PSY 201 Midterm: Ch. 1 – Flashcards
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How does "psychobabble" differs from serious psychology?
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"Psychobabble" is a pseudoscience and quackery covered by a veneer of psychological language; but, serious psychology is based on rigorous research and empirical evidence.
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What is empirical evidence?
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Evidence gathered by careful observation, experimentation, or measurement.
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What's wrong with psychologists' nonscientific competitors, such as astrologers and psychics?
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They try to explain people's problems and predict their behavior; their predictions are vague as to be meaningless.
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Who was Hippocrates?
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The Greek physician known as the founder of modern medicine, inferred that the brain must be the ultimate source of emotions.
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What is phrenology?
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The now-discredited theory that different brain areas account for specific character and personality traits, which can be "read from bumps on the skull".
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Who was John Locke?
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Argued the mind works by associating ideas arising from experience.
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What is the greek phrase for phrenology?
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"study of the mind"
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Who was Wilhelm Wundt?
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He officially established the first psychological laboratory. He also promoted a method called "trained introspection".
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What is functionalism?
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An early psychological approach that emphasized the function or purpose of behavior and consciousness.
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What is "trained introspection"?
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Wundt's volunteers where taught to observe, analyze, and describe their own sensations, mental images, and emotional reactions.
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Who was Sigmund Freud?
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Inventor of psychoanalysis.
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What is psychoanalysis?
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A theory of personality and a method of psychotherapy, originally formulated by Sigmund Freud, that emphasizes unconscious motives and conflicts.
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Who is the official founder of scientific psychology?
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Wilhelm Wundt, in 1879, started the first psychological laboratory.
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How and when did psychology became a formal discipline?
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Wanted to describe, predict, understand, and modify behavior. 1879
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What are the three early schools of psychology?
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1. Phrenology- Different brain areas accounted for specific character 2. Functionalism- Emphasized function or purpose of behavior 3. Psychoanalysis- theory of personality
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What are the five major perspectives in psychology?
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1. Biological perspective 2. Learning perspective 3. Cognitive perspective 4. Sociocultural perspective 5. Psychodynamic theory
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What is biological perspective?
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Focuses on how bodily events affect behavior, feelings, and thoughts.
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What is learning perspective?
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Concerned with how the environment and experiment and experience affect a person's/animal actions.
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What is cognitive perspective?
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Emphasizes mental processes in perception, memory, language, problem solving, and other areas of behavior.
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What is sociocultural perspective?
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Emphasizes social and cultural influences on behavior.
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What is psychodynamic theory?
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Theory that explains behavior and personality in terms of unconscious energy dynamics within the individual.
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Why can you not assume that all therapists are psychologist, or that all psychologists are therapists?
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Psychologist can do research, have a further degree in psychology, can diagnose disorders
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What are the three major areas of psychologists' professional activities.
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1. Teaching and doing research in colleges and universities. 2. Providing mental health services, often referred to as psychological practice . 3. Conducting research or applying its findings in nonacademic settings such as business, sports, government, law and the military.
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What is the difference between a clinical psychologist and a psychiatrist?
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Clinical psychologist diagnoses, treats, and/or studies mental and emotional problems, both mild and sever; has a PH.D., Ed.D., or a Psy.D. Psychiatrist does work similar to that of a clinical psychologist but is likely to take a more biological approach; has a medical degree (M.D.) with a specialty in psychiatry.
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What are the four standards of abnormality?
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1. Statistical Analysis 2. Moral Standard 3. Standard of Harm 4. Happiness Standard
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What is critical thinking?
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The ability and willingness to assess claims and make objective judgements on the basis of well-supported reasons and and evidence rather than emotion or anecdote.
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Why are all opinions not created equal?
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Opinions need to some calculation of reality and evidence backing up facts
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What are the eight guidelines for evaluating psychological claims?
