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Jean Giebenhain and Stan O'Dell (1984) tested a parent-training manual for reducing children's fear of the dark in six children.
The parent-training manual combined child control of a bedside lamp's rheostat, nightly relaxation practice, positive self-statements, nightly record keeping and feedback, rewards for progress, and gradual phasing out of rewards after the agreed illumination goal was reached.
Within 2 weeks, all six children slept through the night with their lights at or below the goal level and reported no fear on a fear thermometer.
Further detail
The children's rheostat settings ranged from 1 for total darkness to 11 for maximum brightness, and the goal was to dim the light by one-half number each night.
Follow-ups at 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year found that the children were doing as well as or better than at the end of training.
Control the light, relax, use brave self-statements, track progress, reward it, then fade rewards.
Vocal behavior is behavior that can be heard and recorded.
Psychologists infer internal feelings, attitudes, thoughts, and other mental processes from behavior through which those events manifest themselves.
Mind is hidden; behavior can be observed and recorded.
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Further detail
Scientific theories are judged as more or less useful for summarizing observations and predicting outcomes, rather than simply as right or wrong.
As new data are obtained, scientific theories may be modified or replaced by theories that summarize and predict better.
Psychological measurement can use counts of behaviors or the time taken to make a response, although some psychological phenomena are difficult to measure directly with physical scales.
New data can modify or replace theories that summarize and predict less well.
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📌 Psychology is distinguished from other behavioral sciences partly by its exclusive interest in behavior, its focus on individuals, and the wide range of behaviors it covers.
Further detail
Fields that also study behavior include:
Anthropology compares behavior across cultures, sociology studies behavior in groups, and economics studies behavior involved in exchanging goods and services.
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Further detail
The experimenter manipulates the independent variable; behavior is measured as the dependent variable.
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📌 A control-group design compares an experimental group exposed to the independent variable with a control group that is not exposed to it.
📌 In a before-and-after, or within-subjects, design, subjects serve as their own controls by comparing behavior after an independent variable is introduced with their baseline behavior.
Further detail
In a feedback experiment, blindfolded participants tried to draw lines matching a wooden block, and the experimental group was told when a line was within 1.25 inches of the block's length.
Researchers can match experimental and control subjects on relevant factors and then assign them randomly to the groups when matching every possible factor is impractical.
The A-B-A design is suitable when the independent variable does not produce a long-lasting effect.
A-B-A moves from baseline, to intervention, and back to baseline.
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Applying psychological knowledge to practical problems is an art or skill acquired through study, practice, and special experience.
Clinical psychologists do not have medical training and cannot prescribe drugs to treat behavior disorders, while psychiatrists receive medical training and can prescribe medical treatment.
Further detail
When a medical disorder may be present, a patient should be examined by a psychiatrist or another physician, and in most states only a psychiatrist can commit a patient to a hospital for care and treatment.
Clinical psychologists are more likely than psychiatrists to conduct systematic research on diagnosing, treating, and preventing behavior disorders, use research-based psychotherapy, and rely on standardized tests in diagnosis.
Psychoanalysts may be psychiatrists, clinical psychologists with psychoanalytic training, or people outside both professions; psychoanalysts without M.D. degrees are called lay analysts.
Counseling psychologists generally work with milder emotional and personal problems, specific career or education choices, and sometimes family problems; they may use psychotherapy and tests of aptitudes, interests, and personality.
School psychologists diagnose learning difficulties using tests and consultations with students and parents, then suggest corrective actions such as remedial reading classes.
Educational psychologists generally address broader, less immediate issues than school psychologists and apply knowledge of learning and motivation to improve school curricula.
Experimental psychologists conduct basic research on processes such as learning, memory, thinking, sensation and perception, motivation, and emotion.
Clinical psychologists and psychiatrists both provide psychotherapy, but only psychiatrists have medical training.
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Psychologists work in varied roles, including psychotherapy, behavioral and drug research, education, sensory research, school consultation, hospital administration, court testimony, pediatric pain support, biofeedback, and business consulting.
Psychology’s major subfields include:
📌 A clinical psychologist normally holds a Ph.D., M.A., or Psy.D., whereas a psychiatrist holds an M.D. and has attended medical school.
Further detail
The number of psychologists in the United States is approaching 100,000, and somewhat more than a third are clinical psychologists.
Clinical psychologists with a Ph.D. or Psy.D. complete four or five years of postgraduate work in a psychology department, while those with an M.A. complete about two years and usually work under a Ph.D. psychologist’s supervision.
