Exam 1 - Ch. 1

Question 1

Psychology

Answer 1

scientific study of mind, brain and behaviour

Question 2

Mind

Answer 2

The mental activity results from biological processes within the brain. (e.g. perception, thoughts, memories, feelings).

Question 3

Behaviour

Answer 3

observable actions (human or animal)

Question 4

Nativism

Answer 4

knowledge is innate

Plato

Question 5

Empiricism

Answer 5

All knowledge is acquired through Experience
Belief in “Tabula rasa”, “blank slate”
(Aristotle)

Question 6

Nature or Nurture? Which affects psychological development more?

Answer 6

Both nature and nurture interact in psychological

development

Question 7

Dualism

Answer 7

The mind and the body are separate but intertwined
- Suggested that mind was unique to humans, who are the only animals with one (soul)
(Renee Descartes)

Question 8

Mind or Body? Are the distinct?

Answer 8

Modern psychologist reject dualism
• The mind arises from brain activity.
• Cannot separate the mind and the brain

Question 9

Phrenology

Answer 9

specific characteristics and knowledge are in specific regions of the brain
- Each section has different behaviours and traits
• e.g. mechanical ability, talent for poetry, love of
property, colour perception, language, affection

Franz Joseph Gall - Creator

Discredited as theory

Question 10

Wilhelm Wundt

Answer 10

Founder of Psychology as a discipline
• Opens a first psychology lab
- Uses reaction time as method
- Deveolped Introspection

Question 11

Reaction time

Answer 11

how quickly people can respond to events

• faster when the task is easier
• slower when the task if harder

Question 12

consciousness

Answer 12

a person’s subjective experience of the world and the mind

Question 13

Introspection

Answer 13

systematic examination of
mental experiences that require people to
think about and report the content of their
thoughts

Question 14

Structuralism

Answer 14

the analysis of the basic elements that constitute the mind - like chemical elements
Edward Titchener developed it; was Wundt’s student
Used introspection as well

Question 15

Introspection flaws?

Answer 15

1. Experience is subjective

2. Reporting changes the experience itself

Question 16

Functionalism

Answer 16

the study of how mental processes enable people to
adapt to their environments
Inspired by evolutionary theory; traits are adaptive and naturally selected by fitness

Functionalism argued that mental
abilities must have evolved because they
were adaptive.
• Therefore, psychologists should study
how the mind operates in the context of
human evolution

Question 17

William James

Answer 17

Founder of Functionalism
Criticized structuralism - mind is not that simple
Believed single moment of consciousness is impossible to capture

Question 18

Stream of consciousness

Answer 18

mind consists of continuous

series of thoughts that cannot be broken down

Question 19

G. Stanley Hall

Answer 19

• Functionalist
• His work focused on development and education
as informed by evolutionary thinking
• As children develop, they pass through stages
that repeat the evolutionary history

Question 20

Sigmund Freud

Answer 20

Father of psychoanalytic theory
• Found that some of his patients with
neurological disorders had few
medical reasons.
• Built on the idea of unconscious

Question 21

Unconscious

Answer 21

the part of the mind that
operates outside of conscious awareness
but can influence conscious thoughts,
feelings and actions

Question 22

Psychoanalytic theory

Answer 22

Understand how unconscious thoughts can lead
to psychological disorders
approach that emphasizes importance of unconcious in shapping feelings, thoughts, and behaviour

Question 23

Psychoanalysis

Answer 23

therapeutic method that focuses on bringing

unconscious material into conscious awareness

Question 24

Behaviourism

Answer 24

emphasizes environmental effects on observable
behaviour
idea that environmental stimuli predicts behaviour - “skinner baby”
Inspired by Ivan Pavlov

Question 25

John B. Watson

Answer 25

Founder of Behaviourism

Believed that if psychology was to be objective, it
should study observable behaviour not mental
processes
Believed that animals, including humans, learn all
behaviour through environmental experience -
therefore study stimuli instead

Question 26

Stimulus

Answer 26

A Sensory input from the

environment

Question 27

Behaviour

Answer 27

An action or physiological

change elicited by a stimulus

Question 28

B.F. Skinner

Answer 28

Wanted to develop behaviourist principles to
explain how animals learned to act in their
environment

reduced all human behaviour to reinforcement of
responses with reward (or punishment)

Question 29

Skinner box

Answer 29

Conditioning chamber

Question 30

Reinforcement

Answer 30

consequence of an action
that can increase the chance of the action
happening again in the future

Question 31

Problems with behaviourism

Answer 31

1. It ignored mental processes (e.g. memory, consciousness etc)
2. It ignored evolutional history of the organism
   • (E.g. some behaviours cannot be explained by reinforcement alone)
3. Couldn’t explain learning by observation, or infant learning of grammar

Question 32

Gestalt Theory

Answer 32

the whole of personal
experience is not simply the sum of its
constituent elements.

Question 33

Max Wertheimer

Answer 33

Founder of Gestalt

psychology

Question 34

Humanistic psychology

Answer 34

Focused on the Goodness of people and how people should accept themselves and think positively
Abraham Maslow & Carl Rogers

Question 35

Cognitive psychology

Answer 35

study of mental or cognitive processes such as
perception, memory, subjective
experience, attention and language

Question 36

George A. Miller

Answer 36

Initiated the study of the mind

One of founders of cognitive psychology

Question 37

Magic # 7

Answer 37

People can only hold 7 plus or minus 2 bits of information in
their short term memory, or a “Chunk”

Question 38

Cognitive Neuroscience

Answer 38

aims to understand the links between cognitive
processes and brain activity

i.e. the physical mechanisms, such as neural firing, that leads to mental processes

created in Montreal neurological institute

Question 39

Donald Hebb

Answer 39

Developed theory of the
neural basis of learning
(Cognitive neuroscience contributor)

Question 40

Wilder Penfield

Answer 40

Pioneered surgical removal of
brain tissue to alleviate seizure
(Cognitive neuroscience contributor)

Question 41

Brenda Milner

Answer 41

Discovered the neural basis
of long-term memory
(Cognitive neuroscience contributor)