Chapter 1: Psychology and Scientific Thinking Flashcards

A comprehensive vocabulary study set defining key terms, theoretical perspectives, biases, logical fallacies, and scientific principles covered in Chapter 1: Introduction to Psychology and Scientific Thinking.

Psychology

The scientific study of the mind, brain, and behavior.

Levels of Analysis

The rungs on a ladder of investigation spanning from lower biological influences, such as molecules and brain structures, to higher social and cultural influences.

Multiply Determined

The quality of actions being produced by an interplay of many diverse factors rather than a single causal variable.

Individual Differences

Variations among people in their thinking, emotion, personality, and behavior that make it challenging to produce universal explanations of behavior.

Reciprocal Determinism

The principle, identified by Albert Bandura, that people mutually influence each other's behavior in ongoing interactions.

Emic Approach

An approach in cross-cultural psychology where investigators study the behavior of a culture from the perspective of someone who grew up within that culture.

Etic Approach

An approach in cross-cultural psychology where investigators study the behavior of a culture from the perspective of an outside observer.

Naive Realism

The intuitive belief that we see the world precisely as it is, grounded in the assumption that seeing is believing.

Science

A systematic approach to evidence consisting of attitudes and skills designed to prevent people from fooling themselves.

Empiricism

The foundational premise of science that knowledge should initially be acquired through direct observation.

Scientific Theory

An explanation for a large number of findings in the natural world that synthesizes diverse observations and generates testable predictions.

Hypothesis

A specific, testable prediction derived from a broader scientific theory or explanation.

Confirmation Bias

The psychological tendency to seek out evidence that supports our preexisting beliefs while denying, dismissing, or distorting evidence that contradicts them.

Belief Perseverance

The tendency to stick stubbornly to initial beliefs even after empirical evidence has contradicted or disproved them.

Metaphysical Claims

Assertions about the world that cannot be tested scientifically, such as assertions regarding the existence of God, the soul, and the afterlife.

Pseudoscience

A set of claims that appears scientific but lacks the procedural safeguards against confirmation bias and belief perseverance that characterize genuine science.

Ad Hoc Immunizing Hypothesis

An escape hatch or loophole used by defenders of a theory to explain away negative results and protect the theory from being disproven.

Patternicity

The tendency to perceive meaningful patterns or connections in meaningless or random data.

Terror Management Theory

A theory proposing that awareness of inevitable mortality produces terror, which people cope with by adopting cultural worldviews that provide lasting meaning and purpose.

Mortality Salience

The extent to which thoughts of one's own death are made prominent or foremost in mind during research investigations.

Emotional Reasoning Fallacy

The error of using one's emotions as guides for evaluating the validity of a scientific claim, also called the affect heuristic.

Bandwagon Fallacy

The logical error of assuming that a claim must be correct simply because a large number of people believe it.

Not Me Fallacy

The error of believing that one is personally immune from the thinking traps, errors, and biases that afflict other people.

Bias Blind Spot

The cognitive phenomenon where individuals fail to notice their own biases while being keenly aware of biases in others.

Opportunity Cost

A harm of pseudoscience occurring when individuals invest in ineffective, questionable treatments and thereby forfeit the chance to obtain effective medical or psychological care.

Scientific Skepticism

An approach that evaluates all claims with an open mind but insists on persuasive empirical evidence before accepting them.

Critical Thinking

A set of skills for evaluating all claims in an open-minded and careful fashion, designed to overcome cognitive biases.

Correlation-Causation Fallacy

The mistaken assumption that because two variables are correlated or associated with each other, one must necessarily cause the other.

Third Variable Problem

A situation in correlational research where an unmeasured third variable ($c$) causes both variable $a$ and variable $b$, creating an association that is not directly causal.

Falsifiability

The requirement that for a scientific theory or claim to be meaningful, it must be capable of being disproven by empirical evidence.

Replicability

The scientific standard requiring that a study's findings can be consistently duplicated by independent investigators.

Decline Effect

The phenomenon in which the apparent strength or effect size of certain scientific findings decreases over time upon repeated replication.

Occam's Razor

The principle of parsimony stating that if two explanations account equally well for a phenomenon, researchers should generally select the simpler one.

Generalizability

The extent to which findings from a study can be applied to varied settings and diverse populations outside the original laboratory conditions.

Introspection

A research technique introduced in early experimental psychology requiring trained observers to reflect carefully and systematically report on their immediate conscious experiences.

Structuralism

An early school of psychology founded by Edward Bradford Titchener that aimed to identify the fundamental elements or structures of conscious psychological experience.

Imageless Thought

A mental phenomenon demonstrated by Oswald Külpe showing that thinking can occur without conscious sensory experience, challenging structuralism.

Functionalism

An early school of psychology founded by William James that sought to understand the adaptive purposes or functions of psychological characteristics and behaviors.

Behaviorism

A theoretical school of psychology founded by John B. Watson that focuses on uncovering general principles of learning by studying observable behavior rather than conscious states.

Cognitivism

A theoretical framework asserting that thinking processes and mental interpretations of stimuli crucially influence behavior, opening the internal black box.

Cognitive Neuroscience

A scientific discipline examining the relationship between physiological brain functioning and thinking processes.

Psychoanalysis

A school of psychology founded by Sigmund Freud focusing on internal, unconscious psychological processes, drives, and early childhood experiences as causes of behavior.

Nature-Nurture Debate

The ongoing controversy questioning whether human psychological characteristics and behaviors are attributable primarily to genetic inheritance or environmental rearing.

Tabula Rasa

The concept of the mind as a blank slate at birth, popularized by John Locke, suggesting that individuals enter the world with no innate preconceptions.

Evolutionary Psychology

A discipline applying Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection to explain the adaptive functions of human and animal psychological systems.

Fitness

In evolutionary biology, the extent to which a physical or behavioral trait increases the likelihood that an organism will survive and reproduce relative to competitors.

Free Will versus Determinism Debate

The philosophical and psychological debate examining the extent to which human behaviors are freely chosen rather than automatically produced by preceding causes.

Basic Research

Scientific investigations designed to examine the fundamental mechanisms of how the mind and behavior work.

Applied Research

Scientific investigations designed to utilize foundational psychological discoveries to solve practical, real-world problems.