Psych Overview: U4 Test Flashcards
Know what question the argument from design was meant to answer.
How millions of different species that inhabit the earth originally came into being?”
Paley meant about studying the structure of the mammalian eye being “a cure for atheism”
Paley used the eye in his argument because he thought that it was so perfect that it had to have been created by a god.
What Darwin learned from Helmholtz that led to dismiss the argument
Darwin learned of the four defects of the eye from Helmholtz
i. Maximum sharpness is very small
ii. Colors are imperfectly reproduced
iii. Astigmatism distorts images
iv. The blind spot
Lamarck’s answer was to the question.
Mammals develop the eye through acquired inheritance. God created mammals imperfectly but they developed over time.
Know the three observations or lines of evidence that convinced Darwin that the idea of evolution had to be taken seriously.
- The staggering number of different species in nature.
- Extinct fossil species that resembled modern species in all but size.
- Breeders had been able to produce strikingly different varieties of breeds of domestic animals by careful selection of parental stock over many generations
Definition of Natural Selection
Small, random, inheritable differences among individuals result in different chances of survival and reproduction.
What two principles does natural selection embody
Genetic variation and environmental selection
The exact title and date of Darwin’s book.
On the Origini of Species by Means of Natural Selection or The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life (1859)
Darwin’s other two books and brief description
a. Descent of Man: animals possess the rudiments of human mentality
b. The Expression of Emotions: human being possess many remnants of “animality.:
Darwin’s Influence
- Social Darwinism
- Comparative Psychology
- Sociobiology: account for social behavioral traits as a result of individual but interacting genes tending to replicate themselves throughout successive generations
- Evolutionary Psychology: use aspects of evolution theory to devise empirically testable hypotheses about human behavior
Why Galton was a great pioneer
1) Pioneered the idea that tests could be used to measure psychological differences among people
2) Offered provocative theories about the origins of those psychological differences
3) Prescribed controversial social policies intended to foster positive psychological qualities in the general population
4) Elevated the scientific study of individual differences to the level a major psychological specialty with important social implications.
Know the “three new arguments in support of Galton’s contention” that man’s natural abilities are inherited
- Normal distribution of intellectual qualities
- Pedigrees of genius
- studies of adoptive versus biological relatives
how and why each of Galton’s three new arguments could be explained as more environmentally influenced.
Patterns can be environmentally influenced in that close relatives share environments to a greater degree than distant relatives do, and any specific environmental factors conducive to success in particular fields should expectably be found in some families more than others.????????
Difference between Social Darwinism and Eugenics
Social Darwinism: A view promoted by Spencer, who suggested that political systems and societies, like all human and animal species, evolve because of natural selection and that therefore the current systems represent the “survival of the fittest”
Eugenics: Term coined by Galton to describe his project for improving the human race through selective breeding. Selecting the intelligent population and forcing them to breed. An active version of social darwinism.
Galton and Binet’s approaches for testing intelligence
Galton: individual differences in acuity or reaction time were not “errors” or “irregularities” to be smoothed over or avoided, but the very machinery of evolution and therefore the object of prime interest.
Binet: saw his tests “primarily useful in detecting the lack of intelligence in subnormal children, and doubted their uselessness in measuring higher degrees of intelligence (p. 581).”
