AP Psychology: Unit 1

• introspection


  first began in laboratory set up by Wilhelm Wundt; process of reporting on one's own conscious mental experiences
• structuralism


  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 presented by William James; emphasizes adaptiveness of the mental or behavioral processes
• Wilhelm Wundt


  set up 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


  published The Principles of Psychology, the science's first textbook; responsible for theory of functionalism
• Mary Whiton Calkins


  studied with William James and went on to become president of the American Psychological Association
• G. Stanley Hall


  student of William James who pioneered he study of child development and was the first president of the APA
• Gestalt psychology


  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


  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
• participants


  individuals on which research is conducted
• 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
• confounding variables


  any difference between the experimental and control conditions, except for the independent variable, that might affect the dependent variable
• 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)