Behavioral Sciences Flashcards
Neuropsychology
The study of the connection between the nervous system and behavior.
Focuses on the functions of various brain regions
Types of neurons
3 types:
Sensory (afferent)
Motor (efferent)
Interneurons
What do reflex arcs do?
They use the ability of Interneurons in the spinal cord to relay information to the source of stimuli while simultaneously routing it to the brain.
What 2 systems make up the nervous system and what are the components of each?
Central nervous system (CNS): brain and spinal cord
Peripheral nervous system (PNS): cranial and spinal nerves
What are the two systems make up the peripheral nervous system?
Somatic (voluntary)
Autonomic (automatic)
What two systems make up the autonomic nervous system?
Parasympathetic (rest-and-digest)
Sympathetic (fight-or-flight)
What are the three subdivisions of the brain?
Hindbrain, midbrain, and forebrain
What does the hindbrain contain?
The cerebellum, medulla oblongata, and reticular ?????
What does the midbrain contain?
The interior and superior colliculi
What does the forebrain contain?
The thalamus, hypothalamus, basal ganglia, limbic system, and cerebral cortex
How do we study the brain?
Study animals and humans with lesions, electrical stimulation, and activity recording (EEG), and regional cerebral blood flow
What does the thalamus do?
Relay station for sensory information
What does the hypothalamus do?
Maintains homeostasis and integrates with the endocrine system through the hypophyseal portal that connects it to the anterior pituitary
What does the basal ganglia do?
Smoothness movements and helps maintain postural stability
What does the limbic system do?
Controls emotion and memory
What makes up the limbic system?
The septal nuclei, amygdala, and hippocampus
What are the septic nuclei involves in?
Feelings of pleasure, pleasure-seeking behavior and addiction
What does the amygdala control?
Fear and aggression
What does the hippocampus do?
Consolidates memories and communicates with other parts of the limbic system through and extension called the fornix
What are the four lives that make up the cerebral cortex?
Frontal
Parietal
Occipital
Temporal
What does the frontal lobe control?
Executive function, impulse control, long-term planning, motor function, and speech production
What does the parietal lobe control?
Sensations of touch, pleasure, temperature, and pain; spatial processing, orientation, and manipulation
What does the occipital lobe control?
Visual processing
What does the temporal lobe control?
Sound processing, speech perception, memory, and emotion
How is the brain divided?
Into two different cerebral hemispheres.
Most people’s left brain is the dominant hemisphere for language
What are neurotransmitters?
They are released from neurons.
Carry a signal to another neuron or effector (muscle fiber or a gland)
What is acetylcholine used for?
Used by the somatic nervous system (move muscles), the parasympathetic nervous system, and the central nervous system (alertness)
What does dopamine do?
Maintains smooth movements, steady posture, and pleasure
What do endorphins and enkephalins do?
Act as a painkiller
What do epinephrine and norepinephrine do?
Maintain wakefulness and alertness, mediate fight-or-flight responses.
Epinephrine tends to act as a hormone, norepinephrine tends to act as a neurotransmitter
What does GABA do?
Brain stabilizer
What does serotonin do?
Modulates mood, sleep patterns, eating patterns, and dreaming
How is the endocrine system tied to the nervous system?
Through the hypothalamus and anterior pituitary (and other hormones)
What is cortisol?
Stress hormone released by the adrenal Cortez
What does testosterone and estrogen do?
Mediates libido. Testosterone increases aggressive behavior Released by the adrenal cortex Testes in males produce testosterone Ovaries in females produce estrogen
What does epinephrine and norepinephrine do?
Released by adrenal medulla
Cause physiological changes associated with the sympathetic nervous system
What is nature vs. nurture?
Classic debate regarding contributions of genetics (nature) and environment (nurture) to an individuals traits
Most traits nurture and nature play a role
Can be studied
What do family studies look at?
Relative frequency of a trait within a family compared to the general population
What do twin studies look at?
Compare concordance rates between monozygotic (identical) and dizygotic (fraternal) twins
What do adoption studies look at?
Compare similarities between adopted children and their adoptive parents, relative to similarities with their biological parents
How does the nervous system develop?
Through neurulation
Notochord stimulates overlying ectoderm to fold over, creates neural tubed topped with neural crest cells
What does the neural tube become?
Central nervous system (CNS)
What do the neural crest cells become?
Spread through you the body - differentiate into many different tissues
When do people have primitively reflexes and why do we have them?
People have them as infants and in certain nervous system disorders.
Serve(d) as a protective role
What is the rooting reflex?
Infant turns head toward anything that brushes the cheek
What is the Moro reflex?
Infant extends arm, slowly retracts arm and cried in response to sensation of falling
What is the Babinski reflex?
Big toe is extended and other toes are fanned out in response to brushing of the sole of foot
What is the grasping reflex?
Infant grabs anything put in their hand
What do developmental milestones do?
Indicate what skills and abilities a child should have at a given age. Most children adhere closely to the milestones - deviate only a month or two
How do gross and fine motor skills develop?
Heat to toe and core to periphery
How do social skills develop?
Shift from patent-oriented to self-oriented to other-oriented
How do language skills develop?
Become more complex
What is sensation?
Conversion or transduction of physical, electromagnetic, auditory and other information from the internal and external environment into electrical signals in the nervous system
What is perception?
Processing of sensory information to make sense of its significance
What are sensory receptors?
Nerves that respond to stimuli and trigger electrical signals
What are sensory neurons associated with?
Sensory ganglia - collections of cell bodies outside the central nervous system
What does sensory stimuli get transmitted to?
Projection areas of the brain which further analyze sensory input
What are common sensory receptors?
Photoreceptors Hair cells Nociceptors Thermoreceptors Osmoreceptors Olfactory receptors Taste receptors
What is a threshold?
Minimum stimulus that causes a change in signal transduction
What is an absolute threshold?
Minimum of the stimulus energy that is needed to activate a sensory system
What is the threshold of conscious perception?
The minimum of stimulus energy that will create a signal large enough in size and long enough in duration to be brought into awareness
What is the difference threshold or the just-noticeable difference?
The minimum difference in magnitude between two stimuli before one can perceive this difference
What does Weber’s law state?
???? For a stimulus is proportional to the magnitude of the stimulus, and that this proportion is constant over most of the range of possible stimuli
What is the signal detection theory?
Refers to the effects of no sensory factors (experiences, motives, and expectations) on perception of stimulus
What do signal detection experiments allow us to do?
