astresnotes-psychology

[astresnotes-psychology]

Lesson 2.1 — Dement and Kleitman — 20220914

Finally starting topic 2: our first study! I included the brief summary notes we made two lessons ago at the beginning of this lesson’s notes. Don’t panic if the first part makes no sense — the article was terrible at summarising the study. There’s a much clearer and more in-depth description in the introduction notes.

Topic 2: Dement and Kleitman

Summary:

REM — rapid eye movements

REM means dreaming is occuring

Occur in stages throughout sleep

Happen every night in 9 adult test-subjects

Awakening subjects 5-15 minutes after REM

Managing to judge dream durations accurately from REM

Eye movements were recorded in “analogous situations”

When awake, corresponded closely with dreaming patterns

Results:

Record and investigate accuracy with which participants could record the dream after REM sleep

Best recall of dream when awakened during REM, as opposed to other times

What time best recall occurs

Narrowing it down to 5/15 mins, participant could correctly guess how long they were dreaming for

Also best recollection of dream after which time

Pattern of REM correlated to the visual imagery of dreams

Side-to-side REM could represent watching a tennis match, for example

Or upward REM could mean looking up while climbing a ladder

REM sleep - dream more, remember more

Non REM sleep - less recollection

Details for experimental methodology: 

Sample — the participants, a group of people used in an experiment

age, gender, ethnicity, etc

Environment — where was the experiment held? In what surroundings?

Procedure — a step-by-step instruction for how to perform the experiment

Research method, actions, etc

Materials — equipment, measurements

scanners? Designated questionnaires? 

Results — Preferably statistics, data representation

Conclusion — What did they find?

What does the data indicate?

Answer your initial hypothesis

Discuss your results, explain them

Link to daily society

Consider:

Ethical issues

The results of the study

Strengths and weaknesses of all elements of the study

Be critical

Issues and debates of psychological issues

Individual vs situational debate —

How does the environment (situation) affect the results

How does your individuality affect the results

Similar to nature vs nurture, but

“Individual” refers to personality and thinking process, which requires a lived development to form, as opposed to solely biology

“Situation” relies more on physical environment and current issue at hand, as opposed to long-term atmospheric implications.

Dement and Kleitman

Intro:

Depends on the subjective report of the dreamer

But can become objective information if relating it physiological data, measured by physical techniques

REM recorded during sleep

Found that waking subjects during this time lead to better recollection of dreams, as opposed to other times

EEG — electro encephalo graph

(AKA EOG — electro ocular graph)

electric in-head writing

Used to measure eye movements

Not much research with/of EEG, so they wanted to use it to explore its use for investigating sleep activity

Subjects:

Normal people

4 Schizophrenics

Approaches:

Dream recall during REM periods

Subject’s estimate of dream duration compared to duration of REM

Motion of REM compared to dream content, to investigate whether they were an expression related to visual experience in dream, or just overactive nervous system

Conclusions:

Better recall if woken mid-REM period, as opposed to during other moments of sleep

Estimated time has a positive correlation with REM period

Found that REM patterns related to dream content

Sorry this is so late. Incredibly busy with some upcoming exams from last year (overlapping is wild) as well as current schoolwork. Chances are the blog will be a lot a bit unorganised in the coming month and a half, but I’ll try my best to sort it out in the end.

Take care of yourselves and drink water!

[astresnotes-psychology]

Lesson 1.4 — Types of Research Methods — 20220913

We were supposed to start topic 2 this lesson, but instead we spent one more hour on the introduction, to familiarise ourselves with the different research methods used in psychological studies. More pairwork (well, it was technically groups of three, but as there were five of us, the teacher hopped into my group part-time). There were two groups in total, and each focussed on a different research method.

