Psychology

Social cognition

The ability to understand social interactions, including the causes and consequences of human behavior.

Left Hemisphere

• Language • Math • Logic

Occipital Lobe

• vision

FPOT

Frontal, Parietal, Occipital and Temporal Lobes

Who was the first psychologist to research scientifically?

Wilhelm Wundt

Right Hemisphere

• Spatial abilities • Face recognition • Visual imagery • Music

Epistemology means 'ways of knowing'. When humans are described to have knowledge of the world in psychological terms, what are we actually saying they are able to do?

sensation, perception, memory, language, logic (cognitive processes)

Localisation

Localisation is a term that is used to describe different areas of the brain that specialize in different functions. The corpus callosum is a good example for the term localisation. The corpus callosum acts as a link in which both left and right hemispheres use to communicate with each other.

What are ther other two components of the definition of psychology?

Study of the mind/mental processes and behaviour

Which subject did psychology originate from?

philosophy

Structuralism

the school of psychology that was concerned with determining the structure of consciousness; structuralists broke down conscious experience into components, such as sensation and feelings.

Schema theory

people form mental representations of what it means to be either a boy or a girl.

Parietal Lobe

• perception of stimuli related to touch • pressure temperature • pain

Reductionism

Reductionism is an approach to understanding complex things by simplifying (or reducing) them to their most basic parts.

efficacy

the power to produce a desired result

epistemology

the study of knowledge

behaviorism

the view that psychology should be an objective science that studies behavior without reference to mental processes

Why is psychology considered to be scientific?

Based on valid and reliable research

Reductionism

The theory that every complex phenomenon, especially in biology or psychology, can be explained by analyzing the simplest, most basic physical mechanisms that are in operation during the phenomenon.

Introspection

'looking inwards' at one's own mental experiences and reporting the observations very precisely to others.

Wilhelm Wundt

In 1879, Wilhelm Wundt established an official instute at the University of Lepzig where graduate students could earn PhD degrees in expermental psychology. Wundt is often regarded as the father of modern academic and expermintal psychology, but despite his support for expermental methods, he had a clear idea of their limitations. In Wundt's view, many important psychological problems could only be studied with non-experimental techniques such as introspection.

Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

Is the ration of mental to chronological age that was introduced in 1912 to provide a single measure of intellectual ability.

what is pop psych?

Popular psychology theories and concepts that may or may not have a basis in psychology

Cognitive psychology

Sensation, perception, memory, language and reason are areas of cognitive psychology

Ethics

The rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group.

Ethnocentrism

Thinking one's own group's ways are superior to others or judging other groups as inferior to one's own.

Epistemology

the philosophical theory of knowledge Greek root: episteme(knowledge) + logos(reasoning)

What is ment by the term empirical?

Empirical research is a way of gaining knowledge by means of direct and indirect observation or experience. Empirical evidence (the record of direct observations or experiences) can be analysed quatitatively or qualitatively.

Determinism

Past experiences may determine Future

Define psychology

The definition of psychology is ambiguous with no single definition. The popular definition is the scientific study of mental processes and behaviors and how these are affected by internal process and the environment. This definition is comprised of three major components. The first component is the scientific and the controlled study of human behavior. The second is mental processes and behavior. The mental processes are covert behaviors and include attention, memory, emotions and attitudes. The other behaviors are overt and can be observed directly of measured with instruments. These include aggression, helping, and sleeping. The third component is internal processes and environment. Internal processes include hormones and genes. The environment comprises of the nature or nurture argument. The modern thought acknowledges the important contributions of both.

Ecological Validity

The extent to which the conditions simulated in the laboratory reflect real life conditions. Using an experimental laboratory-based research method, as has been the tradition in Cognitive Psychology, rigorous control for confounding variables is put in place and the ideal is that the researcher can study the only the penomenon of intrest. By manipulating variables (so-called independent variables) in the experimental setup and observing the changes that result (measured in the change of the dependent variable) the reasearcher can infer causaity: if (indipendant) variable X is changed, (dependant) variable Y also changes. By rigorously controlling for confounding variables and confining the experiment to the laboratory, the results can very well lack applicability and generalisability with regards to the richness of everyday life. Ecological validity refers to an acknowledgment of the fact that human action is situated and highly contigent on contextual factors/variables. To obtain 'valid' results, humans should be studied in the richness of their natural environment.

Nature and Nurture

This is one of if not the longest running debate since the science of psychology began...what makes us who we are and drives how we behave, our genes (nature) or our experiences (nurture)? For example, if a person commits a violent crime, did they do so because of their genetic makeup (they are genetically pre-wired to be violent) or because of their experiences (e.g., growing up in an impovershed area not getting a good education, no parental guidance or some other experience)? This is the nature-nurture debate.

Introspection

a method of self-observation in which participants report their thoughts and feelings

Wilhelm Wundt

german physiologist who founded psychology as a formal science; opened first psychology research laboratory in 1879

what is psychobable and give an example of it?

popular buzz words taken from psychological terminology but used out of context

Critical thinking

the ability and willingness to assess claims and make objective judgments on he basis of well supported reasons and evidence rather that emotions, beliefs, myths, and anecdotes.

Temporal Lobe

• perception and recognition of auditory stimuli (hearing) • memory (hippocampus)

Frontal Lobe

• Reasoning • Planning • parts of speech and movement (motor cortex) • emotions • problem-solving

Define psychology as a scientific discipline

Psychology is a multidisciplinary science. Psychology can be subdivided into different categories of specific disciplines. Social psychology, neuropsychology, cross-cultural psychology, cognitive psychology, and developmental psychology are all examples of the different disciplines of psychology. Social psychologists study group processes. Neuropsychologists preform brain scans in order to investigate memory. Cross-cultural psychologists study gender roles in different cultures. Cognitive psychologists investigate decision making process. Developmental psychologists research nutrition and stimulation that affect children's health and learning capacity. Several different disciplines of psychology may merge to create new areas for example neuroeconomics.

Determinism

The doctrine that all events-physical, behavioral, and mental-are determined by specific causal factors that are potentially knowable.

Nature and Nurture

A controversy concerning the relative importance of heredity (nature) and environment (nurture) in various aspects of individual development, such as intelligence, personality, or mental illness.

Laterisation

Lateralisation refers to the separation of the brain into two sides or hemispheres: left hemisphere and right hemisphere. The right hemispheres functions include spatial abilities, face recognition, visual imagery and music. Language, math, and logic are functions of the left hemisphere.

Cognition

All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, and remembering. As you can tell, any of your ideas, thoughts, memories, etc., are all types of cognitive processes. What you are doing (reading and learning this explanation) is a type of cognition.

Give 4 examples of the diversity of psychology.

Brain scanning, conflict, love, sex, gender, motivation, sport, stress

What dose psychology literally translate as?

Pysch-the mind or soul and logos-reason

Cognitive development

the inner mental processes of thinking and reasoning, underlying mental structures, and how these change over time.

epistemology

the study of the development of knowledge and understanding.