Look at response bias.
A stimulus may or may not be given, subject is asked to state whether or not the stimulus was given.
4 possible outcomes: hits, misses, false alarms, correct negatives
What does adaptation refer to?
A decrease in response to a stimulus over time
What is the eye?
An organ specials to detect light in the form of photons
What does the cornea do?
Fathers and filters incoming light
What does the iris do?
Divides the front of the eye into anterior and posterior chambers
Contains 2 muscles: dilator and constrictor papillae - opens and closes the pupil
What does the lens do?
Refracts incoming light to focus on the retina and is held in place by dispensary ligaments connected to the ciliary muscle
What does the ciliary body do?
Produces aqueous humor which drains through the canal of schlemm
What does the retina contain?
Cones and rods
What do cones detect?
Colors
Come in three forms (short, medium, and long-wavelength)
What do rods detect?
Dark and light
What does the mancula contain mostly? What is it part of?
Part of the retina
Contains mostly cones
Corresponds to central visual fields
What is the fovea part of? What does it contain?
Center of the macula (of the retina)
Contains mostly cones
What is the pathway from cones and rods?
Synapse in biolpolar cells which then synapse on ganglion cells
Integration of the signals from ganglion cells and edge-sharpening is performed by horizontal and am scribe cells
What is the bulk of the inside and outside of the eye supported by?
Inside: vitreous
Outside: sclera and choroid
What is the visual pathway?
Starts from the eye, travels through the optic nerve, optic chiasm, optic tracts, lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) of the thalamus, and visual radiations to get to the visual cortex
What does the optic chiasm contain?
Fibers crossing from the nasal side of the retina (temporal fields) of both eyes
Where do the visual radiations go through?
The temporal and parietal lobes
Where is the visual cortex?
Occipital lobe
How is vision processed?
Like all senses- through parallel processing (the ability to simultaneously analyze and combine information regarding color, shape, and motion)
What is shape detected by?
Parvocellular cells with high spatial resolution and low temporal resolution
What is motion detected by?
Magnocellular cells with low spatial resolution and high temporal resolution
What are the three divisions of the ear?
Outer, middle, and inner ear
What does the outer ear consist of?
Pinna (auricle), external auditory canal, and tympanic membrane
What does the middle ear consist of?
Ossicles: malleus (hammer), incus (anvil), and stapes (stirrup)
The footplate of the stapes rests in the oval window of the cochlea
The middle ear is connected to the nasal cavity by the Eustachian tube
What does the inner ear contain?
The bony labyrinth, within is the membranous labyrinth
Bony labyrinth is filled with perilymph
Membranous labyrinth is filled with endolymph. Consists of the cochlea (detects sound), the utricle and saccule (detects linear acceleration), and the semicircular canal (detects rotational acceleration
What is the auditory pathway?
Starts in the cochlea and travels through the vestibulocochlear nerve and the medial geniculate nucleus (MGN) of the thalamus to get to the auditory cortex in the temporal lobe
Sound information also projects to the superior olive, which localized the sound, and the inferior colliculus, which is involved in the startle reflex
What is smell?
The detection of volatile or aerosolized chemicals by the olfactory chemoreceptors (olfactory nerves) in the olfactory epithelium
What is the olfactory pathway?
Starts from the olfactory nerves and travels through the olfactory bulb and olfactory tract to get to higher-order brain areas, such as the limbic system
What are pheromones?
Chemicals given off by animals that have an effect on social, foreign, and sexual behavior in other members of that species
What is taste?
The detection of dissolved compounds by taste buds in papillae
What are the 5 modalities of taste?
Sweet Sour Salty Bitter Unami (savory)
What does somatosensation refer to?
Four touch modalities: Pressure Vibration Pain Temperature
What is a two-point threshold?
The minimum distance necessary between two points of stimulation on the skin such that the points will be felt as two distinct stimuli
What is physiological zero?
The normal temperature of the skin. What objects are compare to determined if they feel warm or cold
What are nociceptors responsible for?
Pain perception
What does the gate theory of pain state?
That pain sensation is reduced when other somatosensory signals are present
What is kinesthetic senses (proprioception)?
The ability to tell where one’s body is in 3-D space
What is bottom-up (data-driven) processing?
Refers to recognition of objects by parallel processing and feature detection.
Slower, less prone to mistakes
What is top-down (conceptually driven) processing?
Recognition of an object by memories and expectations, with little attention to detail.
Faster, prone to more mistakes
What is Gestalt principles?
The brain can infer missing parts of a picture when a picture is incomplete
What is the law of proximity?
Elements close to one another tend to perceived as a unit
What is the law of similarity?
Objects that are similar appear to be grouped together
What is the law of good continuation?
Elements that appear to follow the same pathway tend to be grouped together
What are subjective contours?
Perception of nonexistent edges in figures, based on surrounding visual cues
What is the law of closure?
Space is enclosed by a group of lines, it is perceived as a complete or closed line
What is the law of pragnanz?
Perceptional organization will always be as regular, simple, and symmetric as possible
What is habituation?
The process of becoming used to a stimulus
What is dishabituation?
Occurs when a second stimulus intervenes, causing a desensitization to the original stimulus
What is associative learning?
Pairs together stimulus and responses, or behaviors and consequences
What is classical conditioning?
Unconditioned stimulus that produces an instinctive, unconditioned response is paired with a neutral stimulus. With repetition, the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus that produces a conditioned response.
What is operant conditioning?
Behavior is changed through the use of consequences.
Reinforcement increases the likelihood of a behavior.
Punishment decreases the likelihood of a behavior
What does a schedule of reinforcement do?
Affects the rate at which a behavior is performed. Schedules can be based either on ratio of behavior to reward or on an amount of time, and can be either fixed or variable. Behaviors learned through variable-ratio schedules are the hardest to extinguish
What is observational learning?
Modeling
Acquisition of behavior by watching others
What is encoding?
Putting new information into memory.
Can be automatic or effortful
Semantic encoding is stronger than both acoustic and visual encoding
What is sensory and short-term memory based on?
Neurotransmitter activity
They are transient
Working memory requires short-term memory, attention, and executive function to manipulate information
What does long-term memory require?
Elaborative rehearsal.
Result of increased neuronal connectivity
What does explicit memory store?
Facts and stories
Declarative memory
What does implicit memory store?
Skills and conditioning effects
Nondeclarative
How are facts stored?
