The Psychology Thread

Does anyone have any advice for dealing with high anxiety?

Nothing seems to work other than having good days. But I always fear something is going to go wrong and when something does go wrong, my whole life goes to shit and I get physically ill.

Drugs,

No seriously, if it's that big of an issue make an appointment for your psychiatrist and they might be able to prescribe you some meds for it.

Or, you know... CBT. <_< It's actually better than just meds for handling anxiety. Anxiety relies a lot on behavioural feedback loops which CBT can help break. Medication alone? Won't attack the core problems or provide work-arounds.

edited 15th Jan '14 4:10:45 PM by Euodiachloris

Alright...I have just started going back to school for a BA in Psychology. I already have a MLA: Communications and two BA's: Religious Studies and Art History.

I say this to provide some context on how I'm used to thinking and how my mind works because I really need some help with one class: Psychological Statistics.

Apparently Psych Stats has made people cry and I can see why. I am only two weeks in and I have no damn clue what is going on. I'm going into the office of the Professor tomorrow to try and get some one on one help and hopefully set up some tutoring schedule with the GA there. But if anyone can direct me to a good guide or resource related to this I will be very appreciative!

The last math class I took was College Algebra when I was 15, over 12 years ago. I passed with a C because my teacher pitied me. So yeah, any advice on how to handle the math as well would be great!

Uh... depends: is the Maths Department handling your Stats unit? Or is it solidly the Psychology? (Because... there are clashes in some of the methodology you'll be taught: Classic Stats tends to assume factors involved in experiments and datasets are rather easier to determine than the convoluted mess Psychology has to deal with, and the conventions in handling them are... somewhat different. Yup: welcome to Chaos — you can't escape and you'll have to hit it running.)

Heck, the differences can be so great, I can almost say you're starting with a positive in not having classical techniques so uppermost in your mind. -_- Although I can't point you towards more recent guides, I can give you general advice: stay away from Classic Statistics beyond the basics like Standard Deviation, the notational shorthand and such. It'll only confuse you if you jump into the non-Social Science-targeted Stats until you've got a grounding in the Great, Big, Wobbling Mess, first.

EDIT: And, always remember... something like Spearman's Rho might look intimidating at first blush. But, it's just another equation that can be broken down into bits and sorted in sequence. Like all of them. It's the learning when to use it and how that can get tricky. And, that's the Great, Big, Wobbling Mess bit. <hugs>

edited 21st Jan '14 5:45:56 PM by Euodiachloris

Well...here is the problem. I don't have a math education higher than 5th grade.

Let me explain:

I was in advanced math until 6th grade. Then the school I was at implemented this new system: pass on completion not correctness. Add this to a teacher who handled problems by climbing on her desk on all fours and barking at you like a dog. I went from an A honors student to an F student in less than 9 weeks. But because they graded on completion, I passed. 7th and 8th grade went much the same way because I hadn't learned the fundamentals in 6th and was left behind. We didn't have to take math past 9th grade. No Child Left Behind my ass...

I took College Algebra at 15 with my high school teacher and made a C only because she pitied me and try as she might she just couldn't catch me up. So she passed me knowing in college I would be left behind and never make it.

This Stats teacher is my age, fresh out of doctorate and goes a million miles a minute. She isn't a psych teacher. She is a mathematician who just likes to do math on psych studies. She already said we aren't dealing with theory, just math. I looked her up. She's never ran her own experiments. She just checks the math on other peoples work. This isn't bad per se, its just an insight on how she thinks and what her expectations are. So now I know what I am up against.

I am really hoping the tutoring tomorrow will go well and hopefully her GA can help me. If not I am just going to have to claw around for any tutor I can get my hands on and just hope I make it a C or higher so I never have to take this crap again.

Oh, fantastic. The worst way to teach stats for the social sciences (but, it happens to be the cheapest ). I wish people wouldn't keep trying to separate it from the fieldwork and methodology, as doing them together can make all of it easier to learn when presented properly (hence, the "expensive"). <_< And, can prevent misuse and misunderstanding down the line. -_-

See how the tutoring session goes: she'll very likely be able to get you up to speed on the "getting the equations to do what they're supposed to" side. But, you might have to use lead balloons to tie her down when she goes off into the stratosphere on you.

Sounds like you'll have to do it the Maths >> Methodology route. <_<

<checks Amazon> Oh, what do you know: the old bible is still available. But, it'll be using old software in its tutoring. Hmmm... nope. Oh, well: you might want to check it out, anyway: I found it useful when facing that progression route. <noses around a bit> I suspect this will be the new bible, though: no idea how it stacks up (but, egads: that costs a bomb). I recommend putting both off a bit until you've got adjusted to the Maths enough to be able to grasp why the differences are going to be there... and, so, not get flummoxed by them. Baby steps.

Again: don't get intimidated by the notation and the size of any equation you might face. Notation can be drilled parrot fashion until you can start using it to see what it does in practice (boring activity; but, important). And, all equations break down into smaller bits for easier biting. And, graphs? Can be summed up this way: choosing the picture that'll get the point across.

edited 21st Jan '14 7:41:35 PM by Euodiachloris

Thanks! I appreciate it!

I figure if I just keep looking for help now and if it does go south, I can at least tell the dean that I honestly exhausted all resources at my disposal.

