Psychology/Sociology

Question 1

How is cortical cooling used as a method of lesion creation?

Answer 1

• Also known as cryogenic blockage
• Includes cooling down neurons until they stop firing
• This is temporary and reversible
• Can do this by cryoloop, which is surgically implanted between the skull and the brain and a chilled liquid is circulated through the loop

Question 2

What is dependency theory?

Answer 2

• The theory which describes how resources flow from a “periphery” of poor and underdeveloped states to a “core” of wealthy states, enriching the latter at the expense of the former
• This is not because the periphery countries are undeveloped, but because they have been integrated into the world system as an undeveloped country; thus, these periphery countries will not evolve to become a developed nation, as they don’t have the means to develop and thus, they remain dependent on wealthier nations

Question 3

Which hemisphere is usually dominant?

Answer 3

For a given individual, the dominant hemisphere is usually the opposite of the hand we right with

• Right handed people are usually left-brain dominant
• Since most people are right handed, the left hemisphere is is most commonly dominant

Question 4

What is a morula?

Answer 4

• A solid ball of cells contained within the zona pellucida
• 3–4 days post fertilization
• 16-cell mass in a spherical shape

Question 5

What is “heritability”?

Answer 5

a statistic used in genetics that estimates the degree of variation in a phenotypic trait in a population that is due to genetic variation between individuals in that population

• Necessarily dependent on the population that is studied
• Example: if you have quadruplets all raised in differnt places, but have variation in their levels of intelligence, we would say that the heritability = 0%, since we know that their genes are the same, and thus, variation in their intelligence must be due to environment
• heritability: h²

Question 6

When, in Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development does Object Permanence occur? What is Object Permanence?

Answer 6

• In the Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years)
• They do not understand that something still exists if they can’t see it
• Example: if you give them a toy and take it away, they won’t look for it, because they don’t understand that it still exists even if they can’t see it

Question 7

What type of mathematical function is Weber’s Law? What are the implications of this

Answer 7

• Linear relationship
• Weber’s Law: ΔI/I = k
• If we rearrange it, we get: ΔI = I x k
• If the background intensity gets bigger, the difference threshold (ΔI) must get bigger
• Example: You can whisper in a quiet room, but you need to yell in a concert

Question 8

What are the major categories of stressors?

Answer 8

• Significant life changes: death of a loved one, going to college, having children, getting married
• Catastrophic events: unpredictable large scale events that everyone perceives as threatening; war, natural disasters, etc.
• Daily hassles: long lines at the store, forgetting my keys, dog peeing on the carpet
• Ambient stressors: large-scale things in the background of our lives that we put up with, like living in a smoggy city, noise or crowding; can negatively impact us without ebeing aware of them

Question 9

What is a trait?

Answer 9

• A relatively stable characteristic that causes individuals to consistently behave in particular ways

According to the trait theory, the combination and interaction of traits forms a pesonality

Question 10

What is the conflict perspective of mass media?

Answer 10

• Focuses on how the media reflects and portrays divisions in our society
• States that mass media often reflects the dominant ideology, giving time and space (privileging) certain social, economical and political interests while sometimes actively limiting other views
• Gate-keeping: a small number of people decide what is portrayed in the media; these people are predominantly white, male and wealthy
• Stories on women, LQBT, minority groups are often limited and often sterotyped

Question 11

What are the steps in fertilization?

Answer 11

1. Sperm binding: the zona pellucida binds to the sperm
2. Acrosomal reaction: Arosomal enzymes are released from the acrosome and diffuse into the zona pellucida and digest away the zona pellucida
3. Cortical reaction: once the sperm and egg membranes come in contact; proteins that lie under the cell surface of the oocyte membrane are released, which then degrade the zona pellucida such that no other sperm can bind (called a block to polyspermy)
4. Plasma membranes fuse and genetic transfer

Question 12

Describe the reward pathway.

Answer 12

• Dopamine is released from the Ventral Tegemental Area (VTA)
• This dopamine is released into the the amygdala, nucleus accumbens, the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus
• Amygdala is involved in emotion, so it will help us feel happy
• The hippocampus will remeber the situation, so we can become happy again
• Nucleus accumbens, which is involved in motor functions, allows us to continue being involved in the action that is making us happy (like making us take another bite of cake)
• Prefrontal cortex, is involved in attention, and allows more attention to be focused on what is giving us joy
• Note: while dopamine goes up, serotonin goes down and serotonin is involved in feelings of satiation, so this is why drug addiction can also occur

Question 13

What is hypnosis? What can it be used for? What are the associated brain waves?

Answer 13

• A state in which a person appears to be in control of his or her nomral functions, but is in a highly suggestible state
• Starts with hypontic induction: hypnotist seeks to relax the individual
• Can be used to retrieve memories, but this is not scientifically proven, and false memories can arise
• Can be used to control pain, since hyponosis can help to redirect focus away from the painful stimuli
• Associated with alpha brain waves

Question 14

What is the General Adaption Syndrome? What are the stages?

Answer 14

• three predictable stages the body uses to respond to stressor
  1. Alarm phase: initial reaction to a stressor and activation of sympathetic nervous system
  2. Resistance: continuous release of hormones allows the sympahtetic nervous system to remain engaged to fight the stressor
  3. Exhausation: the body can no longer maintain an elevated response with sympathetic nervous system activity; at this point, individuals become more susceptible to illness and medical conditions

Question 15

What is experimental ablation?

Answer 15

• Describes the method of deliberately destroying brain tissue or creating brain lesions in order to observe the changes that this might have on an animals behavior
• The functions that can no longer be performed after inducing damage, were the ones controlled by that damaged regions

Question 16

What is sensitization?

Answer 16

• In response to the same stimulus being repeated, the responses increase in intensity
• Opposite of habituation
• Example: everytime we hear a thunder clap, we get more and more scared and jump higher every time

Question 17

What is Eros?

What is Thanatos?

Answer 17

• Eros: Life Drive

Freud’s method of describing our life drives, which include sexual instincts, the drive to live, and basic instinctual impulses such as thirst and hunger; also can include love, cooperation, collaboration, etc.

Freud’s method of describing our death drives, which includes self-destructive and hamful behaviors; also can include fear, anger, hate which can be directed inward as well as outward

Note: these are innate; they are drives, which are something that develops innately in people

Question 18

What is spousal abuse?

Answer 18

• Also known as domestic violence
• Seen across all social classes and can include physical violence, sexual abuse, emotional abuse and financial abuse
• Usually economic issues are at the root of the abuse
• Focuses on controlling the partner and limiting their support network, which makes it difficult for the partner to get out of the abusive situation
• Difficult for people to get help: women’s shelter’s don’t always accept kids; male’s are subjected to the social stigma stating that men don’t get abused

Question 19

How does your sensory adaptation apply to hearing?

Answer 19

When we hear loud noises, there is a muscle in the inner ear that contracts and this ensures that the inner ear does not get damaged

• Muscle takes a few seconds to contract, so this doesn’t work with loud, immediate sounds; thus, if you hear a gunshot, you can cause hearing damage

Question 20

What are manifest functions?

What are latent functions?

Answer 20

Manifest function: the recognized and intended consequences of any social pattern

Latent function: the unrecognized and unintended consequences of any social pattern

• Example: Physicians attending medical meetings every year

Manifest function: educating a group of physicians, sharing research findings and setting goals for the next year

Latent function: create stronger interpersonal bonds between physicians and provide a sense of identity for the group

Question 21

What is the sexual response cycle?

Answer 21

4 phases of the sexual cycle

Phase 1: Excitement

• increased muscle tension, increased heart rate, and blood pressure

Phase 2: Plateau

Phase 3: Orgasm

Phase 4: Resolution/ Refractory period

Question 22

What is Rational-Choice Theory?

Answer 22

• Main assumption: everything people do is fundamentally rational, i.e. that people weigh the cost and benefits of actions in order to maximize potential gain
• To determine the value of something, we look at the time, information, prestige, etc. that will be exchanged to determine the value of a possible action

Assumptions:

• Completeness: that each option has a particular value that can be ranked; if I have three choices, each one has a particular value and those values are different (A is preferable to B and B is preferable to C, but C is not preferable to A)
• Transitivity: If A is preferable to B, which is preferable to C, then A is also preferable to C
• Independence of irrelevant alternatives: If I suddently have a fourth option, D, it won’t change how I ranked the first three options

We can apply rational choice theory to social interactions in exchange theory

Question 23

What is the band of tissue which connects the right and left hemisphere?

Answer 23

• Corpus callosum
• Made of axons (thus, white matter structure)
• Allows information to travel from one cerebral hemisphere to another

Question 24

What are learned behaviors?

Answer 24

• Behaviors which are not based on heredity, but insread on experience and environment

Characteristics:

• Non-inherited: acquired only through observation or experience
• Extrinsic: absent in animals that are raised in isolation
• Permutable: Can change over time
• Adaptable: trait is capable of being modified; suited to changing conditions
• Progressive: subject through improvement or refinement through practice

Question 25

What is the iris of the eye? What are it’s components?

Answer 25

• The colored part of the eye
• Composed of two muscles: dilator pupillae, which opens the eye under sympathetic stimulation; constrictor pupillae, which closes the pupil under parasympathetic stimulation

Question 26

What is depersonalization/derealization disorder?

Answer 26

• A dissociative disorder in which individuals feel detracted from their own mind and body (depersonalization), or from their surroundsings (derealization)
• Example of depersonalization: an “out of body” experience
• Example of derealization: giving the word a dreamlike or insubstantial quality

Question 27

What is internal migration?

Answer 27

Internal migration is human migration within one geopolitical entity, usually a nation-state

• Internal migration tends to be travel for education and for economic improvement or because of a natural disaster or civil disturbance

Question 28

What is the function of the ventromedial hypothalamus?

Answer 28

• the ‘satiety center’
• provides signals to stop eating
• lesions in this part of the brain lead to obesity

Question 29

What are the stages of a demographic transition?

Answer 29

Stage 1: preindustrial society; birth rate and death rate are both high

Stage 2: improvements in healthcare, nutrition, sanitation and wages cause death rates to drop

Stage 3: improvements in contraception, women’s right and a shift from an agricultural to an industrial economy cause birth rates to drop; also, with an industrializing society, children tend to be in school longer and may be need to be supported by parents for a longer time, leading also to fewer children (lower birth rate)

Stage 4: an industrialized society; birth and death rates are low

Stage 5 (?): We haven’t gotten here yet, so unsure of what will happen

Question 30

In classical conditioning, what is generalization?

Answer 30

• The tendency for a stimulus, similar to the conditioned stimulus, to elicit a response similar to the conditioned response
• The more similar the new stimulus is to the conditioned stimulus, the greater the conditioned response will be

Example: every time the door bell rings (neutral stimulus), its the neighbor coming over to give the dog a treat; after a while, the dog begins to get excited (conditioned response) when the door bell rings (conditioned stimulus); one day, the phone rings, and the dog also gets excited, since the door bell and phone sound similar; this is generalization

Question 31

What are the behavioral effects of stress? Why?

Answer 31

• Hippocampus and frontal cortex have the highest number of glucocorticoid receptors (cortisol)
• See atrophy of these tissues after over-abundence of stress
• Thus, if there is damage to the brain, it can affect behavior
• Depression: one of the major emotional effects of stress
• Includes anhedonia (not caring)
• learned helplessness (learn, since the control is ripped out of your hands, that you don’t have control) which leads to taking less and less control of your life; lose ability to identify coping mechanisms
• Anger
• A study looking at what type of people were at higher risk of heart disease, found there was one group, which they labeled “Type A”, who were more competitive, easily angered, reactive etc., that were at higher risk; this was actually because these people have higher stress levels and thus the heart attack rates
• Anxiety
• With the fight-or-flight response, we have fear and fear causes anxiety (since the amygdala is repsonsible for all of these emotions)
• Addiction

- Poor coping mechanisms

• Also frontal cortex is damaged; impairment reduces planning and judgement

Question 32

What are benzodiazepines? How do they work?

Answer 32

• A depressant drug
• Enhance the affinity of GABA to the GABA receptor in order to open up more chloride channels
• Short-acting and intermediate-acting benzos are prescribed as sleep aids; long-acting are prescribed more for anxiety

Question 33

What are the “I” and the “Me” in George Mead’s Theory?

Answer 33

Me: The part of us that is responding to the generalized other (society)

I: Responds to the “me” and is the active aspect of ourselves

Example: The “Me” might see that after high school, society expects us to go to college; the “I” might take that information and then decide if that’s what is best for ourselves, or if I should travel first or take a year off to work

Question 34

What is the biomedical approach to psychological disorders?

Answer 34

• includes intervations that rally around symptom reduction of psychological disorders; i.e. that any disorder has roots in biomedical disturbances and thus the solution should also be of a biomedical nature
• Fails to take into accoutn many other sources of disorders, such a lifestyle and SES
• Focuses on the physical abnormalities and how to use medicine to fix them

Question 35

What is a mental disorder?

Answer 35

• Abnormalities of the mind that cause distress or disability
• Can affect the higher functions of the brain, such as cognition, emotion and consciousness
• Tend to come to the attention of other people by abnormalities of behavior

Question 36

What is the role of the amygdala in terms of emotion?

Answer 36

• The amygdala is responsible for feelings of fear and anxiety as well as anger and violence (this is what happens if you stimulate the amygdala)
• If you destroy the amygdala, then you create a more “mellow” animal
• Part of the limbic system

Question 37

When regarding communities, what is social isolation?

Answer 37

• When a group isolates themselves, voluntarily, from the main group, usually in order to maintain part of their identity
• Religious or cultural factors that they identify with may be different than the main group

Example: Amish

• Note: This is different than social exclusion because there are fewer external factors making this decision, and the choice is voluntary

Question 38

What type of drug is marijuana? What are some of its effects?

Answer 38

• Increases sensitivity to colors, sounds, tastes and smells (hallucinogen part of marijuana)
• Also reduces inhibition and motor coordination and perceptual skills (so more like alcohol)
• Can also effect memory formation and disrupt short term recall
• THC stays in the body up to a week; thus, regular users need less of the drug, rather than more, to get the same high

Question 39

What are some strengths and weaknesses of the conflict theory?

Answer 39

Strengths

• Does a good job of explaining how and why societies change

Weaknesses

• Does not explain how societies remain stable
• Doesn’t explain concepts of unity within a society

Question 40

What is anxious-avoidant insecure attachment?

Answer 40

A child with the anxious-avoidant insecure attachment style will avoid or ignore the caregiver – showing little emotion when the caregiver departs or returns. The child will not explore very much regardless of who is there.

• They did not exhibit distress on separation, and either ignored the caregiver on their return (A1 subtype) or showed some tendency to approach together with some tendency to ignore or turn away from the caregiver (A2 subtype).
• Theorised that the apparently unruffled behaviour of the avoidant infants is in fact as a mask for distress, a hypothesis later evidenced through studies of the heart-rate of avoidant infants.

Question 41

Why, despite having weird dreams, do we not consider them weird during th dream?

Answer 41

• While in REM sleep and dreaming, the prefrontal cortex activity is reduced
• This is the part of the brain that is responsible for logic and critical thinking and if it’s not working as much as normal, then we may not realize how weird our dreams are

Question 42

What are the components/functions of the parietal lobe?

Answer 42

• Somatosensory cortex: associated with feeling (touch, temperature, pain, pressure, etc.)
• Spatial manipulations: helps us to understand where we are in space and where other things are relative to us
• For example: The frontal cortex could help us in planning to reach out and get a cup of coffee and to move to get that cup of coffee, but the parietal lobe will allow us to figure out where that coffee cup is relative to us

Question 43

What is thought broadcasting? Thought insertion?

Answer 43

Thought broadcasting: the belief that one’s thoughts are broadcast directly from one’s head to the external world

Thought insertion: the belief that thoughts are being placed in one’s head

• A symptom of schizophrenia

Question 44

What side of the brain registers somatosensory information from the left side of the body?

Answer 44

• Thr right hemisphere
• Somatosensation occurs contralaterally

Question 45

What is continuity theory?

Answer 45

• In making adaptive choices, middle-aged and older adults attempt to preserve and maintain existing internal and external structures; and they prefer to accomplish this objective by using strategies tied to their past experiences of themselves and their social world

Question 46

What is motivational interviewing or motivational enhancement therapy? How is it used in drug addiction treatment?

Answer 46

• Involves working with the patient to find intrinsic motivation to change
• Considered a very focused, very goal- directed type of therapy
• Usually very few sessions and is a gateway to group sessions, CBT, etc.

Question 47

What is dementia?

Answer 47

• Not a specific disease
• an overall term that describes a group of symptoms associated with a decline in memory or other thinking skills severe enough to reduce a person’s ability to perform everyday activities
• Alzheimer’s disease patients account for 60-80% of dementia

Question 48

What type of tactile stimulus do Pacinian corpuscles respond to?

Answer 48

• Respond to deep pressure and vibration

Question 49

What is the arousal theory?

Answer 49

• States that people perform actions in order to maintain an optimum level of arousal: seeking to increase arousal when it falls below their optimal level, and to decrease arousal when it rises above their optimum level

Question 50

What is the Gestalt Principle of Similarity?

Answer 50

• Items which are similar to one antother, tend to be grouped together by the brain

Question 51

In Vygotsky’s Theory of Sociocultural Development, what is the Zone of Proximal Development?

Answer 51

• This theory states that we go from possessing elementary mental functions to higher order mental functions by intereacting with a more knowledgable observer (MKO)
• However, what we can learn from the MKO has to be within the Zone of Proximal Development, an area of learning that can be achieved with assistance; things outside of this zone cannot be learned, regardless of whether or not we have assistance

Question 52

What is an emotion? What are its three components?

Answer 52

Subjective experiences that are accompanied by cognitive, physiological and behavioral changes and reactions

Example: Suprise birthday party

• Physiologically: might feel shocked, heart rate goes up, muscles tense
• Cognitively: assess what is going on, expectations about the situation (might be fun); can also bring about emotions (might feel happy because you love the idea of parties)
• Behavioral response: smile, open arms to hug friends and family, or clap hangs
• Note: These responses vary culture to culture

Question 53

What is an authoritarian structure of government? A dictatorship?

Answer 53

• Authoritarianism: a form of government characterized by strong central power and limited political freedoms. Individual freedoms are subordinate to the state and there is no constitutional accountability under an authoritarian regime
• Dictatorship: Where a single person holds that power, and usually includes mechanisms to quell threats over this power; occurs without the consent of the citizens

Question 54

What is an age cohort?

Answer 54

• An age group or generation, who have all lived through certain events in a certain time that affected their lives similarly

Example: Baby boomers

Question 55

What is the biological theory of personality? How is this studied? What are some traits we view as being biolocially based?

Answer 55

• Our personality can be explained as the result of our genes
• Genetics lead to traits which lead to our behaviors and personality
• To study this theory, they look at identical twins who were raised apart from each other; even though twins were raised apart, they still had certain characeristics that were similar between the two

Similarities between twins raised apart:

• Social potency trait: the degree to which a person assumes leadership and mastery roles in a social situation
• Traditionalism: the tendency to follow authority

Question 56

What is Deutsch and Deutsch’s Late Selective Theory of Selective Attention?

Answer 56

• Mimics Broadbent’s Theory, except that they moved the selective filter until after things were assigned meaning
• Thus, the selective filter processes what meaning things have and that is moved onto your conscious perception

Question 57

What is the duplicity theory of vision?

Answer 57

• States that the retina contains two kinds of photoreceptors: those specialized for light-and-dark detection; those specalized for color detection

Question 58

What is the tend and befriend response?

Answer 58

Tend and befriend response: a behavior exhibited by some animals, including humans, inresponse to threat. It refers to protection of offspring (tending) and seeking out the social group for mutual defense (befriending)

• Related to release of oxytocin when in stress
• The other option: we can engage in fight-or-flight, in which the sympathetic system leads ti increased HR and respiratory rate, etc. and endocrine system releases cortisol, epinephrine and norepineprhine

Question 59

What is the substantia nigra?

Answer 59

• A collection of neurons in the midbrain, right next to the ventral tegmental area
• Part of the basal ganglia
• Projects dopamine up to the striatum, another part of the basal ganglia
• Parkinson’s: the link between the substantia nigra and the striatum isn’t working (there is not dopamine being released from the substania nigra into the striatum)

Question 60

When discussing residential segregation, what is concentration?

Answer 60

• A form of segregation in which there is clustering of various groups within a neighborhood

Question 61

How is testosterone related to sexual drive?

Answer 61

• Sexual drive is related to testosterone levels in both males and females
• Sexual activity increases testosterone, which in turn increases sexual drive

Question 62

What type of tactile stimulus do Merkle cells (discs) respond to?

Answer 62

• Respond to deep ressure and texture

Question 63

What are the benefits and costs of immigration?

Answer 63

• Immigration can benefit an economically successful country by increasing the number of available people able to join a work force, while taking the economic stress of the immigrants home country, which is usually under economic strain
• However, this can also lead to the exploitation of immigrants

Question 64

What are heuristics? What are the different types of heuristics

Answer 64

• Simplified principles used to make decisions; usually called “rules of thumb”

Types:

• Means-end analysis: analyze the main problem and break it down into smaller problems, then we attack the biggest sub-problem in order to reduce the most current state and our goal state
• Working backwards: Start with the goal state and use it to suggest connects back to the current state; commonly used in mathematical proofs

Question 65

What is a partial reinforcment schedule? Why is it important?

Answer 65

• When our behaviors are only reinforced some of the time
• Partial reinforcement schedules are important because they are generally more resistant to extinction than continuous reinforcement

Four schedules of partial reinforcement:

• Fixed- Ratio
• Fixed-Interval
• Variable-Ratio
• Variable-Interval

Question 66

What is the frustration-agression hypothesis?

Answer 66

• The hypothesis attempts to explain why people scapegoat
• The theory says that frustration causes aggression, but when the source of the frustration cannot be challenged, the aggression gets displaced onto an innocent target.

Example: if a man is disrespected and humiliated at his work, but cannot respond to this for fear of losing his job, he may go home and take his anger and frustration out on his family

Question 67

What is the Just World Phenomenon?

Answer 67

• the tendency to believe that the world is just and that people get what they deserve.
• Because people want to believe that the world is fair, they will look for ways to explain or rationalize away injustice, often blaming the person in a situation who is actually the victim
• good things happen to good people; bad things happen to bad people

Question 68

How many rods are there in each eye? Cones?

Answer 68

Rods: 120 million

Cones: 6 million

Question 69

What is the Index of Dissimilarity?

Answer 69

• A score going from 0 (total segregation) to 100 (no segregation/perfect distribution), which is used to determine how segregated a community is

Question 70

What is an internal locus of control?

What is an external locus of control?

Answer 70

Internal locus of control: we can control our own fate or destiny

• Example: After failing a test, we respond by saying that we shoud’ve studied harder

External locus of control: there are outside forces, beyond our control, which determine our fate

• Example: After failing a test, we believe that it was because the test was too hard and there was no studying we could’ve done that would’ve changed the result

Question 71

What is the functionalist perspective of mass media?

Answer 71

Functionalism believes that mass media:

• provides us with entertainment
• acts as an agent of socialization and an enforcer of social norms
• provides a collective experience for that society
• important in community building
• functions to show us what is right and wrong
• promotes materialistic culture and consumerism

Question 72

What is the Piaget’s theory of language and cognition?

Answer 72

• Thought influences language
• Only once we develop a certain way of thinking can we then develop language to describe those those
• Example: only when children develop the ability of object permanence, do they learn words like “gone,” “missing,” and “find”

Question 73

How does exercise help us manage stress?

Answer 73

• Increases cerebrovasular health (remember stress can lead to coronary artery disease and hypertension, etc)
• Increases neurogenesis

Question 74

What is the fundamental attribution error?

Answer 74

• The claim that in contrast to interpretations of their own behavior, people place undue emphasis on internal characteristics of the agent (character or intention), rather than external factors, in explaining other people’s behavior
• Example: if someone is late to a meeting, by engaging in this fundamental attribution error, we are likely to say that the person is irresponsible (blame the person), rather than the train was running late (blame the environment)

Question 75

In regard to the trait theory of personality, who was Hans Eysenck?

What was his theory?

Answer 75

• His theory is based on the assumption that we all have three major dimensions, and that these three dimensions of personality encompass all traits that we all posses, but the degrees to which we individually express them are different

Three major dimensions:

• Extraversion: degree of sociability
• Neuroticism: emotional stability
• Psychoticism: the degree to which reality is distorted
• He stated that we all have varying degrees of extraversion, neuroticism, but not necessarily psychoticism

Question 76

When discussing residential segregation, what is centralization?

Answer 76

• When the separation of groups occurs with one group in the center and the other group around this centered group

Question 77

How are neurochemical lesions made? Pros and Cons?

Answer 77

Neurochemical lesions are a type of experimental ablation

• Excitotoxins: chemicals that bind to glutamate receptors and cause an influx of calcium into the neuron at such an extent that it kills the neuron
• Example: Kainic Acid
• Effective because it destroys the cell bodies of the neurons in the area, but not affect the axons of the neurons that are just passing by
• Oxidopamine (6-hydroxydopamine): selectively destroys dopaminergic and noradrenergic neurons
• Mechanism: oxidopamine is reuptaken by the pre-synpatic nerve since it looks like dopamine and kills these neurons
• Allows us to be specific to the location of the neurons, but also to the type of neuron

Question 78

What are upper motor neurons? Where are the somas for these neurons found?

Answer 78

• Control the lower motor neurons
• Somas are found mainly in the cerebral cortex
• Axons descend down to synpase onto lower motor neurons in the brain stem or the spinal cord

Question 79

Once the embryo rests in a crypt of the endometrium, what occurs?

Answer 79

• Chorionic villi are formed: fingerlike projections that are derived from the trophoblast cells, which penetrate the endometrium
• As this happens, the endometrium is proliferating and comes to cover the oocyte

Question 80

What is role strain?

Answer 80

• The difficulty in satisfying multiple requirements the requirements of the same role

Note: different than role conflict, which is the difficulty in sastisfying expectations of multiple roles

Question 81

What is recognition?

Answer 81

The process of merely identifying a piece of information that was previously learned

• Far easier than recall

Question 82

What is the relative deprivation theory of social movements?

Answer 82

• That social movements are motivated by a rlative deprivation, or a decrease in resources, representation or agency relative tto the past or to the whole of society
• Require three things: that there is a feeling of relative deprivation, a feeling of deserving better, and a belief that conventional methods are not going to change things

Example: From this viewpoint, the civil rights movement was a movement in response to the inequality and oppression faced by people of color in the U.S.

Question 83

What are the stages in which we develop, according to George Mead’s Theory of the I and Me? When do the I and Me become prominent?

Answer 83

Question 84

What is global aphasia?

Answer 84

• When there is both Broca’s aphasia and Wernicke’s aphasia present

Question 85

What is the attitude to behavior process model?

Answer 85

• A theory to try to explain how attitude influences behavior
• An event triggers an attitude, and along with some outside knowledge we have of the subject, this will lead to a behavior

Attitude: something that will influence our perception of an object

Knowledge: that which regards appropriate behavior

Example: Tommy’s uncle has a heart attack, because he ate too many fattening foods; this event led Tommy to not eat fattening foods, beacuse his attitude toward them after this event, along with the knowledge that fattening foods can be bad for your heart, made him not eat fattening food anymore

Question 86

What is a schema?

Answer 86

Schema: describes a pattern of thought or behavior that organizes categories of information and the relationships among them.

• How we make sense of the world around us
• Use schemas as mental models by which we organize and interpret new information
• Piaget’s idea: cognitive development is all about building of schemas

Question 87

What is the trait theory of personality?

Answer 87

• Define personality by looking at traits, i.e. defined as habitual patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion.

According to this perspective, traits are aspects of personality that are relatively stable over time, differ across individuals (e.g. some people are outgoing whereas others are not), relatively consistent over situations, and influence behavior.

Question 88

What is physiological zero? Why is it important?

Answer 88

• The normal temperature of skin (between 86F and 97F)
• This is how we judge temperature; by comparing it to physiological zero
• Example: an object feels warm because it is higher than physiological zero

Question 89

What is the tonic neck reflex?

Answer 89

• When a baby’s head is turned to the side, the arm on that side tends to straighten while the other one tends to curl
• One of the primitive or neonatal reflexes
• Lasts until 6 months of age

Question 90

What is the covariation model of attribution theory?

Answer 90

A certain behaviour is attributed to potential causes that appear at the same time.

• Example: If our friend constantly cancels on us, then when they cancel again, we assume it’s because that person is flaky and it has to do with their internal circumstances (self)/ disposition
• We attribute the behavior to the person
• Example: If our other friend is always nice, and smiling, and one day he’s super angry when we order meatless pizza and there is bacon on it, we assume it’s external or “situational” because usually he’s very happy
• We attribute the behavior to the situation

Note: consensus can also affect this; for example, if many people are late to a meeting, vs. just one person, we attribute the lateness to the environment, since thats what can affect many people; thus, consensus makes us more likely to attribute something to the environment

Question 91

What is the reticular activating system?

Answer 91

• Include the reticular formation of the brain stem and parts of the thalamus that project axons into the cerebral cortex, diffusely
• Release glutamate (excitatory neurotransmitter) into the cerebral cortex
• This system is required for consciousness

Question 92

What is somatic symptom disorder?

Answer 92

• A psychological disorder in which individuals have at least one somatic symptom, which may or may not be linked to an underlying medical condition, and that is accompanied by disproprotionate concerns about its seriousness, devotion of an excessive amount of energy and time to it, or elevated levels of anxiety

Question 93

How is cognitive behavioral therapy employed in drug addiction?

Answer 93

• Patients learn to recognize negative thought patterns and develop more positive thought patterns to and coping behaviors
• Learn to anticipate problematic situations, like going to a party where that drug will be available
• Learn to self-monitor for cravings so they can apply coping strategies early
• Research shows that the skills learned in CBT last longer than the therapy itself

Question 94

How does the public’s opinion effect conformity?

Answer 94

• If we think that we will be met with public acceptance, we are happy not to conform to some norm
• However, if we think this lack of conformity will be met with shunning, we are much more likely to go along with the group

Question 95

What are activist type of social movement?

What are the reactionary type of social movement?

