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INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY CHAPTER ONE

WILHELM WUNDT FATHER OF PSYCHOLOGY

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OBJECTIVES

1. Define Psychology.  Briefly describe the basic science subfields of psychology including:

2. Distinguish between the applied subfields such as clinical, counseling, and school psychologist.  Distinguish between a clinical psychologist and a psychiatrist.

3. Briefly describe the philosophical roots of psychology including Plato and Aristotle, rationalism, mechanism,  and empiricism, and explain why they are considered pre scientific psychology.

4. Describe the role of Wilhelm Wundt in founding the scientific school of psychology.  What is introspection and what areas of psychology did he most concentrate?

5.  Identify the schools of structuralism, functionalism, and gestalt.  How did behaviorism begun by Watson differ from these three earlier schools.

6.  List and describe the five contemporary approaches to psychology: their major emphasis, the source of control of behavior, and their major ways of dealing with abnormal behavior.

7.  Define hypothesis and theory.  Explain why theories can be disproved, but not proven.

8. Explain the following aspects of the experimental approach to research:  independent  and dependent variable, experimental and control groups, placebo control groups, confounding variables, single and double blind, counterbalancing.

9. Explain the difference between experiments and the ex post facto research methods and why causal conclusions can be reached from the first and not the latter.  Why is the same true for correctional research?  Describe the key findings of the birth month/height paper.

10. Discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of naturalistic research. (HAWTHORNE EFFECT)

11. List and explain some of the factors that influence the quality of survey research, including social desirability effects, response rate, random sampling, reliability and validity.

12. List three advantages of studying animal behavior rather than human behavior.

13. Describe the American Psychological Association's ethical standards for research as they relate to the issues of risk, privacy, deception, debriefing, care of animals, pain and discomfort of animals.

14.  Describe and distinguish between three key themes of Psychology: rationalism vs irrationalism; stability vs change; and nature vs nurture.  What is meant by the key phrase:   Behavior is adaptive.
Describe key points in the Harris article:  Questioning the Nurture Assumption.
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Birth Month Predicts Height?

by David B. Miller, University of Connecticut

The team's first analysis revealed that babies born between January and June grow slightly taller by age 18 than do July-through-December babies. Other researchers studying other populations had reported this effect previously. The Austrian team's second, month-to-month analysis narrowed the height differential to specific seasons. They found the greatest height difference between men with birthdays in the spring (around April) and those born in autumn (around October). Spring babies have an edge over autumn babies of up to 0.6-cm in height. This may seem an insignificant amount, but it does show up reliably, annually, and in a predictably cyclic fashion. Height gradually decreases between April and October and then gradually increases between October and April. When graphed, the data appears as a sinusoidal curve (a curve that gradually increases and decreases at regular intervals) that follows the same predictable path year after year.

The Austrian researchers have no firm explanation for why body height depends on birth month in such a regular and predictable way. They do, however, offer a reasonable hypothesis based on sunshine and the hormone melatonin. They obtained month-by-month data on sunshine duration in Austria from 1984 through 1993, and saw that these durations vary over the course of a year just as heights do. In fact, the cyclic variations in sunshine during a year follow a sinusoidal path very similar to differences in men's heightat age 18, but the two cycles are separated by about three months. In other words, as sunshine duration increases, so does height, but three months later. Likewise, as sunshine duration decreases, so does height --again, three months later.

Significantly, both annual cycles for sunshine and height occur predictably, year after year. So what has all this to do with melatonin? It means that babies being born in the spring experience increasing levels of sunshine in the late prenatal period (via the mother) and in the early postnatal period, both times of rapid growth when any organism will be particularly susceptible to environmental influences. The hormone melatonin is secreted in the pregnant woman and then after delivery, in her baby, in response to light intensity--at least in part. The researchers also believe that a baby's rhythmic, cyclic production of melatonin is established between 9 and 15 weeks after birth, which coincides with the three-month offset between the paths for height and sunshine. Other researchers have suggested that melatonin may affect growth hormones, possibly by means of a small portion of the hypothalamus called the arcuate nuclei. The interrelationships between sunshine, the hypothalamus, melatonin, and human growth remain speculative for now. But at the very least, the Austrian team's findings were both startling and persuasive, and suggest interesting new avenues of investigation for developmental neuroscientists.

Resources
1.Weber G.W., Prossinger H., Seidler G. (1998) Height depends on month of birth. Nature 391: 754-755 .
           The original paper.
2.Tanner J.M. Fetus Into Man: Physical Growth from Conception to Maturity. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1978.
           A classic book describing human growth and factors that affect it.
3.Weber G.W. "Growth Studies."(10 March 1998)
           An on-line version of the original article by the first author, including graphics from the Nature paper.

4.Chang K. Spring Babies End Up Taller.  (9 March 1998)
         ABC News web story about the  original article.
5.Bradbury, R. The Definitive Melatonin Reference Page. (10 March 1998).
          Although it hasn't been updated since 1996 (as of this writing), this page contains links to over 5,100 Medline references on melatonin.
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TEST ONE                INTRODUCTORY PSYCH I.

Multiple Choice.  Select the answer that best completes the question.

2. Attitude formation and change is most likely to be studied by a (n)
a. human factors psychologist          b. social psychologist
c. developmental psychologist          d. clinical psychologist.

