Unit 1 Vocab

Important People

William Wundt: Father of psychology, developed theory of structuralism 

William James: Published first The Principles of Psychology and developed functionalism

 Mary Whiton Calkins: Studied with James and was the first woman to become president of the American Psychological Association

Margaret Floy Washburn: First woman to get PhD in psychology and second woman to become president of the APA

G. Stanley Hall: Studied child development and was the first president of the APA

Max Wertheimer: A gestalt psychologist who argued against dividing human thought and behavior into discrete structures. 

Sigmund Freud: Developed the psychoanalytic theory which states that the unconscious mind partly determines how we think and behave

John B Watson: Developed behaviorism which states that psychology is only the study of behavior and the causes of behavior stimuli and responses

B. F. Skinner: Expanded on behaviorism by introducing reinforcement to environmental stimuli

Ivan Pavlov: Developed classical conditioning 

Abraham Maslow: Founder of humanistic psychology that stressed that many human behaviors are a choice

Carl Rogers: Also a founder of humanistic psychology; made great advancements in the field of personality

Jean Piaget: Proposed the theory of cognitive development which shows that children’s intelligence changes as they grow

Important Concepts and Perspectives

Structuralism: Looks at different structures of consciousness through individual parts

Functionalism: Don’t look at just individual parts; look at the big pictures

Gestalt Psychology: Studies the whole consciousness

Eclectic: Studies from different perspectives

Different Perspectives

Psychoanalytic Perspective: Studies the unconscious mind and believes it influences our behavior thought; seeks repressed memories

Biopsychology Perspective: Explains human behavior through biological processes

Evolutionary Perspective: Examines human thoughts and actions in terms of natural selection (Charles Darwin)

Behavioral Perspective: Explains human behavior in terms of conditioning such as environmental stimuli

Cognitive Perspective: How we interpret, process, and remember environmental events

Social-Cultural Perspective: How our social and cultural norms affect how we behave

Biopsychosocial Perspective: Believes that multiple factors, biological, social, and psychological, affect how we behave and act

Hindsight Bias: Tendency to believe that after something happens, you would’ve been able to foresee it

Confirmation Bias: When an individual ignores the information that doesn’t support their opinions and only focuses on information that does

Applied Research: Has practical applications to the real world

Basic Research: Interesting to psychologists, but not intended for real-world applications

Theory: A proposed explanation to explain a phenomenon

Hypothesis: Tests that theory by seeing a change between two variables, the independent variable (manipulated) and the dependent variable (responsive)

Operational Definition: How will you measure a variable

Validity vs Reliability

Validity: The results answered the research question

Reliability: The experiment can be replicated and still produce the same results

Population: The group of people being studied

Sample: A small group of people within the population

Random Sampling: Every person of the population has an equal chance of being selected

Stratified Sampling: Dividing the population into different groups and randomly selecting people from each group

Random Assignment: Randomly assigning people to different groups

Hawthorne Effect: People change their behavior because they are aware they are being observed

Counterbalancing: A technique used to eliminate the effect of outside variables

Correlational Studies: Measures the relationship between two variables and can show a positive correlation or a negative correlation

• Survey Method

Naturalistic Observation: Observe behaviors in a real world setting

Case Studies: Allows researchers to observe and study behaviors from one person or a small group of people; not generalizable

Longitudinal Studies: Studies participants over a long period of time

Cross-Sectional Studies: Compare different groups at the same time, but do not provide a complete picture

Positively Skewed Data: The tail is to the right

Negatively Skewed Data: The tail is to the left

Single Blind Study: When participants don’t know which group they are in

Double Blind Study: When participants and researchers don’t know which group the participants are in

Quasi-Experiments: Used in situations where controlled experiments are impossible or unethical to do

Normal Curve: Hypothetical bell-shaped curve that shows the distribution of data

Z-score:  A statistic that shows where a score lies in relation to the population mean

Correlation Coefficient: Shows the strength of a correlation; -1 shows a perfect negative correlation while +1 shows a perfectly positive correlation

Inferential Statistics: How well the sample findings can be applied to a larger population

p Value: The probability that the sampling error is due to chance; statistically significant data will have a p value of .05 (5%) or lower

Institutional Review Board (IRB): Ensures that the study is ethical and will protect the participants involved

Informed Consent: Participants understand the objectives of the study and consent to that; deceiving participants into consenting is not informed consent

Debriefing: Explaining to participants the goals and objectives of the study