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SOSC1960 Discovering Mind and Behavior
SOSC1960 Discovering Mind and Behavior
Lecture 1
Introduction
1
Teaching Team
Instructor
◼ Beatrice LAI
◼ Office: Room 2387
◼ Contact: beatricelai@ust.hk, ext 7817
◼ Consultation: by email appointment (with confirmation)
TAs
◼ Vivien PONG, Kayee WONG, Alison YOUNG
◼ Contact: sosc1960ta@ust.hk
◼ Consultation: by email appointment (with confirmation)
Classroom Etiquettes
Join the Zoom class before the actual class
time and test the equipment
I will normally start the meeting 5
minutes before the actual time class
Classroom Etiquettes
Once you have
joined the Zoom
class, check the
video/audio
connection
Test your speaker
and microphone in
Zoom
4
Classroom Etiquettes
Report any
technical issues to
the me via group
chat immediately
5
Classroom Etiquettes
Your microphone is
normally muted when
you enter the class
Raise hand in
“Participants” to request
for speaking up
Self-identify yourself
when speaking up in the
meeting
6
Classroom Etiquettes
When I send out a polling question, you
will see it on the screen, respond to the
question promptly
7
WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY?
8
True or False?
When people are asked to give painful electric
shocks to other people to punish their mistakes,
most of us would refuse to do so.
People pull harder in a tug-of-war when they are
part of a team than when they are pulling by
themselves.
A group of people stood by and did nothing while
a woman was being stabbed to death.
“Opposites attract”: We are more likely to be
attracted to people who possess qualities and
characteristics that we don’t have.
Common sense and science
◼ Do not always trust common sense or
common beliefs, because they could be
empirically unwarranted.
10
What is psychology?
Definitions
◼ “…the scientific study of behavior and mental
processes” (Feldman, 2008)
12
WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT
AREAS OF PSYCHOLOGY?
13
Different Areas of Psychology
Research Methods
14
Memory
The processes through which we encode,
store, and retrieve information
15
How do people remember information?
16
A visual mnemonics for days of the months
17
Learning
The processes through which relatively
permanent change in behavior is brought
about
18
阿笨與阿占
The Adventure of
Pan and James
21
22
Social Psychology
How people’s thoughts, feelings, and
actions are affected by others
23
States of Consciousness
Different states of awareness of the
sensations, thoughts, and feelings
experienced at a given moment
24
25
26
Hypnosis
Personality
The pattern of enduring characteristics
that produce consistency and individuality
in a given person
28
I make decisions based on
A. feelings
B. feelings and reason equally
C. reason
29
30
Intelligence
The capacity to understand the world,
think rationally, and use resources
effectively
32
IQ?
How intelligent is a person with an IQ
score of 200?
33
34
Sensation and Perception
The processes of sensing and perceiving
the world
35
36
37
Development
The pattern of growth and change that
occur throughout the lifespan
38
Robin & Trzesniewski (2005)
39
Health Psychology
The relationship between psychological
factors and physical health
42
Compared with 2016 and 2017, the stress level increased by 28.3%, prevalence
of anxiety increased by 42.3%, and the depression symptoms and unhappiness
have doubled during the COVID-19 outbreak
43
44
Psychological Disorders
Required textbook
Feldman, R. S. (2019). Understanding
Psychology (14th Ed). New York: McGraw-
Hill.
Assessment
Quizzes 30%
Assignment 1 25%
Assignment 2 25%
Video 10%
Research Experience 10%
Quizzes (30%)
MCs and T/F questions
Open-book, open-note
Lecture notes and required readings
No make-up quiz unless for validated
medical reasons
48
Assignments (25%+25%)
Assignment 1 - Memory
Assignment 2 – Social Psychology
Video (10%)
Select a concept or theory you learned
from this course.
Make a video to illustrate how you can
apply the theory/concept from the topic
you chose above to daily lives.
50
Research Experience (10%)
You have to complete two tasks in class on July 5
◼ Research study: Complete a real research study online
as a participant. Write a thought piece (in no more than
100 words) about your experience
◼ Research exercise: Watch a video about a research
study. Write a thought piece (in no more than 100
words) about the study
Course Communication Platform
Canvas (https://canvas.ust.hk)
◼ Announcements
◼ Lecture materials
◼ Distribution of scores
Where do Psychologists Work?
