Psych Soc priority terms Flashcards
What is the absolute threshold?
The minimum stimulus energy required to activate a sensory system; the lowest level to reliably detect a stimulus 50% of the time.
What is accommodation in psychology?
The process by which existing schemata are modified to encompass new information.
What is acetylcholine?
A neurotransmitter involved in voluntary muscle control and the parasympathetic nervous system.
What is actor-observer bias?
The tendency to make situational attributions about oneself but dispositional attributions about others regarding similar behaviors.
What is acquisition in classical conditioning?
The process of taking advantage of reflexive responses to turn a neutral stimulus into a conditioned stimulus.
What is adaptive value?
The extent to which a trait benefits a species by influencing its evolutionary fitness.
What is affect?
Emotion, which can be positive or negative on a scale.
What is an afferent neuron?
A neuron that carries information from sensory receptors to the central nervous system.
What is agnosia?
The loss of the ability to recognize objects, people, or sounds, typically affecting just one of the three.
What is alcohol myopia?
The inability to think about consequences and possible outcomes of one’s actions due to alcohol intoxication.
What is impression management?
The process by which individuals attempt to control the impressions others form of them.
What is aligning actions?
An impression management strategy that makes questionable behavior acceptable through excuses.
What is alter-casting?
An impression management strategy in which one imposes an identity onto another person.
What is amphetamine?
A central nervous system stimulant that increases the activity of both dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain.
What is anomie?
A state of normlessness that erodes social solidarity through excessive individualism, social inequality, and isolation.
What is anterograde amnesia?
A form of memory loss in which new long-term memories cannot be established.
What is the appraisal model?
A theory that accepts biologically predetermined expressions once an emotion is experienced, with a cognitive antecedent to emotional expression.
What is an archetype in Jungian psychoanalysis?
A thought or image that has an emotional element and is part of the collective unconscious.
What is the arcuate fasciculus?
A bundle of axons that connects Wernicke’s area (language comprehension) with Broca’s area (motor function of speech).
What is arousal theory?
A theory of motivation stating that a particular level of arousal is required to perform actions optimally.
What is ascribed status?
A status given at birth, such as race, ethnicity, or sex.
What is assimilation in psychology?
The process by which new information is interpreted in terms of existing schemata.
What is associative learning?
The process of making a connection between two stimuli or a stimulus and a response.
What is attachment?
An emotional bond to another person, particularly a parent or caregiver; includes secure, avoidant, ambivalent, and disorganized styles.
What is attribute substitution?
A phenomenon where individuals substitute a simpler solution or perception for complex judgments.
What is attribution theory?
A theory that focuses on how individuals infer the causes of others’ behavior.
What is the auditory pathway?
The route through which sound is processed by several brain regions, including the MGN and auditory cortex.
What is the authentic self?
Who someone actually is, encompassing both positive and negative attributes.
What is autonomy in healthcare?
The ethical tenet that a physician must respect patients’ choices about their own healthcare.
What is the availability heuristic?
A decision-making shortcut that relies on readily available information rather than the total body of information.
What is avoidance learning?
A form of negative reinforcement where one avoids the unpleasantness of something that has yet to happen.
What is babbling?
A precursor to language that occurs spontaneously in children.
What is back stage in the dramaturgical approach?
The setting where individuals are free from role requirements and not in front of an audience.
What is a barbiturate?
A drug that acts as a central nervous system depressant, often used for anxiety, insomnia, and as an antiseizure medication.
What are the basal ganglia?
A portion of the forebrain that coordinates muscle movement and routes information from the cortex to the brain and spinal cord.
What is the base-rate fallacy?
The error of using prototypical or stereotypical factors while ignoring actual numerical information in decision-making.
What is the basic model of emotional expression?
A theory stating that emotional expression involves facial, behavioral, and physical responses, and that emotions are universal.
What is behaviorism?
B.F. Skinner’s theory that all behaviors are conditioned, applicable across many psychological theories.
What is belief perseverance?
The inability to reject a particular belief despite clear evidence to the contrary.
What is beneficence?
