Final Exam Flashcards
1
Q
What is psychology? How has the definition changed over time?
A
“science of mental life” was the first definition “science of observable behavior” was the second definition “the science of mental processes and behavior” is the current definition
2
Q
Who is the father of psychology in the U.S.?
A
William James
3
Q
Describe the scientific method
A
Observe – theorize – hypothesize – accept or refine theory
4
Q
What is a theory?
A
fact-based framework for describing a phenomenon
5
Q
What is a Hypothesis
A
a tentative statement about the relationship between two or more variables
6
Q
What is a correlation?
A
Systematically measuring (Describing) the relationship between two variables
7
Q
What is the primary weakness of the correlational method?
A
Correlation does not equal causation and Spurious relationships
8
Q
control group
A
does not receive the “treatment” or alternative version of independent variable
9
Q
experimental group
A
manipulation of one or more variables to observe the effect on behavior or mental processes using random assignment to control for relevant factors
10
Q
Independant Variable
A
is the characteristic of a psychology experiment that is manipulated or changed.
11
Q
Dependent Variable
A
the measured variable (e.g., level of aggression)
12
Q
What is random assignment and why is it important?
A
Key to an experiment; each participant has an equal change of being assigned to the experimental and control conditions
13
Q
EEG
A
Electroencephalogram (EEG) records electrical activity on brain’s surface Advantages? Fast, in real time, cheap Disadvantages? Can’t look at structure of the brain
14
Q
MRI
A
MRI (Magnetic resonance imaging) and fMRI (functional MRI) MRI - Structure fMRI – Determines activity and function during information processing tasks
15
Q
Three types of neurons
A
Sensory, motor, and interneurons
16
Q
Sensory neurons
A
Carries sensory input to the brain
17
Q
Motor neurons
A
Carries message from brain to muscles
18
Q
Interneurons
A
Internal communication system (Middle men)
19
Q
What is a neurotransmitter?
A
chemical messengers that crosses synaptic gap or synapse (tiny space between neurons; not always believed to exist)
20
Q
What are the four areas of the cerebral cortex
A
Frontal Lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe, and temporal lobe
21
Q
Frontal Lobe
A
responsible for decision making, personality, speaking, and planning
22
Q
Parietal lobe
A
processes touch sensation, has sensory cortex, spatial awareness
23
Q
Occipital lobe
A
processes visual input, visual sensations
24
Q
Temporal lobe
A
deals with auditory sensations and language
25
High road processing
slow and thoughtful; “controlled processing” Really trying to study notes and paying attention
Something that takes a lot of effort Have a specific goal
26
Low road processing
fast and automatic processing
Driving
Taking notes In a busy place not paying attention to anything and you hear your name and respond even you weren't paying attention to it
Don’t have a specific goal
27
What is nature
Genes
Biologically
Neurotransmitters
Hormones
28
What is nurture
```
influence of expierence
Environment
Background
Socialization
Education
```
29
How much genetic material do human beings share with each other?
Humans are 99.95% genetically identical
30
What are the two categories of twin studiesq
Comparing identical to fraternal twins on agreeableness & Comparing identical twins raised together or apart on agreeableness
31
What was the overall conclusion of the Minnesota twins study (Bouchard, 2004)?
Most if not all of our psychological traits are inherited.
Finding that identical twins that were raised in different homes were very similar
32
What do adoption studies show with respect to nature and nurture influences on personality
Adults who were adopted will always be similar to their biological parents vs their adopted parents
33
According to evolutionary psychologists, how do mate selection strategies differ for men vs. women?
For men, furthering genes is about reproduction so they prefer/seek a mate favorable to that goal
furthering genes is about raising a healthy child (why?) so they prefer a mate favorable to that goal
34
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
Children around the same age tended to make the similar mistakes in reasoning
He believed that kids were as smart as adults but they just thought differently
35
Stages of cognitive development
1: Sensorimotor
2: Proporational
3: Concrete operational
4: Formal operational
36
Sensorimotor
From birth to 2 years
How do they understand the world?
Through their senses
Milestone: Object permanence
6 months or sooner
Object continues to exist even if it cant be seen
37
Proporational
Understands the world symbolically through words and images
Difficulty with mental operations – manipulate objects in the mind
For example, egocentrism- difficulty taking the perspective of another person
Exception to this is theory of mind in which child can take the emotional perspective of others
38
Concrete operational
From 7 to 12 years
Understanding of concrete mental operations
Problems with abstract (non-concrete) thinking
“if you could have a third eye where would you put it?”
Typical response: The back of your head
39
Formal operational
Formal operational
From 12 years on
Abstract thought and systematic reasoning
Form hypotheses and test them; can do brain teasers
40
How do children progress through above stages?
Drive to make sense underlies progress through stages
41
What the greatest strength of Piaget’s theory?
Sequence of cognitive milestones seems accurate across cultures
42
What is attachment
An emotional tie to something/someone
43
What is the purpose of attachment?
