psychology chapter 1: what is psychology

What was so special about wundt's experiment?

- it was about the workings of the brain - at the heart of the expedient was the idea that mental processes could be measured

Positive psychology is

A branch of psychology that emphasized human strength. Research centers on topics such as hope, optimism, happiness, and gratitude

Health psychology is

A multidimensional approach to human health that emphasizes psychological factors, lifestyle, and the nature of the healthcare delivery system

The humanistic approach emphasizes

A person's positive qualities, the capacity for positive growth, and the freedom to choose one's destiny

Which can prescribe drugs?

A psychiatrist can prescribe drugs, a clinical psychologist cannot

What is one means of delivering services such as outreach problems to people in need

Community-based mental health centers

Critical thinking reduces the likelihood that

Conclusions will be based on unreliable personal beliefs, opinions, and emotions

Community psychologists strive to

Create communities that are more supportive of their residents by pinpointing needs, providing services, and teaching people how to access resources that are already available

Modern Psychology was born in

December 1897 at the University of Leipzig, when Wundt and his students performed an experiment to measure the time lag between the instant a person heard a sound and the moment he/she pressed a telegraph key to signal having heard it

The goals of psychology are to

Describe, predict, and explain behavior (also changing or controlling behavior)

clinical and counseling psychologists

Diagnose and treat people with psychological problems

Wundt and his collaborates concentrated on

Discovering the basic elements or structures of mental processes

Signing Freud theorized that ______ shape an individual's personality

Early relationships with parents

behavior is

Everything we do that can be directly observed

psychologists who primarily provide therapy engages on

Evidence-based practice, that is, they use therapeutic tools whose effectiveness is supported by empirical research

evolutionary approach to psychology uses

Evolutionary ideas such as adaptation, reproduction, and natural selection as the basis for explaining specific human behaviors

Cognitive psychology is the broad name given to the field of psychology that

Examines attention, consciousness, information processing, and memory

Researchers in cognitive psychology and sensation and perception are sometimes called

Experimental psychologists

William James' view is named

Functionalism

Empirical method means

Gaining knowledge through the observation of events, the collection of data, and logical reasoning

Counseling psychologist work with people to

Help solve practical problems in life

According to cognitive psychologist, the human brain

Houses a "mind" whose mental processes allow us to remember, make decisions, plan, set goals, and be creative

Scientists who study motivation address research questions such as

How individuals persist to attain a difficult goal and how rewards affect the experience of motivation

developmental psychology is concerned with

How people become who they are, from conception to death

Sport psychology applies psychology principles to

Improving sports performance and enjoying sport participation

Community psychology concentrates on

Improving the quality of relationships among individuals, their community, and society at large

social psychologists are interested in the

Influence of groups on our thinking and behavior and in the ways that the groups go which we belong influence our attitudes

Learning is the

Intricate process by which behavior changes in response to changing circumstances

A characteristic cannot be passed from one generation to the next unless

It is revoked in the genes

two famous behaviorists

John B Watson and B. F. Skinner

Socioculturalists argue that understanding a person's behavior required

Knowing about the cultural context in which the behavior occurs

Introspection means

Looking inside our own minds, by focusing on our own thoughts

Genes

Molecules that are responsible for heredity

What are two important aspects of experience?

Motivation and emotion

Psychologists are also interested in understanding the broad topic of gender and the way in which our biological sex influences

Our ideas about ourselves as women and men

Social psychology deals with

People's interactions with one another, relationships, social perceptions, social cognition, and attitudes

personality psychology considers

Personality, consisting of the relatively enduring characteristics of individuals

The main concern of industrial psychology are

Personnel matters and human resource management

Industrial psychology is also referred to as

Personnel psychology

Community psychologists are

Practitioner scientists who provide accessible care for people with psychological problems

individuals who are primarily engaged in helping others are often called

Practitioners of psychology

Community psychologists are also concerned with

Prevention - trying to prevent mental health problems by identifying high risk groups and then intervene with appropriate services and resources

Cognitive psychologists are interested in skills and abilities such as

Problem solving, decision making expertise, and intelligence

Freud's theory was the basic for the therapeutic technique he called

Psychoanalysis

Forensic Psychology is the field of psychology that applies

Psychological concepts to the legal system

Environmental psychology is the study of

The interactions between people and their physical environment

The cognitive approach emphases

The mental processes involved in knowing: how we direct our attention, perceived remember, think, and solve problems

Psychology grew out of the tradition of thinking about

The mind AND body

Introspection relies entirely on

The person's conscious reflection

Researchers who study physiological psychology are interested in

The physical processes that underline mental operations such as thinking and memory

Researchers who study sensation and perception focus on

The physical systems and psychological processes that allow us to experience the world

