Category Archives: Methods

Naturalistic Observations

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Naturalistic observations are those made in a subjects real environment and setting. These are especially useful in Psychology to observe a subjects natural response to stimuli because the subject will act as they normally would in real life. This type of observation is useful because in a lab setting a subject may be more likely to do things they normally wouldn’t do due to the uncomfortable environment. However, one of the drawbacks is that if someone figures out they are being watched they can change their behavior.

As a Music Education major, one has almost no time to just sit down and relax. A Music Education student takes on Average 23 credits a semester and the workload can get pretty intense. One of the few times I get to just sit down is in symphonic band rehearsal when the director is working on a specific section I don’t play flute in for a long time. I tend to people watch when this happens.  The other day I was watching two friends from across the band room make faces at each other because they too, were not being rehearsed. They went back and forth for a long time and I was able to “naturally observe” what their behaviorisms are like when they have downtime during rehearsal. They alternated contorting their faces for a while, and sometimes making wild hand gestures (such as flapping their arms out and wiggling their fingers). At the end though, I made eye contact with one of them and they immediately stopped making faces (most likely due to embarrassment). This relates to one of the naturalistic observations disadvantages, the subject changes behavior once they know they are being watched. It’s a shame they stopped it was quite entertaining! Because of my position in the band room I was able to see how these two friends naturally “converse” with each other and watch their behaviorisms where they would naturally occur. I’m sure if you put these two and a few other band members into a lab room with a two-way mirror they wouldn’t be goofing off so much, so being in the band room shows how they really act!

Behaviorism

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It is natural for individuals to be tempted to complete a task in return for a reward. Behaviorism, the “science of behavior”, was created by psychologist John Watson who studied the relationship between stimuli and responses. (Psychology). Behaviorism focuses on observable behaviors which are a measurement of a person’s behavior. Behaviorism also illustrates how the brain responds to external stimuli. (Wede Psych 100 Lecture 2). Negative and positive reinforcements play a role in this theory of psychology and the study of how individuals react to rewards and punishments.

I have had my own personal experience with being the administrator of positive and negative reinforcements and observing how a child’s behavior changed by using behaviorism. Two summers ago, I was a counselor for Bunk 4, a group of eight year old girls who could best be described as fun loving, curious, and slightly wild at an overnight camp. One camper exhibited certain behavior and communication tendencies that isolated her from the rest of the bunk. The camper would withdraw at times, and act out with sudden outbursts on other occasions. I worked together with her to manage her behaviors and to minimize her distractions to the bunk. She struggled to wake up on time, participate in activities, shower when asked to, and interact with her bunkmates appropriately. At first, it was difficult to come up with a solution, but we eventually found one that worked by using behaviorism. Every time she would act appropriately, such as by waking up on time, she earned a sticker for her behavior chart. The sticker acted as positive reinforcement as it emphasized her good behavior. If the camper acted out inappropriately, negative reinforcement was used. It was my job to give her a hand signal that we agreed upon as a warning that a sticker could be lost. Each week we would count her stickers and depending upon the amount of stickers earned, she was able to chose a reward that ranged from a candy bar to extra time at an activity she enjoyed.

By employing behaviorism, I had the opportunity to change my camper’s behavior in a positive manner. Both my camper and I grew from this experience and I had the chance to use positive and negative reinforcement firsthand. Her summer was turned around as she positively  interacted and made strong connections with her bunkmates and myself.

Ciccarelli, Saundra K., and J. Noland White. Psychology. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2012. Print.

The Scientific Method

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The scientific method is a concept in psychology that psychologists use in order to minimize bias and error while measuring data. It is composed of 6 steps: perceive; hypothesize; test; draw conclusions; report, revise, replicate; and repeat. The first step, perceive, is when the researchers come up with a question based on what they want to know. After the question is asked, the researchers then think of what the answer to this question is going to be which is also known as forming a hypothesis. Once the hypothesis is formed, it obviously must be tested. Conclusions are then drawn from the test. The last few steps are to report your conclusion whether it was successful or not. Even if it was a failure, other researchers will be able to help revise the experiment in order to make it a success. That is why the experiment is then replicated after hearing opinions from other researchers. This replication is done by the other researchers to see if they get the same results. Once step five (report, revise, replicate) is complete, the whole process should be repeated to fix any problems that might have occurred the first time.

