PSYCH 101 (02-08-24)

Introduction to Psychology

Origin of Psychology started with the writings of the Greek philosopher Aristotle.
- He was particularly interested in the nature of life.
- “You’ll understand what life is when you think about the act of dying”
- “At that moment, the psyche takes flight in the last breath”
- Psyche is the nature of life
- Psyche in ancient Greek is the breath or life.
- Psychology is the study of life and the study of mind

Mind-brain problem
1. Monism
2. Dualism

General Psychology
- Modern Psychology Is defined as the science of behavior and mental processes
- Psychologists attempt to understand people by thinking critically about careful,
controlled observations.
- There is a reliance on rigorous scientific methods of observation.
- Psychological behaviors are rooted on natural sciences since we are biological
creatures
- Behavior = (Person Characteristics, Situations)
- Fundamental Misattribution Error - it is when you only focus on person
characteristics without considering situations.
- Behavior is an organism’s activities in response to external or internal stimuli
- Overt behaviors are objectively observable activities.
- Covert behaviors are introspectively observable activities.
- Mental processes refer to the private thoughts, emotions, feelings, and motives
that other people cannot directly observe.

Goals of Psychology
- Uses information gathered in scientific studies to DESCRIBE behavior and
mental processes accurately.
- Uses research as tools to PREDICT future behavior reasonably well.
- Tries to UNDERSTAND behavior and mental processes in order to explain them.
- Uses theories that help them understand behavior so that these theories can
help INFLUENCE behavior in beneficial ways.

MAPPING THE ROOTS OF MODERN PSYCHOLOGY: Nature of Conscious

Experience

1. Wundt, Titchener, and Structuralism’

- Wundt and Titchener wanted to identify the basic elements of conscious
experience.
- Structuralism emphasizes on the basic elements of conscious experience
and how these elements are organized.
- Structuralism uses the method of introspection, which is a method of
looking inwardly at one’s own conscious experience.
- Introspection involves observing the contents of people’s minds as
accurately and as unemotionally as possible. (Raw sensations - how your
senses work)

2. Max Wertheimer and Gestalt psychology

 - Wertheimer’s ideas about conscious experience led to a group of
psychologists known as the Gestalt psychologists.
- Gestalt is a German concept that means the whole.
- Gestalt psychologists argue the human consciousness could not be
meaningfully broken down into raw elements,
- Gestalt psychologists argue that the whole is different from the sum of its
parts. The organization greatly changes the perception of raw elements.
- PERCEPTIONS
- The phi phenomenon is used to demonstrate that the whole is different
from the sum of its parts.

3. William James and Functionalism

- James was impressed by the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin, which
states that every physical characteristic that evolved in a species served
an adaptive purpose.
- He argued that thinking, feeling, remembering, and other mental
processes exist only because they help us survive as species.
- The emphasis on survival functions of consciousness led to functionalism.
- James argues that studying the elements of the mind tells us nothing
about how the mind helps us to adapt to the demands of life.

4. Hermann Ebbinghaus and Mary Whiton Calkins

- Ebbinghaus and Calkins were functionalists who studied memory, which is

one of the most useful mental processes.
- Ebbinghaus found that forgetting occurs very rapidly at first but proceeds
slowly thereafter.
- Calkins reconfigured Ebbinghaus’ methodology in studying memory and
need the “paired associates”

PSYCH 101 (02-13-24)

3. Cognitive Psychology

- Rather than speaking about the functions of consciousness, psychologists

changed it to cognitions.
- Cognition is a broad term that refers to all intellectual processes (eg. perceiving,
believing, and so on)
- Cognitive Psychology is a modern version of functionalism but is still strongly
influenced by Gestalt psychology and structuralism.

Behaviorism and Social Learning Theory

1. Ivan Pavlov
 - Pavlov’s accidental discovery of a simple form of learning called classical
conditioning was of tremendous importance to the field of psychology
- In classical conditioning, an inherited reflex comes to be triggered by a stimulus
that has nothing to do with that reflex.
● Behavior can be learned through Classical conditioning.

2. John B. Watson and Margaret Floy Washburn

- Watson and Washburn agreed with Pavlov that the importance of conditioning
went far beyond salivating dogs and that most human behavior was learned
through classical conditioning.
- B.F. Skinner was the leading proponent of behaviorism until his death in 1990.
● Behavior can be learned through Operant Conditioning.
● Behaviors can be caused by stimuli that are either punishing or reinforcing.

3. Albert Bandura and The Social Learning Theory

- Social learning theory is a broader version of behaviorism that integrates the

study of behavior with the study of cognitions.
- The most important aspects of our behavior is learned from other persons in
society.
● We learn through imitation and observation.
● Vicarious Reinforcement - you are reinforced by how you see other people get
praised by how they behave.
● Vicarious Punishment - you see the punishment through other people so you
won’t do the punishable actions

Nature of Unconscious Mind

1. Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis

- Freud argued that conscious mental processes were of trivial importance

compared with the workings of the unconscious mind.
- The roots of psychological problems were innate motives, particularly sexual and
aggressive ones that reside in the unconscious part of the mind.
- `Unconscious motives and the conflicts that surround them influence us in ways
we do not know that exist.
● Free Association - He lets his patients behave the way they want until they
can free their suppressed thoughts and feelings.
● Psychic Safety Valve - Sigmund Freud suggested that dreams provide a
psychic safety valve to discharge unacceptable feelings. The dream's
manifest content (apparent) may also have symbolic meanings (latent
content) that signify our unacceptable feelings. UNCONSCIOUS MIND
AND ID to prevent us from having abnormal behavior because the bad
thoughts and experiences could lead you to feeling negative emotions.
● Superego - the one exposed to social norms and the most perfectionist
part of a person’s mind. It disciplines you to adhere to social norms.
● Ego - reconciles ID and superego. The rational part of the individual
person is that it is able to rationalize whether something is right or wrong.
It balances the extremes of ID and superego.

Freudian’s Slip - caused by the

unconscious mind.
 Transference - where the clients develop feelings towards the
therapist because of a deep connection between them.

Understanding the past can determine why a single individual

behaves the way they do at the moment.

2. Humanistic Psychology and the Unconscious Mind

- Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers and Victor Frankl argued that human beings
determine their own fates through the conscious decisions they make.
- The unconscious mind often defeats humans’ efforts to make good, conscious
decisions.
- An individual’s self-concept is the key element to conscious decision but society
makes it difficult to have an accurate understanding of one’s self-concept.
● Self-concept is an overarching idea we have about who we are—physically,
emotionally, socially, spiritually, and in terms of any other aspects that make up
who we are (Neill, 2005). We form and regulate our self-concept as we grow,
based on the knowledge we have about ourselves.
○ Ideal Self - The ideal self is the person you want to be. This person has
the attributes or qualities you are either working toward or want to
possess. It's who you envision yourself to be if you were exactly as you
wanted. Self-image: Self-image refers to how you see yourself at this
moment in time.
○ Actual Self - the concept, of self image, of what a person is now, as
opposed to what he or she would like to become (that is, the ideal self).
● Patient VS Client - Patients are passive receivers of what to do, on the other
hand, clients are incapable of treating themselves since it is a collaborative effort
between the therapists and the client.
● Autobiographical Reasoning - is the activity of creating relations between
different parts of one's past, present, and future life and one's personality and
development. It embeds personal memories in a culturally, temporally, causally,
and thematically coherent life story.

