Introductory Psychology Lecture Notes Flashcards

Vocabulary-style flashcards covering key terms, historical figures, research studies, psychological perspectives, and cognitive principles from the provided transcript.

Structuralism

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

Introspection

A tactic of psychological analysis in which participants described how they felt or what they pictured in response to images and sounds; the belief that inward thoughts can reveal truth about the psyche.

Functionalism

An early school of thought promoted by William James and influenced by Charles Darwin; explored how mental and behavioral processes function and enable organisms to adapt, survive, and flourish.

Mary Whiton Calkins

Woman privately tutored by William James at Harvard who rejected her doctorate from Harvard's sister school; later became the first female president of the American Psychological Association.

Margaret Floy Washburn

Held the honor of being the first official female psychology Ph.D.

Behaviorism

The view that psychology should be an objective science that studies behavior without reference to mental processes; psychology shifted from the science of mental life toward behavior that can be more accurately studied.

Sigmund Freud

Part of the psychodynamic tradition; emphasized how childhood and various experiences influence behavior and sexual tendencies.

Humanistic psychology

Led by Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow; rejected behaviorism and Freudian psychology as too limiting and focused on growth potential, needs for love and acceptance, and environments that nurture or limit personal growth; emerged in the 1960s.

Cognitive psychology

The study of mental processes involved in perceiving, learning, remembering, thinking, communicating, and solving problems; interdisciplinary study of brain activity linked with cognition.

Psychology

The science of behavior and mental processes.

Behavior

Anything an organism does—any action we can observe and record.

Nature-nurture issue

The longstanding controversy over the relative contributions of genes and experience to psychological traits and behaviors; modern science sees traits and behaviors as arising from their interaction.

Natural selection

From among chance variations, nature selects traits that best enable an organism to survive and reproduce in a specific environment.

Evolutionary psychology

Studies how natural selection has shaped traits and behaviors that help organisms survive and reproduce.

Behavior genetics

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

Culture

Enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions shared by a group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next.

Positive psychology

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

Empirical approach

An evidence-based method that draws on observation and experimentation.

Biopsychosocial approach

An integrated approach incorporating biological, psychological, and social-cultural levels of analysis.

Levels of analysis

Differing complementary views, from biological to psychological to social-cultural, for analyzing a phenomenon.

Neuroscience perspective

Studies how the brain and body enable behavior and mental processes; might study brain circuits that cause someone to become red in the face and "hot under the collar."

Evolutionary perspective

Studies how natural selection and traits may promote survival; might analyze how anger facilitated the survival of ancestors' genes.

Behavior genetics perspective

Studies how heredity and experience influence individual differences in temperament.

Psychodynamic perspective

Studies how behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts; might view an outburst as an outlet for unconscious hostility.

Behavioral perspective

Studies how behavior is learned; might determine what triggers aggressive acts.

Cognitive perspective

Studies how interpretation affects anger and how anger affects thinking.

Social-cultural perspective

Studies how behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures; might explore how expressions of anger vary across cultural contexts.

Basic research

Pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base.

Applied research

Scientific study that aims to solve practical problems; industrial-organizational psychologists use psychology in workplaces to help organizations select/train employees, boost morale/productivity, design products, and implement systems.

Counseling psychologists

A branch of psychology that assists people with problems in living, often involving school, work, or relationships, and helps achieve greater well-being.

Clinical psychologists

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

Community psychologists

Definition not provided in notes.

Self-control

A better predictor of grades than IQ.

Hindsight bias

The tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it; also called the "I-knew-it-all-along" phenomenon.

Pattern seeking

The tendency to perceive patterns in random events; random sequences often do not look random.

Commonsense thinking

Can be flawed because of three powerful tendencies: hindsight bias, overconfidence, and the tendency to perceive patterns in random events.

Peer reviewers

Scientific experts who evaluate a research article's theory, originality, and accuracy.

Theory

An explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes observations and predicts behaviors or events.

Scientific method

A systematic method of developing and testing explanations using observations, hypotheses, research designs, and data.

Hypothesis

A specific, testable prediction.

Research design

Outlines the methodology: who will be studied, how variables will be measured, and procedures to be followed.

Data

Evidence that supports or challenges a hypothesis; non-supporting data is just as important as supporting data, and evidence supporting a hypothesis does not necessarily prove it.

Replication

Repeating a study to determine whether findings can be reproduced.

Why replication matters

Replication increases confidence in research findings; failure to replicate does not mean fraud; replications help science self-correct; strong claims are supported by multiple studies.

Population

Everyone a study's claim is meant to be about.

Sample

The people included in a study; findings from the sample are generalized to the population.

Convenience sampling

Participants are recruited because they are easy to access, such as students, online participants, or volunteers.

Random sampling

Every individual in the population has an equal chance of being selected.

Representative sample

A sample that resembles the population on characteristics that matter to the research question.

Operational definitions

Definitions specifying how a variable is measured or manipulated.

Psychological constructs

Abstract concepts such as learning, stress, and aggression that must be turned into something measurable.

Descriptive research methods

Methods used to observe and describe behavior.

Case study

An in-depth examination of a single person or small group.

Naturalistic observation

Observing behavior in real-world settings.

Surveys and interviews

Descriptive research methods used to collect information by asking people questions.

Experimental group

The group that receives the treatment or manipulation.

