Chapter 1 Flashcards
1
Q
What is psychology?
A
- the scientific study of behavior and the mind
- diverse topics and subfields
2
Q
What is behavior?
A
-actions and responses that we can directly observe
3
Q
What is the mind?
A
-internal states and processes, such as thoughts and feelings that cannot be seen directly, are inferred by measurable responses
4
Q
What is clinical psychology?
A
-the study of mental processes, it is a model that views the mind as an information processor
5
Q
What is cognitive psychology?
A
-the study of mental processes, it is a model that views the mind as an information processor
6
Q
What were the 6 subfields of psychology that were discussed?
A
- Biopsychology/ neuroscience (focuses on biology side of behavior eg: how brain processes genes, hormones, etc)
- Developmental psychology (examines the physical, psychological, and social development of humans)
- Experimental psychology (focuses on basic processes such as learning, sensory systems, and motivational states-most research involves laboratory experiments)
- Industrial-organizational psychology (examines peoples behavior in the workplace)
- Personality psychology (study of human personality)
- Social psychology (examines peoples thoughts, behaviors, and feelings pertaining to the social world)
7
Q
How can our own experiences and observations lead to inaccurate beliefs?
A
- we often take mental shortcuts when forming judgments eg: judging someone’s personality based on stereotypes
- we fail to consider alternative explanations for why a behavior occurred (we assume one behavior caused it, when a less obvious factor could be the true cause)
- confirmation bias (we selectively pay attention to information consistent with our beliefs and downplay information that is not)
8
Q
What is critical thinking?
A
-taking an active role in understanding the world around you rather than merely receiving information
9
Q
What is the cycle of the scientific method?
A
- literature search (background)
- hypothesis (testable)
- design experiment
- collect data
- analyze data (inferential statistics)
- conclusion-publish in poster/journal (if the alternative hypothesis is confirmed it gets added to literature, if not need to try something different)
10
Q
What is basic research?
A
-obtaining knowledge for its own sake
11
Q
What is applied research?
A
-designed to solve specific practical problems
12
Q
What are the 4 central goals of psychology?
A
- To describe how people and other animals behave
- To explain and understand the causes of these behaviors
- To predict how people and animals will behave under certain conditions (testable)
- To influence and control behavior through knowledge and control of its causes to enhance human welfare
13
Q
What are Psychology’s levels of analysis?
A
- Biological level: brain processes, genetic influences, etc
- Psychological level: thoughts, feelings, motives eg: IQ and emotions
- Environmental level: the past and current physical and social environments to which we are exposed: where we are raised, conflict level, income level, type of schooling, etc
14
Q
What do the levels of psychology being bidirectional mean?
A
- they are all inter-related
eg: having a low socioeconomic status means having lower nutrition and worse health while having a high socioeconomic status often leads to having a high IQ because those individuals have more resources
15
Q
What are mind-body processes?
A
the relationship between the mental processes in the brain and the functioning of other bodily systems
eg: by focusing on positive thoughts when facing a challenge you can keep your body arousal in check, but if you dwell on negative thoughts, you will stimulate the release of stress hormones
16
Q
What is nature-nurture interactions?
A
- modern research finds that our behavior is shaped by both nature and nurture
- our biology affects how we behave and experience the world and our experiences influence our biology
eg: epigenetics (environment can change gene expression)
eg: if you don’t have enough nutrients you will never reach your maximum potential heigh no matter what your genes say
eg: mental health is both nature and nurture (an have anxiety gene but not be triggered until put in a certain situation)
17
Q
What is the mind-body problem?
A
Is the mind a spiritual entity separate from the body, or is it a part of the body’s activities?
18
Q
What did Rene Descartes propose as an answer to the mind-body problem?
A
- mind-body dualism= the mind is a spiritual entity not subject to the physical laws that govern the body
- implied that no amount of research on the physical body could unravel the mysteries of the nonphysical mind
- placed the mind within the brain and proposed that the mind and body interact through the brain’s pineal gland
19
Q
What did John Locke propose as an answer to the mind-body problem?
A
- monism=the mind and body are one and the mind is not a separate spiritual entity
- mental events are a product of physical events
- founded the school of British Empiricism (believed that all ideas and knowledge are gained empirically through the sense) so believed the mind can be studied empirically
eg: chemical reactions in the brain produce emotions; decisions etc.
20
Q
What did Charles Darwin propose as an answer to the mind-body problem?
