Pysch Ch1 Vocab

  1. Psychology
    The scientific study of mind and behaviour
  2. Mind
    Our private inner experience of perceptions, thoughts, memories, and feelings.
  3. Behavior
    Observable actions of human beings and nonhuman animals
  4. Nativism
    Certain kinds of knowledge are innate or inborn
  5. Empiricism
    All knowledge is acquired though experience
  6. Phrenology
    The defunct theory that certain mental abilities an characteristics are localized in specific parts of the brain
  7. Physiology
    The study of mental processes, especially in the human body
  8. Stimulus
    Sensory input from the environment
  9. Reaction Time
    The amount of time taken to respond to a specific stimulus
  10. Consciousness
    A person's subjective experience of the world and the mind
  11. Structuralism
    Analysis of the basic elements that constitute the mind.
  12. Introspection
    A subjective observation of one's own experience
  13. Functionalism
    The study of the purposes mental processes serve in enabling people to adapt to their environment.
  14. Natural Selection
    Charles Darwin's theory that the features of an organism that help it survive and reproduce are more likely than other features to be passed on to subsequent generations
  15. Illusions
    Errors in perception, memory or judement in which subjective experience differs from objective reality
  16. Gesalt Psychology
    A greek approach that emphasizes that we often percieve the whole rather than the sum of the parts.
  17. Dissociative Identity Disorder
    A condition where there are 2 or more distinct identities with an individual
  18. Hysteria
    Temporary loss of cognitive or motor functions, usually due to an emotionally upsetting experience.
  19. Unconscious
    the part of the mind that operates outside the conscious awareness but influences conscious feelings, actions, and thoughts.
  20. Psychoanalytic Theory
    Sigmund Freud's approach to understanding human behaviour that emphasizes the importance of unconscious mental processes in shaping feelings, thoughts, and behaviours.
  21. Psychoanalysis
    A therapeutic approach that focuses on bringing unconscious material into conscious awareness to better understand psychological disorders.
  22. Humanistic Psychology
    An approach to understanding human nature that emphasizes the positive potential of human beings.
  23. Behaviourism
    An approach that advocates that psychologists restrict themselves to the scientific study of objectivesly observable behaviour.
  24. Response
    An action or physiological change elicited by a stimulus.
  25. Reinforcement
    The consequences of a behaviour that determine whether it will be more likely that the behaviour will occur again.
  26. Cognitive Psychology
    The scientific study of mental processes, including perception, thought, memory, and reasoning.
  27. Behavioural Neuroscience
    An approach to psychology that links psychological processes to activities in the nervous system and other bodily processes.
  28. Cognitive Neuroscience
    A field that attempts to understand the links between cognitive processes and brain activity
  29. Evolutionary Psychology
    A psychological approach that explains mind and behaviour in terms of the adaptive value of abilities that are perserved over time by natural selection.
  30. Social Psychology
    A subfield of psychology that studies the causes and consequences of interpersonal behaviour.
  31. Cultural Psychology
    A study of how cultures reflect and shape the psychological processes of their members.
Author
Kaha
ID
40191
Card Set
Pysch Ch1 Vocab
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Definitions
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