Definition of Psychology Psychology: the science of behavior and mental processes. * Science * Attempt to understand people by thinking critically about careful, controlled observations. * Behavior * Refers to all of a person’s overt actions that can be directly observed. * Mental Processes * Refers to the private thoughts, emotions, feelings, and motives that other people can not directly observe. Goals of Psychology (4) * Describe: Identifying and classifying behaviors and mental processes as accurately as possible. * Understand: Proposing reasons for behaviors/mental processes. * Predict: Offering predictions (or hypotheses) about how a given condition or set of conditions will affect …show more content…
* The functions of the mind, not its raw elements, were the subject matter of psychology for the functionalists. Contemporary Psychological Perspectives * The view of modern psychologists are frequently difficult to categorize into traditional schools of thought. * Psychological Perspectives: general points of view used for explaining people’s behavior and thinking, whether normal or abnormal. Behaviorism * Behaviorism: The school of psychology that views observable, measureable behavior and emphasizes the key role of the environment as a determinant of a behavior. * Ivan Pavlov (behaviorist) – Started the idea of conditioning, where an inherited reflex comes to be triggered by a stimulus that has nothing to do with that reflex. He showed that even inherited reflexes could be influenced dramatically by learning experiences. * John Watson (1878-1958) postulated that concepts such as the mind, consciousness, and feelings are neither objective or measurable. * B. .F Skinner (1904-1990) argued that these concepts are not needed to explain behavior. One can explain behavior, he claimed, by analyzing the conditions that are present before a behavior occurs and then analyzing the consequences that follow the behavior. (operant conditioning: reinforcement) Psychoanlysis * Psychoanalysis: technique of helping people with emotional problems based on Freud’s theory of the unconscious mind (based on
In Chapter 7 of our What Is Psychology textbook, we learned about the importance, details and strategies of memory techniques. One type of memory is Short Term, which only last up to thirty seconds before forgetting. Whenever has to remember a number or a name, they often repeat the information multiple times so that the Short Term Memory can transition into Long Term Memory. In order for this transition to occur, the information must be constantly repeated, or important enough to be held in the permanent memory, which helps create a “folder” with all retaining information and reminiscing. Another way short term can become long term is using a method called Chunking, this breaks the bigger pictures into smaller ones for the brain to remember,
2. The caring mother was looking to assuage her son after he was hurt on the playground.
Checked vital signs, administered medication as schedule, and reported accurate recording of patient weight while gathering collected routing specimens for the immediate supervisor.
Chapter 13 dives into the idea of stress, the relationship between our health and stress and many other topics in between.
Someone’s psychological state isn’t always what some observers in a person. The mindset of someone can differ from people’s actions that they do, which can show one's true nature. People’s actions can be based by one’s beliefs, intelligence, talents, personality, and how they were raised. These are the main causes that can affect people’s
A hypothesis is an explanation that can be tested based on observation. A statistical hypothesis is testable explanation based on observation and different variables. A null hypothesis explains what the results of the experiment will be if the original hypothesis is wrong. An alternate hypothesis is the opposite result if there is or isn’t a null hypothesis. Semmelweis hypothesized that bacteria/virus filled extremities resulted in higher death rates.
In Psychology learning is seen as a change in behaviour caused by an experience. Behaviorism, is seen as a learning theory; an attempt to explain how people or animals learn by studying their behaviour. The Behaviourists Approach has two theories to help explain how we learn, Classical conditioning and operant conditioning. In this task I will attempt to describe and evaluate this approach.
Lots of research forms an put together biopsychosocial approach which realizes the biological, psychological, and sociocultural factors
2) Isolation/causation. Isolation is if only thing changing is that which is being manipulated whether up or down, then the change in effect is caused by the change in IV (the thing manipulated). It is harder to get isolation from psychology, than that from physical experiments. In experiments, even in a double blind study, the IV and subjects are changing. This can prove to make things even more difficult when the DV is based on the subject, the change on the DV may be due to difference in samples and not on changes due to the IV. Where a confounding variable is the environment or situation, the difference in subjects such as age or gender is a subject variable. This is important to note the differences as subject difference Subject variables
Q4. Explain how the two early schools of psychology, structuralism and functionalism differed from each other, and which
The field of psychology has opened different theories that are aimed to the study of the behaviour of human beings, as a result psychologists concluded with five psychological perspectives.
In this essay I will be looking at different approaches and theories used in psychology.
Throughout the course of the first semester we as a Psychology class learned a whole variety of different and varying concepts of Psychology. Chapter one we went over all the different ways psychologists study behaviors and mental processes. Included were the contemporary perspectives, such as behavioral, which focuses on behavior that is observed. Psychodynamic focuses on our fantasies and our hidden motives. Humanistic is all about our free will and conscious choices. Physiological is the relationships between biological processes and behavior. Cognitive perspective is our acquired knowledge, and last but not least is sociocultural, which places great value on the role of cultural and social influences on our behavior.
Throughout the span of history, psychology has always existed. Humans have always pondered why we think, act, and see the world as we do. Most information we have on the very foundations of psychology come from philosophers and physicists such as Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Gustav Fechner. Today I’ll be comparing two very different psychologists: John B. Watson and Carl Rogers. Although these two display different feelings and approaches to their field, they share the same roots. Keeping this in mind, I believe it’s important to understand that evaluating the likeness of contrasting branches
In this assignment, the four major paradigms of psychology are discussed. The reasoning behind the placement of the theories will be discussed thoroughly and efficiently. Each of the theories was placed on a spectrum that measured whether they were more influenced by heredity or environment. Some, as many can see, can fit into both sides of the spectrum. There are many factors that are involved in the process, and each are important variables in personality and the evolution of humanity.