Psy 201 Test 1 Flashcards
When/where was the first psychology lab? Who was responsible?
1879, University of Leipzig, Wilhelm Wundt
Who was one of the first to define psychology? How did he define it?
William James, “science of mental life, both of its phenomena and their conditions”
What is the book’s definition of psychology?
the science that studies behavior and the physiological and cognitive processes that underlie behavior, and it is the profession that applies that accumulated knowledge of this science to a practical problem
How did psychology develop?
questions about the nature of man go back to Ancient Greece (or further w/o record); merging of philosophical questions with physiology
The earliest work in experimental psychology was in ?
psycho-physics
Ernst Weber
interested in reliability of our senses, Weber’s Law (K=change in Intensity/Intensity)
Gustav Fechner
father of psycho-physics, studied Weber’s Law in a different way
Wilhelm Wundt
father of psychology, first psychology lab 1879, wanted to study consciousness (questions about experiences, introspection), thought meter experiment (delay in thoughts)
Edward Titchener
English, attracted to the field by Wundt, used introspection but in a more restrictive sense than Wundt, wanted to find basic elements of consciousness (found over 40k, dead end), school of thought - STRUCTURALISM
William James
credited for founding school of thought known as FUNCTIONALISM
What was functionalism?
focus on the adaptive nature of behavior and consciousness serving a function for the organism, “stream of consciousness,” ever-changing
John Watson
establishment of BEHAVIORISM, on nurture side of nature/nurture debate, “Little Albert” demo - induced a phobia in a child
What was behaviorism?
mental states are not observable, so let’s focus on observable behavior
BF Skinner
major contributor to BEHAVIORISM in the 20th century, refined concept of reinforcement and punishment, believed in determinism (no free will) and that your environment influences your behavior, worked a lot with animals; argued against the study of cognition
What did Gestalt psychologists emphasize?
cognitive principles of learning; see the whole before the pieces
What did Sigmund Freud emphasize?
unconscious processes affect behavior; psychoanalytic aproach
What were the challenges to behaviorism?
Gestalt psychology, Freud, humanism
What was humanism?
thought behaviorism to be too simplistic, believed in human potential and basic goodness
Who were two supporters of humanism?
Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers
Abraham Maslow
self-actualization; hierarchy of needs
Carl Rogers
the self, client-centered therapy
Evolutionary Psychology
a descendant of functionalism; examines behavioral processes in terms of their adaptive value for members of a species over many generations
Positive Psychology
spearheaded by Martin Seligman; psychology has traditionally focused on negative events, so positive psych focused on what makes people happy, creative, etc. rather than what’s wrong with them; Journal of Happiness Studies; focus on spiritual matters
Mary Whiton Calkins
studied under William James at Harvard, never got PhD bc Harvard would not allow it, first woman president of APA, invented paired-associate learning (valuable tool for studying verbal memory)
Margaret Floy Washburn
first woman to get a PhD (from Cornell under Titchener), 2nd female APA prez, wrote the Animal Mind talking about incredible animal accomplishments
Leta Stetter Hollingworth
pioneering work on adolescent development and “gifted” (coined term) children, major role in debunking myths about female inferiority to males
What is critical thinking?
a logical and rational process of avoiding one’s preconceptions by gathering evidence, contemplating and evaluating alternatives, and coming to a conclusion; a built-in part of Weiten’s text
Psychology uses the ? to the study of behavior, although there are endeavors that pass themselves off as psychology that do not study behavior scientifically
scientific approach
Goals of the scientific enterprise
- measurement and description (must find a way to accurately measure what we want to study)
- understanding and prediction (hypothesis; variables)
- application and control (applicability of results is a desirable end)
What is a theory?
