AP Psychology Unit 1 Vocab
Order of Psychological Schools
1.) Structuralism 2.) Functionalism 3.) Gestalt 4.) Psychoanalysis 5.) Behaviorism 6.) Humanism 7.) Biopsychosocial
Plato (Nature vs. Nurture)
Assumes that character and intelligence are largely inherited and that certain ideas are also in-born.
G. Stanley Hall (Baltimore) - Early Psychological Science
Definition: 1st Lab in the USA at Johns Hopkins University. 1st President of the APA. 1st President of Clark University. Notes from the Text: Pioneering American Psychologist and educator. Interests focused on child development and evolutionary theory.
Psychiatry - Ph.D. Required for this field - Can prescribe medicine - Branch of medicine focused on the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mental, emotional and behavioral disorders - Can also provide therapy and diagnose/medically treat patients
Definition: A branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders; practiced by Physicians who often provide medical (for example, drug) treatments as well as psychological therapy. Qualified to asses both mental and physical aspects of psychological problems. Notes from the Text: Often provide psychotherapy, are medical doctors licensed to prescribe drugs and otherwise treat physical causes of psychological disorders. Medical doctor who specializes in mental health including substance use disorders.
Sigmund Freud (Austrian Physician)
Definition: Developed the influential psychoanalytic theory of personality. (Psychoanalysis - Freud's theory of personality development and also his treatment of disorders) Freud believed that behavior is driven by unconscious drives and conflicts from childhood experiences (Unconscious - a place in the mind where unacceptable thoughts, wishes and memories are hidden and that we are unaware of). (Psychoanalysis = unconscious thought) Notes from the Text: The controversial ideas of this framed personality theorists and therapists that have influenced humanities self-understanding.
Humanistic Psychology
Definition: Emphasized the importance of current environmental influences on our growth potential, and importance if having our needs for love and acceptance satisfied. Concerned with how individuals are motivated to grow and achieve personal fulfillment - All people are good - Free will - Driven to reach growth potential on next level on Maslow's hierarchy ...ultimately self actualization Notes from the Text: Pioneers include, Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow. Emphasizes the growth potential of healthy people and the individual's potential for personal growth.
Charles Darwin - Argued that natural selection shapes behaviors as well as bodies
Definition: Evolutionary Theorist - Ideas/principles surrounding adaptations, contributing to survival of ancestors. Idea of survival of the fittest. Notes from the Text: Natural selection is the principle that, among the range of inherited trait variations, those contributing to reproduction and survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations.
Mental Processes
Definition: Internal subjunctive experiences we infer from behavior. A process that occurs in the mind. Notes from the Text: Sensations, perceptions, dreams, thought, beliefs, and feelings.
Community Psychology - Collaborate with professionals in other areas such as public health. - Work could include federal, state and local departments of mental health, corrections, and welfare systems. - Might conduct research or help evaluate research in health service settings. - Serve as independent consultant or teach and consult at colleges.
Definition: Move beyond focusing on specific individuals or families and deal with broad problems of mental health in community settings. Focus on prevention, promotion of positive mental health, and crisis intervention, with special attention to the problems of underserved groups and ethnic minorities. Notes from the Text: Believe that human behavior is powerfully influenced by the interaction between people and their physical, social, political, and economic environments. Seek to improve individual functioning by enhancing environmental settings to promote psychological health.
Ian Pavlov (Russian Psychologist)
Definition: Pioneered the study of learning (Behaviorism) Notes from the Text: Classical Conditioning (Involuntary learning) - animals can learn to associate between different events and stimuli
Cognitive Psychology
Definition: The scientific study of all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating. Study of all mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering and communicating. View of Mind and/or Behavior -Influenced by the way we interpret or perceive an experience or receive, store and process info -irrational or negative thoughts Notes from the Text: How we encode, process, store, and retrieve information. Question: How do we use information in remembering? Reasoning? Solving problems?
Psychometrics - Study the methods and techniques used to acquire psychological knowledge.
Definition: The scientific study of the measurements of human abilities, attitudes, and traits Notes from the Text: A branch of psychology devoted to studying the measurement of our abilities, attitudes and traits.
Personality Psychology - Differences between people along with similarities in human nature
Definition: The study of how an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting. Notes from the Text: Investigating our persistent traits. Scientific study which aims to show how people are individually different due to psychological forces.
