Unit 1 - Psychology's History and Approaches

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67 Terms

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Wilhem Wundt

  • Father of psychology

  • established the first psychology lab

  • Created an experiement to measure “atoms of the mind”

    • measured how long it took for people to press a telegraph key after hearing a ball drop

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G. Stanley Hall

  • One of Wundt’s (and Psychology’s) first American students

  • Established the first formal U.S. Psych Laboratory at John Hopkins University

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Edward Titchner

  • Wundt’s student at Cornell

  • Introduced Structuralism

  • Aimed to classify and understand elements of the mind’s structure

  • Focused on inner sensations, images, and feelings

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Structuralism

  • Engaging people in self-reflective introspective (looking inward)

  • training them to report elements of their experience as their senses were exercised

  • Introspection was unreliable - varied each time depending on the person

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William James

  • Philosopher-psychologist

  • assumed that thinking developed because it was adaptive as a functionalist

  • An outgoing Harvard teacher-writer who wrote a textbook

    • called Principles of Psychology

      • took him 12 years

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Functionalism

  • Consideration of the evolved functions of our thoughts and feelings

  • Consciousness serves as a function

  • It enables us to consider our past, adjust to our present, and plan our future

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Mary Whiton Calkins

  • Student of William James

  • All men dropped out when she joined but she outscored them on the exams

  • Harvard denied her degree but she was offered one from the sister school which she refused

  • Became a memory researcher and first female president of the American Psychological Association

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Margaret Floy Washburn

  • First official female psychology Ph.D.

  • Wrote an influential book, The Animal Mind

  • Became the second APA female president

  • Wundt’s first foreign study published in his psych journal was her thesis

  • Wasn’t allowed to join all-male experimental psychologists although it was founded by Titchner, her advisor

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John B. Watson

  • redefined psychology as the scientific study of observable behavior

  • Performed a controversial study on a baby called Little Albert (with Rosalie Rayner)

  • Believed that a child’s environment is the factor that shapes behavior

  • psycho-analytic

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B.F. Skinner

  • redefined psychology as the scientific study of observable behavior

  • Proposed a method of learning called operant conditioning psychology, which occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior

  • behavioral

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Behaviorists

  • Observe and record people’s behavior as they are conditioned (respond to and learn in different situations)

  • They believe our actions are shaped by environmental stimuli

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Sigmund Freud

  • Psychologist who focused on psychoanalytic psychology

    • emphasized the way our unconscious mind and childhood experiences affect behavior along with thoughts and urges

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Freudian Psychologists

  • emphasized the way our unconsious mind and childhood experience affect behavior

  • repressed feelings are psychologically surpressed and manifested into dreams

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Psychodynamic Approach

focuses on the psychological drive and forces within individuals that explain human behavior and personality

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Humanistic Psychologists

  • psychologists who focus on our potential for personal growth

  • emphasize the study of the whole person

  • look at human behavior through the eyes of the person doing the behaving

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Carl Rogers

  • humanistic psychologist

  • believed that humans were capable of becoming whole persons through self-discovery

  • Developed the person-centered approach to psychotherapy and the concept of unconditional positive regard

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Abraham Maslow

  • humanistic psychologist

  • developed a hierarchy of needs to explain human motivation

    • food and clothing

    • job security

    • friendship

    • esteem

    • self-actualization

  • believed that these needed to be met before they pursue more social self-actualizing needs

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Cognitive Psychology

how we percieve, process and remember information and how thinking and emotion interact with anxiety, depression, and other decisions

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Empiricism

  • the mind at birth is a tabula rasa (a “blank slate”)

  • the theory that all knowledge is derived from sense-experience

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Introspection

looking inward, used by structuralists

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Experimental Psychologists

use scientific methods to collect data and perform research

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Cognitive Neuroscience

intersection of psychology and neuroscience

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Psychology

  • Behavior

  • anything an organism does

  • any action we can observe and record

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Psychology

  • Mental Process

internal, subjective experiences we infer from behavior — feelings, dreams, sensations

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Ivan Pavlov

  • Russian Psysologist

  • pioneered the study of learning

  • tested the concept of conditioned reflex

    • trained a hungry dog to salivate at a sound when it was presented food

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Jean Piaget

  • Swiss biologist

  • last century’s most influential observer of children

  • worked on child development

  • developed theory of cognitive development

  • genetic epistemology

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Charles Darwin

  • proposed the evolutionary process of natural selection after encountering species variation on his world journey

  • Argued that natural selection explained behaviors and bodies/structures

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Nature vs. Nurture Debate

  • example

  • Are our human traits inherited, or do they develop through experience?

