Chapter 1- What Is Psychology

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Psychology

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The discipline concerned with behavior and mental processes and how they are affected by an organism’s physical state, mental state, and external environment

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Empirical Evidence

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Evidence gathered by careful observation, experimentation, and measurement

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Critical thinking

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Is the ability and willingness to assess claims and make objective judgements on the basis of well-supported reasons and evidence rather than emotion or anecdote

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Essential Critical thinking guidelines

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Ask Questions
Define your terms 
Examine the evidence 
Analyze assumptions and biases
Avoid emotional reasoning
Don't oversimplify 
Consider other interpretations
Tolerate uncertainty

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Assumptions

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Beliefs that are taken for granted

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Bias

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When an assumption or belief keeps us from considering the evidence fairly

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Argument by anecdote

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A common form of oversimplification by generalizing from a person experience or from a few examples to everyone

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Functionalism

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Emphasizes the function or purpose of behavior

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Psychoanalysis

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Broad theory of personality and a method of psychotherapy

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The Major Psychological Perspectives

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Biological learning
Cognitive
Sociocultural
Psychodynamic

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Biological perspective

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Focuses on how bodily events affect behavior, feelings, and thoughts

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Evolutionary psychology

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Focuses on how genetically influenced behavior that was functional or adaptive during our evolutionary past may be reflected in many of our present behaviors, mental processes, and traits

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Learning perspective

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Concerned with how the environment and experience affects a person’s or nonhuman actions

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Behaviorists associated with the learning perspective

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Focus on the environmental rewards and punishers that maintain or discourage specific behaviors

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Social-cognitive learning theorists

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Combine elements of behaviorism with research on thoughts, values, expectations, and intentions

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Cognitive perspective

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Emphasizes what goes on in people’s heads ( how people reason, remember, understand language, solve problems, explain experiences, acquire moral standards, and form beliefs

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Sociocultural perspective

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Focuses on social and cultural forces outside the individual ( forces that shape every aspect of behavior, from how we kiss to what and where we we eat)

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Social psychologist

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Focuses on social rules and roles, how groups affect attitudes and behavior, why people obey authority, and how each of us is affected by other people- spouses, lovers, friends, bosses, parents, and strangers

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Cultural psychologists

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Examine how cultural rules and values, both explicit and unspoken, affect people’s development, behavior, and feelings

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Psychodynamic perspective

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Deals with unconscious dynamics within the individual