Sub-disciplines of Psychology

Question 1

Cognitive Psychology

Answer 1

Study of:
how we perceive information
how we learn and remember
how we acquire and use language
How we solve problems

Question 2

Developmental

Answer 2

Explores how thoughts and behaviours change and show stability across the lifespan

Allows us to appreciate that organisms change and grow, and so the psychological functions are likely to change as well.

Question 3

Behavioural Neuroscience

Answer 3

Studies the links among the brain, mind, and behaviour

Can study functions of learning, emotion, social behaviours, and mental illness.

Question 4

Personality

Answer 4

Considers what makes people unique as well as the consistencies in people behaviour across time and situations.
Personality researcher addresses question such as whether our personality traits and dispositions change or stay the same from infancy to childhood to adulthood.

Question 5

Social

Answer 5

Considers how the real or imagines presence of people influences thought, feeling, and behaviour.

Question 6

Clinical

Answer 6

Focuses on diagnoses and treatment of mental, emotional, and behavioural disorders.

Question 7

Counselling

Answer 7

Tends to deal with less severe psychological disorders than clinical psychologists.
Treat and assist relatively healthy people and assist with vocational interests.

Question 8

Health

Answer 8

Examines the roles of psychological factors in physical health

Question 9

Educational

Answer 9

Studies how students learn, effectiveness of particular teaching techniques, dynamics of school populations, and psychology of teaching.

Question 10

Industrial/Organizational

Answer 10

An applied science.
Understanding the real world as opposed to lab results.
Industrial side deals with matching people to their jobs and uses psychological principles and methods to select employees and evaluate their performances.

Organizational side aims to make workers more productive and satisfied by considering how work environments and management styles influence worker motivation, productivity, and satisfaction.

Question 11

Sport

Answer 11

Factors that affect performance and participation in sport and exercise

Question 12

Forensic

Answer 12

Blend of law, psychology, and criminal justice

Forensic psychologists make legal evaluations of a persons mental competence to stand trial, the state of mind of a defendant at the time of the crime, fitness of a parents to have custody, or allegations of child abuse etc.

Question 13

Structuralism

Answer 13

Focus on the elements of the mind

• method of introspection; looking into ones own mind for information of formation of the nature of conscious experience
• Structuralists divide each experience into its elements
• Studying the conscious experiences of sensation, emotion, and images.

Question 14

Functionalism

Answer 14

Focus on the functions of the mind

• Why do people think, feel, or perceive?
• How did these abilities come to be?
• Functionalists moved beyond introspection to incorporate more objective measurements of observation.

Question 15

Behaviourism

Answer 15

Psychology can only be a true science if it examines observable behaviours, not just ideas, thoughts, or motives

• Founded by John Watson
• View that all behaviour comes from experience interacting with the world
• Nature vs Nurture
• B.F. Skinner made behaviourism major approach… believed 2 goals were prediction and control of behaviour but also believed that consequences shape behaviour
• Heavily impacted the treatment of psychological disorders

Question 16

Humanistic/Positive

Answer 16

Promoted person growth and meaning a a way of reaching ones highest potential

• created by Maslow and Rogers after criticizing all other methods
• humanists believe people are inherently good and possess the capacity for free will
• people shape their own lives
• failed by late 70’s due to lack of research and scientific base… too subjective
• Positive psychology believed that psychology should focus on studying, understanding and promoting healthy and positive psychological functioning

Question 17

Gestalt Cognitism

Answer 17

Proposed that perceptions occurs as unified wholes, where the whole is more than the sum of its parts
- brains actively shape sensory information into perceptions

Question 18

Behavioural Neuroscientists

Answer 18

Behavioural neuroscientists link psychological processes with activities in the brain.

• Wilfred Penfield: researched effects of brain injury/surgery on behaviour.
  
  • invented “Montreal Procedure” - a treatment for epilepsy by destroying brain cells where seizures originate
• Donald O. Hebb: Idea that repeated stimulation of brain cells leads to physical changes
  
  • “What fires together, wires together.”
  • multidisciplinary nature serves to integrate the practical and scientific sides, leading to coherence and cohesiveness.

Question 19

Socioculturalism

Answer 19

Examines cross-cultural differences in causes and consequences of behaviour to determine if research and theories only apply to specific populations.
-Growing up in individualistic vs collectivist culture shapes our views differently

• Individualistic: culture that emphasizes individual autonomy and success, ad expects individuals to evaluate themselves in a positive light… better than others
• Collectivist: group needs are more important than individual need… interconnectedness, and less likely to evaluate themselves in a positive light.

Question 20

Evolutionary

Answer 20

• Biological perspective
• draws on biology, cognitive science, anthropology, economics, and computer science.
• apply evolutionary principles such as natural selection and adaption to explain development of mental characteristics and behaviour

Question 21

Mind, Body, and Experience

Answer 21

• Nature vs nurture
• evidence that personalities are influenced by genetic factors AND life experiences.
• Soft-wiring: biological systems involved in thought and behaviour; genes, brain structure, brain cells etc, are inherited, yet are still open to modification from the environment.
• Nature vs nurture also referred to as “interactionist perspective”

Question 22

Mind-Body Dualism

Answer 22

• Perspective that mind controls body, and rarely the other way around
• mind and boys are separate entities
• false dichotomy… not one or the other
• our mind, thoughts, feelings and ideas - our mental world - results from our brain function, which is part of the body

Question 23

Evolution of Behaviour

Answer 23

• Change over time in the frequency with specific genes occur within a breeding species
• behaviours have genetic bases that are affected by many environmental factors
• human interaction with the world influences which genes are passed on and these in turn shape human behaviour
• take place by natural selection
• accumulation of chance mutations underlies evolutionary change
• natural selection creates structures and behaviours that solve adaptive problems

Question 24

Natural Selection

Answer 24

Feedback process whereby nature favours one design over another, depending on whether it has an impact on resproduction

Question 25

Adaptions

Answer 25

• Inherited solutions to ancestral problems that have been naturally selected because they directly contribute to reproductive success.
• adaptions evolved to solve problems in past generations… not current ones