Final Exam - SPRING 2022 Flashcards
Acetylcholine
a neurotransmitter associated with learning, memory, sleep, and movement.
associated disorders: Alzheimer’s Disease
Amygdala
The amygdala is involved in memory and emotion, especially fear and anger.
Asch
Solomon Asch conducted an experiment to investigate the extent to which social pressure from a majority group could affect a person to conform.
Attribution Theory (and errors of attribution)
Attribution theory deals with how the social perceiver uses information to arrive at causal explanations for events.
Axon
The long, threadlike part of a nerve cell along which impulses are conducted from the cell body to other cells.
Broca’s area
A region of the brain located on the frontal lobe of the dominant hemisphere, usually with functions linked to speech production.
Bystander Effect.
Inhibits a person’s willingness to help with others’ present.
Cognitive Dissonance.
A result of holding two or more conflicting ideas, values, or beliefs.
Compliance.
Changing one’s behavior due to the request or direction of another person.
Conformity.
The process whereby people change their beliefs, attitudes, actions, or perceptions to more closely match those held by groups to which they belong, want to belong, or by groups whose approval they desire.
Control condition.
a condition that does not involve exposure to the treatment or intervention under study.
Correlational research.
a non-experimental research method which studies the relationship between two variables with the help of statistical analysis.
Dendrite.
Dendrites transmit messages from other neurons to the cell body.
Dependent variable.
the variable that is being measured or tested in an experiment.
Situational vs. Dispositional Factors.
Dispositional (internal) attributions explain an outcome by looking within an individual.
Situational (external) attributions (e.g. fate, chance, luck) explain an outcome by looking outside of an individual.
Door-in-the-face.
Start off with an extravagant request, then make a more reasonable request.
Dopamine.
Movement, thought, processes, rewarding sensations.
Associated disorders: Parkinson’s disease, Schizophrenia, Drug Addiction
Elizabeth Loftus.
Car Crash Study
Endocrine System.
Endocrine cells release hormones, which travel to another nearby cell or act on cell in another part of the body.
Hormones take minutes or days to take effect while their effects last hours, days, or years. Endocrine system regulates long-term ongoing metabolic function.
Endorphins.
Pain perception, positive emotion
Associated disorders: opiate addiction.
Experiment.
an investigation in which a hypothesis is scientifically tested.
FMRI.
a form of magnetic resonance imaging used to localize areas of cognitive activation, based on the correlation between brain activity and blood property changes linked to local changes in blood flow to the brain.
Foot-in-the-door.
A compliance technique that assumes agreeing to a small request increases the likelihood of agreeing to a second, larger request.
Frontal Lobe.
Voluntary muscle movement, thinking, planning, emotional control.
Fundamental Attribution Error.
Overestimating internal influences and underestimating external influences when judging the behavior of others.
GABA.
Inhibition of brain activity.
Associated disorders: anxiety disorders.
Goals of Psychology.
- Describe
- Explain
- Predict
- Control
Groupthink.
A way of thinking in a group that accept beliefs or viewpoints that represent a group census, whether or not individual group members perceive it to be valid, correct, or optimal.
H.M.
A case study where some of the hippocampus was removed and the subject was left with the inability to form explicit, long-term memories.
Hindsight bias.
Where people perceive past events as having been more predictable than they actually were.
Hippocampus.
Involved in making new memories.
Hofstede (Power distance, uncertainty avoidance, etc…)
Hypothesis.
Illusory correlation.
Claiming that there is a relationship between two variables when no such thing (the correlational relationship) exists.
Independent Variable.
the characteristic of a psychology experiment that is manipulated or changed by researchers, not by other variables in the experiment.
In-group bias.
Just-world phenomenon.
Refers to the belief that the world is fair, and consequently, that the moral standings of our actions will determine our outcomes.
Low-ball technique.
a compliance method in which the persuader gets a person to commit to a low-ball offer they have no intention of keeping; then the price is suddenly increased.
Milgram.
Minority Influence.
When a member of a minority group influences the majority to believe the minority’s beliefs or behavior.
MRI.
a medical imaging technique that uses a magnetic field and computer-generated radio waves to create detailed images of the organs and tissues in your body.
Norepinephrine.
Physical arousal, learning, memory, regulation of sleep.
Associated disorders: depression, stress
Occipital Lobe.
Visual information
Optimistic Bias.
the mistaken belief that one’s chances of experiencing a negative event are lower (or a positive event higher) than that of one’s peers.
Parasympathetic Nervous System.
Conserves the body’s natural activity, and relaxes the individual once an emergency has passed.
Parietal Lobe.
Processes bodily information.
PET scan.
an imaging test of the brain.
Proactive interference.
when older memories interfere with the retrieval of newer memories.
Recognition vs. Recall.
Recognition refers to our ability to “recognize” an event or piece of information as being familiar, while recall designates the retrieval of related details from memory.
Retroactive interference.
when newer memories interfere with the retrieval of older memories.
Schema.
describes a pattern of thought or behavior that organizes categories of information and the relationships among them…a set of types, each associated with a set of properties.
Self-serving bias.
when we attribute positive events and successes to our own character or actions, but blame negative results to external factors unrelated to our character.
Serotonin.
Emotional states, sleep, sensory perception.
Associated disorders: depression
Stanford Prison Study/Zimbardo.
Stereotyping.
Sympathetic Nervous System.
directs the body’s rapid involuntary response to dangerous or stressful situations.
Synaptic Gap.
a microscopic gap between the neurons that deal with memory and is a facilitator of memory.
Temporal Lobe
Auditory information.
Thalamus
small structure within the brain located just above the brain stem between the cerebral cortex and the midbrain. The primary function of the thalamus is to relay motor and sensory signals to the cerebral cortex.
Theory
Wernicke’s Area
region of the brain that contains motor neurons involved in the comprehension of speech. Left hemisphere. posterior third, upper temporal.
