Historical Perspectives exam 3 review

A school of thought focusing on how mental processes help people adapt to their environment.

Thorndike was a learning psychologist who focused on how organisms learn through experience, often with a testing effect.

Dewey was a philosopher and psychologist, significantly impacting American education with a focus on educational reform.

World War I helped establish psychology as a science apart from philosophy by validating its scientific rigor.

The Civil War disrupted education by diverting resources and personnel away from schools.

Universities like Chicago and Columbia were pivotal in advancing functionalism, through scholars like Dewey and Thorndike.

Women like Mary Whiton Calkins, Christine Ladd-Franklin, and Margaret Floy Washburn made substantial contributions to early American Psychology.

African American scholars like Francis Cecil Sumner and the Clarks (Mamie and Kenneth) laid significant groundwork in American Psychology.

The belief in one's ability to succeed in a specific situation or achieve a goal.

The process by which individuals' thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the presence of others.

The interactions and connections between individuals in a group or society.

The cognitive processes that shape how we perceive, understand, and respond to social information.

A recollection of an event that did not actually occur.

A test designed to measure subconscious biases by examining the speed of associations between concepts.

Rejection can lead to physical pain and emotional distress, highlighting the social nature of our being.

Piaget's upbringing influenced his interest in psychology, starting with his father's writing and his own stress management through writing, eventually leading him to study children's development using intelligence testing methods.

A belief in the United States' intellectual and economic dominance, prevalent in American academia at the end of the 19th century.

In the late 19th century, Americans sought advanced scientific and research education in Europe, leading to the modernization of American universities.

Charles Eliot, president of Harvard, upgraded the medical school in 1870, marking a shift towards more scientific and research-focused American education.

Thorndike's childhood, marked by his father's profession and frequent moves, significantly influenced his interest in psychology, eventually leading him to study at Harvard.

A device used by Thorndike in his animal learning experiments, where a cat had to figure out how to escape through trial and error to receive a food reward.

A learning method where an organism repeatedly tries different behaviors until finding the correct one, often associated with Thorndike's puzzle box experiments.

Thorndike's principles of learning: 1.) Law of Readiness: We learn best when we're prepared. 2.) Law of Exercise: Repetition strengthens the association between stimulus and response. 3.) Law of Effect: Positive reinforcement increases the likelihood of repeating a behavior.

Thorndike's significant contributions include impacting the functionalist school of thought, researching learning in animals, developing human intelligence tests, and publishing extensively on psychology.

The idea that psychology should focus solely on observable behaviors, rejecting inner consciousness. Watson proposed this shift from Freudian and Jungian perspectives, emphasizing the influence of the environment on behavior.

Behaviorism applied to real-world situations, like schools, homes, and businesses, to understand and change behavior. Watson's initial ideas evolved into this practical form.

These scientists, like Sechenov, Bekkhterev, and Pavlov, focused on studying the physical basis of behavior, particularly respondent behavior, which is involuntary responses to stimuli.

This concept, introduced by B.F. Skinner, describes how behavior is modified by its consequences. We learn to repeat actions that lead to rewards and avoid those that lead to punishment.

This school of thought, focusing on how we perceive the world as a whole, influenced Tolman's work on behaviorism. Tolman argued that learning involves not just stimulus-response but also understanding relationships and creating internal representations of the environment.

Reflexology is a branch of psychology that studies how behaviors are triggered by stimuli, often involving involuntary reactions.

Bekkhterev focused on reflexes, suggesting the brain played a crucial role in connecting stimuli to reflexive responses.

Pavlov built on Bekkhterev's work, demonstrating how learned associations could trigger responses (conditioning). He famously experimented with dogs salivating.

Conditioning reflexology explores how new responses can be learned through associating a neutral stimulus with a reflex-evoking stimulus.

Pavlov believed behavior was a response to environmental stimuli, and that these responses were learned through conditioning.

Classical conditioning is a learning process where a neutral stimulus (e.g., a bell) is paired with a reflex-evoking stimulus (e.g., food), leading to a conditioned response (e.g., salivating) to the neutral stimulus.

A stimulus that triggers a natural, reflexive response without prior learning.

A previously neutral stimulus that, after being paired with an unconditional stimulus, elicits a learned response.

John B. Watson grew up in South Carolina with a religious mother and a violent father. This upbringing profoundly shaped his personality and future career path.

Watson's famous 'Little Albert' experiment conditioned a fear response in a young child by pairing a neutral stimulus (a white rat) with a loud, frightening noise. This demonstrated the power of learning to shape emotional responses.

Behaviorism, introduced by Watson, emphasizes that observable behaviors are the primary focus of psychology, rejecting the study of internal mental states. It suggests all behavior is learned through environmental interactions.

Watson's contributions shifted psychology away from philosophy towards biology, making it a more scientific discipline. He also popularized psychological concepts through accessible books, leading to the rise of pop psychology.

A movement that expanded upon Watson's behaviorism, incorporating intervening variables like internal states (Tolman and Hull) and focusing on reinforcement and punishment (Skinner).

Edward Tolman introduced the idea of latent learning, suggesting that animals learn even without immediate rewards. He also proposed purposive behaviorism, emphasizing goal-oriented actions.

B.F. Skinner, a leading neobehaviorist, championed radical behaviorism. He emphasized how reinforcement and punishment shape behaviors, arguing that these external factors are the primary drivers of learning.

B.F. Skinner's discoveries, particularly his invention of the operant conditioning chamber (aka Skinner box), revolutionized our understanding of learning and behavior. This research remains widely influential in psychology, education, and behavioral therapies.