Midterm 1

Question 1

What is rationalism? What is empiricism? How are they related? How are they different?

Answer 1

Rationalism = belief that all action and knowledge should be based on reason and logic rather than religious ideas or emotional responses
Empiricism = the view that all knowledge is acquired through experience and experimentation (begin as a blank slate)

Question 2

How did early philosophers and other thinkers contribute to our understanding of human mind and behaviour?

Answer 2

dualism, materialism, empiricism, nativism, idealism, realism, structuralism, functionalism, psychoanalytic, behaviourism, humanism, cognitive psychology

Question 3

What is structuralism? What is functionalism? Why were they largely unsuccessful? What did Freud contribute to our understanding of human mind and behaviour?

Answer 3

Structuralism: attempted to isolate and analyze the mind’s basic elements through introspection (analysis of subjective experience by trained observers) - failed bc everyone’s inner experience is entirely subjective - impossible to compare

Functionalism: emphasized the adaptive significance of mental processes, derived from Darwin’s theory of natural selection - failed bc too deterministic (suggests that human beings don’t have free will when it comes to their thoughts and behaviours) and did not explain all mental processes

Freud contributions: created the concept of the “unconscious” where complex mental activities that take place in a person’s mind without their awareness, developed psychoanalytic theory that emphasizes the influence of the unconscious on feelings, thoughts and behaviours

Question 4

Why did behaviourism arise? What advantages does it have? What drawbacks does it have?

Answer 4

Behaviourism arose as a response to structuralism and introspection, wanting psychology to focus on the objective, observable behaviour rather than subjective mental states

Pros: Created more rigorous experimental methods
Cons: ignored internal mental processes such as thoughts, emotions, and motivations, reducing complex human behavior to mere stimulus-response mechanisms

Question 5

Why did cognitive psychology arise? What advantages does it have? What drawbacks does it have?

Answer 5

Arose as a response to behaviourism’s neglect of internal mental processes

Pros: broadened scope of psychology to include study of thought processes, memory, reasoning, decision making, and perception + acknowledged that the mind plays an active role in interpreting and organizing information
Cons: ignores individual differences, assuming all internal processing is the same in different people + fails to account for environmental, biological, or genetic influences on cognitive function + oversimplifies complex human behaviour

Question 6

Broadly be able to describe the various disciplines/sub-disciplines of psychology. Which is more important, nature or nurture? (Hint: it’s a trick question.)

Answer 6

Nurture acts on the scaffold that nature provides - cannot measure dominance of nature without variable of nature (confounding variable)

Question 7

What are some key elements of the scientific attitude and scientific inquiry?

Answer 7

Scientific Attitude: Skepticism, Curiosity, and Humility

Scientific Inquiry: Critical Thinking

Question 8

Why is authority considered the weakest form of knowledge? When is authority useful?

Answer 8

Knowledge from authority is solely based on perception and trust of an individual, often based on past accomplishments and biased level of credibility. It does not necessarily correlate with actual factual information. Information gained solely from authority is often wrong and can be exploited.

Question 9

Why should you not rely solely on your intuition? Describe some errors using this form of knowledge.

Answer 9

Should not entirely rely on intuition because will often be incorrect because it draws from life/anecdotal experience
Possible errors: illusory correlation (ie. looking at a graph at believing you think there is a connection), susceptible to bias, overconfidence

Question 10

Describe what science is, and the scientific method.

Answer 10

Questioning authority and intuition and own knowledge with systematic doubt and continual testing

Scientific method: making observations, coming up with questions and ideas, theorize, hypotheses, develop study and testable predictions, collect and analyze data, modify and repeat

Question 11

What features does good science require?

Answer 11

Materialism: everything in universe has a physical basis that can be measured and studied
Universalism: universally agreed upon measurements
Communality: methods and results of experiments should be readily available to all
Disinterestedness: any interest could lead to confirmation bias
Organized skepticism: weigh merit of science by content and not creator

Question 12

What features does pseudoscience typically have?

Answer 12

Scientific sounding jargon that is not falsifiable, relies on authority (you can trust me because I’m a doctor!), little to no methodology/anecdotal evidence, not peer reviewed, ignores existing evidence, targets people’s insecurities, and does not facilitate further research

Question 13

What are the goals of psychological research?

