October Midterm Flashcards
Who is John B. Watson
- founded behaviourism
- believed that humans are products of learning
Who is Sigmund Freud
- pioneered psychoanalysis
- trained as a medical doctor
- was trying to understand “hysteria”
- determined that they must be psycholgical
Who is William James
- founded second psychology lab
- wrote first textbook
- wrote a lot about behaviour
- was a functionalist
Who is Wilhelm Wundt
- Father of psychology
- started giving out degrees in psychology
- first psychological lab
- was structuralist
What is Cognitive Perspective
- examines mental processes
- Gestalt Psychology: based on idea that the mind perceives things as a whole rather than in parts
What is Biological Perspective
- examines how brain processes and other bodily functions regulate behaviour
- Sociobiology: social behaviours are the products of evolution, as they better allow the passing of genes (aggression, competition, nurturing)
What is Sociocultural Perspective
- examines how social environment affects behaviour, thoughts, feelings
- Cultural Psychology: examines how culture (values, beliefs, behaviour, traditions) are passed on
What is Humanistic Perspective
- pioneered by Carl Rogers
- focus on values and choice
- helps people “fulfill their full potential”
- came up with the idea of “self conception”
What is Psychodynamic Perspective
- was pioneered by Freud
- studies behaviour within the inner working of the mind
emphasizes unconscious processes
What is Behaviourism Perspective
- forget the “mind”, focus on actual observable behaviour
- discuss how behaviour changes under various conditions
- focus on external environment
- Law of effect: learning us key to how experiences shapes behavior
What are the 6 Modern Psychological Perspectives
- Behaviourism
- Psychodynamic
- Humanistic
- Sociocultural
- Biological
- Cognitive
Structuralism Vs. Functionalism
Structuralism
- analysis of the brains basic structure in terms of basic elements
Functionalism
- study of functions of consciousness rather than structure. how do mental processes help us adapt.
What is British Empiricism
all ideas and knowledge are gained through the senses
What is Monism
Mental events corresponds to physical events in the brain. This philosophy allows us to learn about the mind by studying the brain
What is Mind-Body Dualism
When you believe the mind is a spiritual entity separate from the body. Impossible to learn about the mind from the brain if you believe this.
3 levels of psychology
- Biological
- Psychological
- Environmental/Cultural
what are the psychology goals
- Describe how people behave
- Explain causes of behaviour
- Predict how people will behave
- Influence behaviour to enhance human welfare
2 kinds of experimental psych w/ definitions
- Cognitive Psychology
- mental processes, mind as info processor - Biopsychology
- the effect of genes & hormones on behaviour
what is personality psych
identify core personality traits and how they relate and influence behaviour
what is developmental psych
study of human physical, physiological and social development across a lifespan
what is social psych
- peoples influence on each other
- behaviour in groups
- impressions, love, predjudice
what is industrial-organizational psych
leadership, teamwork, satisfaction motivation and performance
what is experimental psychology
study of learning, senses, perception and motivation through experiments… opposite of Clinical Psychology
what is educational psych
how do ppl learn and how can they be helped
What is Clinical Psychology
The study and treatment of mental disorders
What is Psychology
The study of behaviour and the mind
Who is Thorndike
- discovered that organisms learn through the consequences of their actions (law of effect)
- behaviourist
Who is Ivan Pavlov
- Medical researcher
- realized that dogs salivate before food is shown to them because they learn to associate him with food
- discovered “Classical Conditioning”
Who is Skinner
- says learning is about punishment and reward
Who is Piaget
- studied how kids develop intelligence
- said kids don’t think like adults
- Piagetian Theory is named after him
Who is Carl Rogers
- humanistic
- created Rogerian therapy
What is the Scientific Process
- Identify
- Gather
- Test
- Analyze
- Build
What is Naturalistic Observation
observe behaviour in a natural setting, attempting to avoid influencing behaviour
What is a Case Study
in-depth study of one individual, group, or event
What are some survey methods and what do they do
Population: all individuals we are interested in
Sample: subset drawn from the larger population
Representative Sample: reflects important characteristics of population
Stratified Random Sampling: if 45% of the population is male, then 45% of random sample spaces would be for males
What is a Bidirectionality Problem
does “X” cause “Y” OR does “Y” cause “X”… Maybe they both influence eachother
Meaning of Control between subjects
