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MCAT - Psych/Sociology > Misc. > Flashcards

Misc. Flashcards

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1
Q

What is residential segregation?

A

Residential segregation is a related concept that refers to the separation of social groups into different neighborhoods, often due to racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic differences. This refers to the separation itself, as opposed to the consequences of the separation.

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2
Q

What is environmental injustice?

A

disproportionate exposure to living conditions with serious environmental hazards

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3
Q

What is role conflict?

A

Role conflict occurs when there is tension between two different statuses with contradictory roles; in other words, the expectations for two roles conflict. In the status of aspiring medical student, you feel your role should be to study tonight, but in the status of best friend, you feel your role should be to celebrate your friend’s birthday; therefore, the role expectations for the two statuses differ, and this is the best example of role conflict.

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4
Q

What are the vital elements of socioeconomic status?

A

Power
Privilege
Wealth

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5
Q

What does deindividuation refer to?

A

Mob mentality

anonymity
arousing activity
large group

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6
Q

According to Mary Ainsworth, a securely attached infant:

A

Is more likely to play and explore in the presence of his/her mother

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7
Q

What helps to explain the fact that we tend to think attractive people are good and trustworthy?

A

Halo effect

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8
Q

What are the three ways behavior might be motivated by social influences? Which is the most enduring?

A

Compliance, identification, and internalization

Internalization of beliefs/values = most enduring

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9
Q

What is the fundamental attribution error?

A

The fundamental attribution error occurs when one overestimates the impact of internal causes on another’s behavior and underestimates the influences of external causes; since AK’s belief is that his own behavior will not lead to a negative outcome, this error does not apply.

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10
Q

What is the self-serving bias?

A

The self-serving bias occurs when one blames a negative outcome on external factors, but takes credit for a positive outcome, attributing it to internal factors

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11
Q

What is the actor/observer bias?

A

The actor/observer bias occurs when one blames their own actions on situational factors

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12
Q

What is the optimism bias?

A

The optimism bias is the belief that bad things happen to other people, but not to us

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13
Q

What are the three key elements of persuasion?

A
  1. message characteristics
  2. source characteristics
  3. target characteristics
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14
Q

What is the dramaturgical perspective?

A

The dramaturgical perspective in sociology stems from symbolic interactionism and posits that individuals play certain roles when interacting with others; behavior is based on cultural values, norms, and expectations, with the ultimate goal of presenting an acceptable self to others.

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15
Q

What is the difference between personal identity and social identity?

A

Social identity refers to socially ascribed groups. e.g. age, race, religion

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16
Q

What are the three factors we use to determine whether behavior is attributable to internal or external causes?

A
  1. Distinctiveness (whether or not behavior continues in similar settings)
  2. Consistency
  3. Consensus
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17
Q

Who developed the theory of cognitive dissonance?

A

Carl Rogers

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18
Q

What are 3 tenants of Carl Rogers’ humanistic beliefs?

A
  1. Everyone has a tendency to self-actualize/reach highest potential
  2. Unconditional positive regard and genuineness essential to therapy
  3. Real self and ideal seal being incongruent = psychopathology
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19
Q

What is dissociative identity disorder?

A

Alternates among two or more distinct personality states (or identities), only one of which interacts with other people at any one time. The identities may vary widely in age, gender, and personality traits, and they may or may not be aware of each other.

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20
Q

What is the difference between suppression and repression?

A

Suppression = VOLUNTARY withholding an idea or feeling from conscious awareness. Repression = INVOLUNTARY

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21
Q

Describe antisocial personality disorder

A

Person has a history of serious behavior problems including significant aggression against people or animals; deliberate property destruction; lying or theft; and serious rule violation. In addition, since age 15, the person has a history of repeatedly disregarding the rights of others in various ways, through illegal activities, dishonesty, impulsiveness, physical fights, disregard for safety, financial irresponsibility, and lack of remorse.

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22
Q

What disease results in a decrease in dopamine-producing neurons in the basal ganglia?

