AP PSYCH MEGA REVIEW

outgroup

"Them" - those perceived as different or apart from our ingroup In Elliott's experiment, my __________________ would have been the group of students with brown eyes because my eyes are blue.

ingroup

"Us" - people with whom we share a common identity In Elliott's experiment, my __________________ would have been the group of students with blue eyes because my eyes are blue too.

personality

an individual's characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting Although Hannah and Cathy are identical twins, they have different ________________ies, they act and behave very differently, even if they are in the same environment.

respondent behavior

behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus When the air-horn blasted in my ear, my automatic __________________ to the stimulus was cringing.

operant behavior

behavior that operates the environment, producing consequences In The Squid Improvement box, yelling at Spongebob and Patrick was an____________________; when this behavior was acted upon, the consequence was Squidward's clarinet was taken away.

Retinal disparity

a binocular cue for perceiving depth: By comparing images from the retinas in the two eyes, the brain computes distance - the greater the disparity (difference) between the two images, the closer the object I used _____________ when I made a finger sausage. The closer my fingers were to my face, the more the two retinal images overlapped and the bigger the sausage.

electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)

a biomedical therapy for severely depressed patients in which a brief electric current is sent through the brain of an anesthetized patient When the antidepressant medications didn't work for Fred, his psychologist recommended ______________________. Fred had to be put to sleep for the procedure and unfortunately, the procedure damaged his brain and made him cold and impulsive.

psychiatry

a branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders; practiced by physicians who sometimes provide medical (For example, drug) treatments as well as psychological therapy A person who studied ___________ in school can prescribe medications to people with mental illnesses.

client-centered therapy

a humanistic therapy, developed by Carl Rogers, in which the therapist uses techniques such as active listening within a genuine, accepting, empathic environment to facilitate clients' growth When Tammy went to see her humanistic psychologist about her recent anxiety, they had a session of _______________________ where she talked about her issues and the therapist encouraged her to talk and was very sympathetic.

Visual cliff

a laboratory device for testing depth perception in infants and young animals A researcher wanted to learn more about the depth perception abilities of two month old monkeys; to do this, he used a _________________ to provide a fake cliff and see if the monkeys reacted to it.

B. F. Skinner

a leading behaviorist, he rejected introspection and studied how consequences shape behavior ____________________ created a device called the _________ box, where he used operant conditioning to train rats and pigeons.

mental age

a measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance. Thus, a child who does as well as the average 8-year-old is said to have a mental age of 8 My sister has a ___________________ of nine because she performs at the same level as her other peers in the grade on standardised tests like the Iowa Test.

acquisition

in classical conditioning, the initial stage, when one links a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus so that the neutral stimulus begins triggering the conditioned response. In operant conditioning, the strengthening of a reinforced response _______________ occurred when I first realized that Francine was emitting the nasty odor so I began to wrinkle my nose at the sight of Francine.

reinforcement

in operant conditioning, any event that strengthens the behavior it follows When training his daughter to use the potty, Jerry gave her an M&M as positive _______________________ every time she peed in the potty to strengthen that behavior.

assimilation

interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas Kids may have a schema that everyone who has long hair is a girl, so when they see a man with long hair, they think they are a girl due to ____________________.

GRIT

in psychology, grit is passion and perseverance in the pursuit of long-term goals I really wanted to get a perfect score on the SAT, so I used _________________ by studying, taking it several times, and staying at my goal even when I got poor results.

introspection

looking inward Early structuralists like Titchener used __________ to learn about the human brain.

deindividuation

losing individual identity and thought when in a group Hannah is normally scared to sing in front of others, but she sang as loud as she could at the Beyonce concert. This aspect of her personality changed in the large crowd due to ______________________.

mnemonic

memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices I use a ____________________________ in chemistry to remember the metric conversions. I use the phrase "King Henry Died Over Drinking Chocolate Milk" to remember "Kilo, Hecto, Deca, Ones, Deci, Centi, Milli".

Feature detectors

nerve cells in the brain that respond to specific features of the stimulus, such as shape, angle, or movement My _________________ in my brain that interpret movement were tricked by the optical illusion image.

secondary sex characteristics

nonreproductive sexual traits, such as female breasts and hips, male voice quality, and body hair The changes in the body during puberty (excluding sexual organs) are changes in the _________________________.

John B. Watson

championed psychology as the science of behavior and demonstrated conditioned responses ________________ conducted a study on conditioned responses using a baby called "Little Albert".

neurotransmitters

chemical messengers that cross the synaptic gaps between neurons. When released by the sending neuron, they travel across the synapse and bind to receptor sites on the receiving neuron, thereby influencing whether that neuron will generate a neural impulse Hannah's schizophrenia is caused by different amounts of the ____________________ dopamine and glutamate in her neurons.

neural networks

clusters of neurons that work together in the brain that conduct impulses in a coordinated manner allow for quicker processing The more you learn, the more _______________ form in your brain.

