UNIT 2 Flashcards
Learning
A systematic, relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs through experience.
Behaviorism
A theory of learning that focuses solely on observable behaviors, discounting the importance of such mental activity as thinking, wishing, and hoping.
Associative Learning
Learning that occurs when an organism makes a connection, or an association, between two events.
Conditioning
The process of learning these associations.
Classical Conditioning
Organisms learn the association between 2 stimuli.
Operant Conditioning
Organisms learn the association between a behavior and a consequence.
Observational Learning
Learning that occurs through observing and imitating another’s behavior.
Reflexes
automatic stimulus response connections.
Unconditioned Stimulus
A stimulus that produces a response without prior learning.
Conditioned Response
The learned response to the conditioned stimulus-unconditioned stimulus pairing.
Unconditioned Response
An unlearned reaction that is automatically elicited by the unconditioned stimulus.
Conditioned Stimulus
A previously neutral stimulus that eventually elicits a conditioned response after being paired with the unconditioned stimulus.
Acquisition
The initial learning of the connection between the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned stimulus when these two stimuli are paired.
Contiguity
The conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus are presented very close together in time.
Contingency
The conditioned stimulus must not only precede the Unconditioned stimulus closely in time, must serve as a reliable indicator that the unconditioned stimulus is on its way.
Generalization (Classical Conditioning)
The tendency of a new stimulus that is similar to the original conditioned stimulus to elicit a response that is similar to the conditioned response.
Discrimination (Classical Conditioning)
The process of learning to respond to certain stimuli and not others.
Extinction (Classical Conditioning)
The weakening of the conditioned response when the unconditioned stimulus is absent.
Spontaneous Recovery
The process in classical conditioning by which a conditioned response can recur after a time delay, without further conditioning.
Counterconditioning
A classical conditioning procedure for changing a relationship between a conditioned stimulus and its conditioned response.
Aversive Conditioning
A form of treatment that consists of repeated pairings of a stimulus with a very unpleasant stimulus.
Immunosuppression
A decrease in the production of antibodies.
Taste Aversion
A special kind of classical conditioning involving the learned association between a particular taste and nausea.
Respondent Behavior
Behavior that occurs in automatic response to a stimulus, and later to a conditioned stimulus.
Law Of Effect
Thorndike’s law stating that behaviors followed by positive outcomes are strengthened and that behaviors followed by negative outcomes are weakened.
Shaping
Rewarding successive approximations of a desired behavior.
Reinforcement
The process by which a stimulus or an event following a particular behavior increases the probability that the behavior will happen again.
Positive Reinforcement
The presentation of a stimulus following a given behavior in order to increase the frequency of that behavior.
Negative Reinforcement
The removal of a stimulus following a given behavior in order to increase the frequency of that behavior.
Avoidance Learning
An organism’s learning that it can altogether avoid a negative stimulus by making a particular response.
Learned Helplessness
Through experience with unavoidable aversive stimuli, an organism learns that it has no control over negative outcomes.
Primary Reinforcer
A reinforcer that is innately satisfying; one that does not take any learning on the organism’s part to make it pleasurable.
Secondary Reinforcer
A reinforcer that acquires its positive value through an organism’s experience; a secondary reinforcer is a learned or conditioned reinforcer.
Generalization (Operant Conditioning)
Performing a reinforced behavior in a different situation.
Discrimination
An unjustified negative or harmful action toward a member of a group simply because the person belongs to that group.
Extinction (Operant Conditioning)
Decreases in frequency of behavior when the behavior is no longer reinforced.
Schedules of reinforcement
Specific patterns that determine when a behavior will be reinforced.
Fixed-Ratio Schedule
Reinforces a behavior after a set number of behaviors.
Variable- Ratio Schedule
a system in which behaviors are rewarded an average number of times but on an unpredictable basis.
Fixed-Interval Schedule
Reinforces the first behavior after a fixed amount of time has passed.
Variable-Interval Schedule
A timetable in which a behavior is reinforced after a variable amount of time has elapsed.
Punishment
A consequence that decreases the likelihood that a behavior will occur.
Positive Punishment
The presentation of a stimulus following a given behavior in order to decrease the frequency of that behavior.
Negative Punishment
The removal of a stimulus following a given behavior in order to decrease the frequency of that behavior.
Delay of Gratification
Putting off the pleasure of an immediate reward in order to gain a larger, later reward.
Behavior Modification
The Use of operant conditioning principles to change human behavior.
