Topic 1 (Psychology: Mental Processes and Behaviour) Flashcards
Positive Psychology
Harnessing positive emotions.
Encouragement to flourish.
Psychology
The scientific investigation of mental processes (thinking, remembering, feeling) and behaviour.
At which intersection does psychology lie?
Micro-level of biology and macro-level of culture.
Triple-bookkeeping
Tracking biological events, psychological experience and cultural/historical context.
What do psychological anthropologists study?
Phenomena in other cultures by observing people in their natural settings.
Cross-cultural psychology
Examining the patterns of behaviour across different cultures.
Biopsychology
Behavioural neuroscience which investigates the physical bases of psychological phenomena.
What do biopsychologists do?
Examine behaviour through genetics, neurological and nervous system processes.
Localisation of function
The extent to which different brain parts control different aspects of functioning.
Broca’s Aphasia
Involves difficulty producing speech
Wernicke’s Aphasia
It involves difficulty comprehending language.
Sociocultural perspective
Social interaction and cultural determinants of behaviour and mental processes.
Cultural psychology
Patterns in behaviours and how culture influences them.
Free will
People make free choices
Determinism
Forces outside our control determine our actions.
Father of psychology.
Found that the basic elements of human consciousness were sensations and feelings.
Wilhelm Wundt
Introspection
Looking inward and reporting one’s conscious experience.
Who am I? Student of Wundt. Advocated for introspection. Hoped to devise periodic table of human consciousness.
Edward Titchener
School of thought influenced by interest in the structure of consciousness.
Only believed in experimentation.
Structuralism
Interested in the whole mind and function of psychological processes and holistic research.
Functionalism
Behaviour is largely the result of unconscious processes, motivation and early experiences.
Psychodynamic
Interpretation of verbal discourse, slips of the tongue, dreams, fantasies, actions and postures; case studies; limited experimentation.
Psychodynamic methods
Consciousness is like the tip of an iceberg; the mind is like a battleground for warring factions.
Psychodynamic metaphors
Behaviour is learned and selected by its environmental consequences.
Behaviourist perspective
Humans and other animals are like machines; the mind is like a black box.
Behaviourist metaphor
Experimentation with humans and other animals
Behaviourist method
Pioneered American behaviourism.
John Watson
A broad system of theoretical assumptions that a scientific community uses to make sense of its domain of study.
A paradigm
What are the main elements of a paradigm?
Theoretical model, shared metaphors and set of methods.
Behaviour and experience are shaped by the need to self-actualise, to fulfil one’s inner potential.
Humanistic perspective
Life is like a bottle of milk — the cream always rises to the top. This is an optimistic view of behaviour, emphasising that everyone aims to be the ‘best’ person they can be.
Humanistic metaphor
Person-centred therapeutic approach that emphasises empathy, acceptance and respect for the individual.
Humanistic method
Behaviour is the product of information processing: storage, transformation and retrieval of data
Cognitive perspective
The mind is like a computer; enduring patterns of thought are like software.
Cognitive metaphor
Experimentation with humans; computer modelling.
Cognitive method
Psychological processes reflect evolutionary process of natural selection.
Evolutionary perspective
Life is like a race for survival and reproduction.
Evolutionary metaphor
Deduction of explanations for traits and behaviours; cross-species and cross-cultural comparisons; limited experimentation
Evolutionary method
When does Freud believe personality behinds to emerge?
Childhood
What are the major criticisms of psychodynamic perspective?
Reliance on retrospective accounts, the falsifiability criterion and the unconscious can’t be measured.
What is involved in learning?
Biochemical changes in brain cells and neural circuits.
Cartesian dualism?
The natures of mind and body are completely different from one another.
What perspective uses biofeedback?
Behavourism
People are motivated to reach their full potential.
Self-actualisation
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Adaptive traits
Characteristics that help organisms to adjust and survive in their environment.
An early school of thought using introspection to uncover elements of consciousness.
Structuralism
A field exploring evolutionary and biological bases of human social behavior.
Sociobiology
What do rationalist philosophers emphasize?
The role of reason in creating knowledge.
What do psychologists examine?
Why people behave as they do, considering underlying thought processes.
What is person-centred therapy?
Carl Rogers’ therapeutic approach focusing on the individual’s phenomenal world.
A theory stating that natural forces select traits that help organisms adapt to their environment.
Natural selection
The transformation, storage, and retrieval of environmental inputs through thought and memory.
Information processing
What is inclusive fitness?
Natural selection favours organisms that support the survival and reproduction of their kin.
What does Gestalt psychology focus on?
The active experience of imposing order on details by seeing them as parts of a larger whole.
An early school of thought looking for explanations of psychological processes in terms of their function in adaptation.
Functionalism
What is the falsifiability criterion?
The requirement that hypotheses must be framed to allow for them to be proven false.
What does ethology study?
Animal behaviour from a biological and evolutionary perspective.
What is empiricism?
The belief that scientific knowledge comes from systematic observation and experimental observation.
What is cognition?
Thought and memory
Who pioneered the behaviourist perspective?
John Watson and B. F. Skinner.
What does behavioural genetics study?
Genetic and environmental bases of psychological differences.
Who developed structuralism?
Edward Titchener
What did structuralism attempt to uncover?
The basic elements of consciousness and their combinations.
What are the earliest schools of thought in psychology?
Structuralism and functionalism
What therapy did Carl Rogers develop?
Client-centered
Who was a founder of functionalism?
William James
