Psychology intro and chapter 1

William James (1890)

- 1st American school of psychology - Study of the mind as it functions in adapting to its environment -functionalist

Wilhelm Wundt (1879)

- 1st psychological experiment in Leipzig, Germany - Used introspection to study the "atoms of the mind" - Considered the birth of psychology as we know it today -structuralist

Psychoanalysis (1900): Sigmund Freud

- Focused on abnormal behavior - Emphasis on the unconscious - Used free association & dream analysis

Behaviorism (1913): Watson & Skinner

- Study only what can be observed & measured objectively - Focused on how behaviors are learned & modified

Case Studies

- in-depth observations of one person or group in the hope of revealing universal principles -problem: Tends to overwhelm general truths

intuition

-an effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning -tendency to believe that we would have foreseen an outcome after we've learned it

biological influences

-genetic predispositions (genetically influenced traits) -genetic mutations -natural selection of adaptive traits and behaviors passed down through generations -genes responding to the environment

psychological influences

-learned fears and other learned expectations -emotional responses -cognitive processing and perceptual interpretations

social-cultural influences

-presence of others -cultural, societal, and family expectations -peer and other group influences -compelling models such as the media

Plato

-we inherit character and intelligence -ideas are inborn

theory is useful and good if it

1) organizes a range of self reports and observations 2) implies predictions that anyone can use to check the theory or to derive practical applications 3) stimulate further research that leads to a revised theory that better organizes and predicts what we know

From the 1920s through the 1960s, the two major forces in psychology were

Behavioralism and freudian

What advantage do we gain by using the biopsychosocial approach in studying psychological events?

By incorporating different levels of analysis, the biopsychosocial approach can provide a more complete view than any one perspective could offer.

Correlation does not equal Causation

Indicates the possibility of a cause-effect relationship but does not specify that one exists

How did the cognitive revolution affect the field of psychology?

It recaptured the field's early interest in mental processes and made them legitimate topics for scientific study.

in the early 20th century, ____________ redefined psychology as "the science of observable behavior"

John B Watson

Why did introspection fail as a method for understanding how the mind works?

People's self reports varied, depending on the experience and the person's intelligence and verbal ability.

What is contemporary psychology's position on the nature-nature debate?

Psychological events often stem from the interaction of nature and nurture, rather than from either of them acting alone.

What event defined the start of scientific psychology?

Scientific psychology began in Getmany in 1879 when Wilhelm Wundt opened the first psychology laboratory.

______ used introspection to define the mind's makeup; ______ focused on how mental processes enable us to adapt, survive and flourish

Structuralism; functionalism

What is natural selection?

The process by which nature selects from chance variations the traits that best enable an organism to survive and reproduce in a particular environment.

Why, after friends start dating, do we often feel we knew they were meant to be together?

We often suffer from hindsight bias, after we've learned a situation's outcome, that outcome seems familiar and therefore obvious.

In 1879, in psychology's first experiment, ______________ and his students measured the time lag between hearing a ball hit a platform and pressing a key.

Wilhelm Wundt

psychiatry

a branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders, practiced by physicians who sometimes provide medical treatments as well as psychological therapy

counseling psychology

a branch of psychology that assists people with problems in living and in achieving greater well being

community psychology

a branch of psychology that studies how people interact with their social environments and how social institutions affect individuals and groups

clinical psychology

a branch of psychology that studies, assesses, and treats people with psychological disorders

operational definition

a carefully worded statement of the exact procedures used in a research study

scatterplot

a graphed cluster of dots, each of which represents the values of two variables -provides a visual representation of the direction and the strength of a relationship between two variables

experiment

a research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors to observe the effect on some behavior of mental process

random sample

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

scientific method

a self correcting process for evaluating ideas with observation and analysis

correlation coefficient

a statistical index of the relationship between two things from -1 to 1

correlation

a statistical measure indicating how closely 2 "things" vary together and of how well either factor predicts the other - Range: -1.00 to +1.00

SQ3R

a study method incorporating five steps: survey, question, read, retrieve, review

what is an unrepresentative sample, and how do researchers avoid it?

a survey group that does not represent the population being studied. random sampling helps researchers form a representative sample, because each member of the population has an equal chance of being included

hypothesis

a testable prediction, often implied by a theory

population

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

biopsychosocial approach

an integrated approach that incorporates biological, psychological, and social cultural levels of analysis

behavior

any action we can observe and record

correlational methods

associate different factors

Nature is to nature as

biology is to experience

why cant we assume that case studies always reveal the general principles that apply to all of us?

