Introduction to Psychology - C180, FULL Exam Review, rated A+ 2024 | 57 Pages

Structuralism an early school of psychology that used introspection to explore the elemental structure of the human mind Introspection examination of one's own thoughts and feelings. But the structuralists also discovered the limitations of introspection. Even highly trained research participants were often unable to report on their subjective experiences. When the participants were asked to do simple math problems, they could easily do them, but they could not easily answer how they did them. Thus the structuralists were the first to realize the importance of unconscious processes—that many important aspects of human psychology occur outside our conscious awareness and that psychologists cannot expect research participants to be able to accurately report on all of their experiences. Introspection was eventually abandoned because it was not a reliable method for understanding psychological processes. Functionalism A school of psychology that focused on how our mental and behavioral processes function - how they enable us to adapt, survive, and flourish. Although functionalism no longer exists as a school of psychology, its basic principles have been absorbed into psychology and continue to influence it in many ways. The work of the functionalists has developed into the field of evolutionary psychology, a contemporary perspective of psychology that applies the Darwinian theory of natural selection to human and animal behavior Psychodynamic A psychological perspective that analyzes how behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts Behaviorism A theoretical orientation based on the premise that scientific psychology should study only observable behavior. Behaviorists believe that the human mind is a "black box" into which stimuli are sent and from which responses are received. They argue that there is no point in trying to determine what happens in the box because we can successfully predict behavior without knowing what happens inside the mind. Furthermore, behaviorists believe that it is possible to develop laws of learning that can explain all behaviors. cognitive Dealing with how we know the world around us through our senses; mental Humanistic