introduction of heredity and environment

unit: Biological bases of behavior

what is psychology

the study of the behavior and mental processes of humans and other animals

what is nature

behaviors and mental processes occur because they are innate

who believed in nature

platos
socrates
Charles Darwin
rene descartes

what is nurture 

behaviors and mental processes occur based on the environment 

who believed in nurture

Aristotle
John Locke’s blank slate

what is evolutionary psychology

the study of relative influence and limits of nature and nurture influences on behaviors and mental processes

believed that

mind and body are separate

mind continues after death

knowledge is innate

socrates and plato

believed that

need data

knowledge is not innate

knowledge comes from observation

Aristotle

founder of moderne science and empiricism 

francis bacon 

blank slate theory

tabula rasa

John locke

established first psych lab

wanted psych to be a scientific discipline and not just a philosophy

William Wundt

introduced structuralism to study mind elements

used introspection

Edward titchener

what is structuralism

focusing on identifying elements of the minds

what is introspection 

the process of looking inward to directly observe one’s own psychological processes 

introduced functionalism
functionalism focuses on the purpose of the mind rather than the structure 

William James 

student of Edward titchener 

first female to earn a phD in psych 

the animal mind- animal psychology 

Margaret Washburn 

what is freudian psychology

unconscious forces and childhood experiences affect our behavior and mental processes

scientific research aimed to increase psychology’s knowledge base 

basic research 

a scientific inquiry that aims to use psychology to solve practical problems 

applied research 

what is hindsight bias

the tendency to believe after learning the outcome 

an idea or set of ideas that is intended to explain facts or events

theory

a carefully worded statement of the exact procedure used in a research study

operational definition

independent variable

cause

dependent variable 

effect 

case studies

naturalistic observation 

surveys and interviews 

descriptive methods 

a descriptive technique in which one individual or group is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles

case study

case study strengths or weaknesses

• allow for examination of rare behavior

• provide a large amount of qualitative data 

• suggest directions for further study 

strengths 

case study strengths or weaknesses

• atypical case studies can be misleading

• results from one study may not be generalized 

• cannot determine cause and effect

weaknesses 

a descriptive technique of observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate or control the situation 

neutralistic observation 

neutralistic observation strengths or weaknesses

• subjects behave normally outside of lab setting 

• data collection un obtrusive

strengths 

neutralistic observation strengths or weaknesses

• independent variable cannot be isolated 

• cannot determine cause and effect 

• observations by researchers may be subjective

weaknesses 

a descriptive technique for obtaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of a particular group usually by questioning a representative random sample of the group

survey 

survey observation strengths or weaknesses

• time effective

• able to include many cases

strengths

survey observation strengths or weaknesses

• response bias

• wording effects can skew the outcomes

• cannot determine cause and effect

weakness

a measure of the extent to which two factors vary together and how will either factor predicts the other 

correlation 

2 sets of data tend to rise or fall together

positive correlation

one set of data rises while the other falls

negative correlation

positive correlation goes from

0.1 to +1.0

negative correlation goes from

0.1 ro -1.0

the measure of how much scores un a distribution vary from the mean

standard deviation

scores are clustered close to the mean 

low SD

scores are spread far from the mean

high SD

68 percent of scores fall

1 SD

95 percent of scores fall

2 SD’s

99.7 percent of scores fall

3SD’s

a number that describes how many standard deviations a score is from the mean

z- score