Chapter 1 Flashcards
what is psychology
the study of the behaviour, mental processes and brain functions
how is psychology a hub science
psychology teaches you about people, it is needed everywhere
- the most influential sciences = hub sciences
what does behaviour mean
refers to any action that we can observe
- human behaviour, animal behaviour
what does introspection mean
a personal observation of your thoughts, feelings and behaviours
- does not follow well with the scientific method because it is difficult for others to confirm your thoughts, behaviours and feelings (introspects)
- we have now used innovations in mathematics to investigate brain activity and behaviour
give examples of introspections being misleading
- if you say you are hungry but nobody else can tell if your observations are accurate because it is based on your own internal and independent feelings
- Would listening in a lecture hall and seeing someone in front of you actively multitasking on a laptop distract you? people would think it wouldn’t but the results of a quiz showed those who noticed the laptop scored lower
what is the top 3 most common dreams
being chased
arriving too late
trying again and again
what is philosophy
the discipline that systematically examines basic concepts including the source of knowledge
what is natural sciences
sciences that study the physical and biological events that occur in nature
what are the 2 major roots of psychology
philosophy
natural sciences
explain how philosophy is one of psychology’s roots
they share an interest in answering similar questions about the nature of self, the origin of knowledge, etc
- considering biological and environmental factors
- they both want to determine the relationships between self-interest and community welfare
philosophers investigated issues about unconscious mind and abnormal behaviour before psychologists
how do natural sciences have a root in psychology
when philosophers ask questions about whether the mind is inborn or formed throughout life, it starts with Aristotle and ten “black slate” birth and characteristics that are influenced by both genetics and experience like intelligence
- they thought the mind was supernatural but once mind and physical aspects came together they realized they could study the brain
they slowly incorporated physiological and psychological concepts into their work by running experiments like what is the softest sound a human ear can hear
what did the ancient greek philosophers think that relates to psychology
observations can be accounted for by natural explanations, not supernatural ones
what did the British empiricists think that relates to psychology
knowledge is the result of experience
what did the ancient physicians think that relates to psychology
the brain is a source of the mind
what did the natural scientists of the 17th and 18th century think that relates to psychology
discoveries about sensation and movement showed that the mind was physical
what did Hermann von Helmholtz think that relates to psychology
studies of reaction time reinforced the idea that the mind is physical
- he asked his participants to push a button when they felt a touch, the thigh gave a faster response to touch rather than the toes because it is further away from the brain
who was the first experimental psychologist
Wilhelm wundt
what was Wilhelm Wundt’s first experiment
he was training to be a doctor and wanted to use methods used in physiology to test psychological processes such as attention and decision-making
- “Is it possible to time mental processes?”
- stimuli = ball dropping + reaction time
- little risk to their patients
he said that the reaction time is a measure of the amount of mental processing required to carry out a task - as more complex tasks, the reaction time increased correspondingly
What makes von Helmholtz’s demonstration a physiological experiment and Wundt’s a psychological experiment?
depends on the interpretation that each scientist made of his results
- Helmholtz = differences in rxn time in these two instances represent the effects of the speed of conduction of neural signalling (bc the toe is further from the brain than the thigh)
- Wundts = more psychological because as decisions become more complex, reaction time increased
what was Wundt the first to believe
believe that conscious experience could be studied scientifically + conducted the first documented psychological experiment
- believed that humans were capable of deciding what to attend to and this is what is perceived clearly
= voluntarism
what is voluntarism
an approach that emphasizes the role of will and choice in determining thoughts, perceptions and behaviours
- refers to the idea that the mind actively organizes information and experiences
- mental processes are not just reactions to stimuli but are driven by will
what is the theory of structuralism
the mind is broken down into the smallest basic components to understand the structure of the mind
- Edward Tichnener - student of Wundt
- can be broken down into 3 types of mental elements (sensations, images, feelings) and each of these can be broken down further into their fundamental properties
what are the 3 mental elements that Titchener
sensations
images
feelings
Who is John Wallace Bird
Canadian psychologist who studied under Titchener for the structuralist approach
- he was president of the American Psychological Association but he has been forgotten due to the part of devaluation of the structuralist approach
what is Gestalt psychology
an approach that saw experience as being different from the sum of its elements
- the group of founders rejected the structuralist approach
- believed that breaking a whole perception into its components = loss of important psychological info
A |3 C
12 |3 14
people read the first line as a B and the 2nd as a 13 - Gestalt psychologists would have no problem explaining this because the think of perception as a whole
explain functionalism by William James
a new type of psychology that was a response to Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species”
- viewed behaviour as purposeful because it led to survival (interested in why behaviour and mental processes worked in a particular way)
- the value of an activity depended on its consequences
EX: if we enjoy ice cream, it must be because there is nutrients in ice cream to enhance our survival
- it was no longer a distinct school or psychology but became mainstream psychology bc of its success
define stream of consciousness by William James
describes the flow of ideas that people experience while awake
What is the basic difference between structuralists vs functionalists
structuralists want to describe the conscious experience
functionalists want to explain why we had such experiences
explain what Mary Whiton Calkins wrote in her article about functionalism and structuralism
arguing a reconciliation between the 2 approaches to psychology - saying that they are concerned with understanding consciousness and should not be viewed as incompatible with each other
- should be used together
what was the Canadian Psychological Association’s early focus?
