Exam 2 Psychology

Question 1

What are the three compliance principles we went over and why do they work?

Answer 1

Reciprocity, Commitment, Scarcity.

Question 2

What are the personality perspectives we discussed in class and their corresponding
theoretical perspectives?

Answer 2

Psychodynamic Perspectives
Personality: a pattern of enduring, distinctive
thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that characterize
the way an individual adapts to the world.
Psychodynamic perspectives: theoretical views
emphasizing that personality is primarily
unconscious (beyond awareness).
* Behavior is only a surface characteristic.

Humanistic Perspectives
Humanistic perspectives: theoretical views
stressing people’s capacity for personal growth and
positive human qualities.
* We all have the ability to control our lives and to achieve
what we desire.

Trait Perspectives
Traits are stable personality characteristics.
Trait perspectives on personality have been the
dominant approach for nearly four decades.

Social Cognitive Perspectives
Social cognitive perspectives: theoretical views
emphasizing conscious awareness, beliefs,
expectations, and goals.
* Incorporate principles from behaviorism.
* Emphasize the person’s individual interpretation of
situations.
* Not interested in broad traits; rather, focus on specific
factors such as beliefs and expectations.

Biological Perspectives
The notion that physiological processes influence
personality has been around since ancient times.
More recent advances in method and theory have
led to fascinating research on the role of biological
processes in personality.

Question 3

Study the Holmes and Rahe’s Social Readjustment Rating Scale

Answer 3

The Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS) – more commonly known as the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale – is a self-assessment tool for measuring the total stress you’re experiencing. It can also help you to respond effectively to whatever stresses you face.

The highest rating on the scale is the death of a spouse.

Question 4

What things are most stressful for us?

Answer 4

1 Death of a spouse 100
2 Divorce 73
3 Marital separation 65
4 Jail term 63
7 Marriage 50
12 Pregnancy 40
16 Change in financial state 38
20 Take out mortgage or loan for major purchase 31
25 Outstanding personal achievement 28
32 Change in residence 20
38 Change in sleeping habits 16
41 Vacation 13

Question 5

Study the undergraduate stress questionnaire we went over in class

Answer 5

-Death
-Its final weeks
-Found out someone is cheating on you
-Problems with computer
-Working while in school
-Can’t finish everything you need to
-Parents controlling with money
-Had a visit from a relative

Question 6

What is acculturative stress?

Answer 6

Its stress caused by adapting to a culture other than your own. Anticipating discrimination.

Question 7

What two pathways are involved in the biology of stress and what do each of these do
(i.e. what do they release)

Answer 7

HPA and SAM release cortisol SAM releases adrenaline

Question 8

What is problem focused coping?

Answer 8

Focusing on fixing the issue and doing actionable things to eliminate the stress. Most common in men.

Question 9

What is emotion focused coping?

Answer 9

They focus on helping the emotional standpoint and the problem is usually something that can’t be fixed.

Question 10

What is the integrated model of response

Answer 10

Wiese-Bjornstal, Smith, Shaffer, & Morrey (1998) developed the integrated model of psychological response to injury and rehabilitation which comprise three main components: cognitive appraisal, emotional response, and behavioural response.

Question 11

The defense mechanisms

Answer 11

Denial Refusing to accept or acknowledge the reality of a situation or idea
Rationalization Devising a plausible reason or motive to explain one’s behavior
Reaction formation Engaging in a behavior or attitude that is at the opposite extreme of
one’s true motive or impulse
Regression Returning to an earlier stage of development in one’s behavior,
thinking, or attitudes
Sublimation Directing emotions into an activity that is more constructive and
socially acceptable
Repression Excluding wishes, impulses, ideas, or memories from consciousness
Projection Attributing one’s own ideas, feelings, or attitudes to other people
Displacement Directing emotions toward a less threatening source`

Question 12

What is an action potential?

Answer 12

An action potential is defined as a sudden, fast, transitory, and propagating change of the resting membrane potential. Only neurons and muscle cells are capable of generating an action potential; that property is called the excitability.

Question 13

What is the biopsychosocial framework?

Answer 13

Human development is a result of interacting forces
Biological forces: all genetic and health-related factors that affect development.
Sociocultural forces: interpersonal, societal, cultural, and ethnic factors that
affect development.
Psychological forces: interpersonal, societal, cultural, and ethnic factors that
affect development.
Lifecycle forces: differences in how the same event affects people of different
ages.