Types of psychological research methods:

Experiments

What are they, how are they carried out, pros & cons

Self report

What? Types? How does it work? Strengths & weaknesses

My group:

Self report — A method to collect data where participant provides information about themselves; qualitative data

Nature of results — very subjective

Types — interviews and questionnaires/surveys

Pros — helps give a personal insight to subject’s experiences, easy to administer

Cons — does not provide statistical information; should be paired with factual data

Open to unreliability due to bias

Subject may not be honest, or might not know how to answer

Interviews — broader answers

More personal, direct contact with the subject, less time for participant to mask answers (for whatever reason)

+ Personal views, open to the diversity of people

- Could be more intimidating for participant, more interrogative

Questionnaires & surveys — narrowed down, direct, specific answers

+ Slightly more quantitative data

- Subject has the ability to “cheat” or alter responses before submitting results

Other group:

Experiments — A statistical study; quantitative data

Nature of results — very objective

Types — Lab experiments, Field experiments, and Natural experiments

Pros: Collects impartial, well-monitored data

Cons: Relies heavily on the scientist’s involvement, or not at all, and does not take into accountability personal insights from the participants

Lab experiments — conducted under highly controlled conditions

Aim for as accurate measurements as possible

Researcher chooses location and activities

+ Easier to replicate due to standardised procedures

- Unfamiliar locations — may affect behaviour and reflect negatively to variation

Field experiment — done in natural setting, but some variables still changeable for experiment

Less likely for demand characteristics (participant altering their actions in favour of the experiment)

+ Reflects reality more because participants are in a more ecologically valid environment (things aren’t altered for experiment, people are in familiar surroundings; collects more authentic data)

- Not much control over extraneous variables

Focuses on cause and effect

Natural experiments — studies where more outside influences/naturally occurring variables affect the outcome (a change prompts a result without scientist envolvement)

+/- Conductors have less control over experiment, it’s more natural

For example, when smoking was banned from public places, a >60% drop in heart attacks was recorded

Another research method is observation research, but that was only briefly mentioned in passing this class (we were told it will appear farther in the future).

That’s it for now, remember to drink water and take care of yourselves!

[astresnotes-psychology]

Lesson 1.3 — Introduction to Psychology, Biological Psychology — 20220912

I missed the first half of class today thanks to a dentist’s appointment (sadly that meant not getting to present all the lovely info I recorded about learning theory in the last class :c ), but I managed to join in time for the introduction to our first study! I won’t be including the summary we did on it in this post though, because that’s the start of topic 2 (how exciting!) and I’d rather not mix topics in the same lesson.

Therefore, what I’ll note down from this class will be information from another pair’s research on their designated psychological approach (from last lesson’s brief research), and the big as- intro to the first approach we’ll be studying — both of which happen to be biological psychology.

The last pair’s research notes from last class:

Biological Psychology — Studies how the human body reacts to certain human processes that are instructed by the mind

Also known as Physiological Psychology

Relies on genetics and takes the nature side of the “nature vs nurture debate”

Mostly based on how changes in structure/mind, genes and hormones/chemicals can affect their behaviour

How antidepressants interact with a person’s behaviour

How an accident might influence a person’s way of thinking

Can also be identified through an observation based on how the participant behaved externally after having consumed a drug

One of the limitations of biological psychology is that it doesn't take into account that not all people think the same and that most people are unique

An advantage would be that it might be easier to conduct experiments from a scientific standpoint

Teacher’s Information:

Research Methods — experimenting, observation, survey

Evaluating the Approaches:

Main Assumptions —

Biology: Thinking and behaviour are strongly determined by the structure and function of the nervous system

Learning: All behaviour is learnt from our environment

Cognitive: Information received from our senses is processed by the brain and this processing directs how we behave

Social: Human behaviour is influenced by other people and the social context in which this occurs

Additional Assumptions —

Biological: Genes and evolution influence biological structures in the brain, which influences behaviour

Learning: Animals and humans learn in the same way

Cognitive: We cannot dire rly see processes such as thinking, but we can infer what a person is thinking based on their behaviour

