History Flashcards
This section comprises 4-6% of the Psychology GRE subject test. When finished with this deck, you should have a better understanding of the following: History, Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Educational Psychology.
Define:
Psychology
The scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
Define behavior as it relates to psychology.
Observable actions or responses of an individual to stimuli.
Fill in the blank.
__________ __________ are defined as internal experiences, including feelings and thoughts.
Mental processes
Why is Psychology a scientific study?
- It uses an empirical data to test hypotheses.
- It describes, predicts, and explains behavior and mental processes.
- It applies a systematic collection and interpretation of data.
Fill in the blank.
An example of the nature vs. nurture controversy is whether intelligence derives from __________ or is __________.
experience; inherited
Define dualism as it relates to psychology.
It is the false idea that the mind and brain are separate entities that interact; in reality, they are the same entity, understood at different levels.
This idea of dualism usually is associated with Rene Descartes.
What is monism?
The belief that, ultimately, the mind and the brain are the same thing.
There are various types of monism based on philosophers’ different points of view. They all agree on oneness, but they differ in what they target and how they count.
Fill in the blank.
Plato and Descartes, believers in dualism, are on the side of __________ in the nature vs. nurture controversy.
nature
Descartes believed knowledge was innate and the pineal gland was the principal seat of the soul and the place in which all our thoughts are formed.
Fill in the blank.
Aristotle, Hobbes, and Locke (believers in monism), are on the side of __________ in the nature vs. nurture controversy.
nurture
Locke’s “tabula rasa” translates to “blank slate” suggesting that knowledge is learned through experience.
Psychology grew out of which discipline(s) in Ancient Greece?
- Philosophy
- Physiology
- Biology
Who is credited with the foundation of scientific psychology?
Wilhelm Wundt, who performed the earliest studies in 1879 in Germany, is considered the father of the discipline of psychology. He created the first lab dedicated to psychological research, and wanted to measure consciousness.
What was the first textbook in psychology?
Wundt’s Principles of Physiological Psychology, published in 1874, which made the case that psychology is a unique subject matter that is worthy of study. It defined psychology as the study of consciousness.
Fill in the blank.
__________ examines the structure of the mind and basic elements of consciousness. Proponents of this system felt that consciousness should be the data of psychology and the best way to research was by using individuals who were trained in introspection.
Structuralism
Define:
introspection
It is the process whereby observers look inward and objectively analyze their sensory experience.
Fill in the blank.
__________ was the first woman to receive her Ph.D. in psychology.
Margaret Floy Washburn
Define functionalism as it relates to psychology.
The school of thought that was a reaction to structuralism.
It studies how the mind adapts to its environment. It was interested in individual differences, whereas structuralism was interested in groups of people.
Who was Mary Whiton Calkins?
The first female president of the American Psychological Association.
(APA)
Name three of the earliest functionalists.
- William James
- James Cattell
- John Dewey
What theory did William James found?
The functionalist perspective.
Which psychological approach does this statement reflect?
Behavior results from learning through experience.
behavioral
What is behavior modification?
A set of techniques to help individuals unlearn habits that have led to psychological problems.
Describe Ivan Pavlov’s classical conditioning experiments.
He is an early behaviorist, in his famous classical conditioning experiment, trained dogs to salivate in response to the sound of a bell.
What did John Watson believe Psychology should study?
He is one of the earliest behaviorists, felt psychology should be the science of overt behavior and reject the study of mental processes.
Who is the psychologist behind operant conditioning of rats and pigeons?
B.F. Skinner
What is the key premise in Gestalt psychology?
It stresses that the whole process should be studied, rather than specific parts.
- It was a reaction to structuralism.
- While structuralism seeks to study the elements that make up consciousness, it stresses the idea that the “whole is greater than the sum of its parts”.
Define:
operant conditioning
Training organisms to repeat responses that lead to rewards and not to repeat responses that lead to punishment.
