PSYCH 205
Belief Perseverance
Tendency to stick to out initial beliefs even when evidence is contradictory. The "don't confuse me with the facts" bias.
Positive Psychology Interests
-Positive subjective experiences -Positive individual traits - Positive institutional and communities.
Biological Psychology Defined
Advocates for the idea that human and animal behaviour can be explained in terms of underlying physiological processes that guide behaviour.
Humanism Characteristics
Emphasizes humans: freedom and personal growth. Takes an optimistic view of human nature. Influenced treatments of psychological disorders.
Cognition
Examines the mental processes involved in acquiring knowledge.
Behaviourism Physiology
Ivan Pavlov Classical conditioning "associative learning"
Cognition Theorists
Jean Piaget - development of cognition in children Noam Chomsky - psychological roots of language Herbert Simon - problem solving; use of scientific methods for studying cognitive processes.
Behaviourism Founder
John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner
What's Psychology?
the scientific study of behaviour and mental processes
Warning signs of Pseudoscience
-Exaggerated claims -Over reliance on anecdotes -Absence of consideration of other research -Lack of peer review -Lack of self-correction in the face of contradictory evidence -Ad hoc hypothesis adjustments -reductionism & over-certainty ("proof" rather than evidence)
6 Principles of Critical Thinking
1. Ruling out rival hypotheses 2. Correlation vs Causation 3. Falsifiability 4. Replicability 5. Extraordinary Claims 6. Occam's razor
Cross-Cultural Psychology Change Supported By:
1980's - increase interest in cultural factors influence on behaviourism -Sociopolitical forces (civil rights movements) - Advances in international communication and increased global interdependence -Having established baseline on many psychological topics
Humanism Founders
Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) and Carl Rogers (1902-1987)
Cross-Cultural Psychology
Assumption: results of psychological study should be applicable to the general population. Historically: middle and upper class white males studying middle and upper white class males.
Behaviourism Revisited
B.F. Skinner "Radical Behaviourism" (thoughts/ emotions, focus on rewards and punishments)
Evolutionary Psychology
Born in 1970's Linked to James and functionalism. Examines behaviours processes in their adaptive value for members of a species over the course of many generations.
Bias Awareness Types
Confirmation Bias & Belief Perseverance
Social Psychology
Cultural, Interactional, Interpersonal
Positive Psychologist
Martin Seligman Believed that psychology needed to focus on understanding the positive aspects of human existence
Psychological Psychology
Mental, Personal, Emotional
Biological Psychology
Molecular, Genetic, Neurological
Thinking Scientifically
Not all common scenes is wrong. Science is not a body of knowledge. We maintain scientific rigour by challenging our biases.
Behaviourism defined
Psychology is the study of behaviour. Scientific claims should be verifiable.
BioPsychology
Psychology that studies the interaction of behaviour, biological, psychological, and mental processes.
Schools of Psychology
Structuralism, Functionalism, Behaviorism, Reinforcement, Gesalt, Psychoanalysis
Confirmation Bias
Tendency to seek evidence that supports our hypothesis. Neglecting or distorting contradicting evidence.
Naive Realism
The presumption that the world is exactly as we see it "Seeing is believing"
Wilhelm Wundt
german physiologist who founded psychology as a formal science; opened first psychology research laboratory in 1879