those differences were CAUSED by the dependent variables.
how must subjects be assigned to the experimental groups or the control groups?
Randomly, such that each subject has an equal chance of being in the experimental group or the control groups
generally, how good are we (on our own, without using statistics) at recognizing when events and patterns of results are random (happening just by chance, rather than in a significant, predictable, pattern)?
Rather poor
What is an example of a medical use of the reuptake process?
SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors)
How many different neurontransmitters are there?
Several dozen
What is the main shortcoming of a case study?
That individual or group may not be typical or be a reliable source of person to observe or an outlier.
What effect do the opiate drugs have on endorphin production?
The brain can mistake it for high levels of endorphins, so it will lower the natural endorphins in the brain.
What would be the other difference between the two groups, if you simply gave one group the drug and the other group nothing?
The experimental group is getting a psychological expectation of getting better.
What happens in de-myelinating diseases?
The myelin sheath is gradually and systematically destroyed.
Why not?
The people who volunteer are different than those who don't.
What is the purpose of a placebo? What does it control for?
The placebo is supposed to make the subject have a psychological expectation. It controls their psyche and how they might mentally think the placebo is impacting them.
How would you know if the drug was effective, or not?
The subjects cannot know whether or not they took the placebo or not. This way, they could still have a psychological impact from the drug or the placebo
What would you have to give the control group in order to make the drug the only difference between the experimental group and the control group?
They will get the placebo.
How do neurons "fire" and communicate with each other?
Through resting potential, action potential, excitatory neural impulses, inhibitory neural impulses, and the threshold of neural firing.
What would be an example?
To take heed to something a relative usually says without looking for further evidence or explanations.
What would be some examples?
Using Zicam for the cold immediately after noticing the very first symptoms. If you do, it'll reduce the length of the cold to 3-5 days. The 1st prescription drug to treat the common cold comes out and it was most significantly effective. It reduced the cold by 1/2 day on average. This isn't practically meaningful.
How do enorphins relate to "runner's high"?
When endorphins are released as an emergency mechanism, it reduces the pain and/or discomfort while running, which is "runner's high."
What happens when the neurontransmiters are released and how fast does it happen?
Within one ten-thousandth (1/10000) of a second, the neurontransmitter chemicals cross the synaptic gap and may (or may not) bind to receptor sites on the adjacent receiving neuron, influencing whether or not that receiving neuron will fire
How do men's and women's "word clouds" differ?
Women: love, adorable, cute Men: football, fight, shit, f***
Is it possible for a finding to be statistically significant but not meaningful and useful?
Yes
What would be an example?
You have a friend whose partner cheated on them and you say that you could've predicted that.
Why is a random sample so important?
You have the ability to say that everyone has an equal chance of being a part of the study
Suppose you wanted to evaluate a drug that was designed to treat the common cold. How would you design and carry out an experiment to prove whether or not the drug was effective (prove whether or not the drug caused improvement in subjects with colds)? Who would be the subjects in the experiment and how would you get them?
You have your subjects come and infect them with the cold.
case study
a descriptive research technique in which a single individual (or sometimes a single group among many groups) is studied in depth in the hope of discovering things that would be true of everyone, beyond that individual (or single group)
naturalistic observation
a descriptive research technique in which behavior is observed and recorded in its natural setting, with no attempt to manipulate or change it
survey
a descriptive research technique where the self-reported attitudes, behaviors, etc. of a group are gathered and analyzes
myelin sheath
a layer of segmented fatty tissue surrounding some axons, that greatly speeds up the transmission of neural impulses and increases their effectiveness
correlation coeff
a mathematically calculated index of how much two things are correlated (the extent to which they change together, and thus the extent to which one can be predicted from the other)
action potential
a neural impulse: a very brief electrical charge, a wave of electro-chemical energy, that travels very rapidly down the axon, always in the direction from the input end of the neuron toward the output end
placebo
a neutral, harmless, inconsequential substance or treatment designed to make subjects think they are getting the real thing
random sample
a sample that is a fair representation of the total population, where all members of the total group have an equal chance of being included in the study
theory
a set of principles that organizes and predicts observations
neuron
a single nerve cell in the entire nervous system that consists of billions of neurons (nerve cells)
hypothesis
a specific prediction that we can put to a test generally derived from and/or implied by a theory; therefore something that, if tested, could partly confirm or disconfirm the theory
informed consent
a subject's permission to be studied, to be given only after the subject has been clearly and completely informed of any potential risks and any other information that would reasonably be expected to affect their choice as to whether or not to participate/
In social sciences, how often do we see correlation coefficients at the extreme ends of the possible range?
