Major perspectives in psychology

Question 1

Innateness (Plato)

Answer 1

• we are born knowing certain things
  we are born with certain skills and abilities

Question 2

Blank Slate (Aristotle)

Answer 2

• empty slate
• knowledge is acquired through experience

Question 3

Dualism (Descartes)

Answer 3

• we have a mind and a body
• the two are seperate

Question 4

Structuralism

Answer 4

to identify the basic structures of the psychological experience

Question 5

Functionalism

Answer 5

investigation of casual relationships between internal states and external behaviours

Question 6

Evolutionary psychology

Answer 6

human emotions and behaviours are developed through all human history

Question 7

Cognitive psychology

Answer 7

• research into attention, perception, memory, etc.

Question 8

Psychodynamics

Answer 8

• focused on the unconscious aspects of our mind
• instinctive drives, repressed memories, unconscious needs, etc.

Question 9

Dream content

Answer 9

• manifest content: what the dream actually means
• latent content: what the components of the dream represent
• symbolism: what items in the dream are meant to represent

Question 10

Individuation

Answer 10

• goal of life
• integration of conscious with unconscious
• allows us to be whole and healthy
• otherwise we can fall into the trap of neuroses

Question 11

Psychological types

Answer 11

• Attitudinal categories:
   introvert
   extrovert
• Functional categories:
   thinking
   feeling
   sensing
   intuitive

Question 12

Behaviourism

Answer 12

• No more introspection (too subjective)
• Goal of behaviourism was to give support to psychology as a science
• Reliance on objective measures of assessment
• Stimuli  response  consequences

Question 13

Conditioning (classical and operant)

Answer 13

Operant:
- Reinforcement: encouraging behaviours that lead to favourable outcomes (+/-)
- Punishment: suppressing behaviours that result in unfavourable outcomes (+/-)

Question 14

Reinforcement schedules

Answer 14

• Continuous and/or fixed: reinforcement and/or punishment occurs every time
• Variable and/or intermittent: reinforcement and/or punishment only occurs every now and then
  –> very hard to extinguish
  –> can happen by accident
• Ratio: variable ratio or fixed ratio
• Interval: variable interval or fixed interval

Question 15

Humanistic

Answer 15

• Hopeful, constructive view of human beings
• Emphasis on self-determination and free will

Question 16

What motivates us?

Answer 16

• Biological drive
   to fulfill needs
   hunger, thirst, intimacy, etc.
• Reward-punishment drive
   we strive to gain rewards
   we strive to avoid punishment
• Intrinsic motivation
   the joy of doing
   Harlow and the puzzle monkey (1950)

Question 17

Cognitive

Answer 17

study of mental processes such as attention, memory, perception, language use, problem solving, creativity, and thinking

Question 18

Memory

Answer 18

• Memory:
  1. Procedural memory: how do we do it?
  2. Semantic memory: our key knowledge
  3. Episodic memory: autobiographical knowledge