Name: _____________________________
Date: _____________________________
Introduction to Psychology
Mr. LaBrache
Current Perspectives in Psychology:
The End of the Slideshow
IV.
Psychology’s Current Perspectives
A. Neuroscience (brain)
1. Focuses on how the body and the brain ___________ ______________
2. They will ask questions like…
a. How are messages transmitted in the body?
b. How is ___________ _____________ linked with __________ and
motives?
B. Behavior genetics
1. They focus on how much our ___________ and our _________________
influence our individual ________________
2. They seek to find out…
a. To what extent are psychological ____________ such as
intelligence, personality, sexual orientation, and depression
attributable to our genes?
b. Are any of these things more linked to our environment?
C. Humanistic
1. Their primary focus is on reaching one’s full ______________ by
meeting a hierarchy (tiered level) of _______________
2. They wonder how…
a. …Self worth, realizing one’s full potential and _______________
affect our behavior?
D. Psychodynamic
1. This perspective studies how behavior springs from unconscious
________________ and _______________
2. They will ask things like…
a. “How can someone’s personality traits and _______________ be
explained in terms of sexual and aggressive drives or as
disguised effects of unfulfilled ________________ and childhood
__________________?”
E. Behavioral
1. They focus on how people learn _______________ responses.
2. They are curious to answer…
a. “How we learn to fear particular objects or __________________?
b. What is the most effective way to _________ our behavior, say
to lose weight or quit smoking?
F. Cognitive
1. They focus on how we encode, ____________, ___________ and
retrieve ___________________
2. They will seek to find out…
a. How do we use information in _________________? Reasoning?
Problem solving?
G. Social-Cultural
1. They pay attention to how behavior and thinking vary across
situations and __________________
2. They will ask something like…
a. How are we – as Africans, Asians, Australians or North
Americans – alike as members of human family?
b. As products of different _____________________ contexts, how
do we differ?
H. Evolutionary
1. Their primary focus is how does natural selection and _____________
influence behavior and ____________________
2. They might ask something like…
a. Why are facial emotions inherited?
Psychology Key Terms:
Unit 1:
Introduction and Perspectives
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Psychology – scientific study of behavior and mental processes
Structuralism – early school of psychology that used introspections to explore the
elemental structure of the mind
Introspection – process of looking into one’s self and reporting out thoughts and feelings
Functionalism – school of psychology that focused on how mental and behavioral
processes function and how they enable the organism to adapt, survive and flourish
Longitudinal research – an observational research method in which data is gathered for
the same subjects repeatedly over a period of time.
Gestalt – psychological school of thought that looks at how the human mind attempts to
make wholes
Psychodynamic perspective – how behavior springs from unconscious drive and conflicts
Cognitive perspective – how we encode, process, store and retrieve information
Humanistic perspective – emphasizes the growth potential of healthy people
Neuroscience perspective – how the body and brain enable emotions, memories and
sensory experiences
Social-cultural perspective – how behavior and thinking vary across situations and
cultures
Evolutionary perspective – how the natural selection of traits promotes the perpetuation
of one’s genes
Sigmund Freud
B.F. Skinner
Abraham Maslow