Unit 1

Question 1

What is psychology?

Answer 1

The scientific study of the mind, brain, and behaviour.

Question 2

What are psychology’s goals?

Answer 2

To describe, explain, predict, and change behaviour.

Question 3

What are Social Culture Influences?

Answer 3

Social or behavioural level: involves relating to other and personal relationships

Question 4

Psychological?

Answer 4

Mental or Neurological level: Involves thoughts, feelings, and emotions

Question 5

Biological?

Answer 5

Molecular or Neurochemical Level: Involves molecules and brain structure

Question 6

What does multiply determined mean?

Answer 6

This means that many factors go into determining human behaviours.

Question 7

What is naive realism?

Answer 7

The mistaken belief that we see the world exactly as it is. Our perceptions aren’t always wrong but seeing is not always believing

Question 8

What is the scientific method?

Answer 8

It is a set of systematic and objective rules and procedures scientists use to gather and interpret information

Question 9

Is science neutral?

Answer 9

Scientists have biases but the best ones are aware of their biases and try to find ways to compensate for them.

Question 10

Confirmation Bias

Answer 10

The tendency to seek out evidence that supports our beliefs and deny, dismiss, or distort evidence that contradicts our beliefs.
This is the most important bias that scientists need to counter in their work

Question 11

Belief Perseverance

Answer 11

The tendency to stick to our beliefs even when evidence contradicts them
People rarely ever want to admit that they are wrong

Question 12

Do scientists ever claim to “prove” their theories and try to avoid committing to definitive conclusions?

Answer 12

No

Question 13

What is a metaphysical claim?

Answer 13

Those about the existence of god, the souls, or the afterlife.

Question 14

Can we test metaphysical claims?

Answer 14

No, but this does not mean it is wrong or that these claims are unimportant

Question 15

What is pseudoscience?

Answer 15

it is a set of claims that seem like they are scientific but they are not

Question 15

How do we spot pseudoscientific claims? #1

Answer 15

Meaningless psychobabble
- the use of fancy terms that do not make sense

Question 15

How do we spot pseudoscientific claims? #2

Answer 15

Overreliance on anecdotes
- Q ray company has many testimonials that claim it helps with pain but there is no scientific evidence to state that it helps

Question 15

How do we spot pseudoscientific claims? #3

Answer 15

Use of exaggerated claims
- Q-ray bracelets use informercials to state they rip pain out of the body

Question 16

How do we spot pseudoscientific claims? #4

Answer 16

Overuse of Ad Hoc Immunizing Hypotheses
- Most pseudoscientific claims are incapable of being refuted

Question 16

How do we spot pseudoscientific claims? #5

Answer 16

Lack of connectivity to other research

Question 17

How do we spot pseudoscientific claims?#6

Answer 17

Lack of connectivity, lack of review by others, and lack of self-correction
Talk of proof instead of evidence

Question 18

Emotional Reasoning Fallacy

Answer 18

Using our emotions as guides for evaluating the validity of a claim
- Instead of using evidence we use our emotions

Question 19

Bandwagon Fallacy

Answer 19

The error of assuming a claim just because many people do too

Question 20

Not Me Fallacy

Answer 20

Occurs when we believe we are immune from errors and thinking

Question 21

Why do we fall for pseudoscience?

Answer 21

• Our brains want to make order out of disorder
• We often find comfort in our own beliefs
• Many pseudoscientific claims offer us control over the world

Question 22

What are the dangers of pseudoscience?

Answer 22

Opportunity cost - pseudoscientific claims can lead people to forgo opportunities to seek effective treatments

Question 23

What are the dangers of pseudoscience?

Answer 23

Direct Harm - Pseudoscientific treatments sometimes do dreadful hard to those who receive them by causing psychological or physical damage

Question 24

What are the dangers of pseudoscience?

Answer 24

An inability to think as citizens - we need scientific thinking skills to reach educated decisions

Question 25

What is critical thinking used for?

Answer 25

Critical thinking skills are used to evaluate claims open-mindedly and careful
Critical thinking is the hallmark of scientific skepticism

Question 26

How can we think critically about claims?

Answer 26

Ruling out rival hypotheses

Question 27

How can we think critically about claims? #2

Answer 27

Correlation does not equal causation
A does not always equal B

Question 28

How can we think critically about claims? #3

Answer 28

Falsifiability
- Can the claims be disproven

Question 29

How can we think critically about claims? #4

Answer 29

Replicability - can the results be duplicated in other studies

Question 30

How can we think critically about claims? #5

Answer 30

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

Question 31

How can we think critically about pseudoscientific claims? #6

Answer 31

Occam Razor (Principle of Parsimony) - does a simpler explanation fit the data equally well

Question 32

Structuralism

Answer 32

E.B Titchener
Uses introspection to identify basic structures or elements of experience
Structuralists dream of creating a map of the elements of the consciousness

Question 33

Functionalism

Answer 33

• William James
• Aims to understand the adaptive purposes of psychological characteristics
• To understand the functions or adaptive purposes of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours n

Question 34

Who is the father of modern psychology?

Answer 34

William James

Question 35

Does functionalism in its original form exist today?

Answer 35

No

Question 36

Behaviourism

Answer 36

• John B. Watson and B.F Skinner
• Focuses on general principles of human and animal behaviour
• Observable human behaviour is the most important thing according to Watson
• The mind was viewed as a black box.
• We know what goes in and comes out but not how it is all developed

Question 37

Cognitivism

Answer 37

• Jean Piaget and Ulric Neisser)
• We are opening the black box and trying to understand it
• We are looking at the mental processes in thinking

Question 38

Psychoanalysis

Answer 38

• Sigmund Freud
• Focuses on internal processes, especially thoughts, impulses and memories that we are largely unaware of
  The goal of psychoanalysis is to decode our dreams

Question 39

What makes psychology distinctive and fascinating?

Answer 39

1. Multiply determined - many factors that go into human behaviour
2. Psychological influences are rarely independent of each other

Question 40

Individual differences

Answer 40

• People differ in thinking, emotion, personality and behaviour

Question 41

Reciprocal Determinism

Answer 41

People influence each other

Question 42

Cultural differences

Answer 42

• Their culture quite often shapes people’s behaviour

Question 43

Emic Approach

Answer 43

Investigators study the behaviour of a culture from the perspective of someone who grew up in that culture

Question 44

Etic Approach

Answer 44

Study the culture from an outsider’s perspective as opposed to someone who grew up within the culture

Question 45

When is our common sense right?

Answer 45

Our snap or five-second judgements are usually right

Question 46

What is a scientific theory not?

Answer 46

It attempts to explain only one event rather than a variety of diverse observations