The ethical tenet that a physician has a responsibility to act in the patient’s best interest.
What is a benzodiazepine?
A central nervous system depressant used to reduce anxiety or promote sleep.
What is the biomedical approach?
An approach to psychological disorders that considers only pathophysiological causes and offers medical solutions.
What is the biopsychosocial approach?
An approach to psychological disorders that considers biological, psychological, and social causes for treatment.
What are bipolar disorders?
A class of mood disorders characterized by both depression and mania.
What is bottom-up processing?
Object recognition through parallel processing and feature detection in response to sensory stimuli.
What is Broca’s area?
A brain region responsible for the motor function of speech, located in the inferior frontal gyrus.
What is the Cannon–Bard theory?
A theory of emotion stating that a stimulus is processed physiologically and cognitively simultaneously.
What is cataplexy?
Loss of muscle control with intrusion of REM sleep during waking hours, usually triggered by emotion.
What is catatonia?
Disorganized motor behavior characterized by unusual physical movements or stillness.
What is cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)?
An aqueous solution in which the brain and spinal cord rest, produced by ependymal cells.
What is a characteristic institution?
The social structure or institution around which societies are organized.
What is choice shift?
A term analogous to group polarization, describing the behavior change of the group as a whole.
What is a circular reaction?
A repetitive action that achieves a desired response, seen during Piaget’s sensorimotor stage.
What is class consciousness?
In Marxist theory, the organization of the working class around shared goals for collective political action.
What is classical conditioning?
A form of associative learning where a neutral stimulus becomes associated with an unconditioned stimulus.
What is cocaine?
A stimulant that decreases the reuptake of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin.
What is cognitive appraisal?
The subjective evaluation of a situation that induces stress, involving primary and potential secondary appraisals.
What is the cognitive reassociation model?
A model of aggression stating that we are more likely to respond aggressively when experiencing negative emotions.
What is cognitive dissonance?
The simultaneous presence of two opposing thoughts or opinions.
What is the collective unconscious?
In Jungian psychoanalysis, the part of the unconscious mind shared among all humans, resulting from common ancestry.
What is the persona in Jungian archetypes?
The aspect of our personality that we present to the world.
What is anima in Jungian archetypes?
A man’s inner woman.
What is animus in Jungian archetypes?
A woman’s inner man.
What is the shadow in Jungian archetypes?
Unpleasant and socially reprehensible thoughts, feelings, and actions experienced in the unconscious mind.
What are Jungian dichotomies of personality?
Extraversion vs introversion, sensing vs intuiting, thinking vs feeling.
What is the Myers–Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI)?
A classic personality test based on Jung’s work, categorizing individuals into specific personality types.
Each of Jung’s three dichotomies, and a fourth—judging (J, preferring orderliness) vs. perceiving (P, preferring spontaneity)—is labeled as a specific personality type. In most individuals, both sides of each dichotomy are present to some degree, but one tends to dominate.
What does Alfred Adler focus on in his psychoanalysis?
The immediate social imperatives of family and society and their effects on unconscious factors.
Define inferiority complex (Alfred Adler)
An individual’s sense of incompleteness, imperfection, and inferiority both physically and socially.
What drives the personality according to Alfred Adler?
Striving for superiority.
How does striving for superiority (alfred aldler) affect personality?
It enhances personality when oriented toward benefiting society but yields disorder when selfish.
What is the creative self in Adlerian psychoanalysis?
The force by which individuals shape their uniqueness and establish their personality.
What does ‘style of life’ represent in Adlerian psychoanalysis?
The manifestation of the creative self and describes a person’s unique way of achieving superiority.
What is crucial in molding a person’s style of life according to Alfred Adler?
The family environment.
Define fictional finalism in Adlerian psychoanalysis.
Individuals are motivated more by their expectations of the future than by past experiences.
What are colliculi?
Two structures in the midbrain involved in sensorimotor reflexes.
superior colliculi - visual sensory input
inferior collicului - auditory sensory input
What does the superior colliculus receive?
Visual sensory input.
What does the inferior colliculus receive?
