Psychology Midterm Study Guide

Question 1

Define the 4 goals of Psychology.

Answer 1

Description, Explanation, Prediction, and Influence

Question 2

What is Explanation?

Answer 2

Psychologists explain why people behave the way they do.

Question 3

What is Prediction?

Answer 3

Psychologists predict what organisms will do.

Question 4

What is Influence?

Answer 4

Psychologists try to influence behavior.

Question 5

Who is the father of psychology?

Answer 5

Wilhelm Wundt

Question 6

Who is the father of psychology in the United States?

Answer 6

Edward Bradford Titchner

Question 7

Define cognition.

Answer 7

all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating

Question 8

What is the scientific method?

Answer 8

a general approach to gathering information and answering questions so that errors and biases are minimized

Question 9

All psychologists agree that the study of behavior must be…

Answer 9

credible

Question 10

Name 4 historical approaches of psychology.

Answer 10

STRUCTURALISM FUNCTIONALISM INHEIRITABLE TRAITS GESTALT PSYCHOLOGY

Question 11

What is structuralism?

Answer 11

the basic elements that make up conscious mental experiences

Question 12

What is functionalism?

Answer 12

study of the function of conciousness

Question 13

What is Gestalt psychology?

Answer 13

how sensations are assembled into perpetual experiences

Question 14

What is psychoanalytic psychology?

Answer 14

Study of how unconscious motives and conflicts determine human behavior, feeling, and thoughts

Question 15

What are the 6 contemporary approaches of psychology?

Answer 15

PSYCHOANALYTIC BEHAVIORAL HUMANISTIC COGNITIVE BIOLOGICAL SOCIOCULTURAL

Question 16

What is behavioral psychology?

Answer 16

Analyzing of how organisms learn or modify their behavior based on their response to events in the environment

Question 17

What is humanistic psychology?

Answer 17

Belief that each person had freedom in directing his or her future and achieving personal growth

Question 18

What is cognitive psychology?

Answer 18

Study of how we process, store, retrieve, and use information and how thought processes influence our behavior

Question 19

What is biological psychology?

Answer 19

Study of how physical and chemical changes in our bodies influence our behavior

Question 20

What is sociocultural psychology?

Answer 20

Study of the influence of cultural and ethnic similarities and differences on behavior and social functioning

Question 21

What is psychology?

Answer 21

the scientific study of behavior and mental processes

Question 22

What are community psychologists?

Answer 22

Psychologists that work in a mental health or social welfare agency

Question 23

What are experimental psychologists?

Answer 23

Psychologists who study sensation, perception, learning, motivation, and/or emotion in carefully controlled laboratory conditions

Question 24

What are clinical psychologists?

Answer 24

Psychologists who diagnoses and treats people with emotional disturbances

Question 25

What are educational psychologists?

Answer 25

A psychologist who is concerned with helping students learn

Question 26

What are developmental psychologists?

Answer 26

Psychologists who study the emotional, cognitive, biological, personal, and social changes that occur as an individual matures

Question 27

What is sample?

Answer 27

A relatively small group out of the total population

Question 28

What are the methods of research?

Answer 28

NATURALISTIC OBSERVATION CASE STUDIES SURVEYS LONGITUDINAL STUDIES CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDIES CORRELATIONS AND EXPLANATIONS EXPERIMENTS ETHICAL ISSUES

Question 29

What is a hypothesis?

Answer 29

an assumption or prediction about behavior or an educated guess about the relationship between two variables

Question 30

What is a control group?

Answer 30

a group of participants that is treated in the same way as the experimental group but the experimental treatment is not applied

Question 31

What is a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Answer 31

a belief, prediction, or expectation that operated to bring about its own fulfillment

Question 32

How do you avoid a self-fufilling prophecy?

Answer 32

Double-blind technique or a single blind experiment

Question 33

What is the placebo effect?

Answer 33

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

Question 34

What is a histogram?

Answer 34

a graph similar to a bar graph except that histogram a shoe frequency distribution by means of rectangles

Question 35

What is a normal curve?

Answer 35

a graph of frequency distribution shaped like a symmetrical, bell-shaped curve a graph of normally distributed data

Question 36

What is the mode?

Answer 36

Mode occurs the most! (Mark Podowski: most most most)

Question 37

What are inferential statistics?

Answer 37

numerical methods used to determine whether research data support a hypothesis or whether results were due to chance

Question 38

What is developmental psychology?

Answer 38

the branch of psychology that studies emotional, physical, cognitive, biological, personal, and social changes that occur throughout an individual's life cycles

Question 39

Describe two reflex capacities of newborns.

Answer 39

grasping reflex and rooting reflex

Question 40

What is maturation?

Answer 40

the internally programmed growth of a child

Question 41

What is telegraphic speech?

Answer 41

the kind of verbal utterances in which words are left out, but the meaning is usually clear

Question 42

Explain nature v nurture.

Answer 42

Nature vs nurture asks whether thoughts and behaviors are inborn or a result of a child's environment

Question 43

What is the average length of an infant at birth?

Answer 43

18 to 22 inches

Question 44

What is generavity?

Answer 44

desire in middle age to use one's accumulated wisdom to guide future generations

Question 45

What is stagnation?

Answer 45

a discontinuation of development and a desire to recapture the past, characteristic of some middle-aged people

Question 46

What is menopause?

Answer 46

the biological event in which a woman's production of sex hormones is sharply reduced

Question 47

What is empty nest syndrome?

Answer 47

the event where the last child leaves home and the mother is sad

Question 48

What are the 2 parts of the nervous system?

Answer 48

central nervous system and peripheral nervous system

Question 49

What are neurons?

Answer 49

the long, thin cells of nerve tissue along which messages travel to and from the brain