Chapter 1 Flashcards
Psychology
the scientific study of mind and behavior
Mind
private inner experience of perceptions, thoughts, memories, and feelings
Behavior
observable actions of human beings and nonhuman animals
Nativism
the philosophical view that certain kinds of knowledge are innate or inborn–> Plato favored this
Philosophical empiricism
the view that all knowledge is acquired through experience–> Aristotle favored this
What did Aristotle think the mind is?
tabula rasa, or blank slate
René Descartes argued what?
argued that the mind and the body are different things
o mind/soul = immaterial
o body = material
What is dualism?
how mental activity can be reconciled & coordinated w/ physical behavior
Thomas Hobbes argued what?
that the mind is what the brain does; can’t look for where the mind meets the body
Phrenology
a now discredited theory that specific mental abilities and characteristics, ranging from memory and the capacity for happiness, are localized in specific regions of the brain
Who developed phrenology?
Franz Joseph Gall
What did Marie Jean Pierre Flourens do?
he surgically removed parts of animals brains and observed that they acted differently than animals whose brains were intact
What did Paul Broca do?
worked w/ patient who damaged part of brain & couldn’t speak, but could understand language and perform gestures; concluded that damage to a specific part of the brain could impair a specific mental function
What did the work of Broca and Flourens achieve?
essentially disproved Descartes’ theory that the mind is separate, but interacts with, the brain and the mind; mind is grounded in substance (brain!)
Physiology
the study of biological processes, esp. in the human body
What did Hemholtz measure & discover?
Measured reactions times from diff. parts of body to find speed of nerve impulse to brain; discovered that mental processes were NOT instantaneous
Consciousness
a person’s subjective experience of the world and the mind
Structuralism
The analysis of basic elements that constitute the mind
What did Wilhelm Wundt do?
Wrote book on physiological psychology, believed psychology should focus on consciousness
Introspection
the subjective observation of one’s own experiences
Describe Wundt’s reaction time experiments
One group told to press button when they heard sound, other group to press when they perceived sound; 2nd group 1/10 of second slower; showed that scientists could use techniques to disentangle subtle conscious processes
Titchener did what?
studied at Wundt’s lab, focused on identifying elements of consciousness (Cornell brain!)
Functionalism
the study of how mental processes enable ppl to adapt to their environments
Who developed functionalism? What did he liken consciousness to?
William James; flowing stream
What is the difference between structuralism and functionalism?
Structuralism- examined structure of mental processes
Functionalism- the purpose/functions of these mental processes
Natural selection
The features of an organism that help it survive and reproduce are more likely than other features to be passed on to subsequent generations
What did G. Stanley Hall theorize about evolutionary biology?
As children develop, they pass through stages that repeat mankind’s evolutionary history
Define hysteria
a temporary loss of cognitive or motor functions, usually as a result of emotionally upsetting experiences
What did experiments reveal about hysteric patients? Who were the physicians?
Blindness, paralysis, etc. disappeared when patients were hypnotized; revealed that the brain can create many conscious selves not aware of each other; Jean-Martin Charcot and Pierre Janet
What does the latin word “hyster” mean?
womb
According to Freud, what is unconscious mind?
the part of the mind that operates outside of conscious awareness but influences conscious thoughts, feelings, and actions
Define psychoanalytic theory
an approach that emphasizes the importance of unconscious mental processes in shaping feelings, thoughts, and behaviors
Define psychoanalysis
bringing unconscious material into conscious awareness to better understand psychological disorders
Define humanistic psychology
an approach to understanding human nature that emphasizes the positive potential of human beings
Define behaviorism
advocated that psychologists restrict themselves to the scientific study of objectively observable behavior
Define response
an action or physiological change elicited by a stimulus
What is the other name of behaviorism?
stimulus-response (S-R) psychology
Summarize Pavlov’s dog experiment
sounded tone when dogs were fed; after a little, merely sounding the tone led to dogs salivating
Define reinforcement
the consequences of a behavior determine whether it will be more or less likely to occur again
Summarize Skinner’s experiment
put rat in Skinner’s box; initially pressed lever by accident, food pellet drops, pressing of lever by rat increases dramatically until rat isn’t hungry; evidence of reinforcement
What was Skinner’s controversial claim?
our subjective sense of free will is an illusion and that when we think we’re exercising free will, we are actually responding to present and past patterns of reinforcement
What shared idea behind structuralism, functionalism, and psychoanalysis did the behaviorists challenge?
