Lecture 1

Question 1

What is psychology?

Answer 1

scientific investigation of mental processes, behaviour and interaction between them

mental processes: thinking, remembering, feeling

examine patterns of behaviour

Question 2

What does biology and culture do?

Answer 2

provide possibilities and constraints within which people think, feel and act

Question 3

What is positive psychology?

Answer 3

understand the factors that help people flourish

Question 4

What do psychological anthropologists study?

Answer 4

psychological phenomena in other cultures, people in natural settings

Question 5

What do cross cultural psychologists study?

Answer 5

patterns of behaviour across different cultures

Question 6

What do cultural psychologists study?

Answer 6

patterns of behaviour within cultures

Question 7

What do biopscyhologists/behavioural neuroscientists study?

Answer 7

genetic and biological processes in the brain and nervous system

Question 8

What is localisation of function?

Answer 8

discrete brain regions have significant influence in discrete aspects of mental functioning
uses positron emitting tomography (PET)

what part of brain in charge of different mental functions

Question 9

What is Broca’s aphasia?

Answer 9

difficulty producing speech

smaller area near frontal lobe

Question 10

What is Wernicke’s aphasia?

Answer 10

Difficulty comprehending language

area near back of brain

Question 12

What is the sociocultural perspective?

Answer 12

how unconscious cultural and social influences shape our thoughts, feelings and interactions

cultural and social factors: ethnicity, religion, socioeconomics

Question 13

What is structuralism?

Answer 13

early psychological science that aimed to uncover the basic elements of consciousness

Question 14

Who is Wilhelm Wundt? What did he do?

Answer 14

• involved with structuralism
• established first psychological lab
• used introspection to undercover basic elements of consciousness

eg. how memory works and stored in brain

Question 15

What is functionalism?

Answer 15

the idea that consciousness is functional (serves a purpose)

eg. why do we have functioning memory

Question 16

What did William James do?

Answer 16

Functionalism

Question 17

What is a paradigm?

Answer 17

Broad system of theoretical assumptions employed bya scientific community

Psychology lacks unified paradigm- has number of schools of thought

Question 18

5 perspectives in psychology

Answer 18

• psychodynamic
• behaviourist
• humanistic
• cognitive
• evolutionary

Question 19

Areas in psychology

Answer 19

• psychological anthropologists
• cross cultural psychologists
• cultural psychhologist
• biopsychologist/behavioural neuroscience
• sociocultural

Question 20

iceberg

What is the psychodynamic view? Who was involved?

Answer 20

FREUD
conscious and unconscious forces interact to control our thoughts and behaviours
some mental events are unconscious
conflicting mental processes- anxiety

behaviour is the inerplay between thoughts, feelings, wishes

Question 21

How does the psychodynamic view understand unconscious?

Answer 21

• interpret through client’s consicous, verbalised thought and behaviour
• collect data through case studies- therapist tries to understand thoughts, feelings and actiosn of client

Question 22

social relationships, psychpathology, mental process, personality, uncon

What are Freud’s contributions to the psychodynamic view?

Answer 22

1. social relationships shaped by enduring aspects of personality
2. psychopathology- influenced by mental representations of self and others
3. mental processes occur in parallel and simultaneously- causes conflicting feelings
4. personality development regulates sexual + aggressive behaviour
5. much of mental life is unconscious

Question 23

Freud’s criticisms

Answer 23

1. non-empirircal approach
2. violation of falsifiability criterion
3. used unreliable measures

Question 24

# mechanistic/gears What is the behaviourist perspective? Who is involved?

Answer 24

* Pavlov, Watson, Skinner * environmental stimuli (associated through conditioning) control behaviour through learning- don't need to refer to internal states like thoughts/feelings

Question 25

classical conditioning

Answer 25

learning that occurs unconsciously

Question 26

operant conditioning

Answer 26

learning that uses rewards and punishment to modify behaviour

Question 27

how is behaviourist perspective investigated?

Answer 27

use experimental method to understand relationship between stimuli and behaviour- quantitative, empirical data- can be analysed statistically and replicated

Question 28

# human What is the humanistic perspective? Who is involved?

Answer 28

* people are innately good + unique- will strive to realise goals and ambitions * self-actualisation * Rogers, Maslow * person-centred- therapist shows empathy towards client

Question 29

# computer What is the cognitive perspective? Who is involved?

Answer 29

* Wundt, Descartes * focuses on hwo people process, store and retrieve info * uses experimental methods to infer mental processes at work

Question 30

# runners What is the evolutionary perspective? Who is involved?

Answer 30

* Darwin * human behaviours evolved because they helped our ancestors survive and reproduce * some behaviours are biologically determined- impulse to eat, sexual impulses

Question 31

What is natural selection?

Answer 31

* interaction between psychological functions, social behaviour, physical functions * concern for kin + degree of biological relatedness

Question 32

What is reproductive success?

Answer 32

capacity to survive and produce offspring

Question 33

What is inclusive fitness?

Answer 33

reproductive sucess and influence on reproductive success of genetically related individuals ability of individual to transfer genes to offspring

Question 34

How is the evolutionary perspective investigated?

Answer 34

* gather info through deductive methods- more recently use experimentation * often start with known behaviour in species- attempt to explain using evolutionary principles- can interpret to humans

Question 35

What is the modern school of thought?

Answer 35

Biopsychosocial model * draws from across all perspectives * biological processes, psychological factors, social forces are interrelated and influence mental states + behaviour