Socrates/Plato
Mind is separable from body and continues after the body dies, knowledge is innate-born within us
Introspection - As introspection waned, so did structuralism
Definition: (Looking inward) to report elements of their experience as they looked at a rose, listened to a metronome, smelled a scent, or tasted a substance. What were their immediate sensations, their images, their feelings? And how did these relate to one another? Self reflective observation of your own sensations and feelings to study inner sensations and mental images Notes from the Text: "We have to speak inside information" - Titchener. Introspection required smart, verbal people. It also proved somewhat unreliable, its results varying from person to person and experience to experience. We often don't know why we feel what we feel or do what we do. People's recollection frequently err.
Counseling Psychology - Work with temporary issues/problems - Work with non-medicinal issues - You need a masters degree for this profession - Working in an academic setting as a faculty member or administrator or in a university counseling center, community mental health center, business or private practice. - If you plan to work in an independent practice you will need to obtain a state issued license to provide counseling services to the public.
Definition: A branch of psychology that assists people with problems in living (often related to school, work, or marriage) and in achieving greater well-being. Conduct therapy and provide assessments to individuals and groups. Emphasize your clients' strengths, helping clients' cope during transitional times using their own skills, interests and abilities. Notes from the Text: Help people to cope with challenges and crises (including academic, vocational, and marital issues) and to improve their personal and social functioning. Help people adjust to life transitions or make life-style changes. Very similar to clinical psychology, except that counseling psychologists typically help people with adjustment problems rather than severe psychopathology.
Biological Psychology - Question: How are messages transmitted within the body? - How is blood . chemistry linked with moods/motives? - To what extent are traits such as intelligence, personality, sexual orientation, and depression attributal to our genes? To our environment?
Definition: A branch of psychology that studies the links between biological (including neuroscience and behavior genetics) and psychological processes. Concerned with psychological and biochemical factors that determine behavior and mental process. View of Mind and/or Behavior •Biological basis - Come from your... brain chemistry, blood chemistry, neurotransmitters, genes, hormones. Notes from the Text: Focus: How the body and brain enable emotions, memories, and sensory experiences; how genes combine with environment to influence individual differences.
Clinical Psychology - Might engage in research, teaching, assessment and consultation. - Some hold workshops and lectures on psychological issues for other professionals or for the public. - Might work in: Private practice, Mental health organization, Schools, Universities, Industries, Legal systems, Medical systems, counseling clients, government agencies, and military services.
Definition: A branch of psychology that studies, assess, and treats people with psychological disorders. Promote psychological health in individuals, groups, and organizations. Some specialize in specific psychological disorders. Others treat a range of disorders from adjustment difficulties to severe psychopathology. Clinical Psychologists use "talk therapy" in place of medicine because they cannot prescribe medicine. Notes from the Text: Assess and treats mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders. Both counseling and clinical psychologists administer and interpret tests, provide counseling, and therapy, and sometimes conduct basic and applied research.
William James - Philosopher/Psychologist (very unconventional)
Definition: A school of psychology that focused on how our mental and behavioral process function - how they enable us to adapt, survive, and flourish. Emphasized the purpose or function of mental processes. Focused on the adaptive value of conscious thoughts and emotions and how they enable an organisms to survive and reproduce. (added the importance of the environment). William James = Functionalist). First functionalist, first psych professor at Harvard, and Authored first psych textbook. Notes from the Text: Consider the evolved function of our thoughts and feelings. Assumed that thinking like smelling developed because it was adaptive. Consciousness serves a function. Encouraged . exploration of down to earth emotions, memories, willpower, habits, and moment to moment streams of consciousness.
Functionalist(ism)
Definition: A school of psychology that focused on how our mental and behavioral processes function - how they enable us to adapt, survive, and flourish. Notes from the Text: Relating to/influenced by the ideas/theories of Charles Darwin. As a functionalist, James encouraged explorations of down-to-earth emotions, memories, will power, habits, and moment -to-moment streams of consciousness.
Biopsychosocial Approach
Definition: An integrated approach that incorporates biological, psychological, and social-cultural levels of analysis. Together different levels of analysis form an integrated biopsychosocial approach, which considers influences of biological, psychological, and social-cultural factors. Evaluates nature and nurture, mind and behavior. Made up of 7 different perspectives form which today's scientists pick and choose. Notes from the Text: This integrated viewpoint incorporates various levels of analysis and offers a more complete picture of any given behavior and mental process. These tiered systems suggest different levels of analysis which offer complementary outlooks. Each level provides a valuable vantage point for looking at behavior, yet each by itself is incomplete.
