Psych 101 Flashcards
Who was Wundt and what did he do?
Wundt was a physiologist who opened the first laboratory dedicated exclusively to psychology. Wundt used the scientific method to study consciousness. Wundt believed most of human behaviour is motivated, a branch of psychology he called voluntarism. he did the pendulum/clock experiment about human attention span
What is consciousness?
Personal awareness of mental process, behaviours and evironmental events
What is Voluntarism?
Voluntarism is the belief that most behaviour is motivated for an explicit purpose. Created by Wundt.
What is Structuralism?
The belief that the mind is a set of sensory experiences and that study should be more about the mental thoughts rather than the structures that create them
what is cognitive psychology?
the study of information processing (how thoughts are stored in the brain and the ways in which they are operated on)
What is neuroscience?
the study of brain structure and brain activity and the way it might be related to group dynamics or individual behaviours
What is a independant variable?
An event or conditioning that that is thought to factor in changing another condition or event. eg Watching hockey night in Canada
What is a dependant variable?
A condition or event that is expected to change as a result of variations of the independent variable eg. Aggressive behaviour. It is called dependent variable because people score on this variable “depend” on exposure to the independent variable
What does operationalize mean in the context of variables in an experiment?
To operationalize is a variable is to make it easily fit in an experiment in which said variable can be measured and tested
What is Descriptive Research?
Case studies, naturalistic observation, surveys.
what is experimental research?
research with manipulation and control of variables
What is quantative progress?
progress that is slow and gradual yet steady. and pertains to size and brain capacity
What is qualitative progress?
Qualitative progress is sudden larger discontinous steps. It pertains to the way one thinks and behaves.
What is a critical period?
a critical period is a time in an organisms life when a particular input is needed for the organism to acquire certain brain functions and behaviours. If input is not had then development will be thrown off track.
what are sensitive periods?
Periods where an organism is particularily sensitive to a certain input but not rigidly so. A child could make up for missing a sensitive period but it would be difficult
