Unit 4: Memory, Stress/Health, and social psych Flashcards
the process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging
Stress
psychologically overwhelming event that causes long-lasting impact
trauma
4 D’s of psychopathology
Dysfunction
Danger
Distress
Deviance
After a stressor, what is the process of figuring out:
“Is this a challenge or a threat”
Primary appraisal
After a primary appraisal, what is the process of evaluation options and effectiveness when dealing with a threat?
Secondary appraisal
What type of appraisal happens after determining a threat?
Secondary appraisal
large-scale disasters
- accumulative stress declines over time
catastrophe
adolescents and young adults struggle with this the most
significant life changes
persistent stress
significantly worse for people experience discrimination
daily hassles
What are the three types of stressors?
- Catastrophes
- Significant life changes
- Daily hassles
describes the process your body goes through when you are exposed to any kind of stress, positive or negative.
were really good with short terms stress, but NOT with long-term stress
General Adaptation Syndrome
Phase 1: alarm reaction (mobilize resources, increased SNS activity, stress hormone release)
Phase 2: resistance (cope with stressor)
Phase 3: exhaustion (reserves depleted)
General Adaptation Syndrome
The stress hormone
cortisol
What is the purpose of stress releasing cortisol, epinephrine, and norepinephrine
gets the body ready for fight or flight
The process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions.
catharsis
studying how people react in different social situations, and how people interact with, think about, and influence others.
social psychology
trying to figure out why people do the things they do using dispositional or situational attributions
attribution theory
overvaluing the dispositional attribution and undervaluing the situational attribution
fundamental attribution error
person did the thing because of the way they are
dispositional attribution
person did the thing because of the situation that they are in
situational attribution
happens when attitudes/beliefs and behavior does not align
cognitive dissonance
participants was tasked with shocking another person for an incorrect answer with increased voltage until a “lethal” shock was initiated. An “authoritative figure” pushed the participants to continue despite inner conflict.
Milgram’s obedience study
one person was put with a group that consistently gave wrong answers to see if the participant would conform with the group or independently answer with the correct answer.
Asch’s conformity Study
what does asch’s conformity study teach us?
normative social influence
informational social influence
we are influenced by our need to gain approval and avoid disapproval (be part of what is “normal”)
normative social influence
where a person conforms to gain knowledge, or because they believe that someone else is ‘right’.
informative social influence
A teacher split her class into blue eyes and brown eyes in order to explain racism.
Jane Elliot’s blue-eyed, brown-eyed experiment
What does Jane Elliot’s blue-eyed, brown-eyed experiment teach us?
social construct of race
impact of discrimination
social identity theory
a large part of our self-concept is based on our membership in certain social groups (and our perceptions of people who aren’t in those groups).
Social Identity theory
What does the Milgram’s Obedience theory teach us?
cognitive dissonance due to Cognitive distress
- are made to feel incompentent or insecure
- are in a group of atleast 3
- are in a group where everyone agrees
- admires the group’s status/ attractiveness
- have not made a prior commitment to any response
- know that other’s can see our response
- are from a culture that highly values social standards
reason people are More likely to conform
an unjustifiable and usually negative attitude toward a group and its members
prejudice
overt blatant discrimination
macroaggressions
subtle discrimination, often not done with the express purpose of discrimination
microaggressions
generalized beliefs about a group of people
stereotype
acting in a negative and unjustifiable ways toward members of the group
discrimination
prejudice that we know about and recognize
explicit prejudice
prejudice that we are not always consciously aware of but that still impact our behavior
Implicit prejudice
what three factors compose prejudice?
negative emotions
stereotypes
discrimination
persistence of learning over time through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information
memory
retrieving information that isn’t currently in your conscious awareness (life fill-in-the-blank)
recall
identifying items previously learned (like multiple choice questions)
recognition
learning something more easily the second time (like hearing about something you remember learning in PSY100)
relearning
convert into a coded form
encoding
refers to ability to retain information in the brain (in memory)
storage
things that jog our memory
retrospective memories
prospective memories
associations
retrieval cues
the process of recovering or locating information stored in memory
retrieval
super brief
basically just long enough for use to process that information in the moment (and decide whether we should attend to it)
sensory memory
originally just thought of as a storage space
memories lasting minutes to a few days
without distraction, we can store about:
7 digits
6 letters
5 words
short-term memory
active manipulation of short-term memories
relies heavily on executive function
working memory
theoretically limitless capacity
relatively permanent (but not accurate)
not just stored in one place of the brain
long-term memory
small individual pieces of a set of information are bound together to create a meaningful whole later in memory
chunking
the study and development of systems for improving and assisting the memory
mnemonics
- unfreezing
- changing
- refreezing
process of change entails creating the perception that a change is needed, then moving toward the new, desired level of behavior, and solidifying that new behavior as the norm.