Auditory sensory input.
Define compliance in psychology.
A change of behavior of an individual at the request of another.
What are concordance rates?
The presence of a trait in both twins.
What is a conditioned response?
The reflexive response caused by a conditioned stimulus in classical conditioning paradigms.
What is a conditioned stimulus?
An initially neutral stimulus paired with an unconditioned stimulus to train a behavioral response.
What characterizes conduction aphasia?
Inability to repeat words with intact spontaneous speech production and comprehension.
What usually causes conduction aphasia?
Injury to the arcuate fasciculus.
What is confirmation bias?
A cognitive bias in which one focuses on information that supports a given solution, belief, or hypothesis and ignores evidence against it.
This bias can lead to skewed decision-making and reinforcement of incorrect beliefs.
What does conflict theory emphasize?
The role of power differentials in producing social order.
This theory suggests that social structures are a result of conflicts between different groups.
Define conservation in the context of child development.
Concept seen in quantitative analysis performed by a child; develops when a child is able to identify the difference between quantity by number and actual amount.
This is often tested through tasks where identical quantities are presented in different configurations.
What is constancy in sensory perception?
Perceiving certain characteristics of an object to remain the same despite differences in the environment.
Examples include size constancy and color constancy.
What is the context effect?
A retrieval cue by which memory is aided when a person is in the location where encoding took place.
This effect highlights the importance of environment in memory recall.
What does contralateral refer to?
On the opposite side of the body, relative to something else (usually a side of the brain).
For example, the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body.
What is controlled (conscious) processing?
Processing method used when a task requires complete attention.
This is in contrast to automatic processing, which occurs without conscious effort.
What does correspondent inference theory state?
People pay closer attention to intentional behavior than accidental behavior when making attributions, especially if the behavior is unexpected.
This theory helps explain how we interpret others’ actions.
Define crystallized intelligence.
Cognitive capacity to understand relationships or solve problems using information acquired during schooling and other experiences.
It contrasts with fluid intelligence, which involves the ability to thin
In general, fluid intelligence tends to be sharpest in early adulthood, while crystallized intelligence continues to grow through life.
What is cultural capital?
The benefits one receives from knowledge, abilities, and skills.
This concept is often linked to social mobility and class distinctions.
What does cultural diffusion refer to?
The spread of norms, cultures, and beliefs throughout a culture.
This can occur through trade, migration, or communication.
Define cultural relativism.
The theory that social groups and cultures must be studied on their own terms to be understood.
This approach prevents ethnocentric judgments of other cultures.
Fill in the blank: Cultural transmission is the means by which a society _______.
[socializes its members].
This concept encompasses the processes of teaching and learning cultural norms and values.
What is deductive reasoning?
A form of cognition that starts with general information and narrows down that information to create a conclusion.
Inductive reasoning is a way of thinking that uses observations to create general conclusions. It’s also known as inductive logic or bottom-up reasoning.
What is a defense mechanism in Freudian psychoanalysis?
A technique used by the ego that denies, falsifies, or distorts reality to resolve anxiety caused by undesirable urges of the id and superego.
Define deindividuation.
The idea that people will lose a sense of self-awareness and can act dramatically differently based on the influence of a group.
What is delirium?
Rapid fluctuation in cognitive function that is reversible and has a nonpsychological cause.
What are delusions?
Fixed, false beliefs that are discordant with reality and not shared by one’s culture, maintained in spite of strong evidence to the contrary.
What is demographic transition?
The transition from high birth and mortality rates to lower birth and mortality rates as a country develops from a preindustrial to an industrialized economic system.
What is a depressant?
Any substance that reduces nervous system function.
Define depressive disorder.
Sadness meeting certain conditions of severity and duration that warrants a diagnosis of a mental health issue.
What are examples of depressive disorders?
- Major depression
- Dysthymic disorder
- Seasonal affective disorder
What characterizes a depressive episode?
A period of at least two weeks with a prominent and persistent depressed mood or lack of interest and at least four other depressive symptoms.
What is deviance?
The violation of norms, rules, or expectations within a society.
