AP Psychology Set 1

Conceptual Definition

the theory or issue being studied

Empiricism

Definition: The view that knowledge originates in experience and that science should, therefore, rely on observation and experimentation Example: According to empiricism, knowledge is based off of experiences, and not intuition

Industrial-Organizational Psychologists

(Applied research) Definition: Psychologists who study psychology in order to enhance work environments Example: These psychologists will try to see if they can find the best workforce to produce the best and efficient work

Human Factors Psychologists

(applied research) Definition: study the interactions of humans and machines in a work environment for a better efficiency. Example: These psychologists may recommend designs and programming for machines to better help humans adapt

Developmental Psychologists

(basic research )Definition: Psychologists who study our cognitive abilities from birth to death Example: They examine how a baby thinks, and an elderly person thinks

Educational Psychologists

(basic research) Definition: study the influences on teaching and learning Example: One may examine how our thought process and memory retentions affects our learning ability

Advantage to an experiment

Can control the variables and random assignment and it can also shows cause and effect which is different to correlation

Natural Selection

Definition: "survival of the fittest"From among chance variations, nature selects the traits that best enable an organism to survive and reproduce in a particular environment Example: According to natural selection, in a population of a certain organism, the one most suited to survive proliferates its genome

Basic Research

Definition: Research to build upon psychology's knowledge base Example: Some basic research includes experiments on how we respond in social situations

Biological Psychology

Definition: studies the connections between the biology of a patient and their behavior/ How the body and the brain enable emotions, memories, and sensory experiences Example: One may examine the health and makeup of a patient's brain in this approach/might study what brain circuits cause us to get "red in the face"

Evolutionary Psychology

Definition: studies the roots of behavior and mental processes using the principles of natural selection Example: One may see that anger allowed for better survival of our ancestors

Wilhem Wundt

Founder of the science of psychology -William Wundt created an experiment to test reaction time to sound, it was considered the first psychological experiment and launched the first psychological laboratory. Structuralism/Introspection

Survey

Looks at many cases in less depth

False-consensus effect

Overestimating how much people agree/think like you would

Psychologist who is a behaviorist

Watson and Skinner

Cross-sectional Study

a study in which people of different ages are compared with one another

A survey requires random sample, where...

an experiment requires random assignment

William James

introduced Functionalism. -His greatest Legacy came more from his harvard writing and teaching at Harvard. -He also helped Mary Calkins and tutored her, when she was being discriminated for being a women. -James influence reached even further through his dozens of well-received articles which got contracted into a textbook of the new science of psychology--> people still marvel at this

Longitudinal Study

research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period

Positive skew

to the left

Pearson correlation coefficient

A descriptive statistic that describes the linear relationship between two attributes

Hypothesis

Definition: A proposal of an explanation of an event that can be proven or dis-proven Example: Scientists use hypotheses to help formulate theories of events.

Descartes

Separation, but interaction of the mind and the body -He agreed with socrates and plato about innate ideas

Operational Definition

a statement of the procedures (operations) used to define research variables. -For example, human intelligence may be operationally defined as what an intelligence test measures.

Inferential Statistics

statistics that are used to interpret data and draw conclusions

Illusory Correlation

the perception of a relationship where none exists

Social Psychologists

Definition: study how we view and affect one another Example: These psychologists may simply view relationships

Humanistic Psychology

Definition: Emphasizes the importance of current environmental influences on our growth potential, and the importance of having our needs for love and acceptance satisfied Example: Humanistic Psychologists attempt to learn how we fulfill our need for love and acceptance

Psychiatrists

Definition: Medical Doctors who deal with psychological disorders, able to utilize medical treatments Example: Psychiatrists can prescribe medicine for people with ADHD in order to help them focus

Clinical Psychologists

Definition: Psychologists who asses, treat, and anticipate patients with psychological disorders Example: Many of these psychologists work in mental institutions, helping patients possibly work out their issues and get back into the world outside the hospital

Experimental Psychologists

Definition: Psychologists who explore behavior and thinking with experiments Example: Experimental psychologists conduct experiments on subjects in order to understand basic psychological processes

Counseling Psychologists

Definition: Psychologists who help people in their lives, whether it be marital issues or achieving a better well being Example: Some psychologists are devoted to just marital counseling in order to improve those relationships