Via semantic networks
Is recognition or recall stronger?
Recognition
What is retrieval of information based on?
Priming interconnected nodes of the semantic network
What can cause memories to be lost?
Disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, Korsakoff’s syndrome, agnosia, decay, or interference
What are memories highly subject to?
Influence by outside information and mood both at the time of encoding and at recall
What does learning and memory relay on?
Changes in brain chemistry and physiology, the extent of which depends on neuroplasticity, which decreases as we age
What is long-term potentiation responsible for? What is it?
Responsible for the conversion of short-term memory to long-term memory.
The strengthening of neuronal connections resulting from increased neurotransmitter release and adding of receptor sites
What does “thought” do?
More than just what we are conscious of.
Brain processes and makes decisions about the importance of various stimuli below the level of conscious awareness
What is the information processing model?
Brain encodes, stores, and retrieves information
What influences cognitive development?
Early cognitive development is limited by brain maturation. Culture, genes, and environment also influence.
Ability to think abstractly develops over a lifespan
What are Piaget’s stages of cognitive development?
Sensorimotor
Preoperational
Concrete operational
Formal operational
What does the sensorimotor stage focus on?
Manipulating the environment to meet physical needs through circular reactions.
Object permanence ends this stage
What does the preoperational stage focus on?
Symbolic thinking, egocentrism, and contraption
What does the concrete operational stage focus on?
Understanding the feelings of others and manipulating physical (concrete) objects
What does the formal operational stage focus on?
Abstract thought and problem solving
What is normal in cognition with aging?
A slight decline.
Significant changes may signify an underlying disorder
What can affect cognition?
Biological factors: organic brain disorders, genetic and chromosomal conditions, metabolic derangements, drug use
What does problem-solving require?
Identification and understanding the problem - generating potential solutions, testing potential solutions, and evaluating the results
What is a mental set?
A pattern of approaching a problem
An inappropriate mental set may negatively impact problem solving
What is functional fixedness?
Tendency to use objects only in the way they are normally utilized, may create barriers to problem-solving
What are some types of problem solving?
Trial-and-error, algorithms, deductive reasoning (deriving conclusions from general rules), and inactive reasoning (deriving generalizations from evidence)
What may assist decision making?
Heuristics, biases, intuition, and emotions.
May also lead to erroneous or problematic decisions
What are heuristics?
Shortcuts or tules of thumb used to make decisions
When do biases exist?
When an experimenter or decision-maker is unable to objectively evaluate information
What is intuition?
“Gut feeling” regarding a particular decision
Often attributed to experience with similar situation
What is Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences?
Proposes 7 areas of intelligence: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal
What can variations in intellectual ability be attributed to?
Combinations of environment, education, and genetics
What are the states of consciousness?
Alertness
Sleep
Dreaming
Altered states of consciousness
What is alertness?
State of being awake and able to think, perceive, process, and express information.
Beta and alpha waves predominate on EEG
What is sleep important for?
Health of brain and body
What is stage 1 sleep?
Light sleep
Dominated by theta waves on EEG
What is stage 2 sleep?
Slightly deeper sleep than stage 1
Theta waves, spindles, and K complexes
What are stages 3 and 4 of sleep?
Slow-wave sleep (SWS)
Delta waves
What stage do most sleep disorders occur in?
Stages 3 and 4 and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep
What occurs with dreaming in SWS?
SWS - slow-wave sleep
Consolidating declarative memories
What is rapid eye movement (REM) sleep?
Paradoxical sleep
The mind appears close to awake on EEG, but the person is asleep.
Eye movements and body paralysis occur
What occurs in dreaming in REM?
Consolidating procedural memories
How long is the sleep cycle?
about 90 min for adults
What is the normal sleep cycle order?
1-2-3-4-3-2-REM
REM more frequent towards morning
What causes sleepiness?
Changes in the light in the evening triggers a release of melatonin by the pineal gland
How long are Circadian rhythms normally?
24 hours
What stage does the most amount of dreaming occur?
REM
What are some sleep disorders?
Dyssomnias: insomnia, narcolepsy, sleep apnea, sleep deprivation
Parasomnias: night terrors, sleepwalking (somnambulism)
What is hypnosis?
A state of consciousness in which individuals appear to be in control of their normal faculties, but are in a highly suggestible state.
What is hypnosis used for?
Pain control, psychological therapy, memory enhancement, weightless, smoking cessation
What is meditation?
Quieting of the mind
Used for relief of anxiety
Plays a role in many religions
What are the groups of consciousness-altering drugs?
Depressants, stimulatns, opiates, and hallucinogens
What are some depressants? What do they do?
Alcohol, barbiturates, benzodiazepines
Promote/mimic GABA activity in the brain
What are some stimulants? What do they do?
Amphetamines, cocaine, and ecstasy
Increase dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin concentration at the synaptic cleft
What are some opiates/opioids? What do they do?
Heroin, morphine, opium, prescription pain medications (oxycodone and hydrocodone)
Can cause death by preparatory depression
What are some hallucinogens?
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), peyote, mescaline, ketamine, and psilocybin-containing mushrooms
What type of drug is marijuana considered to be? What is the active ingredient?
Depressant, stimulant, and hallucinogenic effects. Its active ingredient is tetrahydrocannabinol
What is drug addition mediated by? What is the main neurotransmitter of this pathway?
The mesolimbic pathway, which includes the nucleus accumbent, medial forebrain bundle, and ventral segmental area.
Dopamine
What is selective attention?
Paying attention to a particular stimulus while determining if additional stimuli in the background require attention
What does divided processing use?
Automatic processing to pay attention to multiple activities at one time
What does language consist of?
Phonology, morphology, semantics, syntax, and pragmatics
What does phonology refer to?
The actual sound of speech
What does morphology refer to?
The building blocks of words, such as rules for pluralization (-s), past tense (-ed), etc.
What does semantics refer to?
The meaning of words
What does syntax refer to?
Rules that dictate word order?
What does pragmatics refer to?
Changes in language delivery depending on content
What do theories of language development focus on?
Reasons/motivations for language acquisition
What does the nativist (biological) theory explain?
Language acquisition is innate and controlled by the language acquisition device (LAD)
What does the learning (behavioral) theory explain?
Language acquisition as being controlled by operant conditioning and reinforcement by parents and caregivers
What does the social interactionist theory explain?
Language acquisition as being caused by a motivation to communicate and interact with others
What does the Whorfian (linguistic relativity) hypothesis state?
