Module 1 Flashcards
where does the word psychology come from
The Greeks: “the study of the psyche, or soul”
* Psyche: “breath, spirit, soul”
* Logia: “study of”
* Rooted in philosophy and physiology
what is psychology
the scientific study of behaviour and the
mind
define behaviour
An observable action, including words,
gestures, responses, and more that can be
repeated, measured, and are affected by a
situation to produce or remove some outcome
(external)
Can also refer to biological activity, including
actions on the cellular level (internal)
* Ex., how our brains react to caffeine, or how
we respond to social cues
define scientific study
uses the scientific method to
explore hypotheses
define psychology in terms of mind
he contents of conscious experience
* Ex., emotional response to a sad movie
5 pillars of Psychology
biological, cognitive, developmental, social/personality, mental/physical health
role of nature and nurture
Do genetics (nature) or lived
experience/environmental factors (nurture)
play a bigger role in determining a person’s
characteristics?
nativism
the view that some forms of knowledge
are inborn/innate (nature)
empiricism
the view that knowledge arises
directly from experience (nurture)
biological pillar - biopsychology
studying biological mechanisms underlying behaviour/mental processes
* Ex., how your brain communicates with your fingers, allowing you to take notes on
your laptop
biological pillar - evolutionary psychology
studying cognition and Behaviour from an evolutionary lens
(main components survival and reproduction)
Attempting to identify psychological adaptations through the lens of the ancestral
problems they evolved to solve
biological pillar - natural selection
the principle that traits which contribute to improvements in
survival and reproduction are more likely to be passed down to later generations
* Ex., choosing a mate to procreate with
biological pillar - sensation
ability to detect senses - touch, vision, sound
cognitive pillar - “” psychology
understanding mental processes, and how people process information
in general
cognitive pillar - perception
our ability to translate senses into meaningful information to the rest of our
body
* Ex., tickling (touch), seeing a rainbow (vision), music (sound)
cognitive pillar - thinking
conscious, active cognitive processes that can make new connections and create meaning
Processing information, holding attention, selecting appropriate responses and actions
can happen independently of sensory stimulation
cognitive pillar - intelligence
capacity for logic, to solve complex problems, to learn, to have self-awareness
and emotional knowledge, to be able to reason and plan, to be able to think creatively
cognitive pillar - memory
the structures and processes involved in both the storage and retrieval of
information
A memory”: recollection of a specific event
developmental pillar - “” psychology
describing and understanding how behaviour changes across the lifespan
Learning: change in behaviour due to experience
* Ex., a child learning to fingerpaint helps them with their motor skills
* Motor skills: muscle movements our bodies make in our everyday lives
developmental pillar - lifespan development
the study of how humans learn, mature, and adapt from infancy to
adolescence to adulthood to elderly phases of life
* Examples:
* studying how children acquire language
* studying how teenagers view climate change
* studying how menopause affects the cognition of women
* studying the effects of Alzheimer’s Disease on sleep in elderly men
social pillar - social psychology
the scientific attempt to understand and explain how the thought,
feeling, and behaviour of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied
presence of others
* Ex., behaving differently when alone in class than you would at the pub with your
friends
social pillar - personality psychology
the scientific study of individual differences, investigating how
and why people act differently based on their enduring characteristics or traits
* Ex., the genre of music you like is partly influenced by your personality traits
mental pillar - abnormal psychology
research that is interested in explaining how and why unusual
and maladaptive behaviour patterns develop by examining thoughts, emotions, and the
underlying biology of mental illness
* Ex., researching preventative measures for depression
mental pillar - clinical psychology
a form of applied psychology that focuses on identifying,
preventing, and relieving distress or dysfunction that is psychological in origin
* Ex., treating an individual with post-traumatic stress disorder
forensic psychology
applying psychological principles to features of the legal system
* Ex., assessing the accuracy of fingerprint analysis (before the use of technology), or
assessing eye-witness testimonies
sports psychology
using psychological knowledge and skills to address optimal
performance and well-being of athletes
