Psychology Exam#1 Chapter 1 material

First stack contains from chapter 1 only

Psychology as a science?

• Psychology is the study of behaviour, thoughts and experience.

• It uses the scientific method and it explored the study of the brain.

Scientific method

• Learning the world through observation

• Developing theories to explain

• Using theories to make predictions

Hypothesis

• A testable scientific prediction

• not yet proven to be true

• must be falsifiable

• stated in relative terms

Theory

• Broad range of observations

• Trying to explain it

• Built from the hypothesis

• must be falsifiable

• Can be updated with new information (must always be incomplete to fill in the data).

Theories

• not opinions

• ideas that have been proved and tested by evidence

• not all are equally plausible

• not determined by a number of people who believe it to be true (the validity of it)

Scientific Literacy

• Critical thinking

• Being curious

• asking questions

• being skeptical (sources of Bias)

What do psychologists do?

• use the scientific method

• examine assumptions and biases

• consider alternative view points

• tolerate ambiguity when evidence is inconclusive

The principle of Parsimony

• Two competing explanations by default we use the simpler one to accept rather than the more complex.

ex: explaining the paranormal

Scientific principles and Psychology

Specific scientific principles that recognized psychology as a science and allowed it to be viewed as it is.

Empiricism

• Using observation

• All knowledge comes through experience

Determinism

• All events can be explained by lawful, cause and effect relationships. ( contrast to free will).

• emphasis on cause and effect.

Zeitgest

• ( Views of a culture or society)

• Refers to general set of beliefs or culture at specific time in history. (delayed science of psychology).

Materialism

Belief that humans and living things are composed of exclusive physical matter.

Ancients

• Hippocrates (BCE)

• Considered the father of western medicine

• Put effort into finding biological causes of diseases of illnesses

• Made the oath to heal and do no harm (doctors still take it to this day.)

Four humours contributors our health and personality

• Blood

• Yellow bile

• Black bile

• Phlegm

Aristotle

• Tabula Rose-you begin life with a blank state(empiricism)

• Para psyche (about the mind) Wrote the first text in the history of psychology

Psyche

• The mind source of all behaviour

• definition meaning soul

• No difference between mind and soul

Ancient Greeks thoughts about the brain:

• They thought the brain cooled the blood and played no role in behaviour and that memory was stored in the heart

• “Things come from the heart”

Rene Descartes

• Proposed “cartesian dualism” like a solution to the mind-body problem.

• Both a non-material mind and material body drive behaviour.

• solution suffered from the problem of interactionism

• tried to resolve the problem using the pineal gland (referred to as the seat of the soul).

What did Gustav Fechner contribute?

• Psychophysics and perception

What is Psychophysics and perception?

• The study of the relationship between the physical world and mental representation (subjective creatures).

• He studied our senses and how we respond with data in graphs and numbers.

Who created the evolutionary theory?

Charles Darwin

What is the evolutionary theory?

• Theory of evolution by natural selection

• different traits that make certain individuals more likely to survive and produce offspring

• surviving traits become more common

The origin of species

• descent of man

• can select behaviour

• emotion expressions

• provide advantages

Brain Localization

Certain parts of the brain control specific mental abilities

Phrenology

• Invented by Franz Gall and Johann Spurzheim

• The brain consists of 27 organs associated with each personality trait

• Believed the size of organ corresponded to the trait and based on the bumps on an individual’s head

What did Paul Broca identify?

• Identified the brain region associated with speech speech production (Broca’s area)

What did Carl Warnicke identify?

• Identified the brain region associated with speech comprehension (understand and convey meaning)

What was Frenz Mesmer known for?

• Believe there were metallic fluids in the body cured diseases,(magnets)

• He would direct the “fluids” by mesmerizing the patient with hand movements

• This created the phenomenon named hypnosis (some cases could be affective).

What was Sigmund Freud known for?