Addiction

compulsive craving of drugs or certain behaviors (such as gambling) despite known adverse consequences Josh has an __________________ to his phone; he knows that he shouldn't spend so much time playing Clash, but it makes him feel good so he keeps doing it anyway.

rehearsal

continuous repetition Harry was nervous for the debate, so he used ____________ to keep repeating his main argumentative point in his head so he wouldn't forget it.

Perceptual constancy

perceiving objects as unchanging (having consistent shapes, sizes, brightness, and color) even as illumination and retinal images change Because I have ____________, I knew that the color of my dog did not change when she moved into dimmer lighting.

prosocial behavior

positive, constructive, helpful behavior. The opposite of antisocial behavior Today, I decided to hold the door open for my Spanish teacher. This _____________ put Mr. Griffin in a good mood, so he gave us all candy in class.

Hallucinogens

psychedelic ("mind-manifesting") drugs, such as LSD, that distort perceptions and evoke sensory images in the absence of sensory input When Rohan was tripping on acid, the ______________ caused him to believe that the ground was moving and that he saw a flying pig.

mood disorders

psychological disorders characterized by emotional extremes. See major depressive disorder, mania, and bipolar disorder All of my siblings have been diagnosed with _____________________ because we tend to have severe emotions that we can't control. I have MDD and my sister has mania.

personal control

one's beliefs regarding the extent to which they are able to control or influence outcomes Hannah has a strong sense of _________________, so she tries to solve life's problems to make her life better because she feels that her actions have an impact on her life.

self-esteem

one's feelings of high or low self-worth My friend has low ______________: she is always putting herself down, blaming things on herself, and she is more sad than other people I know.

déjà vu

that eerie sense that "I've experienced this before." Cues from the current situation may unconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience When I ran the cross country course at Wendy's, I felt a sense of ___________ that I had run on those trails before, although I'd never been to the park. It may have been because the trails reminded me of other trails I ran on in the past.

replication

repeating the essence of a research study, usually with different participants in different situations, to see whether the basic finding extends to other participants and circumstances Hannah had to use ____________ in her study to see if children act the same way to her study in the US as in India.

implicit memory

retention independent of conscious recollection. (Also called nondeclarative memory) When I turn on my phone, I use my ___________________ to automatically type in my password to my phone without thinking about the digits I typed in.

conservatism

the principle (which Piaget believed to be a part of concrete operational reasoning) that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects When a volume of liquid is poured into a different container and a child is asked if the amount has changed, the _____________ skills of the child are being tested.

applied research

scientific study that aims to solve practical problems ________ was used in a study which researched how chemicals in the brain caused bipolar disorder.

Vestibular sense

the sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance I can understand my movement on the loops of the roller coaster with my eyes closed because of my ______________.

Audition

the sense or act of hearing A common test of _______________ is a test where tones are played in the ear at varying pitches and volumes and the patient has to raise their hand if they heard the tone.

Psychophysics

the study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli, such as their intensity, and our psychological experience of them Gerald studies _____________; he conducted an experiment to find how loud a tone had to be for participants to hear it.

generalization

the tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses After Little Albert was conditioned to fear rats, _______________ of the response made him fear other furry animals and objects too.

chromosomes

threadlike structures made of DNA molecules that contain the genes Everyone inherits 23 _____________ from their father and 23 from their mother.

social-cognitive perspective

views behavior as influenced by the interaction between people's traits (including their thinking) and their social context The _________________ makes sense because I am a fast thinker in all environments, but I act differently depending on the environment I am in. I am respectful and quick to answer problems in the classroom, but with my friends I am quick to make assumptions and come up with comebacks.

Insomnia

recurring problems in falling or staying asleep My great grandpa suffers from _____________ that occurred because of his old age. His lack of sleep causes him to be disoriented and irritable.

retrieval

the process of getting information out of memory storage When I started to do the makeup on my own, I had to remember my the steps to the tutorial through the process of _________________.

modeling

the process of observing and imitating a specific behavior Through the process of _______________, Fred saw his dad shave, so he mimicked the action by trying to shave with his dad's razor when his dad left the room.

endorphins

"morphine within" - natural, opiate-like neurotransmitters linked to pain control and to pleasure. As Hannah exercised, her body produced ______________ that lessened her pain and made her feel good.

teratogens

(literally "monster makers") agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm Alcohol is a _____________ that causes fetal alcohol syndrome

collective unconscious

Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species' history Frank's _________________________ of instincts in the human species caused him to think of hunting other animals with tools, ,despite being isolated from society his entire life.

Sigmund Freud

Emphasized the way that emotional resoinses to childhood experiences and our unconscious thought processes affect our behavior, founded psychoanalysis ___________ believed that dreams were key in determining one's internal conflicts.