Retention
Remember information
Motor Reproduction
Imitating a model’s actions.
Vicarious Reinforcement
Seeing a model attain an award for an activity increases the chances that the observer will repeat the behavior.
Vicarious Punishment
Seeing the model punished makes the observer less likely to repeat the behavior.
Purposiveness of Behavior
The idea that much of behavior is goal-directed.
Latent Learning
Unreinforced learning that is not immediately reflected in behavior.
Insight Learning
A form of problem solving in which the organism develops a sudden insight into or understanding of a problem’s solution.
Instinctive Drift
The tendency of animals to revert to instinctive behavior that interferes with learning.
Preparedness
The species-specific biological predisposition to learn in certain ways but not others.
Learning Styles
People differ in terms of the method of instruction that will be most effective for them.
Health Psychology
A subfield of psychology that emphasizes psychology’s role in establishing and maintaining health and preventing and treating illness.
Behavioral Medicine
An interdisciplinary field that focuses on developing and integrating behavior biomedical knowledge to promote health and reduce illness. Overlaps with and is sometimes indistinguishable from health psychology.
Health Promotion
Helping people change their lifestyle to optimize their health assisting them in achieving balance.
Public Health
Concerned with studying health and disease in large populations to guide policymakers.
Health Behaviors
Practices that have an impact on physical well being.
Theory of Reasoned Action
Theoretical Model Stating that effective change requires individuals to have specific intentions about their behaviors, as well as positive attitudes about a new behavior, and to perceive that their social group looks positively on the new behavior as well.
Theory of Planned Behavior
Theoretical model that includes the basic ideas of the theory of reasoned action but adds the person’s perceptions of control over the outcome.
Stages of Change Model
Theoretical model describing a 5 step process by which individuals give up bad habits and adopt healthier lifestyles.
Precontemplation
Individuals are not yet ready to think about changing and may not be aware that they have a problem that needs to be changed.
Contemplation
Individuals acknowledge that they have a problem but may not be yet ready to change.
Preparation
Individuals are preparing to take action.
Action
Individuals commit to making a behavioral change and enact a plan.
Maintenance
Individuals are successful in continuing their behavior change over time.
Relapse
A return to former unhealthy patterns.
Intrinsic Motivation
Doing something because you want to and enjoy it.
Extrinsic Motivation
Doing something for external rewards.
Implementation Intentions
Specific strategies for dealing with challenges of making a life change.
Social Support
Information and feedback from others indicating that one is loved and cared for, esteemed and valued, and included in a network of communication and mutual obligation.
Tangible Assistance
Family and friends can provide goods and services in stressful circumstances.
Information
Individuals who extend support can also recommend specific strategies to help the person under stress cope.
Emotional Support
Friends and family can reassure the stressed person that they are valuable and loved.
General Adaptation Syndrome
Selye’s term for the common effects of stressful demands on the body, consisting of three stages; alarm, resistance, and exhaustion.
Alarm
A temporary state of shock during which resistance to illness and stress falls below normal limits.
Resistance
glands throughout the body manufacture different hormones that protect the individual.
Exhaustion
The wear and tear takes its toll, mental or physical collapse may take place.
Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis
The complex set of interactions, among the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland, and the adrenal glands that regulate various body processes and control reactions to stressful events.
Psychoneuroimmunology
A new field of scientific inquiry that explores connections among psychological factors, the nervous system, and the immune system.
Type A Behavior Pattern
A cluster of characteristics, including being excessively competitive, hard-driven, impatient, and hostile-that is related to a higher incidence of heart disease.
Type B Behavior Pattern
A cluster of characteristics including being relaxed and easy going, that is related to a lower incidence of heart disease.
Type D Behavior Pattern
A cluster of characteristics, including being generally distressed, having negative emotions, and being socially inhibited, that is related to adverse cardiovascular outcomes.
Health Disparities
Refer to often preventable differences in physical functioning and psychological functioning that are experienced by socially disadvantaged groups.
Cognitive Appraisal
Individuals’ interpretation of the events in their life as harmful, threatening, or challenging and their determination of whether they have the resources to cope effectively with the events.
Coping
Managing taxing circumstances, expending effort to solve life’s problems, and seeking to master or reduce stress,
Primary Appraisal
Individuals interpret whether an event involves harm or loss that has already occurred, a threat of some future danger, or a challenge to be overcome.
