Unit 1: Scientific Foundations of Psychology

Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.

Wilhelm Wundt is a German Philopsher-physician, made psychology an independent discipline-separate from philosphy/physiology. (Known as the father of psychology)

Introspection is the process of examining and reflecting one's own thoughts, feelings, sensations and mental processes (Understanding one's own subjective experiences and consciousness)

Structuralism is the approach of discovering the basic elements or structures of mental processes; so called because of its focus on identifying the structures of the human mind.

Functionalism was based on the belief that psychology should investigate the function or purpose the mind, rather than structure

Gestalt Psychology tried to understand the laws of our ability to acquire and maintain meaningful perceptions in an apparently chaotic world. The central principle of gestalt psychology is that the mind forms a global whole with self-organizing tendencies.

The biological approach to psychology focuses on the body, especially the brain and nervous system.

Behaviorism is that scientific psychology should only study observable behavior

Created by Sigmund Freud it emphasizes unconscious thought, the conflict between biological drives and society's demands, and early childhood family experiences.

Humanism emphasizes the unique qualities of humans, especially their freedom and their potential for personal growth.

Cognitive Perspective emphasizes the mental processes involved in knowing; how we direct our attention, perceive, remember, think, and solve problems.

Evolutionary approach is centered on evolutionary ideas such as adaptation, reproduction, and natural selection.

Sociocultural approach examines the way in which social and cultural environments influence behavior

Naturalistic observation is when there is no intervening directly; behavior is allows to unfold naturally

Questionnaires or interviews, such as polls prior to an election

Detailed description and analysis of one or a few people

Correlational Research is a technique that examines the relationship between variables without manipulating them, aiming to identify associations and patterns but not causation.

Two factors that follow the same direction

Two factors that do not follow the same direction

numerical index of relationship between two variables

Manipulates a variable under carefully controlled conditions and observes whether any changes occur in a second variable (cause-effect)

Manipulated

Selecting participants from the population and allowing for a representative sample

each participant has an equal chance

any variable other than the independent variable that is likely to influence the dependent variable (less control)

An outside factor that influences both the independent and dependent variables, making it difficult to determine the true relationship between them.

Participants expectations lead them to experience some change; ineffectual treatment

Neither subject or experimenter know experimental or control group

Mean-average-calculated by adding all the values in a data set then dividing it by the number of values

measure of dispersion that tells us how much scores in a sample differ from the mean of the sample

A function that represents the distribution of variables as a symmetrical bell-shaped graph.

Used to determine the statistic significance

The P value of 0.05 means that a 5% chance exists that the results occurred by chance (researchers would accept 5% but nothing more)