Psychometrics

1. Alfred Binet and Psychometrics

- Binet took the study of mental processes in a different and highly practical
erection.
- Binet and his collaborators created a set of test questions that could be
answered by most children of a given age but not by most children who were
younger.
- Binet’s work led to the modern branch of psychology that specializes in the
measurement of intelligence, personality, and job aptitude.
- Psychometrics means the measurement of mental functions.
Neuroscience Perspective

1. Santiago Ramon y Cajal

- Ramon published the first description of neurons - the cells that make up the
brain and the nervous system.
- His view that the brain was made up of a network of interacting neutral cells laid
the foundation of the modern understanding of the role of the brain in psychology.

Sociocultural Perspective
- The sociocultural perspective criticizes the overemphasis on the ways in which
people are the same.
- The sociocultural perspective argues that there should be no neglect of the idea
that the human race is a rainbow of sociocultural varieties.
- It also promotes cultural relativity. Different cultures should be thought of in
relative terms rather than evaluative terms.
- It reminds us that not all members of the same given culture, ethnic group, or
gender are alike.

Basic Areas of Modern Psychology

1. Biological Psychology
2. Sensation and Perception
3. Learning and memory
4. Cognitive
5. Developmental Psychology
6. Motivation and emotion
7. Personality
8. Social
9. Sociocultural Perspective

Applied Areas
1. Clinical Psychology
2. Counseling Psychology
3. Educational and school Psychology
4. Industrial and Organizational Psychology
5. Health Psychology

Human Behavior
1. Human beings are biological creatures.
2. Every person is different, yet all people are much the same.
 3. People can be understood fully only in the context of their cultures and other
social influences.
4. Human lives are a continuous process of change.
5. Behavior is motivated.
6. Humans are social animals.
7. People play an active role in creating their experiences.
8. Behavior can be adaptive or maladaptive.

02-20-24 | Psychology 101

Types of Research Methods
1. Survey Method
● it helps us analyze a large group of people
● quick / inexpensive
● But it’s difficult to obtain the desired result
● It does not give us the representative sample that represents the entire
population
● There is an inverse relationship between the sample size and error
● The respondents have the tendency to lie

2. Naturalistic observation
● It can analyze both aggregates and
● It is more accurate
● However, it could be biased, based on what the observer wants to observe
● Behaviors can be concealed here that’s why it is important to make sure
that the samples are not distracted from their actual life
● You cannot infer the causes of such behaviors

3. Clinical Method
● Studying a specific behavior of an individual in a clinical setting
● You can pinpoint specific behaviors through observations and interviews
● But you cannot determine the causality

4. Correlational Studies
● You are correlating relationships between variables
● The relationship between variables can be direct/inverse

5. Formal Experiments
● If you want to establish causality, what you can do is to resort in formal
experiments
● The goal is to establish the cause and effect relationship of variables
● For you to establish the causal relationships between variables, you have
to follow and be intricate with the principles.
● You have to be clear with your variables, with its measurements and
parameters.
● You have to establish two kinds of groups; the experimental group and the
control group
● You have to randomly assign the participants into groups in order to
establish that the effect will be caused by the independent variable alone
and not by chance
○ Blind Experiment - The participants do not know what their groups
are; the control group or the experimental group to avoid the
placebo effect.
 ○ Double-blind - Both the experimenter and the participants do not
know who are in the groups so that biased results can be avoided.
● Causality can only be established through formal experiments.

Biological Psychology
Importance of Studying Biology in Psychology
1. Psychological life depends on biological life for its very existence.
2. The brain is the part of the body most intimately involved in psychological life.
3. Psychology studies biological systems, like the brain and the nervous system,
endocrine glands, and genetic mechanisms, because individuals are
psychological beings.

Nervous system: Biological Control Center

● True human nervous system consists of two large parts:
- Brain
- Spinal Cord
● Individual nerves exit or enter the spinal cord and brain, linking the brain to every
part of the body
○ Some nerves carry messages from different parts of the body to the brain.
○ Some nerves carry messages from the brain to different parts of the body.
● Without a nervous system, there would be no psychological life.

Neurons: Primary Units of the Nervous System

● True neuron is an individual nerve cell that plays the most important role in the
nervous system.
○ In the early 1900s, Santiago Ramon y Cajal described them as “the
mysterious butterflies of the soul, beauty
Parts of the Neurons
1. The cell body contains the nucleus and other components necessary for the
cell’s preservation and nourishment.
2. The dendrites are branches that extend out from the cell body and receive
messages from other neurons
3. Axons are branches at the other end of the neuron that mostly carry neutral
messages away from the cell body and transmit them to the next neuron.
 ● Neurons transmit messages in the nervous system (either to or from) in
the following steps
○ Transmission of information from one end of the neuron to the
other end (neural transmission or action potential)
- The neurons are sacs filled with one type of fluid on the
inside and bathed in a different type of fluid on the outside.
- More of the ions inside neurons are negatively rather
than positively charged.
- The outside of the cell is filled with positively charged
sodium ions and the inside of the cell is concentrated
with negative potassium ions.
- In its normal resting state, the membrane is
semipermeable.
- A balance exists between the mostly negative ions on
the inside and the mostly positive ions on the outside.
- The neuron is said to be electrically polarized.

● When the membrane is stimulated by an adjacent neuron,

the semipermeability of the cell membrane is lost for an
instant.
● There will be a dramatic chain of events
● During an action potential, a small section of the axon
adjacent to the cell body becomes more permeable to the
positive sodium ions,
● Sodium ions rush in, producing a depolarization in that part
of the axon.
- Myelin Sheath and Neural Transmission
● It insulates the axon and greatly increases the speed at
which the axon conducts neural impulses.
● The myelin sheath continues to grow in thickness into late
adulthood

○ Transmission from one neuron to the next neuron (synaptic

transmission)
- Neurons work together in complex chains, but they are not
connected to one another.
- One neuron influences the next neuron through
synapse.
- The small space between neurons is known as the
synaptic gap
- The neutral message is carried across the synapse by
chemical substances
- When an action potential reaches the axon terminal, it
stimulates the vesicles to release neurotransmitters in the
synaptic gap
- The neurotransmitter floats across the gap and fits into
receptor sites on the adjacent neuron’s membrane like key’s
fitting into locks.
- After the signal is transmitted to the next neuron, reuptake
will happen
- The neurotransmitter is reabsorbed back into the cell
that previously released it.
Neurotransmitters
1. Adrenaline - It is produced in high stress or exciting situations.
 2. Noradrenaline - It affects attention and responding actions in the brain.
3. Dopamine - It is associated with feelings of pleasure and satisfaction.
4. Serotonin - It is thought to be a contributor to feelings of well-being and
happiness. It regulates the sleep cycle with melatonin.
5. Gaba - It is the major inhibitory neurotransmitter of the brain, whose role is to
calm firing nerves in the CNS.
6. Acetylcholine - It is the principal neurotransmitter involved in thought, learning,
and memory.
7. Glutamate - It is the most common neurotransmitter in the brain and is involved
in cognitive functions.
8. Endorphins - It is a range of compounds released in the brain during exercise,
excitement, and produces a feeling of well-being or even euphoric feelings.

