PSY Key Concepts PDF

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Personality embraces moods, attitudes, and opinions and is most clearly expressed in interactions with other people. It includes behavioral characteristics, both inherent and acquired, that distinguish one person from another and that can be observed in people's relations to the environment and to t...

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Ch.2 Origins of Psychological Thought Action vs. motion: Artificial memory: ancient memory systems designed to improve our natural memory Circumplexes: circular models for a range of psychological phenomena (colour, facial expressions, personality), also a model for cyclical change (I Ching) Confucianism: Chinese system of guidelines for leading one’s life according to traditional values Cosmology: study of the structure and development of the universe Cyclical change: recurrent patterns that may be seen in history Forms: Plato’s doctrine that there is a realm of ideal forms beyond the world of ordinary experience Galen’s typology: 4 temperaments –melancholic (pessimistic), sanguine (sociable), choleric (proud), phlegmatic (controlled) Gestalt: German word meaning form or configuration, importance of tendencies towards “good form” Golden section: proportion that obtains between 2 quantities such that the smaller is to the larger as the larger is the to the sum the 2 (1.618) Great chain of being: hierarchical arrangement of beings from the most imperfect to the most perfect (God) Innate knowledge (Plato): essentials of knowledge, which are present at birth Laws of association (Aristotle): memories are based on associations formed by similarity, contrast, and contiguity Memory: process whereby a person revives a previous experience Mnemonic techniques: ways of improving one’s memory Platonism: principle that we should seek a perfect world of eternal forms Potentiality and actuality (Aristotle): difference between what a substance could be and what it actually becomes, substances have the potential to take on different forms in actuality Problem of the irrational (Pythagoras): existence of the irrational, which is an unavoidable aspect of reality that appears to have no solution Psyche: the soul Pythagorean opposites: belief that the world is best described in terms of opposites (limit vs unlimited) Scala naturae: the natural order Syllogism (Aristotle): form of reasoning consisting of 2 premises and a conclusion that necessary follows from the premises Taoism: Chinese philosophy that stressed the pervasiveness of change Teleological explanations: explanations of behaviour in terms of the person’s goals or purposes...