KhanAcademy & AAMC Flashcards
Narcolepsy
Inability to resist sleep
remember:
Just World Phenomenon
Self-serving Bias
- good things happen to good people and vice versa
- notion that we, ourselves, could never commit horrible acts/we are internally good
Fundamental Attribution Error
others in “out-group” behave a certain way because of inherent personal traits or flaws, while our “in-group” would only behave that way because ofsituation/surroundings
Factors that Influence Conformity (within a group)
- groups of 3 to 5
- unanimity (Asch’s line study)
- group status
- group cohesion (whether you are connected to the group)
- observed behavior
- public response
- prior commitments (if stated something up-front)
- feelings of insecurity
- NOT determined by personality traits
- mood: those having a rough day are LESS likely to conform than those having a good day
Social Facilitation
the presence of others will increase the dominant response of a particular behavior (due to increased arousal/nerves)
ex. if you practiced your presentation repeatedly, the presence of others will help you perform, but if you didn’t practice, the presence of others will hinder your performance
Locus of Control
Internal - belief that you can control outcomes (those with an internal locus of control are often more successful)
External - belief that outside forces control your fate (ex. blaming teacher for poor test score)
Learned Helplessness
an uncontrollable series of bad events => a prolonged perception of a lack of an internal locus of control => helpless behavior even when do have the opportunity to control an event
(apply to those in poverty, homelessness, incarceration, with disabilities)
Tyranny of Choice
having too many choices negatively impacts cognition or behavior
- information overload
- decision paralysis
- inc. regret
Mediating Variable
underlies the observed relationship between an independent and dependent variable
Homophily
“Based on the homophily principle, people often prefer mixing with those who are similar to themselves.”
remember Operant Conditioning: Behaviorism - Skinner Box a) variable ratio b) variable interval c) fixed interval d) fixed ratio
i-iv) positive/negative punishment/reinforcement
a) Variable ratio is a reward after a randomized number of responses
b) Variable interval would be a reward after a random amount of time
c) Fixed interval is a reward after a set period of time
d) Fixed ratio would be a reward after a set number of responses
i) Positive refers to adding a stimulus
ii) Negative refers to removing a stimulus
iii) Punishment refers to the decrease of a behavior
iv) Reinforcement refers to the increase of a behavior
Extinction Burst
When an animal no longer receives regular reinforcement, its original behavior will sometimes spike/increase dramatically - this is known as an extinction burst (Operant Conditioning)
Systems of the Working Memory Model:
image on word document
Central Executive - supervises the cognitive process of memory
Articulatory Rehearsal Component - (had minimal effect on the test since there was not enough time for rehearsal before the subject was required to repeat the digit string)
Phonological Store - it is believed that the phonological store capacity is around 2 seconds
remember Type I vs. Type II Error
- Type I error, or a false positive, is the incorrect rejection of the null hypothesis
- Type II error, or a false negative, is the incorrect acceptance of a null hypothesis that is actually false
The Link Memory System
Utilizes order and connections (links) to facilitate memory recovery - is not a chunking technique
remember Classical Conditioning:
- Conditioned stimulus (CS)
- Unconditioned response (UR)
- Conditioned response (CR)
- Unconditioned stimulus (US)
a conditioned stimulus/response is the one introduced by the researchers
Longitudinal Study
Longitudinal studies observe groups of individuals over an extended period of time, taking multiple measurements of behaviors
Cross-Sectional Study
A cross-sectional study is observational and involves comparisons of different population groups within a single point in time (ex. assessments completed at the end of courses)
Within-Subject Study
Within-subjects refers to an experimental study where all subjects are exposed to every experimental condition or treatment
Personality Theories:
a) Psychoanalytic
b) Behavioral
c) Biological
d) Humanistic
a) Psychoanalytic personality theory is focused on the subconscious mind and unconscious desires
b) Behavioral personality theory is focused on the environment and how it shapes personality and behavioral responses
c) Biological personality theory is focused on genetic, structural, or functional determinants of personality
d) Humanistic personality theory is focused on the pursuit of highest potential and the ability to determine one’s own future
Atonia
Skeletal muscle paralysis - occurs in the REM stage of sleep
Thought to be a mechanism to keep us still while our brains are active
Sleep spindles are little bursts of high frequency brain activity and are associated with maintaining tranquility during sleep. In what stage do they first occur?
the N2 stage of sleep
Know how to read a hypnogram!
