Unit 1: History & Approaches

Question 1

Three elements of a scientific attitude

Answer 1

curiosity, skepticism, humility

Question 2

Rene Descartes

Answer 2

• agreed with Socrates and Plato about the existence of innate ideas and the mind’s being entirely separate from the body
• experimentation ruled that memories formed as experiences that opened nerve pathways important to enable/affect reflexes

Question 3

John Locke

Answer 3

• British political philosopher
• the mind at birth is a blank slate
• empiricism (along with bacon): the idea that knowledge comes from experience, and observation and experimentation enable scientific knowledge

Question 4

Wilhelm Wundt

Answer 4

• “father of psychology”
• established the first psychology lab at a German university
• developed experimental apparatus to test consciousness and measure “atoms of the mind”

Question 5

Mary Whiton Calkins

Answer 5

a pioneering memory researcher and the first woman to become president of the American Psychological Association

Question 6

Margaret Floy Washburn

Answer 6

the first woman to receive a psychology PhD, second female president of the American Psychological Association

Question 7

Cognitive psychology

Answer 7

the study of mental processes, such as those that occur when we perceive, learn, remember, think, communicate, and solve problems

Question 8

Cognitive neuroscience

Answer 8

the inter-disciplinary study of the brain activity linked with cognition (including perception, thinking, memory, and language)

Question 9

Nature-nurture issue

Answer 9

longstanding controversy of the relative contributions genes (nature) and our experiences (nurture) make to the development of certain psychological traits and behaviors

Question 10

Natural selection

Answer 10

the principle that inherited traits that better enable an organism to survive and reproduce in its environment will most likely be passed down to succeeding generations

Question 11

Behavior genetics

Answer 11

the study of the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behavior

Question 12

Positive psychology

Answer 12

the scientific study of human flourishing, with the goal of discovering and promoting strengths and virtues that help individuals and communities to thrive

Question 13

Biopsychosocial approach

Answer 13

an integrated approach that combines biological, psychological, and socio-cultural viewpoints

Question 14

Behavioral approach

Answer 14

• how we learn observable responses
• based on observable behaviors and actions; does not pay attention to cognitive processes because they are not observable

Question 15

Biological approach

Answer 15

• how the body and brain enable emotions, memories, and sensory experiences
• how genes combine with the environment to influence individual differences

Question 16

Cognitive approach

Answer 16

• how we encode, process, store, and retrieve information
• how an individual processes the world around them and why they are processing it that way

Question 17

Evolutionary approach

Answer 17

• how the natural selection of traits has promoted the survival of genes

Question 18

Humanistic approach

Answer 18

• how we meet our needs for love and acceptance and achieve self-fulfillment
• free will and individual choice; potential for growth

Question 19

Psychodynamic approach

Answer 19

• how behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts
• influences of childhood trauma/unfulfilled wishes

Question 20

Socio-cultural approach

Answer 20

• how behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures

Question 21

Scientific method

Answer 21

• Theory
• Hypothesis
• Operational definitions
• Replication

Question 22

Descriptive methods

Answer 22

methods to describe behaviors,

**case studies: a descriptive technique in which one group or individual is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles
- strengths: require only one participant, weakness: single cases may be misleading, no control of variables

**surveys: a descriptive technique for obtaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of a particular group, usually by questioning a representative sample
- strengths: quick and inexpensive, weakness: no control of variables

**naturalistic observation: observing and recording behavior in a naturally occurring situation without trying to manipulate/control it
- strengths: require only one participant, can be done when inethical to manipulate variables, weakness: single cases may be misleading, no control of variables

Question 23

Correlational methods

Answer 23

methods associating different factors or variables

strengths: works with large groups of data, may be used in situations where experimentation is inethical/impossible

Weaknesses: does not specify cause and effect

Question 24

Experimental methods

Answer 24

methods used to manipulate variables to discover their effects

strengths: specifies cause and effect, variables are controlled

weaknesses: sometimes not feasible, results may not generalize to other contexts, not ethical to manipulate certain varibales

Question 25

Population

Answer 25

all those in a group being studied, from which samples may be drawn (survey)

Question 26

Random sample

Answer 26

a sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion

Question 27

Correlation

Answer 27

a measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and thus how well either factor predicts the other

• measured by a correlational coefficient (a statistical index of the relationship between two things from -1.00 to +1,00); a score very close to -1 or +1 means a very obvious positive or negative correlation

Question 28

Illusory correlation

Answer 28

perceiving a relationship where none exists, or perceiving a stronger-than-actual relationship

Question 29

Regression toward the mean

Answer 29

The tendency for extreme/unusual scores to fall back toward the average - extraordinary happenings tend to be followed by ordinary ones

Question 30

Random assignment

Answer 30

assigning participants to experimental and control groups by chance, thus minimizing preexisting differences between different groups

Question 31

Double-blind procedure

Answer 31

when both the researchers and participants are blind to who is being tested and who receives a placebo

Question 32

Confounding variable

Answer 32

a factor that is aside from the one being studied that might influence a study’s results

Question 33

Descriptive statistics

Answer 33

numerical data used to measure and describe characteristics of groups - includes measures of central tendency and measures of variation

Question 34

Histogram

Answer 34

a bare graph depicting a frequency distribution

Question 35

Skewed distribution

Answer 35

a representation of scores that lack symmetry around their average value

Question 36

Standard deviation

Answer 36

a computed measure of how much scores very around the mean score

Question 37

Normal curve

Answer 37

A symmetrical bell-shaped curve; most scores fall near the mean

About 95 percent of cases fall within two standard deviations. Thus, about 68 percent of any group of people taking an intelligence test will score within one standard deviation.

Question 38

Inferential statistics

Answer 38

numerical data that allow one to generalize - to infer from sample data the probability of something being true of a population

Question 39

3 Principles of reliable generalization

Answer 39

1. representative samples are better than biased samples
2. less-variable observations are more reliable than those that are more-variable
3. more cases are better than fewer

Question 40

Statistical significance

Answer 40

a statistical statement of how likely it is that an obtained result occurred by chance