Chapter 1 & 2
What is psychology? What is the mind? What is behavior?
Psychology: Scientific study of the mind and behavior. Seeks to understand how individuals think, feel, and act, and the underlying processes that shape our experiences.
The Mind: Set of cognitive faculties that enable consciousness, perception, thought, emotion, and memory.
Behavior: Encompasses the actions or reactions of an individual, typically in response to external or internal stimuli.
What is nativism? Does it reflect “nature” or “nurture” in the nature- nurture debate?
Nativism: Idea that certain abilities, traits, or knowledge are innate and hardwired into an individual at birth, rather than being acquired through experience or learning
Reflects the "nature" side of the nature-nurture debate by emphasizing the role of innate factors ex: genetics
Who is credited as being the founder of psychology including teaching its first course and opening its first lab in 1879?
Wilhelm Wundt 1879
What is consciousness? How did Wundt study consciousness using stimuli and reaction time?
Consciousness: a person's subjective experience of the world and mind.
Wundt studied consciousness using mental chronometry, which involved measuring reaction times to different stimuli
What is structuralism? What is introspection? What is the problem with using introspection as a research method?
Structuralism: An early school of psychology that aimed to understand the structure of the mind by analyzing its basic components, such as sensations, feelings, and thoughts.
Introspection: Primary method used in structuralism, individuals examined and reported their own conscious experiences in great detail.
Problems w Introspection: Subjective, unreliable, and unconscious cannot be described or accessed through introspection
What is functionalism? How did William James differ from Wundt in how he believed consciousness should be studied? Which man thought consciousness was a stream? Which man thought it could be broken up?
Functionalism: An early school of psychology that focused on the purpose, or function, of mental processes and behaviors, rather than their structure.
Wundt (structuralist) believed consciousness could be broken down into basic elements and studied through introspection.
James (functionalist) argued consciousness should be studied as a whole and in terms of its continuous, adaptive nature.
What is natural selection?
Social darwinism or the belief in survival of the fittest
What is hysteria? What is the unconscious? What is the emphasis in Freud’s psychoanalytic theory? What is psychoanalysis? What were some criticisms of Freud’s approach?
Hysteria: a psychological disorder characterized by intense emotional distress, physical symptoms without an apparent medical cause, and dramatic behavior. (19th - 20th Cen.)
Unconscious: A part of the mind containing thoughts, memories, and desires, that lie outside conscious awareness.
Theory includes: role of the unconscious mind in shaping behavior, importance of early childhood experiences in personality development, the existence of internal conflicts, methods to uncover unconscious material, such as dreams and free association.
Psychoanalysis: Developed by Freud to bring repressed thoughts, memories, and feelings into conscious awareness to help individuals understand and resolve inner conflicts.
Criticisms: Lack of scientific rigor, Overemphasis on Sexuality, Cultural Bias, Subjectivity
What is humanistic psychology? Who were its founders? How did it differ from psychoanalytic theory?
Humanistic psychology: Psychological approach emphasizing the goodness of people, their potential for personal growth, importance of free will, and subjective experiences.
Founded by: Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers
Difference: Humanistic psychology emphasizes personal growth, free will, and the positive potential of individuals. Psychoanalytic theory focuses on unconscious conflicts, early childhood experiences, and instincts like sexuality and aggression.
What is behaviorism? Why is it called S-R (stimulus-response) psychology? Which psychologists are associated with behaviorism? What are some of its criticisms?
Behaviorism: Psychological approach focusing on the study of observable behavior, rather than internal mental processes
S-R psychology: because it examines the relationship between a stimulus (a subject in the environment) and the response (an observable behavior triggered by the stimulus)
Psychologists: John B. Watson, B.F. Skinner, Ivan Pavlov, and Edward Thorndike.
Criticism: oversimplifies human psychology by ignoring internal mental processes, focuses primarily on observable behavior and neglects the role of genetics and biology, lack of consideration for complexity:
What is Gestalt psychology?
a school of thought that believes all objects and scenes can be observed in their simplest forms.
