Key terms for Psychology Chapter 1 Psychology: the study of mental processes and behaviour Biopsychology: examines the

e physical basis of psychological phenomena such as motivation, emotion and stress. Cross-cultural psychology: tries to distinguish universal psychological processes from those that are specific to particular cultures.
History of Psychology

Introspection: metaphor of looking inwards to examine ones own conscious experience or phenomenology. Structuralism: an early school of thought aimed at uncovering the basic elements of consciousness through introspection. Functionalism: an early school of thought that emphasised the role of psychological processes in helping individuals adapt to their environment (i.e. explained psychological processes in terms of the role or function they serve). Paradigm: a broad system of theoretical assumptions that a scientific community uses to make sense of its domain of study.

Psychological perspectives

Psychodynamic perspective: proposes that peoples actions reflect the way thoughts, feelings and wishes are associated in their minds; that many of these processes are unconscious; and that mental processes can conflict with one another, leading to compromises among competing motives. It seeks to interpret meaning to infer underlying wishes, fears and patterns of thought from an individuals conscious, verbalised thought and behaviour. Behaviourist perspective: focuses on the way objects or events in the environment (stimuli) come to control behaviour through learning. It focuses on relationship between external events and observable behaviours. Behaviourists reject the concept of mind, viewing mental events as the contents of a black box that cannot be known or studied scientifically. Humanistic perspective: emphasises the uniqueness of the individual and focuses on the persons immediate experience. Humanistic theorists assert that people have free will and are motivated to achieve personal goals (concept of self-actualisation) so that they can fulfil their true potential. Cognitive perspective: focuses on the way people perceive, process and retrieve information (how memory works, how people solve problems, decision-making, etc). Primary metaphor: the mind (brain) as a computer. The primary method of investigation is experimental. It fills the black box of behaviourists with software mental programs that produce output.

Evolutionary perspective: argues that many human behavioural tendencies evolved because they helped our ancestors survive and reproduce. Psychological processes have evolved through the natural selection of traits that help organisms adapt to their environment. Evolutionary psychologists are increasingly using experimental methods. Empiricism: the belief that the path to scientific knowledge is through systematic observation and ideally, experimental observation. Chapter 12: Physical and cognitive development
Issues in developmental psychology

Maturation: biologically based changes that follow an orderly sequence, each step setting the stage for the next step according to an age-related timetable. Critical periods: periods central to specific types of learning that modify future development. Sensitive periods: times that are particularly important but not definitive for subsequent development. Stages: relatively discrete steps through which everyone progresses in the same sequence.

Studying development

Cross-sectional studies: compares groups of participants of different ages at a single time to provide a picture of age differences. Longitudinal studies: assess the same individuals over time, providing the opportunity to assess age changes. Sequential studies: minimise cohort effects by studying multiple cohorts longitudinally. Cohort effect: differences among age groups associated with differences in the culture. Prenatal/Gestation period: the period before birth. Teratogens: environmental agents that harm the embryo or foetus (e.g. drugs, radiation, toxic chemicals, etc). Intermodal processing: the ability to associate sensations of an object from different senses or to match their own actions to behaviours they have observed visually (e.g. face imitation at birth) Infantile amnesia: lack of explicit memory for events before the age of three or four. Reflects in large part the maturation of neural circuits involved in different kinds of memory. Explicit memory: refers to memories that can be consciously recalled. Implicit memory: memory expressed in behaviour that may not be represented consciously.

Working memory: involves information held briefly in consciousness.

Piagets Theory

Assimilation: involves interpreting actions or events in terms of ones present schemas i.e. fitting reality into ones existing ways of understanding or knowledge. Schema: an organised, repeatedly exercised pattern of thought or behaviour (e.g. an infants tendency to suck anything that will fit in its mouth). Accommodation: the modification of schemas to fit reality. Equilibration: balancing assimilation and accommodation to adapt to the world. Sensorimotor period (0-2yrs): primarily takes the form of action, as infants learn about the world by mouthing, grasping, watching, etc. Thought and action are virtually identical; they experience the world through senses and actions; child is completely egocentric (own point of view); major achievement development of object permanence. Preoperational period (2-7yrs): symbolic thought develops; object permanence firmly established. Still limited by egocentrism (e.g. the three mountains task, where infants generally still can only view the mountains from their point of view). Can represent the world with words/images, but cannot manipulate images. Preoperational thought is also limited by centration the tendency to focus on one perceptually striking feature of an object without considering other features might be relevant. Concrete operational period (7-12yrs): Child is able to perform reversible mental operations on representations of objects; understanding of conservation develops (e.g. number, mass and liquid). The infant can think more logically about concrete events. Concrete operational thinkers are able to decentre, or hold in mind multiple dimensions at once. Understanding of transitivity (e.g. If A>B, and B>C, then which is the greatest?) also develops. Formal operational period (12+yrs): Children begin to think more abstractly; able to manipulate abstract, as well as concrete objects, events and ideas mentally; can reason about formal propositions. Ability to frame hypotheses and figure out how to test them systematically also develops. In sum, Piaget was correct in that children become less egocentric, increasingly able to think symbolically and increasingly able to reason abstractly as they develop (Halford, 1989).

Other theories: Vygotsky; information processing approach

Lev Vygotskys sociocultural theory of cognitive development: emphasises the role of social interaction in learning. His model proposes children collaborate and strive together on tasks to enhance their levels of understanding. It is more explicitly social than Piagets theory. Vygotskys zone of proximal development (ZPD) stretches from sole performance to collaborative cooperation (more understanding gained through social interaction). Neo-Piagetian theorists: attempt to integrate an understanding of the broad stages of Piagets theory with an information-processing approach.

Metacognition: thinking about thinking; understanding how the mind works, and how it performs cognitive tasks such as remembering, learning and solving problems. Metamemory: knowledge about ones own memory and about strategies that can be used to help remember.
Cognitive changes in adulthood; ageing

Psychomotor slowing: an increase in the time required for processing and acting on information (decreased processing speed). If cognitive processes take longer to execute, less information is available simultaneously in working memory, and relevant information may no longer be available by the time the person needs to think about it. Dementia (progressive and incurable): a disorder marked by global disturbance of higher mental functions (1% of Australian population suffer from this). Alzheimers disease: a progressive and incurable illness that destroys neurons in the brain, severely impairing memory, reasoning, perception, language and behaviour (one major form of the disorder is genetic). Experience can enrich the developing brain, increasing the connections among neurons that underlie the capacity for complex thought, just as impoverished experience, particularly during the sensitive periods of development, can constrain psychological functioning by limiting the processing power of the brain.