Fill in the blank.
Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler, and Kurt Koffka were _____ psychologists.
Gestalt
Where do behavioral geneticists believe behavior comes from?
Particular behaviors are attributed to genetically-based psychological characteristics.
Who is the father of psychoanalysis?
Sigmund Freud
Fill in the blank.
According to psychoanalysis, early life experiences are related to the development of one’s __________ later in life.
personality
Other than Sigmund Freud, name four psychologists who associate with the psychoanalytic perspective.
- Carl Jung
- Alfred Adler
- Karen Horney
- Heinz Kohut
Fill in the blank.
The __________ approach studies unconscious motives, while the biological approach studies chemical processes.
psychoanalytic
The psychoanalytic approach is also known as the psychodynamic approach.
What is the difference between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind?
- Conscious mind is readily accessible.
- Subconscious mind is inaccessible but influences behavior.
Define:
repression
Psychoanalytic term for burying information in the subconscious.
Fill in the blank.
__________, unlike behaviorists, believe free will guides behavior and leads to personal growth.
Humanists
Define:
humanism
Psychological perspective that believes humans have unique qualities of behavior that differ from other organisms.
Name two psychologists who associate with the humanistic approach.
- Abraham Maslow
- Carl Rogers
Fill in the blank.
Technological advances and physiological research formed the basis of the __________ approach.
biological
The biological approach is also known as biopsychology or neuroscience.
Fill in the blank.
According to the biological perspective, behavior is related to the __________ processes within the nervous and endocrine systems.
chemical
Which psychological approach does this statement reflect?
Behaviors that contribute to survival and reproduction are naturally selected.
evolutionary
Who was the inspiration behind the evolutionary approach to psychology?
Charles Darwin
Darwin’s theory of natural selection said all creatures have evolved over time in order to survive and reproduce.
Which psychological approach focuses on thinking, language, and how humans receive, store, and process information?
cognitive
Who first studied the cognitive development of children?
Jean Piaget
Fill in the blank.
The structuralists studied consciousness, thinking, and memory. This area of psychology is currently known as __________.
cognition
Which psychological approach does this statement reflect?
People from different cultures interpret gestures, body language, and verbal language differently.
sociocultural
These psychologists study how cultural differences affect behavior.
Organize in chronological order from earliest to latest, based on when each became popular:
- sociocultural approach
- behavioral approach
- humanistic approach
- The behavioral approach became popular in the early 20th century with Pavlov’s research.
- The humanistic approach came about in the mid-20th century in opposition to Behaviorism.
- Lastly, the sociocultural approach grew toward the end of the century as there were more interactions between different cultures.
Name three Ancient Greeks who were philosophers who also discussed psychological concepts.
- Socrates
- Plato
- Aristotle
Which Scientific Revolution-era thinker discussed mind-body dualism in his philosophical writings?
Rene Descartes
Fill in the blank.
______ believed that thought and knowledge are not innate and that a human being is born as a tabula rasa.
John Locke
Who was one of the first thinkers to suggest that our perceptions of sensation are all that we can be sure of?
Thomas Hobbes
Fill in the blank.
_______ was an Enlightenment-era thinker who believed we were active shapers of our own worlds with inborn traits that skew our perceptions.
Immanuel Kant
Fill in the blank.
_______ was a Viennese scientist who was the first to use hypnotism (which he called _______) to cure mental illness.
Anton Mesmer; Mesmerism
Braid, Charcot, and Freud were other pioneering users of hypnosis and hypnotic techniques.
Fill in the blank.
Phrenology, the “science” that proposed people’s personalities were based on their skull shape, was created by ___________.
Franz Joseph Gall
Who was the first psychologist to use statistics in psychological research, as well as the inventor of the correlation coefficient?
Sir Francis Galton
Fill in the blank.
Gustav Fechner can be considered the founder of ______ ______ because of his use of empirical techniques to study psychological phenomena.
experimental psychology
Define:
eugenics
A biological plan based loosely on genetics that hoped to selectively breed human beings to create the perfect human.