• Psychoanalysis

• hypnosis

• believed our behaviours are based on unconscious influences /outside of our control or awareness

• Used hypnosis to get into a person’s unconscious mind and treat various conditions

• Iceberg theory with our conscious experiences guiding our behaviours

ID (instincts)

• The “devil” on your shoulder

Super-Ego

• Critical thinking

• The Angel on your shoulder/mortality

Ego

• Mediator/ the middle person

• deciding wether or not to think rationally or irrationally

Why did Sigmund freud believe in the Id, ego and super ego categories?

• Believed that everything was on things that happened in our childhood and that would be the source of everything.

Criticisms of Freud

• More subjective rather than scientific, not falsifiable to be classified as a scientist

• Used drugs on his patients such as cocaine witch would cause addiction to later on ruin his reputation

• His theories suggested a lack of free will/ doesn’t leave much room for anything else

• Deligitamizes

What theory of Freud was controversial?

• Dismissed claims of sexual abuse and referred to it as constructions of our unconscious mind

• so not to be taken seriously

• thought trauma was not real

• believed it was the unconscious mind was making it up

Contributions of Freud

• Potential unconscious mental process

• Evolutionary thinking

• Medical model

• Experience as children

Potential unconscious mental process

• Introduced the practice to guide our behaviour

Medical Model

• Idea of treating mental illness as a biological problem. (trying to come up with cures.)

Interpreted evolutionary Thinking

• By acknowledging our physiological needs and urges for example meaning sexual needs.

Emphasized our experience as Children

• Have a direct influence on why our behaviour is the way it is as adults

Mesmerism

• “magnetic healing powers”

• Theory of animal magnetism

• Melancholia (depression)

• “most diseases were caused by fluids being blocked and the way to cure it was restoring the movement and flow of the fluid

• because of the banquet de Mesmer doctors were losing patients.

What is Theory of animal magnetism?

• All living things are connected by an invisible magnetic fluid

What did Sir Francis Galton do to establish psych as science?

• He developed statistical techniques for comparison and analysis of human behaviour

• examples: economic, sociology, anthopology

• Nature VS Nurture

• Strongly believed nature was very important and believed all differences in all people could be explained by hereditary

• Eminence

• Eugenics

Nature

• Genetics and heridated qualities

Nurture

• Environment and life experiences

Eminence

• moral, thinking abilities/achievements

• passed down

• “ His family is gifted therefore he will be successful”

Eugenics

• True genes good will make you good and bad will make you bad

• Very racist approach

• basically saying white people were perfectly healthy vs other people with a different race or disability

• One sided

• Ignored other arguments

What was Wilhem Wundts known for?

• First laboratory dedicated to psychology to study human behaviour

• Introspection

• Structuralism

• The study of thought

Introspection

• Process to look within and describe your own mental experiences (self report, sensations.)

Structuralism

• analysing an experience by breaking it down into basic elements and to understand how these elements work together

• believed you could explain our experiences by adding up all of the little sensations that make up the large experience

The study of thought

• Reaction time methods

• experiment found mental activity is not instantaneous

• went against people’s theory that it happens magically and that there is more mental processing occuring

Edward Titchner

• Same beliefs as Wundts method of introspection, though criticism would approach

• Tried to make psychology a legitimate science

How did Titchner try to make psych a science?

• Tried to create a periodic table of thoughts and experiences

• Used elements of thoughts of atoms of experience

• He found he could explain all of our experiences if you could find all the different combinations

What was William James known for?

• First modern textbook “The principles of psychology”

• was influenced by Darwin’s Evolutionary theory

• proposed Functionalism

Functionalism

• The explanation of why we behave the way we do and what makes them adaptive and what makes them function in real environments

Edwin Twitmyer

• discovered conditioning

Conditioning

• condition reflexes

• how organisms learn how to react to their bodily functions

• you can condition someone by continuously doing an action before another action and if you take one variable away but still proved the other they will still complete the action

Ivan Pavlov

• Classical conditioning

• trained dogs to salivate at the sound of a metronome

• won nobel prize for conditioning

• learning process occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired

Behaviourism

• Ivan pavlov

• study of conditioning

• study of observable behaviour only with little to no reference to mental or instincts/influences as much as possible

What was John B Watson known for?