L01-L02 - Introduction, Ideas and History of Psychology Flashcards
Define psychology.
Psyche: breath, spirit, soul – Logia: study of
Philosophers asked about the mind
Biologist detailed the anatomy and physiology of the brain
Psychology = Philosophy + Biology
Psychology is a scientific study of both behaviour and mind and is an empirical science
Psychology is the science of mental life, both of its phenomena and conditions.
What is a scientific study?
Knowledge discovered through empirical observation
What is behaviour?
Any kind of observable action (words, gesture, responses, biological activity)
What is the mind?
Content of conscious experience (sensations, perceptions, thought, emotions)
What is the modern definition of psychology?
Psychological science is a discipline concerned with the study of behaviour and mind and their under pinning cognitive and psychological processes.
What is a phenomena?
Feelings, desires, cognitions, reasoning, decisions and the likes
Superficially considered variety and complexity is such as to leave a chaotic impression on the observer.
Physiological psychology
genetic factors on behaviour; role of nervous system and endocrinological system in control of behaviour.
Experimental/general psychology
Sensation, perception, learning, memory, conditioning, motivation, emotion
Cognitive psychology
memory, reasoning, language, problem solving,
decision making, creativity
Developmental psychology
human development across lifespan (childhood,
adolescence, adulthood, old age)
Define Social psychology.
interpersonal behaviour, social forces controlling
behaviour, group behaviour
What is the psychology of personality?
factors shaping and underpinning consistency in
individual’s behaviour. methods to assess personality
Mathematics psychology
mathematical modelling of psychological phenomena; statistics
Educational psychology
how people learn and methods of teaching, various components of the educational process
Health psychology
factors that promote and maintain physical health and the causation, prevention, and treatment of illnesses
Clinical psychology
psychological dysfunctions and their treatment
Industrial psychology
psychological aspects of work, management,
companies
Forensic psychology
psychological aspects of legal matters (criminal and civil law)
Military psychology
research and practice of psychological principles within a military environment (war strategy, intelligence, organisational aspects, etc.)
Clinical psychologist
Area of Focus: Identify, prevent, and relieve psychological distress or dysfunction.
Required Training: Take the GRE; Graduate school, Doctor of philosophy (PhD) or psychology (PsyD).
Research: Evaluate predictive value of new psychological assessment
Practice: Manage client’s ADHD symptoms
Psychiatrists
Area of Focus: Same as clinical psychologists; also determine physical sources of illness.
Take the MCAT
Required Training: Medical school and residency
Doctor of [osteopathic] medicine (MD or DO).
Research: Study the prevalence of autism in different populations over the years
Practice: Help a patient manage schizophrenic auditory hallucinations
What is counseling psychology?
Area of Focus: Help people manage ongoing life crises or situations or
transitions between the two
Required Training: Take the GRE; Graduate school; Master’s degree (MA/
MS), Doctor of Education (EdD), or Doctor of philosophy (PhD)
Research: Evaluate new academic assessment
Practice: Help a client manage opioid addiction
What is the mind and body problem?
What is the relationship between the body and the mind?
What is Materialism?
The brain is the mind and the mind is the brain. All facts are dependent on physical processes. Only matter aka only the brain. There is no “mind”
What is dualism?
Brain is not the same as mind
What is Monism?
A theory that denies the existence of duality (ex. mind vs matter, God and the world)
What is Epiphenomenalism?
Type of Monism
brain activity produces mind, but minds cannot influence brain activity
What is Interactionism?
Mind can influence matter
What has mind and what does not?
Can computers produce mind?
Do animals with a brain have mind?
Who is Jill Bottle?
Had a left hemisphere stroke
Described as losing her linear mind/conceptual mind. (Loss of planning, concepts, loss of self…)
Loss of left hemisphere function promoted the right hemisphere functions. (Loss of object/subject separation)
Difference between the right and left hemisphere
Right hemisphere – The here and now, thinks in pictures and uses the body to know the present: Parallel processor
Left hemisphere – About the past and future, focuses on details, thinks in language, what gives reminders to you.
Overconfidence effect
The tendency to be overly sure of what we know, making us unreasonably confident that our own intuitions are more correct than the consistent results of 100-plus studies.
How to recognize fake news and false/misleading information?
No credentials are available for the reader to see/no citing of academic research
Company spokesperson is quoting – motivated by profit
Survey results showed without the number of people participating in survey
Experts writing in another field than their expertise
Information on social media that you cannot verify
Opinions of celebrities
Describe a bit of History of psychology
Psychology was born in Western Europe, but it developed in two distinct and independent ways
Scientific vs. Clinical Branches of psychology history.
