Midterm #1 Flashcards
psychology is NOT
- reading people’s mind
- common sense
What are the four goals of Psychology ?
- describe: what, where, when of mental process
- why: why do we get jealous
- predict: when do people discriminate
- limit: Harmful behavior
6 steps of the scientific method?
- observe ( we observe the phenomenon)
- if I notice that some kids are rough when they play, but others are more calm
- hypothesis
- I hypothesize….children are more aggressive because they play more violent video games
- there are often more than 1 hypothesis
- predict
- during the next school year, if I see which kids play video games, I’ll know who’s being more violent
- test
- I’ll measure how many games they play during the summer, I’ll ask the teachers to keep track of violent behaviour. then I can check if my data supports the hypothesis
- I can also have a sample group, one playing video games, the other read a book. Who will be more violent
- Modify
- if I made the kids read the book, they would be more aggressive
- It’s okay for your data to not support
- come up with another hypothesis
- Repeat
types of psychologists
- Research
- Applied
How to spot pseudoscience?
You know it’s pseudoscience
exaggerated claims blowing these minds
overreliance on anecdotes
no peer review is that a hoax
got the data going ghost
What are the dangers of pseudoscience ?
opportunity costs
Erodes trust
Harm
Inability to think scientifically as citizens
Why we believe pseudoscience?
sunk cost fee
conformation bias
Dunning Kruger effect
What are opportunity costs?
if you are feeling distressed, you go to pseudoscience treatment and to to a professional
Eroded trust in science sounds like
Why trust science? They give you grantees, but in science, there is uncertainty
An example of Harm being caused due to pseudoscience
girl that lost her life because 673 pound man sat on her
What does it mean to have an Inability to think scientifically as citizens
you will always take the guarantee, but there in real science there is a variable that could go wrong
Why we believe pseudoscience?
- sunk cost fee
- conformation bias
- Dunning Kruger effect
What is sunk cost fee?
you will fight for the left side, because you don’t want your belief to be wrong. Even if there is data to believe
What is conformation bias?
we attend info that confirms our beliefs, and avoid things that disapprove out beliefs
What is the Dunning Kruger effect?
- experts believe that the more they know the less they know (depends on context)
- but nauvicists is too confident inn their beliefs
What are Scientific principles
- rival hypothesis
- Correlation vs. causation
- falsifiability/ testability
- Replicability
- Extraordinary claims
- Parsimony (Occam’s Razor
What is Parsimony (Occam’s Razor )
- sometimes the simple answer is the best answer
- pseudoscceince likes to make things complicated
Who developed the first Psychological theories?
- Hippocrates developed one of the first psychological theories
- people philosophized about psychology
- psychology branch that developed from philosophy
What are the four Humors of
- sanguine (enthusiastic, active, social)
- blood
- Choleric (aggressive, excess of yellow bile
- Yellow bile
- Melancholic (depression)
- Black-bile
- Phlegmatic
- sympathetic behavior
Who discovered Hypnosis
Frans Anton Mesmer discovers hypnosis
Who was the Father of Psychology
Wilhelm Wundt, creates the first psychology laboratory
Wilhelm wundut was a structuralist. Define structuralism
structuralism : examining and identifying the basic structure of the human experience
What are the limitations of Structuralism
- Subjectivity
- Imageless thought
- Not enough to just describe our mental experiences
Who was a functionalist
William James
How would a functionalist think about pain? a structuralist?
- A structuralist would want to know the experience of pain
- A functionalist would ask why we feel pain?
Who was a female psychologist ?
Mary Whiton Calkins: first woman president of APA
Was Sigmund Freud a psychologist?
no.
what did Sigmund Freud believe about the unconscious
- Mind is like an Iceberg
- bulk of it is hidden underneath the surface
- and the little part is the part that makes us conscious
- What guides are emotions and behavior is the unconscious
Who used dream analysis and why?
Sigmund Freud used dream analyses: window to our conscious
Describe the Freudian Slip
- he was in the states and giving lectures at the university
- he heard two young women talking “ his two pubic lectures”
- public lecture was meant
- he assumed that she wanted to sleep to her
Who invented Behaviorism?
- John Watson and Skinner
> if we can’t observe and measure, it’s not a science
- they wanted to observe; observable behavior
Describe the cognitive revolution?
2 different responses, but same situation
Cognitive psychology states….
- our mind as a computer
- takes information as input
- then processes through chips and circuits
- The software was our problem solving strategies
Who invented Humanistic psychology?
Carl rogers, Abraham Maslow
What does Humanistic psychology state ?
All humans beings has the innate desire to self actualize and ability to become the best version of themselves
What are Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs
- physiological needs
- Safety needs
- Belongingness and love needs
- Esteem needs
- Self actualization: full potential
What is a case study?
study with one person or a small group of individuals
Pros and Cons of using case study
pros: Existence proofs, in-depth results
cons: May not generalize out of the real world
What is naturalistic observation
When we go to park and see how many people picked up something.
Pros and cons of naturalistic observation
pros…
- high external validity
- Observe in natural context
Cons
- Observe in natural context
- Our behavior changes while being observed
What is Archival Research
They are records, you look at all the archives and researches that already exist
Pros and cons of Archival Research
pros..
- Less invasive
- You can collect research without having to talk to anybody
cons…
Lack of quality control
You lack control of what data is available
What are surveys?
