Psychology Midterm
Terms
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- Psychology
- the scientific study of the behavior of individuals and their mental processes.
- Scientific Method
- set of procedures used for gathering and interpreting objective information in a way that minimizes error and yeilds dependable generalizations.
- Behavior
- the actions by which and orgnism adjusts to its environment
- Behavioral data
- observationa reprots oabout the behavior of organisms and the conditions under which the behavior occurs or changes.
- organismic variables
- the inner determinantes of an organisms behavior
- dispositional variables
- the organismic variables, or inner determinants of behavior that occour with human and nonhuman animals
- environmental variables
- external influences on behavior
- situational variables
- external influences on behavior
- structuralism
- the study of the structure of mind and behavior; the view that all human mental experience can be understood as a combination of simple elements or events.
- functionalism
- the perspective on mind and behavior that focuses on the examination of their functions in an organism's interactions with the environment.
- biological perspective
- behavior is explained based on the functioning of the genes, the brain, the nervous system, and the endocrine system
- psychodynamic perspective
- behavior is explained in terms of past experiences and motivational forces; actions viewed as stemming from inherited instincts, biological drives, and attempts to resolv onfliscts between personal needs and social requirements.
- behaviorist perspective
- observable behavior that can be objectively recorded and with the relationships of observable behavior to environmental stimuli.
- behaviorism
- limits the study of psychology to measureable or observable behavior
- humanistic perspective
- emphasizes a persons capacity for making rational choices and developing to max. potential
- cognitive perspective
- stresses human thought and process of knowing (attending, thinking, remembering,etc)
- evolutionary perspective
- stresses importance of behavioral and mental adaptiveness, based on assumption that mental capabilities evolved over milions of years to serve particular adaptive purposes
- cultural perspective
- focuses on cross- culturall differences in the causes and consequences of behavior
- context of discovery
- initial phase of research, in which obervations, beliefs, info, and knowledge lead to a new idea or a different way of thinking
- determinism
- all event, physical, behavioral, and mental, are determined by specific causal factors that are potentially knowable
- context of justification
- research phase in which evidence is brought to bear on hypotheses
- observer bias
- distortion of eveidence because of personal motives and expectations
- standardization
- set of uniform procedures for treating each participant
- operational definition
- definition of a variable or condition in terms of specific operation or procedure used to determine its presence
- confounding variable
- stimulus other than the variable an experimenter explicitly introduces into a research stting that affects behavior
- expectancy effects
- results that occur whe a researcher or oberver subtly communicates to participants the kind of behavior they expect
- placebo effect
- a change in behavior in the absence of an experimental manipulation
- double blind control
- participants and experimental assistants are unaware of who has recieved what treatment
- placebo control
- treatment is not given
- between- subjects design
- groups of participants are randomly assigned to experimental or controlled conditions
- within- subjects design
- each participant is their own control
- A-B-A design
- baseline condition, experimental treatment, return to baseline
- reliability
- degree to which a test produces similar scores each time it is used
- validity
- the extent to which a test measures what it was intented to measure
- number of chromosomes
- 46
- sociobiology
- focuses on evolutionary explanations for the social behavior and socil systems of humans and other animal species
- broca's area
- region of brain that translates thoughts into speech
- eeg
- recording of electrical activity of the brain
- PET scans
- detailed pictures of activity in living brain by recording radioactivity emitted by cells during different activites
- MRi
- scans brain using magnetic fields and radio waves
- fMRi
- combines mri and Pet scans by detectin magnetic changes in the flow of blood cells to the brain
- Somatic
- connects central nervous system to muscles and skin
- autonomic
- controls involuntary motor responses by connectin sensory receptors to the CnS and the CnS to muscle and glands
- sympathetic division
- deals with emergency response and mobilzation of energy
- parasympathetic
- moniters routine operation of body's internal functions, conserves and restores energy
- discovery
- using observations, beliefs, and knowledge to come up with a different way of thinking
- psychological theories should...
- avoid making claims about causal factors