That the lens through which we view and interpret the world is created by language
Where are speech areas found in the brain?
The dominant hemisphere (usually left)
What does Broca’s area control? Damage to this area would cause what?
Motor function of speech
Damage results in Broca’s aphasia, a nonfluent aphasia in which generating each word requires great effort
What does Wernicke’s area control? Damage here would cause what to occur?
Language comprehension.
Wernicke’s aphasia, a fluent, nonsensical aphasia with lack of comprehension
What does the arcuate fasiculus do? Damage here causes what to occur?
Connects Wernicke’s area to Broca’s area.
Damage results in conduction aphasia, marked by the inability to repeat words despite intact speech generation and comprehension
What is motivation?
The purpose, or driving force, behind our actions
Can be extrinsic (based on external circumstances) or intrinsic (based on internal drive or perception)
What are the primary factors that influence emotion?
Instincts, arousal, drives, and needs
What are instincts?
Innate, fixed patterns of behavior in response to stimuli
What does the instinct theory of motivation state?
People perform certain behaviors because of these evolutionary programmed instincts
What does the arousal theory state?
People perform actions to maintain arousal (state of being awake and reactive to stimuli) at an optimal level
What does the Yerkes-Dodson law show?
Performance is optimal at a medium level of arousal
What are drives?
Internal states of tension that beget particular behaviors focused on goals.
What are primary drives related to?
Bodily processes
What are secondary drives related to?
Learning and include accomplishments and emotion
What does drive reduction theory state?
That motivation arises from the desire to eliminate drives, which create uncomfortable internal states
What are Maslow’s 5 categories of hierarchy of needs?
Physiological needs (highest priority) Safety and security Love and belonging Self-esteem Self-actualization (lowest priority)
What does the self-determination theory emphasize?
The role of the three universal needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness
What does the incentive theory explain?
Motivation as the desire to pursue rewards and avoid punishments
What does the expectancy-value theory state?
That the amount of motivation for a task is based on the individual’s expectation of success and the amount that success is valued
What does the opponent-process theory explain?
Motivation for drug use: as drug use increases, the body counteracts its effects, leading to tolerance and uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms
What is sexual motivation related to?
Hormones and well as cultural and social factors
What is emotion?
A state of mind, or feeling, that is subjectively experienced based on circumstances, mood, and relationships
What are the three components of emotion?
Cognitive (subjective)
Behavioral (facial expressions and body language)
Physiological (changes in the sympathetic nervous system)
What are the seven universal emotions?
Happiness Sadness Contempt Surprise Fear Disgust Anger
What is the James-Lange theory of emotion?
Nervous system arousal leads to a cognitive response in which the emotion is labeled
What is the Canon-Bard theory?
The simultaneous arousal of the nervous system and cognitive response lead to action
What is the Schachter-Singer theory
Nervous system arousal and interpretation of content lead to a cognitive response
What nervous system is primary in experiencing emotion?
Limbic system
What emotions is the amygdala involved in?
Attention and fear
Helps interpret facial expression
Part of the intrinsic memory system for emotional memory
What is the thalamus used for in emotions?
Sensory processing station
What does the hypothalamus do?
Release neurotransmitters that affect mood and arousal
What does the hippocampus do?
Create long-term explicit (episodic) memories
What is the prefrontal cortex involved in?
Planning, expressing personality, and making decisions
What is the ventral prefrontal cortex involved in?
Experiencing emotion
What is the ventromedial prefrontal cortex involved in?
Controlling emotional responses from the amygdala and decision-making
What is stress?
The physiological and cognitive response to challenges or life changes
What are the two stages of stress appraisal?
Primary appraisal: classifying a potential stressor as irrelevant, benign-positive, or stressful
Secondary appraisal: directed at evaluating if the organism can cope with stress, based on harm, threat and challenge
What is a stressor?
Anything that leads to a stress response
Can include environment, daily events, workplace, academic settings, social expectations, chemicals, and biological stressors
What are psychological stressors?
Pressure, control, predictability, frustration, and conflict
What can stressors lead to?
Distress or eustress
What are the three stages of general adaptation syndrome?
Alarm, resistance, and exhaustion
What is stress management?
Can involve psychological, behavioral, spiritual aspects
What is self-concept?
The sum of the ways in which we describe ourselves: in the present, who we used to be, and who we might be in the future
What is our identity?
Individual components of our self-concept related to the groups to which we belong. Religious affiliations, sexual orientation, and ethnic and national affiliations are examples of identities
What is self-esteem?
Our evaluation of ourself. Generally, the closer our actual self is to our ideal self (who we want to be) and our ought self (who others want us to be), the higher our self-esteem will be
What is self-efficacy?
The degree to which we see ourselves as being capable at a given skill or in a given situation. When placed in a consistently hopeless scenario, self-efficacy can be diminished to the point where learned helplessness results
What is locus of control?
Self-evaultion that refers to the way we characterize the influence in our lives. People with an internal locus of control see their successes and failures as a result of their own characteristics and actions, while those with an external locus of control perceive outside factors as having more of an influence in their lives
What are Freud’s psychosexual stages of personality development based on?
The tensions caused by the libido. Failure at any given stage leads to fixation that causes personality disorders.
What are Freud’s psychosexual phases?
Oral Anal Phallic (Oedipal) Latent Genital Based on the erogenous zones that are the focus of each phase of development
What do Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development stem from?
Conflicts that occur throughout life (true vs. mistrust, autonomy vs. shame and doubt, initiative vs. guilt, industry vs, inferiority, identity vs. role confusion, intimacy vs. isolation, generatively vs. stagnation, integrity vs. despair)
These conflicts are the result of decisions we are forced to make about ourselves and the environment around us at each phase of our lives
What do Kohlberg’s stages of moral development describe?
The approaches of individuals to resolving moral dilemmas.
He believed that we progress through six stages divided into three main phases: preconventional, conventional, and postconventional
Who described zone of proximal development and what is it?
Vygotsky. Skills that a child has not yet mastered and require a more knowledgable other to accomplish
He described development of language, culture, and skills
What are common ways children learn from others?
Imitation and role-taking.
Children first reproduce the behaviors of role models, and later learn to see the perspectives of others and practice taking on new roles
What does our self-concept depend on?
Our reference group, or groups to which we compare ourselves. Two individuals with the same qualities might see themselves differently depending on how those qualities compare to their reference group
How does the psychoanalytic perspective view personality?