almost never
axon
an elongated structure on the output end of the neuron, on the opposite end of the dendrites, ending in tiny, branching fibers that can pass messages to other adjacent neurons or to adjacent muscle cells or glands
double-blind procedure
an experimental procedure in which neither the subjects nor the experimenters gather the results are aware of who is receiving the treatment and who is receiving the placebo at the time the experiment is being carried out
In a survey, what is a population?
everyone in the group you are studying
debriefing
explaining to subjects the exact purpose of the study, informing them of any deceptions that may have occured, ensuring that they leave the experiment in at least as good a psychological (and physical) state as when they entered it, and offering to share the results of the study with the subjects when it has been completed and analyzed.
What is the possible range of correlation coefficients?
from -1.0 to 1.0
What would the dependent variable be?
how quickly they got over the cold symptoms
What is the process of reuptake?
if neurotransmitters do not bind to receptor sites on the receiving neuron, they are either broken down by enzymes in the synapse, or else those neurotransmitters are reabsorbed by the neuron that released them. that reabsorption is the process of reuptake
If you are a subject in a psychological study, what must you give beforehand, and what must you receive afterwards?
informed consent & debriefing
What is the most frequent example of a de-myelinating disease?
multiple sclerosis
endorphins
natural, opiate-like neurontransmitters produced in your own brain, that are linked to pain control and to pleasure
inhibitory neural impulses
neural impulses that, when they reach a neuron's dendrites, are designed to stop the action potential (cause the neuron not to fire)
excitatory neural impulses
neural impulses that, when they reach a neuron's dendrites, are designed to trigger the action potential (cause the neuron to fire)
What happens when the action potential reaches the tip of the sending axon?
neurontrasmitters are released into the synaptic gap
hindsight bias
once an outcome is known, the tendency to believe it was obvious and predictable (the "I knew it all along" phenomenon)
What legitimate social scientists investigated the same subject with true random samples, what did they find instead?
only 7% of females in the US
If you used a true random sample of adult Americans, how many people would you have to survey in order to accurately predict the attitudes and opinions of all Americans?
only need 15,000 to cover the entirety of Americans
What do you do instead?
random sample
replication
repeating an experiment to see if a similar result is obtained; this is done keeping the essential elements of the experiment the same, but with new, different subjects (participants; the people or animals being studied) and sometimes different experimenters
In order to interpret how much of the variability in one thing is connected to (accounted for, predictable from) variability in the other, what must we do with the correlation coefficient?
square it (mulitply it by itself)
dendrites
structures on the input end of the neuron that are bushy, branching extensions from the neuron that allow it to receive and integrate incoming messages and conduct impulses toward the cell body
control conditions & control groups
the conditions you use for comparison, to see if the experimental condition changed the dependent variables; control groups are the subjects you use to compare the experimental groups too, to see if the experimental groups changed in a meaningful way in which the control groups did not change on the dependent variables
wording effects
the effects that even small changes in the wording of questions have on the way that people taking surveys answer them
independent variables
the factors (variables) being manipulated or changed in the experiment by the experimenter; the variables the experimenter controls
neurogenesis
the formation of new neurons (nerve cells)
threshold of neural firing
the level of stimulation required to trigger neural firing, when the excitatory impulses significantly exceed the inhibitory impulses
statistical significance
the odds that the results observed, often differences between groups or correlations between variables, could have happened naturally just by chance, through entirely random variation
experimental conditions & experimental groups
the parts of the experiment that expose subjects to the treatment, to one version of the independent variables; these subjects are the experimental groups, the subjects you try something new on
subjects
the people or animals being studied or experimented on
dependent variables
the results the experimenter are examining; the factors (variables) the experimenters expect may change when the independent variables are changed
psychology
the scientific study of behavior and mental processes
resting potential
the stable state of the neuron when it is not firing
regression toward the mean
the tendency for extreme events or results to be followed by ones closer to the average
What would you do with the experimental group?
they would get the drug
What would you do with the control group?
they wouldn't get the drug
variables
things that can change (vary)
correlation
when two things (variables) that can change or vary tend to change together (If they change together, then knowing one of them allows you to predict the other one.)
What would the independent variable be?
whether or not they got the drug
How would you assign subjects to the experimental and control groups?
you would have to make sure that everything about them was the same health-wise
