Chapter 1: What is Psychology?

Private and unobservable mental processes such as sensation, thoughts, perception, and problem-solving

Cognitive Activities

Identify educational psychologists:

Concerned with helping students learn. Focus on course planning and instructional methods for an entire school system rather than focusing on an individual student.

Aristotle believed:

People are motivated to seek pleasure and avoid pain.

Identify environmental psychologists:

1. Are concerned with the ways in which buildings and cities serve, or fail to serve human needs. 2. Investigate the psychological effects of extremes of temperature, noise, and air pollution.

Both industrial and organizational psychologists:

1. Are employed by business firms to improve working conditions and increase worker output. 2. May assist in hiring, training, and promoting employees. 3. May devise psychological tests for job applicants and conduct research into the factors that contribute to job satisfaction.

Identify experimental psychologists:

1. Conduct research into basic processes such as functions of the nervous system. 2. Some focus on the relationships between biological changes and psychological events. 3. More likely than other psychologists to engage in basic research.

Identify health psychologists:

1. Examine the ways in which behavior and mental processes are related to physical health. 2. Study the effects on health problems such as headaches and heart disease. 3. Try to explain why some people follow their doctors' orders and other people do not. 4. Help people adopt healthful behaviors such as exercising and quitting smoking.

How are functionalism and structuralism different?

1. Functionalism - Focuses on introspection and behavioral observations in the lab. 2. Structuralism - Only introspection

What do clinical psychologists do?

1. Help people with psychological problems or severe psychological disorders. 2. Help their clients overcome problems and adjust to the demands of their lives. 3. Help people who have problems with relationships, drug abuse or weight control.

Identify a personality psychologist:

1. Identify characteristics or traits and study their development. 2. Look for the many differences traits people have. 3. Share with clinical psychologists an interest in the origins of psychological problems and disorders. 4. Also concerned with issues such as anxiety. aggression, and gender roles.

List the duties of a school psychologists:

1. Identify students with problems by talking with teachers, parents, and the individuals themselves. 2. May administer tests 3. Observe students in the classroom to see interaction with teachers and peers. 3. Make recommendations regarding placement of students.

Identify consumer psychologists:

1. Study the behavior of shoppers to explain and predict their behavior. 2. Assist others to apply their findings 3. Advise store managers about window displays and shelf arrangement to attract consumers.

Identify social psychologists:

1. Study the ways in which the physical and psychological factors attract people to one another. 2. Study the reasons people tend to conform to group standards and expectations. 3. Study how behavior changes when they are members of a group. 4. Study the reasons for and the effects of prejudice and discrimination within various groups. 5. Study the situation in which people act aggressively and those in which they help others.

Identify forensic psychologists:

1. Work within the criminal justice system. 2. May explain how certain kinds of psychological problems give rise to criminal behavior. 3. Assist in the selection of police officers. 4. Help police officers cope with job stress. 5. Train police officers in the handling in dangerous situations such as suicide threats, hostage crises, and family violence.

What is a psychiatrist?

A medical doctor who specializes in the treatment of psychological problems and can prescribe medication for clients.

Functionalists proposed that:

Adaptive behavior patterns are earned and maintained because of success.

Founded chemistry and explained how animals and use oxygen in respiration

Antoine Lavoisier

This Greek philosopher continued in the inquiry about human behavior and raised many issues still discussed today.

Aristotle

Water-based test

Based on the principle that pure metals sink to the bottom during smelting; whereas impure metals float to the surface.

No immediate application and is done for its sake.

Basic Research

Observable and measurable actions of people and animals.

Behavior

Psychological principles may include statements about:

Behavior, mental processes, and biological processes

____________ __________ can affect our thoughts, feelings, and behavior. This idea lied dormant for more than 2000 years.

Biological factors

This type of experimental psychologists focus on the relationships between biological changes and psychological events.

Biological psychologists

The 1800s marked this event in which a scientific approach is considered (human behavior and mental processes used as evidence)

Birth of Modern Psychology

Where do counseling psychology normally employed at?

Businesses, colleges, universities, and testing centers.