Scientific branch – took root in universities, surrounded by intellectual endeavors and scientific experiments
Clinical branch – took root in medical examination rooms where doctors used therapeutic interventions to treat people suffering from psychological disorders like anxiety and depression
What is structuralism?
Consciousness can be analyzed into a set of basic constituting elements.
Psychology is to analyze the consciousness into basic elements and how they are related
Introspection, systematic self-observation
Problem of introspection: No objective, independent evaluation, reproducibility is low
Overlooks the stream of consciousness
Works in labs – what about real life?
What is introspection?
Perceived colours, imagined objects, thought, feelings
The process of examining one’s own internal thoughts and feelings.
Involves self-reports (studying your own consciousness)
May choose to not honestly reveal your own thoughts
Sometimes unable to translate the feeling
Possible others do not perceive your feelings the same way you do. If you could perfectly describe your consciousness there is no guarantee others will know what you mean.
Sensations (contents of consciousness without meaning – all conscious thoughts and perceptions are a combination of sensations)
What is functionalism?
Psychology should investigate the function/purpose of consciousness rather than its structure.
William James - “The purpose or utility of behaviour” as he put it.
OPPOSED to structuralism because of the stream of thought and consciousness of subjective life.
Artificial Intelligence – AI can now greatly exceed humans to solve certain types of problems but AI having a personality is much harder.
Personalities are patterns of thought and behaviour that make a certain person react to a situation in a certain way.
Consists of a relatively consistent way of thinking, feeling and behaving that together can explain how different people react in the same situations
Psychology should analyze the function and purpose of consciousness
Influenced by Darwin – theory of evolution
Heritable characteristics that provide survival or reproductive advantage are more likely to be passed on to the next generation
Interested in the REAL WORLD (people and behaviour)
Interested in purpose of mind – introduced mental testing, development patterns and differences in sexes
Who is William James?
Scientific branch – 1875: first research laboratory
Defined psychology as the mental science of life
Said that “Personality implies the incessant presence of two elements, an objective person known by a passing subjective thought and recognized as continuing in time”
The self is both “knower” and “known”
In studying human personality as a “known object”, we assume that to some degree that people have stable characteristics and that we can scientifically measure and identify those characteristics
But there is a problem because when we study personality, we study ourselves.
Tried defining consciousness – being aware of your own thoughts, feelings, impressions. The state of having mental facilities awake/active
It is like a river, it flows – it is not chopped up in bits.
Who is Wilhelm Wundt?
Wilhelm Wundt
Scientific branch – Leipzig 1879: first research laboratory (his students brought psychology back to North America – in universities)
Identified that Psychology was its own discipline outside of philosophy and medicine. Psychology is the discipline of studying conscious experience.
Thinks mental states can be analyzed using introspection
What is behaviourism?
Psychology must be purely objective excluding all subjective data or interpretations in terms of conscious experience. Not science of mental life but science of behaviour.
Behaviourist manifesto – Psychology is a purely objective and natural science, serves for the prediction and control of behaviour, recognizes no differences between man and brute.
Who is John B. Watson?
The goal of psychology should be to predict and control the BEHAVIOUR not describing/explaining mental states. No qualitative distinction between human and non-human behaviour: the difference in quantitative.
Shifted focus away from philosophy
Did research on non-human animals.
Criticized introspection based on private experiences.
What is a Variable?
something of interest that can vary from person to person or from situation to situation.
What is a Measured variable
variable whose measures are simply recorded
What is a Manipulated variable
variable whose value is controlled by the researcher usually by assigning different values of the variable to different people.
Some variables can be either measured or manipulated but others can only be measured (like gender, height and ethnicity…)
What are the Five fundamental processes underlying learning?
Acquisition
Generalization
Discrimination
Extinction
Spontaneous recovery
What is Acquisition?
– Pairing of food and bell (in dog example) is introduced
What is generalization?
– Tendency to respond to stimuli that are like the ‘bell’ in this case so that learning is not tied too closely to only a specific stimulus. The more closely related the two stimuli are, the more likely they are to be generalized.
What is discrimination?
– We learn to respond to a particular stimulus and not to a similar stimulus – preventing overgeneralization
What is extinction?
– Active learning process where there is a weakening of the conditioned response to the conditioned stimuli in the absence of the unconditioned stimulus
What is spontaneous discovery?
– The reappearance of an extinct behaviour after a delay
What is shaping according to behaviour?
gradually changes random behaviours into desired target behaviour.
What is the indistinctive drift?
reversion to evolutionarily derived intinction behaviours instead of demonstrating newly learned responses
What is Gestalt Psychology
a school of psychological thought that attempted to explain how various elements group together to form objects, arguing that perception is more than a simple piecing together of building blocks.
