introduction to psychology 1
Terms
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- what is psychology?
- the science that studies behaviour and mental processes
- what is a theory?
- A formulation of relationships under-lying observed events
- what are the goals of psychology?
- is to seek and describe ,explain, predict and control events it studies of the mental and behaviour process
- what do psychologists do?
- psychologist engage in research, practice and teaching.
- what is pure research?
- rearch conducted without concern for immediate application
- What is applied research?
- research conducted in an effort to find solutions to particular problems
- what is a clinical psychologist?
- help people with psychological disorders adjust to the demands of life.
- counseling psychologist
- uses interviews and tests to define their client's problems
- school psychologist
- attempt to identify and assist students who have problems that interfere with learning
- education psychologist
- attempts to facilitate learning but they usually focus on course planning and instuctional methods for a schools system
- What is developmental psychologist?
- study of the changes physical,cognitive,social and personality that occur throughout the life span
- Personality psychologists
- they focus on goals such as identifying and measuring human traits, determining influences on human thought process, feelings and behaviour and explaining psychological disorders
- social psychologists
- they are primarily concerned with the nature and causes of individuals thoughts feelings and behaviour in social situations.
- industrial psychologists
- organizational psychology are related fields industrial psychologists focus on the relationships between people and work
- consumer psychologists
- study the behaviour of shoppers in an effeort to predict and influence their behaviour.
- What unites all the various fields of psychology?
- they are all working with the thought process and mind.
- who were some of the ancient contributors to psychology?
- the ancient greek philosper Artistole {384 - 322 BCE}
- introspection
- deliberate looking into one's own cognitive processess to examine one's thoughts and feelings.
- What is structuralism?
- The scool of psychology that argues that the mind consists of three basic elements sensation, feelings, and images that combines to form experience.
- What is functionalism?
- the school of psychology that emphasizes the user or functions of the mind rather than the elements of experience.
- What is behaviorism?
- the school of psychology that defines psychology as the study of observable behaviour and studies relationship between stimuli and responses
- what is reinforcement?
- A stimulus that follows a response and increases the frequency of the response.
- Gestalt psychology
- The school of psychology that emphasizes the tendency to organize perceptions into wholes and intergrate sepate stimuli into meaningful patterns.
- insight
- in gestalt psychology the sudden reorganization of perceptions allowing the sudden solution of a problem
- What is psychoanalysis?
- The school of psychology that emphasizes the importance of unconscious motives and conflicts as determinants of human behaviour
- The importance of context
- Gestalt psychologists have shown that our erceptions depend not only on our sensory impressions but also on the context of our impressions. You will interpret a man running towards you very differantly depending on whether you are on a deserted street at night or at a track in the morning
- What is psychodynamic?
- Referring to freud's theory, which proposes that the motion of underlying forces of personality determines our thoughts, feelings, and behaviour.
- What are the evolutionary and biological perspectives?
- Modern evolutionary psychologists focus on the evolution of behaviour and mental processes.
- Genes
- The basic building blocks of heredity
- what is the cognitive perspective?
- having to do with mental processes such as sensation and perception, memory, intelligence, language, thought and problem solving.
- The beginnings of psychology
- It is a profession dating back to the days of greek philosophers Psychology is one of the human sciencec
- Why are the ancient greek philosophers seen to be the founders of psychology?
- Aristotle argued that human behaviour like the movement of the stars and the seas, is subject to rules and laws.
- why did james disagree with principles of structuralism?
- He thought that experiences can be broken down into objective sensations and subjective feelings, he thought that the purpose of behaviour were more important thatn the pieces that made up the thinking and experiences.
- What are the limitations of behaviourism?
- Behaviourism concentrates on the measurable events the behaviour it does not necessarily help us to understand the reasons for the behaviour.
- What are the differance with psychoanalysis?
- Psychoanalysis presumes that there are hidden impulses and unconsious thoughts that effect the way we think and behave.
- What are the potential dangers of the sociocultural perspective?
- Streeotyping there is the danger that we presume that all people within a partocular culture or society grouping will behave in the same, or a similar way.
- Key points
- Psychology is an old profession, as various approaches to psychology have developed, they have tried to address the perceived weaknesses of existing approaches, today there are six perspectives in psychology
- Why does a psychologist want to generalise research?
- To understand why a range of people react in a certain way.
- What is a hypothesis?
- A specifi statemnet about behaviour and mental processes that is tested through research.
- Why might psychologist want to replicate a piece of research?
- THey replicate work to see whether the findings hold up over time with subject to publication.
- Define a sample
- Only representive samples allows us to generalize or extend our findings from research samples to population.
- What is the differance between random and stratified sampling?
- Sampling is an equal amount of ethnic groups of people to be selected for the survey so if 13% represented of the muslims in the country then 13% would be picked to join the survey.
- What are the limitations of a case study?
- Ppeople may distort their pasts to please the interviewer or because they want to remember things in a certain way. Interviewers may also have certain expectations and subtly encourage subjects to fill in gaps in ways that are consistent with these expectations.
- What are the advantage and disadvantages of naturalistic observation?
- A naturalistic observation should allow the observer to see how the subject normally behaves, without any distortions of behaviour that might occur in a more formal experimental setting. However if the subject is aware they are being observed, behaviour could be altered anyway.
- Why might a double blind study be appropriate?
- THe double blind study might be appropriate as the subject and the observers do not know who has or has not recieved thus given accurate results because subject and observers are not influenced to sterotyping.
- What are the ethical issues that concern psychological research and practice with humans?
- Psychologist adhere to a number of ethical standards that are intented to promote individual dignity, human and welfare and scientific integrity.
- Ethics review committee
- A group found in an institutional setting that helps researchers consider the potential harm or their methods and reviews proposed studies according to ethical guidelines.
- informed consent
- A subject's agreement to participate in research after recieving information about the purpose of the study and nature of the treatments.
- Debrief
- to provide information about a completed procedure.
- the ethics of using animals in research
- It is ethical for researchers to harm animals in order to obtain knowledge that may benefit humans.