However, this method is not only used by psychologists. I’m sure many students can relate to having used the scientific method once in their lives. I know I definitely used this method many times ever since I was in elementary school. It may not have been anyone’s favorite part of science class, but every single one of my science teachers stressed it at some time or another. Whenever we were going to indulge in an experiment, we always had to use this method. Even though it is not the most interesting part of science class, it is a crucial step in order to accomplish the goals of psychology (Ciccarelli, 20).  Obviously I am not a psychologist or a scientist, but I can relate to using the scientific method along with plenty of other students at Penn State.

Reference:

Ciccarelli, Saundra K., and J. Noland White. Psychology. 3rd. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc., 2012. 78-79. Print.

Behaviorism in Every day Life

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Behaviorism in Every Day Life

            Behaviorism is a holistic theory of development that can be seen everywhere in our daily lives. It focuses on the concept that the environmental experiences can shape us and create the person that we are today.  Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner all focused on behaviorism and its effects.  However, in my case, I want to focus on Skinner’s learning theory, operant conditioning.

As a sophomore, living with three other roommates in an apartment can become very hectic. The trash fills up, the bathroom is gross, and someone “accidentally” eats your food. Our biggest problem, however, was the dirty kitchen. There was always a huge pile of dishes in the sink. While I always dutifully rinsed my dishes and put them in the dishwasher, it seemed that 2 of my other roommates liked to toss their dirty dishes into the sink and wait a week. Instead of someone doing the dishes, the pile would just get bigger and bigger. Every time I walked into the kitchen, I would grimace and clean the dishes myself. As an experiment, I stopped cleaning the dishes and waited for either one of them to do it themselves. When one of them finally did it, I made a huge show of it. I thanked them, and marveled at “how clean” the kitchen finally was.

It didn’t take long before my roommates got the point and started picking up their own slack. I was surprised at how easily I got them to clean up after themselves, without yelling or awkwardly pointing it out to them. Just by simply using positive reinforcement, I was able to have a clean kitchen and still maintain good relationships with my roommates. By reinforcing their good behaviors and ignoring the bad ones, I was increasing their good behaviors without any animosity. It’s a simple idea, but when put to practice can show a lot of information about the human brain and how it works.

Classic Conditioning

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Psychology has found that we have the ability to condition people and animals to achieve a desired response. Ivan Pavlov showcased this powerful ability by using dogs to demonstrate that a reflex could be caused to occur in response to a totally unrelated stimulus. Pavlov observed how the dogs salivated when meat was placed in their mouths or held in front of them. Soon, he began ringing a bell every time the meat was provided until the dogs would salivate to the sound alone. The dogs were able to exhibit an automatic unconditioned response solely on the pairing of a conditioned stimulus to an unconditioned stimulus.
Although we have the ability to condition a person to the point that they automatically respond in a certain way, that doesn’t necessarily mean we force them to. Sometimes conditioning can happen on accident.
In Pennsylvania, you are able to achieve your driver’s permit at the age of 16 if you pass the written (electronic) exam. As a new license holder, I was eager to get started as soon as I could. With no previous training, I began practicing the next day. My dad slowly took me through neighborhood roads, until he felt I was ready for a busier scene. I nervously drove down the main road by my house until I approached a fork in the road. As I began to turn right, I cut my wheel too hard and needless to say I caused an immense amount of damage. My immediate reaction caused me to shake uncontrollably and cry. Now, whenever I am faced with that road (which is unfortunately hard to avoid) I cringe and receive a pit in my stomach. My accident conditioned me to fear the scene each time it appears.
Classical conditioning is an extraordinary way to condition an organism for a specific response. Sometimes it is for a desired trait, while others may be caused on accident. Either way, each conditioned response can be counter-conditioned in the end.

How Behaviorism relates to our lives

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One theory in class that we have discussed and applies to my life is the idea of Behaviorism. This idea focuses on the behaviors of animals mainly, and shows that mental events can be triggered by some sort of stimuli and lead to a preferred behavior. There is usually some sort of reward or payment in turn for this action. An example of this was the video clip from “The Office” that we watched in class. In the video, every time Jim’s computer makes a certain noise, he offers Dwight a mint. This continues for a while and Dwight does not notice that there is a pattern going on. Eventually, Dwight gets to the point where he hears the noise from Jim’s computer and immediately sticks his hand out for a mint, even though he was not offered one. He was subconsciously trained to receive a mint when he heard that noise, without even realizing it.

