MidTerms Flashcards
learn this shit
What were the two early schools of psychology?
Structuralism and Functionalism
Who came up with the idea of Structuralism?
Wilhelm Wundt
Who came up with the idea of Functionalism?
William James
What is Structuralism?
- divides the mind up into segmented structures and described these
- established psychology as a separate discipline
- psychology is the scientific study of the conscious experience
- investigated vision, touch, hearing, taste, attention and emotion
What is Functionalism?
consciousness cannot be broken into its individual components
consciousness consists of a flow of thoughts, stream of consciousness in interaction with environment
- patterns of development during childhood
- behavioural differences between males and females
Psychodynamic - Who came up with it and what is it? How is it tested?
Sigmund Freud - focuses on the unconscious mind. The ice burg metaphor. It is tested by case studies of patients, reflection one’s owns inner thoughts - dreams, fantasies, slips of tongue
Behaviourism - Who came up with it and what is it? How is it tested?
B. F Skinner + James Watson -behaviour is learned by its environment. Only to do with “nurture”, stimulus from the environment went into the black box and a response (the behaviour) came out. It is tested by experimentation on humans and animals - classical conditioning and operant conditioning
Humanistic - Who came up with it and what is it? How is it tested?
Carl Rodgers + Abraham Maslow - people are innately good and will strive to reach their goals and ambitions. It is tested by a person centered perspective - therapeutic approach (counselling)
Cognitive - Who came up with it and what is it? How is it tested?
Piaget - cognitive development. Miller - Memory.
Chomsky - Language.
Newll, Shaw and Simon - Problem Solving
Cognitive process oncides memory, reasonsing, decision making, thoughts etc. The brain is like a computer. It is tested by Human experimentation and cognitive neuroscience (brain damage and effect on cognition)
Evolutionary - Who came up with it and what is it? How is it tested?
Charles Darwin - Human behaviors evolved because they helped our ancestors. Some behaviours are biologically determined (impulse to eat, sex)
What is the Scientific Approach
Assumes events are governed by some lawful order. Psychology research seeks to identify the laws, principles, or consistencies governing behaviour
Advantages to the Scientific Approach
Clarity and Precision and Intolerant of Error
Goals of the Scientific Approach
Description - Understand what we have and summarize data in a way that makes the events and relationship between them easily understandable
Prediction - Being able to predict based on previous research
Understanding - why is something happening and What is the underlying factor?
The Scientific Method
Theory Hypothesis Test Evidence Conclusion
6 Steps in an Experiment
- Framing a hypothesis
- Operationalizing variables
- Developing a standardised procedure
- Selecting and assigning participants
- Applying statistical techniques to the data
- Drawing conclusions
Variable
Independent and dependent
Continuous Varibale
Has a continuum of possible values and varies across this range (colours)
Categorical Variable
Can take on fixed values (make of car)
Basic Concepts in emperical Research
Population:
- the group of people that a researcher is interested in
- representative sample
- typically study samples
Generalisability:
- Internal Sample (procedures are flawed or not)
- External Validity (does it resemble what would happen in the real world?)
Types of Research methods
Descriptive - concerned with describing behaviour Correctional designs - concerned with predicting behaviour Experimental Designs - concerned with establishing the causes of behaviour
Variations in Experimental Designs
Independent Group Designs (between subjects)
Within Subjects (repeated measures)
Multiple IVs in same experiment
Multiple DVs in same experiment
Descriptive Stats
used to organise and summarise
- measures of central tendency
Inferential Stats
Used to interpret data and draw conclusions. tells us if the hypothesis was supported or not. p<0.05 = statistical significance
Problems with stats
Extraneous variables (stuff other than the IV that might influence the DV - age, gender?) Confounding (when 2 variables are linked together so it makes it difficult what actually impacted the DV) Random Assignment of Participants
Advantages of experimental research
cause-effect relationships
Limitations of experimental research
some experiments are artificial
- manipulations of some variables is not ethical, difficult or impossible
descriptive research + disadvantages
case studies, naturalistic observation, survey research. Good generalizability + observation can alter behaviour and cannot establish the cause of behaviour
survey technique + disadvantages
questionnaires and interviews + sampling issues and ppl may not respond accurately