01. Definitions

Question 1

Psychology

Answer 1

The science of behaviour and the mind

Question 2

Behaviour

Answer 2

The observable actions of a person or an animal

Question 3

Mind

Answer 3

An individual’s sensations, perceptions, memories, thoughts, dreams, motives, emotions, and other subjective experiences.

Question 4

Science

Answer 4

All attempts to answer questions through collection and logical analysis of objectively observable data

Question 5

Dualism

Answer 5

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 .

Question 6

Materialism

Answer 6

Nothing exists but matter (Thomas Hobbes). All human behaviour can be explained by physical processes in the body, especially the brain.

Question 7

Reflexology

Answer 7

The idea (of physiologists) that all human behaviour occurs through reflexes

Question 8

Empiricism

Answer 8

The idea that human knowledge and thought derive ultimately from sensory experience. If we are machines, we are machines that learn. No human nature

Question 9

Tabula Rasa

Answer 9

Blank slate (Locke’s view of a child’s mind, experience fills the slate)

Question 10

Association by contiguity

Answer 10

(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

Question 11

Nativism

Answer 11

(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.

Question 12

A priori knowledge

Answer 12

Is built in to the human brain and does not have to be learned.

Question 13

level of analysis

Answer 13

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.

Question 14

Neural psychology

Answer 14

How the nervous system produces a particular behaviour or experience.
Research specialty- Behavioural Neuroscience (also cognitive neuroscience)

Question 15

Physiological psychology

Answer 15

Study of the ways in which hormones and drugs act on the brain to alter behaviour and experience.
Biopshysiology

Question 16

Genetic psychology

Answer 16

Speciality which attempts to explain psychological differences among individuals in terms of differences in their genes.
Behavioural genetics.

Question 17

Genes

Answer 17

units of heredity that provide the codes for building the entire body

Question 18

Evolutionary psychology

Answer 18

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

Question 19

Learning psychology

Answer 19

specialty which attempts to explain behaviour in terms of learning (all forms of human behaviour and mental experience are modifiable by learning)
Learning psychology

Question 20

Cognitive psychology

Answer 20

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

Question 21

Social psychology

Answer 21

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)

Question 22

Cultural psychology

Answer 22

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

Question 23

Developmental psychology

Answer 23

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