As resulting from unconscious urges and desires
What is Freud’s personality theories based on?
id - base urges of survival and reproduction
Superego - the idealist and perfectionist
Ego - the mediator between the two and the conscious mind
Ego makes use of defense mechanisms to reduce stress caused by the urges of the id and superego
What did Jung assume?
A collective unconscious that links all humans together. He viewed the personality as being influenced by archetypes
What do other psychoanalysts, such as Adler and Horney, think about Freud’s idea about unconscious motivation?
They believed that the unconscious is motivated by social urges rather than sexual
What does the humanistic view of personality emphasize?
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Rogers’ therapeutic approach of unconditional positive regard flow from the humanistic view of personality.
Emphasizes the internal feelings of healthy individuals as they strive toward happiness and self-realization.
What do type and trait theorists believe?
That personality can be described as a number of identifiable traits that carry characteristic behaviors
What do type theories of personality include?
The ancient Greek nation of humors, Sheldon’s somatotypes, divisions into Types A and B, and the Myers-Brigg Type Inventory
What were Eysencks three traits that he identified? How did later trait theorists expand them?
PEN: Psychoticism (nonconformity) Extraversion (tolerance for social interaction and stimulation) Neuroticism (arousal in stressful situation) Can describe all individuals Expanded = Big Five: Openness Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness Neuroticism
What traits did Allport identify? What do they represent?
Cardinal: traits around which a person organizes their life; not everyone develops a cardinal trait
Central: represent major characteristics of the personality
Secondary : personal characteristics - limited in occurrence
What did McClelland identify?
The personality trait for the need for achievement (N-Ach)
What does the social cognitive perspective believe?
That individuals interact with their environment in a cycle called reciprocal determinism
People mold their environments according to their personalities, and those environments in turn shape our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
What is the behaviorist perspective based on?
Operant conditioning
Holds that personality can be described as the behaviors one has learned from prior rewards and punishments
What do biological theorists claim?
That behavior can be explained as a result of genetic expression
What does the biomedical approach to psychological disorders take into account?
Only the physical and medical causes of a psychological disorder
Treatments in this approach are of a biomedical nature
What does the biopsychosocial approach consider?
The relative contributions of biological, psychological, and social components to an individual’s disorder.
Treatments fall into these three areas
What is the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders used for?
Used to diagnose psychological disorders
Categorizes mental disorders based on symptom patterns
How common are psychological disorders?
Very common - especially anxiety, depressive, and substance use disorders
What is schizophrenia?
The prototypical disorder with psychosis as a feature
Contains positive and negative symptoms
What are positive symptoms?
Add something to behavior, cognition, or affect, and include delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech and disorganized behavior
What are negative symptoms?
Loss of something from behavior, cognition, or affect, and include disturbance of affect and avolition
What are some depressive disorders?
Major depressive disorder
Seasonal affective disorder
What does major depressive disorder contain?
At least one major depressive episode
What is pervasive disorder?
Depressed for at least two years that does not meet criteria for major depressive disorder
What is seasonal affective disorder?
Colloquial name for major depressive disorder with seasonal onset, with depression occurring during winter months
What do bipolar and related disorders have?
Manic or hypomanic episodes
What does bipolar I disorder contain?
At least one manic episode
What does bipolar II disorder contain?
At least one hypomanic and at least one major depressive episode
What does Cyclothymic disorder contain?
Hypomanic episodes with dysthymia
What are some anxiety disorders?
Generalized anxiety disorder, specific phobias, social anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, and panic disorder
What is generalized anxiety disorder?
A disproportionate and persistent worry about many different things for at least six moths
What are specific phobias?
Irrational fears of specific objects or situations
What is social anxiety disorder?
Anxiety due to social or performance situations
What is agoraphobia?
Fear of places or situations where it is hard for an individual to escape
What is panic disorder?
Marked by recurrent panic attacks: intense, overwhelming fear and sympathetic nervous system activity with no clear stimulus. May lead to agoraphobia
What is obsessive-compulsice disorder characterized by?
Obsessions (persistent, intrusive thoughts and impulses) and compulsions (repetitive tasks that relive tension but cause significant impairment in a person’s life)
What is body dimorphic disorder characterized by?
An unrealistic negative evaluation of one’s appearance or a specific body part. The individual often takes extreme measure to correct the perceived imperfection
What do dissociation disorders include?
Dissociative amnesia, dissociative identity disorder, and depersonalization/derealization disorder
What is dissociate amnesia?
An inability to recall past experience without an underlying neurological disorder. In severe forms, it may involve dissociative fugue, a sudden change in location that may involve the assumption of a new identity
What is dissociative identify disorder?
The occurrence of two or more personalities that take control of a person’s behavior
What is depersonalization/derealization disorder?
Involves feelings of detachment from the mind and body, or from the environment
What do somatic symptom and related disorders involve?
Significant bodily symptoms
What does somatic symptom disorder involve?
At least one somatic symptom, which may or may not be linked to an underlying medical condition, that causes disproportionate concern
What is illness anxiety disorder?
A preoccupation with thoughts about having, or coming down with, a serious medical conditions
What is conversion disorder?
Involves unexplained symptoms affecting motor or sensory function and is associated with prior trauma
What are personality disorders (PD)?
Patterns of inflexible, maladaptive behavior that cause distress or impaired functioning in at least two of the following cognition, emotions, interpersonal functioning, or impulse control.
What are the three clusters that personality disorders occur in?
A: odd, eccentric, “weird
B: dramatic, emotional, erratic, “wild”
C: anxious, fearful, “worried”
What does cluster A include?
Paranoid, schizotypal, and schizoid PDs
What does cluster B include?
Antisocial, borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic PDs
What does cluster C include?
Avoidant, dependent, and obsessive-compulsive PDs
What does paranoid PD involve?
A pervasive mistrust and suspicion of others
What does Schizotypal PD involve?
Ideas of reference, magical thinking, and exxentricity
What does Schizoid PD involve?
Detachment from social relationships and limited emotion
What does antisocial PD involve?
A disregard for the rights of others
What does borderline PD involve?
Instability in relationships, mood, and self-image. Splitting is characteristic, as are recurrent suicide attempts
What does histrionic PD involve?
Constant attention-seeking behavior
What does narcissistic PD involve?
A grandiose sense of self-importance and need for admiration
What does avoidant PD involve?
