Exam 1 Notes on Psychology - General Psychology II | PSYC 1103, Study notes of Psychology

Download Exam 1 Notes on Psychology - General Psychology II | PSYC 1103 and more Study notes Psychology in PDF only on Docsity! Chapter 1 Psychology: The science of behavior and mental processes Positive psychology: A field of research that focuses on people’s positive experiences and characteristics, such as happiness, optimism, and resilience. Biological Psychologists: Psychologists who analyze the biological factors influencing behavior and mental processes. Developmental Psychologists: Psychologists who seek to understand, describe, and explore how behavior and mental processes change over a lifetime. Cognitive Psychologists: Psychologists who study the mental processes underlying judgment, decision-making, problem solving, imagining, and other aspects of human thought or cognition. Also called experimental psychologists. Engineering Psychology: A field in which psychologists study human factors in the use of equipment and help designers create better versions of that equipment. Personality Psychologists: Psychologists who study the characteristics that make individuals similar to, or different from, one another. Clinical and counseling psychologists: Psychologists who seek to assess, understand, and change abnormal behavior. Community Psychologists: Psychologists who work to obtain psychological services for people in need of help and to prevent psychological disorders by working for changes in social systems. Health Psychologists: Psychologists who study the effects of behavior and mental processes on health and illness, and vice versa. Educational Psychologists: Psychologists who study methods by which instructors teach and students learn and who apply their results to improving those methods. School Psychologists: Psychologists who test IQs, diagnose students’ academic problems, and set up programs to improve students’ achievements. Social Psychologist: Psychologists who study how people influence one another’s behavior and mental processes, individually and in groups. Industrial/Organizational Psychologists: Psychologists who study ways to improve efficiency, productivity, and satisfaction among workers and the organizations that employ them. Quantitative Psychologists: Psychologists who develop and use statistical tools to analyze research data. Sport Psychologists: Psychologists who explore the relationships between athletic performance and such psychological variables as motivation and emotion. Forensic Psychologists: Psychologists who assist in jury selection, evaluate defendants’ mental competence to stand trail, and deal with other issues involving psychology and the law. Environmental Psychologists: Psychologists who study the effects of the physical environment on behavior and mental processes. Biological Approach: An approach to psychology in which behavior and behavior disorders are seen as the result of physical processes, especially those relating to the brain and to hormones and other chemicals. Evolutionary Approach: An approach to psychology that emphasizes the inherited, adaptive aspects of behavior and mental processes. Psychodynamic approach: A view developed by Freud that emphasizes the interplay of unconscious mental processes in determining human thought, feelings, and behavior. Behavioral Approach: An approach to psychology emphasizing that human behavior is determined mainly by what a person has learned, especially from rewards and punishments. Cognitive Approach: A way of looking at human behavior that emphasizes research on how the brain take in information, creates perceptions, forms and retrieves memories, processes information, and generates integrated patterns of action. Humanistic Approach: An approach to psychology that views behavior as controlled by the decisions that people make about their lives based on their perceptions of the world. Culture: The accumulation of values, rules of behavior, forms of expression, religious beliefs, occupational choices, and the like for a group of people who share a common language and environment.