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 Socrates & Plato | two philosophers from ancient Greece (teacher & student); believed knowledge to be innate and that the mind & body are distinct |
| Artistotle | Greek philosopher who emphasized observation as a source of knowledge; believed mind & body to be inseparable. |
| Rene Decartes | French philosopher who agreed with Socrates and Plato concerning the origins of knowledge and the separation between mind & body; speculated about how mind & body communicate |
| Francis Bacon | one of the founders of modern science; promoted use of scientific method & wrote about problems with (what was later known as) confirmation bias |
| John Locke | British political philosopher & author of "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding"; coined the phrase "blank slate" to describe the state of human knowledge at birth |
| empiricism | the view that (a) knowledge comes from experience via the senses, and (b) science flourishes through observation and experiment. |
| Wilhelm Wundt | German physiologist who founded psychology as a formal science; opened first psychology research laboratory in 1879 |
| E.B. Titchener | Psychologist who developed structuralism and introspection; student of Wilhelm Wundt. |
| structuralism | an early school of psychology that used introspection to explore the elemental structure of the human mind |
| William James | founder of functionalism; studied how humans use their abilities to function in their environments; known for being an early teacher of psychology |
| Mary Whiton Calkins | first female president of the APA (1905); a student of William James; denied the PhD she earned from Harvard because of her sex (later, posthumously, it was granted to her) |
| Margaret Floy Washburn | First female to be awarded a PhD in psychology; 2nd president of the APA (1921) |
| functionalism | William James's school of thought that stressed the adaptive and survival value of behaviors |
| G. Stanley Hall | Founded the American Psychological Association (now largest organization of psychologists in the USA) and became first president |
| American Psychological Association (APA) | World's largest association of psychologists with around 152,000 members including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants and students |
| psychology | the scientific study of behavior and mental processes |
| cognitive neuroscience | the interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked with cognition (including perception, thinking, memory, and language) |
| nature-nurture issue | the longstanding controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors |
| neuroscience perspective | the approach that views behavior from the perspective of the brain, the nervous system, and other biological functions (a.k.a. "biological" perspective) |
| evolutionary perspective | the application of principles of evolution, including natural selection, to explain psychological processes and phenomena. |
| psychoanalytic perspective | a perspective associated with the work of Sigmund Freud; emphasizes the influence of unconscious forces in behavior |
| behavioral perspective | perspective of psychology that sees psychology as an objective science without reference to mental states; sees behavior as the result of conditioning & reinforcement; dominant perspective from 1920s-1960s (a.k.a. the "learning" perspective) |
| cognitive perspective | A psychological approach that emphasizes mental processes in perception, memory, language, problem solving, and other areas of behavior |
| humanistic perspective | The approach that suggests that all individuals naturally strive to grow, develop, and be in control of their lives and behavior; influenced heavily by ideas of Rogers and Maslow |
| social-cultural perspective | approach that emphasizes how behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures |
| basic research | pure research that aims to confirm an existing theory or to learn more about a concept or phenomenon |
| applied research | scientific study that aims to solve practical problems |
| psychiatrist | a medical doctor who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders; can prescribe medication |
| clinical psychologist | holds an advanced degree in psychology but is not a medical doctor; specializes in identifying and treating persons with mental illness, but does not prescribe medication |