Scientific Foundations of Psychology

• The brain is the most complex structure known to science.
• Structuralism is the study of the mind by trying to look at what its made of.
• Edward Titchener coined the term structuralism
• Functionalism is an attempt to study what the mind does or its function
• Wilhem Wundt is the father of psychology
• Wundt founded the first laboratory in 1879 starting the line of psychology as a science.
• William James wrote the first psychology textbook
• Psychodynamic approach is saying our behavior is determined by our unconscious desires
• Behaviorist perspective looks at how environmental factors affect observable behavior and how behavior is learned through reinforcement and punishment
• Humanism perspective looks at human behavior through the eyes of the person doing the behaving
• Cognitive perspective is the idea that the mind is a system of mental processes organized in a way that allows us to think, remember, and learn.
• Social - Cultural perspective is the study of the social and cultural aspects of human behavior.
• Biological/Neuroscience perspective studies how genetics and biochemistry affect behavior
• Gestalt Psychology explains how we form mental images of objects and how we perceive the world around us.
• Classical conditioning is the process of learning to associate two stimuli that are not normally associated with each other
• B.F. Skinner is know for operant conditioning which is focused on behaviors
• The Cognitive Approach focuses on thoughts
• Surveys are questionnaires that attempt to gather data on what people think and what they've done
• Case studies gather lots of deep data about a specific individual or group
• Naturalistic observations are when the researcher observes the behaviour of a group of people in their natural environment
• Cross-sectional studies are ways to do each type of research method
• Crosssectional compares different groups, gathers data in one point time
• Longitudinal data gathers data over a long time.
• The experimental method explains that experiments are the only way to find a casual relationship
• Independent variable is something you do, dependent variable is what you get
• Random Sample/Random Selection means that someone in a large population has an equal chance to be chosen for a study.
• Representative Sample is a sample that is representative of the population as a whole.
• Random Assignment is each participant has a chance of being put into either the experimental or the placebo group.
• The Placebo Effect is an expectation that a substance or action given during the experiment has a real effect on either, positive or negative on the subject
• Cofounding Variable are factors that interfere with or influence a study not intended or expected by researchers
• Participant/Subject Bias: Consciously or unconsciously behaving in a way to ensure research outcomes fit his/her expectations or what she/he perceives the researcher wants to find.
• Experimenter/Research Bias: consciously or unconsciously researches to ensure the outcome fit with the researchers expectations.
• Researchers use qualitative data to deal with descriptive data