Psychology

The scientific study of behavior and mental process

Scientific Method 

An approach to knolage that relies on collecting data, generting a thory to explane the data, producing testable hypotheses based on the theory, and testing those hypotheses empirically.

Theory

Systematic explanation of a phenomenon; it organizes known facts, allows us to predict new facts, and permits us to exercise a degree of control over the phenomenon

Hypotheses

specific, testable predictions derived from a theory

Structuralism 

school of psychology that stresses the basic units of experience and the combinations in which they occur.

Functinalist Theory

theory of mental life and behavior that is concerned with how an organism uses it's perceptual abilities to function in it's environment.

Psycho-dynamic Theories

personality theories contending that behavior results from psychological factors that interact within the individual, often outside conscious awareness.

Behaviorism  

school of psychology that studies only observable and measurable behavior. 

Gasult Theories

School of psychology that studies how people perceive and experience objects as whole patterns.

Humanistic Psychology

School of psychology that emphasizes and altered states of consciousness as a means of realizing one's human potential

Cognitive Psychology

school of psychology devoted to the study of mental process in the broadest sense.

Evolutionary Psychology 

An approach to, and sub-field of, psychology that is concerned with the evolutionary origins of behaviors and mental processes, their adaptive value, and the purposes they continue to serve.