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Scientific Study of Behavior and Mental Process - Exam 1 |, Exams of Psychology

Material Type: Exam; Class: Psychology; Subject: Psychology; University: Monroe County Community College; Term: Forever 1989;

Typology: Exams

2010/2011

Uploaded on 02/22/2011

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Psychology exam 1
Ch.1
Psyche: Mind 1-11-11
Logos: Knowledge or study
Definition: the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.
Behavior: Overt I.e. can be directly observed (crying)
Mental processes: covert, I.e cannot be directly observed (remembering)
1-13-11
3 goals
Understanding: observe/ understand the causes of behavior, and being able to state the
causes.
Predictions: Predicting behavior accurately
Control/ Influencing: altering conditions that influence behaviors in predictable ways
Positive use: to control unwanted behaviors (smoking)
Negative Use: to control people’s behaviors without their knowledge (manipulation)
Pseudo- False/not based on scientific testing
Examples
Palmistry: lines on your hands (palm reading)
Phrenology: personality traits revealed by shape of skull
Graphology: Personality traits are revealed by handwriting
Astrology: the positions of the stars and planets at birth determine personality traits and
affect your behavior (horoscopes)
Famous Scientists
Wilhelm Wundt: Father of Psychology
1879 set up first lab to study conscious
Introspection: looking inward (meditation). These ideas were brought to the U.S and
renamed to Structuralism, dealt with structure of mental life. However structuralists often
disagreed with one another.
William James: functionalism/how the mind functions to help us adapt and survive. This
theory went along with Darwin’s idea of Natural Selection (animals keep features
through evolution that help them adapt to environment).
James wrote first psychology book.
Freud: our behavior is largely influenced by our unconscious wishes, thought, and
desires, such as sex and aggression. All thoughts, actions, and emotions are determined.
Freud was a interactionist (combination of our biology and environment makes who we
are).
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Psychology exam 1 Ch.  Psyche: Mind 1-11-  Logos: Knowledge or study  Definition: the scientific study of behavior and mental processes.  Behavior: Overt I.e. can be directly observed (crying)  Mental processes: covert, I.e cannot be directly observed (remembering) 1-13-  3 goals  Understanding: observe/ understand the causes of behavior, and being able to state the causes.  Predictions: Predicting behavior accurately  Control/ Influencing: altering conditions that influence behaviors in predictable ways  Positive use: to control unwanted behaviors (smoking)  Negative Use: to control people’s behaviors without their knowledge (manipulation)  Pseudo- False/not based on scientific testing Examples  Palmistry: lines on your hands (palm reading)  Phrenology: personality traits revealed by shape of skull  Graphology: Personality traits are revealed by handwriting  Astrology: the positions of the stars and planets at birth determine personality traits and affect your behavior (horoscopes) Famous Scientists  Wilhelm Wundt: Father of Psychology 1879 set up first lab to study conscious  Introspection: looking inward (meditation). These ideas were brought to the U.S and renamed to Structuralism, dealt with structure of mental life. However structuralists often disagreed with one another.  William James: functionalism/how the mind functions to help us adapt and survive. This theory went along with Darwin’s idea of Natural Selection (animals keep features through evolution that help them adapt to environment).  James wrote first psychology book.  Freud: our behavior is largely influenced by our unconscious wishes, thought, and desires, such as sex and aggression. All thoughts, actions, and emotions are determined. Freud was a interactionist (combination of our biology and environment makes who we are).

