psychology Flashcards
cultural bias
the tendency to judge people in terms of one’s own cultural assumptions
gender bias
differential treatment and/or representation of males and females
determinism
the view that free will is an illusion, and that our behaviour is controlled by internal or external forces over which we have no control
free will
the notion that humans can make choices and their behaviour/thoughts are not determined by biological or external factors
nature/nurture debate
concerned with the extent to which aspects of their behaviour are a product of inherited or acquired characteristics
reductionism
the belief that human behaviour is best understood by studying the smaller, constituent parts
holism
the belief that it only makes sense to study an indivisible system rather than its consistuent parts
idiographic approach
an approach to research that focuses more on the individual case as a means of understanding behaviour
rather than aiming to formulate general laws of behaviour
nomothetic approach
aims to study human behavior through the develoment of general principles and univeral law
socially sensitive research
studies in which there are potential
consequences or implications, either directly for the participant in the research or for the class of indivduals represented by the research
implication
the likely consequence of something
the behaviourist approach
-human behaviour can be explained without considering thoughts or feeling
classical conditioning
a type of learning that happens unconsciously, an automatic instinctual response is paired with a specific stimulus
pavlov’s dogs
before condtioning:
food (unconditioned stimulus) -> salivation (unconditioned response)
-bell is the neutral stimulus that producer no response
during conditioning:
food (unconditioned stimulus) + bell (neutral stimulus) -> salivation (unconditioned response)
after conditioning:
bell (conditioned stimulus) -> salivation (conditioned response)
operant conditioning
organisms spontaneouly produce different behaviours and their behaviours produce consequenes for that organism (either positive or negative consequences)
positive reinforcement
when behaviour produces a consequense that is satisfying/pleasant to the organism
negative reinforcement
happens when something unpleasent is removed so that an organism returns to a pleasant state
punishment
when behaviour followed by an unpleasant consequence for
an organism, decreases the
likelihood of a behaviour
recurring
reinforcement
something in the environment that
strengthens a behaviour, making it more likely to recur
the skinner box
-skinner conduced experiments
with rats and sometimes pigeons, in specifically designed cages called
skinner boxes
-every time the rat activated a lever
within the box it was rewarded with
fod pellets
-after many repetitions the animal would continue to perform the behaviour
-skinner as showed how rats and pigeons could be conditioned to perform the same behaviour to avoid an unpleasant stimulus
social learning theory
-proposed by albert bandura around the 1960s
-proposed the social learning theory as a development of the behaviourist approach
-he argued that classical and
operant conditioning could not account for all human learning
-there are important mental processes that bridge between stimulus and response
vicarious reinforcement
learning that is a result of observing
someone else being reinforced for that behaviour
identification
a form of influence where an individual adopts an attitude/ behaviour because they want to be associated with a particular person/grou
imitation
using someone/something as a model and copying their behaviour
modelling
leaming where an individual learns a behaviour by observing another
individual performing that behaviour
meditational process
mental process that exists between environmental stimuli and the response made by an individual to those stimuli
cognitive approach
how people perceive, store, manipulate and interpret information
inference
reaching a logical conclusion on the basis of evidence and reasoning
schema
-a cognitive framework that helps to organise and interpret information is the brain
-schema helps an indindual to make
sense of new information
biological approach
-established as the dominant scientific perspective in psychology in the 1980s
-due to advances technology that have led to increased understanding of the brain and biological processes
genotype
the genetic makeup of an individual
phenotype
the observable characteristics of an individual/the physical expression of a genotype
monozygotic twins
a single zygote divides into 2 (identical twins)
dizygotic twins
two separate eggs are fertilised, they
share half their genomes (fraternal twins)
temporal lobe
-processing auditory information -encoding memory
parietal lobes
-sense of touch
-helps you understand where
you are in relation to other things
occipital lobe
visual procesing area of the brain
frontal lobe
-voluntary movement, expressive language and executive functions
excitatory neurotransmitters
excite the neuron and cause it to fire off the message so it can be passed along to the next cell
inhibitory neurotransmitters
prevent the chemical message from being passed along any further
is serotonin excitatory or inhibitory?
inhibitory
is adrenaline excitatory or inhibitory?
excitatory
is dopamine excitatory or inhibitory?
both: excitatory and inhibitory
