Psychology 1000 Kuhnert Chapters 1-3

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What is Psychology?: The science of behavior and the mind.
Behavior: the observable actions of a person or animal
Mind: thoughts, feelings, sensations, percepsitons, memories and other subjective experiences.
Science: An objective way to answer questions based on observable facts/data and well described methods.
What is the Diversity Effect?: The Refusion of responsibility effect. Ex When a large group of people are together and someone is getting hurt in some shape or form no one helps because everyone thinks someone else will do it.
What is a set of theories and procedures for asking and answering questions?: The scientific method it evolved over the centuries first surfaced in the Physics field.
What is a Hypothesis?: A testable prediction that is often supported by a theory.
What is Dualism?: The belief that body and soul are separate but interrelated. The belief orginated from medieval religion. The believed that the soul is a set of intellectual functions and will while the mind is a product of the soul. During the medieval period studying the mind was illegal and was punishable by death.
Who is Rene DesCartes (1596-1650) ?: The modifier of dualism. First to study the mind in animals because he argued that animals did not have a soul. Through his research he discovered that the body controls a lot of our behaviors (reflexes). As well as that the soul's main function is thought which is uniquely human.
What is Materialism?: Created by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). He thought that the mind is a product of the brain and the soul is not involved in human behavior.
What is Empiricism?: The belief that knowledge and intellect are acquired. Sensory experiences produce elementary ideas and those ideas become associated into complex thought and ideas.
What is Nativism?: The idea that elementary ideas are innate. This leads to arguments like "what is the purpose of education?" Nativists believe that Education helps brings things out. They believe that intellect can be changed by experiences
What is Nature vs. Nurture?: The debate about wether humans learn from their enviornment and experiences or are known from birth. Appears throughout modern psychology.
Who is Charles Darwin (1809-1882)?: Came up with the theory of Natural Selection in 1859. which is the thought that physical characteristics evolve through natural selection and behavioral patterns also influence selection.
Who is Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)?: German psychologist that wrote the first psychology textbook. He also applied laboratory techniques to the study of the brain.
What is Structualism?: The idea that identified the "atoms" of the mind. It focused on basic sensory and perceptual process. Measured reaction times.
Who is Edward Titchener (1962-1927)?: Wundt's student that brought Psychology to the U.S. Became a professor at Cornell.
Who is William James (1842-1910)?: Started the psychology department at Harvard in the 1870's. Opposed Wund and Titchner's idea of Structualism believed in Functualism.
What is Functionalism?: An idea influenced by Darwin to focus on how behaviors help us adopt to the enviornment.
Who is Sigmund Freud (1856-1938)?: An Austrian physician that focused on ilness and the psychoanalytic theory of mental disorders.
Who is Alfred Binet (1857-1911)?: French intelligence researcher that wrote the first IQ test.
Who is Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)?: Russian physiologist that accidentally discovered conditioned reflexes. This showed how people could be conditioned to react ot things.
Who is B.F. Skinner (1904-1990)?: An American psychologist from Harvard that studied learning and the effects of reinforcement and punishment (behaviorism).
What is Perspective?: A way of viewing phenomena.
What is the Ethology perspective?: The study of animal behavior in the natural enviornment rather that in a lab setting. Influenced by Darwin and emphasis on innagte, adaptive behavior patterns.
What is the Biological perspective?: The study of physiological mechanisms in the brain and nervous system that organize and control behavior.
What is the Clinical Perspective?: The view of behavior based on experience treating patients created by Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers . Psychoanalytic approach created by Sigmund Freud believed behavior reflects bothe conscious nad unconcious influences.
What is the Cultural Perspective?: The study of psychological differences based on cultural differences.
What is the Cognitive Perspective?: The study of how knowledge acquired, organized, remembered and used to guide behavior.
What is a theory?: An explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes and predicts observations.
what is an Operational Definition?: A statement of procedures/operations used to define research variables. Ex. Intelligence may be operationally defined as what an intelligence test measures.
What is Replication?: Repeating the essence of a research study to see whether the basic finding extends to other participants and circumstances. Usually with different participants in different situations.
What is Description?: Psychologists describe behavior using cases.
What is a Case Study?: The study of one individual person.
What are Surveys?: The study of a group of people.