Behavior
Definition: Anything an organism does any action we can observe and record. An action, activity, or process which can be observed and measured. Notes from the Text: Yelling, smiling, blinking, sweating, talking, and questionnaire marking are all observable behaviors.
*Adaptive
Definition: Contributing to the survival of our ancestors. Notes from the Text: A theory Darwin proposed and believed in.
William Wundt - Launched the first psychological laboratory at the university of Leipzig, Germany
Definition: Created an experimental apparatus that measured the time lag between people's hearing a ball hit a platform and their pressing a telegraph key. Wundt was seeking to measure "atoms of the mind" - Began what many consider psychology's first experiment. •1st Experimental Psychologist - the study of the mind and behavior using the scientific mood •Reaction Time Experiments Notes from the Text: People responded in about 1/10 of a second when asked to press the key as soon as the sound occurred and in about 2/10 of a second when asked to press the key as soon as they were consciously aware of perceiving sound. - To be aware of one's awareness takes a little longer - Psychology became organized into different branches - Early schools included Structuralism, Functionalism, and Behaviorism
John B. Watson (American Psychologist)
Definition: Dismissed introspection and redefined Psychology as the "scientific study of observable behavior." Working with Rayner Watson, championed psychology as the science of behavior and demonstrated conditioned responses in a baby. Father of behaviorism; emotions can be classically conditioned. (Classical Conditioning - involuntary learning) Notes from the Text: Behaviorists science is rooted in observation. Cannot observe sensation, feeling, thought but can observe behavior as people responded to different situations. Studied only observable behavior
Experimental Psychologists
Definition: Explore behavior and thinking with experiments. Notes from the Text: The study of behavior and thinking using the experimental method. The study of the mind and behavior using the scientific mood (William Wundt)
Gestalt Psychology - Law of closure - Law of similarity
Definition: Focused on human perceptions of the world. - Perceptions (brain has certain rules, built in assumptions-adaptive/survival aspect-helps us make decisions faster in the world around us. Grouping things together makes us help faster decisions) - Our brain likes to have closure and likes to fill in the missing things based on the context. - Led by Max Wertheimer Notes from the Text: The whole of the experience can be more than the sum of its parts. Based on the observation that we often experience things that are not apart of our simple sensations. We see what is not there (law of closure - because our brain always wants closure.) Brain needs closure.
Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow
Definition: Pioneers of humanistic psychology. Emphasize the growth potential of healthy people and the individual's potential for personal growth. - Idea of Maslow's hierarchy. Notes from the Text: Humanistic psychology rebelled against Freudian psychology and behaviorism.
Basic Research
Definition: Pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base. Notes from the Text: Some psychologists conduct basic research that builds psychology's knowledge base.
Psychology
Definition: Science of behavior and mental processes Notes from the Text: Todays definition. - Behavior: An action, activity, or process which can be observed and measured - Mental process: A process that occurs in the mind
Positive Psychology - Study all the positive things about human beings and they promote positivity in human life. - People who have a choice are happier and can live longer
Definition: Scientific study of the strengths that enable individuals and communities to thrive. What makes life most worth living, study of positive human functioning and flourishing on multiple levels. Notes from the Text: Field is founded on the belief that people want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves, and to enhance their experiences of love, work, and play.
Applied Research
Definition: Scientific study that aims to solve practical problems. Used in the following fields: (Psychometrics, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Human Factors Psychology, Counseling Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Psychiatry, Positive Psychology, and Community Psychology.) Notes from the Text: Tackles practical problems. Used to find solutions to everyday problems. Using what you've learned to help others.
Structuralism - Edward Titchener (basic fundamental structures of the mind)
Definition: Structural elements of the mind. An early school of psychology that used introspection to explore the structural elements of the human mind. • Explored structural elements (smallest mental processes) of the human mind. Notes from the Text: Speak inside information? Can be compared to how Psychists and Chemists discerned the structure of matter.
Cognitive Revolution
Definition: Supported ideas developed by earlier psychologists, such as importance of how our mind processes and retains information. Study of the brain linked with mental activity (thinking, memory, language, perception). View of Mind and/or Behavior -Influenced by the way we interpret or perceive an experience or receive, store and process info -irrational or negative thoughts Notes from the text: 1960's movement - beginning to recapture the initial interest in mental processes.
