AP psych vocab 1

Cognition

all mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating

Psychiatry

branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders

Humanistic Psychology

clinical viewpoint emphasizing human ability, growth, potential and free will

Psychodynamic Psychology

clinical viewpoint emphasizing the understanding of mental disorders in terms of unconscious needs, desires, memories, and conflicts

Pseudopsychology

erroneous assertions or practices set forth as being scientific psychology

Neuroscience

field devoted to understanding how the brain creates thoughts, feelings, motives, consciousness, memories, and other mental processes

Psychoanalysis

Freuds’ theory that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; the techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions

Structuralism

historical school devoted to uncovering the basic structures or “elements” that make up mind and thought

Functionalism

historical school of psychology that believed mental processes could be best be understood in terms of their adaptive purpose and function

Cognitive Neuroscience

interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked with cognition (including perception, thinking, memory, and language)

Introspection

method of self-observation in which participants report their thoughts and feelings

Developmental View

psychological perspective emphasizing changes that occur across the lifespan

Clinical View

psychological perspetive emphasizing mental health and illness

Cognitive View

psychological persepective emphasizing mental processes (learning, memory, perception, thinking) as forms of information processing

Sociocultural View

psychological perspective emphasizing the importance of social interaction, social learning, and a cultural perspective

Behavioral View

psychological perspective that finds the source of our actions in environmental stimuli, rather than in inner mental processes

Biological View

psychological perspective that searches for the causes of behavior in the functioning of genes, the brain, nervous system, and the endocrine system

Trait View

psychological perspective that vies behavior and personality as the products of enduring psychological characteristics

Experimental psychology

psychologists who do research on basic psychological processes

Evolutionary Psychology

specialty in psychology that sees behavior and. mental processes in terms of their genetic adaptations for survival and reproduction

Gestalt Psychology

school of psychology that emphasized the tendency to organize perceptions of individual parts into meaningful whole

Empirical approach

study conducted via careful observations and scientifically based research

Confirmation Bias

tendency to search for information that supports preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence

Applied Psychology

using the knowledge developed by experimental psychologists to solve human problems

Behaviorism

view that psychology should be an objective science that studied behavior without reference to mental processes