Types of Psychology

Types of Psychology
AIM: What are some Important
Psychological Experiments?
What is Experimental Psychology?
 Experimental Psychology is the use of the scientific
method to understand behavior and the processes that
cause a behavior.
 The Scientific Method involves creating a hypothesis
(explanation for why things happen), testing the
hypothesis by performing an experiment and analyzing
the data from the hypothesis to draw a conclusion
 Psychological Experiments are important because they
help psychologists understand the functions of the mind.
What makes an Experiment ethical?
 Ethics are defined as a series of moral principles and
rules of conduct.
 In modern psychology; subjects must be asked if they
want to participate,
 subjects cannot be deceived,
 experiments must be confidential,
 and they must be free to leave the experiment at any
time.
What is Social Psychology?
• Social psychology is an attempt to understand how individuals
behavior in social situations.
• Social psychologists deal with the factors that lead us to
behave in a given way in the presence of others,
• They look at the conditions under which certain
behavior/actions and feelings occur.
• Some of the areas they examine are emotion, morality,
character and religion.
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Social Psychology Experiments
Shopping while black
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAkDHuimJRc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhM7Gzlt3sU
Interracial parents/children
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY-2F6FmzhY
Anti-Muslim
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hHUQ0Lp6v4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm8952m9Dk8
Anti-Semitism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRX31HOikws
Early Experiments
• "The social psychology of this century reveals a major
lesson: often it is not so much the kind of person a man is as
the kind of situation in which he finds himself that
determines how he will act." –Stanley Milgram, 1974
• One of the most famous experiments in social psychology is
that on obedience.
• It was conducted by Milgram in his “electric shock” study,
which looked at the role an authority figure plays in shaping
behavior.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b7YFtiE5EA
• ABC can you obey authority
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAs6TNebRfY
Why did Milgram conduct his experiment?
• Milgram started his experiments in 1961, shortly after the trial
of the World War II criminal Adolph Eichmann had begun.
• Eichmann’s defense that he was simply following instructions
when he ordered the deaths of millions of Jews roused
Milgram’s interest.
• Method Used in the Milgram Experiment
• 40 men were recruited through newspaper ads, and were
paid $4.50 to be teachers.
• They were told they had to give a series of shocks to people
for every incorrect answer they received.
• The shock levels started at 30 volts and increasing in 15-volt
increments all the way up to 450 volts.
• The switches were labeled with terms including "slight shock,"
"moderate shock" and "danger: severe shock." The final two
switches were labeled simply with an ominous "XXX.“
• As the experiment progressed, the participant would hear the
learner plead to be released or even complain about a heart
condition.
• Once the 300-volt level had been reached, the learner
banged on the wall and demanded to be released.
• Beyond this point, the learner became completely silent and
refused to answer any more questions.
• The men recruited were told if they didn’t respond treat it as
a wrong answer and shock them.
• Of the 40 participants in the study, 26 delivered the maximum
shocks while 14 stopped before reaching the highest levels.
• Many of the recruits became extremely angry at the
experimenter. Yet they continued to follow orders all the way
to the end.
• Why did so many of the participants in this experiment
perform a seemingly sadistic act on the instruction of an
authority figure?
• The presence of an authority figure increased compliance.
• The fact that the study was sponsored by Yale led many
participants to believe that the experiment must be safe.
• The selection of teacher and learner status seemed random.
• Participants assumed that the scientist was an expert.
• The shocks were said to be painful, not dangerous.
• "Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any
particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a
terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the
destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and
they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with
fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have
the resources needed to resist authority" (Milgram, 1974).
• http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/milgr
am.htm
• The stanford prison experiment
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=760lwYmpXbc
• What was the Purpose of the Stanford Prison Experiment?
• how would the participants react when placed in a simulated
prison environment.
• If kids who were healthy both psychologically and physically
and were placed into a prison-like environment. Would those
good people, put in that bad, evil place, would their goodness
triumph?
• Experiment
• The researchers set up a mock prison in the basement of
Standford University's psychology building, and then selected
24 undergraduate students to play the roles of both prisoners
and guards.
• The volunteers agreed to participate for a one- to two-week
period in exchange for $15 a day.
• The simulated prison included three six by nine foot prison
cells. Each cell held three prisoners and included three cots.
• Other rooms across from the cells were used for the prison
guards and warden.
• One very small space was designated as the solitary
confinement room, and yet another small room served as the
prison yard.
• The 24 volunteers were then randomly assigned to either the
prisoner group or the guard group.
• Prisoners were to remain in the mock prison 24-hours a day
for the duration of the study.
• Guards, on the other hand, were assigned to work in threeman teams for eight-hour shifts. After each shift, guards were
allowed to return to their homes until their next shift
• What were the results of the Stanford Prison Experiment?
