What Is Psychology? Flashcards
Empirical Evidence
Evidence gathered by careful observation, experimentation and measurement.
Occam’s razor:
Once several explanations of a phenomenon have been gathered, a critical thinker chooses the one that accounts for the most evidence while making few assumptions.
Law of Parsimony:
Simple explanations of a phenomenon are preferred to complex ones.
Structuralism:
Analyzed sensations, images and feelings into basic elements.
Wilhelm Wundt:
Established first psychology laboratory. And was the first to announce psychology was a science.
Trained introspection:
To carefully observe, analyze and describe ones own sensations, mental images, and emotional reactions. Goal is to break down behavior into basic elements.
Gestalt Psychology:
“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” founded by Max Wertheimer
Biological perspective:
How bodily events affect behavior, feelings and thoughts
Evolutionary psychology:
How genetically influenced behavior that was adaptive during our past may be reflected in present behaviors, mental processes and traits.
Learning Perspective:
how the environment and experience affects a persons actions
Cognitive Perspective:
Emphasizes what goes on in people’s heads, how they reason, remember, understand language, solves problems, explains experiences, acquires morals and beliefs
Sociocultural Perspective:
Social and cultural forces outside the individual that shape behavior.
Psychodynamic Perspective:
Deals with the unconscious dynamics with the individual such as instincts
Humanistic Perspective:
A psychological approach that emphasizes free will, personal growth, and human achievement and potential.
Basic psychology:
Seeking knowledge for its own sake; research
Applied Psychology:
Practical uses of knowledge; working to figure out problem
Experimental psychologist:
Conduct laboratory studies of learning motivation, emotion, sensation, perception, physiological and cognitive.
Educational Psychologist:
Search for ways to improve education system and explain learning.
Developmental psychologist:
Study ways people change over time: mentally physically socially
Industrial/ organizational psychologist:
Study behaviors in the work place
Psychometric psychologist:
Design and evaluate tests of mental abilities, aptitudes and personalities.
Counseling Psychologist:
Help people deal with problems in every day life such as anxiety, family, low motivation.
Clinical Psychologist:
Diagnose, treat and study mental and emotional problems, psychotherapist
Psychiatrist:
Medical doctor, can prescribe medicine to patients that have mental disorders.
