Chapter 1: Intro to Psychology Flashcards
What is psychology?
Psychology is the scientific study of behaviour and mental processes
What do psychologists do?
Try to describe, predict, and explain human behaviour and mental processes, and to help change/improve their lives.
What is trepanning?
Chipping a hole in a patients skull with stone instruments to “let out” the evil spirits in ones body
Who created structuralism?
Wilhelm Wundt
What is structuralism?
Focusing on the uncovering of the fundamental mental components of perception, consciousness, thinking, emotions, and other mental states/activities.
What procedure did structuralists use?
Introspection
What is introspection?
A procedure in which they presented people to triggers/stimulus and asked them to describe what they were experiencing
Why was introspection not accurate?
Difficulty explaining some experiences and not truly scientific: hard to not be biased patients and outside observers.
What replaced structuralism?
Functionalism
What is functionalism?
Concentrates on what the mind does and how behaviour functions – what role behaviour plays in allowing people to adapt to their environment.
Who led functionalism?
William James
What does functionalism examine?
How behaviour allows people to satisfy their needs and how our “stream of consciousness” permit us to adapt to our environment.
Who was William James heavily influenced by?
Charles Darwin – evolutionary psychology!
What is the neuroscience perspective?
Views behaviour from the perspective of biological functioning: hereditary, evolution, brain chemistry, etc…
Who is known as the father of neuropsychology?
Donald Webb
What is behavioural neuroscience/biopsychology?
The perspective of psychology that mainly examines how the brain and nervous system determine behaviour.
What is the Psychodynamic Perspective?
Argues that behaviour is motivated by inner forces and conflicts about which we have little awareness or control.
Who was the most famous psychodynamic psychologist?
Sigmund Freud
What were Freud’s 3 major contributions?
- Introduced notion that we have a subconscious
- Contributed the idea that early childhood shapes us as adults
- Propose that psychological difficulties could be treated with psychological means, not biomedical.
What is the behavioural perspective?
Psychology should focus on observable behaviour that can be measured objectively.
Who was the first psychologist to advocate for behavioural psychology?
John B. Watson
The behavioural perspective was championed by who?
B. F. Skinner
What is the cognitive perspective?
focuses nohow people think, understand, and process information about the world.
What does cognitive psychology focus on?
the higher mental processes, including thinking, memory, reasoning, problem solving, judging, decision making, and language
What is the humanistic perspective?
Suggests that all individuals naturally strive to grow, develop, and can be in control of their lives and behaviour.
Who were central figures in the development of the humanistic perspective? (2)
Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow.
What is experiment psychology (sub-field of psych)
the branch of psychology that studies the processes of sensing, perceiving, learning, and thinking about the world.
What is developmental psychology? (sub-field of psych)
Studies how people grow and change from the moment of conception to death.
What is personality psychology (sub-field of psych)?
Focuses on the consistency in people’s behaviour over time and the traits that differentiate one person from another.
What is health psychology? (sub-field of psych)
Explores the relationship between psychological factors and physical ailment or disease. (ie: long term stress on physical health)
What is clinical psychologists? (sub-field of psych)
Deals with the study, diagnosis, and treatment of psychological disorders.
What is counselling psychology? (sub-field of psych)
Focuses primarily on education, social, and career adjustment problems.
What is Evoltutionary Psychology? (sub-field of psych)
Considers how behaviour is influenced by our genetic inheritance from our ancestors.
What is indigenous psychology? (sub-field of psych)
the movement in psychology that seeks the decolonization of psychological science and meaning integration of Indigenous knowledge into the psychological explanation of behaviour and mental processes.
What is the scientific method?
the approach used by psychologists to systematically acquire knowledge and understanding about behaviour and other phenomena of interest.
What are the 3 main steps of the scientific method?
- Identify questions of interest
- formulating an explanation
- carrying out research designed to support or refute the explanation.
What are theories?
plausible explanations for existing and true facts
What is a hypothesis?
a prediction stated in a way that allows it to be testing; seeming from theories.
What is naturalistic observation?
The investigator observes some naturally occurring behaviour and doe snot make a change in the situation.
What is survey research?
a sample of people chosen to represent larger group of interest (a population) are asked a series of questions about their behaviour, thoughts, or attitude.
What is hard about naturalistic observation?
the inability to control any of the factors of interest or people altering their behaviours/reactions if they’re being watched, producing behaviour that is not representative
Why is survey research good?
Allows researchers to collect a huge amount of data quickly and cheaply, phenomena that isn’t always easy studied in a lab.
What are the cons of surgery research?
sample may not be representative of the broader population, people may respond inaccurately if biased or worded one way, respondents may not admit to certain behaviours to hold socially desired attitudes.
What is the case study?
an in-depth, intensive investigation of an individual or small group.
What’s good about case studies?
You can study phenomenon that are rare/unusual, rich detailed information.
What are the drawbacks of case studies?
Too unique, impossible to make a valid generalization to a larger population.
What are variables?
behaviour, events, or other characteristics that can change in some way.
What is used in correlation research?
2 sets of variables that are examined to determine where they’re associated or “correlated”.
What is correlation coefficient?
Provides info regarding the strength and direction of a relationship
What is positive correlation?
If the value of one variable increases, so does the other.
What is negative correlation?
If the value of one variable increases, the other decreases.
What is the difference between correlation and causality
While two variable may be correlated, that does not mean that one causes the other
What is experimental manipulation?
The change that the researcher deliberately makes in an experiment to detect the difference in variables.
What is the experimental group?
Any group that receives a treatment
What is the control group?
The group that doesn’t receive a treatment.
What is the independent variable?
The condition that is manipulated by the experimenter.
What is random assignment to condition?
Participants being assigned to different experimental groups completely on the basis of chance.
What is the dependant variable?
the measured variable and is expected change as a result of changes done by experimenters manipulation of independent variable.
