test 1 COPY Flashcards
Psyche
soul
Logos
to study
Wilhelm Wundt (1870s)
combines the disciplines of philosophy and physiology
Psychological Research
- Naturalistic
- observation
- Surveys
- Case Study
- Correlational
- Experimental
correlation
- a measure of association between two variables (-1 < r < +1)
- direction (positive vs. negative/inverse)
- strength
- perfect correlation (1.0)
- strong (0.6 to 0.8)
- moderately strong (0.3 to 0.5)
- no correlation (0)
- cannot tell us about causation
Correlational Research
- Establishes whether there is a relationship between two or more variables
- CANNOT INFER CAUSALITY
- Directionality problem
- Potential for a third variable (confound)
Correlational vs. Experimental Research
- Smoking is correlated with lung cancer
- High grades are correlated with successful careers
- Eating Frosted Flakes is correlated with lower cancer rates
- In Taiwan birth control use is correlated with number of household appliances
Experimental Research
- Considered the most powerful tool for determining causal relationships
- Random Assignment: ensures that every participant has an equal chance of being assigned to any of the conditions
- This minimizes the chance that a pre-existing difference between groups is the cause of the “experimental effect”
Experimental Research
- Considered the most powerful tool for determining causal relationships
- Random Assignment: ensures that every participant has an equal chance of being assigned to any of the conditions
- This minimizes the chance that a pre-existing difference between groups is the cause of the “experimental effect”
Bias in Research
- Sampling bias
- Placebo effects
- Social desirability bias
- Response sets
Experimenter bias:
- double blind procedure
Components of the Neuron
(Dendrites)
receive information from other neurons
Components of the Neuron
(cell body)
creates transmitter molecules
Components of the Neuron
(Axon)
- Myelin insulates the nerve cell, speeds up conduction of nerve messages
- Terminal buttons of the axon release transmitter
Graded Potentials
Stimulation of the nerve membrane can open ion channels in the membrane
Graded Potentials NA+
NA+ ions flowing in will depolarize the membrane (movement from -70 mV to say -60 mV
Graded Potentials K+
K+ ions flowing out of membrane will hyperpolarize the membrane (-70 mV to say -90 mV)
The Action Potential
Graded potentials:
- generated at the dendrites
-are conducted along the membrane to the axon hillock
- If summated activity at the axon hillock raises the membrane potential past threshold
- an action potential (AP) will occur
- During the AP, NA+ ions flow into the cell raising the membrane potential to +40 mV, producing the spike
- The restoration of the membrane potential to -70 mV is produced by an opening of channels to K+
- The AP is conducted along the axon toward the terminals
Neurotransmitters
- Acetylcholine (Ach)
- Monoamines:
- epinephrine and norepinephrine
- serotonin
- dopamine
- GABA
- Glutamate
Autonomic Nervous System
(two systems)
The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) has two divisions:
- Sympathetic: Emergency system
- Parasympathetic: Vegetative functions (e.g. digestion)
- The two systems often act in opposition (as in the control of heart rate)
- Can act in concert (as in the control of sexual reflexes)
Middle View of Human Brain
(Medulla)
Controls heart rate, respiration
Midline View of Human Brain
(Cerebellum)
Coordinates smooth movements, balance, and posture
Midline View of Human Brain
(Pons)
Involved in the control of sleep
Limbic System Functions
- Septal area is involved in pleasure and in relief from pain
- Amygdala is involved in learning and recognition of fear
- Hippocampus is involved in memory
Limbic System Functions
- Septal area is involved in pleasure and in relief from pain
- Amygdala is involved in learning and recognition of fear
- Hippocampus is involved in memory
Cerebral Cortex
Functions of cerebral cortex:
- Provides for flexible control of patterns of movement
- Permits subtle discrimination among complex sensory patterns
- Makes possible symbolic thinking
- Symbolic thought is the foundation of human thought and language
Frontal Lobe Damage and Personality
- Frontal lobes involve movement, attention, planning, memory, and personality.
