Chapter 1 - Definitions Flashcards
There are lots of definitions ya need to know!
Define NATURE theory:
Biology, genetics, control how we function.
Define NURTURE theory:
Societal, environmental; learn through experience.
Describe Plato’s nativism:
innate knowledge!
The origin of our thought, feeling, behavior is innate or inborn.
This was first person who thought up of “DNA” but didn’t call it that.
Also, first person to propose that we weren’t controlled by divine powers.
Describe Aristotle’s philosophical empiricism:
tabula rasa!
The philosophical view that all knowledge is acquired through experience.
Describe the Supernatural approach of mental illness:
the idea that we are under the influence of external, supernatural, magical, or divine forces.
Describe the Medical approach to mental illness:
the idea that mental illness was a biological disease, and that it was contagious.
(sorta connected to Plato’s nativism).
Describe the Psychological approach to mental illness:
therapy, counseling.
Define monism:
the idea that the mind and the body are one, so the mind is the result of the activity of the brain.
Define dualism:
(Descartes, French philosopher) the view that the mind and body function separately.
Describe Gall’s theory of phrenology:
specific mental abilities and characteristics, ranging from memory to the capacity for happiness, are localized in specific regions of the brain.
Describe Flouren’s contribution to psychology:
Pierre Flourens: added precision through surgical experiments. First person to prove that parts of brain DO control certain functions.
Describe Broca’s contribution to psychology:
Broca’s area is right around both ears. wrote about a patient who could understand speech, but could not produce speech (other than the syllable “tan”) due to very specific damage in his brain.
^ First connection between mind and brain in humans.
What did Hermann von Helmholtz research?
What did he find?
1)
Helmholtz researched about measuring the speed of nerve impulses in a frog’s leg and humans.
2)
He estimated how long it took a nerve impulse to travel to the brain.
He showed that everything didn’t happen instantaneously, that it all wasn’t synchronized.
He also demonstrated that reaction time could be a useful way to study the mind and the brain.
Define exorcism:
removal of an evil influence through supernatural practices.
Define trepanation:
chisel hole in head to give demon space to leave the head.
Define Wilhelm Wundt’s structuralism:
structuralism: an approach in which the mind is broken into the smallest elements of mental experience, the first formal movement in psychology.
Structuralists sought to identify the “building blocks of consciousness”
Not a valid theory, just the first theory proposed that was testable.
Define Wilhelm Wundt’s introspection:
the technique of observing your mental events as they occur.
Describe Gestalt psychology:
when we see something, we will attempt to understand it and form meaning, even if that something is complete nonsense.
FTE: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Define illusions:
misperceptions of reality.
What does Gestalt psychology study?
Gestalt psychology studies illusions to prove the mind imposes meaning to anything it perceives.
Describe William James’ concept of functionalism:
sought to understand how people’s minds help them to adapt to the world, to function effectively in it.
Functionalists wanted to know why people think, feel, and behave as they do.
^First major theory to be supported through lab research.
What book did William James write:
The Principles of Psychology 1890
^required reading before WWII.