Secondary Appraisal
People evaluate their resources and determine how effectively they can be marshaled to cope with the event.
Problem-Focused Coping
The coping strategy of squarely facing one’s troubles and trying to solve them.
Emotion-Focused Coping
The coping strategy that involves responding to the stress that one is feeling, trying to manage one’s emotional reaction, rather than focusing on the root problem itself.
Positive Reappraisal
Reinterpreting a potentially stressful experience as positive, valuable, or even beneficial.
Hardiness
A personality trait characterized by a sense of commitment rather than alienation and of control rather than powerlessness, a perception of problems as challenges rather than threats.
Stress Management Program
A regimen that teaches individuals how to appraise stressful events, how to develop skills for coping with stress, and how to put these skills into use in everyday life.
Exercise
structured activities whose goal is to improve health.
Aerobic Exercise
Sustained activity that stimulates heart and lung functioning.
Sexually Transmitted Disease
An infection that contracted primarily through sexual activity.
Memory
The retention of information or experience over time as the result of three key processes: encoding, storage, and retrieval.
Encoding
The first step in memory; the process by which information gets into memory storage.
Divided Attention
Concentration on more than one activity at the same time. `
Sustained Attention
The ability to maintain attention to a selected stimulus for a prolonged period of time.
Executive Attention
The ability to plan action, allocate attention to goals, detect errors and compensate for them, monitor progress on tasks and deal with novel or difficult circumstances.
Levels of Processing
A continuum of memory processing from shallow to intermediate to deep, with deeper processing producing better memory.
Shallow
Physical and perceptual feature are analyzed.
Intermediate
Stimulus is recognized and labeled.
Deep
Semantic, meaningful symbolic characteristics are used.
Elaboration
The formation of a number of different connections around a stimulus at a given level of memory encoding.
Storage
The retention of information over time and how this information is represented in memory.
Atkinson-Shriffrin Theory
Theory stating that memory storage involves three separate systems: sensory memory, short term memory, and long term memory.
Sensory Memory
Memory system that involves holding information from the world in its original sensory form for only an instant, not much longer than the brief time it is exposed to the visual, auditory, and other senses.
Short Term Memory
Limited capacity memory system in which information is usually retained for only as long as 30 seconds unless strategies are used to retain it longer.
Working Memory
A combination of components including short term memory and attention that allow individuals to hold information temporarily as they perform cognitive tasks. (Decision making and problem solving)
Long Term Memory
A relatively permanent type of memory that stores huge amounts of information for a long time.
Explicit Memory
The conscious recollection of information, such as specific facts or events. Information that can be verbally communicated.
Episodic Memory
The retention of information about the where, when, and what of life’s happenings.
Implicit Memory
Memory in which behavior is affected by prior experience without a conscious recollection of that experience.
Semantic Memory
A person’s knowledge about the world.
Procedural Memory
Memory of skills.
Priming
The activation of information that people already have in storage to help them remember new information better and faster.
Schema
A pre-existing mental concept or framework that helps people to organize and interpret information. Prior encounters with the environment influence our decision making.
Script
A schema for an event, often containing information about features, people, and typical occurrences.
Connectionism
The theory that memory is stored throughout the brain in connections among neurons.
Retrieval
The memory process that occurs when information that was retained in memory comes out of storage
Serial Position Effect
The tendency to recall the items at the beginning and end of a list more readily than those in the middle.
Autobiographical Memory
A special form of episodic memory, consisting of a person’s recollections of their life experiences.
Flashbulb Memory
The memory of emotionally significant events that people often recall with more accuracy and vivid imagery than everyday events.
Motivated Forgetting
Forgetting that occurs when something is so painful anxiety-laden that remembering it is intolerable.
Interference Theory
The theory that people forget not because memories are lost from storage but because other information gets in the way of what they want to remember.
Proactive Interference
Situation in which material that was learned earlier disrupts the recall of material that was learned later.
Retroactive Interference
Situation in which material that was learned later disrupts the retrieval of information that was learned earlier.
Decay Theory
Theory stating that when an individual learns something new, a neurochemical memory trace forms, but over time this trace disintegrates suggests that the passage of time always increases forgetting.
Tip Of The Tongue Phenomenon
A type of effortful retrieval associated with a person’s feeling that they know someone but cannot quite pull it out of memory.
Retrospective Memory
Remembering information from the past
Prospective Memory
Remembering information about doing something in the future; includes memory for intentions
Amnesia
The loss of memory.