Control group

The group not exposed to the treatment/manipulation; all other conditions are equal.

Random assignment

Assigning participants to experimental or control groups by chance so every participant has an equal chance of being in either group; helps control confounding variables and reduce pre-existing group differences.

Confounding variable

A variable that creates an alternative explanation for the results; random assignment helps reduce pre-existing differences between groups.

Mulled and Oppenheimer (2014)

Study in Psychological Science involving 67 Princeton students who watched one of five TED Talks and were randomly assigned to take notes by longhand or laptop; laptops were disconnected from the internet; after three unrelated filter tasks, students took a quiz about 30 minutes later.

Mulled and Oppenheimer findings

No reliable difference for factual questions; longhand note-takers performed better on conceptual questions; laptop users wrote more words and copied more of the talk verbatim.

Mulled and Oppenheimer explanation

Typing quickly enough to transcribe allows students to record information without necessarily understanding it.

Morehead, Dunlosky, and Rawson (2019)

A direct replication with extensions that found no learning advantage for longhand note-taking.

Informed consent

Participants agree to participate after learning what the study involves; consent explains pay, potential risks, and who to contact if harm/distress occurs.

Voluntary participation

Participants can say no and stop participating at any time.

No coercion

Participation cannot be forced or pressured.

Institutional Review Board (IRB)

Reviews studies before data are collected; weighs risks against value and can require changes or refuse approval; researchers must explain study procedures and consent language.

Protected populations

Groups such as children and prisoners receive additional protection; children require parental consent, and prisoners may be vulnerable to coercion.

Philip Zimbardo

Researcher associated with the Stanford prison experiment.

Stanford prison experiment

Male students were randomly assigned as guards or prisoners; planned for two weeks but ended early after abusive behavior and distress; participants attempting to withdraw were pressured to continue.

Confidentiality

Participant data are protected and generally reported in aggregate; researchers must disclose to the IRB how data are stored and do not disclose individual responses except as appropriate in a case study.

Deception

Allowed only under certain circumstances when necessary to obtain a natural response and when risk is small; requires additional IRB review.

Debriefing

Explaining the study to participants afterward, including deception used.

Consciousness

Our subjective awareness of ourselves and our environment.

Altered state of consciousness

A change from normal waking awareness, including flow, dreaming, sleep, meditation, or psychedelic hallucinations.

Cognitive neuroscience

Interdisciplinary study of brain activity linked with mental processes.

Neural correlates of consciousness

Brain activity that reliably accompanies a conscious experience; a correlate is not necessarily a cause.

Global Workspace Theory

Consciousness results when signals processed by a specific brain network/workspace are broadcast to other areas of the brain, producing conscious experience.

Global Workspace Theory evidence

A word flashed too briefly to consciously see produces small activity in the visual cortex; consciously seeing the same word produces widespread brain activity.

Integrated Information Theory

Consciousness comes from the amount of neural interconnectedness; what matters is how much brain parts work together as one system.

Integrated Information Theory evidence

A magnetic pulse spreads widely through the cortex when awake but produces a short, local response during deep sleep/sedation.

Adversarial collaboration (2025)

A test in which both theories agreed in advance on predictions and what would count as failure; a neutral team tested 256 people; some predictions from both theories failed, so neither theory "won" and neither was eliminated.

Arousal

The level of wakefulness; associated with the brainstem, particularly the reticular formation; gone in coma and switched off by general anesthesia.

Awareness

The content of conscious experience; involves widespread, coordinated activity across the cortex.

Consciousness research

Research suggests $15\text{--}30\%$ of unresponsive patients may have meaningful conscious awareness.

fMRI and unresponsive patients

Some unresponsive patients showed brain activity when asked to imagine playing tennis or walking through their house; patterns resembled healthy volunteers.

Blindsight

A condition in which a person can respond to visual stimuli without consciously experiencing them; visual sensory receptors work, but visual brain areas are damaged.

Dual processing

Simultaneous information processing on separate conscious/deliberate and unconscious/automatic tracks.

Parallel processing

Multiple aspects of a stimulus or problem are handled simultaneously; fast, effortless, and automatic.

Sequential processing

One aspect is processed at a time; slow, effortful, and deliberate.

Automatic skills

Many behaviors that begin as effortful become automatic through practice, freeing attention.

Selective attention

Conscious awareness focused on a particular stimulus while filtering out other stimuli.

Thalamus

Gates which sensory signals are relayed to the cortex; frontal and parietal regions help decide what is attended to.

Cocktail party effect

The ability to notice personally meaningful information, such as hearing your name, despite attending to another conversation.

Inattentional blindness

Failing to see something clearly visible because attention is engaged elsewhere.

Drew et al. (2013)

Study in which radiologists looked for cancer nodules in lung scans; a small gorilla was included, and 20 of 24 missed it while still finding the smaller nodules they were looking for.

Change blindness

Failing to notice that something in a scene has changed, usually across a brief interruption.

Simons and Levin (1998)

A stranger giving directions was swapped for a different person while two people carried a door between them; only 7 of 15 pedestrians noticed.

Distraction and task recovery

It takes about 24 minutes to recover or reorient to a task after being distracted.

Driving distraction

Talking with passengers raises accident risk by $1.6 \times$; phone conversation, including hands-free, raises accident potential about $4 \times$; texting for long-haul truck drivers raises accident potential about $23 \times$.