Industrial/Organizational Psychology - Interests include organizational structure and change, consumer behavior, and personnel selection and training. - College or self employed consultant
Definition: The application of psychological concepts and methods to optimize human behavior in workplaces. Might conduct workplace training or provide organizational analysis and development. Working in business, industry, or government. *(Working in a business with people to promote their best work.) (boost morale) Notes from the Text: Study the relationship between people and their working environments. May develop new ways to increase productivity, improve personnel selection or promote job satisfaction in a business setting.
Level of Analysis
Definition: The differing complementary views, from biological to psychological to social-cultural, for analyzing any given phenomenon. Evaluates both nature and nurture, and evaluates both mind and behavior. - Biological: Looks at mental illnesses as if they are a disease that we need to and can treat - Psychological: Looks at what specifically is going on in ones mind? → Perception/Thoughts our expectations about things, how we interpret an event - Social-Cultural: People and cultures can be contributing to depression too Notes from the Text: Each of us is a complex system part of a larger social system we are also composed of smaller systems (nervous system, body organs), which are composed of still smaller systems (cells, molecules, atoms). We have to treat all three levels of this to fully treat mental disorders
Margaret Floy Washburn
Definition: The first woman to receive a psychology Ph.D., Washburn synthesized animal behavior research in the animal mind. Ph.D in Physics? Notes from the Text: When Harvard denied Calkins the claim to being Psychology's first female Psychology Ph.D., that honor fell to Margaret Floy Washburn, who later wrote an influential book, and became the second female APA President in 1921.
*Jean Piaget (Swiss Biologist)
Definition: The last centuries most influential observer of children Notes from the Text: Pioneer/mulligan of the mind
Nature-Nurture Issue (Persistent issue)
Definition: The longstanding controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors. Today's science sees traits and behaviors arising from the interaction of nature and nurture. Notes from the Text: Controversy over the relative contributions . of biology and experience. Locke rejected notion of in-born ideas, suggesting that the mind is a blank slate on which experience writes. Descartes disagreed believing that some ideas are innate, two centuries later his views gained support from naturalist Charles Darwin.
Natural Selection - Darwins principle of natural selection is still with us 150 years later as an organizing principle of biology. - Nurture works on what nature endows. - Evolutionary Psychology (based on ideas of Charles Darwin)
Definition: The principle that among the range of inherited trait variations, those contributing to reproduction and survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations. Believed that his theory explained animal structures and animal behaviors. Notes from the Text: Darwins 1859 on the Origins of Species explained this diversity of life by proposing the evolutionary process of natural selection: From among chance variations, nature selects the traits that best enable an organism to survive and reproduce in a particular environment. Evolution: also important in 21st century psychology). Evolutionary Psychology: Concerned with how natural selection favored behaviors that contributed to survival and spreading our ancestors' genes.
Social Psychology - Some work for hospitals, federal agencies, or businesses performing applied research
Definition: The scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another. You would probably be a college or university faculty member. Might also work in organizational consultation, marketing research, or other applied psychology fields including social neuroscience. Notes from the Text: Exploring how we view and affect one another. Interested in our interactions with others. Study how our beliefs, feelings, and behaviors are affected by and influence other people. Study topics such as attitudes, aggression and prejudice, interpersonal attraction, group behavior, and leadership.
Behavioral Psychology
Definition: The scientific study of observable behavior, and its explanation by principles of learning. View of Mind and/or Behavior: -Learned •we have been conditioned -Classically (responding to something in our environment) -or Operantly (rewarded or punished) -Or through observing others Notes from the Text: How we learn observable responses. Question: How do we learn to fear particular objects or situations? What is the best way to alter our behavior, say, to lose weight or stop smoking?
Behaviorism - B.F. Skinner = Leading behaviorist. - Rejected introspection and studied how consequences shaped behavior.
Definition: The scientific study of observable behavior. Believes behavior is learned through conditioning (repeated experiences) or through observing others. Includes, Classical (involuntary learning) and Operant (voluntary learning) conditioning and Observational Learning (learning by observing). Notes from the Text: Behaviorists' science is rooted in observation. John B. Watson (Father of Behaviorism), B.F. Skinner (Operant conditioning - reinforcements/rewards/punishment) and Bandura (Observational learning by observing) are significant figures in this field.
Developmental Psychology - Field informs public policy in areas such as education and child care reform, maternal/child health, attachment and adoption.
