vocab

Empiricism:In philosophy, empiricism is a theory of knowledge which asserts that knowledge arises from experience. Empiricism is one of several competing views about how we know "things," Structuralism:Structuralism is an approach to the human sciences that attempts to analyze a specific field (for instance, mythology) as a complex system of interrelated parts. It began in linguistics with the work of Ferdinand de Saussure. Functionalism:Functionalism is a sociological paradigm that originally attempted to explain social institutions as collective means to fill individual biological needs. Psychology:Psychology (from Greek ψyχή, psykhē,"; and -λογία, -logia) is an academic and applied discipline involving the scientific study of mental functions and behavior. Nature-nurture issue:A controversy concerning the relative importance of heredity (nature) and environment (nurture) in various aspects of individual development, such as intelligence, personality, or mental illness. Natural selection:Natural selection is the process by which favorable heritable traits become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable heritable traits become less common, due to differential reproduction of genotypes. Basic research:Basic research, fundamental research (sometimes pure research), is research carried out to increase understanding of fundamental principles. Many times the end results have no direct or immediate commercial benefits, which is to say that basic research can be thought of as arising out of pure curiosity. However, in the long term it is the basis for many commercial products and applied research. Applied research:Applied research: is research accessing and using some part of the research communities' (the academy's) accumulated theories, knowledge, methods, and techniques, for a specific, often state, commercial, or client driven purpose. Applied research is often opposed to pure research in debates about research ideals, programs, and projects. Clinical psychology:Clinical psychology includes the scientific study and application of psychology for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically-based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and personal development Psychiatry:Psychiatry is a medical specialty devoted to the treatment, study and prevention of mental disorder. The term was first coined by the German physician Johann Christian Reil in 1808.