PSYCH 100 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Myelin, Neuroglia, Action Potential

• School: UMASS-Amherst
• Department: Psychology & Brain Sciences
• Course: PSYCH 100
• Professor: John Bickford

Document Summary

Chapter 1: intro to psychology: major goals for studying psychology: describe and measure behavior, explain and understand behavior, predict and control behavior, affect, behavior, and cognition, only behavior can be directly observed and objectively measured. Experimental psychology: the branch of psychology that studies the processes of sensing, perceiving, learning and thinking about the world. Structuralism: wundt"s approach, focuses on uncovering the fundamental mental components of consciousness, thinking and other kinds of mental states and activities. Functionalism: an early approach to psychology that concentrated on what the mind does- the functions of mental activity- and the role of behavior in allowing people to adapt to their environments. Major perspectives:psychodynamic,neuroscience,behavioral,cognitive,humanistic: free will: the ability to freely make decisions about ones own behavior and life, determinism: sees behavior as caused by things beyond a persons control. Chapter 2: psychological research: experiments (and only experiments) establish causality, essential parts of an experiment: a control or comparison group & random assignment to condition.