Chapter 1 Terms Flashcards
Psychology
The scientific study of mind and behavior.
Mind
The private inner experience of perceptions, thoughts, memories, and feelings.
Behavior
Observable actions of Human beings and nonhuman animals.
Nativism
The philosophical view that certain kinds of knowledge are innate or inborn.
Philosophical epiricism
The view that all knowledge is acquired through experience.
Physiology
The study of biological processes, especially in the human body.
Stimulus
Sensory input from the environment.
Reaction Time
The amount of time taken to respond to a specific stimulus.
Consciousness
A person’s subjective experience of the world and the mind.
Structuralism
The analysis of the basic elements that constitute the mind.
Introspection
The subjective observation of one’s own experience.
Functionalism
The study of how mental processes enable people to adapt to their environments.
Natural Selection
Charles Darwin’s theory that the features of an organism that help it survive and reproduce are more likely than other features t be passed on to subsequent generations.
Hysteria
A temporary loss of cognitive or motor functions, usually as a result of emotionally upsetting experiences.
Unconscious
The part of the mind that operates outside of conscious awareness but influences conscious thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Psychoanalytic Theory
An approach that emphasizes the importance of unconscious mental processes in shaping feelings, thoughts, and behaviors.
Psychoaalysis
A therapeutic approach that focuses on brining unconscious material into conscious awareness to better understand psychological disorders.
Humanistic Psychology
An approach to understanding human nature and emphasizes the positive potential of human beings.
Behaviorism
An approach that advocates that psychologists restrict themselves to the scientific study of objectively observable behavior.
Response
An action or physiological change elicited by a stimulus.
Reinforcement
The consequences of a behavior determined whether it will be more or less likely to occur again.
Illusions
Errors of perception, memory, or judgment in which subjective experience differs from objective reality.
Gestalt Psychology
A psychological approach that emphasizes that we often perceive the whole rather than the sum of the parts.
Cognitive Psychology
The scientific study of mental processes, including perception, thought, memory, and reasoning.
Behavioral Neurosciene
An approach to psychology that links psychological processes to activities in the nervous system and other bodily processes.
Cognitive Neurosciene
The field of study that attempts to understand the links between cognitive processes and brain activity.
Evolutionary Psychology
A psychological approach that explains mind and behavior in terms of the adaptive value of abilities that are preserved over time by natural selection.
Social Psychology
The study of the causes and consequences of sociality.
Cultural Psychology
The study of how cultures reflect and shape the psychological processes ad their members.