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1. Ask questions 2. Define terms 3. Examine the evidence for a claim 4. Analyze assumptions (beliefs taken for granted) and biases (beliefs that prevents us from considering the evidence fairly). 5. Avoid emotional reasoning 6. Avoid oversimplification 7. Consider alternative explanations 8. Tolerate uncertainty
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What is hypothesis?
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A statement that attempts to predict or to account for a set of phenomena; scientific hypotheses specify relationships among events or variables and are empirically tested.
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What is operation definition?
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A precise definition of a term in a hypothesis, which specifies the operations for observing and measuring the process or phenomenon being defined.
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What is principle of falsifiability?
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The principle that a scientific theory must make predictions that are specific enough to expose the theory to the possibility of disconfirmation; that is , the theory must predict not only what will happen but also what will not happen.
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What is confirmation bias?
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The tendency to look for or pay attention only to information that confirms one's own belief, and ignore, trivialize, or forget information that disconfirm that belief.
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What is a theory?
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An organized system of assumptions and principles that purports to explain a specified set of observations and their interrelationships.
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Why is a psychological theory unscientific if it explains anything that could conceivably happen?
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A theory needs evidence.
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What is wrong with drawing conclusions about behavior from a collection of anecdotes?
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The conclusions are oversimplified
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How are participants selected for psychological studies and why does it matter?
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Researchers would prefer to get a representative sample, a group of randomly chosen participants; otherwise, the research could be considered bias
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What are descriptive methods?
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Methods that yield descriptions of behavior but not necessarily causal explanations.
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What are the methods psychologists use to describe behaviors?
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1. Case studies 2. Observational studies 3. Psychological tests 4. Tests 5. Surveys
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What are case studies?
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Detailed description of a particular individual. Illustrate psychological principles. Writer could have biases that cause them to overlook other things.
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What are observational studies?
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Observes, measures, and records behavior while taking care to avoid intruding. Shortcoming is the presence of researchers and special equipment can cause different behaviors.
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What are psychological tests?
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Procedures used to measure and evaluate personality traits, emotional states, aptitudes, interests, abilities, and values. Disadvantage: Must have reliability and validity
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What are norms?
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In test constructions, established standards of performance.
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What is reliability?
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In test construction, the consistency of test scores from one time and place to another.
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What is validity?
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The ability of a test to measure what it was designed to measure.
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What are surveys?
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Questionnaires and interviews that ask people directly about their experiences, attitudes, or opinions: has volunteer bias
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What is volunteer bias?
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A shortcoming of findings derived from a sample of volunteers instead of a representative sample; the volunteers may differ from those who did not volunteer.
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What does it mean to say that two things are "negatively" correlated?
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One variable goes up and other variable goes down.
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What is positive correlation?
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Both variable goes up or down.
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What is correlational study?
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Study that looks for a consistent relationship between two phenomena.
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What is correlation?
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A measure of how strongly two variables are related to each other.
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What are variables?
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Characteristics of behavior or experience that can be measured tor described by a numeric scale.
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What is coefficient of correlation?
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A measure of correlation that ranges in value from -1.00 to +1.00
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Why do psychologists rely so heavily on experiments?
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The experiments allows them to control or manipulate the situation being studied.
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What are control groups?
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The constant variable in a test that doesn't receive treatment and all other factors are tested against it.
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What is a single-blind study?
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The subject does not know whether or not they are in an experimental or a control group
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What is a double-blind study?
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When the subject and or the individual running the experiment know who is getting which treatment. Need third party.
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Why are averages misleading?
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Too generalized and usually dependent on the mean.
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What is standard deviation?
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A commonly used to measure of variability that indicates the average difference between scores in a distribution and their mean.
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How do you tell if a finding is strong or trivial?
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Significance tests. Tell us if the result occurred at a very low chance it is significant.
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Why are some findings statistically significant, yet unimportant in practical terms?
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Results could be different from hypothesis and would have to change research
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How do psychologists combine results from many studies to better understand the problem?
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Cross-sectional study. Different groups compare at the same time. Longitudinal study, same people are reassessed at regular intervals.
