Ch 1: psych yesterday & today Flashcards
academic psychology
a branch of psychology focusing on research and instruction in the various areas or fields of study in psychology.
applied psychology
the branch of psychology applying psychological principles to practical problems in other fields, such as education, marketing, or industry.
behaviour
observable activities of an organism, often in response to environmental cues.
behavioural genetics
a subfield of psychology looking at the influence of genes on human behaviour.
behaviourism
a branch of psychological thought arguing that psychology should study only directly observable behaviours rather than abstract mental processes.
client-centred therapy
an approach to therapy founded by Carl Rogers, based on the notion that the client is an equal and that positive gains are made by mirroring clients’ thoughts and feelings in an atmosphere of unconditional positive regard.
clinical and counselling psychology
the study of abnormal psychological behaviour and interventions designed to change that behaviour.
cognitive neuroscience
the study of mental processes and how they relate to the biological functions of the brain.
cognitive psychology
the field of psychology studying mental processes as forms of information processing, or the ways in which information is stored and operated in our minds.
collectivist
a culture whose members focus more on the needs of the group and less on individual desires.
consciousness
personal awareness of ongoing mental processes, behaviours, and environmental events.
cross-cultural psychology
the study of what is generally or universally true about human beings regardless of culture.
cultural psychology
the study of how cultural practices shape psychological and behavioural tendencies and influence human behaviour.
cultural universality
behaviours and practices that occur across all cultures.
culture
a set of shared beliefs and practices that are transmitted across generations.
functionalism
a philosophical approach that considers how mental processes function to adapt to changing environments.
Gestalt psychology
the field of psychology arguing that we have inborn tendencies to structure what we see in particular ways and to structure our perceptions into broad perceptual units.
humanistic psychology
theory of psychology that sought to give greater prominence to special and unique features of human functioning.
individualistic
a culture that places the wants or desires of the person over the needs of the group.
information processing
the means by which information is stored and operates internally.
introspection
a method of psychological study involving careful evaluation of mental processes and how simple thoughts expand into complex ideas.
mental processes
activities of our brain when engaged in thinking, observing the environment, and using language.
neuroscience
the study of psychological functions by looking at biological foundations of those functions.
psychoanalytic theory
psychological theory that human mental processes are influenced by the competition between unconscious forces to come into awareness.
psychology
the study of mental processes and behaviours.
punishment
an experience that produces a decrease in a particular behaviour.
response
the way we react to stimuli.
reinforcement
a learning process that increases the likelihood a given response will be repeated.
social neuroscience
the study of social functioning and how it is tied to brain activity.
sociobiologists
theorists who believe humans have a genetically innate concept of how social behaviour should be organized.
stimuli
elements of the environment that trigger changes in our internal or external states.
structuralism
a philosophical approach that studies the structure of conscious experience.
voluntarism
a theory in which will is regarded as the ultimate agency in human behaviour
four goals
describe, explain, predict, control
Description
Psychologists seek to describe very specifically the things that they observe.
Explanation
telling what, where, when, and how is sometimes not enough. A key goal for many psychologists is to answer the question of “Why?” As we’ll see, psychologists have developed hypotheses and theories to explain a huge variety of events, from why people develop addictions to substances to why we get hungry.
Prediction
Psychologists also seek to predict the circumstances under which a variety of behaviours and mental processes are likely to occur.
Control
We often encounter situations in which we want to either limit or increase certain behaviours or mental processes—whether our own or those of others.
3 levels of analysis
the brain, the person, the group
the brain
How brain structure and brain cell activity differ from person to person and situation to situation
the person
How the content of the individual’s mental processes form and influence behaviour
the group
How behaviour is shaped by the social and cultural environments
Hippocrates
- believed that disease had a physical and rational explanation
- an individual’s physical and psychological health is influenced by an excess or a lack of bodily humours
- our bodily fluids (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile)
- recognize the importance of good food, fresh air, and rest
- identified the brain as the organ of mental life
Socrates and Plato concluded what?
concluded that the mind and body are distinct and that the mind continues after the body dies.
Plato
- believed that certain ideas and concepts were pure and signified an ultimate reality.
- we could use reasoning to uncover the core ideas deeply imbedded in every human soul
Socrates
- looked for concepts that were the “essence” of human nature and searched for elements that various concepts had in common
Aristotle
- sensations, dreams, sleep, and learning
- one of the first to promote empirical, or testable, investigations of the natural world
Francis Bacon
-creator of empiricism: the view that all knowledge originates in experience. He established and popularized the scientific method, gathering data, analyzing data, and performing experiments.
René Descartes
-the meaning of the natural world could be understood through science and mathematics
-dualism of the mind and body, believing the mind to be distinct from the body
-identified the point of contact between the two as the pineal gland
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John Locke
- we learn by our experiences
- the mind at birth is a tabula rasa—a blank slate—“a white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas”, waiting for experience to imprint knowledge.
Johannes Müller
-that researchers needed to study the relationship between physical stimuli and their psychological effects—that is, the sensations and perceptions they affect.
Herman von Helmholtz
- the first to measure the speed of a nerve impulse and determined that nerve impulses occur over time rather than instantaneously
- contributed to the foundation of modern physiological psychology and neuroscience
Gustav Fechner
- one of the founders of experimental psychology
- lays out many of the methods and study techniques that would come to be used in the emerging field of psychology. His evidence of the relationship between physical and mental events demonstrated that psychology had the potential to become a quantified science.
Wilhelm Wundt
- believed that the study of mind and behaviour ought to be conducted using the experimental methods of other sciences such as chemistry and physics
- studied the content and processes of consciousness, the awareness of immediate behaviours and mental processes
- believed that consciousness could be broken into basic elements, “atoms” of the mind, much as chemistry had identified chemical elements according to their atomic numbers, electron configuration, and so on.
- behaviour is motivated and that attention is focused for an explicit purpose
- voluntarism
Edward Titchener
- expanded upon Wundt’s approach, forming a theoretical paradigm called structuralism at Cornell University.
- goal was to uncover the structure, or basic elements, of the conscious mind, much like looking at the parts
William James
- He reasoned that consciousness had to serve an important biological function because it was a trait in humans that had been naturally selected, and he argued that psychologists needed to determine what those functions were
- functionalism.
Sigmund Freud
- that many of our thoughts and feelings exist beyond the realm of awareness, in the unconscious
- built his theory on information from patients he saw in his medical practice who were coping with irrational fears, obsessions, and anxieties.
- believed that in most cases, the patients’ symptoms could be traced to toxic events from their childhoods
Edward Thorndike
- that animal findings could help explain human behaviour.
John Watson
-that animals could be useful in guiding our understanding of human psychology, and he sharply disagreed with psychoanalysis and with the notion of unobservable mental processes as appropriate approaches to studying the mind and behaviour.
B.F. Skinner
-helped expand behaviourism’s perspective by acknowledging that internal, mental processes may indeed be at work in some situations, such as when an animal runs to get food.
Carl Rogers
- founder of client-centred therapy, which promotes an equal relationship between therapists and clients and helps clients to achieve their full potential.
Donald Hebb
- urged the psychological community to apply the rigorous experimental standards seen in behavioural studies—that is, controlled and objective methods—to the study of human thought.
- eveloped the concept of the cell assembly to describe a network of neurons that develop strengthened internal synaptic connections with repeated stimulation; this assembly activates together during particular mental processes.
Ulric Neisser
-defined cognitive psychology as the study of information processing, the means by which information is stored and operates internally
Roger Sperry
- severed the connections between the left and right hemispheres, or halves, of the brain
- two section function and learn differently
pavlov
dogs
