History of Psychology
He established the very first psychological laboratory in Germany in 1879 and championed Structuralism.
Who is Wilhelm Wundt?
If a psychologist is studying how neurochemicals and brain anatomy influence a person's aggressive tendencies, they are in this subfield.
What is Biopsychology/Behavioral Neuroscience?
This is a testable, falsifiable prediction about the relationship between variables, often framed as an "If-Then" statement
What is a hypothesis?
This is the only type of research design capable of establishing a true cause-and-effect relationship.
What is an experiment?
This specific committee must review and officially approve any human research proposal at an institution before testing can begin.
What is the Institutional Review Board / IRB?
William James founded this historical perspective, which focused on how mental activities helped an organism fit into its environment
What is Functionalism?
This subfield focuses on changes in cognitive skills, moral reasoning, and social behavior across a person's entire lifespan
What is Developmental Psychology?
This descriptive research design involves an incredibly deep, exhaustive look into a single unique individual or tiny group.
What is a case/clinical study?
This is the variable that the experimenter actively manipulates, changes, or alters to see its effects
What is the Independent Variable?
This calculated metric tells us the absolute center point of a data set after the scores are organized from lowest to highest
What is the median?
This perspective completely dismissed studying the invisible "mind" and argued that psychology should only measure observable actions
What is Behaviorism?
A psychologist working in this subfield diagnoses and treats individuals suffering from severe psychological disorders
What is Clinical Psychology?
This is the primary methodological limitation of a case study; it describes the inability to apply findings from one unique person to the rest of the world.
What is generalizing/generalizability?
This baseline group is treated exactly like the experimental group, but they do not receive the active independent variable manipulation.
What is the control group?
Between a correlation coefficient of +0.35 and -0.75, this one represents the mathematically stronger relationship.
What is -0.75?
Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers led this "third force" in psychology, focusing on the potential for good and self-actualization in all humans.
What is Humanism?
This area of psychology studies thoughts, attention, memory, and information processing.
What is Cognitive Psychology?
If a scientist sits on a playground and counts instances of aggression without stepping in or altering the environment, they are using this data tool.
What is naturalistic observation?
In an experiment studying a new medication, the control group is often given this inert, fake treatment to control for expectations. (
What is a placebo?
This is the ethical rule stating that right after an experiment ends, researchers must immediately provide participants with an honest explanation of the study's purpose and any deceptions used
What is debriefing?
Freud's psychoanalytic theory heavily relies on the belief that our behavior is driven by impulses locked inside this layer of the mind.
What is the unconscious?
Dr. Jones studies how people influence one another's behaviors, looking at prejudice, attraction, and conformity. She belongs to this subfield
What is Social Psychology?
This is the crucial difference between a target population and a sample.
What is: The population is the entire group of interest, while the sample is the smaller subset actually being studied?
To eliminate both participant expectations and experimenter bias, researchers use this type of study where neither side knows group assignments.
What is a double-blind study?
If ice cream sales and crime rates both go up because of hot weather, temperature is acting as this type of stealthy, outside nuisance factor
What is a confounding variable?