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For a thorough clinical assessment, a psychologist gathers a detailed personal history through interviews, may obtain a social-background assessment from a trained social worker, administers appropriate tests, and uses the gathered information to diagnose and treat the problem.
Clinical observation is often scientifically limited because it is subjective, casual, uncontrolled, and imprecise, making causal factors difficult to identify even within one case.
Further detail
Clinical assessment may use:
Clinical observation combines features of clinical observation, experiment, and systematic observation while the clinician works with individual cases.
Sigmund Freud inferred from observing patients that dreams often reflect strong unconscious desires.
The scientific value of clinical observation lies chiefly in suggesting ideas for more rigorous investigation through experiments and systematic observation.
History and interviews → tests → diagnosis and remedy
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📌 A correlation between two events does not establish that one caused the other, because other factors or combinations of factors may explain the relationship.
Replicating an experiment means repeating it, and repeated results under the same conditions support confidence in its accuracy and acceptance as scientific evidence.
The experimental method may be unusable when it would endanger participants, may produce conclusions limited to artificial situations, and may alter the behavior it measures.
Further detail
Systematic observation can describe behavior and differences through questionnaires, surveys, interviews, and observations of naturally occurring behavior.
In observations of college students in Montana, Ontario, El Salvador, and Costa Rica, type I book carrying involved wrapping the forearm around the book with its short edge against the body, while type II involved carrying it at the side with its long edge approximately horizontal and grasping it from above or supporting it underneath.
Approximately 90 to 95 percent of the observed females used type I book carrying, while about the same percentage of males used type II.
Evidence for a factor as a cause is strengthened when behavior occurs with the factor but not without it, and when larger amounts of the factor correspond to larger behavioral changes.
In almost all right-handed people, damage to an area of the left cerebral hemisphere impairs speech; this impairment does not occur after damage to other areas, and its degree relates to the amount of damage to that area.
In an experiment after 24 hours without sleep, participants’ increased motivation to perform well could overshadow fatigue and make their performance appear improved.
Observation finds relationships; manipulation in experiments tests causal effects
William James’s 1890 textbook, The Principles of Psychology, represented the emerging view of psychology as a separate field concerned with the mind.
Early psychologists including James and Wundt studied mind through experiments on attention, imagery, memory, thinking, emotion, and relations between physical events and mental experience.
Structuralists associated with Wilhelm Wundt and established in the United States by Edward B. Titchener used trained introspection, asking participants to describe experience as objectively as possible in response to stimuli.
Gestalt psychology was founded in Germany around 1912 by Max Wertheimer and his colleagues Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Köhler.
Functionalists including John Dewey, James R. Angell, and Harvey Carr studied how learning, memory, problem solving, and motivation help people and animals adapt.
Behaviorism emphasized: conditioned responses as building blocks of behavior, learned rather than innate behavior, animal behavior as informative about human behavior
Psychoanalysis was founded in Vienna by psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, whose clinical work with neurotic patients informed the theory.
Structuralism studies mental elements; Gestalt studies their organization
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Structural, Gestalt, and functional schools have vanished as schools, while their discoveries have become part of general psychological knowledge; behaviorism and psychoanalysis continue in modified forms.
Newer perspectives include:
Further detail
The behavioral perspective explains Sam’s aggression as learned behavior maintained because it was rewarded in the past, and it focuses on describing and potentially teaching compensatory behaviors for memory problems.
The perspective a psychologist uses depends partly on the psychologist’s own bias and partly on which aspect of behavior is being studied.
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Further detail
Psychology’s early schools formed around influential teachers and represented disagreements about what psychology should study and how it should study it.
Many contemporary psychologists agree that psychology should study behavior, and those who study internal mental events generally agree that inquiry must begin with behavior.
Community psychologists may: encourage groups to participate in community decisions, provide information on effective and health-promoting child-rearing, advise school systems on curricula that meet community needs, change community organizations and institutions to address sources of community problems
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In 1879, Wilhelm Wundt established the first psychological laboratory at the University of Leipzig.
Structuralists tried to identify the units or elements that make up the mind.
Gestalt psychologists argued that the mind results from the whole pattern of sensory activity and the relationships and organization within that pattern.
Behaviorists rejected the study of mind as psychology's subject and restricted psychology to the observable activities of people and animals.
Further detail
Psychology separated from philosophy as a distinct area of study a little over 100 years before the textbook was written.
In 1883, the first formal psychology laboratory in the United States was established at Johns Hopkins University.
Functionalists studied what mind and behavior accomplish, especially their adaptive functions in helping individuals adjust to a changing environment.
Psychoanalysts focused on people's unconscious urges and drives to understand mental life and behavior.
Structuralism seeks mental elements; Gestalt seeks the organized whole.
