Chapter 1: The Science of Psychology

Cognitive Neuroscience

Focuses on the brain activity underlying mental processes

Cultures

In which individuals grow up shapes their beliefs,values,thoughts, and actions

Behaviorist Thought

Seeks to describe the effects of the environment on behavior

Personality Psychologist

Studies the enduring characteristics of traits of people across settings

Critical Thinking

the process of viewing information systematically to evaluate the truth of the claim

What major advances in the field of psychology have advanced our understanding of biological basis of human behavior?

Neuroscience Mapping the Human Genome Brain Chemistry

Counseling Psychologists

seek to improved the lives of people facing difficult circumstances

Watson and Skinner

Dismissed psychology's focus on conscious and unconscious mental processes as unscientific, and instead focused on environmental effects on observable behavior

Behaviorism

People who approach studies the effects of consequences and the environment on behavior

Globalization

The flow of commodities, and financial instruments among all regions of the world

Forensic Psychologist

Trained in criminal behavior,jury behavior,courtrooms, and the legal system

Free association

a technique to gain access into the unconscious

Amiable Skepticism

looks for scientific evidence to back new claims using openminded scrutiny

Wundt

Set up the first psychological lab, and used reaction time to measure mental activity

Cognitive Psychology

Concerned with how people think,remember things, and make decisions ex) psychologist interested in how adolescents make decisions to win at chess

Evolutionary Psychology

Seeks to explain mental activity including memory, perception, and language as a product of natural selection

Psychoanalytic Thought

Seeks to uncover unconscious conflicts, which may be displayed in dreams

Personality Approach

Studies one's enduring characteristics

Self-serving bias

one in which a person uses explanations that support a positive view of himself

Miller and Neisser

studied mental processes including memory,thinking, decision making, and language

Types of Psychologists

Neuroscience/Biological Cognitive Developmental Personality Social Cultural Clinical Counseling School Industrial and Organizational Forensic Sports

Individual Analysis

Studies individual differences in development, cognition,behavior, and personality that affect how people know and perceive the world

Rogers and Maslow

believed in the uniqueness of each individual and pioneered ways of questioning and listening that are staples of modern therapy

James

Emphasized that the mind and behavior evolved to perform specific functions "stream of consciousness"

Hindsight bias

causes us to reinterpret old evidence to make sense of the outcome, though we could not have predicted the outcome

Freud

Believed that unconscious conflicts,often sexual in nature, had a strong influence on behavior -Sought to uncover unconscious conflicts

Examples of Structuralism

Describing a sound by talking about its pitch,its tone, and its clarity

Biological development

the physical changes that occur over a lifetime;differences in biological development

Confirmation Bias

causes people to restrict themselves to information that supports their beliefs

Wertheimer and Kohlet

looked at context and individual differences in people's experiences and perceptions,focusing on the whole experience rather than its parts

Lewin

studied how other people and specific situations affect a person's behavior and thoughts

Natural Selection

the process by which the adaptive characteristics of a species are selected for due to the increased survival rate of the animals with those characteristics

Titchener

Established structuralism as a school of thought that broke conscious experiences down into their discrete parts

Introspection

People's subjective experience of the physical world,asking them to contemplate a series of objects and state which one they found more pleasant

Gestalt Theory

the whole of personal experience is not simply the sum of its constituent elements -the whole is different from the sum of its parts

Survival of the Fittest

A phrase that summarizes the theory of evolution. Those who are born with adaptive mutations are more likely to survive to reproductive age, passing their genes-and the adaptive mutation-to the next generation