- Frontal lobe function in personality is evident in the case of Phineas Gage:
Gage suffered frontal lobe damage after an accident involving a dynamite tamping rod
Gage was a railroad supervisor prior to the damage; after the damage he became childish and irreverent, could not control his impulses, and could not effectively plan.
Cerebral Lateralization
The structures of the cortex and sub-cortex appear to specialize in function:
- Hemispheric Specialization
- Left hemisphere is dominant for language, logic, and complex motor behavior.
- Right hemisphere is dominant for non-linguistic functions including recognition of faces, places, and sounds (music)
The hemispheric specializations are evident from studies of
- Damage to one hemisphere (I.e. Broca’s area)
- Split-brain subjects
The Split-Brain Study
- Information from the one visual field is usually transmitted to the opposite visual cortex
- The corpus callosum serves to integrate the two hemispheres
- Cutting the corpus callosum can result in information reaching only one hemisphere
- Language is a left-hemisphere function
- Information reaching the left hemisphere will be reported by the subject, but not information reaching the right hemisphere
The Endocrine System
- Glands that secrete hormones into the bloodstream to help control bodily functioning
- Hypothalmus connected to pituitary gland (master gland)
- adrenal glands = fight or flight
- Gonads = secondary sex characteristics
Endocrine Systems
- Endocrine glands release hormones into blood stream
- Have effects at diffuse target sites throughout the body
- Hormones bind to receptors
- Hormones can have organizational effects (permanent change in structure and function)
- Hormones can have activational effects:
Lack of testosterone reduces sexual behaviour
psychology
the scientific study of behaviour and mental process
- the goal is to describe, predict and explain behaviour
behaviour
everything to do with what we directly observe
- two people kissing, a baby crying
mental process
the thoughts, feelings and motives that each of us experiences privately that cannot be seen directly
- thoughts and feelings
Scientific approach 4 attitudes:
- critical thinking
- skepticism
- objectivity
- curiosity
critical thinking
(scientific approach)
reduces likelihood that conclusions will be based on unreliable personal beliefs, opinions, biases and emotions
skepticism
people challenge whether a fact is really true
pseudoscience
information that is couched in scientific terminology but is not supported by scientific research
empirical method
gaining knowledge through the observation of events, the collection of data and logical reasoning
Sigmund Freud(1856-1939)
belived most human behaviour is casued by dark, unpleasant, unconscious impulses to show
- did not use trials or controlled experiamnts
positive psychology
emphasizes human strengths
- centers topics like hope, optimism, happiness, and grattitude
The fact that researchers focus their attention on findings that are unlikely to have occurred by chance illustrates which of your text’s unifying themes?
Psychology is empirical.
Charley tells you that 17 out of the 30 students enrolled in his English class scored exactly 62 points on the last exam. Conceptually, this is the same as saying
the mode for that particular English exam was 62 points
A psychologist who studies information processing and decision making would probably be considered a __________ psychologist.
cognitive
Which of the following best characterizes people’s understanding of reality?
highly subjective
The first two major “schools” of psychology were
structuralism and functionalism
In the Featured Study on the use of subliminal self-help tapes, one of the independent variables was
In the Featured Study on the use of subliminal self-help tapes, one of the independent variables was
Nature is to nurture as heredity is to
environment
In a study designed to test the effects of a new drug developed to treat Alzheimer’s disease half the patients were given the actual drug while the other half of the patients were given a placebo (sugar pill). In this study, the experimental group is
the group who received the actual drug
Dr. Hackle has found that no matter how students score on the first midterm, all the students in her class tend to score between 75% and 80% on her final exam. This suggests that
the scores on the final exam and the first midterm are not very highly correlated
Theories permit researchers to move from
application to control
a hormone is
a chemical secreted into the blood by a gland
We would expect the greatest degree of phenotypic similarity among
identical twins
If a key part of the __________ is destroyed, an animal will lose all interest in food and may well starve to death.
