Experience Psychology, 3rd edition Essays (839 words) - Free Essays

Experience Psychology, 3rd edition Essays (839 words) - Free Essays Experience Psychology, 3rd edition Chapter 1, The Science of Psychology Key Terms Behavior: Everything we do that can be directly observed. Behavioral approach: An approach to psychology emphasizing the scientific study of observable behavioral responses and their environmental determinants. Biological approach: An approach to psychology focusing on the body, especially the brain and nervous system. Case study or case history: An in-depth look at a single individual. Control group: The participants in an experiment who are as much like the experimental group as possible and who are treated in every way like the experimental group except for a manipulated factor, the independent variable. Correlational research: Research that examines the relationships between variables, whose purpose is to examine whether and how two variables change together. Critical thinking: The process of thinking deeply and actively, asking questions, and evaluating the evidence. Demand characteristics: Any aspects of a study that communicate to the participant how the experimenter wants them to behave. Empirical method: Gaining knowledge through the observation of events, the collection of data, and logical reasoning. Evolutionary approach: An approach to psychology centered on evolutionary ideas such as adaptation, reproduction, and natural selection as the basis for explaining specific human behavior. Experiment: A carefully regulated procedure in which the researcher manipulates one or more variables that are believed to influence some other variable. Experimental group: The participants in an experiment who receive the drug or other treatment under studythat is, those who are exposed to the change that the independent variable represents. Experimenter bias: The influence of the experimenter's expectations on the outcome of research. External validity: The degree to which an experimental design actually reflects the real-world issues it is suppose to address. Functionalism: James' approach to mental processes, emphasizing the functions and purpose of the mind and behavior in the individual's adaptation to the environment. Humanistic approach: An approach to psychology emphasizing a person's positive qualities, the capacity for positive growth, and the freedom to choose any destiny. Hypothesis: A testable prediction that derives logically from a theory. Internal validity: The degree to which changes in the dependent variable are due to the manipulation of the independent variable. Longitudinal design: A special kind of systematic observation, used by correlational researchers, that involves obtaining measures of the variables of interest in multiple waves over time. Mental processes: The thoughts, feelings, and motives that people experience privately but that cannot be observed directly. Natural selection: Darwin's principle of an evolutionary process in which organisms that are best adapted to their environment will survive and produce offspring. Naturalistic observation: The observation of behavior in a real-world setting. Neuroscience: The scientific study of the structure, function, development, genetics, and biochemistry of the nervous system, emphasizing that the brain and nervous system are central to understanding behavior, thought, and emotion. Operational definition: A definition that provides an objective description of how a variable is going to be measured and observed in a particular study. Population: The entire group about which the researcher wants to draw conclusions. Psychodynamic approach: An approach to psychology emphasizing unconscious thoughts, the conflict between biological drives (such as the drive for sex) and society's demands, and early childhood family experiences. Psychology: The scientific study of behavior and mental processes. Random assignment: Researchers' assignment of participants to groups by chance, to reduce the likelihood that an experiment's results will be due to preexisting differences between groups. Random sample: A sample that gives every member of the population an equal chance of being selected. Research participant bias: In an experiment, the influence of participants' expectations, and of their thoughts on how they should behave, on their behavior. Sample: The subset of the population chosen by the investigator for study. Science: The use of systematic methods to observe the natural world, including human behavior and to draw conclusions. Sociocultural approach: An approach to psychology that examines the ways in which social and cultural environments influence behavior. Structuralism: Wundt's approach to discovering the basic elements or structures, of mental processes. Theory: A broad idea or set of closely related ideas that attempts to explain observations and to make predictions about future observations. Third variable problem: The circumstance where a variable that has not been measured accounts