Ap Psych

Unit 1: Psychology’s History and Approaches
Definitions
1: Empiricism- The view that knowledge originates in experience and that science should, therefore, rely on observation and experimentation.
2: Structuralism- A method of interpretation and analysis of aspects of human cognition, behavior, culture, and experience that focuses on relationships of contrast between elements in a conceptual system that reflect patterns underlying a superficial diversity.
3: Functionalism- Belief in or stress on the practical application of a thing, in particular.
4: Experimental psychology- The branch of psychology concerned with the scientific investigation of basic psychological processes such as learning, memory, and cognition in humans and animals.
5: Behaviorism- The theory that human and animal behavior can be explained in terms of conditioning, without appeal to thoughts or feelings, and that psychological disorders are best treated by altering behavior patterns.
6: Humanistic psychology- Emphasizes the importance of current environmental influences on our growth potential, and the importance of having our needs for love and acceptance satisfied.
7:Cognitive neuroscience- The branch of neuroscience that studies the biological foundations of mental phenomena.
8: Psychology- The scientific study of the human mind and its functions, esp. those affecting behavior in a given context.
9: Nature-Nurture issue- The controversy over the relative contributions of biology and experience.
10: Natural selection: From among chance variations, nature selects the traits that best enable an organism to survive and reproduce in a particular environment.
11: Levels of analysis- A method for grouping theories together, based on the types of assumptions made about the most important actors.
12: Biopsychosocial approach- A general model or approach positing that biological, psychological and social factors, all play a significant role in human functioning in the context of disease or illness.
13: Biological psychology- The study of the relationship between the physiological systems in the body and behavior.
14: Evolutionary psychology- An approach in the social and natural sciences that examines psychological traits such as memory, perception, and language from a modern evolutionary perspective.
15: Psychodynamic psychology- Primary focus is to reveal the unconscious content of a client's psyche in an effort to alleviate psychic tension.
16: Behavioral psychology- An approach to psychology that combines elements of philosophy, methodology, and theory.
17: Cognitive psychology- An approach to psychology that emphasizes internal mental processes.
18: Social-cultural psychology- Explores how expressions of anger vary across cultural contexts.
19: Psychometrics- The science of measuring mental capacities and processes.
20: Basic research- Builds psychology’s knowledge base.
21: Developmental psychology- The branch of psychology that studies the social and mental development of children.
22: Educational psychology- A branch of psychology that studies children in an educational setting and is concerned with teaching and learning methods, cognitive development, and aptitude assessment.
23: Personality psychology- A branch of psychology that studies personality and its individual differences.
24: Social psychology- The branch of psychology that deals with social interactions, including their origins and their effects on the individual.
25: Applied research- Research that is applied, accessing and using some part of the research communities’ accumulated theories, knowledge, methods, and techniques.
26: Industrial-organizational (I/O) psychology- The scientific study of employees, workplaces, and organizations.
27: Human factors psychology- An area of psychology that focuses on a range of different topics, including ergonomics, workplace safety, human error, product design, human capability and human-computer interaction.
28: Counseling psychology- A psychological specialty that encompasses research and applied work in several broad domains: counseling process and outcome; supervision and training; career development and counseling; and prevention and health.
29: Clinical psychology- The branch of psychology concerned with the assessment and treatment of mental illness and disability.
30: Psychiatry- The study and treatment of mental illness, emotional disturbance, and abnormal behavior.
31: SQ3R- It is a comprehension method originally created as a study skill strategy for college students.

Questions:

1: The ancient Hebrews, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle pondered whether mind and body are connected or distinct, and whether human ideas are innate or result from experience. Descartes and Locke reengaged those ancient debates, with Locke offering his famous description of the mind as a “blank slate” on which experience writes. The ideas of Bacon and Locke contributed to the development of modern empiricism.
2: December 1879, at Germany’s University of Leipzig by Wilheim Wundt.

3: Until the 1920s, psychology was defined as “the science of mental life”. From the 1920s into the 1960s, John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner redefined psychology as “the scientific study of observable behavior”.

4: Psychology’s big issue is the nature-nurture issue, the controversy over the relative contributions of biology and experience.

5: The biopsychosocial approach integrates information from the biological, psychological, and social-cultural levels of analysis.

6: Basic research (often done by biological, developmental, cognitive, educational, personality, and social psychologists), applied research (sometimes conducted by industrial-organizational and human factors psychologists), and clinical science and applications (the work of counseling psychologists and clinical psychologists). Psychometric psychologists study measurement methods. Psychiatrists also study, assess, and treat people with disorders.
7: Research has shown that learning and memory are enhanced by active study. The SQ3R study method applies the principles derived from this research.

Notes:
After 20 years and hundreds of pages, Locke had completed one of history’s greatest late papers (An Essay Concerning Human Understanding), in which he famously argued that the mind at birth is a tabula rasa—a “blank slate”—on which experience writes. This idea, adding to Bacon’s ideas, helped form modern empiricism, the view that knowledge originates in experience and that science should, therefore, rely on observation and experimentation.
Philosophers’ thinking about thinking continued until the birth of psychology as we know it, on a December day in 1879, in a small, third-floor room at Germany’s University of Leipzig. There, two young men were helping an austere, middle-aged professor, Wilhelm Wundt, create an experimental apparatus.
In 1892, Wundt’s student Edward Bradford Titchener joined the Cornell University faculty and introduced structuralism. As physicists and chemists discerned the structure of matter, so Titchener aimed to discover the structural elements of mind. His method was to engage people in self-reflective introspection (looking inward), training them to report elements of their experience as they looked at a rose, listened to a metronome, smelled a scent, or tasted a substance.
As a functionalist, James encouraged explorations of down-to-earth emotions, memories, willpower, habits, and moment-to-moment streams of consciousness.
To encompass psychology’s concern with observable behavior and with inner thoughts and feelings, today we define psychology as the science of behavior and mental processes.
During its short history, psychology has wrestled with some issues that will reappear throughout this book. The biggest and most persistent is the nature-nurture issue—the controversy over the relative contributions of biology and experience.
There is even a branch of psychology devoted to studying the measurement of our abilities, attitudes, and traits: psychometrics.