Psych Final Exam

• Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
• Psychology began as a science of its own in Germany with the establishment of Wundt's psychology laboratory. He developed the technique of objective introspection.
• Titchener, a student of Wundt, brought psychology in the form of structuralism to America. Structuralism died out in the early 20th century.
• William James proposed a countering view called functionalism, which stressed the way the mind allows us to adapt.
• Functionalism influenced the modern fields of educational psychology, evolutionary psychology, and industrial/organizational psychology.
• Many of psychology's early pioneers were minorities. Despite prejudice and racism these groups made important contributions to the study of human and animal behavior.
• Wertheimer and others studied sensation and perception, calling the new perspective Gestalt (an organized whole) psychology.
• Freud proposed that the unconscious mind controls much of our conscious behavior in his theory of psychoanalysis.
• Watson proposed a science of behavior called behaviorism, which focused only on the study of observed stimuli and responses.
• Watson and Rayner demonstrated that a phobia could be learned by conditioning a baby to be afraid of a white rat.
• Mary Cover Jones, one of Watsons more famous students in behaviorism and child development, later demonstrated a learned phobia could be counter conditioned.
• Modern Freudians such as Anna Freud, Jung, and Adler changed the emphasis on Freuds original theory into a kind of neo-Freudianism which led to the psychodynamic perspective.
• Skinners operant conditioning of voluntary behavior became a major force in the twentieth century. He introduced the concept of reinforcement and behaviorism.
• Humanism, which focuses on free will and the man potential for growth was developed by Maslow and Rogers, among others, as a reaction to the deterministic nature of behaviorism and psychoanalysis.
• Cognitive Psychology is the study of learning, memory, language, and problem solving and includes the field of cognitive neuroscience.
• Biopsychology emerged as the study of biological bases of behavior such as hormones, heredity, chemicals in the nervous system and the effects of physical diseases.
• The principles of evolution and the knowledge we currently have about evolution are used in the evolutionary perspective to look at the way the mind works and why it works as it does. Behavior is seen as having an adaptive or survival value.
• Psychologist have academic doctoral degrees and can do counseling, teaching, and research and may specialize in any one of a large number of areas within psychology.
• Psychiatrist are medical doctors who provide diagnosis and treatment for persons with mental disorders.
• Psychiatric social workers are social workers with special training in the influences of the environment on mental illness.
• Critical thinking is the ability to make reasoned judgments. The four basic criteria of critical thinking are that there are few concepts that do not need to be tested, evidence can vary in quality, claims by experts and authorities do not automatically make it true, and keeping an open mind is important.
• The four goals of psychology are description, explanation, prediction, and control.
• The scientific approach is a way to determine facts and control the possibilities of error and vias when observing behavior. The five steps are perceiving the question, forming a hypothesis, testing the hypothesis, drawing conclusions, and reporting the results.
• Naturalistic observations involve watching animals or people in their natural environments but have the disadvantage of lack of control.
• Laboratory observations involve watching animals or people in an artificial but controlled situation such as a lab.
• Case studies are detailed investigations of one participant, whereas surveys involve asking standardized questions of large groups of people that represent a sample of the population of interest.
• Correlation is a statistical technique that allows researchers to discover and predict relationships between variables of interest.
• Positive correlations exist when increases in one variable are matched by increase in the other variable. Negative correlations exist when increases in one variable are matched by decreases in the other variable.
• The nervous system is a complex network of cells that carries information to and from all parts of the body.
• The brain is made up of two types of cells: neurons and glial cells.
• Sensory receptors detect stimuli and send messages to the central nervous system (CNS).
• Glial cells separate and support neurons, both functionally and structurally; glia influence thinking, memory, and other forms of cognition.
• Certain types of glia produce myelin. Mylein insulates and protects the axons of some neurons. Some axons bundle together in cables called nerves. Mylein also speeds up the neural message.
• A neuron contains charged particles called ions. When at rest, the neuron is negatively charged on the inside and positively charged on the outside. When stimulated, this reverses the charge by allowing sodium ions to enter the cell, called action potential.
• Neurons fire in an all-or-nothing manner. It is the speed and number of neurons firing that tell researchers the strength of the stimulus.
• Synaptic vesicles in the end of the axon terminal release neurotransmitter chemicals into the synapse, or gap, between one cell and the next. The neurotransmitter molecules fit into the receptor sites on the next cell, stimulating or inhibiting that cells firing. Neurotransmitters may be either excitatory or inhibitory.
• The first known neurotransmitter was acetylcholine (ACh). It stimulates muscles, helps in memory formation, and plays a role in arousal and attention.
• GABA is the major inhibitor neurotransmitter; high amounts of GABA are released when drinking alcohol.
• Serotonin (5-HT) is associated with sleep, mood, and appetite.
• Dopamine (DA) is associated with Parkinson's disease and schizophrenia.