Chapter 1: What is Psychology?

What was the major difference in emphasis between Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener?

Wundt emphasized how the elements of consciousness were related, while Titchener focused on identifying the basic elements themselves.

Marcy is seeing a psychologist who uses the psychodynamic approach to treat her various phobias. The psychologist treating Marcy was likely influenced by the work of:

Freud

Counseling psychology

Helping people adjust, adapt, and cope with personal and interpersonal challenges; improving well-being, alleviating distress and maladjustment, and resolving crises.

Meta-analysis?

Meta-analysis involves pooling the results of several studies into a single analysis. By creating one large pool of data to be analyzed, meta-analysis can help reveal overall trends that may not be evident in individual studies.

statistics

Researchers use the methods of a branch of mathematics known as statistics to analyze, summarize, and draw conclusions about the data they have collected.

Cognitive psychology

Researching mental processes, including reasoning and thinking, problem solving, memory, perception, mental imagery, and language.

Health psychology

Researching psychological factors in the development, prevention, and treatment of illness; stress and coping; promoting health-enhancing behaviors.

Jamie's psychology professor explains to his class that behavior and personality are influenced by conflicts between one's inner desires, which occur at an unconscious level. The beliefs of Jamie's professor most closely resemble those of:

Sigmund Freud.

Experimental psychology

Studying basic psychological processes, including sensation and perception, and principles of learning, emotion, and motivation.

Developmental psychology

Studying physical, social, and psychological changes that occur at different ages and stages of the life span.

Social psychology

Understanding how an individual's thoughts, feelings, and behavior are affected by social environments and the presence of other people.

Industrial/organizational psychology

Understanding the relationship between people and work.

naturalistic observation.

When psychologists systematically observe and record behaviors as they occur in their natural settings, they are using the descriptive method called

Professor Yu is a full-time instructor at a community college. He has been working with a group of students recently to help increase awareness of diversity, ethnicity, and ethnocentrism across the college and community. Which of the following is Professor Yu's overall focus?

culture

Misti is scared of clowns but does not remember ever being exposed to clowns. According to psychoanalytic theory, what might cause her fear of clowns?

her unconscious mind

Dr. Evans is in the process of publishing an article on people's motivations to grow psychologically and the importance of choice and self-direction in striving to reach one's potential. Dr. Evans's specialty field is probably _____ psychology.

humanistic

The purpose of Freud's psychoanalytic approach to therapy is to:

identify one's unconscious thoughts and bring them into one's awareness.

Descriptive research ?

includes research strategies for observing and describing behavior, including identifying the factors that seem to be associated with a particular phenomenon.

Dr. Payton is a psychiatrist who believes that the source of all human behavior comes from the unconscious mind. Dr. Payton likely follows which school of thought in psychology?

psychoanalysis

A focus on the extent to which behaviors and personality spring from drives and conflicts outside one's own awareness is most relevant to the _____ perspective.

psychodynamic

Carolina is studying the style differences in the play of three-year-old boys and girls. In what scientific field is she working?

psychology

Marissa is studying chimpanzee decision making behavior. In what scientific field is she working?

psychology

Descartes introduced the doctrine called "interactive dualism." Contemporary psychologists continue to debate some of the ideas behind this doctrine, which states that:

the mind and body are separate entities that interact to produce sensations, emotions, and conscious experiences.

In order to explain phenomena, researchers will use _____ as part of the scientific method to synthesize observations.

theories

School psychology

Applying psychological principles and findings in primary and secondary schools.

Educational psychology

Applying psychological principles and theories to methods of learning.

Applied psychology

Applying the findings of basic psychology to diverse areas; examples include sports psychology, media psychology, forensic psychology, rehabilitation psychology, and military psychology.

As part of the overall process of producing empirical evidence, psychologists follow the four basic steps of the scientific method. In a nutshell, these steps are:

Formulate a specific question that can be tested. Design a study to collect relevant data. Analyze the data to arrive at conclusions. Report the results

Personality psychology

Explaining the nature of human personality, including the uniqueness of each person, traits, and individual differences.

