Psychology Exam test queries and
answers graded A+
What is Psychology? - ANS✅✅The study of mind and behavior.
What is Nativism (Nature)? - ANS✅✅Nativism is the theory that knowledge is innate and inborn.
Our biological endowment makes up who we are.
What is Empiricism (Nurture)? - ANS✅✅Empiricism is the idea that we gain knowledge through
experience and surroundings. Our environment makes up who we are.
Plato - ANS✅✅He believes in the philosophical view that certain kinds of knowledge are innate
and inborn (nativism/nature).
Aristotle - ANS✅✅He believes in philosophical empiricism which states that knowledge is gained
through experience.
Wilhelm Wundt - ANS✅✅He believes in the idea of structuralism. Structuralism is when you
analyze the brain by breaking it down to its main components.
William James - ANS✅✅He believes in the idea of functionalism. Functionalism is when you see
how someone functions or adapts to new aspects in their environment.
John Watson - ANS✅✅He believed that psychology and the mind was not able to be studied
through scientific inquiry. Instead, he was a behaviorist who focused more so the actions of humans
to explain their train of thought.
B.F. Skinner - ANS✅✅He was another behaviorist that believed in Pavlov's experiments and
Watson's theories. He studied how behavior was learned according to circumstance.
Sigmund Freud - ANS✅✅He came up with psychoanalytic theory which is very much so used
today. Psychoanalysis is the study of unconscious mind and how it affects a person's thoughts,
feelings, and emotions.
, Behaviorism - ANS✅✅an approach that advocates that psychologists restrict themselves to the
scientific study objectively observable behavior
Cognitive Psychology - ANS✅✅the scientific study of mental processes including perception,
thought, memory, and experience
Evolutionary Psychology - ANS✅✅a psychological approach that explains mind and behavior in
terms of the adaptive value of abilities that are preserved over time by natural selection (Influenced
by Darwin, James, and EO Wilson)
Humanistic Psychology - ANS✅✅an approach to understanding human nature that emphasizes the
positive potential of human beings
Social Psychology - ANS✅✅A subfield of psychology that studies the causes and consequences of
interpersonal studies
Cultural Psychology - ANS✅✅Study of how cultures reflect and shape the psychological processes
of their members
Emergence of Cognitive Psychology - ANS✅✅It became a thing when Max Wertheimer began to
study illusions and errors when it came to the mind. He came up with the Gestalt theory that states
that we rather perceive the "sum" over the "parts". Kurt Lewin believed that we saw the world as we
saw it and not at all how it actually was. The invention of computers made most psychologists ignore
this and see psychology objectively.
Operational Definition - ANS✅✅It is the description of a property in concrete, measurable terms.
For example, you can operationally define happiness as the amount of times that someone smiles.
Dependent variable - ANS✅✅A variable whose value depends on another variable
Independent variable - ANS✅✅A variable who is manipulated for an experiment, but does not
depend on another
Reliability - ANS✅✅It is the tendency for an instrument to produce the same measurement
whenever it is used to measure the same thing.
answers graded A+
What is Psychology? - ANS✅✅The study of mind and behavior.
What is Nativism (Nature)? - ANS✅✅Nativism is the theory that knowledge is innate and inborn.
Our biological endowment makes up who we are.
What is Empiricism (Nurture)? - ANS✅✅Empiricism is the idea that we gain knowledge through
experience and surroundings. Our environment makes up who we are.
Plato - ANS✅✅He believes in the philosophical view that certain kinds of knowledge are innate
and inborn (nativism/nature).
Aristotle - ANS✅✅He believes in philosophical empiricism which states that knowledge is gained
through experience.
Wilhelm Wundt - ANS✅✅He believes in the idea of structuralism. Structuralism is when you
analyze the brain by breaking it down to its main components.
William James - ANS✅✅He believes in the idea of functionalism. Functionalism is when you see
how someone functions or adapts to new aspects in their environment.
John Watson - ANS✅✅He believed that psychology and the mind was not able to be studied
through scientific inquiry. Instead, he was a behaviorist who focused more so the actions of humans
to explain their train of thought.
B.F. Skinner - ANS✅✅He was another behaviorist that believed in Pavlov's experiments and
Watson's theories. He studied how behavior was learned according to circumstance.
Sigmund Freud - ANS✅✅He came up with psychoanalytic theory which is very much so used
today. Psychoanalysis is the study of unconscious mind and how it affects a person's thoughts,
feelings, and emotions.
, Behaviorism - ANS✅✅an approach that advocates that psychologists restrict themselves to the
scientific study objectively observable behavior
Cognitive Psychology - ANS✅✅the scientific study of mental processes including perception,
thought, memory, and experience
Evolutionary Psychology - ANS✅✅a psychological approach that explains mind and behavior in
terms of the adaptive value of abilities that are preserved over time by natural selection (Influenced
by Darwin, James, and EO Wilson)
Humanistic Psychology - ANS✅✅an approach to understanding human nature that emphasizes the
positive potential of human beings
Social Psychology - ANS✅✅A subfield of psychology that studies the causes and consequences of
interpersonal studies
Cultural Psychology - ANS✅✅Study of how cultures reflect and shape the psychological processes
of their members
Emergence of Cognitive Psychology - ANS✅✅It became a thing when Max Wertheimer began to
study illusions and errors when it came to the mind. He came up with the Gestalt theory that states
that we rather perceive the "sum" over the "parts". Kurt Lewin believed that we saw the world as we
saw it and not at all how it actually was. The invention of computers made most psychologists ignore
this and see psychology objectively.
Operational Definition - ANS✅✅It is the description of a property in concrete, measurable terms.
For example, you can operationally define happiness as the amount of times that someone smiles.
Dependent variable - ANS✅✅A variable whose value depends on another variable
Independent variable - ANS✅✅A variable who is manipulated for an experiment, but does not
depend on another
Reliability - ANS✅✅It is the tendency for an instrument to produce the same measurement
whenever it is used to measure the same thing.
