PSYCH 2999 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: American Psychological Association, Tabula Rasa, Pineal Gland

Fundamentals Test 4
Resources for the Psychology Student
• APA: American Psychological Association
o Large number of their membership uses the practice style of psychology
o How to find a job
• APS: Association for Psychological Science
o www.psychologicalscience.org
o More for researchers
• Several other organizations for specific specialties
• Main reason for them: go to a conference
o Can make connections with other conference members
o Have booths set up and vendors (sell and give you stuff like bags, pens, books,
notebooks, etc.)
▪ At conferences who are mostly student oriented, the booths are normally
manned by graduate students
o Major point: go to the talks and poster sessions
▪ Talks: lectures by experts about their research topic
• Normally don't have to register
• Must register if you are licensed and getting credit to attend
• Invited Talks: are in the huge conference rooms; people invited to
speak
• Smaller Talks: people who want to present at the conference and
must go through proper channels and apply to give talks to smaller
groups of people
▪ Poster Session: several research posters hanging up in one room; able to
walk around and learn more about the ones that you are interested in
• Fabric or paper posters
• Most important part: results
• People commonly print off their posters to hand out to people to
take home (or they will email or give you a link to the poster
material)
• These organizations also sponsor scientific journals
o You can get the journals for free through Clemson (some journals are over $5000
a year for a subscription)
• Some of these organizations also do public policy things
o Many will have specific resources for students
o EX. SIOP for industrial psychology
History of Psychology
• Grandfathers of Psychology (380-400 BC) - Began with talking about the mind and how
it worked; could only be done philosophically
o Socrates
o Plato: began talking about the psyche (where psycho came from); began talking
about behavior, reasoning, impulse, logistics
o Aristotle
• 1680’s - Started looking at dualism (mind and body)
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o Looke: the mind is a blank slate; saw himself as not just a philosopher but also a
scientist; thought pineal gland must control everything; called himself the father
of mind and body
o Renee DeCalt: talked about the mind and the body being dual
• Germany (early 1800s)
o Phrenology: pinnacle of psychological science
o Gall: looked at brains and skulls; said he could pin point in the brain where all
your traits are located (indentation - low in that skill; bump - high in that skill)
▪ Believed so firmly → being institutionalized, jailed, different schools
based on shape of your skull
▪ Came to US in 1920s
• Germany (1879)
o William Wundt: father of scientific psychology; first person to open up a
psychology lab to scientifically study the human mind
▪ Trained men through key words and coding
▪ These men had to figure out how their brain was taking in all these senses
(trained observation)
▪ Birth of real psychology
▪ Look back at it now, cannot really record your own cognition process
o Edward Tichner: studied introspection; started lab in New York; immediately
took in 19 women; first Ph.D. student was a women; studied report of sensations;
brought psychology to the US
• Austria (1880s-1930s)
o Freud: most famous psychologist; believed dreams are wish fulfillment; focused
on sexualization
▪ Theories have not been disproven (mainly because we don't disprove
theories in psychology - we just discredit)
▪ Id, ego, superego; talk about him in societal culture (metaphors in
literature)
• Not in psych anymore; more a historical figure
• Basic observation → probably right; details where it gets hazy
Behaviorism (mid 20th Century)
• Skinner: Skinner box; classical conditioning; pigeons; developed a pigeon guided missile
• Watson: took operant conditioning a little further; made his money from advertising (“sex
sells”)
WWII
• Where psychology took off
• Social psychology got a huge boost because of persuasion and propaganda
• Clinical psychology took off because of PTSD
• Human factors, industrial, social, etc. all became funded
• Women in psychology took off
• Lillian Gilbreth: author of cheaper by the down
• M. Clark: prominent member of Brown team in Brown vs. Board of Education
• Karen Hornein: studied with Freud; stayed a psychoanalysis
1960s-1970s
• Neural networks; artificial intelligence
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Document Summary
Resources for the psychology student: apa: american psychological association. Id, ego, superego; talk about him in societal culture (metaphors in literature: not in psych anymore; more a historical figure, basic observation probably right; details where it gets hazy. Behaviorism (mid 20th century: skinner: skinner box; classical conditioning; pigeons; developed a pigeon guided missile, watson: took operant conditioning a little further; made his money from advertising ( sex sells ) 1960s-1970s: neural networks; artificial intelligence, personality psychology, myers-briggs, left/right brain, learning styles all myths now. 4 things important for you: humility (be humble, critical thinking (causation and correlation, tolerance for ambiguity (things change, sometimes we don"t know, we learn new things) If it is just in a researcher"s head: must be publicly verifiable knowledge, available for replication, published via peer review. Popular: purpose, to inform, entertain, or persuade, audience, authors, general readership no expectation of previous knowledge in subject area, staff or freelancers, credentials generally not included, references/footnotes, seldom included.