What is the diencephalon?
A portion of the prosencephalon that becomes the thalamus, hypothalamus, posterior pituitary gland, and pineal gland.
Define differential association theory.
Theory that deviance can be learned through interactions with others who engage in deviant behavior, provided those interactions outnumber conforming interactions.
What is the disconfirmation principle?
The idea that if evidence obtained during testing does not confirm a hypothesis, then the hypothesis is discarded or revised.
What is discrimination in classical conditioning?
The process by which two similar but distinct conditioned stimuli produce different responses.
What does discrimination mean in sociology?
When individuals of a particular group are treated differently than others based on their group.
What is a discriminative stimulus?
A stimulus whose presence indicates the opportunity for reward.
What is dishabituation?
A sudden increase in response to a stimulus, usually due to a change in the stimulus or addition of another stimulus
Sometimes called resensitization.
Define displacement in psychology.
A defense mechanism by which undesired urges are transferred from one target to another, more acceptable one.
What are display rules?
Cultural expectations of how emotions can be expressed.
What are dispositional (internal) attributions?
Attributions that relate to the decisions or personality of the person whose behavior is being considered.
What are dissociative disorders?
Disorders that involve a perceived separation from identity or the environment.
What is a distal stimulus?
Part of the outside world that serves as a source for stimuli that reach the sensory neurons.
Define divided attention.
The ability to attend to multiple stimuli simultaneously and to perform multiple tasks at the same time.
What are dizygotic twins?
Fraternal twins who share approximately 50% of their genes, as with most siblings.
What is the dominant hemisphere of the brain?
The side of the brain that provides analytic, language, logic, and math skills; in most individuals, the left hemisphere.
What is dopamine?
A neurotransmitter associated with smooth movements, steady posture, the reward pathway, and psychosis.
What does the dramaturgical approach represent?
An impression management theory that represents the world as a stage and individuals as actors performing to an audience.
What is the drive reduction theory?
A theory that explains motivation as being based on the goal of eliminating uncomfortable internal states.
What are drives in psychology?
Deficiencies that activate particular behaviors focused on a goal, which can be further subdivided into either primary or secondary drives.
Define dual-coding theory.
A cognitive theory that states that both visual and verbal associations are used to encode and retrieve information.
What is the duplicity theory of vision?
A theory which holds that the retina contains two types of specialized photoreceptors: rods specialized for light and dark perception and cones specialized for color perception.
What is Dyssomnia?
A sleep disorder in which one has difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or avoiding sleep.
What is the common name for MDMA?
Ecstasy
What type of neurons are efferent neurons?
Motor neurons that transmit information from the central nervous system to the periphery.
In Freudian psychoanalysis, what does the Ego mediate?
The urges of the id and superego.
What is egocentrism?
A self-centered view of the world in which one is not necessarily able to understand the experience of another person.
What does the elaboration likelihood model describe?
A theory in which attitudes are formed and changed through different routes of information processing.
What are the two processing routes in the elaboration likelihood model?
- Central route processing (deep thinking or elaborative)
- Peripheral route processing (non-elaborative)
What is elaborative rehearsal?
The association of information in short-term memory to information already stored in long-term memory.
What does the empathy-altruism hypothesis suggest?
One individual helps another when they feel empathy for the other person.
What is encoding in the context of memory?
The process of receiving information and preparing it for storage.
What are endorphins?
Natural painkillers produced by the brain.
What role does epinephrine play in the body?
A neurotransmitter associated with the fight-or-flight response.
What are errors of growth in language development?
Misuse of grammar characterized by universal application of a rule, regardless of exceptions.
What is escape learning?
A form of negative reinforcement in which one reduces the unpleasantness of something that already exists.
What is esteem support?
Affirming qualities and skills of the person as part of social support.
What is an ethnic enclave?
Locations with a high concentration of one specific ethnicity that can often slow assimilation.
Ecstasy
Ecstasy—Common name for MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine); a central nervous system stimulant with effects similar to both amphetamines and hallucinogens.
ego
In Freudian psychoanalysis, the part of the unconscious mind that mediates the urges of the id and superego; operates under the reality principle.