hypothalamus
In evolutionary theory, __________ refers to the reproductive success (number of descendants) of an individual organism relative to the average reproductive success in the population.
fitness
by definition, a population
is the group of people to whom the conclusion of the study will apply
Empiricism refers to a
position on how information should be acquired
Which of the following neurotransmitters is primarily involved in the activation of motor neurons controlling skeletal muscles?
acetylcholine
The notion that all behavior is fully governed by external stimuli is most consistent with which of the following schools of thought?
behaviourism
For John B. Watson, the appropriate subject matter of psychology was
animal behaviour
The tendency to view one’s own group as superior to others and as the standard for judging the worth of foreign ways is called
ethnocentrism
MRI scans of schizophrenic patients have indicated that
schizophrenic subjects have larger ventricles than nonschizophrenic subjects
Which of the following techniques is most likely to prove useful in determining why a particular child is afraid to go to school?
case study
In computers, the keyboard receives input and passes that information along to the computer’s central processing unit (CPU). In comparing a computer to a neuron, the keyboard would be equivalent to
the dendrites
Strict behaviorists would be most sympathetic to which one of the following statements?
Human behaviour is primarily caused by environmental factors.
Experimenter bias occurs when
experimenters’ beliefs in their own hypotheses affect either the subjects’ behavior or their observations of the subjects
The brain structure that controls your ability to understand speech is
Wernickes area
Which of the following is not true regarding commonsense analyses of behavior?
D. they are typically based on precise definitions and hypotheses
Which of the following kinds of studies can truly demonstrate that specific traits are indeed inherited?
none of the above
If you were having problems with depression, which of the following kinds of psychologists would be the greatest help to you?
a clinical psychologist
The conservation of body resources, including blood pressure reduction and the promotion of digestion, is handled by the
parasympathetic division
Contemporary psychologists generally assume that human behavior is determined by
C. heredity and environment acting jointly
The branch of psychology concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders is called
clinical psychology
The area of the frontal lobe that plays an important role in the production of speech is called
Broca’s area
__________ receive information from other neurons; __________ transmit information to other neurons.
Dendrites; axons
A good analogy for the way in which a neurotransmitter binds to receptor sites is
a key fitting in the lock of a door
The function of the hypothalamus is to regulate
hunger, thurst, and body temperature
“Organisms tend to repeat responses that lead to positive outcomes, and they tend not to repeat responses that lead to neutral or negative outcomes.” These words would most likely have been said by which of the following individuals?
B.F. Skinner
A person’s current weight and height could be said to exemplify his or her
phenotype
The endocrine system
secretes hormones
The fact that many times researchers unintentionally influence the outcome of their studies implies the existence of
experimenter bias
According to John Watson, behavior is governed primarily by
the enviroemnt
Placebos are used in research to control for
the subjects’ expectations about treatment
In the Featured Study on the use of subliminal self-help tapes, one of the dependent variables was
the actual improvement in memory or self-esteem
When the scores for a recent Chemistry exam were calculated the mean was 60 and the median was 65. Later the professor discovered that one score had been recorded incorrectly; it had been entered into the computer as a 5, instead of as a 50. When this correction is made
the mean for the exam will change, but the median will stay the same
Jolyn believed that there were gender differences in driving habits. To test this assumption she stood near a quiet intersection. Jolyn recorded the gender of each driver who approached a stop sign, and also whether the individual came to a complete stop before proceeding into the intersection. Jolyn is conducting
naturalistic observation
Which of the following statements about the theory of evolution is not accurate?
Evolutionary theory assumes that most organisms have a motive to maximize reproductive fitness.
Which of the following statements is the most accurate?
Interconnections exist between what happens in psychology and what happens in society at large.
