Unit 1: Scientific Foundations

• introspection: first began in laboratory set up by Wilhelm Wundt; process of reporting on one's own conscious mental experiences
• structuralism: an idea proposed by Wundt that the mind operates by combining subjective emotions and objective sensations; aimed to uncover the basic structures that make up mind and thought
• functionalism: theory formulated by William James; emphasizes adaptiveness of the mental or behavioral processes
• Wilhelm Wundt: set up the first psychological laboratory in Leipzig, Germany in 1879; known for training subjects in introspection and for his theory of structuralism
• Margaret Floy Washburn: first woman to earn a Ph.D. in psychology
• William James: wrote The Principles of Psychology, the science's first textbook; responsible for theory of functionalism.
• Mary Whiton Calkins: she studied with William James and went on to become president of the American Psychological Association
• Gestalt psychology: the theory that states that the whole experience is often more than just the sum of the parts, because the way we experience the world is more than just an accumulation of various perceptual experiences; relatively little influence on current psychology
• Max Wertheimer: a Gestalt psychologist who argued against dividing human thought and behavior into discrete structures
• psychoanalysis: theory that states a part of our mind over which we do not have conscious control determines, in part, how we think and behave
• Sigmund Freud: revolutionized psychology with his psychoanalytic theory; believed the unconscious mind must be examined through dream analysis, word association, and other psychoanalytic therapy techniques; criticized for being unscientific and creating unverifiable theories
• behaviorism: theory that states psychologists should look at only behavior and causes of behavior, and not concern themselves with describing elements of consciousness; dominant school of thought in psychology from the 1920s through the 1960s
• John Watson: psychologist who believed the science must limit itself to observable phenomena; wanted to establish behaviorism as the dominant paradigm of psychology
• B. F. Skinner: behaviorist who expanded the basic ideas of behaviorism to include the idea of reinforcement- environmental stimuli that either encourage or discourage certain responses
• humanism: modern psychological viewpoint that stresses individual choice and free will; suggests that we choose most of our behaviors and these choices are guided by physiological, emotional or spiritual needs; not easily tested by the scientific method; includes theorists Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers
• biopsychology: modern psychological perspective that explains human thought and behavior strictly in terms of biological processes (e.g. genes, hormones, and neurotransmitters)
• evolutionary perspective: also known as Darwinian; modern psychological perspective that examines human thoughts and actions in terms of natural selection; similar to biopsychology
• behavioral perspective: modern psychological perspective that explains human thought and behavior in terms of conditioning; looks strictly at observable behaviors and what reaction organisms get in response to specific behaviors
• cognitive perspective: modern psychological perspective that examines human thought and behavior in terms of how we interpret, process, and remember environmental events
• sociocultural perspective: modern psychological perspective that looks at how our thoughts and behaviors vary from people living in other cultures; emphasizes the influence of culture on the way we think and act
• Jean Piaget: came up with a cognitive developmental theory, which focuses on how our cognitions develop in stages as we mature
• developmental perspective: modern psychological perspective emphasizing that change occurs across a lifespan; focus has shifted over recent years to teens and adults
• trait view: modern psychological perspective that views behavior and personality as the products of enduring psychological characteristics
• basic research: explores questions that are of interest to psychologists but are not intended to have immediate, real-world applications; also referred to as experimental psychology
• operational definitions: a researcher's explanation how the variable of an experiment will be measured
• valid: research that measures what the researcher set out to measure; accurate
• reliable 


  research that can be replicated and is consistent
• sampling: the process by which participants for research are selected
• population: includes anyone or anything that could possibly be selected to be in the sample for research
• random selection: every member of the population has an equal chance of being selected as a participant in research
• stratified sampling: process that allows a researcher to ensure that the sample represents the population on some criteria
• laboratory experiments: experiments conducted in a lab, a highly controlled environment; advantage of being easily controlled
• field experiments: experiments conducted in the world; advantage of being more realistic
• assignment: the process by which participants are put into a group, experimental control
• random assignment: each participant has an equal chance of being placed into any group
• participant-relevant confounding variables: when groups are not randomly assigned during an experiment; increases the chance of participants in the two groups differ in any meaningful way
• group matching: used if one wants to ensure that the experimental and control groups are equivalent on some criterion (e.g. sex, IQ scores, or age)
• experimenter bias: the unconscious tendency for researchers to treat members of the experimental and control groups differently to increase the chance of confirming their hypothesis
• double-blind procedure: when neither the participants nor the researcher are able to affect the outcome of the research
• response bias: the tendency for subjects to behave in certain ways; can alter validity of experiment