Gestalt in German = form
Influenced the psychological study of perception.
Form of humanistic therapy
What is the Emergence principle?
Dots in picture look like they are forming something
What is the Multistability principle?
You can either see a vase or two faces, but you cannot see both at the same time.
What is the Reification principle?
Perceive that there is a triangle shape, but it is only “pac-man” figures towards each other.
What is the Invariance principle?
We can recognize that these are all the same object no matter which way it is turned.
What is the Closure principle?
These look like “closed” figures, ex. I can perceive a triangle, circle and square, but it is not, it is just dotted lines.
What is the Similarity principle?
We perceive those different coloured dots means different shapes, for example in this I see a 5. But it is not, it is just dotting all the same, just different colours.
What is the Proximity principle?
Because these objects are close in proximity and farther from the other object, we believe that they are groups of objects but it is just objects separated from one another.
What is the Continuity principle?
We perceive that there are two lines, one that is strait and the other curved, but what if they are both curved, it is not guaranteed.
What is the Phi phenomenon?
Optical illusion of movement
When separated stationary stimuli are shone one after the other, we think it is all one thing moving but it is not
Who is Max Wertheimer and what did he do?
Central dogma – the whole is more than the sum of its parts
Opposed to structuralism
Empiricism
What is empiricism?
all learning comes only from observation and experiences.
What is Empirical evidence?
Based on astute observation and accurate measurements
What is the scientific method?
The process of basing one’s confidence in an idea on systematic, direct observation of the world usually by setting up research studies to test ideas.
When scientists evaluate the validity of an idea, the don’t rely on whether the idea intuitively makes sense or personal experiences, they use the scientific method.
Scientists are empiricists, they base their beliefs on systematic, objective observations of the world.
What are theories?
set of propositions about what people do and why they do it.
Theory-data cycle is developing a theory about what people do and collecting data that is compared with the theory either confirming or disconfirming the theory.
What is a Hypothesis?
a prediction about what will happen based on the theory
What is data?
observations from a study, usually in numerical form collected from people at certain places at certain times.
What is replication?
when the study has been performed more than once on a new sample of participants and came to the same conclusion
What is a Pseudoscience?
A collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly thought to be based on valid science
What is consciousness?
Our awareness of both the external world (the events taking place around us) and the internal world (awareness of ourselves and our own thoughts, feelings and behaviours)
What is a Humanistic approach ?
Approach to therapy centred around the idea that people must take responsibility for their lives and actions
What is Client-centred therapy?
Seeks to help clients accept themselves and be themselves with no pretense or self-imposed limits
Therapist listens attentively and non-judgementally
Therapist is non-directive, seeking not to answer questions but helping the client find the answers to their questions themselves.
Three factors crucial to a therapist’s success
Genuineness
Unconditional positive regard – non-judgemental
Empathetic understanding – what it would be like to be in the client’s shoes.
What is Motivational interviewing?
Brief, non-confrontational, client-centred therapy design to change specific problematic behaviours such as alcohol addiction or drug use.
This can be done by drawing out the client’s goals and reducing ambivalence (the state of having mixed feelings/contradictory ideas about something) and classifying discrepancies between how the individual is currently living and how they would want to live.
What is a Experiential therapy?
More modern humanistic therapies
Client-centred and gestalt therapy are integrated
Creates a genuinely empathetic and accepting atmosphere but also seeks to challenge the client with the aim of deepening the experience
What is the Cognitive Model of Mind?
Replaced behaviourism as the most influential model since behaviourism could not explain certain phenomena easily.
What are cognitions?
processes that used to be labelled “mental” like perception, thinking, decision-making, memory, problem-solving, etc… (This is what cognitive psychology studies)
What are behaviours?
Behaviours can be explained by analysis information processing. Experimental studies use behavioural reactions to deduce underpinning cognitive processes.
What is the information-processing perspective
“Brain (and so is memory) is like a digital computer
Process – how are memories created, maintained, revived?
Encoding, storage, retrieval, recall
What is Representation of a memory?
What is stored, retrieve, recalled
A memory representation (memory trace, memory record) is a unit of information, that can be processed
Where are memories stored, retrieved from/to, recalled from/to?
Short-term store – Like RAM of computer, restricted capacity, holds information for a short time
Long-term store – Like the hard disk of a computer, nearly infinite capacity, holds information almost forever
What is Superstitious conditioning?
A form of noncontingent reinforcement, in which individuals learn behaviour that has no actual relationship with reinforcement
What is Latent learning?
learning that occurs without either incentive or any clear motivation to learn.
