Chapter 1: Making sense in psychology – Approaches and explanations in psychology

Flashcards covering key approaches, theories, and concepts from Chapter 1: Making sense in psychology (early approaches, psychodynamic theory, behaviourism, conditioning, and cognitive psychology).

What is the key assumption in psychology about the relationship between behaviour and internal mental life?

Behaviour reflects internal thoughts and feelings; we infer mental states from observed actions.

What do psychologists observe directly to study mental life?

Behaviour—what people say and do.

Introspection

Self-observation of sensations, thoughts, and feelings.

Structuralism

An early approach using introspection to identify basic mental structures underpinning conscious experience.

Functionalism

An early approach focusing on the purposes or functions of mental states and behaviours.

Psychodynamic approach

An approach that seeks to understand unconscious motives underlying human behaviour.

Who developed the psychodynamic approach?

Sigmund Freud.

Freudian slips

Unintentional slips of the tongue or misstatements thought to reveal unconscious wishes or desires.

What does Freud's iceberg metaphor illustrate?

The mind has a small conscious part and a much larger unconscious part below the surface.

The id

The part of personality that drives basic urges and desires; present from birth.

The ego

The part that mediates between the id and superego, satisfying desires in realistic, socially acceptable ways; emerges around age three.

The superego

The moral conscience; emerges around age five.

What are the three components of Freud's personality theory?

Id, ego, and superego.

Classical conditioning

A learning process where a neutral stimulus becomes associated with an unconditioned stimulus to elicit a conditioned response.

Unconditioned stimulus

A stimulus that naturalistically elicits a response without prior learning (e.g., food).

Neutral stimulus

A stimulus that initially does not elicit the desired response.

Conditioned stimulus

A previously neutral stimulus that comes to elicit a conditioned response after pairing with an unconditioned stimulus.

What did Thorndike demonstrate with puzzle boxes?

Cats learned by trial and error to press a latch to obtain food; learning reduced time to escape.

Operant conditioning

A form of conditioning in which the outcome depends upon the action of the animal, such as a cat obtaining food by turning a latch. 

What did Skinner emphasize about reinforcement?

Behaviours followed by positive outcomes are more likely to be repeated; rewards reinforce behaviour.

Positive reinforcement

A consequence (like treats) is used to increase the frequency of a behaviour.

What did traditional behaviourists argue about psychology as a science?

Science should be based only on directly observable behaviour and avoid references to mental states.

Cognitive psychology

A perspective focusing on internal mental processes as central to explanations of behaviour.

What mental processes does cognitive psychology study?

Perception, attention, memory, thinking and learning.

Subconcious

A part of the mind that influences behaviour without conscious awareness; however, these thoughts can be accessed.