Answer 95

Activist: focused on changing some aspect of society

Reactionary: actively trying to resist change

Question 96

In regard to response to a stimulus, what are adaptation and amplification?

Answer 96

• Adaptation: down regulation of the response; for example, if you put your hand on a table, initially you will feel pressure but that will go away
• Amplification: a given signal is amplifed by a pathway, for example, a lay right may activate one cell, which subsequently activates many cells

Question 97

What is the sensorimotor cortex? Where is it located

Answer 97

• The motor cortex of the frontal lobe and the somatosensory cortex of the parietal lobe sit right next to each other and form the sensorimotor cortex
• Important since the somatosensory cortex is involved in sensation and the motor cortex is involved in movement
• Example: if we feel something hot, we better move our hand quickly

Question 98

What are the Raphe Nuclei?

Answer 98

• A number of nuclei located throughout the brainstem (in the midbrain, pons and medulla)
• Project into the cerebral cortex and release serotonin, diffusely

Question 99

What is innate behavior?

Answer 99

• Behavior that is genetically programmed; subject to change only through genetic change (mutation and recombination)
• Seen in all individuals regardless of environment or experience

Characteristics of Innate Behaviors:

• Inherited: innate behaviors are encoded by DNA and passed on to children
• Intrinsic: innate behaviors are present in an animal even if it were to be raised in isolation
• Stereotypic: performed the same way each time
• Inflexible: not modified by experience
• Consummate: fully developed the first time they occur

Question 100

How does group cohesion affect conformity?

Answer 100

• If we feel connected to a group then we are more liekly to conform; however, if we feel no connection to a group, we feel less of a need to go along with what that group is doing

Question 101

In regard to universal emotions, what are some facial features seen with anger?

Answer 101

• Penetrating stare
• Eyelids tensed
• Lips pressed together

Question 102

What is repression?

Answer 102

• A defense mechanism; an unconscious process in which undesirable thoughts that may be coming into our consciousness are pushed into our unconsciousness

Question 103

What are some social things that are associated with early puberty in males? In Females?

Answer 103

• Males: tend to be taller, stronger, more popular, self-assured and indpendent but are also more likely to engage in deliquent activities and alcohol use
• Females: Typically the focus of teasing and sometimes sexual harassment, out of sync with their friends (in terms of interests)

Question 104

What is ecstasy?

Answer 104

• A hallucinogen combined with amphetamine
• Causes Increases HR, BP, blurry vision, sweating nausea and hyperthermia
• Psychologically causes feelings of euphoria, increased alertness, and overwhelming sense of well-being and connectedness and seeing things that aren’t there
• Stimulates the CNS but also increases dopamine and serotinin

Question 105

What is aversive control? What are the two types of learning that fall under this category?

Answer 105

• Aversive control: desscribes sitauations in which a behavior is motivated by the threat of something unpleasant
• Types: escape learning or avoidance learning

Question 106

What is Grey Matter? White Matter?

How are these distributed in the brain and spinal cord?

Answer 106

Gray Matter

• Contains most of the neuron somas

White matter

• Myelinated axons
• In the brain, gray matter is on the outside, while white matter is on the inside
• In the spinal cord, white matter is on the outside while gray matter is on the inside

Question 107

Describe some traits of the sympathetic nervous system.

Answer 107

• First neurons is short and synpases close to the spinal cord in the sympathetic chain (a set of ganglia close to the spinal cord)
• Second neuron is long and synpases at the target cell
• The neurons for the sympathetic nervous system are all dervied from the more middle portion of the spinal cord

Question 108

What is Alzheimer’s Disease?

Answer 108

• A degenerative brain disorder thought to be linked to a loss of acetylcholine neurons that link to the hippocampus; cerebral cortex, because of loss of neurons, shrinks in size
• Marked by progressive dementia (a loss of cognitive function) and memory loss
• Loss of recent memories usually occur before distant memories
• Microscopic findings include neurofibrillary tangles and β-amylyoid plaques
• Symptoms: memory, attention, planning, semantic memory, abstract thinking and later language difficulties and perhaps loss of control of bodiy functions

Question 109

What is the “glass-ceiling effect”?

Answer 109

A metaphor used to represent an invisible barrier that keeps a given demographic (typically applied to minorities or women) from rising beyond a certain level in a hierarchy

Question 110

How are radio-frequency lesions created? Pros and Cons?

Answer 110

• A method of experimental ablation
• Can destroy tissue on the surface and deep into the brain
• Wire is inserted into an area of the brain; a high frequency will then be applied to the wire, which will then heat up and destroy the tissue near the wire tip
• Issue: will destroy everything in that area, both the neurons with cell bodies in the area as well as distant cells that have axons passing through the area
• Makes it hard to determine if this was the area responsible for a behavior or if that behavior is controlled distantly and the route was just destroyed

Question 111

What is the form of bias known as “confirmation bias”?

Answer 111

• Tendency to focus on information that fits an individual’s beliefs while rejection information that goes against them

Example: in an election, you would be engaging in confirmation bias, if you only read stories about how wonderful the candidate is that you want to vote for

Question 112

What is the actor-observer bias?

Answer 112

The actor-observer bias is an attributional bias that describes the tendency to attribute one’s own actions to external factors but the actions of others to internal factors

Question 113

Is motor development in a child nature or nurture?

Answer 113

Both

• Nature:
• Identical wins commonly start walking on the same day
• Blind children will develop motor skills in the same order (so they can’t be learning them from their parents by seeing and repeating)
• Children everywhere develop these milestones in a given order
• Environment
• More space for children to practice and more stimulation so that they are curious and want to use the muscles, can influence the pace at which a child develops (this pace doesn’t matter in the long term, however)

Question 114

What are some factors which may influence our absolute threshold of sensation?

Answer 114

• Expectations
• Experiences
• Motivation
• Altertness

Example: text message

• Expectations: whether or not we’re expecting a text
• Experience: do we know what the phone text message sound (or vibration) sounds/feels like
• Motivation: text someone who we are interested in going on a date with; we are expecting a text but also very motivated to get the response
• Alertness: much more likely to notice it when awake then drowsy

Question 115

How does your sensory adaptation apply to touch?

Answer 115

When something is recognized by our sense of touch for long period of time, for example, temperature, the nerves become saturated and do not fire as much and thus we adapt to the sensation

Example: when you first go into a hot tub, it may feel very hot, but then it starts to feel more manageable

Question 116

In regard to memory, what is “self-referencing”? What is a related concept to this?

Answer 116

• A mechanism to store working memory into long term memory, by considering the new information in regard to how it relates to you
• Example: if you’re learning about history, you could imagine how a conversation with a general might go; involves a lot of deep processing and enhances the chances you might remember it
• Related concept: preparing to teach: if we learn something in a way that we would later teach it, we put a lot of effort into organizing it and making sure we understand it, which enhances our memory of it

Question 117

What is the theory of primary mental abilities? Who developed the theory?

Answer 117

• Claimed 7 factors of intelligence: word fluency, verbal comprehension, spatial reasoning, perceptual speed, numerical ability, inductive reasoning, and memory
• Makes sense; we could be strong in one and weak in the other
• Issue with this theory: people who tend to do well on one of these factors, tend to do well on the other factors too (so more 1 general type of intelligence)
• Issue: ignores non-academic intelligence
• Developed by L. L. Thurnstone

Question 118

What is Broadbent’s Early Selection Theory of Selective Attention?

Answer 118

• All the information in the environment goes into the sensory register, which briefly registers or stores all the sensory input you get (words, clicks, sirens, basically everything)
• This input gets transfered to the selective filter right away, whic identifies what it is supposed to be attending to via basic physical characteristics (for language, the selective filter identifies voice, speed, accent, etc.)
• Everything else gets filtered out
• The selected information moves along to be perceptually processed, such that meaning is provided to the information (that the pitch is one that belongs to your mother, for example)
• Then you can engage in other congnitive processes, like how to respond

Issues:

• If you filter out information before it gets meaning, you wouldn’t be able to identify your own name when it’s spoken in a cocktail party

Question 119

What is a norm?

Answer 119

• Standards for what is acceptable and what is not acceptable heavior
• These are unwritten rules of how people should behave in a certain situation, around a certain group of people
• The rules are defined by that group of people and are usually some type of moral standard or ethical value that is easily understood and internalized by all members of that group
• Four distinct groups of norms: taboo, folkways, mores, and laws
• Example: At a basketball game, your team wins and you stand up and yell loudly; this is acceptable within this situation and among these people and even encourage; however, if you are at a meeting at work, and engage in this same behavior, in this context, with this group of individuals, the behavior is not acceptable and normal
• Note: norms vary culture to culture and can change over time

Example: When baseball started, men only were allowed to play; but when men left for WWII, women started to play in order to keep people entertained; thus, this behavior went from being not acceptable to being acceptable

Question 120

What is cultural relativism?

Answer 120

• The idea that a person’s beliefs, values, and practices should be understood based on that person’s own culture, rather than be judged against the criteria of another
• Example: If someone is eating bugs, we should see how eating bugs fits into his culture and how his own culture views this, rather than looking at it from the perspective of our own culture (ethnocentrism)

Question 121

What is the TRPV1 receptor? How does it work?

Answer 121

• Involved in detection and regulation of body temperature
• In addition, TRPV1 provides a sensation of scalding heat and pain (nociception).
• Function, temperature: when there is a change in temperature, there is a subsequent change in the conformation of the protein
• Function: When nearby cells get lysed, they release signaling molecules which can bind TRPV1 and causes the same conformational change
• This sends a signal to the brain that via fast (Aβ) fibers, medium (Aδ fibers) and slow (C fibers)

Question 122

What is narcolepsy?

Answer 122

• A condition characterized by lack of voluntary control over the onset of sleep
• People randomly become drowsy and can fall into REM sleep for periods of usually 5 minutes
• Genetically linked to loss or decrease in a particular neurotransmitter that is associated with alertness
• Thus, neurochemical modulation may help people overcome this condition

Question 123

What is gentrification?

Answer 123

• Process of renovation of deteriorated urban neighborhoods by means of the influx of more affluent residents
• A form of urban renewal
• However, while this provides a new and nice place for people to live, this often pushes the people still living there out, since they can no longer afford the prices of housing

Question 124

Describe how mice respond to a food they like that is mixed with a toxic substance versus a drug they like mixed with a toxic substance

Answer 124

• If a food they like begins to make them sick, they will stop eating it
• If a drug they like begins to make them sick, they will still continue to eat it
• This shows us how drugs can alter a rational mind

Question 125

What is socialism

Answer 125

• A type of economy
• Motivated by what benefits the society as a whole, and features common ownership of production that focuses on human needs and economic demand
• Treats large industries as collective, shared businesses and compensation is provided based on the work contribution of each individual into the system

Question 126

What was the Harlow Monkey Experiment and the outcome?

Answer 126

• This was the study that indicated that contact comfort and not the ability of nourishment that underlies why babies attach to their parents
• In this experiment, baby monkies were taken from their parents and put in a cage with two psuedo-mothers: one mother was a fake monkey head on top of a wire cage body, that had milk, and the other was a cloth covered body, with a fake monkey head and no milk
• The baby monkies preferred the cloth fake mother over the wire one that provided nourishment; and when they had to eat, would even try to hold onto the cloth mother while getting food from the wire mother

Question 127

What are the two classification systems for mental disorders?

Answer 127

ICD-10

• International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision
• Created by WHO
• Has 11 top-level categories

DSM-5

• Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
• Created by the American Psychiatric Association
• Has 20 top-level categories
• Classification scheme is not based on theories of etiology (cause) or treatments of different disorders; rather, it’s based on descriptions of symptoms

Question 128

What are some “global” changes that occur in the brain throughout puberty?

Answer 128

Increase in myelination

• this leads to faster communication between neurons and thus faster communication between brain areas
• this may be why adolescents can process information faster than children

Synpatic Pruning

• Increase in brain volume during early adolescence, which shrinks during late adolescence
• Develops many pathways and then gets rid of the ones it doesn’t need so it can focus on strengthening the important ones

Question 129

What type of tactile stimulus do Free Nerve Endings respond to?

Answer 129

• Respond to pain and temperature

Question 130

What is rationalization?

Answer 130

A neurotic type of defense mechanism, in which we figure out a way of making an excuse and convincing ourselves that we were not at fault

• Often times, this includes thought processes with false logic or false reasoning
• Useful because we avoid blaming ourselves

Question 131

How does unaniminity effect conformity?

Answer 131

• We are more liekly to conform if there is a unanimous opinon in the group
• Example: in a variant of the Asch line studies, rather than all the others giving one wrong answer, the participant had a supporter, who gave the right answer before the participants turn; and with this one person giving the right answer, it changed the liklihood of the participant conforming or giving the answer he believed to be right

Question 132

What are the four elementary mental functions that occur in babies according to Vygotsky’ s theory of sociocultural development?

How do these because higher mental functions?

Answer 132

Elementary Mental Functions:

• Attention, Sensation, Perception, Memory
• The intereaction with a more knowledgable other (MKO) with someone who thinks in elementary mental functions (such as a child), leads to learning and development of higher order mental functions

Question 133

What is the Gestalt principle of subjective contours?

Answer 133

The perception of nonexistant edges in figures, based on surrounding visual cues

Image: see the triangle even though there are non-existant edges that are required to see this image

Question 134

What is horizontal mobility?

Answer 134

• Refers to switching from one position to another without a change in social status. In order words, it’s when we change our positions within our same level of social status, and we do not move up or down the social hierarchy.
• Example: a middle-clas man working as an accoutant at one company, but then moves to another company where he is still an accoutant at the same level of seniority, then he has experiened horizontal mobility

Question 135

What is the choroid?

Answer 135

The vascular layer of the eye, containing connective tissues, and lying between the retina and the sclera

• Is pigmented black

Question 136

What is meritocracy?

Answer 136

• A ceoncept in which people achieve their social position, based on their abilities and achievements and solely based on their abilities and achievements
• Position in society not determined on place of birth, or what class they were “born into”
• Extreme social mobility; not as much social stability because the social groups will be weakened by this extreme mobility

Question 137

What makes something more or less persuasive?

Answer 137

Message characteristics

• Was the argument logical; did it have key points; did it follow a clear path
• Also includes how well written it is: does the person arguing have a clear understanding of the rules of grammar, did they use appropriate vocabulary
• Was the message too long or too short?

Source characteristics

• Does the person arguging seem knowledgable, do they seem trustworthy, what is their level of experience?

Target characteristics

• These are the characteristics of the person listening to the argument
• Are they in a good or bad mood; have high or low self-esteem; are they awake and alert or drowsy and unfocused

Question 138

What are universal emotions? Name them.

Answer 138

• Emotions which can be easily identified by individuals all over the world; not called universal emotions because everyone feels them the same way, but because they give rise to similar facial expressions across cultures
• Happiness
• Sadness
• Fear
• Disgust
• Anger
• Surprise

Question 139

What is the hidden cirriculum, in regard to education as a social institution

Answer 139

• The non-cognitive components of information that are tranmitted by the educational institution, such as social norms, attitudes and beliefs
• The learning we do without realizing it
• Example: we learn how to wait in line, how to treat our peers, how to raise your hand for a question

Question 140

Why and how does drug tolerance occur?

Answer 140

• With high doses or prolonged use of a drug, the post-synpatic neurons get over-stimulated and in order to reduce this overexciation they reduce the number of receptors for a given substance
• This causes tolerance, since the same amount of drug won’t have as much to bind to anymore, so you won’t feel the same effect

Question 141

What is indeterminate cleavage?

What is determinate clevage?

Answer 141

• Indeterminate: A type of cleavage which results in cells that can still develop into complete organisms
• Determinate: results in cells with fates that are already determined; these cells are committed to differentiating into a certain type of cell

Question 142

What structure connects Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area? What happens when this area is damaged?

Answer 142

• Arcuate fasciculus; a bundle of axons that allows appropriate assocaition between language comprehension and speech production

Conduction aphasia: Connecting between listening and speaking is disrupted, so they are unable to repeat back what they hear

Question 143

What is a fixed ratio partial reinforcement schedule?

Answer 143

• Ratio: amount of responses
• Fixed: consistent
• On a fixed-ratio schedule, reinforcement only occurs after a fixed number of responses
• Benefit of these schedules: tends to emit a high rate of a behavior
• Example: a car sales men gets a bonus with every 5 cars he sells, regardless if he sells 5 cars in a day, a week, a month, after selling 5 cars, he gets a bonus
• High rate of behavior: the salesman will work as as possible knowing that he can increase the amount of bonuses by selling many cars in a day

Question 144

What is Broca’s area? Where is it?

Answer 144

• Located in the inferior frontal gyrus of the front lobe
• Controls the motor function of speech via connections to the motor cortex

Question 145

What is religiosity?

Answer 145

• Refers to how religious one consderself him or herself to be, and includes the strenght of religious beliefs, engagement in religious practices and attitudes about religion itself
• Ranges from private beliefs to spiritual routines to institutionalized religion

Question 146

What is factor analysis?

Answer 146

• A statistical analysis method that categorizes and determines major categories of traits; reduces the number of variables and detects structure in the relationship between variables
• Used by Cattell, Eysenck and the “Big Five” trait theories of personality to develop these theories
• Allport did not use this analytical procedure

Question 147

What is prejudice?

What social factors influence prejudice?

Answer 147

• Prejudice: an irrational positive or negative attitude toward a person, group or thing prior to an actual experience with that entity
• Prejudice can form in response to dissimilarities among groups, races, ethnicities or even environments

Social factors which influence prejudice:

• Power: the ability of people or groups to achieve the goals despite any obstacles (example: political power)
• Prestige: the level of respect shown to a person by others (Example: minority group members are more likely to be in low-paid, less prestigeous positions)
• Class: refers to SES

Question 148

What is PET scan? How does it work?

Answer 148

• Positron Emission Tomography
• Radioactive glucose is injected into a person; active cells use more glucose, we can see where the radioactive glucose localizes to determine brain functionality
• Can comebine with an MRI to get better resolution

Question 149

What is racial formation theory?

Answer 149

• A theory which is used to look at race as a socially constructed identity, where the content and importance of racial categories are determined by social, economic, and political forces.

Question 150

What is the “Big Five” Theory of Personality? What are the “Big Five”?

Answer 150

• A type of trait theory of personality
• Found in all people of all populations
• Openness: independent vs conforming; practical vs imaginative
• Conscientiousness: careful vs careless; disciplined vs impulse; organized vs disorganized
• Extraversion: talkative vs quiet; fun-loving vs sober
• Agreeableness: kind vs. cold; appreciative vs. unfriendly
• Neuroticism: stable or tense; calm or anxious; secure or insecure

Acronym: OCEAN

Question 151

What is the humanistic theory of personality, generally?

Who were the big propents of this theory and what were their specific theories?

Answer 151

• A theory of personality
• Focuses on the value of individuals and their free-will and describe those ways in which people strive toward self-actualization
• Focuses on the conscious
• People are inherently good and are self-motivated to improve and want to improve so we can research self-actualization

Include:

• Maslow’s Hierarchy of of Needs
• Carl Rogers:

Question 152

What is insomnia?

Answer 152

• Diffciulty falling asleep or staying asslep
• Most common sleep disorder and may be related to anxiety, depression, medication or disruption of sleep cycles and circadian rhythms
• Can be treated with combinations of lifestyle interventions (such as daily exercise) and medication

Question 153

What is the neural plate?

Answer 153

When ectodermal tissue thickens and flattens to become the neural plate

• Occurs due to induction by the notochord

Question 154

What is the most commonly used depressant drug? How does it induce effects? What are some of its effects?

Answer 154

Alcohol

• Increses activity of the GABA receptor, a chloride channel which causes hyperpolarization of the membrane
• Can disrupt REM sleep; when you don’t get enough REM sleep your ability to form memories and create new synpases is reduced
• Disinhibitor; more likely to act on your impulses

Question 155

What is mesopic vision?

Answer 155

A combination of photopic vision and scotopic vision in low but not quite dark lighting situations

• Includes activation of both cones and rods

Question 156

What is the aqueous humor? The vitreous humor?

Answer 156

Aqueous humor: transparent, wateryvfluid similar to plasma, but containing low protein concentrations. It fills both the anterior and the posterior chambers of the eye

Vitreous humor: is the clear gel that fills the space between the lens and the retina of the eyeball; located in the space between the lens and the retina, also known as the posterior cavity or vitreous chamber

Question 157

What are opiates? What are their effects?

Answer 157

• Act on the bodys natural endorphin receptors
• This reduces the level of pain we are able to percieve as endorphins are the bodys natural pain killer and opiates mimic this
• High levels can cause euphoria

Question 158

What is the role of the hippocampus in regard to emotion?

Answer 158

• Plays a role in forming new memories; helps to convert short-term memory to long-term memory
• Memories can envoke emotions as well
• If the hippocampus is destroyed, you cannot form new memories, but the old memories are intact
• Part of the limbic system

Question 159

How does group size effect the liklihood of conformity?

Answer 159

• People are more likely to conform when they are in groups of 3-5 people

Question 160

What is a reflex? What are the parts of a reflex?

Answer 160

A response to a stimulus that doesn’t require the involvement of consciousness

Afferent: bringing in information about a stimulus into the central nervous system

• Synapse with the spinal cord or the brain stem, but not the cerebrum (aka none of the higher sense parts of the CNS are involved in reflexes)
• These are somatosensory neurons

Efferent: Carries information away from the CNS to cause a response in the periphery

• These are lower motor neurons

Question 161

What cells in the eye are involved in shape detection when considering feature detection of an object?

Answer 161

Parvocellular cells

• Have very high color spatial resolution
• Allow us to see very fine detail when thoroughly examining an object
• Allows us to see the 3D shape of the object
• Allows us to discriminate the boundaries of an object by detecting its boundaries
• Low temporal resolution; these cells can only work with slow-moving or stationary objects

Question 162

With regard to the brain, what are nuclei?

Answer 162

• Collections of soma, gray matter) that are lodged within the white matter of the brain

Question 163

What is sleep apnea?

Answer 163

• When you fall asleep and stop breathing
• You then wake up gasping for air and then fall back asleep unaware of what happened
• Can happen 100s of times in a night
• This impedes us from entering N3 stage of sleep

Question 164

What is secure-attachment?

• What type of parenting causes this type of attachment

Answer 164

A toddler who is securely attached to its parent (or other familiar caregiver) will explore freely while the caregiver is present, typically engages with strangers, is often visibly upset when the caregiver departs, and is generally happy to see the caregiver return.

• Securely attached children are best able to explore when they have the knowledge of a secure base to return to in times of need.
• Parents who consistently (or almost always) respond to their child’s needs will create securely attached children

Question 165

What are defense mechanisms?

Answer 165

• Ways of protecting ourselves when we have to deal with our unconsious needs, wants, desires and impulses
• Act as a psychological shield from our unconscious desires

Question 166

What is a splint-brain patient? What are some issues regarding language with these patients?

Answer 166

• When the corpus collosum, between the two hemispheres, is severed
• Used to be done as treatment for seizures
• Language is localized to the left side of the brain; if a patient sees something within the left visual field, it is processed by the right side; but since the corpus collosum is severed, the person cannot say what they saw (however, they can draw it)
• If they see it within the right visual field, it will be processed by the left hemisphere, which is also where language is processed, so the patient can describe what they saw just fine

Question 167

What is the hypothalamus?

Answer 167

• Below the thalamus
• Controls the pituitary gland ( the hypothalamus is the link between the nervous system and the endocrine system)
• Responsible for Feeding, Fighting, Flighting, and Sexual Function (4Fs)

Question 168

What is discrimination?

Answer 168

• The unjust treatment of a category of people simply because they belong to that category
• Often results from prejudice

Question 169

What is top-down processing?

Answer 169

• Driven by memories and expectations that allow the brain to recognize the whole object then recognzie the components based on these expectations
• Theory driven/ goal-driven
• Allows us to quickly recognize objects without nedding to analyze their specific parts

Image: we see a bunch of circles with lines, but we recognize what we think should be a cube

Question 170

What are the types of retrieval cues that can help us to recall memories?

Answer 170

• Priming: recall is aided by first being presented with a word or phrase that is close to the desired sematic memory
• Context: we will remember better if the context is the same; e.g. we will do better on an exam if we take the exam in the same place we’d been studying for it

(If this is not possible, it’s best to study in many different places, so the new place does not seem so unfamiliar)

• State dependent memory : mood or internal state which affects how we can recall information (if we learn something while drunk, we can remember it better while drunk; being drunk provides an internal retrieval cue to the brain)
• This can also be mood- related; if you are sad or angry, you are more likely to remember things that happened when you are sad or angry or other times when you were sad or angry

Question 171

What is social reproduction? Why does it happen?

Answer 171

• Refers to the passing on of social inequality, especially poverty from one gernation to the next
• This can happen because we can take financial capital and turn it into social capital or cultural capital

Social capital: the creation of reliable, useful social netowrks and from these connections you can obtain advantages and opportunities in a society

Cultural capital: the accumulation of knowledge, behaviors, and skills that one can tap into to demonstrate one’s cultural competence, and thus one’s social status or standing in society.

• Example: learning french, learning about golf and being able to mingle with people at the golf club
• Social capital and cultural capital can “turbo-charge” social reproduction

Question 172

What is role conflict?

Answer 172

Difficulty in satisfying the requirements or expectations of multiple roles

• Note: different than role strain, which is the difficulty in satisfying multiple requirements the requirements of the same role

Question 173

What is Erikson’s psychosocial development theory?

How is it different than Freud’s?

Answer 173

• A psychoanalytic theory that identifies a series of eight stages, in which a healthy developing individual should pass through from infancy to late adulthood
• All stages are present at birth, but only begin to unfold according to both a natural scheme and one’s ecological and cultural upbringing
• In each stage, the person confronts, and hopefully masters, new challenges

Different than Freud’s in that Erikson’s stages exist throughout life, rather than just focus on development as a child; Erikson’s stages also involve one’s culture and society, whereas Freud’s was focused solely on the individual

Question 174

What are laws?

Answer 174

• A type of norm which are based on an understanding of right and wrong, but have more formal and consistent consequences
• Outrage depends on the type of law that was broken (i.e. jay-walking versus murder)

Example: Politician lies (which is a break of a mores), but does so while under oath (thus breaking a law); thus, they would have a punishment that fits such a crime

Question 175

When regarding visual cues, what is relative size? Is this a monocular function or binocular function?

Answer 175

• Monocular function
• We can infer relative size of two objects, and given our knowledge about these objects, know which one is closer

Example: Since we know ants are the same size, when we see one ant that is bigger than the other, we infer that the larger ant is closer

Question 176

What is the reticular formation of the brainstem?

Answer 176

• a set of interconnected nuclei that are located throughout the brainstem
• not anatomically well defined because it includes neurons located in diverse parts of the brain
• Plays a role in autonomic functions; plays a role in circulation, respiration, and digestion
• Also sends neurons to the cerebrum and plays a role in higher functions, such as cognition, emotion and consciousness

Question 177

In regard to universal emotions, what are some facial features seen with disgust?

Answer 177

• Raised cheeks
• Wrinkled nose
• Lowered eyebrows

Question 178

What structures are derived from the endoderm?

Answer 178

• Digestive tract
• Respiratory tract
• Lungs
• Pancreas
• Thryroid
• Bladder
• Urinary tracts
• Parts of the liver

Question 179

What are the illnesses involved in Cluster B personality disorders?

Answer 179

Antisocial personality disorder: the essential feature of this disorder is a pattern of disregard for and violations of the rights of other; evidenced by repeated illegal acts, deceifullness , aggressiveness or a lack of remorse for their actions; more common in males than females

Borderline personality disorder: characteristized by a pervasive instability in interpersonal behavior, mood and self-image; interpersonal relationships are often intense and unstable; may have profound identitiy disturbances with uncertaintiy about self image, sexual identity, long-term goals or values; often have an intense fear of abandonment; more common in females than males

Histrionic personality disorder: characterized by constant attention-seeking behavior; individuals wear colorful clothing, are dramatic, and are exceptionally extroverted

Narcissistic personality disorder: one has a grandiose sense of self-importance or uniqueness, preoccupation with fantasies of success, a need for constant admiration and attention, and characteristic disturbances in interpesonal relationshps such as feelings of entitlement

Question 180

What is intellectualization?

Answer 180

• A type of neurotic defense mechanism, in which someone picks out the intellectual aspects of any situation, and detaches it from the emotional aspects, removing the axiety evoking emotional part of a situation
• A separation of emotion from ideas

Question 181

What types of things do we usually find in the dominant hemisphere?

Answer 181

• Language
• Logic
• Math skills

Question 182

What is Macrosociology?

Answer 182

• The large scale perspective; phenomena that affect the whole population or at least a large subsection of the population
• Includes: social structures, institutions
• Looking for patterns; how these big things affect small groups or individuals

Deals with: war, poverty, healthcare institutions, world economy, etc.

Question 183

What cells in the eye are involved in motion detection when considering feature detection of an object?

Answer 183

Magnocellular cells

• High temporal resolution
• Low spatial resolution
• Since they have low spatial resolution, much of the rich detail of an object can no longer be seen once its in motion
• Provide a blurry but moving image of an object

Question 184

What are monozygotic twins?

Answer 184

• Identical twins
• Form when a single zygote splits intwo two
• The genetic material for both individuals is identical

Question 185

What are the primacy and recency effects? What is the combined effect of these called?

Answer 185

• When we are most likely to remember the first and last items
• For example: given a grocery list, we are most likely to remember the things at the beginning and end and have more difficult with the things in the middle
• Serial position effect: the effect in which we remember the first and last things well, but the middle parts not so well
• Can be drawn on a serial position curve, with proability on the y axis and the position on the x axis

Question 186

How do amphetamines work?

Answer 186

• Triggers the release of dopamine, norepineine and serotonin at the synpase and decreaseing their reuptake
• Causes a feeling of euphoria
• Increases HR, BP

Question 187

What is “chunking”?

Answer 187

• A memory technique which involves taking individual elements of a large list and grouping them together into groups of elements with related meaning
• Example: instead of memorizing every item on a grocery list, independently, chunk them into categories of fruits, baking items, proteins, etc.

Question 188

What is the stepping reflex?