Biological psychology

Exploring relationships between psychological processes and the body's physical systems; neuroscience refers specifically to the study of the brain and the rest of the nervous system.

Clinical psychology

Focusing on the causes, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of psychological disorders.

a hypothesis ?

a hypothesis is a tentative statement that describes the relationship between two or more variables. A hypothesis is often stated as a specific prediction that can be empirically tested, such as "strong social networks are associated with greater well-being in college students."

The area of psychology that focuses on how people process and remember information, develop language, solve problems, and think is described as the _____ perspective.

cognitive

Which perspective would be MOST relevant to understanding the role of the practice effect on test performance?

cognitive

Which specialty of psychology examines mental processes that direct behavior, focusing on concepts such as thinking, memory, and language?

cognitive psychology

Natalie and Ray are seeing Dr. Becker for marital issues. Neither one of them has any psychopathology, but they are interested in strengthening their relationship. Dr. Becker is most likely a _____ psychologist.

counseling

An operational definition ?

defines the variable in very specific terms as to how it will be measured, manipulated, or changed. Operational definitions are important because many of the concepts that psychologists investigate—such as memory, happiness, or stress—can be defined and measured in more than one way.

Professor Sanchez is studying and trying to identify the sequence of behaviors children display when they are angry with other children. Which of the four basic goals of psychology is Professor Sanchez demonstrating?

describe

Descriptive research?

designs include strategies for observing and describing behavior. Using descriptive research designs, researchers can answer important questions, such as when certain behaviors take place, how often they occur, and whether they are related to other factors, such as a person's age, ethnic group, or educational level.

Dr. Simpson performs research studying sensation and perception. Dr. Simpson is a(n) _____ psychologist.

experimental

is used to demonstrate a cause-and-effect relationship between changes in one variable and the effect that is produced on another variable.

experimental research

Dr. Chu is doing research to acquire evidence as to why people become angry when they are driving in busy traffic. Which of the four basic goals of psychology is Dr. Chu demonstrating?

explain

Jolie was a participant in a study in which she was asked to think and record her feelings about various objects presented to her. Jolie was asked to use:

introspection

The structuralist approach was both applauded and criticized for its emphasis on _____.

introspection

When Carmen was younger and she got in trouble for doing something wrong, her mother would ask her to take notes of how she felt after getting into trouble. What method was Carmen's mother using?

introspection

A variable?

is simply a factor that can vary, or change. These changes must be capable of being observed, measured, and verified.

experimental research ?

is used to show that one variable causes change in a second variable. In an experiment, the researcher deliberately varies one factor and then measures the changes produced in a second factor

longitudinal design

longitudinal design tracks a particular variable or set of variables in the same group of participants over time, sometimes for years.

A researcher is interested in determining whether infant crying and caretaker responses are different in developed and developing nations. She trains her research assistants to watch and record babies' behaviors in 3-minute increments, including variations in crying (e.g., whimpering, pain cries, etc.), as well as caregiver responses (e.g., holding, speaking, etc.). She then chooses 50 participants in four different countries to be included in her study. What type of research design is she using?

naturalistic observation

According to the scientific method, a good _____ helps others understand how to perform an observation or take a measurement.

operational definition

Basic research on persistent human traits, such as optimism and pessimism, is MOST characteristic of the specialty known as _____ psychology.

personality

Professor Rolando's research is concerned with normal differences in people's general ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Professor Rolando's specialty is:

personality psychology.

A neuroscientist can best be characterized as someone who:

specializes in the study of the brain and the nervous system.

statistically significant?

statistically significant, it means that the results are not very likely to have occurred by chance. As a rule, statistically significant results confirm the hypothesis.

A correlation coefficient indicates the:

strength or weakness of the relationship between two factors.

Titchener is to _____ as Freud is to psychoanalysis.

structuralism