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
A carefully regulated procedure in which the researcher manipulates one or more variables that are believed to influence some other variable
Experiment
Researchers assignment of participants to groups by chance, to reduce the likelihood that an experiments results will be due to pre-existing differences between groups.
Random assignment
A person who is given a role to play in a study so that the social context can be manipulated
Confederate
The outcome the factor that change in an experiment in response to changes in the independent variable
Dependent variable
The participants in experiment who are as much like the experimental group as possible and who are treated in every way like the experimental group except for manipulated factor, the independent variable
Control group
The soundness of the conclusions that a researcher draws from an experiment
Validity
The degree to which an experimental design actually reflects the real-world issues it is supposed to address
External validity
A manipulated experimental factor, the variable that the experimenter changes to see what its effects are
Independent variable
The participants in experiments who receive the drug or other treatment under study that is, those who are exposed to the change that the independent variable represents
Experimental group
The degree to which changes in the dependent variable ate due to the manipulation of the independent variable
Internal validity
The situation where participants expectations, rather than the experimental treatment, produce an experimental outcome
Placebo effect
An experimental design in which neither the experimenter nor the participants are aware of which participants are in the experimental group and which are in the control group until the results are calculated
Double-blind experiment
The influence of the experimenter’s expectations on the outcome of research
Experimenter bias
Any aspects of a study that communicate to the participants how the experimenter wants them to behave
Demand characteristics
In an experiment, the influence of participants expectations, and of their thoughts about how they should behave, on their behavior.
Research participant bias
In a drug study, a harmless substance that has no physiological effect, given to participants in a control group so that they are tested identically to the experimental group except for the active agent
Placebo
The subset of the population chosen by the investigator for study
Sample
The entire group about which the investigator wants to draw conclusions
Population
A sample that gives every member of the population an equal chance of being selected
Random sample
The observation of behavior in a real world setting
Naturalistic observation