Psych 101 02-27-24

DNA
One of the most striking things about human beings is diversity, yet there is also a great
degree of similarity in some people than others.

Classification of Personality
- Openness to experience
- Conscientiousness
- Extraversion
- Agreeableness
- Neuroticism

Nature: Genetic Influences On Behavior

- Inheritance is also important to psychology because many aspects of behavior
are influenced by genes
- Humans do not inherit specific patterns of behavior. Inheritance seems to
influence broad dimensions of one’s behavior.

Genetic Studies of nonhuman animal behavior

- In a classic study by Patricia Ebert and Janet Hyde, they captured wild house
mice and began a program of selective breeding.
- In the first generation, females were tested for aggressiveness, divided into two
lines based on their aggressiveness and bred with randomly selected unrelated
males.
- When the most aggressive female house mice in each generation were selected
for breeding, each successive generation became increasingly aggressive. When
the least aggressive female house mice in each generation raised under the
same conditions were separately selected for breeding, each successive
generation became less aggressive.
● Gregor Mendel used selective breeding to study genetic influences on the
physical characteristics of pea plants

- In a study conducted by Dutch psychologists, they transplanted the embryos of

aggressive female mice into the womb of non aggressive females and vice versa
and allowed them to rear the “adopted” mice
- The results of the Dutch study were the same as in Ebert and Hyde’s study,
which provides strong evidence that genes influence aggression in female mice.

Genetic Study of Human Behavior

 - The two most common types of “natural experiments” involve the study of twins
and study of adopted children.

● Twin Studies
- Monozygotic (identical twins) came from a single fertilized egg until the growing
clusters of cells break apart into two separate clusters early in pregnancy.
- These twins are identical not only in appearance but also in genetic structure.
- Dizygotic (fraternal twins) are formed when the female produces two separate
eggs that are fertilized by two different sperm cells from the father.
- These Twins are not genetically identical and only share 50% of their genes on
average.
- Both twins grow up in essentially the same home environment.
- If a characteristic of behavior is influenced to some degree by heredity,
monozygotic twin pairs will be more similar than fraternal twins.`

● Studies on Adopted Children

- Studies of adopted children have revealed that certain characteristics (e.g. IQ
scores) of adopted children are similar to the characteristics of their biological
parents than to the characteristics of their adoptive parents.

Molecular Genetic Mechanisms of Inheritance

All cells of the body contain microscopic chromosomes.
- The outside of the DNA is made of alternating sugar (deoxyribose) and
phosphate groups.
- Chemical nucleotides are located on the twin rails of the double helix: adenine,
thymine, cytosine and guanine
- Human chromosomes are arranged in 23 pairs (46 chromosomes)

Genes with more than one version are called polymorphic genes.
- Polymorphic genes are created by separate mutations.
- Dominant genes produce a characteristic of an individual if the person has only
one copy of the information.
- Recessive genes produce a characteristic of an individual if the person has two
copies of the information.
Polygenic traits are traits controlled by large numbers of genes.
- Almost all the important behavioral traits such as intelligence traits and
personality traits are polygenic.

Genes and Behavior

1. Genes code for the synthesis of proteins in our cells
2. Those proteins that make up the structures and organs of the body influence
one’s behavior.
- When the cells that make up our neurons and endocrine glands differ in
their constituent proteins, those structures are often called differently.
3. Genes determine differences among people in the size and function, and
therefore, indirectly influence behavior and mental process
4. Genes influence the structure and function of endocrine glands.

Nurture: Environmental Influences

- Even though physical height is strongly influenced by heredity, the average
height in some countries has increased by more than 3 inches since WW2 owing
to the improvement in nutrition and medical care,

Physical Environment
 - This refers to both physical and psychological environments.
Social Environment
- Human beings are profoundly influenced by social environments which include
parents, siblings, friends, neighborhoods, culture and society in general.
● All our behaviors are learned through environments.
● The environment provides us with reinforcements and punishments.
Amartya Sen
- For us to achieve well-being, we must have capabilities. Those capabilities must
be provided for us and be safe-guarded to obtain the things that we put value on.
- Positive mental health is an effect if we are provided with those capabilities.

Interplay between Nature and Nurture

Psychological characteristics are influenced by both nature and nurture.

Gene-Environment Correlation
- The genes and environments that influence psychological characteristics often
are not independent of each other but are correlated.
- In passive gene-environment correlation, the genes and environments that
influence a person’s behavior and mental processes often become linked
passively. The person does not have to do anything to cause the genes and
environments to become correlated.
- In active gene-environment correlation, genes and environments can become
correlated through the actions of the individual.

Gene-Environment interactions
- It occurs when genes can influence how experiences operate and experiences
can influence how genes operate.
- Two people with different genes often respond differently to the same
environment.
- The same genes can have different effects on the psychological experiences in
two people who experience different environments.

Psychophysics
- It is the scientific inquiry of the quantitative relations between psychological
events and physical events.
- It studies the relationship between physical properties of stimuli and
psychological sensations they produce.

SENSATION —- PERCEPTION —- BEHAVIOR

Sensation
 - It is the stimulation of sensory receptors and the transmission of sensory
information to the central nervous system (the spinal cord or brain)
- Sensory receptors are cells found in the different sense organs, which receive
outside forms of energy and translate them into neural impulses that can be
transmitted to the brain for interpretation.
- A stimulus refers to any aspect of the world that influences our behavior or
conscious experience. The term stimulus comes from the action of stimulating
sensory receptor cells.
● Transduction - occurs when a sensory receptor converts a type of stimulus
energy (e.g., photon, sound wave) into an electrical impulse that can be
interpreted by the brain.

Perception
- Is an active process in which sensations are selected, organized, and interpreted
to form an inner representation of the world.
- The perception of the world of changing sights, sounds, and other sources of
sensory input depends largely on the different senses.
- The process of perception is almost always the same for all individuals. However,
some aspects of perception are unique to members of different cultures.

Important Psychophysical Concepts

1. Absolute threshold refers to the weakest level of a stimulus that is necessary to
produce a sensation.
● Absolute thresholds are not at all that absolute.
● Some people are more sensitive than others, even the same person might
have a slightly different response at different times.
○ Signal detection - To put it as simply as possible, in psychology,
signal detection theory relates to the idea that the intensity of the
stimuli and the psychological and physical state of the person
contribute to whether or not the person is able to detect the stimuli
○ Methods of limits - In this method, the stimuli start low enough to be
undetectable and gradually increase over time until they can be
detected. The method of descending limits reverses this process.
The stimuli start off perceptible, and gradually lessen until they
cannot be perceived any longer.
2. Subliminal stimulation is a kind of sensory stimulation that is below a person’s
absolute threshold for conscious perception.
● Johan Karremans and his colleagues (2006) repeatedly flashed “Lipton
Ice” for about 1/50th of a second on a computer screen that was viewed
by a group of participants.
● They flashed a message without a brand name to a control group.
● Afterward, thirsty participants in the first group showed a preference for
Lipton Ice.
3. Difference threshold refers to the minimum magnitude of two stimuli required to
distinguish their difference. It is also known as the noticeable difference.
● Weber's law states that the amount of change needed to be detected half
of the time is almost always in direct proportion to the intensity of the
original stimulus.
● Weber’s law states that what we sense is not always the same as the
energy that enters the sense organ. The same magnitude of physical
change in intensity can be obvious one time, yet go undetected under
different circumstances.
4. The signal detection theory states that the relationship between a physical
stimulus and a sensory response is not fully mechanical.
 ● It states that the relationship between a physical stimulus and a sensory
response involves the interaction of physical, biological, and psychological
factors.
● The factors that determine whether people will perceive sensory stimuli or
a difference between signals include the intensity of the signal, the degree
to which the signal can be distinguished from background noise, and the
sharpness of a person’s biological sensory system
5. Feature detectors are neurons in the sensory cortex that fire in response to
specific features of sensory information such as lines or edges of objects.
6. Sensory adaptation refers to the processes by which we become more sensitive
to stimuli of low magnitude and less sensitive to stimuli that remain the same
such as background noises out of the window.
● Sensitization is the process of becoming more sensitive to stimulation.
Desensitization is the process of becoming less sensitive to stimulation.

