Chapter 1

Question 1

Psychology definition

Answer 1

Scientific study of behavior and mental processes.

Question 2

What do behavior and mental processes encompass?

Answer 2

It encompasses what people do, their thoughts, emotions, perceptions, processes, memories, and biological activities that maintain bodily functioning.

Question 3

Behavioral genetics

Answer 3

Studies the inheritance of traits related to behavior.

Question 4

Behavioral neuroscience

Answer 4

Examines the biological basis of behavior.

Question 5

Clinical psychology

Answer 5

Deals with the study, diagnosis, and treatment of psychological disorders.

Question 6

Clinical neuropsychology

Answer 6

Unites the areas of biopsychology and clinical psychology, focusing on the relationship between biological factors and psychological disorders.

Question 7

Cognitive psychology

Answer 7

Focuses on the study of higher mental processes.

Question 8

Counseling psychology

Answer 8

Focuses primarily on educational, social, and career adjustment problems.

Question 9

Cross-cultural psychology

Answer 9

Investigates the similarities and differences in psychological functioning in and across various cultures and ethnic groups.

Question 10

Developmental psychology

Answer 10

Examines how people grow and change from the moment of conception through death.

Question 11

Educational psychology

Answer 11

Concerned with teaching and learning processes, such as the relationship between motivation and school performance.

Question 12

Environmental psychology

Answer 12

Considers the relationship between people and their physical environment.

Question 13

Evolutionary psychology

Answer 13

Considers how behavior is influenced by our genetic inheritance from our ancestors.

Question 14

Experimental psychology

Answer 14

Studies the processes of sensing, perceiving, learning, and thinking about the world. (The term experimental psychologist is somewhat misleading: Psychologists in every specialty area use experimental techniques.)

Question 15

Forensic psychology

Answer 15

Focuses on legal issues, such as determining the accuracy of witness memories.

Question 16

Health psychology

Answer 16

Explores the relationship between psychological factors and physical ailments or diesase.

Question 17

Industrial/organizational psychology

Answer 17

Concerned with the psychology of the workplace.

Question 18

Personality psychology

Answer 18

Focuses on the consistency in people’s behavior over time and the traits that differentiate one person from another.

Question 19

Program evaluation

Answer 19

Focuses on assessing large-scale programs, such as the Head Start preschool program, to determine whether they are effective in meeting their goals.

Question 20

Psychology of women

Answer 20

Focuses on issues such as discrimination against women and the causes of violence against women.

Question 21

School psychology

Answer 21

Devoted to counseling children in elementary and secondary schools who have academic or emotional problems.

Question 22

Social psychology

Answer 22

Study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions are affected by others.

Question 23

Sport psychology

Answer 23

Applies psychology to athletic activity and exercise.

Question 24

Psychologist vs psychiatrist

Answer 24

Psychologists are distinct from psychiatrists, who have a medical degree and specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders, often using treatments that involve the prescription of drugs.

Question 25

Formal beginning of psychology?

Answer 25

The formal beginning of psychology as a scientific discipline is generally considered to be in the late 19th century (1879), when Wilhelm Wundt established the first experimental laboratory devoted to psychological phenomena in Leipzig, Germany.

Question 26

Wundt's Laboratory

Answer 26

When Wundt set up his laboratory in 1879, his aim was to study the building blocks of the mind. He considered psychology to be the study of conscious experience. His perspective, which came to be known as structuralism. To determine how basic sensory processes shape our understanding of the world, Wundt and other structuralists used a procedure called introspection. Wundt argued that by analyzing people's reports, psychologists could come to a better understanding of the structure of the mind.

Question 27

Structuralism

Answer 27

Structuralism is focused on uncovering the fundamental mental components of perception, consciousness, thinking, emotions, and other kinds of mental states and activities.

Question 28

Introspection

Answer 28

Procedure in which people are presented with a stimulus, such as a bright green object or a sentence printed on a card, and asked to describe, in their own words and in as much detail as they could, what they were experiencing.

Question 29

Functionalism

Answer 29

The perspective that replaced structuralism is known as functionalism. Rather than focusing on the mind's structure, functionalism concentrated on what the mind does and how behavior functions. Functionalists, whose perspective became prominent in the early 1900s, asked what role behavior plays in allowing people to adapt to their environments. For example, a functionalist might examine the function of the emotion of fear in preparing us to deal with emergency situations. Functionalists examined how people satisfy their needs through their behavior. The functionalists also discussed how our stream of consciousness- the flow of thoughts in our conscious minds- permits us to adapt to our environment.

Question 30

William James

Answer 30

William James, an American psychologist, led the functionalist movement.

Question 31

Gestalt psychology

Answer 31

Gestalt psychology emphasizes how perception is organized. Instead of considering the individual parts that makeup thinking, gestalt psychologists took the opposite track, studying how people consider individual elements together as units or wholes. Led by German scientists such as Hermann Ebbinghaus and Max Wertheimer, gestalt psychologists proposed that "The whole is different from the sum of its parts," meaning that our perception, or understanding, of objects, is greater and more meaningful than the individual elements that make up our perceptions. Gestalt psychologists have made substantial contributions to our understanding of perception.

