Chapters 1-4

Question 1

What is Psychology?

Answer 1

Psychology is the study of mental processes and behaviours?

Question 2

How is behaviour different from mental process?

Answer 2

Mental process is the activity of our brain when engaged in thinking, processing and using language. (Includes thinking, imagining, and remembering). Whereas behaviour is observable action often in response to environmental cues.

Question 3

When studying mental processes, what are the 4 goals?
DEPC

Answer 3

DEPC
1) Description of what we observe.
2) Explanation: For e.x. Why do we eat?
3) Prediction: of the circumstances that lead to the expression of a certain behaviour.
4) Control: How can we control behaviour?

Question 4

What are the different levels of analysis in Psychology?

Answer 4

1) The brain: Neural activity.
2) The person: Emotions, ideas, thoughts.
3) The group: Friends, family, culture.

Question 5

Why is it important to know about myths?

Answer 5

1) They can be harmful.
2) Myths can create indirect damage.
3) Accepting myths in one area impedes thinking in other areas.

Question 6

What is philosophy?

Answer 6

Philosophy is the study of knowledge and reality.

Question 7

How is mythology and science similar?

Answer 7

They both represent our attempt to describe, explain, predict, and control our reality.

Question 8

What did Plato, Aristotle and Hippocrates wonder about?

Answer 8

They queried how the human mind worked, how the human body related to the mind, and whether knowledge was inborn or had to be learned from experience.

Question 9

What did the Greek philosophers emphasize?

Answer 9

They emphasized that theories, ideas about the way things work are never final , but rather capable of improvement.

Question 10

Who was Hippocrates?

Answer 10

460-377B.C.E.
He was a Greek physician recognized as the “Father of Medicine.”
He believed that an individual’s physical and psychological health was influenced by an excess/lack of one/+ of 4 bodily humours. (Blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile)
Although this is incorrect, he accurately diagnosed the symptoms of pneumonia and epilepsy.

Question 11

Who was Plato?

Answer 11

427-374 B.C.E.
A Greek philosopher who believed that the human mind was imprinted with all relevant knowledge and that this knowledge was innate.

Question 12

Who was Aristotle?

Answer 12

384-322 B.C.E.
Was a student of Plato’s who made key contributions to the foundations of psychology. He looked inward at the sensory experiences and also scrutinized his environment, searching for the basic purpose of all objects and creatures.

Question 13

Who was Francis Bacon?

Answer 13

1561-1626
Was an English philosopher and scientist who became a prominent figure in scientific methodology and natural philosophy.
Widely regarded as the creator of empiricism.

Question 14

What is empiricism?

Answer 14

The view that all knowledge originates in experience.

Question 15

Who was Rene Descartes?

Answer 15

1596-1650
The first of the modern philosophers who viewed all truths as ultimately linked and believed that the meaning of the natural world could be understood through science and mathematics.

Question 16

Who was John Locke?

Answer 16

1632-1704
He influenced theories of both Bacon and Descartes.
Was a British philosopher who believed that we learn by our experiences.
Argued for tabula rasa - a blank slate.

Question 17

Who was Johannes Muller?

Answer 17

1801-1894
Was a physiologist who studied the relationship between physical stimuli and their psychological effects.

Question 18

Who was Charles Darwin?

Answer 18

1809-1882
He proposed the theory of evolution, natural selection, and adaptive variations.

Question 19

Who was Wilhelm Wundt?

Answer 19

1832-1920
Father of experimental psychology.
Established the first psychology lab in 18879 in Leipzig, Germany.
Studied psychology through empirically-driven experiments.
Focused on the study of consciousness.
Developed the psychological paradigm voluntarism.

Question 20

What is introspection, and which early school of psychologist relied most heavily on it?

Answer 20

Introspection is a method of psychological study involving careful evaluation of mental processes and how simple thoughts expand into complex ideas.
Cornell University?

Question 21

What is the main difference in approach between functionalism and structuralism?

Answer 21

Unlike structuralism, functionalism emphasized the need for research to include animals, children, and persons with mental disorders in order to understand both normal and abnormal psychological functioning.

Question 22

Who was Edward Titchener?

Answer 22

1867-1927
Developed structuralism as an attempt to try to identify all the elements of consciousness.
Introspection - careful, reflective and systematic observation of the details of mental processes.

Question 23

What was the goal of structuralism, and which elements survived?

Answer 23

The goal was to describe observable mental processes rather than to explain, predict, or control.
The principle was rejected by other psychologist, but some elements survived
- Psychologists should focus on observable events.
- Scientific study should focus on simple elements as building blocks of complex experience.

Question 24

Who was William James?

Answer 24

1842-1910
Set up the first psychology lab in the U.S. at Harvard.
Wrote the first psychology textbook, Principles of Psychology, published in 1890.

Question 25

What did James believe about functionalism?

Answer 25

He believed that mental processes were fluid (“stream of consciousness”) instead of fixed elements (structuralist’s viewpoint).
Emphasized the functions of the mind in adapting to a changing environment.
Functionalist scientists used empirical methods that focused on the causes and consequences of behaviour.

Question 26

What did the Gestalt psychologists study?

Answer 26

Said consciousness CANNOT be broken down into elements.
Said that 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 27

Which theorist is most clearly associated with psychoanalytic theory - the theory of that unconscious conflicts

Answer 27

Sigmund Freud

Question 28

Who was Sigmund Freud?

Answer 28

1856-1939
The belief that peoples’ behaviours are based on their unconscious desires and conflicts.
He developed a form of therapy, psychoanalysis, that aimed to resolve unconscious conflicts.

Question 28

According to behaviourist theories, what are the various reinforcement principles, and what impact does each have on behaviour?

Answer 28

An idea central to behaviourism is that the consequence resulting from a particular behaviour serves to either increase/decrease the likelihood that an organism will perform that same behaviour again in the future.
If the consequence of a given behaviour is rewarding, the consequence is regarded as a reinforcement, and the organism will be more likely to repeat the behaviour in the future.
A behaviour is positively reinforced when it brings about a desired outcome