Psychological Science Relies on Empirical Evidence and Adapts as New Data Develop

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Table of Contents

Thinking and Intelligence
Learning
Lifespan Development
Psychological Disorders
Conclusion
References

Research designs can quantify the data; help scholars understand psychological behavior, as well as establish correlations between independent and dependent variables. Evidence obtained through correlational and experimental design can support hypotheses and establish theories (Zmigrod et al., 2019). Empirical evidence and adapting new data have made it possible to produce results for studies on thinking and intelligence, learning in psychology, human lifespan development, and psychological disorders.

Thinking and Intelligence

The human capacity for thought is a fascinating aspect of the human condition that has attracted attention for centuries. Being a branch of modern psychology, it is now one of the disciplines that use data as it becomes available and evolves in response to this (Lazzara, 2020). Cognitive psychologists are researchers who focus on the study of thought to answer issues about problem resolution. Understanding what intelligence is and how it can differ from one individual to the next is another study area for cognitive psychologists.

Every day when people first open their eyes, they immediately start to think, mulling over the things they need to get done that day. How should they schedule their tasks? Where should they go first: the supermarket, the dry cleaners, or the bank? Can they complete these tasks before class, or would they have to wait until after they finish? Cognitive psychologists use these kinds of thoughts to illustrate how the mind works.

Although cognition is a crucial part of human consciousness, not all its facets are directly accessible to awareness. Research in cognitive psychology aims to understand what goes into the thought processes of individuals (Zmigrod et al., 2019). It investigates the connections between reasoning, feeling, coming up with new ideas, communicating with others, and solving problems to clarify how and why people think the way they do. Cognitive psychologists study a wide range of questions, including how to quantify and classify various forms of intelligence, why some people are more adept at problem-solving than others, and the impact of emotional intelligence on professional achievement (Lazzara, 2020). These research areas can only be fulfilled by depending on empirical evidence and adapting to new data such as correlations.

Given that I intend to devote my career to the field of education, I find the idea of cognition, as well as the overarching premise that psychology research is empirically evidence-based and dynamic in response to new data, to be of the utmost importance. For instance, I may zero down on kindergarten educators as a case study since they play such a pivotal role in shaping the identities and worldviews of their students. My research will focus on kindergarten educators’ degrees of self-efficacy and how it correlates with reflective thinking and successful intelligence. The study will adopt a descriptive-analytic methodology, focusing on selecting a sample of female kindergarten teachers. I plan to use questionnaires to get information from the sample. At last, I will be analyzing the data to learn how much successful intelligence, self-efficacy, and reflective thinking there is.

Learning

The psychology of learning is also part of psychological science, just like thinking and intelligence. However, it examines various questions about the relationship between learning and its contextual contexts. Although no universally accepted definition of learning exists, most psychologists believe it involves a long-lasting shift in attitude or practice (Cherry, 2022). Behaviorism, a school of thought that arose in the first half of the 20th century, tried to explain how people learned (Cherry, 2022). The goal of behaviorism was to evaluate only the things that could be seen.

Classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning are the three main types of behavioral learning. In classical conditioning, a neutral stimulus is paired with one that would typically elicit an emotional response to teach the learner to associate the two (Cherry, 2022). When it comes to operant conditioning is a form of learning in which reinforcement or punishment can alter the likelihood that a response will occur. It was Edward Thorndike and then B.F. Skinner pioneered the field of operant conditioning, which holds that the outcomes of our activities significantly impact our choices (Cherry, 2022). Finally, observational learning involves learning new skills by watching and emulating others. According to Albert Bandura’s social learning theory, people can pick up new skills through training and seeing and mimicking the activities of those around them (Cherry, 2022). All three categories in behaviorism exclusively describe different types of learning in psychology.

Closely related to the empirical evidence and the flexibility to change with new data, the concept of learning in psychology is at the heart of psychological science. A famous example is Pavlov’s experiment, in which food odor was coupled with the previously neutral sound of a bell (Cherry, 2022). This experiment will analyze the relationship between the two factors (natural stimulus and neutral) and the subsequent responses of various individuals. Another relationship is performing research on the difference between increasing behaviors through reinforcement and decreasing behaviors through punishment (Cherry, 2022). The results of this study will depend on the data collected from the sampled participants. Generally, the two empirical evidences determine the study’s results by adapting the data collected.

The notion of behaviorism and the theme of this study will help me achieve my goal of researching the effects of punishment on individuals. For example, I will use the unfortunate situation of an older sibling of an adolescent who gets a speeding ticket, along with the associated fees and restrictions. Then I will assess if the teens have internalized the lessons of their siblings’ driving mishaps and gotten the message to slow down when they get behind the wheel. This example shows that the empirical evidence will produce data that will be used to determine the results of the study.

Lifespan Development

Researchers interested in human development extend the learning of psychology by examining how people grow and change from childhood through old age. Physical, mental, social, intellectual, perceptual, personality and emotional development are all fields of study (Kornadt et al., 2019). The term physical development encompasses maturing and changing in ways that affect one’s size, shape, appearance, senses, motor abilities, and general state of health. Cognitive growth includes the capacities for study, recollection, communication, analysis, and innovation (Pacific Oaks, 2020). A person’s mental, emotional, and social growth is all interconnected.