Vision
- Visible light is a part of the electromagnetic spectrum that stimulates the eye and
produces visual sensations.
- The wavelength of visible light determines its color or hue. The colors of the
spectrum can be remembered from longest to shortest by using the mnemonic
device ROYGBIV
- The amplitude of the visible light eave largely determines the brightness of the
visual sensation.l

The Eye
1. Light first passes through the transparent cornea, which covers the front of the
eye’s surface.
2. The amount of light that passes through the cornea is determined by the size of
the opening of the muscle called the iris, which is the colored portion of the eye.
- The size of the pupil in the iris adjusts automatically to the amount of light
present.
3. Once light passes through the iris, it encounters the lens. The lens adjusts or
accommodates to the image by changing its thickness.
4. The retina consists of cells. Layers of cells; rods, cones, bipolar cells, and
ganglion cells.

RODS
- These are photoreceptors that are sensitive only to the intensity of light.
- Rods allow us to see in black and white
- Are more sensitive to dim light
CONES
- These are photoreceptors that transmit sensations.
● Rods are responsible for vision at low light levels (scotopic vision). They do not
mediate color vision, and have a low spatial acuity. Cones are active at higher
light levels (photopic vision), are capable of color vision and are responsible for
high spatial acuity.

DARK ADAPTATION
- dark adaptation is defined as the slow recovery of the sensitivity of the visual
system after exposure to very bright light followed by a rapid (sudden) transition
to darkness, usually with a controlled pupil size

LIGHT ADAPTATION
 - Light adaptation is the process of adjusting to bright light after exposure to dim
light. This process often takes a minute or two to be completed.

PSYCH 101 | 03-07-24

Color Vision
- Color is an emotional and aesthetic part of our everyday lives
● The wavelength of light determines its color, or hue.
● The value of a color is its degree of brightness or darkness
● The saturation refers to how intense a color appears to us.
Psychologically, the colors on the green - blue part of the color wheel are considered to
be cool in temperature. Those colors in the yellow-orange-red area are considered to be
warm.
Theories of Color
1. The trichromatic theory of color states that the retina in the eye must have
different three types of photoreceptors or cones.
● Some cones must be sensitive to red light, some to green, some to blues.
● We see other colors when various color receptors are stimulated
simultaneously.
2. `The opponent-process theory suggests that the ability to perceive color is
controlled by three receptor complexes with opposing actions: red-green,
blue-yellow, and black-white complexes.
● The mind can only register the presence of one color at a time because
two colors opposite each other.
Visual Perception
● Is the process by which we organize or make sense of the sensory impressions
caused by the light that strikes our eyes.
● The principle of closure is the tendency to perceive a complete whole figure even
when there are gaps in the sensory input.
Perceptual Organization
LAWS
1. Figure-ground perception states that when we perceive a visual stimulus, part of
what we see is the center of our attention and the rest is the indistinct ground.
2. Proximity refers to the perception of nearness. It is the perceptual tendency to
group objects that are near one another.
3. Similarity refers to the perceptual tendency to group objects that are similar in
appearance.
4. Continuity refers to the tendency to perceive a series of points or lines as having
unity.
5. Closure refers to the tendency to perceive a broken figure as being complete or
whole.
Processing Information
1. Top-Down Processing refers to the perceptual process of using contextual
information or knowledge of a pattern in order to organize parts of the pattern.
2. Bottom-Up Processing refers to the perceptual process of organizing the parts of
a pattern to recognize, or form an image of the pattern they compose.
Perceptual Constancies
1. Size constancy refers to the tendency to perceive an object as being the same
size as its retinal image changes according to the distance of the object.
2. Color constancy refers to the tendency to perceive an object being the same in
color even when the lighting conditions are different.
3. Shape constancy refers to the tendency to perceive an object being the same
shape although the retinal image varies in shape as it rotates.

HEARING
 - Sound, or auditory stimulation, is the vibration of molecules in a medium such as
air or water.
- Pitch and loudness are two psychological dimensions of a sound
● The pitch of a sound is determined by its frequency expressed in hertz
(Hz).
● The loudness of a sound roughly corresponds to the height, or amplitude
of sound waves expressed in decibels(dB).

The Ear
1. The outer ear is shaped to funnel sound waves to the eardrum, a thin membrane
that vibrates in response to sound waves, and thereby transmits sound to the
middle ear.
2. The middle ear contains the eardrum and three small bones: hammer, anvil, and
stirrup. The middle ear functions as an amplifier, increasing the pressure of the
air entering the ear.
3. The stirrup is attached to another vibrating membrane called the oval window.
4. The oval window transmits vibrations into the inner ear, the bony tube called the
cochlea.
5. The cochlea contains two longitudinal membranes that divide into three fluid-filled
chambers.
● One of the three chambers is the basilar membrane.
● The organ of Corti is attached to the basilar membrane. Some 16,000
receptor cells (hair cells) are found in each ear.
● Hair cells “dance” in response to the vibrations of the basilar membrane.
● The movements of the hair cells general neural impulses, which are
transmitted to the brain via the auditory nerve.

