Chapter 1 Review

Influences on perception

Sensation and perception research is also quite interdisciplinary. Imagine walking between buildings as you move from one class to another. You are inundated with sights, sounds, touch sensations, and smells. You also experience the temperature of the air around you and maintain your balance as you make your way. These are all factors of interest to someone working in the domain of sensation and perception. Our experience (or perception) is complex and is influenced by where we focus our attention, our previous experiences, and even our cultural backgrounds.

Critical thinking

- consider source of info. - blindly accept authority (accept our beliefs without question) - separate facts from opinions of fiction - test our beliefs against scientific understanding - open minded and skeptical - numerology and astrology (pseudo psychology, not supported by empirical objective evidence)

Cognitive theorist study

Cognitive psychology is the area of psychology that focuses on studying cognitions, or thoughts, and their relationship to our experiences and our actions. Like biological psychology, cognitive psychology is broad in its scope and often involves collaborations among people from a diverse range of disciplinary backgrounds. Cognitive psychologists have research interests that span a spectrum of topics, ranging from attention to problem solving to language to memory. The approaches used in studying these topics are equally diverse. Ulric Neisser published the first textbook entitled Cognitive Psychology. Noam Chomsky was very influential in the early days of this movement. The cognitive revolution helped reestablish lines of communication between European psychologists and their American counterparts.

Def. of psychology

scientific study of behavior and mind

Behaviorist

- B. F. Skinner was a behaviorist, and he concentrated on how behavior was affected by its consequences. Therefore, Skinner spoke of reinforcement and punishment as major factors in driving behavior. As a part of his research, Skinner developed a chamber (skinner box) that allowed the careful study of the principles of modifying behavior through reinforcement and punishment.

What Freud said about unconscious

- Freud theorized that many of his patients' problems arose from the unconscious mind. - In Freud's view, the unconscious mind was a repository of feelings and urges of which we have no awareness. - Gaining access to the unconscious, then, was crucial to the successful resolution of the patient's problems. - According to Freud, the unconscious mind could be accessed through dream analysis, by examinations of the first words that came to people's minds, and through seemingly innocent slips of the tongue.

Behaviorist

- Ivan Pavlov studied a form of learning behavior called a conditioned reflex, in which an animal or human produced a reflex (unconscious) response to a stimulus and, over time, was conditioned to produce the response to a different stimulus that the experimenter associated with the original stimulus. The salivation reflex could be elicited using a second stimulus, such as a specific sound, that was presented in association with the initial food stimulus several times.

Behaviorist

- John B. Watson was a major proponent of shifting the focus of psychology from the mind to behavior, and this approach of observing and controlling behavior came to be known as behaviorism. A major object of study by behaviorists was learned behavior and its interaction with inborn qualities of the organism. Behaviorism commonly used animals in experiments under the assumption that what was learned using animal models could, to some degree, be applied to human behavior.

Humanism (Abraham Maslow)

Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist who is best known for proposing a hierarchy of human needs in motivating behavior. Maslow asserted that so long as basic needs necessary for survival were met (e.g., food, water, shelter), higher-level needs (e.g., social needs) would begin to motivate behavior. The focus on the positive aspects of human nature that are characteristic of the humanistic perspective is evident. Humanistic psychologists rejected, on principle, the research approach based on reductionist experimentation in the tradition of the physical and biological sciences, because it missed the "whole" human being.

Humanism (Carl Rogers)

Carl Rogers used a therapeutic technique known as client-centered therapy in helping his clients deal with problematic issues that resulted in their seeking psychotherapy. Client-centered therapy involves the patient taking a lead role in the therapy session. Rogers believed that a therapist needed to display three features to maximize the effectiveness of this particular approach: unconditional positive regard, genuineness, and empathy. Unconditional positive regard refers to the fact that the therapist accepts their client for who they are, no matter what he or she might say. Provided these factors, Rogers believed that people were more than capable of dealing with and working through their own issues.

Focus on the developmental theory study

Developmental psychology is the scientific study of development across a lifespan. Developmental psychologists are interested in processes related to physical maturation. However, their focus is not limited to the physical changes associated with aging, as they also focus on changes in cognitive skills, moral reasoning, social behavior, and other psychological attributes. Jean Piaget demonstrated that very young children do not demonstrate object permanence. Object permanence refers to the understanding that physical things continue to exist, even if they are hidden from us.

Humanism

Humanism is a perspective within psychology that emphasizes the potential for good that is innate to all humans. Two of the most well-known proponents of humanistic psychology are Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers.

Number 1 occupation employing graduates with a bachelors degree in psychology

Mid- and top-level management (executive, administrator).

Scientific method

develop a question, develop a hypothesis, design study and collect data analyze the data, publish the findings.