Ch 1 Vocab Flashcards
The scientific study of behavior and mental process
Psychology
Everything we do that can be directly observed
Behavior
The use of systematic methods to observe the natural world, including human behavior, and to draw conclusions.
Science
The thoughts, feelings, and motives that each of us experiences privately but that cannot be served directly.
Mental process
The process of thinking deeply and actively, asking questions, and evaluating the evidence.
Critical thinking
Wilhelm Wundt’s approach to discovering the basic elements, or structures, of mental process.
Structuralism
William James’s approach to mental process, emphasizing the functions and purposes of the mind and behavior in the individual’s adaptation to the environment.
Functionalism
Darwin’s principal of an evolutionary process in which organisms that are best adapted to their environment will survive and produce offspring.
Natural selection
The scientific study of the structure, function, development, genetics, and biochemistry of the nervous system, emphasizing that the brain and nervous system are central to understanding behavior, thought, and emotion.
Neuroscience
An approach to psychology focusing on the body, especially the brain and nervous system.
Biological approach
An approach to psychology emphasizing the scientific study of observable behavioral responses and their environmental determinants
Behavioral approach
An approach to psychology emphasizing unconscious thought, the conflict between biological drives (such as the drive for sex) and societies demands, and early childhood family experiences.
Psychodynamic approach
Sigmund Freud was the founding father of the psychodynamic approach
An approach to psychology centered on evolutionary ideas such as adaptation, reproduction, and natural selection as the basis for explaining specific human behaviors
Evolutionary approach
An approach to psychology emphasizing a person’s positive qualities, the capacity for positive growth, and the freedom to choose any destiny.
Humanistic approach
An approach to psychology emphasizing the mental processes involved in knowing: how we direct our attention, perceive, remember, think, and solve problems.
Cognitive approach
An approach to psychology that examines the ways in which social and cultural environments influence behavior.
Socialcultural approach
Anything that can change
Variable
A broad idea or set of closely related ideas that attempts to explain observations and to make predictions about future observations
Theory
An educated guess that derives logically from a theory; a prediction that can be tested.
Hypothesis
A definition that provides an objective description of how variable is going to be measured and observed in a particular study
Operational definition
Also called a case history, an in-depth look at a single individual.
Case study
Research that examines the relationships between variables, whose purpose is to examine whether and how two variables change together.
Correlational research
The circumstance where a variable that has not been measured accounts for the relationship between two other variables
Third variable problem
A special kind of systematic observation, used by correlational researchers, that involves obtaining measures of the variables of interest in multiple waves over time.
Longitudinal design