Control and experimental groups are separate people
What is Double-Blind
When neither subject nor tester know which experimental condition the subject is under (this is the gold standard)
What is Meta-analysis
Statistically combining the results of different studies ti examine their overall significance
What is incomplete disclosure
Not telling subject what you are actually testing them about
What do dendrites do
Collect messages from other neurons and send them to the cell body
What do the Axons do
Sends electrical impulses to other neurons, muscles, glands. They generate “action potential”
What do the Glial Cells do
Hold neurons in place, make food for neurons, absorb toxins
What is the function of the Cell Body
Biochemical structures that keep the neuron alive, carries genetic info
What is the Myelin Sheath
Insulation layer derived from glial cells that cover some axons. Makes action potential travel down the axon faster. Broken up into nodes of ranvier
What do neurons communicate through
Action potentials
What is resting potential
When there is no communication happening, the charge inside the neuron is negative and the surrounded by positively charged sodium
Process of Neuron Communication
- ) Neuron is electrically stimulated
- ) Once and only once the threshold of -55mv is reached, the sodium channels open
- ) Sodium flows in, depolarizing the neuron
- ) Neuron goes through an “absolute refractory period” where it can not be excited until resting potential is restored
- ) Sodium channels are closed and the potassium channels are opened. Potassium is also positive and the cell is trying to dump positive charge to restore equilibrium “repolarization”
- ) Cell will briefly go below its resting potential. This is called “hyperpolarization”
- ) Cell then enters relative refractory period where it is able to fire agian
What is synapse
It is the space between the axon of one neuron and the dendrite of the connection neuron
What are Neurotransmitters
Chemicals that travel across the synapse to excite (EPSP) or inhibit (IPSP) other neurons. Whether they excite or inhibit depends on the neurotransmitter and the receptor receiving it
What is the Life Cycle of a Neurotransmitter
- ) Formed in the neuron
- ) Stored in synaptic vesicles in axon terminals
- ) When the action potential comes down axon, they are released into fluid between neurons
- ) They then bind to receptor sites of the receiving neuron’s membrane (specific transmitters fit specific receptors)
- ) Receiving neuron either;
- is excited (inflow of positive ions)
- is hyperpolarized by inhibitor transmitters (outflow of positive ions or inflow of negative ions)
What is Glutamic Acid
- Excitatory
- Involved in all behavior, learning & memory
What is Dopamine
- Motivation, reward, pleasure
- Voluntary motor control
- Thought process
- Not enough is related to Parkinson.s and depression
- Too much causes schizophrenia
What is GABA
- Inhibitory
Anxiety & Motor Control - Alcohol makes the brain more sensitive to it
What are Endorphins
- Reduce pain, increase well being
- Bind to same receptors as opiates
- Act as pain-relievers in severe injury
What is Acetycholine
- Memory & muscle activity
- Lack of it causes Alzheimer’s
- Botulism blocks its release from axon, causes paralysis
- Black Widow venom causes a torrent of it, causing convulsions
What are Neuromodulators
- Circulate brain and decrease/increase sensitivity of neurons
- Involved in eating/sleep/stress
What is Norepinephrine
- Involved in arousal and eating
- Inhibitory & also excitatory depending on receptor
What is Serotonin
- Mood, eating, sleep, sex
- Depression & sleep/eating disorders are treated by blocking reuptake, deactivation of serotonin so that it’s effects keep going
Antagonist VS. Agonist
Antagonist
- drug that inhibits activity of a neurotransmitter
Agnostic
- drug that increases activity of a neurotransmitter
What does alcohol do to the body
- Stimulates GABA
- Inhibits glutamic acid
- Causes slowing of neural activity
What does Caffeine do to the body
- Antagonistic for adenosine, a chemical that inhibits excitatory transmitters (and causes tiredness)
What does Rohypnol & GHB do to the body
- Date rape drugs
- Powerful sedative that enhance GABA
What does Amphetamines do to the body
- Increase dopamine and norepinephrine activity
- Does this by increasing production and preventing reuptake
What does Nicotine do to the body
- Mimics ACh and stimulates dopamine
- The feeling received from dopamine is what causes the addiction
What does Cocaine do to the body
- Stimulates release of dopamine
- Prevents its re-uptake
What are sensory neurons
neurons that send messages from sense organs to brain
What are Interneurons
The most abundant neurons, have a connective function
What is the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)
Neurons that connect muscles, glands, and sensory receptors
What is the Somatic Nervous System
- voluntary movements
