Psychology Unit 1

Psychology is Empirical

this means that psychology is based on observed and measured evidence rather than on opinions or beliefs.

Psychology is Theoretically Diverse

This implies that psychology encompasses various theoretical perspectives and frameworks to explain behavior and mental processes.

Psychology has Sociohistorical Evolution

Psychology is influenced by changes in our society. Theories from hundreds of years ago are not always currently applicable.

Psychology has Multiple Causality

The same behavior can come from a number of different causes.

Cultural Heritage Matters

Depending on a persons culture you can get a different response.

Nature and Nurture

Your genetic components and environment are relevant in order to understand ones psychology.

Subjectivity

Definitions can have different meanings depending on the viewpoint.

Basic definition of Psychology

The study of the human mind and behavior.

Clinical Psychology

Study, treatment and research of psychological disorders.

Experimental Pscychology

Scientific investigation to better understand basic psychological processes.

G. Stanley Hall

First American with a phD in Psych. Opened first Psych lab in United states at Johns Hopkins. Founded (APA) American Psychological Association.

Margaret Floy Washburn

First woman to get a phD in Psychology in 1894.

Mary Caulkins

Did the work to receive a phD in Psychology but was not granted due to lack of rights.

Francis Cecil Sumner

First Black man to earn a doctorate in psych in 1920.

Counseling Psychology

When the patient doesn’t meet the criteria for a disorder but still needs help.

Community Psychology

How social and physical environments can harm or promote psychological well being.

Psychiatry

Practice of prescribing medicine for psychological issues or disorders.

Plato

Associated with Nativism

Aristotle

Associated with Philosophical Empiricism

Nativism

The theory that you are born with innate or given knowledge.

Philosophical Empiricism

The theory that all knowledge is gained through experience.

Demons

Caused people to act oddly or incorrectly. Believed to be current day psychological disorders.

Biologic Perspective

The theory that different psychological traits were housed in different organs.

Trephination

The act of a drilling a hole in someones skull in order to release their “demons”.

John Locke

Stated that everyone was born as a blank slate. Also associated with Philosophical Empiricism.

Witchcraft

The idea that people exhibiting unusual behaviors were under the influence of a witch.

Philosophical Dualism

The theory that the body is completely separate from the mind.

Phrenology

The theory that bumps and divots in the skull correlate to your personality.

Weber and Fechner

They came up with the idea that there is a difference between the real world and your own perceived world. Meaning we essentially see what our brain is interpreting.

Gestalt

He came up with the theory that we get more info from understanding things as whole rather than individual parts.

Helmholtz

Discovered that there is a time gap from when nerves send hormones and when they receive them.

Structuralism

First school of thought in psychology. Focused on breaking down complex mental processes into their most basic elements or structures.

Wilhelm Wundt

Known as the godfather of psych. Founded first lab in 1879 as well as founded the school of structuralism. Started psychology as a science.

Introspection

asking people to talk about what is happening in there mind.

Functionalism

Study of the purpose, utility and function of our conscious mental processes and behavior.

William James

Founded school of Functionalism. Taught first psych class as well as wrote the first textbook. Taught Mary Caulkins.

Psychoanalysis

Our unconscious drives our mind and behavior.

Froid

Associated with Psychoanalysis

Behaviorism

Study of strictly observable behavior. Everything else deemed unscientific.

Humanism

The idea that all humans have the capacity for good.

Cognitive Psychology

To try to understand how ones mind interprets things.

Kurt Lewin

Father of social psychology. stood by the idea of trying to figure out the brains interpretation.

Social Psychology

Effect of real or imagined others on our behaviors or cognition.

Biopsychosocial psychology

In order to understand ones psychology you need to integrate biological components, environments, experiences and social situations.

Evolutionary Psychology

examining modern mind by looking at traits that helped ancestors in the past.

Comparative psychology

looking at behavior humans and other animals share

cultural psychology

how cultural heritage shapes who we are and why we do what we do

educational psyschology

how students learn and how teachers teach.

Industrial/Organizational(IO) Psychology

How we use psychology to make workers more effective or how to make consumers buy our products.

Forensic psychology

Criminal mind and how we can take concepts and understand them in a greater legal perspective.

Differential Psychology

Looking at how individual differences in traits and characteristics effect our psychology

environmental psychology

our impact on the environment and the environments impact on us.

Basic Psychology

Research done just to expand our knowledge

Applied psychology

looking to understand some aspect of our real world or solve some sort of real world issue.

reciprocal determinism

we mutually influence each others behavior.

naive realism

only believe the things your eyes see.

parsimony

simplest explanation for a large number of behaviors.

Hindsight Bias

once you know the outcome, you convince yourself that you always knew the outcome.

overconfidence

the belief that you are better than you are

perceiving patterns

creating patterns that dont actually exist

repetition

causes stronger belief in the accuracy of the repetition

Availability of power examples

Powerful stories tend to influence us more than they should.

Hypothesis

Testable statement

Independent variable

expecting to cause a change in another variable

Dependent variable

Variable that you are looking for change in.

operational defenition

taking an abstract concept and making it observable or measurable.

Post-Truth

a culture where emotions and personal beliefs are more important than objective facts.

Experiment

Gold standard, allows us to determine causality

Quasi experiment

An experiment in which the researcher doesnt have control of a variable

Cross sectional design

Running a study with persons of different ages at the same time.

Longitudinal design

Running a study with persons of the same age and then again as they get older.

Field Study

rather than research in lab, doing it in the real world

Naturalistic Observation

researcher observing participants in natural environments while they are unaware.

case study

Observing one person in oder to gain knowledge on a psychological concept.

Survey

asking people questions and getting their responses for data

Between subjects

Expose participants to one level of the independent variable. More participants

Within subjects

Expose one person to multiple levels of the independent variable. - takes longer.

Reliability

Give the same task to the same person you will get the same success across testings.

internal validity

How much control you have as the researcher

external validity

how similar your study is to the real world

Population

Who you apply your results too.

WEIRD

Western, Educated, Industrialized, Richer, Democratic

Self Selection

you get to choose the studies that you want to do.

descriptive stats

Statistics that describe your data. Mean, Median, Mode

Inferential stats

determines if there is a significant difference between groups

Correlation strength

stronger the correlation, stronger the relationship between variables.

Correlation driection

negative or positive signs shows the way the variables move

Distributions

Shows us what an overall data set looks like.

measures of variance

how much range is in our data

Informed consent

Any participant must be aware of any potential risks in study

respect for persons

nobody can be forced into your study

Beneficence

Benefits must outweigh any costs in study

Confidentiality

your participation and data is confidential

Fairness

any benefits made to one group must be made to all

debriefing

what they did in the study and why they did it. Reveal the decption.

Animal research

A lot more rules to make sure they are ethically treated.

Misconduct

doing something unethical with data.

observer bias

bias on experimenters part and their interactions with the participant

Demand Characteristics

behaviors on the experimenters part that are being picked up on and influencing the test subject.

Blindness

if you dont know what group the participant is in you cant influence them.