Answer 188

• When an infant is held upright and their feet touch a surface, they will begin to step as if they are trying to walk
• One of the primitive or neonatal reflexes
• Disappears after two months

Question 189

What are the stages of sleep and the associated waves that occur?

Answer 189

N1

• non-REM
• theta waves
• Can experience hypnagogic hallucinations and hypnic jerks

N2

• non-REM
• theta waves but also K complexes and sleep spindles

N3

• Delta waves (0.5-2Hz); so this stage is called “slow-wave sleep”
• Stage where walking and talking during sleep occur

REM

• Where dreaming occurs
• Most of the body is paralyzed, so that we do not act out what we’re dreaming about
• Also known as paradoxical sleep: one’s HR, breathing patterns and EEG mimic wakefulness, but we are asleep

Question 190

What is memory decay?

Answer 190

• The concept which describes how memories are simply lost naturally over time
• A scientist, Ebbinghasuse, noted a curve of forgetting, where forgetting things at the beginning was higher, but then at some point, this curve leveled off
• This is also related to things that are more integrated; if we learn a language, we will not forget it, but the rate of forgetting it will still create this type of curve, just with different increments (perhaps years) on the x-axis

Question 191

What is the corticobulbar tract? Describe its pathway.

Answer 191

Corticospinal Tract: Upper Motor Neurons which start in the cerebral cortex and travel into the brain stem to innervate the lower motor nerves, such as cranial nerves

Pathway

• Soma is in the cerebral cortex
• Axon travels from the soma, through the deep white matter of the cerbrum, into the brainstem
• In the brainstem, some stay on the same side and some cross over to innervate lower motor neurons which have soma in brain stem, on both sides of the brain

Question 192

Under parasympathetic control, the lens is made more round. Describe this process and the components that create this action.

Answer 192

• The ciliary muscle, a component of the ciliary body, contracts
• As the muscle contracts, it pulls on suspensory ligaments, which changes the shape of the lens
• Known as accomodation

Question 193

What is informative influence?

Answer 193

• A type of conformity in which people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior in a given situation

Example: we’ve been asked to train a dog and the group wants to use a shock collar; you’ve never trained a dog before, so you look to the other group members for guidance; they want to use a shock collar, and you assume they are correct, so you go along with that behavior

Question 194

Rhodopsin is to rods as ______ is to cones

Answer 194

Photopsin

• These proteins, rhodopsin and photopsin, work the same

Question 195

What is the difference between collective behavior and group behavior?

Answer 195

Collective behavior:

• Time limited; involves short social interactions
• Not socially limited; anyone is free to participate in a collective
• Produces norms that are weak and murky

- Note: collective behavior includes fads, mass hysteria and riots

Group behavior:

• Tend to remain together longer and socialize for extended periods of time
• Can be exclusive or have membership requirements
• Norms within groups are generally strong-held and well-defined

Question 196

What is functionalism?

What is conflict theory?

What is social constructionism?

What is symbolic interactionism?

Answer 196

Functionalism: looks at how a society can exist and function over time; a society is always trying to come to an equilibrium; institutions will make minor changes to find a stable balance in society

Conflict theory: focuses on how societies change and adapt over time through conflict; in any society, there are going to be conflicting view points, which leads to a group being happy with the status quo, while another group is unhappy with the status quo; eventually both sides will come to some sort of agreement in order to stabiize the society

Social constructionism: looks at what a society is, rather than how it exists or changes; everything is created by the society, such that there is an agreement in the society that something has meaning and value that it does not have intrinsically (like money); we construct the the world around us

Symbolic interactionism: based on the meanings we give to things (like a tree being a source of shade vs. an ant infested place to get bitten); people act based on their past experiences in lives, and thus people give meaning to things via this; meanings can vary person to person, give differences in experience (this theory allows us tolearn how individuals act)

Question 197

What type of tactile stimulus do Meissner corpuscles respond to?

Answer 197

• Respond to light touch

Question 198

How many protein-coding genes are there in the human genome?

Answer 198

19,000-20,000

Question 199

What was Pavlov’s perspective on the behavioral theory of personality?

Answer 199

• Classical conditioning (Pavlov’s Dog)
• Places a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus to trigger an involuntary response
• Thus, a behavior is a product of the environment

Question 200

What are anxiety disorders? List a few disorders contained within this category.

Answer 200

• Involve distress or disability from abnormal amounts of worry or fear
• Include: phobias, panic disorder and generalized anxiety disorder

Question 201

What were the Asch Line studies? What was the study?

What were some reasons for conformity?

Answer 201

• Dr. Asch was interested in how group behavior influenced the behavior of the individual and what aspects of the group behavior may be most important
• Designed the line studies; in these studies, the subject being studied sat at a table with other individuals who the subject thought were also part of the study; then, they were shown a card like the one below and asked “which line matches exhibit 1”. The first few times, they answered the correct one, but on the third trial, all the fake participants answered wrongly. 75% of the time the individual would conform at least once throughout the trials, 37% would conform everytime, whereas when asked alone (not in the group) most individuals made errors <1% of the time
• There were 18 cards, and the confederates (fake-participants) answered unanimously wrong on 12 of them
• Note: there was no pressure to conform; no prize for getting things right, or punishment for getting things wrong; there was only perceived pressure

After the study, most participants knew they had given wrong answers, but:

• did not want to be ridiculed by the others (normative social influence: altering behaviors so we fit in better with those around us)
• doubted their own responses; if everyone else has the same answer, that must be the right one (informational social influence: change our behavior because we assume others are more informed)
• really, truly believed that they said the right answers (perceptual error)

Question 202

What is projection?

What is projective identification?

Answer 202

• Projection: A type of defense mechanism in which a person takes their unconscious feelings or desires and places them upon another individual
• Example: If I am feeling jealous, I can identify a person as being jealous and project my subconsious feelings onto them

Projective identification: When the person I am projecting my feelings unto begins to subsequently thinking and acts according to that feeling

• Example: I am now starting to act and feel jealous because of what is being projected onto me

Question 203

What are simple traits?

Answer 203

Simple traits: can be traced by to specific genes

• Hair color, eye color, skin tone

Complex traits: traced back to groups of genes

• Happiness, intelligence, temperament
• Simple traits are basic characteristics of a person’s behavior and personality, whereas complex traits are more nuanced characteristics.

Question 204

How is surgery used in experimental ablation? Pros and cons?

Answer 204

Surgical removal with a surgical scalpal or with surgical aspiration (sucking out brain tissue)

• However, this can only be done to things at the surface and also is very invasive; so you can also severe a nerve with a scalpal

Question 205

Why is segregation important to focus on?

Answer 205

• Segregated populations are politically isolated and thus politically vulnerable; they don’t have the political power to keep their schools open, to advocate for more community centers
• Language may change, leading to linguistic isolation; this may make it more difficult for people to get jobs since their way of speaking is different
• Access to healthcare or quality of healthcare may be lessened

Question 206

What are some functions associated with the nondominant hemisphere?

Answer 206

• Intuition
• Creativity
• Music cognition
• Spatial processing
• Interpretation of language (can tell the tone of language, i.e. if its angry or sad, etc.)
• Pulls together big picture concepts

Question 207

What is communism?

Answer 207

• A type of government with whose ultimate goal is the establishment of the communist society, which is a socioeconomic order structured with the absence of social classes, moneyand the state
• All property is owned by the community

Question 208

What is the Lazarus theory of emotion?

Answer 208

The experience of emotion depends on how the experience is cognitively appraised

• An event occurs, we appraise the event as positive or negative (or in between), and once this appraisal has occured, then emotion and and physiological response will occur simultaneously but indepdently

how we label events has to do with culture or experiences

• Example: if last time you held a cat, it scratched you, the next time you hold a cat you may appraise the situation as scary, which will then lead to emotions of fear and increased HR
• If last time you held a cat it was wonderful, then the next time you hold a cat you may appraise the sitaution as good, leading to emotions of happiness and decreased HR

Question 209

What is Wernicke’s area? Where is it located?

Answer 209

• Located in the superior temporal gyrus of the temporal lobe
• Responsible for language comprehension

Question 210

What is mass hysteria?

Answer 210

• A type of collective behavior in which large groups of people experience unmanageable delusions and anxiety at the same time; reactions spread rapidly and reach more people through rumors and fear

Example: Mild form of mass hysteria; when there is looming bad weather and the news outlets make it seem horrible, people run to the supermarket to get supplies, drive erratically and there is fear of what will happen

Example: mass psychogenic illness or epidemic hysteria: immediately after the anthrax attacks in the U.S., there were over 2,000 false alarms of anthrax; many individuals reported symptoms of anthrax and were afraid of exposure; this induced symptoms in these patients with no underlying cause

Question 211

What is retinal disparity?

Answer 211

Our eyes are 2.5 inches apart; the space between the eyes that allows binocular vision to create depth perception.

Question 212

In regard to last menstrual period, when does fertilization occur?

Answer 212

Day 14 after the last known mesntrual period

• This is when ovulation also occurs, so it makes sense that fertilization can occur here

Question 213

What is symbolic interactionism? What are the tenets?

What are some criticisms of this theory?

Answer 213

• The study of the ways individual interact through a shared understanding of words
• Looks at the small scale, how an individual interacts with their society

Example: I spent a lot of my life sitting under trees in the shade, thus, if I see a tree, I might want to sit under it

Tenets:

1. We act based on the meaning we’ve given something

• If i see the tree as a place to rest, I might go lean up against it

2. We give meaning to things based on social interactions

• While I might consider the tree a place to rest, another person may think of the tree as a breeding ground for getting ants and getting bitten by them and they might avoid it

3. The meaning we give something is not permanent

• If, while sitting under the tree, I get bitten by an ant, I might not want to sit under the next tree I see

Criticism:

• Considered as supplemental, and not a full theory because it is restricted to studying small interactions between indivdiuals

Question 214

What is the difference between conformity and obidience?

Answer 214

Conformity: describes how we adjust our behavior or thinking in order to go along witha group

Obidience: describes how we follow orders and obey authority

• Does not involve a possible cognitive component, the way conformity does “I’m just following orders”

Question 215

What is the corticospinal tract? Describe its pathway.

Answer 215

Corticospinal Tract: Upper Motor Neurons which start in the cerebral cortex and travel down into the spinal cord to synpase with lower motor neurons

Pathway

• Soma is in the cerebral cortex
• Axon travels from the soma, through the deep white matter of the cerbrum, through the brain stem (midbrain, pons, medulla)
• When it gets to the bottom of the brain stem, it will cross over the contralateral side and travel down the opposite side of the spinal cord (i.e. if started in the right part of the cerbral cortex, will travel down the left part of the spinal cord)
• Note: if there is damage in the right side of the brain, you get left motor weakness; but if there is damage on the left side of the spinal cord, you also get left motor weakness, because of this cross-over

Question 216

What is social exclusion?

Answer 216

• The social disadvantage and relegation to the fringe of society
• Social exclusion is the process in which individuals or people are systematically blocked from (or denied full access to) various rights, opportunities and resources that are normally available to members of a different group, and which are fundamental to social integration and observance of human rights within that particular group
• People can be socially excluded due to poverty, ill health, discrimination (race, gender, etc.)

Question 217

What is Cheyne-Stokes respiration? What condition is it commonly associated with?

Answer 217

An abnormal pattern of breathing characterized by progressively deeper, and sometimes faster, breathing followed by a gradual decrease that results in a temporary stop in breathing called an apnea.

• Asociated with central sleep apnea

Question 218

Where is the retina located? What is its function?

Answer 218

• In the back of the eye, consists of neural elements and blood vessels
• Function is to convert incoming photons of light to electrical signals

Question 219

What is race?

Answer 219

A grouping of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into categories generally viewed as distinct by society

• Physical characteristics that have taken on social signficiance

Question 220

During a muscle stretch reflex, the rapidly stretched muscle contracts, but the muscle on the other side of the limb or area relaxes. How does this happen?

Answer 220

• The afferent neuron that moves into the spine to excite the effert neurons which will cause the muscle to contract also synpases other places
• In this spine, this afferent neuron will also excite inhibitory neurons, which then inhibit lower motor neurons to the other part of the limb
• The relaxation of the second muscle is not necessary for the relax response, but it will allow the response to occur more intensely

Question 221

What is cued recall?

Answer 221

• Cued recall is when a person is given a list of items to remember and is then tested with cues to remember material
• Researchers have used this procedure to test memory. Participants are given pairs, usually of words, A1-B1, A2-B2…An-Bn (n is the number of pairs in a list) to study. Then the experimenter gives the participant a word to cue the participant to recall the word with which it was originally paired. The word presentation can either be visual or auditory.

Question 222

What is the somatosensory homunculus?

Answer 222

• Information from the spinal cord is relayed to a “sensory strip” of the brain, which then can be mapped to different regions of the body
• Information from different regions of the body will synpase onto a particular portion of the sensory strip

Somatosensory homunculus: A distorted representation of the human body, based on a neurological “map” of the areas and proportions of the human brain dedicated to processing motor functions, or sensory functions, for different parts of the body

• A map of the body on the brain

Question 223

How is perceived control related to stress? How can it be used as a coping mechanism in stressful situations?

Answer 223

Perceived control: the belief that one sees he or she has control over their inside state, behaviors and the place or people or things or feelings or activities surrounding a person

• Lack of perceieved control can lead to stress
• However, you can look for areas of your life where you can control things to take some of that control back and minimize or cope with the stress
• Can be things like being the captain of a softball meeting, scheduling future events with regard to your own schedule, or anything else that makes you feel in control

Question 224

What is a proximal vs. distal stimulus?

Answer 224

• Distal stimuli are objects and events out in the world about you.
• Proximal stimuli are the patterns of stimuli from these objects and events that actually reach your senses (eyes, ears, etc)

Question 225

What is the elaboration liklihood model?

Answer 225

• A theory that tries to explain how our attitudes are formed and how they can be changed
• When we receive information, it is processed through the central or peripheral route

Then the information has to be proccessed by going through three steps, to determine if its going to be processed centrally or peripherally:

Target Stage: what do we think of the information that is being presented

• Is it interesting, do we find it fascinating, do we think its important: if so, it will be processed centrally
• If it’s not interesting, if we’re not motivated to listen to it, or if we don’t think its important, it will be processed peripherally

Processing Stage: message characteristics and source characteristics are taken into account

• Following the central route, we tend to pay attention to the quality of the message being delivered, leading to deep processing of the material
• Following the peripheral route, we pay attention to superficial or shallow characteristics (things like how good the powerpoint is, how attractive the speaker is, how often they made the audience laugh); leads to shallow processing of the information

Attitude Change Stage:

• Following deep processing, we are more likely to be persuaded by a message and for that persuasion to have a lasting change
• Following shallow processing, we may still be persuaded, but the persuasion will be a more temporary change

Question 226

What is a cued recall?

Answer 226

• When you are provided more cues to remember something

Example: when given a list of words that include the word “planet” and later are given a test where it provides “pl_____”

• Do better on cued recall than free recall since we are provided additional cues

Question 227

What is the association between a social institution and the individual?

Answer 227

• While social institutions need individuals, and require many people to keep them functioning, a social instituion does not require a given particular individual, and will continue to function once that individual is gone
• However, inviduals rely on these social institutions for how society is structured, so there is a bit of an imbalance

Question 228

What are mnemonic devices? What are the commonly employed mnemonic devices?

Answer 228

Are often acronyms or rhyming phrases that provide a vivid organization of the information we are trying to remember

• Imagery: create a vivid image of everything you need to remember (example: if you need to get bananas, oranges and blueberries at the grocery store, create an image of a huge banana with blueberries in its hat, juggling oranges)
• Peg-word: associates numbers with items that rhyme with or resemble the numbers (one, sun, two, shoe, three, three); helps with remembering things in a specific order
• Method of loci: associating each item in the list with a location along a route through a building that has already been memorized
• Acronyms: when each letter of a familiar word stands for something we’re trying to memorize

Question 229

What are social institutions?

Answer 229

• Well-established social structures that dictate certain patterns of behavior govern the expectations of individuals; they are accepted as a fundamental part of culture
• A form for filling a need
• Continue on after the people in them have passed and are not dependent on any given individual
• Schools, businesses, government, religion, healthcare, etc.
• Example: In order for society to continue, it needs people, year after year; the family institution makes sure that there will be people carry on the next generation

Question 230

What is the zona pellucida?

Answer 230

• An acellular mixture of glycorproteins that protect the oocyte and contain compounds necessary for sperm cell binding

Question 231

What is the tyranny of choice? Why does this happen?

Answer 231

• The concept in which, when we are faced with too many choices, we are less satisfied and more unsure about our choice and also more miserble when making the choice then if fewer options were given

Happens because of:

• Information overload: too much information to take in from the environment
• Information overloads leads to decision paralysis: inability to make a decision

Question 232

Describe the key parts of early embryogenesis.

Answer 232

• Zygote
• Embryo (after 1 division)
• Morula
• Blastocyst (inner cell mass, trophoblast, and blastocoel)
• Bilaminar disc
• Trilaminar disc (via gastrulation)
• Neurulation: notochord formation and neural tube generation

Question 233

What is the activation-synthesis theory of dreams?

Answer 233

• Dreams are caused by widespread, random activation of neural circuitry
• This activation can miminic incoming sensory information and may also consist of pieces of stores memories, current and previous desires, met and unmet needs, and other experiences
• Cortex tries to stitch this unrelated information together, resulting in a bizarre but familar dream
• This is an activation of the brainstem and synthesis of this activation by the cortex (thus, activation-synthesis)

Question 234

What are some problem solving methods?

Answer 234

• Trial-and-Error: various solutions are tried until one is found that seems to work; while an educated approach may be used, usually only works when there are relatively few possible solutions
• Algorithms: A formula or porecedure for solving a certain type of problem; can be mathetmatical or a set of structions, designed to automaticaaly produce the desired solution
• Deductive (top-down) reasoning: starts from a set of general rules and draws conclusions from the information given (like a logic puzzle)
• Inductive (bottom-up) Reasoning: seeks to create a theory via generalizations; starts with specific instances and then draws a conclusion from them

- Heuristics

Question 235

What is parallel processing?

Answer 235

• The ability to to simultaneously analyze and combine information regarding color, shape and motion

Question 236

What is Weber’s Law?

Answer 236

The lawstates that the change in a stimulus that will be just noticeable is a constant ratio of the original stimulus.

ΔI/I = k

ΔI: represents the difference threshold

I: represents the initital stimulus

k= the ratio, which is constant

Example: If we hold a 5lb weight, and as we increase the weight, we notice the difference for the first time when the weight equals 5.5lbs, then

(5.5-5)/5=0.1

ΔI=5.5-5

I= 5

k=0.1

Question 237

How can false information affect a memory?

Answer 237

• If we are given false information after remembering something but before retrieving it, the false information can affect the memory
• For example: if we see a video with a car stopping at a yield sign, and then are told a story about the video, including how the car stopped at a stop sign, we may believe we saw a stop sign and remember the car stopping at a stop sign

Question 238

What are some structures which the brainstem connects?

Answer 238

• Connects to the cerebrum, the cerebellum, the spinal cord and connects most of the cranial nerves

Question 239

What is residential segregation? Why is this important?

Answer 239

• The physical separation of two or more groups into different neighborhoods, based on some criteria (e.g. race, ethnicity, income)
• Important because where we lives determines a lot of what we have access to, regarding educational systems, political power, job opportunities, etc.

Question 240

What are adoption studies?

Example: how would you determine if schizophrenia is genetic or environmental?

Answer 240

• Individuals who have been adopted are compared to their adopted families and their biological families
• Genetic: the trait will mimic what is seen in their biological family
• Enviornmental: the trait will be similar to their adopted family

Question 241

Given a change in temperature that elicits pain, e.g. putting your hand on the stove, what receptor is activated and what are the fibers that respond to this receptor?

Answer 241

• TRPV1 receptor is activated
• Change in temperature or molecules from lysed cells cause a change in conformation of the TRPV1 protein, which sends a signal down fast, medium and slow fibers

Fast: Aβ fibers

• Large fibers (decreased resistance) with lots of myelin (increased insulation); causes retraction of the hand

Medium: Aδ fibers

- Medium sized fibers with less myelin than the large fibers; causes the immediate sense of pain after hand retraction

Small: C fibers

• Thin and unmyelinated; causes the lingering pain minutes to hours after touching the stove

Question 242

What holds a society together according to Emile Durkheim? How does it remain relatively stable as traditions disappear and customs change

Answer 242

• Small societies are held together by their similarities and their independence; the individual was self-sufficient (each farmer owns his own land and grows food just for himself and his family)
• Via population growth in a small space, the small society grows large and the structure of the society changes
• Large societies have individuals that are dependent on each other; there isnt enough land for each person to make enogh food for themselves, so now some people become farmers and grows the food on a big piece of land for everyone and the others take on roles like teachers and tailors
• Everyone becomes dependent on each other, which ensures that the community won’t fall apart
• Institutions then manage this interdepedence, and only change slightly to make sure that the interdependence remains stable

Question 243

What is puberty? When does it start? What is a major landmark for males and females?

Answer 243

• A 2 year period of sexual maturation, during which time a person becomes capable of reproduction

Males: Age 13

Females: Age 11

• For males, the major landmark that occurs during puberty is their first ejaculation, which occurs as a nocturnal emission
• For females, the major landmark that occurs during puberty is their first menstrual cycle

Question 244

In the Asch line studies, what were some reasons for conformity?

Answer 244

After the study, most participants knew they had given wrong answers, but:

• did not want to be ridiculed by the others (normative social influence: altering behaviors so we fit in better with those around us)
• doubted their own responses; if everyone else has the same answer, that must be the right one (informational social influence: change our behavior because we assume others are more informed)
• really, truly believed that they said the right answers (perceptual error)

Question 245

What is “temperment”?

Answer 245

• A person’s nature, especially as it permanently affects their behavior
• A person’s characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity
• Temperments seem to be well-established before babies are exposed to much of their environment
• Temperment seems to be persistent throughout life

Question 246

What is the Social Interactionist Theory of language?

Answer 246

• Language acquisition is driven by the child’s drive to communicate and behave in a social manner

Question 247

In operant conditioning, what is shaping?

Answer 247

• When a form of an existing response is gradually changed across successive trials towards a desired target behavior by rewarding exact segments of behavior.
• Gradually reinforce behaviors that lead up to or approximate a target behavior
• Process of learning a target behavior
• Note: before you shape a behavior, you have to identify the target behavior

Question 248

Describe why we have a blind spot in the eye

Answer 248

At the part of the retina where the optic nerve connects, there are no photoreceptors in that area, so we have a blind spot

Question 249

What is the Cannon-Bard theory of emotion?

Answer 249

• Cognitive and physiological components of emotion occur simultaneously and result in the behavioral component of emotion, or action
• Thus an event leads to both a physiological response and an emotion
• They believed this because one, emotions come on quickly, so they cannot be a response to a physiological change (that would take too long) and because many emotions are accompanied by similar physiological changes (many emotions are associated with an increase in HR)

Question 250

What is an ascribed status?

Answer 250

One that is given involuntarity, due to such factors as race, ethnicity, gender, and family background

• It is a position that is neither earned nor chosen but assigned
• These rigid social designators remain fixed throughout an individual’s life and are inseparable from the positive or negative stereotypes that are linked with one’s ascribed statuses.

Example: A person born into a wealthy family has a high ascribed status based solely on the social networks and economic advantages that one gains from being born into a family with more resources than others.

Question 251

What is working memory?

Where are the different components processed?

How much memory can our “working memory” hold?

Answer 251

• Working memory enables us to keep a few pieces of information in our consciousness simulataneously and to manipulate that information
• Whatever we are thinking about at this moment
• Visual and spatial information is processed in the visuo-spatial sketchpad (images or maps)
• Verbal information is processed in the phonological loop (numbers and words)
• The central executive allows us to conect these two places and to process verbal and visual/spataial information at the same time (for example if we’re looking at a map with numbers and words)
• This creates a episodic buffer (the combination of all things) which is the predecessor to long-term memory
• Can hold 7 ±2 pieces of information at a time

Question 252

What is the recency bias?

Answer 252

• The bias in which society places emphasis on the most recent actions rather
• Example: If you are are consistently a good soccer player, but in the most recent game, you played terrible, then people may think that you’re not actually as good of a soccer player as you are

Question 253

What is a well-defined problem? An ill-defined problem?

Answer 253

Well-defined: Clear start and end-point

• For example: how to make a dark room have some light

Ill-defined: have a more ambiguous starting and/or ending point

• For example: how to live a happy life

Question 254

What is self control?

Answer 254

• The ability to control our impulses and delay gratification
• Focusing on our long term goals and not engaging in temptation
• Temptation: a desire that is not beneficial to the long-term goal; for example, watching netflix may be a temptation but it will retract from my ability to do well on the MCAT

Question 255

What is the Autonomic Nervous System?

What are the nerves involved and what to do they innervate?

What are the parts of the ANS?

Answer 255

• A functional division of the central nervous system
• Consists of efferent neurons in the peripheral nervous system which control smooth muscle cells, cardiac muscle, and gland cells
• Called autonomic because it does not require consciousness
• Two parts: sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic system

Question 256

The receptors in the olfactory epitehlium which bind to a chemical in order to transduce the scent to the brain are what types of receptors?

Answer 256

GPCRs

Question 257

List the neurotic defense mechanisms

Answer 257

• Intellectualization
• Rationalization
• Regression
• Repression
• Displacement

Question 258

How are emotions divided by brain hemisphere?

Answer 258

• Positive emotions elicit more neural activity in the left hemisphere; negative emotions elicit more neural activity in the right hemisphere
• People who are more sociable have an increased activity in their left hemisphere; people who are more isolated tend to have more activity in the right hemisphere tend to be more timid, fearful, avoidant, and even depressed
• People with more active left hemispheres tend to be more joyful, interested and enthusiastic about things; those with more active right hemispheres tend to be

Question 259

What is the role of the thalamus in regard to emotion?

Answer 259

Thalamus: sensory relay station; the things that we see, hear, taste, touch, come through nerves and ultimately end up here and the thalamus directs these senses the the appropriate area in the cortex

• Part of the limbic system

Question 260

What is the primary cortex? The association cortex?

Answer 260

• Primary cortex: perform basic motor or sensory functions
• Association cortex: associating different types of information to perform more complex functions

Example

• Primary motor cortex: primary motor cortex is to generate neural impulses that control the execution of movemen
• Association motor cortex: responsible for transforming multisensory information into motor commands and for some aspects of motor planning

Question 261

Describe some traits of the parasympathetic nervous system.

Answer 261

• First neuron is very long
• Synpapses at a ganglion in the periphery with a second, much shorter, neuron which synpases with the target cell
• Parasympathetic neurons start either in the brain stem or at the bottom of the spinal nerve

Question 262

Describe the pathway from odor molecule to brain.

Answer 262

• Odor molecule binds to GPCR an oflactory nerve located within olfactory epithelium
• G protein binds to an ion channel and opens it
• Positive ions flow in and depolarize the cell
• Triggers an action potential, via an axon which moves through the cribiform plate and synpases in the glomerulus
• Mitral or tufted cells pick up on this signal
• Send this signal to the brain

Question 263

What are dizygotic twins?

Answer 263

• Fraternal twins
• Form from fertilization of two different eggs released during one ovulatory cycle, fertilized by two different sperm
• Each zygote will implant in the uterine wall and develop its own placenta, chorion and amnion

Question 264

What is strain theory?

Answer 264

• Suggests that if a person is blocked from a culturally accepted goal, they become frustrated or “strained” and turn to deviance

Example: The American Dream is to aquiring wealth and stability through achievement or hard work; however, some people may not have access to education to achieve goals that are in line with the American Dream, and thus will become deviant in order to try to reach these goals

• The behaviors are deviant, but they provide the individual a way to meet a socially acceptable goal

Question 265

What is child abuse? What forms does it come in?

Answer 265

• Most commonly manifests as neglect, although physical, sexual and psychological abuse are also common
• Neglect: a lack of supervision, poor nutrition or insufficient clothing

Question 266

What is the Self-Serving Bias?

Answer 266

• Any cognitive or perceptual process that is distorted by the need to maintain and enhance self-esteem, or the tendency to perceiveoneself in an overly favorable manner

Example: When thinking about the people in WWII who commited horrible acts against the Jews, we think “I could never do anything like that.” That is the self-serving bias; when put into the right situations, most of us world commit those acts. (We learned this from the Milgram studies)

Question 267

What is retroactive interference?

What is proactive interference?

Answer 267

Retroactive interference: when new information causes forgetting of old information

• Information from the present day reaches back and makes us forget something we used to know

Proactive interference: when old information is interfering with new learning

Question 268

What is the difference between automatic and controlled processes? What makes the difference between the two

Answer 268

• Automatic processes: things we can do automatically, and thus can multitask while doing them (like driving a car and eating)
• Controlled processes: processes we would be unable to do without our full, undivided attention
• The difference between whether something is an automatic or controlled process is how much we’ve practiced them; the more practice, the easier it becomes to do it automatically

Question 269

What is the world-systems theory of globalization?

What are the divisions of the world under this theory?

Answer 269

• A multidisciplinary, macro-scale approach to world history and social change which emphasizes the world-system (and not nation states) as the primary (but not exclusive) unit of social analysis
• Divides the world into three regions: core countries, periphery countries and semi-periphery countries

Core countries: have a strong central government with enough tax to support it; economically diversified, industrialized, and relatively independent of outside control; big middle classes; focus on production of higher scope materials rather than production of raw materials

Examples: Western Europe and U.S.

Periphery countries: tend to have a relatively weak government; depend on one type of economic activity (usually); high percentage of poor and uneducated people and a small upper class which controls most of the economy; greatly influenced by core countries and transnational companies

Examples: Latin America

Semi-periphery countries: not dominant in international trade, but have a relatively diversified and developed economy

Examples: India and Brazil

Question 270

What are delusions of grandeur?

Answer 270

Involve the belief that the person is remarakable in some signficiant way, such as being an inventor, historical figure or religious icon

• A symptom of schizophrenia as well as bipolar I

Question 271

What is located within the head of the sperm? What covers the head of the sperm?

