Psychology Midterm (Ch. 1-2 definitions, terms, people, etc.) Flashcards
Founder of psychology
Wilhelm Wundt
Led structuralism movement
Believed psychology should use introspection to analyze conssciousness into its basic elements
Edward Titchener
Led functionalism movement
Believed psychology should focus on the purpose and adaptive functions of consciousness
Argued for stream of consciousness
William James
Came up with psychoanalytic concepts
“People are not masters of their minds”
Sigmund Freud
Led behaviorism movement
Emphasized importance of environment over heredity
James Watson
Proponent of behaviorism and worked with lab rats and pigeons
Found that organisms tend to repeat responses that lead to positive responses
“Free will is an illusion”
B. F. Skinner
Led the humanism movement
Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers
Theoretical perspective that seeks to better understand the adaptive, creative, and filfilling aspects of human existence
Positive psychology
Effects of environment on the overt behavior of humans and animals
Only observable events (stimulus-response relations) can be studied scientifically
Behavioral (1913-present)
Unconscious determinants of behavior
Unconscious motives and experiences in early childhood govern personality and mental disorders
Psychoanalytic (1900-present)
Unique aspects of human experiences
Humans are free, rational beings with the potential for personal growth, and they are fundamentally different from animals
Humanistic (1950s-present)
Thoughts; mental processes
Human behavior cannot be fully understood without examining how people acquire, store, and process information
Cognitive (1950s-present)
Physiological bases of behavior in humans and animals
An organism’s functioning can be explained in terms f the bodily structures and biochemical processes that underlie behavior
Biological (1950s-present)
Evolutionary bases of behavior in humans and animals
Behavior patterns have evolved to solve adaptive problems; natural selection favors behaviors that enhance reproductive success
Evolutionary (1980s-present)
Notion that the task of psychology is to analyze consciousness into its basic elements and investigate how these elements are related
Structuralism
Belief that psychology should investigate the function or purpose of consciousness, rather than its structure
Functionalism
Mental processes involved in acquiring knowledge
Cognition
Science that studies behavior and the physiological and cognitive process that underlie behavior, and it is the profession that applies the accumulated knowledge of this science to practical problems
Psychology
Premise that knowledge should be acquired through observation
Empiricism
System of interrelated ideas used t explain a set of observations
Theory
Three sets of interrelated goals by psychologists and other scientists
Measurement and description
Understanding and prediction
Application and control
The actions or operations that will be used to measure or control a variable
Operational definition
Condition or event an experimenter varies in order to see its impact on another variable
Independent variable
Variable thought to be affected by manipulation of the independent variable
Dependent variable