What is Illusory Correlation?: The perception of a relationship where none exists.
What is a Double Blind Procedure?: Whaen both the research participants and the research staff are ignorant (blind) about whether the research participants have received the treatment or a placebo. Commonly used in drug evaluation studies.
What is a Placebo?: An inert substance or condition that may be administered instead of a presumed active agent to see if it triggers the effects believed to characterize the active agent.
Who is Mary Calkins?: The first and onl Harvard student admited to the school of Psychology. She had to leave the university because the men in her class all dropped when she was admitted. therefore she had to be tutored alone in the field.Known for her research in memory and being the first female president of the APA (American Psychological Association).
Who is John B. Watson?: He along with Skinner redefined psychology as "the sciednce of observable behavior."
What is Basic Research?: Pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base.
What is Applied Research?: Scientific study that aims to solve practical problems.
What is psychiatry?: A branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders: practiced by physicians who sometimes provide medical treatments (for example drugs) as well as psychological therapy.
What is hindsight bias?: The tendancey to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have forseen it. )Also know as the I-knew-it -all-along phenomenon).
What is Critical Thinking?: Thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclussions. Rather, it examines assumtion, discern hidden values, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions.
What is Naturalistic Observation?: Observing and recording behavior in naturally occuring situations without trying to manipulate and control the situation.
what is the correlation Coefficient?: A statistical measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and thus of how well either factors predicts the other.
What is the connection of Correlation and Causation?: corerelation indicates the possibility of a cause effect relationship, but it does not prove causation. Cause and effect. Ex. Watching a lot of violence, correlates withe the causation, violent behavior.
What is Experimental Condition?: The participants exposed to the treatment.
What is control condition?: The participants not exposed to the experimental treatment. (serves as a comparison)
What is Random Assignment?: Assigning participants to experimental and control conditions by chance. This minimizes pre-existing differnces between those assigned to the different groups.
What is an Independent variable?: The experimental factor that is manipulated: the variable whoe effect is being studied.
What is a dependent variable?: The experimental factor in psychology, -the behgavior or mental process- that is being measured the variable that may change in response to manipulations of the independent variable.
What is Experimentation?: A research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors (independent variables) to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process (the dependent variable). by random assignment of participants, the experiment controls other relevent factors.
What are the Effects of culture?0: culture effect the behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions of a large group of people that is passed down from generation to generation.
Is Psychology dangerous and what are some of its dangers?: Psychology is not typically dangerous because ethics typically protects participants.
What is a neuro?: A neuron is a nerve cell, it is the basic building block of the vervous system.
How does a neuron work?: A neuron fires an impulse to the brain when it receives signals from sense receptors stimulated by pressure, heat, or light, or when it is timulated by chemiclal messages from neighboring neurons.
What are Dendrites?: The brushy, branching extensions of a neuron that receive messages and conduct impulses toward the cell body.
That are Axons?: The extension of a neuron, ending in branching terminal fibers through wihch messages pass to other neurons of to muscles or glands.
What is the Myelin Sheath?: A layer of fatty cells segmentally encasing the fibers of many neurons. It enables vastly greater transmission speed of neural impulses.
What is the Synapse?: The junction between the axon tip of the sending neuron and the dendrite r cell body of the receiving neuron. The tiny gap between the junction is called either the synaptic gap or cleft.
What are Neurotransmitters?: Chemical messengers that traverse the synaptic gaps between neurons.that trabel accross the synapse when released by the sending neuron and bind to receptor sites on the receiving neuron which influences whether a neural impulse will generate.
What is the Central Nervous System?: Communication between the brain and spinal chord.
What is the Peripheral Nervous System?: The sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system to the rest of the body.
What are Nerves?: Neural "cables" containing many axons,. these bundled axons, connect the cental nervous system with muscles, glands, and sense organs.
What are reflexes?: Simple automatic, inborn responses to sensories.
What is Broca's area?: The area of the left frontal lobe that directs themuscle movements involved in speech.
what is Wernicke's Area?: The area of the left temporal lobe involved in language comprhensiona dn expression.
What is Aphasia?: Impairment of language, usually cause by the left hemisphere damage either in Broca's area (impared speaking) or Wernickes' area (imparing understanding).