- consists of sensory and motor neurons
What is the Autonomic Nervous System
- make up of glands and the involuntary muscles of organs
- also involved in motivation, emotional behavior and stress response
What are the 2 types of ANS and their functions
- ) Sympathetic Nervous System
- responsible for “fight-or-flight”
- Ex. speeds up heart, dilates pupils, increases oxygen - ) Parasympathetic Nervous System
- slows down body, returns you to rest
- both work together to maintain “homeostasis”
What is the CNS
Central Nervous System and consists of neurons only in brain and spinal cord
Part function of the spinal cord
- nerves enter and leave the CNS through spinal cord
- the vertebrae protects the nerves
What are spinal reflexes
It is when your body can react to certain situations before the signal even reaches your brain
- Ex.) touching a hot stove
Components of Hindbrain and their functions
- Medulla
- right off of spinal cord
- regulates heart rate, respiration - Pons
- bridge between the nerve impulses of the higher and lower levels of the nervous system
- involved in sleep/dreaming - Cerebellum
- muscular movement coordination, learning & memories
- regulates movements that require timing
- alcohol affects this and makes you uncoordinated
Function of the Midbrain
- cluster of sensory & motor neurons, and fibre tracts
- relay centre for visual/auditory system
- control eye movements
What is Reticular Formation
- Gatekeeper of the brain
- Alerts higher brain messages, and decides where to block/allow them
- Some anesthetics disables the part that sends messages to the higher brain
- The blocking/allowing function helps you block out distraction
- Stimulation can produce instant sleep or wakefulness
Components of the Forebrain (Cerebrum) and their functions
- Thalamus
- sensory relay station/switchboard
- from here, sensations go to higher brain regions and for perceptions - Basal Ganglia
- controls voluntary motor control
- in Parkinson’s the neurons that supply it with dopamine die - Hypothalamus
- controls biological drives (sex drive, temperature regulation, hunger, eating, drinking, aggression)
- controls hormone secretions
What is the job of the Limbic System
- help to satisfy motivation and emotional urges caused by the hypothalamus
- responsive for goal directed sequences
Function of the Hippocampus
- forms and retrieves memories
- damage can prevent long term memory
Function of the Amygdala
- organizes emotional response patterns (aggression, fear)
- can produce unconscious emotional responses
Cerebral Cortex consists of what parts
- Frontal Lobe
- Parietal Lobe
- Occipital Lobe
- Temporal Lobe
Components of the Frontal Lobe and their functions
- Motor Cortex
- each part of it controls a part of body’s voluntary movements
- right controls left side of body and vice versa - Prefrontal Cortex
- “executive function” is goal setting and judgement
- murderers lack this function - Broca’s Area
- controls speech, motor movements of speech and grammar/word choice
- damage still lets you understand speech but you cannot speak it yourself
Function of the Somatic Sensory Cortex in the Parietal Lobe
- same thing as motor cortex but regarding touch
- specific areas are responsible for specific body parts
- more sensitive areas of the body have more cortex devoted to them (fingers, lips, tongue)
- sensory cortex learns from experience… If you learn braille, the fingertip portion gets bigger
Parts and functions of the Occipital Lobe
- Dorsal side
- sends information about orientation and movement of objects to the parietal lobe - Ventral side
- sends information about recognition to the temporal lobe
- cases reported that when damaged people can pick up objects but not recognize what they are
Component and function of the Temporal Lobe
Wernicke’s Area
- responsible for learning comprehension
- in contrast to Broca’s area on the frontal lobe, which is responsible for language production
What is the Association Cortex
- involved in thought, memory, and perception (highest level mental functions)
- called “silent areas” because electrical stimulation does not cause experiences.responses
- this is the source of the MYTH that we only use 10% of our brains
- makes up 75% of the cerebral cortex
3 types of brain imaging and quick description of each
- CAT scans
- x-rays, pictures - PET scans
- inject radioactive glucose into the blood to see brain activity - MRIs
- expose to very strong magnetic field
- presents best structural information
- can watch the brain live
What is the Corpus Callosum
It connects the two hemispheres of the brain
What is Lateralization
Greater localization of a function on one side of the brain
Things controlled more efficiently by the Left & Right Hemisphere
LEFT
- verbal/speech, language
- math logic
- positive emotions
RIGHT
- mental imagery
- music and artistic functions
- spacial relationships
- negative emotions
Why do Chinese people process language more in the right hemisphere?
