Psychology Terms
Structuralism
School of thought in psychology that uses introspection (looking into one's own mental and emotional processes) to explore structural elements of the mind.
Functionalism
School of thought that focuses on how mental and behavior processes work and the impact on human adaptability, survival, and thriving.
Behaviorism
A perspective in psychology that is objective and studies behavior without looking at mental processes.
Humanistic Psychology
Perspective that is significant in the history of psychology and focuses on growth potential of healthy individuals and their potential for personal growth.
Nature-Nurture Issue
The controversy over the influence of genetics and heredity versus experience and learned information in the development of traits and personality and behavior. Today, traits and behavior is seen as the influence of both nature and nurture.
Psychodynamic
The perspective in psychology that addresses how behavior comes from unconscious ambition/drive and conflicts.
Cognitive
The perspective in psychology that addresses how information is encoded, processed, stored, and retrieved.
Developmental Psychology
The discipline in psychology dealing with biological, social, psychological, and cognitive developments as well as age related behavior changes.
Experimental Psychology
The discipline in psychology that studies basic behavior processes with specific areas including comparative methods of science, motivation, learning, thought, attention, memory, perception, and language.
Social Psychology
The discipline in psychology responsible for the study of how humans think about, influence, and relate to others.
Sigmund Freud
The father of psychoanalysis, or a set of psychological and therapeutic theories. He believed decisions were conscious and unconscious as there was a conscience so to speak, and inner, hidden drives influencing decisions, too.
Abraham Maslow
He was an American psychologist noted for creating Maslow's hierarchy of needs which was a theory that psychological health affirmed on fulfilling innate human needs in priority that peaked in self-actualization, or the desire to be self fulfilled.
B.F. Skinner
He believed that behaviors are repeated based on prior consequences of that action. He also developed radical behaviorism or the experimental/conceptual analysis of behavior (that behavior is both observable and non-observable by emotions, thoughts, etc.).
John B. Watson
He was an American Psychologist credited with creating the principle of behaviorism. He held the little Albert experiment, and studied the ideas of memory, speech, emotion, and language.
Wilhelm Wundt
He was a German physician, physiologist, philosopher, and professor. Studied Structuralism.