01. Definitions Flashcards
Psychology
The science of behaviour and the mind
Behaviour
The observable actions of a person or an animal
Mind
An individual’s sensations, perceptions, memories, thoughts, dreams, motives, emotions, and other subjective experiences.
Science
All attempts to answer questions through collection and logical analysis of objectively observable data
Dualism
The body is material and can be studied scientifically, the mind is immaterial and operates according to its own will, and thus cannot be studied scientifically .
Materialism
Nothing exists but matter (Thomas Hobbes). All human behaviour can be explained by physical processes in the body, especially the brain.
Reflexology
The idea (of physiologists) that all human behaviour occurs through reflexes
Empiricism
The idea that human knowledge and thought derive ultimately from sensory experience. If we are machines, we are machines that learn. No human nature
Tabula Rasa
Blank slate (Locke’s view of a child’s mind, experience fills the slate)
Association by contiguity
(Empiricists and) Aristotle’s principle that if two environmental events (stimuli) occur at the same time or one right after the other (contiguously), those events will be linked together in the mind
Nativism
(Opposite of empiricism)- The idea that certain elementary ideas are innate to the human mind and do not need to be gained through experience. Entity must contain some initial machinery already build into it.
A priori knowledge
Is built in to the human brain and does not have to be learned.
level of analysis
The type (“level”) of causal process that is referred to in explaining some phenomenon. In psychology, a given type of behavior might be explained at the neural, physiological, genetic, evolutionary, learning, cognitive, social, cultural, or developmental level of analysis.
Neural psychology
How the nervous system produces a particular behaviour or experience.
Research specialty- Behavioural Neuroscience (also cognitive neuroscience)
Physiological psychology
Study of the ways in which hormones and drugs act on the brain to alter behaviour and experience.
Biopshysiology
Genetic psychology
Speciality which attempts to explain psychological differences among individuals in terms of differences in their genes.
Behavioural genetics.
Genes
units of heredity that provide the codes for building the entire body
Evolutionary psychology
Specialty which attempts to explain how or why universal human characteristics came about in the course of evolution, looking at the survival or reproductive benefits of types of behaviours and mental experiences.
Evolutionary psychology
Learning psychology
specialty which attempts to explain behaviour in terms of learning (all forms of human behaviour and mental experience are modifiable by learning)
Learning psychology
Cognitive psychology
One way to explain behavioural action or mental experience is to relate it to cognition (information in the mind) that underlie that action or experience. Unlike learning, it is not measured directly but inferred from observable behaviours.
Cognitive psychology- particularly interested in memory
Social psychology
Study of the influence of others or one’s beliefs about other people to explain mental experiences and behaviour.
Social psychology also social cognition (many social-psychological explanations are also cognitive explanations)
Cultural psychology
Specialty which explains mental experiences and behaviour in terms of a person’s cultural background
Cultural psychology- look at history, economy, religious or philosophical traditions
Developmental psychology
Documents and describes the typical age differences in how people feel, think and act.
Developmental psychology- interested in how experiences at any given stage of development can influence behaviour at later stages
