Chapters 1_2 Slides Flashcards
Psyche
Mind
Logos
Knowledge or study
Psychology definition
Scientific study of behavior (overt) and mental processed (covert)
Behavior can be directly observed
Mental processes cannot be directly observed
What are the four goals of psychology
Describing behavior
Understanding behavior - causes
Predicting behavior
Controlling behavior
Pseudo
False
Pseudopsychilogies
Any unfounded “system” that resembles psychology and is NOT based on scientific testing
Phrenology
Personality traits revealed by the shape of the skull and bumps on your head
Palmistry
Lines on your hands (palms) predict future and reveal personality
Graphology
Personality revealed by your handwriting
Astrology
The positions of the stars and planets at birth determine your personality and affect your behavior
Four examples of pseudopsychologies
Phrenology
Palmistry
Graphology
Astrology
Barnum effect
The tendency to accept certain information as true, even when the information is so vague as to be worthless (ex. Horoscopes)
Tendency to consider personal descriptions accurate if stated in general terms, always have a little something for everyone
Confirmation bias
When we remember or notice things that confirm our expectations and forget the rest
Uncritical acceptance
Tendency to believe positive or unflattering descriptions of yourself
The scientific method (6 basic elements)
- Making observations
- Defining a problem
- Proposing a hypothesis
- Gathering evidence/testing the hypothesis
- Building a theory
- Publishing results
Operational definitions
A definition on how we decide to measure our variables
Usually hundreds of ways to measure a variable
Wilhelm Wundt (1879)
Set up first lab to study conscious experience in Germany
Systematically observed and measured various stimuli…he studied how sensations, images, and feelings combine to make up personal experience
Introspection: looking inward (examining and reporting your thoughts feelings etc)
Edward Titchener
Wundt’s ideas brought to the US by Titchener and renamed Structuralism
School of thought concerned with analyzing the structure of mental life (sensations and personal experience) into basic elements or building blocks
William James (1890)
Wrote “Principles of Psychology”
Broadened psychology to include animal behavior, religious experience, abnormal behavior
Functionalism: how the mind functions to adapt us to our environment
Functionalists admired Darwin and his theory of natural selection, animals keep features through evolution that help them adapt to environments
John B. Watson
Studied relationship between stimuli and responses
Anyone can be anything
Little Albert
B.F. Skinner
Studied animals almost exclusively
Believed actions controlled by rewards and punishments
Skinner Box
Psychoanalytic psychology
Behavior is influenced by unconscious wishes, thoughts, and desires, esp. sex and aggression
Early childhood experiences affect adult personality
Created by Freud
Repression
When memories, thoughts, or impulses are unconsciously held out of awareness
“Freudian slips”
Freud believed that all thoughts, emotions, and actions are determined
Freudian slips
Repression
Humanism
Goal: to study unique aspects of the person
Focus: human experience, problems, ideals, and potentials
Free will (contrast with Freud and skinner)
Each person has innate goodness and is able to make free choices
Key names: carl rogers, Maslow
Four non experimental research methods
Naturalistic observation
Correlational method
Clinical method
Survey method
Naturalistic observation
Observing a person or an animal in the natural environmental context
Provides descriptions of behavior
Observer bias
Observer effect (Hawthorne effect)
Correlational studies
Determining the degree of a relationship between two events, measures, or variables
The clinical method
Case study
Natural clinical tests: natural events, such as accidents, that provide psychological data
6 neurotransmitter examples
Acetylcholine Dopamine GABA Glutamate Norepinephrine Serotonin
4 excitatory neurotransmitters
Acetylcholine
Dopamine
Glutamate
Norepinephrine
Inhibitory neurotransmitters (2)
GABA
Seratonin
