Neuroscience

Structuralism

An early school of thought promoted by Wundt and Titchener; used introspection to reveal the structure of the human mind.

Gestalt psychology

An organized whole. Gestalt psychologists emphasized our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes.

Functionalism

An early school of thought promoted by James and influenced by Darwin; explored how mental and behavioral processes function-how they enable the organism to adapt, survive, and flourish.

Psychoanalysis

Freud’s theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious Behaviorism:motives and conflicts.

Behaviorism

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

Charles Darwin

Argued that natural selection shapes behaviors as well as bodies.

Dorothea Dix

Introduced the idea of the first American mental asylum.

Wilhelm Wundt

Established the first psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig, Germany.

William James

Was a legendary teacher-writer who authored an important 1890 psychology text and believed in functionalism.

Sigmund Freud

The controversial ideas of this famed personality theorist and therapist have influenced humanity’s self-understanding, created the idea of psychoanalytic psychology.

Ivan Pavlov

Pioneered the study of learning.

John B. Watson

Championed psychology as a scientific study of behavior, he constructed the ‘Little Albert” experiment.

B. F. Skinner

He rejected introspection and studied how consequences shape behavior.

Abraham Maslow

Believed behaviorism and psychoanalytic psychology limiting, humanist.

Carl Rogers

Agreed with Maslow, humanist.

Jean Piaget

Observer of children.

G. Stanley Hall

First to establish the first formal U.S. psychology laboratory at Johns Hopkins University.

Mary Whiton Calkins

Was mentored by James, who also became a pioneering memory researcher and the first woman to be president of the American Psychological Association.

Margaret Floy Washburn

The first woman to receive a psychology Ph.D., Washburn synthesized animal behavior research in The Animal Mind (1908).

Humanistic perspective

Focused on our potential for personal growth.

Psychoanalytic perspective:

Emphasized the ways our unconscious mind and childhood experiences affect our behavior.

Cognitive perspective:

The study of mental processes, such as when we perceive, learn, remember, think, communicate, and solve problems.

Biological perspective:

The scientific study of the links between biological (genetics, neural, and hormonal) and psychological processes.

Social-cultural perspective

The study of how situations and cultures affect our behavior and thinking.

Behavior genetics

The study of the relative power and limits of genetic environmental influences on behavior.

Positive psychology

The scientific study of human flourishing, with the goals of discovering and promoting strength and virtues that help individuals and communities to thrive.

Variance

(diversity and differences within groups and between groups): how it measures how much differs from the mean of the data collected.

Empirical vs. anecdotal evidence:

Empirical connotes a larger sample while anecdotal applies to a greater number of us.

Clinical psychology:

A branch of psychology that studies, assesses, and treats people with psychological disorders.

Counseling psychology:

A branch of psychology that assists people with problems in living and in achieving greater well-being.

Developmental psychology:

A branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span.

Educational psychology:

The study of how psychological processes affect and can enhance teaching and learning.

Experimental psychology:

The study that manipulates variables to understand correlation between cognitive and behavior.

Human factors

A field of psychology allied with I/O psychology that explores how people and machines interact and how machines and physical environments can be made safe and easy to use.

Industrial–organizational

(I/O) the application of psychological concepts and methods to optimizing human behavior in workplaces.

Personality psychology:

The study of individuals’ characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting.

Psychometrics

The scientific study of the measurement of human abilities, attitudes, and traits.

Positive psychology

The scientific study of human flourishing, with the goals of discovering and promoting strength and virtues that help individuals and communities to thrive.

Social psychology

The scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another.

Scientific method

A standardized way of making observations, gathering data, forming theories, testing prediction, and interpreting results.

Confirmation bias

A tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconception, leading to statistical errors.

Critical thinking

Involves constantly asking questions, examining information and evidence, and figuring out conclusions.

Participant bias

A tendency of participants in an experiment to consciously or subconsciously act in a way that they think the experimenter or researcher wanted them to act.

Naturalistic observation

A research method commonly used in observing subjects in their natural environment.

Case study

The use of a descriptive research approach to obtain an in-depth analysis of a person, group, or phenomenon.

Correlational study

A way to gather information about a topic where performing an experiment is not possible, involves looking at a relationship between variables.

Survey method

A way of data collection used to gather information about individuals.

Population

The total group of individuals from which the sample might be drawn.

Random sample

A sample in which each member of the population has an equal chance of being selected to represent the whole.

Longitudinal study

An observational research method in which data is gathered for the same subjects repeatedly over a period of time.

Cross-sectional study

Involves using different groups of people who differ in the variable of interest but share other characteristics.

Experiment

A scientific procedure undertaken to make a discovery, test a hypothesis, or demonstrate a known fact.

Hypothesis

A supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation.

Experimental group

A group that receives a treatment in an experiment, test subjects.

Control group

The group in an experiment or study that does not receive treatment by the researchers and is then used as a benchmark to measure how the other tested subjects are treated.

Random assignment

An experimental technique for assigning human participants or animal subjects to different groups in an experiment using randomization.

Double-blind procedure

One in which neither the participants nor the experimenters know who is receiving a particular treatment.

Placebo

An effect produced by a placebo drug or treatment, which cannot be attributed to the properties of the placebo itself, and must therefore be due to the patient’s belief in that treatment.

Operational definition

A statement of the procedures or ways in which a researcher is going to measure behaviors and qualities.

Independent variable (IV)

A variable whose variation does not depend on that of another.

Dependent variable (DV)

A variable whose value depends on that of another.

Confounding variable

An outside influence that changes the effect of a dependent and independent variable.

Control variable

An experimental element which is constant and unchanged throughout the course of an experiment.