What is Eustress?
The stress response to positive conditions.
Define evolutionary stable strategy.
A strategy that, once adopted, will use natural selective pressure to prevent alternate strategies from arising.
What does exchange theory focus on?
Interactions in groups based on expectancy of future rewards and/or punishments.
In social structure, an extension of rational choice theory
What is expectancy-value theory?
The amount of motivation needed to reach a goal is the result of both expectation of success and the degree to which reaching the goal is valued.
What is explicit memory?
Memory that requires conscious recall, divided into facts (semantic memory) and experiences (episodic memory); also known as declarative memory.
What is extinction in classical conditioning?
The decrease in response resulting from repeated presentation of the conditioned stimulus without the presence of the unconditioned stimulus.
What does the extrapyramidal system do?
motor-modulation system.Modulates monitiation and selective activation of voluntary movements, along with their coordination. This system also regulates the involuntary movements (reflexes), as opposed to the pyramidal system which controls the voluntary movements only.tor activity.
basal ganglia, cerebellum, brainstem
reticulospinal, vestibulospinal, rubrospinal and tectospinal tracts.
Define extraversion in trait theory.
The degree to which an individual is able to tolerate social interaction and stimulation.
What is extrinsic motivation?
Motivation that is external, including rewards and punishments.
What is false consciousness in Marxist theory?
A misperception of one’s actual position within society.
What is a family group?
A group determined by birth, adoption, and marriage rather than self-selection.
What is Fisherian selection?
A positive feedback mechanism where a trait with no impact (or neg impact) on survival becomes more exaggerated over time if deemed sexually desirable.
Define fixation in Freudian psychoanalysis.
The result of overindulgence or frustration during a psychosexual stage causing a neurotic pattern of personality based on that stage.
What is flat affect?
Behavior characterized by showing virtually no signs of emotion or affective expression.
neg symptom of schizophrenia
What is fluid intelligence?
Ability to quickly identify relationships and connections, and then use those relationships and connections to make correct deductions.
Define foraging.
The act of searching for and exploiting food resources.
What part of the brain is associated with complex perceptual, cognitive, and behavioral processes?
Forebrain.
What is the fornix?
A long projection from the hippocampus that connects to other nuclei in the limbic system.
In the dramaturgical approach, what is the front stage?
The setting where players are in front of an audience and perform roles that are in keeping with the image they hope to project about themselves.
What does the frontal lobe control?
Motor processing, executive function, and the integration of cognitive and behavioral processes.
What are the four functions of attitudes according to functional attitudes theory?
- Knowledge
- Ego expression
- Adaptation
- Ego defense
What is functional fixedness?
The inability to identify uses for an object beyond its usual purpose.
Define functionalism.
A theoretical framework that explains how parts of society fit together to create a cohesive whole, via both manifest (intended to help some part of system) and latent functions (unintended positive)
What is the fundamental attribution error?
The general bias toward making dispositional attributions rather than situational attributions when analyzing another person’s behavior.
What is γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA)?
A neurotransmitter associated with stabilizing and inhibit brain activity.
What are ganglia?
Collections of neuron cell bodies found outside the central nervous system.
What does the theory of Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft distinguish between?
communities (Gemeinschaften) which share beliefs, ancestry, or geography; and societies
societies (Gesellschaften) which work together toward a common goal
What is the general adaptation syndrome?
Sequence of physiological responses developed by Selye in response to stress, initiating with alarm, followed by resistance, and finally exhaustion.
What is generalization in classical conditioning?
The process by which two distinct but similar stimuli come to produce the same response.
What is gentrification?
The process of renewal of low income areas by upper-class populations, ultimately displacing the lower income residents.
What are Gestalt principles?
Ways for the brain to infer missing parts of a picture when a picture is incomplete, governed by the law of prägnanz.
Define globalization.
The process of integrating the global economy with free trade and tapping of foreign labor markets.
Globalization impacts trade, culture, and economics on a worldwide scale.