SOUND LOCALIZATION
● A sound that is louder in the right ear is perceived as coming from the
right. A sound coming from the right also reaches the right ear first.
● A sound that is louder in the left ear is perceived as coming from the left. A
sound coming from the left also reaches the left ear first.
● It may not be easy to locate a sound coming from in front or behind you or
above.
PERCEPTION OF LOUDNESS AND PITCH
1. The place theory holds that the pitch of a sound is sensed according to the place
along the basilar membrane that vibrates in response to it.
● Receptors at different sites along the membrane fire in response to tones
of differing frequencies.
2. The frequency theory notes that for us to perceive lower pitches, we need to
match the frequency of the sound waves with our neural impulses.
CHEMICAL SENSES: SMELL AND TASTE
● In smell and taste, we sample molecules of substances.
SMELL
● Smell has an important role in human behavior because it contributes to
the flavor of foods.
● The sense of smell detects odors, which trigger the firing of receptor
neurons in the olfactory membrane high in each nostril.
● The receptor neurons transmit information about odors to the brain via the
olfactory nerve.
CHEMICAL SENSES: SMELL AND TASTE
● In smell and taste, we sample molecules of substances.
GUSTATION
 ● Taste is sensed through taste cells, which are receptor neurons located on
taste buds.
● Taste buds are mostly located near the edges and back of your tongue.
Some are found in the roof, sides, and back of the mouth, and in the
throat.
● There are five primary taste qualities: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami.
FLAVOR
● The flavor of a food is more complex than taste alone.
● It depends on odor, texture, temperature, and taste.
● Apples and onions are similar in taste, but their flavors differ greatly.
THE SKIN SENSES
1. Touch and pressure
● Sensory receptors embedded in the skin fore when the surface of the skin
is touched.
● Active touching receives information concerning pressure, temperature,
texture, and feedback from the muscles involved in movements of our
hands.
● Different parts of the body are more sensitive to touch and pressure than
others.
2. Temperature
● The receptors for temperature are neurons located just beneath the skin.
● When skin temperature increases, the receptors for warmth fire. When
skin temperature decreases, the cold receptors fire.
● Sensations of temperature are relative.
● When we are at normal body temperature, we might perceive another
person’s skin as warm. When we are feverish, the other person’s skin
might seem cool.
3. Pain
● Pain results when neurons called nociceptors in the skin are stimulated.
● Evolutionary psychologists would point out that pain is adaptive. However,
chronic pain saps our vitality and interferes with the pleasures of everyday
life.
● We can sense pain throughout most of the body, but pain is usually
sharpest where nerve endings are densely packed. Pain can also be felt
deep within the body.
● Pain originates at the point of contact, but it reverberates throughout the
nervous system.
● The pain message to the brain is facilitated by the release of chemicals
such as prostaglandins, bradykinin, and P (stands for pain).
● Prostaglandins facilitate transmission of the pain message to the brain and
heighten circulation to the injured area. The pain message is relayed from
the spinal cord to the thalamus and then projected to the cerebral cortex,
making us aware of the location and intensity of the damage.
● The gate theory of pain argues that the nervous system can process only
a limited amount of stimulation at a time.
● For example, when you rub your knee after banging it, rubbing transmits
sensations to the brain that “compete” for the attention of neurons.
● Many nerves are prevented from transmitting pain messages to the brain.
It is like shutting down a “gate” in the spinal cord.
○ Phantom limb pain - is the perception of pain or discomfort in a limb
that is no longer there. PLP most commonly presents as a sequel
of amputation. The underlying pathophysiology remains poorly
understood.
4. Kinesthesis
 ● It is the sense that informs you about the position and motion of the parts
of the body.
● Sensory information is fed back to the brain from sensory organs in the
joints, tendons, and muscles.
5. Vestibular Sense
● It provides the brain with information as to whether or not you are
physically upright.
● Sensory organs located in the semicircular canals and elsewhere in the
ears monitor your body’s motion and position in relation to gravity.

EXTRASENSORY PERCEPTION (ESP)

● ESP is the perception of objects or events through means other than the
recognized sensory organs.
● It is also known as parapsychological or psi phenomena.
1. Precognition is the ability to perceive future events in advance.
2. Psychokinesis is the process of mentally manipulating or moving objects.
3. Telepathy is the direct transmission of thoughts or ideas from one person to
another.
4. Clairvoyance is the perception of objects that do not stimulate the known sensory
organs, like seeing what card will be dealt next.
REASONS ON THE SKEPTICISM TO ESP
1. The file-drawer problem states that we tend to forget extrasensory perceptions
(like psychic predictions) when they fail to come true.
2. ESP researchers are less likely to report research results that show failure.
3. People who appear to have demonstrated ESP with one researcher have failed
to do so with another researcher or have refused to participate in other studies.
4. Not one person has emerged who can reliably show ESP from one occasion to
another and from one researcher to another.
● Self-Fulfilling Prophecy - is an expectation or belief that can influence your
behaviors, thus causing the belief to come true. The idea behind a
self-fulfilling prophecy, also known as the Pygmalion effect, is that your
belief about what will happen drives the actions that make that outcome
ultimately come to
● Confirmation bias - is a psychological term for the human tendency to only
seek out information that supports one position or idea. This causes you to
have a bias towards your original position because if you only seek out
information that supports one idea, you will only find information that
supports that idea.
HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS OF THE STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS
1. conscious experience was studied early on through a process of introspection
2. As behaviorism and its focus on observable phenomena took hold less emphasis
was placed on the study of consciousness
3. Focus on consciousness re-emerged as a function of the “cognitive revolution”
● As mentioned previously, consciousness is one such case; its subjective nature
makes it inaccessible to direct measurement and hence we have only indicators
to rely on. This then gives rise to the general problem of validity.

CONSCIOUSNESS
- It is the state of awareness of both internal and external stimuli
- It refers to the subjective awareness of one’s own sensations, and other mental
events.
ATTENTION
 - The process of selectively responding to some things in the environment, to the
exclusion of others.
- In a classic study, participants focusing the attention on players passing a
basketball did not notice a gorilla suit walking across the court, pounding on its
chest.
- Attention influences our conscious experience.
DIVIDED CONSCIOUSNESS
- It refers to the splitting off of two conscious activities that occur simultaneously
- Individuals are better at handling multiple tasks especially when they are
automatic.
- There are limitations to one’s attention and performance may suffer when we
multitask.
LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
1. Wakefulness is a state of consciousness characterized by high levels of
awareness, behavior, and thought.
2. Sleep is a state of consciousness characterized by lower levels of physical
activity and sensory awareness.
3. A preconscious state refers to a state when mental events lie outside of current
conscious awareness but can be brought into consciousness voluntarily
4. A nonconscious state refers to a state when mental processing occurs outside
conscious awareness.
5. An unconscious state is the lack of awareness. Freyd believed that the
unconscious serves as a repository for primitive urges via repression or
suppression.
● According to Freud, repression is an entirely subconscious process. A person
represses their emotions without thinking about it or realizing they are doing it.
Suppression, by contrast, is a conscious process. A person is aware that they
are avoiding and ignoring their emotions.
SLEEP
- The sleep-wake cycle is an example of a circadian rhythm that requires 24 hours
to complete a full cycle.
- The suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the hypothalamus controls circadian
rhythms through using cues such as levels of light.
- There are 5 stages of sleep, stages 1,2,3 and 4 are the non-REM sleep then the
last stage is the REM sleep. Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is the stage of
sleep where most dreams happen. Its name comes from how your eyes move
behind your eyelids while you're dreaming. During REM sleep, your brain activity
looks very similar to brain activity while you're awake. REM sleep makes up
about 25% of your total time asleep.
HYPNAGOGIC STATE
- In this state, we begin to lose voluntary control over our body movements; our
sensitivity to outside stimuli diminishes; and our thoughts become more fanciful
and less bound by reality.
- It is when we experience brief but vivid dream-like images
- It is a highly relaxed, enjoyable state. However, we suddenly feel as if we are
falling, and our bodies experience a sudden jerk called myoclonia.
STAGE 1: LIGHT SLEEP
- It is the transitional phase between sleep and wakefulness.
STAGE 2: SLEEP SPINDLES AND K-COMPLEXES
 - It involved deeper relaxation and continued theta wave activity.
- Sleep spindles and K-complexes are characteristic wave patterns that appear
during this stage of sleep.
- Sleep spindles are brief bursts of brain activity that have a frequency of 12-15
cycles per second.
- They suppress outside stimuli to prevent distraction.
STAGE 3: BEGINNING OF DELTA WAVES
STAGE 4: DEEPEST STAGE OF SLEEP
- It is the deepest stage of sleep with continued delta wave activity.
RAPID EYE MOVEMENT SLEEP: PARADOXICAL SLEEP
- After perhaps an hour of deep stage 4 sleep, we begin a relatively rapid journey
back upward through the stages until we reach the REM stage.
- During REM sleep, we produce relatively rapid, low-amplitude brain waves that
resemble those of light stage 1 sleep.
- It is when dreams commonly occur.
● Sleep tends to become lighter as the night wears on; periods of REM sleep
lengthens, and we may now enter the deepest stages of sleep.
● Towards the end of our sleep, REM sleep may last about half an hour.
FUNCTIONS OF SLEEP
1. Sleep is an adaptive behavior. This argument suggests that we may have
evolved to sleep through the night as periods of inactivity would have protected
us from danger.
2. Sleep is a form of energy conservation. This theory states that sleep allows for
reduced energetic demands, which would surely be helpful in the environment in
which resources are limited.
3. Sleep is a restorative process. Sleep allows us to restore/repair the
consequences of the activity associated with wakefulness.
4. Sleep is associated with changes in brain structure and brain organization. This
could involve the development of the brains of infants and young children and
processes of learning and memory in adults.

