Psych Review Notes
Chapter One
Psychological Science- study of mind, brain, and behavior (personal space, mouse maize, growth rate)
Plato vs. Aristotle- Plato (thinks divinely and heavenly/rational thinking) Aristotle (I won’t believe it unless I see it/ future of psych science)
1879- Wilhelm Wundt- Leipzig, Germany, measure mental processes
Goals
1. Description- collect date about behavior under normal conditions
2. Explanation- go beyond data for process
3. Prediction- Likelihood that certain events will occur under certain conditions
4. Control- make behavior happen or not happen, POWERFUL!
5. Improve Quality of Life- apply for societal benefit
130 years old
Emil Kraeplin-psychiatrist who catalogued psychological disorders-predicted Wundt’s idea would solve all psychiatric problems that perplexed him
Introspection- students used to become aware of the immediate experiences of one’s consciousness, individuals methodically monitor their reactions to particular stimuli and then report them in detail
Edward B. Titchener- took Wundt’s system to America and taught at Cornell University- Structuralism- structure of mental experience (FAIL)
Charles Darwin- Functionalism ideas- Most important organizing principle in the history of science and psych science- went to Galapagos Island and published “On the Origin of Species.” The idea is that we evolve on and helps us survive
William James- Influenced by Darwin- stream of consciousness (continually changing thoughts)- try to understand function of mind and behavior
Sigmund Freud- psychoanalytical approach-preconscious and unconscious- psychoanalysis (to make unconscious, conscious)- analysis of dreams, resistance, and transference- never caught on
Ian Pavlov- doing studies on “psychic secretions”- classical conditioning- ex: if you paired a bell with food, the dog would eventually respond to the bell without the food by salivating
Behaviorism- states that the appropriate topic for psych science is observable behavior (not the unconscious) and that the investigators should be looking at which stimuli lead to particular responses
John B. Watson- harnessed the outlook of observable and maladaptive behavior- professor at John Hopkins and president of APA- experiment with Little Albert B. (feared a white rat)
B.F. Skinner- reinforcement- discovered that when behaviors are followed by positive consequences, they are more likely to be repeated- his model of operant conditioning emphasizes how behavior “operates” in the environment
Cognitive approach- addresses brain structure and function (thoughts)
George Miller- cognitive revolution- influenced by psychotherapy
Cognitive- Behavioral Approach- the widespread us of behavioral method to investigate thinking led to merging the approaches
Albert Ellis and Aaron T. Beck- influenced revolution- examined how the cognitive process influenced maladaptive behaviors
Humanistic Approach- reaction to the deterministic and pessimistic aspects of the behavioral and psychoanalytical approaches (positive traits)
Abraham Maslow- emphasized that individuals had free will to make their lives in any direction despite past environmental influences- self- actualization- Carl Rogers- people could push toward goodness
Social Systems- considers a greater extent of the role of specific interpersonal family and cultural forces-> social psychology
Fundament attribution error- we over attribute the causes of behavior to individuals variables and overlook environmental variables
Kurt Lewin- community psychology- used psychological science to test theories of social psych- theory elucidated the interactions among individuals and their environments
Chapter Two
Research Methodology
Scientific Method- all information in psychology is obtained through the this- it is a way of gathering information- is constantly changing- the method of gathering data defines a science, not the content
Beauty of Science- appropriate suspiciousness about the