Definition: The scientific study of physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span. As a developmental psychologist you would investigate change across a broad range of topics, including the biological, social, psychological, and cognitive aspects of development. Notes from the Text: Studying our changing abilities from womb to tomb. Conduct research in age-related behavioral changes and apply their scientific knowledge to educational, child care, policy and related settings. Forms a number of applied fields: educational, school, child psychopathologist, genealogy
Human Factors Psychology - Work in areas including business, government, academia, can work on a range designs cars, can openers etc. - Apply the science of psychology to improve life-critical products, such as medical equipment and airline computer systems. - Engineers with a psych background, work with machines and products
Definition: The study of how people and machines interact and the design of safe and easily used machines and environments. They combine technology and psychology to improve our interactions with systems and equipment we use daily. Notes from the Text: Focus on the interaction of people, machines, and physical environments. Strive to make device interactions easier, more comfortable, less frustrating and when necessary, safer. These professionals apply what they know about human behavior to help businesses design products, systems and devices. (Ex. How the iPhone is more intuitive and easier to use than android)
Educational Psychology - Might be employed by school or government agency. - You might design effective tests including measures of aptitude and achievement. - Charged with designing and implementing effective employee training programs in a business setting.
Definition: The study of how psychological processes affect and can enhance teaching and learning. As an educational psychologist, you might work in a university - in a psychology department of school of education. You might conduct basic research on topics related to learning or develop methods of teaching to enhance learning process. Notes from the Text: Studying influences on teaching and learning. Study the relationship between learning and our physical and social environments. They study the psychological processes involved in learning and develop strategies for enhancing the learning process.
Social-Cultural Psychology/Perspective - As products of different environmental contexts, how do we differ?
Definition: The study of how situations and cultures affect our behavior and thinking. Concerned with how culture and situations affect behavior and thinking View of the Mind and/or Behavior: - Culture, society, family, friend, peers, groups influence behavior Notes from the Text: How behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures. Question: How are we humans alive as members of one one human family?
Cognitive Nueroscience/Cognitive Psychology
Definition: The study of the brain activity linked with mental activity. Study of all mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering and communicating Cognitive = another word for "thinking" Notes from the Text: Expanded upon those ideas to explore scientifically the ways people perceive, process, and remember information. This approach has been especially beneficial in helping to develop new way to understand and treat disorders such as depression.
Evolutionary Psychology
Definition: The study of the roots of behavior and mental processes using the principles of natural selection. Concerned with how natural selection favored behaviors that contributed to survival and spreading our ancestors' genes. View of Mind and/or Behavior: -Driven by inherited traits from our ancestors that help us adapt, survive and reproduce -Based on the ideas of... Charles Darwin - Natural Selection Notes from the Text: How the natural selection of traits promoted the survival of genes. Question: How does evolution influence behavior tendencies?
Empiricism
Definition: The view that knowledge originates in experience and that science should, therefore, rely on observation and experimentation. Notes from the Text: John Locke - Mind at birth is a blank slate on which experience writes --> This idea added to Bacon's idea helped form modern empiricism.
Edward Bradford Titchener - Wundt's student
Definition: Titchener used introspection to search for the mind's structural elements. His method was to engage people in self-reflective introspection (looking inward), training them to report elements of their experience as they looked at a rose, listened to a metronome, smelled a scent, tasted a substance, what their immediate sensations, images and feelings were and how they relate to one another. (introspection would not work as well if the people subject to it are not well-spoken) Notes from the Text: Soon after receiving his Ph.D. in 1892 he joined Cornell University's faculty and introduced structuralism. Aimed to discover the structural elements of the mind.
Mary Calkins - Went on to become a distinguished memory researcher and the APA's first female president in 1905
Definition: Was admitted by James into his undergraduate seminar over the objections of Harvard's President. Calkins joining prompted all men to drop out leaving James with just her, to tutor alone. Later she finished all the requirements for Harvard's Ph.D but was instead offered a degree from Harvard's (women only) sister college. She refused that degree rightfully so as she had worked hard to complete Harvard's requirements to receive their degree. Later students protested for Calkins to receive the award she earned. (First woman student of Harvard, First woman APA President) Notes from the Text: James mentored Calkins, who became a pioneering memory researcher and the first woman to be President of the American Psychological Association.
Aristotle (Nature vs. Nurture)
There is nothing in the mind that does not first come in from the external world through senses.