A similar situation to this that is close to me is going on right now at my sister’s house. She is currently pregnant, and they have a 5 year old pitbull dog that has been with them for the past three years. The dog is very calm, which is not stereotypical for his breed, but just as a safety precaution my sister and brother in law are teaching him to stay out of the baby’s room, just to make sure that there is no chance of him accidentally harming the baby. To start, they would reprimand him when he tried to enter the room and give him a small treat when he sat down outside of it. After these actions continued for a couple weeks, he learned to stop at the door and either lay down or go somewhere else in the house when either my sister or her husband entered the baby’s room. The stimulus for the dog was seeing someone enter the room while he went up to the doorway, and the reaction was him realizing he shouldn’t go in and changing his behavior. He does not even try to go into the room anymore. Now when the baby comes, the dog will not be able to bother it because he will know not to enter the room.

What Dwight from The Office and my sister’s dog have in common is that they were both trained to do certain actions and expect certain rewards for performing an ideal behavior. Dwight would get a mint when he heard the noise, and the dog originally would get a treat when the parents went into the baby’s room. This idea was practiced and studied in the 1920’s and it can still apply today.

Psychoanalysis in Psychology

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In psychology there has been several theories trying to describe where and how personalities and tendencies rise from. Some of these tendencies can be linked to genders, races, or religions and other may be unique to a certain family or individual.  For example, any people of Italian decent are know to like dining on pasta and wine. Even though it seems silly, it is not because Italians are genetically coded to unconsciously like pasta and wine. The reason why a lot of Italians like it is because, perhaps, it is what they are comfortable with. I’m almost 75 percent Italian 2nd generation and someone asked my why I like pasta; I may not be able to formulate a perfect answer. After scratching my head for a few seconds I may respond with, “I’m not sure, it’s just what I grew up with my whole life.”

As psychologists in the 1900’s were trying to describe how humans interact and why they act the way we do, some psychologists agreed that many behaviors originate from there early childhood. This became known as psychoanalysis. The theory, which was supported by one of the most popular psychologist Sigmund Freud, emphasizes how individuals past experiences influences the way they act later in life. Basically, behaviors are instilled in peoples personalities at young ages as they are growing, especially early childhood trauma. For example, if a child nearly drowns when they are young, even if the he/she does not remember the incident, he/she may have an unconscious fear of swimming at later maturity.

Freud believed that many problems adults faced stemmed unresolved conflicts from when they were younger. He thought that people with neurotic symptoms had unconscious romantic incestuous thoughts between them and their parents when they were younger. He also found that this occurred most with individuals who were sexually abused at a young age.

Later, the notion that child abuse causes neurotic symptoms in adults was refuted. Many psychologists today, however, can agree that repeated traumatic events like child abuse can mold an adult’s personality for better or for worse. There is still no concrete theory connecting child abuse with specific personalities.

In conclusion, psychoanalysis is a theory that attempts to describe why individuals have the personalities that they do. Although, it is refuted that psychologists can connect specific traumatic events (like child abuse) to personality traits and conditions in adults, it has been accepted that things children go through can mold the way they are as adults. Even if it is something as simple as why someone enjoys pasta frequently as an adult.

 

Naturalistic Observation

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I will be writing my blog on the concept of naturalistic observation. This concept is a research tool in psychology which is used to observe people or animals in their natural setting. Psychologists use this method to try to get the most detailed information about their subject. Although this research tool seems effective, there are advantages and disadvantages to this method. One advantage is that the person or animal being observed will act naturally in their own environment; they will feel comfortable. However, a disadvantage is that if the person or animal knows they are being watched, they will change their behavior.

I have experienced naturalistic observation taking place in real life and saw its disadvantages. In high school, my teachers would occasionally be evaluated during a certain class period on how they taught and how the students took in the information. During the evaluation, the department chair for the subject being taught would sit in on one of the teacher’s classes and observe how they taught and take notes. This would exemplify the teacher being in their own natural environment. It would seem that the teacher is comfortable in their own environment and would act as if it was any normal day. However, that was not the case. The day before my teacher would be reviewed, he or she would inform us that their superior would be sitting in on our class tomorrow. So, my teacher would tell us to ask a lot more questions and just pay attention. They would also inform us to not use our phones or talk.

The fact that my teachers would tell us to act a certain way and inform us that their superior is sitting in on a class to evaluate displays the disadvantage of naturalistic observation. Even though the teacher is in his or her own classroom, they still know that they are being observed and they will change their behavior and tell the class to change theirs as well just to get a good review. This is naturalistic observation in action.

