History And Approaches Flashcards
who is william james
William James (1842 - 1910) was a psychologist and philosopher, and was recognized for writing the Principles of Psychology, which is considered to be a monumental work in the history of psychology.
James is known for the James-Lange Theory of Emotion, which he formulated independently of Carl Lange. According to the theory, an emotion is simply the mind’s interpretation of certain physiological processes that occur as a response to certain stimuli.
One of James’ most famous examples is that when we see a bear, we do not run because we are afraid. According to James, we see a bear and then we run, and that is why we are afraid. His explanation is that when exposed to a stimulus such as a bear, our nervous system reacts with an increased heart rate, a rush of adrenaline, or muscle tension, and our perception of those changes is what is referred to as emotion.
Who is Wilhelm Wundt
Wilhelm Wundt (1832 - 1930) is known as the “Founder of Modern Psychology” and the “Father of Experimental Psychology”. He established the first laboratory in the world that was dedicated to Experimental Psychology, particularly investigations on the senses and perceptions.
Wundt used the method of Introspection to investigate psychological phenomena. This involved the subject’s observation and reporting of his own inner thoughts and sensations, and was very difficult to master.
Although Wundt’s theories and methods fell out of favor in the 1920’s, his greatest contribution was to demonstrate that psychology could become a true science.
what is the definition of psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
what is introspection
The process of “looking inward” and examining one’s self and one’s own actions in order to gain insight. This was a central component to the early days of psychology during the Structuralist period. Wundt and other psychologists had people introspect and then report on their feelings, thoughts, etc. Of course, the problem with introspection is, if you are having some feeling and then you have to stop to think about and report on the feeling, you’ve just changed the experience and therefore, the feeling itself.
what is structuralism
Structuralism was a school of thought that sought to identify the components (structure) of the mind (the mind was the key element to psychology at this point). Structuralists believed that the way to learn about the brain and its functions was to break the mind down into its most basic elements. They believed, the whole is equal to the sum of the parts.
Wilhelm Wundt, who is considered the pioneer Structuralist, set up the very first psychological laboratory in 1879. Following Wundt was Titchner who popularized the field (he was one of Wundt’s students). TItchner was interested in the conscious mind. He used a technique called introspection to try to understand the conscious mind. Introspection is a process of having a person “look inward”, focus on, and try to understand the emotion or thought they are experiencing at that moment.
what is functionalism
Functionalism was the psychological school of thought that followed Structuralism and moved away from focusing on the structure of the mind to a concern with how the conscious is related to behavior… How does the mind affect what people do? One of the major proponents of Functionalism was Thorndike (created the ever-popular puzzle box) who studied the primary issue of functionalism…WHAT FUNCTION DOES A BEHAVIOR HAVE. In addition, this school of thought focused on observable events as opposed to unobservable events (like what goes on in someone’s mind).
what is biopsychology/neuroscience
The scientific field of study that examines the relationships between biology and psychology, and how they influence behavior and cognition.
For example, biopsychology examines topics such as how your eyes are able to inform your brain what you are reading, how the brain interprets this information, and how your brain communicates with your hand to move the mouse and click on different links.
what dose evolutionary mean
According to the Center for Evolutionary Psychology, Evolutionary Psychology is “an approach to psychology, in which knowledge and principles from evolutionary biology are put to use in research on the structure of the human mind. It is not an area of study, like vision, reasoning, or social behavior. It is a way of thinking about psychology that can be applied to any topic within it. In this view, the mind is a set of information-processing machines that were designed by natural selection to solve adaptive problems faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors.” As such, this field really examines natural selection and how it favors behaviors that help keep a species going from one generation to the next.
What is psychoanalytic
The psychoanalytic approach focuses on the importance of the unconscious mind (not the conscious mind). In other words, psychoanalytic perspective dictates that behavior is determined by your past experiences that are left in the Unconscious Mind (people are unaware of them). This perspective is still based on Freud’s psychoanalytic perspective about early experiences being so influential on current behavior, but the focus on sex is not as great.
What dose behavioral mean
The behavioral approach was founded by John B. Watson and originally rejected the study of mental processes in favor of the study of overt behavior (observable behavior) and external factors - study of observable events. The behaviorists believed all behavior was determined by stimuli in the environment. Today, this approach still stresses the importance of the environment on behavior, but also allows for inclusion of cognitive processes and feelings (early behaviorists rejected cognition in the study of behavior).
What dose humanistic mean
This is the psychological perspective popularized by Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow (hierarchy of needs) that emphasizes the human capacity for choice and growth. The overriding assumption is that humans have free will and are not simply fated to behave in specific ways or are zombies blindly reacting to their environments. So, the Humanists stated that the subject matter or psychology (what psychology should focus on) is the human subjective experience of the world - how humans experience things, why they experience things, etc
What dose cognitive mean
All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, and remembering. As you can tell, any of your ideas, thoughts, memories, etc., are all types of cognitive processes. What you are doing (reading and learning this explanation) is a type of cognition.
What dose social cultural mean
The socio-cultural approach is based on the idea that society and culture shape cognition. Social customs, beliefs, values, and language are all part of what shapes a person’s identity and reality. According to this approach, what a person thinks is based on his or her socio-cultural background. A socio-cultural approach takes into account more than the individual in attempting to understand cognitive processes.
Hindsight bias
the tendency to believe, once the outcome is already known of course, that you would have forseen it…that even though it’s over and you know the outcome, you knew it all along.
Are you a Monday-morning quarterback? Have you heard the expression “hindsight is 20-20”? Have you ever said, “I knew it all along” after something happened?
Overconfidence
refers to the tendency to be very sure of a fact and later finding that the objective reality was different. It remains to be studied how personality and mental abilities affect this Overconfidence, but tests show that when asked difficult questions about an unfamiliar topic, individuals believe they will have a low percentage of errors when they actually end up with a lot more mistakes.
A person who thinks his sense of direction is much better than it actually is. The person could show his overconfidence by going on a long trip without a map and refusing to ask for directions if he gets lost along the way.
Scientific method
The scientific method is a systematic, step-by-step procedure psychologists use when conducting research. By following these specific steps, psychologists seek cause and effect relationships which means that they can be certain (at least have a high level of confidence) that one variable causes an effect on another variable and that the results of the study are caused by the variable being studied and not some other, outside (extraneous) variables.
The steps to the scientific method include describing the topic of study, making predictions (hypotheses), select a method for the study, controlling external variables, collecting data (running the study), analyzing & explaining the findings, and reporting & sharing the findings (usually via publication or lecturing). There are variations but these are the basic steps in the scientific method.
Hypothesis
testable prediction about the relationship between at least two events, characteristics, or variables. Hypotheses usually come from theories; when planning an experiment, a researcher finds as much previous research on the topic of study as possible. From all of the previous work, the researcher can develop a theory about the topic of study and then make specific predictions about the study he/she is planning. It is important to note that hypotheses should be as specific as possible since you are trying to find truth, and the more vague your hypotheses, the more vague your conclusions.
For example, if I am conducting a study on the effects of different drugs on pain relief, it would be bad to hypothesize that “one drug will have an effect on pain.” What the heck does that mean? How can you test to find out if that is true? A better hypothesis might be, “Drug A (whatever that is in that study) will reduce the amount of pain significantly more than Drug B according to participants’ ratings of pain using the Pain Intensity Scale.”
Related term of interest: Null Hypothesis.
