~ Psyc103 ~Introduction to

Psychological Science

Dr. Jen Cole WrightMWF, 9:00-9:50am

Education CenterRoom 118

i<clickers!

• Are you HERE this morning?– A) Yes, absolutely!– B) No, definitely not.– C) Hard to say – I could be having a

nightmare.– D) Uh…what do you mean by “HERE”?– E) All of the above.

history of psychology…

• Since it’s inception, psychology has grappled with many core questions concerning human nature.

• Question #1: How does the mind develop?– Knowledge– Optimal function– Well-being

• Question #2: How do we study the mind?

roots of psychology: Q #1

• Nature vs. Nurture– Which parts of our minds are set and which

are malleable (through experience)?– How much of our personalities, our values, our

actions, our well-being is determined by our genes and how much by our environments?

• In between nature and nurture, is there any room for the individual?– To what extent are people in control of, or

responsible for, who they are and what they do?

roots of psychology: Q #1

• Is our knowledge about the world innate (hard-wired) or learned?– Plato – nativist

• learning is just “remembering”

– Aristotle - empiricist– Locke – empiricist

•tabula rasa (“blank slate”)

contemporary debate

• Jean Piaget (& others) – empiricist– Children start with nothing (basic reflexes

only)– Knowledge develops over time through the

child’s active exploration of and interaction with the physical and social world.

• Alison Gopnik (& others) – nativist– Children are born with a surprising amount

of “naïve” knowledge (theories) built-in.

conservation of quantity (1)

conservation of quantity (2)

Maxi “false-belief” task

??

appearance-reality task

naïve physics

• Yet, infants have a surprisingly sophisticated understanding of how the physical world works.

understanding intentions

• They also have some understanding of how the psychological world works– e.g., they understand that there are goals and

intentions and that only certain creatures can have them.

primitive morality?

?

branches of psychology

• Evolutionary psychology – To what extent is the development of

individual cognition/behavior driven by evolutionary pressures?

• Developmental psychology – To what extent is the development of

individual cognition/behavior driven by interaction between genes and environment?

• Social psychology – study of individuals within groups– To what extent is individual

cognition/behavior driven by other people?• Cultural psychology – study of

individuals within cultures– To what extent is individual

cognition/behavior driven by cultural traditions/norms?

branches of psychology

roots of psychology – Q #2

• How do we study the mind?

• Should we study the brain?

• Gall - phrenology• Descartes - pineal gland• Harlow - Phineas Gage• Broca/Wernicke

– language areas• New technology

• E.g., EEG, PET, fMRI

• Should we study conscious mental states?

• Introspection?– Wundt/Tichener (structuralists)

• Break conscious experience down into its basic parts; its “raw” elements

– Wertheimer (gestalt)• Conscious experience is organized stimuli• Can’t understand parts without the whole

http://dragon.uml.edu/psych/illusion.html

Gestalt by example: optical illusions

• James (functionalist)– Mental processes are adaptive– Understood in terms of their function

(what they were “designed” to do)

• Freud (psychoanalyst)– Most of the mind is beyond

introspective access• Subconscious/Unconscious processes

– Many mental processes are maladaptive

•Humanist response•Maslow & RogersLower and higher needs; human potential.•Birth of positive psychology

conscious mind

unconscious mind

behaviorist response

• Stop looking for a (non-observable) mind and just study (observable) behavior!

• Behaviorism:– Pavlov– Watson– Skinner

stimulus response

Nobody home!

• Our behavior is merely a product of past and present positive and negative reinforcement and punishment patterns.

• Sophisticated reward-punishment system in brain.

• Free will is an illusion!

contemporary view

• The mind is not adaptive so much as adapted.– It is best understood as a (cumulative)

response to evolutionary pressures.

• Automatic processes• Rational irrationality• Heuristics/biases

– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

Imagine that the U.S. is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. Assume the exact scientific estimate of the consequences of the programs are as follows:

– Alternative A: 200 people will be saved.

– Alternative B: There is a one-third probability that 600 people will be saved, and a two-thirds probability that no people will be saved.

use i<clickers!Imagine that the U.S. is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. Assume the exact scientific estimate of the consequences of the programs are as follows:

– Alternative A: 400 people will die.

