Chapter 1 - The Science of Psychology Flashcards
What is psychology?
The scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
What does the term mental process refer to?
All the internal, covert (hidden) activity of our minds, such as thinking, feeling, and remembering.
What is a bias?
Personal judgements based on beliefs rather than facts.
What are the four goals of psychology?
Description, explanation, prediction, and control.
What does description mean?
It is the “what is happening” goal. It involves noting a behavior and noting everything about it: what is happening, where it happens, to whom it happens, and under what circumstances it seems to happen.
What does explanation mean?
This is the “why is it happening” part. It is a very important step in forming theories of behavior
What is a theory?
A theory is a general explanation of a set of observations or facts.
What is prediction?
This is the “when will it happen” part. Determining what will happen in the future.
What is control?
This is the “how can it be controlled” part. The focus is to change a behavior from an undesirable one to a desirable one.
Who were some ancient philosophers that tried to understand or explain the human mind and its connection to the human body?
Plato, Aristotle, and Descartes
Who was Gustav Fechner?
He was a physician and a physicist who is often credited with performing some of the first scientific experiments that would form a basis for experimentation in psychology with his studies of perception.
Who was Hermann Von Helmholtz?
He performed ground breaking experiments in visual and auditory perception.
Who was Wilhelm Wundt?
He was a German physiologist who was credited with starting the worlds first laboratory in Leipzig, Germany in 1879. His students were taught to study the human mind. He created objective introspection.
What is objective introspection?
It is the process of objectively examining and measuring ones own thoughts and mental activities.
What is a philospher?
People who seek wisdom and knowledge through thinking and discussion
What is a physiologist?
Scientists who study the physical workings of the body and its systems.
What is objectivity?
Expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as they really are without allowing the influence of personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations.
Who is Edward Titchener (1867-1927)?
He was an englishman who was a student of Wundt and an Englishman who took Wundt’s ideas to Cornell University in Ithaca, New Your. He expanded on the original ideas calling it structuralism.
What is Strucuralism?
It is the study of the structure of the mind.
Who is Margaret F. Washburn?
She was a student of Titchener’s who became famous for becoming the first woman to receive a Ph. D in psychology. She published a book that was important in that era called “The Animal Mind”
Which school was the first to offer psychology classes in the late 1870’s?
Harvard University
Who was William James?
He was a proffesor at Harvard. He starting teaching anatomy and phsiology but develpoed an interest in psychology. He wrote the “Principles of Psychology”. He was more interested on how the mind allows people to function in the real world.
What is functionalism?
The focus on how the mind allows people to function in the real world - how pepole work, play, and adapt to their surroundings.
What was William James influenced by?
Charles Darwin’s ideas about natural selection.
What is heredity?
It is the transmission of traits and characteristics from parent to offspring through the actions of genes.
Who was Mary Whiton Calkins?
She was an early student of William James that completed every course and requirement for earning a Ph.D but was denied that degree by Harvard University because she was a woman. She could take those classes as a guest only. She created a psychological laboratory as Wellesley College. Her work was some of the earliest research in the area of human memory and the psychology of the self. In 1905 she became the first female presidnet of the American Psychological Association (APA).
Who was Francis Cecil Sumner?
He was the first African American to earn a Ph.D in psychology at Clark University. He became the chair of the psychology department at Howard University. He is the father of African American Psychology.
What did Kenneth and Mamie Clark do?
The worked to show the negative effects of school segregation on African American children.
Who was George Sanches?
He was a Hispanic psychologist that conducted research in the area of intelligensce testing, focusing on the cultural biases in such tests.
Where can functionalism be found in modern psychology?
Educational psychology and Industrial/ organizezational psychology, as well as other areas in psychology.
Who was Charles Henry Thompson?
He was the first African American to receive a doctorate in educational psychology in 1925 from the University of Chicago. Was the editor of the Journal of Negro Education.
Who was Albert Sidney Beckham?
He received is Ph.D in psychology in 1930 from New York University. He was a senior assistant psycholgist at the National Committee for Mental Hygiene at the Illinois Institute for Juvenile Research in the early 30’s. He had many publications of his research in the areas of intelligence and social concerncs of the African American youth.
Who was Robert Prentiss Daniel?
An educational Psychologiest from Columbia University in 1932. He was the director of the Divisionof Educational Psychology and Philosphy at Virginia Union Univeristy. He became president of Shawn University in North Carolina and finally the presidnet of the Virinia State College.
Who was Inez Beverly Prosser?
She earned her Ph.D in educational psychology form the University of Cincinnati in 1933 and was the first African American woman to earn this degree. Died one year after earning this degree in a car accident.