* Ex., maintaining the mental health of athletes living in an Olympic or NHL “bubble”,
or helping the Leafs cope with loss
industrial/organizational psychology
the scientific study of human behaviour in the
workplace
* Ex., assessing workplace sexual harassment
history of psychology. - trephination
the process of creating a hole in the skull
for a variety of purposes
Mental illness or epilepsy spiritual/demonic
possession
* Headaches
* Dates back 7,000-10,000 years ago
* The oldest surgical procedure
history of psychology - humorism
(the four humors): a system of medicine detailing a
person’s temperament (personality) and the makeup and workings
of the human body
* Have origins in Ancient Egyptian medicine or Mesopotamia
* Ancient Greek thinkers (particularly, Hippocrates) systemized
the four humours, which were further developed by Galen
* For the body to be healthy, all four humors needed to be
balanced in amount and strength
history of psychology - 4 humors
black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, blood
treatment = purging, starving, bloodletting, vomiting
history of Psychology - bloodletting
the practice of withdrawing
blood from a person’s veins for
therapeutic reasons
17th century France Jacques Ferrand
believed bloodletting would cure
heartbreak
* 18th century London bleeding patients
at the infamous St. Mary of Bethlehem
(“Bedlam”) institution
history of psychology - first recorded experiment
Ancient Egypt Psamtik I (664-610 BC)
* Interested in the origin of language
* Isolated 2 newborns with a shepherd
who was instructed not to speak to
them
* Believed that if children had no
opportunity to learn a language from
people around them, they would
spontaneously speak the primal, inborn
and innate language of humankind
* Hypothesis: the first word uttered
would be the root language of all
humankind
history of psychology - first documented psychological thoughts (greeks)
Aristotle:
* De Anima the nature of thought, sensation, and imagination
* Tabula Rasa: “blank slate,” theory that people are born without innate mental content
and that all knowledge comes from lived experience/perception
* Plato:
* Duality of the psyche and the relationship between the mind and body
* Allegory of the cave (reality is a construction)
history of psychology - first documented psychological thoughts (persians)
Ali ibn al-Majusi:
* The Complete Art of Medicine described the neuroanatomy, neurobiology,
and neurophysiology of the brain
* Sleeping sickness, memory loss, hypochondriasis (now called “somatic sensory
disorder”), vertigo epilepsy, love sickness, …
schools of thought of psychology
Structuralism – Wilhelm Wundt,
Edward Titchener
* Functionalism – William James
* Gestalt psychology – Max Wertheimer,
Kurt Koffka
* Behaviourism – Ivan Pavlov, John
Watson, B.F. Skinner
* Psychodynamic – Sigmund Freud
* Humanistic psychology – Carl Rogers,
Abraham Maslow
wilhem wundt
founded the first psychology
laboratory in Germany (1879)
* The father of modern psychology
* Sensation and perception
* Interested in breaking down immediate
conscious experience into its basic elements
and understanding how those basic elements
combine to create experience
* Response time how quickly people could
respond to a sound
structuralism - wundt & titchener
the first movement in the history of
psychology, which focused on breaking down
immediate conscious experience (such as
sensations and feelings) into their constituent
parts
introspection - wundt & titchener
method to understand the
components of mental processes by relying on
trained participants’ self-reports of their thoughts,
feelings, and mental images
systematic introspection - wundt & titchener
one of the first
strategies to make inferences about the
contents of the mind in an effort to
standardize the way in which people report
their own experiences
functionalism - william james
an early movement in psychology
whose proponents believed that an understanding
of a behaviour or process’ function was critical to
understand its operation
* Resulted as a critique of structuralism
(introspection and systematic introspection)
Breaking down conscious experiences into
basic elements and studying these basic
elements without an understanding of their
function provides no insight into how the mind
works
* Inspired by Darwin’s theory of evolution
Understanding how traits evolve and what
their adaptive functions are
gestalt psychology
Understanding how people perceive a
unified whole out of many chaotic elements
of sensation
* “The whole is more than the sum of its parts”
* Resulted as an opposition of structuralism
(introspection and systematic introspection)
behaviouralism - pavlov, watson and skinner
Behaviourism: an approach to psychology that
suggests observable behaviour should be the only
topic of study, ignoring conscious experience
* Psychology should focus solely on behaviour
* Resulted from skepticism of structuralism
(introspection and systematic introspection)
* How can we study the mind in a scientific way?
