MCAT Psychology Flashcards
What is a retrospective chart review?
“Retrospective” indicates that past records are examined
What is a prospective chart review?
A review of incoming data
What is an embedded field study?
A study that would occur if the researchers posed as patients, for example
What is a longitudinal study?
A study that would consist of analysis of participants over time.
What is a mediating variable?
A mediating variable is one which explains the relationship between two other variables.
E.g. Consider the relation between social status and frequency of testicular exams. Education might be a mediator variable in that it explains why there is a relation between self-exam and social status
What is a moderator variable?
A moderator variable is one that influences the strength of a relationship between two other variables
E.g. Consider the relation between social status and frequency of testicular exams. Age might be a moderator variable, in that the relation between social status and testicular self-exam might be strong for older men and less strong or nonexistent for younger men.
What is a confounding variable?
A confounding variable is on which is not typically of interest to the research but is an extraneous variable which is related to BOTH the dependent and independt variables.
What is the pre-encounter stage of Cross’s Nigrescence Model
In Cross’s Nigrescence Model, African-Americans are described as progressing through several stages of cultural awareness. In the first stage, pre-encounter, African-Americans tend to view the majority Caucasian culture as being more desirable and would view a white doctor as being more skilled.
What is the immerson-emersion stage of Cross’s Nigrescence Model?
Someone in this stage would view the majority caucasian culture with resentment and distrust and prefer to be treated by someone of his or her own race.
E.g. distrusting a white doctor and preferring to be treated by a black physician
What is the internalization stage of Cross’s Nigrescence Model?
Someone in the internalization stage has integrated aspects of his own culture with that of the majority culture and is working to rectify past racial injustices.
E.g. Recognizing historical injustices in medical care towards racial minorities and working to empower African-American patients to self-advocate
What does Cross posit in his Nigrescence Model?
Culture impact identity and worldview
Define depressant. Give an example
Depressants cause relaxation by reducing nervous system activity. Alcohol is the most common depressant. It works by stimulating the product of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), an inhibitory neurotransmitters associated with reduced anxiety, and dopamine, which promotes euphoria.
Alcohol slow the activity of the frontal lobe, reducing judgment and lowering inhibitions. People can become unable to recognize the consequences of their actions, and their speech may be slurred and motor skills diminished
Define opiate. Give examples
Opiates are derived from poppy plant and include drugs like morphine and codeine. Opiates cause a sense of euphoria and a decrease reaction to pain by binding to opioid receptors in the nervous system. Opiate overdose can cause death when the brain stops sending signals for respiration. After prolonged use, these drugs can cause the brain to entirely stop producing endorphins, meaning that withdrawal is very painful
Define stimulant. Give examples
Hallucinogens, such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and ketamine, distort perception, enhance sensory experiences, and cause introspection, all while increasing heart rate and blood pressure, increasing body temperature and dilating pupils
Define marijuana
Marijuana has qualities of a stimulant depressant, and hallucinogen. Marijuana, which is the name used for the leaves and flowers of the plants Cannabis sativa and Cannabis indica, has an active chemical called tetrahydrocannabinol (THS) which affects certain receptors in the brain. Additionally, THC increase the production of GABA and dopamine. THC can cause an increase in appetite, dry mouth, fatigue, eye redness, lowered blood pressure, and increased heart rate
Drive-reduction and cognitive theorist would argue that depression is more strongly correlated with a deficiency in what fulfillment?
Arousal. Drive-reduction theories suggest that depression stems from a reduction in the motivating forces of arousal. A cognitive theorist would argue that arousal is essential to sustaining most behaviors.
What brain regions play a role in the development of depression
Frontal lobe, limbic system structures, hypothalamus
What roles are frontal lobe involved in?
The frontal lobe is involved in humans’ ability to project future consequence of current actions.
What roles are limbic system involved in?
Limbic system structure regulate emotion and memory,
What roles are hypothalamus involved in
Hypothalamus coordinates many hormones, some of which are involved in mood regulation.
