Chapter 1: Introduction to Psychology Key Terms Flashcards
Psychology:
The scientific study of thought and behavior.
Metacognitive thinking:
The process that includes the ability first to think and then to reflect on one’s own thinking: THINKING ABOUT YOUR THINKING
Cognitive psychology (aka experimental psychology):
The study of how we perceive information, how we learn and remember, how we acquire and use language, and how we solve problems.
Developmental psychology:
The study of how thought and behavior changes and shows stability across the life span.
Behavioral neuroscience:
Studies the links among the brain, mind, and behavior.
Biological psychology:
Researches connections between bodily systems and chemicals and their relationship to behavior and thought.
Personality psychology:
Studies what makes people unique, as well as the consistencies in people’s behavior across time and situations.
Social psychology:
Studies how the real or imagined presence of others influences thought, feeling, and behavior.
Cross-cultural psychology:
The study of how thought and behavior varies and is similar across different cultures around the world.
Clinical psychology:
Studies the diagnosis and treatment of mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders and ways to promote psychological health.
Counseling psychology:
Studies the treatment and assessment of less severe psychological disorders in relatively healthy people; counseling psychologists may assist patients with career and vocational interests.
Health psychologists:
Studies the role of psychological factors in physical health and illness.
Educational psychology:
Draws on several other areas of psychology to study how students learn, the effectiveness of particular teaching techniques, the dynamics of school populations, and the psychology of teaching; can also study certain populations of students
Industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology:
Industrial side: involves matching employees to their jobs and uses psychological principles and methods to select employees and evaluate job performance.
Organizational side: studies how work environments and management styles influence worker motivation, satisfaction, and productivity.
Sports psychology:
Studies the psychological factors that affect performance and participation in sports and exercise.
Community psychology:
Studies how individuals are connected to and part of their communities.
Forensic psychology:
A blend of psychology, law, and criminal justice; evaluates the state of mind and mental capacity of those involved in a case.
Shamans:
Medicine men or women who treated the possessed by driving demons with elaborate rituals, such as exorcisms, incantations, prayers, and sometimes trephination.
Asylums:
Facilities for the mentally ill; first asylums were essentially storage houses for the mentally ill and other social castaways to live in inhumane conditions.
Moral treatment:
A 19th-century approach to treating the mentally ill with dignity in a caring environment.
Psychoanalysis:
Sigmund Freud; assumes that the unconscious mind is the most powerful force behind thought and behavior; childhood experiences are a powerful force in the development of our adult personality.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy:
Focuses on changing a person’s maladaptive thought and behavior patterns by discussing and rewarding more appropriate ways of thinking and behaving.
DSM-5:
“Diagnostic and Statistical Manual - 5;” includes diagnoses for more than 250 psychological disorders
Empiricism:
The view that knowledge and thoughts come from experience and observations.
Tabula rosa:
John Locke; the mind begins as a “blank slate,” onto which experience writes the contents of the mind.
Psychophysics:
The study of how people experience physical stimuli such as light, sound waves, and touch.
Behaviorism:
Argues that if you want to understand behavior you should only focus on behavior, not hypothetical and unobservable internal states such as thoughts, feelings, drives, or motives.
Humanistic-positive psychology:
Assumes that people strive toward meaning, growth, well-being, happiness, and psychological health; positive emotions and happiness foster psychological health and pro-social behavior.
Cognitive (perspective):
Assumes what we do is shaped by how we think and perceive the world.
Sociocultural/Cross-Cultural:
Argues that the immediate (micro; family, friends) and larger (macro; regional and national) environments influence the thought, behavior, and personality of individuals within a culture.
Neuropsychological-Behavioral Genetic:
Behavior, thoughts, feelings, and personality are influenced by differences in basic genetic, epigenetic, and neurological systems between individuals.
Evolutionary (perspective):
Human thought, behavior, and personality have been shaped by forces of evolution over millions of years; this perspective emphasizes that what we think, feel, and do is always an interaction between nature and nurture.
Nature-nurture debate:
Nature-only: who we are comes from inborn tendencies and genetically based traits.
Nurture-only: we are all essentially the same at birth and that the accumulation of experiences makes us who we are.
Nature through nurture:
The position that the environment constantly interacts with biology to shape who we are and what we do.
Evolution:
The change over time in frequency with which specific genes occur within a breeding species.
Natural selection:
A feedback process whereby nature favors one design over another, depending on whether it has an impact on reproduction.
Sexual selection:
Operates when members of the opposite sex find certain traits attractive or appealing and therefore over long periods of time these traits become more common in the population.
Adaptations:
Inherited solutions to ancestral problems that have been selected for because they contribute in some way to reproductive success.
Evolutionary psychology:
The branch of psychology that studies human behavior by asking what adaptive problems it may have solved for our early ancestors.
Assumption:
A starting point for our thinking and reasoning that is often taken for granted.
Critical thinking:
A process by which one analyzes, evaluations, and forms ideas.
