Psych Exam 1

The scientific study of behevior and mental processes

Outward or overt actions and reactions

internal, covert activity of our minds

• 1. Describe- What is happening?
• 2. Explain- Why is it happening?
• 3. Prediction- Will it happen again?
• 4. Control- How can it be changed?

General explanation of a set of observations or facts

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

• Psychology laboratory
• Germany 1879
• Developed technique of objective introspection- process of objectively examining and measuring one's thoughts and mental activities

Wundt's student: brought Structuralism 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 by William James
• Influenced:
• Educational Psychology
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Industrial/ organizational Psychology

• 1. Started with Wertheimer who studied sensation and perception.
• 2. "Good Figure" psychology
• 3. Gestault ideas are now part of the study of cognitive psychology, a field focusing not only on perception but also on learning, memory, thought processes, and problem solving

"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts"

Memory is not an objective & accurate representation of events, but rather a highly personal reconstruction based on one's own beliefs, ideas, and POV

Sigmund Freud- The theory and therapy based on his work

• Patients suffered from nervous disorders with no found physical cause
• Proposed that there is an unconscious (unaware) mind into which we push, or repress, all of our threatening urges and desires
• Believed that these repressed urges, in trying to surface, created the nervous disorders
• Stressed the importance of early childhood

• The science of behavior that focuses on observable behavior only
• Must be directly seen and measured
• Proposed by John Watson

• Proposed behavioralism
• Based on Ivan Pavlov's work that demonstrated that a reflex could be conditioned (learned).."Pavlov's Dogs"
• Watson believed phobias were learned...
• Case: "little Albert" taught to fear white rat

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

• B.F. Skinner studied operant conditioning of voluntary behavior
• Behaviorism became a major force in the 20th century
• Skinner introduced the concept of reinforcement to behaviorism

• Owes far more to the early roots of psychology in the field of philosophy
• Humanists held the view that people have free will, the freedom to choose their own destiny

• Abraham Maslow
• Carl Rogers
• Emphasized the human potential, the ability of each person to become the best person he or she could be...

Achieving one's full potential or actual self

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 occurring 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

Medical doctor who has specialized in the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders

Either a psychiatrist or psychologist who has special training in the theories of Sigmund Freud and his method of psychoanalysis

A social worker with some training in therapy methods who focuses on the environmental conditions that can have an impact on mental disorders, such as poverty, overcrowding, stress, and drug abuse

• A professional with an academic degree and specialized training in one or more areas of psychology
• Can do counseling, teaching, and research any may specialize in any of the areas within psychology
• Specializations: Clinical, counseling, developmental, social, personality, industrial/ organizational, among others

A system of gathering data so that the bias and error in mearsurement are reduced

• O- Observation- perceive the question
• P- Prediction- form a hypothesis/ tentative explanation
• T- Test- test the hypothesis
• I- Interpretation- Draw conclusions
• C- Communication- report results so that others can try to replicate or repeat the study for same results to demonstrate reliability of the results

• Watching animals or humans behave in their normal environment
• Advantage: realistic picture of behavior
• Disadvantages:
• Observer Effect: tendency to behave differently from norm when they know they are being ovserved
• Observer Bias: tendency of observers to see what they expect to see

• Study of one individual in great detail
• Advantage: tremendous amount of detail
• Disadvantage: cannot apply to others
• Famous case study: Phineas Gage

• Anything that can change or vary
• Measures of two variables go into a mathematical formula and produces a correlation coefficient (r), which represents two things:
• 1. Direction of the relationship
• 2. Strength of the relationship