W2: History of Psych + Motivation

Question 1

What is included in the Scientific Thinking Principle?

Answer 1

Extraordinary Claim (the more extraordinary the claim is, the stronger the evidence needs to be), Testing Predictions, Occam’s Razor (simplest explanation), Replicability, Ruling out rival hypothesis (excluding other plausible explanations), Correlation is not necessarily causation

Question 2

What are the major theoretical frameworks of psychology?

Answer 2

Structuralism: identify basic elements of experiences - E. B. Titchener

Functionalism: understand the adaptive purposes of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours - William James

Behaviourism: focus on observable behaviour - John B. Watson, B.F. Skinner

Cognitivism: examine the role of mental processes on behaviour - Jean Piaget, Ulric Neisser

Psychoanalysis: exploring role of unconscious psychological processes and early life experiences in behaviour - Sigmund Freud

Question 3

What’s scientific scepticism

Answer 3

Being open-minded when evaluating claims, however, only accepting them when persuasive evidence it presented.

Question 4

what’s the decline effect?

Answer 4

Describes that the size of certain psychological findings appears to be shrinking over time.

Question 5

The nature-nurture debate

Answer 5

Asks whether our behaviours are attributable mostly to out genes (nature) or our environment (nurture)

Question 6

The free will-determinism debate

Answer 6

Asks to what extent our behaviours are freely selected rather than caused by factors outside our control.

Question 7

Psychology affects in daily life

Answer 7

Applied to diverse fields, such as education (HSC or VEC to better measure student performance by Zimbardo, 2004), advertising, road safety (John Voevodsky, adding a third break light at the back of cars)

Question 8

Scientist-practitioner gap

Answer 8

conflicting models of practice in clinical psychology due to different work settings (e.g. academics in research and private practitioners)

Question 9

How can evidence-based practice help bridge the scientist-practitioner gap?

Answer 9

By combining the findings of academics and rigorous single case study methods of private practitioners, it builds the evidence to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions

Question 10

What is motivation?

Answer 10

Psychological drives that influence our direction

Question 11

Drive Reduction theory

Answer 11

Clark Hull (1943) and Donald Hebb (1949)

The theory proposes that certain drives (e.g. hunger, thirst, sexual frustration) motivate us to act in ways that minimise aversive states; also propose that we are motivated to maintain a psychological homeostasis

Question 12

Yerkes-Dodson law

Answer 12

Inverted U-shaped related where arousal level is on x-axis, and performance is on the y-axis.

We tend to do our best, and are most consistent, when experiencing intermediate levels of arousal.

Question 13

Approach and avoidance drives

Answer 13

Some drives create tendencies to approach, e.g. food, sexual desire

Some drives create tendencies to avoid, e.g. frightening animals, rude people

Question 14

Drives clashes

Answer 14

Approach - approach conflict: both alternatives are equally attractive

Avoidance - avoidance conflict: both alternatives are not desirable

Approach -avoidance conflict: attracted and repel to engage in the same goal

Question 15

Incentive theories

Answer 15

People are often motivated by positive goals

Question 16

Incentive theories differentiate intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, give example

Answer 16

Psychology class:
- Intrinsically motivated –> desire to master the material
- Extrinsically motivated –> desire to get good grades

Question 17

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Answer 17

satisfy low level needs (physiological an safety needs) before higher-level needs (belong, self esteem needs and self-actualisation)

Falsifiable in the case of staving artist achieving self actualisation first

Question 18

Symptoms of bulimia nervosa

Answer 18

• Recurrent binge eating
• Attempting to minimise weight gain after

Question 19

Symptoms of binge eating

Answer 19

• Recurrent binge eating
• No purging

Question 20

Symptoms of anorexia nervosa

Answer 20

• Refusal to eat
• Significantly low body weight expected for age and height

Question 21

Determinants of hunger

Answer 21

Hunger is associated with low levels of glucose (glucose provides energy)

Low levels of glucose incentivises hunger to create the drive to eat to restore an equilibrium state of glucose

Question 22

Determinants of weight gain and obesity

Answer 22

• Lack of and mutation of the leptin gene
• Mutation of specific gene, melanocortin-4 receptor gene
• Internal external theory: obese people are more motivate to eat by external cues rather than internal cues

Question 23

Human sexual response cycle

Answer 23

Excitement, Plateau, Orgasm, Resolution

Question 24

Factors influencing sexual activity

Answer 24

Age, Social norms and culture

Question 25

Potential influences on sexual orientation

Answer 25

An inherited tendency towards childhood gender nonconformity, sex hormones, prenatal influences, brain differences