– Alternative B: There is a one-third probability that nobody will die, and a two-third probability that 600 people will die.

Asian disease scenario

• When faced with the first scenario, most people (72%) of people are risk averse. – They will choose Option A.

• When faced with the second scenario, most people (78%) will take risks on the chance of no losses.– They will choose Option B.

• Yet, both scenarios are the same.

Our Class Option

AOption

B

1st Scenario

(200 saved)

49.0% 51.0%

2nd Scenario

(400 died) 36.0%64.0

%

use i<clickers!• The VP of a company went to

the chairman of the board and said, ‘We are thinking of starting a new program. It will help us increase profits, but it will also harm the environment.’ The chairman of the board answered, ‘I don’t care at all about harming the environment. I just want to make as much profit as I can. Let’s start the new program.’ They started the new program. Sure enough, the environment was harmed.– Did the chairman of the

board harm the environment intentionally?

– A) Yes– B) No

• The VP of a company went to the chairman of the board and said, ‘We are thinking of starting a new program. It will help us increase profits, and it will also help the environment.’ The chairman of the board answered, ‘I don’t care at all about helping the environment. I just want to make as much profit as I can. Let’s start the new program.’ They started the new program. Sure enough, the environment was helped. – Did the chairman of the

board help the environment intentionally?

– A) Yes– B) No

Knobe Effect

• Participants ’ dominant (70-80%) response was to say that in HARM the chairman did harm the environment intentionally, whereas in HELP the chairman did not help the environment intentionally.

• Yet, once again, these two scenarios are the same.

Intentional? Yes No

HarmedEnvironmen

t

69.0%

12.0%

Helped Environmen

t

31.0%

88.0%

Important Studies

The BIG FIVE….

1. The Asch Conformity Experiment (1953)2. The Good Samaritan Experiment (1973)3. Bystander Apathy Experiment (1968)4. The Stanford Prison Experiment (1971)5. The Milgram Experiment (1961)(plus one more!)6. The Bobo Doll Experiment (1961)

The Asch Conformity Experiment (1953)

• Which line in Exhibit 2 is the same length as 1?

?

The Asch Conformity Experiment (1953)

• Asch’s conformity experiment suggests that you would go along with everyone else – even if you knew they were giving an obviously wrong answer!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nmu6VsUrG4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qlJqR4GmKw&feature=related

The Good Samaritan Experiment (1973)

• Imagine you were on your way to work one day and you encountered someone who was obviously sick or wounded on the side of the road…– Do you stop to help them?

Apparently, it depends.

Were you late for work?Or maybe in a hurry to give a Good Samaritan

lecture?Did you just found a dime in a phone booth?Was the person standing outside a

Cinnabuns?Was there a loud noise in the back ground?Was the person attractive?

Or your same gender or race?Were you the only person there or were

there others?

Bystander Apathy Experiments (1968)

• On March 13, 1964 Kitty Genovese was murdered outsider her apartment in NYC while 38 neighbors watched and/or listened, but did “nothing”.

• BAEs found that people are significantly less likely to aid others in an emergency situation when other people are present. – diffusion of responsibility

• This is called the bystander effect.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGaJrgi_SpE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSsPfbup0ac

The Stanford Prison Experiment (1971)• If you were asked to pretend to

be a prisoner or a guard in a mock prison experiment, how would you behave?– If you were a guard, would you

mistreat the prisoners?– If you were a prisoner, would you

stop eating and become suicidal?

• In Zimbardo’s prison experiment, the participants adopted their assigned roles to such an extreme extent that the experiment had to be cancelled after only six days (less than ½ way through).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0jYx8nwjFQhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmwSC5fS40w

The Milgram Experiments (1961)

• Would you knowingly inflict pain on another person just because someone told you to?

• Milgram’s experiments indicate that you probably would:

• Shocks started at 45 volts – Increased in 15-volt increments

• Participants started expressing pain after a few rounds.– Yet, 65% went all the way to the end

(over 450 volts!).• Even when they were told the participant

had a heart condition!– Only one participant refused to

continue below 300 volts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcvSNg0HZwkhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WLV7mMwGz0http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ahc7FYFGno

Bobo Doll Experiment

• And then there’s Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiment, which show that even children are evil little buggers...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdh7MngntnI