Who was Howard Hale Long?
He received his Ed.D in educational psychology form Harvard University in 1933. He tought psychology. He became dean of administration at Wilberforce State College in Ohio.
Who was Ruth Howard?
She is known as the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D in psychology (not educational) in 1934 from University of Minnesota. She served with her husband Albert Beckham, as codirector for the Center for Psychologica Services and also maintained a private practice in clinical psychology.
Who was Max Wertheimer?
“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” He devoted his efforts to studying sensation and perception called Gestalt psychology.
What is Gestalt Psychology?
It is a german word meaning “an organized whole” or “configuration”
What does Gestalt psychology today translate to?
Part of the study of cognitive psychology. Focuses on perception, learning, memory, thought processes, and problem solving. It is influential in psychological therapy and is becoming the basis for therapeutic techniqe called Gestalt therapy.
Who was Sigmund Freud?
He was a noted physician in Austria. He was a neurologist, who specialized in disorders of the nervous system. His patents had no physical cause. He proposed the idea of the unconscious mind into which we push, or repress all of our threatening urges and desires.
He stressed the importance of childhood experiences believing that personality was formed in the first 6 years of life.
Who were some of Freud’s well-known followeres?
Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, and his own daughter, Anna Freud.
Which movement did Anna Freud begin?
The ego movement, which produced one of the best-knonw psychologist in the study of personality development, Erik Erikson.
What is psychoanalysis?
The theory and therapy based on Freud’s ideas and is the basis of much modern psychotherapy.
Who was Ivan Pavlov?
He was a russian physiologist who showed that a reflex (involuntary reaction) could be caused to occur in response to a formerly unrelated stimulus. He worked with dogs and observed their salivation reflex could be casued to occur in response to a totally new stimulus, in his case the sound of a metronome. This process was called conditioning.
Who was John B. Watson
Created a viewpoint called behaviorism. Read pavlovs work and thought that conditioning could form the basis of his new perspective.
What is behaviorism?
Observable behavior or something that could be directly seen and measured.
Who was Mary Cover Jones
She was one of the early pioneers of behavior therapy. She earned her masters degree under John Watson. She decided to repeat Watson and Rayner’s study but added training that would “cancel out” the phbic reaction. She started the process of counterconditioning.
What is the Psychodynamic Perspective?
This is the updated idea of Freuds theory. Focus still includes the unconsious and its influence on concious behavior.
What is behavioral Perspective?
B.F. Skinner and behaviorism. He developed a theory called operant condition, to explain how voluntary behavior is learned.
Who is B.F. Skinner?
He put ratss through challenges and deveoped operant conditioning. Behavioral responses that are followed by pleasurable consequences are srenthened or reinforced.
What is the Humanistic Perspective?
Is called the “third force”. It was a reaction to psychoanalytic theory and behaviorism. People have free will, the freedom to choose their own destiny, and strive for self-actualization, the achievement of one’s full potential. Two of the earliest and most famous founders were Abraham Maslow and Carl rogers. Today it exists as a form of psychotherapy aimed at self-understanding and self-improvement.
What is the Cognitive Perspective?
Focuses on how people think, remember, store, and use information. In other words it has a focus on memory, intelligence, perception, thought processes, problem solving, languate, and learning has become a major force. Within this perspective is Cognitive Neuroscience, which includes the study of phsycial workings of the brain and nervous system.
What is Cognitive Neuroscience?
The study of the physical workings of the brain and nervous system when engaged in memory thinkning, and other cognitive processes.
What tolls for imaging the structure and activity of the living brain does Cognitive Neuroscientitss use?
Magnetice Resonance Imaging (MRI), Functional (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET)
What is the Sociocultural Perspective?
A combination of two areas of study: social psychology, which is the study of groups, social rolds, and rules of social actions and relationships; and cultural psychology, which is the study of cultural norms, values, and expectations.
What is the bystander effect?
it is the result of diffusion of responsibility. Which is the tendency to feel that someone else is responsible for taking action when others are present.
What is the Biopsychological Perspective?
The study of the biological bases of behavior and ment processes. Part of the larger field of neuroscience: the study of the physical structure, funciton, and development of the nervous system.
What is schizophrenia?
A developmental disorderinvolving delusions, hallucinations, and extremely distorted thinking.
What is the Evolutionary Perspective?
Focuses on the biological bases for universal mental characteristics that all humans share. It seeks to explain general mental straegies and traits.
What is a psychologist?
Someone that has no medical training but has a doctorate degree.
Where do psychologists work?
- Universities and four year colleges
- self employed
- privat for profit
- private not for profit
- schools and other educational settings
- State and local government
- Federal government
What are the subfields of psychology?
