Psych GRE App: History

Define Psychology

Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes

Define behavior as it relates to psychology

observable actions

What are mental processes?

internal experiences, including feelings and thoughts

Why is psychology a scientific study?

-uses empirical data to test hypotheses

-describes, predicts, and explains behavior and mental processes

-systematic collection and interpretation of data

An example of the nature vs nurture controversy is whether..

intelligences derives from experience or is inherited

Define dualism as it relates to psychology

This idea of dualism usually is associated with Rene Descartes.

Dualism is the false idea that the mind and brain are separate entities that interact; in reality, they are the same entity, understood at different levels

What is monism?

the idea that the brain and the mind are the same thing, and that every mental state is reducible to an identical brain state

Plato and Descartes, believers in dualism, are on which side of the nature vs nurture controversy?

Plato and Descartes favored nature.

Descartes believed knowledge was innate and the pineal gland was considered the mind.

Aristotle, Hobbes, and Locke (believers in monism), are on which side of the nature vs nurture controversy?

Aristotle, Hobbes, and Locke believed in nurture.

Locke's "tabular rasa" translates to "blank slate" suggesting that knowledge is learned through experience.

Psychology grew out of which discipline(s) in Ancient Greece?

philosophy, physiology, and biology

Who is credited with the foundation of scientific psychology?

Wilhelm Wundt

He performed the earliest studies in 1879 in Germany. Wilhelm Wundt is considered the father of the discipline of psychology. He created the first lab dedicated to psychology research, and wanted to measure consciousness.

What was the first textbook in psychology?

Wundt's "Principles of Physiological Psychology" publishes in 1874, which made the case that psychology is a unique subject matter that is worthy of study. It defined psychology as the study of consciousness.

What is Structuralism?

Structuralism examines the structure of the mind and basic elements of consciousness.

Proponents of this system felt that consciousness should be the data of psychology and the best way to research was by using individuals who were trained in introspection.

Define introspection

Introspection is the process whereby observers look inward and objectively analyze their sensory experience

Who was the first woman to receive her PhD in psychology?

Margaret Floy Washburn

Define functionalism as it relates to psychology

Functionalism was the school of thought that was a reaction to structuralism.

Functionalism studies how the mind adapts to its environment. Functionalism was interested in individual differences, whereas structuralism was interested in groups of people.

Who was Mary Whiton Calkins?

First female president of APA

Name three of the earliest functionalists

William James, James Cattell, John Dewey

What theory did William James found?

William James is the founder of the functionalist perspective

Which psychological approach does this statement reflect?

"Behavior results from learning through experience"

behavioral

What is behavior modification?

set of techniques to help individuals unlearn habits that have led to psychological problems

Describe Ivan Pavlov's classical conditioning experiments

Pavlov, an early behaviorist, in his famous classical conditioning experiment, trained dogs to salivate in response to the sound of a bell

What did John Watson believe psychology should study?

Watson, one of the earliest behaviorists, felt psychology should be the science of overt behavior and reject the study of mental processes

Who is the psychologist behind operant conditioning of rates and pigeons?

B.F. Skinner

What is the key premise in Gestalt psychology?

Gestalt psychology stresses that the whole process should be studies, rather than specific parts.

-Gestalt psychology was a reaction to structuralism

-While structuralism seeks to study the elements that make up consciousness, Gestalt psychology stresses the idea that the "whole is greater than the sum of its parts"

operant conditioning

training organisms to repeat responses that lead to rewards and not to repeat responses that lead to punishment

What type of psychologists were Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler, and Kurt Koffka?

they were Gestalt psychologists

Where do behavioral geneticists believe behavior comes from?

particular behaviors are attributed to genetically based psychological characteristics

Who is the father of psychoanalysis?

Sigmund Freud

According to psychoanalysis, early life experiences are related to the development of ones' ____ later in life.

personality

Other than Sigmund Freud, name four psychologists who associate with the psychoanalytic perspective.

Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Karen Horney, Heinz Kohut

What approach studies unconscious motives, while the biological approach studies chemical processes?

Psychoanalytic studies unconscious motives

The psychoanalytic approach is also known as the psychodynamic approach

What is the difference between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind?

The conscious mind is readily accessible, while the subconscious mind is inaccessible but influences behavior

Repression

psychoanalytic term for burying information in the subconscious

Who, unlike behaviorists, believe free will guides behavior and leads to personal growth?

Humanists believe free will guides behavior and leads to personal growth

What is humanism?