What is the Cerebral Cortex?: The intricate fabric of interconnected neural cells that covers the cerebral hemispheres.
What are the frontal loves?: The portion of the cerebral cortex just behind the forhead: involved in speaking and muscle movements, plan making, and judgement.
What are Parietal Lobes?: The portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the top of the head and towards the rear includes the sensory cortex.
What are the Occipital Lobes?: The portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the back of the head: includes the visual areas, which receive visual information from the opposite visual field.
What are the Temoral Lobes?: The portion of the cerebral cortex lying roughly above the ears: includes the auditory areas, each of which receives auditory information primarily from the opposite ear.
What is Plsticity?: The brain's capacity for modification, as evident in brain reorganization following damage (especially in children) and in experiments on the effects of experience on brain developement. The younger someone is the more plasticity the brain has.
What is the Corpus callosum?: Is a large band of neural fibers that connects the two brain hemisphers and carries messages between them. the "information highway from the eye to the brain."
What is a Split brain?: The condition when the two hemispheres of the brain are isolated by cutting the corpus callosum. The two sides of the brain don't communicate so they see or do different things.
What is the Endocrine System?: The body's "slow" chemical communication system that secretes hormones into the bloodsteam.
What are hormones?: The chemical messengers, mostly manufactured by the endocrine glands, that are produced in one tissue and affect another.
What are the Adrenal Glands?: A pair of endocrine glands above the kidneys that secrete the hoormones epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine (non-adrenaline) which help arouse the body in times of stress.
What is the Pituitary Gland?: It regulates growtha and controls other endocrine glands.
What are Genes?: biochemical units of heredity that make up the chromosomes that are a segment of DNA capable of synthesizing protein.
What is DNA?: A complex molecule containing the genetic information that makes up the chromosomes. It is formed by two strands that from a "double Helix which are held together by pairs of molecules.
What are Chromosomes?: Threadlike structures made of DNA molecules that contain the genes.
What is Natural Selection?: The principle that alon the range of inherited trait variation those that lead to increase reproduction and survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations.
What are Mutations?: a random error in gene replication that leads ot genetic damage.
What is Behavior Genetics?: The study of the relative power and limits of genetic and enviornmental influences on behavior.
What are Identical Twins?: two children developed from a single fertalized eff that splits in two genetically identical organisms.
What are Fraternal Twins?: Two children thta develop from seerate eggs. Genetically they are no closer that brother and sister, but they share the fetal enviornment.
What is Temperament?: A person's characteristic emotional reactivit and intensity.
Adoption Studies?: The study to see how similar an adoptive child is to their adoptive parents as opposed to their biological parents. The personalities of the children are normally much like their biological parents but their core beliefs stem from their adoptive family.
Temperment Studies?: Shows that temperment is biological and is apparant early on in life. Temperment often helps to form our personalities later in life.
How do genes and the envioronment interact?: Our genes affect how people react ot and influence us. Therefore they go hand in hand.
What is Culture?: The enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next.
What is the Norm?: An understood rule for accepted and expected behavior.
What is Personal Space?: The buffer zone we like to maintain around our bodies.
What is the significance of X Chromosomes?: This chromosome is found in both males and females but an X chromosome from each parent produces a female child.
What is the significance of a Y Chromosome?: The sex chromosome found only in men. Men receive on X chromosome from their mother and one Y chromosome from their father.
What is Testosterone?: The most important of the male sex hormones, but both males and females have it. Testosterone in males stimulates the growth of male sex organs in the fetus and development of male sex characteristics during puberty.
What is a Role?: A set of expectations (norms) about a social position that defines how those in that position ought to behave.
What is a Gender Role?: A set of expected behaviors for males and females. For examples men are thought of as being the protector and women are thought of as the nurturers.
What is Gender Identity?: One's sense of being male or female. Awarance of one's gender normally surfaces around the age of 5.
What is Gender Typing?: The acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role. Ex. Men are doctors women are nurses.
What is the Social Learning Theory?: Theory that we learn social behavior by observing and imitating and by being rewarded or punished.
What is the Gender Schema Theory?: Theory that children learn from their cultures a concept of what it means to be male and female and that theyadjust their behavior accordingly.

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