Extreme shyness and fear of rejection
What does dependent PD involve?
A continuous need for reassurance
What does obsessive-compulsive PD involve?
Perfectionism, inflexibility, and preoccupation with rules
What may Schizophrenia be associated with?
Genetic factors, birth trauma, adolescent marijuana use, and family history. There are high levels of dopaminergic transmission
What is depression accompanied by?
High levels of glucocorticoids and low levels of norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine
What are bipolar disorders accompanied by?
High levels of norepinephrine and serotonin. They are also highly heritable
What is Alzheimer’s disease associated with?
Genetic factors, brain atrophy, decreases in acetylcholine, senile plaques of beta-amyloid, and neurofibrillary tangles of hyperphosphorylated tau protein
What is Parkinson’s disease associated with?
Bradykinesia, resting tremor, pill-rolling tremor, mask like facies, cogwheel rigidity, and shuffling gait. here is decreased production of dopamine by cells in the substantial nigra
What does social facilitation describe?
The tendency of people to perform at a different level based on the fact that others are around
What is deindividuation?
A loss of self-awareness in large groups, which can lead to drastic changes in behavior
What does the bystander effect describe?
The observation that when in a group, individuals are less likely to respond to a person in need
What does peer pressure refer to?
The social influence placed on individuals by others they consider equals
What is group polarization?
The tendency toward making decisions in a group that are more extreme than the thoughts of the individual group members
What is groupthink?
The tendency for groups to make decisions based on ideas and solutions that arise within the group without considering outside ideas. Ethics may be disturbed as pressure is created to conform and remain loyal to the group
What does culture describe?
Beliefs, ideas, behaviors, actions, and characteristics of a group or society of people
What is assimilation?
The process by which a group of individual’s culture begins to melt into another culture
What is multiculturalism?
Refers tot he encouragement of multiple cultures within a community to enhance diveristy
What does subcultures refer to/
A group of people within a culture that distinguish themselves from the primary culture to which they belong
What is socialization?
The process of developing and spreading norms, customs and beliefs
What do norms determine?
The boundaries of acceptable behavior within society
What do agents of socialization include?
Family, peers, school, religious affiliation, and other groups that promote socialization
What is stigma?
The extreme disapproval or dislike of a person or group based on perceived differences from the rest of society
What is deviance?
Any violation of norms, rules or expectations within a society
What is conformity?
Changing beliefs or behaviors in order to fit into a group or society
What is compliance? What are methods of gaining compliance?
When individuals change their behavior based on the request of others. Methods of gaining compliance include the foot-in-the-door technique, door-in-the-face technique, lowball technique, and that’s-not-all technique among others
What is obedience/
A change in behavior based on a command from onion seen as an authority figure
What are attitudes?
Tendencies toward expression of positive or negative feelings or evaluations of something
There are affective, behavioral, and cognitive components to attitudes
What does the functional attitudes theory state?
That there are four functional areas of attitudes that serve individuals in life: knowledge, ego expression, adaptability, and ego defense
What does the learning theory state?
Attitudes are developed through forms of learning: direct contact, direct interaction, direct instruction, and conditioning
What does the elaboration likelihood model state?
That attitudes are formed and changed through different routes of information processing based on the degree of elaboration (central route processing, peripheral route processing)
What does the social cognitive theory state?
That attitudes are formed through observation of behavior, personal factors, and environment
What is a status?
A position in society used to classify individuals
What is an ascribed status?
Involuntarily assigned to an individual based on race, ethnicity, gender, family background, and so on
What is an achieved status?
Voluntarily earned by an individual
What is a master status?
The status by which an individual is primarily identified
What is a role?
A set of beliefs, values, and norms the define the expectations of a certain status in a social situation
What does role performance refer to?
Carrying out the behaviors of a given role?
What is a role partner?
Another individual who helps define a specific role within the relationship
What does a role set contain?
All of the different roles associated with a status
What is a role conflict?
When one has difficulty in satisfying the requirement of multiple roles simultaneously
What are groups made up of?
Two or more individuals with similar characteristics that share a sense of unit
What is a peer group?
A self-selected group formed around similar interests, ages, and statuses
What is a family group?
The group into which an individual is born, adopted, or married
What is an in-group?
One with which an individual identifies
What is an out-group?
One with which an individual competes or opposes
What is a reference group?
A group which an individual compares him or herself
What is a primary group?
Those that contain strong, emotional bonds
What are secondary groups?
Often temporary and contain fewer emotional bonds and weaker bonds overall
What is a Gemeinschaft (community)?
A group united by feelings of togetherness due to shared beliefs, ancestry, or geography
What is a Gesellschaft (society)?
A group unified by mutual self-interest in achieving a goal
What is a groupthink?
When members begin to conform to one another’s view and ignore outside perspectives
What is a network?
An observable pattern of social relationships between individuals or groups
What are organizations?
Bodies of people with a structure and culture designed to achieve specific goals. They exist outside of each individual’s membership within the organization
What is the basic model that proposes how we express emotion in social situations?
States that there are universal emotions, along with corresponding emotions, which can be understood across cultures
What does the social construction model state?
That emotions are based solely on the situational contact of social interactions
What are display rules?
Unspoken rules that govern the expression of emotion
What is a cultural syndrome?
A shared set of beliefs, norms, values, and behaviors organized around a central theme, as is found among people sharing the same language and geography
What does impression management refer to?
The maintenance of a public image, which is accomplished through various strategies
What is self-disclosure?
Sharing factual information
What does managing appearances refer to?
Using props, appearance, emotional expression, or association to create a positive image
What is ingratiation?
Using flattery or conformity to win over someone else
What does aligning actions use?
Use of excuses to account for questionable behavior
What is alter-casting?
Imposing an identity onto another person
What does the dramaturgical approach say?
That individuals create images of themselves in the same way that actors perform a role in front of an audience
What is the front stage?
Where the individual is seen by the audience and strives to preserve his desired image
What is the back stage?
Where the individual is not in front of an audience and is free to act outside of his desired image
What does communication include?
Both verbal and nonverbal elements
What is verbal communication?
The conveyance of information through spoken, written, or signed words
What is nonverbal communication?
The conveyance of information by means other than the use of words, such as body language, prosody, facial expressions, and gestures
What animal communication take place between?
Takes place between not only between nonhuman animals, but between humans and other animals as well. Animals use body language, rudimentary facial expressions, visual displays, scents, and vocalizations to communicate
What is interpersonal attraction?
