PSYCH 202 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Tabula Rasa, Psych, Wilhelm Wundt
3 May 2018
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What is psychology?
**The study of mind and behavior
Study of chemicals in the brain and how those chemicals affect decisions
Study of mental life
Study of how people react to stimuli
Looking at why we do what we do
The study of human psychological development
Identifying our tendencies and giving them a name
Word comes from Greek psyche(soul) and logos(to study)
Scientific aspect, mind, behavior
The mind refers to the private inner experience of perceptions, thoughts, memories, and
feelings, an ever-flowing stream of consciousness
Behavior refers to observable actions of human beings and nonhuman animals, the things that
we do in the world, by ourselves of with others.
The science of behavior and mental processes-Sdorow
Behavioral psychology is the science of pulling habits out of rats-Dr. Douglas Busch
We're not so different from mice and rats, we can learn a lot from their behaviors
The type of parenting you get as an infant can change your DNA, how genetic expressions
change life experiences.
The science of mental life-William James, one of the first psychologists
Psychology is a set of questions, get at something very fundamental about science, we want to
know why we do the things we do, which leads to more questions, we are always questioning
and critical thinking, we're constantly learning and discovering new things about behavior and
how the mind and brain work.
Is intelligence something you are born with (entity) or like any other skill, the more effort you
put in the more intelligence you will have(incremental)?
Plato and Aristotle were among the first philosophers to struggle with fundamental questions
about how the mind works.
Plato was a strong proponent of nativism - the view that certain kinds of knowledge are innate
or inborn
Aristotle believed that the child's mind was a blank slate on which only experiences could write,
and was a strong proponent of what we now call philosophical empiricism - the view that all
knowledge is acquired through experience.
Nature vs nurture
Plato and Aristotle had no means of testing these positions. The scientific approach is what
separates psychology and philosophy
Psych is a young science, we have wondered about it for a long time, but the study of it dates
back to Wilhelm Wundt the father of modern psychology, he established first psychology lab -
1879. A physiology professor, he had a psych lab in his home. Interested in studying the mind,
what psych as a science should is organize and categorize the different structures(parts) of the
find more resources at oneclass.com
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Document Summary
Study of chemicals in the brain and how those chemicals affect decisions. Identifying our tendencies and giving them a name. Word comes from greek psyche(soul) and logos(to study) The mind refers to the private inner experience of perceptions, thoughts, memories, and feelings, an ever-flowing stream of consciousness. Behavior refers to observable actions of human beings and nonhuman animals, the things that we do in the world, by ourselves of with others. Behavioral psychology is the science of pulling habits out of rats-dr. douglas busch. We"re not so different from mice and rats, we can learn a lot from their behaviors. The type of parenting you get as an infant can change your dna, how genetic expressions change life experiences. The science of mental life-william james, one of the first psychologists. Plato and aristotle were among the first philosophers to struggle with fundamental questions about how the mind works.
