Psychology Flashcards
roots of psychology can be traced to the great philosophers of ancient Greece
- Socrate
- Plato
- Aristotle
Father of Medicine
Hippocrates
Study of functions of the living organism and its parts
Physiology
Hippocrates interested in physiology
observes on how human brain controls various organs of the bosy
Hippocrates
He set the stage of biological perspective of psychology
Hippocrates
- human beings enter the world with an inborn store of knowledge and understanding of reality
- inborn
Nature View
he supported the nature view by arguing that some ideas are innate (God, self, perfection, etc)
Rene Descartes
knowledge is acquired through experiences and interactions with the world.
Nurture View
an English philosopher whose associated the nurture view
John Locke
Human is a _, a blank slate on which experience ‘writes’ knowledge and understanding as the individual matures
tabula rasa
a branch of psychology, gave birth to ____________, -denied that there were inborn ideas or capabilities
(similarity and contrast)
Associationist psychology
- begun in the late 19th century
- establish the first psychological laboratory at the University of Leipzig in Germany in 1879
he relied on introspection to study mental processes
Wilhelm Wundt
his research concerned with the senses, vision, attention, emotionmemory
- refers to observing and recording the nature of one’s owe perception, thoughts, and feeling
- Made through pure self-observation and supplemented with experiments
Introspection
- Leading proponent in the United States, Cornell University psychologist trained by Wundt.
- Introduced the term structuralism
Edward Tichener
The analysis of mental structures
Structuralism
- a psychologist at Harvard University opposed Titchener’s concept.
- his approach was named functionalism
William James
Studying how the mind works to enable an organism to adapt to and function in its environment
Functionalism
19th century psychologist’s interest in adaptation stemmed from the publication of ____________________
Charles Darwin - Theory of evolution
both structuralism and functionalism were being displaced by 3 newer school:
by 1920
- Behaviorism
- Gestalt psychology
- psychoanalysis
This new school had the greatest influence on scientific psychology in North America
Behaviorism
- He believed that psychological data must be open to public inspection
- Behavior is public; consciousness is private
- science should deal only with facts
John B. Watson
nearly all behavior is a result of conditioning and the environment shapes behavior by reinforcing specific habits
Little Albert Experiment
Behaviorist / Behaviorism
A german word meaning form or configuration
Gestalt
interest was perception
gestalt psychologist
the key interest were the perception of motion, how people judge size, and appearance of colors under changes in illumination
Gestalt Psychology / Gestalt psychologist
Key founders of modern social psychology
- Kurt Lewin
- Solomon Asch
- Fritz Heider
he originated both a theory of personality and a method od psychotherapy.
20th century
Sigmund Freud
thoughts, attitudes, impulses, wishes, motivations, and emotions of which we are unaware
unconscious
childhood’s unacceptable wishes
are driven out of conscious
awareness and become part of
the unconscious, where they
continue to influence our thoughts,
feelings, and actions
Psychoanalysis
unconscious thoughts are expressed in dreams, slips of the tongue, and physical mannerisms
Psychoanalysis
It used by freud in which patient was instructed to say whatever comes to mind as a way of bringing inconscious wishes into awareness.
Free association
in classical Freudian theory, the motivations behind unconscious wishes almost always involved
sex or aggression
not widely accepted
Contemporary psychologists do
not accept Freud’s theory in its
entirety, but they tend to agree
that people’s ideas, goals, and
motives can at times operate
outside conscious awareness
psychoanalysis
until WWII psychology was dominated by __________
particularly in the US
LATER DEVELOPMENTS IN 20TH PSYCHOLOGY
Behaviorism
after war, interest in psychology increased, sophisticated
instruments and electronic equipment
this was strengthened by______________
development of
computers in the 1950s
- theorized that brain works in a set sequence, as does a computer
- computer – viewed human beings as processors of information and provided a more dynamic approach to psychology than behaviorism
- made it possible to formulate some of the ideas of Gestalt psychology and psychoanalysis more precisely
information-processing models
pioneer of the development of linguistics
Noam Choamsky
discoveries about the _____ and
________________ revealed clear
relationships between neurological events and mental processes
Brain and nervous system
at the same time, important advances in
Neuropstchology
- an approach or a way of looking at topics within psychology
- any topic in psychology
can be approached
from different
perspectives
Psychological Perspective
*understanding many
psychological topics that
spans multiple perspectives
Eclectic Approach
human brain contains 10B nerve cells and an infinite number of interconnections between
them thus considered as the most complex structure
Biological perspective
psychological events can be related to the activity of the brain and nervous system
Biological Perspective
Biological Percpective parts
- Frontal Lobe
- Parietal Lobe
- Temporal Lobe
- Occipital Lobe
- it attempts to relate overt behavior to electrical and chemical events taking place inside the body
- seeks to specify the neurobiological processes that underlie behavior and mental processes
Ex: Depression - an abnormal changes in levels of neurotransmitters
Biological perspective
Most right-handed people, LEFT hemisphere is specialized for
understanding language
Right hemisphere is for
interpreting spatial relations
focuses on observable stimuli and responses and
regards nearly all behavior as a result of conditioning
and reinforcement
with regard to aggression
Behavioral Perspective