Answer 271

• Head: where the DNA is located
• Covered by an acrosome:
• Acrosome is an organelle that develops over the anterior half of the head
• Derived from the Golgi apparatus
• Contains digestive enzymes which break down the outer membrane of the ovum, called the zona pellucida, allowing the haploid nucleus in the sperm cell to join with the haploid nucleus in the ovum

Question 272

What is normative influence?

Answer 272

• A type of conformity in which it is the the influence of other people that leads us to conform in order to be liked and accepted by them
• Fear social dissent that can come from a group, so we conform to the group

Example: I am an expert dog trainer, and you know that it’s easier to train a dog with treats than with a shock collar; the group wants to use a shock collar, and while you know this method is incorrect, you still go go along with the shock collar in order to avoid being a social outcast

Question 273

What is the Gestalt principle of Prägnanz?

Answer 273

Reality is often reduced to be as regular, simple and symmetric as possible

Image: we break this image into 5 circles, rather than into odd shapes; we’re looking at a complex set of lines but rather reduce it to 5 circles

Question 274

How do semi-circular canals relay balance?

Answer 274

• When we move, the endolymph inside the semi-circular canals moves with regard to the plane, which allows us to sense what plane our head is rotating is along
• We are also sensitive to how much of the endolymph is moving and how quickly, allowing us to gain information about the strength of the rotation

Question 275

What is the foot in the door phenomenon?

Answer 275

• A theory to try to explain how behavior influences attitude
• In this phenomenon, a small request is made, and after gaining compliance, a larger request is made

Note: this is the basis for how people are brainwashed; they begin to do small things for an authority figure they dislike, but over time, seeing those around them doing these small things and getting privileges from that authority, they think these small thing are ok; then those things become bigger and bigger

• Thus, a small behavior eventually changes our attitude toward this behavior

Question 276

How can social support be a coping mechanism in stressful situations?

Answer 276

• Deep connections allow us confide those painful or difficult feelings to others
• Allow us to feel that we are not alone in those feelings and can lead to us feeling like we have control and can make us feel optimistic
• Good social networks are also associated with eating well, exercise and sleeping patterns

Question 277

Why do you experience a crash if you are a drug addict?

Answer 277

• If you are a regular drug user, the body tries to counteract the drug use even before you ingest/inject the drugs
• For example, if you are utilizing a stimulant, and do so regularly, the body will begin to recognize the situation in which that stimulant will be utilzed and begin to oppose the stimulant before it has entered the body, by, for example, lowering the HR, lowering the BP, etc.
• If then you do not take the drug, your body has already done all of the stimulant-opposite events, so then you crash
• Note: if you take the drugs in a new place, or in a new way and your body doesn’t recognize this, it cannot counteract the stimulant and this can lead to an overdose since you’re taking the same dose of drug but without your body impeding it

Question 278

What is the effect of cocaine?

Answer 278

• Cocaine inhibits the reuptake of serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain
• Increases HR, BP, creates hypervigilance, alertness, etc.
• Regular cocaine users may experience emotional disturbances, suspicion, cardiac arrest or respiratory failure

Question 279

What are mores?

Answer 279

A type of norm that is widely observed, based on some moral value or belief

• Since there is a strong understanding of mores, there is a strong reaction if the mores is violated
• Do not always have serious consequences

Example: everyone should be trutful; if a politican lies, then this is usually met with outrage

Question 280

What is modernization theory?

Answer 280

• Proposes that all countries follow a similar path of development from a traditional to a modern society
• Assumes that with some help, traditional countries can develop into modern countries in the same way that current modern countries developed into modern countries in the first place
• Looks at social dynamics as the country adapts to new technologies and the political and social changes which occur

Question 281

What is the fovea?

Answer 281

• A small, central pit composed of closely packed cones in the eye
• Located in the center of the macula of the retina

Question 282

What is clevage?

Answer 282

• The process by which the oocyte divides without growing
• The first division is what takes the zygote and turns it into an embryo

Question 283

What are some reaons that many countries currently have positive growth rates?

Answer 283

• Economic benefit of having more children: more children means more people to support the parents; also, in places like Japan, the government incentivizes having more children since the birth rate is so low
• Religion: many religions encourage large families in order for the religion to have a stronger following; many also prohibit contraceptives
• Cultural benefits: having many children means that a person is passing down their own traits and values; there is also a prestige that comes with having kids

Question 284

What is role-playing, in regard to behavior and attitude

Answer 284

• A theory to try to explain how behavior influences attitude
• We role-play and “fake” behaviors until it starts to affect our attitudes
• For example: the first few days after having a baby, a woman may role-play the role of a mother; but after a few days, the mother takes on this role and it starts to feel more and more like her; this fits our attiude
• We have changed our attitude toward that role, by initially changing our behaviors in order to play a specific role

Question 285

How is the capacity to pay attention divided among the hemispheres?

Answer 285

• The right-hemisphere pays attention to whats going on both sides of the body and the environment
• The left-hemisphere only pays attention to what is going on on the right side of the body and the environment

Question 286

What is the muscle stretch reflex? How does the knee-jerk response occur?

Answer 286

• If a skeletal muscle is rapidly stretched, the muscle will contract, presumably as a protective response, so that the muscle will not be injured by being stretched quickly
• This happens because there are muscle spindles in skeletal muscle, receptors which recognize stretch, since the spindle gets streteched along with the muscle stretching
• Axons wrapped around these muscle spindles can detect the stretch and send that information back to the CNS
• This nerve synpases and sends an excitatory signal to another nerve (whose soma is in the CNS), and this second nerve will synpase onto the muscle and excite skeletal muscle in that area

Knee-Jerk Response

• Below the knee, there is a tendon which connects to the bones of the lower leg; when you hit it, it streteches the muscles of the thigh (like the quadriceps), which then contract in response

Question 287

What is photopic vision?

Answer 287

Photopic vision is the vision of the eye under well-lit conditions

• photopic visionallows color perception, mediated by cone cells, and a significantly higher visual acuity and temporal resolution than available with scotopic vision

Question 288

What is Kluver-Bucy syndrome?

Answer 288

Bilateral destruction of the amygdalas

• results in hypersexuality, hyperorality and disinhibited behavior

Question 289

What is the diffusion of responsibiity theory? What other theory does it help to explain?

Answer 289

• States that when individuals are in the presence of others, they feel less personal responsibility and are less likely to take action when in a situation where help is needed
• Helps to explain the bystander effect

Question 290

What is the auditory canal? Another name for it?

Answer 290

• Where the sound wave moves into after being directed there by the outer part of the ear (pinna/auricle)
• Also known as the external acoustic meatus

Question 291

What is the vomeronasal organ? What is its function?

Answer 291

• Mainly used to detect pheromones, chemical messengers that carry information between individuals of the same species
• An accessory olfactory system which contains sensory neurons that detect chemical stimuli
• A axons from these sensory neurons project to the accessory olfactory bulb
• All axons will synpase onto a location known as a glomerulus in th accessory olfactory bulb
• Neuron -> Glomerulus -> mitral/tufted cell -> Amygdala
• Thus, by responding to extracelluar cues (pheromones), we will create a behavioral response in the animal
• Note: humans have a vomeronasal organ, but do not have an accessory olfactory bulb, so we rely very little on pheromones

Question 292

What is the biopsychosocial approach to psychological disorders?

Answer 292

• Assumes that there are biological, psychological and social components to an individual’s disorder
• Biological component: genes, issues with neurons, etc.
• Psychological: thoughts, emotions, or behaviors
• Social: results from the individual’s surroundings and can include issues of perceieved class in society and even discrimination or stigmatization

Question 293

What is a fixed mindset vs a growth mindset, in regard to intelligence?

Answer 293

• Fixed mindset: thinking that intelligence is biological and there’s nothing we can do to change it
• Growth mindset: that intelligence can be altered if we’re willing to learn more
• People with growth mindsets tend to do better in their careers

Question 294

What is selective attention? What are the types of things that can direct our attention

Answer 294

Focus on one part of the sensory enivornment while ignoring the others

• Exogenous cues: external to any goals we have ourselves; we don’t have to tell ourselves to pay attention (include things like bright colors, loud noises, etc. )
• Endogenous cues: require internal knowledge to follow the in the first place and require the intention to follow it (example: if you didn’t know what an arrow meant, you wouldn’t know to follow it and look at where it is pointing)

Question 295

In regard to the CNS, what is a tract?

Answer 295

• Collections of axons within the white matter that are traveling together (starting at a similar area and heading to a similar area)
• Often carry similar information from one part of the CNS to another part of the CNS

Question 296

What are some issues with functionalism?

Answer 296

• Focuses completely on institutions with little regard with the importance to the individual; the inividual is acknowledged but nothing they do affects the structures of society
• Also largely unable to explain social change and conflict; functionalism is focused on the equilibrium of the society so no change is possible
• Structures of the society only change slightly so that equilibrium is met again

Question 297

How is langague involved in Vygotsky’s theory of sociocultural development?

Answer 297

• Language is the main method by which information is transmitted from adults (more knowledgable others) to children
• For children, it’s a powerful tool of adaptation
• Children engage in internal speech, speaking outloud to oneself, which is a way for children to plan and is thus an accelerator for thinking thinking and understanding

Question 298

What is the pinna?

Answer 298

Also known as the auricle

• The cartilaginous outside part of the ear
• First place that a soundwave will hit

Question 299

Describe which parts of the cerebellum coordinate which types of movement

Answer 299

• Middle of the cerebellum coordinates movements that occur along the midline, like the torso and walking
• The peripheral parts of the cerebellum coordiate limb movements (when they are being used individually, not as in walking)
• Many parts of the cerebellum coordinate the muscles involved in speech; damage to the cerebellum can lead to issues with pronunciation and enuciation
• Many parts of the cerebellum are also involved in eye movement

Question 300

What are the four sources of self-efficacy?

Answer 300

1. Mastery of experience: if we’ve done something before and succeeded, our sense of self-efficacy will be strengthened
2. Social modeling: Seeing people similar to ourselves successfully master a task, makes us believe we can do it too
3. Social persuasion: When people say something positive and encouraging, we are more likely to believe we can achieve a goal
4. Psychological responses: By learning to minimize stress and elevate mood in a situation that was previously nerve-wrecking or stressful, we can enhance self-efficacy

Question 301

When discussing signal detection theory, what does the variable d’ stand for?

Answer 301

d’: sensitivity index

• It provides the separation between the means of the signal and the noise distributions, compared against the standard deviation of the signal or noise distribution

In the image, Beta: intensity of the sound

Question 302

What is the the psychossexual development component of the psychoanalytic theory? Who developed this theory?

Answer 302

• Psychoanalytic theory of personality states that that our childhood experiences and unconscious desires affect our personality
• Libido, or an natural energy, which fuels the mechanism of the mind; if this libidinal energy is stuck or fixed at various stages of psychosocial development, conflicts occur that can have lifelong effects
• Fixation at a particular stage is what affects adult personality

Stages:

• Oral stage (0 to 1 year):
• Anal stage (1 to 3 years)
• Phallic/Oedipal stage (3 to 5 years)
• Latency: once libido is sublimated, the child enter latency which lasts until puberty
• Genital : begins in puberty and lasts through adulthood
• Developed by Sigmund Freud

Question 303

What is signal detection theory? What are the outcomes that are utilized when determining if the signal is detected?

Answer 303

• A theory which describes how we make decisions under conditions of uncertainty
• Example: we are driving and its foggy and we are stopped at a red light; at what point do we decide if the light is green
• If the light is green and we say it’s green, it’s a hit
• If the light is green and we say it’s not, that’s a miss
• If the light is not green and we say it’s green, that’s a false alarm
• If the light is not green and we say it’s not green, that’s a correct rejection

Question 304

What is social exchange theory?

Assumptions associated with this theory?

Answer 304

• The application of rational-choice theory to social interactions; the behavior of an individual in an interaction can be figured out by looking at the rewards vs. punishments for the behavior
• Behavior is guided by self-interest (what is best for us) and interdependence (that we need each other to survive)
• If an interaction is approved, then it is more likely to be repeated, as social approval is a reward
• If an interaction leads to pusishment, then it is more likely to be avoided, as social disapproval is a type of punishment

Assumptions:

1. People seek to maximize their profits (rewards)
2. Behavior that results in a reward is likely to be repeated; however, the more often that reward is availble, the less value that reward has
3. Interacts operate within social norms
4. We have access to the information we need in order to make rational decisions
5. Standards of interactions change over time; what is seen as a reward to one person can be seen as a punishment to another

Question 305

Describe the timing of the sleep cycles and how we move through them.

Answer 305

• Go through 4-5 cycles of sleep in a given night
• N1, N2, N3, back to N2, REM, then back to N1 to start over
• Each cycle takes about 90 min

Question 306

What are some things that making multi-tasking or dividing attention difficult?

Answer 306

• Task similarity: much harder to write a paper and listen to an interview at the same time, than writing a paper and listening to classiic music
• Task difficulty: the more difficult, the more of our attention it needs
• Practice: activities that have been practiced become automatic processes

Question 307

What is the psychoanalytical theory? What are the components of it? Are these conscious or unconscious

Answer 307

• Psychoanalytic theory of personality states that that our childhood experiences and unconscious desires affect our personality

Id: consistes of all the basic primal, inborn urges to survive and reproduce; demands immediate gratification

• Unconscious

Ego: involved in ouer perceptions, thoughts, and judgements; seeks long-term gratification oveer immediate gratification

• Conscious and unconscious

Super-ego: moral compass; develops around the age of 5; responds to our actions, pride at our accomplishments and guilt at our failures

• Our conscience
• Mostly unconscious, but some conscious

Question 308

What are Drives? What are primary drives?

Answer 308

Drives: internal states of tension that activate particualr behaviors focused on goals

• Thought to originate within an individual without requiring external factors to motivate mbehavior
• Drives help humans survive by creating an uncomfortable state, ensuring motivation to eliminate this state

Primary drives: include the need for food, water, and warmth and help us to sustain bodily processes in homeostasis

Question 309

Describe the lens of the eye. What is its function?

Answer 309

• Bi-convex lens
• Lies right behind the irisis
• Helps control the refraction of the incoming light

Question 310

Where are the mitochondria located in the sperm?

Answer 310

In the midpeice of the sperm

• Mitochondria generate the energy to ue used as the sperm swims through the female reproductive tract to reach the ovum in the fallopian tubes
• Generate energy from fructose

Question 311

What type of tactile stimulus do Ruffini Endings respond to?

Answer 311

• Respond to stretch

Question 312

What is the ventral tegmental area (VTA)?

Answer 312

• An area in the midbrain which sends projects to the cerebral cortex
• Releases dopamine profusely into the cerebral cortex

Question 313

What is conflict theory?

Answer 313

• A way of studying society that focuses on the inequalities in different groups
• Karl Marx proposed that a society where one group exploited another group, economically, would contain the seeds of its own destruction
• There is a accepted state (thesis) that would create a reactive state (the antithesis)
• Example: bourgeoise (the minority) owned the factories and exploited the proletariat (majority; workers) to do the work
• Thesis: In a capitalist society, the accepted thesis was the the bourgeoise ran the factories while the working class provided the labor
• Antithesis: The desire of the working class to change the way things were
• Both of these cannot exist together as one group is happy and one group is dissatisfied with the status quo
• Synthesis: the eventual compromise that arose from the struggle between the two groups; eventually becomes a thesis in its own right

Question 314

In regard to the trait theory of personality, who was Gordon Allport?

What was his theory?

Answer 314

• Stated that all of us have different traits, i.e. that we all have a subset of traits from this universal “list of traits and that we all have a different subset of these traits; he came up with 4,500 words to describe traits
• From this 4,500, he defined three categories of traits:

Cardinal: characteristics that direct most of a person’s activities; dominant traits: influence the central and secondary traits

Central: present to some degree in almost everyone; much more common and serve as the basic building blocks of most people’s personality (Examples: honesty, shyness, sociability)

Secondary: preferences or attitudes (Example: reluctance to eat meat; love for modern art)

Question 315

What are syncytiotrophoblasts?

Answer 315

• epithelial covering of the highly vascular embryonic placental villi, which invades the wall of the uterus to establish nutrient circulation between the embryo and the mother
• The trophoblasts that are not part of the syncytiotrophoblasts are called cytotrophoblasts

Question 316

What is the absolute threshold of sensation? What type of mathematical function does this concept display?

Answer 316

The minimum intensity of a stimulus required to detect a particular stimulus 50% of the time

• 50% takes into account variation between individuals and within an individual

Question 317

What is insight learning?

Answer 317

• Immediate and clear learning or understanding that takes place without overt trial-and-error testing. Insight occurs in human learning when people recognize relationships (or make novel associations between objects or actions) that can help them solve new problems
• An “ah-ha!” moment (for example, when you’re trying to solve a complex math problem and all of a sudden, the solution comes to you)

Question 318

What is a reference group?

Answer 318

• Groups that establish the terms by which individuals evaluate themselves
• It becomes the individual’s frame of reference and source for ordering his or her experiences, perceptions, cognition, and ideas of self

Example: if we’re applying to medical school, the reference group is other medical school candidates

Question 319

When the tympanic membrane vibrates, it acts on the three ossicles. What are these ossicles?

Answer 319

Malleus (hammer); afficed to the tympanic membrane

• Incus (anvil)
• Stapes (stirrup); the baseplate of the stapes rests in the oval window of the cochlea

Question 320

What are neurodevelopmental disorders? List a few disorders contained within this category.

Answer 320

Disorders which involve distress or disability from an abnormality of the development of the nervous system that causes mental dysfunction

• Include: intellectual disability (previously mental retardation), autism spectrum disorders, and ADHD

Question 321

What is scapegoating?

Answer 321

• The practice of singling out a person or group for unmerited blame and consequent negative treatment. Scapegoating may be conducted by individuals against individuals (e.g. “he did it, not me!”), individuals against groups (e.g., “I couldn’t see anything because of all the tall people”), groups against individuals (e.g., “Jane was the reason our team didn’t win”), and groups against groups

Question 322

How do feelings of insecurity affect conformity?

Answer 322

• We are more likely to conform when we feel or are made to feel insecure; makes us feel less comfortable about our own knowledge, which increases the likelihood that we are going to follow the judgements of others

Question 323

Describe how moving endolymph in the ear causes hair cells to depolarize?.

Answer 323

Hair cells: have stereocilium on them, called kinocilium that are attached to other cilium via tip links

• The tip links are attached to a K+ channel
• As the kinocilum gets gets moved by the flowing endolymph, the tip links are stretched which causes the K+ channel to open
• Intracellular K+ opens Ca2+ channels, so Ca2+ also flows in
• These two ions cause depolarization of the cell and a subsequent action potential

Question 324

What are the three types of taste buds? Where are they located?

Answer 324

• Fungiform: located at the front of the tongue
• Foliate: located at the sides of the back part of the tongue
• Circumvallate: found in the back of the tongue
• With the foliate and circumvallate taste buds, the buds are located along the sides of the mounded structure

Question 325

What are sleepwalking and sleeptalking? When in sleep do they occur?

Answer 325

• Occur in the N3 stage of sleep
• Harmless as long as you are safe
• Occur more frequently in children since children experience more N3 stage sleep
• Most return to bed without absolutely no knowledge of their nighttime activities

Question 326

In regard to somatosensory tracts, there are two pathways which carry different types of information. What information is carried in each of these pathways?

Answer 326

• Position
• Vibration
• Fine touch
• Pain
• Temperature
• Gross touch
• Note: these stimuli in the head and neck will travel through nerves into cranial nerves and into the brain stem; from the periphery, the information will travel through nerves, into spinal nerves and into the spinal cord

Question 327

Where in the cochlea are high frequency sounds transmitted into neural imputs? What about low frequency sounds?

Answer 327

• High frequency sounds activate hair cells that are closer to the beginning/base of the cochlea
• Low frequency sounds activate hair cells that are closer to the apex/tip of the cochlea
• In the auditory cortex, there are regions which respond to sounds with a given frequency, for example, an area that responds to sounds with a frequency of 0.5kHz
• This is how we can hear, distinctly, a base drum and a bees wings at the same time

Question 328

What are substance induced disorders?

Answer 328

Disorders which ult of substance are brought about due to use, abuse, intoxication, or withdrawal of/from a drug

Some of these disorders include: delirium, dementia, psychosis, mood, anxiety, sexual dysfunction and sleep

Question 329

What is bottom-up processing?

Answer 329

When the brain takes individual sensory stimuli and combines them together to create a cohensive image before determining what the object is

• Also known as data-driven processing; recognition by parallel processing and feature detection

Question 330

What is inattentional blindness?

Answer 330

• When we are not consciously aware of things that happen in our visual field when our attention is directed elsewhere

Example: can you tell where the closest fire extinguisher is? You’ve probably walked by one every day, but failed to notice it because attention was focused elsewhere; even though its an important tool for our survival in the case of a fire

Question 331

Why does eating a jalapeno cause you to sweat?

Answer 331

• Capsaicin, the “spice” molecule in jalapenos binds to the TRPV1 receptor
• This receptor is a sensory receptor that responds both to pain and to temperature; thus, it induces us to sweat since it triggers the response that a change in temperature would induce

Question 332

What are flashbulb memories?

Answer 332

• Emotionally attached, extremely vivid memories
• Example: birth of a child or 9/11
• While may seem vivid, can still undergo reconstruction

Question 333

What are some ways we try to implement self control?

Answer 333

Change our environment: work to make the object of temptation harder to get, while making other, better options easier to get

Operant Conditioning: using positive or negative reinforcement to increase a good behavior or use punishment to decrease bad behaviors

Classical conditioning: use classical conditioning to train ourselves; for example, if everytime we crave chocolate, we then give ourselves strawberries, over time we’ll grow to crave strawberries when we want something sweet

Note: Deprivation doesn’t work; if we remove something completely, 1. we usaully want it more and two, it requires a lot of self control, ego depletion can occur and we can then fail at our goal more easily (like being on a diet and allowing yourself no sweets, rather than limited sweets)

Question 334

What is social loafing? How can you reduce social loafing?

Answer 334

• The tendency to put forth less effort when working on a group task, if the individual contributions aren’t evaluated
• To reduce social loafing, increase the “individual” component of something; for example, in a group project, give the group a grade, but also give grades to each individual in the project; or you can split up projects so each person has their own piece (then there’s no real group project, but more a collection of individual projects that form a group project)

Question 335

What are the four most important parts of the limbic system when it comes to emotion?

Answer 335

Hypothalamus

• Amygdala
• Thalamus
• Hippocampus

Think of a Hippo Wearing a HAT

Question 336

What is an fMRI? How does it work?

Answer 336

• functional magnetic resonance imaging
• Have the same structures that can be seen by the MRI, but can see which of these structures are active
• Neurons that are firing a lot, require more oxygen than non-active neurons; by measuring the relative amounts of oxygenated to deoxygenated blood in the brain, we can figure out how active something is

Question 337

What is the “g factor”? What type of theory does it support?

Answer 337

G factor: a variable that summarizes positive correlations among different cognitive tasks, reflecting the fact that an individual’s performance on one type of cognitive task tends to be comparable to that person’s performance on other kinds of cognitive tasks

• Example: an individual who does well on verbal tests is likely to do well (relative to otheres in the general population) on math tests
• Supports the theory that there is one general type of intelligence

Question 338

What are the three main categories of 12-step plan commonly employed by alcoholics anonymous?

Answer 338

1. Acceptance (that you have a problem)
2. Surrender (to a higher problem and allow yourself to be helped)
3. Active involvement (going to meetings and helping other recovering addicts)

Question 339

What was the Marshmallow Study?

Answer 339

• A study which sought to research self-control
• Kids were given a marshmallow and told that if they waited 15 minutes to eat the marshmallow, they would get a second marshmallow
• When followed-up 10 years later, those that had self-control achieved higher levels of education, higher SAT scores better social skills, lower drug use and better relationships

Question 341

What is intragenerational mobility?

What is intergenerational mobility?

Answer 341

• Intragenerational mobility: change in social status happens within a person’s lifetime

Example: I was born into a lower class family, ended up doing well and when I died, I was upper class

• Intergenerational mobility: change in social status between generations, from parents to children

Example: my parents were born into lower class, but they worked hard and thus, I was born into an upper class family

Question 342

What is population transfer?

Answer 342

• The movementof a large group of people from one region to another, often a form of forced migration imposed by state policy or international authority and most frequently on the basis of ethnicity or religion but also due to economic development

Question 343

What is encoding?

Answer 343

The act of moving information from the temporary store in the working memory into the permanent store in the long-term memory

Question 344

What is ego depletion?

Answer 344

• The idea that self control is a limited resource; that if you use a lot of self control, it will get used up and you will have less of it in the future
• Tasks that deplete self control can have a negative influence on later, unrelated tasks

Example: in a study, those asked not to eat the fresh-baked goods in front of them, gave up more quickly on an unrelated tedious task, than those who were allowed to eat the baked goods when they wanted

Question 345

What is the attribution theory?

Answer 345

• Our tendency to infer the causes of other people’s behaviors
• Two parts: internal (dispositional) and external (situational)
• External: a person is acting some way because of something about the situation that he/she is in
• External has three things to consider:
• Consistency: refers the consistent behavior of a person over time; does the person usually behave this way in this situation
• Distinctiveness: refer to the extent to which a person engaes in similar behavior across a series of scenarios; if a peron’s behavior varies in different scenarios, we are more likely to form a situational attribution to explain in
• Consensus: do others behavior similarly in this situation

If we can say “yes” to distinctiveness and consensus, then we can say the situation is having an effect on the person

If we say yes to “consistency,” then we know that the person acts consistently across situations and their behavior is not dependent on the situation

Example: you go to the zoo with your best friend, and she dosn’t like snakes, but takes the time to read about them and learn about them; the next day, you bring a snake to her house and she yells and runs out of the door; thus, the distinct situation, she acted differently than at at the zoo, but in a way that was in consensus with how a lot of people scared of snakes might act, thus we may attribute her behavior to the situation

Question 346

Describe the recovery time of rods vs cones

Answer 346

Rods: slow

• As soon as a rod is activated by a ray of light, and subsequently fires an action potential, it takes a long time for the rod to reset to be able to fire another action potential

Cones: fast

Question 347

What is urbanization?

Answer 347

• Urbanization refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, “the gradual increase in the proportion of people living in urban areas”, and the ways in which each society adapts to the change

Question 348

How does sensory adaptation apply to sense of sight?

Answer 348

• This is how we adjust to bright light, with changes in the pupil and with the sensitivity of the rods and cones
• With bright light, the pupil constricts, to not damage the retina and the sensitivity of the rods and cones goes down, so with bright light, the eye is desensitized to light
• With low light, the pupil dilates and the rods and cones synthesize more light sensitive molecules, so the eye becomes more sensitized to light, leading to an upregulation in sensitivity

Question 349

Where are the rods located? And the cones?

Answer 349

• Cones are mostly centralized at the center of the retina in the fovea of the macula
• Rods are more lateral to this region

Question 350

What are subliminal stimuli?

Answer 350

Stimuli that are below the absolute threshold of sensation

Question 351

What are some functions of acetylcholine?

Answer 351

• In the periphery, it is the neurotransmitter released from lower motor neurons onto muscles to cause them to contract
• Functions in the ANS
• Functions in arousal and attention

Question 352

What is a fixed-interval partial reinforcement schedule?

Answer 352

• Interval: a measure of time
• Fixed: consistent
• When reinforcement occurs after a consistent amount of time

Example: a car sales man gets paid every two weeks, no matter if he sells one car or 10 cars; does not have a lot of incentive to sell many cars

Question 353

In operant conditioning, describe:

• Positive reinforcement
• Negative reinforcement
• Positive punishment
• Negative punishment

Answer 353

Reinforcement: increase the tendency of the goal behavior to occur again

• Positive reinforcement: something is added to increase the tendency of the behavior happening again
• Negative reinforcement: something is taken away to increase the tendency of the behavior happening again

Punishment: decreased the tendency of the behavior to occur

• Positive punishment: something is added to decrease the tendency of the behavior happening again
• Negative punishment: something is taken away to decrease the tendency of the behavior happening again
• Example: Goal behavior: safe driving
• Positive reinforcement: if you are a safe driver and following all the rules, you will get a gas card
• Negative reinforcement: Putting on your seatbelt removes the loud beeping sound which happens when the seat belt is not on
• Positive punishment: Getting a speeding ticket for speeding (adding the speeding ticket to decrease the liklihood of speeding again)
• Negative punishment: taking away the license in order to decrease unsafe driving behaviors

Question 354

What is Broca’s aphasia?

Answer 354

• When there is damage to the Broca’s area, speech comprehension is intact but the patient wil have a reduced or absent ability to produce spoken language

Question 355

What is the difference between obstructive and central sleep apnea?

Answer 355

Obstructive

- caused by complete or partial obstructions of the upper airway

• 15 or more apneas per hour

Central

• A disorder in which the effort to breathe is diminished or absent; the control centers in the brain are malfunctioning
• No airway obstruction
• 5 or more apneas per hour

Question 356

What are some specific structures of the brain that develop during adolescence?

Answer 356

Pre-frontal cortex

- the part of the brain that is responsible for higher order thinking

• this may be why teenagers do not always have the best judgement

Limbic system:

• Includes: amygdala, which is responsible for emotion and emotional responses
• Includes: hypothalamus, which (among many other things) is involved in regulation of the endocrine system
• Might explain why teenagers can be moody and have emotional outbursts

Corpus callosum

• Continues to develop with regard to language connections and language learnning, but stops after pubtery
• May explain why learning a language is much easier in childhood than adulthood

Question 357

What is a subculture?

Answer 357

• A group of people within a culture that differentiates itself from the parent culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles.
• Subcultures develop their own norms and values regarding cultural, political and sexual matters. Subcultures are part of society while keeping their specific characteristics intact

Examples: orthodox jews in NYC

• Can support people throughout their entire lives

Question 358

How long does embryogenesis last?

Answer 358

10 weeks from last known menstrual period

• 8 weeks after fertilization
• Organogenesis occurs here; and after this point the embryo is now a fetus

Question 359

What are riots?

Answer 359

• A type of collective behavior in which large groups of people suddenly engage in deviant behavior, like vandalism, violence or other crimes
• Very chaotic and usually cause severe damage
• Seen as a collective act of deviance and are often the result of a perceived issue like frustration with working conditions, issues between races or the outcome of a sporting event
• While the cause of the riot may be legitimate, the group acts out in ways that are illegal and damaging to society as a whole

Question 360

What are the three types of memory retrieval?