- Questionnaires
- You must find a way to objectively measure
What are the pros and cons of Surveys
pros…
- Ease of administration
- Self report measures
- Random selection (you want to be able to make generalizations)
cons….
- response error bias
- Malingering ( faking good or faking bad)
- Ambiguity (How often to you feel happy?) ( many times?) what number is many?)
What is a correlational study?
- Relationship between two variables
- Are changes in one variable related to changes on another
- -1.0 perfect negative correlation
- +1.0 perfect positive correlation
What is Correlation by design?
- people try to look for something to blame
- but if nothing happens, they won’t try to blame anything
What is an Experimental Design ?
- one person told to take 20 dollars and spend on yourself
- one person told to do donate it
- the person who donated it was happier
What is random assignment ?
- you can’t choose which group you want to be in
- help us eliminate bias
- Manipulation: spend it on yourself or others
- dependent variable: how money affects our happiness
- independent is under the experimental control
- dependent depends on the independent
What is the Experimenter effect
- bias in our observations
- researchers don’t know who they are researching
- DR. Rosenthal’s Maze bright and Maze dull rats
- treated rats differently based on preconception
Qausi - Experimental design
- Not random Assignment
- ethical concerns
- Existing group emebership
- Maritial status
- ethnicity
- childhood experience
What are dendrites?
- antenna of the neuron
- receives chemical information from other neurons
What is soma ?
- contains the nucleus, keeps the neuron alive
- factory of the neuron
What is Axon?
- messenger - specialized for sending messages to other neurons
- Myelin sheath
What does the Axon terminal do?
transforms electrical message to a chemical message - release of neurotransmitters
What are Synaptic vesicles ?
tiny sacks, contains neurotransmitters that travel down length of Axon
What is the Synapse ?
tiny fluid filled space between terminal button of one neuron and dendrite of another synaptic cleft
what is resting potential ?
- uneven distribution of charges particles +/- charge
- there has to be a change of voltage that signals the
- when the neuron is resting is -60 millivolts
What is Threshold of excitation?
- change in voltage needed to trigger an action potential (electric impulse)
- Excitatory postsynaptic potentials
- received enough messages, so sends it’s own
- inhibitory postsynaptic potentials
What is Action potential ?
- universal language of neurons
- Abrupt waves of electrical discharge
- ions rush in, - ions rush out
- All or none
- once it fires it fires, there is no sending along a weaker signal
- they work as an on off switch, not a dimmer
What is Absolute refractory period ?
brief period when no further action potential can occur
What is the Myelin sheath
- insulated layer made up protein and fatty substances
- nodes of Ranvier
- can make the signal to travel faster through the process called saltatory conduction
What is Saltatory conduction ?
- allows action potential to “jump” between the Nodes of Ranvier
- to skip between the nodes
How many speeds do neurons have?
1 speed
What is Reuptake
- stops the messaging of NT’S
- A re-absorption of NT’S back into the axon terminals
- the neuron gets recycled and gets reused
What is Glutamate for?
- the accelerator
- enhanced learning and memory
- schizophrenia
What is GABA for?
- the break
- Learning memory, and sleep
What is Acetylcholine for ?
- Arousal, selective attention, memory, and sleep
- memory loss in Alzheimer’s
What is Dopamine for?
- accelerator and the break
- reward system
What is serotonin for?
well being and mood
What is the frontal lobe responsible for?
- panning
- executive functions
- language (Broca’s area)
- Motor cortex
- if you damage this part of the brain, you can’t move
What is the Parietal lobe responsible for ?
- somatosensory cortex
- touch and sensation
What is the Occipital lobe responsible for?
visual cortex
What is the temporal lobe responsible for?
- auditory cortex
- Wernicke’s area
What is Broca’s area responsible for ?
- frontal lobe (left hemisphere)
- language production (spoken and written)
- words make sense but difficult to produce
What is Wernicke’s area responsible for ?
- Temporal laterization (left hemisphere)
- language comprehension
- word salad
- they communicate very fast, but you have no idea what they are trying to say
What is brain laterization?
- works contralaterally (opposite side)
- cognitive functions rely on one side more than the other
What is the left hemisphere responsible for?
- Fine tuned language skills
- facial expression and motion
- reading writing
What is the Right hemisphere responsible for?
- language skills
- visuospatial skills
- tone of voice
- simple speech
- face perception
What is Phrenology
an incorrect map of the mind
Who invented phernology?
Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828)
Who was Dr. Wilder Penfield?
- Montreal procedure: stimulate certain areas of the brain while patient was awake
- used to locate areas responsible for triggering
- if they can locate where the sensation victims felt before the seizure, he could cut that part out and cure them
How do we monitor our brains today?
- EEG Electroencephalograph
- CT scans (Computed tomography)
- functional Magnetic resonance imaging (FRMI)
- Transcranial magnetic stimulation
What does EEG do?
- Measures electrical activity
- “Listen in on the brain”
- which areas of the brain are active
What do CT scans (Computed tomography) do?
- structural image
- creates an image of what our brains look like
What do functional Magnetic resonance imaging (FRMI) do ?
measures changes in blood and oxygen levels
What is Transcranial magnetic stimulation ?
- magnetic fields to stimulate or dampen neuronal activity
- infer causation
- Montreal procedure without cutting open your skull
