Psych - ch 1, intro to psychology

A comprehensive set of vocabulary flashcards covering influential figures, key theories, major approaches, and essential terms from the introductory psychology lecture notes.

William James

American psychologist who wrote The Principles of Psychology, taught the first psychology courses at Harvard, and opened one of the first U.S. psychology laboratories.

Psychology

The scientific study of mind and behavior.

Mind

A set of private events—thoughts and feelings—that occur inside a person and cannot be directly observed.

Behavior

Publicly observable actions or responses made by an organism.

Philosophical Dualism

View (Descartes) that mind and body are fundamentally different substances—material body and immaterial mind.

Philosophical Materialism

View (Hobbes) that mental phenomena are reducible to physical brain activity; the mind is what the brain does.

Philosophical Realism

View (Locke) that perception faithfully reflects information delivered by the senses.

Philosophical Idealism

View (Kant) that perception is the brain’s interpretation or inference about sensory information.

Philosophical Empiricism

View (Locke) that all knowledge is gained through experience; we are born as blank slates (tabula rasa).

Philosophical Nativism

View (Kant) that some knowledge (e.g., space, time, causality) is innate and hard-wired.

Hermann von Helmholtz

Physicist who measured nerve conduction speed and pioneered studies of reaction time.

Reaction Time

The interval between the onset of a stimulus and a person’s response to it.

Stimulus

Any sensory input from the environment.

Structuralism

Early approach that sought to break mind into basic elements using introspection (Helmholtz, Wundt).

Introspection

Systematic self-observation of one’s own conscious experience, used by structuralists.

Functionalism

Approach (James) that studies the purpose of mental processes in helping organisms adapt to the environment.

Natural Selection

Darwinian principle that traits promoting survival and reproduction become more common over generations.

John B. Watson

Founder of behaviorism; argued psychology should study observable behavior, not mental states.

Ivan Pavlov

Physiologist who discovered classical conditioning while studying dog digestion.

Behaviorism

Approach restricting psychology to the study of observable behavior and stimulus-response relationships.

Burrhus Frederic Skinner

Behaviorist who developed operant conditioning; emphasized reinforcement in shaping behavior.

Principle of Reinforcement

Idea that behaviors followed by rewards are repeated, whereas non-rewarded behaviors diminish.

Jean-Martin Charcot

Neurologist who studied hysteria, influencing Freud’s ideas about the unconscious.

Pierre Janet

Psychologist who, with Charcot, linked hysteria to traumatic memories.

Hysteria

Temporary loss of cognitive or motor functions, often following emotional trauma.

Unconscious

Region of mind containing thoughts, memories, and desires outside conscious awareness.

Psychoanalytic Theory

Freud’s framework emphasizing unconscious influences on thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

Max Wertheimer

Founder of Gestalt psychology; researched induced-motion phenomena and perception of movement.

Illusion (Induced-Motion)

Perceptual error where subjective experience of motion differs from actual stimulus movement.

Gestalt Psychology

Approach emphasizing that the mind organizes sensations into holistic perceptions rather than simple parts.

Frederic Bartlett

Memory researcher who showed people recall stories based on expectations, not exact details.

Jean Piaget

Developmental psychologist who studied children’s cognitive stages and conservation errors.

Developmental Psychology

Field examining how psychological processes change across the life span.

Kurt Lewin

Social psychologist who argued behavior depends on a person’s subjective construal of the environment.

Social Psychology

Study of how social situations influence thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (Lewin, Asch).

Solomon Asch

Researcher who demonstrated how trait order affects impressions and pioneered conformity studies.

John Garcia

Psychologist whose work on taste-aversion learning supported evolutionary preparedness in conditioning.

Evolutionary Psychology

Field studying how natural selection has shaped universal mental mechanisms and behaviors.

Noam Chomsky

Linguist who argued behaviorism cannot explain language; proposed innate language structures.

Paul Broca

Neurologist who linked speech production to a specific brain area (Broca’s area).

Karl Lashley

Neuroscientist who found memory is distributed across the brain rather than localized.

Cognitive Psychology

Study of human information processing—perceiving, remembering, thinking—often using the computer metaphor.

Cognitive Neuroscience

Discipline linking cognitive processes to brain activity in humans.

Behavioral Neuroscience

Study of how brain and nervous system processes underlie behavior, primarily in non-human animals.

Culture

Shared values, traditions, and beliefs of a group.

Cultural Psychology

Study of how cultural contexts shape mental processes and behavior.

Mary Whiton Calkins

First female president of the APA; early memory researcher.

Margaret Floy Washburn

First woman to earn a PhD in psychology; studied animal behavior.

Francis Cecil Sumner

First African American to receive a psychology PhD.

Kenneth Clark

First African American APA president; research influenced desegregation rulings.

Biopsychosocial Approach

Integrated perspective recognizing biological, psychological, and social factors in behavior and mental processes.

Cognitive Perspective

Current view focusing on mental information processing as the driver of behavior.

Psychodynamic Perspective

View emphasizing unconscious motives and conflicts in explaining behavior.

Neuroscience Perspective

Approach considering behavior as a product of neural computations and brain chemistry.

Behavioral Perspective

View that behavior is shaped by learning through rewards and punishments.

Evolutionary Perspective

Approach explaining behavioral tendencies through adaptive value and genetic inheritance.

Behavior Genetics Perspective

Field exploring how genes and environment interact to create individual behavioral differences.

Socio-Cultural Perspective

Approach examining how behavior and thinking vary across social situations and cultures.