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What Is Psychology Flashcards

1
Q

What is psychology

A

The scientific study of the mind, brain and behavior

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2
Q

What makes psychology challenging and rewarding?

A

1.Human behavior is difficult to predict
2.Psychological influences are rarely independent of each other
3. Individual differences among people
4. People influence one another
5. Behavior is shaped by culture

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3
Q

Naive realism

A

The belief that we see the world precisely as it actually is in truth

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4
Q

Hypothesis

A

A specific prediction based on a theory which can then be tested

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5
Q

Emic vs etic

A

Emic is the study of behavior of a native from an insiders perspective

Etic is study of behavior from an outsiders perspective

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6
Q

Empiricism

A

The premise that knowledge should initially be acquired through observation

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7
Q

Confirmation bias mother of biases

A

The tendency to seek out evidence that supports our beliefs and deny dismiss or distort evidence that contradicts them

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8
Q

Belief perseverance

A

Tendency to stick to our initial beliefs even when evidence contradicts them

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9
Q

Pseudoscience

A

A set of claims that seem scientific but aren’t

Lacks safeguards against confirmation bias n belief perseverance

Testable beliefs not supported by evidence

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10
Q

Warning signs of pseudoscience

A

Ad hoc immunizing hypotheses
Lack of self correction
Over reliance on anecdotes

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11
Q

Apophenia

A

Finding connections among unrelated or random phenomenon

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12
Q

Pareidoila

A

Seeing meaningful images in meaningful visual stimuli

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13
Q

Emotional reasoning fallacy

A

Using emotion rather than evidence as the guide

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14
Q

Bandwagon fallacy

A

Lots of people believe it so it must be true

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15
Q

Not me fallacy

A

Other people may have those biases but not me

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16
Q

Pseudoscience disadvantages

A

Dangerous
Opportunity cost
Direct harm
Inability to think scientifically

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17
Q

Critical thinking

A

A set of skills for evaluating all claims in a open minded and careful fashion

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18
Q

Critical thinking principles

A

Ruling out rival hypotheses (alternate explanation for considered finding)

Correlation vs causation ( can we be sure a cause b)

Falsifiability
Can the claim be disproven

Replicability (duplication)

Extraordinary Claims (convincing evidence)

Occam’s razor or KISS
Does a simpler explanation fit the data just as well

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19
Q

Frameworks that shape psychology

A

Structuralism (Wundt n EB titchner
Functionalism (William James)
Behaviorism (Watson and skinner)
Cognitivism (Piaget and neisser)
Psychoanalysis (Freud and Jung)

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20
Q

Structuralism

A

Insistence of systematic data collection and empiricism

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21
Q

Functionalism

A

Influence of evolutionary theory on modern psych

22
Q

Behaviorism

A

Helped to understand how we learn and the importance of scientific rigor

23
Q

Cognitivism

A

Focus on not only reward or punishers but on our interpretation of events

24
Q

Psychoanalysis

A

May have actually retarded scientific advances of clinical psych but Theories of mental processing outside of conscious awareness are holding up

25
Types of psychologists
Clinical Counseling School Developmental Experimental Bio psychologists Forensic
26
Two debates
Nature vs nurture Free will determinism
27
Broad categories or research
Basic - how the mind works Applied - how we use basic research to solve real world problems
28
Founder of psychoanalysis
Sigmund Freud
29
Founder of modern psychology
Wilhelm Wundt
30
First phd female first female Apa president
Mary whiton calkins
31
Founder of behaviorism
John B Watson
32
Famous psychologist; behaviorism focused on responses
B.F Skinner
33
Author of first psychology text book
William James
34
First American male earn a phd in Psyc opened first lab in US; first apa president
G Stanley hall
35
First African American female to earn phd in psychology
Inez Beverly prosser
36
Developmental and cognitive psychologist
Jean Piaget
37
First African American male psychology phd recipient
Francis Cecil summer
38
Cognitive biases
Systematic error in thinking Hindsight bias Overconfidence
39
Scientific method tools
Naturalistic observations Case study designs Self report measure and surveys Random selection Evaluating measures Rating data Correlational designs Scatterplots
40
Naturalistic observation
Watching behavior in a real world setting High external validity (generalize our findings to the real world) Low internal validity (extent in which we can draw cause n effect interferences)
41
Case study designs
Studying one person or a small number of people for an extended period of time Common w brain damage n mental illness Provide existence proofs but may be misleading and anecdotal
42
Self report measures and surveys
Questionnaires that assess characteristics such as personality or mental illness Survey are peoples opinions or abilities
43
Random selection
Key to generalizability Ensure every person in a population has an equal chance of being chosen to participate
44
Evaluating measures
To trust results measures must have Reliability - consistency of measurement Validity - extent to which a measure assesses what it claims to measure
45
Self report measures
Pros Easy to administer Direct self assessment of persons state Cons Accuracy is skewed for certain groups (narcissists) Potential for dishonesty Response sets - tendency to distort their responses Positive impression management Malingering
46
Rating data
People can be asked to rate others on different characteristics
47
Correlational designs
Examine how two variables are related Illusory correlation- perception of a statistical association where none exists
48
Determining causation
The only way to determine if one thing is casually related to another is via an experimental design
49
What makes a study an experiment?
Random assignment to the Experimental group n control group Manipulation of an independent variable Confounds - any difference between the experimental and control groups aside from IV Cause and effect - infer w/ random assignment n manipulation of IV
50
Pitfalls of experimental design
Placebo effect Nocebo effect Experimenter expectancy effect Demand characteristics
51
Ethical guidelines
Institutional review board Informed consent Justification of deception Debriefing of subjects afterwards IACUC - institutional animal care and use committee

What Is Psychology (2 decks)

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