William James

Father of American Psychology, founded the school of functionalism, wrote a book called Principles of Psychology. ______________ wondered why we have gained the ability to hear, so he established the psychological school of functionalism.

psychoanalysis

Freud's therapeutic technique. Freud believe the patient's free associations, resistances, dreams, and transferences - and the therapist's interpretations of them - released previously repressed feelings, allowing the patient to gain self-insight Most movies show _________________________ when it comes to portraying psychology: they display a person lying on a couch, explaining their personal thoughts and dreams to a psychologist.

Type A

Friedman and Rosenman's term for competitive, hard-driving, impatient, verbally aggressive, and anger-prone people Grant definitely has a _____________ personality as seen by his reaction when his team lost the championship game: he started screaming at his teammates, blamed them for the loss, and wouldn't allow his coaches to comment on the game.

Type B

Friedman and Rosenman's term for easygoing, relaxed people Hanna definitely has a _____________ personality as seen by her reaction when her team lost the championship game: she was upset, but she controlled her emotions, listened to her coaches talk, and was able to get over her negative feelings quickly.

General adaptation syndrome (GAS)

Selye's concept of the body's adaptive response to stress in three phases - alarm, resistance, exhaustion When Mr. Webb said that he'd grade the assignments tonight I went through the ____________________ when first, I was shocked, then my body became harmed as it tried to fight the stress, then I felt tired and helpless at home when I realized there was nothing I could do to change my response.

law of effect

Thorndike's principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely, and that behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely Due to the _____________________, children are more likely to buy their lunch from Gretta, who always gives them a free cookie, than from Harriet, who doesn't.

Linguistic determinism

Whorf's hypothesis that language determines the way we think Based on the theory of ____________________, when I see a dog, I think of the words describing the dog in my head and form beliefs in my own language in my head.

developmental psychology

a branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span The field of ______________ has determined that the prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed until around age 25.

operational definition

a carefully worded statement of the exact procedures (operations) used in a research study. For example, human intelligence may be operationally defined as what an intelligence test measures The ________ of "sunglasses" is "what are worn to protect ones' eyes from the sun".

unconditional positive regard

a caring, accepting, nonjudgmental attitude, which Carl Rogers believed would help clients to develop self-awareness and self-acceptance I had to practice having an _________________________ as a therapist because my job requires me to have to be non judgemental and requires me to accept all patients into my practice, despite me disagreeing with them or thinking they are crazy.

trait

a characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports After taking the _________________ that asked me several questions about how I felt when surrounded by other people, I found that I had the _________ of extraversion.

Psychoactive drug

a chemical substance that alters perceptions and moods I thought that Josh was under the influence of a __________________________ because he was making bad decisions and wasn't acting like his usual peppy self.

flashbulb memory

a clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event I have a _______________ of the car crash; whenever I think of it, I remember every detail since it was such a scary event.

Functional Fixedness

a cognitive bias that limits a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used ___________________ explains why I didn't think to use the coffee pot to cook spaghetti: I didn't think to use the coffee pot for any reason other than making coffee.

Instinct

a complex behavior that is rigidly patterned throughout a species and is unlearned Humans have an ______________ to socialize, which is why humans form friendships and like to be in groups.

standard deviation

a computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean score The _______________ of the test scores was high because the scores were anywhere from a 10 to a 100.

schema

a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information Children gather information about roles and expectations for each gender, forming their own individual gender ________________.

savant syndrome

a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing Betty, who has _________________________, has trouble being in social situations, completing mathematical equations, and understanding others, but she is amazing at painting and drawing with intricate detail.

equity

a condition in which people receive from a relationship in proportion to what they give to it Kara and Jim have __________ in their relationship, they both only see each other on the weekends, and their feelings for each other are equally matched.

mental retardation

a condition of limited mental ability, indicated by an intelligence score of 70 or below and difficulty in adapting to the demands of life Charlotte, who has trouble understanding numbers, has trouble with personal hygiene, and who scored a 60 on the IQ exam shows signs of ______________________.

Down Syndrome

a condition of mild to severe intellectual disability and associated physical disorders caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21 Since Tim has ___________________, he looks different, is shorter, has trouble talking, and has an intellectual disability.

split brain

a condition resulting from surgery that isolates the brain's two hemispheres by cutting the fibers (mainly those of the corpus callosum) connecting them People who suffer from seizures might have a procedure done to give them a __________________ which helps seizures from spreading to the opposite hemisphere.

case study

a descriptive technique in which one individual or group is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles A _________ can bring flawed information because one person's experiences can't always be universalized.

intrinsic motivation

a desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake Hannah really enjoys organizing her desk; she isn't rewarded for keeping it clean, she cleans it out of ___________________.

