Chapter 1: Psychology in Your Life

Vocabulary flashcards covering core psychological definitions, historical figures, theoretical approaches, subfields, research methods, and scientific principles from Chapter 1.

Psychology

The scientific study of mental processes and behavior, which are based on brain processes.

Mental Activity

Processes that allow us to perceive the world by using our senses—sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch—to take in information from outside ourselves.

Behavior

All actions that result from sensing and interpreting information.

Wilhelm Wundt

Nineteenth-century psychologist (1832-1920) who helped establish psychology as a science by adding carefully measured observations and experiments.

Biological Approach

Studying psychology in terms of how thoughts and behaviors are influenced by biological factors in the body, such as genes and hormones.

Psychodynamic Approach

An approach pioneered by Sigmund Freud focusing on how mental processes are affected by childhood and by thoughts and fears that individuals are often unaware of.

Behaviorist Approach

An approach promoted by John B. Watson asserting that the only truly scientific approach to psychology is measuring objective, observable behaviors in humans and other animals.

Sociocultural Approach

An approach associated with Kurt Lewin's action research that studies psychology by considering how social dynamics and culture interact in everyday life.

Humanistic Approach

An approach developed by Carl Rogers that explores how individuals can achieve their personal potential and positive self-esteem.

Mary Whiton Calkins

First woman president of the APA and American Philosophical Association who published 4 books and over 1,000 papers on memory, dreams, and identity, and established the first psychology lab studying women after being shut out of a Harvard doctorate.

Mamie Phipps Clark and Kenneth Clark

Married Black couple who were the 1st Black Americans to earn PhDs in psychology from Columbia and conducted the famous 'doll studies' that influenced Brown v. Board of Education.

Alette Coble-Temple

Psychologist and advocate for disabled people who served on an APA committee working on women's rights and helped California determine parole eligibility.

Culture

The beliefs, values, rules, and customs that exist within a group of people who share a common language or environment.

Empiricism

An objective, evidence-based approach to psychological research that systematically measures thoughts, feelings, behavior, and brain processes across time and demographics.

Critical Thinking

A careful style of forming and evaluating knowledge by analyzing information, arguments, and conclusions to decide if they make sense, rather than simply using intuition or accepting claims.

Biological Psychology

A research-related subfield in psychology that studies how biological systems give rise to mental activity.

Cognitive Psychology / Neuroscience

A subfield in psychology that studies attention, perception, memory, problem solving, and language, often based on brain processes.

Developmental Psychology

A subfield in psychology that studies how people change from infancy through old age.

Personality Psychology

A subfield in psychology that studies enduring characteristics that people display over time and across circumstances.

Social Psychology

A subfield in psychology that studies how people are affected by others.

Cultural Psychology

A subfield in psychology that studies how people are influenced by the societal rules that dictate behavior in their cultures.

Clinical Psychology

A subfield in psychology that studies the factors that cause psychological disorders and the best methods to treat them.

Industrial / Organizational Psychology

A subfield in psychology that studies issues pertaining to industry and the workplace.

Descriptive Methods

Research methods that describe what is occurring at a point in time by measuring factors called dependent variables.

Case Study

A descriptive research method involving intensive examination of a few unique people or organizations.

Observational Study

A descriptive research method that involves systematically assessing and coding observable behavior over time, either with or without researcher intervention.

Observer Bias

Errors in observation that occur because of the researcher's expectations.

Reactivity

A change in participant behavior that occurs as a result of being observed.

Self-Reports

A descriptive research method in which participants report about themselves in relation to cues and prompts, such as through surveys, questionnaires, or interviews.

Self-Report Bias

Errors in participant answers caused by the need for social acceptance, social desirability, or concerns over confidentiality.

Correlational Methods

Research methods that examine how naturally occurring variables are related without intervention by the researcher.

Directionality Problem

A problem in correlational research where researchers are uncertain which variable caused the change in the other variable.

Third Variable Problem

A problem in correlational research where an unidentified variable may influence the measured relationship between two variables.

Experimental Methods

Research methods that examine how an independent variable manipulated by researchers affects a dependent variable measured by researchers to establish cause-and-effect relationships.

Independent Variable

The variable that the experimenter manipulates to examine its impact on the dependent variable.

Dependent Variable

The variable that is affected by the manipulation of the independent variable and measured by researchers.

Control Group

A baseline comparison group of participants in an experiment who receive either no intervention or an intervention different from the independent variable being tested.

Experimental Group

One or more treatment groups of participants in an experiment who receive the intervention of the independent variable being investigated.

Confound

Anything that unintentionally varies across the levels of the independent variable or affects a dependent variable, leading to inaccurate cause-and-effect determinations.