Term | Definition |
Structuralism | based on the notation that the task of psychology is to analyze consciousness into its basic elements and investigate how these elements are related |
Functionalism | Based on the belief that psychology should investigate the function or purpose of consciousness,rather than its structure |
Natural Selection | Heritable characteristics that provide a survival or reproductive advantage are more likely than alternative characteristics to be passed down through the generation |
Unconscious | Thoughts,memories, and desires that are well below the surface of conscious awareness but that nonetheless exert great influence on behavior. |
Psychoanalytic Theory | attempts to explain personality,motivation, and mental disorders by focusing on unconscious determinants of behavior |
Behaviorism | theoretical orientation based on the premise that scientific psychology should study only observable behavior. |
Behavior | Refers to any overt response or activity by an organism |
Applied psychology | Branch of psychology concerned with everyday practical problems |
Clinical Psychology | Branch of psychology concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of psychological problems and disorders |
Cognition | mental processes involved in acquiring information |
Ethnocentrism | tendency to view one's own group as superior to others and as the standard for judging the worth of foreign ways |
Evolutionary Psychology | Examines behavioral processes in terms of their adaptive value for members of a species over the course of many generations |
Positive Psychology | Uses theory and research to better understand the positive, adaptive, creative, and fulfilling aspects of human nature |
Empiricism | Premise that knowledge should be acquired through observation |
Theory | system of interrelated ideas used to explain a set of observations |
Culture | Widely shared customs,beliefs,values,norms,institutions, and other products of a community that are transmitted socially across generations. |
Critical thinking | use of cognitive skills and strategies that increase the probability of a desirable outcome |