Cognitive Psy Vocab

Question 1

Unconscious mental process influencing judgment and decisions.

Differs from conscious processing in that it is faster, more automated, but less flexible.

Like “RAPID COGNITION”

Answer 1

ADAPTIVE UNCONSCIOUS

Question 2

State of having inconsistent, incongruous thoughts relating to a decision.

Triggered when a person’s fervid beliefs clash with new contradictory evidence.

Answer 2

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

Question 3

Lose the ability to maintain normal psychological defenses.

May result in depression, anxiety, or delusions.

Can be decompensated or decompensating.

CMPR to PSYCHOSIS.

Answer 3

DECOMPENSATE

Question 4

Coded language meaning one thing to the public but with a different, more ominous, resonance for a targeted subgroup.

Answer 4

DOG-WHISTLING

Question 5

Enabling a person to discover or learn something for themselves.

Learning through self trial and error.

CMPR to AUTODIDACTIC

Answer 5

HEURISTIC

Question 6

Psychological manipulation used to sew the seeds of doubt in a targeted individual.

Cause to question: memory, perception, or judgment.

May evoke COGNITIVE DISSONANCE or low self esteem.

Answer 6

GASLIGHTING

Question 7

Informal: act obsessive-compulsive (OCD)

Nature of physical or mental disease.

Answer 7

PATHOLOGICAL

Question 8

Ability to deny responsibility due to lack of evidence of participation.

May be willfully ignorant.

Answer 8

PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY

Question 9

Severe mental disorder resulting in impaired contact with reality.

Answer 9

PSYCHOSIS

Question 10

The ability to make snap judgments.

Uses the ADAPTIVE UNCONSCIOUS.

Like: instinct, intuition, or a hunch.

Answer 10

RAPID COGNITIVE

Question 11

Lack of resources THOUGHT necessary to maintain the quality of life as members of a particular socioeconomic group.

Answer 11

RELATIVE DEPRIVATION THEORY

Question 12

Occurs when income falls below a level adequate to maintain food and shelter.

Abject (def: to a max degree negatively) poverty.

Not a perceived measure of comparison like RELATIVE DEPRIVATION THEORY.

Answer 12

ABSOLUTE DEPRIVATION

Question 13

Finding patterns in narrow windows of experience.

Answer 13

THIN-SLICING

Question 14

System rejects a “true” null hypothesis.

Aka - FALSE POSITIVE
(System returns a “false” rejection of a “positive” or proper user - locking him out of his account.)

Answer 14

TYPE 1 ERROR

Question 15

System accepts a “false” null hypothesis.

Aka a FALSE NEGATIVE.
System “falsely” authorizes a “negative” or improper user.

Answer 15

TYPE 2 ERROR

Question 16

Default position that there is no difference between two measured phenomena (or two samples from the same population).

Assumed to be true until evidence (statistical significance) indicates otherwise.
(E.g. presumed innocent)

Used in inferential statistics.

Often denoted: H\/0

Answer 16

NULL HYPOTHESIS

Question 17

Statement being tested against the NULL HYPOTHESIS.

Denoted: H\/A

Answer 17

ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHESIS

Question 18

A supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as the starting point for further investigation.

Answer 18

HYPOTHESIS

Question 19

Strives for immediate gratification of all desires, wants, and needs, and if not satisfied results in anxiety and tension.

Only components of personality present from birth.

Entirely unconscious and includes instinctive and primitive behaviors.

Driven by the “Pleasure Principle”

Answer 19

FREUD: The ID

Question 20

Strives to satisfy the ID’s desires in a realistic and socially appropriate way by weighing the cost-benefits of an action instead of reacting impulsively.

Functions in the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious mind.

Functions based on the “Reality Principle”

Answer 20

FREUD: The EGO

Question 21

Holds the internalized standards and ideals that we acquire from our parents and society (our sense of right and wrong).

Provides guidelines for making judgments.

Emerges at around age five.

Works to suppress the unacceptable urges of the ID and to make the EGO act upon idealistic standards rather than realistic principles.

Present in the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious.

Answer 21

FREUD: The SUPEREGO

Question 22

Phenomenon leads to a maladaptive personality.

An individual with an overly dominant ID might become impulsive, uncontrollable, or criminal.

An individual with an overly dominant SUPEREGO might lead to a personality that is extremely moralistic and judgmental (SANCTIMONIOUS and SELF-RIGHTEOUS) not accepting anyone that they perceive as “bad” or “immoral”.

Answer 22

FREUD: PERSONALITY IMBALANCE

Question 23

Abstract principle that autonomous beings (or “agents”) have the capacity to act independently and make their ow free choices to achieve their intentions.

Answer 23

HAVE OR TAKE AGENCY

Question 24

The Big 5 personality traits discovered and coined by Robert McCrae.

Answer 24

OCEAN

O-Openness to new ideas 
C-Conscientious
E-Extrovert/introvert (middle: ambivert)
A-Agreeableness
N-Neuroticism

Question 25

Extreme preoccupation with one’s feelings and desires.

Extremely egotistical.

OR:

A theory that the self can know nothing but its own modifications, an the self is the only existing thing.

Answer 25

SOLIPSISM

Question 26

Obsessively checking online media for anticipated bad news.

Answer 26

DOOMSCROLLING

Question 27

Practice of publicly expressing sentiments intended to demonstrate one good character or moral correctness.

Answer 27

VIRTUE SIGNALING

Question 28

A massive amount of rapidly growing and circulating information consisting of a confusing combination of fact, falsehood, rumor and opinion.

Answer 28

INFODEMIC