Chapter One Flashcards
Psychology as a Science
What is structuralism
Structure of the human mind
What is functionalism
How the mind functions
What is behaviorism
The view that psychology (1) should be an objective science that (2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes
What is cognitive neuroscience
Brain activity underlying mental activity
What is humanistic psychology
Emphasis on human growth potential
What is cognitive psychology
Mental processes involved in perceiving, learning, remembering, thinking, communicating, and solving problems
What is psychology
Science of behavior and mental processes
What do counseling psychologists do
Help people cope with challenges and crises and assist those with psychological disorders to improve their personal and social function
What do clinical psychologists do
Assess and treat people with mental, emotional, and behavior disorders
What are/what do psychiatrists (do)
Medical doctors who are licensed to prescribe drugs and otherwise treat physical causes of psychological disorders
What are the aspects of the biopsychosocial approch
Shared biologically-rooted human behavior, individual differences in traits, abilities, and identites, and membership in a larger social system, a family, ethnicity, or cultural group
Nature vs Nurture
How our genes affect us (nature) vs how our enviornment affects us (nurture)
What is dual processing
How our perception, thinking, memory, and attitudes all operate on two independent levels (conscious aware track and unconscious aware track)
What do community psychologists do
Work to create social and physical enviornments that are healthy for all
Behavior
Anything a human or non-human animal does
Mental Processes
Internal subjective experiences
What is hindsight bias
When common sense describes, after the fact, what has happened better than it predicts what will happen (outcome seems obvious after the fact)
Theory
Explains behaviors or events by offering ideas that organize what we have observed
Hypothesis
Testable prediction
What are naturalistic observations
Recording the natural behavior of many individuals (responses recorded in natural enviornment)
What are labatorial observations
Responses recorded outside a natural setting
Survey
Looks at many cases, asks people to report their own behavior or opinons
Experiment
Method in which researchers vary one or more variables to observe the effect on some process
What is a placebo
An inactive substance or condition that is sometimes given to those in a control group in place of the treatment given to the experimental group
What is the placebo effect
A beneficial effect produced by a placebo drug or treatment, which cannot be attributed to the properties of the placebo itself, and must therefore be due to the patient’s belief in that treatment
What does correlation indicate
The possibility of cause-effect relationship (does not prove causation)
