Introduction to Psychology - College of Lake County

426 Pages·2016·10.01 MB·English

Introduction to Psychology

Adapted by Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French
Introduction to Psychology

Adapted by: College of Lake County Faculty: Martha Lally and Suzanne
Valentine-French

(Revised July 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 at:
http://dept.clcillinois.edu/psy/IntroductionToPsychologyText.pdf

Original text materials for Introduction to Psychology by Stangor 2011 (non-HCC version) at:
http://www.saylor.org/site/textbooks/Introduction%20to%20Psychology.pdf
Adapted by: Houston Community College Faculty: Carol Laman, Sandra Greenstone, Huong Ho,
Jennifer Suarez, Sheila Weick, Kenneth Woodruff, Robert Morecook, Eileen Mello, Saundra Boyd, Ilija
Gallego, Karen Saenz (Revised May, 2013).
Houston Community College 2013 revision for Introduction to Psychology by Stangor, 2011 at:
http://learning.hccs.edu/faculty/robert.morecook/free-psychology-2301-textbook-dsm-5-version-2013

Original Publication Under the following license:

This work is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 unported license to view a copy of this
license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171
Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

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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 – Defining Psychological Disorders
•

Chapter 11 – Treating Psychological Disorders
•

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Contents
...................................................................................................................................................................... 1
Introduction to Psychology ........................................................................................................................... 2
Table of Contents ...................................................................................................................................... 3
Chapter 1 Introducing Psychology ................................................................................................................. 7
Psychology as a Science ............................................................................................................................. 8
The Evolution of Psychology: Central Questions, History, and Contemporary Perspectives ......... 12
The Many Disciplines of Psychology ..................................................................................................... 27
Chapter 2 Psychological Science.................................................................................................................. 36
Psychologists Use the Scientific Method to Guide Their Research ..................................................... 37
Psychologists Use Descriptive, Correlational, and Experimental Research Designs to Understand
Behavior ................................................................................................................................................. 45
Factors that Contribute to Credible Research ..................................................................................... 56
Chapter 3 Brain and Behavior ..................................................................................................................... 64
The Neuron Is the Building Block of the Nervous System................................................................... 64
The Brain ................................................................................................................................................ 71
Psychologists Study the Brain Using Many Different Methods ........................................................... 81
The Nervous System and the Endocrine System ................................................................................. 86
Sleeping and Dreaming ......................................................................................................................... 92
Chapter 4 Learning .................................................................................................................................... 108
Classical Conditioning ......................................................................................................................... 109
Operant Conditioning ......................................................................................................................... 116
Cognition and Conditioning ................................................................................................................ 124
Other Forms of Learning based on Cognition ................................................................................... 125
Chapter 5 Memory and Cognition ............................................................................................................. 137
Encoding and Storage: How Our Perceptions Become Memories .................................................... 138
Retrieval ............................................................................................................................................... 150
The Biology of Memory ....................................................................................................................... 152
Cues to Improving Memory ................................................................................................................. 155
Cognition and Cognitive Biases .......................................................................................................... 158
Problem-Solving Strategies ................................................................................................................. 168
Chapter 6 Intelligence and Language ........................................................................................................ 176
Defining and Measuring Intelligence .................................................................................................. 176
Group Differences in Intelligence ....................................................................................................... 187
The Development and Use of Language ............................................................................................. 194
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Chapter 7 Lifespan Development .............................................................................................................. 213
Conception and Prenatal Development .............................................................................................. 214
Physical Development across the Lifespan ....................................................................................... 218
Cognitive Development across the Lifespan ..................................................................................... 223
Social Development across the Lifespan ............................................................................................ 235
Chapter 8 Personality ................................................................................................................................ 255
Personality as Traits ........................................................................................................................... 255
Studying the Nature of Personality .................................................................................................... 259
Studying the Nurture of Personality .................................................................................................. 266
Personality Assessment ......................................................................................................................... 271
Chapter 9 Social Psychology ...................................................................................................................... 287
Social Cognition ................................................................................................................................... 287
Social Influences .................................................................................................................................. 295
Social Relationships ............................................................................................................................ 311
Chapter 10 Defining Psychological Disorders ............................................................................................ 331
Defining a Disorder .............................................................................................................................. 332
Anxiety, OCD, and PTSD ....................................................................................................................... 337
Depressive and Bipolar Disorders ...................................................................................................... 344
Schizophrenia ...................................................................................................................................... 351
Personality Disorders .......................................................................................................................... 356
Disorders Originating in Childhood ................................................................................................... 361
Chapter 11 Treating Psychological Disorders ............................................................................................. 374
Psychotherapy ..................................................................................................................................... 375
Biomedical Therapy ............................................................................................................................ 385
Social and Community Therapy ......................................................................................................... 392
Eclectic Approach to Therapy and Seeking Treatment .................................................................... 397