extrinsic motivation

a desire to perform a behavior to receive promised rewards or avoid threatened punishment Fred hates running, but his parents used rewards like trips to the amusement park to make him extrinsically motivated to run.

post-traumatic stress disorder

a disorder characterized by haunting memories, nightmares, social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, numbness of feeling, and/or insomnia that lingers for four weeks or more after a traumatic experience After witnessing the plane crash that killed her sister, Meredith Grey developed _______________

obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)

a disorder characterized by unwanted repetitive thoughts (obsessions) and/or actions (compulsions) Gerald was diagnosed with ________________ after he started being so obsessed with walking the same number of steps each day that he counted every step that he took during the day and walked more if he did not meet his step quota.

myelin sheath

a fatty tissue layer segmentally encasing the axons of some neurons; enables vastly greater transmission speed as neural impulses hop from one node to the next. The slow reflexes of Hannah's grandmother can be attributed to damage in the _______________________s of her grandmother's neurons.

Behavioral medicine

a field that integrates behavioral and medical knowledge to increase health and decrease disease Hannah is a doctor who studies __________ so she helps people with depression work with their weight gain and prevent physical disease.

Psychological dependence

a form of dependence that involves emotional-motivational withdrawal symptoms (e.g., a state of unease or dissatisfaction, a reduced capacity to experience pleasure, or anxiety) upon cessation of drug use or engagement in certain behaviors The doctor told Evan that he had a ____________________ to alcohol after Evan told the doctor that he felt that he needed alcohol to make him feel normal and relaxed.

general (g) intelligence

a general intelligence factor that, according to Spearman and others, underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test I have a high _____________________, which explains why I perform well on all school subject tests and people say I'm "good at everything".

stereotype

a generalized (sometimes accurate but often overgeneralized) belief about a group of people The _______________________ about blonde people is that they not as smart as others.

recall

a measure of memory in which the person must retrieve information learned earlier, as on a fill-in-the-blank test When I was playing "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader," I had trouble with _________ing the things I learned in fifth grade, which left me with a blank answer tablet on most of the questions.

recognition

a measure of memory in which the person need only identify items previously learned, as on a multiple-choice test Using my _____________ skills, I was able to track down my coworker's (who I had just met the day before) face in a crowd of people at the Halloween party.

relearning

a measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material again At the beginning of my honors chemistry class, we reviewed how to balance equations (which I learned in eighth grade), and this ________________ of the material allowed for me to gain a better understanding of the concept and complete the problems quicker.

correlation

a measure of the extent to which two variables change together, and thus of how well either variable predicts the other There is a high ___________ between hours spent practicing speaking Spanish and performance on Spanish-speaking tests (the more hours spent practicing, the higher the score).

Concept

a mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people Hannah's ___________________ of females consists of all humans with long hair, so she incorrectly assumes men with long hair to be women.

Prototype

a mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories (as when comparing feathered creatures to a prototypical bird, such as a robin) My ________________ for a candy bar is a Snickers bar: it is the first thing that comes to mind when I think I think of a candy bar and it is a classic and well known candy bar.

Perceptual set

a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another My friend altered my ____________ when she told me to tell me what mammal I saw in the duck/rabbit image. This made me expect to perceive a mammal, so I saw the rabbit.

cognitive map

a mental representation of the layout of one's environment. For example, after exploring a maze, rats act as if they have learned a cognitive map of it I realized that I had a very poor _________________ of my grandparents' house when I was blindfolded because I did not know how to navigate the house.

intelligence test

a method of assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores I had to take an __________________, titled the Stanford-Binet, to measure my intelligence and see if I was smart enough to get into Mensa.

echoic memory

a momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds When my teacher told me that my password was "startwentyfour", I stored the sound of her words in my ____________________ for a few seconds until I typed the password into the box.

iconic memory

a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second When I was driving, I received an ___________________ of the car that turned in front of me, but I forgot about the image after the car was out of sight.

bipolar disorder

a mood disorder in which a person alternates between the hopelessness and lethargy of depression and the overexcited state of mania After the year of depression, Fanny started to becoming hyperactive and felt optimistic and egocentric. She has ________________ and she was transitioning from a depressive state to a manic state.

major depressive disorder

a mood disorder in which a person experiences, in the absence of drugs or another medical condition, two or more weeks with five or more symptoms, at least one of which must be either (1) depressed mood or (2) loss of interest or pleasure We diagnosed Meredith Grey with ____________ because she often has thoughts of suicide, extremely sad thoughts, and a loss of interest in socializing with her friends.

mania

a mood disorder marked by a hyperactive, wildly optimistic state Tony, a guy who is normally quiet and easygoing, developed _____________ after the death of his mother; he couldn't sleep, was excited about everything, and felt like he was the most important person in the world.

lesion

a naturally or experimentally caused destruction of brain tissue The experiment used electricity on the rat's brain to kill the tissue and cause a _________.

