Introducing Psychology Flashcards
What Is Psychology?
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior
What is Dualism? Describe the Mind versus Body problem.
René Descartes believed that the physical body was a container for the nonphysical thing called the mind.
Thomas Hobbes Argued against Descartes; said the mind is what the brain does
What is the Mind?
The Mind is: private inner experience of perceptions, thoughts, memories, and feelings.
What is Behavior?
Behavior: is observable actions of human beings and nonhuman animals
What is Empiricism?
Something you can observe or experience for yourself through your senses. Belief that accurate knowledge can be acquired through observation; essential element in scientific method
What is Structuralism?
Structuralism is an: analysis of the basic elements that constitute the mind.
What is Functionalism?
Functionalism is: the study of how mental processes enable people to adapt to their environments.
Who are the main figures that contributed to Psychology emerging as a science?
William James (1842–1910): First to take scientific approach to study psychology; wrote The Principles of Psychology. Was inspired by Darwin and Natural Selection.
What are the Scientific Methods associated with Psychology?
Set of principles about the appropriate relationship between ideas using empirical evidence
What are the issues and problems related to studying human behavior?
People are difficult to study because of their complexity, variability, and reactivity.
What is reliability, validity, and power?
Validity: Extent to which a measurement and a property are conceptually related
Reliability: Tendency for a measure to produce the same measurement whenever it is used to measure the same thing.
Power: Ability of a measure to detect the concrete conditions specified in the operational definition.
What is Internal and External Validity?
Internal validity is an attribute of an experiment that allows it to establish causal relationships.
External validity is an attribute of an experiment in which variables have been defined in a normal, typical, or realistic way.
What are the Ethical Practices and their issues?
APA Code of Ethics Informed consent Freedom from coercion Protection from harm Risk-benefit analysis Deception Debriefing Confidentiality
What is “Random Assignment?”
Random assignment: is a procedure that lets ‘chance’ assign participants to the experimental or control group
What is “Random Sampling?”
Random sampling: is a technique for choosing participants that ensures that every member of a population has an equal chance of being included in the sample
What elements need to included for a “true” experiment?
Experiments eliminate differences between groups by examining two key features:
1) Manipulation
2) Random assignment
What are Neurons?
Cells in the nervous system that communicate with one another to perform information-processing tasks.
- Approximately 100 billion in the brain
- Process all thoughts, feelings, behaviors
- Take information and produce output
What are the different types of Neurons?
1) Sensory neurons: Receive information from the external world; convey this information to the brain via the spinal cord
Receive signals for light, sound, touch, taste, and smell
2) Motor neurons: Carry signals from the spinal cord to the muscles to produce movement
Often have long axons that reach to muscles at our extremities
3) Interneurons: Connect sensory neurons, motor neurons, or other interneurons
What is the correlation between the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic portions of the Nervous System?
Sympathetic nervous system: Prepares the body for action in threatening situations
Parasympathetic nervous system: Helps the body return to a normal resting state
What is CNS and PNS in relation to the Nervous System?
Central nervous system (CNS) and peripheral nervous system (PNS)
What is an Agonist? What is an Antagonist?
Agonists: Drugs that increase the action of a neurotransmitter
Antagonists: Drugs that block the function of a neurotransmitter
Wilhelm Wundt’s brand of psychology focused on the study of ________, while John Watson’s brand of psychology focused on the study of ________.
consciousness; behavior.
Emotions are complex in nature. Some philosophers have argued that emotions have evolved to help species adapt to their environment. This view of emotions is best illustrated by what approach?
functionalism
Who was Phineas Gage? What happened to him?
Phineas Gage’s traumatic accident allowed researchers to investigate the functions of the frontal lobe and its connections with emotion centers in the subcortical structures.