To perceive objects out of range of human senses

Clairvoyance

Emotional changes:

Development of self-concept and self-esteem.

What lab instrument can be used to measure brain activity?

Electroencephalograph (EEG)

___________ affects both behavior and mental processes.

Emotion

introspection

Examination of one's own thoughts and feelings

Refers to the perception of objects or events through means other than the necessary sensory organs (eyes).

Extrasensory perception

Identify industrial psychologists:

Focus on people and work

Emphasizes the purposes of behavior and mental processes

Functionalism

Psychological theories discuss principles that:

Govern behavior and mental processes

This philosopher suggested that such problems (madness) were caused by brain abnormalities.

Hippocrates

Name some examples of social sciences.

History, anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology.

Functionalists were concerned with:

How mental processes help organisms adapt to their environment. Stressed the application of their findings to everyday findings.

Identify a school psychologist.

Identify and help students who have problems that interfere with learning. The typical problems include peer groups, family problems, psychological problems, and learning disorders.

British scientist that formulated laws of gravity and motion

Issac Newton

How is psychology considered a social science?

It deals with human society and individual nature.

This philosopher theorized the knowledge in not inborn obtained but by experience.

John Locke

ESP is in the realm of _______, not science.

Magic

Cognitive changes;

Mental images of the world or how children learn from right from wrong

Polish astronomer that argued that earth revolved around the Sun rather than the other way around.

Nicolaus Copernicus

Were assumed to accurately reflect the outside world

Objective sensations

Field of study concerned with the supernatural or other phenomenon that science cannot explain.

Parapsychology

This piece of literature begins with a history of psychological thought and then explores topics such as personality, sensation, perception, thought, intelligence, needs, motives, feelings, emotions, and memory.

Peri Psyches

This student of Socrates in ancient Greece recorded his teacher's advice. Also, what was this advice?

Plato; "Know thyself"

To know events before they occur

Precognition

4 Forms of ESP

Precognition; psychokinesis; telepathy; clairvoyance

Make objects move by the mind

Psychokinesis

How is psychology a natural science?

Psychologists study biological topics (such as the brain) that are related to natural sciences.

The scientific study of behavior and mental processes.

Psychology

Behavior can be measured by:

Simple observation or lab instruments

Concerned with discovering the basic elements of conscious experience. Broke down conscious experience into 2 separate categories: objective sensations and subjective feelings

Structuralism

Identify organizational psychologists:

Study the behavior of people in organizations, such as business firms.

Identify developmental psychologists:

Study the changes that occur throughout the lifespan. These changes can be: physical, emotional, cognitive, and social. Also attempt to sort out relative influences of heredity and environment on development.

Were thought to include emotional responses and mental images.

Subjective feelings

A method of collecting data that usually involves questions to people in a specific group.

Survey

Two methods of research:

Survey; Theory

Direct transmission of thoughts

Telepathy

This book was published in 1890 and was considered by many people to be the 1st modern psychology textbook.

The Principles of Psychology

Ancient Greeks believed:

The gods punished people for wrongdoing by causing them confusion and madness.

Structuralists believed:

The human mind functioned by combining these basic elements of experiences

All psychologists share the belief that:

Theories about behavior and mental processes should be supported by scientific evidence.

A set of assumptions about why something is the way it is and happens the way it does.

Theory

What are clinical psychologists trained to do?

To evaluate psychological problems through the use of interviews and psychological tests. They then help clients understand their problems and resolve them by changing ineffective or harmful behavior.

Goals of Psychology:

To observe, describe, explain, predict, and control the events they study. Observing and describing behavior and mental processes to better understand.

What do counseling psychologists do?

Uses interviews and tests to identify their clients' problems. Typically treat people who have adjustment problems rather than serious psychological disorders. Help their clients clarify their goals, overcome their adjustment problems and meet challenges.

Established his lab in Leipzig, Germany and founded structuralism

Wilhem Wundt

Harvard University prof. that believed that experience cannot be broken down the way structuralists believed. Maintained the idea that experience is a "fluid and continuous stream of consciousness."

William James