Summary Myers Psychology Book - Prologue & Chapter 1 Notes

Myers Prologue and Ch 1

Prologue
 Takes longer to be aware that youre perceiving something
o Wilhelm Wundt experiment
 Structuralism/Introspection
o Makeup of the mind
o Wundt and Titchener
o Used introspection to reveal mind’s structure
o Looking inward is introspection
 Report experience with senses
 Did not work bc needed intelligence, ability to speak
 Functionalism
o How we evolve
o James
o Evolved functions of thoughts and feelings
o Why do we smell/etc.
o Thought to be adaptive
 Freudian Psychology
o Unconscious thought
o Emotional response to childhood
 Behaviorism
o Examine stream of consciousness/emotion
o Watson and Skinner
 Scientific study of observable behaviors
 Humanism
o Rogers and Maslow
o Current environment influences people
o Potential to grow
 Positive psychology
 Look at people as a whole, not just those with mind disorders
 The Cognitive Revolution
o How mind processes and retains info
o How to treat depression, etc.
o Cognitive psychology (mind science) with neuroscience
 Biopsychosocial Approach
o Everything is linked
o Many influences lead to one event
o Biological influences
 Genes
 Predisposition
o Psychological influences
 Learned things

,  Environment
 Fears
 Emotional response
o Social-cultural influences
 Presence of others
 Expectations
 Peers
 Media
 Neuroscience
o How the brain works
o Structure and function
 Evolutionary
o Nature
o Change over time, not specific to one person’s environment
o How are humans alike
 Behavior Genetics
o How we are different because genes/environments
o Environmental influence and genes
 What triggers something
 Psychodynamic
o Behavior based on unconscious drives
 Some parts of our mind are inaccessible to us
 Events from our life influence our choices without us realizing
o Childhood trauma
o Freud originated this idea
 His unconscious drives include the tendency of someone to date their
parental figure
 Behavioral
o How we learn observable responses
o Physical responses
o Learn to fear things
o Human flourishing
 Positive psychology
 Curing disease/etc.
 Cognitive
o How we process and retrieve info
 Social-Cultural
o How behavior and thinking vary across cultures
o Families are similar

Chapter 1
 Hindsight Bias
o If you give a result, it seems unsurprising