Cognitive Neuroscience

Definition: The study of brain activity linked with mental activity Example: A cognitive neuroscientist researches how stored data in the brain is transferred and utilized cognitively

4 major ethics

Full consent Protect from harm or discomfort Debriefing if deception is involved Confidentiality

Correlation coefficient

A numerical value that indicates the degree and direction of the relationship between two variables +1 to -1

Correlational Research

Assessing the degree of association between two or more variables or characteristics of interest that occur naturally

Functionalist

Definition: A person who encourages the explorations of down-to-earth emotions, memories, willpower, habits, and moment-to-moment streams of consciousness -wants to structure the mind from simple elements. - a school of psychology that focused on how our mental and behavioral processes function- how they enable us to adapt, survive, and flourish. Example: A functionalist believes that our senses formed so we could adapt to survive -ex. trying to understand a car by looking at each of the parts

Bio-psychosocial Approach

Definition: An approach that considers the influences of biological, psychological, and social-cultural factors Example: A psychologist takes a bio-psychological approach when presented with a depressed patient due to the numerous possibilities of the cause

Theory

Definition: An explanation that utilizes principles to predict behaviors or events Example: Several different principles can allow one to theorize why someone may act in a certain way

Levels of analysis

Definition: Differing complementary views for different phenomenon Example: One can look at why someone does something from sociological or biological view

Psycho-metrics

Definition: Psychology devoted to studying the measurement of our abilities, attitudes, and traits Example: A psychologist under this discipline will attempt to understand how one measures how well we perform in different scenarios

Applied Research

Definition: Research that attempts to solve practical problems Example: Such research may include Alzheimers research

Behaviorists

Definition: Scientists who explore the behaviors of subjects in response to environmental stimuli Example: A behaviorist will take time to understand how certain environments trigger certain reactions from people

Psycho-dynamic Psychology

Definition: Studies how the unconscious drives peoples' behavior. They use this info to treat people with psychological disorders. Example: might view an outburst as an outlet for unconscious hostility/ An unconscious conflict may cause someone to constantly feel anxious in situations without a conscious understanding as to why

Cognitive Psychology

Definition: Study of the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating. Focuses on how we store, process, and retrieve info Example: From a cognitive perspective, one could view happiness as an effect on our thinking processes -interpretation of a situation affects our anger and how anger affects our thinking.

Nature-nurture issue

Definition: The controversy over the relative contributions of biology and experience Example: A person who debates this issue wonders whether human traits are hereditary or come from experience

Psychology + define those two parts

Definition: The science of behavior and mental processes behavior= anything an organism does- anything we can observe and record. Yelling, smiling, blinking, sweating, talking, and questionnaire marking are all observable behaviors. Mental processes= the internal, subjective experiences we infer from behavior- sensations, perceptions, dreams, thoughts, beliefs, and feelings. Example: A person who studies psychology studies the science of what someone does and the internal, subjective experiences we infer from behavior

Structuralism

Definition: The view that using self-reflective introspective, one can understand the elements of their experience Example: Early psychologists using the idea of structuralism to have people explain elements of their reaction to sensual items --proved unreliable because results varied from person to person

Critical Thinking

Definition: Thinking that takes extensive measures to examine situations/ideas/people/items rather than accept evidence easily Example: Rather than accept everything on the news, one who utilizes critical thinking can pick out the unbiased pieces of information

Behavioral Psychology

Definition: the scientific study of observable behavior, and its explanation by principles of learning focus: how we learn from observable responses Example: might attempt to determine which external stimuli trigger angry responses or aggressive attacks

Social-Cultural Psychology

Definition: the study how situations and cultures affect our behavior and thinking. Example: A person could have an attitude due to their culture -might explore how expressions of anger vary across cultural contexts

John Locke

Humans are born with a blank slate Essay Concerning Human Understanding Nurture over nature this formed ---> empiricism

Case Study

Intensive psychological studies of a single individual

Descriptive Statistics

Statistics that are used to organize and summarize data.

Edward Titchener

introduced Structuralism. Method was to engage people to look inward (introspection), and asks about their immediate sensations to things, and their feelings and images. Proved unreliable because results varied from person to person. founded---> Experimental Psychologists- who explore behavior and thinking with experiments. Student of Wundt Brought psychology to America Structuralism/Introspection

Negative skew

to the right