PSY 101 Introductory Psychology

Instructor: Vincent W. Hevern, S.J., Ph.D.

2022 Fall

• Goals of Science: Description, Prediction, Control
• What science means by "theory"
  
• Testability: Falsification (falsifying theory)
• Approach to Research: hypothesis, research study design, collecting data, analyzing data & drawing conclusions, reporting findings
• What is an experiment?
• Types of variables
• Types of groups in experiments
• Problems faced in doing experiments
• Non-random assignment
  
• Advantages & disadvantages of experiments
• Meaning of correlations: strong when approaching +/- 1.0; absent when approaching 0.0
• Cause/effect vs. linkages
• Descriptive/correlational research: purpose
• Types of flaws in experimental research
• Placebo effect
• Types of distortions in self-report data
  
• Ethics: Consent as voluntary, no harm, debriefing, right to privacy
  

• Role of glial cells: structural support in brain, nourish, decontaminate, regulate neurons
  
• Origin of brain tumors
  
• The neuron at rest as a tiny, leaky battery
• Resting potential
• Action potential
• All-or-Nothing Law
• Role of myelin in conduction of nerve impulse
• Excitatory vs. inhibitory postsynaptic potential
• Roles of neurotransmitters
• Acetylcholine (Ach)
  
• Dopamine (DA)
• Norepinepherine (NE)
• Serotonin (5-HT)
• GABA
• Glutamate
  
• Endorphins
• Organization of the Nervous System: PNS, CNS
• Neuro-imaging Techniques in the Brain
• Computerized Tomography (CT)
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
• Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
• Functional Magnetic Imaging (fMRI)
• Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
  
• General functions of the four brain lobes
• Frontal
• Mirror Neurons
  
• Parietal
• Temporal
• Occipital
• Split brain operation: what it shows about hemispheres
• Hemispheric Specialization
• Left hemisphere: what it does
  
• Right hemisphere: what it does
  
• Strategies to research role of heredity vs. environment on behavior
• family studies
• twin studies (monozygotic vs. dizygotic twins)
• adoption studies
  
• concordance rate
• genome mapping (genome wide association studies, GWAS) showing strong POLYgenetic influences
  

• What did Charles Darwin claim to be the means of evolution?
• fitness
• natural selection
• Modern refinements of Darwin's theory
• adaptation
• behaviors as adaptive traits

Learning
Reflexes

Classical (reflex or Pavlovian) conditioning

Unconditioned stimulus (US)

Unconditioned response (UR)

Conditioned stimulus (CS)

Conditioned response (CR)

Extinction of CR

Spontaneous recovery of CR

Stimulus generalization

Stimulus discrimination

Higher order conditioning

Law of Effect

Operant conditioning

Reinforcement

Positive reinforcement

Negative reinforcement

Punishment

Discriminative stimuli

Generalized responses

Schedules of reinforcement

Fixed interval schedule

Fixed ratio schedule

Variable interval schedule

Variable ratio schedule

"Garcia" effect

Applied behavioral analysis

Observational Learning/Social modeling

• What is "learning" to a psychologist?
• Classical conditioning as a theory of "signaling"
• Pavlov's experiments with conditioning dogs to salivate
• Watson's experiment with Little Albert: Fear conditioning
• Examples of classical conditioning in everyday life, e.g., fears, phobias, political advertisements
• Skinner's theory of "operant" conditioning
• "Skinner Box" - components
• Positive reinforcement: examples
• Difference between negative reinforcement & punishment
• Advantages of variable over fixed schedules of reinforcement
• Learning "predispositions"
• Garcia effect as "one shot learning"
• Mental disorders as defined by their behaviors
• Principle of positive reinforcement over punishment
• What did Bandura discover about the effects of adult modeling on children in his Bobo Doll experiments?
• What did researchers in the 1990s discover about the role of violence on television?
• Why do some more recent researchers argue that there is much less of a link between media violence and real world violence than researchers used to claim?