Ch. 5 - Foundation and History

Question 1

Psychology

Answer 1

Study of behavior and the mind

Question 2

Behavior

Answer 2

A natural process subject to natural laws, refers to the observable actions of a person or animal.

Question 3

Mind

Answer 3

Sensations, memories, motives, emotions, and thoughts or other subjective phenomena particular to an individual not readily observed.

Question 4

Dualism

Answer 4

Divides the world and all things in it into two parts: body and spirit. This was believed by ancient Greek philosophers.

Question 5

Rene Descartes

Answer 5

• Continued the Dualist school of thought
• Believed that the physical world and all of the creatures are in it are like machines, and that we believe in predictable ways
• However, he believed that humans were an exception since we possess minds, which is not observable.

Question 6

John Locke

Answer 6

• Founder of Empiricism
• Essay Concerning Human Understanding
• Proposed idea that humans are born with a blank slate (“tabula rasa”)
• Emphasized nurture over nature.

Question 7

Tabula Rasa

Answer 7

People are born with minds of a blank slate; people are born with almost no knowledge and everything is learned through experience.

Question 8

Thomas Hobbes

Answer 8

• Believed the idea of soul, spirit, and mind were meaningless.
• Philosophy of Materialism; only matter and energy exist
• Our consciousness is only a by-product of the machinery of the brain
• Greatly influenced behaviorism

Question 9

Materialism

Answer 9

The idea that the only things that exist in the world are matter and energy

Question 10

Charles Darwin

Answer 10

• Proposed Theory of Natural Selection
• Evolutionary theory explains differences between species and justifies the use of animals as a means to study the roots of human behavior.

Question 11

Wilhelm Wundt

Answer 11

• Founder of psychology
• His student was Edward Titchener
• Idea of Structuralism: seeks to analyze elements of mental experiences (e.g. sensations, mental images, feelings)

Question 12

Introspection

Answer 12

A series of interviews in which a subject describes his or her conscious experiences.

The experimenter presents stimuli to subjects for them to describe and tries to find commonalities amongst various participants’ descriptions.

Question 13

William James

Answer 13

• American psychologist who wrote the first psychology textbook
• Believed in functionalism by focusing on how the mind functions in solving complex problems.

Question 14

Dorothea Dix

Answer 14

• Advocated for the rights of mentally ill poor people and founded the first public mental hospital in the United States.

Question 15

Mary Whiton Calkins

Answer 15

First female graduate student in psychology but was denied a PhD.

Question 16

Margaret Floy Washburn

Answer 16

First female PhD in psychology and second female president of the American Psychological Association (APA).

Question 17

Biological Psychology

Answer 17

Field of psychology that seeks to understand the interactions between anatomy and physiology.

e.g. determining which portion of the brain is involved in a particular behavioral process using Molecular Imaging.

Question 18

Behavioral Genetics

Answer 18

Field of psychology that explores how particular behaviors may be attributed to specific, genetically based psychological characteristics.

e.g. How does risk-taking behavior vary based on a person’s genetics?

Question 19

Behaviorism

Answer 19

Study of psychology on observable behavior.
- Includes Classical Conditioning
- Includes Operant Conditioning

Question 20

Ivan Pavlov

Answer 20

Famous for his classical conditioning experiment on dogs, in which he training dogs to salivate to the sound of a bell.

Question 21

Classical Conditioning

Answer 21

A basic form of learning in which a behavior comes to be elicited by a formerly neutral stimulus,

Question 22

John B. Watson

Answer 22

Applied classical conditioning to his famous Little Albert experiment, in which he conditioned an infant named Albert to fear everything white and furry after he associated a rabbit with scary loud noise.

Question 23

B.F. Skinner

Answer 23

Famous for the development of the Skinner Box, which describes operant conditioning.

Question 24

Operant Conditioning

Answer 24

A subject learns to associate behavior with an environmental outcome.

Question 25

Cognitive Psychology

Answer 25

To understand people’s behavior, we must understand how they construe to their environment - how they think.

e.g. How do risk-takers think and solve problems?

Question 26

Humanistic Psychology

Answer 26

• Focuses on the roles of consciousness, free will, and awareness of the human condition.
• Emphasizes personal values and goals and how they influence behavior, rather than attempting to divide personality into smaller components.
• Self-actualization and unconditional positive regard are all part of this perspective
• Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers

Question 27

Abraham Maslow

Answer 27

• Proposed the idea of self-actualization, in which one has a need to reach their full potential in a creative way, by accepting themselves and nature.

Question 28

Carl Rogers

Answer 28

• Stressed the role of Unconditional Positive Regard, which expresses acceptance for one even when they have made bad decisions.

Question 29

Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic Psychology

Answer 29

• Founded by Sigmund Freud
• Drew the distinction between the conscious (mental state of awareness that we can access) and unconscious mind (mental state of awareness we cannot access but influences our thoughts).
• Believed that behaviors were impacted by early childhood experiences.
• Focuses on resolution of conflicts through uncovering information that has been repressed (buried in unconscious).

Question 30

Sociocultural Psychology

Answer 30

Believes that the environment a person lives in has a great deal to do with how the person behaves and how others perceive that behavior.

e.g. How does culture impact risk-taking behavior?

Question 31

Evolutionary Psychology

Answer 31

Draws upon the theories of Darwin

e.g. Is risk-taking an evolutionary trait?