PSYC 201: The Science of Mind - Discipline of Psychology Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering core definitions, major historical movements, perspectives, and key historical figures from the PSYC 201 lecture notes.

Psychology

The scientific study of behaviour and the physiological and mental processes that underlie it.

Behaviour

An overt (observable) response or activity.

Physiological Processes

Biological processes that underlie behaviour, including hormonal secretions, neural impulses, and genetic coding.

Mental Processes

Internal psychological activities, including thoughts, feelings, and wishes.

Hub Science

A central field of study, such as psychology, that supports applications across many other academic fields because almost all occupations require an understanding of people and their behaviour.

Voluntarism

An early school of psychology, associated with Wilhelm Wundt, emphasizing that behavior is motivated and attention is focused for an explicit purpose through conscious will and choice.

Structuralism

An early movement in psychology, associated with Edward Titchener and John Wallace Baird, that sought to identify the components of consciousness and describe observable mental processes using introspection.

Introspection

A method used in structuralism where trained participants reported on their conscious experiences during perception in order to break mental processes down into individual elements.

Gestalt Psychology

A psychological movement asserting that consciousness cannot be broken down into component parts, the whole is different than the sum of its parts, and learning is tied to perception.

Functionalism

A school of thought associated with William James that focused on why mental processes work in a particular way and how purposeful behaviour contributes to survival.

Psychodynamic Perspective

A theoretical framework founded by Sigmund Freud emphasizing that unconscious forces, internal conflict, early childhood experiences, and defense mechanisms shape personality and psychological health.

Humanistic Psychology

A perspective associated with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Abraham Maslow, and Carl Rogers proposing that people are innately good and motivated to improve themselves, acting badly only when corrupted by society.

Behaviourism

A approach associated with Ivan Pavlov, John Watson, B.F. Skinner, and Albert Bandura advocating that scientific psychology should focus exclusively on directly observable behavior rather than internal mental processes.

Cognitive Psychology

A field focusing on internal mental processes involved in information processing, language development, problem-solving, and thinking, using observable behavior to infer internal mental states.

Cognitive Neuroscience

An interdisciplinary field studying cognition alongside brain activity, associated with prominent researchers including Ulric Neisser, Wilder Penfield, Donald Hebb, and Brenda Milner.

Five Perspectives of Psychology

The comprehensive integrative model combining biological and evolutionary, cognitive, social and personality, developmental, and clinical psychology, grounded in scientific research methods.