Exam 1

Question 1

hindsight bias

Answer 1

tendency to think info is less surprising once we know it

Question 2

psychology

Answer 2

the scientific study of behavior and mental processes

Question 3

mental processes

Answer 3

the thoughts, feelings, and motives that each of us experiences privately but that cannot be observed directly

Question 4

behavior

Answer 4

any action that people can observe or measure

Question 5

Goals of Psychology

Answer 5

1. Describe behavior. 2. Explain behavior. 3. Predict Behavior. 4. Control or change behavior

Question 6

William Wundt

Answer 6

father of psychology and founder of structuralism/introspection; created first lab to study psychology

Question 7

introspection

Answer 7

describing and analyzing experiences to understand their components

Question 8

structuralism

Answer 8

an early school of psychology that used introspection to explore the elemental structure of the human mind

Question 9

functionalism

Answer 9

how the conscious mind helps humans survive and successfully adapt to their environment

Question 10

Gestalt Psychology

Answer 10

to understand consciousness, we must study the whole, not just its component parts

Question 11

Psychodynamic Theory

Answer 11

Freudian theory that our behavior is deeply influenced by unconscious impulses, thoughts, and desires; all experiences is the push and pull between conscious and unconscious forces

Question 12

Behaviorism

Answer 12

the idea that our behavior is learned, observable, and measurable; reaction to psychodynamic theory

Question 13

Humanistic Psychology

Answer 13

Perspective founded by Carl Rogers; emphasized that people have the free will to live more creative, meaningful, and satisfying lives; reaction to behaviorism and psychodynamic theory

Question 14

Neuropsychology

Answer 14

Understanding how the brain words to help us to understand human psychology

Question 15

Evolutionary Psychology

Answer 15

the study of the roots of behavior and mental processes using the principles of natural selection; natural selection: changes in the frequency of genes in a population that occur because those genes give an organism more chance of survival

Question 16

Importance of integrating the perspectives

Answer 16

combing several perspectives provides a more complete picture of behavior

Question 17

What type of psychology makes up half of all psychologists?

Answer 17

Clinical psychology

Question 18

Scientific Method

Answer 18

the set of procedures used in science to gather, analyze, and interpret information in a way that reduces error and leads to dependable generalization

Question 19

Steps to Research

Answer 19

1. Selecting a topic. 2. Developing a theory and formulating a hypothesis 3. Selecting a scientific method to use in the research and submitting the study for ethical evaluation 4. Collecting data, analyzing it, and reporting Results

Question 20

Hypothesis

Answer 20

a tentative statement about the relationship between two or more variables

Question 21

variables

Answer 21

Any measurable conditions, events, characteristics, or behaviors that are controlled or observed in a study

Question 22

Independent Variable

Answer 22

the variable that is manipulated in an experiment

Question 23

Dependent Variable

Answer 23

the variable that is measured and recorded; affected by the independent variable

Question 24

Operationalization

Answer 24

the concrete representation of the variable of interest

Question 25

case study

Answer 25

research method that involves directly observing one or more participants (pro: rich data source, con: vulnerable to biases, limited generalizability)

Question 26

Generalizability

Answer 26

what inferences can you make about the phenomena’s breadth

Question 27

survey

Answer 27

interviews or questionnaires of many participants concerning a particular phenomena of interest (pros: more generalizability, wide array of topics, real life description; cons: vulnerable to biases (self-presentation bias, wording bias, acquiescence bias)

Question 28

wording bias

Answer 28

wording differently affects how people respond; biases where a survey question is posed to achieve a desired result

Question 29

correlational studies

Answer 29

research method that examines how variables are naturally related in the real world

Question 30

correlation

Answer 30

a measure of the extent to which two variables are related; can be between 0 (no correlation) and 1 (perfect correlation); can be positive (as one variable goes up, the other goes up) or negative (as one variable goes up, the other goes down)

Question 31

correlation is not causation

Answer 31

shows patterns and relationships, not causes

Question 32

experiment

Answer 32

to determine causation; manipulate variables in a controlled environment in order to assess the effects of such a manipulation on over variables

Question 33

pro of experiments

Answer 33

can draw casual influence and find causation

Question 34

con of experiments

Answer 34

vulnerable to biases, can be artificial

Question 35

Significance of Kitty Genovese Killing

Answer 35

She was a young woman who was raped and killed in plain sight while dozens of bystanders failed to intervene; example of bystander effect

Question 36

Bystander effect

Answer 36

the tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present

Question 37

statistical significance

Answer 37

how likely it is that an obtained result occurred by chance; in experiments, there needs to be a 95% certainty that the events did not happen by chance

Question 38

Theory

Answer 38

system of interrelated ideas used to explain a set of observations; after a study

Question 39

central nervous system

Answer 39

brain and spinal cord

Question 40

peripheral nervous system

Answer 40

part of the nervous system that contains the sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system to the rest of the body; somatic and autonomic