Humanism is psychological perspective that believes humans have unique qualities of behavior that differ from other organisms

Name two psychologists who associate with the humanistic approach

Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers

Technological advances and physiological research formed the basis of what approach?

technological advances and physiological research formed the basis of the biological approach

the biological approach is also known as biopsychology or neuroscience

According to the biological perspective, behavior is related to what processes within the nervous and endocrine systems?

according to the biological perspective, behavior is related to the chemical processes within the nervous and endocrine systems

Which psychological approach does this statement reflect?

"Behaviors that contribute to survival and reproduction are naturally selected."

the evolutionary approach

Who was the inspiration behind the evolutionary approach to psychology?

Charles Darwin

Darwin's theory of natural selection said all creatures have evolved over time in order to survive and reproduce.

Which psychological approach focuses on thinking, language, and how humans receive, store, and process information?

cognitive psychology

Who first studied the cognitive development of children?

Jean Piaget

The structuralists studied consciousness, thinking, and memory. This area of psychology is currently known as what?

cognition

Which psychological approach does this statement reflect?

"People from different cultures interpret gestures, body language, and verbal language differently."

Sociocultural psychology

These psychologists study how cultural differences affect behavior.

Organize in chronological order from earliest to latest, based on when each became popular:

sociocultural approach, behavioral approach, humanistic approach

1. The behavioral approach became popular in the early 20th century with Pavolv's research

2. The humanistic approach came about in the mid-20th century in opposition to Behaviorism

3. Lastly, the sociocultural approach grew toward the end of the century as there were more interactions between different cultures

Name 3 Ancient Greeks who were philosophers who also discussed psychological concepts

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle

Which Scientific Revolution-era thinker discussed mind-body dualism in his philosophical writings?

Rene Decartes

Who believed that thought and knowledge are not innate and that a human being is born as a tabula rasa?

John Locke

Who was one of the first thinkers to suggest that our perceptions of sensation are all that we can be sure of?

Thomas Hobbes

Who was an Enlightenment thinker who believed we were active shapers of our own worlds with inborn traits that skew our perceptions?

Immanuel Kant

Who was a Viennese scientist who was the first to use hypnotism to cure mental illness and what did he call it?

Anton Mesmer was the first to use hypnotism and he called it "mesmerism"

Braid, Charcot, and Freud were other pioneering users of hypnosis and hypnotic techniques

Who created Phrenology and what is it?

Phrenology is the "science" that proposed people's personalities were based on their skull shape and was created by Franz Joseph Gall

Who was the first psychologist to use statistics in psychological research, as well as the inventor of the correlation coefficient?

Sir Francis Galton

What is Gustav Fechner considered to be the founder of?

Gustav Fechner is considered the found of experimental psychology because of his use of empirical techniques to study psychological phenomena

Eugenics

a biological plan based loosely on genetics that hoped to selectively breed human beings to create the perfect human

Who wrote "Elements of Physiology," a book that suggested the existence of special nerve energies?

Johannes Muller - his theory suggested that nerves will always fire the same way, despite different types of stimulation

What was the first accepted psychological laboratory?

The first accepted psychological laboratory was founded in 1879 by Wilhelm Wundt at University of Leipzig for the purposes of studying consciousness.

Which psychologist based his work on the now-discredited evolutionary work of Lamarck, and suggested that different races passed on their intelligence to future generations?

Herbert Spencer

Who was one of the founders of our current psychology of perception?

Hermann von Helmholtz

Who received the first PhD in America and also was the founder of the APA?

Stanley Hall - he is also responsible for the modern concept of adolescence

Who did his psychological work on the reflex arc, which proposed that animals always adapt to their environments, rather than respond to stimuli with concrete responses?

John Dewey

Who was the inventor of structuralism, and also used introspection to examine consciousness

Edward Titchener

Who was James Cattell?

James Cattell founded psychological research laboratories in both University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University.

He was one of the forefathers of the experimental movement in American psychology.

Who was one of the founders of the American movement to provide better care for the mentally ill?

Dorothea Lynde Dix

Who created the law of effect, which eventually led to operant conditioning?

Edward Thorndike

Who was a student of Sigmund Freud who created individual psychology, the idea of the inferiority complex, and a four-type personality system.

Alfred Adler

Which psychologist split from Sigmund Freud to go on to create analytic psychology?

Carl Gustav Jung

The mechanistic behavioral equation Performance = Drive x Habit is best associated with who?

Clark Hull

Which behaviorist believed that learning is acquired through purposeful behavior, which he demonstrated by running rats through mazes?

Edward Tolman

In the 1940s, psychology moved away from research and toward the practical treatment of mental illness, which was especially apparent in what emerging field?

clinical psychology

Who was Konrad Lorenz?