They process their language more in the right hemisphere because Chinese is more picture like than English language for example
What is Plasticy
Neurons reassigning functions to fix brain damage early on in life
What are the effects of the following Neural Disorders; Apraxia, Agnosia, Aphasia
Apraxia: inability to perform smooth motor movements
Agnosia: inability to interpret sensory information
Aphasia: speech disorder
- Broca’s expressed Aphasia results in difficulty stringing words together (apraxia)
- Wernicke’s expressed Aphasia results in difficulty in understanding (agnosia)
What is Hemispatial Neglect
- caused by a stroke to the right hemisphere
- parietal and temporal lobes are affected
- only found in humans
What is Split Brain Operation
- person suffering from severe epilepsy
- corpus callosum is severed deliberately to prevent seizures from spreading across hemispheres
- if you flash something in front of their right visual field, they can tell you verbally what it was
- if you flash something in front of their left visual field, they can only write down what it was
What is a Genotype
Specific genetic makeup of an individual
What is a Phenotype
The resulting characteristics/behaviour caused by their genotype
What is Polygenic Transmission
Several genes influence one phenotype
What are Recombinant DNA procedures
Combine DNA from two organisms and put them back into one
What is Gene Knockout
When a specific gene is altered so it stops doing anything
What is Concordance
The inheritance of the same trait by two related individuals
What is Adoption Study
Compare adopted people to their biological parents vs adopted parents
What are Twin Studies
Study of identical or fraternal twins to determine heritability of certain traits
What are Alleles
Alternate forms of a gene that produce different characteristics
Meaning of Homozygous
Alleles have a predictable phenotypic outcome
Meaning of Heterozygous
Alleles have different possible outcomes
What is a Dominant Allele
Alleles that produce their effect in either homozygous or heterozygous mode
What is a Recessive Allele
Alleles produce their effect on in homozygous mode
Explain the Minnesota Twin Study
- Landmark study following twins that were separated at birth
- Genetic factors accounted for 39-58% of personality variation
- Unique personal experiences accounted for 36-56%
- Family environment did not matter
Who is Galton and what did he do
- Studied the relatives of intelligent people
- Believed natural son of smart people did better than adopted ones
- Measured simple motor and sensory abilities
- Believed that intelligence was unitary (mental quickness)
- Results were disappointing, but he did invent the correlation coefficient in the process
Who is Sir Cyril Burt
- Conducted a large scale study of twins reared apart
- He reported that the heritability coefficient of intelligence was 1 (ex. all variation in intelligence is due to genetics)
- Turns out HE MADE THE DATA UP
Who is Bouchard
- Estimated that the heritability coefficient of intelligence was 0.72 by studying twins
- Scarr & Carter later responded that simply believing you are an identical twin is a big environmental factor. Twins who weren’t identical, but thought they were, had more similar intelligence
What are Biological Based Mechanisms
Receive input from environment, process info and respond to it
What is Evolution
Change over time in the frequency of certain genes in a population
Change over time in the frequency of certain genes in a population
Natural Selection is characteristics that increase likelihood of survival and ability to reproduce will become more common over time
What is PKU
- Results in brain damage and mental retardation
Tay Sachs Disease
- Causes blindness, deaf, unable to swallow
- Fatal by age 4
What is Huntington’s Disease
- Breaks down muscle control
What is the Evolutionary Personality Theory
Basic human personality traits are sculpted by natural selection
- Ex.) how well they help you survive. There are very few basic personality traits and they are found in every culture
What is Polygyny
this is when male species has more sex with a wider range of different females. The females typically are discriminating of their mates
- Ex.) typically humans
Meaning of Monogamy
equal sex for the man and the woman
- Ex.) birds
Meaning of Polyandry
Opposite if Polygyny, where females have sex with a wider range of males. Males don’t have sex with many different women and this is very rare
Ex.) fish/insects
Meaning of Polygyandry
When everyone has sex with everyone
Ex.) Bonobos
What Men vs. Women prefer in mates
MEN
- youth (reproductive potential)
- hot
- fit
WOMEN
- older
- rich
- sign of high parental investment
Cooperation vs. Altruism
Cooperation: helping someone for mutual benefit
Altruism: helping someone at personal cost
What is the Kin Selection Theory
Argues altruism development to increase survival of relatives. Higher relatedness between people result in higher rates of altruism
What is the Theory of Reciprocal Altruism
Argues that altruism is long term cooperation, and that it is practice with the hope to be repaid in the future
Ex) hoping for favour in the future
List things about aggression
- Competition for mates (arguing over hottest girls)
- Aggression is built in and triggered by certain cues
- Murder rates are correlated with income inequality (not unemployment or total wealth
What is Genetic Determinism
Genes have unavoidable effects that cannot be altered
What is Social Darwinism
- Those at the top of the social latter are genetically the “best”
- Evolution has no “plan”
- The influence of culture and learning
What are Proximal Causes of Behaviour
Immediate mechanisms to meet those needs
What are Distal Causes of Behaviour
Evolutionary processes to meet those needs
What is a Genetic Drift
It is when a disease travels until it reaches a place where it becomes isolated
Meaning of Correlate of Structure
Because one trait is selected, other related traits are selected. Opposable thumb selection results in larger brain parts, shorter other fingers, etc…