• The Stanford Prison Experiment was originally going to last 14
days, it had to be stopped after just six days due to what was
happening to the student participants.
• The guards became abusive and the prisoners began to show
signs of extreme stress and anxiety.
• The guards began to behave in ways that were aggressive and
abusive toward the prisoners, while the prisoners became
passive and depressed.
• Five of the prisoners began to experience such severe
negative emotions, including crying and acute anxiety, that
they had to be released from the study early.
• Philip Zimbardo, who acted as the prison warden, overlooked
the abusive behavior of the prison guards until one of the
graduate students objected to the conditions
• "Only a few people were able to resist the situational
temptations to yield to power and dominance while
maintaining some semblance of morality and decency;
obviously I was not among that noble class," Zimbardo later
wrote in his book The Lucifer Effect.
• Because the guards were placed in a position of power, they
began to behave in ways they would not normally act in their
everyday lives or in other situations.
• The prisoners, placed in a situation where they had no real
control, became passive and depressed.
• The Stanford Prison Experiment is frequently cited as an
example of unethical research.
• The experiment could not be replicated by researchers today
because it fails to meet the standards established by
numerous ethical codes, including the Ethics Code of the
American Psychological Association.
• Zimbardo acknowledges the ethical problems with the study,
suggesting that "although we ended the study a week earlier
than planned, we did not end it soon enough.“
• "Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own
specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take
any one at random and train him to become any type of
specialist I might select--doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief,
and, yes, even beggar man and thief, regardless of his talents,
penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his
ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so
have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing
it for many thousands of years." –John B. Watson,
Behaviorism, 1930
• Behavioral Psychology
• Conducted the famous “Little Albert” experiment to prove
you could Condition (teach) an infant PHOBIA”S
• By todays standards it is considered HIGHLY unethical, and
could never be conducted today!!!!!!!!!
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hBfnXACsOI
• What is Behavioral Psychology?
• It is a branch of psychology based on the belief that behaviors
can be measured, trained, and changed.
• It is a theory of learning based upon the idea that all
behaviors are acquired through conditioning.
• There are two major types of conditioning:
• 1.Classical conditioning and 2. Operant conditioning
• Classical Conditioning is a form of learning in which a naturally
occurring stimulus is paired with a response
• For example dogs salivate when they see food, the food is an
unconditioned stimulus
• Salivating in an unconditioned response
• Pavlov conducted a famous experiment using Classical
Conditioning
• Pavlov trained the dogs in his lab to start to salivate when he
rang a bell.
• He conditioned them to respond to a new stimulus, as he
brought in the food he rang a bell.
• Eventually the dogs salivated without the food and responded
to only the bell.
• Conditioned stimulus the bell
• Conditioned response Salivating.
• 2. Operant conditioning is a method of learning that occurs
through rewards and punishments for behavior.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teLoNYvOf90
• Components of Operant Conditioning / BF Skinner
• 1.Positive reinforcers behavior is strengthened by the
addition of something, such as praise or a direct reward.
• 2.Negative reinforcers In these situations, a response is
strengthened by the removal of something considered
unpleasant.
• We can find examples of operant conditioning at work all
around us. Children completing homework to earn a reward
from a parent or teacher, or employees finishing projects to
receive praise or promotions.
Psychoanalytic Theories
• These theories emphasize the motives
that are hidden deep in the unconscious.
• Unconscious- the part of the mind that
contains material we are aware of, but
that strongly influence our conscious
process.
Freud
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_1
66290&src_vid=R0w0db2zR7Q&feature=iv&v=Nm7XGiFhKeE
• Dreams
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lig53eW2ptg&feature=rela
ted
• Facts about dreams
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVQpfdbpQyg&feature=re
lated
ID
Id- the “container” of instinctual urges.
• What the person wants to do.
• Ex- food and water
Superego
Inhibits the socially undesirable impulses of the
id.
• Concerned with what the person should do.
• Ex- like a strict parent
Ego
The personality process that is mostly conscious.
• The ego would recognize that you need food
and would search for it.
Bomb Shelter
• The year is 2080. A nuclear war has
occurred. There are 13 people living in a
bomb shelter and there is only enough
oxygen left for nine people to survive. The
class must decide as a majority who gets to
stay and which four people must leave. The
remaining nine people in the bomb shelter
will go on to create an entire new society.
The 13 people
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35 yr. old black poet
Young doctor who is HIV +
16yr. high school dropout , highly intelligent and possibly pregnant
Female electrical engineer who graduated from college 2 yrs. Ago
Famous male singer who is a recovered alcoholic
Reformed prostitute who is now college professor & mother of two
Armed policeman who will not relinquish his gun
50 yr. female scientist who specializes in biology and plant life
Husband of the scientist who is addicted to cocaine
Male computer programmer
Professional athlete
12 yr. old boy
Catholic priest