Psyc 1A Flashcards
Developmental - what is the definition of development?
Development is the sequence of age-related changes that occur as a person progresses from conception to death. Changes in adaptive potential.
Developmental - what are the goals of developmental psychology?
To describe, explain and optimism patterns of change in all aspects of human behavior over time. Whilst understanding the continuities and constraints within which these developmental changes are situated.
Developmental- what is the difference between inter and intra differences?
Inter = difference from others Intra = difference (change) in ones' self
Developmental- difference between phenotype and genotype?
Genotype = a persons genetic makeup (potential) Phenotype = external presentation of the genotype through appearance/behavior etc
Developmental - what is the equation for heritability (of an attribute)?
H= (r identical twins - r fraternal twins) x2
Developmental - what is the difference between the additive and interactive views of the relationship between genes and the environment on phenotypes?
Additive = set amounts of influence from genes/environment Interactive = impossible to separate variance in population due to environments and genes
What is a natural ‘experiment’?
Observing or passive-observing naturally occurring events
What is an experiment?
Has an independent (manipulated) variable, dependent variable/s (which are recorded) and individuals are randomly assigned to the various conditions.
Development - Describe these developmental study designs: cross-sectional, longitudinal and sequential
Cross-sectional = within the same timeframe, e.g 1-18 year old kids in one year. Longitudinal = same individuals tracked through time (disadvantage: time, money, selective attrition) Sequential = both of the above, 2 or more cohorts, follow both through time
What is a cohort?
In statistics and demography, a cohort is a group of subjects who have shared a particular event together during a particular time span
What is attrition?
People dropping out of studies. Loss can be bias, this is called selective attrition.
Developmental - What is the name of the process in which cartilage turns into bone. Does this process occur faster in girls or boys? What are some benefits of this process?
Ossification. Faster in girls. Soft-bones in childhood helps to absorb damage from falls, enables the skull of babies to fit through the birth canal despite a large skull due to our large brains (also why humans are born at an earlier stage of development)
Development - what % of body weight is the cns and brain, what % of oxygen and glucose do they use?
the cns and brain make up only 2% of body weight yet use 20% oxygen and 25% glucose
What are some changes in the central nervous system that occur before the age of two?
Neurons enlarge, receive information/interpret/transmit.
Branching of dendrites (part of a neuron)
Development of synapses (gap between neuron, info jump)
Glia support cells increase (carry nutrients, take away waste, produce myelin, speed up repairs)
Myelin = insulation of axons, makes info movement more efficient
What is phenomenon whereby changes in neural pathways and synapses occur due to changes in behavior, environment and neural processes, as well as changes resulting from bodily injury. Replacing the formerly-held position that the brain is a physiologically static organ.
Plasticity/Neuroplasticity
Developmental - In terms of development and intervention, what are critical periods?
Critical times where negative or positive environmental influences have a larger or longer effect on a certain aspect of development. Different dimensions of brain development have different critical periods.
Development - What are the two components of Piagets theory of knowledge?
- Organization - systemized, e.g cells-organs-organism
2. Adaption - accommodation + assimilation
Development - In Piagets knowledge theory: what is assimilation? What is accomodation?
Assimilation - applying known concepts to a new thing, incorporating new info into existing system of knowledge.
Accomodation - changing concept based on new thing, change knowledge system I.e schemata
Development - in Piagets’ theory of knowledge: what is equilibration? What is disequilibration?
Equilibration - balance of accomodation and assimilation, the schema of info you have access to.
Disequilibration - finding information that doesn’t fit in with the current mental schema
Development - in what type of study does the investigator measures the impact of some naturally occurring event that is assumed to affect people’s lives
Natural Experiment
Development - in what type of study is the causal variable ( independent variable) is manipulated by the researcher and the manipulation is carried out by random assignment?
Experiment
Development - what do you call the loss of participants over the course of a study?
Attrition
A statistic that measures the strength and direction of the linear association between two measures?
Correlation
What is the ABA study design? What is its purpose?
An ABA design is a type of experimental design in which participants are first introduced to a baseline condition (A). In the baseline condition, no treatment or experimental variable is introduced. Next, participants receive the experimental condition or treatment (B), after which they return to the baseline condition (A). The ABA design allows experimenters to observe behavior before treatment, during treatment and after treatment.
It establishes the cause of differences within individuals.
Development - What is failure-to-thrive?
As used by pediatricians, it covers poor physical growth of any cause and does not imply abnormal intellectual, social, or emotional development, although of course it can subsequently be a cause of such pathologies.
Development (physical) - name: a long thin fibre that transmits signals away from one neuron cell body to other neurons, or to muscles or glands.
Axon
Development (physical) - name: the first menstruation
Menarche
Development (physical) - name: individual cells in the nervous system that receive, integrate, and transmit information.