*did not consider individual’s
mental processes that intervene between the stimulus and the response
Behavioral Perspective
the proposal rooted as a reaction to the narrowness of behaviorism
neglected
complex human activities like
reasoning, planning, decision-
Cognitive Perspective
concerned with mental
processes such as perceiving,
remembering, problem solving
Cognitive Perspective
instead it assumes that: – (1) only by studying mental processes can we fully understand
what organisms do
– (2) we can study mental processes in an objective fashion by
focusing on specific behaviors (just as behaviorists do) but
interpreting them in terms of underlying mental processes
19th century version, cognitive
approach is not based on introspection
COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE
relied on an
analogy between the mind and a computer –incoming information is processed in various
ways: it is selected, compared, and combined
with other information already in memory,
transformed, rearranged, and so on
cognitive psychologist
behavior stems from
unconscious
processes, meaning
beliefs, fears, and
desires that a person is
unaware of but
influcence behavior
basic assumption
believed that many of
the impulses that are
forbidden or punished
by parents and society
during childhood are
derived from innate
instincts
Psychoanalytic Perspective
- forbidding them merely forces them out of awareness into the unconscious, they do not disappear
- may manifest as emotional problems and symptoms of mental illness or as socially
approved behavior such as artistic and literary activity
Psychoanalytic perspective
- human behavior is a function
of the perceived world, not the objective world - this view holds that we must
grasp the person’s own
‘definition of the situation’
which is expected to vary by
culture, personal history, and
current motivational state - this perspective is the most open to cultural and individual differences and to the effects of the motivation and emotion
Subjectivist perspective
refers to people’s tendency to take their constructed, subjective realities to be faithful renderings of an objective world
naïve realism
thus involves systematic observation of judgements and
behaviors
psychological
perception, the unconscious, and
attributions)
biological perspective
neurotransmitters and
hormones drawn from physiology and other branches of biology
Major subfields of psychology
- Biological psychologists/ physiological psychologist
- Cognitive Psychologist
- Developmental Psychologist
- Social Psychologist
- Personality Psychologist
- Clinical Psychologist
- Counseling Psychologists
- School Psychologist
- Educational Psychologist
- Organizational Psychologist / Industrial Psychologist
- Engineering Psychologist
2 steps involves in doing research
- generating a scientific hypothesis
- testing that hypothesis
a statement that can be tested about the topic of
interest
Hypothesis
- there is no single answer
- the most important source for scientific hypotheses, however, is often a scientific theory, an interrelated set of propositions about a particular phenomenon
- testing hypotheses derived from competing theories is one of the most powerful ways of advancing scientific knowledge
Generating Hypothesis
research methods used to collect the data
scientific
(do not favor one hypothesis over another)
unbiased
(other qualified people can repeat the observations and obtain the same
results)
reliable
- the most powerful scientific method
- provide the strongest tests of hypotheses about cause and effect
- researcher carefully controls conditions – often in a laboratory – and takes
measurements in order to discover the causal relationships among variables - variable is something that can occur with different values
Experiments
variable under the complete
control of the experimenter, who creates it and control its
variation; hypothesized cause
– manipulated by the experimenter
independent variable (IV)
dependent on the IVIV;
hypothesized effect
hypothesized effect – changes observed by the experimenter
dependent variable (DV)
Types of Experiments
- experimental group
- control group
- random assignment
groups in which the
hypothesized cause is present
experimental group
the group in which the
hypothesized cause is absent
control group
serves as a baseline against
which experimental groups can be compared
each participant has an equal
probability of being placed in any group
random assignment
generally experiment has potential problems
used to determine whether some variable that is not under our control is associated – or correlated – with another variable of interest
Correlation
an estimate of the degree to which two
variables are related
correlation coefficient
positively correlated/positive correlation - values of the two variables either
increase together or decrease together
negatively correlated/negative correlation - value of one variable increases, the
value of the other decreases
presents a uniform situation to a group of people who vary
in a particular trait
Tests
cause-and-effect relationships cannot be inferred from
correlational studies
CORRELATION & CAUSATION
in early stages of research, the most efficient way of making progress toward an explanation may be direct observation - to simply observe the phenomenon under study as it occurs naturally
OBSERVATION
investigators observing naturally
occurring behavior must be trained to
observe and record events accurately
so that their own biases do not
influence what they report
OBSERVATION
some problems that are difficult to study by direct
observation may be studied by indirect observation through
the use of questionnaires or interviews
researchers simply ask people if they engage in the behavior
of interest
more open to bias than direct observation
SURVEY METHOD
another form of indirect observation wherein a partial
biography of a particular individual is obtained
* focuses on studying individuals
* for example: with regards to adult depression, researcher
might begin by asking questions about earlier life events