aiding the Canadian war effort during WW2
- developing tests that would help the recruitment of soldiers
- currently, they focus on improving the wellness and health for all Canadians and promoting excellence in psychological wellness
Who was the first Canadian woman to complete her PhD in psychology
emma sophia baker
what was the most common view of psychological disorders throughout history
supernatural approach
- disorders = actions of the evil spirits
two scientific approaches come from this = medical and psychological model
medical = medication
psychological = abornal behaviour = life experiences
currently, we try to use both models - depression = medication plus therapy to change the way a person thinks
who is Sigmund Freud and what did he do
he linked his medical training to his belief about the impact of life experiences on behaviour
- his idea of these disorders dominated the thinking
- he founded the exploration of the personality = psychoanalysis
- his theories are based on his patients who were upper-class Vienessese housewives
what is the humanistic approach
an approach that saw people as inherently good and motivated to learn and improve
- Abraham Maslow + Carl Rogers
- this approach came because people were angry that they were not getting the same result for everyone (lots of variability)
- focused on what is good about people rather than Freud’s focus on what is wrong with people = positive psychology
what is the difference between humanistic and psychoanalysis
PSYCHOANALYSIS
- driven by unconscious conflicts
- Unconscious drives (sexual, aggressive)
- Unscientific, overly focused on childhood
HUMANISTIC
- Unscientific, overly focused on childhood
- client therapy
- self-actualization
- lacks scientific evidence
what is client-centred therapy
an approach to therapy - Carl Roger
- influence communication, group process, parenting, politics (calling the people clients instead of patients)
what is behaviourism
an approach that features the study and careful measurement of observable behaviours
- usually studied animals
- used Darwin’s evidence
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov = Dogs salivation response to the arrival of someone who is handling them - they learned the association to anticipate important future events with the advantage of survival
what is classical/Pavlovian conditioning
type of learning where an organism learns to associate two stimuli, resulting in a newly learned response
- fruit flies, snails, slugs, humans
- our emotional responses associated with environmental cues are the result of this learning (ex - anxiety before exams)
how does John B Watson impact the marketing department
he discovered that blindfolded clients could not tell the difference between 2 companies of cigarettes
- you need to make the image appealing so it be recognized - now everyone makes appealing products - changed marketing and advertising
- he was a strong believer in the blank-slate approach (empiricist philosopher)
- used psychology with observable behaviour
what is the law of effect
Edward Thorndike
suggests that behaviours followed by pleasant or helpful outcomes would be more likely to occur in the future - behaviours followed by unpleasant or harmful outcomes would be less likely to occur
- tested this using cats and a puzzle box - the cat repeated effective behaviours and abandoned ineffective ones
what did B.F Skinner believe
inner, private states such as thinking and feeling existed but he viewed them as behaviours that followed the same rules as public behaviours like driving a car
what is behavioural neuroscience
behaviourists often refer to a “black box” model, in which stimuli enter and responses exit, but you don’t need to know much about what the box is doing to the data
- led to the development of the biological psychology perspective
what is cognition
it is the internal mental processes that the behavioralists avoided to study
it is the thinking, problem-solving and reasoning by Ulric Neisser
what are cognitive psychologists
information processing, thinking, reasoning, problem-solving
- they use computer technology + mathematical models
they have developed methods of quantifying internal cognitive processes aided in part by the advancements in technology
Wilder Penfield
the surgical treatment of epilepsy
detailed functional maps of the human brain
enabled hm to map the sensory and motor cortices and simulate the brain in different areas while the patient is awake
Donald Hebb and Penfield
Hebb wanted to study the psychological effects of Penfield’s surgical treatments
- he published a book about memory and the brain
what is “Hebb’s Rule” By Donald Hebb
in his book he called it the rule because he found out that “neurons that fire together, wire together”
who is the founder of neuropsychology
brenda milner one of Hebb’s students
what were some of the perspectives that psychologists were using to examine psychological phenomena like learning a new vocabulary word
as science became more popular psychologists used different theories like biological, developmental, cognitive, social, or behavioural psychology’s
what is biological psychology
also called behavioural neuroscience
focuses on the relationships between the mind and behaviour and their underlying biological processes like genetics, biochemistry, anatomy, and physiology
- they do this by observing changes in communication between nerve cells in slugs, investigating the effect of stress hormones to form memories
what is evolutionary psychology
a perspective that investigates how physical structure and behaviour have been shaped by their contributions to survival and reproduction
- it is the extension of James’s functionalism
our current behaviour exists because it provides us with some advantage to survival and reproduction
what is cognitive psychology
a psychological perspective that investigates information processing, thinking, reasoning and problem-solving
what is developmental psychology
perspective that examines the normal changes in behaviour that occur across the lifespan
- how does memory differ at different ages
what is social and personality psychology
social = perspective that examines the effects of the social environment on the behaviour of a person
personality psych = an individual’s characteristic way of thinking, feeling and behaving
they both describe the effects of social environments + cultural diversity
T/F people who are high in “need for cognition” also remember more of the messages to which they are exposed and respond differently to persuasive messages
true
what is clinical psychology
a perspective that seeks to explain, define, and treat abnormal behaviours
traumatic experiences are harder to remember called repression
what is the difference between how psychology was studied before vs now
before they zoomed in and formed many different types of perspectives
now they are zooming out and integrating multiple types of perspectives
how do Indigenous worldviews differ
The holistic framework is where the whole person (physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual) is seen as being interconnected to land and in relationship to others (family, communities, nations).
can using one single perspective be misleading?
yes
example: understand the relationship between child maltreatment and antisocial behaviour
clinical psych would focus on environmental factors like personal factors, peers, etc
biological psych = certain candidate genes and their relationships with aggressive behaviours
but using them together helped them realize that it is a gene where an environmental interaction takes place, kids that have a lazy MAOA gene respond to maltreatment and become antisocial