Who wrote “Elements of Physiology,” a book that suggested the existence of special nerve energies?
Johannes Muller
His theory suggested that nerves will always fire the same way, despite different types of stimulation.
Fill in the blank
The first accepted psychological laboratory was founded in 1879 by Wilhelm Wundt at _________ __ _________ for the purposes of studying consciousness.
University of Leipzig
Which psychologist based his work on the now-discredited evolutionary work of Lamarck, and suggested that different races passed on their intelligence to future generations?
Herbert Spencer
Who was one of the founders of our current psychology of perception?
Hermann von Helmholtz
Who received the first Ph.D. in America and also was the founder of the American Psychological Association?
He also is responsible for the modern concept of adolescence.
Stanley Hall
Who did his psychological work on the reflex arc, which proposed that animals always adapt to their environments, rather than respond to stimuli with concrete responses?
John Dewey
Fill in the blank.
_________ was the inventor of structuralism, and he also used introspection to examine consciousness.
Edward Titchener
Fill in the blank.
James Cattell founded psychological research laboratories in both ______ __ _________ and ______ _________; he was one of the forefathers of the experimental movement in American psychology.
University of Pennsylvania; Columbia University
Who was one of the founders of the American movement to provide better care for the mentally ill?
Dorothea Lynde Dix
Who created the law of effect, which eventually led to operant conditioning?
Edward Thorndike
Fill in the blank.
_______ was a student of Sigmund Freud who created individual psychology, the idea of the inferiority complex, and a four-type personality system.
Alfred Adler
Which psychologist split from Sigmund Freud to go on to create analytic psychology?
Carl Gustav Jung
Fill in the blank.
The mechanistic behavioral equation Performance = Drive x Habit is best associated with _______.
Clark Hull
Which behaviorist believed that learning is acquired through purposeful behavior, which he demonstrated by running rats through mazes?
Edward Tolman
Fill in the blank.
In the 1940s, psychology moved away from research and toward the practical treatment of mental illness, which was especially apparent in the emerging field of _________ _________.
clinical psychology
Who was Konrad Lorenz?
He was one of the founders of ethology who also did extensive research with duckling imprinting
Who created a new form of therapy called client-centered therapy that employed unconditional positive regard?
Carl Rogers
Fill in the blank.
Abraham Maslow was famous for leading humanistic psychology and creating the _________ __ _____.
the hierarchy of needs
Fill in the blank.
Erik Erikson proposed an eight stage model of development that included a _____ in order to transition to the next stage.
crisis
Define:
existential psychology
This is a field of psychology that focuses on the fact that people innately want to search for meaning and purpose to add substance to their lives; a major psychologist in this field was Viktor Frankl.
Fill in the blank.
_________, and many other cognitive psychologists, believed that mental illness comes from bad thinking patterns, which must be treated with cognitive therapy.
Aaron Beck
What are the six basic things to know about Piaget (with more details to follow in the Lifespan Developmental Psychology deck)?
- The child’s interaction with the physical world leads to logical cognition.
- He has a stage theory and going through the stages leads to qualitative changes in the way you reason.
- Universal: everyone develops the same way and culture has only a small role.
- The mind is active.
- Functional part of his theory has assimilation and accommodation.
- Structural part of his theory has schemas and operations.
Here is a helpful outline of the history of Psychology:
- Philosophers (Descartes, Hobbs, Locke, Berkeley)
- Sensory-Physiologists (Bell-Magendie, Muller, Helmholtz, Weber-Fechner)
- Structuralist (Wundt and Titchner)
- Functionalist (James, Thorndike, Cattel)
- Behaviorist (Pavlov, Watson, Skinner, Hull, and Tolman)
- Gestalt (Wertheimer, Kohler, Koffka)
- Clinical (Freud, Jung, Adler)