He was one of the founders of ethology who also did extensive research with duckling imprinting

Who created a new form therapy called client-centered therapy that employed unconditional positive regard?

Carl Rogers

What was Abraham Maslow famous for?

Abraham Maslow was famous for leading humanistic psychology and creating the hierarchy of needs

What did Erik Erikson propose?

Erik Erikson proposed an 8 stage model of development that included a crisis in order to transition to the next stage

Existential psychology

This is a field of psychology that focuses on the fact that people innately want to search for meaning and purpose to add substance to their lives; a major psychologist is this field was Victor Frankl

Who, amongst other cognitive psychologists, believed that mental illness comes from bad thinking patterns, which must be treated with cognitive therapy.

Aaron Beck

What are the 6 basic things to know about Piaget?

1. The child's interaction with the physical world leads to logical cognition

2. He has a stage theory and going through the stages leads to qualitative changes in the way you reason

3. Universal: everyone develops the same way and culture has only a small role

4. The mind is active

5. Functional part of his theory has assimilation and accommodation

6. Structural part of his theory has schemas and operations

Outline of the history of Psychology

-Philosophers (Descartes, Hobbs, Lock, Berkeley)

-Sensory-Physiologists (Bell-Magendie, Muller, Helmholtz, Weber-Fechner)

-Structuralist (Wundt and Titchner)

-Functionalist (James, Thorndike, Cattel)

-Behaviorist (Pavlov, Watson, Skinner, Hull, and Tolman)

-Gestalt (Wertheimer, Kohler, Koffka)

-Clinical (Freud, Jung, Adler)

The central difference between Freud's pleasure principle and his reality principle is that

the reality principle responds to demands from the environment by delaying gratification

The reality principle emerges after the pleasure principle. The pleasure principle is the initial narcissistic orientation that does not respond to demands from the environment.

The reality principle is less salient than the pleasure principle early in life. The pleasure principle is more aptly paired with the id and the reality principle is better paired with the ego.

Self-actualization is not a necessary requirement for the reality principle.

According to Carl Rogers, the goal of therapy is to achieve

congruence

Rogers claimed that the goal of psychotherapy was congruence between who one is and one's ego ideal.

Most people who are labeled "mentally ill" are not really "sick" in the medical sense, but they exhibit behavior which deviates from ethical, legal, or social norms. This behavior would be best viewed as "problems with living" and not the result of organic malfunctioning. Applying the label "mentally ill" creates problems for the person which increases his inability to cope with the stresses in his life. Treatment, then, should be directed toward better coping mechanisms for everyday life.

Thomas Szasz

Which of the following is the least accepted of Freud's ideas in current psychoanalytic theory?

the belief that humans have a death instinct

Freud's concept of a death with, or thanatos, is the least accepted among his ideas.

Carl Jung is associated with each of the following

-the collective unconscious

-extroversion/introversion

-archetypes

-anima/animus

Sandra Bem is most closely associated with which of the following terms?

androgyny

She studied gender roles, and show be associated with tests of androgyny. Subjects who score high on both masculinity and femininity scales of her personality inventory are classified as androgynous.

Festinger is to cognitive dissonance as Chomsky is to

transformational grammar

Festinger coined the term cognitive dissonance and performed studies to establish that it does in face exist.

Similarly, Chomsky coined the term transformational grammar and performed studies to establish that it does in fact exist.

Which of the following is a central tenet of the Gestalt school?

a perception must be studied in its whole or molar form

The Gestalt school of psychological thought focuses on perception and the perception of wholes.

Franz Joseph Gall is most closely associated with which of the following?

Phrenology

The APA was founded by

Stanley Hall

Albert Ellis's rational-emotive therapy (RET) is an example of

cognitive-behavioral therapy

The belief that the analyst must serve as an object onto which hostile impulses are projected is most consistent with the work of

D.W. Winnicott

A therapeutic approach that centers around the analyst or patient as an object is most aptly termed object-relations therapy. One of the foremost proponents of the object-relations school was D.W. Winnicott.

Which of the following are techniques used in Freudian therapy?

-free association

-dream interpretation

-analysis of transference

-analysis of resistance

Vygotsky is best known for his concept of

zone of proximal development

He is a developmental psychologist known for his development of the concept of a zone of proximal development.

The zone of proximal development centers on the notion that the infant or child develops in relation to its social environment, chiefly its mother. The child will perform differently and better when in close proximity to its mother.

Which of the following terms is associated with Henry Murray and the Thematic Apperception Test?

need to achieve

This test was a projective test involving ambiguous story cards. According to him, subject's apperceptions of the story would indicate which needs were most important to them.