Psychology Flashcards
What is psychology?
The study of behaviour and mental process
What are the 4 goals of psychology?
Description, Explanation, Prediction & Change
What’s description?
tells “what” occurred
What’s explanation?
tells “why” a behaviour or mental process occurred
What’s Prediction?
Identifies conditions under which a future behaviour or mental process is likely to occur
What’s change?
Applies psychological knowledge to prevent unwanted behaviour or to bring about desired goals
Why psychology?
Learn about and better understand your own an others behaviour
Modern psychology arose from:
philosophy and physiology
Aristotle asked questions to understand the relationship between:
Body and psyche
What did Wilhelm Wundt establish?
The first psychology lab in Germany, in 1879
What are two key elements that help make psychology a science?
- Carefully measured observation
- Experiments
What does introspection mean?
Systematic self-observation
What are early approaches?
Structuralism and Functionalism
What is structuralism?
sought to identify the basic components or structures of conscious experience
What is functionalism?
The function or purpose of consciousness and not structure. Interaction between the mind and the environment.
Who is William James?
The father of American psychology
What are the modern approaches?
Behavioural, psychoanalytical, humanistic, Cognitive, Biological
Evolutionary and behaviour genetics and Social-cultural
What’s a behavioural approach?
study the objective, observable environmental influences on overt behaviour. It cannot study consciousness because it cannot be directly observed.
Skinner and Watson
What’s a psychoanalytical approach and who took part?
Sigmund Freud emphasized the importance of the unconscious mind and its effect in the human behaviour. It’s unlearned biological instincts
What psychologist took part in the behavioural approach?
Skinner and Watson
What psychologist took part in the humanistic approach?
Maslow abd Roger
What is the humanistic approach?
Optimistic view of human behaviour. It focuses on the free will, self-actualization and positive growth-seeking human nature.
What’s a Cognitive approach?
renewed interest in cognition and the biology behind behaviour
What’s cognition?
Mental processes involved in accumulating knowledge
Cognitive Neuroscience approach:
Studies the brain activity underlying mental activity
What’s a biological approach?
Behaviours that can be explained by the influence of genetics and other biological processes in the brain and other parts of the nervous system.
The brain and NS are central to understanding behaviour, thought and emotion
What’s evolutionary Approach?
The importance of natural selection, adaptation and evolution on why certain behaviours are formed, modified and survive over time.
What’s behaviour Genetics?
The study of the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behaviour.
How humans may different because of genetics and environment
How are humans similar because of genetics and the environment
What’s behaviour Genetics?
The study of the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behaviour.
How humans may different because of genetics and environment
What’s a social-cultural approach?
The recognition of social interaction, context and cultural determinants of mental processes and behaviour. How culture shapes the mind
Why are multiple perspective are enriching?
They allow psychologist to better understand and research complex behaviour and mental processes. It’s possible to view the world in more than one way.
Applied Research vs Basic Research
Applied research conducts research that applies psychological principles to practical problem
Vs
Basic research conducts research to discover the basic principles of human behaviour
Clinical psychologist vs
Counselling psychologist
clinical psychologist diagnose and treat psychological problems
vs
Counselling psychologist is the treatment of milder problems such as adjustment issues.
Psychiatrist vs Psychologist
Psychiatrist is a medical doctor specializing in diagnosis and treatment of psych problem
vs
Psychologist majority of them conduct research only clinical training.
What are psychology’s subfield: Research?
Biological, developmental, cognitive, personality and social
What would be considered limits of intuition?
Hindsight bias, overconfidence error and perceiving order in random event
What is hindsight bias?
the outcome of an event, many people believe they could have predicted that very outcome.
Molding our thinking to fit how events turn out
What’s overconfidence error?
Certainty in our judgement
Overestimate the accuracy of our knowledge
What’s a random event?
Trying to put a pattern on a random event
Gambler fallacy- having a better change because an event hasn’t occurred in a while
What is scientific research?
Effective and generalizable than intuition, avoids hindsight
What are the 4 scientific methods?
- Theories- set of principles
- Hypotheses- testable prediction
- Research & observation
- Replication
What are the 3 research methods?
1.Experimental
2. Descriptive
3. Correlation
What are the 3 research methods?
1.Experimental
2. Descriptive
3. Correlation (predictive)
What are the 4 goals of psychology?
- Description-“what”
- Explanation- “why”
- Prediction
- Applies psychological knowledge
What’s a descriptive research?
It observes and records behaviour without producing causal explanations
What are 3 different types of descriptive research?
Naturalistic observation- may change the way you behave when being observed
Survey- gathering info from many ppl
Case study- single case study
What is correlational research?
Research observes or measures 2 or more variables to determine a relationship between them
What are the types of correlations?
Positive: move in the same direction
Negative: Move in opposite direction
True or false: a correlation is a causation?
False
What’s a confounding variable ?
a variable which is uncontrolled or unaccounted for and may influence the result of a research study
What’s experimental research?
controlled scientific procedure that manipulates variables to determine cause and effect
What are key factors of experimental research?
Independent variable- manipulated factors vs Dependent- measured factor
Experimental (receives treatment) vs control group (no treatment)
What are the 3 measures of central tendency?
Mode
Mean
Median
What is an extreme outliers called
Skewed
what’s variability?
It described the spread of the scores in a distribution. How similar or different the people in the sample are from one another. Two samples with the same mean can be very different
What’s a normal bell curve?
An aptitude tests tend to form a normal cell shaped, curve.