Unit 1: Scientific Foundations of Psychology

Structuralism

Early school of thought promoted by Wundt and Titchener; used introspection

Introspection

examination of one's own thoughts and feelings

Functionalism

Early school of thought promoted by James and influenced by Darwin; explored how mental and behavioral processes enable the organism to adapt and survive

Behaviorism

Focuses on observable behavior only and not the mental processes behind it

Psychoanalytic

Study of the unconscious (Freud)

Descriptive/correlational method

Describe patterns of behavior and discover association between variables

Experimental method

Studies causation

Random sample

Everyone has an equal chance of getting picked

Random assignment

Randomly assigning people to groups to eliminate the influence of the confounding variables on the treatment

Operational definition

Carefully worded statement of the exact procedures used in a research study so that it can be replicated

Causation

A cause and effect relationship in which one variable controls the changes in another variable

Correlation

A measure of the extent to which two factors vary together (NOT the same thing as causation)

Correlation coefficient (r)

Ranges from -1.0 to 1.0 to indicate the strength and direction of an association between two variables (closer to zero = less correlation)

Double blind procedure

an experimental procedure in which both the research participants and the research staff don't know whether the research participants have received the treatment

Placebo effect

the phenomenon in which the expectations of the participants in a study can influence their behavior

Descriptive statistics

Numerical data used to measure and describe characteristics of groups (measures of center and variation)

Inferential statistics

Numerical data that allows one to generalize - to infer from sample data the probability of something being true of a population

Statistical significance

How likely it is that an obtained result occurred by chance

Informed consent

Ethical principle that research participants be told enough to enable them to choose whether they wish to participate

Debriefing

Post-experimental explanation of a study, including its purpose and any deceptions, to its participants

Reliability vs. validity

Consistency vs. accuracy

biological approach

how the body and brain enable emotions, memories, and sensory experiences

evolutionary approach

how the natural selection of traits has promoted the survival of genes

cognitive approach

how we encode, process, store, and retrieve information

humanistic approach

how we achieve personal growth and self-fulfillment

psychodynamic approach

how behavior springs from unconscious needs, desires, conflicts, and memories

behavioral approach

how we learn observable responses

sociocultural approach

how behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures

longitudinal study

observes variables in the same people over a long period of time

cross-sectional study

observes variables in people with different ages at one point in time