Chapter 1

The scientific study of behavior and mental processes.

• -Description: What is happening?
• -Explanation: Why is it happening? Theory: general explanation of a set of observations or facts.
• -Prediction: Will it happen again?
• -Control: How can it be changed?

• -Focused on the structure or basic elements of the mind.
• -Died out in the early 1900s

• -Objective introspection: the process of objectively examining and measuring one's thoughts and mental activities
• -Germany in 1879 established the first psychological laboratory
• -Developed the technique of objective introspection: the process of objectively examining and measuring one's thoughts and mental activities.

• -Founded Structuralism
• -Wundt's student; brought structualism to America

-Titchener's student; first woman to earn a Ph. D in psychology

-How the mind allows people to adapt, live, work, and play

-Proposed Functionalism

• - Max Wertheimer
• -field focusing not only on perception but also on learning, memory, thought processes, and problem solving.

• -Sigmund Freud
• -Unconscious mind
• -Sex Drive

• -John B. Watson
• -The science of behavior that focuses on observable behavior only

-Demonstrated that a reflex could be conditioned (Learned)

-Early Pioneer in behavior therapy

• -Modern version of psychoanalysis
• -More focused on the developement of a sense of self and the discovery of other motivations behind a person's behavior than sexual motivation

• -Behavioral Perspective
• -introduced the concept of reinforcement to behaviorism

• -Abraham Maslow/ Carl Rogers
• -Free will
• -Self-actualization

-Focuses on memory, intelligence, perception, problem solving, and learning

-Focuses on the relationship between social behavior and culture

-attributes human and animal behavior to biological events occuring in the body, such as genetic influences, hormones, and the activity of the nervous system

• -Focuses on the biological bases of universal mental characteristics that all humans share 
• -looks at the way the mind works and why it works as it does
• -Behavior is seen as having an adaptive or survival value

• -Psychiatrist: Ph. D and can prescribe medication
• -Psychologist: Can not prescribe medication 

-System of gathering data so that bias and error in measurement are reduced

• 1. Percieve the question
• 2. Form a hypothesis: tentative explanation of a phenomenon based on observations.
• 3. Test the hypothesis.
• 4. Draw conclusions.
• 5. Report your results so that others can try to replicate, or repeat the study or experiment to see whether the same results will be obtained in an effort to demonstrate reliability of results.

-Watching animals or humans behave in their normal environment

-Watching animals or humans behave in a laboratory setting

• -Study of one individual in great detail
• Famous case study: Phineas Gage

-Researchers will ask a series of questions about the topic under study

• -A measure of the relationship between two variables
• Correlation does not prove causation

-A deliberate manipulation of a variable to see whether corresponding changes in behavior result, allowing the determination of cause-and-effect relationships.

-The variable in an experiment that is manipulated by the experimenter (Violent TV)

-The variable in an experiment that represents the measurable response or behavior of the subjects in the experiment (Aggressive Play)

-Subjects in an experiment who are subjected to the independent variable

-experimental group: watch TV

• -Subjects in an experiment who are not subjected to the independent variable and who may receive a placebo treatment (controls for confounding variables).
• -Control Group: No TV

- The process of assigning subjects to the experimental or control groups randomly, so that each subject has an equal chance of being in either group

-controls for confounding (extraneous, interfering) variables

-The phenomenon in which the expectations of the participants in a study can influence their behavior

Subjects do not know whether they are in the experimental or the control group (reduces placebo effect)

- Tendency of the experimenter's expectations for a study to unintentionally influence the results of the study

- Neither the experimenter nor the subjects know which subjects are in the experimental or control group (reduces placebo effect and experimenter effect)