Question 14

What is nature vs nurture?

Answer 14

Genetics vs environment

Question 15

What is epigenetics?

Answer 15

Epigenetics: How our environment can change our DNA over time. In early childhood and adolescences internal(nature/genetics) changes drive
development. In adulthood external(environment/epigenetic) changes drive
development.

Question 16

What is the difference between discontinuity approaches to development and
continuity approaches to development?

Answer 16

Continuity is when: Development is seen as proceeding gradually and smoothly
over time. Example: Rainbow
Discontinuity is when: Development is seen as proceeding more abruptly from
one stage to the next. Example: Staircase

Question 17

What is prenatal development?

Answer 17

The time between: The 9 months between conception and birth

Question 18

What is a zygote?

Answer 18

Zygote: The first 2 weeks following conception.
During the first the zygote differentiates into three germ layers: The
ectoderm, the mesoderm and the endoderm.

Question 19

What are the germ layers the zygote differentiates into and what do they do?

Answer 19

Ectoderm: develops into nerve tissue and skin.
Mesoderm: will give rise to muscle and bone.
Endoderm: source of much of the body’s soft tissue, such as the
organs of the digestive tract.

Question 20

What is an embryo?

Answer 20

Embryo: Weeks 3 through 8 following conception.

Question 21

What is a fetus?

Answer 21

Fetus: Weeks 9 through 9 months (until the remainder of the pregnancy)
By the fourth week following conception, the nervous system has differentiated
into: forebrain, midbrain, hindbrain, and spinal cord.

Question 22

What does fetal rem sleep do?

Answer 22

Fetal REM sleep might provide the spontaneous activity necessary for the
refinement of connections in the nervous system. Its rapid eye movement sleep, doctors can monitor this.

Question 23

What systems develop during the embryonic stage?

Answer 23

The heart, stomach,
liver, and other organs are formed during this period, and the initial
differentiation between male and female internal sex organs

Question 24

When can a fetus begin to hear?

Answer 24

The fetus’s ability to hear noises outside the mother’s body is quite
good during the last few months of pregnancy

Question 25

When do we begin learning food preferences?

Answer 25

They can develop food preferences as early as 4 months on the womb.

Question 26

How long do full term pregnancies last?

Answer 26

Most pregnancies last about 40 weeks, and babies born between 37-42 weeks are
considered typical, or “term,” births.

Question 27

What percent of babies are born before 32 weeks?

Answer 27

2% are born before 32 weeks of pregnancy.

Question 28

What is a woman’s chance of giving birth to a child with down syndrome at age 18?
What about age 45?

Answer 28

A woman’s chances of giving birth to a child with Down syndrome are only about 1
out of 2,000 at age 18, but rise to 1 out of 30 at age 45.

Question 29

What is a tetragon?

Answer 29

Teratogen: Any agent that can produce harmful effects in the zygote, embryo, or fetus

Question 30

What developmental changes does FAS produce?

Answer 30

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS): Alcohol consumption by a pregnant woman can result in a
condition known as fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). FAS produces a number of physical
abnormalities (see picture below), as well as cognitive and behavioral problems,
including reduced IQ, attention problems, and poor impulse control.

Question 31

When is the newborn stage?

Answer 31

Newborn: begins officially at birth and lasts for 28 days.

Question 32

Who hears better a newborn or an older child?

Answer 32

Older child

Question 33

What are the different infant reflexes?

Answer 33

Babinski - Stroking a babies foot causes their toes to spread
Blink - Eye closes in response to stimuli
Palmar - placing an object in their hand produces a grasp.
Rooting - Stroking a babies cheek causes them to go towards the cheek and to open their mouth
Stepping - Placing feet on a flat surface produces stepping
Sucking - The baby sucks on anything that touches the roof of its mouth.

Question 34

What is myelination?

Answer 34

the growth in white matter An interesting spurt in myelination occurs between the ages of 6-13 in parts of
the brain associated with language and spatial relations. The rather sudden end
of this white matter growth coincides with the ending of a sensitive period for
language development.

Question 35

What were Piaget’s stages of development?