Motivation

a need or desire that energizes and directs behavior Because of his will to live, Louis Zamperini outlived (by fighting off sharks and catching birds on the raft) his companion who had no __________________ to survive

neuron

a nerve cell; the basic building block of the nervous system Without ______________s, your body would not be able to respond to its environment, move, or process your surroundings.

reticular formation

a nerve network that travels through brainstem and thalamus and plays an important role in controlling arousal The ____________ plays a key role in arousal by controlling which signals are relayed to the rest of the brain.

action potential

a neural impulse; a brief electrical charge that travels down an axon As the feeling of pain passed through Hannah's body, the neuron had ______________ when the message of the pain passed down the axon.

hypothalamus

a neural structure lying below (hypo) the thalamus; it directs several maintenance activities (eating, drinking, body temperature), helps govern the endocrine system via the pituitary gland, and is linked to emotion and reward The ____________ controls the pituitary gland.

dendrite

a neuron's bushy, branching extensions that receive messages and conduct impulses toward the cell body As the feeling of pain passed through Hannah's body, her interneurons received the message through the ____________s of the neuron.

acetylcholine

a neurotransmitter that causes the contraction of skeletal muscles and activates glandular functions in the endocrine system, responsible for movement, learning, and memory Alzheimer's is caused by a deficiency of __________________.

working memory

a newer understanding of short-term memory that focuses on conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory When I was trying to remember the favorite foods of the people in my class, their foods were stored in my ____________________ so I could recite them at the time, but they were not stored in my long term memory because I could not recite them the next day.

conflict

a perceived incompatibility of actions, goals, or ideas I had a _______________ this week: I had a struggle between the amount of homework I had and the amount of time I had to do it.

temperament

a person's characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity Someone with an aggressive ___________ might have an overactive amygdala.

antisocial personality disorder

a personality disorder in which a person (usually a man) exhibits a lack of conscience for wrongdoing, even toward friends and family members Gerald, a man who killed his father when he was frustrated with him, claimed that his _________________________ caused him to do it because he lacked sympathy and remorse for others.

projective test

a personality test, such as the Rorschach, that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics At the psychologist, I was required to take a __________________ where I looked at an inkblot and explained what I saw; they psychologist said that it was to see if I had troubled thoughts.

Physical dependence

a physical condition caused by chronic use of a tolerance forming drug, in which abrupt or gradual drug withdrawal causes unpleasant physical symptoms The heroin addict has a ___________________ to the drug because he suffered from aches and headaches during his time in the rehab facility.

cognitive-behavior therapy

a popular integrative therapy that combines cognitive therapy (changing self-defeating thinking) with behavior therapy (changing behavior) Hannah had to go to _________________________ to get over her OCD. There, her therapist taught her how to think of her obsession as irrational and to decrease her compulsive behaviors.

Incentive

a positive or negative environmental stimulus that motivates behavior When I was motivating my little sister to pee in the potty, she received an _______________ of an M&M which motivated her to use the toilet.

Sexual disorder

a problem that consistently impairs sexual arousal or functioning Many men struggle with the ______________ of ED which causes them to have trouble in bed because they have trouble maintaining an erection.

meta-analysis

a procedure for statistically combining the results of many different research studies Using ___________________, psychologists from the entire country assessed the data from the psychological disorder data from combining survey data from 1000 individual studies throughout the country.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

a projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes At the psychologist, I was required to take a __________________ where I looked at image of a man looking off the image while a lady had her arms crossed; afterwards, the psychologist told me that my explanation of the scene showed how I felt with my own life.

schizophrenia

a psychological disorder characterized by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and/or diminished or inappropriate emotional expression Gretta's family suspected her of having ___________________ after she started claiming that the people in her family were being replaced by robots and said that she was seeing flowers growing from the carpet.

attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

a psychological disorder marked by the appearance by age 7 of one or more of three key symptoms: extreme inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity Sarah had to get a specialized education plan after she was diagnosed with ________________________, since the disorder made it hard for her to sit still and pay attention in class.

lobotomy

a psychosurgical procedure once used to calm uncontrollably emotional or violent patients. The procedure cut the nerves connecting the frontal lobes to the emotion-controlling centers of the inner brain Before the __________________, Tammy had been diagnosed with a panic disorder, but she tended to be funny, loving, and outgoing when not in a state of anxiety. Although the surgery prevented her panic attacks, they damaged her personality and made her cold and apathetic.

personality inventory

a questionnaire (often with true-false or agree-disagree items) on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors; used to assess selected personality traits Before I started my job, my employers had me take a _________________________ to see what kind of traits I had so they could help me play to my strengths in the workplace.

mutation

a random error in gene replication that leads to a change Natural selection is triggered by random _________________s of genes that are passed on if they are helpful to survival.