Answer 360

• Free recall
• Cued recall
• Recognition

(Free recall is hardest; recognition is easiest)

• Example: provided a list of words, including blueberries, bananas, peach
• Free recall: write down as many as you remember
• Cued recall: fill in the blanks: 1. Bl_____, ba_____, pe____
• Recognition: which of these words were in the list: blueberries, apples, pears, peaches, bananas strawberries

Question 361

What is globalization?

Answer 361

The sharing of culture, money, and products between countries that is happening because of international trade and advances in transportation and communication

• Can also be a social phenomenon where people become aware of culture and and peoples, across geographical and social borders

Question 362

With regard to problem solving, what is insight and incubation?

Answer 362

• Insight: the “ah-ha” moment; when you are trying to solve a problem and it isn’t working and all of a sudden you find the solution
• Incubation: the time when you are not actively thinking about a problem, but still might be thinking about it unconsciously
• For example: if you are trying to remember the name of an actor and cant, then only after incubation, does the name pop into your head (insight) as you are going to bed that night

Question 363

What is cultural diffusion?

Answer 363

• The spread of cultural items—such as ideas, styles, religions, technologies, languages—between individuals, whether within a single culture or from one culture to another.

Example: Food originating in America can be seen in other countries; eating sushi in America; speaking Spanish in a non-Spanish speaking country

Question 364

How does your sensory adaptation apply to sense of smell?

Answer 364

• When exposed to a scent over time, we do not recognize the scent as much as we did initialy
• This is because the sensory receptors in the nose become desensitized to the molecules

Question 365

What is Carl Roger’s most known theory? What theory of personality does this contribute to?

Answer 365

• Contributes to the humanisitc theory of personality, which focuses on the value of individuals and their free-will and describe those ways in which people strive toward self-actualization.
• Says that Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs are nurtured earlier in life; self-actualization is a constant growth process that is nurtured in a growth-promoting environment

Two conditions:

• Growth is promoting when an individual is being genuine; a person needs to open and revealing about themselves
• Growth is nurtured through acceptance from others
• By being genuine in who we are, and people around us accepting that that is who we are, we can reach self-actualization

Question 366

What are the illnesses involved in Cluster A personality disorders?

Answer 366

Paranoid personality disorder: maked by a pervasive distrust of others nd a suspicious regarding their motives

Schizotypal personality disorder: refers to a pattern of odd or eccentric thinking; these inivdiuals may have ideas of refeence (similar to delusions of refernce, but not as extremee in intensity) as well as magical thinking, such as superstitiousness or a belief in clairvoyance

Schizoid personality disorder: a pervasive pattern of detatchment from social relationships and a restriced range of emotional epxression; show little desire for social ineteraction, have few friends and poor social skills

Question 367

What is sensory adaptation?

Answer 367

A change in the sensitivity of the perception of a sensation

Question 368

What is internalization?

Answer 368

• A type on conformity, where we do not only conform publicly with a behavior, but conform privately with it as well
• The idea, belief of behavior has been integrated into our own set of ideas, beliefs or behaviors
• This type on conformity is stronger than compliance or identification, since we won’t stop doing it or believing in it when external circumstances have changed

Question 369

What are the different routes of entry for a drug? What are their relative times to effect?

Answer 369

Oral: slow; can take 30 min because it has to go through the GI tract and get absorbed into the blood

Inhalation: faster; less than 10 seconds, becuase it can go directly into the brain

Intravenous Injection: takes effect within seconds

Transdermal: drug is absorbed via the skin (like a nictoine patch); drug has to be pretty potent and can be released into bloodstream over several hours

Intramuscular: drug is put into the muscle instead of into the blood (intraveous injection)

• Note: people are more likely to become dependent on drugs that take effect more quickly

Question 370

What is an MRI? How does it work?

Answer 370

• Uses magnetic fields and radiowaves
• A person is put inside a machine with a strong magnetic field, which causes the atoms in the brain to align; a radiowave is the added to that field which disrupts the orientation of these atoms; as the atoms move back to align with the original plane, they emit a signal, which can then be recognized, as different types of atoms create different signals, to create an image
• Gives us a detailed image of the structure of the brain, but cannot provide information about function

Question 371

How does the prefrontal cortex engage in emotional processing?

Answer 371

• Prefrontal cortex is responsible for language, information processing, higher order thinking (the things that make us human)
• Thus, the prefrontal cortex allows us to consider our emotions and allows us to make decisions on how to act upon them
• Example: when someone pushes you, the prefrontal cortex may allow you to think “no, violence is not the answer, walk away”

Question 372

What is the behavioral theory of personal? Who were the proponents of this theory?

Answer 372

• Personality is a result of the interactions that occur between a person and their environment
• Focuses on observable and measurable behaviors rather than mental or emotional behaviors
• Theorists
• Pavlov: Classical conditioning
• Skinner: Operant conditioning

Question 373

What is supression?

Answer 373

A type of mature defense mechanism, in which we actively take conscious negative feelings and push them away from conscious though so we can move on, but these thoughts can be accessed at a later time when we can deal with them

Question 374

What is Culture Shock?

Answer 374

• Refers to the feelings of disorentiation, uncertainty or even fear that people experience when they encouter unfaimilar cultural practices

Question 375

What are some important agents of socialization

Answer 375

• Family
• Schools
• Peers
• Mass media

Question 376

When regarding visual cues, what is convergence?

Answer 376

When we are looking at something far away, the muscles are relaxed, but then we are looking at something nearby, the muscles in the eyes turn the eyeballs toward the object, which allows the brain to register how far or close the object is from us

• Depth perception

Question 377

What is intelligence? What is IQ (and the associated equation)?

Answer 377

• A mental quality which allows you to learn from experience, solve problems and adapt to new situations

IQ: intelligence quotient

• IQ= (mental age/ chronological age) x 100

Question 378

What is the macula?

Answer 378

• Oval-shaped pigmented area near the center of the retina of the human eye
• Responsible for the central, high-resolution, color vision that is possible in good light
• Contains the fovea

Question 379

What is intersex?

Answer 379

• people are born with any of several variations in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, or genitals
• Not just XX or XY (thus, biological sex is not as binary as we make it seem)

Question 380

What are the branches of the autonomic nervous system?

Answer 380

Sympathetic: “ fight-or-flight”

• Pupils dilate (bring in more light to see what we’re fighting)
• Decreases in salivation
• Increases respiratory rate (better oxygenation)
• Increases HR (better oxygenation)
• Increases glycogenolysis from liver
• Increases release of epinephrine and norepinephrine from adrenal glands
• Slows digestion

Parasympathetic: “rest-and-digest”

• Constriction of pupils
• Increases salivation
• Decreases respiratory rate
• Decreases HR
• Increases glucose storage in the liver
• Decreases adrenal secretion
• Increases digestion

Question 381

What is dissociative identity disorder?

Answer 381

• Formerly, multiple personality disorder
• A condition in which there are two or more personalities that recurrently take control of a person’s behaior
• Results when the components of identity fail to integrate
• In most cases, patients have suffered severe physical or sexual abuse as a young child

Question 382

What is long-term potentiation?

Answer 382

• As a stimulus is repeated, the stimulated neurons become more efficient at releasing their neurotransmitters and, at the same time, the receptor sites on the other side of the synpase increase, increasing receptor density
• This is believed to be the neurophysiological basis of long-term memory and how learning occurs
• This is aptly named; we know that the membrane potential of the post-synpatic neuron changes (i.e. ions rush in when stimulated), thus the strength of a synpase is a product of how a pre-synpatic impulse can impact the change of the membrane potential in the post-synpatic neuron

Question 383

What is intersectionality?

Answer 383

• How various forms of social stratification, such as class, race, sexual orientation, age, disability and gender, do not exist separately from each other but are complexly interwoven
• This is important, because the intersection of these various forms of discrimination, there is this immense discrimination, which may place an indivdiual at extreme disadvantage within a society; in order to understand the level of discrimination faced by an individual, we have to understand each discrimination as well as the intersect of thse various forms of discrimination
• Example: a black transgender woman may face discrimination from being black, from being a woman and from being transgendered and at the intersect, there is heavy discrimination
• If we only consider the fact that she is a woman, then we won’t understand the level of discrimination which she faces

Question 384

What is deindividuation?

Answer 384

• A phenomenon in which individuals in a group are are more likely to act impulsively, commit crimes or perform antisocial acts, because the presence of the crowd conceals the person’s identity

Example: Black Friday; there’s such a large crowd that people are more likely to shove people, and sometimes even kill people (they probably wouldn’t do this if they were shopping alone on another day)

Example: Trolling on the internet

Question 385

What is absolute poverty?

Answer 385

• A socioeconomic condition in which people do not have enough money or resources to maintain a quaity of life that includes abasic life needs such as shelter, food, clothing and water
• Applies across locations, countries and cultures
• As such, as a society gets richer, the number of people that are in absoute poverty drops
• Absolute poverty applies mostly to developing countries

Question 386

What is the theory of social facilitation?

Answer 386

• The theory that states that the presence of others will increase the liklihood that the most dominant response for a particular behavior will be shown
• Compared to their performance when alone, when in the presence of others, they tend to perform better on simple or well-rehearsed tasks and worse on complex or new ones

Example, help: If we’re about to give a speech and have practiced the speech tons of times and make few mistakes, the presence of a crowd will make us perform even better

Example, hinder: If we are about to give a speech and have barely practiced and don’t know it very well, then the presence of a crowd will make up perform more poorly than normal

Question 387

What is the fundamental attribution error?

Answer 387

• Tendency to assume that others, or individuals in an out-group, behave a certain way based on inherent characteristics or personality flaws, while believing that we, or the in-group, would only act in that way because of the situation that we’re in

Question 388

What is the sclera?

Answer 388

Thick, fibrous and structural layer that covers most of the eye (except at the cornea)

Question 389

What is a variable-ratio partial reinforcement schedule?

Answer 389

Variable: includes variation

Ratio: number of responses

• Reinforcer is delivered after an averge number of correct responses has occurred

Example: A fixed-ratio schedule would be a car sales man needing to sell 5 cars to get a bonus, and every 5 cars he gets that bonus

• A variable-ratio schedule would be that he gets the first bonus after 5 cars, the second after 3 cars, the third after 7 cars, the fourth after 6 cars and the 5th after 4 cars; thus, on average, he is getting rewarded every 5 cars, but the interval at which these bonuses are received is varied

Example of a true variable-ratio: slot machine

Question 390

In classical conditioning, what is extinction?

Answer 390

When a conditioned stimulus is presented alone, so that it no longer predicts the coming of the unconditioned stimulus, conditioned responding gradually stops

For example: After Pavlov’s dog was conditioned to salivate at the sound of a metronome, it eventually stopped salivating to the metronome after the metronome had been sounded repeatedly but no food came

Question 391

What are the components/functions of the occipital lobe?

Answer 391

• Primary responsibility: Vision
• Includes the striate cortex: the part of the visual cortex that is involved in processing visual information

Question 392

What is the Gestalt principle of closure?

Answer 392

When a space is enclosed by a group of lines, it is percieved as a complete or closed line; objects that are grouped together are seen as a whole

Image: mind fills in the blanks to create familiar images (like how there is no line at the top of the panda bears head or along its back, but we interpret one as being there anyways)

Question 393

Why does social facilitation occur?

Answer 393

• The presence of a crowd leads to arousal (nervous energy)
• This increased arousal is a physiological effect, which allows us to perform simple tasks with higher accuracy, but new or complex tasks with more difficulty
• Thus, if, for example, a speech is well rehersed, this arousal will make us perform better
• However, if the speech is poorly rehersed, and reciting it is new and complicated, under this state of arousal, we will make more mistakes

Question 394

What are the two stages to the cognitive response to stress (appraisal)?

Answer 394

Primary appraisal: the initial evaluation of the environment and the associated threat; focuses on the threat in the present situation

• Three appraisal types:
• Irrelevant: I see a threat but it’s not directed to me
• Benign-positive: A small fish sees a larg fish, which could be seen as a threat, but this fish is actually going after a medium size fish which is trying to eat the small fish
• Stressful: the stressor could be harmful or challenging; if this is the case, we move onto secondary appraisal
• Seconadary appraisal: directed at evaluating wehtehr the organism can cope with the stress
• Three appraisal types:

- Harm: damaged caused by the event

- Threat: potential for future damage

- Challenge: potential to overcome and possibly benefit from the event (how can I overcome the stress)

Question 395

What is the front stage self?

Back stage self?

Answer 395

Front stage: That part of the individual’s performance which regularly functions in a general and fixed fashion we define the situation for those who observe the performance. Front, then, is the expressive equipment of a standard kind intentionally or unwittingly employed by the individual during his performance

• During the front stage, the actor formally performs and adheres to conventions that have meaning to the audience.[9] It is a part of the dramaturgical performance that is consistent and contains generalized ways to explain the situation or role the actor is playing to the audience that observes it. The actor knows he or she is being watched and acts accordingly

Back stage self: Where the performer can relax; he can drop his front, forgo speaking in his lines, and step out of character

• When all is said and done, and the individual returns to the back stage, they feel such a sense of relief that they know the actions that would be condoned upon in the front stage are free to be expressed
• All their actions are not to please anyone but their self in the backstage.

Question 396

What is global inequality?

Answer 396

• inequality between people across countries
• Examples: access to clean water, access to healthcare, energy, housing and education
• Has been exacerbated by the large population spike
• Look at rates of maternal mortality or wealth distrubtion; these vary drastically by where you live

Question 397

What is group polarization? What must be present in order for group polarization to occur?

Answer 397

• describes the tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the individual ideas and inclinations of the members

For this to happen, several factors must be present:

• All views do not have the same influence; for a viewpoint to influence a group’s final decision, it is shared by the majority of the group
• Confirmation Bias: In discussions about the topic, arguments made tend to favor the majority view and criticism is directed at the minority view

Example: We are training a dog as a group and we all think that using treats is a good tool; we then discuss this, praising using treats, arguing for the use of treats and chastising the use of shock collars; leaving the conversation, we will feel more confident than ever that treats are the best way to train a dog

Question 398

What is a gyrus?

Answer 398

A ridge on the cerebral cortex

Question 399

What are the basalis nucleus and the septal nuclei?

Answer 399

• Particular nuclei in the front lobe that send diffuse projections up to a number of areas of the cerebral cortex
• Release acetylcholine diffusely throughout the cerebral cortex

Question 400

Describe how information from the right and left visual fields are processed in each eye, including how they travel through the optic chiasm and into the brain

Answer 400

• Information from the left visual field hits the nasal portion of the left side of the eye and the temporal portion of the right side of the eye
• The information recieved at the nasal portion travels down the optic nerve and crosses at the optic chiasm
• The information received at the temporal portion travels down the optic nerve, but does not cross at the optic chiasm
• Thus, the left visual field is processed by the right side of the brain
• Vice versa for the right visual field

Question 401

What are parasomnias?

Answer 401

• Abnormal movements or behvior during sleep
• Include night terrors and sleepwalking

Question 402

For what medical purpose can you use hallucinogens?

Answer 402

• PTSD treatment
• Sometimes allows people to recall a painful memory, but in a way that is detatched, and come to terms with it in a way that is not possible under normal circumstances

Question 403

What are folkways?

Answer 403

• A type of norm that refers to behavior that is consdered polite in particular social interactions; common rules or manners that we’re supposed to follow on a day-to-day basis
• The most “mild” type of norm; the consequences for not engaging in a folkway are not severe or consistent

Example: shaking hands after a sports match

Question 404

What is sensory memory? What are the classes of memory included in sensory memory? Where does sensory memory get moved to?

Answer 404

• First and most fleeting type of memory; a temporary register of all of the sensory information the senses are taking in
• Sensory memory gets passed along into working memory
• Iconic memory: memory for what we see (lasts less than 0.5 seconds)
• Echoic memory: memory for what we hear (lasts 3-4 seconds)

(The length that the memory stays has to do with the complexity of the stimulus; vision is vivid and lasts a short time; audition is more simple and lasts a longer time)

Question 405

What are the four main groups of psychoactive drugs?

Answer 405

• Depressants
• Stimulants
• Hallucinogens
• Opiates

Question 406

What is pluralism?

Answer 406

When small groups within a larger society maintain their unique cultural identities

• Dissimilar to assimilation

Question 407

What is symbolic interactionism?

Answer 407

• The study of the way individuals act through a shared undertanding of words, gestures and other symbols

Example: thumbs-up: sign of approval in american culture; an offensive gesture in some middle eastern cultures (so how we assign meaning is different)

• Microperspective

Question 408

What is the function of a mitral or tufted cell?

Answer 408

• Once a epithelial oflactory cell binds to its ligand, it fires an action potential and synpases onto a given glomerulus
• There, the signal is picked up by mitral or tufted cells, which send this signal to the brain
• Thus, mitral or tufted cells are part of the olfactory bulb and are located superior to the cribriform plate

Question 409

What is the Babinksi Reflex?

Answer 409

• The automatic spreading of the toes when the sole of the foot is stimulated
• One of the primitive or neonatal reflexes
• Disappears before 1 year of age

Question 410

What is a life table?

Answer 410

A table which shows, for each age, what the probability is that a person of that age will die before his or her next birthday

Question 411

What is rote rehersal?

Answer 411

• Say the same thing over and over again in order to put it into long term memory
• Very ineffective; does not require us to process the information, but only repeat it, so there is nothing the brain is doing to get it into long-term memory
• Successful memory techniques usually involve tying in the new information into previous known information

Question 412

What is an achieved status?

Answer 412

A status that is acquire on the basis of merit; it is a position that is earned or chosen, reflecting personal skills, abilities, and efforts

Example: Olympic athlete, being a criminal, or being a college professor

• Note: opposite of ascribed status

Question 413

What is cognitive flexibility in terms of stress managment?

Answer 413

• Allows us to look at how we’re dealing with the stress and figure out if we can fix it or not, and if not let it go, and if we can, evaluate if the tools were using are working or not

Question 414

What is Treisman’s Atteuation Theory of Selective Attention?

Answer 414

• This theory builds on the early and late theories, but eliminates the selective filter and replaces it with an attenuator
• Our brains processes a lot of information and quickly, so this theory says that instead of selectively filtering information, we dim things we are not selectively listening to, but upon hearing information we want to focus on, we attenuate our previous focus and redirect focus to the new stimuli, dampening the initial stimulus

Question 415

What is contralateral control?

Answer 415

The left side of the brain controls the right side of the body and vice versa

• True for almost all senses except for smell, which is ipsilateral

Question 416

What is body dysmorphic disorder?

Answer 416

• When a person has an unrealistic evaluation of his or her personal appearance and attractiveness, usually directed toward a certain body part
• Person sees nose, skin or stomach as ugly or even horrific, when it is actually normal in appearance
• Individuals may have disrupted day-to-day lives because of this; may also seek many plastic surgeries

Question 417

What is feminist theory?

Answer 417

• Focuses on understanding the inequalities inherent to capitalistic patriarchal societies; hopes not to replace men at the top of the society, but rather to understand the gender inequalities which exist in a society in order to achieve equality
• In patriarchal socities, men occupy the governing positions, in the family and in the community at large
• Women are subordinate, discriminated against, oppressed, marginalized and objectified
• Both women and men are often forced into socially accpetable gender-based roles

Question 418

What does paying attention to something mean? What are the types of attention

Answer 418

Concentrating on one aspect of the sensory environment with the exclusion of the other stimuli in the environment

• Selective attention
• Divided attention

Question 419

What is functionalism?

Answer 419

• Examines the necessary structures that make up a society and how each part helps to keep the society stable (large scale perspective)
• According to functionalism, society is heading toward an equilibrium between institutions and social facts
• Institutions: schools, marriage, government, etc.
• Social Facts: Ways of thinking and acting formed by society that existed before any one individual and will persist once any given individual is dead; has a coercive effect and we don’t notice it until it’s resisted against
• Example: the law; its always there, but we only notice it when we break it; other examples are moral regulations, religious faiths
• These things must work together to create a functional society

Question 420

How does sensory adaptation apply to proprioception?

Answer 420

Our brain is able to accomodate with changes in proprioception

• Example: if we put googles on someone, which flips the things they see around them, over time, the brain will adjust, and flip everything back to right side up, even with the goggles on

Question 421

What is deviance?

Answer 421

• Any violation of norms, rules or expectations within society and depends on the context, the group in which it occurs and location in the world (just like norms)
• While ususally this word has a negative context, in sociology, it simply refers to any at that goes against social norms and can vary in severity (jay walking vs murder)

Example: In the US, eating meat is seen as the normal behavior by the majority; thus, a vegetarian would be seen as a deviant

Question 422

What is divided attention?

Answer 422

The ability to perform multiple tasks at the same time

• While new or complex tasks require controlled (effortful) processing, where our complete attention is given to one type of stimulus, familar or routine actions can be performed with automatic processing, where the brain automatically does something (like driving) and allows you to perform other things at the same time

Question 423

What makes us more or less likely to be obedient?

Answer 423

More likely to be obedient

• closeness; the closer we are to the authority figure, the more likely we will be obedient
• physical proximity; more likely to obey someone standing nearby than somone on the other side of the room
• legitimacy: more likely to obey commands from a legitimate authority; for example, more likely to obey commands from the experimenter (Milgram study), if he was wearing a labcoat and carrying a clipboard
• depersonalization: when the victim is made to seem less human, possibly through sterotypes or prejudices, people are less likely to object to acting against them
• lack of defiance: we are more likely to be obedient, when we see those around us also being obedient

Less likely to be obedient

• Victim proximity: we less likely to do something harmful as an act of obedience if the person is sitting next to us, versus in another room (Example: in the Milgram study, the participant was less likely to be obedient if they had to physically pick up the learners hand and place it on the electrocuting device than if the person was in the other room)

Question 424

What are the semi-circular canals?

Answer 424

• Three semicircular, interconnected tubes located in the innermost part of each ear, the inner ear
• The three canals are the horizontal (or lateral), superior and posterior semicircular canals
• Canals are all at right angles to each other (orthogonal, or x axis, y axis and z axis)

Question 425

With regard to somatosensation, how is timing of a stimuli encoded? What are the neurons involved?

Answer 425

• Non-adapting neuron: during exposure to the stimulus, these neurons fire at a frequent rate
• Slow-adapting neuron: will fire quickly at the beginning of the stimulus, but then slow down over time
• Fast-adapting neuron: will fire quickly at the beginning of a stimulus and as well when the stimulus stops, but will not fire during the duration the stimulus

Question 426

What is the Palmer Grasp Reflex?

Answer 426

• The infant wil close their fingers aorund an object placed in his or her hand
• One of the primitive or neonatal reflexes
• Lasts 3-4 months and after that, the child can grasp things voluntarily

Question 427

What are the borders for the outer ear? Middle ear? Inner ear?

Answer 427

Outer: pinna to tympanic membrane

Middle: malleus to stapes

Inner: Oval window through everything else (cochlea and semi-circular canals)

Question 428

How dow we place value on jobs?

Answer 428

• Value jobs that require a lot of specialization and education rather than those that are essential to our society
• Creates inequality, because not everyone has access to the valued professions due to limited education or resources

Question 429

What is the cocktail part phenomenon?

Answer 429

• The ability to attend to one voice amidst many others
• Most commonly occurs when you hear your own name amid those voices
• This is an endogenous cue

Question 430

What is Korsakoff’s Syndrome? Describe why it develops and it’s stages?

Answer 430

• A form of memory loss caused by thiamine deficiency in the brain
• Linked to severe malnutrition, eating disorders or alcoholism
• Maked by both retrograde amnsiea and anterograde amnesia
• Another common symptom is confabulation: the process of creating vivid but fabricated memories, typically thought to be an attempt made by the brain to fill in the gaps of missing memories
• At the beginning stages, there is poor balance, abnormal eye movement, mild confusion and/or memory less== Wernicke’s Encephalopathy (the precursor syndrome)
• If untreated, it will develop into Korsakoff’s, which includes severe memory loss and confabulation
• Note: thiamine is important in taking carbohydrates and converting them to glucose

Question 431

What is cultural assimilation?

Answer 431

The process whereby a minority group gradually adapts to the customs and attitudes of the prevailing culture and customs

Question 432

What is the form of bias called “overconfidence”?

Answer 432

• Tendency to erroneously interpret one’s decisions, knowledge or beliefs as infalliable
• Tendency to be more confident than correct
• Can be due to fluency: if studying seemed very easy, but we never actually tested ourselves, we may feel fluent, but then are overconfident and do not do well on the test when we thought we could

Question 433

Why is the fovea a pit?

Answer 433

Around the pit, there are many neuronal cells with axons, however at the point of the fovea, there are no axons, so that the light does not have to pass through a bunch of axons to hit the cones

• In the periphery, distal from the fovea, light has to go through these layers before it hits a photoreceptor, so some of the energy of light is lost; this is minimized at the fovea

Question 434

What is the theory of triarchic intelligence? Who developed the theory?

Answer 434

• 3 independent intelligences, restricted to the definition of intelligence as things that would lead to real-world success
• Analytical, creative, practical intelligence
• Developed by Robert Sternberg

Question 435

What is microsociology?

Answer 435

• The small scale, everyday, social interactions between individuals or small groups of people
• Includes: families, schools, etc.
• Look at a sample of the society and interpret how those individual interactions would affect the larger patterns of a society, like institutions or social structures
• Example: how a teachers expectations influence student grades; doctor-patient interactions

Question 436

What are Framing Effects in regard to cognitive biases?

Answer 436

• an example of cognitive bias, in which people react to a particular choice in different ways depending on how it is presented; e.g. as a loss or as a gain
• People tend to avoid risk when a positive frame is presented but seek risks when a negative frame is presented

Example: If there is a disease coming through that can kill 600 people and you have to choose do you choose:

A. Save 200 people or B. 1/3 chance to save 600 people or 2/3 chance everyone will die

If we re-frame it:

A. Let 400 people die or B. 1/3 chance that no one dies or 2/3 chance everyone dies

In the first option, most people will pick A; in the second option, most poeple pick B, due to how the outcome was framed

Question 437

What is Freud’s theory of dreams? What are the two parts of dreams, according to Freud?

Answer 437

• Dreams are our unconscious urges and desires

Two parts:

• Manifest content: what is happening in the dream
• Latent content: what is the hidden meaning behind a dream; dreams have a hidden meaning, which we can identify to resolve hidden conflict

Question 438

What are the three components which affect a given population number?

Answer 438

• Fertility rate: children per woman per life time
• Mortality rate: deaths per 1,000 people per year
• Migration: immigration rate minus emigration rate

Question 439

What is a counterculture?

Answer 439

• A subculture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, often in opposition to mainstream cultural mores

Example: The Amish; reject mainstream technology and consumerism

Question 440

For what type of patients would you use cochlear implants?

Answer 440

Patients with sensorineural hearing loss ( also known as nerve deafness)

Question 441

In regard to universal emotions, what are some facial features seen with sadness?

Answer 441

• Uplifted, inner corner of the eyebrow
• Downturned lips

Question 442

What is displacement?

Answer 442

• A defense mechanism in which an individual may feel angry toward one person, but because it may be difficult to display that anger, the person directs that angera t an easier target

Example: Wife is mad at her husband, but instead, yells at her child

Question 443

What is the Nativist (biological) theory of language?

Answer 443

• Theory: Children are born with the ability to learn language; advocates for the existence of some innate capacity for language
• Language aquistion device (LAD): a theoretical pathway in the brain that allows infants to process and absorb language rules
• Believed this was the case, since all languages shared a universal grammar or some basic elements
• Critical period: the period between birth and age 8 or 9 , during which, if no languge exposure occurs during this time, later training is ineffective; LAD only operates during that time and adjusts to your native language
• Sensitive period: a time when environmental input has maximal effect on the development of language
• Credited to Noam Chomsky-

Question 444

What is dissociative amnesia? What else can these patients experience?

Answer 444

• A type of dissociative disorder which is characterized by an inability to recall past experiences; usually not due to neurological disorder but to trauma
• DIssociative fugue: a sudden, unexpected move or purposeless wandering away from one’s home or location of usual daily activities; individuals in a fugue state are confused about their identity and can even assume a new identity

Question 445

What is motion parallax?

Answer 445

• Monocular cue
• The objects are closest to us appear to move quickly while things further away appear to moving really slow
• Can get an idea of how far things are from you, given how fast they move relative to how fast we are moving

Example: when we’re in a car, the things closest to the car seem to move fast, whereas the mountains far away seem to move slowly

Question 446

What is the theory of general intelligence? Who developed the theory?

Answer 446

• Used factor analysis, a statistical procedure, to identify clusters of related abilities
• Predicted that the g factor could predict our outcome in various academic areas
• Data support this: if you score high in one topic, you are likely to score high in another
• Controversial: humans are diverse; do we think 1 factor can explain the variation in human intelligence
• Developed by Charles Spearman

Question 447

What is self-efficacy?

What are the categories of self efficacy?

Answer 447

An individual’s belief in his or her innate ability to achieve goals

• A belief in one’s capability to succeed in a certain situation

Categories:

Strong self efficacy: view problems as tasks to be mastered

• Recover quickly from set-backs
• Develop deep interest in activities in which they participate
• Form strong sense of comittment to their interests and activities
• Enjoy these challenges

(Mneumonic: RISE, Recover, Interest, Strong, Enjoy)

Weak self efficacy: believe that difficult and challenging tasks are beyond their capabilites

• Focus on personal failings and negative outcomes
• Lose confidence quickly in personal abilities
• Avoid difficult tasks

(Mneumonic: FALL, Fail, Avoid, Lose, Lack)

Question 448

What is the differential association theory?

Answer 448

• States that deviance can be learned through interaction with others; deviance results from continued exposure to others who violate norms and laws
• This theory puts emphasis on the relationships an individual forms; if a person forms strong relationships with individuals who engage in deviant behavior, they are more likely to dismiss their own norms and replace them with these new “deviant” norms; if a person forms strong relationships with individuals who follow norms, the individual will also follow norms

Question 449

What are some socio-cultural factors that lead us to eating?

