Important Topics of Focus This is not a detailed outline like the previous study guides that you received The point of this study guide is to inform you of the biggest concepts that deserve the most attention from the semester However anything we have covered previously may be covered As a general rule I will not test on some of the more minute details I will provide a detailed review of the abnormal psychology material in this study guide and then the rest will be important concepts that will be helpful in making sure you spend enough time on these topics History of Psychology Know the three major eras of psychology Which of these was most dominant during the height of its popularity About what time periods were each of these eras the most important direction in psychology Be able to match the psychologist with the school of thought in psychology they are known for Psychoanalysis Freud etc Mental Life 1879 1920 Concerned with how behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts Important figures Wilhelm Wundt structuralism and functionalism Edward Titchner structuralism William James functionalism and Sigmund Freud psychoanalysis Behaviorism 1920 1960 Concerned with how we learn observable responses Important figures John B Watson classical conditioning B F Skinner operant conditioning Cognitive Revolution 1960 present Concerned with how we encode process store and retrieve information What are the different approaches in psychology basic vs applied Basic Research Basic Psychology Working in a lab performing experiments Characterized by writing papers and doing pure research Seeks more long term goals Applied Research Applied Psychologists Work in the field solving practical problems Characterized by work that has immediate utility What is the black box and how do each of the researchers and eras of psychology think about it The black box is the mental processes that occur between receiving a stimulus and responding Behaviorism is not concerned with the black box while the mental life and cognitive movements try to uncover what happens in the black box What is responsible for the transitions from one era of psychology to the next The emergence of new evidence or the inability of one movement to adequately answer important questions Human Memory What is the constructivist aspect of human memory Constructivism says that new memories are built upon past knowledge and schemas What are some of the memory fallacies and why do they occur Context effect That cognition and memory are dependent on context such that out of context memories are more difficult to retrieve than in context memories False memory A form of misattribution where imagination is mistaken for a memory Misinformation effect Memory becoming less accurate because of interference from post event information Primacy effect Recency effect Serial position effect That items near the end of a sequence are the easiest to recall followed by the items at the beginning of a sequence items in the middle are the least likely to be remembered Who is responsible for the research in the misinformation effect Elizabeth Loftus is responsible for the research on the misinformation effect Information learned after an event may affect memory construction Who is S F Why is he important for memory research S F began testing with an average intelligence and average memory capabilities With the use of mnemonic strategies practice sessions in the laboratory he was able to increase his digit span from 7 to 79 This proved that memory could be improved and was not just an innate ability Is there a difference between short term and working memory Short term memory holds a limited amount of information but this information is very accessible Working memory stresses the processing and volitional control of information that is being held What is the difference between procedural and declarative memories Declarative memory refers to facts information that you can report or declare e g recalling the capitol city of your country semantic or what you did yesterday episodic Procedural memory typically refers to memory for skills and procedures usually motor functions which you can t generally access report verbally e g a pianist cannot tell someone how they play the piano they can tell you what they are thinking and what their hands are doing but they can t transfer their procedural memory to you through language What does 7 2 mean 7 plus or minus 2 is the number of digits the average person can memorize at once Who was Ebbinghaus and what did he do Hermann Ebbinghaus displayed the first experimental research about memory using random 3 letter combinations that subjects would memorize and repeat at a later time What is context in relation to memory and how might it enhance memory The context in which you learn something is the context in which you will best recall something What are mnemonics and some of the examples of them Mnemonics memory aids and techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices ex acronyms rhymes songs ect Psychology as a Science What is the difference between good psychology and bad psychology Good psychology has been tested and has evidence to support it Bad psychology is often based on fallacies What is the scientific methods and how is it applied to psychology 1 Develop a Hypothesis 2 Perform a Controlled Test 3 Gather Data 4 Analyze the results and decide on your hypothesis 5 Publish criticize replicate This method must be followed when testing hypothesis and developing theories in psychology What are some of the research approaches in psychology case study survey approach etc Case Study Research typically involving one subject that aims to discover universal principles Survey Technique for obtaining self reported attitudes or behaviors of a group usually by questioning a representative group Naturalistic Observation Observing a behavior in a natural setting Involves minimal if any manipulation What is the difference between correlational and experimental research How are the variables different Correlational Research A form of research in which the relationship between variables is studied but without experimental manipulation of the independent variable Experimentation A type of research used that manipulates factors to determine cause and effect Independent variable are manipulated in experimental research but not in correlational What is necessary to make something a true experiment In a true experiment
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