Social: Assuming a person’s society and culture will influence their thought process and behaviour

Biological Approach

Believes that all our behaviour has a biological cause

May be inherited, or caused by hormones and neurotransmitters

Some behaviours may result from brain abnormalities or infection

E.g. Clive Wearing lost the ability to make new memories because of an infection which destroyed part of his brain

Therefore, Biological Approach believes that psychological disorders have a physical cause, and can therefore be treated with drug therapies

Moving on from the introduction/overview of biological psychology, and on to a basic foundation for our future projects:

Studies: Things we need to learn/note form them

Aims/understanding — what they did in the study

Methodology — How did they do it?

Who took part — men, women, animals

Results — statistics (hopefully)

Conclusion — what did the scientists conclude from the experiment?

Evaluation — feedback; what do we think was good, what could be improved on? Strengths & weaknesses

Link — how can you link this research back to society? Who would it benefit from this knowledge? Real-world applications of the information

Biological Studies

Topic 2: Dement and Kleitman — sleep and dreams

Topic 3: Hassett et al. — monkey toy preferences

Topic 4: Hölzel et al. — mindfulness and brain scans

After this we were shown the article for the Dement and Kleitman study we’ll be researching next (an ancient article dating back to the 1950’s 💀) and split off into pairs to read and take notes on the summary (yay — socialisation!). Again, for categorising reasons, I won’t include that information in here, but stick it onto the beginning of next lesson’s notes.

As always, take care of yourselves, drink lots of water, and get enough sleep! <3

[astresnotes-psychology]

Lesson 1.2 — Introduction to Psychology, Learning Theory and Cognition — 20220907

Today we finished watching the video (which I already watched and took notes on last class) and answered some questions about it. Then we were split off into groups to research and take notes on the basics of an assigned field of psychology, out of biological, cognitive, social, and learning theory. My assigned topic was learning theory.

Your girl was paired with the teacher, which is a nay for socialising : ( but a yay because I probably got the best learning source (obviously I was the one taking the notes).

Alright, I’ll just get into it and start off with the video quiz.

Quiz:

1. What is the current definition of psychology? a) The study of human behaviour b) The science of human behaviour & mental processes c) The study of the mind 2. Identify at least three mental processes 3. Who was more interested in human experience and behaviour? a) Greeks b) Romans 4. What is involved in Empiricism? a) Observation & experimentation b) Observation & thinking c) Thinking & experimentation 5. Who conducted the first recorded psychological experiment? a) Sigmund Freud b) William James c) Wilhelm Wundt 6. What did Piaget study? a) Behaviour in dogs b) Child behaviour c) Adult behaviour

My answers were as follows:

B

Cognition, Emotion, Reaction to stress (other examples include learning, memory, or pretty much any “thinking process”)

B

A

C

B

Just as extra info, we were briefly told who William James is, because he didn’t appear in the video. (Mr. said that he will no longer appear later in the course, because they just changed the syllabus.)

William James — Established the principles of psychology

How to conduct psychological experiments, the aims and practices of psychology, etc

Learning Theory— An area of psychology that focuses solely on reactions and the environment’s effect on learning and development

It is also known as behaviourism

This field definitely encapsulates the “nurture” argument of “nature vs nurture”

It doesn’t care at all about what the brain is doing or a person’s thinking, only about observing what happens externally

It is a scientific approach — you observe without influencing the results (other than setting up the environment and situation, obviously); you conduct a “fair test”

Neglecting the internal aspects of thinking processes in this area of study simplifies its fundamentalism significantly

One reason for the basicality of learning theory is due to the fact that it’s one of the oldest, or earliest-discovered fields of psychology

It really only consists of presenting a situation to a subject and observing their output

The formal way of putting this is observing the subject’s response to stimuli

Stimulus— any change in the environment which an organism then responds (considers and reacts accordingly) to

Someone who studies learning theory may be called a behaviourist

Behaviourist— follows the concept that animals and humans learn in the same way

One sub-division of learning theory is social learning theory:

