Chapter 1: Psychology - Yesterday and Today Flashcards
1
Q
What is the formal definition of psychology?
A
- Psychology is the scientific study of mental processes and behaviour
2
Q
What are the four goals of psychology?
A
- To describe what we observe
- Attempt to explain what is happening
- Attempt to predict the circumstances that lead to the expression of a certain behaviour (identify patterns)
- Attempt to control behaviour that can be influenced or changed (this is important for research)
3
Q
What are the three levels of analysis in psychology?
A
- The brain (neural activity)
- The person (emotions, ideas, thoughts)
- The group (friends, family, culture)
*Starts inwards and extends outwards
*Psychologists must consider all three levels when conducting research
4
Q
How did philosophers contribute to modern day scientific theory?
A
- They posed questions and then discussed proposed solutions.
- They were attempting to understand people and the world around us
- The field of psychology was produced as philosophy cannot undergo scientific testing
5
Q
Who developed one of the first psychological theories and what was it?
A
- Hippocrates thought that physical and psychological health are influenced by the “four humours” (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile)
- Imbalances in these humours could possibly lead to various illness, physical or psychological
- Also believed that people’s various ratios of humours helped explain different personalities
6
Q
Who said “the brain is the organ of mental life”?
A
- Hippocrates, also believed that your physical health and mental wellbeing are interconnected.
7
Q
What were Rene Descartes thoughts on the brain?
A
- He believed the brain controlled the body via the movement of fluids within tubes that ran throughout the body.
- This was during the scientific revolution/the Renaissance
8
Q
What two crucial figures helped establish psychology’s roots in psychology and psychophysics?
A
- Johannes Muller advocated for scientists to study the relationship between physical stimuli and their psychological effects (how the brain interprets info)
- Herman von Helmholtz measured the speed of nerve impulses. Discovered that nerve impulses were not instantaneous.
9
Q
Who is considered the Father of psychology?
A
- Wilhelm Wundt
- Established the first psychology lab where he attempted to perform controlled experiments
- Started a branch of psychology called voluntarism (establishing how the mind works/why people mske decisions)
- Focused on the study of consciousness
10
Q
What’s structuralism in psychology?
A
- Established by Edward Titchener, who was a student of Wundt’s
- Structuralism involved identifying the ‘builiding blocks’ of consciousness (studying individual parts of the brain)
- Involves introspection - looking within yourself (difficult to ascribe any scientific value)
- Wants to describe observable mental processes rather than to explain, predict, or control
- It’s not objectively verifiable
11
Q
What’s functionalism in psychology?
A
- Established by William James
- Focuses on the functions of the mind in helping an individual to survive and to adapt to a changing environment
- Animal observations were used to provide clues to human behaviour
- Believed that mental processes are fluid, instead of fixed elements
- Focused on pragmatic issues such as improving education
- Used uproot conditioning, can adjust how brain reacts/forms behaviours
12
Q
What’s Gestalt psychology?
A
- Focused on consciousness and principles of perceptual organization
- Consciousness cannot be broken down into small elements
- Did not focus on small details, but instead the setting as a whole
- THe whole is greater than the sum of its part
- Learning is tied to what we perceive
- Problem solving involves insight
13
Q
What’s psychodynamic theory?
A
- Developed by Sigmund Freud
- Believed that the mind had separate components: the conscious and the unconscious
- Much of people’s behaviour is influenced by unconscious desires and conflicts
- He devloped psychoanalysis which is a form of therapy that aims to resolve unconscious conflicts (often involved very long treatments and delving into past trauma, mainly had rich women clients)
14
Q
What is behaviourism?
A
- The belief that scientific investigation of psychology should be focused only on behaviour you can observe. Makes it more objective and therefore scientific.
15
Q
Who was Edward Thorndike?
A
- A behaviourist who proposed that research findings from the study of animals could help explain human behaviour
