Science of Psychology Flashcards
Give 3 contributions from Descartes to psychological foundations
Dualism
The malevolent demon
Reflexes
What is dualism and who’s concept is it
separation of mind and body; Descartes
Who is the father of modern psychology
Wilhelm Wundt
What year was the first experimental laboratory established and where
1879; Leipzig in Germany
What is structuralism
Studying the structure of the mind to construct such subject matter into a table of elements. Learn about the brain by breaking down elements into basic functions. Relied on introspection
What is introspection
breaking down elements into their component structures by training introspectionists to observe stimuli and describe their experiences
Give a flaw of introspection
Behaviourists in particular believed their was subjective bias in the reports given
What did Wundt contribute to psychology
Introspection; the first lab; structuralism
What is functionalism
Protest against structuralism; looking to organism function to understand behaviour.
What is psychology based upon; specify
philosophy; animism
What came first, structuralism or functionalism
structuralism
Who came up with functionalist psychology
James
What was James influenced by
Darwin’s theory of evolution
What is behaviourism
The scientific study of behaviour; relation between environ and behaviour; what goes on inside mind is irrelevant as cannot be studied
What is the cognitive perspective
The scientific study of mental processes. Took notions of Wundt and James and applied rigorous
control procedures to reduce possibility of subjective bias.
What is the humanistic perspective
emphasising holism to move away from the reduction of the human being to an “organism” that “responds to environmental stimuli.” emphasises the needs and goals of the individual; free will important
What is the psychodynamic perspective in psychology
Unconscious motivating forces that guide behaviour and
produce our personality. Human personality consists of an id, an ego and superego. Has strong statements regarding human development and particular stages that children go through.
What is the biological perspective
All behaviour and mental processes can be traced to physical causes. In the brain and nervous system, behaviour is tied to neural activity
What is the evolutionary perspective
Looks at genetics and sociobiology. Behaviour is determined by genes and the reason for our existence is to reproduce our genes.
Give 3 examples of behaviourists
Pavlov, Skinner and Watson
Give an example of a cognitive psychologist
Ebbinghaus
Give 2 examples of humanistic psychologists
Maslow and Rogers
Give 2 examples of psychodynamic psychologists
Freud and Jung
Give 2 examples of biological psychologists
Broca and Wernicke
Give 3 examples of evolutionary psychologists
Darwin, Dawkins and Wilson
What was key about Watson
he reacted against the subjective, possibly biased, schools
of structuralism and functionalism.
Give 2 behaviourist concepts
Classical conditioning and operant conditioning
What is classical conditioning and who researched into it
CS becomes associated with US in order to produce a CR- a learned response to the previously neutral stimulus. Pavlov and Watson
What is operant conditioning and who researched into it
Behaviour shaped by the consequences of behaviour -
reinforcement and punishment. Skinner
What did Ebbinghaus research into
memory
What is the cognitive revolution
prevalence of cognitive psychology in different psychological areas
What did Maslow contribute to humanistic psychology
The hierarchy of needs
What did Rogers contribute to humanistic psychology
Client centred therapy and concept of ‘the self’
Why is the psychodynamic approach less influential now than in the 1950/60s
Difficulty in testing the theories it presents. And some of the notions are far-fetched e.g. penis envy
How has the biological approach aided modern psychology
Know a great deal about the brain, its
structure, the cells and their function, role of
chemicals in the brain.
What has the biological approach become more focussed on
Cognitive Neuroscience
What 3 things does evolution require to work
- A self-replicating unit (usually a gene)
- Some random variability in its replication (mutation)
- Pressure to select on that variability
