PSYC 2240 Midterm: PSYC 2240 - Test 1 Notes (Fall 2011)

• School: York University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 2240
• Professor: Pauline Charlton

Document Summary

Biological psychology is the study of the physiological, evolutionary, and developmental mechanisms of behavior and experience. Common sense explanations of behavior often refer to non-assumed intentional goals. Physiological explanation relates a behavior to the activity of the brain and other organs. Ontogenetic explanation describes how a structure or behavior develops, including the influences of genes, nutrition, experiences, and their interactions. Evolutionary explanation reconstructs the evolutionary history of a structure or behavior. Functional explanation describes why a structure or behavior evolved as they did. However, functional explanation in human behavior is controversial to evolution. Dualism: the belief that mind and body are different kinds of substances that exist independently (rene descartes). Monism: the belief that the universe consists of only one kind of substance: materialism: everything exists as material or physical. Solipsism ( i alone exist ): other people are like robots or characters in a dream. Problem of other minds: difficulty of knowing people or animals having consciousness.