A
- the theory of evolution and the idea of natural selection (certain physical traits are passed on to future generations because they are advantageous)
- evolution implies that the mind is not a spiritual entity, it is a product of biological continuity between humans and other species
- the theory also implied that scientists may gain insight into human behavior by studying other species
21
Q
What is structuralism and which researchers had this theory?
A
Structuralism=the analysis of the mind by breaking it down into basic components/ elements to better understand the psychology
-is the approach of William Wundt and Edward Titchener
22
Q
How did structuralists study sensations?
A
- they used introspection, “looking within”
- this was a method used to study sensations (considered the basic elements of consciousness)
- exposed participants to sensory stimuli and trained them to describe their inner experiences
23
Q
What theory did structuralism give away too?
A
-functionalism
24
Q
What is functionalism and which researchers had this theory?
A
-the idea that psychology should study the functions of consciousness rather than its structure
-why do we behave the way that we do and how does it help us?
-William James was a leader of functionalism and helped establish psychology in North America
James trained Mary Whiton Calkins, who studied memory and dreams and became the first female president of the American Psychological Association in 1905
25
What is the issue with functionalism?
- it is something we study after the fact, we can't answer with scientific testing
eg: we can't tell how we will change and evolve and we can't usually answer why we do certain things with the scientific method
26
What is the Psychodynamic Perspective?
-it searches for the causes of behavior within the inner workings of our personality (our unique pattern of traits, emotions, and motives) and emphasizes the unconscious process
27
What did Sigmund Freud contribute to psychology?
- he founded psychoanalysis (the analysis of internal and unconscious processes) and broadened the study and treatment of psychological disorders
- believed psychological problems are a result of:
1. motives in a part of the mind we are unaware of (unconcious)
2. unresolved past conflicts (therapy-talking about past trauma to analyze why we act how we do and change the behavior)
28
What technique did Sigmund Freud use on his patients?
- free association
- patients expressed any thoughts that came to mind, they often expressed painful and long-forgotten childhood memories eg: of sexual abuse
- reliving these experiences often improved their symptoms
29
Why were Sigmund Freud's theories so controversial?
- heavy emphasis on childhood sexuality
- proposed that humans are born with strong sexual desires that are punished in childhood, so being aware of their presence leads to anxiety which leads us to suppress certain memories and feelings in our unconscious self (struggle between our internal urges and defences=psychodynamic)
30
What is the behavioral perspective?
- focuses on the role of the external environment in governing our actions
- behavior is determined by previous life experiences and by stimuli in our immediate environment
31
What ideas did John Locke contribute to the understanding of the behavioral perspective?
- at birth, the human mind is a tabula rasa (a blank tablet or slate) where experiences are written
- the idea that human nature and human behavior are shaped purely by the environment
32
What ideas did Ivan Pavlov contribute to the behavioral perspective?
- revealed how learning occurs when events are associated with each other
- found that dogs automatically learned to salivate to the sound of a new stimulus, like a tone, when the stimulus was repeatedly paired with food
33
What ideas did Edward Thorndike contribute to the behavioral perspective?
-examined how organisms learn through the consequences of their actions (operative conditioning)
Law of Effect:
-responses followed by satisfying consequences are more likely to recur and those followed by unsatisfying consequences become less likely to recur
-therefore understanding learning is the key to understanding how experience molds behavior
34
What is behaviorism?
- a school of thought that emphasizes environmental control of behavior through learning
- studies stimuli and response to stimuli
35
What were John B. Watson's thoughts on psychology?
- he believed that observable behavior was more important than mental events because can measure behavior empirically, but cannot measure what is going on in your head
- he strongly opposed the "mentalism" of the structuralists, functionalists, and psychoanalysts
- believed humans are products of their learning experiences
36
What did Skinner contribute to behaviorism and psychology?
- believed that behavior is controlled by the environment
- did experiments on animals and examined how behavior is influenced by the rewarding and punishing consequences it produces
- control environment, then control behavior
- beginnings of behavioral modification therapy (manipulating environmental factors to decrease problem behaviors and increase positive behaviors)
37
What is cognitive behaviorism?
- learning experiences and the environment affect our behavior by affecting our thoughts first, then we decide how to behave based on the information given.
- human beings are "thinking" creatures, we don't just react to the environment on reflex
- we learn new behaviors by observing the actions of others eg; Boba doll experiment
- two way: environment influences us and we influence the environment
38
What was Albert Bandura's contribution to cognitive behaviorism?