- Clinical
- Counceling
- Developmental
- Experimental and other research areas
- General
- Social and personality
- Cognitive
- Industrial/organizational
- other
- school
- educational
What is a psychiatrist?
They have a medical degree and is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders. Can issue meds.
What is a psychiatric social worker?
Is someone that is trainined in the area of social work and usually possesses a master’s degree in that discipline. Focus moree on environmental conditions that can have an impact on mental disorders, such as poverty, overcrowding, stress, and drug abuse.
What is basic research?
is research for the sake of gaining scientific knowledge.
What is applied research?
Researched aimed at answering real-world, practical problems.
What is the scientific methodology?
A systmem for reducing bias and error in the measurement of data. There are five steps.
What are the five steps of the scientific method?
- Perceiving the question - derived from the goal of description “what is happening”
- Forming a Hypothesis - derived from the goals of description and explanation.
- Tesing the Hypothesis - using a method to test your theory. is derived from the goal of explanation.
- Drawing Conclusions - Once you know the results you will find that your theory was supported or not.
- Report your results - Important step
What is confirmation bias?
A tendancy to notice only things that agree with your point of view of the world. Selective perception.
Why is it important to replicate?
It gives much more suport to your findings. and allows the prediction of behavior based ono your findings.
What is naturalistic observation?
Observation in a natural environment.
What is the observer effect?
Animals or people who know they are being watched will not behave normally.
What is participant observation?
Where the researcher actually becomes a participant in a group.
What is observer bias?
This is when the person doing the observing has a particular opinion about what he or she expects to see. Can use blind observers or people who do not know what the research question is and, therefore, have no preconceived notions about what they should see.
What is laboratory observation?
Completely controlled observation. in a lab
What is a case study?
One idividual is studied in great detail. Tremendous amounts of detail.
What is a survey?
Reseachers ask a series of questions anonomously
What is a representative sample?
A group of randomly selected people that represents the population
What is the correlational technique?
is the measure of the relationship between two or more variables.
What is the correlation coefficient?
It represents two things: the direction and strength of the relationship. Knowing the value of one variable allows them to predict the value of the other varibable. This leads to a direction of the relationship. Is either positive or negative number.
If positive, the two variables increase in the same direction - as one goes up the other goes up; as one decreases the other decreases.
If negative, the two variables have an inverse relationship - as one increases the other decreases.
The strength of the relationship will be determined by the number itself, always ranging between 1 and (-1)
The closer the number to zero the weaker the relationship.
What are the steps involved in designing an experiement?
- Experiement - Deliberatley manipulate the variable they think is causing some behavior.
- Selection - start by taking a representative sample
- Variables - Decide on the variable you want to manipulate.
What is operational definition?
To define exactly what is meant by a specific word or term used in the research.
What iss the independent variable?
The variable that is manipulated in any experiement.
What is the dependent variable?
The response of the participants to the manipulation of the independent variable. The repsonse that is measured.
What is confounding variables?
Variables that interfere with each other and their possible effects on some other variable of interest.
What is the experimental group?
The group that recieves the experimental manipulation.
What is the control group?
the group that gets either no treatment or some kind of treatement that should have no effect.
Why is it important to randomize participants into groups?
It is the best way to ensure control over other interfering, or extraneous, variables.
What is Alzheimer’s disease?
A form of mental deterioration that occurs in some people as they grow old.
What is the placebo effect?
The belief in the drug than the drug itself.
What is the experimenter effect?
dealing with expectations of the experiment.
What is a single blind study?
Participants are blind to the treatment they receive.
What is a double blind study?
Neither the participants nor the researcher knows who got what. Every element gets coded in some way.
What are the guidelines for doing research with people?
- Rights and well being of participants must be weighed against the study’s value to science.
- Participants mut be allowed to make an informed decision.
- Deception must be justified.
- Participants may withdraw from the study at any time
- Participants must be protected from risks or told explicitly of risks.
- Investigators must debrief participants, telling the true nature of the study and expectations of results.
- Data must remain confidential
- If for any reason a study results in undesirable consequences for the participant, the researcher is responsible for detecting and removing, or correcting, these consequences.
What are the guidlines for animal research?
Avoiding exposing them to any unnecessary pain or suffering.
What is critical thinking?
Making reasoned judgements.
What are the four basic criteria for critical thinking?
- There are very few truthes that do not need to be jubjected to testing.
- All evidence is not equal in quality.
- Just because someone is condidered to be an authority or to have a lot of expertise does not make everything that person claims automatically true.
- Critical thinking requires an open mind.