* major limitation: they rely on person’s memories and
reconstructions of earlier events, which are frequently
distorted or incomplete
CASE HISTORY
2 forms of Literature Reviews
– narrative review
– meta-analysis
a scholarly summary of the existing body of
research on a given topic
LITERATURE REVIEWS
in which authors use words to
describe studies previously conducted and discuss
the strength of the available psychological evidence
narrative review
in which authors use statistical techniques to combine and draw conclusions about studies previously conducted
meta-analysis
First Principle
minimal risk
person should not be exposed to
second principle
informed consent
third principle
right to privacy
psychologists conduct research with animals for 2
main reasons:
–animal behavior can itself be interesting and worthy of
study
–animals systems can provide models for human systems, so research on animals can produce knowledge that might be impossible or unethical to
obtain from humans
- study genetics in order to better understand the biological basis that contributes to certain behaviors
- we are each unique
- expressed in
a wide variety of behaviors, thoughts, and reactions
HUMAN GENETICS
genetic condition in which red
blood cells, which are normally
round, take on a crescent-like
shape
sickle cell anemia
states that organisms that are
better suited for their environment will survive and reproduce, while those that are poorly suited for their environment will die off
Charles Darwin
theory of evolution
the sperm and egg each contain
23
chromosomes
long strings of genetic
material known as deoxyribonucleic acid
(DNA) a helix-shaped molecule made up of
nucleotide base pairs
chromosomes
that control or partially
control a number of visible characteristics,
known as traits, such as eye color, hair
color, and so on
genes
is a specific version of a gene
allele
genetic makeup of the individual based on the
genetic material (DNA) inherited from one’s parents
genotype
is the individual’s inherited physical characteristics
(observable characteristics) such as hair, skin, eye color, and
height which are a combination of genetic and environmental
influences
Phenotype
- strong genes
dominant allele (BB)
- weak genes
recessive allele (bb)
when someone
has 2 copies of the same allele
(BB or bb)
homozygous
when someone
has a combination of alleles for
a given gene (Bb)
heterozygous
a tool used to predict how genes will interact in the production of
offspring.
Punnett square
a sudden, permanent change in a DNA sequence of an
organism
mutation
genes set the boundaries within which we can operate, and
our environment interacts with the genes to determine where
in that range we will fall
Range of reaction
genes influence our environment, and our environment influences the
expression of our genes– they influence one another bidirectionally
Genetic environmental correlation
child has no control over (passive)
young age especially infancy period
parents who provide the genes that predispose a child to a trait
(for example music), also tend to provide an environment that encourages the
development of that trait
– passive correlation
children with differing genetic makeups evoke different reactions from adults
parents react to child’s genetic makeup
operate throughout our life
– reactive or evocative correlation
- children actively select or create experiences consistent with their genetic tendencies
- individual takes the action
- stronger as we get older
– active correlation (niche-picking)
- looks beyond the genotype itself
- studies how the same genotype can be expressed in different ways
- for instance identical twins share the same genetic information, but even with identical genes, there remains an incredible amount of variability in how gene expression can unfold over
the course of each twin’s life
Epigenetics
two basic cell types:
glial cells and neurons
- provide scaffolding on which the nervous system is built
- help neurons line up closely with each other to allow neural communication
- provide insulation to neurons
- transport nutrients and waste products
- mediate immune responses
Glial cells
- serve as interconnected information processors that are essential for all of the tasks of
the nervous system
Neurons
includes the brain and the spinal cord which is considered as the main control center
Central Nervous System (CNS)
composed of all the nerves that
branch off from the brain and spine that allow your CNS to communicate with the rest of your body
Peripheral Nervous System
Made up of thick bundles of axons
nerves
-carrying messages back and forth between the CNS and
the muscles, organs, and senses in the periphery of the
body
its job is communication thus PNS is set up to work in
both directions
picks up the
sensory stimuli; carry signals from the body to the brain
the sensory (afferent nerves/division)
- part that sends
directions from your brain to the muscles and glands;
carry signals from CNS to the body
motor (efferent nerves/division)
PNS consists:
SOMATIC SYSTEM and AUTONOMIC SYSTEM
carries messages to and from the sense receptors, muscles, and the surface of the body (for conscious sensory functions and voluntary motor functions)
Somatic System
connects with the internal organs and glands (for
automatic and involuntary functions, such as beating of the heart, breathing)
autonomic system
Basic unit of the nervous system
Neuron
specialized cell that transmits neural impulses or message to other neurons, glands and muscles
Neuron
The nuclues of the neuron is located in the
Soma or Cell Body
are the number of short branches ( from greek word “Dendron”, meaning tree)
Dendrites
serve as input sites where signals are received from other neurons
Dendrites
down a major extension from the
soma known as the
Axon
contain synaptic
vesicles that house
neurotransmitters, the
chemical messengers
of the nervous system
terminal buttons
fatty
substance known as the
myelin
sheath
coats the axon and
acts as an insulator, increasing the speed at which the signal travels
Myelin sheath