What makes people like each other and is influenced by many factors (physical attractiveness, similarity of attitudes, intelligence, education, height, age, religion, appearance, and socioeconomic status, self-disclosure, reciprocity, and proximity)
What is physical attractiveness increased by?
With symmetry and proportions close to the golden ratio
What is self-disclosure?
Sharing fears, thought, and goals with another person and being met with empathy and nonjudgement
What is reciprocity?
Liking people who we think like us
What is proximity?
Being physically close to someone
What is aggression?
Physical, verbal, or nonverbal behavior with the intention to cause harm or increase social dominance
What is attachment?
An emotional bong to another person, and usually refers tot he bond between a child and a caregiver.
What are the four types of attachment?
Secure attachment
Avoidant attachment
Ambivalent attachment
Disorganized attachment
What is secure attachment?
Requires a consistent caregiver so the child is able to go out and explore knowing he or she has a secure base to return to; the child will show strong preference for the caregiver
What is avoidant attachment?
When a caregiver has little or no response to a distressed, crying child; the child shows no preference for the caregiver compared to strangers
What is ambivalent attachment?
When a caregiver has an inconsistent response to a child’s distress, sometimes responding appropriately, sometimes neglectful; the child will become distressed when caregiver leaves and is ambivalent when he or she returns
What is disorganized attached?
When a caregiver is erratic or abusive; the child shows no clear pattern of behavior in response to caregiver’s absence or presence and may show repetitive behaviors
What is social support?
The perception or reality that one is cared for y a social network
What is emotional support?
Includes listening to, affirming, and empathizing with someone’s feelings
What does esteem support do?
Affirms the qualities and skills of the person
What is material support?
Providing physical or monetary resources to aid a person
What is informational support?
Providing useful information to a person
What is network support?
Providing a sense of belonging to a person
What is foraging?
Searching for and exploiting food resources
What is a mating system?
Describes the way in which a group is organized in terms of sexual behavior
What is monogamy?
Consists of exclusive mating relationships
What is polygamy?
Consists of one member of a sex having multiple exclusive relationships with members of the opposite sex, including polygyny (a male with multiple females) and polyandry (a female with multiple males)
What is promiscuity?
Allows a member of one sec to mate with any member of the opposite sex without exclusivity
What is mate choice?
Intersexual selection
The selection of a mate based on attraction and traits
What is altruism?
A form of helping behavior in which one person’s intent is to benefit someone else at some cost to him or herself
What does game theory attempt to explain?
Decision-making between individuals as if they are participating in a game
What is inclusive fitness?
A measure of an organism’s success in the population. This is based on the number of offspring, success in supporting offspring, and the ability of the offspring to then support others
What is social perception or social cognition?
The way by which we generate impressions about people in our social environment. It contains a perceived, their target, and the situation or social contact of the scenario
What does the simplicity personality theory state?
That people make assumptions about how different types of people, their traits, and behavior are related
What does the primacy effect do?
Refers to when first impressions are more important than subsequent impressions
What is the recency effect?
When the most recent information we have about an individual is more important in forming our impressions
What is a reliance on central traits?
The tendency to organize the perception of others based on traits and personal characteristics that matter to the perceiver
What is the halo effect?
When judgements of an individual’s character can be affected by the overall impression of the individual
What is the just-world hypothesis?
The tendency of individuals to believe that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people
What does the self-serving bias refer to?
The fact that the individuals will view their own successes as being based on internal factors, while viewing failures as being based on external factors
What does attribution theory focus on?
The tendency for individuals to infer the causes of other people behavior
What are dispositional (internal) causes?
Those that relate to the features of the person whose behavior is being considered
What is situational (external) causes?
Related to features of the surrounding or social context
What is the correspondent inference theory?
Used to describe attributions made by observing the intentional (especially unexpected) behaviors performed by another person
What is fundamental attribution error?
The bias towards making distortional attributions rather than situational attributions in regard to the actions of others
What is attribution substitution?
Occurs when individuals must make judgements that are complex, but instead substitute a simpler solution or heuristic
What are attributions highly influenced by?
The culture in which one resides
What are stereotypes?
When attitudes and impressions are made based on limited and superficial information about a person or a group of individuals
Can can stereotypes lead to?
Expectations of certain groups, which can create conditions that lead confirmation of the stereotype, a process referred to as a self-fulfilling prophecy
What is stereotype threat?
A concern or anxiety about confirming a negative stereotype about one’s social group
What is prejudice?
Is defined as an irrational positive or negative attitude toward a person, group or thing prior to an actual experience
What does ethnocentrism refer to?
The practice of making judgements about other cultures based on the values and beliefs of one’s own culture
What is an in-group?
A social group with which a person experiences a sense of belonging
What is an out-group?
A social group with which an individual does not identify
What does cultural relativism refer to?
The recognition that social groups and cultures should be studied on their own terms
What is discrimination?
When prejudicial attitudes cause individuals of a particular group to be treated differently from others
What is individual discrimination?
One person discriminating a particular person or group
What is institutional discrimination?
The discrimination against particular person or group by an entire institution
What do theoretical approaches provide?
Framework for the interactions we observe within society
What does functionalism focus on?
The function of each component of society and how those components fit together.
What are manifest functions?
Deliberate actions that serve to help a given system
What are latent functions?
Unexpected, unintended, or unrecognized positive consequences of manifest functions
What does conflict theory focus on?
How power differentials are created and how these differentials contribute to the maintenance of socail order
What is symbolic interactionism?
The study of the ways individuals interact through a shared understanding of words, gestures, and other symbols
What does social constructionism explore?
The ways in which individuals and groups make decisions to agree upon a given a social reality
What does rational choice theory state?
That individuals will make decisions that maximize potential benefit and minimize potential harm; expectancy theory applies rational choice theory within social groups
What is feminist theory?
Explores the way in which one gender can be subordinated, minimized, or devalued compared to the other
What are social institutions?
Well-Established social structures that dictate certain patterns of behavior or relationships and are accepted as a fundamental part of culture
What are common social institutions?
Include family, education, religion, government, and the economy, and health and medicine
What are the four key ethical tenets of American medicine?
Beneficence: acting in the patient’s best interest
Nonmaleficence: avoiding treatments of which risk is larger than benefit
Respect for autonomy: respecting a patients’ rights to make decisions about their own healthcare
Justice: treating similar patients with similar and distributing healthcare resources fairly
What is culture?