Emotion researchers delve into topics including

The physiological and brain processes that underlie emotional experience, the role of emotional expression in health, and the possibility that emotions are universal

In 1859, Charles Darwin published his ideas in On the Origin of Species (1979) that's central theory was

The principle of natural selection

The behavioral approach to psychology emphasizes

The scientific study of observable behavioral responses and their environmental determinants (visible interactions - not thoughts or feeling)

Mental processes are

The thoughts, feelings, and motives that each of us experience privately but cannot he observed dircetly

Being objective involves seeing things as

They really are, not as we would like them to be

evolutionary psychologists argue the way we adapt is

Traceable to problems early humans faced in adapting to their environment

personality psychologists study topics such as

Traits, goals, motives, genetics, personality, development, and well-being what makes you uniquely you

The psychodynamic approach to psychology emphasizes

Unconscious thought, the conflict between biological drives and society's demands, and early childhood experiences

Altruism

Unselfish concern for other people's well being

The Sociocultural Approach examines the

Ways in which social and cultural environments influence behavior

Who gave psychology the American stamp?

William James

Educational psychologists

Work at colleges and universities, teach class, and do research on teaching and learning

industrial-organizational (I/O) psychology centers on the

Workplace - both the workers and the organizations that employ them

Wilhem Wundt (1832-1920)

a German philosopher-physician who integrated philosophy and natural sciences to create the academic discipline of psychology

Biological approach to psychology

an approach to psychology focusing on the body, especially the brain and nervous system

Structuralism

an early school of psychology that used introspection to explore the elemental structure of the human mind

What are a natural part of thinking like a psycologist?

debate and controversy

A clinical psychology typical has a _______ degree

doctoral degree, which requires approximately four to five years of graduate work and one year of internship in a mental health facility

A psychiatrist is a physician with a ____ degree

medical degree who subsequently specializes in abnormal behavior and psychotherapy

Many aspects of the humanistic approach appear in research on

motivation, emotion, health, and personality psychology

Although a number of physiological (organ) systems may be involved in thoughts or feelings, the emergence of _____ has perhaps contributed the most to physiological psychology

neuroscience

Researchers studying the psychology of women consider the

physiological, social, and cultural influences on women's development and behavior stressed the integration of info about women with current psychological knowledge and beliefs and applies that info to society and its institutions

Clinical psychologists are interested in

psychopathology

Psychology is the

scientific study of behavior and mental processes

Neuroscience is the

scientific study of the structure, function, development, genetics, and biochemistry of the nervous system

as a science, psychology uses _____ to observe human behavior and draw conclusions

systematic methods - the information is gathered from a range of resources

critical thinking is

the process of reflecting deeply and actively asking questions and evaluating the evidence

Psychopathology

the scientific study of psychological disorders and the development of diagnostic categories and treatments for those disorders

Being open to the evidence means

thinking objectively

Why has psychology advanced as a field?

Because psychologists do not always agree with one another about why the mind and behavior work as they do

Developmental psychologist concentrate on the

Biological and environmental factors that contribute to human development

The field of behavioral neuroscience also focuses on

Biological process, especially the brain's role in behavior

cognitive psychologists view the mind as

An active and aware problem-solving system

Psychoanalysis involves

An analyst's unlocking a person's unconscious conflicts by talking with the individual about his or her childhood memories, as well as the individual's dreams, thoughts, and feelings

Natural selection

An evolutionary process in which organisms that are better adapted to their environment will survive and produce more offspring

evolutionary psychologists believe their approach provides

An umbrella that unifies the diverse fields of psychology But not all psychologists agree with this

western philosophy came of age in

Ancient Greece in the 5th and 4th centuries Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and others debated the nature of thought and behavior

Thinking critically means

Asking ourselves how we know something

Neuroscience emphasizes that

The brain and nervous system are central to understanding behavior, thought, and emotion

species change through

Random genetic mutation

humanistic psychologists theorize that

Rather being driven by unconscious implies we or by external rewards, people can choose to live by higher human values and free will

For practitioners of psychology, what guides their therapeutic practice and their efforts to make improvements in the lives of their patients

Rigorous research

Practitioners of psychodynamic approachthe believe that

Sexual and aggressive impulses buried deep within the unconscious mind influence the way people think, feel, and behave

Who was the founding father of the psychodynamic approach?

Sigmund Freud

From James' perspective, the key question for psychology is not

So much what the mind is (structures) but what it is for (purpose)

Organizational psychology examines the

Social influences in organizations, as well as organizational leadership

Many health psychologists study the roles of

Stress and coping in people's lives

School Psychologist in elementary and secondary school systems

Test children, make recommendations about educational placement, and collaborate on educational planning teams

humanistic psychologists stress that people have

The ability to control their lives and are not simply controlled by the environment