dissociative identity disorder (DID)

a rare dissociative disorder in which a person exhibits two or more distinct and alternating personalities. Formerly called multiple personality disorder I was dating Tim, a man who has _______________________. With me, he had a distinct introverted personality, but he was also dating a lady named Tammy and had an extremely outgoing and humorous personality. When asked by his doctor, he genuinely believed that he was living two different lives as two different people.

self-serving bias

a readiness to perceive oneself favorably When someone left the refrigerator open overnight, Tammy's ___________________ made her immediately believe that she had no part in it (since she NEVER would have been that forgetful), although she did go to the refrigerator to get a cheese stick the night before.

rooting reflex

a reflex that is seen in normal newborn babies, who automatically turn the face toward the stimulus and make sucking (rooting) motions with the mouth when the cheek or lip is touched The _____________ caused my baby sister to start sucking my finger after I stroked her cheek.

id

a reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. It operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification When George tripped me in the hallway, my ____ told me to satisfy my aggressive drive and punch him in the face.

Emotion

a response of the whole organism, involving (1) physiological arousal, (2) expressive behaviors, and (3) conscious experience When I pulled my sister's hair, it changed her ______________ by making her respond with anger and by furrowing her brow.

Refractory period

a resting period after orgasm, during which a man cannot achieve another Hannah was frustrated when her boyfriend had to rest after he orgasmed and went through the __________________ because she was not sexually satisfied yet.

stereotype threat

a self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype My blonde friend has been told all her life that blondes are dumb, so this ______________ caused her to be stressed about the SAT and caused her to do poorly on it, acting according to the stereotype.

CT Scan (Computerized Axial tomography)

a series of X-ray photographs taken from different angles and combined by computer into a composite representation of a slice of the brain's structure A ________________ was given to find the precise locations of brain lesions in the patient's brain.

gender role

a set of expected behaviors for males or for females In the early 20th century, the _______________ for women was to stay home, cook, have kids, and care for children.

tardive dyskinesia

a side effect of antipsychotic medications that causes uncontrollable, jerky movements of your face and body Louis, a schizophrenic, had been taking his anti-psychotic medication for seven months when his doctor diagnosed him with _______________________, a disorder that prevented him from driving (since he sometimes jerked his legs and arms, which could lead to accidental speed increase or swerving off the road).

Heuristics

a simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms When checking her answers, Hannah used a ______________ technique when she thought ¨trust your first answer because it is usually right.¨

reflex

a simple, automatic response to a sensory stimulus Due to her ___________es, Hannah jerked her hand away when she touched the hot pan.

social trap

a situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing their self-interest rather than the good of the group, become caught in mutually destructive behavior In the basketball game, the players executed a __________________: each player was trying to drive to score points for themselves, but this led to many steals, few rebounds, and a lack of open shots.

Sleep apnea

a sleep disorder characterized by temporary cessations of breathing during sleep and repeated momentary awakenings My grandma has to wear a mask when she sleeps that pumps air because her __________________ can cause her breathing patterns to become irregular and they wake her up.

Dissociation

a split in consciousness, which allows some thoughts and behaviors to occur simultaneously with others _________ occurred when my attention was split between driving, singing my favorite song, and listening to the song.

Factor analysis

a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie a person's total score Test scorers used ______________________ to determine that I did well on the critical thinking portion of the exam, but I did poorly on the abstract thinking portion of the test.

statistical significance

a statistical statement of how likely it is that an obtained result occurred by chance Hannah's tried to figure out what the favorite ice cream shop in the town was, but she only interviewed 10 people and the population of her town is 100,000 people. This made her data have very little _____________________.

conditioned reinforcer

a stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer; also known as a secondary reinforcer When Remy's parents rewarded him with PokePoints, they were using a _____________________ because they didn't have value unless they were redeemed for food prizes or activities.

cross-sectional study

a study in which people of different ages are compared with one another A __________ was conducted at my school. The researchers compared information about the kindergarteners to the fifth graders.

Health Psychology

a subfield of psychology that provides psychology's contribution to behavioral medicine Gretta works in _____________________ so she is a psychologist who works with people who are stressed to help their mental states and help reduce habits like smoking or drinking that are caused by stress and impact her physical body.

Posthypnotic suggestion

a suggestion, made during a hypnosis session, to be carried out after the subject is no longer hypnotized; used by some clinicians to help control undesired symptoms and behaviors The __________________ made by my hypnotist helped me to deal with my pain after my surgery; the suggestion helped me to think of something else besides my pain.

Psychological disorder

a syndrome marked by a clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior When Gerald stopped coming to work, started ripping his hair out, and claimed there were monkeys in his attic, his friend suspected him of having ___________________________.