SLEEP PHENOMENA
Night Terrors
- Usually occurs during the first half of the night. (NREM SLEEP)
- Person us not fully awake after the episode
- Person cannot be consoled
- Person will not remember the episode in the morning
- Presence of vocalizations, movements, and autonomic arousal during the
episode.

Nightmares
- Occurs during the second half of the night (REM sleep)
- Person is fully awake after the episode
- person can be calmed
- person can recall and remember that the episode in the morning
- Person is unresponsive during the nightmare itself.

Sleep Walking
 - Occurs primarily during the deepest parts of non-REM sleep. Sleepwalkers get
up and carry-on complicated activities even though they are sound asleep.

Sleep Talking
- is a common phenomenon that can occur at any time of the night.

SLEEP DISORDERS
1. Insomnia refers to a variety of difficulties in which individuals experience less
sleep than they wish.
● Sleep-onset insomnia: This means you have trouble getting to sleep.
Sleep-maintenance insomnia: This happens when you have trouble staying
asleep through the night or wake up too early. Mixed insomnia: With this type of
insomnia, you have trouble both falling asleep and staying asleep through the
night.
2. Narcolepsy is a rare sleep disorder that includes unexpectedly falling into a deep
slumber in the middle of work or even during conversations with others.
3. Sleep apnea is the sudden, temporary interruption of breathing during sleep.

DREAMS
- Most of the conscious experience of dreams is visual in nature.
- Only about ¼ of dream images include auditory sensations.
- When people are asked about the emotional content of their dreams as soon as
they spontaneously wake up they say that about 60% of their emotional dreams
container negative emotions
- There are also individuals who report positive dreams.
- About ¾ of our dreams contain at least one bizarre and unrealistic element,
mixed into an otherwise realistic dream
MEDITATION
● It includes several methods of focusing concentration away from thoughts and
feelings and generating a sense of relaxation.
● It involves assuming a relaxed sitting or lying position and breathing deeply,
slowly, and rhythmically.
● Attention is directed only at breathing movements of the diaphragm, and all
other thoughts and feelings are gently blocked from consciousness
● Meditation can be highly therapeutic because it might reduce stress.
● Contrary to contemporary scientific principles of psychotherapy, in many types
of meditation principles of detachment from others are valued.
● Once mastered, meditation can produce a desirable altered state of
consciousness – the so-called transcendental state.

MINDFULNESS
● Mindfulness is the state of focusing one’s conscious awareness completely on
what is going on at the present.
● A person is taught to acknowledge that thoughts are constantly entering one’s
consciousness, but one must calmly leave these thoughts and return one’s
complete awareness to the present moment.

TRANCE
 ● It is a sleeplike state marked by reduced sensitivity to stimuli and a loss or
alteration of knowledge and automatic motor activity.
● Trances are often induced by external sources, such as music, singing, and
direct suggestion of others.
● Two kinds of trance include a visionary trance and possession trance.

HYPNOSIS
● Hypnosis is a condition of focused attention and increased suggestibility that
occurs in a trance-like context but with a special hypnotist-subject relationship.

CHARACTERISTICS OF A HYPNOTIC STATE

1. Relaxation
2. Hypnotic hallucinations
3. Hypnotic analgesia
4. Hypnotic age regression
5. Hypnotic control

DEPERSONALIZATION
● It refers to the perceptual experience of one’s body becoming distorted or unreal
in some way, or the sense of strange distortions in one’s surroundings.
● Depersonalization experiences sometimes include the illusion that the mind has
left the body and traveled about in a so-called out-of-body experience, or astral
projection.

DRUGS AND ALTERED CONSCIOUSNESS

● Psychotropic drugs are a class of drugs that alter conscious experience.
● These drugs influence specific neurotransmitters in the brain or alter the action
of neurons in other ways.
● The range of effects of psychotropic drugs is enormous, from mild relaxation to
vivid hallucinations.

MAJOR CATEGORIES OF PSYCHOTROPIC DRUGS

1. Depressants reduce the activity of excitatory centers of the CNS, leading to a
sense of relaxation.
2. Stimulants increase the activity of the motivational centers and decrease action
in inhibitory centers of the CNS, providing a sense of energy and well-being.
3. Hallucinogens produce dreamlike changes in perception.
4. Inhalants are common, often readily available chemicals that are put to
dangerous use when inhaled to produce feelings of intoxication.
DRUG DEPENDENCE
● Many people who use psychotropic drugs find that they come to crave them
intensely and suffer intense withdrawal symptoms when they do not take the
drug.
REASONS FOR DRUG DEPENDENCE
1. Sensitization of pleasure and reward systems in the brain.
2. Reduction of negative feelings
3. Classical conditioning
Explaining Classical Conditioning
POST CONDITION PHENOMENA
Systematic Desensitization
- is a behavioral fear-reduction technique in which a hierarchy of fear-evoking
stimuli is presented while the person remains relaxed.
OPERANT CONDITIONING
- In operant conditioning, organisms learn to do things- or not to do things -
because of the consequences of their behavior
EDWARD L. THORNDIKE AND THE LAW OF EFFECT
- He placed cats inside a puzzle box to train them to pull a dangling string. He
explained the cat’s learning to pull the string in terms of his law of effect.
- A response would be “stamped in” in particular by a reward.
- A response would be “stamped out” in a particular situation by a punishment.
B.F. SKINNER AND OPERANT CONDITIONING
- Skinner taught pigeons and other animals to engage in operant conditioning -
behavior that operates on, or manipulates the environment.
- In operant conditioning, voluntary responses are acquired or conditioned.
- Operant conditioning is defined as a simple form of learning in which an
organism learns to engage in certain behavior because of the effects of that
behavior.
- Individuals learn to engage in operant behaviors that result in presumably
desirable outcomes.
● To study operant behavior, Skinner devised an animal cage (operant chamber)
that has been dubbed as the Skinner box.
● The food-deprived rat is placed in the box and with a lever at one end.
● At first, it sniffed its way around the cage and engaged in random behavior. The
rat’s first pressing of the lever was accidental
● Because of this action, a food pellet dropped into the cage.
● The arrival of the food pellet increased the probability that the rat would press
the lever again.
In operant conditioning, it matters little why or how the first correct response was
made.
- The animal can happen on it by chance or be physically guided to make the
response.
- People can be verbally guided into desired responses when they are learning
tasks. But they need to be informed when they have made the correct response.
Often, knowledge of the results is all the reinforcement people need to learn new
skills.
What kinds of consequences do organisms need to engage in operant behavior?
1. Reinforcement - is a process by which a stimulus increases the probability that a
preceding behavior will be repeated.
2. Punishment - is the process by which a stimulus decreases the probability that a
preceding behavior will be repeated.
DANGERS OF PUNISHMENT
● The use of punishment is often reinforcing to the punisher.
● Punishment often has a generalized inhibiting effect on the individual
● We commonly react to physical punishment by learning to dislike the person
who inflicts the pain, and sometimes by reacting aggressively toward that
person.
 ● What we think is punishment is not always effective in punishing the behavior
because of the criticism trap.
● Even when punishment is effective in suppressing an inappropriate behavior, it
does not teach the individual how to act more appropriately.
OTHER TYPES OF REINFORCERS
1. Immediate reinforcer - it includes reinforcers that come immediately after the
operant behavior.
2. Primary reinforcer - it includes unlearned reinforcers whose effectiveness is
based on the biological makeup of the organism and not on learning.
3. Secondary Reinforcer
SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT
1. Continuous Reinforcement- is a schedule of reinforcement in which every
correct response is reinforced.
2. Partial reinforcement - is a schedule of reinforcement in which the response is
reinforced some, but not all, of the time.
3. Fixed Ratio Schedule - It is a schedule by which reinforcement i given only after
a specific or fixed number of responses are made
4. Variable Ratio Schedule - It is a schedule by which reinforcement occurs after a
varying number of responses rather than a fixed number of responses.