Answer 13

1. Describe behaviour
2. Predict behaviour
3. Determine causes of behaviour
4. Maybe? Influence and control behaviour

Question 14

Be sure you can describe all types of variables in this lecture.

Answer 14

Conceptual variable: something resistant to being objectively measured, must use operationalization to be turned into a variable that can be measured by indirect means
Independent variable: controlled condition being manipulated by the researcher
Dependent variable: measurement of the response/behaviour of the participant
Situational variable: all aspects of testing/research situation
Participant variable: uncontrollable aspects that all participants will have - can be resolved by random assignment
Confounding variable: variable that changes alongside the independent variable - can be resolved by restriction or randomization

Question 15

Define non-experimental and experimental studies. Why would you ever want to perform a non-experiment?

Answer 15

Non-experimental study is when there is no TRUE independent variable; the researcher has no control of the conditions of which something occurs
Ex. if studying the effects of heroin, cannot just grab a bunch of people and stuff them full of heroin
best suited for situations where you want to observe events that have already happened; or you are only interested in gathering information about one isolated variable

Question 16

Understand the very basics of statistics in psychology.

Answer 16

Standard deviation: tells you how wide the curve is
Standard error: how far the sample mean is from the population mean

y = mx + b where y is the dependent variable and x is independent
Closet the correlation of something is to 1 or -1, the stronger the connection

The mean (average) of a data set is found by adding all numbers in the data set and then dividing by the number of values in the set.
The median is the middle value when a data set is ordered from least to greatest.
The mode is the number that occurs most often in a data set.

Question 17

What is P-hacking? Why is it a problem?

Answer 17

P-hacking is when you do enough statistical tests that some of the information may appear significant even when it’s not. Hundreds of comparisons will create accidental/not accidental connections between unrelated things, resulting in many false positives and false negatives.

Becomes a problem when people use it by deliberately running statistical analyses knowing that some information may not be significant or real.

Question 18

Describe construct validity, how construct validity is attained, and internal/external validity.

Answer 18

Construct validity is ensuring that your dependent variable does a good job of measuring the conceptual variable (good operationalization)
Determine whether experiment has good construct validity by:
- Face validity: gut check
- Content validity: check to see you were able to capture all aspects of your construct
- Concurrent/convergent validity: measures align with pre-existing measures of the conceptual variable (not making up random units of measurement)
- Discriminant validity: measured variable doesn’t correlate with unrelated variables (like not measuring something using a factor that is unrelated) + can be peer reviewed and understood
- Predictive validity: dependent variable predicts behaviour related to the construct

Internal validity: states whether study is well designed (ie. no confounding variables, can trust relationship between independent and dependent variables)
External validity: ensure that the study is relevant to the rest of the world (relates to research and results of others), need to consider participants or results that may make the study less applicable to other parts of the world

Question 19

What’s the difference between accuracy and reliability? Be sure you can explain an example that would help anyone understand this difference.

Answer 19

Accuracy (p-value) only determines how real something is or the probability that it is accurate. Reliability (d-value) determines the magnitude of the strength/effectiveness of something.

For example: saying that there is a 90% chance I am able to do math only indicates the probability that my ability to do math is real, but it doesn’t indicate how good at math I’d be/my strengths in math

Question 20

Describe why we can’t say that “IQ is 50% genetic.” (This requires a fulsome answer that includes heritability estimates!)

Answer 20

Heritability estimate is a measure of our shared variance (r2)
Heritability does not indicate what proportion of a trait is determined by genes and what proportion is determined by environment
Ie. heritability of 0.7 does not mean that a trait is 70% caused by genetic factors; means that 70% of variability of trait in a population is due to genetic differences among people
IQ has less to do with genetics and more to do with environment
Ex. rich people have equal access to education and resources, so genetics plays a bigger factor in IQ

Note that heritability is a kind of correlation

Question 21

What is the resting membrane potential? What is the action potential?

Answer 21

The resting membrane potential is a voltage between -60mV and -80mV. This means the inside of a neuron is 60-80mV less than the outside.

Action potential is the main method of brain communication that travels along neurons. It is initiated by depolarization, followed by repolarization and hyperpolarization. A myelinated axon can speed up the speed in which the action potential is able to travel.

