Test 1 Flashcards
What is psychology?
Greek: psyche (soul) logos (to study)
What is psychology according to the book?
The science of mind and behavior
What is psychology according to Mana?
The scientific investigation of the mind, brain, and behavior
What is the mind?
Unobservable, private, inner states, inferred from changes in brain or behavior processes like love, or reward
What is the brain?
the organ of mind and behavior. Processes sensory info, integrates this with internal states and previous experiences and generates behaviors that allow interactions with the environment
MIND IS WHAT BRAIN DOES
What is behavior?
observable, measurable actions. It allows the mind to interact with the external world.
What is nativism?
Who believed in this?
Plato-certain kinds of knowledge are innate or inborn
What did Aristotle believe?
He believed that we should trust our senses, as we learn through experience.
What is the “naive debate?”
behavior is a function of genetic potential (genome) allowed to be more or less expressed by environmental constraints (envirome) modulated by an organisms previous experiences and current needs. Behavior is due to nature AND nurture.
Who was Decartes?
He was a famous French philosopher. He concluded “I think, therefore I am,” while pondering what is true in the world. Free will. Proposed that the mind and the brain are separable. He was a dualist.
What is dualism?
It is how mental activity can be reconciled and coordinated with physical behavior
Who was William Wundt?
He was the Father of Scientific Psychology.
- established the 1st psychology lab in 1877
- he searched for simplest units of behavior to understand the structure of mind
- introspection
- initiated study of how culture affects mind and behavior, realized that psy. functions of non-western cultures can differ dramatically from our own
What is introspection?
asking a person what they were thinking
Who was Charles Darwin?
Theory of Evolution.
- argued that natural selection is critical to the evolution of species
- his ideas led to comparative psy., an important step in the development of biological psy./neuroscience
Who was William James?
- 1st American Psy
- believed the mind could not be studied in parts, but had to be looked at as a whole
- believed that psy. should move out of the lab and emphasize real-world situations and that the way a behavior helped an animal function in its environment was its most important feature
Who was Sigmund Freud?
He proposed that basis for much of adult thought and behavior is unconscious, influenced by early experience, and by painful or socially taboo experiences
Who was Abraham Maslow?
- discouraged by the darkness and negativism of psychoanalysis
- proposed a humanistic psy that focused on promoting positive behaviors and encouraging people to become “self-actualized,” or, all that they can be
What is Maslow’s pyramid of needs?
- Self-actualization
- Esteem needs
- belongingness needs
- safety needs
- physiological needs
J.B. Watson?
- environment is everything
- psy should be studying things based on behavior and interaction with the environment
- inspired by Pavlov
- likes scientific approach
- 1st to use word “behaviorist”
Tolman?
-we learn just because we learn
A BEHAVIORIST WHO USED MAZES TO STUDY COGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN NON-HUMAN SPECIES…BELIEVED EVEN RATS WERE CAPAPBLE OF MORE THAN SIMPLE OPERANT OR CLASSICAL CONDITIONING…
Hebb?
The father of Behavioral Neuroscience.
Behavioral Neuroscience?
also known as biological psy. Uses physiological, pharmacologic, surgical, genetic, and developmental tools to scientifically study the neural bases of behavior in human and non-human animals
Cognitive psy?
the study of mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, and thinking.
Developmental psy?
the scientific study of changes that occur in human beings over the course of their life. originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult development, aging, and the entire lifespan
Social psy?
the scientific study of the causes and consequences of interpersonal behavior…of how people’s thoughts, feeling, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others.