Neurons
Development (physical) - name: a junction where information is transmitted from one neuron to the next.
Synapse
Development (physical) a name: insulating material, derived from glial cells, that encases some axons and neurons.
Myelin
Development (physical) - physical features that involve the reproductive organs are termed ___________ sex characteristics
Primary
Development - name: Severe undernourishment causing an infant’s or child’s weight to be significantly low for their age (e.g., below 60 percent of normal).
Marasmus
Development (physical) - the growth of facial hair in males is an example of a __________ sexual characteristic.
Secondary
Development - what is transductive reasoning?
the type of thinking characteristic of children during the pre-operational stage of development. It is so called because it focuses on concrete instances and does not follow the principles of either induction (1) or deductive reasoning.
Logical, but concrete, steps
E.g “the trees make the wind”
Development - name (in order) the stages in Piagets developmental stage theory.
Sensorimotor, pre operation, concrete, formal
What is positive reinforcement?
When a response is strengthened because it is followed by the presentation of a rewarding stimulus.
E.g hardworking is rewarded by a promotion or pay rise
What is negative reinforcement?
When a response is strengthened because it is followed by the removal of an aversive (unpleasant) stimulus.
E.g someone stops nagging you when you clean up your room
What is positive punishment?
When a response is weakened because it is followed by the presentation of an unpleasant stimulus.
E.g police issue a fine because you were driving over the speed limit
What is negative punishment?
When a response is weakened because it is followed by the removal of a pleasant stimulus.
E.g parents “ground” adolescents, preventing them from participating in normal social activities with friends
What is the “visual cliff” and for what purpose is it use?
The visual cliff consists of a sheet of Plexiglas that covers a cloth with a high-contrast checkerboard pattern. On one side the cloth is placed immediately beneath the Plexiglas, and on the other, it is dropped about 4 feet below. Since the Plexiglas supports the weight of the infant this is a visual cliff rather than a drop off.
Used to determine if young children have depth perception.
Development - what are some methods of study through which we can determine what infants perceive?
Habituation - the repeated presentation of an eliciting stimulus that results in the decline of the elicited behavior (the process of habituation)
Preferential looking (e.g the fantz technique)
High-amplitude sucking
Physiological measures (e.g evoked potentials, heart rate)
Specific ability measures e.g visual cliff (depth perception) and eye movement recording (pattern/form perception)
Genetic epistemology is?
Genetic epistemology is a study of the origins (genesis) of knowledge (epistemology). The discipline was established by Jean Piaget.
what is constructivism?
the theory that human knowledge is constructed from our experiences
what is object permanence and in which of the piaget developmental stages is it said to develop?
Object permanence is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched.
In Piaget’s theory of cognitive development infants develop this understanding by the end of the “sensorimotor stage,” which lasts from birth to about two years of age.
What is seriation and in what Piagets developmental stage is it found?
Seriation is putting things in order.
Concrete operations stage
Physiology - what is the name of the division of the nervous system outside of (does not include) the brain and spinal cord?
Peripheral nervous system - an effector system of nerves that carries out the instructions it receives from the CNS by effecting change in the body
What two systems is the automatic nervous system (a division of the peripheral nervous system) divided into, and what are the two systems responsible for?
Sympathetic nervous system - preparing for action, fight or flight (heart rate, blood flow, blood sugar, respiration)
Parasympathetic nervous system - reducing arousal + physical preparedness (relaxation and digestion)
What parts of the body make up the central nervous system?
The brain and spinal cord
In the CNS what is the general role of white and grey matter?
White matter - transmits information
Grey matter - decision making function, responds to sensation
What do you call the reaction that the spinal cord carries out in response to a stimuli but without involvement from the brain or conscious awareness?
Reflex - mono synaptic spinal reflex, consisting of a sensory neuron and synapse onto a motor neuron that contracts muscles. Direct from sensory to spinal cord and back.
Aside from reflexes what other roles does the spinal cord perform without direct brain involvement?
Maintains posture ( reflex compensatory)
As measured by an EEG what is the name given to waves with a frequency of 1-2hz, 10hz and 20-30hz respectively.
Delta, alpha, beta
^ also in order of biggest occilations to smallest
What is the Yerkes-Dodson law? (Hint: optimal arousal)
For simple ( well-practiced or easy tasks where very little cortical information is processed) optimal performance requires high arousal.
For complex tasks (mainly cortically controlled) optimal performance requires less arousal.
Therefore, unlearned tasks initially are mainly cortically controlled. Practice (at a task) shifts the detailed brain control to sub cortical and cerebellar mechanisms and then the cerebral cortex for more strategic considerations.
Therefore, simpler tasks ( including well-practiced tasks) are less susceptible to high arousal effects e.g study for exams and nerves have less effect on you results.
Explain introversion and extroversion personality dimension in the context of Yerkes-Dodsons law (moderated) of arousal and optimal performance.