Question 22

Describe what is meant by the expression that “neuronal communication is electrochemical.”

Answer 22

Neurons use electrical and chemical signals to communicate. Electric signal goes from the dendrites to the cell body then down the axon and travels to other neurons through the synapse. Neurotransmitters are chemical, as the components are two ions: Sodium (Na+) and Potassium (K+). These ions moving around your brain is the reason for our comprehension.

Question 23

Have a foundational understanding of basic brain facts. What aspect of the human brain is most likely responsible for our intelligence?

Answer 23

Human brains have high neuron density, meaning there is a high count of neurons in a certain amount of brain space. For instance, we have a smaller brain than whales and some other mammals, however we have a better ratio of neuron count to brain space compared to some other mammals like whales.

Question 24

Name two general types of cells within the nervous system, and describe how their roles differ.

Answer 24

Neurons are cells in the nervous system that communicate with each other to perform information-processing tasks. Thoughts, behaviours, and feelings all originate from neurons in your brain. On the other hand, Glia are support cells that influence neuron functioning, allowing faster action potential movement through axons.

Question 25

Name two general types of neurons, and describe how their roles differ.

Answer 25

Interneurons - Neurons with short axons that project to a local area. They are used to modify the existing signal that is carried to them. They also have the ability to block signals (ex. Signals to eyes beneath eyelids when asleep).

Projection neurons - Neurons with a long axon that projects to a different brain area; Carries information from point A to point B.

Question 26

How do drugs act? Definitions of agonist vs antagonist

Answer 26

Psychoactive drugs act at synapses to modify neuronal communication by mimicking or blocking the effects, or increasing and decreasing the number of neurotransmitters being released)

Agonist: increase function in a neurotransmitter system
Antagonist: decrease function in a neurotransmitter system

Question 27

Glutamate

Answer 27

Excitatory neurotransmitter that triggers more action potentials - inhibiting (antagonize) glutamate can result in drowsiness and relaxedness but too much (agonists) can cause seizures/kill neurons

Question 28

GABA

Answer 28

Inhibitory neurotransmitter that inhibits and synchronizes brain activity - agonizing will inhibit more brain functions

Question 29

Acetylcholine

Answer 29

Neurotransmitter released by motor neurons (receptors on muscle cell contract because acetylcholine is binding to them), related to motor control (body), wakefulness and attention (brain) - agonizing will increase muscle contractions

Question 30

Adrenaline (epinephrine/norepinephrine)

Answer 30

Released as a hormone (rest of body) and also as a neurotransmitter (in the nervous system), causes rapid arousal, activation of sympathetic nervous system, responsible for potent memories - stimulants act directly or indirectly on the norepinephrine system (ADHD) to create a stimulating effect

Question 31

Dopamine

Answer 31

Involved in motivation, reward, learning (movements and driven behaviours) - addictive drugs (cocaine and nicotine) directly or indirectly increase dopamine system, leading to drug seeking motivations such as seeking calmness

Question 32

Seratonin

Answer 32

Inhibitory neurotransmitter, helps to regulate mood, sleep patterns, and anxiety, low levels related to increased irritability and impulsivity as well as decreased cognitive flexibility, linked to depression - serotonin agonists will cause radical changes in consciousness, but not in mood)

Question 33

Description of a neuron diagram

Answer 33

cell body –> dendrites (receive messages from other cells) –> axon (passes message from cell body to other neutrons, muscles, and glands) –> action potential (electrical signal travelling down axon) –> myelin sheath (covers axon of some neurons and helps speed neural impulses) –> terminal bouton (forms junctions with other cells)

information passed to dendrites from another cell

Question 34

Identify the concentrations of sodium and potassium, including how these concentrations cause the ions to flow (if/when they can).

Answer 34

3 Na+ out for every 2 K+ in
Ions flow from high to low concentration (entropy: nature wants to spread chemicals out from areas of high concentration to low concentration = chemical gradient

Channels act as pathways for ions to flow along chemical gradient
Pumps actively push ions against chemical gradient

With each action/cycle, 3 Na+ leave while 2 K+ enter, leaving the inside negative, and this electrical force attracts the K+ again, but chemical force pushes it out → traps it in equilibrium/resting membrane potential