Definitions For All Units Flashcards
Stereotype
An oversimplified generalized set of beliefs about a group of people or a minority that are usually not true and don’t reflect reality.
Discrimination
Acting upon your prejudices and actively discriminating against someone because of their race, religion, ethnicity by not giving them a job or doing something that brings them harm or distress.
Generalising
Believing that all people in a group have a certain ability or personal characteristic or do something such as: Italians all love pizza
All Americans are fat
All Irish people like leprechauns
This is a very similar definition to a stereotype.
Eye contact
When two people look into each other’s eyes and make “eye contact” AT THE SAME TIME
Postural echo
When two people adopt the same posture, such as sitting with their arms folded. This may be because they are enjoying each other’s company and they get on well together.
Pupil dilation
When someone pupils become bigger so they can absorb more light when the person is in he dark. This is an unconscious decision that the body makes and we have no choice over this.
Hess’s study shows that when your pupils dilate it can make you appear more attractive towards someone else
Positive reinforcement
When someone has their behavior encouraged by the being given something such as a treat or reward.
For example:
Rat pulls lever-
Hatch releases pellet of food-
Rat wants to pull the lever.
Positive reinforcement.
Negative reinforcement
Encouraging a behavior though the removal of a negative stimulus.
For example:
Floor is electrified-
Rat pulls lever-
Floor stops being electrified.
Negative reinforcement.
Monozygotic twins
Two twins that came from the same ovum and have incredibly similar if not identical genetics.
Buss and Plomins’s study showed that monozygotic twins have very similar personalities like their:
Emotions
Sociability
Activity
Multi-store theory
The process of memory goes through three stores-
Short term- a few chunks not a lot of information that can be stored for very long.
Sensory- a few seconds and can’t be remembered easily.
Long term- can be stored for up to a lifetime and memories can be accessed very easily.
Social Loafing
When one or more people slack off and don’t work in a group. Many factors affect this such as group size and the task at hand.
Temperament
It is the genetic, inherited aspects of our personality that we must try hard to change and come from our parents and family.
Sex Identity
It is the biology behind our sex, which is the primary sex characteristics and chromosomes that make up our sex.
Gender Identity
It is how we psychologically identify ourselves on the scale of masculine and feminine and is not made up of our biology it is purely how we feel and our attitudes towards sex and gender.
Gender Schema
It is a mental building block of knowledge that makes up the ideas and how we feel about gender. An example of this is:
“Steven think all men are doctors and believes all women are nurses.” This is an example of Gender Schema.
Thanatos
It is an inner aggressive drive that we are able to sublimate in a socially acceptable way such as playing rugby or boxing. We can also displace it onto others by hurting other people and both of these will reduce our inner Thanatos and that aggressive drive.
Encoding
It is us when we encode new memories into our brains and we can encode these more deeply by using semantic processing which will allow us to retrieve these memories more easily.
Storage
When we are storing these memories into our brains and people with retro-grade amnesia cannot access these memories before the accident or event that caused them to have amnesia.
Retrieval
When we can access the memories by retrieving them and people with retro-grade amnesia struggle to do this.
Antero-grade amnesia
When someone cannot form new memories and they struggle in the encoding process of making memories.
Bystander Intervention
When a bystander will intervene in a situation. Many factors affect this such as the appearance of the victim and the amount of people in the surrounding area.
Eye-witness Testimony
When a witness to an event gives a statement about what happened such as the victims appearance or the weapon they were carrying when a crime happened
Positive Reinforcement
It is the addition of a pleasant stimulus or reward with the aim of encouraging a certain behaviour again.
Negative Reinforcement
The removal of an unpleasant stimulus to encourage a behaviour from happening again.
Gender Psychodynamic Theory
That boys and girls suffer from a complex where they unconsciously desire their same sex parent. (Oedipus and Electra Complex.)
They fear punishment and castration from their other parent and resolve the complex by associating with their same sex parent which will resolve their same sex parent.
Social Learning Theory of Aggressive Behaviour
People model aggressive behaviour which is imitated by people who believe them to be role models and then the aggressive behaviour increases.
De-individuation
When people lose their individuality and then they feel they are less responsible for their actions and this can potentially be dangerous for people to commit crimes.
Anonymity
When someone becomes unknown and anonymous with a group of people and then this increases the probability they will commit crimes and often is accompanied by being de-individuated.
Ritalin
A drug used to supress the behaviours of people with ADHD and there have been ethical issues such as the argument that they are numbing people into behaving and people become completely suppressed and numbed into behaving.
Anti-social Personality Disorder
It is the condition where people have a lack of empathy for others and increases the likelihood they will commit crimes. A lot of people in prison and gang populations have APD.
