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Adaptive traits are characteristics that help organisms to adjust and survive in their environment.
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behavioural genetics— a field that examines the genetic and environmental bases of differences among individuals on psychological traits |
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The perspective pioneered by John Watson and B. F. Skinner, which focuses on the relationship between observable behaviours and environmental events or stimuli; also called behaviourism.
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biopsychology or behavioural neuroscience |
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biopsychology (or behavioural neuroscience), which investigates the physical basis of psychological phenomena such as memory, emotion and stress. |
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Cartesian dualism (the doctrine of dual spheres of mind and body) by demonstrating that human conduct follows laws of behaviour
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The cognitive perspective focuses on the way people perceive, process and retrieve information.
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cross-cultural psychology |
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cross-cultural psychology, which tests psychological hypotheses in different cultures
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The capacity to understand another person's experience, both cognitively and emotionally |
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empiricism — the belief that the path to scientific knowledge is systematic observation and, ideally, experimental observation. |
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ethology, which studies animal behaviour from a biological and evolutionary perspective
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| evolutionary perspective argues that many behavioural tendencies in humans, from the need to eat to concern for our children, evolved because they helped our ancestors survive and rear healthy offspring. |
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| evolutionary psychologists, |
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| evolutionary psychologists, who apply evolutionary thinking to a wide range of psychological phenomena |
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free will versus determinism
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| free will or determinism; that is, do we freely choose our actions or is our behaviour caused — determined — by things outside our control? |
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functionalism emphasised the role — or function — of psychological processes in helping individuals adapt to their environment.
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Gestalt psychology. The Gestalt psychologists argued that perception is not a passive experience akin to taking photographic snapshots. Rather, perception is an active experience of imposing order on an overwhelming panorama of details by seeing them as parts of larger wholes (or gestalts).
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| Humanistic theories focus on the uniqueness of the individual. |
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| A person's view of what she or he would like to be |
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| inclusive fitness, which refers not only to an individual's own reproductive success but also to his or her influence on the reproductive success of genetically related individuals |
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| information processing: the environment provides inputs, which are transformed, stored and retrieved using various mental ‘programs’, leading to specific response outputs. |
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| introspection, the process of looking inward and reporting on one's conscious experience. |
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| localisation of function, or the extent to which different parts of the brain control different aspects of functioning |
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| mind–body problem, the question of how mental and physical events interact. |
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| natural selection. Darwin argued that natural forces select traits in organisms that are adaptive and are likely to be passed on to their offspring. |
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| nature–nurture controversy. Advocates of the ‘nurture’ position maintain that behaviour is primarily learned and not biologically ordained. |
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| paradigm is a broad system of theoretical assumptions that a scientific community uses to make sense of its domain of study. |
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| person-centred and relies on the therapist showing empathy. The idea is to treat people with respect and warmth, stressing every individual's freedom to make their own choices in life. |
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| schools of thought, or what we will call perspectives. |
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| At the time of writing, becoming a registered psychologist able to practise in Australia takes a minimum of six years. |
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| psychodynamic perspective, |
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| psychodynamic perspective rests on three key premises. First, people's actions are determined by the way thoughts, feelings and wishes are connected in their minds. Second, many of these mental events occur outside of conscious awareness. And third, these mental processes may conflict with one another, leading to compromises among competing motives. |
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| psycho-dynamics, or the dynamic interplay of mental forces. |
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| psychological anthropologists |
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| People who study psychological phenomena in other cultures by observing people in their natural settings |
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| Reproductive success refers to the capacity to survive and produce offspring. |
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self-actualisation — the idea that people are motivated to reach their full potential.
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| An organised pattern of thought and perception about oneself |
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| sociobiology, which explores possible evolutionary and biological bases of human social behaviour |
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| structuralism. Unlike Wundt, Titchener believed that experimentation was the only appropriate method for a science of psychology and that concepts such as ‘attention’ implied too much free will to be scientifically useful. |
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