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• Psychology


  The scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
• Science 


  The use of systematic methods to observe the natural world, including human behavior & to draw conclusions.
• Behavior


  Everything we do that can be directly observed
• Mental Processes


  The thoughts, feelings, & motives that people experience privately but that cannot be observed directly
• Critical Thinking 


  The process of thinking deeply & actively, asking questions, & evaluating the evidence.
• Empirical Method


  Gaining knowledge through the observation of events, the collection of data, & logical reasoning
• Structuralism


  Wundt studied the workings of the brain, conducted an experiment about sound & reaction. His focus was that mental

  processes could be measured .
• functionalism


  proved the functions or purposes of the mind & behavior in the i do visuals adaptation to its environment - why is human thought adaptive? - saw the brain as flexible and fluid
• contemporary approaches

  the approaches known as biological, behavioral, psychodynamic, humanstic, cognitive,

  evolutionary, and sociocultural.
• biological

  the focus on the body, specifically on the brain and the nervous system

  -neuroscience - science of the brain, has helped a lot

  • emphasized that the brain and nervous system are central to behavior,

  thought, and emotion.
• behavioral

  emphasizes the study of observable behavioral responses

  & their environmental detriments.

  • focuses on visible behavior not thoughts/feelings
  • psychologists who use this approach are known as behaviorists
• Psychodynamic

  emphasizes unconsious thought, believers believe that sexual & aggressive impulses are buried deep within the unconscious mind influence the way people think, feel and behave.

  • Freud-theorized early relationships with family shape an individuals Personality
  • basis for therapeutic technique called psychoanalysis
• Humanistic

  -emphosizes a persons positive qualities, capacity for growth, & freedom to choose ones destiny. Humanistic psychologists believe that people have the ability to control and are not simply controlled by their environment
• Cognitive

  -emphasizes the mental processes involved in knowing includes how we direct our attention, perceive, remember, think, and solve

  Problems

  • mind as active & aware problem solving system
  • opposite to behavioral approach
• evolutionary

  uses evolutionary ideas such as adaptation, reproduction and natural selection as the basis of explaining

  specific human behaviors

  • evolution influences our decision making, level of aggressiveness,

  fears, and mating patterns

  • believe this approach provides an umbrella that unifies psychology
• sociocultural

  examines the influences of social and cultural

  environments on behavior. Argued that it is required to know about

  the cultural context in which the behavior occurs.

  • often includes cross culture research
  • Focuses on behavior comparisons across regions and different ethnic and cultural groups
• culture

  refers to the shared knowledge, practices, and attitudes of groups of people and can include language, customs, and beliefs

  about what behavior is appropriate and inappropriate
• biopsychosocial

  what all of the difterent approaches

  fit under. Behavior is influenced by biological factors (such as genes)

  psychological factors (childhood experiences, thoughts, emotions, learning histories), and socioculture factors, (gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status). - biological, social, and psychological factors are all significant factors in producing behavior.
• psychology’s scientific method 


  how psychologists gain knowledge about mind and behavior

  • empirical research
• variable


  anything that can change
• theory

  a broad idea or set of closely related ideas that attempts to explain observations.

  • theories seem to explain why certain things are the way they are or why they have appeared.
• hypothesis

  a testable preciction that derive logically from a theory
• operational definition 


  provides an objective description of how a varable is going to be measured and observed in a particular study.
• Three types of psychological research

  Descriptive, Correlational, Experimental
• Descriptive research

  some phenomenon, it can reveal important information about people's behaviors and attitudes

  • includes observations, case studies, surveys, and interviews
• case studies

  also known as case history, is an in depth look at a single individual. They’re mainly performed by clinical psychologists for practical or ethical reasons.

  • provides information about ones goals, hopes, fantasies, fears, traumas, (anything that will help a psychologist understand a persons

  brain).
• correlational research

  tells us about the relationships between variables, & it’s purpose is to examine whether and how two variables change together. "co-relationship"
• correlational coefficient

  a statistic that tells 2 things about The relationship between 2 variables "strength & direction".

  • magnitude of correlation tells about strength
  • sign (+ or -) tells about the direction of the relationship between the variables.
• correlation does not equal causation-correlation only means 2 variables change together.

  3rd variable problem
• experimental research

  research through experiments &

  experimental methods.
• experiment

  carefully regulated procedure where researchers manipulate one or more variable that is believed to influence some other variable.
• random assignment

  researchers assign participants to groups by chance. This reduces likelihood that the experiment’s results will be due to any preexisting differences between groups.
• Independent variable

  a manipulated experimental factor, the variable that is changed to see what its effects

  are.
• dependent variable

  the outcome - What is dependent

  It can change in response to the independent variable changing.
• experimental group

  consists of the participants in an experiment who receive the treatment of the researcher, Who are exposed to the change that the independent variable represents.
• control group

  provides a comparison against which the researcher can test the effects of the independent variable.
• placebo effect

  An example of the power of expectations of participants. This occurs when participants expectations, rather than the expenmental treatment, produce an outcome.
• placebo

  a harmless substance that has no physiological effect.
• population 


  the entire group the investigator wants to draw conclusions from.
• sample

  The subset of the population chosen by the investigator for a study