Psychologists
Researchers vs. Practitioners
◼ researchers: to develop psychological
knowledge (tool makers)
◼ practitioners: to apply psychological knowledge
(carpenters)
Psychologists
Researchers Practitioners
55
Researchers Practitioners
The Education of a Psychologist
B.A. or B.S.
◼ Bachelor’s degree
M.A. or M.S.
◼ Master’s degree
Ph.D.
◼ Doctor of philosophy
Psy.D.
◼ Doctor of psychology
What is Psychology?
Psychology is the scientific study of
behavior and mental processes
59
Major Perspectives
60
Neuroscience Perspective
Considers how people and nonhumans
function biologically
◼ Brain and Neurons
◼ Genes
◼ Evolution
61
Neuroscience Perspective
Brain and Neurons
◼ Phineas Gage
Natural selection
◼ Through reproduction, more adaptive traits are
selected to be passed onto future generations by
genes
64
Examples
Imprinting in birds
◼ Emotionally attached to the first
moving object
Parent-infant attachment
◼ Emotional attachment to the
primary caregiver
Konrad Lorenz
(1903 - 1989)
65
Example
Mate Selection
◼ Differences are consistent across cultures
E.g. China, Taiwan, Japan, USA, Canada, UK,
Germany, Italy, Africa, India
Men Women
67
Sigmund Freud
Id
◼ Libido: sexual instinct, aggressive impulses
◼ The pleasure principle: the drive to seek
immediate satisfaction
◼ Unconscious
◼ Present at birth
68
Ego
◼ Reason and logical thinking
◼ The reality principle – find ways to gratify the
id that are acceptable to the superego
◼ Develops gradually during the 1st year
◼ Conscious
69
Superego
◼ Societal rules,
“shoulds” and should nots”
◼ Conscious
◼ Develops at age 5-6
70
Ego keeps the
three components
in balance
Otherwise, tension
occurs
71
Freud’s Psychosexual Theory
Development is fundamentally stage-like, with
each stage centered on a particular conflict
between sexual urges and demands of society
Castration anxiety
Electra complex
73
Which stage is David Beckham fixated at?
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
David Beckham
suffers from OCD and it manifests itself through constant cleanliness
and perfection of all that is around him. Anything out of order is enough
to cause a conflict and must be attended to immediately. Examples of
this complete order is that everything must be in pairs, if there are
three books on a table one must be added, or one must be removed.
74
Evaluation
Contributions
◼ Ideas of unconsciousness and childhood roots
of adult personality
Limitations
◼ Lack of empirical data and verification,
partially due to the fuzziness of the concepts
◼ Derivation of the concepts and theories from a
limited population
◼ Important changes in personality can take
place during adolescence and adulthood
75
Behavioral Perspective
Focuses on observable behavior that can
be measured objectively
Learning leads to permanent change in
behavior
76
Give me a dozen healthy infants,
well-formed, and my own specified world to
bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any
one at random and train him to become any
type of specialist I might select – doctor,
lawyer, artist, and yes, even beggar-man and
thief, regardless of his talents, penchants,
tendencies, abilities, vocations, and
race of his ancestor (Watson, 1924)
77
Criticism of Behavioral Perspective
X Humans are not passive recipients of
environmental influences
78
Cognitive Perspective
Focuses on how people think, understand,
and know about the world
Information-processing theory
79
Cognitive Perspective
Does using a cell-phone impair people’s
driving ability?
80
Phone
Conversation
Traffic
81
Humanism
Emphasis is on free
will
Achieving self-
fulfillment
Maslow’s Self-
Actualization
“It’s always ‘Sit,’ ‘Stay,’ ‘Heel’— never ‘Think,’
‘Innovate,’ ‘Be yourself.’”
Rogers’ Conditions
of Worth
82
Maslow and Self-Actualization
83
Rogers’ Conditions of Worth
Self-actualizing tendency
– striving to fulfill innate capabilities
Positive Regards:
◼ warmth, affection, love, and respect
Conditions of worth:
◼ the conditions that others place upon us in
order to receive their positive regard
84
• Conditional • Unconditional positive
positive regard regard - unconditional
- positive love and acceptance of
regard given an individual by
when another person
providers’
wishes fulfilled
85
Readings
◼ Ch. 1
86