Psych Test 2 Flashcards
What physical, cognitive, and social changes occur as individuals age?
Physical: Decreased vision, reduced muscle strength, weakened immune system. Cognitive: Some cognitive decline, but wisdom and emotional stability may increase. Social: Often experience greater social stability and a focus on positive memories.
What is attachment in psychology?
Attachment is an emotional bond between a child and caregiver that influences future relationships and social/emotional development.
What are the four attachment styles and their impacts?
Secure, Anxious, Avoidant, and Disorganized. These styles shape relationship patterns throughout life, with secure attachment often leading to healthier relationships.
What is a critical period in development?
A specific timeframe during which exposure to certain experiences is crucial for normal development, such as language learning in early childhood.
How do bottom-up and top-down processing differ?
Bottom-up: Starts with sensory input, building up to perception. Top-down: Perception shaped by prior knowledge and expectations.
What did Bandura’s “Bobo Doll” study demonstrate?
It showed that children imitate aggressive behavior seen in adults, supporting the theory of social/observational learning.
How does classical conditioning work? Give an example.
A neutral stimulus becomes associated with a meaningful stimulus, triggering a response (e.g., Pavlov’s dogs: bell + food = salivation).
What does developmental psychology study?
It examines physical, cognitive, and social changes throughout the lifespan.
Compare cross-sectional and longitudinal research methods.
Cross-sectional: Compares different age groups at one time. Longitudinal: Follows the same group over time.
What’s the difference between explicit and implicit memory?
Explicit: Conscious recall (e.g., facts). Implicit: Unconscious influences on behavior (e.g., skills).
What is extinction in classical conditioning?
The conditioned response fades when the unconditioned stimulus is no longer presented with the conditioned stimulus.
What is a flashbulb memory?
A vivid, detailed memory of a significant event, often long-lasting.
What are the main causes of forgetting?
Causes include encoding failure, storage decay, retrieval failure, and interference.
How does the frontal lobe develop in adolescence?
It matures into the mid-20s, improving decision-making, impulse control, and social behavior.
What is hypnosis used for in psychology?
A state of focused attention and suggestibility, often applied in therapy for pain control or habit-breaking.
How do individualistic and collectivistic cultures differ?
Individualistic: Values personal goals, independence. Collectivistic: Emphasizes group goals, interdependence.
What methods are used to study infants?
Observational studies, habituation, and measuring gaze/attention to assess cognitive abilities.
Who are key figures in psychology, and what did they contribute?
Freud (psychoanalysis), Skinner (behaviorism), Piaget (cognitive development).
What did the “Little Albert” experiment demonstrate?
It showed classical conditioning of fear in a child by associating a loud noise with a white rat.
How does memory consolidation work?
It stabilizes a memory after initial learning, often during sleep.
How does moral reasoning develop?
Involves learning to distinguish right from wrong, often shaped by cognitive development and social influences.
What are Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development?
Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete Operational, and Formal Operational.
How does operant conditioning work?
Behavior is influenced by consequences, such as rewards (reinforcements) or punishments.
What’s the difference between positive and negative punishment?
Positive: Adds an unpleasant stimulus to reduce behavior. Negative: Removes a pleasant stimulus to reduce behavior.
What’s the difference between positive and negative reinforcement?
Positive: Adds a pleasant stimulus to increase behavior. Negative: Removes an unpleasant stimulus to increase behavior.
How do sensation and perception differ?
Sensation: Receiving stimuli. Perception: Organizing and interpreting these stimuli.
How does sensory processing work in humans?
Sensory info is received, organized, and interpreted by the brain.
What is shaping in operant conditioning?
A technique reinforcing successive steps to reach a desired behavior
How does social/observational learning work?
Learning by observing others, demonstrated by Bandura’s “Bobo Doll” studies.
What strategies can improve memory retention?
Use mnemonic devices, spaced repetition, active engagement, and self-reference.
What is the theory of mind?
Understanding that others have distinct thoughts and perspectives, developing in childhood.
What is transduction in sensation?
The process of converting sensory stimuli (e.g., sound waves) into neural signals.
What is working memory’s role?
A temporary system holding and processing information actively.
What is Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development?
The range between tasks a learner can do alone vs. with guidance.
Attachment Style : Secure
Warm and Caring
Trusting and forvibing
Honest and open
Attatchment Style: Anxious
Relationship insecurities
Fear of abandonment
Lack boundaries
Attatchment Style: Avoidant
Fear of closeness
Distant and withdrawn
Avoid Conflict
Logical
Attatchment Style: Disorganized
Unable to self regulate
Find intimacy and trust difficult
Tendency to dissociate
Lack of empathy
Parenting Style: Permissive
Child driven
Rarely gives or enforces Rules
Overindulges child to avoid conflict
Parent style: Authorative
Solves problems together with child
Sets clear rules and expectations
Open communication and natural consequences
Parenting Style: Neglectful
Uninvolved or absent
Indifferent to child emotional and behavioral needs
Parenting Style: Authoritarian
Parent Driven
Sets strict rules and punishment
One way communication
little consideration of emotional and behavioral needs
___________________________ is the branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social development throughout the lifespan.
Developmental Psychology
An infant, who understands and learns about their world through their senses and actions, is understood to be in the __________________ of cognitive development
sensorimotor
The capacity to understand that other people have different viewpoints, and that they may have different information from the information you have, is called ___________________________.
Theory of mind
___________________________ is the process through which sensory stimuli from one’s environment is converted into neural/electrochemical signals that the brain can process.
transduction
Information processing that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain’s integration of sensory information is called ___________________________.
bottom up processing
___________________________ is a social interaction in which one person suggests to another person that certain perceptions, thoughts, or behaviors will spontaneously occur.
hypnosis
___________________________ occurs when people learn without directed experience, but instead by watching and imitating others.
social learning
In the “Little Albert” experiments of the 1920s, an 11-month-old baby learned to fear white rats through the process of ___________________________.
classical conditioning
Animals can be taught elaborate tricks for Hollywood movies through ___________________________, in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior.
operant conditioning
The process through which information that is temporarily stored in the hippocampus is transferred to long-term memory is called ___________________________.
memory consolidation
