Professor Lester Krames

e-mail lkrames@credit.erin.utoronto.ca
Room: 3055
Phone: 828-3957

Office Hours: Wednesdays 3 to 5 and by appointment

 Course details
• All information on WEB
• www.erin.utoronto.ca/~w3psy100/
 PUMP Room
• Centre of activities for PSY100Y
• Room 1099
• PAUSE Club
 Laboratory
• 12 two hour laboratories over the academic
year
• You should already be signed up for a
particular laboratory time
• www.erin.utoronto.ca/~w3psylab/
 Library Assignment
• Part of Laboratory Grade
• Librarians will be in class to explain
searching techniques
 Test dates
Test Wednesday Thursday
Number Section Only Section Only
1 11 OCTOBER 12 OCTOBER
2 8 NOVEMBER 9 NOVEMBER
3 6 DECEMBER 7 DECEMBER Includes lab test

4 7 FEBRUARY 8 FEBRUARY

READING WEEK 18-24 FEBRUARY

5 14 MARCH 15 MARCH

6 11 APRIL 12 APRIL Includes lab test

 Grades

Assignment Value
Lab work 21%

Lecture Tests 21%

Textbook Tests 21%

Experiments 4%

Final Exam 33%

 Experiments
• Actual Participation
• Substitute Experiments
– www.erin.utoronto.ca/~w3psy100/experiments/expindex.htm
 Textbooks
• Psychology 5th Edition (package)
– by Bernstein, Clarke-Stewart, Penner, Roy,
Wickens
– 3 chapters per test in the order in which they
appear
• Sniffy the Virtual Rat
• Erindale Laboratory Manual
 Common sense and the task of
the scientist
• First task of science is to separate fact from
fiction
• There exist a number of rules about
behavior that may or may not be true what
is important--
• We act as if they are true.
Psychology - the scientific study
of behavior
• Common sense
• Let's begin with a very simple question.
The correct answer is the very first answer
that pops into your head.
• WHAT IS THE MOON MADE OUT
OF????
• CHEESE???????
 Task of the scientist
• We learn these rules through socialization,
from our earliest experiences.
• They are a part of the culture in which we
live.
• It is not important if the rules are true only
if we believe they are true:
 Rules that are just made up
• What's for Breakfast?
– Cornflakes
– good for self control
– vegetarians
 Physiological rules
• Knowing the underlying physiological rules
can help us understand
• on the next slide stare at the black dot in the
center of the flag
• what do you see when the flag disappears
• try blinking your eyes after the flag
disappears
 Psychology as a Science

• Attempts to describe, predict, and

explain thought and behavior.


Uses scientific method
 Science vs. Common Sense

Objective data collection

Subjective data collection
Systematic observation
Hit or miss observation
Reliance on evidence
Ignores counterevidence
 Science & Proof
• A deduction is proven if the general
premise is true and the logic is valid.

An induction goes beyond the known data,
and thus can never be proven.

Science, then does not prove things,

because all information about the
outside observable world is inductive.
 Science
• Terminology:
Hypothesis - a possible way things could be
Theory - an explanation for the way things are, usually
supported by a lot of data.


Advantages of science:
Scientific methods are deductive
Science is more systematic, and less subject to human bias
 Judging Theories

• Fit to the data

Belief in the

Quality of the data
theory is

Ability to predict irrelevant to
its quality.

Ability to explain
Testing Hypotheses
 Testing the Hypothesis
• Blind psychology professor, Raymond
Rainville listened to live broadcasts of NFL
games was able to identify the race of the
players even though it was never
mentioned.
Football
 Sometimes the rule is in the
name
• term lunacy comes from lunar suggesting
the moon can indeed affect behavior
– The full moon makes people crazy
– names express an implied rule
• hysterical
• sinister or gauche
 Describing everyday conflicts
• Psychology's approach to rules
• how do we confirm or dis-confirm rules?
• Why do people do the things they do?
 Why do people do the things
they do?
• A baffling case in Queens New York
– Nominal Error (names)
– BYSTANDER APATHY
– The laboratory study
• one subject alone
• help is available
• the greater the number of subjects the less likely
help would be offered
 By-stander apathy
• one subject alone not a selfish response
• smoke still gets in their eyes
• social inhibition of helping responses
potential of getting help greater on a small
back-country road than on the 401 or QEW
 Who helps whom
• Subject at risk
• can begin to define variables
– time pressure
– characteristics of helpers and victims
Research methods
• Naturalistic Observation
• Laboratory Observation
• Case Studies
• Surveys
• Experiments
• Experiments of Nature
 Naturalistic Observation
• Observe behavior in its natural setting,
attempt to avoid influencing or
controlling it
• Advantage: Good way to collect
normative data
• Disadvantage: Must wait for the
behavior to occur naturally
 Laboratory Observation
• Observe behavior in a laboratory where
extraneous variables can be controlled and
specialized equipment can be used
• Advantage: Better control of outside
factors. More precise equipment can be
used
• Disadvantage: Surroundings may affect
results
 Case Studies
• Observe one or a very few subjects in
great depth, usually over a long
period of time
• Advantage: The only method
appropriate for very unusual cases
• Disadvantage: Problems with
generalizing the results
A longitudinal study from ages 4-7
A cross-sectional study from ages 4-7