Define mood disorder
Mood disorders are characterized by the persistent, abnormal elevation and/or lowering of one’s mood, which refers to sustained, internal state of feeling or emotion. These conditions include bipolar disorders, which are marked by swings between extreme moods. These moods may include depression and mania. Another mood disorder is major depressive disorder, which is characterized by at least one major depressive episode
Define anxiety disorders
Anxiety disorders involve a state of excessive apprehension, worry, or panic. This state of heightened physical arousal can be unpleasant and inhibit regular functioning. While most people feel anxiety occassionally, those with anxiety disorders experience it persistently, and it adversely impacts their lives
Define trauma and stress-related disorders
Trauma and stress-related disorders typically arise in response to a highly stressful or traumatic life event. The most common example is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which often manifests in people who experience warfare, sexual assault, or serious injury. PTSD can cause symptoms such as nightmares, flashbacks, and a propensity to avoid stimuli associated with the event.
Define somatic disorders
Somatic disorders are unified by somatic (bodily) symptoms that can cause stress and impairment to the sufferer. These symptoms generally lack an identifiable physical cause. Alternatively, the individual may be impaired by irrational fears of developing or having a disease, as in illness anxiety disorder.
Define schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder, meaning that sufferers experience at least one of the following symptoms: delusions, disorganized thoughts, hallucinations, catatonia and negative symptoms
Define dissociative disorders
Dissociative disorders involve the disruption or breakdown of perception, identity, memory, or awareness. Individuals with these conditions feel disconnect from reality. Often, this dissociation serves to provide an unintentional escape from reality or barrier against stress from a life event
Define personality disorder
Personality disorders are characterized by long-lasting maladaptive patterns of behavior that can impair cognition, emotion, interpersonal behavior and communication, and/or impulse control
Define incidence
Incidence describes the number of new cases of a disease during a specific interval (e.g. a year)
Define risk ratios
Risk ratios compare risk of a disease among one group with risk among another group
Define prevalence
Prevalence rates describe how common a disease is. They tell us how many people (new cases and current cases) have the disease within a certain amount of time
Define mortality rate
Number of deaths cause by a disease within a specific population and a certain amount of time
Define external locus of control
When a person has an external locus of control, they believe that they have no control over events in their lives and things that happen to them.
Define randomized controlled trials
Randomized controlled trials randomly assign participants to one of two groups: an experimental group and a control group
Define cross-sectional designs
Cross-sectional designs examine a group of individuals at one point in time
Define case control designs
Case control designs compare information about individuals with disease or condition against people without the disease or condition.
Define the Law of Closure (defined with an example)
A child taking an incomplete figure - a smiley face comprised of disconnected pieces - and is perceiving it as a complete whole.
Define the Law of Symmetry
The law of symmetry says that we tend to perceive stimuli as grouped symmetrically around a center point
Define the Law of Similarity
The law of similarity says that we perceive similar objects as being grouped together
Define the Law of Proximity
The law of proximity asserts that we tend to perceive objects close to each other in groups, rather than as large collection of individual pieces
Define attrition bias
Attrition bias occurs when participants drop out of long-term experiment or study
Define social desirability bias
Social desirability bias is a type of bias related to how people respond to research questions. The physicians may have known that the researcher was examining unethical behavior and responded a certain way.
Define selection bias
Selection bias refers to a type of bias related to how people are chosen to participate. For example, people who witnessed unethical behavior in medical school may have been more likely to response to a survey about that topic
Define distress
Distress is a negative type of stress that build over time and is bad for your body. It happens when you perceive a situation to be threatening to you some way (physically or emotionally) and your body become primed to respond to the threat
Define eustress
Eustress is a positive type of stress that happens when you perceive a situation as challenging, but motivating. Eustress is enjoyable.
Define neustress
Neustress is a neutral type of stress. Neustress happens when you are exposed to something stressful, but it doesn’t actively or directly affect you. For example, news about a natural disaster on the other side of the world may be very stressful, but your body doesn’t perceive that stress as food or bad for you so you aren’t affected.
