PSYCO104 Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - William James, Wilhelm Wundt, Solomon Asch
12 Oct 2018
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PSYCO104
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
Introduction to Psychology:
Psychology: the scientific study of the behaviour and the mind.
-Science involves systematically gathering and evaluating empirical
evidence.
Systematically: having, showing, or involving a system, method, or a plan.
working or done in a step-by-step manner.
Empirical: relying on or derived (obtain something from) from observation
or experiment.
-scientific research relies on the use of empirical data for acquiring knowledge.
-systematic and empirical are both important to the science world because we
need to obtain information from observations to make sure they are not just
theories (empirical), but we also need systematic observations to go along with
it so that we can observe how structured the observation is so that we can
recreate and support the theory.
Mental Shortcuts: rules in which people often use to form judgements and
make decisions. Focusing on one aspect of a complex problem and ignoring
others.
A Lack of Alternatives: the absence of seeing other options or choices
from an idea.
Confirmation bias: the tendency to interpret new evidence as
confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories.
Paying attention to the information that upholds our ideas and ignoring the
information that challenges our existing beliefs. (believing only what we want to
believe about something, and changing it into a fact.) e.g.. donald trump and
america. People tend to listen more to information that confirms the
beliefs they already have in mind.
4 things Science IS:
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•science is measurable. (can be proven by observations and
evidence).
•science is controlled.
•science is public, in the sense that everyone can add more
information to an existent theory or observation.
•science is limited. must be testable.
Critical Thinking: taking an active role in understanding information.
-Common Questions to ask yourself:
1. What’s the claim?
2. Is the source credible?
3. What’s the evidence?
4. Are there other explanations?
5. What’s the appropriate conclusion?
4 goals of psychology:
•description-what?
observing-what is normal and healthy, what is unhealthy.
•explanation-why? how?
why does this behaviour occur? under what circumstances will it occur again? in
order to explain a behaviour, psychologist must conduct experiments to ensure
that the behaviour is not an anomaly (not normal).
•prediction-when?
based on past observed behaviour, a psychologist aims to predict how that
behaviour will appear again in the future and if other people will exhibit the
same behaviour.
•influence-make it happen.
what good does it bring to the future, and other scientists and careers, etc.
Basic Research: knowledge to understand psychology
through observations. doing something else that takes
away attention from other things in people. eg. tap head,
circle belly. e.g.. people tend to only be able to remember
a few pieces of information at a time.
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Document Summary
Psychology: the scienti c study of the behaviour and the mind. Science involves systematically gathering and evaluating empirical evidence. Systematically: having, showing, or involving a system, method, or a plan. working or done in a step-by-step manner. Empirical: relying on or derived (obtain something from) from observation or experiment. Scienti c research relies on the use of empirical data for acquiring knowledge. Mental shortcuts: rules in which people often use to form judgements and make decisions. Focusing on one aspect of a complex problem and ignoring others. A lack of alternatives: the absence of seeing other options or choices from an idea. Con rmation bias: the tendency to interpret new evidence as con rmation of one"s existing beliefs or theories. Paying attention to the information that upholds our ideas and ignoring the information that challenges our existing beliefs. (believing only what we want to believe about something, and changing it into a fact. ) e. g donald trump and america.