Pros/Cons: Cross-sectional studies are generally

quicker, but compare different people rather than
determine changes within an individual
 Surveys
• Collect data from groups of people
using questionnaires or interviews.
Data is useless unless sample is
representative.
• Advantage: Can collect information
such as attitudes and beliefs
• Disadvantage: Subjects may lie or
mislead (kinsey)
 Correlation
The preceding methods are correlational. They can
determine if X and Y go together, but not if X causes Y.

The Correlation
Co-efficient
High HIGHER

Corr.
Size
Low

-1 0 1
Correlation
Cannot imply causation due to:

Directionality problems
Third Variables
 Psychology as a Science
If A and B are correlated:

Possibility 1: A might cause B

A B
 Psychology as a Science
If A and B are correlated:

Possibility 2: B might cause A

B A
 Psychology as a Science
If A and B are correlated:

Possibility 3: A might influence B

while B influences A in return.

A B
 Psychology as a Science
Third Variables:
Rather than A causing B or B
causing A, third variable C causes
A & B.
C
A B
 Control
• Experiment is actually asking a question
• is the answer we get the answer to the
question we are asking
– rat color vision
– yawn theory
 Predict and control
• beware of pickpocket
• predict behavior
• reinforcement to control behavior
• Premak versus. mother's rule
Milgram Experiment
• Study of obedience
• Authority figures
 Domain of the Psychologist
• language problem
• surplus meaning
• behavior not exclusive domain of
psychologists
– Greek tragedies
– Shakespeare
– Freud
– Transactional Analysis
 Curiosity
• theme that runs through all of psychology
• characterizing psychologists
• observers
• all activities of all living organisms fair
game
 Limitations
• Using the mind to study the mind
 Ethical Issues
• Informed Consent:
Human subjects must be told of all foreseeable
risks.
Animals can't give informed consent, must be
protected from unnecessary suffering.
• Deception:
Some psychologists oppose all deception.
Others tolerate deception as long as it poses no
foreseeable risks and debriefing occurs.
 Ethical Issues
• Risk:
In psychology, the standards for
acceptable risk must be very stringent,
because potential benefits for the
participating subject are very low
• Children:
Young children may have difficulty
giving informed consent, due to a desire
to obey & please adults & a lack of
understanding of possible risks
 The study of Psychology
• Definition of Psychology
– A) Science
– that studies the B) behavior
– C) of animals
• Goal
– understanding the human mind
 Behavior
• what is behavior?
– How do we define behavior?
• Any observable action or reaction of an animal
• creates a problem--limits what we can study
 Where do we direct our
studies?
• Internal or External variables?
– i.e., early Greek approach
– Psychoanalytic
 Historical approaches
• Five Schools of Psychology
 STRUCTURALISM
• founded by Wilhelm Wundt,
– opened what has since been regarded as the
first lab of psychology, in Leipzig, Germany in
1879.
– His approach to psychology was to disclose the
structure of conscious experience using the tool
of "experimental introspection,”
Wilhelm Wundt

Founder of
psychology as a
discipline. Focused
on conscious
experience and its
building blocks.
Trained many early
psychologists.
 STRUCTURALISM
• "experimental introspection,”
– a standardized kind of introspection that
utilized laboratory equipment.
– The idea that one could understand
consciousness by simply studying one's own
sensations.
 STRUCTURALISM
• Wundt's greatest contribution was perhaps
his influence in stimulating research on the
issues of psychology.
• approach was later carried on by Edward
Titchener in the United States
 Schools of Psychology
STRUCTURALISM
Wilhelm Wundt (Germany, 1879)
Other Psychologists: Edward Titchener

Goal: To specify the structure of

conscious experience
 Schools of Psychology
STRUCTURALISM
Wilhelm Wundt (Germany, 1879)
Other Psychologists: Edward Titchener

Goal: To specify the structure of

conscious experience
Method: Experimental introspection
 Schools of Psychology
STRUCTURALISM
Wilhelm Wundt (Germany, 1879)
Other Psychologists: Edward Titchener