What is the Social learning theory?
a theory of how people’s cognitions, behaviours, and dispositions are shaped by observing and imitating the actions of others
What is Reciprocal determinism?
The idea that personality guides cognition about the world in ways that can shape the environments people choose, serving to reinforce or amplify their personality
What are the cognitive vs emotional perspective?
Cognitive - “mental” like perception, thinking, decision-making, memory, problem-solving
Emotional – understand our ability to feel, express and perceive emotions
What is the physiopsychological Model of Mind
A form of reductionism: attempt to explain human behaviour by recourse to its biological basis
This branch of psychology explores the relations between behaviour and processes and structures of the central nervous system
What did Eric Kandel use a sea slug (aplysia) for?
To explain the neurobiology of memory
An excellent example of how reductionist methods advance through levels of analysis.
What is the insular cortex?
Considered the fifth lobe of the brain
Hidden under the temporal, frontal and parietal lobes
Allows us to perceive the inside of our bodies, permitting us to feel internal pain
What is the Psychodynamic Model of Mind?
All behaviour can be explained in terms of drives or other intra-psychological forces
Psychodynamics aims to make the unconscious conscious so the behaviour can be controlled.
The theory assumes that humans are by nature aggressive and evil and driven by sexual impulses. Societies need to control this potential for violence to protect humans from destructive nature.
Inspired by Sigmund Freud
Describe human behaviour.
Something that is inherited or socially adapted
We act differently because we go through different experiences
Behaviour is a result of tension and conflict
What is Motivation?
actions will stop when needs are fulfilled because there is no more motivation
What do modern psychodynamic psychotherapists do?
Psychodynamic psychotherapists support Freud’s theories but believed that he had insufficiently emphasized the individual’s “real” (as opposed to fantasizing) relationships with others
Present-day psychodynamic psychotherapists – use technics that bear Freud’s imprint but they have modified the treatment in various ways to allow for the expanded view of the ego’s capabilities along with the importance of the real (rather than just imagined) relations with others.
Name a prominent example of contemporary psychodynamic approach.
Interpersonal therapy
A brief – 12-16 sessions – treatment that builds on the assumptions that psychological disorders are often the result of social isolation that cuts a person off from the emotional nourishment provided by healthy relationships
Often used as a treatment for depression and other things like social anxiety disorder and bulimia
Starts with an assessment of what factors changed in a person’s life at the time the depression began.
What is the Psychoanalysis Model of Mind?
Focused on the unconscious as main motor of behaviour
Developed psychoanalysis – clinical psychology
Observed patients suffering from psychological disorders but he believed the same principles underpin “normal” and “abnormal” behaviour
Strongest influence on psychology in western world
How has psychoanalytic theory contributed to modern psychology?
Freud’s ideas are not empirically supported but this theory has taken big steps toward answering questions about what makes up the personality.
What is the Existence of unconscious thought?
Freud popularized the idea that thoughts can occur below our conscious awareness. Our minds can perceive stimuli, activate activities, enact behaviours and even process complex information without being conscious. Freud was not correct about the unconscious thoughts, but he did bring the attention of psychology to it.
What is the importance of early development?
Freud suggested that our personalities as adults could partially be shaped by what happens to us as children (this was the starting point for many later theories)
What is the influence of the mind on the body in the psychoanalysis theory?
Freud suggested that psychological processes of the mind could account for medically inexplicable disorders of the body
What are the Somatic symptoms?
Freud suggested that disorders in the mind could contribute to physical symptoms in the body and further research led psychologists to find that psychosomatic symptoms were a thing.
What is the talking cure?
Freud was the original psychotherapist. His basic proposition that people could be cured of psychological disorders or relieve their symptoms by talking to someone about their experience was ground-breaking.
Found many of his patients suffered with hysteria, now called conversion disorder
Symptoms were psychogenic (result of unknown psychological cause)
What is free association in psychoanalysis theory?
A method used in psychoanalysis therapy (the patient says anything that comes to mind, no matter how apparently trivial, embarrassing or disagreeable.
Freud assumed all ideas were linked by association so that the emotionally charged “forgotten” memories would come out sooner or later – but people showed resistance, so it did not work
Describe the stages of human consciousness.
Conscious – focus of current awareness
Pre-conscious – consciously accessible thought, feelings and memories
Dynamic unconscious – Inaccessible memories, instincts and desires
What is subliminal perception?
A form of perception that occurs without conscious awareness
Our psyche consists of three elements – Their interactions and conflicts determine our behaviour (and personality)
What is the id?
