Psych/Soc Flashcards
The dependency ratio
The dependency ratio is a ratio of the number of economically dependent members of the population to the number of economically productive members. The economically dependent are those considered too young or too old to work, whereas the economically productive are the working-age population (approx. 18-65).
The life course approach
It’s essentially viewing health in terms of the patient’s entire life history. It’s a holistic approach that considers many more factors than ones directly incidental to the illness at hand.
Linguistic relativity
The linguistic relativity hypothesis suggests that human cognition is affected by language. Ex: a finding that would support this theory would be that humans are better at distinguishing colors for which their language has a name.
The hypothesis of linguistic relativity holds that the structure of a language affects its speakers’ world view or cognition. Also known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, or Whorfianism, the principle is often defined to include two versions:
- The strong version says that language determines thought and that linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories.
- The weak version says that linguistic categories and usage only influence thought and decisions.
Linguistic Determinism
Linguistic determinism is the idea that language and its structures limit and determine human knowledge or thought, as well as thought processes such as categorization, memory, and perception. The term implies that people who speak different languages as their mother tongues have different thought processes.
Linguistic determinism is the strong form of linguistic relativity (popularly known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis), which argues that individuals experience the world based on the structure of the language they habitually use.
Universalism
This theory says that thought comes before language; so your thoughts dictate the language that develops. So thought determines language completely.
For example, someone that only describes color as light and dark colors instead of specific colors that means they only think in terms of light and dark and if they had concepts or ideas about other colors then they would develop words for them in order to express those thoughts.
Conversion disorder vs. Dissociative disorder
Conversion disorder is when a mental illness manifests itself in some kind of physical capacity so to speak. So someone with major depression may experience total body numbness or paralysis even though there is no underlying physical issue (like nerve damage for example) that is causing their symptoms.
Dissociative disorder is also caused solely by mental illness, but instead of manifesting itself in a physical symptom like paralysis discussed above, it will have a mental representation. So people “dissociate” from reality eg. have memory blackouts during high stress times or even form multiple personalities to escape mentally from their suffering. So in essence, conversion disorder has a “physical” manifestation and dissociative disorder has a “mental” manifestation.
Latent learning
Latent learning is a form of learning that is not immediately expressed in an overt response. It occurs without any obvious reinforcement of the behavior or associations that are learned. Latent learning is not readily apparent to the researcher because it is not shown behaviorally until there is sufficient motivation.
Children may learn by watching the actions of their parents but only demonstrate it at a later date, when the learned material is needed. For example, suppose that Ravi’s dad drives him to school every day. In this way, Ravi learns the route from his house to his school, but he’s never driven there himself, so he has not had a chance to demonstrate that he’s learned the way. One morning Ravi’s dad has to leave early for a meeting, so he can’t drive Ravi to school. Instead, Ravi follows the same route on his bike that his dad would have taken in the car. This demonstrates latent learning. Ravi had learned the route to school, but had no need to demonstrate this knowledge earlier.
Meritocracy
Meritocracy assumes that opportunity is based on a combination of talent and effort.
Different types of poverty:
Transitional poverty: A temporary state of poverty that occurs when someone loses a job for a short time.
Marginal poverty: A state of poverty that occurs when a person lacks a stable employment
Residual poverty: Chronic and multigenerational poverty
Absolute poverty: Poverty so severe that one lacks the resources to survive
Relative poverty: A state of poverty that occurs when we compare ourselves to those around us
Which psychoactive drug has the lowest risk of dependence?
Hallucinogens
Hindsight bias (AKA the knew-it-all-along effect or creeping determinism)
It is the inclination, after an event has occurred, to see the event as having been predictable, despite there have been little or no objective basis for predicting it.
A basic example of the hindsight bias is when, after viewing the outcome of a potentially unforeseeable event, a person believes he or she “knew it all along”. Such examples are present in the writings of historians describing outcomes of battles, physicians recalling clinical trials, and in judicial systems trying to attribute responsibility and predictability of accidents.
Self-serving bias
The common human tendency to attribute one’s successes to personal characteristics, and one’s failures to factors beyond one’s control. The reason people tend to personalize success is because it helps their self-esteem levels. Most people demonstrate this behavior on a regular basis. It is human nature to take credit for things like an A on a test or a job well done at work. It is also human nature to avoid responsibility entirely for mistakes or problems.
Left vs. right hemisphere cognitive functions:
Left: responsible for language (vocab), logic, math and comprehension
Right: responsible for intuition, creativity, reading and processing the emotions of others, music comprehension and spatial processing
Emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to perceive, express, understand, and manage one’s emotions. Emotionally intelligent people are self-aware and can delay gratification in pursuit of long-term rewards, rather than being overtaken by immediate impulses.
Escape vs. avoidance learning
Escape learning: the role of the behavior is to reduce the unpleasantness of something that already exists.
Avoidance learning: prevent the unpleasantness of something that has yet to happen.