Because if they don’t attach to someone, they wont be protected
44
What are three types of attachment?
Secure attachment
Anxious-resistant
Avoidance attachment
45
What are the two parental behaviors that influence self-concept?
Warmth – affectionate, responding to a child's emotional needs, spends considerable time (responsiveness)
Control – control child's behavior, rules, punishment, and expectation
46
What is crystallized
| intelligence
accumulated knowledge and verbal skills (prior learning and past experiences)
47
Fluid intelligence
ability to reason quickly and abstractly (new problems)
48
What is perception
process by which sensory information is organized and interpreted (made meaningful)
top down processing- guided by higher level mental processes
49
Sensation
process by which our nervous system receives and represents environmental stimuli
Sensation is bottom-up processing- begins with sensory receptors and works up to brain
50
Sensory adaptation
diminishing sensitivity to an unchanging stimulus
51
What is absolute threshold?
minimum stimulation to detect a stimulus 50% of the time
52
Classical conditioning
a type of learning in which an organism associates two stimuli, such that one stimuli comes to elicit a response that was originally only naturally elicited by the other stimulus
53
Who discovered classical conditioning
Pavlov
54
Unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
stimulus that elicits an innate response
Food
55
Unconditioned response (UCR)
an innate response that is elicited by a stimulus without prior learning
Salivation to food
56
Conditioned stimulus (CS)
initially a neutral stimulus. When paired with the UCS comes to elicit a conditioned response
Bell
57
Conditioned response (CR)
a response elicited by the CS
Salivation to bel
58
Operant conditioning
an organism forms associations between behavior and consequences of the behavior
If consequences are good…then the person will do the behavior again
If consequences are bad…then the person won’t do the behavior again
59
what is a reinforcer?
something that increases the frequency of a behavior or response (reward)
60
tangible reinforcer
Something you could grasp (food)
61
non-tangible reinforcer
Something you cannot grasp (praise)
62
Positive reinforcement
when a behavior or response is strengthened by presenting a pleasurable stimulus
63
Negative reinforcement
when a behavior or response is strengthened by reducing or removing something unpleasant or undesirable
64
What is memory?
Learned information that has been stored and can be retrieved
65
How do researchers study memory
Recall
Recognition
Relearning
66
How does age relate to performance on recognition vs recall tasks?
Recognition stays constant as we age while recall is better when we are young
People are overall better at recognition
This study asked people to recall class mates from 25 years earlier
One from a list
One from memory
67
What is the misinformation effect (Loftus & Palmer, 1974)?
Has long studied fragility of memory, applying her research to eyewitness testimony and memory for traumatic experiences
68
What are three ways researchers have identified that we solve problems?
Heuristics, algorithms, and insight
69
functional fixedness
tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions
70
representativeness bias
Assumption that any object (or person) sharing characteristics with the members of a particular category is also a member of that category
71
availability bias
we judge likelihood of things in terms of how available in memory (vivid/recent)
72
affective forecasting
the prediction of one's affect (emotional state) in the future.
73
What is motivation?
Something that energizes behavior and directs it towards a goal
74
Which part of the brain controls hunger?
The hypothalamus monitors appetite hormones
75
What division of the nervous system is acting in fight or flight
Sympathetic
76
What is anorexia nervosa
Excessive fear of gaining weight/becoming overweight
Sometimes engage in excessive exercise
May begin as a weight loss diet
Usually adolescents; mostly female
Fall significantly below normal body weight
77
What is bulimia nervosa
May also be triggered by weight loss diet
Repeated (pattern of) binging and purging
Late teens, early 20s; mostly female
More common than Anorexia (NIMH, 2009)
78
What are the three components of an emotion?
cognition, physiological responses, and behavioral reactions to events
79
Which emotional expression seems universal according to cross-cultural research by Ekman and colleagues?
Surprise, anger, sadness, disgust, fear, and happiness
80
How do prior experience, personality, and gender influence emotion detection abilities?
Experience - Physical abuse
Personality - Extraversion
More introverted - detect emotions better
Gender - Gender and “emotion literacy” Women
81
What is happiness
a positive state of mind; also called subjective well-being
82
What effects of happiness have been found in experimental research?
Flexible thinking, creativity, interest and exploration “Feel good, do good phenomenon”
83
Describe two phenomena that have a large influence on our happiness
Adaptation level and relative deprivation
84
Adaptation level
the tendency to judge stimuli relative to those we have previously experienced; means we will adapt quickly and the new thing will be the norm "We always recalibrate"
85
Relative deprivation
sense that we are worse off than others
86
What is personality?
a person’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting
87
What is the contemporary approach to personality?
Adult human personality reflects differences along five broad dimensions
88
Who was Sigmund Freud?
Not a psychologist by training
Was a physician and wanted to become a neurologist
Developed his own theory of personality
89
How did Freud think about the unconscious in a unique way?
