Chapter 1 of Nairne's "Psychology", Fouth Edition. An Introduction to
Terms
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- Mind
- The contents and processes of subjective experience: sensations, thoughts, and emotion.
- Behavior
- Can be measured. Moving, talking, gesturing, and internal thoughts and feelings.
- Clinical Psychologists
- Diagnose and treat psychological problems or gives advice on things such as how to raise your children or get along with your boss.
- Counseling Psychologists
- Deal with adjustment problems, such as marriage and family problems.
- Psychiatrists
- Specialize in the treatment of psychological problems, but they are doctors, so they can prescribe medication.
- Applied Psychologists
- Extend the principles of scientific psychology to practical, everyday prolems in the real world.
- School Psychologist
- An applied psychologist who works with students in primary or secondary schools to help them perform well academically and socially.
- Industrial/Organizational Psychologist
- An applied psychologist who might be employed in industry to help improve morale, train new recruits, or help managers establish effective lines of communication with their employees.
- Human Factors Psychologist
- An applied psychologist who plays a key role in the design and engineering of new products, such as stoves and traffic lights.
- Research Psychologists
- Primarily conduct experiments or collect observations in an attempt to discover the basic principles of behavior and mind.
- Biopsychologists
- Research psychologists who seek to understand how biological or genetic factors influence and determine behavior.
- Personality Psychologists
- Research psychologists who are concerned with the internal factors that lead people to act consistently across situations, and also how people differ.
- Cognitive Psychologists
- Research psychologists who focus on higher mental processes such as memory, learning, and reasoning.
- Developmental Psychologists
- Research psychologists who study how behavior and internal mental processes change over the course of the life span.
- Social Psychologists
- Research psychologists who are interested in how people think about, influence, and relate to each other.
- Empiricism
- The idea that knowledge arises directly from experience.
- Nativism
- An idea that holds that certain kinds of knowledge and ideas are innate.
- Gestalt Psychology
- Humans are born with a certain fixed way of viewing the world.
- Structuralism
- The idea that psychologists should understand the structure of the mind by breaking it down into elementary parts.
- Systematic Introspection
- Required peopl to provide rigorous self-reports of their own internal experiences.
- Functionalism
- An early school of psychology; fuctionalists believe that the proper way to understand mind and behavior is to first analyze their fuction and purpose.
- Behaviorism
- A school of psychology proposing that the only proper subject matter of psychology is observable behavior rather than immediate conscious experience.
- Psychoanalysis
- A term used by Freud to describe the theory of mind and system of therapy.
- Humanistic Psychology
- A movement in psychology that focuses on people's unique capacities for choice, responsibility, and growth.
- Eclectic Approach
- The idea that it's useful to select information from several sources rather than to rely entirely on a single perspective or school of thought.
- Cognitive Revolution
- The shift away from strict behaviorism, begun in the 1950's, characterized by renewed interest in fundamental problems of consciousness and internal mental processes.
- Evolutionary Psychology
- A movement proposing that we're born with mental processes and "software" that guide our thinking and behavior. These innate mechanisms were acquired through natural selection in our ancestral past and help us solve specific adaptive problems.
- Culture
- The shared volumes, customs, and beliefs of a group or community.
- Lev Vygotsky
- Russian psychologist who proposed that children's thoughts and actions originated from their social interactions, particularly with parents.
- René Descartes
- Introduced the concept of 'reflex' and argued that the body and mind are seperate.
- Aristotle
- Believed that knowledge comes directly from our day-to-day experiences.
- Charles Darwin
- Believed that both physical and psychological characteristics were naturally selected for their adaptive value.
- Wilhelm Wundt
- Established the first psychological laboratory. He is credited as the first "real" psychologist.
- Edward Titchener
- A student of Wundt who proposed that immediate experience could be broken down into elements- primarily sensations and feelings.
- William James and James Rowland Angell
- Funstionalists who were convinced that to understand a mental process, its function must be considered.
- John Watson
- A behaviorist who rejected the study of the mind in favor of the study of observable behavior.
- B. F. Skinner
- Discovered the principles of behavior modification- how actions are changed by reinforcement and nonreinforcement.
- Sigmund Freud
- Developed the theraputic technique of psychoanalysis. Freud observed dreams and one of his unique contributions was his emphasis on unconscious determinants of behavior.
- Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow
- Rejected Freud's pessimism and focused on (what they considered to be) humans' unique capacity for self-awareness, choice, responsibility, and growth.
- Mary Whiton Calkins
- The first female president of the APA, and developed the paired-associate learning technique and was a mjor contributor to philosophy.
- Margaret Floy Washburn
- The first woman to receive a Ph.D. in Psychology and was the second female president of the APA.
- Helen Thompson Wooley
- Helped pioneer the study of sex differences, abolishing a number of myths about women that were widely accepted at the time.
- Christine Ladd-Franklin
- Famous for her early work on color vision.
- Lillien Martin
- Made significant contributions in perception.
- Ruth Howard
- First African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in psychology, and is known for her significant contributions in clinical and developmental psychology.
- Martha Bernal
- The first Latina to receive a Ph.D. in psychology contributed heavily to the study of ethnic issues.