Question 32

Major modern perspectives

Answer 32

Neuroscience, cognitive, behavioral, humanistic, psychodynamic.

Question 33

Neuroscience perspective

Answer 33

The neuroscience perspective considers how people and nonhumans function biologically: how individual nerve cells are joined together, how the inheritance of certain characteristics from parents and other ancestors influences behavior, how the functioning of the body affects hopes and fears, which behaviors are instinctual, and so forth. This perspective includes the study of heredity and evolution, which considers how heredity may influence behavior, and behavioral neuroscience, which examines how the brain and nervous system affect behavior.

Question 34

Psychodynamic perspective

Answer 34

Propenents of the psychodynamic perspective argue that behavior is motivated by inner forces and conflicts about which we have little awareness or control. They view dreams and slips of the tongue as indications of what a person is truly feeling within a seething caludron of unconscious psychic activity.

Question 35

Behavioral perspective

Answer 35

Proponents of the behavioral perspective rejected psychology's early emphasis on the internal workings of the mind. Instead, the behavioral perspective suggests that the focus should be on external behavior that can be observed and measured objectively.

Question 36

John B. Watson

Answer 36

John B. Watson was the first major American psychologist to use a behavioral approach. Working in the 1920s, Watson believed that one could gain a complete understanding of behavior by studying the environment in which a person operated. In fact, Watson believed rather optimistically that it was possible to bring about any desired trait of behavior by controlling a person's environemnt. The philosophy is clear in his own words: "Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select- doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and yes, even beggar man and theif, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations and race of his ancestors" (Watson, 1924)

Question 37

B. F. Skinner

Answer 37

The behavioral perspective was championed by B. F. Skinner, a pioneer in the field. Much of our understanding of how people learn new behaviors is based on the behavioral perspective.

Question 38

Cognitive perspective

Answer 38

Evolving in part from structuralism and in part as a reaction to behaviorism, which focused so heavily on observable behaviors and the environment, the cognitive perspective focuses on how people think, understand, and know about the world. The emphasis is on learning how people comprehend and represent the outside world within themselves and how our ways of thinking about the world influence our behavior. Many psychologists who adhere to the cognitive perspective compare human thinking to the workings of a computer, which takes in information and transforms, stores, and retrieves it. In their view, thinking is information processing.

Question 39

Humanistic perspective

Answer 39

The humanistic perspective rejects the view that behavior is determined largely by automatically unfolding biological forces, unconscious processes, or the enviornment. Instead, the humanistic perspective suggests that all individuals naturally strive to grow, develop, and be in control of their lives and behavior. Humanistic psychologists maintain that each of us has the capacity to seek and reach fulfillment. The emphasis of the humanistic perspective is on free will, the ability to freely make decisions about one's own behavior and life. The notion of free will stands in contrast to determinism, which sees behavior as caused, or determined, by things beyond a person's control.

Question 40

Perspectives on Issue: Nature (heredity) vs. nurture (environment)

Answer 40

``` Neuroscience: Nature (heredity) Cognitive: Both Behavioral: Nurture (environment) Humanistic: Nurture (environment) Psychodynamic: Nature (heredity) ```

Question 41

Perspectives on Issue: Conscious vs. unconscious determinants of behavior

Answer 41

``` Neuroscience: Unconscious Cognitive: Both Behavioral: Conscious Humanistic: Conscious Psychodynamic: Unconscious ```

Question 42

Perspectives on Issue: Observable behavior vs. internal mental processes

Answer 42

``` Neuroscience: Internal emphasis Cognitive: Internal emphasis Behavioral: Observable emphasis Humanistic: Internal emphasis Psychodynamic: Internal emphasis ```

Question 43

Perspectives on Issue: Free will vs. determinism

Answer 43

``` Neuroscience: Determinism Cognitive: Free will Behavioral: Determinism Humanistic: Free will Psychodynamic: Determinism ```

Question 44

Perspectives on Issue: Individual differences vs. universal principles

Answer 44

``` Neuroscience: Universal emphasis Cognitive: Individual emphasis Behavioral: Both Humanistic: Individual emphasis Psychodynamic: Universal emphasis ```

Question 45

Nature vs. nurture consensus

Answer 45

Every psychologist would agree that neither nature nor nurture alone is the sole determinant of behavior; rather, it is a contribution of the two. In a sense, then, the real controversy involves how much of our behavior is caused by heredity and how much is caused by environmental influences.

Question 46

Race vs. ethnicity

Answer 46

There is not universal agreement on the use of terms such as race and ethnic group. Race is a biological concept that, technically, should be used only to refer to classifications based on the physical characteristics of an organism or species. But in practice, the term has been used to denote anything from skin color to culture. In contrast, ethnic group and ethnicity are broader terms that refer to cultural background, nationality, religion, and language.

Question 47

Psychology's future

Answer 47

Although the course of scientific development is notoriously difficult to predict, several trends seem likely: As its knowledge base grows, psychology will become increasingly specialized and new perspectives will evolve. For example, our growing understanding of the brain and the nervous system, combined with scientific advances in genetics and gene therapy, will allow psychologists to focus on prevention of psychological disorders rather than only on their treatment.