Psychology Midterm Study Guide Flashcards
Define the 4 goals of Psychology.
Description, Explanation, Prediction, and Influence
What is Explanation?
Psychologists explain why people behave the way they do.
What is Prediction?
Psychologists predict what organisms will do.
What is Influence?
Psychologists try to influence behavior.
Who is the father of psychology?
Wilhelm Wundt
Who is the father of psychology in the United States?
Edward Bradford Titchner
Define cognition.
all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating
What is the scientific method?
a general approach to gathering information and answering questions so that errors and biases are minimized
All psychologists agree that the study of behavior must be…
credible
Name 4 historical approaches of psychology.
STRUCTURALISM FUNCTIONALISM INHEIRITABLE TRAITS GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY
What is structuralism?
the basic elements that make up conscious mental experiences
What is functionalism?
study of the function of conciousness
What is Gestalt psychology?
how sensations are assembled into perpetual experiences
What is psychoanalytic psychology?
Study of how unconscious motives and conflicts determine human behavior, feeling, and thoughts
What are the 6 contemporary approaches of psychology?
PSYCHOANALYTIC BEHAVIORAL HUMANISTIC COGNITIVE BIOLOGICAL SOCIOCULTURAL
What is behavioral psychology?
Analyzing of how organisms learn or modify their behavior based on their response to events in the environment
What is humanistic psychology?
Belief that each person had freedom in directing his or her future and achieving personal growth
What is cognitive psychology?
Study of how we process, store, retrieve, and use information and how thought processes influence our behavior
What is biological psychology?
Study of how physical and chemical changes in our bodies influence our behavior
What is sociocultural psychology?
Study of the influence of cultural and ethnic similarities and differences on behavior and social functioning
What is psychology?
the scientific study of behavior and mental processes
What are community psychologists?
Psychologists that work in a mental health or social welfare agency
What are experimental psychologists?
Psychologists who study sensation, perception, learning, motivation, and/or emotion in carefully controlled laboratory conditions
What are clinical psychologists?
Psychologists who diagnoses and treats people with emotional disturbances
What are educational psychologists?
A psychologist who is concerned with helping students learn
What are developmental psychologists?
Psychologists who study the emotional, cognitive, biological, personal, and social changes that occur as an individual matures
What is sample?
A relatively small group out of the total population
What are the methods of research?
NATURALISTIC OBSERVATION CASE STUDIES SURVEYS LONGITUDINAL STUDIES CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDIES CORRELATIONS AND EXPLANATIONS EXPERIMENTS ETHICAL ISSUES
What is a hypothesis?
an assumption or prediction about behavior or an educated guess about the relationship between two variables
What is a control group?
a group of participants that is treated in the same way as the experimental group but the experimental treatment is not applied
What is a self-fulfilling prophecy?
a belief, prediction, or expectation that operated to bring about its own fulfillment
How do you avoid a self-fufilling prophecy?
Double-blind technique or a single blind experiment
What is the placebo effect?
a change in a participants illness or behavior that results from a belief that the treatment will have an effect rather than from the actual treatment
What is a histogram?
a graph similar to a bar graph except that histogram a shoe frequency distribution by means of rectangles
What is a normal curve?
a graph of frequency distribution shaped like a symmetrical, bell-shaped curve a graph of normally distributed data
What is the mode?
Mode occurs the most! (Mark Podowski: most most most)
What are inferential statistics?
numerical methods used to determine whether research data support a hypothesis or whether results were due to chance
What is developmental psychology?
the branch of psychology that studies emotional, physical, cognitive, biological, personal, and social changes that occur throughout an individual’s life cycles
Describe two reflex capacities of newborns.
grasping reflex and rooting reflex
What is maturation?
the internally programmed growth of a child
What is telegraphic speech?
the kind of verbal utterances in which words are left out, but the meaning is usually clear
Explain nature v nurture.
Nature vs nurture asks whether thoughts and behaviors are inborn or a result of a child’s environment
What is the average length of an infant at birth?
18 to 22 inches
What is generavity?
desire in middle age to use one’s accumulated wisdom to guide future generations
What is stagnation?
a discontinuation of development and a desire to recapture the past, characteristic of some middle-aged people
What is menopause?
the biological event in which a woman’s production of sex hormones is sharply reduced
What is empty nest syndrome?
the event where the last child leaves home and the mother is sad
What are the 2 parts of the nervous system?
central nervous system and peripheral nervous system
What are neurons?
the long, thin cells of nerve tissue along which messages travel to and from the brain
