Psych final Flashcards
Neural mechanisms invlolved in emotional memory
mechanisms: memories for emotionally significant events; multiple perspectives: behavioral science, evolutionary psychology, cognative psychology, clinical psychology.
Behavioral neuroscience: How do we rememeber emotionally significant events. brain structs: amygdala, hippocampus, both help us dectect emotionally significant events.
evolutionary psychology: what is the genetic contribution to human behavior made by amygdala + hippocampus –> why might have evolution shaped is to remember emotionally significant events; variation, survivial, reproduction. survival of the fittest
cognitive psychology: memory -> how accurate are our memories for emotionally significant events?
Clinical psychology: can our memories for emotionally significant events ever go away?
Flashbulb memories
Vivid detailed, complelling, WRONG, humans are active information processors, different aspects to what gets encoded; experiences and memoires can be left out.
PTSD
Post Traumatic stress disorder : disorder involving frequent and unwanted thoughts related to past stress or trauma (ie: nightmeres, intrusive thoughts, flashbacks) .
Unifying themes and debates
Themes: Nature/ Nurture : do genetics or environment contribute most to psychological outcomes?
Limited diachotomies: Limited value of ‘either/ or’ ; psych is more ‘yes, and….’ (both contriubiting factors, how do they combine). How the human mind constructs and deconstructs experiences (active information processors).
Active information processors: active engagement with an intrepretation of our words,
Abnormal informs the normal: no absolute definition of ‘Normal’ so study of abnormal (missing) helps ascertain normal human processes.
Commitment to scientific method : truth through emperical validation –> psychological research: varibales ( IV/DV, conceptual vs operational ; measured vs manipulated) ; research stratagies: correlational vs experimental studies, ethical considerations;
Independent/ dependent Variable
IV: variable that is manipulated or measured
DV: effect of manipulation on specific behavior
Conceptual/ Operational defintion
Conceptual: abstract
Operational: How a variable is assessed - difference btwn psych and phil - conceptual is turned into operational via research, phil tends to focus only on conceptual.
Self-report
Definiton: participants/ people rate state their own results
Observational measure:
Definition : something that can be seen, counted.
Physiological measure:
Definition: showing clear signs and symptoms
Measured/manipulted variable:
Measured: observed/recorded
Manipulated: researcher assigns/controlled -> assigning participants to groups (1 aspect or another in respect to IV), srtong possibility that the IV is altered to determine if any noticable change occurs
Correlation does not mean causation:
Correlation is not directly related to causation.
Directionality Problem
Definition: correlation in data does not equal causation, like which event came first the chicken or the egg. Cant determine which came first
Third Variable Problem
Defintion: individual difference variables. MANY MANY variables that can’t assessed and can impact results increase uncertainty.
Correlation study
Definition: IV is measured/ predicted ex: college students self report violent video game time and researchers observe and rate aggressive behavior.
Adachi & Willoughby (2011)
Experiment: college students randomly assigned to play a violent or non-violent video game for 15 minutes. After the game, participants dole out hot sauce to someone who doesnt like spicy foods
Experimental
Definition: manipulation of IV –> determines which event came first ( solves directionality problem) ; has experimental and comparison group.
Random assignment –> ensures equivalent groups (eliminating the third variable problem), equalizes many of the indavidual difference variables , a causal relationship can be determined.
Confounding Variable
Definition: any factor that varies btwn two experimental groups
Gerneralizability
Definition: a measure of how useful the results of a study are for a broader group of people or situations.
WEIRD Study
Particiapants and study:
Ethical principles
Principles: Do no harm protects patients from harm and discomfort; infromed consent participants agree to be part of a study w/o coercion; debreif reseachers explain study and reveal any ‘lies’ told to participants during the inital presentation; confidentitality ensures that any results found are resleased as a group avg, no indiv results are resleased, ex; HIPPA, privacy prevents psychologitsts from watching or studying participants w/o their knowledge.
Debrief
Defition: researchers explain study and reveal any previous misleadings.
Behavior neuroscience
Defition: the study of the NS and its effects on behvavior, emotion and cognition
CNS
Central Nervous System: made up of brain and spinal cord, fxn: processing, organizing, and intrepreting information and sending it back to PNS
PNS
Peripheral Nervous System : 1) somatosenory info taken in first , sent to CNS, response from CNS signal results in activation, somatic NS acts on voluntary controlled parts of body. Made up of two regions, Somatic and ANS (autonomic NS), Somatic NS regulates organs under voluntary control (ex: muscles), Automonic NS regulates organs under nonvoluntary control –> made up of two systems SNS -> Symp NS ( flight or flight), & PSNS -> peripheral NS (rest & digest) both work simultaneously.