- he merged the cognitive and behavioral perspectives to establish cognitive behaviorism
- challenged the view of radial behaviorists that mental life was off-limits for scientific study
39
What is the humanistic perspective?
- we are all born with an inborn force towards self-actualization (reaching our individual potential), the meaning of existence lies in our hands
- emphasizes the study of human achievement, human strength, and optimal living
- is reflected in today's positive psychology movement eg: self-help books
40
What are the 5 things that the humanist perspective emphasizes?
1. conscious motives
2. freedom
3. choice
4. self-actualization
5. reaching one's individual potential
41
What is the cognitive perspective?
- It examines the nature of the mind and how mental processes influence behavior
- humans are information processors and our actions are governed by thoughts
- structuralism and functionalism reflect this perspective
42
What is Gestalt Psychology?
- examines how the mind organizes elements of experience into a unified or "whole" perception -the mind is studied in terms of large meaningful units rather than small units of structuralism
- "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts"
- stimulated interest in topics of perspective and problem solving
43
What did the Behaviourists (led by Skinner) think about how children acquire language?
-claimed that language is acquired through basic principles of learning (nurture-learn from others)
44
What did the Linguists (led by Noam Chomsky) think about how children acquire language?
-argued that humans are biologically "preprogrammed" to acquire language and that children come to understand language as a set of mental rules
45
What did Jean Piaget theorize about children's thinking?
- explained how children's thinking became more sophisticated with age
- children go through cognitive development (first develop sensory and motor skills), when have an adult brain, they have reached the critical thinking stage
46
What was the cognitive revolution?
-a period of time where psychologists' interest in mental processes swelled in the 1960s and 1970s
47
What is the modern cognitive perspective?
-focuses on the study of mental processes and embodies the cognitive perspective
-study the processes by which people reason,
make decisions, solve problems, form perceptions, and produce and understand language
48
What does Elizabeth Loftus do in the field of psychology?
- studies memories and the factors that distort it
| eg: false memories as a result of misleading information present after the fact-can easily mislead witnesses in court
49
What is the sociocultural perspective?
- how the social environment and cultural learning influence our behavior, thoughts, and feelings
- considers social psychology, culture, social norms, and social environment
- reflects the "environment" level of psychological analysis
eg: Asian cultures have a fixed mindset and western cultures have a growth mindset
50
What is the idea of the embedded human?
- biopsychosocial psychology
| - embedding the biological, social, and psychological aspects of psychology and viewing psychology holistically
51
What did Kenneth Clark and Mamie Clark research?
-examined how discrimination and prejudice influenced the personality development of African-American children
52
What is behavioral neuroscience?
- focuses on the physical side of human nature and physiological functions:
- brain structure and function
- biochemical processes
- genetic factors
53
What was Karl Lashley's research?
- was a pioneer of physiological psychology and behavioral neuroscience
- he examined how damage to various brain regions affected rats ability to learn and remember (tested ability to go through a maze)
- inspired other researchers to map brain functions
54
What was Lashley's law of mass effect?
-the more damage that is done to the brain, the greater the effect on learning, remembering, and behavioral impairment
55
What is behavior genetics?
- the study of how behavioural tendencies are influenced by genetic factors
- can breed animals for certain behavioral traits (eg: aggressive fish)
- identical twins (come from splitting of egg) are more similar than fraternal twins (come from two separate eggs), even when brought up in different homes, which suggests that some of our behavior has genetic links
56
Evolutionary Psychology
-seeks to explain how evolution shaped modern human behavior
- psychological abilities—thought, language,
and the capacity to learn and solve problems—
became more important to survival as our
ancestors had to adapt to new ways of living
-natural selection (Charles Darwin): characteristics that increase the likelihood of survival will be maintained
eg: measuring homosexual behavior in monkeys in Japan, found that the behavior resulted in more social cohesion and was used as a comforting behavior
57
Sociobiology
- complex social behaviors are a product of evolution
- aggression, competition, and dominance in males, and cooperative and nurturing tendencies in females
eg: the sex differences in reproduction (sexual selection) where women have more investment in the process (are the ones that get pregnant) results in more nurturing behavior
- therefore men and women are biologically predisposed to looking for different traits inmates
eg: genetic survival more important than individual survival-is why would sacrifice life for children