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Chapter 1 Introducing Psychology

Learning Objective

1. 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,” meaning
explanation.

Because we are frequently exposed to the work of
psychologists in our everyday lives, we all have
an idea about what psychology is and what
psychologists do. In many ways your conceptions
are correct. Psychologists do work in forensic
fields, and they do provide counseling and
therapy for people in distress. But there are
hundreds of thousands of psychologists in the
world, and many of them do other types of work

Many psychologists work in research laboratories,
hospitals, and other field settings where they
study the behavior of humans and animals.
Psychologists also work in schools and
businesses, and they use a variety of methods,
including observation, questionnaires, interviews,
and laboratory studies, to help them understand
behavior.

This chapter provides an introduction to the broad
field of psychology and the many approaches that
psychologists take to understanding human

behavior. We will consider how psychologists Figure 1.1
conduct scientific research. We will look at some Psychology is in part the study of behavior. Why
of the most important approaches used and topics do you think these people are behaving the way
studied by psychologists. We will consider the they are?
variety of fields in which psychologists work and
Sources: “The Robot: It's not a dance, it's a lifestyle!” photo courtesy of Alla,
the careers that are available to people with http://www.flickr.com/photos/alla2/2481846545/. Other photos © Thinkstock.

psychology degrees. You may find that at least
some of your preconceptions about psychology will be challenged and changed, and you will
learn that psychology is a field that will provide you with new ways of thinking about your own
thoughts, feelings, and actions.

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Psychology as a Science

Learning Objective

1. Describe the differences among opinions, values and facts, and explain how the
scientific method is used to provide evidence for facts.

Despite the differences in their interests, areas of study, and approaches, all psychologists have
one thing in common: They rely on the scientific method. Research psychologists use scientific
methods to create new knowledge about the causes of behavior. Practitioners, such as clinical,
counseling, industrial-organizational, and school psychologists, primarily use existing research
to help solve problems.

In a sense all humans are scientists. We all have an interest in asking and answering questions
about our world. We want to know why things happen, when and if they are likely to happen
again, and how to reproduce or change them. Such knowledge enables us to predict our own
behavior and that of others. We may even collect data, or any information collected through
formal observation or measurement, to aid us in this undertaking. It has been argued that people
are “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 understand
what caused our failure to remember or understand the material and what might help us do better
the next time. When our good friends Monisha and Charlie break up, we try to determine what
happened. When we think about the rise of terrorism around the world, we try to investigate the
causes of this problem by looking at the terrorists themselves, the situation, and others’
responses.

