Psych Unit 1

Brain is the seat of mental processes

DeAnima. Coins phrase “tabula rasa”, meaning that the body exists to serve thesoul

Tabula rasa at birth (blank slates)

·         Rene Descartes argues for dualism

• Dualism: The mind and body are separate, independent entities
• ·         Example: Pineal gland: The Pineal gland is the interface between mind/body (Descartes) as a result of its location in the brain.

Tabula rasa

The view that knowledge originates in experience and that science should, therefore, rely on observation and experimentation.

Human concepts and categories structure our view of the world and its laws, and that reason is the source of morality.

·         Phrenology-Different functions served by different parts of the brain

• Publishes first experimental psychology textbook and opens first psychology research lab at U of Leipzig
• ·         Asked people to introspect- look within themselves

Opens 1st American psychology research lab at John Hopkins

1) School of psychology that focused on how our mental and behavioral processes function-how they enable us to adapt, survive, and flourish

2) difference between physical stimulus and its perceived properties

Psychoanalytic theory refers to the definition and dynamics of personality development which underlie and guide psychotherapy

·         Structuralism was a school of thought that sought to identify the components of the mind . Structuralists believed that the way to learn about the brain and its functions was to break the mind down into its most basic elements

Similar characteristics

Human intelligence

Also, noted that the offspring of accomplished people were smart

Developed the first useful intelligence test

·         Behaviorism: Behaviorism is a theory of learning based upon the idea that all behaviors are acquired through conditioning·         Strong assumption of empiricism (i.e. tabula rasa)

Psychologist that specialized in language development; disagreed with Skinner about language acquisition, stated there is an infinite # of sentences in a language, humans have an inborn native ability to develop language

Wrote a book on how language is learned through operant conditioning

(a type of learning in which an individual's behavior is modified by its consequences)

·         Showed that rats would easily learn associations between certain types of stimuli, but not others

• ·         1950s, intellectual exchange between fields
• ·         “Cognitivism” currently dominant paradigm in psychology àStudies mental states

• ·         Helping people with behavior and mental problems
• ·         Ex: Addiction, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, etc.
• ·         Have a PhD or a PsyD

Provide advice and consultation to police, lawyers, and courts àClinical counseling with additional training in legal issues

• ·         Tries to facilitate the operation of machinery so that ordinary people can use it efficiently and safely
• ·         (Design machinery for soldiers, like cameras on Apaches for military)

Compares behavior of people from different cultures

4 years of residency training

Anyone who attempts to uncover unconscious thoughts and feelings or graduates of 6-8 year programs in institutes of psychoanalysis

Masters in social work with specialization in psychological problems

·         Getting psychologist patients because they charge less per hour

• Help people with decisions and problems (PhD, PsyD, EdD)
• Differs from clinical psychologists because they deal with decision and not emotional distress.

·         Animal models, neuroimaging

·         Pursues an information-processing account of perception, attention, memory, reasoning

Ex: Cognitive behavioral therapy

Reading colors with other names (the color list) meaning of word with color stimulation

• ·         How does the human mind change across a lifespan?
• ·         EX: How do children’s morals/cognition develop?

·         How students learn best

• ·         Views the mind as a set of adaptations that have evolved
• ·         Ex: Darwin, natural selection

·         Studies how to maximize human output in the working environment

·         Fundamental traits that people differ on

·         How people think about and relate to others

Systematic study of behavior and experience

• ·         Psychologists became disenchanted with the idea of studying the mind because the mind is unobservable.
• After this, psychologists studied behavior

Different people have a different psychological makeup

• ·         Time of day
• ·         Temperature
• ·         How recently someone ate
• ·         Ex: Elevator hot coffee, warm person

Idea that every event has a cause, or determinant, that one could observe or measure

• Belief that behavior is caused by a person’s independent decisions
• ·         Scientists question the idea of free will

Product of your heredity and experiences

Mind is separate from the brain and somehow controls the brain and the rest of the body.

• However, this view contradicts the law of conservation and energy because
• if the mind isn’t composed of matter and energy, it can’t do anything

View that conscious experience is inseparable from the physical brain. That is, all mental activity (decisions) are brain activity

·         Brain activity and thoughts are the same thing

How do differences in behavior relate to the differences in heredity or environment?·         Ex: Boys play with toy guns, girls play with dolls

Seeks theoretical knowledge for its own sake

Deals with practical problems

Study behavior that makes people successful