He saw it as a reservoir of unacceptable resources. Where we thought of things that were too unacceptable to be said out loud
90
Describe the three systems of personality according to Freud
Free association
Dream interpretation
Slips of the tongue
91
Free association
relax, say whatever comes to mind
92
Dream interpretation
believed dreams were the “royal road to the unconscious”
93
Slips of the tongue
“faulty actions”; errors in speech, memory, or behavior
94
What were the three interacting systems of personality according to Freud?
Id
Ego
Superego
95
What is a psychological disorder
Persistently harmful thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
A pattern of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are deviant, distressful, and dysfunctional
96
What are three characteristics that determine difference between unusual behavior and abnormal behavior?
Deviant
Distressful
Dysfunction
97
Deviant
different from most others in a particular culture
98
Distressful
is it pleasant or unpleasant for the person
99
Dysfunction
does it affect one’s life in a negative way
100
What is the biopsychosocial perspective
biological, psychological, and social factors to psychological disorders
101
Psychological factors in biopsychosocial perspective
```
¥ Self-esteem
¥ Coping
¥ Personality
¥ Perceived control
¥ Explanatory style
¥ Optimism
¥ Resilience
```
102
Biological factors in biopsychosocial perspective
```
¥ Brain chemistry and physiology
¥ Genetics and heredity
¥ Brain damage
¥ Physical health (e.g., poor nutrition, inadequate sleep)
¥ Medication or drug use
```
103
Social factors in biopsychosocial perspective
```
¥ Social support
¥ Socioeconomic status (SES)
¥ Life events/ stressors
¥ Cultural beliefs
¥ Societal expectations
Perceived racism
```
104
How does a biomedical model not fit psychological disorders?
• Because most psychological disorders are not caused by a pathogen or other medical cause
105
What were some good things about the biomedical view of psychological disorders (e.g., what models did it replace?
• Replaced older models that were stigmatizing such as moral model or religious models
Led to drug discovery
106
what happened to institutionalization under the biomedical model?
less institutionalization due to drug discovery
107
What is the DSM-5
• American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of psychological disorders
108
How are diagnoses made according to DSM-5?
• Defines process of diagnosis for 16 clinical syndromes
109
What is bipolar disorder
• Altering between depressive manic states
110
What has happened to the prevalence of this disorder
• The diagnoses have shot up by 40x
| o Mainly Young males
111
What is major depressive disorder
The common cold of psychological disorders
- The number one reason people seek mental health services
- Five or more of the following symptoms for at least two weeks
(one has to be a depressed mood or a loss of pleasure (APA, 2000).
112
What are its symptoms/diagnostic criteria?
1. Depressed mood most of the day, nearly every day
2. Diminished interest in pleasurable activities
3. Significant weight loss or gain (5% of body weight)
4. Insomnia or hypersomnia
5. Psychomotor agitation or retardation
6. Fatigue or loss of energy
7. Feelings of worthlessness or inappropriate guilt
8. Diminished ability to think
9. Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide ideation
113
What has research in the last 25 years found regarding depression?
¥ Depression is accompanied by behavioral and cognitive changes meaning...
¥ Depression is prevalent- nearly 10% of Americans experienced a mood disorder (NIMH, 2008)
¥ Women are twice as likely to experience depressive disorder
¥ Most people recover without professional help
¥ Recurrence (half will have depression reoccur within the next 2 years)
¥ Can be triggered by environmental events (Kendler et al., 2006)
¥ Can have biological predisposition
114
What biological factors have been identified in depression?
* Heritability and genetics
* Depression shows heritability
* Genetics seems to be a profile but it's not one gene rather a set of genes and researchers don’t know which ones
115
Which neurotransmitters have been identified?
• Two neurotransmitters have been implicated (Davidson, 1998)
o Norepinephrine- increases arousal, also boost mood
o Serotonin- influences direct or indirectly almost every brain cell; motivation, mood, appetite, sexual desire, sleep, memory, temperature regulation etc.
116
What social and psychological factors have been identified in depression (e.g., negative explanatory style)?
Ð Stressful events (social)
¥ E.g., Death of a spouse, divorce, loss of job, financial strain etc.
Ð Psychological characteristics make it difficult to break depression cycle
¥ E.g., self-esteem, personality, perceived control, particular way of thinking
117
What are the five types of anxiety disorders
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Panic Disorder
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Phobia
118
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
o In a state of almost constant autonomic arousal
| o An individual is continually tense and uneasy, jittery, agitated, and sleep deprived
119
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
o characterized by unwanted repetitive thoughts (obsessions) and actions (compulsions)
120
Panic Disorder
o anxiety comes and goes suddenly
o Panic attacks – minutes long duration in which fear something horrible is going to occur
o shortness of breath, heart palpitations, choking sensations, dizziness, and trembling, i.e., autonomic arousal
121
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
o characterized by haunting memories, nightmares, social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, and insomnia
122
Phobia
o persistent, irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object or situation
o going great lengths to avoid a feared thing
o when presented with one’s phobia, causes autonomic arousal and panic
