Levels of Analysis

Question 1

What is Psychology

Answer 1

The study of human thought and behaviour

Question 2

Experimental Psychology

Answer 2

the process of collecting, evaluating and interpreting information to draw sound conculsions

Question 3

Aristotle/Plato

Answer 3

Contemplated fundamental questions of: “How do we learn and remember?” “Where does knowledge come from?

Question 4

Descartes

Answer 4

The mind and body are distinct entities that were causally linked in a dualistic relationship.

• The mind controls the body
• the body feeds the mind info about outside world through sense.

Question 5

Ebbinghaus

Answer 5

“Psychology has a long past but a short history”

Question 6

Muller

Answer 6

• Neurotransmitters in nerves are coded like electrical impulses that travel along different channels.
• particular parts of the body are connected to specific areas of the brain that serve different fucntions

Question 7

Helmholtz

Answer 7

Measured speed of nerve impulses –> 90 ft. per second (not as fast as electricity)

Question 8

Florens

Answer 8

Used Muller’s brain technique and destroyed different areas of an animal’s brain. He learned which brain regions controlled heart rate, breathing and the processing of visual and auditory reflexes

Question 9

Wundt

Answer 9

Opened first lab devoted to the study of psychology. He believed that conscious experience could be studies using the same methods that chemists and physicists use. He launched the first psychological journal devoted to psychology.

Question 10

Hall

Answer 10

Opened first psych lab in North America and founded the APA

Question 11

Psychological Level of Analysis

Answer 11

Most intuitive. Concerned with that lies within a subject’s mind. How do thoughts, memories and emotions motivate our actions?

Question 12

Biological Level of Anaysis

Answer 12

Physiological mechanisms that underly thoughts and behaviour.
Structure and Function of the brain, genetic factors, molecular effects of neurotransmitters of hormones.

Question 13

Environmental Level of Analysis

Answer 13

Social, cultural and learning interactions that influence thought and behaviour.

Question 14

Levels of Analysis

Answer 14

The basic type of approach taken to a particular question. Includes: Psychological, Biological, Environmental

Question 15

Perspectives in Psychology

Answer 15

have specific goals and may involve one or more levels of analysis. Include:
Behavioural, Evolution, Neuroscience, Socio Cultural, Cognitive, Development.

Question 16

Watson

Answer 16

Formalized methodology of research methods of the behaviourist field of psychology.
Says that overt behaviour is the only valid means of psychology.
–Black box theory

Question 17

Watson’s Black Box theory

Answer 17

Scientists should view the mind as an off-limits black box that takes input and makes output.
What happens inside the black box should be outside the domain of science, at least for the present.

Question 18

Skinner

Answer 18

internal events exist, but are impossible to measure scientifically.
Everything we want to know about an organism can be gained by studying its behaviour.
pleasant = repeated behaviour
unpleasant = non-repeated behaviour

Question 19

Cognitive Perspective

Answer 19

proper scientific methods can be applied to study internal mental processes tat are necessary to fully understand behaviour

Question 20

Behavioural Perspective

Answer 20

a level of analysis concerned only with explaining psychological phenomena using learning methodologies, treating the mind as a black box.

Question 21

Models

Answer 21

Abstract representations of how the mind functions.
Can be used to make predictions and design experiments.
Provide a framework to describe data and develop interesting, testable questions.
Aren’t necessarily accurate, just the best and more useful thing at the time until something better comes along.

Question 22

Reductionism

Answer 22

All human behaviour can be reduced to the biology of the brain. However, the problem can actually be reduced to the cellular, molecular, atomic and subatomic mechanisms.
if we continue to break a problem into smaller and smaller parts, we eventually become unable to answer larger questions in a meaningful manner.

Question 23

Crick

Answer 23

Can reductionism and advanced technology be used to fully explain all of human behaviour?

Question 24

Structural Neuroimaging

Answer 24

Allows us to see the physical makeup of the brain

Question 25

Functional Neuroimaging

Answer 25

Allows us to see what the brain is actually doing

Question 26

Proximate Versus Ultimate Causes

Answer 26

?

Question 27

Developmental Perspective

Answer 27

How genetic and environmental factors contribute to changes in behaviours across a lifespan.

Question 28

Evolutionary Perspective

Answer 28

How genetic and environmental factors contribute to changes in behaviours across the history of a species

Question 29

Habituation

Answer 29

a decrease in response to a stimulus after repeated presentations. As a procedure, habituation is the repeated presentation of an eliciting stimulus that results in the decline of the elicited behaviour (the process of habituation).

Question 30

Socio Cultural Perspective

Answer 30

the study of:
the influence of an individual on a group
the influence of a group on an individual
the influence of one group on another

Question 31

Applied Research

Answer 31

research conducted in order to apply the results to a known practical problem

Question 32

Basic Research

Answer 32

research conducted in order to acquire new knowledge, without necessarily having an immediate application for this knowledge

Question 33

Behavioural Neuroscience

Answer 33

the study of the relationship between behaviour and the physical functioning of the brain and nervous system

Question 34

Clinical Psychology

Answer 34

the application of psychological knowledge and principles to the diagnosis and treatment of individuals with psychological disorders

Question 35

Cognitive Psychology

Answer 35

the study of internal processes, such as memory, attention, and decision making, involved in mental activity

Question 36

Comparative Psychology

Answer 36

concerns how behaviours have adapted over evolutionary time to deal with selective environmental pressures by comparing behaviour across multiple species

Question 37

Functionalism

Answer 37

the view that psychology should be the study if the adaptive functions of consciousness.

Question 38

Geslat

Answer 38

a school of psychology that emphasizes perception and problem solving

Question 39

Humanist Psychology

Answer 39

a primarily therapeutic psychological movement focused on providing acceptance and encouraging person growth

Question 40

Introspection

Answer 40

the process of examining the contents of one’s own consciousness

Question 41

Neuroimaging

Answer 41

the process of capturing structural and functional information concerning the brain and nervous system

Question 42

Principle of Psychophysical Isomorphism

Answer 42

the Gestalt principle that the conscious experience of an event is directly related to the physical reality of the event.

Question 43

Principle of Totality

Answer 43

The Gestalt principle that analysis of any conscious experience must include all mental and physical aspects of a person’s situation

Question 44

Psychoanalysis

Answer 44

the school of psychology, founded by Freud that emphasized unconscious conflicts and desires as the motivators of behaviour

Question 45

Psychodynamic Theory

Answer 45

a theory developed by Freud that attempts to explain mental disorders, personality, and motivation by focusing on unconscious determinants of behaviour

Question 46

Psychoneuroimmunology

Answer 46

a field of study involving the relations among psychological events and the function of the immune system

Question 47

Psychophysics

Answer 47

a study in the relation between human perception and physical reality

Question 48

Repression

Answer 48

the psychoanalytic concept that traumatic memories may be pushed into the unconscious in order to free the conscious mind from having to deal with them.

Question 49

Self-Concept

Answer 49

a person’s internal image of themselves, which is central to humanist therapeutic techniques

Question 50

Structuralism

Answer 50

the first school of thought developed in psychology, where the focus was on detailed introspective examination of the contents of consciousness

Question 51

The Unconscious

Answer 51

the pscyhoanalytic concept of a portion of the mind not accessible to conscious thought.