Define positive reinforcement
Positive reinforcement refers to adding a stimulus to increase a behavior
Define negative reinforcement
Negative reinforcement refers to removing a stimulus to increase a behavior
Define negative punishment
negative punishment refers to removing a stimulus to decrease a behavior
Define positive punishment
Positive refers to adding a stimulus, and punishment refers to a consequence that decreases behavior. A meeting with the dean was added, and this decrease the behavior (unprofessional behavior), so this is positive punishment
Define bystander effect
The bystander effect is a phenomenon where people stand by during a situation where someone else is at risk. They do not intervene.
Define deindividuation
Deindividuation happens when a person in a group loses awareness of their individuality and acting in a way that they wouldn’t normally act if they were alone.
Define social loafing
Social loafing happens when one person in a group doesn’t take on their share of the responsibility - this is common in group projects
Define group polarization
Group polarization refers to the tendency to adopt extreme views when in a group.
Define conformity
When an individual may privately disagree with a behavior but publicly goals along with the behavior of a normative social group
Define obedience
Obedience takes place when a person has the authority to directly compel someone to engage in a certain behavior
Define self-fulfilling prophecy
A self-fulfilling prophecy might occur if a student enters medical school assuming that medical students must behave in certain negative ways, and then winds up shaping her behavior based on that assumption
Define informational social influence
Information social influence refers to a situation where a medical student would conform by turning to others in their group for information about what is correct.
Define Schachter-Singer theory of emotion using Robin as an example
As I pet Robin, my blood pressure decreases and my brain increases release of oxytocin. I then cognitively interpret how much I love my cat, and experience happiness as a result.
Define foor-in-the-door technique
Foor-in-the-door technique says that when someone has agreed to make a small commitment towards something, they are then much more likely to follow up with a greater commitment.
Define cognitive dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is the unpleasant feeling a person experiences when holding two contradictory beliefs at the same time.
Define variable-ratio
Variable-ratio reinforcement schedules tend to produce the highest response rates that are the most resistant to extinction, which is exactly why casinos use them
Define attribution theory
Attribution theory relates to how we “attribute” (assign) perceived caused of behavior and events.
Define socialization
Socialization refers to how individual attitudes are shaped by social factors. Socialization is a lifelong process through which people inherit, develop and disseminate social norms, customs, and belief systems. It is through socialization that we develop the habits and skills necessary for successfully living in society.
Define conflict theory
Conflict theory refers to social class conflict
Define the Stroop effect
The Stroop effect describes the phenomenon in which it is harder for an individual to reconcile difference pieces of information relating to colors than to reconcile similar pieces of information.
Define discrimination
Discrimination is the unfair treatment and harmful actions against others based on their membership in a specific social group.
Define stigma
Stigma is disapproval attached to disobeying the expected norms so that a person is discredited as less than normal.
Define racism
Racism is the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races
Define prejudice
Prejudice is the preconceived opinions or attitudes that are usually negative and not based on any facts or experience. Prejudice is an attitude and discrimination is actually acting on that feeling.
Define groupthink
Groupthink is a phenomenon in which people strive for agreement when in a group
Groupthink occurs when a homogenous group is so concerned with maintaining unanimity that they fail to evaluate all options. Groupthink members see themselves as part of an in-group working against an out-group opposed to their goals.
Define stretch receptors
Stretch receptors measure the stretching of tissues. That is how you know your stomach is full
Define nocireceptors
Nocireceptors are pain receptors
Define social facilitation
Social facilitation is the tendency for people to perform better when in the presence of others
Define regression to the mean
Regression to the mean is a phenomenon in which, over time, scores become more average
Define null hypothesis
A null hypothesis is a statement that suggests there is no relationship between two variables
Define semantic memory
Semantic memory is the type of memory related to facts and information
Define episodic memory
Episodic memory is a type of memory related to personal experiences
Define procedural memory
Procedural memory it a type of memory related to action or behaviors, like placing an IV or suturing a wound
Define conditioned memory
Conditioned memory is type of memory that is formed base on your associations between two things. For example, if your professor rings a bell at the end of the exam, you will remember the bell as the sign that the exam is over.