The Problem of Intuition

The results of these “everyday” research projects can teach us many principles of human
behavior. We learn through experience that if we give someone bad news, he or she may blame
us even though the news was not our fault. We learn that people may become depressed after
they fail at an important task. We see that aggressive behavior occurs frequently in our society,
and we develop theories to explain why this is so. These insights are part of everyday social life.
In fact, 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 always
scientific. Often, when one explanation for an event seems “right,” we adopt that explanation as
the truth. However, this reasoning is more intuitive than scientific. Intuition is thinking that is
more experiential, emotional, automatic, and unconscious, and does not lead to careful analysis
of all the variables in a situation (Kahneman, 2011). Other explanations might be possible and
and even more accurate. For example, eyewitnesses to violent crimes are often extremely
confident in their identifications of criminals. But research finds that eyewitnesses are just as
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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 also
found that there are a variety of biases that can influence our perceptions. These biases lead us
to draw faulty conclusions (Fiske & Taylor, 2007; Hsee & Hastie, 2006). In addition, most
individuals listen to people they know and trust to give them accurate information rather than
doing research to determine what scientific studies show. In summary, accepting explanations
for events without testing them thoroughly may lead us to think that we know the causes of
things when we really do not.

Hindsight Bias

Once we learn about the outcome of a given event, such as when we read about the results of a
research project, we frequently believe that we would have been able to predict the outcome
ahead of time. For instance, if half of a class of students is told that research concerning
attraction between people has demonstrated that “opposites attract” and the other half is told that
research has demonstrated that “birds of a feather flock together,” most of the students will
report believing that the outcome that they just read about is true, and that they would have
predicted the outcome before they had read about it. Of course, both of these contradictory
outcomes cannot be true. In fact, psychological research finds that “birds of a feather flock
together” is generally the case. The problem is that just reading a description of research findings
leads us to think of the many cases we know that support the findings, and thus makes them
seem believable. The tendency to think that we could have predicted something that has already
occurred that we probably would not have been able to predict is called the hindsight bias.

Why Psychologists Rely on Empirical Methods

All scientists, whether they are physicists, chemists, biologists, or psychologists, use empirical
research to study the topics that interest them. We can label the scientific method as the set of
assumptions, rules, and procedures that scientists use to conduct empirical research. Empirical
research methods include collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data, reaching conclusions, and
sharing information.

Figure 1.2
Psychologists use a variety of techniques to measure and understand human behavior.

Sources: Poster photo courtesy of Wesleyan University, http://newsletter.blogs.wesleyan.edu/files/2009/04/psychposter11.jpg. Language lab photo courtesy of Evansville University,
http://psychology.evansville.edu/langlab.jpg. Other photo © Thinkstock.

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Although scientific research is an important method of studying human behavior, not all
questions can be answered using scientific approaches. Statements that cannot be objectively
measured or objectively determined to be true or false are not within the domain of scientific
inquiry. Scientists generally do not attempt to prove values, beliefs, or opinions to be true or
false. Values are personal statements such as “Abortion should not be permitted in this
country.” 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 objective
statements determined to be accurate through empirical study. The following are two examples
of facts. “There were more than 21,000 homicides in the United States in 2009.” “Research
demonstrates that individuals who are exposed to highly stressful situations over long periods of
time 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 people
develop their values. For instance, scientists may be able to objectively measure the effect of
capital punishment on the crime rate in the United States. This factual information can and
should be made available to help people formulate their values about capital punishment. People
also use values to decide which research is appropriate or important to conduct. For instance, the
U.S. government has recently provided funding for research on HIV, AIDS, and terrorism, while
denying funding for some research using human stem cells.

Table 1.1 Examples of Values and Facts in Scientific Research

Personal value Scientific fact
The United States government should provide The U.S. government paid $32 billion in benefits in 2016.
financial assistance to its citizens.

There were 33,599 deaths caused by handguns in the United States in
Handguns should be outlawed.
2014.

More than 35% of college students indicate that blue is their favorite
Blue is my favorite color.
color.
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 continually
challenged. New research follows, and scientific facts can be modified when new evidence is
found. Particularly in fields involving human behavior, scientists may find it necessary to update
their 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. Psychologists
must update their research on relationships to include online dating, multitasking, and cyber
bullying.

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