Approaches to Behavior

Question 1

Which study designs are better suited for sociological study of human behavior?

Answer 1

Retrospective and Cross Sectional. Retrospective studies look back in time to analyze data that has already been generated. For example, you could analyze changes in religious attitudes using existing data on the number of people in certain states attending different religious institutions during a 30 year time period. Many sociological studies are retrospective because researchers cannot collect and analyze data about entire populations or across extensive periods of time.
In cross-sectional studies, data are obtained at a single time point. Cross-sectional studies allow sociologists to identify specific features of the population under study.

Question 2

What are the three major approaches to studying behavior?

Answer 2

Psychological, Sociological, and Biological. Psych looks at mental states and characteristics, Soc looks at patterns of interactions, relationships, and culture, and then Bio looks at physical processes

Question 3

What are instinctual behaviors?

Answer 3

Instinctual behaviors are genetically encoded and performed automatically in response to specific environmental stimuli.

Question 4

Epigenetics

Answer 4

Changes in genome that don’t include sequence change. Eg. methylation

Question 5

How does methylation impact gene expression?

Answer 5

It silences it

Question 6

True or false: If I have a parent with schizophrenia and it’s heritability score is 0.8, then I have an 80% chance of inheriting it

Answer 6

False. Heritability is the degree of variation across a population in some trait that we can attribute to genetic factors. A heritability score does not predict any individual’s likelihood of having that particular trait.

Question 7

During aging, ______intelligence declines while _____ remains mostly unchanged

Answer 7

fluid declines, crystalized remains the same

Question 8

Critical period

Answer 8

Psychologists have identified critical periods during which the individual is particularly sensitive to specific environmental stimuli. If the stimuli are not present, specific skills may not develop normally. An example is language acquisition. If a child is not exposed to a particular language during the critical period, he or she will experience difficulties learning that language fluently later on.

Question 9

What are the major reflexes observed in infants?

Answer 9

• Palmar
• moro
• rooting
• babinksi
• suckling

Question 10

What is the difference between puberty and adolescence?

Answer 10

Puberty refers to the biologicla aspect of maturing whereas adolescence is a bit broader and can be thought as the ‘teenage’ years

Question 11

True or false: stanger anxiety noramlly develops in the first year of life

Answer 11

true

Question 12

This type of study analyzes data from timepoints in the past

Answer 12

Retrospective

Question 13

This type of study generates data from a specific population in the present

Answer 13

cross sectional