Foundations of Psychology

Question 1

mind-body problem

Answer 1

the earliest question fueling psychology. Attempted to answer the question of whether the mind and body are separate entities.

Question 2

dualism

Answer 2

a theory that attempted to solve the mind-body problem by suggesting that the material body exists independent of the immaterial soul

Question 3

Cartesian dualism

Answer 3

a theory propose by Rene Descarte that attempted to solve the mind-body problem by suggesting that the mind of the soul was housed in the brain

Question 4

pineal gland

Answer 4

many dualist believed the soul was housed in this brain structure

Question 5

nature versus nurture

Answer 5

a large psychological question that attempts to determine the relative influence of genetics and environment

Question 6

empiricism

Answer 6

a theory proposed to answer the nature versus nurture debate that claims all knowledge comes from experience

Question 7

tabula rosa

Answer 7

a theory proposed to answer the nature versus nurture debate that claims all people emerge into the work as a blank slate

Question 8

Charles Darwin

Answer 8

seventeenth century biologist who proposed the theory of evolution. The implication of natural selection for psychology is that our current psychological state is the result of thousands of years of evolution. Darwinist believed in an entirely nature explanation

Question 9

Wilhelm Wundt

Answer 9

one of the earliest psychologist. Belonged to the school of structuralism and believed in focusing on mental processing. Wundt established a psychology lab that study mental processes by measuring reaction times

Question 10

Edward Titchener

Answer 10

an early psychologist. Belonged to the school of structuralism and believed in studying conscious experience through introspection.

Question 11

William James

Answer 11

an early psychologist. Belonged to the school of functionalism and wanted to determine the purpose of conscious experience through introspection

Question 12

Max Wertheimer

Answer 12

an early psychologist. Belonged to the Gestalt school and believed that the whole is different from the sum of parts. He believed in studying perception through lab demonstrations

Question 13

John B Watson

Answer 13

early psychologist. Belonged to the school of behaviorism and believed in studying observable behavior by executing controlled experiments and stimulus-reaction studies

Question 14

Sigmund Freud

Answer 14

a psychologist from the early twentieth century. Belonged to the school of psychoanalysis. He believed in studying unconscious experience and childhood motivations for behavior through introspection

Question 15

Cognitive Revolution

Answer 15

the most recent evolution of psychology focused on consciousness and mental processing by controlled experimentation and inference from observable behavior

Question 16

George Miller

Answer 16

founder of the center for cognitive sciences at Harvard. THe father of the cognitive revolution

Question 17

social psychology

Answer 17

founded by Kurt Lewin and focused on the social nature of mind nad behavior, specifically how people are influence by others. It attempts to study these traits through controlled experiments

Question 18

the scientific method

Answer 18

the systematic approach to answer questions about the natural world through observation, hypothesizing, testing and re-hypothesizing

Question 19

naturalistic observation

Answer 19

the practice of observing behavior as it actually occurs with the goals of description

Question 20

systematic observation

Answer 20

the practice of observing behavior with a hypothesis in mind and counting, recording or looking for specific behaviors

Question 21

case study

Answer 21

an in-depth investigation about an unusual, isolated case/individual and extrapolating that information to a general case

Question 22

survey

Answer 22

asking specific question and using the information gained from that process as descriptive

Question 23

correlation

Answer 23

when a relationship exists between two variables

Question 24

causation

Answer 24

when one variable affects change in another variable

Question 25

directionality problem

Answer 25

the reason correlation and causation are not equivalent. Causation can go both ways, complicating the relationship beyond correlation

Question 26

third variable problem

Answer 26

when an unconsidered variable complicates the relationship between the two variables under study

Question 27

independent variable

Answer 27

the manipulated variable, assumed to be the causal or predictive variable

Question 28

dependent variable

Answer 28

the measured variable

Question 29

confounding variable

Answer 29

influences not under study that might have some sway over the results of an experiment. also known as an extraneous variable

Question 30

selection bias

Answer 30

when the source of subjects affects the validity of an experiment. random sampling should eliminate this problem by adequately representing the population under study

Question 31

random assignment

Answer 31

everyone has an equal chance of being in either the control or the experimental group. this spread the uncertainty of results across both groups

Question 32

participant expectancy effect

Answer 32

when a subject changes behavior based on their knowledge/awareness of being in an experiment.

Question 33

placebo

Answer 33

blinding a participant to treatment by administering dummy medication

Question 34

single blind studies

Answer 34

when the participant or experimenter doesn’t know whether or not the participant is actually being treated

Question 35

double blind studies

Answer 35

when neither the participant nor the experimenter knows whether the participant is actually being treated

Question 36

descriptive statistics

Answer 36

a way to organize and summarize data

Question 37

measures of central tendency

Answer 37

mean, median and mode

Question 38

normal bell curve

Answer 38

a statistical distribution wherein the mean, median and mode all equal the same number

Question 39

negative skew

Answer 39

a statistical distribution wherein the mean is less than the media which is less than the mode

Question 40

positive skew

Answer 40

a statistical distribution wherein the mode is less than the median which is less than the mean

Question 41

measures of variability

Answer 41

statistical measures that speak to how closely cluster around a particular measure of central tendency a set of data is

Question 42

standard deviation

Answer 42

refers to the number o scores relative to the mean

Question 43

inferential statistics

Answer 43

used to answer research question by interpreting data

Question 44

statistically significant

Answer 44

when the probability of an event happening is less than 5%

Question 45

Good job studying

Answer 45

keep up the good work kiddo!