A

Parkinson’s

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23
Q

What are two markers of neuroticism as conceptualized by Costa and McCrae?

A
  1. Irritability

2. Emotional reactivity

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24
Q

What kind of response rate does variable interval elicit?

A

Slow but steady

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25
Q

The idea of recalling information better in the room you learned it in is called what?

A

State-dependent learning

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26
Q

What is the estimated capacity and duration of our short-term memory stores?

A

5-9 items; 15-30 seconds

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27
Q

What is your phonological loop?

A

The part of your working memory system that helps you avoid auditory memory decay by repeating words to yourself.

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28
Q

What is an unconditioned stimulus?

A

A stimulus that elicits a response naturally (e.g. food would elicit salivation)

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29
Q

What is insight learning?

A

The abrupt realization of a problem’s solution, which requires the ability to visualize the problem and the solution internally, before initialing a behavioral response.

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30
Q

What researcher conducted experiments testing children’s reactions to their parents leaving the room?

A

Mary Ainsworth

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31
Q

Which theory of emotion states that emotions are a combination of physiological arousal and the brain that labels the states of arousal as a specific emotion?

A

Schacter-Singer theory

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32
Q

What are the three components of attitude?

A
  1. Behavior
  2. Cognition
  3. Affect
33
Q

What are the three components of emotion?

A
  1. Physiological
  2. Behavioral
  3. Cognitive
34
Q

What is justification of effort?

A

Justification of effort describes peoples’ tendency to attribute a greater value (or greater than the objective value) to an outcome they had to put more effort into acquiring or achieving than something that requires less effort. In other words, if it was harder to attain, people want to believe it is somehow better.

35
Q

Alertness and arousal are controlled by:

A

reticular activating system (RAS)

36
Q

What does the Yerkes-Dodson Law suggest?

A

You will perform better on the real MCAT than on practice MCATs because you will be a little bit more nervous.

37
Q

What is the episodic buffer?

A

d

38
Q

What is the only sense that does not synapse with the thalamus before reaching its primary processing cortex?

A

Olfaction

39
Q

What is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?

A

The idea that language encodes cultural and cognitive properties that affect the way that people think, such that speakers of different languages will tend to think and behave differently depending on the language they use

40
Q

In what stage of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development do children develop object permanence?

A

End of sensorimotor

41
Q

What is anomie?

A

Anomie refers to a lack of social norms, which leads to a breakdown in the connection between an individual and their community.

42
Q

What is Mead’s theory of identity?

A

The “me” is the part of the self that is formed in interaction with others and with the general social environment.

Also the “self” and “i” look up

43
Q

What type of positive reinforcement will yield increases in response?

A

Variable ratio

44
Q

At what percentage of excluded data does it negatively affect your study?

A

Once ~10% exclusion is reached

45
Q

What is ethnocentrism?

A

The tendency to look at other culture’s through one’s own culture. Often related to bias and prejudice.

46
Q

What is stereotype threat?

A

Task performance anxiety induced by the implicit activation of stereotypes.

47
Q

What theory did Broadbent come up with?

A

Broadbent’s filter model of selective attention: all raw data goes through a “buffer” and the brain evaluates one sensory item to focus on and everything else decays.

48
Q

What is Anne Treisman’s Attenuation model?

A

Accounts for the cocktail party affect (that a stimulus of particular importance to us can catch our attention despite listening intently to a main conversation): the mind has a filter thats more like an attenuator/volume knob turning down a stimulus.

49
Q

What is working memory? What is it composed of?

A

Working memory = short term memory

Composed of:

  1. Phonological loop
  2. Visuospatial sketchpad
  3. Episodic buffer

All managed by the central executive

50
Q

What is the episodic buffer?

A

The part of the short term/”working” memory that links information with long term memory to recognize things and make connections.

51
Q

What is the sensorimotor stage and what is the key development?

A

Age 0-2

Develop object permanence (things continue to exist even when out of sight)

52
Q

What is the preoperational stage?

