Chapter 1 Flashcards
Psychology
The scientific study of the mind, brain and behaviour
Levels of Analysis
Social Cultural jnfluences -> Psychological -> Biological
Individual Differences
Variations among people in thinking, emotion, personality, behaviour
Introspection
Method which trained observers carefully reflect and report their mental experiences
Structuralism
School of psyc that aimed to identify the basic elements of psychological experience (Wundt)
Functionsalism
School of psyc that aimed to understand the adaptive purposes of psychological characteristics (Darwin)
Natural Selection
Emphasizes that physical and behavioural characteristics evolved because they increased the chances of survival and reproduction (Darwin)
Behaviourism
Focuses on uncovering the general principles of learning underlying human and animal behaviour (Watson)
Cognitive Psychology
School of psyc that proposes that thinking is central to understanding behaviour (Piaget)
Cognitive Neuroscience
Examines the relation between brain function and thinking
Psychoanalysis
School of psyc that focuses on unconscious internal psychological processes (Freud)
Evolutionary Psychology
A discipline that applies Natural Selection to human and animal behaviour
Naïve Realism
The belief that we see the world exactly as it is
Scientific Theory
An explanation for a large number of findings in the natural world
Hypothesis
A testable prediction
Confirmation Bias
The tendency to seek out information that supports our beliefs and disregard or distort information that refutes it
Belief Perseverance
Tendency to stick to our initial beliefs when evidence contradicts them
Pseudoscience
A set of claims that seem scientific but isn’t
Patternicity
The tendency to detect meaningful patterns in random stimuli
ruling out rival hypotheses
have important alternative explanations for the findings been excludeds?
correlation vs causation
can we be sure that A causes B?
falsifiability
can the claim be disproved?
replicability
can the results be duplicated in other studies?
extraordinary claims
is the evidence as strong as the claim?
occam’s razor
does a simpler explanation fit the data just as well?