Psychologists studying development employ various methods to explore how people’s minds and bodies evolve. Naturalistic observations, case studies, surveys, and experiments are all examples of such approaches. To conduct naturalistic observations, one must see how people act in everyday environments (Kornadt et al., 2019). A developmental psychologist may watch a kid interact with peers and caregivers at a playground, daycare, or home. In this study, researchers can observe children in their natural environments, but they have limited influence over their behavior. Researchers in the field of developmental psychology conduct case studies by gathering extensive data on a single person throughout their lives to comprehend better the myriad ways in which they change physically and mentally (Kornadt et al., 2019). Although this method helps understand extraordinary people, it is highly susceptible to researcher bias in interpretation, and results cannot be easily extrapolated to the greater community.

The notion of lifespan development is connected to the current issue by conducting tests with extensive control over unimportant variables and manipulating the independent variable. Developmental psychologists can infer causal relationships between several factors crucial for the development process due to this kind of experimental study (Pacific Oaks, 2020). Since experimental research must take place in a regulated setting, researchers should be careful whether behaviors seen in the lab are transferable to an individual’s natural environment (Kornadt et al., 2019). This experiment provides empirical support for the hypothesis by producing data that may be utilized to implement the findings.

As children are a particular area of interest, I can use lifespan development in all three domains—physical, cognitive, and psychosocial—to create a normative approach. With this method, I will ask, “What is normal development?” This will prompt me to gather a sample of kids of different ages to establish norms (i.e., average ages) of when kids typically reach particular developmental milestones in each of the three domains. Despite the fact that children grow at slightly different rates, I may use these age-related statistics as general guidelines. This will be used to compare kids with their age to estimate the ages they should accomplish developmental milestones, which are specific normative occurrences that children should attain. This demonstrates that new data will be incorporated to provide results on lifetime development through empirical proof.

Psychological Disorders

A psychological disorder is connected to lifespan development because it uses a condition marked by upsetting, problematic, and unusual thoughts, emotions, and behavior in an individual’s life. The study of psychological problems, including their signs, origin (or underlying causes), and therapies, is known as psychopathology (Kathryn Dumper et al., n.d.). In addition, the appearance of a psychological disorder might be referred to as psychopathology. Although reaching a consensus might be challenging, mental health practitioners must concur on the kinds of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are abnormal in the sense that they point to the existence of psychopathology (Kathryn Dumper et al., n.d.). The term “distressing,” “impairing,” or “atypical” can be applied to specific patterns of behavior and inner experience and, more obviously, indicates some psychological disorder.

Identifying actions, thoughts, and inner feelings as symptoms of a disorder—behaviors that are abnormal, distressing, dysfunctional, and occasionally even harmful to one or others—may be the simplest way to conceptualize psychological disorders. For example, an individual might experience some dejection if they ask a classmate out on a date and they decline. Those emotions are very reasonable, but if they become abnormal, they indicate the presence of a psychological problem. Abnormality can be identified if the individual is very depressed to the point where they lose interest in things, have trouble sleeping or eating, feel entirely unworthy, and think about suicide (Kathryn Dumper et al., n.d.). However, something need not be disordered simply because it is uncommon.

When studying breaking cultural expectations, the idea of a psychological disorder ties to the current issue but is not a reliable way to determine whether a psychological problem is present. Cultures differ in how they interpret behavior; thus, what is expected and deemed appropriate in one culture could not be in another. For instance, in the United States, it is customary to smile back at a stranger when they do so because of a widespread social custom that requires us to do so (Kathryn Dumper et al., n.d.). Somebody who ignores such gestures could be considered awkward in social situations. Using this illustration, a study might be conducted to ascertain the prevalence of social awkwardness by gathering a sample of US citizens (Kathryn Dumper et al., n.d.). This indicates that using empirical evidence can produce data for this concept to produce results.

I can use psychological disorders to examine the rate at which mental disorders lead to criminal behavior since I am interested in what makes crime more prevalent in society. This can be done by compiling a sample of people who have received sentences using the theme’s conceptualization. Then I will examine the sample’s mental state to see if they were stable when they committed the crime. This is a sign that the psychological concept and the theme relationship can be used to determine whether mental illness causes criminality.

Conclusion

Understanding psychological behavior and establishing connections between independent and dependent variables can be aided by study methodologies that quantify the data. Data gathered through correlational and experimental design helps create theories of cognition and support hypotheses. It also aids in understanding the rates at which conditioning influences a person’s behavior. Additionally, it can demonstrate how childhood influences an individual’s adulthood and aid in the development of lifespan. Finally, it can aid in understanding the psychological disorders that contribute to crime in society. Psychological science generally relies on empirical evidence and makes adjustments when new data emerges to ensure that various psychological ideas are accurate and reliable.

References

Cherry, K. (2022). A study guide for your psychology of learning exam. Verywell Mind. Web.

Kathryn Dumper, K., Jenkins, W., Lacombe, A., Lovett, M., & Perimutter, M. (n.d.). What are Psychological Disorders? PRESSBOOKS. Web.

Kornadt, A. E., Kessler, E.-M., Wurm, S., Bowen, C. E., Gabrian, M., & Klusmann, V. (2019). Views on ageing: A lifespan perspective. European Journal of Ageing, 17(4), 387–401. Web.

Lazzara, J. (2020). Thinking and intelligence. Introduction to Psychology. Web.

Pacific Oaks. (2020). What is lifespan development? Pacific Oaks College. Voices Digital College. Web.

Zmigrod, L., Zmigrod, S., Rentfrow, P. J., & Robbins, T. W. (2019). The psychological roots of intellectual humility: The role of Intelligence and cognitive flexibility. Personality and Individual Differences, 141, 200–208. Web.

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