DISCRIMINATIVE STIMULI
- It is any stimulus that indicates whether behavior will be reinforced.
- Behaviors that are not reinforced tend to be extinguished
CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
- It is based on involuntary, natural, and innate behavior.
- Behavior is originally elicited by the unconditioned stimulus and, later on, the
conditioned stimulus.
OPERANT CONDITIONING
- The organism voluntarily operates on its environment to produce a desirable
result.
- After behavior occurs, the likelihood of the behavior occurring again is increased
or decreased depending on consequences.

In behaviorist perspective,
STIMULUS — MENTAL REPRESENTATION — RESPONSE/BEHAVIOR

COGNITIVE FACTORS IN LEARNING

1. Latent learning is a kind of learning that is hidden or concealed. E.C. Tolman
showed that rats also learn about their environment without reinforcement.
Tolman trained some rats to run through mazes for standard food goals. Other
rats were allowed to explore the same mazes for several days without food goals
or other rewards. After the unrewarded rats had been allowed to explore the
mazes for 10 days, food rewards were placed in a box at the far end of the
maze. The previously unrewarded rats reached the food box as quickly as the
rewarded rats after only one or two trials.
2. Observational Learning is the acquisition of knowledge and skills through
observation of others (who are called models) rather than by means of direct
experience. When an individual sees modeled behavior being reinforced, he/she
is said to be vicariously reinforced.
 - conformity is the process of altering your behavior to comply with other’s
behavior.
- Informational social influence - you seek information from the behavior of others
because the situation is ambiguous and you desire accuracy.
- Normative Social Influence - you let the norms guide your behavior

COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky Experiment

Imagine that the United States is preparing for the outbreak of a rare disease, which is
expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been
proposed. Assume the exact scientific estimates of the consequences of the programs
are as follows:
● If Program A is adopted, 200 people will be saved.
● If Program B is adopted, there is a 1/3 probability that 600 people will be saved
and a 2/3 probability that no people will be saved.
Which of the two programs would you favor?
What decision did the physicians make?

Imagine that the United States is preparing for the outbreak of a rare disease, which is
expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been
proposed. Assume the exact scientific estimates of the consequences of the programs
are as follows:
● If Program A is adopted, 400 people will die.
● If Program B is adopted, there is a 1/3 probability that nobody will die and a 2/3
probability that 600 people will die.
What decision did the physicians make?
- They chose the Program B

COGNITIONS
● Cognition refers to all intellectual processes through which we obtain
information from the world, change it to meet our needs, store it for later use,
and use it to solve problems.
● Cognition can be defined as the intellectual processes through which
information is obtained, transformed, retrieved, and used.
3 Aspects of Cognitions
1. Cognition processes information
2. Cognition is active. The information that the world gives individuals is actively
changed, kept, and used in the process of cognition. In cognition, information is:
a. Obtained through the senses
b. transformed through the interpretive processes of perception and thinking
c. stored and retrieved information
d. may isa paaq

Concepts
● Concepts are general categories of things, events, and qualities that are linked
by a common feature or features, in spite of their differences.
● Productive thinking would be possible because of concepts.
 ● Concepts allow individuals to process information in more general, efficient
ways.
Simple Concepts
- are based on a single common feature.
Complex Concepts
- are based on more than one feature.
- Conjunctive concepts are defined by the simultaneous presence of two or more
common characteristics.
- Disjunctive concepts are defined by the presence of one common characteristic
of another one, or both.
Natural Concepts
- Eleanor Rosch (1973) suggests that, by virtue of being born human beings, we
are biologically prepared to learn some concepts more easily than others.
- According to Rosch, natural concepts have two primary characteristics:
1. basic
2. prototypical

BASIC UNITS OF THINKING

Primary Characteristics of Natural Concepts
1. Natural concepts are basic.
● A basic concept is one that has a medium degree of inclusiveness.
Inclusiveness simply refers to the number of members included in a concept.
● Basic concepts are more natural and, hence, easier to learn and to use.

Superordinate concepts are very inclusive.

Basic concepts are of a medium degree of inclusiveness.
Subordinate concepts are the least inclusive level of concepts.

Why are basic concepts easier to learn?

- Basic concepts share many attributes.
- Members of basic concepts share similar shapes.
- Members of basic concepts often share motor movements.
- Basic concepts are easily named.

2. Natural concepts are good prototypes.

- A prototype is a concept of a category of objects or events that serves as a
good example of the category.

PROBLEM-SOLVING: PROCESS OF THINKING

Problem-Solving
● It can be defined as the cognitive process through which information is used to
reach a goal that is blocked by some kind of obstacle.
● There are steps in the cognitive operations involved in problem-solving that
apparently must be performed in sequence:
1. Formulate the problem to decide what kind of problem to face.
2. Evaluate the elements of the problem to decide what information and tools to
work with.
3. Generate a list of solutions and evaluate them.
Formulating the Problem
- To solve a problem, one must know what the problem is.
- Michael Posner (1973) pointed out that the key to effective problem solving is
the initial formulation of the problem.

PROBLEM-SOLVING: PROCESS OF THINKING

Understanding and Organizing the Elements of the Problem
● After formulating the problem, one must make an inventory of the elements of
the problem - the information and other resources available.
● Effective problem solving requires flexible interpretation of the meaning and
utility of elements.
● The limitations most individuals experience in evaluating elements of problems
is that they get stuck in “mental sets”
● A mental set refers to a habitual way of approaching or perceiving a problem.