Follows the pleasure principle. Attempts to avoid pain and increase pleasure. Primal drives, basic nature (the wild animal within)
What is the superego?
Morality, conscience, ideals, aspirations (your perfect self)
What is the ego?
Reason and self-control, tries to mediate superego and id.
What are Defence mechanisms?
The various ways in which the ego is thought to cope with conflict between the unconscious desires of the id and the moral constraints of society (Anna Freud)
What is displacement when talking about the ego, id and the superego?
The ego redirects the aggressive impulses of the id from their intended targets to a more defenceless target (The id’s reaction to aggression is usually, more aggression, retaliation, attack and punishment).
Waht is the Projection?
People, instead of acknowledging it in themselves, see others as possessing a disliked trait or feeling.
What is the Repression?
Ego keeps unwanted feelings, thoughts and memories below the level of conscious awareness.
What is Denial?
The ego prevents the perception of a painful or threatening reality as it is happening.
Psychodynamic vs. Psychoanalysis models of mind
Psychodynamic; Therapeutic approach and theories developed by Freud and supported by his followers
Generally deemphasized sex and gave more importance to the influence of social environment
Psychoanalysis; Theories and therapeutic methods used by Freud but NOT SUPPORTED by his followers
Influence of the libido, sexuality and childhood experiences
What is the Nervous System?
A network of neurons running throughout your brain and body
What are nerves?
a collection of neurons
What is the Spinal Cord?
The major bundle of nerves, encased in your spine, that connects your body to your brain.
What are sensory neurons?
Carry information from the outside world (ex. Light) and within your body (ex. Signals from the immune system) to the brain
What are Motor neurons?
Send signals to get your motor running – to make the body take action – whether to move your legs, make your heartbeat faster, or remove your finger from flame of a burning candle. Motor refers to movement
What are Interneurons?
They connect neurons. They interpret, store and retrieve information about the world, allowing you to make informed decisions before you act.
You “only” have about 6 million sensory and motor neurons combined.
What is the Humanistic Model of Mind?
AGAINST psychodynamic model and behaviourism: pessimistic view, environmental determinism
Stong and influential in clinical and personality psychology
Assumption
Humans are neither motivated by strong deterministic biological drives nor by environmental factors: try to reach full potential
Tries to understand human behaviour by detecting patterns in life histories
What is Maslow’s hierarchy of need?
- Physiological – desire for food, shelter and clothing
- Security – Desire for job security
- Social – Desire for affiliation and acceptance
- Self-Esteem – Desire for status and position
- Self-Actualization – Desire for fulfilling life and fulfill one’s potential
How can culture vary in personality?
Much of the original research that led to identifying the “Big Five” (personality traits) was conducted mostly with WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) people.
Are these the building blocks for human personality for all cultures?
If people’s traits are socially learned or shaped by early experience, then cultures that differ dramatically in values, behaviours and practices might encourage a different structure of traits
After an experience involving 50 different distinct cultures in every continent except Antarctica – the same Big Five revealed themselves in nearly in all the countries surveyed.
Possible there was a problem with the translation – we cannot know for sure
Suggested that personality differs by region – even in the same countries
How does the humanistic approach differ from the psychoanalytic approach?
Think the psychoanalytic approach is too concerned with basic urges like sex and aggression, tension reduction and the past. It is not sufficiently concerned with the search of the meaning, of self-actualization and the present and future.
Humanistic view, if you want to understand a person’s behaviour, you need to step in their shoes and experience the world like they do, here and now, not in the past.
Client-centred therapy – or person-centred therapy – seeks to help people accept themselves as they are and to be themselves with no pretense or self-imposed limits.
The therapist listens attentively and non-judgmentally, being nondirective, seeking not to provide answers but to create an atmosphere in which the client feels valued, understood, and comfortable to make their own decisions.
Everyone has a natural tendency to grow and the therapist’s job should be to create conditions that facilitate this growth.
What is the Psychological Model of Mind?
Discover brain region involved with aggressive behaviour
What is the Psychodynamic Model of Mind?
Aggressive actions are results for frustrations
What is the Behaviourism Model of Mind?
To determine the cause of aggressive behaviour, are needs to identify reinforcers and antecedent conditions
What is the Cognitive Model of Mind?
One would study the cognitions that go along with aggressive behaviour to analyse what info processing leads to it
What is the Humanistic Model of Mind?
One would explore what personal values and social conditions led the individual to engage aggressive behaviour and not to age with activities that would further personal growth.
Who is Rene Descartes?
Nothing is more obvious/undeniable than you have a conscience. Everything about the world could be an illusion, we do not know, but we do know we are conscious
Cartesian dualism – consciousness meets at the brain’s pineal gland
