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43 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
definition of psychology |
scientific study of the mind, brain, and behavior |
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multiply determined |
produced by many factors |
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fields that focus on individual differences |
intelligence, interests, personality, mental illness |
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reciprocal determinism |
we mutually influence each other's behavior (makes it difficult to isolate causes of human behavior) |
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naive realism |
the belief that we see the world precisely as it is |
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empiricism |
the premise that knowledge should initially be acquired by observation |
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scientific theory |
explanation for a large number of findings in the natural world - must generate novel predictions that scientists can test |
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misconceptions of theories |
1. they explain a specific event 2. they're an educated guess |
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confirmation bias |
the tendency to seek out evidence that supports our beliefs and dismiss others - the mother of all biases |
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Wason selection task |
cards with vowels & numbers - need to select two to test theory |
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belief perserverance |
the tendency to stick to our initial beliefs even when evidence contradicts them |
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metaphysical claims |
assertions about the world that we can't test |
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prescription for humility |
good scientists never claim to "prove" their theories |
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science |
systematic approach to evidence |
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pseudoscience |
a set of claims that seem scientific but isn't (lacks safeguards against bias) |
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ad hoc immunizing hypothesis |
a loophole that defenders of a theory use to protect it from being disproven (ex: experimenters prevent a psychic's ESP abilities) |
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lack of self-correction |
refusal to acknowledge or adjust for contradictory data |
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overreliance on anecdotes |
doesn't account for cause/effect or how representative cases are, difficult to verify |
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patternicity |
the tendency to detect meaningful patterns in random stimuli |
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the hot hand |
basketball players going on a "streak" of making baskets |
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terror management theory |
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 |
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emotional reasoning fallacy |
using our emotions as a guide for the validity of an argument (affect heuristic) |
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bandwagon fallacy |
error of assuming a claim is correct because a lot of people believe it |
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not me fallacy |
believing we're immune to error that afflict other people |
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opportunity cost of pseudoscience |
1. forego real treatments 2. direct harm (rebirthing therapy) 3. inability to think scientifically
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scientific skepticism |
evaluates all claims, but demands convincing evidence |
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The missouri principle |
element of skepticism - "show me"
(need proof) |
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scientific thinking principles |
1. ruling out rival hypotheses 2. correlation vs. causation 3. falsifiability 4. replicability 5. extraordinary claims 6. occam's razor |
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extraordinary claims |
is the evidence as strong as the claim - more extraordinary claims require more rigorous evaluation |
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occam's razor |
does a simpler explanation fit the data just as well? |
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falsifiability |
capable of being disproved |
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decline effect |
the size of certain psychological findings appears to be shrinking over time |
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Wilhelm Wundt |
(late 1800s) First psychologist - relied on introspection |
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structuralism |
aimed to identify the basic elements of psychological experience - systematic observation |
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functionalism |
aimed to understand the adaptive purposes of psychological characteristics (William James) |
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behaviorism |
John Watson - focuses on uncovering the general laws of learning by looking at observable behavior - black box psychology |
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cognitive psychology |
thinking is essential to understanding behavior |
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cognitive neuroscience |
examines the function of the brain and thinking |
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psychoanalysis |
Freud - focuses on internal psychological processes of which we're unaware - especially sexuality and aggression
emphasis on childhood experiences |
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the free-will determinism debate |
to what extent do we have control over our lives and to what extent are they controlled by factors outside our control |
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basic research |
examining how the mind works |
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applied research |
research examining how we can use basic research to solve real-world problems |
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Kenneth & Mamie Clark Experiments |
black students prefer white dolls (civil rights movement) |