Psychology Unit 1 Flashcards
What is psychology today?
It’s the scientific study of the behavior of individuals and their mental processes
What is behavioral psychology?
it focuses on observable behavior
What is cognitive psychology?
it looks at how people understand and think about the world
What is humanistic psychology?
it says basically that people can control their behavior and they want to reach their full potential
What is psychodynamic psychology?
it basically says that behavior is motivated by inner unconscious forces that people have little control over and originated from the ideas of Freud
What is evolutionary psychology?
It wants to identify behavior that results from our genetic inheritance from our ancestors
What is developmental psychology?
It looks at how thought and behavior change and show stability through a life
What is behavioral neuroscience?
It looks at the links among, brain, mind, and behavior
What is personality psychology?
It looks at what makes people unique and whether the behavior is consistent across time and situations
What is social psychology?
It looks at how the real or imagined presence of others influences thought, feeling, and behavior
What is clinical psychology?
It diagnoses and treats mental, emotions, and behavioral disorders and looks at promoting psychological health
What is health psychology?
It looks at the role of psychological factors in physical health and illness
What is educational psychology?
It studies how students learn and how effective teaching techniques are, it also looks at dynamics of school populations and the psychology of teaching
What industrial/organizational psychology?
The industrial side matches employees to jobs and selects employees and evaluates job performance. The organizational side tries to make workers more productive and satisfied by looking at how work environments and management styles influence worker motivation, satisfaction, and productivity.
What is sports psychology?
It looks at the psychological factors that affect performance and participation in sports and exercise.
What is community psychology?
It looks at how individuals are to and part of their communities
What is forensic psychology?
It blends psychology, law, and criminal justice
What is hindsight bias?
It says that after learning an outcome, a person thinks they could have foreseen it
What is free will?
It says that behavior is caused by a person’s independent decisions but there is an argument against it that says “free will is an illusion” and that external forces guide behavior
What is determinism?
It assumes that everything has a cause in the observable world
What is a theory?
It’s a statement about the causal relation between 2 or more variables and it is induced from a a lot of observations that explain and organize facts
What is a hypothesis?
It’s a testable prediction, but it must be falsifiable
What is the operational definition?
It specifies the operations aka procedures used to produce or measure something
What is illusory correlation?
It’s an apparent relationship based on casual observations of unrelated or weakly related events (aka people see what they expect to see)
What is trephination?
It involved drilling a small hole in a skull to help with brain injury and release the spirits and demons that were believed to possess the afflicted person
What was the major contribution of Hippocrates to psychology?
theorized that personality traits and human behaviors are based on four separate temperaments associated with four fluids (humors) of the body
According to the book, what were the views on psychology proposed by ancient Chinese?
They made connections between organs and emotions. The heart housed the mind, the liver housed the spiritual soul, the lung had the animal soul, the spleen had ideas and intelligence, and the kidneys had will and vitality.
Who was the pioneer of moral treatment of the mentally ill in the U.S.?
Dorthea Dix
What modern view of psychological disorders developed at the end of the 1800s?
They are one form of illness and should be treated as medical conditions with diagnosis and therapy.
Describe the clinically based approach of psychoanalysis?
The unconscious mind is the most powerful force behind thought and behavior and that dreams have meaning and are the most direct route to the unconscious mind. It also assumes that our experiences during childhood are a big force in developing adult personality and that people use psychological defense to protect themselves. It also assumes that unconscious blocking of disturbing thoughts is at the heart of all maladaptive adult behavior.
What are the contributions of Emil Kraepelin?
He collected data on different psychological disorders and began to classify them and diagnose them (like dementia praecox - premature dementia which later turned into schizophrenia). He was also the first to distinguish thought disorders from mood disorders (depression).
What are the major differences between scientists and philosophers?
Philosophers do not collect data to test their ideas while psychologists do
What is the main contribution of Wilhelm Wundt?
He set up a laboratory in Germany that is now the birthplace of experimental psychology. He is credited for giving psychology its independence from philosophy and physiology.
Who is the founder of American Psychology?
William James
Who was Mary Whiton Calkins?
She was the first female president of the APA (American Psychological Association) in 1905. She conducted research on dreaming, gender issues, and self-image.
What’s the difference between structuralism and functionalism?
Structuralism is concerned with the structure of the mind. Functionalism is concerned with things people do or try to get done
Describe the Nature-Nurture Debate:
The nature view believes that who we are comes from inborn tendencies and genetic traits. The nurture view states we are essentially the same at birth and we are the product of our own experiences. We have moved to nature through nurture where the environment interacts with biology to shape who we are and what we do.
How is validity and reliability defined?
Reliability is when the test or measure gives us consistent results over time or between different scientific observers. Validity is when a scientist says they are measuring a concept, they are actually measuring that concept.
What does pseudoscience refer to? What is the difference between science and pseudoscience?
It refers to practices that appear to be and claim to be science but do not use the scientific method to reach their conclusions. The difference between science and pseudoscience is open skepticism.
According to Derry (1999) what defines pseudoscience practitioners?