★ Must-know
📌 Psychiatrists are physicians with M.D. degrees who complete several years of residency in psychiatry, whereas clinical psychologists train in psychology and do not hold M.D. degrees by virtue of that profession.
📌 Counseling psychologists generally work with people facing milder emotional and personal problems than those addressed by clinical psychologists.
📌 Educational psychologists generally address broader, less immediate problems than school psychologists and school counselors, applying knowledge of learning and motivation to improve learning efficiency in school curricula.
Further detail
Clinical psychologists typically hold a Ph.D., Psy.D., or M.A. and complete several years of postgraduate work in a psychology department.
Because they are physicians, psychiatrists can use drugs and other medical means to treat psychological disorders.
A clinical psychologist, psychiatrist, or other person with special psychoanalytic training may be a psychoanalyst, and psychoanalysts without M.D. degrees are called lay analysts.
Counseling psychologists may use tests to assess:
A school psychologist may recommend placing a poor reader in a remedial reading class.
Clinical work addresses psychological disorders; school psychology targets learning difficulties.
Physiological psychology is also considered part of neurobiology, the study of the nervous system and its functions.
Controlled experiments are a major research method used by experimental psychologists, but psychologists in other subfields also use experiments.
Experimental psychology is defined by what it studies, not solely by its methods.
★ Must-know
📌 Social psychology typically focuses on the individual, whereas sociology primarily concerns societal institutions, although research in the two fields often overlaps.
Further detail
The first application of psychology to industrial and organizational problems was the use of intelligence and aptitude tests to select employees.
Applied psychologists who work on organizational personnel problems are sometimes called personnel psychologists.
Social psychology examines: how people perceive others and how those perceptions affect behavior, the determinants of interpersonal influence and attitude change, mutual influence in close relationships
Social psychology research may study how perceptual stereotypes affect interactions or how committee members' decisions are influenced by what others say or do.
Social psychologists develop and refine methods for measuring attitudes and opinions, and those measurements inform decisions by politicians, business executives, and community leaders.
Organizational psychology addresses work problems; social psychology examines interpersonal influence.
Child psychology, the study of children's behavior, forms a large part of developmental psychology because behavior changes rapidly in the early years of life.
Developmental psychology also studies behavioral changes during adolescence, adulthood, and old age.
Research in developmental psychology has found progressive and systematic changes in children's thinking during the first few years of life.
Developmental psychologists may help children with behavior problems or psychological disorders, whose behaviors and treatment methods can differ from those of disturbed adults.
Community psychologists may provide programs for people with behavior problems or at risk of developing them who are not served by traditional psychotherapeutic methods, as part of the community mental-health movement.
Examples of community problems they address include: hostility among community groups, poor relations between police and community members, distress caused by a lack of employment opportunities
Developmental psychology follows change from childhood through adolescence, adulthood, and old age.
| Design | Comparison | Key feature |
|---|---|---|
| Control-group | Experimental group versus control group | Groups differ in the presence of the independent variable. |
| Within-subjects | Behavior after intervention versus baseline | Each subject serves as their own control. |
| A-B-A | Baseline, intervention, then baseline test | Useful when the effect is not long-lasting. |
| Field | Typical focus | Distinguishing feature |
|---|---|---|
| Clinical psychology | Diagnosis and treatment of behavior disorders | No medical training or drug-prescribing authority. |
| Psychiatry | Psychological disorders and psychotherapy | Medical training and ability to prescribe treatment. |
| Counseling psychology | Milder personal problems and life choices | Often uses aptitude, interest, and personality tests. |
| School psychology | Individual learning difficulties | Diagnoses problems and suggests corrective action. |
| Educational psychology | Learning and motivation in school | Applies knowledge to curriculum improvement. |
| Experimental psychology | Fundamental causes and processes of behavior | Primarily conducts basic research. |
Take a 55-question practice quiz on What Psychology Is Like, with every answer explained.
1. A parent is using a fear-of-the-dark program with a child who has just reached the agreed dim-light goal. Which plan best matches the manual’s approach?
2. What outcome was reported for the six children within two weeks of beginning the parent-training program?
Memorize the key concepts of What Psychology Is Like with 87 flashcards.
Who tested a parent-training manual for children's fear of the dark, and when?
Jean Giebenhain and Stan O'Dell tested it in 1984.
What skills and methods did the parent-training manual combine?
It combined lamp control, relaxation, positive self-statements, record keeping and feedback, rewards, and gradual reward withdrawal.
What outcome did all six children achieve within two weeks?
They slept through the night at or below the goal illumination and reported no fear.
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