The idea that you should reward yourself for achieving study goals is based on which of the following concepts?
behaviour modification
Which of the following research techniques is least likely to be used to study the human brain?
lesioning
The observable characteristics of an individual are referred to as one’s
phenotype
According to Darwin’s theory of evolution, which of the following is the key factor in evolutionary change?
variations in reproductive success
Publishing research results so others can subject the methods and conclusions to critical scrutiny illustrates which of your text’s unifying themes?
psychology is empirical
A scientific journal refers to
a periodical that publishes technical and scholarly articles
A scientific theory has to be
testable
A psychologist who studies attitude formation and change would probably be considered a __________ psychologist.
social
Which of the following groups is most likely to have been used as subjects for psychological research?
middle - and upper-class white males
In an experiment designed to test memory processes one group was given special instructions and asked to group the items on a list into categories while they tried to memorize them. A second group of participants was given the same list, but they did not receive any special instructions. In this study, the experimental group is
the group who recived the special instructions
The spatial tasks on which males tend to do better than females generally involve which of the following?
mentally rotating objects
The world’s largest organization devoted to the advancement of psychology is the
American Psychological Association
Imagine that the personality traits of conscientiousness and extroversion are negatively correlated. If Wilfred’s score in conscientiousness is extremely low
he would most likley score at the high end of the extroversion scale
what qualifies as empirically based knowledge?
D. observed actions
David and Alexandra both take part in a research study that is investigating the effects of sleep deprivation on reaction time. David is kept awake for 24 hours straight while Alexandra follows her normal sleep routine. In this study David is
part of the experimental group
Experimenter bias typically results in
the effects of the bias confirming the experimenter’s expectations
Which of the following would not be expected of an experimental psychologist?
to conduct psychotherapy
Within the field of psychology, Freud’s ideas encountered resistance because he emphasized
the unconsious
The fact that subjects sometimes report beneficial effects from a placebo treatment illustrates which of your text’s unifying themes?
Our experience of the world is highly subjective.
Theory construction is
a gradual iterative process that is always subject to revision
Skinner’s behaviorism
D. made the study of behavior and its outcome the basis of the whole approach
In the Featured Study on the use of subliminal self-help tapes, one of the independent variables was
the labeling of the tape (accurate or mislabeled)
Michael is having problems relating to other people because he is exhibiting delusions (false beliefs) and hallucinations. Michael would most likely seek help from a(n) __________ psychologist.
clinical
A general strategy for collecting empirical data is called
a research method
Which of the following techniques is likely to be most useful for locating specific neurotransmitter substances in the brain?
positron emission tomography
Carla earned 78 points on her statistics exam. Ten of the students in her class earned higher scores than she did, and ten students earned lower scores than Carla. Based on this information, you can conclude that Carla’s score of 78 points is
the median for her class
Current evidence indicates that schizophrenia results from
multiple causes that involve both genetic and environmental factors
an agonist
mimics the action of a neurotransmitter
Exchange of information between neurons takes place at the
synapse
Response is to stimulus as
pain is to cut
The __________ is most likely to be in control of bodily processes during periods of rest and recovery for the body.
parasympathetic nervous system
Which of the following “schools” of psychology focused on identifying and examining the fundamental components of conscious experience, such as sensations, feelings, and images?
structuralism
Which of the following is cited in the textbook as a reason for the narrow focus of Western psychology?
cross-cultural research is time-consuming and costly
People who have hormonal imbalances have problems with their
endocrine system
To generalize results to a population, we must first
C. draw a representative sample from the population of interest
If you have difficulty understanding the meaning of someone’s speech, you may suspect damage to
wernicke’s area
Of the following correlation coefficients, the one that would allow the most accurate predictions of one variable based on the other variable would be
+1.00
Students are said to be “testwise” if they
are skilled at using clues contained within a test to improve their scores
The fact that Princeton students “saw” Dartmouth students engage in twice as many infractions as the Dartmouth students did in a Princeton-Dartmouth football game is most consistent with which of the following?