Biofeedback

a system for electronically recording, amplifying, and feeding back information regarding a subtle physiological state, such as blood pressure or muscle tension I went to a class to learn how to control my _____________________ so I could relax and control my blood pressure and heart rate when I got stressed.

MRI (magnetic resonance imaging)

a technique that uses magnetic fields and radio waves to produce computer-generated images of soft tissue, these scans show brain anatomy Hannah had to take an ________________ scan during the research study so the researchers could see the effects of watching cat videos on the brain.

Homeostasis

a tendency to maintain a balanced or constant internal state; the regulation of any aspect of body chemistry, such as blood glucose, around a particular level When it is freezing outside, people like to come inside or wear warm clothes because ___________________ causes them to want to maintain their temperature.

Confirmation bias

a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence When Hannah was trying to prove to her brother that lighting and thunder were the same occurrence, her _______________________ caused her to look only at the sites that proved her hypothesis in the description.

empirically derived test

a test (such as the MMPI) developed by testing a pool of items and then selecting those that discriminate between groups

achievement test

a test designed to assess what a person has learned At the end of the school year, I took an __________________ in English class called the EOC that assessed how well I had mastered the material in the course.

aptitude test

a test designed to predict a person's future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn In fifth grade, I took the Iowa _______________ to predict how well I would do in middle school "plus-level" courses; since doing well on the Iowa test showed I would do well in middle school, I was placed in math 6+.

terror-management theory

a theory of death-related anxiety; explores people's emotional and behavioral responses to reminders of their impending death After my bad reaction to the death of my grandfather, my parents used the _______________________ to help me deal with the stress of death by providing weekly reminders that death is natural and happens to all people.

Signal detection theory

a theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus (signal) amid background stimulation (noise). Assumes there is no single absolute threshold and that detection depends partly on a person's experience, expectations, motivation, and alertness The ___________________ predicts that a mother has a very high sensitivity to her baby crying in the night but a lower sensitivity to noise such as a train going by.

gender schema theory

a theory that one learns "boy" and "girl" roles by their environment and culture The __________________ blames a child's perceived gender roles on their parenting and by people they interact with.

aversive conditioning

a type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state (such as nausea) with an unwanted behavior (such as drinking and alcohol) When Gerald couldn't stop picking his nose, he went through ___________________ and he was shocked each time he put his finger in his nose. This made him associate nose-picking with pain, causing him to quit the habit.

systematic desensitization

a type of exposure therapy that associates a pleasant, relaxed state with gradually increasing anxiety-triggering stimuli. Commonly used to treat phobias To get over her fear of going to the bathroom in a public restroom, Tammy went to a psychologist who practiced ________________________. While in a calm state, she first went to a public bathroom, then washed her hands in a public bathroom, then went to the bathroom alone in a public bathroom, until finally she had conquered her fear.

operant conditioning

a type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher Using ____________, I used treats as positive reinforcement to teach my dog to sit.

classical conditioning

a type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events Pavlov's experiment on dogs used ___________________ to make dogs associate a bell with food and salivate at the sound of the bell.

PET (Positron Emission Tomography)

a visual display of brain activity that detects where a radioactive form of glucose goes while the brain performs a given task A _____________ was used to detect the location of the patient's brain tumors.

basic trust

according to Erik Erikson, a sense that the world is predictable and trustworthy; said to be formed during infancy by appropriate experiences with responsive caregivers Since Genie did not have a loving family relationship as a child, her sense of _______________ is damaged.

fixation

according to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved If _______________ occurred in the oral phase, Freud believed that people would be obsessed with finding pleasure in the mouth, so they resort to smoking or finding pleasure from eating.

Manifest content

according to Freud, the remembered story line of a dream (as distinct from its latent, or hidden, content) When I woke up, I remembered the ____________ of my dream: I was riding a roller coaster and it broke, causing me to fall into a pit.

Latent content

according to Freud, the underlying meaning of a dream (as distinct from its manifest content) After I woke up, I talked about my dream with my mom to analyze its ______________; we concluded that the dream meant that I was scared of roller coasters and that I was fearing our trip to Carowinds.

self-actualization

according to Maslow, one of the ultimate psychological needs that arises after basic physical and psychological needs are met and self-esteem is achieved; the motivation to fulfill one's potential After my counselor helped me to feel healthy, safe, loved, and good about myself at school, I was able to aim for __________________ and act upon my talent in chemistry to perform to the level of my potential.

conformity

adjusting our behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard In Hannah's friend group, all of the girls wear makeup, so she started wearing makeup to fit in with the others and reach ___________________.

self-concept

all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, "Who am I?" Erikson beleives that people develop a ____________ about themselves in late middle/high school.

self-concept

all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, "Who am I?" Erikson believes that people develop a strong ____________ about themselves in late middle/high school because they start to learn about who they are, what their role is, and which identity is their true identity.

