Pysche Chpt 1

Sample

Part of a population

Organizational Psychologist

Study the behavior of people in organizations such as businesses.

Naturalistic Observation

A scientific method in which organisms are observed in their natural environment.

Principles of Critical Thinking

1. Be skeptical 2. Insist on evidence 3. Examine definitions of terms 4. Examine the Assumptions of premises of arguments 5. Be cautious in drawing conclusions from evidence 6. Consider alternative interpretations of research evidence 7. Do not oversimplify 8. Do not overgeneralize 9. Applycritical thinking to all areas of life

Case Study

A carefully drawn biography that may be obtained through interviews, questionnaires, and psychological tests.

Population

A complete group interest to researchers, from which a sample is drawn.

Correlational Method

A mathematical method of determining whether one variable increases or decreases as another variable increases or decreases

Surveys

A method of scientific investigation in which a large sample of people answer questions about their attitudes or behavior.

Correlation Coefficient

A number between +1.00 and -1.00 that expresses the strength and direction (positive or negative) of the relationship between two variables.

Informed Consent

A participant's agreement to participate in research after receiving information about the purposes of the study and the nature of the treatment

Random Selection

A sample drawn so that each member of a population has an equal chance of being selected to participate.

Stratified Sample

A sample drawn so that identified subgroups in the population are represented proportionately in the sample.

Experiment

A scientific method that seeks to confirm cause-and-effect relationships by introducing independent variables and observing their effects on dependent variables.

Reinforcement

A stimulus that follows a response and increases the frequency of the response. - behavior has a positive outcome.

Sociocultural Perspective

Addresses many of the ways that people differ from one another. - studies the influences of ethnicity, gender, culture, and socio-economic status on behavior and mental processes.

Correlations

An association or relationship among variables, as we might find between height and weight or between a Tudeh habits and school grades.

Scientific Method

An organized way of using experience and testing ideas to expand and refine knowledge.

Social Psychologists

Are concerned with the nature and causes of individual' thoughts, feelings, and behavior in social situations. - tend to focus on social influences to explain behavior

Educational Psychologists

Attempt to facilitate learning, but they usually focus on course planning and instructional methods for a school system rather than on individual children. - research issues such as how learning is affected by psychological factors such as motivation and intelligence, sociocultural factors such as poverty and acculturation, and teachers

Control Groups

In experiments, groups whose members do not obtain the treatment, while other conditions are held constant

Consumer Psychologists

Study the behavior of shoppers in an effort to predict their behavior. - advise store managers on how to lay out the aisles of a supermarket in ways that boost impulse buying, how to arrange window displays to attract customers, and how to make newspaper ads and TV commercials more persuasive.

Developmental Psychologists

Study the changes - Physical, Cognitive, Social, and Emotional - that occur throughout the lifespan. - attempt to sort out the influences of heredity and the environment on development.

Public

They can be measured easily and different observers would agree about their existence and features.

Counseling Psychologists

Use interviews and tests to define their clients' problems. - clients typically have adjustment problems but not serious psychological disorders ex. clients may have trouble making academic or vocational decisions or making friends in college

Placebo

a bogus treatment that has the appearance of being genuine

Dependent variable

a measure of an assumed effect of an independent variable.

Humanistic-existential perspective

emphasizes the role of subjective(person) experience.

Human Factors Psychologists

make technical systems such as automobile dashboards and computer keyboards more user-friendly.

Structuralism

The school of psychology that argues that the mind consists of three basic elements - sensations, feelings, and images - that combine to form experience. -Attempted to break conscious experience down objective sensations and subjective feelings. -structuralists believed that the mind functions by combining objective and subjective elements of experience. - founded by Willhelm Wundt and his students

Behaviorism

The school of psychology that defines psychology as the study of observable behavior and studies relationships between stimuli and responses. - founded by John Broadus Watson - focuses on learning observable behavior.

Observable

refers to behaviors that are observable by means of specialized instruments, such as heart rate, blood pressure, and brain waves. They are public.

Subjective Feelings

Emotional responses and Mental Images such as memories or dreams.

Blind

In experimental terminology, unaware of whether or not one has received a treament

Objective Sensations

Sight or Taste

Psychology

The science that studies behavior and mental processes

Introspection

Deliberate looking into one's own cognitive processes to examine one's thoughts and feelings. - careful examination of one's own thoughts and emotions.

Theory

A set of hypothesized statements about the relationships among events. - propose reasons for relationships among events. -Allow us to derive explanations and predictions.

Volunteer Bias

A source of bias or error in research reflecting the prospect that people who offer to participate in research studies differ systematically from people who do not.

Forensic Psychologists

Apply psychology to the criminal justice system. - deal with legal matters. -may also treat psychologically ill offenders, consults with attorneys on matters -may conduct research on matters ranging from evaluation of eyewitness testimony to methods of interrogation

Research Question

Can have many sources.