What is cognitive psychology? What is cognitive neuroscience?
Cognitive Psychology: Branch of psychology that focuses on understanding internal mental processes
Cognitive Neuroscience: Bridges psychology and neuroscience, seeks to understand how brain activity underpins cognitive processes.
What is behavioral neuroscience?
the complex actions such as movement, social interaction, cognition, and learning exhibited by animals, including humans.
What is evolutionary psychology? What is social psychology? What is cultural psychology?
Evolutionary psychology: the study of behavior, thought, and feeling as viewed through the lens of evolutionary biology
Social psychology: scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to one another
Cultural psychology: how our emotions and behaviors are influenced by or rooted in our individual cultures.
What is a psychiatrist? What is a PhD psychologist?
Psychiatrists :medical doctors who are experts in mental health. They specialise in diagnosing and treating people with mental illness.
Doctor of Philosophy: Highest level of academic training in the field. These psychologists specialize in areas such as research, clinical practice, teaching, or consulting.
CHAPTER TWO - Methods in Psychology
What is empiricism? What is the scientific method? What is a theory? A hypothesis? What is an
Operational definition?
Empiricism: Belief that accurate knowledge can be acquired through observation
Scientific method: procedure for using empirical evidence to establish facts
Theory: hypothetical explanations of natural phenomena
Hypothesis: a falsifiable prediction made by a theory
Operational definition: description of a property in measurable terms.
Measurements need to have construct validity, reliability and power
Construct validity: extent to which the object being measured characterizes the property
Reliability: whether a measure is consistent
Power: the control of something
What are demand characteristics and how can they be a problem when observing people?
What is naturalistic observation? What is a double blind observation and why might it be needed?
Demand characteristics: Cues or signals in a research setting that might influence participants to behave in a way they believe aligns with the experimenter's expectations or hypotheses.
Naturalistic observation: Research method used to study behavior in its natural environment, without any interference or manipulation by the researcher.
Double blind observation: Study in which neither the researcher nor the participant knows how the participant is expected to react.
What is a variable? What is a correlation? With a correlation, why can we not say that one
variable causes the other?
Variable: A factor, trait, or condition that can change or vary.
Correlation: statistical relationship between two variables, indicating how they move in
relation to one another.
One variable does not cause the other because of the 3rd variable problem
What are positive and negative correlations?
Positive Correlation: As one variable increases, the other also increases.
Negative Correlation: As one variable increases, the other decreases.
What is an experiment? What is manipulation? What is random assignment? What is an
independent variable? What is a dependent variable? What is an experimental group?
What is a control group?
Experiment: a technique for determining if there is a casual relationship between two variables
Manipulation: alteration of the independent variable
Random assignment: randomly allocating participants to ensure each group is equal
Independent variable: the variable that the researcher manipulates in an experiment
Dependant variable: the outcome that the researcher measures in an experiment
Experimental group: the group of participants exposed to the independent variable
Control group: the group of participants that does not receive the experimental treatment or manipulation.
What is self-selection and why is it a problem in experiments?
Self-selection: when participants in a study or experiment are allowed to choose whether or not to participate or to select the group they want to be in - introduces bias
What does it mean to say that the difference between the control group and experimental group
are statistically significant?
statistically significant, it means that the observed difference is unlikely to have occurred by chance alone. The independent variable had a real effect on the dependent variable.
What is internal validity? What is external validity? Which type of validity refers to our ability to
draw inferences about cause and effect? Which allows us to generalize to the “real” world?
Internal validity: attribute to an experiment that allows it to establish causal relationships (extent to which an experiment can have cause and effect relationships)
External validity: an attribute to an experiment in which variables have been operationally defined in a normal way (extent to which a study can be generalized)
What is the case method? What is a population? What is a sample? What is random sampling?
Case method: gathering scientific information by studying a single individual
Population: a complete collection of people
Sample: partial collection of people drawn from a population
Random sampling: ensures every member of a population has an equal chance of being included in the sample