Psych Exam 1 (Ch 1, 2, 11, and love?)

5 Biblical principles

THEMES

We seek to make sense of our surroundings, our experience, and our purpose through perceiving

patterns, creative meaning making, and desire for a deity.

Relational Persons: We are made in the image of God, meant for a relationship with Him and meant

to steward His creation.

Broken in Need of Redemption: We are sinners in need of salvation through Christ, living in and part

of creation that suffers the consequences of all humanity’s sin.

Embodied: We bear God’s image in real bodies in the real world.

Responsible, Limited Agents: We make choices (within constraints) that result in actions for which we

are both individually and corporately responsible.

Meaning Seekers: We seek to make sense of our surroundings, our experience, and our purpose

through perceiving patterns, creative meaning making, and desire for a deity.

5 pillars of psychology:

Biological- genetics, biopsychology, sensation & perception.

Cognitive- thoughts and their relationship to behavior, language, memory, intelligence.

Developmental- behavior, learning & conditioning, stages & milestones of development.

Social and personality- influence of actual, imagined, and implied presence of others, individual uniqueness.

Mental and physical health- abnormal thoughts and behaviors, diagnosing and treating disorders, health affected by the biopsychosocial interactions.

Biopsychosocial model

Chapter 1

Psychology is a science

The need for psychological science

How do psychologists ask and answer questions?

Psychology’s research ethics

Chapter 1

Psychology is a science…

since it scientifically studies how people act, think, and feel, using critical thinking and the scientific method

Psychology does not blindly accept arguments or conclusions

It challenges old beliefs and finds fact-related paths to questions

It uses a scientific attitude to ask questions and interpret answers

What does using a scientific attitude look like?

Curiosity → does it work?

Skepticism → what do you mean?

Humility → lets explore further

Early explorers in psychology:

Wilhelm Wundt: established the 1st psych laboratory in Germany

Charles Darwin: his thinking on species variation led to evolutionary psychology (English Naturalist)

Ivan Pavlov: taught us about learning and classical conditioning (Russian physiologist)

Sigmund Freud: personality theorist and therapist (Austrian physician)

Jean Piaget: explored child development (Swiss biologist)

William James: authored an important 1890 psychology text and mentored Calkins (American psychologist)

Mary Calkins: famous memory researcher & first woman to be APA president (American psychologist)

Margaret Washburn: animal behavior researcher & first woman to receive a PhD in psychology

Contemporary psychologists:

John B Watson: coined psychology as the scientific study of behavior (e.g., fear can be learned)

B.F. Skinner: led of field of behaviorism, rejecting the idea of studying inner thoughts and feelings

Sigmund Freud: lead controversial ideas of personality that have shaped self-understanding

Psychology: the science of behavior and mental processes.

Structuralism: focus on the structure of the human mind (Wilhelm Wundt)

Functionalism: focus on how the mind functions (William James)

Behaviorism: focus on objective behaviors w/o reference to mental processes (B.F. Skinner)

Humanistic psychology: focus on human growth potential

Cognitive psychology: focus on the mental processes involved in perceiving, learning, remembering, thinking, communicating, and solving problems

Cognitive neuroscience: focus on the brain to understand neural activity underlying mental activity.

Modern psychology uses the biopsychsocial approach

The biopsychosocial approach:

Humans are biologically-rooted in human nature

We also have individual differences

Our cultural group membership shape our behaviors

WEIRD Acronym

Nature vs nurture:

Nature: genetics/biology

Nurture: environment/contexts

Dual processing: the mind processes information consciously and unconsciously at the same time.

Your vision, we’re viewing AND making decisions with what we see at the same time.

Dual processing allows us to think, feel, sense, and act outside of our awareness.