School Psychologists

Employed by school systems to identify and assist students who have problems that interfere with learning. - help schools make decisions about the placement of students in special classes.

Industrial Psychologists

Focus on the relationships between people and work.

Cognitive perspective

Having to do with mental processes such as sensation and perception, memory, intelligence, language, thought, and problem solving. - investigate the ways we perceive and mentally represent the world. - study those things we refer to as the mind.

Clinical Psychologists

Help people with psychological disorders adjust to the demands of life. -evaluate problems such as anxiety and depression through interviews and psychological tests. -help clients resolve problems and change self-defeating behavior. - largest subgroup of psychologists ex. clients face "threats" such as public speaking, by exposing them gradually to situations in which they make presentations to actual or virtual groups.

Experimental groups

In experiments, groups whose members obtain the treatment.

Hypothesis

In psychology, a specific statement about behavior or mental processes that is tested through research.

Applied Research

Research conducted in an effort to find solutions to particular problems.

Pure Research

Research conducted without concern for immediate applications. - sparked by curiosity and desired to know and understand -enhances tomorrow's way of life

Ethnic Group

Share their cultural heritage, race, language, or history.

Experimental Psychologists

Specialize in basic processes such as the nervous system, sensation and perception, learning and memory, though, motivation, and emotion. ex. they have studied what areas of the brain are involved in processing math problems or listening to music. They used people or animals such as pigeons and rats to study learning.

Humanism

Stresses the human capacity for self-awareness, and decision making. - believe that self-awareness, experience, and choice permit us, to a large extent, to "invent ourselves" and our ways of relating to the world as we progress through life.

Health Psychologists

Study the effects of stress on health problems such as headaches, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. -guide clients toward healthier behavior patterns, such as exercising and quitting smoking.

Environmental Psychologists

Study the ways that people and the environment - the natural environment and the human-made environment - influence one another. ex. we know that extremes of temperature and loud noises interfere with learning in school. Environmental psychologists study ways to encourage people to recycle and to preserve bastions of wilderness.

Gestalt Psychology

The school of psychology that emphasizes the tendency to organize perceptions into wholes and to integrate separate stimuli into meaningful patterns. - founded by Max Wertheimer, Kurt Kofka, and Wolfang Kohler - focused on perception and how perception influences thinking and problem solving. - argued that we cannot hope to understand human nature by focusing only on overt behavior. - more than the sums of their parts - saw our perceptions as wholes that give meaning to parts - believed learning could be active and purposeful not merely responsive and mechanical

Functionalism

The school of psychology that emphasizes the uses or functions of the mind rather than the elements of experience. -focused on behavior as well as the mind or consciousness. - look at how our experience helps us function more adaptively in our environments. - founded by William James

Debrief

To explain the purposes and methods of a completed procedure to a participant.

Existentialism

Views people as free to choose and as being responsible for choosing ethical conduct.

Independent Variables

a condition in a scientific study that is manipulated so that its effects may be observed.

Double-blind study

a study in which neither the subjects nor the observers know who has received the treatment.

Sport Psychologist

help athletes concentrate on their performance and not on the crowd - use cognitive strategies such as positive visualization (imagining themselves making the right moves) to enhance performance, and avoid choking under pressure.

Personality Psychologists

identify and measure human traits and determine influences on human thought processes, feelings, and behavior. -particularly concerned with issues such as anxiety, aggression, and gender roles. -tend to look within the person to explain behavior

Gender

refers to the culturally defined concepts of masculinity and femininity. - not fully defined by anatomic sex.

Biological Perspective

seek the relationships between the brain, hormones, heredity, and evolution, on the one hand, and behavior and mental processes on the other. - study the role of heredity in behavior and mental processes - focus on the evolution of behavior and mental processes as awell

Aristotle's Contributions To Psychology

1. He argued that science could rationally treat only information gathered by the senses. 2. He numbered the so-called five senses of vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. 3. He explored the nature of cause and effect. 4. He pointed out that people differ from other living things in their capacity for rational thought. 5. He outlined laws of associationism that have lain at the heart of learning theory for more than 2,000 years. 6. He also declared that people are more motivated to seek pleasure and avoid pain - a view that remains as current today as it was in ancient Greece.

Selection Factor

A source of bias that may occur in research findings when participants are allowed to choose for themselves a certain treatment in a scientific study.

Critical Thinking

A way of evaluating the claims and comments of other people that involves skepticism and examination of evidence. - thoughtfully analyzing and probing the questions, statements, and arguments of others

Social-cognitive theorists

Suggest that people can modify and create their environments. - they note that people engage in intentional learning b observing others.

Psychoanalysis

The school of psychology that emphasizes the importance of unconscious motives and conflicts as determinants of human behavior. - developed by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) - proposes that much of our lives is governed by unconscious ideas and impulses that originate in childhood conflicts. - aims to help patients gain insight into their conflicts and to find socially acceptable ways of expressing wishes and gratifying needs.