Goal: To specify the structure of

conscious experience
Method: Experimental introspection

Application: “Pure scientific research”: spurred

development of psychological
laboratories
 FUNCTIONALISM
• Advocated laboratory research but, unlike
Wundt,
• James believed that one could and should
study areas of psychology other than
sensations.
• Viewed behavior in terms of its adaptive
value for the organism. Focused on the flow
of consciousness rather than its structure.
 FUNCTIONALISM
• Functionalism encouraged:
– "applied" psychology,
– child psychology,
– the study of individual differences,
– and the use of psychology ideas in business
and education.
 FUNCTIONALISM
• Later advocates of functionalism included
– E. L. Thorndike,
– John Dewey,
– James McKeen Cattell.
• As structuralism faded in popularity, so too
did functionalism, its primary conceptual
rival.
 Schools of Psychology
FUNCTIONALISM
William James (United States, 1890s)
Other Psychologists: James McKeen Cattell, John Dewey,
E.L. Thorndike
Goal: To study how the mind works to allow
an organism to adapt to its
environment
 Schools of Psychology
FUNCTIONALISM
William James (United States, 1890s)
Other Psychologists: James McKeen Cattell, John Dewey,
E.L. Thorndike
Goal: To study how the mind works to allow
an organism to adapt to its
environment
Method: Naturalistic observation of animal and
human behavior
 Schools of Psychology
FUNCTIONALISM
William James (United States, 1890s)
Other Psychologists: James McKeen Cattell, John Dewey,
E.L. Thorndike
Goal: To study how the mind works to allow
an organism to adapt to its
environment
Method: Naturalistic observation of animal and
human behavior
Application: Child Psychology, educational and
industrial psychology, study of
individual differences
 BEHAVIORISM
• founded in the 1910s by John B. Watson,
absorbed some of the ideas of
functionalism,
• went even further to say that observable
behavior was the only appropriate subject
matter for psychology.
John Watson

Founder of
Behaviorism.
Confined psychology
to the study of
observable stimuli &
behavior.
 BEHAVIORISM
• This school insisted the only data relevant
to psychology were:
– directly observable phenomena, behaviors that
organisms actually perform
– and the environmental stimuli surrounding
such behaviors.
• S-R Psychology (This is the rule)
 BEHAVIORISM
• Watson conceptualized all behavior as
learned from one's interactions with the
environment,
– i.e., thought nothing more than tiny, inaudible
contractions of the muscles of speech.
 BEHAVIORISM
• B. F. Skinner,
– a forceful champion of Watson's ideas in the
1940s and 1950s, claimed that while mental
processes may exist in organisms, their study
was unnecessary and even counterproductive to
explain and understand behavior
 Schools of Psychology
BEHAVIORISM
John B. Watson (United States, 1910s)
Other Psychologists: B.F. Skinner
Goal: To study only observable behavior
and explain behavior via learning
 Schools of Psychology
BEHAVIORISM
John B. Watson (United States, 1910s)
Other Psychologists: B.F. Skinner
Goal: To study only observable behavior
and explain behavior via learning
Method: Observation of the relationship
between environmental stimuli and
behavioral responses
 Schools of Psychology
BEHAVIORISM
John B. Watson (United States, 1910s)
Other Psychologists: B.F. Skinner
Goal: To study only observable behavior
and explain behavior via learning
Method: Observation of the relationship
between environmental stimuli and
behavioral responses
Application: Learning theory, environmental
emphasis, development of language to
make psychological information more
explicit and communicable
 GESTALT
• began in the 1910s in Germany, although
its three principal founders,
– Max Wertheimer,
– Kurt Koffka,
– Wolfgang Kohler,
• eventually emigrated to the United States.
 GESTALT
• Gestalt is a German word meaning "form"
or "organization."
• This approach stressed that breaking up
conscious experience into its elemental
sensations destroyed an understanding of
the whole or totality of consciousness--the
gestalt of consciousness.
• Development of perception
– what’s up
– what’s far
 GESTALT
• The theme of this approach was captured by
the famous saying, "The whole is greater
than the sum of its parts.”
• Gestalt principles are important in
understanding the principles of perception.
– Grouping
– Proximity
– Similarity
 O O M ! S QUIS
B H!
Gestalt Movement
 Schools of Psychology
GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY
Max Wertheimer (Germany, 1910s)
Other Psychologists: Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Kohler

Goal: To describe organization of mental

processes. “The whole is greater than
the sum of its parts.”
 Schools of Psychology
GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY
Max Wertheimer (Germany, 1910s)
Other Psychologists: Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Kohler

Goal: To describe organization of mental

processes. “The whole is greater than
the sum of its parts.”

