Chapters 1-4 Flashcards
(32 cards)
What is Psychology?
Psychology is the study of mental processes and behaviours?
How is behaviour different from mental process?
Mental process is the activity of our brain when engaged in thinking, processing and using language. (Includes thinking, imagining, and remembering). Whereas behaviour is observable action often in response to environmental cues.
When studying mental processes, what are the 4 goals?
DEPC
DEPC
1) Description of what we observe.
2) Explanation: For e.x. Why do we eat?
3) Prediction: of the circumstances that lead to the expression of a certain behaviour.
4) Control: How can we control behaviour?
What are the different levels of analysis in Psychology?
1) The brain: Neural activity.
2) The person: Emotions, ideas, thoughts.
3) The group: Friends, family, culture.
Why is it important to know about myths?
1) They can be harmful.
2) Myths can create indirect damage.
3) Accepting myths in one area impedes thinking in other areas.
What is philosophy?
Philosophy is the study of knowledge and reality.
How is mythology and science similar?
They both represent our attempt to describe, explain, predict, and control our reality.
What did Plato, Aristotle and Hippocrates wonder about?
They queried how the human mind worked, how the human body related to the mind, and whether knowledge was inborn or had to be learned from experience.
What did the Greek philosophers emphasize?
They emphasized that theories, ideas about the way things work are never final , but rather capable of improvement.
Who was Hippocrates?
460-377B.C.E.
He was a Greek physician recognized as the “Father of Medicine.”
He believed that an individual’s physical and psychological health was influenced by an excess/lack of one/+ of 4 bodily humours. (Blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile)
Although this is incorrect, he accurately diagnosed the symptoms of pneumonia and epilepsy.
Who was Plato?
427-374 B.C.E.
A Greek philosopher who believed that the human mind was imprinted with all relevant knowledge and that this knowledge was innate.
Who was Aristotle?
384-322 B.C.E.
Was a student of Plato’s who made key contributions to the foundations of psychology. He looked inward at the sensory experiences and also scrutinized his environment, searching for the basic purpose of all objects and creatures.
Who was Francis Bacon?
1561-1626
Was an English philosopher and scientist who became a prominent figure in scientific methodology and natural philosophy.
Widely regarded as the creator of empiricism.
What is empiricism?
The view that all knowledge originates in experience.
Who was Rene Descartes?
1596-1650
The first of the modern philosophers who viewed all truths as ultimately linked and believed that the meaning of the natural world could be understood through science and mathematics.
Who was John Locke?
1632-1704
He influenced theories of both Bacon and Descartes.
Was a British philosopher who believed that we learn by our experiences.
Argued for tabula rasa - a blank slate.
Who was Johannes Muller?
1801-1894
Was a physiologist who studied the relationship between physical stimuli and their psychological effects.
Who was Charles Darwin?
1809-1882
He proposed the theory of evolution, natural selection, and adaptive variations.
Who was Wilhelm Wundt?
1832-1920
Father of experimental psychology.
Established the first psychology lab in 18879 in Leipzig, Germany.
Studied psychology through empirically-driven experiments.
Focused on the study of consciousness.
Developed the psychological paradigm voluntarism.
What is introspection, and which early school of psychologist relied most heavily on it?
Introspection is a method of psychological study involving careful evaluation of mental processes and how simple thoughts expand into complex ideas.
Cornell University?
What is the main difference in approach between functionalism and structuralism?
Unlike structuralism, functionalism emphasized the need for research to include animals, children, and persons with mental disorders in order to understand both normal and abnormal psychological functioning.
Who was Edward Titchener?
1867-1927
Developed structuralism as an attempt to try to identify all the elements of consciousness.
Introspection - careful, reflective and systematic observation of the details of mental processes.
What was the goal of structuralism, and which elements survived?
The goal was to describe observable mental processes rather than to explain, predict, or control.
The principle was rejected by other psychologist, but some elements survived
- Psychologists should focus on observable events.
- Scientific study should focus on simple elements as building blocks of complex experience.
Who was William James?
1842-1910
Set up the first psychology lab in the U.S. at Harvard.
Wrote the first psychology textbook, Principles of Psychology, published in 1890.
