Chapters 1-3

Question 1

Psychology

Answer 1

The scientific study of mental processes and behaviour

Question 2

Mental Processes

Answer 2

activities of our brain when engaged in thinking, observing, and using language

Question 3

Behaviour

Answer 3

Observable activities of an organism

Question 4

Four Goals of Psychologists

Answer 4

• Description of what we observe
• Explanation of these observations
• Prediction of the circumstances that lead to the expression of a specific behaviour
• Controlling behaviour

Question 5

Level of Analysis

Answer 5

Mental processes and behaviours can be studied at multiple levels of analysis:

• The Brain (brain structure and function)
• The person (thoughts and feelings)
• the group (family, friends, culture)

Question 6

Psychology’s Roots in Philosophy

Answer 6

• Ancient Greek philosophers asked questions about the human mind – approx. 400 B.C.E. (Mind-body relation; nature-nurture question)
• It wasn’t just what they asked, but how – they developed scientific methods

Question 7

Francis Bacon

Answer 7

Created empiricism- the view that all knowledge comes from experience

Question 8

Descartes

Answer 8

He contemplated mind-body dualism - mind as distinct from the body and connected to the body via the pineal glad

Question 9

John Locke

Answer 9

argued we are born with a tabula rasa and that we learn by experience

Question 10

Psychophysics

Answer 10

the study of the relationship between physical stimuli and their psychological effects

Question 11

Psychology’s Roots in Psychophysics:

Johannes Muller

Answer 11

Psychophysics was pioneered by Johannes Muller in the 1800s

Question 12

Psychology’s Roots in Psychophysics:

Herman Von Helmholtz

Answer 12

measured the speed of neural impulses

Question 13

Psychology’s Roots in Psychophysics:

Gustav Fechner

Answer 13

one of the founders of experimental psychology; showed how mental events can be quantified

Question 14

Wilhelm Wundt

Answer 14

• Opened the first psychology lab in 1879 in Leipzig, Germany
• Made psychology a science by adding:
  Carefully measured observations and Experiments

Question 15

G. Stanley Hall

Answer 15

• 1883 – established the first psychology lab in North America
• 1887 – launched America’s first psychology journal
• 1892 – major player in establishing the American Psychological Association (APA)

Question 16

James Mark Baldwin

Answer 16

1890 – established the first psychology lab in Canada at UofT

Question 17

Battle of the ‘schools’ – what should be the focus of psychology?

Structuralism

Answer 17

• led by Edward Titchener
• sought to understand the basic elements of consciousness
• relied on introspection (reporting on sensations and other elements of experience, not very scientific)

Question 18

Battle of the ‘schools’ – what should be the focus of psychology?

Functionalism

Answer 18

• Led by William James
• Sought to understand the function or purpose of consciousness
• wrote principles of psychology (published in 1890)
• Led to other schools of thought (behaviourism, and applied psychology)

Question 19

Gestalt psychologists

Answer 19

• Said consciousness cannot be broken down into elements
• We perceive things as whole perceptual units
  -The whole is
  greater than the
  sum of its parts
• Learning is tied to what we perceive

Question 20

Perspectives on behaviour = different vantage points for analyzing behaviour and its causes

Answer 20

Major perspectives in psychology:

• Psychoanalysis
• Behaviourism
• Humanistic psychology
• Cognitive psychology
• Psychobiology/ neuroscience

Question 21

Psychoanalysis

Answer 21

• Founded by Sigmund Freud in the early 1900’s
• Focused on the role of the unconscious (Drives, wishes, needs, and desires of which we are not aware)
• Emphasized the importance of early childhood experiences

Question 22

Behaviourism

Answer 22

• Dominant school of thought in the early 1900’s
• Founded by John B. Watson
  
  • Emphasized psychology’s focus on observable behaviour
  • Showed that phobias can be learned (Little Albert)

Ivan Pavlov
- Studied classical conditioning in dogs

B. F. Skinner

• Showed how consequences of behaviour can influence future behaviour
• Studied rats and pigeons

Albert Bandura
- Described learning by social observation

Question 23

Humanistic psychology:

Answer 23

• Argued that psychoanalysis and behaviourism were de-humanizing
• Emphasized the unique qualities of humans
  
  • Focused on freedom and personal growth
• Led by Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers

Question 24

Cognitive Psychology

Answer 24

Cognition = mental processes involved in acquiring knowledge

• 1950’s and 1960’s – Neisser, Miller, and Chomsky (to name a few):
• Applied the scientific method to study the mind
• Became the dominant perspective in psychology

Question 25

Psychobiology/neuroscience:

Answer 25

Explained behaviour in terms of physiological processes – highly dependent on technology

• Karl Lashley (1950’s): observed behavioural changes in rats after removing parts of their brain
• Donald Hebb (1950’s): cell assemblies describe neural networks
• Wilder Penfield (1970’s): mild electrical stimulation of different areas of the brain evokes different responses
• Roger Sperry (1980’s): left and right brain functions

Question 26

Why Do We Need Psychological Research?

Answer 26

• our natural thinking style can fail
• using science makes us objective and accurate
  
  • not influenced by the person measuring, the device, it is completely objective and accurate

Question 27

Natural thinking mistakes in research

Answer 27

• Hindsight bias: a finding may seem obvious after the fact (if we have a belief that biases us)
• Overconfidence error: we overestimate how accurate and skilled we are
• Mistakenly perceiving order in random events: makes us think we can make predictions from a random series
  
  • We can “see” pattern events. When actually you have no clue because it is random.

Question 28

Five Characteristics of Good Research

Answer 28

1. Use of objective measures
2. Generalizability of results
3. Reducing sources of bias
4. Reporting the findings
5. Replication

Question 29

Use of Objective Measures

Answer 29

• The measure is consistent across instruments and observers
• Make things as objective as possible
• Use of operational definitions helps with objectivity
• The measure must be valid – does it actually measure what it claims to measure?
• The measure must be reliable – do we get the same score over time and across observers?
  
  • Test-retest reliability: If you took the same test over a period of time (that you dont really remember) if the test is reliable you should get roughly the same score
  • Alternate-forms reliability: you could give someone the same the same test with the questions in a different order and that should not effect their score
  • Inter-rater reliability: the score should not depend on who is testing or scoring you