A

Age 2-7

Children learn that things can be represented through symbols such as words and images. Still lack logical reasoning and are egocentric.

53
Q

What is the concrete operational stage and what is the key development?

A

Age 7-11

Children learn to think logically about concrete events.

They develop conservation (the idea that quantity remains the same despite a change in shape).

54
Q

What is the formal operational stage?

A

12-adulthood

Abstract and moral reasoning.

55
Q

What is belief bias versus belief perseverance?`

A

Belief bias = tendency to judge arguments base on what one believes about their conclusions rather than sound logic.

Perseverance = once preexisting beliefs are formed, they become resistant to change.

56
Q

What is the nucleus acumbens?

A

The “pleasure center” of the brain. Responsible for running dopamine circuits

57
Q

Describe the James-Lange theory of emotion.

A

Stimulus -> Physiological response + behavioral response -> cognitive interpretation -> labeling of emotion

58
Q

Describe the Cannon-Bard theory of emotion.

A

Stimulus -> Physiological response + cognitive interpretation -> behavioral response -> labeling of emotion

59
Q

Describe the Schachter-Singer theory of emotion.

A

Stimulus -> Physiological response -> cognitive interpretation -> behavioral response + labeling of emotion

60
Q

What are catastrophes?

A

Unpredictable, large-scale events including natural disasters and wartime events.

61
Q

What are significant life changes?

A

Moving, leaving home, losing job, marriage, divorce, death, etc. These stressors can be risk factors for death and often multiply on each other.

62
Q

What are daily hassles?

A

Everyday irritations in life including bills, traffic jams, misplacing belongings, scheduling, etc. Can lead to hypertension and immunosuppression.

63
Q

What can long term stress lead to, physiologically?

A

Low WBC count and immunosuppression

64
Q

Are generalization and discrimination of stimuli opposite?

A

Yes

65
Q

What types of reinforcement schedules produce the highest response rates?

A

Fixed ratio and variable ratio

66
Q

What type of reinforcement schedule is the least effective?

A

Fixed interval

67
Q

What is insight learning?

A

When two previously learned behaviors are suddenly combined in a unique way.

68
Q

What is long-term potentiation?

A

A persistent increase in synaptic strength between two neurons that occurs following brief periods of their stimulation. Leads to increase sensitivity of neurons recently stimulated. Believe to play a role in learning that consolidation of memory from short-term memory to long-term memory.

69
Q

Who was the pioneer of observational learning? What experiment is he famous for?

A

Albert Bandura, bobo doll experiment

70
Q

What is the difference between the central and peripheral persuasive routes?

A

Central route = argument’s content, logic, validity, etc.

Peripheral route = orator attractiveness, speech length, perceived expertise, etc.

Unless the listener is motivated to listen/interested, he/she will follow the peripheral route. Arguments processed via the central route are more long-lasting and persuasive, however.

71
Q

What does reciprocal determinism boil down to?

A

People both shape and are shaped by their environments.

72
Q

What is general intelligence?

A

A foundational ability that underlies more specialized abilities. May include academic, creative, and emotional intelligence.

73
Q

What is depth of processing?

A

Information that is thought about at a deeper level will be better remembered.

74
Q

What is spreading activation?

A

When trying to retrieve information we activate one “node” which then spread and activates related/associated nodes without our choice/intent.

75
Q

What is socialized identity formation?

A

Socialized identity formation is the establishment of a distinct personality based on interactions with others.

76
Q

What is causal attribution?

A

Causal attribution describes how a perceiver takes information and ascribes causes. Thus, a person might attribute his or her well-being to social support, real or perceived

77
Q

What is social perception?

A

Social perception describes the processes by which a person comes to understand how he or she is in the world

78
Q

What is social reproduction?

A

Refers to the emphasis on the structures and activities that transmit social inequality from one generation to the next.

79
Q

What is inclusive fitness?

A

The ability of an individual organism to pass on its genes to the next generation, taking into account the shared genes passed on by the organism’s close relatives.

MCAT - Psych/Sociology (6 decks)

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