Answer 449

• Certain occasions (holidays, birthdays, etc.)
• time (we feel the need to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at certain times)
• desire (we also have a desire to eat specific things, like salty foods, mexican food, spicy foods, sweet foods)
• appeal (eat depending on if the food looks good or not)
• availability (what foods are available, geographically, economically, seasonally)

Question 450

What is the theory of planned behavior?

Answer 450

• A theory to try to explain how attitude influences behavior
• This theory says that we consider the the implications of our actions before we behave and the the best predictor of our behavior is the strength of these intentions in a particular situation

The things that influence our intentions are: attitudes, subjective norms, and perceieved behavioral control

Example: we have an exam coming up

Attitude: what we think of the behavior (example: I favor studying for the exam)

Subjective norms: what others think of the behavior (example: my friends think studying is a waste of time)

Perceived behavior control: how easy or hard it will be to control our behavior (example: I also have to work 40 hours this week on top of study)

Question 451

What are pathological defense mechanisms?

Answer 451

• Types of defense mechanisms which distort reality so that a person can deal with a situation
• Include: denial

Question 452

In regard to universal emotions, what are some facial features seen with surprise?

Answer 452

• Raised eyebrows
• Eyes open wide
• Jaw is dropped

Question 453

What is compliance?

Answer 453

A change in behavior based on a direct request

• We do a given behavior to get a reward or avoid a punishment
• Compliance tends to go away once the rewards and punishments are removed

Question 454

What are the two “binocular” visual cues?

Answer 454

• Retinal disparity
• Convergence

Question 455

What is positive feedback?

What is negative feedback?

Answer 455

• Positive feedback: the rate of process works to increase a product
• Negative feedback: occurs when some function of the output of a system, process, or mechanism is fed back in a manner that tends to reduce the fluctuations in the output,

Question 456

What are epigenetics?

Answer 456

The study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself.

• Example: methylation; using methylation to turn on or off genes and thus over-ride the actual DNA sequence

Question 457

How can optimism be used as a coping strategy in stressful situations?

Answer 457

• Humor and optimism are associated with decreased stress
• Nurturing an optimistic outlook can be a good tool in coping with stress

Question 458

What is an innate behavior? Provide examples of simple and complex innate behaviors?

Answer 458

• Innate behavior is one that is performed perfectly the first time it is performed

Simple: reflexes, taxis, kinesis

Complex: fixed action pattern, migration, circadian rhythm

Question 459

What is the locus ceruleus?

Answer 459

• A collection of neurons in the pons that send diffuse projections of axons into the cerebral cortex
• Release norepinephrine diffusely into the cerebral cortex

Question 460

If a child is experiencing either an oedipus complex or electra complex, what stage of psychosexual development are they? Around what age are they?

Answer 460

• Phallic stage
• Age 3-6

Question 461

What is the pleasure principle?

Answer 461

• When we are young or immature, we immediately want to satisy needs
• Thus, the principle is that we, as immutre beings, have instinctive seeking of pleasure and avoiding of pain in order to satisfy biological and psychological needs
• Specifically, the pleasure principle is the driving force guiding the id
• Freud’s idea
• Eventually gets replaced with the reality principle

Example: As a child, we may have seen a piece of candy and wanted that candy immediately and did not want to wait to get that piece of candy

• The reality principle here would be: seeing the candy, knowing its not ours, knowing its not ok to just take it, and is a product of being mature

Question 462

What is the information processing model of memory?

Answer 462

• Our brains are similar to computers
• We get information from the environment, process it and output decisions
• Sensory memory: where we get the information from the environment

Question 463

What is the primacy bias?

What are the components of a first impression?

Answer 463

• The first impression of someone is influential

First impressions are:

• Long: last a long time
• Strong: relatively consistent and hard to break
• Easily built upon: find things that confirm the initial impression

Example of easily built upon: If we originally meet someone and our first impression is that they’re messy, we may ignore that their desk is always clean, but then when their trash bin is full for several days, use this as “evidence” that our initial assumption was correct

Question 464

What is a rual area?

Answer 464

Any area that has less than 1,000 people per square mile

• Any rural settlement must have less than 2,500 residents, otherwise it’s considered urban

Question 465

What are some socio-cultural factors that affect sexual responses / sexual drive?

Answer 465

• Vary by age
• Vary by cultural background: certain practices are acceptable in some cultures, but not in others
• Stimulus (how responsive we are to visual or tactile stimuli)
• Emotions
• Desires (to procreate or not)

Question 466

What are the depressive disorders? List a few disorders contained within this category.

Answer 466

• Distress or disability arising from abnormally negative mood; often include relate symptoms such as feelings of hopelessness or loss of enjoyment in activities
• Mood: a long-term emotional state, which may be positive or negative, and may or may not be specific to certain stimuli

Question 467

What are the categories of memory encompassed within long-term memory?

Answer 467

Explicit memory: memories that require conscious recall (like facts or vents); includes things that you can clearly/explicitly describe; can be further divided into:

• Sematic memory: the facts we know
• Episodic memory: our experiences

Implicit memory: consists of our skills and conditioned experiences; things we cannot explicitly explain (for riding a bike, we make not be able to explicity explain how much pressure to put on the peddles, etc.); can be further divided into:

• Procedural memories: memories for procedures (like riding a bike)
• Priming: previous experiences impact the current interpretation of an event

Question 468

What is the incentive theory?

Answer 468

• Explains that behavior is motivated not by need or arousal, but by the desire to pursue rewards; focuses on positive reinforcement

Reward, tangible or intangible, is presented after the occurence of an action, with the intention of causing the behavior to occur again; this is done by associating a positive meaning to that behavior

• If a reward is given after the behavior, then the behavior will be more likely to occur again
• The reward has to be obtainable in order to be motivational

Question 469

What structures are derived from the ectoderm?

Answer 469

• Integument, including the epidermis, hair nails and epithelia of the nose, outh and lower anal canal
• Lens of the ye, nervous system (including adrenal medulla) and inner ear are also derived from the ectoderm

Question 470

What are some theories for why we dream?

Answer 470

Freud: dreams are our unconscious thoughts and desires that need to be interpreted

Evolutionary biology

• Threat simulation so we’re more prepared for it in the real world
• Problem-solving: we can think about them in altered biochemical state
• No purpose; just a biproduct of neural firing

Other theories

• Combination of conscious and unconscious elements that occurs during dreaming helps our brain maintain flexibility; enables us to learn and be creative when awake
• Helps our brain clean up by sweeping away thoughts and incorporating others into long-term memory (memory consolidation)
• Repair and recouperate by preserving and repairing neural pathways (this is thought to be true, because babies spend most of their sleep in REM stage)

Question 471

What is Functionalism?

Answer 471

• functionalism looks at a society as a whole, and how the institutions that make up a society adapt to keep the society stable and functioning
• A macroperspective (macrosociology)

Question 472

In twin studies looking at the biological approach to personality, what are some traits that were genetic (i.e common to both twins that were raised apart)?

What were some traits that had less support, genetically?

Answer 472

To study this theory, they look at identical twins who were raised apart from each other; even though twins were raised apart, they still had certain characeristics that were similar between the two

Similarities between twins raise apart:

• Social potency trait: the degree to which a person assumes leadership and mastery roles in a social situation
• Traditionalism: the tendency to follow authority

Dissimilarities between twins raise apart:

• Trait of Achievement
• Closeness

Question 473

What is the dependency ratio?

Answer 473

A solely age-based measurement that takes the number of people aged 14 and under and those 65 and up, and compares that to those who are aged 15-64

• Thus, compares those who are dependent to those who can provide for the dependent
• The higher the ratio, the more dependent people there are in a population

Question 474

What is the Halo Effect?

What is the opposite effect

Answer 474

A type of immediate judgement discrepancy, or cognitive bias, where a person making an initial assessment of another person, place, or thing will assume ambiguous information based upon concrete information

• Example: A person makes a good impression on us when we hire them; then, we evaluate their skills a couple of weeks later, and while, in reality, the person does just a decent job, we perecieve them as doing a stellar job
• Since the person has a “halo,” all of the other judgements we make of that person also receive a “halo boost”
• Example: If someone is very attractive, we may extend this to the person being very kind or very intelligent, even though we have no idea if this is true or not

Note: The opposite can also be true; if have an overall negative impression of someone, we can percieve other parts of their life as being far worse than they actually are

• Called the reverse halo effect or devil effect

Question 475

Which, a rod or cone, is more sensitive to light?

Answer 475

• Rods are more sensitive to light, so they are good for night vision

Question 476

Do taste buds each taste a particular flavor or is each taste bud able to taste all flavors?

Answer 476

• All taste buds can taste all flavors
• A given taste bud has taste cells which respond to each of the 5 tastes (bitter, sweet, salty, umami, sour)

Question 477

What is vertical (social) mobility?

Answer 477

• involves a change in social class, and involves either “upward mobility” or “downward mobility.”

Example: An industrial worker who becomes a wealthy businessman moves upward in the class system

Example: a landed aristocrat who loses everything in a revolution moves downward in the system.

Question 478

What is the primary funcion of the cerebellum? How does it do this primary function?

Answer 478

• Coordinates movement (smooths out movements and makes them more accurate)

Three parts

• Motor plan: involves what muscles need to contract and at what intensity and for what duration to do some type of movement
• Information is sent from the cerebrum, into the brainstem and into the cerebellum so that the cerebellum is aware of the motor plan
• This is the same plan that engages the upper motor neurons, lower motor neurons and skeletal muscles in order to perform some action

- Position sense information: As the motion is being executed, receives information on how that movement is going (for example, via muslce spindles)

• Now, it knows what the motor plan was and can compare that to the movement that is actually occuring; usually, there is a correction that needs to be made in order for the movement to match the plan
• Feedback: cerebellum sends feedback back to the motor areas of the cerebrum to correct that movement while its occurring

Question 479

What are the strategies (C) that can be utilized in the signal detection theory? What is the categorization for individuals with C=0, C<0 and C>0?

Answer 479

B-stragety: choose a threshold and stick to it

D-strategy: B-d’

C-strategy: ideal observer; would minimize the probability of a miss or a false alarm

• B-(d’/2)

β-strategy: set the value of the threshold equal to the ratio of the height of the signal distribution to the height of the noise distribution

• lnβ = d’ x C

If the math for the strategy results in:

C<0: liberal (respond no more often than an ideal observer)

C=0; ideal

C>0: conservative

In image: initial dotted yellow line is B-strategy

Question 480

What is a fad?

Answer 480

• A type of collective behavior (like mass hysteria and riots), in which something because extremely popular very quickly, but then loses popularity almost as quickly
• In this time, they reach a large number of people
• While fads may not be in line with normal behavior, because they are seen as cool by a large group of people, they gain popularity

Example: Cinnamon challenge; not normal to eat a spoonful of cinnamon, but it became very popular to try and post a video of it; but after the novelty wore off, then it quickly became less popular and the fad ended

Question 481

What is the universalism theory of language and cognition?

Answer 481

• Universalism: thought comes before language
• Your toughts dictate the language that develops

Example: Among a people in New Guinea, they only have two words for colors: brightand dark

• A universalist would say that these people only think in terms of bright and dark color, hence only having two words for it

Question 482

What is fundamentalism?

Answer 482

• Indicates unwavering attachment to a set of irreducible beliefs; maintenance of a strict adherence to religious code
• Usually a reaction to secularism
• Can create social problems when people become too extreme

Question 483

How does re-learning help us to identify if something was stored in long-term memory or not?

Answer 483

• If something is stored in long term memory, although we cannot recall it, upon re-learning, we will learn the information more quickly than the first time around
• These memories, that are stored in long-term memory, but cannot be recalled are called “savings”

Question 484

What is an emotion? What are some characteristics of emotions?

Answer 484

Subjective experiences that are accompanied by cognitive, physiological and behavioral changes and reactions

Characteristics:

• Temporary
• Can be negative or positive
• Can vary in intensity
• Involuntary

Question 485

What are the types of somatosensation?

Answer 485

• Thermoception (temperature)
• Mechanoception (pressure)
• Nociception (pain)
• Propioception (position in space)

Question 486

What is Long-Term Potentiation?

Answer 486

• A persistent strengthening of synapses based on recent patterns of activity
• These are patterns of synaptic activity that produce a long-lasting increase in signal transmission between two neurons.
• LTP is the mechanism by which we learn

To determine the strength of connection, we measure the change in the potential of the post-synpatic neuron in response to a stimulation of the pre-synpatic neuron; when there’s a stronger synpase for a given duration of time (from minutes to months or more), this is LTP

Question 487

What are the components of the “old brain” and their primary functions?

Answer 487

• Brainstem (midbrain, pons, medulla)
• heartbeat and breathing
• serves as a cross-over point for many of the nerves (information from right side of the brain is processed in the left side of the brain)
• Recticular formation:
• extends from the brainstem into other brain areas
• acts as a filter, which then sends information to other brain areas (including the thalamus)
• also involved in sleep and awake cycles and more specifically involved in alertness; if you stimulate it, the person wakes up and is alert, if its damaged, the person goes into a coma

- Thalamus

• two egg shaped structures that sit side by side in the brain
• Relay station: takes in information about all senses, except smell, and then relays it to the particular part in the brain for processing
• Cerebellum
• Helps to coodinate voluntary movement

- All happen without conscious awareness

Question 488

What is substance use disorder?

Answer 488

• When the use of the drug impairs some type of normal part of life, like home, school or work
• To determine if someone has a substance use disorder, we can determine their patterns of use:
• Are increasing large amounts being used?
• Are there cravings for the drug?
• Are they spending more and more time recovering from the substances?
• Are they spending more and more time trying to get the drug?
• Are there issues with home life, school life, work life?
• Are there withdrawal symptoms?

This applies to most drugs, except for caffeine; we cannot develop a substance use disorder with caffeine

Question 489

What is the Schacter-Singer Theory of Emotion?

Answer 489

• Also called the congitive arousal theory or two-factor theory
• States that both arousal and labeling of arousal based on the enviroment in order for an emotion to occur
• If we become physiologically aroused, we don’t feel a specific emotion until we are able to label or identify a reason for the situation

Question 490

What is illness anxiety disorder?

Answer 490

• A psychological disorder where an individual is characterized by being consumed with thoughts about having or developning a serious medical condition
• Individuals with this disorder are quick to become alarmed about their health, and either excessively check themselves for signs of illness or avoid medical appointments all together

Question 491

What are semantic networks? What is spreading activation?

Answer 491

• The concept that memory is not simply a stockpile of unrelated facts, but rather a network of interconnected ideas; every individuals semantic network is based on experiences and knowledge (so they’re all different)
• According to the principle of cognitive economy, which is basically that our brain is efficient, we store properties at the highest node (i.e. we say “animals can breathe” rather than, at each animal node, make a link to the fact that they can breathe
• Verified by tests: faster to verify that a cat is a cat, versus a cat is a mammal and even slower to say a cat is an animal (given semantic network image)

Spreading activation: since these concepts are all connected, when we activate one node, we are unconsciously remembering the linked concepts around it

(example: if we are thinking of a stop sign, we also unconsciously remember that it’s red)

Question 492

What were the Milgram Studies?

Answer 492

• Were conducted in order to study the willingness of particpants to obey authority figures who instructed them to perform behaviors that conflicted with their personal beliefs and and morals
• Recruited participants for a study on learning and memory
• There were two participants, the teacher, who was the actual subject of the study, and the learner, who was actually a confederate (someone working with the experimenter)
• Teacher saw the learner hooked up to electrical signals, and the expiermenter told the learner that they would be shocked if they got something wrong; in some cases, the learner said they had a heart condition, but the experimenter told them that the shocks would be painful but not dangerous
• The learner was taken to another room
• The teacher would read pairs of words to the learner, and then go back and give the first word and 4 choices; the learner would indicate the answer by pressing a button
• When the learner made a mistake, the teacher was told by the experimenter to give them a shock in increasing increments
• As the shocks got worse, the learner would yell and pound on the wall, even screaming that their heart was bothering them and at a certain point, all responses from the learner would cease
• If the teacher wanted to quit or check on the other person, the experimenter said things like “You have no other choice, you must go on” and “The experiment requires you to go on”
• Experiment ended after 4 verbal protests from the teacher or when they had given the highest shock to a silent learner 3 times

Results: 65% of participants shocked to the highest voltage

• When there was a heart problem involved, full compliance dropped, but only to 63%

Question 493

What are the illnesses involved in Cluster C personality disorders?

Answer 493

Cluster C: makred by behavior that is labeled as anxious or fearful

Avoidant Personality Disorder: the affected individual has extreme shyness and fear of rejection; the individual will see him/herself as socially inept and ofeten socially isolated, despite an intense desire for social affection and acceptance

Dependent personality disorder: characterized by a continuous need for reassurance; individuals with this disorder tend to remain dependent on one significant person, to take actions and make decisions

Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder: the individual is perfectionistic and inflexible, tending to like rules and order

• Note: OCD is ego-dystonic (I can’t stop washing my hands because of the germs) while OCPD is ego-syntonic (I just like rules and order!)

Question 494

What are neurocognitive disorders? List a few disorders contained within this category.

Answer 494

• Disorders which involve distress or disability from the loss of cognitive, and often other functions of the brain, after the nervous system has developed
• The nervous system developed and lost functions (so these are different than neurodevelopmental disorders in that way)
• Include: delirium and major cognitive disorder (also know as dementia)

Question 495

At what population size is something considered urban? A city? A metropolis?

Answer 495

• Urbanization: 2,500 or more
• Cities: 50,000 people or more
• Metropolis: 500,000 or more
• Megalopolis: when a bunch of metropolises are close to each other and connect

Question 496

What is stereotype threat?

Answer 496

• The exposure to a negative stereotype surrounding a task can actually cause a decrease in the performance of an individual when attempting a task
• The stereotype threatens performance

Example: We have two groups of students, female and male, and when they take a math test, they score equally; then we explain to them that women are not as good as men in math, and when they take the exam again, women score more poorly than men do

Question 497

The formation of what structure begins the phase of gastrulation?

What is gastrulation?

Answer 497

• Primitive streak
• Gastrulation: the generation of three distinct cell layers

Question 498

What is social constructionism?

Answer 498

• Knowledge and many aspects of the world around us are not real in and of themselves
• Only exist because we give them reality through social agreement
• Examples: nations, books, money all do not exist in the absence of human society
• Example: we are also a social construct; our identity is created by interactions with other people and our reactions to the expectations of society

Question 499

What are delusions of reference?

Answer 499

Involve the belief that common elemtns in the environment are directed toward the individual

• Example: a person with a delusion of reference may belief that the characters a in TV show are talking to him directly
• A symptom of schizophrenia

Question 500

What are the stages in Freud’s Psychosexual Development? At what ages do they occur?

Answer 500

Oral: 0 - 1 year

Anal: 1 - 3

Phallic: 3 - 6

Latent: 6 - 12

Gential: 12+

Mneumonic: Old Age Parrots Love Grapes

Question 501

What is the sucking reflex?

Answer 501

• An infant will suck on any object that is placed in their mouth
• One of the primitive or neonatal reflexes
• Deminishes around 3 - 4 months of age

Question 502

What is the Just Noticable Difference (JND)?

Answer 502

• The is the amount something must be changed in order for a difference to be noticeable
• Example: If we are carrying a 2lb weight and replace it with a 2.05lb weight, we may not notice the change in weight; but if we replace it with a 2.2lb weight, we may notice the difference

Note: this JND applies to all sensations

Question 503

How are stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination related?

Answer 503

• If we have some cognition about a group of people, a stereotype, then this may lead us to be prejudiced toward them and eventually discriminate toward them

Example: People who live in cities are rude (stereotype), therefore, I don’t like them (prejudice); and since I don’t like them, I will actively avoid them (discrimination)

Question 504

What is reciprocal determinism?

Answer 504

• A theory which states that a person’s behavior both influences and is influenced by personal factors and the social environment.
• Behavior, cognition and environment are all determinants of one another
• Set forth by psychologist Albert Bandura

Example: I am interested in soccer (cognition), so I join the soccer team (environment), which makes me spend more time with soccer players (behavior); however, it could also happen that I am new to town and started playing with girls who play soccer (behavior), which led to my interest in soccer (cognition), thus, I joined the soccer team (environment)

Question 505

What is passive aggressive behavior?

Answer 505

• A type of immature defense mechanism, in which someone expresses their aggression by failing to do something for someone else

Question 506

What is role exit?

Answer 506

• The dropping of one identity for another

Question 507

What is an MEG? How does it work?

Answer 507

• Magnetoencephalograpy
• Records the magnetic fields that are produced by the electical currents in the brain
• Measured by superconductive quantum interface devices (SQUIDs)
• Has better resoution than an EEG, but is also a far more rare technique to use, because its a huge machine and you need special shielding for the room it is placed in

Question 508

What are primary sexual characteristics? Secondary sexual characteristics? What brings these about?

Answer 508

• Development of primary and secondary sexual characteristics occurs during puberty (born with primary, develop secondary)
• Primary: The sex organs that a human is born with, that are use for reproduction (testes, ovaries, etc.)
• Secondary: sex-related characteristics that are not required for reproduction; include pubic hair, enlarged breasts and widened hips of females, and facial hair and Adam’s apple on males

Question 509

What is learned helplessness?

Answer 509

• A behavior where the subject endures repeatedly painful or otherwise aversive stimuli which it is unable to escape or avoid.
• After such experience, the organism often fails to learn or accept “escape” or “avoidance” in new situations where such behavior would likely be effective.
• In other words, the organism learned that it is helpless in situations where there is a presence of aversive stimuli, has accepted that it has lost control, and thus gives up trying
• In short: Uncontrolled bad events can lead to perceived lack of control which leads to generalized helpless behavior (i.e. not even trying to get out of the bad experience)

Question 510

What is the mere exposure effect?

Answer 510

• The phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them.

Example: In studies of interpersonal attraction, the more often a person is seen by someone, the more pleasing and likeable that person appears to be.

• Applies to everything: music, numbers, buildings, etc.

Question 511

What is Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory?

Answer 511

Mneumonic: AM I Motivated?

A: attention

M: memory

I: imitation

M: motivation

Example: Teach how to draw a star

• First, we have to pay attention to how someone else draws a star; have to have an attention span long enough to watch someone draw the star
• Second, have to have the memory to recall how that person drew the star
• Third, we have to imitate drawing the star; would involve memory and attention span long enough to finish drawing the star
• Fourth, are we motivated enough to draw the star on our own

Question 512

What is the Bobo Doll experiment?

Answer 512

• Conducted by Albert Bandura

Part I of experiment: Do children learn via observation

• Experiment: children were in a lab doing an arts and crafts project; in the middle, a man walked in and started punching, hitting, kicking the the Bobo doll for 10 minutes, while yelling “hit it, kick it, etc”; then, the experimenters gave the children an impossible puzzle to solve in order to make them frustrated; when they got frustrated, many of them went up to the Bobo doll and mimicked the man, both hitting it and yelling at it

Conclusion: children can learn by observing behavior

Part II of experiment: Why did only some kids kick the doll, while others did not

• The put a tv in the room with the kids, and showed a video of the man doing the above experiment; and again, when put in a room with toys and a Bobo doll, some kids kicked it and yelled while others did not; those that did not, the researchers tried to bribe with treats and stickers to encourage them to do it, and indeed, they would kick the Bobo doll

Conclusion: Learning-Performance Distinction: learning a behavior and performing a behavior are two different things; this also means that although kids are not performing the behavior, does not mean they didn’t learn the behavior

Question 513

What are the function of the of the temporal lobe?

Answer 513

• Primary function: hearing
• Note: Also contains Wernicke’s area

Question 514

What is the Gestalt principle of proximity?

Answer 514

• Objects that are close to one another tend to be perceived as a unit

Question 515

What is methadone? How does it work?

Answer 515

• This is one of the pharmalogical medications used to treat withdrawal symptoms in heroine addicts
• Binds to the same endorphin receptors as opiates and acts as a partial agonist, so the high is much less
• Reduces cravings and eases withdrawal symptoms
• If the patient tries to take heroine, most of the receptors are occupied with methadone, so the effects will be dampened

Question 516

What is interposition, when regarding visual cues?

Answer 516

• A monocular function
• The idea that if one object is in front of the other, we can infer that the object in the front is closer to us

Question 517

What is secularization?

Answer 517

A shift away from religion or a move from a world dominated by religion toward rationality and scientific thinking

• Weakening of social and political power of religious organizations, as religious involvement and belief declines

Question 518

What is the olfactory bulb? Where is it located?

Answer 518

The olfactory bulb is a neural structure of the vertebrate forebrain involved in olfaction, the sense of smell

• Located inferior to the brain, superior to the cribriform plate
• Protrusions from the olfactory nerves located in the olfactory epithelium protrude into the olfactory bulb to relay information on scent

Question 519

What is the feminist perspective of mass media?

Answer 519

• Focuses on how media portrays the dominant ideology and uses sterotypes
• Particularly, focuses on how men and women are represented in media
• Men are seen to be normal while women are the other: example, pens and pens for “her”; razors and razors for women
• Women are more often victims and men are more often heroic figures
• Women are more often obsessed with looks, which means they’re more often objectified or sexualized in media

Question 520

What are the monocular visual cues, when regarding a stagnant object?

Answer 520

• Relative size
• Interposition
• Relative height
• Light and shadow (no specific name for this one)

Question 521

What is capitalism?

Answer 521

• A type of economy
• Focus on free market trade and laissez-faire policies, where sucess of failure in a business is priamrily diven by consumerism with as little intervention from governing bodies as possible
• Motivated by profits; features private ownership of production, with a market economy based on supply and demand

Question 522

What is meditation?

Answer 522

• A training which allows people to self-regulate their attention and awareness
• Light mediation: more alpha waves
• Deep mediation: more theta waves (usually only achieved by experts, like Buddhist monks)
• Science suggests that those who deeply medidate frequently have an increased abiity to control attention, which may be useful for individuals with attention-related disorders

Question 523

What is Vygotsky’s theory of language and cognition?

Answer 523

• Thought and cognition are indepdendent, but they converge through development
• Thought and cognition do not influence each other, but eventually we learn to use them at the same time
• Believed that children learn language through social interactions with adults and eventually learn to connect that language to their thoughts

Question 524

What os Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development?

Answer 524

Question 525

In regard to the trait theory of personality, who was Raymond Cattell?

What was his theory?

Answer 525

• Proposed that we all have 16 different personality traits that could be used to describe and explain individual differences between people’s personalities
• Turned this into the 16 personality factor questionnaire (16PF)

Image: don’t need to memorize; but for interest

Question 526

What is an attitude? What is the ABC model of attitude?

Answer 526

• A learned tendency to evaluate things in a certain way
• The expression of positive or negative feelings toward a person, place, things, or scenario

Components

Affective component (emotional component)

• how we feel or the emotions we have toward a certain object or subject
• Example: I am scared of spiders (scared is an emotion); this will shape our attitude toward spiders

Behavioral component

• how we act or behave toward a certain subject or object
• Example: avoiding spiders and screaming when we see one

Cognitive component

• the beliefs or knowledge about a certain topic or object
• Example: snakes are dangerous and poisonous
• The cognitive component is usually the justification for the other two

Question 527

What was learned from the milgram studies?

What were some of the responses of the participants?

Answer 527

• That everyday people will comply with the orders of authority figure even if it goes against their own moral values
• Participants felt bad about it
• However, some blamed the learners, saying they wouldn’t have gotten shocked if they had just known the answers (Just World Phenomenom: the universe is fair, so people must get what they deserve)
• Some also were more comfortable shocking when the experimenter said he would take the blame (I was just following orders)
• THUS: to stop this type of conformity, be aware of the just world phenomenom and don’t blame victims for being victims, and take responsibility for our own actions

Question 528

What is environmental justice?

Answer 528

• The fair distribution of environmental benefits and burdens in all parts of society, regardless of race, poverty level, or any other sociodemographic
• Areas with high poverty usually have few environmental benefits, such as parks, green spaces, and bike paths, compared to the wealthier part of society
• Areas with high poverty are also usually faced with high environmental burden, such as hazardous waste-producing plants, and toxic waste dumps
• This can be particularly relevant in the health context, where individuals facing poverty have higher levels of obesity and asthma, partially because of the lack of environmental justice

Question 529

What is the resource mobilization theory of social movements?

Answer 529

• focuses on the things that help or hinder a social movement, like access to resources, how easily or difficult it is to gather people who have a shared idea, political influence, access to media, etc.
• Emphasizes the ability of a movement’s members to acquire resources and to mobilize people towards accomplishing the movement’s goal

Question 530

What is the difference between race and ethnicity?

Answer 530

Race: a socially defined category that is based on physical differences between people

Ethnicity: A socially defined category defined by a shared language, religion, nationality, history or some cultural factors

• Ethnic groups are less defined than racial groups and definitions of an ethnic group can change over time

Question 531

What are some effects of the depressant class of psychoactive drugs?

Answer 531

• Decreases HR
• Decreases reaction time
• Decreases processing speed

Question 532

What is the problem-solving theory of dreams?

Answer 532

• Dreams are a way to solve problems while you are sleeping
• Dreeps are untethered by the rules of the world, and thus allow interpretation of obstacles differently than during waking hours

Question 533

What is identification? Under what circumstances do we engage in this?

Answer 533

• A type of conormity where we go along with a behavior because we are motivated by our desires to be like someone else
• Will continue to engage in this behaviors as long as the individual we desire to be similar to has our respect; if the individual loses our favor or our respect, individuals will stop conforming to that behavior

Example: acting or dressing in a certain way that is characteristic of a famous actor or singer

Question 534

What is the hypothesis of relative deprivation?

Answer 534

• The theory that states that if there is a relative deprivation, i.e. you think you should be getting something, but don’t, that there is unrest because of this
• This unrest can be an underlying cause of prejudice and discrimination

Question 535

Describe the pathway from photoreceptor to optic tract

Answer 535

• Rods and cones pass information on to the bipolar cells which synpase with ganglion cells
• Ganglion cells group together to form the optic nerve
• The optic nerve of each eye transverses posteriorly and converge at the optic chiasm
• Then, the nerve fibers diverge into what is called the optic tract

Question 536

What is the Gestalt principle of good continuation (continuity)?