Retrograde Amnesia
Memory loss for a segment of the past but not for new events.
Stream of Consciousness
Term used by William James to describe the mind as a continuous flow of changing sensations, images, thoughts and feelings.
Consciousness
An individual’s awareness of external events and internal sensations under a condition of arousal, including awareness of the self and thoughts about one’s experiences
Reticular Activation Network
A network of structures including the brain stem, medulla, and thalamus that determine arousal, one aspect of consciousness.
Theory of Mind
Individuals’ understanding that they are others think, feel, perceive, and have private experiences.
Autism Spectrum Disorder
A neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by deficits in social communication and interaction as well as restrictive repetitive behaviors, interests, and activities.
Controlled Processes
The most alert states of human consciousness, during which individuals actively focus their efforts toward a goal.
Executive Function
Higher-order, complex cognitive processes, including thinking, planning, and problem solving.
Automatic Processes
States of consciousness that require little attention and do not interfere with other ongoing activities.
Unconscious Thought
According to freud, a reservoir of unacceptable wishes, feelings, and thoughts that are beyond conscious awareness.
Sleep
A natural state of rest for the body and mind that involves the reversible loss of consciousness.
Biological Rhythms
Periodic physiological fluctuations in the body, such as the rise and fall of hormones and accelerated/decelerated cycles of brain activity, that can influence behavior.
Circadian Rhythms
Daily behavioral or physiological cycles that involve the sleep/wake cycle, body temperature, blood pressure, and blood sugar level.
Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN)
A small brain structure that uses input from the retina to synchronize its own rhythm with the daily cycle of light and dark: the body’s way of monitoring the change from day to night.
REM Sleep
A stage of sleep characterized by rapid eye movement when most vivid dreams occur.
Manifest Content
According to Freud, the surface content of a dream, containing dream symbols that disguise the dream’s true meaning.
Latent Content
According to Freud, a dream’s hidden content; its unconscious and true meaning.
Cognitive Theory of Dreaming
Theory proposing that one can understand dreaming by applying the same cognitive concepts used in studying the waking mind.
Activation Synthesis Theory
Theory that dreaming occurs when the cerebral cortex synthesizes neural signals generated from activity in the lower part of the brain and that dreams result from the brain’s attempts to find logic in random brain activity that occurs during sleep.
Psychoactive Drugs
Drugs that act on the nervous system to alter consciousness, modify perception, and change moods.
Tolerance
The need to take increasing amounts of a drug to get the same effect.
Physical Dependence
The physiological need for a drug that causes unpleasant withdrawal symptoms such as pain and craving for the drug when discontinued.
Psychological Dependence
The strong desire to repeat the use of a drug for emotional reasons, such as a feeling of well-being and reduction of stress.
Addiction
A physical or psychological dependence, or both, on a drug.
Substance Use Disorder
A psychological disorder in which a person’s use of psychoactive drugs affects their health, ability to work, and engage in social relationships.
Depressants
Psychoactive drugs that slow down mental and physical activity.
Alcoholism
Disorder that involves long term, repeated, uncontrolled, compulsive, and excessive use of alcoholic beverages and that impairs the drinker’s health and social relationships
Barbiturates
Depressant drugs, such as nembutal and Seconal that decrease central nervous system activity.
Tranquilizers
Depressant drugs such as valium and xanax that reduce anxiety and induce relaxation.
Opiods
A class of drugs that act on the brain’s endorphin receptors. These include opium and its natural derivatives as well as chemicals that do not occur naturally but that have been created to mimic the activity of opium.
Stimulants
Psychoactive drugs, including caffeine, nicotine, amphetamines, and cocaine that increase the central nervous systems activity.
Hallucinogens
Psychoactive drugs that modify a person’s perceptual experiences and produce visual images that are not real.
Hypnosis
An altered state of consciousness or a psychological state of altered attention and expectation in which the individual is unusually receptive to suggestions.
Divided Consciousness View of Hypnosis
Hilgard’s view that hypnosis involves a splitting of consciousness into two separate components, one following the hypnotist’s commands and the other acting as a hidden observer.
Social Cognitive Behavioral View of Hypnosis
The perspective that hypnosis is a normal state in which the hypnotized person behaves the way they believe a hypnotized person should behave
Meditation
The attainment of a peaceful state of mind in which thoughts are not occupied by worry; the mediator is mindfully present to their thoughts and feeling but is not consumed by them.