a system of interrelated ideas used to explain a set of observations and make predictions
Karl Popper
principle of falsifiability (a good theory must have the ability to be disproven)
steps in a scientific investigation
- formulate a hypothesis 2. design the study 3. collect the data 4. analyze data and draw conclusions 5. report the findings
peer review process
still in place in reputable journals - your findings must be testing/corroborated before being published
experiment
a research method in which the investigator manipulates a variable under carefully controlled conditions and observes whether any changes occur in a 2nd variable as a result; best research design for CAUSE AND EFFECT relationships
independent vs dependent variable
independent - manipulated by experimenter; dependent - measured by experiment to assess effects of independent
experimental and control groups
experimental group receives the treatment and the control group does not for comparison
placebo
fake drug indistinguishable from real thing
placebo effect
people receiving a fake drug seem to improve based upon their expectation of what the drug is supposed to do
random sampling
each entity in the population has an equal chance of being chosen for a given group
extraneous variables
uncontrolled variables that may affect the dependent variable
confounding variables
2+ variables that cannot be separated
correlational research
non-experimental research that measures if two things are related; does not allow statements of cause and effect; 3rd variable phenomenon (ex: ice cream sold in relation to crime rate of a city - heat)
correlation coefficient
range from -1 to +1 (negative, no, and positive correlation); the closer to either end, the stronger the relationship
Frances Galton
correlation, fingerprints, eugenics (people who would weaken gene pool should not be allowed to reproduce)
naturalistic observation
observe the entities of interest in their natural setting w/o disturbing them or letting them know they are being observed
case study
in-depth study of an individual or small group of individuals; results are not very generalizable
survey
efficient gathering of info about some aspects of a person’s behavior; prone to self-report bias
experimental bias
expectations of findings lead to false interpretations or biased interactions
sampling bias
samples not representative of population
double-blind experiment
neither the experimenter nor the participant know which group the participant is in
protection of research subjects began after WWII with the ? because of (give examples)
Nuremburg Code; Tuskegee syphilis study (AA males - groups given drug get better, others die), experiments on POWs
Belmont Report 1972
addressed psychological research (like Nuremburg Code but for psychology); stimulated by studies like Milgram and Zimbardo
Stanley Milgram
obedience study; shock administration - people follow orders
Phillip Zimbardo
Stanford Prison Study; randomly assigned people to either be prisoners or guards, guards abuse power, stop experiment early
Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)
a group of people, usually professors/community members, that reviews all research study proposals and approve the study once they’ve ensured it is risk-free
Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC)
basically IRB for animals; have to approve proposed animal studies; use least sentient (able to be aware) species
Phineas Gage
a stone-cutter in Vermont who had a tamping iron go through his skill; it didn’t kill him; portion of prefrontal lobe destroyed, associated with high-order cognitive thinking and personality, which caused him to become profane and have trouble socializing/focusing
two major types of cells in the central nervous system
neurons (info processors) and glial cells (support for neurons, housekeeping functions, provide myelin sheaths, star-shaped, move around)
four basic parts of a neuron
- dendrites (input side of cell) - branches, receive inputs of other cells
- soma - cell body; has a nucleus
- axons (output side of cell) - often branches but leaves cell body as one; myeling sheath for insulation/speed
- terminal buttons (contain vesicles with neurotransmitter) - release chemical (every given neuron only has one type of neurotransmitter)
studies by ? and ? and others with the giant squid axon indicated that at rest the inside of the neuron is ? more ? than the outside, thus ? is stored at rest
Hodgkin and Huxley; about 70 mV more negative; potential energy
sodium-potassium pump
protein complex in membrane of cells; takes 3 sodium ions and removes them from the cell while taking in two potassium ions; net result - lose 3+ gain 2+ so 1-
action potential
if resting potential drops below about -55mV or so, this will cause a rapid depolarization of the neuron; a very brief shift in a neuron’s charge that travels along the axon
action potential travels rapidly in an ? fashion until reaching terminal button, and it is caused by ? ions rushing in (up/downswing) and ? ions rushing out (up/downswing)
all or none, sodium in (upswing), potassium out (downswing)
if calcium is present in sufficient quantities in the neuron, a process called ? occurs whereby vesicles migrate to the cell membrane, fuse with it, and spill their contents of neurotransmitters out of the cell
exocytosis
synapse
small gap b/w cells
presynaptic cell
releases NT
postsynaptic cell
cell across the synapse where binding sites are present
postsynaptic potentials
NT spilled into synapse causes membrane changes/ion shifts in postsynaptic cell
excitatory postsynaptic potential
positive voltage change that increases the likelihood that the PSN will fire
inhibitory postsynaptic potential
negative voltage change that decreases the likelihood that the PSN will ifre
whether PSN actually fires depends on the sum total of the many ? and ? that may be acting on the cell at a given time; this allows for great flexibility
excitatory postsynaptic potentials and inhibitory postsynaptic potentials
agonist
a chemical that mimics the effects of a neurotransmitter (stimulates postsynaptic cell)
antagonist
a chemical that opposes the action of a neurotransmitter (binds but is inactive - blocks)
acetylcholine
neuromusculine junction in the periphery involved in attention, arousal, and probably memory
what is the agonist for acetylcholine? the antagonist?
agonist - nicotine
antagonist - curare
acetylcholinesterase
always present in synapse; breaks down ACh; unique among NTs
AChE inhibitors lead to
an excess of ACh, muscles tense up; toxic, nerve gas; bug spray is nerve gas for a bug
