Module 1: Introduction to psychological theory, knowledge, and its application Flashcards
What is psychology?
The study of the mind and human behaviour
What does psychology aim to understand?
Mental functions
Physiological processes
Biological processes
Internal mechanisms
True or false: Psychology helps interpret our own and others actions
True
What does psychology ask?
How and why we think, feel, act
True or False: Psychology offers no insight into the working of the economy
False
How long has psychology been a distinct discipline?
Approximately 150 years
Psychology was first recognised as a discipline by who, where, and when?
Wilhelm Wundt , Labaratory in Leipzeg, 1879
What methods can scientific data be collected through?
Observational Study
Self-report survey
Case study
Experiment
Field experiment
Interview
Program Evaluation
Neuroimaging/Psychophsyiological methods
Twin Study
Why is psychology as a science important?
There are limitation to evidence:
mixed findings, outdated findings, long term effects?
What is applied psychology?
Applying psychological knowledge and theory to yourself, others, and the world
Applying a deeper understanding of human motivations, behaviour, and mental processes to explain events in a rnage of different areas
Name the 3 different levbels of explanation and theur underlying process
Lower (Biological)
Middle (Interpersonal)
Higher (Cultural and Social)
True or false: Psychology has been a science since it was first established
True
True or false: Psychology does not rely on scientific evidence and clinical and research fields
False
True or false: Scientific evidence is obtained using emperical methods
True
True or false: The scientific-practitioner model places emphasis on the integration of science and practice, or “evidence-based practice”
True
Describe the difference between research psychologists and psychologist practitioners
Research Psychologists create new knowledge
Psychologist Practitioners use existing research
Can intuition always be relied on?
No
What is hindsight bias?
The tendency to think that we could have predicted something that has already occured that we probably would not have been able to predict
What are emperical methods?
The process of collecting and organising data and drawing conclusions about those data
What is scientific method?
The set of assumptions, rules, procedures that scientists use to conduct emperical research
What are values?
Individual beliefs that motivate people to act one way or another
True or false: Values act as a guide for human behaviour
True
True or false: Values can be sacred, are a means to an end, or have intrinsic worth
True
True or false: Different values do not lead to conflict
False
What does ethical decision making involve interms of values?
Weighing values against eachother
True or false: We are not predisposed to believe values and not raised to see them as right
False
Where do values originate from?
Family, role models, society, culture
We usually maintain the same values over WHAT
Time
What is the difference between subjective and objective values?
Subjective values have a clear, subjective element
Objective values are classed as ethics and morality
What is conflict rhetoric?
When a fact is stated as if it is clearly undesireable or immoral, or a value statement is offered as if it was a fact
True or false: Contenting parties debate factual issues when the conflict is reduced to a value conflict, or vice versa
True
True or False: The same set of experts and resources are used to resolve factual and value debates/conflicts
False
Facts are WHAT true
Objectively
Facts are not based on WHAT biases
Pre-conceived
Facts are able to be WHAT and WHAT
Tested and verified
True or false: Some facts are difficult to know
True
Value judgements are generally WHAT while facts are generally WHAT
Biased, Unbiased
How can one resolve facts VS Values conflicts?
Fact-finding techniques
Joint fact finding
Look at other persons fact frames
Coexistence/tolerance of value conflict
Factor in individual biases
What does the work psychology mean?Where does the word pwsychology originate from
Greece:
Psyche-life
Logos-Explanation
Can factual information change?
Yes
Can values be considered true or false?
No
True or false: The distinction between fact and value is always clear-cut
False
What are facts?
Pbjective statements determined to be true through emperical study
What are levele of explanation?
The perspectives that are used to understand behaviours
Why is studying psychology challenging?
Predicting behaviour is difficult
Psycholoigcal experiences are complex
Individual difference and variations
Psychologist predictions are probabilistic
Behaviour is multiply determined
Much of human behaviour is caused by unconscious processes
List important Question within psychology
Nature VS Nurture
Accuracy VS Inaccuracy
Free Will VS Determinism
Conscious VS Unconscious processing
Differences VS Similarities
List some psychology career paths
Biopsychology and neuroscience
Clinical and counselling psychology
Developmental psychology
Forensic psychology
Health psychology
Industrial-Organisational and Environmental Psychology
Social and educational Psychology
Sports psychology
Identify the approach:
Uses introspection method to identify basic elements or structures of psychological experiences
Structuralism
Identify the approach:
Wilhelm Wundt, Edward B Titchener
Structuralism
Identify the approach:
Attempts to understand why animals and humans have developed the particular psychological aspects they currently possess
Functionalism
Identify the approach:
William Jones
Functionalism
Identify the approach:
Focuses on the role of our unconscious thoughts, feelings, memories, and our early childhood experiences in determining behaviour
Psychodynamic
Identify the approach:
Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Erik Erikson
Psychodynamic
Identify the approach:
It is not possible to objectively study the mind, therefore psychologists should limit attention to study of behaviour itself
Behaviourism
Identify the approach:
John B Watson, B F Skinner
Behaviourism
Identify the approach:
Study of mental processes, including perception, thinking, memory, judgements
Cognitive
Identify the approach:
Hermann, Ebbinghaus, Sir Frederic Bartlett, Jean Piaget
Cognitive
Identify the approach:
How social situations and cultures in which people find themselves in influence thinking and behaviour
Social-cultural
Identify the approach:
Fritz Heider, Leon Festinger, Stanley Schachter
Social-Cultural
What is introspection?
Asking research participants to describe exactly what they experience as they work on mental tasks.
Titchener claimed to identify over how many different sensations through introspection?
Over 40000
True or false: Wundt discovered the difference between the sensation and the perception of a stimulus
True
What is a limitation of introspection?
Importance of the unconscious bias
What did Wundt study?
The nature of consciousness. It is possible to analyse basic elements of the mind and classify our conscious experiences scientifically
What was functionalism influenced by?
Charles Darwins theory of Natural selection
What is Charles Darwins theory of natural selection?
The physical characteristics of animals and humans evolved because they wer euseful or functional
Does functionalism still exist as a school of psychology?
No
What area of psychology has functonalism been absorbed into?
Evolutionary psychology
Identify the approach:
The extent to which having a given characteristic helps the individual organism survive and reproduce at a higher rate than do other members of the species who do not have the same characteristics
Evolutionary
Many predictions of WHAT psychology are difficult to test
Evolutionary
Which field of psychology provides logical explanations for why we havemany psychological characteristics?
Evolutionary
According to Freud, many problems experienced are a result of what?
Effects of painful childhood experiences the person could no longer remember
Identify the approach:
Remembering unconscious drives through psychoanalysis using talk therapy and dream analysis to explore person’s early sexual experiences and current sexual desires
Psychodynamic
True or false: Behaviourism identifies that we can predict behaviour without knowing what goes on in the mind
True
Who was John B Watson (Behavioursim) influenced by?
Pavlov
Identify the approach:
Burrhus Frederick Skinner
Positive and negative reinforcement
Identify the approach:
Principle of learning identified
Positive and Negative reinforcement
What was Skinners research focus?
Do we have free will?
What did Hermann Ebbinghaus study?
Ability of people to remember lists of words under different conditions
What did Sir Frederic Bartlett study?
Cognitive and social processes of remembering
What are social norms?
The ways of thinking, feeling, or behaving that are shared by group members and perceived by them as appropriate
What is culture?
The common set of social norms shared by the people who live in a geographical region
True or false: The first psychologists were philosophers
True
