Psychological Foundations, Subfields, Theoretical Frameworks, and Study Methods

Vocabulary flashcards covering psychological subfields, theoretical perspectives, historic figures, research findings, and study strategies from the lecture notes.

Neuropsychologists

Psychologists who investigate the relationship between neurological processes and behavior.

Rehabilitation psychologists

Researchers and practitioners who work with people who have lost optimal functioning after an accident, illness, or other event.

School psychologists

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

Sport psychologists

Psychologists who study the psychological factors that influence, and are influenced by, participation in sports and other physical activities.

Clinical psychologists

Psychologists who promote psychological health in individuals, groups, and organizations.

Community psychologists

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

Counseling psychologists

Psychologists who help people adjust to life transitions or make life-style changes.

Hindsight bias

The tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it.

Positive psychology

The scientific study of human flourishing, with the goals of discovering and promoting strengths and virtues that help individuals and communities to thrive.

Biopsychological approach

An integrated approach that incorporates biological, psychological, and social-cultural viewpoints.

Behavioral psychology

The scientific study of observable behavior, and its explanation by principles of learning.

Biological psychology

The scientific study of the links between biological and psychological processes.

Psychodynamic psychology

A branch of psychology that studies how unconscious drives and conflicts influence behavior and uses that information to treat people with psychological disorders.

Social-cultural psychology

The study of how situations and cultures affect our behavior and thinking.

Testing effect

Enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simply rereading information; also referred to as retrieval practice.

SQ3R

A study method incorporating five steps: Survey, Question, Read, Retrieve, Review.

Cognitive psychology

The study of mental processes, such as occur when we perceive, learn, remember, think, communicate, and solve problems.

Cognitive neuroscience

The interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked with cognition.

Psychology

The science of behavior and mental processes.

Magellans of the mind

A phrase used by psychology historian Morton Hunt to describe early pioneers of psychology, including Wundt, James, Freud, Ivan Pavlov, and Jean Piaget.

On the Origin of Species

Charles Darwin's 1859 book explaining species diversity by proposing the evolutionary process of natural selection.

Nature-nurture issue

The longstanding controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors.

Natural selection

The principle that inherited traits that better enable an organism to survive and reproduce in a particular environment will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations.

Evolutionary psychology

The study of the evolution of behavior using principles of natural selection.

Behavior genetics

The study of the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behavior.

Culture

The enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions shared by a group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next.