Behaviorism: Classical Conditioning

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As discussed in lecture 3, Behaviorism is present in many everyday situations. “Behaviorism is primarily concerned with observable behavior, as opposed to internal events such as thinking and emotion.” These observable behaviors can be measured through stimuli and responses, or in simpler terms, rewards and punishments. Internal events are triggered by the external environment, or stimuli, which lead to specific behaviors.

Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, examined the salivary response of dogs when they were being fed. He noticed that his dogs began to salivate when he entered the room, even if he did not come bearing food. The fact that dogs salivate does not need to be explained, it is a natural, unconditioned response to stimuli. Pavlov rang a bell whenever he gave the dogs the food which naturally created a neutral stimulus. The dogs began to associate the bell with food, which is a conditioned response. Overall, through classical conditioning, Pavlov established a response from the dogs with the combined use of a bell and food. He also created a conditioned response, salivation, after the conditioning with just the use of the bell.

When I was home over the summer, my older sister and I utilized behaviorism almost every day with our younger brother and sister. We created a chart for each of them with a list of chores and tasks that they must complete each day. Once they completed one of the chores/tasks, we gave them a sticker on the chart for that particular day. If they did not complete what was asked of them or acted inappropriately, we would remove a sticker. After a month, the child with the most stickers was able to pick out a special treat for his or her lunch the following week. This experience that I had with my brother and sister is an example of behaviorism, as evident by the stimuli, rewards, and punishments that were used to shape their behavior. This technique reinforces desired behaviors and tries to eliminate the undesired ones.

Here is an additional example of classical conditioning used in the popular television series, “The Big Bang Theory”. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guroaQRFsX4&list=PL9D6F57F6A8702D9B

References

Matthews, Lora, and Demand Media. “Behaviorist Theory of Childhood Education.”Everyday Life. N.p., 2014. Web. 02 Feb. 2014.

McLeod, S. A. (2007). Pavlov’s Dogs. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/pavlov.html.

“The Gothowitz Deviation Season 3, Episode 3.” YouTube. YouTube, 25 Oct. 2009. Web. 03 Feb. 2014.

 

Illusory Correlation

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Haley Hendel

Psych 100.003

5 Feb 2014

Illusory Correlation

            A couple of weeks ago, I was driving around with my newly licensed sister. Like any teenage girls, we were blasting the radio and singing at the top of our lungs.  She then turned down the music and began telling me about a song by One Direction, “Happily,” that she loved on their new album but never heard on the radio. In what was a large coincidence, “Happily” was the next song played on the radio. Naturally, my sister started screaming that she was a psychic and that the song was playing on the radio because of her. I tried convincing her that it was merely coincidental, but she refused to believe it.

My sister, Tina, who has never taken a psychology class, did not want to believe that her “psychic” prediction was actually an illusory correlation. An illusory correlation is a psychological phenomenon in which a person associates two things that are actually not or barely correlational. Illusory correlations can lead to many things, often more serious than just a person just believing he or she has psychic powers. Illusory correlations are one of the biggest gateways to stereotypes. For example, if a person’s brunette friends do better than their blonde friends on an exam, they could falsely assume that brunettes are smarter than blondes. Because that thought is now in that person’s mind, they will try and find more proof for it, and dismiss any evidence against it, reinforcing the untrue belief.

Proof of illusory correlation stemmed from a study done by Hamilton and Gifford in 1976. They created a hypothesis that stereotypes about minorities came from illusory correlations. The researchers formed two different groups, A (the majority) and B (the minority), and participants were told behavioral sentences about different people from each group, with the same proportion of good traits to bad traits in each group. The researchers found that people more strongly related the bad traits to the minority group, even though they had no more bad qualities than the majority group.

Though that study was done in a laboratory setting, illusory correlations can be seen everywhere, like people connecting pain to bad weather, race to intelligence, etc. In my sister’s case, her mention of “Happily” before it came on the radio led her to believe she developed extrasensory powers, but being that it was actually an illusory correlation, her following guess of what song would be played after “Happily” was indeed wrong.

 

References

McMahon, Mary, and Nancy Fann-Im. “What Is Illusory Correlation?” WiseGeek. Conjecture, 18 Jan. 2014. Web. 03 Feb. 2014.

“IB Psychology @ Pamoja.” IB Psychology Pamoja RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2014.