Chapters 9-12

Question 1

Syntax:

Answer 1

The principle set of rules and regulations that define language and logic.

Question 2

Heuristic:

Answer 2

A short-cut, step-saving thinking strategy or principle which generates a solution quickly.

Question 3

Algorithm:

Answer 3

Step by step strategy for solving a problem, methodically leading to a specific solution.

Question 4

Prototype:

Answer 4

Mental images of the best example of a concept.

Question 5

Over-Confidence:

Answer 5

Our tendency to be more confident than correct. Over-estimate the accuracy of estimates, predictions, and knowledge.

Question 6

Confirmation Bias:

Answer 6

Not bothering to seek out information that contradicts your ideas.

Question 7

Belief Perseverance:

Answer 7

Holding on to your ideas over time, and actively reflecting information that contradicts your ideas.

Question 8

Creativity:

Answer 8

The ability to produce ideas that are novel and valuable.

Question 9

Creative Scientists:

Answer 9

Scientists who study the developmental stages, and levels of creativity in different species.

Question 10

Language:

Answer 10

The use of symbols to represent, transmit, and store meaning/information. Concepts, quantities, plans, identity, feelings, ideas, facts, and customs.

Question 11

Stages of Speech Development:

Answer 11

o Receptive Language: 0-4 months. Associating sounds with facial movements, and recognizing when sounds are broken into words.
o Productive Language: 4 months. Babbling in multilingual sounds and gestures.
o Babbling Language: 10 months. Babbling sounds more like parents’ or households’ language.
o One-Word Stage: 12 months. Understanding and beginning to say many nouns.
o Two-Word “telegraphic/tweet” stage: 18-24 months. Adding verbs and making sentences but missing words.

Question 12

Noam Chomsky:

Answer 12

The “father of modern linguistics”. Major figure in analytic philosophy. Teaches logic and grammar, and how to approach politics.

Question 13

Spearman’s Factor:

Answer 13

Analysis of different skills and found that people who did well in one area also did well in another. Refers to a statistical technique that determines how different variables relate to each other; Example: whether they form clusters that tend to vary together.

Question 14

Gardner’s Number of Independent Intelligences:

Answer 14

Howard Gardner noted that different people have intelligence/abilities in different areas. Felt that levels of these “intelligences” could vary independent of each other. Factor analysis suggests that for most people there may be a correlation among these intelligences.

Question 15

Aptitude Tests:

Answer 15

Attempt to predict your ability to learn new skills.

Question 16

Intelligene Tests:

Answer 16

Tests generated to test the IQ of an individual based on standardized testing.

Question 17

Motivation:

Answer 17

A need or desire that energizes behavior and directs it towards a goal.

Question 18

Instinctive Behavior:

Answer 18

A fixed pattern of behavior that isn’t acquired by learning and is likely to be rooted in genes and the body.

Question 19

Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs:

Answer 19

Proposal that humans strive to ensure that basic needs are satisfied; then find motivation to pursue goals that are higher on the hierarchy. Physiological Needs-> Safety Needs -> Belongingness and Love needs-> Esteem Needs-> Self-actualization needs -> self-transcendence needs.

Question 20

Experience of Hunger:

Answer 20

Men become obsessed with food if food intake is cut in half. Hunger may even change our motivations for future plans.

Question 21

Set Point:

Answer 21

In weight, this is a stable weight in which a person keeps returning to.

Question 22

Obesity:

Answer 22

Being Overweight based on the Body Mass Index. Can lead to health problems. Often caused by over-eating.

Question 23

Body Mass Index:

Answer 23

A chart index that displays the healthy weight with variables such as age, height, and fat %.

Question 24

Components of Emotion:

Answer 24

Expressive behavior, bodily arousal, and conscious experience.

Question 25

Facially Expressed Emotions:

Answer 25

Emotions are most simply expressed through facial expression. Due to the fact they are the most prevalent and visible, they are the easiest to detect.

Question 26

Stress:

Answer 26

A process of perceiving and responding to stressors (Catastrophes, life changes, daily hassles).

Question 27

Stressful Life Events:

Answer 27

Anything in life that can pose a problem or a challenge that needs to be overcome.

Question 28

General Adaption Syndrome:

Answer 28

Our Stress response system defends, then fatigues.

Question 29

Psychoneuroimmunology:

Answer 29

The study of how interacting psychological, neural, and endocrine processes affect health.

Question 30

Risk of Coronary Heart Disease Rate:

Answer 30

Pessimism, and negativity causes the heart rate to fluxuate to often and can lead to heart disease along with other things such as smoking, bad eating habits, and increased alcohol intake.

Question 31

Personality Types:

Answer 31

o Excessive Pessimism: Overly Negative
o Realism: Looks at things in a realistic manner. Is both optimistic and pessimistic depending on the circumstances.
o Excessive Optimism: Being to positive, and ignoring difficult situations while hoping they simply go away.

Question 32

Coping with Stress:

Answer 32

Exercise, relaxation and meditation, religion, family, entertainment, eating. Problem-focused coping; reducing stressors by working out conflict or tackling a difficult project. Emotion-Focused coping: reducing emotional impact of stress by getting support, comfort, and perspective from others.

Question 33

Genetic Marker:

Answer 33

A short DNA sequence that has some genetic association to heart disease.

Question 34

Optimistic Personality:

Answer 34

A personality in which somebody is overly positive and it causes them to ignore certain obligations and responsibilities.

Question 35

Meditation:

Answer 35

Creating a relaxation response via body position and breathing techniques.

Question 36

Happiness:

Answer 36

The feel-good, do-good phenomenon . Being in a state of inner-peace and overall positivity and optimism.

Question 37

Personality:

Answer 37

An individual’s characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Question 38

Freud’s Model of Personality:

Answer 38

Personality develops from the efforts of our ego, our rational self, to resolve tension between our ID, based in biological drives, and the superego, society’s rules and constraints.

Question 39

Gender Identity:

Answer 39

One’s own understanding of themselves as male or female and the responsibilities, and roles that come with it.

Question 40

Mechanisms:

Answer 40

o Regression: Retreating to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated.
o Reaction Formation: Switching unacceptable impulses into their opposites.
o Projection: Disguising one’s own threatening impulses by attributing them to others.
o Rationalization: Offering self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening unconscious reasons for one’s actions.
o Displacement: Shifting sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person.
o Denial: Refusing to believe or even perceive painful realities.

Question 41

Carl Jung:

Answer 41

Highlighted universal themes in the unconscious as a source of creativity and insight. Found opportunities for personal growth by finding meaning in moments of coincidence.

Question 42

Maslow:

Answer 42

Believed in people becoming a self-actualized person. Assisted in development of the humanistic perspective.

Question 43

Rogers:

Answer 43

Believed in growing in a social environment of genuineness and acceptance. Assisted in development of the humanistic perspective.

Question 44

Trait Theories:

Answer 44

That we are made up of a collection of traits, behavioral predispositions that can be identified and measured, traits that differ from person to person.

Question 45

Personality Inventories:

Answer 45

Questionnaire assessing many personality traits, by asking which behaviors and responses the person would choose.

Question 46

Big Five:

Answer 46

Necessary Personality factors: Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Openness, and Extraversion.

Question 47

Heritability:

Answer 47

Genes account for 50% of the variation for most traits.

Question 48

Narcissism:

Answer 48

Self-gratification, inflated by fragile self-worth.

Question 49

Individualism:

Answer 49

Cultures that value independence, promote personal ideals, strengths, and goals, and striving towards self-identity.

Question 50

Collectivism:

Answer 50

Cultures value interdependence, promote group and societal goals and duties, and blending in with a group identity.