Method: Phenomenology (e.g., phi phenomenon)

 Schools of Psychology
GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY
Max Wertheimer (Germany, 1910s)
Other Psychologists: Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Kohler

Goal: To describe organization of mental

processes. “The whole is greater than
the sum of its parts.”

Method: Phenomenology (e.g., phi phenomenon)

Application: Perception: some groundwork for

cognitive psychology
 PSYCHOANALYSIS
• Psychoanalysis was the term Sigmund
Freud
– used for his theory of personality,
– and for his method of treating psychological
disorders.
• Freud developed his ideas in the late 1800s
in Austria, and only much later did his ideas
gain popularity in the United States.
Sigmund Freud

Founded
psychoanalysis,
focused on
unconscious thoughts
in determining
behavior.
 PSYCHOANALYSIS
• Freud believed that the most important
influences on behavior were conflicts and
struggles that occur within each person's
mind, but which are largely beneath a
person's conscious awareness--they were
unconscious.
 PSYCHOANALYSIS
• Freud maintained that these unconscious
activities are active and complex processes,
much like those of consciousness.
– He emphasized the importance of childhood in
setting up these unconscious conflicts, which he
felt would shape the basic personality that one
takes into adult life.
 Psychoanalysis
• Structuralism
• methodology
– find the structure through the past
– find the structure through the unconscious
 Erik Erikson
• PSYCHOSOCIAL STAGE "VIRTUE"
• Trust/Mistrust Hope
• Autonomy/Shame Willpower
• Initiative/ Purpose
• Industry/Inferiority Competence
• Identity/Role Confusion Fidelity
• Intimacy/Isolation Love
• Generativity/Stagnation Care
• Integrity/Despair Wisdom
 Alfred Adler
• Man know much more than he understands.
• The feeling of inferiority rules the mental life and can
be clearly recognized in the sense of incompleteness
and unfulfillment, and in the uninterrupted struggle
both of individuals and humanity.
 Adler
• The chief danger in life is that you may take too many
precautions.
• There is no such thing as talent. There is pressure.
• It is always easier to fight for one's principles than to
live up to them.
 Schools of Psychology
PSYCHOANALYSIS
Sigmund Freud (Germany, early 1900s)
Other Psychologists: Carl Jung, Alfred Adler
Goal: To explain personality and behavior
and develop techniques for mental
illness
 Schools of Psychology
PSYCHOANALYSIS
Sigmund Freud (Germany, early 1900s)
Other Psychologists: Carl Jung, Alfred Adler
Goal: To explain personality and behavior
and develop techniques for mental
illness
Method: Free association under the guidance of
analyst; clinical insight
 Schools of Psychology
PSYCHOANALYSIS
Sigmund Freud (Germany, early 1900s)
Other Psychologists: Carl Jung, Alfred Adler
Goal: To explain personality and behavior
and develop techniques for mental
illness
Method: Free association under the guidance of
analyst; clinical insight
Application: Development of psychopathology,
emphasis on childhood as important in
later personality
 Contemporary approaches
• HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY
• also began in the 1960s, stems from the work of
– Maslow needs hierarchy
• Physiological
• Safety
• Social
• Ego
• Self-fulfillment
Humanistic Psychology
 Carl Rogers.
• Psychotherapeutic concepts such as
– "empathy,”
– “reflection”
– "unconditional positive regard,"
– and "self-actualization"
• that emphasize the transformative impact of
"empathy" and "mirroring" are really not that far from
the humanistic notions about the ingredients necessary
for self-actualization.
 Humanistic Psychology
• This approach emphasizes the inherent
goodness and mental healthiness of people
and the concept of free will
• Rogers' developed the concept of "client-
centered" therapy, which emphasized non-
judgmental guidance rather than diagnosis
and treatment.
 The Humanists

Considered each human unique,

argued people strive for "self-
actualization." Generally not
empirically testable.
 Contemporary Trends
HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY
Abraham Maslow (United States, 1960s)

Other Psychologists: Carl Rogers

Goal: To ensure mental healthiness of

individuals and develop therapeutic
techniques
 COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
• Information-processing approach, stressing
the components of thought
• Cognitive Psychology is concerned with
advances in the study of memory, language
processing, perception, problem solving,
and thinking.
 Cognitive Psychology

• perception,
• memory,
• decision making
• began to flourish in the 1960s and is a
dominant approach in American
psychology today.
 Contemporary Trends
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
William James (United States, 1890s)

Goal: To explore the mental processes

involved in judgment, decision
making, and other aspects of complex
thought
 Modern Views

Modern psychologists are eclectic --

approach problems from multiple
perspectives. Believe behaviors
have multiple causes.
Specialties
Employment