Unit 1: Scientific Foundations of Psychology

Functionalism

Thought promoted by James and influenced by Darwin; explored how mental and behavioral processes function- how they enable the organism to adapt and survive

Operational definition

________ describes the specific procedure used to determine the presence of a variable

Validity

________ is the extent to which an instrument measures or predicts what it is supposed to.

Freud

________ believed that early life experiences shape personality and that the unconscious is the source of desires, thoughts, and memories—humanistic psychology.

Reliability

________ is consistency or repeatability.

Descriptive Statistics

________: Numbers that summarize a set of research data obtained from a sample.

Empirical philosopher Locke

________ believed that mind and body interact symmetrically (monism), knowledge comes from observation, and what we know comes from experience since we are born without knowledge,"a blank slate "(tabula rasa)

Participation

________ in a study should be voluntary, and not coerced or influenced as part of a grade, raise, or promotion.

Statistical significance

________ (p) is a measure of the likelihood that the difference between groups results from a real difference between the two groups rather than from chance alone.

Wundt

________ used trained introspection to study the mind's structure and identify consciousness's basic elements- sensations, feelings, and image—structuralism.

standard deviation

Variance and ________ (SD) indicate the degree to which scores differ from each other and vary around the mean value for the set.

Sigmund Freud

________ opposed behaviorists in Austria.

Neuropsychologists

________ explore the relationships between brain /nervous systems and behavior.

scientific experiment

In a(n) ________, the researcher controls a variable and observes the response.

modern psychology

The model is a unifying theme in ________ drawing from and interacting with the seven approaches to explain behavior.

Roots of psychology

________ can be traced to philosophy and physiology /biology over 2, 000 years ago in ancient Greece.

Case Study

________: is an in-depth examination of a specific group or single person that typically includes interviews, observations, and test scores.

Meta analysis

________ provides a way of statistically combining the results of individual research studies to reach an overall conclusion.

Survey Method

________: researchers use questionnaires or interviews to ask a large number of people questions about their behaviors, thoughts, and attitudes.

Clinical psychologists

________ treat people with temporary psychological crises like grief, addiction, or social issues and those with chronic psychiatric disorders.

Social psychologists

________ focus on how a persons mental life and behavior are shaped by interactions with other people.

Humanists

________ value feelings and believe people are naturally positive and growth- seeking.

Wilhelm Wundt

In 1879, ________ founded scientific psychology by founding a laboratory in Leipzig, Germany, to study immediate conscious sensation.

Inferential statistics

________ are used to interpret data and draw conclusions

Psychoanalytic theory

________ explained mental disorders, personality, and motivation through unconscious internal conflicts.

Variables

________ are factors with multiple values.

Variability

________ describes the spread or dispersion of scores for a set of research data or distribution.

Psychologists

________ studied social and environmental factors affecting cultural differences in behavior.

Double-blind procedure

a research design in which neither the experimenter nor the participants know who is in the experimental group and who is in the control group.

Frequency polygon

________- a line graph that replaces the bars with single points and connects the points with a line.

Single-blind procedure

a research design in which the participants don’t know which treatment group- experimental or control- they are in.

psychological factors

The biopsychosocial model integrates biological processes, ________, and social forces to provide a more complete picture of behavior and mental processes.

Placebo effect

________ is now used to describe any cases when experimental participants change their behavior in the absence of any kind of experimental manipulation.

Random selection

________ can be achieved by putting all the names in a hat and picking out a specified number of names, by alphabetizing the roster of enrollees and choosing every fifth name, or by using a table of random numbers to choose participants.

Edward Titchener

________ brought introspection to his Cornell University lab, analyzed consciousness into its basic elements, and investigated how they are related—structuralism.

Nature-nurture controversy

which our behavior is inborn or learned through experience

Sample

a subgroup of the population

Experimental group

receives the treatment

Control group

does not receive the treatment

Between-subjects design

The participants in the experimental and control groups are different individuals

Confounding variables

Differences between the experimental group and the control group other than those resulting from the independent variable

Subjects

attend the same two sessions upon which the quiz is based

Demand characteristics

The clues participants discover about the purpose of the study, including rumors they hear about the study suggesting how they should respond

Placebo

The imitation pill, injection, patch, or other treatment

Social Desirability Bias

A tendency to give socially approved answers to questions about oneself

Statistically Significant

Result that did NOT occur by chance.

Hawthorne Effect

A change in a subject's behavior caused simply by the awareness of being studied

Random Assignment

Assigning participants to experimental and control groups by chance

Behavioralism

The empirical study of actual human behavior rather than abstract or speculative theories.