The lifestyle of a group of people and includes both material and symbolic elements
What does material culture include?
The physical items one associated with a given group, such as artwork, emblems, clothing, jewelry, foods, buildings, and told
What does symbolic culture refer to?
The ideas associated with a cultural group
What does cultural lag refer to?
The idea that material culture changes more quickly than symbolic culture
What does language consist of?
Spoken or written symbols combined into a system and governed by tules
What is a value?
What a person deems important in life
What is a brief?
Something a person considers to be true
What is a ritual?
A formalized ceremonial behavior in which members of a group or community regularly engage. It is governed by specific rules, including appropriate behavior and predetermined order of events
What are norms?
Societal rules that define the boundaries of acceptable behavior
What does culture flow from?
Evolutionary principles
Culture and also influence evolution
What is demographics?
The statistics of populations and are the mathematical applications of sociology. One can analyze hundreds of demographic variables
What are some common demographic variables
Age Gender Race Ethnicity Sexual orientation Immigration status
What is ageism?
Prejudice or discrimination on the basis of a person’s age
What is gender?
The set of behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with biological sex.
What is gender inequality?
The intentional or unintentional empowerment of one gender to detriment of the other
What is race?
A social construct that sorts people between groups of people; these may be either real or perceived differences
What is ethnicity?
A social construct that sorts people by cultural factors, including language, nationality, religion and other factors
What is symbolic ethnicity?
Recognition of an ethnic identity that is only relevant on special occasions or in specific circumstances and does not specifically impact everyday life
What is sexual orientation?
One’s sex interest toward members of the same, opposite, or both sexes
What is immigration?
The movement into new geographic area
what is emigration?
Movement away from a geographic area
What is fertility rate?
The average number of children born to a women during her lifetime in a population
What is a birth rate?
Relative to a population size overtime, usually measured as the number of births per 1000 people per year
What is mortality rate?
The average number of deaths per population size, usually measured as the number of deaths per 1000 people per year
What does migration refer to?
The movement of people form one geographic location to another
What is demographic transition?
A model used to represent drops in birth and death rates as a result of industrialization
What do social movements do?
Promote (proactive) or resist (reactive) social change
What is globalization?
The process of integrating a global economy with free trade and tapping of foreign labor markets
What is urbanization?
The process of dense areas of population crating a pull for migration; creating cities
What is social stratification based on?
Socioeconomic statue (SES) which depends on ascribed status and achieved status
What is ascribed status?
Involuntary
Derived from clearly identifiable characteristics, such as age, gender, and skin color
What is achieved status?
Acquired through direct, individual efforts
What is social class?
A category of people with shared socioeconomic characteristics
What are the three main social class?
Upper
Middle
Lower
Groups have similar lifestyles, job opportunities, attitudes and behaviors
What is prestige?
The respect and importance tied to specific occupations or associations
What is power?
The capacity to influence people through real or perceived rewards and punishments. It often depends on the unequal distribution of valued resources. Power differentials rate social inequality
What is anomie?
A state of formlessness. Anomic conditions erode social solidarity by means of excessive individualism, social inequality, and isolation
What is social capital?
The investment people make in their society in return for economic or collective rewards. Social network, either situational or positional, are one of the most powerful forms of social capital and can be achieved through establishing strong and weak social ties
What is meritocracy?
A society in which advancement up the social ladder is based on intellectual talent and achievement
What is social mobility?
Acquiring higher-level employment opportunities by achieving required credentials and experience. Can occur in the positive or negative direction depending on if one is promoted or demoted
What is poverty?
A socioeconomic condition.
In the US, the poverty line is determined by the government’s calculation of the minimum income requirements for families to acquit the minimum necessities of life
What does social reproduction refer to?
The passing on of social inequality, especially poverty, from one generation to the next
What can poverty be?
Absolute or relative
What is absolute poverty?
When people do not have enough resources to acquire basic life necessities, such as shelter, food, clothing, and water
What is relative poverty?
When one is poor in comparison to a larger population
What is social exclusion?
A sense of powerlessness when individuals feel alienated from society
What is spatial inequality?
A form of social stratification across territories and their populations, and can occur along residential, environment, and global lines
Compare urban and rural areas
Urban areas tend to have more diverse economic opportunities and more ability for social mobility than rural areas. Urban areas also tend to have more low-income racial and ethnic minority neighborhoods than rural areas
What causes formation of higher-income suburbs
Common occurrence
Due in part do the limited mobility of lower-income groups in urban centers
What do environmental injustices refer to?
An uneven distribution of environmental hazards in communities
Lower-income neighborhoods may lack the social and political power to prevent the placement of environmental hazards in their neighborhoods
What has globalization led to?
Further inequalities in space, food, and water, energy, housing, and education as the production of goods shift to cheaper and cheaper labor markets. This has led to a significant economic hardship in industrializing nations
How is incidence calculated?
The number of new cases of a disease pr population at risk in a given period of time: for example, new cases per 1000 at-risk people per year
How is prevalence calculated?
The number of new cases of a disease per population in a given period of time: for example, cases per 1000 people per year
What is morbidity?
The burden or degree of illness associated with a given disease
What is mortality?
Deaths caused by a given disease
What is health dependent on?
Geographic, social, and economic factors
What is second sickness?
An exacerbation of health outcomes caused by social injustice
What is poverty associated with (health-wise)?
Worse health outcomes, including decreased life expectancy, higher rates of life-shortening diseases, higher rates of suicide and homicide, and higher infant mortality rates
Compare racial and ethnic minorities and health.
Certain racial and ethnic minorities have worse health profiles than others. African-Americans are, on average the worst off; white Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanic Americans are next and Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders have the best health profiles
Compare sex and health.
Females have better health profiles than males, including higher life expectancy, lower rates of life-threatening illnesses, and higher rates of accessing and utilizing health resources. However, females have higher rates of chronic diseases and higher morbidity rates
What are ways that we have tried to improve healthcare for the underserved population?
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the Medicare and Medicaid programs
How does healthcare access and quality differ across the population?
Low-income groups and racial and ethnic minorities (specifically, African-American, Asian-Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanic Americans) receive worse care then white Americans
Biases against overweight or obsess patients are associated with lower-quality treatment, including less preventative care and fewer screenings
Women tend to have better access to healthcare and utilize more healthcare resources than men
LGBT men and women may have barriers to care due to prejudices, discrimination, and homophobia