Social Learning Theory — The way our learning and behaviour is modified by observing other people

We associate experiences with certain outcomes, or copy what we see

For instance, we may “learn from other’s experiences”

A person might change the way they talk to mimic the people he is speaking with (even if inadvertently)

Or a child might see a classmate of theirs being very open and friendly, which makes them more likeable by other children, so they copy this behaviour and also display more extroverted qualities to achieve the same effect

A darker example of social learning might include a child seeing his parents beat each other at home, and growing up to do the same thing later on

Social learning is the way we pick up habits from those around us

Cognitive behavioural therapy — a modern combination of cognition and learning theory, which is used to clinically treat people with poor psychological health

That’s a paraphrasing of what I wrote down for my topic. We’re going to share what all the other groups got for theirs, but in this class only one other pair got to talk before class ended. The rest will be included in next class’s notes.

Cognitive Psychology — The study of how we input, process, and retrieve information in our brains

The entire concept is that the human mind works along the same lines as a multi-store model computer:

Input → processing → output

Input — the information we take in from the world around us

Processing — the way we think/reflect on the information we just received, and how we store it for later (long-term memory)

Output — how we retrieve that information and display it; our reaction to something

A basic statement of cognitive psychology is that information is processed along the same route in all humans

However, we all have different attention and memory capabilities, so we all have different ways of thinking

This leads to human emotion and the diversity between people

Something that is studied very widely in cognitive psychology

Review:

Quiz on the video from last lesson

Learning theory (also known as behaviourism) is an area of psychology dedicated to scientifically observing people’s responses to stimuli from the environment. It is one of the oldest, and therefore simplest, fields of psychological study

Social learning theory describes how we learn from the experiences of others, and copy what we see

Cognitive psychology states that all humans have the same route of processing information as a standard computer model. We receive input information from our environment, process it (we reflect on it, then store it in our long-term memory), and then retrieve it for a suitable output action. Despite following the same thinking pattern though, the diversity between our memory and attention spans means that all results (such as emotional responses) to the same input information may be different.

Homework: Read the following passage and answer the questions written at the bottom

Due Date: Wednesday  14/9/22

Remember to drink water! Have a snack too :)

[astresnotes-psychology]

Lesson 1.1 — Introduction to Psychology —  20220906

Today was my second Psychology class, but the first one in which we actually learned anything. We didn’t do much yet, mostly just watched a video which we discussed and had a couple of small debates (because we spent the first half of the lesson getting to understand how Microsoft OneNote works). For this reason, the information I have here today is pretty much entirely transcribed form the video, which I will link at the end anyways.

Topic 1: Introduction to Psychology

Lesson 1.1 — Introductory information

Psychology — the science of human behaviour and mental processes

Comes from Greek “Psyche” meaning ‘mind’ or ‘soul’, and “-ology” meaning ‘the study of’

Big debate over whether psychology is a science or a philosophy (it is a science).

Mental Processes — function of the mind, a way of thinking:

Cognition (thinking)

Learning

Memory

Emotion

Responses to stress, etc

Brief History of Psychology:

The first time humans ever considered studying the way we think was in Ancient Greece (500–150 BC)

Interest in psychology was halted almost entirely during the Roman Empire, when people’s main focus was conquering and building (150 BC—500 CE)

During the Catholic Church’s rule, the only educated people were Priests, so their word passed (500–1517 CE)

Commoners couldn’t read the big books and learn things for themselves, so people would go to the Priests for answers (and the answer was usually God)

This period in time is referred to as the “Dark Ages”, because people were left “in the dark” about many things — advancements in knowledge were sparse

Then, a man named Martin Luther believed that people should have the right to determine the way they live (1517 CE)

Rose above the fear of the Church and nailed 95 theses to the church doors stating that the Church did not have supreme right over everyone