subjectivity of perception
Dr. Kincaid was interested in the topic of autistic savants (individuals with limited abilities in many areas, but with an exceptional talent in one specific area). In the initial part of the investigation Dr. Kincaid carefully observed and compiled detailed files on three individuals who were autistic savants. Dr. Kincaid is conducting
case study reserch
In this chapter, we saw that schizophrenia may be a function of abnormalities in neurotransmitter activity, structural defects in the brain, and genetic vulnerability. These findings support which of the following unifying themes of your textbook?
behaviour is determined by multiple causes
It appears that most human characteristics are influenced by
more than one pair of genes
If a person has a brain tumor that results in a disruption of his/her eating behavior, which of the following areas is the most likely location of the tumor?
hypothalamus
Which of the following is good advice for getting more out of lectures?
Pay attention to clues from the instructor about what is important.
A local hospital wanted to assess the way its patients were being treated. The hospital hired several researchers to act as patients and record the way hospital personnel handled the admitting and preliminary evaluation procedures. In this example, the researchers hired by the hospital were engaged in
A. case study research
B. naturalistic observation
C. correlational research
D. survey research
The first president of the American Psychological Association (APA) was
G. Stanley Hall
One of the first areas of applied psychology to develop was
personnel psychology or mental testing
Rene Descartes
argued that the mind nad body were completely separate
Wilhelm Wundt created structuralism
what is structuralism:
Wundts approach to discovering the basic elements or structures of mental process so called because of focus of identifying the structures of the human mind
short comings of structuralsim was found by:
William James
william james created functionalism
what is functionalism?
appriach to mental processes, emphasizing the fucntions and purpose of the mind and behaviour in the individuals adaptation to the environment
- focused on human interactions with the outside
- natural flow of thought a “stream of consciousness”
functionalism fit well with what theory?
the theory of evolution by Charels Darwin
natural selection
(Charles darwin)
an envolutionary process where organisms that are better adapted to their environment will survive and, importantly produce more offspring
- the environment determines who wins that competition
evolutionary theory summerized in 4 key points:
- variation
- the fact that characteristics of a species differ - competition
- species can produce more individuals than can possibly survive given the limited resources of an environment
- selective advantage
- some of the variation of characteristics possessed by individuals gives these individuals a better chance to survive - inheritance
- linked to genetics and refers to the tendency for an offspring to possess the traits of its parents
7 contemporary approaches to psychology
biological
behavioural
psychodynamic
humanistic
cognative
evolutionary
sociocultural
biological approach
(contemporary approaches to psychology)
focusing on the body, brain and nervous system
- researchers investigate why your heart races when you are afraid or hands sweat when you tell a lie
neuroscience
study of structure, function, development, genetics, and biochemistry of the nervous system emphasizing that the brain and nervous system are central to understanding behaviour thought and emotion
behavioural approach
(contemporary approaches to psychology)
scientific study of observable behavioural responses and their environmental determinants
psychodynamic approach
(contemporary approaches to psychology)
unconscious thought, the conflict between biological drives (drive for sex) and society demands and early childhood experiacnes
- sexual and aggressive impulses buried deep in unconscious mind influencing ways people think, feel, behave
- Sigmund Frued founding father of psychodynamic approach
psychoanalysis
(Frued)
analyst unlocking a persons unconsious conflicts by talking with the person about childhood memories, dreams, thoughts and feelings
humanistic approach
(contemporary approaches to psychology)
(Manslow)
- persons positive qualities
- the capacity for positive growth
- freedom to choose ones destiny
- rather than being driven by unconscious impulses people choose to live by higher values such as altruism an unselfish concern for others wellbeing
cognative approach
((contemporary approaches to psychology))
menthal process involved in knowing: how we direct our attention, perceive, remember, think and solve problems
evolutionary approach
(contemporary approaches to psychology)
evolutionary ideas
- adaptation
- reproduction
- natural selection
as the basis for explaining specific human behaviours
sociocultural approach
(contemporary approaches to psychology)
ways social and cultural enviroments influence behaviour
- understanding behaviour requires background knowledge