Answer 536

• Lines are seen as following the smoothest path; elements that appear to follow the same pathway tend to be grouped together

Question 537

What is the distribution of the cones in the eye? (How many are red, green, blue)

Answer 537

Red: 60%

Green: 30%

Blue: 10%

Question 538

What structure induces a change in the ectoderm above it, to create the neural tube?

Answer 538

• The notocord; a rod of mesoderm cells which forms along the axis of the organism

Question 539

What is the bystander effect? Why does this happen?

Answer 539

• An individual may feel less inclined to take action because of the presence of others in the group
• The more people in the group, the less likely you are to help

Diffusion of responsibility theory: a person is less likely to take responsibility for action or inaction when others are present. Considered a form of attribution, the individual assumes that others either are responsible for taking action or have already done so. Assumption of responsibility tends to decrease when the potential helping group is larger, resulting in little aiding behavior demonstrated by the bystander(s).

• Example: someone has a slight knowledge of CPR, but since the group is so large, assumes there’s a doctor nearby to help the unconscious individual; thus, responsibility diffuses through the group and explains the bystander effect

Question 540

What is a church?

What is a sect?

What is a cult?

Answer 540

Church: Large, univesal religious group that can be divided into multiple coexisting denominations

Sect: a group of people with somewhat different religious beliefs (typically regarded as heretical) from those of a larger group to which they belong; break away from the established church

Cult: a religious sect that may take on extreme or deviant philosophies; break away and reject the values of outside society, undergoing a complete religious renovation

• Arise when there is a breakdown of societal belief systems, but they’re usually short-lived because they depend on a leader who will only live so long

Question 541

In regard to universal emotions, what are some facial features seen with fear?

Answer 541

• Eyebrows raised and drawn together
• Wrinkles in the forehead
• Eyes are open widely and intense
• Mouth is open
• Lips drawn back tightly

Question 542

What are the components of the frontal cortex?

Answer 542

• Motor strip/ motor cortex: responsible for the bodys movements
• Prefrontal cortex: responsible for executive functions
• Note: Broca’s area is also here

Question 543

What is the form of bias known as “belief perserverance”?

Answer 543

• The inability to reeject a particualr belief despite clear evidence
• For example: in an arugment, you believe 100% that you are right; then someone shows you proof you are wrong, but still continue to believe you are right

Question 544

What is Labeling Theory?

Answer 544

• In this theory, a behavior is deviant if people have judged that behavior and labeled it as deviant
• This theory posits that there are two types of deviance: primary and secondary
• Primary deviance: does not have huge consequences; produces very little societal pushback; response to the behavior is very mild and doesn’t effect the person’s self esteem; individual can continue to act in the same way without feeling normal or wrong

Example: if an athlete takes steroids and his teammates find out, but they all also use steroids, the athlete will not be labeled as deviant and his actions will go unnoticed

• Secondary deviance: characterized by a severe negative reaction that produces a stigmatizing label, which can result in more deviant behavior

Example: if that athlete takes steroids, and his teammates don’t, when the teammates find out, they may label him as deviant and exclude him from the team; this may lead to him taking more steroids in order to prove himself as worthy of being on the team

Question 545

What is the Circadian Rhythm? What are the triggers associated with this rhythm?

Answer 545

• Our regular body rhythms across 24-hour period.
• Controlled by melatonin, produced in the pineal gland.
• Control our body temperature, sleep cycle, etc.
• Daylight is big queue, even artificial light.
• Also change as you age – younger people are night owls, but older people go to bed early.
• Can prevent you from sleeping in.

Question 546

What is a CT scan?

Answer 546

• Computerized Axial Tomography
• A technique which tells us about brain structure
• Uses x-rays in order to create an image of the brain
• Can tell us if there’s a tumor of if there is abnormal swelling or bleeding
• Cannot tell us about what areas of the brain are active at a given time

Question 547

What is anxious-resistant insecure attachment?

• What type of parenting gives rise to this?

Answer 547

In general, a child with an anxious-resistant attachment style will typically explore little (in the Strange Situation) and is often wary of strangers, even when the caregiver is present

• When the caregiver departs, the child is often highly distressed
• The child is generally ambivalent when they return
• Parenting style: is a response to unpredictably responsive caregiving, and that the displays of anger or helplessness towards the caregiver on reunion can be regarded as a conditional strategy for maintaining the availability of the caregiver by preemptively taking control of the interaction.

Question 548

What is cognitive dissonnce?

Answer 548

The discomfort we feel when holding two or more conflicting cognitions, such as ideas, beliefs, values or emotional reactions

• This discomfort can lead to alterations in one of these cognitions

Question 549

What are some examples of substance use disorders?

Answer 549

• Disorders that are likely the result of substance use, abuse, intoxication, or withdrawal

-

Question 550

What things can lead to aggressive behavior?

Answer 550

Biologically:

• Genetics: if one identical twin is aggressive, the other one is more likely to be as well; not true for fraternal twins
• Brain structure: amygdala (fear response) and frontal lobe (responsible for impulse control)
• Testosterone

Psychologically:

• Frustration: can lead to agression; also, temperature can lead to frustration which can lead to agression (more crimes happen on hot days)
• Modeling and reinforcement

Socio-cultural:

• Groups: more aggressive in groups than as individuals (deindividuation)
• Social scripts: modeling how someone should act in a certain situation; if someone watches a lot of violent tv, when they are in a new situation, they may rely on this social script that shows aggressive behaviors, and act aggressive themselves

Question 551

What is the interactionist perspective on mass media?

Answer 551

• focuses on mass media at the micro-level to see how it shapes day to day behavior
• Looks at how mass media blurs the line between solitary and group activities
• Looks at how we interact with each other given media over time (i..e used to call, but now just text)

Example: when seeing a movie with other people, we are forbidden from talking to the people we are seeing the movie with

Question 552

What is stereotyping?

Answer 552

An over-generalized belief about a particular category of people; Stereotypes are generalized because one assumes that the stereotype is true for each individual person in the categor

• Disadvantage: very accurate
• Advantage: rapidly assess large amounts of social information

Question 553

What is habituation?

Answer 553

• A deminished response to the same stimulus
• With every progressive stimulus, the response to the stimulus decreases

Question 554

What are the components of the brainstem?

Answer 554

(From superior to inferior)

Midbrain

Pons

Medulla

Question 555

What is sublimation?

Answer 555

• A type of mature defense mechaism in which we channel the negative energy associated with these desires and channel them into things associated with positive energy

Example: violent urges, instead of being acted upon, can lead a person to becoming a boxer or fitness trainer

Question 556

What are sleep-wake disorders? List a few disorders contained within this category.

Answer 556

• Involve disability or distress from abnormalities related to sleep
• Include: insomnia, breathing related sleep disorders, restless leg syndrome, narcolepsy, parasomnias

Question 557

What is the swimming reflex?

Answer 557

• When placed in water, a infant will begin to try to swim, and move arms and legs around in a swimming motion; they will also hold their breath
• One of the primitive or neonatal reflexes

Question 558

What is a blastocyst?

Answer 558

• A hallow blal of cells with a fluid-filled inner cavity known as a blastocoel
• Two cells layers: trophoblast layer and inner cell mass (embryoblast)
• At this point, the zona pellucida starts to degrade
• Trophoblast: surrounds the blastocoel and gives rise to the chorion and later the placenta
• Inner cell mass: gives rise to the organism itself

Question 559

What is regression?

Answer 559

A neurotic type of defense mechanism, in which we end performing behaviors as if we at a much younger stage in our lives

Example: While we could speak and move about normally after a situation, instead we whine and throw a tantrum

Question 560

How would you use twin studies to determine if something was genetic versus environmental?

Example: how would you determine if schizophrenia is genetic or environmental?

Answer 560

• Look at the rate of something in identical vs fraternal twins
• The only “variation” is the genes, since the 100% of the environment is shared by both twins (if they are raised in the same household)

With schizophrenia:

• If genetic: the rate of schizophrenia in the monozygotic twins would be higher than fraternal
• If environmental, we would see similar rates of the disorder in both sets of twins

Question 561

What is change blindness?

Answer 561

• When we fail to notice a difference between a previous state and a current state

Example: not noticing someone got a haircut, not noticing the books have changed location on the shelf

Question 562

What are the two views of social institutions?

Answer 562

Conservative view: Sees institutions as being a natural, positive byproduct of human nature

• Example: the institution of hospitals forms naturally from the activities of humans and naturally benefits them

Progressive view: institutions are artificial creations that need to redesigned if they are to be helfpful to humanity

• Example: businesses can be potentially harmful to society if they aren’t reined in

Question 563

What is class consiousness?

What is false consciousness?

Answer 563

Class consciousness:

• A set of beliefs that a person holds regarding their social class or economic rank in society, the structure of their class, and their class interests
• An awareness of one’s place in a system of social classes, especially as it relates to the class struggle
• The working class, when they become aware that the upper class, for example, run the factories and get all the benefits, and realize that they are in a “lower class”, will form solidarity with their class, and struggle to change the system by seeking to obtain the factories and farms and redistributing them to the working class

False consciousness: a way of thinking that prevents a person from perceiving the true nature of their social or economic situation; people are unable to see what class they are in

• Note: false consciousness can be promoted by the people in power, perhaps by promoting only one or two people, so that they don’t see their own class

Question 564

What are some criticisms of the Asch Line Studies?

Answer 564

• uniform population; all male undergraduates from the same university culture
• knew they were coming in for a study (even though they thought it was about perception), and might have been suspicious about the study (since many college students participate in studies)
• ecological validity: do the conditions in the study mimic the real world; if not, then we are limited in the conclusions we can draw
• demand characteristics: participants in the study change their behavior to meet the expectations of the experimenter

Question 565

What is a democracy?

Answer 565

• A governmental institution which allows every citizen a political voice, usually through electing representatives ot office (representative democracy)

Question 566

What is conflict theory?

Answer 566

• Focuses on how power differentials are created and how these differentials can lead to the domaniance of the particular group if it sucessfully outcompetes other groups for economic, political, and social resources
• The idea that societies are made up of instiutions that benefit the powerful and create inequalities; large groups of people are at odds with each other until the conflict is resolved and a new social order is created with equally distributed power
• Macroperspective (macrosociology)
• Macroperspective

Question 567

What is basilar tuning?

Answer 567

The concept describing how the hair cells along the basilar membrane in the cochlea, a component of the Organ of Corti, vary in which frequency of pressurized sound waves will activate them

• This basilar tuning allows us to hear different frequency sounds and hear them distinctly

Question 568

What are some major motor milestones and when do they occur?

Answer 568

• Lift head: 2 - 4 months
• Roll over: 2 -5 months
• Sit without support: 5 - 8 months
• Stand with support: 5 - 10 months
• Pull selves up into a standing position on their own: 6 - 11 months
• Crawl :7 - 12 months
• Walk with support: 7 - 13 months
• Stand up on own: 10 - 14 months
• Walk without support: 11 - 15 months
• Wide range of possible times when these events, such that a child may be able to walk without support before an older child can crawl

Question 569

What is the “sick role”

Answer 569

• Expectation within society that allows you to take a break from responsibilites in order to get better

Rights:

• The sick person is exempt from normal social roles
• The sick person is not responsible for their condition

Obligations:

• The sick person should try to get well
• The sick person should seek technically competent help and cooperate with the medical professional

Question 570

What are K-complexes? When do they occur?

Answer 570

• Supress cortical arousal and keep you asleep
• Also help sleep-based memory consolidation (some memories are transferred to long term memory during sleep, particularly declarative/explicit memories)
• Even though they occur naturally, you can also make them occur by gently touching someone sleeping. “that touch was not threatening, stay asleep brain”
• Occur in N2 (stage 2 of sleep)

Question 571

What cells of the eye are important for edge detection?

Answer 571

• Horitzonal and amacrine cells
• Receieve input from multiple retinal cells in the same area before information is passed on to ganglion cells
• They can tehreby accentuate slight differences between the visual information in each bipolar cell
• Increase our perception of contrasts, thereby allow for edge detection

Question 572

What is scotopic vision?

Answer 572

• Vision of the eye under low-light levels.
• In the human eye, cone cells are nonfunctional in low visible light
• Scotopic vision is produced exclusively through rod cells

Question 573

What is the situational approach to behavior?

Answer 573

• Behavior as seen as being influenced by the external situational factors rather than internal motivations or factors
• Given this, it is hard to predict someone’s behavior just off one situation, since one situation will not be similar to another situation and thus the behaviors in each situation will not be the same

Question 574

What are pheromones?

Answer 574

• Chemical signals which are secreted by one animal that, once bonded with chemoreceptors, compel or urge another animal to act in a specific way
• Important in mating, fighting, etc.

Question 575

What is groupthink? How can groupthink be avoided?

Answer 575

• a social phenomenon in which desire for harmony or conformity results in a group of people coming to an incorrect or poor decision
• Maintaining harmony among group members is more important than critically analyzing the problem at hand
• Groups that are susceptible to group think usually are very close-knit and isolated and have very powerful, respected or important leaders, and thus, in the interest of group unity, members censor their opinions
• In many situations, the first suggested made by a leader is usually adopted, especially if there’s little hope of finding a better solution
• To avoid group think, have smaller groups, bring in experts on the subject, or have the leader of the group refrain from disclosing their opinion

Example: a group of individuals live in the same, close-knit suburban neighborhood; they decide to meet to discuss a dog that has been displaying bad behavior; the leader of the neighborhood says that the dog should be put down to avoid further bad behavior and damage to the neighborhood; the other members agree, in order to maintain unity in the group and harmony in the neighborhood instead of giving other opinions

Question 576

What is a minority?

Answer 576

• A group that consists of less than 50% of a population and is treated differently because of some characteristic

Question 577

What is sleep-related hypoventilation?

Answer 577

• When we do not ventilate the lung enough during sleep
• Can lead to high levels of CO₂ and low levels of O₂ and can give rise to many issues, included right-sided heart failure

Question 578

What structure separates the nasal cavity/ olfactory epithelium from the brain?

Answer 578

Cribriform plate

Cribriform plate: a sieve-like structure between the anterior cranial fossa and the nasal cavity

Question 579

What is spatial mismatch?

Answer 579

• The mismatch between where low-income households reside and suitable job opportunities.
• Occurs commonly with segregation

Question 580

How does the body allow us to develop proprioception, i.e. know where we are in space?

Answer 580

In muscle fibers throguhout the body, there are small receptors that have a spindle inside; as the muscle stretches, the spindle stretches as well, and sends a signal to the brain telling us how stretched certain parts of the body are

• This allows us to determine our relative positioning as we can sense which parts of the body are contracted and which are not

Question 581

How is the location of a stimulus determined (somatosensation)?

Answer 581

• Via dermatomes
• This let us differentiate if it’s our leg or our arm that is experiencing the stimulus

Question 582

What is a monarchy?

Answer 582

• Include a royal ruler (king or queen), although the ruler’s powers may be significantly limited by the presence of a constitution and parlimentary system

Question 583

Describe how light and shadows can affect perception. Is this a monocular or binocular cue?

Answer 583

Light and shadows can affect how we percieve an object.

• Monocular cue

Example: The images are the same, except one is flipped relative to the other; this gives us the visualization of a crater vs. a mountain

Question 584

What is the theory of 3 main types of intelligence? What are the factors involved? How was this ammended?

Answer 584

• Analytical: Academic abilites or the ability to solve well defined problems (this is where the IQ score fits in)
• Creative: the ability to reactive adaptively to new situations and to generate novel ideas
• Practical: the ability to solve ill-defined problems (example: how to get the bookcase up a curved staircase into the apartment)
• Ammended to include emotional intelligence: helps us to perceive, understand, manage and use emotions in interactions with others

Question 585

What are the components of feature detection and what cells of the eye are responsible for each component

Answer 585

Color: cones

Shape: parvocellular cells

Motion: Magnocellular cells

Question 586

In classical conditioning, what is spontaneous recovery?

Answer 586

• Refers to the re-emergence of a previously extinguished conditioned response after a delay

Example: After Pavlov’s dog was conditioned to salivate at the sound of a metronome, it eventually stopped salivating (extinguished) to the metronome after the metronome had been sounded repeatedly but no food came; however, one day the metronome went off, and the dog started salivating again (spontaneous recovery)

Question 587

What is the cognitive proceess dream theory?

Answer 587

• Dreams a merely the sleeping counterpart of stream-of-consciousness
• Example: Just as you may be thinking about an upcoming weekend trip when your consciousness quickly shits to your upcoming MCAT day, so too does the content of a dream rapidly shift and change

Question 588

What is Mass Society Theory?

Answer 588

• That social movements involved people who were dangeous, dysfunctional and irrational, and people only joined these social movements because they provided a sense of belonging for individuals who were socially isolated
• This perspective dominated when Nazism, fascism and Stalinism were prominent

Question 589

What is the basal ganglia?

Answer 589

• A collection of subcortical nuclei that function together
• The nuclei are separated by white matter, but function as a unit
• Coordinates muslce movment; receive information from the cortex and relay this information (via the extrapyramidal motor system) to the brain spinal cord
• Also plays a role in cognition and emotion

Question 590

What is medicalization?

Answer 590

• Occurs when human conditions get defined and treated as medical conditions and become a subject of medical study, diagnosis and treatment
• Example: Having trouble focusing has been “medicialized” to ADD; being sad has been “medicalized” to depression
• Example: birth has become medicalized as physicans and their patients plan c-sections rather than natural births

Question 591

What is the prototype willingness model?

Answer 591

• A theory to try to explain how attitude influences behavior

States that behavior is a function of various things. Our behavior is a function of:

• our previous behavior
• our attitudes toward behavior
• subjective norms

intentions

• willingness to engage in a specific type of behavior
• prototypes (our models)

Question 592

What are the mature defense mechanisms?

Answer 592

• A category of defense mechanisms, which, if used strongly, give rise to a person who is happier, healthier and more satisfied with life

Include: use of humor in jokes in order to be truthful about these desires, while allowing them to be more socially acceptable; sublimation; suppression; altruism

Question 593

What is the representativeness heuristic? What is the associated concept of a a “conjunction fallacy”?

Answer 593

• Involves cateogirzing items on the basis of whether they fit the prototypical, sterotypical, or representative image of the category
• For example: Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations
• if asked if she more likely to be feminist bankteller or a bankteller, you probably would say feminist bankteller, because the other parts of her fit with how you think a feminist would act

Conjunction fallacy: the probability of two events occurring together (in “conjunction”) is always less than or equal to the probability of either one occurring alone; so its far more likely for her to be a bankteller alone than a feminist bankteller, even though our instincts tell us otherwise

Question 594

What are some signs of upper motor neuron dysfunction?

Answer 594

Hyperreflexia: An increase in the muscle stretch reflex

• This happens because the lower motor neurons have not been activated by the upper motor neurons reguarly, so they have increased their sensitivity to stimulation; when those muscle spindles send a signal of stretch via the afferent neurons, the lower motor neurons over-react and cause hyperreflexia

Clonus: rhythmic contraction of antagonist muscles (muscles that have the opposite effect of the joint)

• Probably just an extension of hyperreflexia; one muscle contracts quickly, streteching the other, which causes contraction of the opposing muscle, which then stretechs the first muscle, etc.

Hypertonia: increased tone of skeletal muscles

Extensor Plantar Response: Normally if you brush along the bottom of the foot, you should get flexion, but with upper motor neuron dysfunction, you get extension

Question 595

What are the 4 ways to create lesions?

Answer 595

• Surgical removal
• Neurochemicals
• Radiofrequency
• Corticol cooling/cryogenic blockage

Question 596

What is the internal capsule?

Answer 596

• A subcortical region which separates subcortical gray matter nuclei
• Contains a couple of important pathways, including the corticospinal tract, which contains the upper motor neurons

Image: Top-down view

Question 597

With regard to somatosensation, how is intensity of stimulus encoded?

Answer 597

• By how quickly the neurons fire; the more intense something is, the more the neurons will fire, and this will be relayed to the brain as an intense stimuli

Example: if it’s hot outside, the neurons which detect heat will fire a lot, versus if its cold outside, these neurons will not fire as frequently

Question 598

What is the rooting reflex?

Answer 598

• The automatic turning of the head in the direction of a stimulus that touches the cheek
• Example: When the breast touches the cheek, the baby will turn its head to feed
• One of the primitive or neonatal reflexes
• This reflex disappears in the first few weeks of life

Question 599

What is teacher expectancy?

Answer 599

• The idea that teachers tend to get what they expect from students
• A teacher who places high demands on students, but who also believes that her students can rise to the challenge, will more often see students succeed than a teacher who places the same demands but doubts that the students can achieve them

Question 600

What is a class system?

Answer 600

• A system which divides a society in upper, middle and lower classes nad places people in each of these classes given their backgroun but also their attributes and qualifications
• This allows for a degree of social mobility, particularly vertical mobility
• However, given this, this type of social structure is less stable than a caste system

Question 601

What is urban decay? Urban renewal?

Answer 601

Urban decay: The process by which a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude

• Can be a result of suburbanization
• This process can spontaneously reverse in a process called urban renewal, in which city land is clamed and renovated for public or private use

Question 602

What are the primary germ layers?

Answer 602

• The layers of tissues that are derived from the bilaminar disc after cells migrate through the primitive streak
• Endoderm, mesoderm, endoderm

Question 603

What are the otolithic organs? What is their function? How do they work?

Answer 603

• Include the utricle and the saccule of the vestibular system (inner ear)
• Allow us to detect linear acceleration and head positioning
• There are crystals in these structures that are attached to hair cells, which are surrounded by a gel-like environment; when we move, for example, from lying down to sitting up, the crystals pull on the hair cells, since they move more than the surrounding gel-environment
• This triggers an action potential which sends a signal to the brain

Question 604

What are the “Permanent Reflexes”? List them.

Answer 604

• Reflexes which first show up in the newborn and persist throughout life
• Breathing reflex: the muscles required for inhalation and exhalation do the work on their own, without conscious input from the baby
• Eye blink reflex: Involuntary blinking of the eyes in the presence of a bright light or if something comes toward the head
• Pupillary reflex: constricts pupils in the presence of bright lights
• Swallowing reflex: we are not taught how to swallow; happens automatically

Question 605

What is the reality principle?

Answer 605

• The reality principle is the ability of the mind to assess the reality of the external world, and to act upon it accordingly, as opposed to acting on the pleasure principle;
• Sacrifice immediate rewards but replace the immediate gratification with it with long-term gratification (there may be a delay)

Example: As a child, we may have seen candy and wanted it immediately (pleasure principle), but as we mature, we know that the candy may not belong to us, we have to wait to get it, and that we cannot just take it (reality principle)

Question 606

What are some physical effects of long-term stress?

Answer 606

Heart

• Increased HR and increased BP lead to hypertension
• Hypertension is a risk factor for vascular disease, and more specifically for coronary artery disease
• Can cause heart attacks

Metabolism

• When stressed we secrete glucagon and cortisol to ensure glucose levels in the blood are high enough to fight
• However, if this is chronic, high levels of glucose can exacerbate metabolic conditions like diabetes

Reproduction

• Higher risk of infertility and miscarriage (women)
• Higher risk of erectile dysfunction or impotency (men)

Immune

• Detiorates immune response
• However, Acute stress makes immune system ramp up to prepare for potential damage

Question 607

What structures are derived from the mesoderm?

Answer 607

• Muscles
• Kidneys and bladder
• Ovaries/testes
• Circulatory elements
• Bones

Question 608

What is the Looking Glass Self Theory?

What are the steps involved?

Answer 608

• That our view of ourselves comes not only from our direct contemplation of our personal qualities, but also from our perceptions about how we are being percieved by others

We think about:

1. How do I appear to others?
2. What must others think about me?
3. Revise how we think about ourselves
   - Note: this theory says that we are not influenced by the opinion of others, but rather how we imagine others must think of us; thus, we develop our feelings of ourselves based on correct and incorrect assumptions

Example: A teacher grades a paper harshly because she thinks the student is smart and wants to make sure the student meets his potential; when the student gets the paper back, he may think the teacher thought his paper wasn’t good, and therefore, he thinks of himself as being a poor student in literature

Question 609

What is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?

Answer 609

• The theory that certain needs will yield a greater influence on our motivation than others
• Includes a pyramid in which the most primitive, essential and important needs are at the base, and the highest level of the pyramid coressponds to self-actualization or the need to realize one’s fullest potential
• Those at the base of the pyramid are most essential and are highest priority and the ones superior to the base can only be met if the ones below it are met

Note

• Bottom two levels: basic needs
• Love: social need
• Self-esteem: respect
• Self-actualization: the level of maximum potential (we have met all other needs and this is the final one)

Question 610

What are the receptors associated with the 5 tastes?

Answer 610

Sweet, umami and bitter rely on GPCRs, which downstream open ion channels, leading to depolarization and the firing of an action potential

Sour and salty rely directly on ion channels

Question 611

What is the gustatory cortex? How does it respond to taste?

Answer 611

• The taste center in the brain
• All cells that respond to a given taste will synpase in the same region of the gustatory cortex, i.e. the cells which bind to to “sweet” molecules will all synpase in the same region

Question 612

What are some tools for stress management?

Answer 612

• Exercise
• Meditation
• Religious beliefs/faith
• Cognitive flexibility

Question 613

What are the states of consciousness? What are the associated brain waves for each of these states as determined by an electroencephalogram (EEG?

Answer 613

Alertness

• β waves : 12-30Hz

Daydreaming: relaxed, awake state

• α waves: 8-13Hz

Drowsiness

• θ waves: 4-7 Hz

Sleep

• waves depend on the stages of sleep

Question 614

What is Linguistic Determinism? What are the two forms of linguistic determinism?

Answer 614

• Language determines thoughts

Weak linguistic determinism: language influences thought; makes it easier or more common for us to think in certain ways depending on how our language is structured

• Example: if we say “draw out a girl pushes a boy”; if you draw the girl on the left and boy on the right, your language is probably written left to right and vice versa

Strong linguistic determinism: language determines thought, completely; also known as the Whorfian hypothesis

• Suggests that our perception of relativity, the way that we think about the world, is completely determined by the conetect of language
• Example: Inuit lanaguge has a wide variety of names for different types of snow, whereas the English language has very few; therefore, according to this theory, Inuits are better at discriminating subtleties between differnt types of snow than English speakers are

Question 615

What is Wernicke’s (receptive or fluent) aphasia?

Answer 615

• Motor function and fluency of speech is retained but comprehension of speech is lost
• Patients speak nonsensical sounds and inappropriate word combinations devoid of meaning; so they speak, but the words coming out are not comprehensible (sounds like random words being put together to make sentences)

Question 616

What are the stages in Erikson’s psychosocial development theory?

Answer 616

Question 617

In regard to memory, what is the technique of “spacing”?

Answer 617

• Spacing out things we want to remember

Example: rather than cramming for a test by studying 5 hours immediately before the test so the information is “fresh,” it’s better to study for 1 hour each day in the 5 days leading up to the test; enhances long-term memory

• The spaces in between allow us to recognize what we do actually know and what we don’t actually know (immediately after studying something, it may seem simple, but then later, we realize we don’t actually understand it as well)

Question 618

With regard to the vestibular system, how does diziness occur? What can we do to stop it?

Answer 618

• When we are spinning, the endolymph in the semi-circular canals relays that information to the brain
• When we stop spinning, the endolymph is still moving, so we feel like we’re still spinning even though we have stopped; this is the sensation of dizziness
• When the fluid stops moving, this is when the dizziness stops
• If we rotate in the opposite direction, to get the endolymph to spin oppositely, this “cancels out” the original movement of the endolymph and makes the dizziness stop more quickly

Question 619

In regard to the endometrium, what is a crypt?

Answer 619

• Regularly spaced intervals regularly which have proliferating tissue around them
• Where the embryo can implant within the uterus

Question 620

What is the two-point threshold?

Answer 620

• The minimum distance neccesary between two points of stimulation on the skin such that the points will be felt as two distinct stimuli
• The size of the two-point threshold depends on the density fo nerves int he particualr area of skin being tested

Question 621

What is inter-colonialism?

Answer 621

• A theory which describes how the exploitation of minority groups exists within a wider society

Question 622

When regarding visual cues, what are the types of constancy? Describe them?

Answer 622

Size constancy: Within a certain range, people’s perception of one particular object’s size will not change, regardless of changes in distance or how big the retinal image is

• Example: if two women sit one in front of the other, while the one in front creates a larger retinal image, we know that the women are about the same size

Shape constancy: The tendency to perceive the shape of a rigid object as constant despite differences in the viewing angle (and consequent differences in the shape of the pattern projected on the retina of the eye)

• Example: if we look at a door as it is opened, while the shape changes (from rectangular to trapezoid), perceptually, we still know the shape of the actual door

Color constancy: The perceived color of objects remains relatively constant under varying illumination conditions.

• Example: if a mug is half in sunlight and half in shade, we know that the mug is still consistently the same color throughout the entire mug, even though the part in the sun appears to be brighter than the part in the shade

Question 623

What is elder abuse?

Answer 623

• Most commonly manifests as neglect, althought physical, psychological and financial abuse may occur as well
• The caretaker of the individual is most commonly the source of the abuse
• Seen across all socioeconomic statuses

Question 624

What are some effects of sleep deprivation?

Answer 624

• Irritable and poor memory
• Increased risk of obesity; more cortisol and hunger hormones are produced, so we’re eating more and and storing more of that food as fat
• Higher risk of depression

Question 625

What is conformity?

Answer 625

• Matching one’s attitudes, beliefs and bheaviors to societal norms
• Also known as “peer pressure”
• We use social situations, especially ones with peers, to detemrine whats acceptable, to question standards and authorities, and to get feedback on behavior

Question 626

Describe the phototransduction cascade

Answer 626

• Light comes into the eye and and hits the retina
• Within the retina there are rods, which contain small discs
• Within these discs are proteins known as rhodopsin, which contain molecules known as retinal
• When light is no present, retinal is in 11-cis retinal conformation
• When light hits the retinal, it changes it to trans-retinal, which changes the conformation of the rhodopsin protein
• The associated protein, transducin, a GPCR
• The alpha subunit of transducin binds to cGMP phosphodiesterase and activates it, decreasing the level of cGMP and increasing the level of GMP
• cGMP is responsible for the opening of Na+ channels along the cell membrane, so when cGMP decreases, the channels close
• As less Na+ comes in, the rod hyperpolarizes and turn off
• This turns on the bipolar cell, which then, via a bunch of other cells, sends a neural imput to the brain

Question 627

What is culture lag?

