Exam Terms

Question 1

Social Identity Theory

Answer 1

A theory of the social processes by which people come to identify with particular groups and separate themselves from others

Question 2

Social Constructionism

Answer 2

Theory that the ways in which we understand the world are not just ‘natural’, but are ‘constructed’ between people in everyday social interactions.

Question 3

Minimal Group

Answer 3

Groups set up in Social Identity Theory research to identify the minimum conditions necessary for group identities to form.

Question 4

Embodiment

Answer 4

Indicates that we live in and through our bodies and that we simultaneously experience our bodies physically and biologically as well as socially and psychologically.

Question 5

Core Identity

Answer 5

The central identity that individuals have to achieve from different aspects of their identities if they are to be psychologically healthy.

Question 6

Theory Of Mind

Answer 6

The ability to explain and predict the actions both of oneself and others; the ability to put oneself mentally in the place of another.

Question 7

Natural Selection

Answer 7

The process whereby physical and behavioural characteristics which enable survival (and the genes which code for these) are passed on to descendants.

Question 8

Sexual Selection

Answer 8

The process whereby physical and behavioural characteristics which promote reproductive success (and the genes which code for these) are passed on to descendants.

Question 9

Reciprocal Altruism

Answer 9

A term used in evolutionary psychology to explain the evolution of behaviour benefiting others who are not kin and where the altruist benefits directly.

Question 10

Behaviourism

Answer 10

The tradition that advocates that psychology should be a science of behaviour, without reference to mental states that cannot be observed.

Question 11

Socio-Cultural perspective

Answer 11

A perspective on learning which stresses that learning involves the use of tools and artefacts and is embedded within the context of interpersonal relationships, which in turn are embedded in social and cultural systems.

Question 12

Operant Conditioning

Answer 12

A variety of instrumental conditioning that traditionally has been studied in a Skinner box.

Question 13

Classical Conditioning

Answer 13

Learning arising from a pairing of two events outside the control of the animal.

Question 14

Category Learning

Answer 14

The learning that occurs when people come to understand that certain objects or entities belong together in particular categories.

Question 15

Neurotransmitter

Answer 15

A chemical that is released from a neuron and influences a neighbouring cell.

Question 16

Phenotype

Answer 16

The physical structure and behaviour of an animal that arises from the interaction of the genotype and the environment.

Question 17

Genotype

Answer 17

The collection of all of the genes within the cell of a given individual.

Question 18

Action Potential

Answer 18

A brief and sudden change in electrical voltage in a cell and the means by which information is transmitted by neurons.

Question 19

Brain Lesions

Answer 19

Damage to a region of the brain, for example in an accident or in surgery.

Question 20

Trait Theories of Personality

Answer 20

Propose a hierarchical structure for personality built from traits and clusters of traits.

Question 21

Psychometrics

Answer 21

Measures individual differences using tests constructed to high standards of reliability and validity.

Question 22

Heritability

Answer 22

The proportion of variability in a trait or psychological measure within a population that can be accounted for by genetic inheritance.

Question 23

Extraversion

Answer 23

The act, state, or habit of being predominantly concerned with obtaining gratification from what is outside the self

Question 24

Implicit personality theories

Answer 24

Lay theories about personality that people use to attribute motives and to describe themselves and others.

Question 25

Gibson’s direct perception

Answer 25

Perception without the need for integration with stored knowledge.

Question 26

Bottleneck theories of attention

Answer 26

Theory that suggests a ‘bottleneck’ in the attentional system such that only a small amount of the available sensory information can pass through.

Question 27

Limited capacity attention

Answer 27

A hypothetical construct used to explain why it is not possible to process all incoming information simultaneously.

Question 28

Attentional Spotlight

Answer 28

A metaphor for allocation of attention. Whatever falls within the attentional spotlight receives relatively more processing.

Question 29

Top-Down Processing

Answer 29

Information flowing ‘down’ from stored knowledge which can influence the interpretation of sensory information.

Question 30

Fundamental attribution error

Answer 30

The tendency, when explaining the behaviour of other people, to favour internal rather than external attributions.

Question 31

Attribution Theory

Answer 31

A theory which supposes that people attempt to understand the behaviour of others by attributing feelings, beliefs, and intentions to them.

Question 32

Schema

Answer 32

A mental structure containing knowledge relating to a particular kind of object.

Question 33

Stereotype

Answer 33

A mental representation of a person as more like a ‘typical’ member of a social category than the person actually is. Seen as an inevitable consequence of the basic cognitive process of overgeneralization.

Question 34

Self-Serving Bias

Answer 34

An information processing bias which serves the perceiver’s interests in some way, for example the tendency to attribute one’s success to internal causes and failure to external causes.

Question 35

Autobiographical memory

Answer 35

Episodes remembered from our individual life, including biographical information and past experiences.

Question 36

Flashbulb Memory

Answer 36

An autobiographical memory for the personal circumstances during which we first learn of a very surprising and emotionally arousing event.

Question 37

Encoding specificity principal

Answer 37

The notion that retrieval of information from memory depends on an overlap or matching of the cues that are available at retrieval with those registered at encoding.

Question 38

Episodic Memory

Answer 38

A subsystem of long- term memory concerned with personal episodes or events which include information about the place and the time in which they were acquired.

Question 39

Levels of processing

Answer 39

The theory that the retention of material in memory is dependent on how deeply it is processed at encoding.

Question 40

Collective memories

Answer 40

A pool of past important events to create shared or collective memories.

Question 41

Self-actualization

Answer 41

The human desire for self-fulfilment and developing one’s potential.

Question 42

Defence Mechanism

Answer 42

Largely unconscious processes for avoiding inner conflict and the anxiety this creates.

Question 43

Personal Constructs

Answer 43

Term used by Kelly to refer to the bipolar discriminations underlying the ways in which a person makes sense of his/her world.

Question 44

Psychodynamics

Answer 44

Internal psychic conflict between different forces or aspects of the self and the defences and distortions this may involve.

Question 45

Oedipal Conflict

Answer 45

Oedipal conflict arises during the phallic phase when a boy comes unconsciously to regard his father as rival for his mother’s affection.