All preceding theories focused on thoughts/feelings reported by people, but behaviorists thought that psychology shouldn’t focus on mental life at all
What was the goal of scientific psychology according to Watson?
to predict and to control behavior in ways that benefit society
What technique, borrowed from Pavlov, did Watson famously apply to a human infant?
stimulus-response
Why was behaviorism replaced? What replaced it?
behaviorism ignored important mental processes and evolutionary history; cognitive psychology
Define illusions
errors of perception, memory
What is Gestalt psychology?
a psychological approach that emphasizes that we often perceive the whole rather than the sum of the parts; the mind imposes organization on what we see
What did Sir Frederic Bartlett discover?
Memory is not a photogenic reproduction of past experiences & that our attempts to remember the past are influenced by knowledge, beliefs, hopes, aspirations, desires
What did Jean Piaget discover?
Children at age 3 lacked cognitive ability to determine that even though the clay mound was broken into pieces, it had same amount of clay
Kurt Lewin argued what?
that a person’s behavior in the world could best be predicted by understanding the person’s subjective experience of the world i.e. pinch cheek
Lewin realized it was not the stimulus but the _____ of the stimulus
construal
Define cognitive psychology
the scientific study of mental processes, including perception, thought, memory, and reasoning
What was Noam Chomsky’s critique of Skinner’s book?
Language relies on mental rules that enable ppl to make new words/sentences, not behaviorist view that children learn to use language by reinforcement
What did Karl Lashley do with rats?
had them run a maze and surgically removed parts of their brains to see which part of the brain stored learning
Physiological psychology has become what field?
behavioral neuroscience
What is behavioral neuroscience?
An approach to psychology that links psychological processes to activities in the nervous system and to other bodily orocesses
What is cognitive neuroscience?
the field of study that attempts to understand the links between cognitive processes and brain activity
What were 3 developments that led psychologists away from behaviorism?
1) interest in mental processes
2) interest in brain
3) evolutionary psychology
Why was Garcia’s rat experiment important?
rats associated nausea more quickly with smell than with light or sound; even though they were born in lab, it was easier for ancestors to associate spoiled food with smell, so rats were genetically predisposed to do the same
What is evolutionary psychology?
explains the mind and behavior in terms of the adaptive value of abilities that are preserved over time by natural selection
What is the relationship of subjective experience to behavior?
A person’s construal of a stimulus affects the resulting behavior i.e. pinch on cheek
What did psychologists learn from WWII pilots?
can’t focus on many instruments and must actively move attention from one to another; limited capacity to handle incoming information
What is social psychology?
the study of the causes and consequences of sociality
What was Norman Triplett’s experiments? findings?
children reel fishing line faster when theyre with other children; the mere presence of other people can influence performance of tasks
What is cultural psychology?
the study of how cultures reflect and shape the psychological processes of their members
What does Absolutism hold? Relativism?
absolutism: that culture makes little or no difference for most psychological phenomena
relativism: psychological phenomena are likely to vary across cultures and should only be viewed within context of a culture
What is the scope of cultural psychology?
ranges widely b/c researchers look to see which phenomena are universal and which vary over different places and times
How has the face of psychology changed as the field as evolved?
Started as academic, now mostly clinical
Career paths for ppl trained in psychology?
Sports psychologist, marketing
Where does psychology stand in relation to other sciences?
between medicine and social science
