Final Exam: Key Terms Flashcards
free association
a. Component of psychoanalytic theory; can be used to reveal the hidden emotional causes of the disorder
ethology
i. An evolutionary approach to the study of animal behavior
ii. Used naturalistic observation
iii. Field experiments
iv. Role of natural selection and adaptation
b. Von Frisch, Lorenz, and Tinbergen
catharsis
a. Re-enactment of traumatic experiences to purge the mind of underlying tension and conflict
b. Form of pre-Freudian treatment for those with mental disorders
hysteria
a. Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893): hypnotic suggestibility is a symptom of a mental disorder—a neurosis called hysteria
b. Patients have physical ailments but with no actual physical, medical problem
c. Freud was highly interested hysteria and believed that it had its roots in psychology and not physiology
psychoanalysis
reud believed that people could be cured by making conscious their unconscious thoughts and motivations, thus gaining “insight”.
The aim of psychoanalysis therapy is to release repressed emotions and experiences, i.e. make the unconscious conscious
parapraxias
a. Fits into Freud’s theory
b. Expression of the unconscious in everyday life
i. Unconscious slipping out in everyday life because of hidden desires conflicting with social restrictions
c. “slips of the tongue” (Freudian slips)
d. Forgetfulness
e. Interpretation of jokes and humor
dream work
i. Ideas disguised as dreams
ii. In Freudian theory, processes by which latent content becomes transformed into manifest content, primarily through displacement, condensation, and concrete representation
projection
a. Freudian defense mechanism in which one’s own unacceptable feelings are repressed and then attributed to someone else instead
fixation
a. Part of Freud’s psychosexual theory of development
latent learning
a form of learning that is not immediately expressed in an overt response; it occurs without any obvious reinforcement of the behavior
morgan’s canon
i. In no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of the exercise of a higher psychical faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower in the psychological scale
displacement
satisfying an impulse with a substitute object
intelligence quotient
a. A division of your mental age and your chronological age and was proposed by William Stern
rationalization
a. Freudian defense mechanism in which a person’s true motivations are denied and a false excuse or explanation is substituted for them
reaction formation
in psychoanalytic theory, defense mechanism in which emotions and impulses which are anxiety-producing or perceived to be unacceptable are mastered by exaggeration of the directly opposing tendency.
wish fulfillment
a. Freudian concept that sees dreams as wish fulfillments
Compromise between desire and self-censorship
transference
phenomenon where patients undergoing clinical therapy begin to transfer their feelings of a particular person in their lives to the therapist
posthypnotic suggestion
A suggestion made to a hypnotized person that specifies an action to be performed after awakening, often in response to a cue.
operant conditioning
a. Skinner’s theory of learning that states a behavior can be modified based on its consequence
i. Reinforcement strengthens responses
1. Positive reinforcement
a. Rewards participant while it is present
2. Negative reinforcement
a. Rewards participant when it is withdrawn
unconscious motivation
refers to hidden and unknown desires that are the real reasons for things that people do.
Thorndike’s law of effect
behaviors that lead to satisfying outcomes are more likely to be repeated, whereas behaviors that lead to unsatisfying outcomes are less likely to occur again
phrenology
a pseudoscience primarily focused on measurements of the human skull, based on the concept that the brain is the organ of the mind, and that certain brain areas have localized, specific functions or modules.
discrimination
a. Initially animals respond indiscriminately to a range of stimuli, but by selective reinforcement, Pavlov trained his animals to make a conditioned response to a the reinforced stimulus, but not to other stimuli
generalization
a. Conditioned response often occur to stimuli that are similar to (but not identical) the original CS
extinction
a. If the CS is paired repeatedly without the US, the CR will eventually disappear, or become extinguished
spontaneous recovery
a. After some time the response may reappear, and the CS will again elicit the CR
skinner box
a. An invention of Skinner used to examine the behavior of rats
classical conditioning
i. A neutral stimulus leads to a response as a result of being paired with another stimulus that already produces the response
intervening variables
in empirical research explains why or how relationships exist between 2 variables
critical period
i. a period in the lifespan of an individual (in birds, a short time after hatching) where learning or imprinting is greatly facilitated
sign stimulus
i. The component of an action or object that triggers a fixed response in an animal (i.e. herring gull chick’s begging response)
imprinting
a. Konrad Lorenz’s principle
Form of learning in which individuals exposed to certain key stimuli, usually during an early stage of development, form an association with the
stimuli
industrial melanism
a. During the Industrial Revolution, with all of the soot settling on buildings, a species of moth were darker colors survived more than the light colored ones because they blended better in the environment
b. This showed a kind of natural selection, where the darker color moths lived because they were better suited to the new environment
contingencies of reinforcement
strategies used to increase, maintain, or decrease behaviors such as reinforcement schedules
manifest vs. latent content of dreams
- Latent content
a. In Freudian theory, the hidden meaning of dreams that lies beneath the manifest content - Manifest content
a. In Freudian theory, the actual images, thoughts, and content of a dream as experienced by the dreamer; it is actually a transformation of the precipitating but more psychologically dangerous latent content
reinforcement schedules
A positive or negative relationship with the reinforcer; can be continuous or intermittent, interval vs ratio
adaptive radiation
evolution of an animal or plant group into a wide variety of types adapted to specialized modes of life
operational definition
They provide a basis for attaching every theoretical construct to observable empirical phenomena (or data
object permanence
a. Jean Piaget’s thought that this was necessary in order for a child to move from the sensori-motor stage to the preoperational stage
b. It is the concept that even though we can no longer perceive an object, it still exists
anthropomorphism
a. Assigning human characteristics to non-human animals (jealousy, happiness, etc.)
regression to the mean
statistical phenomenon that states that data that is extremely higher or lower than the mean will likely be closer to the mean if it is measured a second time
honeybee waggle dance
i. Honeybee dance communication
1. When honeybees have found food, they’ll perform a dance on the wall of the hive; the type of dance is determined by the proximity of the food
genotype and phenotype
genotype is the coded information in DNA that is inherited genetically; phenotype is the observable expression of that trait
cognitive map
a. Proposed by Edward Tolman that means that we have a mental map of our immediate area in our minds and we use it to navigate through space
b. Studied this in rats making choices in a maze, they seemed to know that the path that seems to lead to the food is not always the best or even a viable option
Thorndike’s law of exercise
responses that occur in a given situation become more strongly associated with that situation
