Chapter 1 Flashcards
What is Psychology?
The scientific study of mind and behavior
What is the difference between mind and behavior?
The mind is your private inner experience; the behavior is observable actions of humans and animals
What does a Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) do?
It is a neuro imaging technique that allows one to see which parts of the brain are active during certain tasks
What did William James do?
He was the first to take scientific approach to psychology; functionalism
What is structuralism?
Analyzing the mind and breaking it down into basic components
What is functionalism?
Studying how mental abilities allow people to adapt to the environment
What is nativism?
The philosophical view that certain kinds of knowledge are innate or inborn; Plato
What is philosophical empiricism?
The philosophical view that all knowledge is acquired through experience; Aristotle; tabula rosa
What did Rene Descartes argue?
He advocated for dualism, that the mind and body are separate
What did Thomas Hobbes argue?
Argued against Descartes; said that the mind is what the body does
What did Franz Joseph Gall do?
Phrenology: different regions of the brain do different things; however, his idea that you could identify what these different regions do by feeling ones scalp is completely wrong
What did Pierre Flourens do?
He surgically removed brain pieces from rats; argued against Gall’s methods
What did Paul Broca do?
He studied brain damaged patients to link localization to ability; discovered that the left frontal lobe is linked to speech
What is physiology?
The biological processes of the human body
What did Hermann Von Helmholtz do?
He studied human reaction time and the length of nerve impulse
What is a stimulus and reaction time?
A stimulus is sensory input from the environment, and reaction time is time taken to respond to a certain stimulus
What did Wilhelm Wundt do?
He had the first psychological laboratory; studied consciousness, structuralism, and introspection
What is consciousness?
A person’s subjective experience of the world and mind
What is introspection?
Subjective observation of one’s own experience
What did Edward Titchener do in regards to chemistry in psychology?
He identified basic elements of the mind
Who influenced William James in functionalism?
Charles Darwin did with writing The Origin of Species and talking about natural selection
What did G. Stanley Hall do?
He established the first psychological lab in North America; focused on development and education
Why did Jean-Martin Charcot and Pierre Janet do?
They studied hysteric patients through hypnosis
What is hysteria?
A temporary loss of cognitive or motor functions, usually due to emotionally upsetting experiences
What does Sigmund Freud say about hysteria?
He says that hysteria is caused by painful unconscious experiences
What is psychoanalytic theory?
Unconscious thoughts are important because they influence feelings, thoughts, and behaviors
What is psychoanalysis?
Therapeutic, unconscious to conscious awareness to understand psychological disorders
Why did Carl Jung and Alfred Adler break away from Freud?
Psychoanalytic theory became controversial
What new movement in Humanistic Psychology did Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers pioneer?
The approach to understanding human nature that emphasizes the positive potential of human beings
What is Behaviorism?
the theory that human and animal behavior can be explained in terms of conditioning, without appeal to thoughts or feelings
What did Watson do?
Studied observable behavior (behaviorism); little Albert
What did Washburn do?
Studied behavior in animals (behaviorism)
What did Pavlov do?
found that a stimulus elicits a response
What did Skinner do?
He came up with the idea of reinforcement; said that behavior is determined by rewards and punishments; free will is an illusion; Beyond Freedom and Dignity
What is reinforcement?
The consequences of a behavior that determine whether it will be more likely that the behavior will occur again (Skinner box and teaching machines)
What is Cognitive Psychology?
scientific study of mind and mental function, including learning, memory, attention, perception, reasoning, language, conceptual development, and decision making
What are illusions?
Error in perception that differs from reality
What did Wertheimer do?
Induced motion phenomena; Gestalt psychology (perceive whole rather than the sum; simplicity)
What did Bartlett do?
memory recall is flawed; contrast with Ebbinghaus
What did Piaget do?
cognitive development in children; spacial vs quantitative
What did Lewin do?
Construal of stimuli to model subjective experience
What did Broadbent do?
attention has a limited capacity; influence of Miller (capacity limits in memory) and Chomsky (language)
What is cognitive neuroscience?
Links between cognitive processes and brain activity
What is behavioral neuroscience?
links psychological processes to activities in the nervous system and other bodily functions
What did Lashley do?
Lesioned rats brains to unsuccessfully localize learning
What is evolutionary psychology?
explains mind and behavior in terms of the adaptive value of abilities that are preserved over time by natural selection (Darwin, James, E.O. Wilson)
What is cultural psychology?
Psychology is influenced by the presence and absence of other people bc humans are social animals
What is social psychology?
Has to do with causes and consequences of interpersonal behavior
What did Solomon Asch do?
“Mental chemistry” and obedience
What did Gordon Allport do?
Said that stereotyping, prejudice, and racism were perceptual errors
What is Clinical Psychology?
concerned with the assessment and treatment of mental illness and disability
The early roots of psychology are planted in…
Physiology and philosophy
Where and when was the first psychological laboratory opened?
Leipzig in 1879
Freud’s view of human nature was…
Negative
Humanistic psychologists view of human nature was..
Positive
How many members are there in the APS?
150,000
