PSY 211

Introduction to Psychology Statistics

- - Welcome - -

Welcome to PSY 211Psychology Statistics

w/ Mike Hoerger

• Grab a syllabus

• Skim it over so you can ask questions

• Please sign and fill out the final page of the syllabus and return it to me at the end of class

Overview

• Syllabus: Last Page

• Background Information

• Review Syllabus in Detail

• Trivia Game

• Homework Assignment 1

– Due next Thursday

Syllabus - Last Page

• My information:– Hoerger rhymes with burger, but call me Mike– Graduate of MSU, originally from Midland – Clinical Psychology: assessment, personality,

personality disorders, emotion, drug reform, single-subject design, skilled performance, the internet,

– Interests: sports, alternative, politics, comedy– Concerns: laziness, anxiety, apathy– Questions?

Why do I have to take this?

• Learn to use numbers to describe people and predict behavior

• Psychology, sociology, social work, economics, health, medicine, PT, zoology, epidemiology, philosophy, education, criminology, political science, athletics

• Conduct research, consume research, and apply statistics to everyday life

Why conduct research?

• Curiosity about people

• Advancing knowledge

• Improving lives

• Getting a good job

• Getting into graduate school

• Fame or infamy

• Money

What if I’m not cut out for research?

What if conductingresearch bores me?

Consuming research

• Most jobs require people to keep up on information, including recent research findings. If you can’t draw the correct conclusions, you may get fired.

• Read articles and books to help yourself, family, friends, coworkers, clients

• Fulfill your curiosities

What if I dislike research, hate knowledge, have no intellectual

curiosity, hate reading, and have no interest in helping

other people?

Apply statistics to everyday life

• TV: sports, game shows, detective shows, the news

• Draw reasonable conclusions about people based on limited information

But what if I’m scared?

Stats are not so scary

• This course is designed to foster appropriate levels of anxiety

• Lazy students will need a reality check

• Anxious students will learn to relax

• All hard-working students will pass

• Many students will become much more interested in research

Syllabus

• E-mail, course web site, office hours

• Course materials– Book

• Course description

• Typical Class

• Special needs

• Cheating

Grades

• Grades in this course will be based largely on effort. What you put in, you will get out.

• “We maximize choice and enhance power by deciding for ourselves how much is good enough in each and every activity we engage in. We all have the inalienable right to waste our potential.” –Kaufman

• Recommendations

Statistics Trivia Gameand

Discussion

A CMU student comes to the psychology clinic for a psychological evaluation due to poor grades, feeling distracted while studying, and trouble paying attention in class. What’s the most likely diagnosis?

Learning Disorder

ADHD

Anxiety

1 of 15: Diagnostics

If halfway through the season the Detroit Pistons basketball team has won 85% of their games, what will likely be their win percentage at the end of the year?

73%

79%

85%

2 of 15: Athletics

Among children, what is the correlation between sugar consumption and hyperactivity?

r = .00

none

r = .30

modest

r = .60

strong

3 of 15: Children

Prizes for the Winners

Compared to others in their age group, physicians are more likely to abuse what drug?

Alcohol

Vicodin

Cocaine

4 of 15: Medicine

What’s the correlation between self-reported level of attention problems and actual level of attention problems measured by an attention test?

r = .00

none

r = .30

modest

r = .60

strong

5 of 15: Cognitive Psychology

What’s the correlation between success in a job interview and success on the job?

r = .00

none

r = .20

mild

r = .40

modest

6 of 15: Personnel Selection

Prizes for the Winners

Using judges’ ratings, how highly does a person’s level of attractiveness correlate with that of their romantic partner?

r = .10

weak

r = .40

modest

r = .70

strong

7 of 15: Romance

What’s the correlation between a dentist’s judgment that a cavity is present (based on x-rays) and the actual presence of a cavity?

r = .40

modest

r = .60

strong

r = .80

very strong

8 of 15: Dentistry

What’s the correlation between at-home pregnancy test results and whether or not the woman is actually pregnant?

r = .40

modest

r = .70

strong

r = .95

near perfect

9 of 15: Pregnancy

Prizes for the Winners

How well do scores on a memory test identify level of dementia?

r = .00

none

r = .30

modest

r = .60

strong

10 of 15: Diagnostics

What’s the correlation between ACT scores and college GPA?

r = .00

none

r = .20

mild

r = .40

modest

11 of 15: College Recruitment

On a scale from 1 (not happy)

to 7 (very happy), how happy are people two months after being dumped?

3

4

5

12 of 15: Emotion

1 4 7 Not Happy

Very Happy

Prizes for the Winners

A young, distressed mother brings her 5-year-old daughter to the psychology clinic for an evaluation because her daughter has been having delusions, hallucinations, and crying spells. What is the likely diagnosis?

Depression

Schizo-phrenia

Child

Abuse

13 of 15: Diagnostics

What’s the correlation between self-efficacy scores and successful physical rehabilitation?

r = .00

none

r = .30

modest

r = .60

strong

14 of 15: Physical Therapy

Waterboy, You can do it!

What treatment has helped to treat depression, anxiety, erectile dysfunction, pain, ulcers, warts, bedwetting, arthritis, malignant tumors, diabetes, narcotic withdrawal, insomnia, colds, inattentiveness, and heart attack?

Lipitor

Zyprexa

Zoloft

15 of 15: Pharmacology

Prizes for the Winners

Homework #1

• Today’s goal: question assumptions, be curious, use statistics

• Read the instructions for HW#1 and ask me about it next time

• For the homework, come up with 5 questions you want to know about people

• I’ll choose the best questions, and we’ll have participants (friends, family) take the survey online