Chapter1 Flashcards
What is Psychology?
The science that studies behavior and mental processes.
What are theories?
Theories are formulations of apparent relationships among observed events.
What do theories allow us to do?
They allow us to derive explanations and predictions.
-allow us to predict behavior.
What does Psychology do?
Psychology thus seeks to describe, explain, predict, and control behavior and mental processes.
Note that the goal of controlling behavior and mental processes doesn’t mean that psychologists seek ways to make people do their bidding, like puppets on strings. Rather, psychologists seek to understand the factors that influence behavior and apply this knowledge for the public good—for example, to help individuals cope with problems such as anxiety and depression.
What do Psychologists do?
Psychologists engage in research, practice, and teaching.
- Pure Research
- Applied Research
Pure Research
Research conducted without concern for immediate applications.
Applied Research
Research conducted in an effort to find solutions to particular problems.
Do all Psychologists conduct research?
No. Many psychologists do not conduct research. Instead, they practice psychology by applying psychological knowledge to help individuals change their behavior so that they can meet their own goals more effectively.
However, many practitioners are involved in research into the effectiveness of various methods of therapy. They may also teach students who are learning to engage in clinical practice by discussing students’ clinical experiences with them. Still other psychologists engage primarily in teaching. They share psychological knowledge in classrooms, seminars, and workshops. Psychologists may also engage in all three: research, practice, and teaching.
Clinical Psychologist
Help people with psychological disorders adjust to the demands of life.
-the largest subgroup of psychologists, comprising 54.8% of doctoral-level psychologists
Counseling Psychologist
Like clinical psychologists, use interviews and tests to define their clients’ problems. They help clients clarify their goals and draw upon their strengths and resources to take action on their problems. They counsel and do psychotherapy with individuals, couples and families, and organizations such as businesses, hospitals, and schools.
School Psychologist
Are employed by school systems to identify and assist students who have problems that interfere with learning. Such problems range from social and family problems to emotional disturbances and learning disorders. They help schools make decisions about the placement of students in special classes.
Educational Psychologist
Like school psychologists, attempt to facilitate learning, but they usually focus on course planning and instructional methods for a school system rather than on individual children. Educational psychologists research issues such as how learning is affected by psychological factors such as motivation and intelligence, sociocultural factors such as poverty and acculturation, and teachers.
Developmental Psychology
Study the changes that occur throughout the life span. They attempt to sort out the influences of heredity and the environment. Their concerns range from the effects of day care on infants to the adjustment issues of older people.
Personality Psychologist
Focus on goals such as identifying and measuring human traits; determining influences on human thought processes, feelings, and behavior; and explaining psychological disorders. They are particularly concerned with issues such as anxiety, aggression, and gender roles.
Social Psychologist
Are primarily concerned with the nature and causes of individuals’ thoughts, feelings, and behavior in social situations. Whereas personality psychologists tend to look within the person for explanations of behavior, social psychologists tend to focus on interpersonal influences.
Environmental Psychologist
Study the ways that people and the environment—the natural environment and the human-made environment—influence one another. For example, we know that extremes of temperature and loud noises interfere with learning in school. Some generations ago, people seemed to be at the mercy of the environment, but in recent years, we have gained the capacity to do significant harm to the environment. As a result, environmental psychologists study ways to encourage people to recycle and to preserve bastions of wilderness. We have learned that initial resistance to recycling, for example, usually gives way to cooperation as people come to accept it as the norm.
Experimental Psychologist
Specialize in basic processes such as the nervous system, sensation and perception, learning and memory, thought, motivation, and emotion. For example, experimental psychologists have studied what areas of the brain are involved in processing math problems or listening to music.
Industrial Psychologist
Focus on the relationships between people and work.
Organizational Psychologist
Study the behavior of people in organizations such as businesses.
Human Factors Psychologist
Make technical systems such as automobile dashboards and computer keyboards more user-friendly.
Consumer Psychologist
Study the behavior of shoppers in an effort to predict and influence their behavior. They advise store managers how to lay out the aisles of a supermarket in ways that boost impulse buying, how to arrange window displays to attract customers, and how to make newspaper ads and TV commercials more persuasive.
Health Psychologist
Study the effects of stress on health problems such as headaches, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Health psychologists also guide clients toward healthier behavior patterns, such as exercising, quitting smoking, and making better food choices.
Forensic Psychologist
Work with criminal justice agencies to apply psychological expertise to activities such as hostage negotiations, police assessment of threats, decision making as to the use of deadly force, and the interrogation of witnesses and offenders. Since September 11, 2001, forensic psychologists have also turned their attention to the study of terrorism—trying to understand who terrorists are and how law enforcement agencies can prevent terrorist acts. They also engage in personality assessment of law enforcement agents and offenders and study deviant social groups such as sex offenders and gang members.
Sport Psychologist
Help people improve their performance in sports. They help athletes concentrate on their performance and not on the crowd, use cognitive strategies such as positive visualization (imagining themselves making the right moves), and avoid choking under pressure.
Aristotle
Argued that science could rationally treat only information that was gathered by the senses. He numbered the so-called five senses of vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. He pointed out that people differ from other living things in their capacity for rational thought. He explained how the imagination and dreams contained images based on experience. He outlined laws of associationism that have lain at the heart of learning theory for more than 2,000 years. Aristotle also declared that people are motivated to seek pleasure and avoid pain. This view remains as current today as it was in ancient Greece.
Introspection
Deliberate looking into one’s own cognitive processes to examine one’s thoughts and feelings and to gain self-knowledge.
-self examination
Structuralism - Basic Definition
The school of psychology that argues the mind consists of three basic elements—sensations, feelings, and images—that combine to form experience.
-German
Who is the founder of Structuralism? When?
Wilhelm Wundt, 1879
-He did work with Tichner
What did Structuralists believe?
That the mind functions by combining objective and subjective elements of experience.
Structure
Elements / building blocks
Functionalism - Basic Definition
The school of psychology that emphasizes the uses or functions of the mind and behavior rather than just the elements of experience.
-American
Functionalism - Who & When?
William James, 1800’s
-influenced by Charles Darwin (adaptation)