They disregard facts that contradict their claims, do not challenge their own assumptions, and offer vague or incomplete explanations of how they got to their conclusions. They make no real advances in knowledge and tend to use unsound logic in making their arguments.
According to the book, which fields may be considered as pseudoscience?
Alchemy, creation science, intelligent design, attempts to create perpetual motion machines, astrology, alien abduction, psychokinesis, and some forms of mental telepathy.
Why do researchers draw on small subsets of each population to collect data?
Because most populations are too large to survey or interview directly
How are samples and populations defined?
What is the difference between sample and population? Samples are small subsets of each population while populations are the entire group a researcher is interested in.
How would you define descriptive designs?
It’s when the researcher makes no prediction and does not try to control any variables. They just define the problem of interest and describe the variable of interest.
In the context of experimental studies, how does a quasi-experimental design differ from an experimental design?
A true experiment uses random assignment of participants while quasi-experiments do not.
What defines a naturalistic observation? What are the advantages of using this design?
It’s when the researcher observes and records behavior in the real world. The advantages are that it allows researchers to study actual behavior in the real world rather than in a controlled setting where people might not behave naturally.
What’s the difference between quantitative research and qualitative research?
Qualitative research involves data gathered from open-ended and unstructured answers rather than quantitative research which gathers quantitative or numeric answers.
What is a representative sample?
A research sample that accurately reflects the population of people one is studying.
How do control and experimental groups differ in an experiment?
The control group does not receive the treatment aka the independent variable while experimental groups do receive the treatment.
What are confounding variables? How can this affect the results of the experiment?
A variable that is related to the cause and the effect of the study, which could mean causation of an experiment could not be concluded.
What are the differences between single-blind studies and double-blind studies?
Single-blind studies mean the participants do not know the experimental condition they have been assigned while the experimenter does. In double-blind studies, neither the participants nor the researchers know who has been assigned which condition.
What is social desirability bias?
The tendency toward favorable self-presentation that could lead to inaccurate self-reports.
What are the ethical guidelines psychological and medical researchers must adhere to?
Informed consent, respect for persons, beneficence, privacy and confidentiality, justice
What are the two main parts of the nervous system and their components (or branches)?
Central nervous system (CNS) - includes brain and spinal cord
Peripheral Nervous system (PNS) - all other nerve cells in the body
- Somatic nervous system
- Autonomic nervous system (ANS): Sympathetic nervous system, Parasympathetic nervous system
What are the roles of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems?
Sympathetic nervous system - Activates body systems in times of emergence (fight or flight), Parasympathetic nervous system - returns body to a less active and restful state
What are the primary functions of glia cells and neurons?
Glia cells hold neurons in place, insulate them, and remove waste products. Neurons transmit information throughout the nervous system and receive and integrate and generate messages.
What is the structure of a neuron?
Axon, dendrites, cell body
What is the difference between motor and sensory neurons?
Motor neurons take commands from the brain and carry to muscles. Sensory Neurons receive incoming sensory information from sense organs.
Define the process of reuptake.
When the sending neuron absorbs the excess neurotransmitters in the synapse.
What are the main neurotransmitters discussed in the book? What are their main functions?
Acetylcholine is involved in learning, memory, sleeping, eating, drinking, and dreaming. Dopamine is involved in arousal, mood, and voluntary muscle control. Epinephrine increases ANS activity and is involved in the fight or flight response. Norepinephrine affects CNS activity, has a role in increasing alertness and attention. Serotonin plays a role in mood, sleeping, eating, and temperature regulation. GABA is a major inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain. Glutamate is the most common excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain, involved with learning and memory.
What is the difference between inhibitory and excitatory neurotransmitters?
Inhibitory neurotransmitters decrease the likelihood of a neuron firing. Excitatory neurotransmitters increase the likelihood of an action potential.
What are the main brain regions? What are the main functions of these regions?
HIndbrain regulates breathing, heart rate, arousal and other basic functions of survival. Midbrain controls the eye muscles, processes auditory and visual information, and initiates voluntary movement of the body. Forebrain controls cognitive, sensory, and motor functions and regulates temperature, reproductive functions, eating, sleeping and displays of emotion.
What are the main parts (or structures) of the hindbrain and midbrain? What are their functions?
Hindbrain - medulla, pons, and cerebellum. Medulla - regulates breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, and is involved in reflexing responses. Pons regulates body movement and other autonomic functions. Cerebellum is responsible for body movement, balance, coordination and other fine-motor skills and is important in cognitive activities like learning and language. Midbrain - reticular formation - plays a key role in wakefulness.
What are the functions of the hypothalamus and hippocampus?
Hypothalamus regulates all of our major drives and motivations and controls the pituitary gland which is responsible for producing and controlling hormones. Hippocampus plays a vital role in learning and memory.
What is the main function of the amygdala?
It determines the emotional significance of stimuli especially with fear and processes facial expressions of emotion.
What is the role of the cingulate gyrus and the basal ganglia?
The cingulate gyrus is important in attention and cognitive control. The basal ganglia is involved in voluntary motor control.
What is the cerebrum?
It’s the uppermost portion of the brain where thought, planning, perception, and consciousness takes place.
