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Psychology
Introduction
2008 / 2009
This session
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Assessment strategy
6.
Cognitive Psychology
Perception
Memory
To find out how people tick (how they think, feel and behave) in
general disregarding individual differences
In addition, (some of) the lectures will also feature more specific
experimental methods and techniques used in certain research areas
To support 2nd semester and 2nd year units (e.g. Cognitive, Biological,
Social and Developmental Psychology) by providing the necessary
methodological background
Our unit fills in the gap between methods (Marks unit) and content
(Cognitive/Social/Developmental etc.)
Introduction (HB)
14 Oct
21 Oct
28 Oct
Psychophysics (AH)
4 Nov
11 Nov
Speech (MDR)
18 Nov
25 Nov
2 Dec
Emotion (MDR)
9 Dec
6 Jan
13 Jan
No handouts!
They can also disrupt attention to the lecture and give away
experimental results too early
You can download the slides from the units Victory website after each
lecture though
3.
4.
5.
6.
Assessment strategy
Details to follow
A good mark requires both knowledge about the lecture content and
additional reading (i.e. chapters from Maclin & Solso, 2008); this holds
most certainly for Part 2 of the exam
More specifically, a causal relationship between (in the simplest case) two
variables: Is X a cause of Y?
What is it NOT?
Example:
While keeping everything else constant (e.g. age, gender, socioeconomic status of the groups)
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3.
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5.
7.
Priming
E.g. people who talk a lot will probably also go out a lot (i.e. there is a
positive correlation between these behaviours), and both of this together
with additional information may justify putting them into an extravert
category
E.g. the height and weight of people are strongly correlated but neither
is the cause of the other (you cant grow by putting on weight!)
In principle, if two variables are correlated, one CAN be the cause of the
other, but that has to be EXPERIMENTALLY established!
The focus is on how people themselves see and construct their world
If the predictions are wrong, the theory has to be modified or (e.g. after
repeated disconfirmations) abandoned
Supporting literature
Maclin & Solso (2008), Chap. 1, in particular:
What is it?
1.
2.
3.
pp. 27-29
4.
pp. 21-23
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6.
7.
pp. 24-25
Supporting literature
Literature mentioned in lecture:
Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Reading, MA: AddisonWesley.
Bales, R. F. & Slater, P. (1955). Role differentiation in small decision-making
groups. In T. Parsons & R. F. Bales (Eds.), Family, socialization, and
interaction process. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
Orne, M. (1962). On the social psychology of the psychological experiment.
American Psychologist, 17, 776-783.
Pettigrew, T. F. (1998). Intergroup contact theory. Annual Review of
Psychology, 49, 65-85.
REQUESTOR
Participant
male /
homo
male /
hetero
female /
homo
female /
hetero
male
n = 30
n = 30
n = 30
n = 30
female
n = 30
n = 30
n = 30
n = 30
REQUESTOR
male /
homo
female /
homo
male /
hetero
female /
hetero
male
16
19
27
female
20
20
24
24
Participant
Priming a demonstration
Your task: ignore the first word, react to the second word
4 trials
cockroach
cancer
rabbit
sunshine
butterfly
sad
spider
happy
positive attitude
reactio n tim e (m s)
1100
negative attitude
towards primes
1000
900
800
700
600
500
positive words
negative words
targets