Chapter One - The Science of Psychology

Question 1

Nature/Nurture Debate

Answer 1

whether someone’s psychological characteristics are more determined by their biological makeup or their culture/experiences/etc
–>scientists realize that both are important to humans’ psychological development (“enmeshed and cannot be separated)

Question 2

Mind/Body Problem

Answer 2

Quintessential psychological issue: are the mind and body separate and distinct, or is the mind simply the physical brain’s subjective experience?
–>dualism: mind and body are separate yet intertwined, such as the mind controls deliberate action but not physical/mental functions

Question 3

Rene Descartes

Answer 3

*dualism (mind and body are separate yet intertwined, such as the mind controls deliberate action but not physical/mental functions - rational mind divine and separate from body)

Question 4

Wilhelm Wundt

Answer 4

established first psychological laboratory and institute
*introspection: a systematic examination of subjective mental experiences that requires people to inspect and report on the content of their thoughts (ex. stating which object you find more pleasant) (con: subjective, changes from person to person)

Question 5

Edward Titchener

Answer 5

student of Wundt -
*structuralism: an approach to psychology based on the idea that conscious experience can be broken down into its basic underlying components (ex. taking a musical tone and analyze its “quality, intensity, and duration”

Question 6

William James

Answer 6

critic of structuralism
*functionalism: an approach to psychology concerned with the adaptive purpose, or function, of mind and behavior –> helps humans adapt to environmental demands

Question 7

stream of consciousness

Answer 7

person’s continuous series of ever-changing thoughts

Question 8

Charles Darwin

Answer 8

*evolutionary theory: views history of a species in terms of the inherited, adaptive value of physical characteristics

Question 9

adaptations

Answer 9

physical characteristics, skills, or abilities that increase the chances of reproduction or survival and are therefore likely to be passed along to future generations

Question 10

natural selection

Answer 10

those who inherit characteristics that help them adapt to their particular environments have a selective advantage over those who do not

Question 11

Max Wertheimer

Answer 11

*Gestalt Theory: the whole of personal experience is different from simply the sum of its constituent elements (ex. see a triangle, not three lines)

Question 12

Sigmund Freud

Answer 12

*psychoanalysis: attempts to bring the contents of the unconscious into conscious awareness so that conflicts can be revealed

Question 13

John B. Watson

Answer 13

*behaviorism: emphasizes the role of environmental forces in producing behavior

Question 14

cognitive psychology

Answer 14

the study of how people think, learn, and remember

Question 15

cognitive neuroscience

Answer 15

the study of neural mechanisms (brain, nerves, nervous tissue) that underlie thought, learning, and memory

Question 16

social psychology

Answer 16

the study of how people are influenced by their interactions with others

Question 17

Brain chemistry

Answer 17

hundreds of substances are involved in mental activity and behavior

Question 18

Neuroscience

Answer 18

study of the working brain as it performs its vital psychological functions
–>determined localization of function

Question 19

The Human Genome

Answer 19

the basic genetic code (“blueprint”) for the human body

–>able to study how certain genes affect different parts of the body

Question 20

biological level of analysis

Answer 20

deals with how the physical body, including the brain, contributes to mind and behavior

Question 21

individual level of analysis

Answer 21

focuses on individual differences in personality and in the mental processes that affect how people perceive and know the world

Question 22

social level of analysis

Answer 22

how group contexts affect how people interact and influence each other

Question 23

cultural level of analysis

Answer 23

explores how people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions are similar or different across cultures

Question 24

psychologist

Answer 24

broadly describes someone whose career involves predicting behavior or understanding mental life

Question 25

neuroscience/biological psychologists

Answer 25

interested in examining how biological systems give rise to mental activity/behavior (ex. sexual behavior, environments)

Question 26

cognitive psychologists

Answer 26

study processes such as thinking, perceiving, problem solving, decision making, using language, and learning

Question 27

experimental psychologists

Answer 27

study basic psychological processes such as sensation and perception, movement, and learning (ex. how people see color)

Question 28

developmental psychologists

Answer 28

study how people change across the lifespan (ex. how infants learn to speak)

Question 29

personality psychologists

Answer 29

seek to understand enduring characteristics that people display over time and across circumstances (ex. why is someone outgoing?)

Question 30

social psychologists

Answer 30

focus on how people are affected by the presence of others and how they form perceptions of others

Question 31

cultural psychologists

Answer 31

seek to understand how people are influenced by the societal rules that dictate behavior in the cultures in which they are raised

Question 32

clinical psychologists

Answer 32

interested in the factors that cause psychological disorders and the methods best used to treat them

Question 33

counseling psychologists

Answer 33

(overlap with clinical psychologists) seek to improve people’s daily lives, but work with people facing difficult circumstances more so than disorders

Question 34

school psychologists

Answer 34

work in educational settings, help students with problems that interfere with learning

Question 35

industrial and organizational psychologists

Answer 35

concerned with various factors in industry and the workplace (ex. develop programs to motivate workers by building morale)

Question 36

forensic psychologists

Answer 36

work in legal settings, identifying dangerous offenders

Question 37

sports psychologists

Answer 37

work with athletes to improve their performance

Question 38

health psychologists

Answer 38

study factors that promote or interfere with health

Question 39

co-incidence

Answer 39

surprising co-occurence of events that we perceive as meaningfully related (ex. lucky song = winning streak)

Question 40

selective recall

Answer 40

tendency to remember only facts or events that are unusual, personally enhancing, or that fit a narrative (ex. do women talk more than men? only thinking of talkative women friends)

Question 41

confirmation bias

Answer 41

tendency to attend to and accept tacts that fit our pre-existing beliefs and to discount facts that are contradicting (ex. Jenny McCarthy - vaccines causing autism)

Question 42

affect bias

Answer 42

tendency to make judgements based upon emotions with little input from deliberate reasoning (ex. judges making harsher decisions after an irritating morning)

Question 43

availability bias

Answer 43

tendency to make judgements on the basis of which examples come most easily to find

Question 44

gambler’s fallacy

Answer 44

tendency to believe that the odds for occurrence of random events in the future depends on what already happened in the past (ex. 6 tails in a row –> a heads MUST be next)

Question 45

Facilitated Communication video

Answer 45

autistic given ability to communicate through typing

• turned out to me communicator doing the talking for the disabled person
• everyone WANTED it to be true (confirmation bias)

Question 46

Scientific Thinking

Answer 46

• ruling out coincidence as explanation

- eliminated sources of bias