Psych 2 Ch. 1

Front 1

definition of psychology

Back 1

scientific study of the mind, brain, and behavior

Front 2

multiply determined

Back 2

produced by many factors

Front 3

fields that focus on individual differences

Back 3

intelligence, interests, personality, mental illness

Front 4

reciprocal determinism

Back 4

we mutually influence each other's behavior (makes it difficult to isolate causes of human behavior)

Front 5

naive realism

Back 5

the belief that we see the world precisely as it is

Front 6

empiricism

Back 6

the premise that knowledge should initially be acquired by observation

Front 7

scientific theory

Back 7

explanation for a large number of findings in the natural world - must generate novel predictions that scientists can test

Front 8

misconceptions of theories

Back 8

1. they explain a specific event

2. they're an educated guess

Front 9

confirmation bias

Back 9

the tendency to seek out evidence that supports our beliefs and dismiss others - the mother of all biases

Front 10

Wason selection task

Back 10

cards with vowels & numbers - need to select two to test theory

Front 11

belief perserverance

Back 11

the tendency to stick to our initial beliefs even when evidence contradicts them

Front 12

metaphysical claims

Back 12

assertions about the world that we can't test

Front 13

prescription for humility

Back 13

good scientists never claim to "prove" their theories

Front 14

science

Back 14

systematic approach to evidence

Front 15

pseudoscience

Back 15

a set of claims that seem scientific but isn't (lacks safeguards against bias)

Front 16

ad hoc immunizing hypothesis

Back 16

a loophole that defenders of a theory use to protect it from being disproven (ex: experimenters prevent a psychic's ESP abilities)

Front 17

lack of self-correction

Back 17

refusal to acknowledge or adjust for contradictory data

Front 18

overreliance on anecdotes

Back 18

doesn't account for cause/effect or how representative cases are, difficult to verify

Front 19

patternicity

Back 19

the tendency to detect meaningful patterns in random stimuli

Front 20

the hot hand

Back 20

basketball players going on a "streak" of making baskets

Front 21

terror management theory

Back 21

our awareness of our inevitable death leaves many of us with an underlying sense of fear - therefore we adopt a worldview that reassure us that our lives possess a larger meaning

Front 22

emotional reasoning fallacy

Back 22

using our emotions as a guide for the validity of an argument (affect heuristic)

Front 23

bandwagon fallacy

Back 23

error of assuming a claim is correct because a lot of people believe it

Front 24

not me fallacy

Back 24

believing we're immune to error that afflict other people

Front 25

opportunity cost of pseudoscience

Back 25

1. forego real treatments

2. direct harm (rebirthing therapy)

3. inability to think scientifically

Front 26

scientific skepticism

Back 26

evaluates all claims, but demands convincing evidence

Front 27

The missouri principle

Back 27

element of skepticism - "show me"

(need proof)

Front 28

scientific thinking principles

Back 28

1. ruling out rival hypotheses

2. correlation vs. causation

3. falsifiability

4. replicability

5. extraordinary claims

6. occam's razor

Front 29

extraordinary claims

Back 29

is the evidence as strong as the claim - more extraordinary claims require more rigorous evaluation

Front 30

occam's razor

Back 30

does a simpler explanation fit the data just as well?

Front 31

falsifiability

Back 31

capable of being disproved

Front 32

decline effect

Back 32

the size of certain psychological findings appears to be shrinking over time

Front 33

Wilhelm Wundt

Back 33

(late 1800s) First psychologist - relied on introspection

Front 34

structuralism

Back 34

aimed to identify the basic elements of psychological experience - systematic observation

Front 35

functionalism

Back 35

aimed to understand the adaptive purposes of psychological characteristics (William James)

Front 36

behaviorism

Back 36

John Watson - focuses on uncovering the general laws of learning by looking at observable behavior - black box psychology

Front 37

cognitive psychology

Back 37

thinking is essential to understanding behavior

Front 38

cognitive neuroscience

Back 38

examines the function of the brain and thinking

Front 39

psychoanalysis

Back 39

Freud - focuses on internal psychological processes of which we're unaware - especially sexuality and aggression

emphasis on childhood experiences

Front 40

the free-will determinism debate

Back 40

to what extent do we have control over our lives and to what extent are they controlled by factors outside our control

Front 41

basic research

Back 41

examining how the mind works

Front 42

applied research

Back 42

research examining how we can use basic research to solve real-world problems

Front 43

Kenneth & Mamie Clark Experiments

Back 43

black students prefer white dolls (civil rights movement)