Einstellung Effect: occurs when our existing knowledge or habitual ways of thinking
influence our problem-solving approach.

Functional fixedness is the tendency to think of an object only in terms of its typical
use.

Generating and Evaluating Alternative Solutions

● It involves generating a list of possible solutions, evaluating each one by
attempting to foresee what effects or consequences it would produce, choosing
the best solution, and then developing effective ways of implementing it.

TWO GENERAL TYPES OF COGNITIVE STRATEGIES TO SOLVE PROBLEMS

- Algorithms are systematic cognitive strategies that (if followed) virtually
guarantee a correct solution.
- Heuristic reasoning is based on strategies that increase the probability of finding
a correct solution but do not guarantee it.

● Cognitive theorists believe that we use heuristic shortcuts in our reasoning

because our capacity to keep information in working memory and process it
logically is limited.

EXAMPLES OF HEURISTICS
- Representativeness heuristic involves judging the likelihood of events in terms of
how well they seem to represent or match certain prototypes.
- Availability heuristic involves judging the likelihood of events based. on their
availability in memory.
● Barnum Effect - the tendency to accept certain information as true, such as
character assessments or horoscopes, even when the information is so vague
as to be worthless.

Generating and Evaluating Alternative Solutions

 ● Cognitive theorists believe that we use heuristic shortcuts in our reasoning
because our capacity to keep information in working memory and process it
logically is limited.

EXAMPLES OF HEURISTICS
- Representativeness heuristic involves judging the likelihood of events in terms of
how well they seem to represent or match certain prototypes.
- Availability heuristic involves judging the likelihood of events based. on their
availability in memory.

● Creativity is the ability to produce "products" that are both novel and valued by
others.
● Guilford's (1950, 1961) concepts of convergent and divergent thinking provide
an excellent framework for understanding creativity.
● Convergent thinking is logical, factual, conventional, and focused on a problem
until a solution is found.
● Divergent thinking is loosely organized, only partially directed, and
unconventional.

● An individual's creativity might also be a result of intelligence.

● Most of the individuals that we think of as being highly creative are also highly
intelligent (Kuncel, Hezlett, & Ones, 2004).
● However, most researchers in the area of creativity believe that creative thinking
is to some extent separate from general intelligence
● In her classic studies of creativity, Anne Roe (1946, 1953) found that a group of
creative scientists and artists shared only one common characteristic —the
willingness to work very hard.

CREATIVE PROBLEM-SOLVING
Wallas (1926) suggested that creative problem solving typically proceeds in four steps.
● Preparation - It includes initial attempts to formulate the problem, recall relevant
facts, and think about possible solutions.
● Incubation - It is a period of rest.
● Illumination - It refers to a sudden insight pertaining to the solution.
● Verification - It involves the necessary but sometimes anticlimactic step of
testing the solution.

TWO TYPES OF THINKING

1. System 1 - It is also known as automatic thinking. It is an unconscious,
unintentional, involuntary, and effortless way of thinking. People use schemas
for automatic thinking.
2. System 2 - It is also known as controlled thinking. It is a conscious, intentional,
voluntary, and effort, way of thinking. An example of controlled thinking is
counterfactual reasoning (ic, mentally undoing the past).

SYSTEM 1 THINKING: USE OF SCHEMAS

● Schemas are mental structures that people use to organize their knowledge
about the world.
 ● They help organize what individuals know and how they interpret new
situations.
● They allow for top-down processing to happen.

Which schemas do individuals use in automatic thinking?

● Individuals use accessible schemas. Accessibility refers to the extent to which
schemas and concepts are at the forefront of people's minds and then likely to
be used when making judgements about the world.
● Schemas can become accessible for two reasons: past experiences and recent
goals.
● Individuals use primed thoughts and ideas. Priming refers to the process by
which recent experiences increase the accessibility of schema, trait, or concept.

SYSTEM 1 THINKING EXAMPLES

1. Pygmalion effect (self-fulfilling prophecy)
2. Automatic Goal Pursuit
3. Automatic Thinking and metaphors about the body and the mind.

05-21-24
- Stress is an inevitable part of human life.
- A certain level or amount of stress is healthy because it energizes and
challenges us to grow.

Beng Arnetz of Harvard University studied a large sample of Swedish women using
their employment profile and white blood cells.
- Women who had lost their jobs and been unemployed for many months, their
white blood cells are less reactive to viruses.
● Stress is intricately linked to one’s health, given this, humans must learn how to
cope.

STRESS
- is any physiological or psychological response or reaction to an event that
strains or exceeds an individual’s ability to cope (Lazarus, 1999; Ellis and Boyce)
- Cortisol is the stress hormone.

CAUSES OF STRESS
1. Life Events
2. Frustrations
3. Conflict
- Approach-Approach Conflict
- Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict
- Approach-Avoidance Conflict
- Multiple-Approach Avoidance Conflict
4. Pressure occurs when there are threats of negative events OR when there are
excessive or stressful demands placed on a person doing activity.
5. Environmental conditions include any aspect of the environment in which the
person lives.

HANS SELYE’s GENERAL ADAPTATION SYNDROME

 1. Alarm Reaction Stage
- This is the process by which the body mobilizes its resources to handle stress.
- This include two phases: Shock and Countershock Phase
- During the alarm reaction phase, the rapid mobilization of resources leaves the
individual less resistant to the stress than originally.
2. Resistance Stage
- It is marked with a full mobilization of the body’s resources and the heightening
of resistance to stress.
- Resistance is costly in terms of resources.
3. Exhaustion Stage
- It is the stage by which the individual’s resources may become exhausted, and
resistance to stress is lowered.

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Factors that Influence our reactions to stress
1. Prior experience with Stress
2. Predictability and Control
3. Social Support
4. Personality
- Type A personality is characterized by the following traits: (a) highly competitive,
hard-driving, and ambitious, (b) works hurriedly, always rushing, has a sense of
time urgency, and often does two things at once, (c) workaholic and takes little
off for relaxation or vacation, (d) speaks loudly or explosively, (e) perfectionist
and demanding, (f) hostile, aggressive, and frequently angry with others.

COPING MECHANISMS
- Coping refers to the use of cognitive and behavioral strategies to manage the
demands of a situation when this is appraised as taxing or exceeding one’s
resources or reduce the negative emotions and conflicts caused by stress
● Effective coping strategies include: (a) removal or reduction of the stressor, (b)
cognitive coping, and (c) stress reaction management.
● Ineffective coping strategies include: (a) withdrawal, (b) aggression, and (c)
self-medication.

PERSONALITY
- It refers to the totality of all the ways of acting, thinking, and feeling that are
typical for that person and make each person different from other individuals.
- TOTALITY, TYPICAL, DIFFERENT
- Gordon Allport defines personality as a “dynamic organization, within the
individual, of psychophysical systems that create the person’s characteristic
patterns of behavior, thoughts, and feelings.

TRAIT THEORY: DESCRIBING THE CONSISTENCIES OF PERSONALITY

- Humans are so fond of describing people in such terms that, in fact, there are
more than 17,000 words for them in the English language.
- In psychological terms, these words are referred to as traits.
- Traits are defined as relatively enduring patterns of behavior.
- There are five broad traits that provide a complete description of an individual’s
personality.