What is glutamate?
An excitatory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system.
Glutamate plays a key role in synaptic plasticity and is involved in cognitive functions.
What is glycine?
An inhibitory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system.
Glycine is important for regulating the excitability of neurons.
Define a group.
A social entity that involves at least two people, usually those sharing common characteristics.
Groups can vary in size and purpose, influencing social dynamics.
What is group conformity?
Compliance with a group’s goals, even when the group’s goals may be in direct contrast to an individual’s goals.
This phenomenon can lead to individual members suppressing their own views.
What is group polarization?
The tendency toward decisions that are more extreme than the individual inclinations of the group members.
Group discussions can amplify members’ pre-existing views.
What is groupthink?
The tendency for groups to make decisions based on ideas and solutions that arise within the group without considering outside ideas and ethics.
Groupthink can lead to poor decision-making due to a lack of critical evaluation.
What is a gyrus?
A ridge of the cerebral cortex.
Gyri are separated by grooves known as sulci.
Define habituation.
A decrease in response caused by repeated exposure to a stimulus.
This process allows organisms to focus on new stimuli instead of familiar ones.
What are hallucinogens?
A group of drugs that cause distortions of reality in users, including lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and psilocybin-containing mushrooms.
Hallucinogens can significantly alter perception and cognition.
What is the halo effect?
A cognitive bias in which judgments of an individual’s character can be affected by the overall impression of the individual.
This effect can lead to biased evaluations in various contexts, including hiring decisions.
What is the hidden curriculum?
In education, the transmission to students of social norms, attitudes, and beliefs.
The hidden curriculum can shape students’ values and behaviors outside of formal instruction.
What is the hierarchy of salience?
Theory of identity organization that posits that we let situations dictate which identity holds the most importance at any given moment.
This theory helps explain shifts in behavior and self-perception in different contexts.
What is the hindbrain?
A portion of the brain that controls balance, motor coordination, breathing, digestion, and general arousal processes.
The hindbrain includes structures like the cerebellum and medulla oblongata.
What is the hippocampus?
A portion of the limbic system that is important for memory and learning.
The hippocampus is critical for the formation of new memories and spatial navigation.
What is the humanistic theory?
The set of theories that hold that personality is the result of the conscious feelings we have for ourselves as we attempt to attain our needs and goals.
The theories of Kelly, Maslow, Lewin, and others fall into this category.
What are hypnagogic hallucinations?
Hallucinations that occur when going to sleep; seen in narcolepsy.
Common in individuals with narcolepsy.
What are hypnopompic hallucinations?
Hallucinations that occur when awakening from sleep; seen in narcolepsy.
Often experienced by narcoleptic patients.
Define hypnosis.
An altered state of consciousness in which a person appears to be awake but is, in fact, in a highly suggestible state.
This state can trigger actions by another person or event.
What is the role of the hypothalamus?
Controls homeostatic and endocrine functions by controlling the release of pituitary hormones.
Located in the forebrain.
What is the id in Freudian psychoanalysis?
The part of the unconscious resulting from basic, instinctual urges for sexuality and survival; operates under the pleasure principle.
Seeks instant gratification.
What is the ideal self?
The person one would optimally like to be.
What is the identity shift effect?
When an individual’s state of harmony is disrupted by a threat of social rejection, leading to conformity to group norms and a corresponding identity shift.
This reduces cognitive dissonance.
What are immediate networks?
Networks that are dense with strong ties; generally overlap with distant networks.
Define implicit memory.
Memory that does not require conscious recall; consists of skills and conditioned behaviors.
What is implicit personality theory?
A theory that states that people tend to associate traits and behavior in others and attribute their own beliefs, opinions, and ideas onto others.
What is impression management?
Behaviors intended to influence the perceptions of other people about a person, object, or event.
What is incentive theory?
Theory that behavior is motivated by the desire to pursue rewards and avoid punishments.
What is inclusive fitness?
A measure of reproductive success; depends on the number of offspring an individual has, how well they support their offspring, and how well their offspring can support others.