(Study credited to Hans Eysenck) extroverts have a less excitable cortex than introverts, therefore extroverts (who have less arousal natively) require more arousal to reach optimal levels of performance than introverts. Thus extroverts tend to seek situations that increase arousal (e.g social situations) than introverts.
What does the word ‘circadian’ mean (I.e circa and dian)?
Circa= about Dian = a day
Describe the brain waves, eye movements and muscle tension for each of the following stages respectively: awake, stage 1 sleep, stage 2 sleep, stage 3-4 sleep, REM sleep.
Awake - alpha brain waves, occasional eye movements, fair amount of muscle tension
Stage 1 - (mind starts to drift, easy to wake) brain waves look closest to beta waves ( unsure) some eye movement (jerky), decline in muscle tension
Stage 2 - (harder to wake) brain waves start to have deeper rises and falls, minimal eye movements, low muscle tension.
Stage 3-4 - (very hard to wake) delta waves, lowest eye movement, low muscle tension.
REM - ( sleep, vivid dreams) active brain waves closest to beta but varied, significant eye movement akin or greater than being awake, very low muscle tension ( practically paralysed : P )
Do similarities or opposites attract? ( as in social relationships)
Similarities, particularly in areas like values, religion, attractiveness, education
Do we look for a “perfect partner”? ( in human attraction )
No e.g clumsiness can be seen as charming, perceptions of our partner are often more favourable then that partners view of themselves.
Describe the differences between passionate and compassionate love?
Passionate - intense longing for union, elation and pain. A drive. (early stage of love)
Compassionate - intimacy (warmth and closeness) commitment (maintain relationship) …..passion in passionate stage erodes, intimacy and commitment increase with time.
Social psychology - what is attribution?
Inferences about causes of events, others behaviour and our own behaviour. Making sense of it.
The attributions/inferences we make about a situation/person affect how we treat that situation and the people/person involved.
In the case of ‘student A’ failing their exam, what explanations for the situation would the following attributions/inferences produce:
1 - external (situation), stable
2 - external (situation), unstable
3 - internal ( person/personality), stable
4 - internal (person/personality), unstable
1 - lousy teacher, exam to difficult
2 - bad luck
3 - lack of ability, lack of intelligence of student A
4 - bad mood, illness etc
Social psyc - There is bias in attribution. What is the fundamental attribution error?
An external observers tendency to underestimate the impact of the situation and overestimate the impact of personal traits.
E.g the last dropped her shopping because she is a clumsy and not because she was in a rush to get to the bedside of her dying husband in hospital.
Social psyc. - What is another name for attribution by expectancy ( versus. Incidental attribution)?
Schemas
Cognitive structure about general knowledge
Social schema - general preconceptions
Ambiguous information - can play a role in confirmation bias.
Social psyc. What is defensive attribution?
Explaining calamities by blaming victims for heir misfortune (e.g burglary, victim must have been careless)
In attributing the event to a flaw of the individual involved one feels that they are less likely to get involved in similar troubles.
Social psych - in terms of attribution, what is the self- serving bias?
Tendency to attribute one’s own successes to personal factors, but ones failures to situational factors
Social psyc - what is an attitude?
Positive or negative evaluations of object or thought.
Social issues, e.g gun control
Groups, e.g farmers
Consumer products, e.g meat
Social psych - what are the three components attitudes?
Affection (e.g feel annoyed), Behaviour (e.g tend to ignore), cognition (belief - e.g believe they are lazy)
Social psych - what effect does the strength of an attitude have on the potential for changing of that attitude?
Strong views are more resistant to change
Social psyc - in terms of attitudes, what is ambivalence ?
Simultaneous positive and negative attitudes e.g smoking
Social psyc - why do attitudes seem to be a low predictor of behaviour?
Levels of attitude strength - the stronger the attitude the greater the effect on behaviour.
Social norms ( e.g social norms in the context of a party vs. a classroom) and the resulting social pressure.
Social psyc - when attempting to change attitudes via persuasion (e.g advertising) what characteristics of the source, message and receiver (respectively) lend themselves to the most successfull persuasion?
Sources must be - credible e.g perceived expertise, perceived trustworthiness, attractiveness (particularly emotional content)
Message should - appear to present “both sides of the argument”, effect of arousing fear, repetition “mere exposure effect” stimuli are more liked after repeatedly being exposed to them.
Receiver - weak attitude, low understanding (not forewarned)
Social psychology - what are the two routes in the ELM ( elaboration likelihood model) of attitude change?
Central route - requires a strong argument versus weak counter arguments, only works if people are interested and able to focus - most effective in the long run.
Peripheral route - uses easy familiar language persuasion where the goal is behavioural change works better than the central route if audience is less interested and non-thinking…but not as effective in the long run.
