Chapter 1: Introduction to Psychology

Question 1

Provide definitions of psychology, mind, and behaviour

Answer 1

Psychology is the studying of the mind and behaviour. The mind talks about subjective experiences such as sensations, perceptions, memories, thoughts, motives, and emotions. Behaviour are observable actions of people or non-human animals

Question 2

Define social cognition

Answer 2

Neural networks supporting functions of thinking about oneself, other people, and oneself in relation to others that are active immediately after birth

Question 3

Explain what is meant by folk psychology theories, where these theories come from,
and how folk psychology differs from the scientific approach taken by psychologists

Answer 3

Folk psychology is everyday common-sense of understanding of the mental states and behaviours of others including ourselves. It comes from experience (memory of personal events) and intuition (subjective feelings about what makes sense). It differs from scientific as it does not rely on science but rather common-sense

Question 4

Explain the limitations of personal experience and intuition for understanding human
psychology
a. Define inattentional blindness and illusion of attention
b. Define confirmation bias and explain how it is related to belief perseverance
c. Discuss examples of subtle contextual factors that can drive behaviour without
us realizing it

Answer 4

a. Inattentional blindness is the failure to perceive events outside the focus of one’s attention whereas the illusion of attention is what we do not notice how much of our world we do not notice
b. Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek out, pay attention to, and believe evidence that supports what we are already confident we know. It relates to belief perseverance as it will ignore new information that contradicts our beliefs

Question 5

Define misattribution of arousal

Answer 5

Attributing physiological arousal to the wrong source (the Capilano bridge study)

Question 6

Explain what a replication study is, and why it’s important

Answer 6

A replication study is a repeat of a previous study that uses similar methods and conditions to confirm or contradict the original results. This is important because it builds confidence in reliability, and promote discoveries that can inspire new questions, hypotheses, or theories

Question 7

Explain what it means for psychology to be a “summative” science

Answer 7

it rests on body of knowledge that continues growing.

Question 8

Identify (in broad terms) the different areas of psychology (e.g., biological-
neuroscience, evolutionary, cultural, social, clinical, etc.), and what perspective they
take/what they focus on

Answer 8

1. Biological
2. Cognitive
3. Social and Personality
4. Clinical
5. Developmental
6. Evolutionary

Question 9

Explain how we can use critical thinking to evaluate claims

Answer 9

1. Assess the sources on whether it is reliable and unbiased
2. Checking for evidence- is the source reliable and credible?
3. Considering multiple perspectives- being open to multiple viewpoints
4. Check for biases or fallacies- can distort your thinking

Question 10

Describe research-based strategies for effective studying

Answer 10

distributed practice, testing effect, deep encoding and good sleep