  • Some assume we inherit character and intelligence while others believed that there is nothing in our mind that does not come first through our senses

  • For example, when a person achieves a high level of academic success

    • Did they do so because they are genetically predisposed to elevated levels of intelligence, or is their success a result of an enriched environment?

  • That is the focus of behavior genetics

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General conclusion of nature vs. nurture

Nurture works on what nature provides

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Different levels of analysis of psychology

biological, psychological and social-cultural

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Biopsychosocial approach

Together, the biological, psychological and social cultural viewpoints form an integrated biopsychosocial approach

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Behavioral Approach Focus

we learn observable responses based on punishment or reward for a behavior

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Behavioral Approach Sample Question

What is the most effective way to alter our behavior for example, to lost weight?

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Biological Approach Focus

how our genes and environment influence individual differences

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Biological Approach Sample Question

How do pain messages travel from the hand to the brain?

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Cognitive Approach Focus

How we encode, process, store and retrieve information

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Cognitive Approach Sample Question

How do we use our information in reasoning?

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Evolutionary Approach Focus

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

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Evolutionary Approach Sample Question

How does evolution influence behavior tendencies?

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Humanistic Approach Focus

How we achieve personal growth and self fufillment

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Humanistic Approach Sample Question

How can we overcome barriers to our personal growth?

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Psychodynamic Approach Focus

How behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflict

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Psychodynamic Approach Sample Questions

How can someone’s personality traits and disorders be explained by unfulfilled wishes and childhood trauma?

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Social-Cultural Approach Focus

How behavior and thinking vary across situations and culture

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Social-Cultural Approach Sample Question

How are we affected by the people around us, and our surrounding culture?

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Psychometrics

the scientific study of the measurement of human abilities, altitudes and traits

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Basic research

pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base

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Applied research

Scientific study that aims to solve practical problems

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Difference between psychiatrists and psychologists

psychiatrists are medical doctors licensed to prescribe drugs while psychologists help people overcome their struggles

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Dorothea Dix’s contribution to psychology

she was a pioneer that led the way to humane treatment of those with psychological disorders (mentally ill patients and mental institutes)

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Martin Seligman

founding father of positive psychology

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Positive Psychology

the scientific study of human strengths and virtues and belief that happiness is a by-product of a pleasant, engaged, and meaningful life

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Cognitive psychologists

  • Study human thinking

  • Focus on things like memory, judgment, problem solving, and perception

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Developmental psychologists

  • conduct research on age-related behavioral changes

  • apply scientific knowledge to education and child-care

  • specialize in a specific stage of life

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Educational psychologists

  • study the relationship between learning and the physical and social environments

  • develop strategies to help learning

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Psychometric psychologists

a diverse group of scientists who investigate a variety of basic behavioral processes in humans and other animals

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Social psychologists

  • interested in our interactions with others

  • study how our beliefs, feelings, and behaviors are affected by and influence other people

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Forensic Psychologists

apply psychlogical principals to legal issues

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Health Psychologists

researchers and practitioners concerned with psychology’s contribution to promoting health and preventing disease

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Industrial-organizational psychologists

study the relationship between people and their working environment

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Neuropsychologists

psychologists who investigate the relationship between neurological processes and behavior

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Rehabilitation psychologists

researchers and practitioners who work with people who have lost optimal function after an accident, illness, or other event

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School psychologists

involved in the assessment of and intervention for children in educational settings

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Sports Psychologists

study the psychological factors that influence and are influenced by participation in sports and other physical activity

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Clinical psychologists

  • promote psychological health in individuals, groups, and organizations

  • often provide therapy

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Community psychologists

move beyond focusing on specific individuals or families and deal with broad problems of mental health in community settings

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counseling psychologists

help people adjust to life transitions or make life-style changes