Many people were inspired by him and followed his lead, speaking up against the traditional ways of the Catholic Church

This is known as the Protestant Reformation

Among the people to split off and establish their own advancements were the Emperecists

Empiricism — “We only know what we know through observation and experimentation”

This became what is known today as the “Empirical Method”, which is used in any scientific experiment (the process of forming a hypothesis, collecting data to support it, and forming a conclusion)

Thus science was born

Back to psychology. Here are some notable figures in history:

Wilhelm Wundt — the Father of Psychology

He was a German man who dusted off the study of the mind, in completely new ways

He performed the first psychological experiment in 1879

It consisting of dropping a ball down a pipe and having a person press a button when they saw it, to test the judgement reaction time of the brain

(It may sound inconsequential today, but remember that it’s impossible to walk without baby steps)

Wundt had a student named Edward Titchener, who was friends with a man named Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud — perhaps the most famous name in psychological history, he led psychological advancement for the following years

He contributed significantly to our understanding of human development, personality, clinical psychology, and abnormal psychology

He was very influential

Next came Ivan Pavlov — he explored psychology in dogs

You’ve probably heard of him before; he explored learned reflexes, and (inadvertently) taught dogs to secrete stomach fluid when they heard a bell ring

(He did this by ringing the bell every time he fed the dogs, until they learned that bell = food, so their body started getting ready to eat)

After that came Skinner, who studied behaviour in rats and children (rather interesting contrast, if you ask me)

And then Erikson, who studied how our mind grows and develops over time, as we grow old

Piaget introduced the concepts we have today about how children learn from their surroundings and construct their knowledge/habits

Maslow taught us about how people need to fulfill their human needs 

You may have seen or heard reference to “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs”, which is that pyramid which indicates the order of necessities for humans (first physiological needs, then safety needs, then love, esteem, and finally self-actualisation)

This takes us to the modern day, when we know and care a lot more about psychology than we did a hundred years ago.

As a review:

Psychology was first considered by the Ancient Greeks (which is where the word comes from)

It was dropped almost entirely until after science was introduced during the protestant reformation

Wilhelm Wundt is the Father of Psychology

Sigmund Freud is considered the greatest influencer in psychological history

Pavlov discovered learned reflexes

Skinner studied children and rats

Erikson explored mental development

Piaget studied children’s long-term responses to their environments

Maslow formed the “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” pyramid

Here’s a link to the video we watched.

I really don’t have many resources for this lesson, seeing as we barely did anything, so that pretty much concludes this post.

Remember to drink water!

[astresnotes-psychology]

Navigation ⬲

Hi! Welcome to A-Level Psychology!

Here I will be cataloguing my AS/A-Level Psychology classes in order to make them accessible for anyone interested in learning the subject.

This blog is part of an umbrella account documenting all my other classes too (I take Psychology, Art, and Maths). For this reason, asks are only open on my main blog. See the links in the menu on my page to access my other blogs. I will include a link to my main below.

One more thing to note is that, other than when labelling lessons with the universal YYYYMMDD, I use the British dating system, dd/mm/yy. So whenever you see a date written in that format, the first digit is the day and the second is the month :)

Some useful links:

Main Blog (Astre’s Notes)

Tag Guide — important!

Ask box

Notes list under the cut

Psychology

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Topic 1: Introduction to Psychology 4/4

Lesson 1.1 — Introduction to Psychology — 20220906 Lesson 1.2 — Introduction, Learning Theory, and Cognition — 20220907 Lesson 1.3 — Introduction, Biological Psychology — 20220912 Lesson 1.4 — Introduction, Types of Research Methods, Experimental Research, Self Report Research — 20220913

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Topic 2: Dement and Kleitman 1/?

Lesson 2.1 — Introduction to Dement and Kleitman — 20220914

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Topic 3: Hasset et al. 0/?

Lesson 3.1 —

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Topic 4: Hölzel et al. 0/?

Lesson 4.1 —

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