psych 200 - chapter 1

Question 1

what is psychology?

Answer 1

Psych– Psyche / Soul / Mind / private inner experiences
* Ology– Scientific study of
* Psychology– Scientific study of the mind and behavior.
* brain
* consciousness
* memory
* language
* reasoning
* personality
* mental health

Question 2

how do we experience the world?

Answer 2

Two camps:
* Rationalism (mind)
* Empiricism (body / senses)

Question 3

what is the mind?

Answer 3

-organ
-soul

Question 4

why do we seek knowledge?

Answer 4

-roots of philosophy
-we know death = neuroticism/death (the idea of what our life should be and if we don’t reach that goal we don’t feel good)
-the unexamined life is not worth living for a human being

Question 5

Explain the cave analogy (philosophy/metaphor)

Answer 5

Plato’s famous Allegory of the Cave teaches us about mistaking perception for reality. We become prisoners of a cave of our own making by mistaking our perspective for truth. By shifting perspectives, we can escape from the cave to see other possible realities.

Question 6

What is Nativism?

Answer 6

We are born with some knowledge

Question 7

Describe Aristotle’s point of views.

Answer 7

• Mind must be employed to gain
  knowledge (rationalism)
• Truth could be known only by studying
  nature through individual observation
  (empiricism).
• Object of the rational thought was
  information from sensory experience
  (empiricism).
• Body is not a hindrance to knowledge

Question 8

Does everything have a purpose?

Answer 8

Nature is arranged in a hierarchy ranging from neutral matter to the
unmoved mover, which is the cause of everything in nature
– Everything has a purpose
* Teleology: everything has a function built into it.
– Entelechy keeps an object moving and developing in its prescribed
direction to full potential

Question 9

What is Teleology?

Answer 9

• Teleology: everything has a function built into it

Question 10

Describe stages of reasoning for human beings.

Answer 10

sensory information (isolated experience), common sense (synthesized experience), passive reason (Utilization of synthesized experience), active reasoning (Part of the soul, provides humans with highest purpose)

Question 11

Describe Rene Descartes.
(mention nativist, rationalist and phenomenologist)

Answer 11

Nativist (innate ideas):
* unity, infinity, perfection, axioms of geometry, and God (born with ideas, ideas we dont need to learn, world would not necessarily be chaos)
* Rationalist:
* Humans capable of higher order thinking (producing art, quantum physics)
* Phenomenologist:
* introspectively study the nature of intact, conscious experience (every brain processes different, all listening to prof but some think different thought (cold/hot, bf, …)

Question 12

Describe what Rene Descartes thought NERVOUS SYSTEM was like.

Answer 12

Nervous system was a set of
hollow tubes connecting the
sense receptors with cavities in
the brain (the ventricles).
– Animal spirits flow through the
nerves resulting in sensation and
movement (experienced by
animals and humans).

Question 13

Describe what Rene Descartes thought MIND was like.

Answer 13

Only humans have a mind
* The mind provided
consciousness, free will,
and rationality.
* Mind was nonphysical and
the body was physical.
* The nonphysical mind and
the physical body can
influence each other (pineal
gland)

Question 14

Determine Determinism

Answer 14

Acts are determined by external influence

Question 15

Define Reductionism

Answer 15

Simplification of a complex idea or phenomena into a simple one