Chapter 1 - The Science of Psychology Flashcards
Define Psychology:
- Explain it’s 2 main components
• Psychology: scientific study of behaviour and the mind.
o Behaviour -‐ actions and responses that we can directly observe
o Mind – internal states and processes that are inferred from observable responses
List the SUBFIELDS of Psychology
- Clinical
- Cognitive
- Biopsychology/ Behavioural Neuroscience
- Developmental
- Experimental
- Industrial- Organisational
- Personality
- Social
Explain Clinical Psychology:
• Clinical psychology: study and treatment of mental disorders
Explain Cognitive Psychology:
• Cognitive psychology: study of mental processes e.g. attention, consciousness, memory, decision-‐making, problem-‐solving
Explain Biopsychology/Behavioural Neuroscience:
•Biopsychology/behavioural neuroscience:
how brain processes, genes and hormones influence our actions, thoughts, and feelings. Particular emphasis on how evolution has influenced psychological capabilities and behavioural tendencies
Explain Developmental Psychology:
• Developmental psychology: human physical, psychological and social development across the life span
Explain Experimental Psychology:
• Experimental psychology: basic processes e.g. learning, sensory systems, perception and motivation states
Explain Industrial-Organisational psychology:
• Industrial-‐organisational psychology (I/O):
people’s behaviour in the workplace, e.g. leadership, team-‐work etc.
Explain Personality Psychology:
• Personality psychology: study of personality – how core personality traits relate and influence behaviour
Explain Social Psychology:
• Social psychology: people’s behaviour pertaining to the social world – how people influence one another
Psychology’s Scientific Approach (1): Explain EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE
• Empirical evidence: evidence gained through experience and observation. Includes evidence obtained by manipulating variables and then observing.
• Is a public affair, reducing any confirmation bias (paying too much attention to information consistent with what we believe)
o ***Thus, science is a self-‐correcting process. We build on each other’s research and discriminate what is correct and incorrect
Psychology’s Scientific Approach (1): Explain CRITICAL THINKING
• Critical thinking is a tool used to actively understand the world rather than just taking in information.
There are a series of questions to interrogate claims used in psychology:
o What is the claim?
o Who is making the claim – is the source credible/trustworthy?
o What’s the evidence and how good is it?
o Are other explanations possible? Can I evaluate those?
o What is the best conclusion?
List and Explain the GOALS OF PSYCHOLOGY (4):
- Description – describe how people behave, think, and feel
- Explain – understand why people act as they do (in hypotheses and theories)
- Control – designing experiments to test whether their proposed explanations are accurate
- Application – apply psychological knowledge to enhance human welfare
Explain BASIC VS APPLIED RESEARCH
- Basic research – the quest for knowledge for its own sake
* Applied – to solve problems
What is Psychological Levels of Analysis?
List and Explain them: (3)
They are factors considered to understand behaviour.
• They Examine behaviour and its causes at various levels: (e.g. eating)
o Biological level (chemicals, neural circuits and structures that regulate whether you feel hungry or full)
o Psychological level (moods, preferences and motives)
o Environmental and social level (stimuli e.g. appearance of the food, or cultural customs)
Explain MIND-BODY VS. NATURE-NURTURE INTERACTIONS:
- Mind-‐body interactions e.g. get hungry seeing food. Is the relations between mental processes in the brain and the functioning of other bodily systems
- Nature and nurture interact to shape behaviour
EARLY SCHOOL OF THOUGHT: EXPLAIN STRUCTURALISM VS. FUNCTIONALISM
- name of scientists?
• Edward Titchener and Wilhelm Wundt 1879 established a psychology laboratory.
• Believed the mind could be studied by breaking it up into its basic components. This was known as STRUCTURALISM
o Too subjective due to the introspection method
• FUNCTIONALISM held that psychology should study functions of consciousness rather than its elements
o No longer exists as a school of psychology
List the 6 major perspectives on human behaviour:
- Psychodynamic
- Behavioural
- Humanistic
- Cognitive
- Sociocultural
- Biological
Explain the PSYCHODYNAMIC PERSPECTIVE ON HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
- The conception of Human nature?
- Major Casual factors in behaviour?
- Predominant focus and methods of discovery?
- Humans as controlled by inner conflicts and forces
- Unconscious motives, conflicts and defences; early childhood experiences and unresolved conflicts
- Observations of personality processes in clinical settings; some lab research
Explain the BEHAVIOURAL PERSPECTIVE ON HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
- The conception of Human nature?
- Major Casual factors in behaviour?
- Predominant focus and methods of discovery?
- Human as reactor to environment
- Past learning experiences and the stimuli and behavioural consequences that exist in the current environment
- Study of learning processes in laboratory and real-‐world settings, emphasizes observation of stimuli and responses
Explain the HUMANISTIC PERSPECTIVE ON HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
- The conception of Human nature?
- Major Casual factors in behaviour?
- Predominant focus and methods of discovery?
- Humans as free agents, seeking self-‐ actualisation
- Free will, choice and innate drive toward self-‐ actualisation; search for the personal meaning of existence
- Study of meaning, values and purpose in life; study of self-‐concept and its role in thought, emotion and behaviour
Explain the COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE ON HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
- The conception of Human nature?
- Major Casual factors in behaviour?
- Predominant focus and methods of discovery?
- Human as a thinker
- Thoughts, anticipations, planning, perceptions, attention and memory processes
- Study of cognitive processes, usually in highly controlled laboratory conditions
Explain the SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE ON HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
- The conception of Human nature?
- Major Casual factors in behaviour?
- Predominant focus and methods of discovery?
- Human as social being embedded in a culture
- Social forces, including norms, social interactions and group processes in one’s culture and social environment
- Study of behaviour and mental processes of people in different cultures, experiments examining people’s responses to social stimuli
Explain the BIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
- The conception of Human nature?
- Major Casual factors in behaviour?
- Predominant focus and methods of discovery?
- Human animal
- Genetic and evolutionary factors; brain and biochemical processes
- Study of brain-‐behaviour relations; role of hormones and biochemical factors in behaviour; behaviour genetics research
PSYCHOLOGY TODAY: what is APS?
• Australian Psychological Society (APS) is the national body representing the discipline of psychology in Australia