I'd recommend asking for some basic bullet points and hanging them somewhere. It's very easy to start not seeing the wood for each tree you're trying to chop down, so having the "what Stats in Psychology is supposed to be about, anyway" reminder could be useful. And, push you away from the myopia that might just dishearten you at the same time.

A good one is: "Statistics is about showing I've spotted a pattern without looking like an idiot".

edited 22nd Jan '14 6:14:50 AM by Euodiachloris

If you have any specific statistics related questions, post them here and we'll take a stab at explaining it.

Urgh, psy stats. I got C on it last semester. >_<

So, something I love seems to have entered a Dork Age as of late. Any advice on coping? Thanks.

What exactly do you mean?

@ Gabrael: I wish I could help, but I don't know if I'm at a relevant level (social science in college, I recently did my stat course tho).

If you are having a hard time on some equation, maybe try Wolfram Alpha, a computing site. It's pretty much a crutch and isn't perfect, but it helped me through some of my harder math courses. It's good for a quick and dirty equation when you're blocked and don't have any resources other than that.

edited 22nd Jan '14 5:08:34 AM by QuestionMarc

Well, something I'm a fan of is going through rough times, and seems to be in a Dork Age. I wanted some advice on coping, you know, how to deal with it. I'm starting to think I may be taking things too seriously, though.

Thanks guys! Believe me, I will probably be bugging the crap outta ya'll :P

I've already had to stop my professor before she told us bad data.

For example, she had everyone write their average time on facebook for a week. Most people were in the zero to 20 min. range but there were two people who spent over 120 minutes on facebook a week. One was a local business owner who uses facebook for connecting and marketing, the other was just an average girl who spends too much time on facebook.

The professor was saying how we needed to just throw out the 2 120 minute entries and focus on the other grouping. I asked if that would sabotage her data. I explained if you just wanted to know how long kids were on facebook you could throw out whatever you wanted. But if you were trying to see how people were using facebook or if facebook was taking away from study time, those 2 people just became a big lead for a follow up study.

She looked a little stunned, then said the question was important. Then completely abandoned that number set and made up an arbitrary one for work.

Well, it sounds like she knew what important concept she wanted to teach, but didnt really know to teach it. Thing is, there are good reasons for excluding what we call "outliers". It all depends on what you are interested in. If, for example, you wanted to test whether or not a theraputic technique was worth the time and effort of most people, and you ran the study, and discovered that for 99% of the subjects the difference it made was so small that it statistically was no different from chance, but there was one guy who improved so dramatically that it changed the overall average of the whole group- you would want to throw that one guy out. Because otherwise you might conclude that on average most people will benefit, when really it was just one guy.

For the facebook example- if this were a marketing study by facebook, and they wanted to explore ways to improve their appeal to the average user, they should totally throw out the two outliers- their reasons for using facebook are very likely so different from the others that they will just throw off the results.

Now go back and explain to that teacher the real reason she was right the first time: instant "A".

[[Wrong thread]]

is right.

edited 22nd Jan '14 8:17:07 AM by Soban

and And, welcome to the Wobbly Mess bit. You can tell she's Maths; not Social Science.

The alternative is to divide the dataset up into the "main group", the "outlier" and the "total" sets and investigate them all to get a picture of what is going down... And, note the differences and commonalities within and between 'em.

Of course, correlations and differentials are going to be a bit later in the course... which is why she's busy trying to breeze over this little bump.

edited 22nd Jan '14 8:35:37 AM by Euodiachloris

All that talks reminds me of my stat teacher, who was all social science and no math: he would routinely have some students correct the exercises he did on the spot and was honestly mistaken in the name of one mathematical operation.

He never said so, but I'm pretty confident he has ADD. God bless him for that, he sure knew how to be concise in his courses. I can't remember one lecture he did that took the whole period scheduled for the class.

Wow, I'm the same way. Why waste their time?

I haven't met you personally yet Demarquis, but you are my favorite teacher.

One other thing I really liked is how he did all practical homework in class, due to ample elbow room in the schedule: staying up to date with that course was easy.

... Oh, yeah right, Psychology. Err, I have ADD, so the above method of doing homework was a tremendous help in my learning experience, since how early I left depended on how quickly I did the projects. So yeah, totally on topic.

@ Euo: I'm sure there are some statistical analysis that take care of outliers. I just can't remember what they are right now...

Thanks Marc! As it happens, I'm teaching a class on into psych right now.

Well, I went to her office to ask for a tutor. She told me I should find a tutor on my own. She also told me I would be better off taking remedial math courses because "learning this is like learning a different language."

"Ma'am. I speak four different languages. Math is not a language to me it is a series of steps like cleaning an engine. I need a mechanic to lean over my shoulder and help me make sure Iam connecting the air intake properly. I know iI can do this if I have someone just to spend a little extra time with me. Hence why I am asking if you can refer me to a tutor."

"I just don't see how you can catch up with such a limited education."

"I may not have taken a lot of math but my education is far from limited."

I'm going to chalk up her ability to be a grating annoyance to her immaturity as a professor and a person. She seems pretty sheltered so I will be patient. But I can't stand condescending. Especially from someone who can't explain why we need to throw out data beyond, "Trust me we'll get there."