3.  Dr. Susan Derrick  (a psychologist) is involved in a program to redesign the instrument panel of a totally new car.  She wants to make it easier to understand and  use.  What type of psychologist is she?
a. a psychometrist                          b. an experimental psychologist
c. a human factors psychologist      d. a social psychologist.

4.  According to Plato, individual differences were determined by
a. experience in living        b. derived ideas             c. the soul
d. temperament deriving from different bodily fluids.

5. The term tabula rasa was used by John Locke to describe the
a. state of the mind at birth
b. role of experience in the formation of the adult mind
c. importance of innate ideas   d. importance of reason and logic.

6. Wundt’s goal in psychology was to
a. understand the nature and structure of consciousness
b. be able to predict and control behavior
c. identify and understand the function of consciousness
d. none of the above.

7. What was a central claim of the Gestalt school of psychology?
a. the importance of consciousness is the role it plays in helping the organism adapt to its environment
b. the whole is different from the sum of its parts
c. one should avoid mentalism by focusing ones efforts on a purely descriptive science             d. none of the above.

8. The study of observable behavior and the rejection of the hidden emotions and consciousness would be consistent with the views of
a. Wundt      b. Watson      c. Wertheimer      d. Freud

9. Which approach to modern psychology is consistent with using drug therapy to control schizophrenic behavior?
a. behaviorism  b. psychoanalytic  c. biological  d. humanistic.

10. The aspect of Freud’s psychoanalytic approach having an influence on American psychology is
a. the effect of early experience on adult behavior
 b. the use of the scientific method
c. its comparatiblity with behaviorism    d. the emphasis on dreams.

11. What is the recent influence in psychology that requires attention to religious, ethnic, gender, and racial diversity?
a. sociological approach           b. ethological approach
c. multi-cultural approach         d. the developmental approach.

12.  Which of the following is the one thing that we cannot do with our theories?
 a. accumulate evidence that proves them true
b. accumulate evidence that causes them to be discarded
c. accumulate evidence that causes them to be accepted
d. accumulate evidence that causes them to be modified.

13.  Which concept does not fit with the others?
  a. experiment                          b. correlation
c. naturalistic observation      d. placebo

14. In an experiment on the effects of meditation on concentration each subject was to be tested both with and without meditation on two successive days.  Half  of the subjects were to be tested with meditation first and the other half with meditation second.  This control procedure is called
a. counterbalancing      b. balancing      c. confounding
d. maximizing order effects.

15. Dr. Moon selected subjects for his study such that those in one group were boys and those in the other group were girls.  The study was an
a. experiment if there were experimental and control groups
 b. uncontrolled correlational study
c. ex post facto study              d. example of naturalistic observation.

16.  In an experiment to test an over-the-counter “sleeping pill,” subjects in one of two groups were given one sleeping pill; the subjects in the other group were given an identical but pharmacologically inert pill.  None of the subjects knew in which group they were.  What is the term for the  sleeping pill look alike?  What kind of control is being used?
a. confound, placebo               b. placebo, confound
c. irrelevant, double blind      d. placebo, single blind.

17.  The important feature of the method of naturalistic observation is that the observations are
a. manipulative b. experimental  c. correlational  d. unobtrusive.

18. What is the issue raised by the failure to take into account cultural diversity when choosing a sample of subjects for an experiment?
a. validity  b. reliability  c. generalizability   d. statistical verification.

19. Most students who earn high grades in high school also earn high grades in college.  Most students who earn low grades in high school earn low grades in college, if they get in at all.  This observation can accurately be described as a(n)
a. experimental finding         b. confound
c. causal relationship between high school grades and college grades   d. correlation.

20. Why is the ex post facto study not a true experiment?
a. subjects cannot be randomly selected
b. there is no independent variable
c. the independent variable is predetermined, not manipulated
       by  the experimenter
d. variables that are a characteristic of subjects such as gender
            cannot be studied using this design.

21.  Sometimes subjects answer in interviews with responses they think the interviewer wants to hear or responses designed to put them in a favorable light.  This is
a. a bias called social desirability  b. always intentional
c. always unintentional
d. the result of non random selection of respondents

22. Which of the following is true of a low response rate in a survey?
  a. it results from a bias called social desirability
b. it virtually assures that the sample is nonrandom
c. it is not a problem with mail surveys
d. it can be compensated for statistically

23. Animals are used in psychological research because
a. there are no ethical concerns in the use of animals
b. the procedure may be too risky to use humans
c. one need not be so concerned with their health and comfort
d. none of the above.

24. James Fisher has just participated in a study that Dr. Hannah is doing.  The professor gives him a summary that describes the study and offers to answer any questions that he may have about the study.  The issue involved is
a. deception      b. risk      c. the right to privacy  d. debriefing

25.  In your neighborhood, there are six families.  The number of children in each is as follows:  4,2,6,0,5,1.  What is the mean number of children; what is the median number of children?
a. 3;3         b. 6:6        c. 6:3         d.  4, 3.5

26. One standard deviation from the mean on an IQ test we said was 15.  Mark took a geoscience test and the mean was an 85 with a standard deviation of 8  and he took a calculus test in which the mean was also 85 but the standard deviation was only 4.  Comparing the three tests, which of the following statements is true?
a. you cannot compare them--the mean of an IQ test is 100
b.  of the three tests, the scores on the calculus test were
         least spread out
c.  of the three tests, students did better on the IQ
d.  the geoscience class did better on the whole.
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