Sub-disciplines of Psychology Flashcards
Cognitive Psychology
Study of: how we perceive information how we learn and remember how we acquire and use language How we solve problems
Developmental
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.
Behavioural Neuroscience
Studies the links among the brain, mind, and behaviour
Can study functions of learning, emotion, social behaviours, and mental illness.
Personality
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.
Social
Considers how the real or imagines presence of people influences thought, feeling, and behaviour.
Clinical
Focuses on diagnoses and treatment of mental, emotional, and behavioural disorders.
Counselling
Tends to deal with less severe psychological disorders than clinical psychologists.
Treat and assist relatively healthy people and assist with vocational interests.
Health
Examines the roles of psychological factors in physical health
Educational
Studies how students learn, effectiveness of particular teaching techniques, dynamics of school populations, and psychology of teaching.
Industrial/Organizational
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.
Sport
Factors that affect performance and participation in sport and exercise
Forensic
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.
Structuralism
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.
Functionalism
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.
Behaviourism
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