Unit 1-2 Flashcards
What is Dualism?
The belief that the mind and body are two separate things.
What is Materialism?
The belief that all mental phenomena can be reduced to physical phenomena.
What is Nativism?
The belief that what we know is built in, not taught
What is Empiricism?
The belief that our environment shapes who we are
What is Nature vs Nurture?
The theories that we have certain ideas hard wired into us since birth vs us learning from our environments
What is Phrenology?
A (now discredited) study of linking the brain and mental processes; thought things like ‘bigger brains mean smarter people’, never grasped that different areas of the brain could control different things.
Who started the idea of Phrenology?
Franz Joseph Gall
What is Structuralism?
The analysis of basic elements that constitute the mind
Theorists of Structuralism?
William Wundt, Edward Titchner
What is Functionalism?
The study of how mental processes enable adaption to your environment
Theorists of Functionalism?
William James
What do Structuralism and Functionalism share in common?
Both act on the idea of studying the mind scientifically.
What is Behaviorism?
The idea that psychologists were restricting themselves to solely observable behavior; seeing a cause vs effect, stimulus vs reaction
Timeline of Functionalism, Behaviorism, Cognitive Revolution, and Structuralism?
Structuralism, Functionalism, Behaviorism starts Cognitive Revolution
What is the Cognitive Revolution?
A shift of how we study Psychology in the 1950’s that focused on the internal mental processes that drive human behavior.
What are the 3 challenges of studying human psychology?
Variability, Complexity, and Reactivity
Who is usually in Psych experiments?
W.E.I.R.D: western, educated, industrialized, rich, democracy. Complexity.
What is the cross culture Muller-Lyer test an example of?
Variability; people from other countries could see the same line when americans could not.
What is the Hawthorne Effect an example of?
Reactivity; the study showed that environment didn’t change the production as much as being under observation did.
What is the Case method?
Gathering information off one case/individual.
Who was Phineas Gage and what happened to him?
Phineas Gage was a railroad worker who had an iron rod go through his skull. It didn’t kill him, but he was almost an entirely different person in his actions after that.
What did the Phineas Gage case teach us?
It taught scientists about the role of the frontal lobe in personality and it’s specialization in brain function.
What are the pros vs cons of the case study method?
Pros: study rare events, insight into new areas of research.
Cons: difficult to replace, lack of genericity.
What is the correlation method?
Studying how ____ effects _____
What are the pros vs cons of the correlation method?
Peos: Helps determine correlation vs direct causes of things.
Cons: Doesn’t account for causation ex. shared genes
Why do we use the correlation method if it can’t account a direct cause?
- The correlation method is more about prediction and making educated guesses over causation ex. may not discover the cause of autism but can predict it.
- Some variables are unethical/impossible to manipulate, so this gives us insight on natural, ‘wild’ behavior.