Answer 627

• Refers to the notion that culture takes time to catch up with technological innovations, and that social problems and conflicts are caused by this lag
• Happens because material change occurs rapidly while non-material culture remains stable for long periods of time

Example: When cars were first invented, there were no speed limits, no guidelines for right of way, no stop lights; eventually, non-material culture caught up and rules were written

Example: How long it took for businesses to incorporate e-mail into their systems

Question 628

What is the drive reduction theory?

Answer 628

Drive reduction theory: explains that motivation is based on the goal of eliminating uncomfortable states

• Focuses on lacks or deprivations is going to energize a drive or aroused state; this drive then reduces the need, which is going to put us back into homeostasis

Question 629

What are the 5 tastes?

Answer 629

• Sweet
• Sour
• Bitter
• Salty
• Umami
• Taste buds are more localized in the front of the tongue than in the back

Question 630

What is source monitoring? How does it effect memory retrieval?

Answer 630

• Source monitoring errors: involves confusion between semantic and episodic memory; have difficult with keeping tract where various information came from
• This is the reason that misleading or false information can have such an impact on a memory
• i.e. : we cannot differentiate between if we actually remember it or if we read it and and incorporated it into the memory

Question 631

What is stress?

Answer 631

By the process by which we appraise and cope with a stressor which gives rise to a stress reaction

Question 632

What is alertness?

Answer 632

A state of consciousness in which we are awakre and able to think

• In this state, we are able to perceive, process, access information and express that information verbally

Question 633

What is the James-Lange theory of Emotion?

Answer 633

• A stimulus first results in a physiological arousal, which leads to a secondary response in which the emotion in labeled
• Emotions follow directly from bodily responses
• Example: petting your dog
• When petting your dog, different neurotransmitters are released, HR goes down, which is then interpreted as “happiness”
• Its not petting the dog that makes you happy, its what the dog does to your body
• Example: don’t cry because you’re sad, but are sad because you cry

Question 634

Where is language centralized?

Answer 634

• For 90% of right-handed people, language is centralized in the left half of the brain
• For 70% of left-handed or ambidextrous people, language is still centralized in the left hemisphere of the brain

Question 635

In classical conditioning, what is discrimination?

Answer 635

The ability to distinguish between two stimuli, learning to respond to some stimuli in a certain way, but not to others

Example: We discriminate between loud sounds and do not respond to all of them in the same way; this is important, we do not want to respond to the loud yelling at a sports event in the same way we would respond to the loud yelling of people coming out of a burning building

Question 636

What is the function of the anterior hypothalamus?

Answer 636

• Controls sexual behavior
• When the anterior hypothalamus is stimulated (in rats), they will mount almost anything
• If there is damage to the anterior hypothalamus, there is permanent inhibition of sexual activity
• Note: anterior hypothalamus also regulates sleep and body temperature

Question 637

What are dyssomnias?

Answer 637

• Disorder that make it difficult to fall asleep, stay a sleep or avoid sleep
• Include insomnia, narcolepsy and sleep apnea

Question 638

What is the elaboration liklihood model for persuasion?

Answer 638

• • A theory to try to explain how attitude influences behavior
• Focuses on why and how we are persuaded to act in a certain way
• Information is processed in two ways:

Central Route: the degree of attitude change depends on the quality of the arguments made by the persuader

Peripheral Route: the degree to which something is persuasive is based on superficial and non-verbal cues, such as attractiveness, expertise or staus of the persuader

Example: A pharmaceutical representative comes to us to sell us a new drug; we will evaluate the argument and the benefits and risks to the patient (central route), but also consider if the person is dressed well, and looks professional (peripheral route); this will ultimately shape our attitude and dictate our behavior, i.e. if we buy the drug or do not buy the drug

• This is more of a cognitive model than the prototype willingness model or the theory of planned behavior

Question 639

What are the two threads of Social Constructionism?

Answer 639

• Weak Social Constructionism: proposes that social constructs are dependent on brute facts, which are the basic and most fundamental and don’t rely on any other facts
• Brute facts differ from institutional facts, which are facts that rely on other facts (examples: money depends on paper which we have given value)
• Strong Social Constructionism: the whole of reality is dependent on language and social habits, that all knowledge is a social construct and that there are no brute facts
• Example: we created the idea of quarks as well as everything we use to explain it

Question 640

What is the thalamus?

Answer 640

• A collection of subcortical nuclei that function together
• Serves an an important relay station or incoming sensory information, including all senses except smell
• After receiving incoming sensory impulses, the thalamus sorts these impulses and transmits them to the appropriate areas of the cerebral cortex
• Also important in cognition, emotion and consciousness because the thalamus is connected to many parts of the brain and is a key site where information passes through and which passes this information around

Question 641

What is the learning (behaviorist) theory of language?

Answer 641

• Language is conditioned through operant conditioning; acquire language through reinforcement
• Parents and caregivers repeate and reinforce sounds that sound most like the language spoken by the parents; thus over time, the infant perceives that certain sounds have little value and are not reinforced while certain sounds have value and are reinforced
• Example: every time a child says something that sounds like “mama” the mother starts smiling, hugging the child, etc., so over time, the child learns the more they make the “mama” sounds, the more hugs and smiles I get

Question 642

What is the availability heuristic?

Answer 642

–We make our decsiions based on how easily similar instances can be imaged

• Used when we try to decide how likely something is
• Usually right, but sometimes wrong given that our most easily memorable experiences may not always be representative

Example: is a shark attack or fire-work related death more common? We think about the times we hear about these things on the news and draw a conclusion

• We might have read more about shark attacks and death, but its because fire-work related deaths are not as publicized, so the availbility heuristic may lead us astray

Question 643

What is an EEG? How does it work?

Answer 643

• Electroencephalography
• Measure the electrical activity that is generated by neurons in the brain; look at the sum total electrical field that is generated by the brain
• Produces waves which can be read to determine things like if people are asleep or awake or if someone is having a seizure
• Place electrodes on someones scalp at predeteremined positions
• Cannot tell us anything about the activity of a given neuron or groups of neurons, because they’re external to the cells

Question 644

What was B.F. Skinner’s perspective on the behavioral theory of personality?

Answer 644

• Believed that rewards and punishments (operant conditioning) to increase or decrease a behavior
• Personality is, thus, the reflection of behaviors that have been reinforced over time

Question 645

What is Malthusian theory?

Answer 645

• Focuses on how the exponential growth of a population can outpace growth of food supply and lead to social degredation and disorder

Malthusian catastrophe: the prediction that as third-world nations industrialize and undergo demographic transition, the pace at which the world population will grwoth is much faster than the ability to generate food and mass starvation will occur

Question 646

What is the theory of multiple intelligences? Who developed the theory?

Answer 646

• There are 7 (and later he added 2 more to make 9) independent intelligences; strength or weakness in one does not predict strength and weakness in the other

First 7:

• Logical-mathematical intelligence
• Linguistic intelligence
• Musical intelligence
• Spatial intelligence
• Body-kinesthetic intelligence
• Intrapersonal intelligence
• Interpersonal intelligence

Latter 2:

• Naturalist intelligence
• Existential intelligence
• Takes not just book-smarts into account; but also no evidence to support it
• Developed by Howard Gardener

Question 647

Why do healthcare disparities exist?

Answer 647

• High quality healthcare facilities are more likely to exist in wealthier than poorer neighborhoods
• Diseases are more likely to spread within crowded areas
• Poverty is associated with a poor diet, which increases chances of morbidity (food deserts)
• Individuals living in poverty are more likely to take jobs which pose substantial health risks (both dangerous conditions as well as conditions which pose a health risk, like mine workers, who can die from the mine collapsing, but can also get black lung disease)
• Cannot afford healthcare
• Note: racial differences exacerbate these issues, since minorities are less likely to get access to healthcare and are more likely to live in poverty

Question 648

What is the Organ of Corti?

Answer 648

• A structure which passes through the middle of the cochlea
• Contains two components: basilar membrane and tectorial membrane
• The basilar membrane contains hair cells, which, which when they are moved by endolymph, create an electrical signal from the auditory stimulus which prompted the endolymph to move

Question 649

How does a medication to treat nicotine addiction work?

Answer 649

• Medication either prevents the release or the re-uptake of dopamine to inhibit the reward signal from being propogated
• Help reduce cravings, primarily

Question 650

In classical conditioning, what is a neutral stimulus?

Answer 650

• a stimulus which initially produces no specific response other than focusing attention.
• In classical conditioning, when used together with an unconditioned stimulus, the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus
• Something conditioned has to be learned

Example: the bell initially did not make the dog drool, but when used together with food (the conditioned stimulus), which normally causes the dog to salivate, the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus and the dog drools when he hears the bell

Question 651

What is the cornea?

Answer 651

A clear, domelike window in the front of the eye, which gatehrs and focuses the incoming light

• Serves to protect the front of the eye and to bend light (slightly)

Question 652

What is the effect of group status on conformity?

Answer 652

• If we respect or admire a groups status, we are more likely to conform
• Explains not only why children will go along with actions displayed by the “popular group” but also why people would agree more with 4 doctors than 4 gardeners when it comes to our health decisions

Question 653

What are immature defense mechanisms?

Answer 653

• Defense mechanisms which are sometimes found in adults, but are seen as socially unacceptable and if used commonly in adults, may lead to social problems

Includes: projection and passive agression

Question 654

What is a caste system of social structure?

Answer 654

• A social system in which your position in soceiety is detemined by to whom you are born and to whom you are married
• Very little social mobillity in caste systems; limited to the social group within which you are born and are limited in mobility despite apptitude or achievements
• However, this is very socially stable, since there is no movement between castes

Question 655

What is the function of the lateral hypothalamus?

Answer 655

• referred to at the hunger center because it has special receptors thought to detect when the body needs more food or fluids
• lateral hypothalamus triggers eating and drinking
• In rats, if this part is destroyed, they refuse to eat or drink and starve to death if not force-fed through tubes

Question 656

What are the different types of cones (of the eye)?

Answer 656

• Red: also known as long, since they absorb long wavelength rays best (red: 700nm)
• Green: also known as medium, since they absorb medium wavelength rays best (green: 520–560 nm)
• Blue: also known as short, since they absort shorter wavelength rays best (blue: 400nm)

Question 657

What is the hyperglobalist’s perspective on globalization?

What is the skepticalist’s perspective on globalization?

What is the transformationalist’s perspective on globalization?

Answer 657

Hyperglobalist: sees globalization as a legitimate process; countries become interdepedent and their economies intertwined though theorists do not comment on whether this is good or bad

Skepticalist: critical of globalization; considers these processes as becoming regionialized and not globalized; third world countries are not being integrated with the same benefits as first world countries; don’t believe that the current economy is leading toward global capitalism; transnational companies are still bound to their home country and borders are as important as ever

Transformationalist: do not comment on good or bad, but rather just comment on how things are changing; many factors that affect the new world patterns, but the outcomes of these changes is unknown

Question 658

What is phenylketonuria (P.K.U)?

• What is interesting about this disease in regard to genetic-environmental interaction?

Answer 658

• is an inborn error of metabolism, due to a deficient liver enzyme, phenylanaline hydroxylase, that results in decreased metabolism of the amino acid phenylalanine
• Genetically, it occurs in 1/15,000 babies
• However, those babies are identified at birth, and feed a phenylalanine free diet, so they don’t end up getting PKU and the neurological deficiencies that come along with this disease

Question 659

What are the early methods of studying the brain?

Answer 659

1. Wait until someone dies, then take a look

• Told scientists alot; allowed them to define structures of the brain and allowed them to take the brain apart and look at it from different angles
• However, can’t tell us anything about how the brain functions (controls body or generates thoughts)

2. Wait until something went wrong (and usually wait until they die to do an autopsy)

• Wait until someone had a brain injury and then studying the effects of the injury
• Allowed scientists to determine “cerebral localization”: the idea specific parts of the brain could control specific aspects of behavior, emotion, or thought
• However, damage can occur to multiple parts of the brain, so its hard to isolate what spot is responsible for what change
• Issue with both of these: the time-span over which this needs to take place, since the patient has to die, is very long and the lack of control of where injuries happen, make this limited in terms of research implications

Question 660

What is the Galant Reflex?

Answer 660

• When the skin on the baby’s back is stroked on one side, the baby will tend to move or swing toward that side
• One of the primitive or neonatal reflexes
• Disappears around 6 months

Question 661

What are the forms of non-associative learning?

Answer 661

Non-associative learning: a relatively permanent change in the strength of response to a single stimulus due to repeated exposure to that stimulus

Types: Sensitization or Habituation

• Called non-associative, becuase there isn’t a reward or punishment given for the change in response, its just a simple change in response (associative are things like classical and operant conditioning)

Question 662

What is LSD?

Answer 662

• Interferes with serotonin transmission which causes people to experience sensations that didn’t actually come from the environment (hallucinations)
• See things rather than hear things that aren’t there
• A hallucinogen

Question 663

What is the Moro Reflex?

Answer 663

• A reflex in which infants react to abrupt movment of the head or a loud noise by flinging out their arms, then slowly retracting their arms and crying
• One of the primitive or neonatal reflexes
• Disappears at 4-6 months of age

Question 664

What is the gray matter on the outside of the cerebrum called?

Answer 664

The cerebral cortex

• The cerebellar cortex is the gray matter covering the cerebellum

Question 665

What are Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development? At what ages do they occur?

Answer 665

0-2 years: Sensorimotor stage

• Children gather information about the world through their senses
• Learning how to move their bodies around as they use their senses; helps them to explore the world and learn what they are capable of

2-6/7: Preoperational stage

• think in images and symbols
• begin to develop language
• engage in pretend play
• very egocentric: don’t understand that other people might have a different perspective (a 5 year old might stand in your way watching tv, not understanding that you can’t see because they can see just fine)

7-11: Concrete operational stage

• learn the idea of conservation (example if you take two glasses with equal amounts of water and pour pour one into a taller glass, the pre-operational child will say the tall glass has more water because its taller, but the operational child will say that they’re the same because s/he can understand that the water is conserved) (see image)
• mathematics ( will know something like 8+4=12, which means 12-4=8)

>12 or older: Formal operational stage

• Reason about abstract concepts (what might occur); thus, learn about consequences
• Moral reasoning

Question 666

What is relative poverty?

Answer 666

• A socioeconomic conditon in which people are poor in comparison to the larger population in which they live
• This type of poverty is not saying that they do not have the basic resources, but that they are being excluded from parts of society because their income is too low
• Usually defined to the median income in an area
• If a countries income rises, the absolute poverty line does not change, but the relative poverty line does

Question 667

What are the primary subgroups of hormones?

Answer 667

Proteins/ Polypeptides (derived from amino acids)

Steroid hormones (derived from cholesterol)

Tyrosine derivatives

• Thryoid hormones
• Catecholamines

Question 668

What are three categories of innate behavior?

Answer 668

• Reflexes
• Orientation: behaviors that allow us to orient ourselves spatially in our environment
• Example: kinesis (orienting your body, for example when you fall); taxis (moving toward or away from a stimulus, like a bug going toward light)
• Fixed action patterns: a sequence of coordinated movements that are performed without interruption (like reflexes, but with many movements)
• Example: Graylag Goose. If an egg is displaced from the nest, the bird will reflexively roll the egg back to the nest with its beak. However, Konrad Lorenz discovered that it will complete this action even if the egg is removed during the behavior.

Question 669

In regard to olfaction, what is a glomerulus?

Answer 669

• A spherical structure located in the olfactory bulb of the brain where synapses form between the terminals of the olfactory nerve and the dendrites of mitral, periglomerular and tufted cells
• Are the initial sites for synaptic processing of odor information coming from the nose
• A given glomerulus will respond to one type of molecule, as all the cells responsive to a particular chemical will synpase onto the same glomerulus

Question 670

What are the components of sexual orientation?

Answer 670

• Attraction: who we are attracted to
• Fornication: who we want to have sex with
• We can be attracted to all people, but only want to have sex with men

Question 671

What is a sulcus?

Answer 671

A depression or groove in the cerebral cortex

Question 672

In regard to age and cognitive ability, what types of memory decline with age, are stable thoughout life and are enhanced with aging?

Answer 672

Decline

• Recall (cannot generate responses without cues)
• Episodic memory (older episodic memory is stable, but new episodic memory declines)
• Processing speed
• Divided attention

Stable

• Implicit
• Recognition

Improve

• Semantic (until about 60, then begins to decline)
• Crystallized intelligence: ability to use knowledge and experience; since older adults have had more time to gain this experience, this pattern makes sense
• Emotional reasoning: Better at reasoning through interpersonal or emotionally-charged situations

Question 673

What is the meaning of tonotopical organization? To what structure does this apply?

Answer 673

The spatial arrangement of where sounds of different frequency are processed in the brain

• Tones close to each other in terms of frequency are represented in topologically neighbouring regions in the brain
• This how the brain recognizes different sounds having been registered by different parts of the cochlea

Question 674

What is the difference between public vs. private conformity?

Answer 674

Pubilc conformation: temporary or superficially conforming, by outwardly changing behaviors and opinions, but internally, you maintain your own beliefs (the outward acceptance of these ideas without taking them on personally)

Private conformation: you change your behaviors and opinon’s to align with the group

-

Question 675

What is Thompson’s Demographic Transition Model?

Answer 675

-the transition from high birth and death rates to lower birth and death rates as a country or region develops from a pre-industrial to an industrialized economic system

Question 676

Describe education as a social institution

Answer 676

• Aim to arm the people with information
• Information may be in the form of facts, figures and mental processes but also emphasized the social role of education (the hidden cirriculum)

Question 677

What are the components of someones gender?

Answer 677

• Identity and expression
• Identity: The gender we identify with
• Expression: The gender we outwardly express

Question 678

What is altruism?

Answer 678

A type of mature defense mechanism, in which we utilize the principle or practice of concern for the welfare of other

Question 679

What is a “full-term” pregancy?

Answer 679

37-42 weeks, with an average of 39 weeks

• Before 37 weeks: pre-term
• After 42 weeks: post-term

Question 680

What is out-group derogation?

Answer 680

Discrimination between ingroups and outgroups is a matter of favoritism towards an ingroup and the absence of equivalent favoritism towards an outgroup

• Outgroup derogation is the phenomenon in which an outgroup is perceived as being threatening to the members of an ingroup
• This phenomenon often accompanies ingroup favoritism, as it requires one to have an affinity towards their ingroup
• In this concept, we are nice to our in-group but can actually be mean to our outgroup

(Different than in-group favoritism, where we are nice to our in-group, but neutral toward the out-group)

Question 681

Why is mediatation a useful tool in stress management?

Answer 681

• Helps lower HR, BP and cholesterol

Question 682

What is relative height when regarding visual cues?

Answer 682

Objects that are perceived to be higher are perceived to be futher away than those that are lower

• Monocular cue

Example: the green rectangle is placed physically higher and therefore assumed to be further away; both the red and green rectangles are the same height

Question 683

How is the placenta formed?

Answer 683

• As the syncytiotrophoblast projects continue to grow, created extended villi, all while maternal blood continues to pool near these structures
• Eventually, fetal vessels are created within these villi; these vessels are close to maternal blood and nutrients and waste can pass between them
• Note: the cytotrophoblasts, the unicellular form of the trophoblasts which does not create the majority of the villi (that’s the syncytiotrophoblasts), line the villi, so that the maternal blood and fetal blood are not actually in contact

Question 684

What are taboos?

Answer 684

• A type of norm which dictates what behaviors are completely unacceptable under any circumstance
• Engaging in taboos are usually punishable by law, but also commonly result in severe disgust of the society around that individual

Example: incest and cannibalism

Question 685

What is self-esteem?

Answer 685

Reflects an individual’s overall subjective emotional evaluation of his or her own worth

• Respect one has for self

Question 686

What are “long tracts”? What are the two main components? How are they associated with the brain stem?

Answer 686

• Long tracts are collections of axons traveling a long distance through the CNS, often connecting the cerebrum to the spinal cord
• While moving through cerebrum, they pass through the brain stem and make up some of the white matter in the brain stem
• Two important tracts that pass through the brain stem:
• Upper motor neurons (afferent)
• Somatosensory long tracts (efferent)

Question 687

What is ethology?

Answer 687

Scientific and objective study of animal behaviour, usually with a focus on behaviour under natural conditions, and viewing behaviour as an evolutionarily adaptive trait

• Focuses on looking at overt behavior (observable behvaiors): innate behavior, learned behavior, and complex behavior

Question 688

What is assimilation and accomodation in regard to a schema?

Answer 688

• Schema: describes a pattern of thought or behavior that organizes categories of information and the relationships among them.
• In order for us to develop schemas they have to grow and change via assimilation and accomodation

Assimilation: the process of classifying new information into an existing schemata

• Assimilation has 2 ss so remember as “same schema”

Accomodation: the process by which existing schemata are modified to encompass this new information

• Can accomodate by modifying previously existing schemas or by creating new ones
• Accomodation has two ccs in it, so remember as “change or create”

Question 689

What are the genetic and environmental similarites of monozygotic twins, dizygotic twins and siblings?

Answer 689

• Genetically, monozygotic twins are 100% similar, while dizygotic twins and siblings are only 50% similar
• However, environmentally, monozygotic and dizygotic twins share 100% similar enivornment, while siblings do not share the same environment
• This is because siblings are raised at differnt types, by parents that have different levels of experience (based on 1st child vs 2nd child, etc.), and in a different time, so the experience for the child may be different than its siblings

Question 690

What is fluid intelligence?

What is crystallized intelligence?

Answer 690

Fluid intelligence: our ability to reason quickly and abstractly, such as when we’re solving novel logical problems

• Decreases as we move into older adulthood

Crystallized intelligence: Our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills

• Increases as we move into older adulthood (or stay the same)

Question 691

The humanistic approach to personality focuses on the value of individuals and their free-will and describe those ways in which people strive toward self-actualization.

In order for people to reach self-actualization, what traits must they have?

Answer 691

• Self-aware
• Caring
• Wise
• Interests are problem-centered; focus on a task that is the mission of their life
• Have a higher purpose that is focused on larger causes and less focused on the basic aspects of life

Note: self-actualization is rarely achieved

Question 692

What is the gate theory of pain?

Answer 692

• The gate control theory of pain asserts that non-painful input closes the “gates” to painful input, which preventspain sensation from traveling to the central nervous system. Therefore, stimulation by non-noxious input is able to suppress pain.
• There is a special “gating” mechanism that can turn pain signals on or off, affecting whether or not we perceive pain
• In this theory, the psinal cord is able to preferentially forward the signals from other touch modalities (pressure, temperature) to the brain, thus reducing the sensation of pain
• This is why when you hit your knee, rubbing the injury seems to reduce the pain

Question 693

What are context effects?

Answer 693

• Context-dependency effects on recall are typically interpreted as evidence that the characteristics of the environment are encoded as part of the memory trace and can be used to enhance retrieval of the other information in the trace.
• In other words, you can recall more when the environments are similar in both the learning and recall phases.

Example: A academic application would be that students may perform better on exams by studying in silence, because exams are usually done in silence.

Question 694

What is Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome?

Answer 694

• A syndrome associated with chronic alcohol use that arises as a product of deficiency of Thiamine (Vitamin B1)
• Causes visionchanges, ataxia and impaired memory

Question 695

What is a variable-interval partial reinforcement schedule?

Answer 695

• Responses are reinforced after a variable amount of time has passed

Example: a car salesmen will get a bonus if he is speaking to a customer when his supervisor stops by; since hedoesn’t know when the supervisor will drop by, to increase his chances at a bonus, he needs to be always talking to a customer

• Rate of response with variable-interval is higher than with fixed-interval

Question 696

What are the main organs of the endocrine system?

Answer 696

Hypothalamus

Pituitary (also known as the master gland)

Thyroid

• Produces T3 and T3
• Involved in metabolism

Parathryoid

• Produces PTH
• Involved in calcium balance

Adrenal glands

• Cortex: cortisol and aldosterone
• Medulla: catecholamines

Gonads

• Releases sex steroids

Pancreas

• Releases insulin and glucagon

Question 697

How does a cochlear implant work?

Answer 697

• Microphone on the outside of the persons skull, which transmits sound into an electrical impluse
• This signal is moved into the transmitter, which goes into the receiver, the first structure inside the skull
• The receiver sends the signal down a stimulator, which then stimulates the cochlea, allowing the cochlea to transmit the sound into neural imputs

Question 698

Who was Solomon Asch?

Answer 698

• Created the Asch line studies
• Part of a group of scientists known as the Gestalt Scientists; believed that it was not possible to understand human psychology or human behavior by breaking it into parts
• Was born in Warsaw Poland, to a jewish family, but moved to the U.S. in the 20s.

Question 699

What is suburbanization?

Answer 699

• A population shift from central urban areas into suburbs, resulting in the formation of (sub)urban sprawl
• Sub-urbanization is inversely related to urbanization, which denotes a population shift from rural areas into urban centres
• Issues: can be far from healthcare and jobs; but sometimes the sub-urban areas can create their own economic centers and fix these issues

Question 700

What is the self-fulfilling prophecy?

Answer 700

A prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true, by the very terms of the prophecy itself, due to positive feedback between belief and behavior

• Example: If we see city dwellers as rude and start to not like them and avoid them, then they might think we are rude and not want to spend time with us; as a result of this, we percieve them to be more rude, and the positive feedback continues

Question 701

What are some trends in motor development in the child?

Answer 701

• Gross motor skills develop before fine motor development (why we can sit up and walk before we can draw a picture)
• Development occurs from head to toes (why we can sit up before we can walk)

Question 702

What is escape learning?

What is avoidance learning?

Answer 702

• Escape learning: Also known as escape conditioning; when you perform a behavior to terminate an ongoing, unpleasant, aversive stimulus
• “Get me the heck out of here”

Example: Fire breaks out, we weren’t expecting it, but we foudn the exit and escaped from the fire

• Escape learning can be turned into avoidance learning of some type of signal occurs before the aversive stimulus is present

Avoidance learning: individual learns a behavior or response to avoid a stressful or unpleasant situation

Example: if the fire alarm goes off, we would make our way to the door and leave, and be long-gone by the time the fire actually breaks out

Question 703

In regard to universal emotions, what are some facial features seen with “happiness”?

Answer 703

• Raise cheeks
• Elevated corners of the mouth
• Wrinkles on the outward corners of the eyes (sometimes)

Question 704

What is reaction formation?

Answer 704

A type of neurotic defense mechanism in which a person has the tendency of taking a repressed wish or feeling and expressing it at a conscious level in a contrasting form.

Example: A person who believes immigration is wrong may volunteer to work at an immigration center helping people develop language skills

Question 705

What is the role of the hypothalamus in regard to emotion?

Answer 705

• Regulates the autonomic nervous system
• Does this by regulating the endocrine system, and regulating the amount of, for example, epinephrine

Question 706

In classical conditioning, what is an unconditioned response?

Answer 706

• A response which did not need to be taught; occurs naturally in reaction to the unconditioned stimulus.

For example: if the smell of food is the unconditioned stimulus, the feeling of hunger in response to the smell of food is the unconditioned response

• Thus, in an unconditioned response, a stimulus triggers an innate physiological response to the stimulus

Question 707

How can misleading information affect memory?

Answer 707

• If we are provided misleading information, we can alter our memories to make more sense of the misleading information
• Example: when watching a video of a car crash, and later being asked questions about the when one car “hit” the other (group 1) or when one car “smashed” into the other (group 2) and weeks later asking if there was glass on the ground, those that got the word hit remembered there was no glass on the ground (true), but those that got the word smashed remembered there was glass on the ground (false)

Question 708

How do we “fix” cognitive dissonance

Answer 708

Cognitive dissonance: The discomfort we feel when holding two or more conflicting cognitions, such as ideas, beliefs, values or emotional reactions

Example: I smoke and also know smoking causes cancer

1. May try to modify some of our cognitions

• Might say “ I don’t really smoke that much”

2. Trivialize: making less important

• Might say “ The evidence is weak that smoking causes cancer”

3. Adding more cognitions

• “I exercise so much, that it doesn’t matter that I smoke” (added an additional cognition about exercise)

4. Denying

” There is no evidence that smoking and cancer are linked”

Question 709

What is a master status?

Answer 709

• A status by which the a person is most identified and is pervasive in that person’s life; generally how people view themselves and often holds symobolic value

Example: if a woman feels that her role as a mother is more important than her role as a woman, a daughter, etc., she is more likely to identify herself as a mother and to identify with other women who label themselves as such. An individual’s master status dominates how they are perceived by others and their behavior towards them.

Question 710

What is the Stanford Prison Experiment?

Answer 710

• Conducted by Philip Zimbardo at Stanford in 1971
• Trying to determine how conformity and obedience can result in people behaving in ways that are counter to how they would act on their own and even counter how they think they would act

Goal of study: to look at how social norms and social conventions might influence the behaviors of the particpants, who are playing the roles of the prisoners or guards

Participants: no mental disorders, middle-class, males, university students

• Randomly assigned to prisoner or guard via coin flip
• Prisoners were “randomly” arrested, finger printed, photographed for a mug shot, and, put in uniform with chains on their ankles, taken to their cell, which had a mattress but no windows or clocks
• Guards were told prior to the experiment not to physically harm the prisoners, but that they could use tactics to scare the prisoners; were given unifroms and batons

Results are in image:

• Note: none of the guards left the experiment

Question 711

What are delusions?

Answer 711

False beliefs discordant with reality and not shared with others in the individual’s culture that mare maintained in spite of strong evidence to the contrary

• A symptom of schizophrenia

Question 712

What are the two chambers of the front of the eye? Where are they located?

Answer 712

• Anterior chamber: lies in front of the iris
• Posterior chamber: lies between the iris and the lens

Question 713

What are sleep spindles? When do they occur?

Answer 713

A burst of rapid brain activity. Some researchers think that sleep spindles help inhibit certain perceptions so we maintain a tranquil state during sleep. Sleep spindles in some parts of brain associated with ability to sleep through loud noises.

• Occur in N2 (stage 2 of sleep)