Psych Chapter 1

Franz Joseph Gall

Developed a theory called phrenology, which suggested that psychological capacities (such as the capacity for friendship) and traits (such as cautiousness and mirth) were located in particular parts of the brain.

Illusions

Errors of perceptions, memory of judgement in which subjective experience differs form objective reality.

Hermann von Helmholtz

German physician who by measuring a person's reaction time to different stimuli estimated the length of time it takes a nerve impulse to travel to the brain.

Humanistic Psychology

An approach to understanding human nature that emphasizes the positive potential of human beings.

Behaviorism

An approach that advocates that psychologists restrict themselves to the scientific study of objectively observable behavior.

Aristotle

4th Century BC Greek philosopher who believed in empiricism

Plato

4th Century BC Greek philosopher who believed in nativism

Behavioral neuroscience

An approach to psychology that links psychological processes to activities in the nervous system and other bodily processes.

Cognitive neuroscience

A field that attempts to understand the links between cognitive processes and brain activity.

Phrenology

A now defunct theory that specific mental abilities and characteristics, ranging from memory to the capacity for happiness, are localized in specific regions of the brain.

Consciousness

A person's subjective experience of the world and the mind.

Gestalt psychology

A psychological approach that emphasizes that we often perceive the whole rather than the sum of the parts.

Evolutionary psychology

A psychological approach that explains mind and behavior in terms of the adaptive value of abilities that are preserved over time by natural selection.

Margaret Floy Washburn

A student of Edward Titchener at Cornell, became the first woman to receive a PhD degree in psychology and developed a theory of consciousness.

Social psychology

A subfield of psychology that studies the causes and consequences of interpersonal behavior.

Paul Broca

A surgeon who worked with a brain-damaged person who could comprehend but not produce spoken language. He suggested that the mind is grounded in the material processes of the brain.

Hysteria

A temporary loss of cognitive or motor functions, usually as a result of emotionally upsetting experiences.

Psychoanalysis

A therapeutic approach that focuses on bringing unconscious material into conscious awareness to better understand psychological disorders.

The Mueller-Lyer Line Illusion

Although they do not appear to be, these two horizontal lines are actually the same length.

G. (Granville) Stanley Hall

American psychologist who founded the continent's first physiology laboratory at John Hopkins University, the first academic journal devoted to psychology, and the first professional organization (the American Psychological Association).

Sigmund Freud

An Austrian neurologist, now known as the father of psychoanalysis.

Response

An action or physiological change elicited by a stimulus.

René Descartes

Best known for his suggestion that the body and soul are fundamentally different.

Edward Titchener

British psychologist who brought structuralism to America, setting up a psychology laboratory at Cornell University. He studied under Wundt in Germany.

Natural selection

Charles Darwin's theory that the features of an organism that help it survive and reproduce are more likely than other features to be passed on to subsequent generations.

Karl Lashley

Conducted experiments that he hoped would reveal a brain area that stores learned information. He removed different parts of animals' brains and observed the effects on the animals' behavior. Though he never found specific area where learning is stored, his general approach had a major influence on behavioral neuroscience.

Noam Chomsky

Criticized Skinner's theory of language signaled the end of behaviorism's dominance in psychology and helped spark the development of cognitive psychology.

Wilhelm Wundt

Founded the first laboratory devoted exclusively to psychology at the University of Leipzig in Germany.

fMRI

Functional magnetic resonance imaging that produces more precise images than Positron emission tomography (PET) scans.

B.F. (Burrhus Frederick) Skinner

Inspired by Watson's behaviorism, he investigated the way an animal learns by interacting with its environment, most famous for his experiments where rats learn to press a lever to receive food.

Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow

Introduced a positive, humanistic, psychology in response to what they viewed as the overly pessimistic view of psychoanalysis.

John B. (Broadus) Watson

Left John Hopkins University after a scandal and embarked on a successful career with the J. Walter Thompson advertising firm in New York City.

Behavior

Observable actions of human beings and nonhuman animals.

Mind

Our private inner experiences of perceptions, thoughts, memories, and feelings.

Stimulus

Sensory input from the environment.

Psychoanalytic theory

Sigmund Freud's approach to understanding human behavior that emphasizes the importance of unconscious mental processes in shaping feelings, thoughts, and behaviors.

Jean Piaget

Studied and theorized about the developing mental lives of children, a marked departure from observations of external behavior dictated by the method of behaviorists.

Kenneth B. Clark

Studied the developmental effects of prejudice, discrimination, and segregation on children. In one classic study from the 1950s, he found that African American preschoolers preferred white dolls to black ones. His research was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in its excision for the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case that ended school segregation.

Reaction time

The amount of time taken to respond to a specific stimulus.

Structuralism

The analysis of the basic elements that constitute the mind.

Reinforcement

The consequences of a behavior that determine whether it will be more likely that the behavior will occur again.

Francis Cecil Summer

The first African American to hold a PhD in psychology, receiving his from Clark University in 1920. He conducted research on race relations, equality, and the psychology of religion.

William James

The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States and by some is called the "Father of American psychology"

Mary Whiton Calkins

The first woman elected APA president. Despite academic setbacks (such as Harvard University refusing to grant women an official PhD), she went on to a distinguished career in research and teaching at Wellesley College.

Unconscious

The part of the mind that operates outside of conscious awareness, but influences conscious thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Philosophical empiricism

The philosophical view that all knowledge is acquired through experience

Nativism

The philosophical view that certain kinds of knowledge are innate or inborn.

Cognitive Psychology

The scientific study of mental processes, including perception, thought, memory, and reasoning.

Psychology

The scientific study of mind and behavior.

Physiology

The study of biological processes, especially in the human body.

Cultural psychology

The study of how cultures reflect and shape the psychological processes of their members.

Functionalism

The study of the purpose mental processes serve in enabling people to adapt to their environment.

Introspection

The subjective observation of one's own experience.