We can’t
* Instead, we should scientifically study what we
can see behaviour
* Studying animal psychology starts to emerge
psychoanalysis - freud
Psychoanalysis: a form of psychotherapy coined
by Sigmund Freud that seeks to help clients gain
more insight into their unconscious thoughts,
behaviours, and motivations
* Influenced by personality psychology,
developmental psychology, and abnormal
psychology
* Believing patients need to gain insight into
the unconscious factors causing them distress
* Freudian slips – saying the wrong name
by accident
* Free association – stating thoughts and
words as they pop in your head
* Listening to fantasies
humanistic psychology - rogers & maslow
Humanistic psychology: an approach to
psychology that emphasizes the ability of humans
to make their own choices and realize their own
potential
* People have free will
* Focus on creativity, choice, potential for
growth
* Focus is shifted away from the unconscious mind
and onto the capacity for change
* Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:
* Once basic needs are met, people are
motivated to fulfill their psychological needs
cognitive revolution - chomsky, pinker
The start of modern psychology today
* Arose due to advances in technology/methodology and realizing the limits of
behaviourism
* New perspectives in linguistics, computer science, and neuroscience
* Cooperation with other fields
* The rise of cognitive psychology
* Accepting the use of the scientific method
* Generally rejecting introspection as a valid methodology
* Acknowledging internal mental states (belief, desire, motivation)
psychology today
There are still distinct (but connected) fields of
psychology
* Most psychology research uses behaviour to make
inferences about processes happening in the mind
* We heavily rely on the scientific method
* Psychology research is very interdisciplinary
* Ex., cognitive psychologists working with
computer scientists, or social psychologists
working with linguists, or abnormal
psychologists working with neuroscientists
modern approaches to psychology
- Ultimate and proximate explanations
- Evolutionary influences
- Cultural influences
- Biological influences
- Cognitive influences
Ultimate explanations
explanations that seek to describe the reason why a
trait/behaviour/mental process exists by appealing to its role in the process of evolution
* The high caloric content of sweet treats promotes physical survival in resource-scarce
environments (regardless of whether or not we live in a resource-scarce environment, our
bodies want those sweet sweet calories)
proximate explanations
explanations that seek to describe an immediate cause of a
trait/behaviour/mental process
process-oriented explanation
a kind of proximate explanation that focuses on how a
specific mental or physical process directly explains a trait/behaviour
* We have a physiological tendency to desire and enjoy foods that are higher in sugar
content
evolutionary influences
The discovery of DNA and genetic transfer was monumental in helping scientists
understand evolution
* Thanks, cognitive revolution!
* The role of context
* Sweet treats were important sources of nutrition for our ancestors, so we evolved to
prefer sweet and calorie-dense food
* Nowadays, we have much easier access to calorie and nutrient dense food
* Is every behaviour rooted in evolutionary theory? Nope!
* Writing and written language don’t seem to have a genetic origin
cultural influences
Functional explanations: describing why a behaviour manifests differently based on a
person’s cultural background or specific situational demands
* Ex., Feminist psychology: an approach to psychology that is critical of cultural
influences on gender and gender differences in behaviour
culture
a shared set of beliefs, attitudes, behaviours, and customs belonging to a
specific group or community
* Groups/communities are organized around a shared characteristics/set of
characteristics
intersectional approach
an approach to studying cultural influences that
emphasizes examining how multiple social identities intersect at the level of the
individual person to alter their experiences
biological influences
imaging techniques: offers clinicians and researchers a view of the brain to see its
structures and functions
* fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging)
* EEG (electroencephalography)
* CT scan (computed tomography)
* PET scan (positive emission tomography)
* Eye-movement recordings
* Electrodermal activity
* Cardiovascular measurements
eye movement readings
Pupillometry
Electrodermal activity (skin conductance)
an indirect measurement of nervous system activity
that is associated with both emotion and attention
Cardiovascular measurements
measuring changes in heart rate as a response to different
stimuli
cognitive influences
Process-oriented explanations about mental processes
* Seek to provide prior context for behaviour in terms of experience
* Knowing about the influence of experience on behaviour
computational metaphor
comparing the brain (behaviours or structures) to a
computer
* Working memory = RAM
* Long-term memory = hard drive storage
* Perceiving human thinking as information processing, like how computers process
information