Hypnograms track the stages of sleep throughout the night
- N1 - “relaxed wakefulness”
- N2 - between N3 and REM
- N3 - deepest stage/on the bottom of the hypnogram
- REM - below N1 on the hypnogram
(N1 → N2 → N3 → N2 → REM)
Wechsler Scales of Intelligence (WISC)
standardization system used to score IQ - scores are “normalized” to a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15 (68% of the scores will be b/t 85 and 115)
Instinctual Drift
phenomenon whereby established habits, learned using operant techniques, eventually are replaced by innate food-related behaviors - so the learned behavior “drifts” to the organism’s species-specific (instinctual) behavior
Serial-Position Effect
comprised of the primacy and recency effects
Hindsight Bias
the tendency of individuals to overestimate their ability to have predicted an outcome that could not possibly have been predicted (aka the “knew-it-all-along” phenomenon or “creeping determinism”)
Cultural Transmission
- how culture is learned - culture is passed along from generation to generation through various child rearing practices
Proximal Stimulus
stimulus registered by sensory receptors (e.g., the pattern of light falling on the retina)
Flashbulb Memory
when people claim to remember every detail of what they were doing when they received news about an emotionally arousing event
Motivational State in Operant Conditioning
to operationally define a subject’s motivational state, he or she is deprived of some desirable stimulus item for a period of time
The Life-Course Approach to Health
views health as the product of risk behaviors, protective factors, and environmental agents that we encounter throughout our entire lives and that have cumulative impacts on specific outcomes
The Social Construction of Illness
rooted in Social Constructionist Theory
individuals and groups produce their own conceptions of reality, and knowledge itself is the product of social dynamics - social constructionists define illness as the social meaning of a biological condition
- In social constructionist theory, impairment refers to a physical illness or injury; disability is the social experience of impairment
- Illness can reshape an individual’s identity. For example, deafness can be a cultural identity that supplants individual identity
- Medicalization - the act of reducing illness to strictly a medical definition/ignores the social context of disease
Sensitive/Critical Period
point in early development that can have a significant influence on physiological or behavioral functioning in later life - period of time when a child easily absorbs information in a specific way
Incentive Theory of Motivation
calls attention to how factors outside of individuals, including community values and other aspects of culture, can motivate behavior
Drive Theory of Motivation
individuals are motivated to take actions in order to reduce internal tension caused by unmet needs - especially useful in explaining behaviors that have a strong biological component, such as hunger or thirst
Universally Recognized Emotions
there are seven:
- Happiness/joy
- Sadness
- Fear
- Surprise
- Disgust
- Anger
- Contempt
Neuroleptic Drugs
the first antipsychotic drugs used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder - though they are effective in treating positive symptoms, their side effects include cognitive dulling, which can exacerbate negative symptoms
General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)
GAS is a model of the body’s stress response that consists of three stages: alarm, resistance, and exhaustion
- individual enters the stage of exhaustion only after that individual has encountered the stressor for a prolonged period of time
Activation-Synthesis Theory
states that dreams are the result of the cerebral cortex’s attempt to make sense of the neural activity occurring in other parts of the brain during REM sleep (neurobiological explanation)
Long-term Potentiation
the long-lasting strengthening of synapses between nerve cells that occurs when the synapse of one neuron repeatedly fires and excites another neuron
- used to explain long-term memories (it requires spaced repetition)
Parallel Processing
the ability of the brain to simultaneously process incoming stimuli of differing quality or from different senses
(ex. allows vision to be divided into components: color, motion, shape, and depth)
The Generalized Other - George Herbert Mead
individuals react to the expectations of others through their behavior and social interactions - orienting themselves to the norms and values of their community/group
Sanctions
can either be positive ( rewards ) or negative (punishments)
Elements of the McDonaldization of Society
- efficiency
- calculability, uniformity
- technological control
Which of the following wouldn’t be processed without conscious effort?
a) information about space
b) time
c) frequency of events
d) novel information
d) NOVEL INFORMATION requires conscious effort
- due to the brain’s capacity for parallel processing, information about space, time and frequency of events is automatically processed
What term describes the relationship between two variables where as one variable increases, so does the other variable, but only up to a certain point, after which, as one variable continues to increase, the other decreases?
curvelinear relationship
Functional vs. Structural Psychology
- early schools of thought which both contributed to the development of modern psychology ( behaviorism, psychoanalysis, humanism, and cognitive psychology)
structuralism: the way to learn about the brain and its functions is to break the mind down into its most basic elements; understanding consciousness through introspection
functionalism: focuses on the purpose of consciousness and behavior - considers them as active adaptations to a person’s environment (evolution played a part in shaping human behavior and the concept of self)
Interposition
A monocular cue!
When one object obscures another, we only see part of what we expect, so we interpret the object that is partially covered as being further away
Place Theory
A theory of hearing!
Our perception of pitch depends on the location of the hair cell being vibrated along the basilar membrane
Therefore, the cochlea is organized tonotopically: which hair cells are vibrating gives brain indication of pitch of sound
Structural Functionalism
sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote stability/society functions the way it does by emphasizing on the relationships between the various social institutions (e.g., government, law, education, religion, etc)
Thomas Theorem
“the interpretation of a situation causes the action”/
“if a person perceives a situation as real, it is real in its consequences”
- Our behavior depends not on the objective reality of a situation but on our subjective interpretation of reality
Hawthorne Effect
a type of reactivity in which individuals modify an aspect of their behavior in response to their awareness of being observed
(can introduce error into a study)
Social Constructionism
observes how the interactions of individuals with their society and the world around them gives meaning to otherwise worthless things
Accommodation (psychology)
new information or experiences cause you to modify your existing schemas
Charles Cooley - Looking Glass Self
our view of ourselves is influenced by what we imagine others’ opinions to be
(everyone that we interact with in our entire lifespan can influence our self-identity in some way)
G. H. Mead - the I and the ME
- prepatory stage - very young children only imitate/respond
- play stage - children become more aware of social relationships, pretend to take roles/create
- game stage - the Generalized Other, multiple roles
(contrast to Cooley’s Looking Glass Self, we are only influenced by some people at certain stages of our life)
- I: our response to the ME, the decision that we end up making, the less socialized/individual consideration aspect of the self
- ME: “the social self,” how we believe the Generalized Other sees us, the conforming to society aspect of the self