Inclusive fitness emphasizes the role of both direct and indirect reproductive success.
Define inductive reasoning.
A form of cognition that utilizes generalizations to develop a theory.
Inductive reasoning moves from specific observations to broader generalizations.
What is the role of the inferior colliculus?
Region of the midbrain that receives and integrates sensory input from the auditory system, and is involved in reflexive reactions to auditory input.
The inferior colliculus is crucial for processing sounds and coordinating auditory reflexes.
List the four key components of the information processing model.
- Information intake
- Information analysis
- Situational modification
- Content/complexity of problem
This model helps explain how humans process information.
What is ingratiation?
An impression management strategy that uses flattery to increase social acceptance.
Ingratiation can involve compliments, favors, or other forms of positive reinforcement.
Define insomnia.
Sleep disorder characterized by either an inability to fall asleep or difficulty staying asleep.
Insomnia can be acute or chronic and may affect overall health.
What does instinct theory suggest?
In motivation, the theory that people are driven to engage in behaviors based on evolutionarily preprogrammed instincts.
This theory suggests that many behaviors are innate rather than learned.
What is instinctive drift?
The tendency of animals to resist learning when a conditioned behavior conflicts with the animal’s instinctive behaviors.
Instinctive drift highlights the limits of operant conditioning.
What is an intelligence quotient (IQ)?
Numerical measurement of intelligence, usually accomplished by some form of standardized testing.
IQ tests are designed to measure a variety of cognitive abilities.
What is interaction process analysis?
A technique of observing and immediately classifying the activities of small groups.
This technique is often used in social psychology to study group dynamics.
Define interference in the context of memory.
A retrieval error caused by the learning of information; can be proactive or retroactive.
Proactive interference occurs when old information inhibits the learning of new information, while retroactive interference occurs when new information disrupts the recall of old information.
What is internalization?
Changing one’s behavior to fit with a group while also privately agreeing with the ideas of the group.
Internalization reflects a deeper level of conformity than mere compliance.
What is an interneuron?
A neuron found between sensory and motor neurons; involved in the reflex arc.
Interneurons play a crucial role in processing information and reflex actions.
What is interpersonal attraction?
The force that makes people like each other.
Factors influencing interpersonal attraction include similarity, proximity, and physical attractiveness.
spinal reflex arc
afferent, efferent, integration point, receptors and effectors
- receptors recieve the stimulus
- afferent signal (sensory neuron)
**3. integration center at interneuron
**4. efferent signal (motor neuron) - effectors move fingers away
cognitive process theory of dreaming
Cognitive Process Theory explains that dreams share the same continuous stream-of-consciousness with our waking thoughts. This means the way we think and process information when awake is mirrored in our dreams. It suggests that our brain uses similar pathways and processes both in wakefulness and in sleep.
activation synthesis theory
dreams are caused by widespread, random activation of neural circuitry. This activation can mimic incoming sensory information, and may also consist of pieces of stored memories, current and previous desires, met and unmet needs, and other experiences. The cortex then tries to stitch this unrelated information together, resulting in a dream that is both bizarre and somewhat familiar.
humans construct dream memories after they wake up to make sense of it
problem solving dream theory,
In the problem solving dream theory, dreams are a way to solve problems while you are sleeping. Dreams are untethered by the rules of the real world, and thus allow interpretation of obstacles differently than during waking hours.
cognitive process dream theory
cognitive process dream theory, dreams are merely the sleeping counterpart of stream-of-consciousness. Just as you may be thinking about an upcoming weekend trip when your consciousness quickly shifts to your upcoming MCAT Test Day, so too does the content of a dream rapidly shift and change
Neurocognitive models
Neurocognitive models of dreaming seek to unify biological and psychological perspectives on dreaming by correlating the subjective, cognitive experience of dreaming with measurable physiological changes.
threat stimulation theory
dreaming is an ancient biological defense with evoluntary advantage because it can repeatedly simulate potential threatening events to improve efficient threat avoidance
continual activation theory
dreaming is a result of brain activation and synthesis. During REM sleep the unconscious part processes procedural memory