 Watson: (Pavlov/Thorndike). Psychology must study observable behavior objectively. Studied relationship between:  Stimuli: Environmental events  Responses: any identifiable behavior  Bandura: our thoughts influence our behaviors used often in treatment of depression  Cognition (thinking) and conditioning are combined to explain behavior.  Kohler Wertheimer: Gestalt Psychology “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” Studied thinking, learning, and perception in whole units, not by analyzing experiences.  Rogers and Maslow: goal of psychology is to study unique aspects of the person. Focuses on human experience, problems, potential, and ideals.  Each person has innate goodness and is able to make free choices.  Eclecticism: many different perspectives Cultural Awareness  Many thoughts and behaviors are influenced by our culture.  Psychologists need to be aware of the impact.  Cultural diversity may have influence on our behaviors  What is acceptable in one culture might be unacceptable in another.  Cultural Relativity: behavior must be judged relative to the values of the culture in which it occurs.  Social Norms: Rules that define acceptable and expected behaviors of members of various groups (honor killings). Cognition Ch.  Thought: any cognitive process directed toward problem solving, understanding language,memory retrieval, and perceiving patterns in sensory inputs.  Convert Behavior:  Concepts formed by association theory( Hull)  Concepts formed by exemplar theory (Rosch) using prototypes  Problem solving: applying new knowledge or skills to achieve your goal. Three components: Original state, goal state, and restrictions.  Stages of Problem solving: Represents the problem, Generate possible solutions, and evaluate the solution.  Strategies: trial and error, hypothesis testing, algorithms, and heuristics.  Creative thinking: logic and illogic  Logical thought: going from given information to new conclusions based on explicit rules  Inductive thought: going from specific facts or observations to general principles  Deductive thought: going from general principles to specific situations  Syllogisms: argument with 2 or more premises and a conclusion.  Illogical thought: thought that is intuitive, associative, or personal.

 Basic elements  Observation of events in the world  Formation of predictions based on observation  Hypothesis Research method  A systematic procedure for answering scientific questions  Basic research  Applied research  Replication research  Theory  Hypothesis  Operational definition: defines a scientific concept Research Method  Quantitative vs. Qualitative  Non-experimental methods  Case studies  Surveys and questionnaires  Observational  Correlation  Experimental methods  Experimental research Non-Experimental Methods  Case study: in-depth study of one or more subjects examined individually  Benefit: detailed  Limits: lack of control, potential subjective bias, difficult to generalize  Survey method:  Using public polling techniques to answer psychological questions  Representative symptoms  Random samples  Benefit/limitation: tells you what the people that answered you questions think. Naturalistic observation  Observation a person or an animal in the environment in which the/it lives  Potential problems: changes in behavior caused by an awareness of a person or animal being observed.  Observer bias: occurs when observers see what they expect to see or record only selected details.  Lab vs. field  Inter-rater reliability Correlation studies

 A non-experimental study designed to measured the degree of a relationship (if any) between two or more events, measures, or variables.
Types of relationships  Positive relationship:  Increases in one measure(x) are matched by increases in the other(y)  The more cigarettes you smoke, the more likely you are to contract lung cancer  Zero correlation:  No relationship exists between two variables  Relationship between hair color and intelligence test scores (iq’s)  Negative Relationship:  As values of one measure increase(x) values in the measure decrease(y)  The more alcohol you drink, the lower you coordination Utility of Correlations  Correlations help us identify relationships that are worth knowing  Correlations are valuable for making predictions  If a correlation exists the two variables are related  Does not demonstrate causation  Many times a third or perhaps an extraneous, variable could be creating the correlation. Experiments  To identify cause and effect relationships, we conduct experiments  Directly vary a condition you might think affects behavior.  Create two or more groups of subjects alike in all ways excepts the condition you are varying.  Record whether varying the condition has any effect on behavior. Variables  Any condition that can change and might affect, experiments’ outcome  Types of variables:  Independent variables: condition(s) altered by the experimenter  Experimenter sets their size, amount or value; these are suspected causes for behavioral differences.  Dependent variable: demonstrates effects that independent variable have one behavior.

 Presenting numbers pictorially (usually in a graph so they are easier to visualize) Frequent Distribution  Table that divides an entire range of scores into a series of equal classes and then records the number of scores that fall into each class. Measures of Central Tendency  A number that describes a typical score around which the other score fall  Mean: add all the scores for each group and then divide by the total number of scores; one type of average  Sensitive to extremely high or low scores in a distribution, not always the best measure of central tendency  Median: arrange scores from highest to smallest and then select the score that falls in the middle; half the values fall above and half fall below.  Mode: identifies the most frequently occurring score in a group  Easy to obtain but often unreliable  Main advantage: gives the score actually obtained by the most people Measures of Variability  Provided a single number that tells us how spread out the scores are. 