Ch. 1 Intro

Front 1

Psychology

Back 1

The scientific study of behavior and mental processes

Front 2

Scientific Method

Back 2

An approach to knowledge that relies on collecting data, generating a theory to explain the data, producing testable hypothese based on the theory, and testing those hypotheses empirically

Front 3

Theory

Back 3

Systematic explanation of a phenomenon; it organizes known facts, allows us to predict new facts, and permits us to exercise a degres of control over the phenomenon.

Front 4

Hypotheses

Back 4

Specific, testable predictions derived from a theory.

Front 5

Structuralism

Back 5

School of psychology that stressed the basic units of experience and the combinations in which they occur.

Front 6

Functionalist Theory

Back 6

theory of mental life and the behavior that is concerned with how an organism uses it perceptual abilities to function in its environment.

Front 7

Psychodynamic Theories

Back 7

Personality theories contending that behavior results from psychological forces that interact within the individual, often outside conscious awarness.

Front 8

Behaviorism

Back 8

School of psychology that studies only observable and measurable behavior.

Front 9

Gestalt Psychology

Back 9

school of psychology that studies how people perceive and experience object as whole patterns

Front 10

Humanistic Psychology

Back 10

school of psychology that emphasizes nonverbal experience and altered states of consciousness as a means of realizing one's full human potential.

Front 11

Cognitive Psychology

Back 11

school of psychology devoted to the study of mental processes in the broadest sense

Front 12

Evolutionary Psychology

Back 12

an approach to, and subfield of, psychology that is concerned with the evolutionary origins of behaviors and mental process, their adaptative value, and the purposes they continue to serve.

Front 13

Positive Psychology

Back 13

an emerging field of psychology that focuses on positive experiences, including subjective well being, self-determination, the relationship between positive emotions and physical health, and the factors that allow individuals, communities, and societies to flourish.

Front 14

Feminist Theory

Back 14

offer a wide variety of views on the social roles of women and men, the problems and rewards of those roles, and the prescriptions for changing them.

Front 15

Empirical Evidence

Back 15

information derived from systematic, objective observation

Front 16

Naturalistic Observation

Back 16

research mehtod involving the systematic study of animal or human behavior in natural settings rather than in the laboratory.

Front 17

Observer Bias

Back 17

expectations of biases of the observer that might distort or influence his or her interpretation of what was actually observed.

Front 18

Case Study

Back 18

intensive description and analysis of a single individual or just a few individuals

Front 19

Survey Research

Back 19

technique in which questionaires or interviews are administered to a select group of people.

Front 20

Correlation research

Back 20

techinique bases on the naturally occurring relationship between two or more variaables.

Front 21

Experimental Method

Back 21

research technique in which an investigatior deliberately manipulates selected events or circumstances and then measures the effects of those manipulations on subsequent behavior.

Front 22

Independent Variable

Back 22

the variable that is manipulated

Front 23

Dependent Variable

Back 23

the variable that is measured to see how it is changed by manipulations.

Front 24

Experimental Group

Back 24

in a controlled experiment, the group subjected to a change in the independent variable.

Front 25

Control Group

Back 25

in a controlled experiment, the group not subject to a change in the independent variable; used for comparison with the experimental groups

Front 26

Experimenter Bias

Back 26

expectations by the experimenter that might influence the result of an experiment of its interpretation

Front 27

Sample

Back 27

selection of cases from a larder population

Front 28

Random sample

Back 28

sample in which each potential participant has an equal chance of being selected

Front 29

Representative Sample

Back 29

sample carefully chosen so that the characteristics of the participants correspond closely to the characteristics of the larger population