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Definition
| the science of behavior & mental processes |
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| controversy over the genes and enviroment effecting your development of traits and behaviors |
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Term
| what are the psychological perspectives? |
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Definition
Neuroscienc-focuses on how body & brain create emotions, memories, & sensory experiences
evoluntionary perspective-how nature select traits that promote perpetuation of one's genes
behavior genetics-how much our genes, & our environment, influence our ind diff.
psychodynamic-how behavior springs from unconscious drives & conflicts
behavioral-how we learn observable responses
cognitive-how we encode, process, store, & retrieve info
social-cultural-how behavior & thinking vary across situations & cultures |
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| what are the psychology's specialized subfields? |
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Definition
Clinical psychologists-studies, assesses, & treats people w/ psychological disorders
Psychiatrists-deals w/ psychological disorders; practiced by physicians who sometimes provide medical treatments as well as psychological therapy |
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Definition
| pure scientific science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base |
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Definition
| scientific study that aims to solve practical problems |
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Definition
| tendency to believe after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it |
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Term
| what attitudes characterize scientific inquiry? |
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Definition
Beings w/ an eagerness to skeptically scrutinzie competing ideas & an open-minded humility before nature.
Putting ideas, even crazy-sounding ideas, to the test helps us winnow sense from nonsense
Curiosity that drives us to test ideas & to expose their underlying assumptions carries into everyday life as critical thinking |
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Term
| what's critical thinking? |
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Definition
| thinking that doesn't blindly accept arguments & conclusions. It examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, & assesses conclusions |
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Definition
| explanation using an intergrated set of principles that organizes & predicts observations |
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Definition
| testable prediction, implied by a theory |
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Term
| what's operational definition? |
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Definition
| statement of the procedures used to define research variables |
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Term
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Definition
| repeating the essence of a research study, usually w/ diff participants in diff. situations, to see whether the basic finding generalizes to other participants & circumstances |
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Definition
| an observation technique in which one person is studied in depth over time to reveal universal principles |
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Definition
| questioning person, by random selections to take a self-reported assessment |
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Definition
| all cases in a group, from which samples may be drawn for a study |
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Definition
| sample that fairly represents a population b/c each member has an equal chance of inclusion |
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Term
| what's naturalisitc observation? |
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Definition
| observing & recording behavior in a natural situation w/out trying to manipulate & control the outcome |
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Term
| what's correlation coefficent? |
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Definition
| statistical measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, & how well each predicts other |
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Term
| what's illusory correlation? |
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Definition
| perception of a relationship where none exists |
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Term
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Definition
| condition that may be administered instead of a presumed active agent, such as a drug to see if it triggers the effects believed to characterize the active agent |
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Term
| what's double-blind procedure? |
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Definition
| both the research partipants & research staff are ignorant about whether or not the participants have received the treatment or placebo |
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Term
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Definition
| effect on behavior caused by the placebo |
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Term
| what's experimental condition? |
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Definition
| condition of experiment that exposes participant to the treatment, to one version of the independent variable |
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Term
| what's control condition? |
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Definition
| condition of experiment that contrasts w/ the experimental condition & serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment |
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Term
| what's random assignment? |
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Definition
| assigning participants to experimental & control conditions by chance |
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Term
| what's independent variable? |
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Definition
| experimental factor that is manipulated |
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Term
| what's dependent variable? |
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Definition
| experimental factor, in psychology, the behavior or mental process, that is being measured |
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Term
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Definition
| enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, & traditions shared by a large group of people & transmitted from one generation to next |
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Definition
study method incorporating five steps:
survey, question, read, rehearse, review |
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Definition
| an ill-fated theory that claimed bumps on the skull could reveal our mental abilities & our character traits |
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Term
| what's biological psychology? |
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Definition
| branch of psychology concerned w/ the links btwn biology & behavior |
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Term
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Definition
| a nerve cell, basic building block of nervous system |
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Term
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Definition
| bushy, branching extensions of a neuron that receive messages & conduct impulses toward the cell body |
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Term
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Definition
| extension of a neuron, ending in branching termial fibers, messages are sent to other neurons or muscle or glands |
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Definition
| layer of fatty tissue segmentally encasing the fibers of many neurons; enables vastly greater transmission speed of neural impulses as the impulse hops from one node to the next |
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Term
| what's an action potential? |
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Definition
| neural impulse, brief electrical charge that travels down an axon. generated by movement of positively charged atoms in & out of channels in the axon's membrane |
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Definition
| the level of stimulation required to trigger a neural impulse |
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Definition
| the junction between axon tip of the sending neuron & dendrite or cell body of the receiving neuron. the tiny gap @ this junction called the synaptic gap |
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Term
| what are neurotransmitters? |
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Definition
| chemical messengers that cross the synaptic gaps between neurons. when released by the sending neuron, neurotransmitters travel across the synapse & bind to the receptor sites on the receiving neuron |
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Term
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Definition
| "morphine w/in", natural, opiatelike neurotransmitters linked to pain control & pleasure |
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Term
| what's the nervous system? |
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Definition
| body's speedy, electrochemical communication system, consisting of all nerve cells of the peripheral & central nervous systems |
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Definition
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Definition
| sensory & motor neurons that connect the central nervous system & the rest of the body |
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Definition
| neural cables containing many axons. connect the cns w/ muscles, glands, & sense organs |
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Term
| what are sensory neurons? |
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Definition
| carry incoming info from sense receptors to cns |
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Term
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Definition
| cns neurons that internally communicate & intervene btwn sensory inputs & motor outputs |
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Definition
| neurons that carry outgoing info from the cns to the muscles & glands |
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Term
| what't the somatic nervous system? |
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Definition
| division of the pns that controls the body's skeletal muscles |
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Term
| what's the autonomic nervous system? |
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Definition
part of the pns that controls the glands & the muscles of the internal organs
sympathetic and parasympathetic divisions |
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Term
| what's sympathetic nervous system? |
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Definition
| division of autonomic n.s. that arouses the body, mobilizing its energy in stressful situations |
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Term
| what's the parasympathetic nervous system? |
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Definition
| divison of the autonomic n.s. that calms the body, conserving its energy |
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Term
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Definition
| simple, automatic, inborn response to a sensory stimulus, knee-jerk response |
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Term
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Definition
| oldest part & central core of the brain, beginning where the spinal cord wells as it enters the skull; the brainstem is responsible for automatic survival functions |
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Definition
| the base of the brainstem; controls heartbeat & breathing |
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Term
| what's the reticular formation? |
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Definition
| a nerve network in the brainstem that plays an important role in controlling arousal |
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Term
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Definition
| brains sensory switchboard, located on top of the brainstem; directs messages to sensory receiving areas in the cortex & transmits replies to the cerebellum & medulla |
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Term
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Definition
| the "little brain" attached to the rear of the brainstem, helps coordinate voluntary movement & balance |
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Term
| what's the limbic system? |
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Definition
doughnut-shaped system of neural structures at the border of the brainstem & cerebral hemispheres; associated w/ emotions(fear & agreesion)
includes hippocampus, amygdala, & hypothalamus |
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Term
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Definition
| two almond shaped neural clusters that are components of the limbic system & are linked to emotion |
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Term
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Definition
| neural structure lying below the thalamus, directs eating, drinking, body temp, helps govern endocrine system via pit. gland, linked to emotion |
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Term
| what's the cerebral cortex? |
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Definition
| intricate fabric of interconnected neural cells that covers the cerebral hemispheres; ultimate control & info-processing center |
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Term
| what are the glial cells? |
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Definition
| cells in the nervous system that are not neurons but support, nourish and protect neurons |
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