three-step model
“snapshots” of significantly emotional events
flashbulb memory
associations being activated without our awareness
priming
psychological tendency to remember the first and last items in a list better than those in the middle
primacy- remembering the first thing
recency- remembering the last
serial position effect
not encoding the information
encoding failure
inability to retrieve information
retrieval failure
inability to retrieve old memories
retrograde amnesia
inability to form new memories
anterograde amnesia
physical fading in the memory trace in the brain
storage decay
the order in which you learn things can influence what you remember
interference
defense mechanism that “ensures that what is unacceptable to the conscious mind, and would if recalled arouse anxiety, is prevented from entering it
repression
refers to our belief that the world is fair, and consequently, that the moral standings of our actions will determine our outcomes
just world phemonenon
tendency to favor and support individuals who belong to group we identify with
in-group bias
any behavior or act aimed at harming a person or animal or damaging physical property
aggression
frustration creates anger, anger creates aggression
frustration-aggression principle
behavior that intends to help or benefit someone
prosocial behavior
tendency to dislike or belittle members of groups that we don’t identify with
outgroup bias
the more familiar with something you are the more you like it
mere exposure effect
eight types of love are based on three scales:
1. passion
2. commitment
3. intimacy
sternberg’s triangulate theory of love
Intimacy + commitment
companionate love
unselfish regard for the welfare of others
altruism
social psychological theory that states that individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim in presence of other people
bystander effect
social behavior is an exchange process, we aim to maximize benefit and minimize costs.
social exchange theory
the expectation that we should return help to those who have helped us
reciprocity norm
we should help those who need our help even if the costs outweigh the benefits
social-responsibility norm
beliefs that confirm themselves by influencing the other country to react in ways that seem to justify those beliefs
self-fulfilling prophecy
shared goals that can only be achieved through cooperation
superordinate goals
What is GRIT?
Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction
one side recognizes mutual interests to reduce tensions
small conciliatory acts
opens door for decreased tension
- memory of facts and experiences that you consciously know
- encoded through conscious effortful processing
-with conscious recall
declarative memory
(explicit memory)
retention of skills, association
encoded without our awareness
without conscious recall
nondeclarative memory
(implicit memory)
what are three effortful processing strategies?
chunking
mnemonics
hierarchies
it’s much easier for us to remember something with meaning
what are two types of declarative memories?
semantic
episodic
declarative memories that are facts and general knowledge
facts and general knowledge
semantic
declarative memories that are experiences
personally experienced events (family holiday)
episodic
when memories move to the cortex for storage
memory consolidation
memories are changed when we retrieve them
reconsolidation
condition that:
crazy superior autobiographical (episodic) memory
approx 60 confirmed cases worldwide
NOT memory savants
negative impacts on quality of life
Hyperthymesia
How does the amygdala impact memory processing?
amygdala tells memory-forming parts of the brain to boost activity
What impacts memory processing?
significant emotion
how do flashbulb memories impact memory processing?
vivid
we are confident in them
BUT inconsistent–rehearsal
How does priming happen in research?
Researcher can prompt with dialect that invokes a certain emotion.
Principle that states specific cues hep us recall
context-dependent memory
state-dependent memory
encoding-specificity principle
getting misleading information
misinformation effect
incorrectly remembering the source of a memory
source amnesia/source misattribution
what are three measures of retention?
recall
recognition
relearning
How did Atkinson & Shiffrin’s Model change our thinking about memory?
showed the process of sensory memory > short-term memory > long term memory
How does working memory better our understanding of the three step model?
working memory is information that is being used rather than information being held
What are three effortful processing strategies?
Chunking
mnemonics
hierarchies
what is the capacity of long-term memory?
limitless
where are our long-term memories stored?
everywhere in the brain
How does forgetting happen?
encoding failure
storage decay
retrieval failure
interference
can we trust eyewitness testimony?
no because memories are unreliable
What is the difference between stress and trauma?
Dysfunction
Danger
Distress
Deviance
How does our appraisal of an event affect our stress reaction
as a threat > may lead to harm, 2nd appraisal needed
as a challenge > focused and potential growth
Is catharsis effective for anger reduction?
No, frustration is a primer, not an activator- so it’s not offsetting anything.
What is the danger of the fundamental attribution error?
powerful people have said things morally wrong but have had a huge following.
reverse attribution error can happen
In what contexts are we more likely to help someone in need?
person appears to need and deserve help
person is in some way similar to us
person is a woman
we have just observed someone else being helpful
we are not in a hurry
we are in a small town/rural area
we are feeling guilty
we are focused on others and not preoccupied
we are in a good mood
How do we resolve cognitive dissonance?
change one of the sides
attitudes/beliefs vs behavior
each side equally demonize the other
mirror image perceptions
What three factors compose prejudice?
negative emotion
stereotypes
discrimination
How do ingroup/outgroup bias and the just-world phenomenon cause prejudice?
Laws impact how accepting people are
What four things make us more likely to be attracted to someone?
Proximity
Attractiveness
similarity
people who like us
describe the parts of sternberg’s triangular theory of love?
Intimacy
commitment
passion
What things have been shown to be important to long lasting relationships
equity
self-disclosure
positive support (5/1 interaction)
commitment
In what contexts are we more likely to help someone in need?
person appears to need/deserve help
person is similar to us
is a woman
we observe someone else being helpful
How can we better promote peace?
happiness > helpfulness
positive contact increases empathy and liking
superordinate goals
open communication
What factors contribute to aggression?
Biological factors
psychological factors
social-cultural influences
learned behaviors
conditioning