case studies involve only one person or group so we cant know for sure whether the principles observed would apply to a larger population

a psychologist treating emotionally troubled adolescents at a local mental health agency is most likely to be a

clinical psychologist

descriptive methods

describe behaviors through case studies, surveys and naturalistic observations

functionalism

early school of thought promoted by james and influenced by darwin; explored how mental and behavioral processes function- how they enable the organism to adapt, survive and flourish

Structuralism

early school of thought promoted by wundt and titchener; used introspection to reveal the structure of the human mind

Aristotle

everything from the mind comes from the external world through the senses

cognitive psychologists

experimenting with how we perceive, think and solve problems

Cognitive psychology

explores the ways we perceive, process and remember information

social psychologists

exploring how we view and affect one another

biological psychologists

exploring the links between brain and mind

Margaret Floy Washburn

first woman to receive a psychology PHD and synthesized animal behavior research in the Animal Mind 1908

William James would be considered a ______ and William Wundt and Tichener would be considered ___________

functionalists; structuralists

_______ _______, ______________, and our tendency to perceive patterns in random events often lead us to overestimate our intuition.

hindsight bias; overconfidence

Humanistic psychology

historically significant perspective that emphasized human growth potential

Social-Cultural

how behavior & thinking vary across situations & cultures

Psychodynamic

how behavior springs from unconscious drives & conflicts

behavioral genetics

how much genes & environment influence individual differences

evolutionary

how nature selects traits that promote the perpetuation of one's genes

Cognitive

how we encode, process, store, & retrieve information

behavioral

how we learn observable responses

experimental group

in an experiment, the group exposed to the treatment, that is the to one version of the independent variable

mental processes

internal, subjective experiences we infer from behavior- sensations, perceptions, dreams, thoughts, beliefs and feelings

personality psychologists

investigating our persistent traits

nature-nature issue

longstanding controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors

experimental methods

manipulate factors to discover their effects

Mary Whiton Calkins

memory researcher and the first woman to be president of the american psychological association

Charles Darwin

natural selection shapes behaviors as well as bodies

naturalistic observation

observe & record behavior without trying to manipulate or control the situation - Only describing observations so offers nothing in the way of explanation

a psychologist conducting basic research to expand psychology's knowledge base would be most likely to

observe 3 and 6 year olds solving puzzles and analyze difference in their abilities

Illusory Correlations

perceptions of relationships that do not really exist

a mental health professional with a medical degree who can prescribe medication is a

psychiatrist

basic research

pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base

replication

repeating the essence of a research study, usually with different participants in different situations, to see whether the basic finding extends to other participants and circumstances

why is replication important?

replicated results confirm findings

applied research

scientific study that aims to solve practical problems

The __________ perspective in psychology focuses on how behavior and thought differ from situation to situation and from culture to culture, while the ________ perspective emphasizes observation of how we respond to and learn in different situations.

social-cultural; behavioral

Descartes

some ideas are innate

developmental psychologists

studying our changing abilities from womb to womb

what does the SQ3R acronym stand for?

survey, question, read, retrieve, review

Surveys

technique for acquiring self-reported attitudes/behaviors - Need a representative, random sample - False Consensus Effect: tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs & behaviors

Confirmation Bias

tendency to search for information that confirms our preconceptions

the _______ _______ describes the enhanced memory that results from repeated retrieval testing rather than from simple rereading of new information

testing effect

levels of analysis

the differing complementary views, from biological to psychological to social-cultural, for analyzing any given phenomenon

culture

the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values and traditions shared by a group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next

Nurture works on what nature endows

the environment (nurture) has an influence on us, but that influence is constrained by our biology (nature). Nature and Nature interact. People predisposed to be very tall (nature) are unlikely to become olympic gymnasts, no matter how hard they work (nurture).

theory

the explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes observations and predicts behaviors or events

control group

the group not exposed to the treatment

Cognitive neuroscience

the interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked with cognition (perception, thinking, memory, language) - how the body & brain create emotions

John Locke

the mind is a blank slate in which experience writes -tabla rasa

natural selection

the principle that among the range of inherited trait variations, those contributing to reproduction and survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations

psychology

the science of behavior and mental processes

positive psychology

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

evolutionary psychology

the study of the evolution of behavior and the mind, using the principles of natural selection

behavior genetics

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

regression toward the mean

the tendency for extremes or unusual scores or events to fall back toward the average, Without knowing this, we may inaccurately decide the return to normal was a result of our own behavior

hindsight bias

the tendency to believe after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it -i know it all along phenomenon

Behaviorism

the view that psychology 1) should be objective science that 2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes

overconfidence

thinking we know more than we do