Answer 35

Sensorimotor: begins at birth and lasts until the child’s second birthday. The
name of this stage reflects the infant’s existence in the here and now. The child at
the sensorimotor stage does not think extensively in terms of past and future.
Sensations immediately evoke motor responses.
Object permanence: One of the major milestones that occur during the
sensorimotor stage is the achievement of object permanence.
Infants under the age of 8 months or so do not seem to be able to form
clear memories, or mental representations, for objects once they are
removed from the immediate present.
Example: Piaget carried a rather beautiful gold pocket watch,
which of course was quite attractive to young children. If Piaget
covered the watch with his beret while an infant watched, the
infant would not show any signs of searching for the now missing
watch. Around the age of 8 months or so, infants become more
persistent. If you hide the pocket watch now, they will look for it.

reoperational stage: lasts from approximately age 2 to age 6, or the child’s preschool
years. While significant advances in cognitive and language abilities occur during this
stage, thinking is still relatively immature. The stage gets its name from the notion that
children are still incapable of engaging in internal mental operations or manipulations,
such as following the transformation of objects from one form to another.

Concrete operational stage: to the stage between the ages of 6 and 12. Rather suddenly,
problems of conservation are easily solved, and thinking becomes more logical. The only
remaining limitation is an inability to handle abstract concepts, which will not be
resolved until the next and final stage.

Formal operations: which begins around the age of 12. The final piece to be added to the
child’s cognitive skill set is the ability to handle abstract concepts. Abstract concepts
usually involve “what if” types of questions and form the heart of scientific inquiry

Question 36

What is object permanence?

Answer 36

Object permanence involves understanding that items and people still exist even when you can’t see or hear them. This concept was discovered by child psychologist Jean Piaget and is an important milestone in a baby’s brain development.

Question 37

What is egocentrism, animism, and conservation?

Answer 37

egocentrism, in psychology, the cognitive shortcomings that underlie the failure, in both children and adults, to recognize the idiosyncratic nature of one’s knowledge or the subjective nature of one’s perceptions.

the belief that natural phenomena or inanimate objects are alive or possess lifelike characteristics, such as intentions, desires, and feelings.

In short, being able to conserve means knowing that a quantity doesn’t change if it’s been altered (by being stretched, cut, elongated, spread out, shrunk, poured, etc).

Question 38

Who is Vygotsky?

Answer 38

Lev Vygotsky was an early 20th century developmental psychologist who developed a sociocultural theory of child development designed to account for the influence of culture on a child’s growth and development.

Question 39

Know the difference between conformity, compliance, and obedience

Answer 39

• CONFORMITY
  – Change in behavior due to the real or imagined influence of other people
• COMPLIANCE:
  – Change in behavior due to requests from another person
• OBEDIENCE:
  – Change in behavior due to commands of an authority figure

Question 40

What is normative social influence?

Answer 40

Normative behavior is to change your opinion just to fit into the group but you don’t actually change your opinion. Social influence is when you change to the group standard because you want to be right with the group.

Question 41

What are the results of the variations of the Milgram experiment?

Answer 41

• 100% of participants went up to 300 volts
• 65% (2/3) went all the way to 450 volts

Question 42

Uniform condition

Answer 42

• The role of the experimenter was then taken
  over by an ‘ordinary member of the public’ ( a
  confederate) in everyday clothes rather than a
  lab coat.
• The obedience level dropped to 20%

Question 43

Change of location condition

Answer 43

• The experiment was moved to a set of run
  down offices rather than the impressive Yale
  University
• Obedience dropped to 47.5%

Question 44

Two Teacher Condition

Answer 44

• When participants could instruct an assistant
  (confederate) to press the switches
• 92.5% shocked to the maximum 450 volts

Question 45

Social Support
Condition

Answer 45

• Two other participants (confederates) were
  also teachers but refused to obey.
• Confederate 1 stopped at 150 volts, and
  confederate 2 stopped at 210 volts.
• The presence of others who are seen to
  disobey the authority figure reduces the level
  of obedience to 10%.

Question 46

Absent Experimenter
Condition

Answer 46

• When the experimenter instructed and
  prompted the teacher by telephone from
  another room, obedience fell to 20.5%.

Question 47

What is the chameleon effect?

Answer 47

This is when you unconsciously mimic someone