Coping

alleviating stress using emotional, cognitive, or behavioral methods When my psychology homework started becoming a huge stress in my life, I went to my counselor to discuss ________________ strategies to deal with the stress.

Human factors psychology

an I/O psychology subfield that explores how people and machines interact and how machines and physical environments can be made safe and easy to use Hannah studied ______________________ and she uses this knowledge to design navigation systems in cars that are safe to use and that don't hinder the driver's performance.

panic disorder

an anxiety disorder characterized by recurrent unexpected panic attacks Hannah was diagnosed with a _________________ when she started sweating uncontrollably, shaking, and hyperventilating before every test she took.

phobia

an anxiety disorder marked by a persistent, irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object, activity, or situation Tammy has a ______________ of glass and she is afraid of everything made of glass. She fears that glass will shatter if she is near it, which has caused her to buy plastic windows, avoid going to buildings with glass windows, and avoid cars.

eclectic therapy

an approach to psychotherapy that, depending on the client's problems, uses techniques from various forms of therapy When Harry was diagnosed with a substance abuse disorder, his doctor used ____________________ to combine aversive conditioning to make him associate alcohol with a bad taste, psychoanalysis and dream interpretation, and humanistic therapy to treat him.

motor cortex

an area at the rear of the frontal lobes that controls voluntary movements The ________ is responsible for controlling the efferent neurons.

passionate love

an aroused state of intense positive absorption in another, usually present at the beginning of a love relationship When Dora started dating her first boyfriend, they had a strong ______________________ for one another: they spent all their free time together and seemed attached at the hips.

Anorexia nervosa

an eating disorder in which a person (usually an adolescent female) maintains a starvation diet despite being significantly (15 percent or more) underweight My friend Franny thought she was fat and decided that she needed to stop eating to make her figure look better. When she dropped a huge amount of weight, her doctor diagnosed her with ________________.

Bulimia

an eating disorder in which a person alternates binge eating (usually of high-calorie foods) with purging (by vomiting or laxative use) or fasting My neighbor is obsessed with exercising and she burns more calories than she consumes with her vigorous exercise. When she became weak and started dropping weight, her doctor diagnosed her with ________________.

attachment

an emotional tie with another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the caregiver and showing distress on separation After children form a strong ___________ with their family members, they may experience stranger anxiety.

Sexual orientation

an enduring sexual attraction toward members of either one's own sex (homosexual orientation), the other sex (heterosexual orientation), or both sexes (bisexual orientation) Hannah's ____________________ causes her to be attracted to men and makes her want to have a relationship with a man.

punishment

an event that tends to decrease the behavior that it follows Every time my dog pees on the floor, we shock her with the shock collar as a _______________ to diminish her behavior of peeing on the floor.

social-responsibility norm

an expectation that people will help those needing their help When Tom conducted a social experiment where he asked strangers for money because he "needed money for a meal," the _______________________ made him predict that many people would give him money since it's normal to try to help others.

reciprocity norm

an expectation that people will help, not hurt, those who have helped them In Gemma's social experiment where she held the door open for someone then later stepped on their heel, the _______________ made her believe that the people who she had held the door open for would be kinder when she stepped on their heels than other strangers.

double-blind procedure

an experimental procedure in which both the research participants and the research staff are ignorant (blind) about whether the research participants have received the treatment or a placebo. Commonly used in drug-evaluation studies. A _____________________ was used in Hannah's study so that the information she collected from interviews of her participants was not biased.

Phi phenomenon

an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession The image of the car flashed repeatedly at different intervals along the light strip. From far away, the blinking images appeared to be a single moving image because of the _____________________.

long-term potentiation

an increase in a cell's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory Through the process of ______________, the cells in my brain fired more and more every time I practiced the pole vault, which enabled me to learn the skill better the more I practiced.

primary reinforcer

an innately reinforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfies a biological need When BF Skinner put animals in the operant chamber, he used _________________s such as food and water to reward the animals by satisfying their biological needs.

token economy

an operant conditioning procedure in which people earn a token of some sort for exhibiting a desired behavior and can later exchange the tokens for various privileges or treats When Gerald couldn't stop picking his nose, he went through behavioral conditioning under a ______________________ where he was promised $1 at the end of the day for each 15 minutes he went without picking his nose.

shaping

an operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior When Skinner tried to use pigeon steering for bombs, he used ________________ to guide the pigeons' behaviors so they could tap an image of a ship with their beaks.

critical period

an optimal period early in the life of an organism when exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces normal development Genie proved that there is not a __________ for learning new words, but there might be a _____________ for learning how to speak in grammatical sentences.

Gestalt

an organized whole. Gestalt psychologists emphasized our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes A ___________ psychologist conducted a study on how people interpreted a picture comprised of different colored bottle caps. Some people saw the image of a dragonfly, but others simply saw multicolored bottle caps.

prejudice

an unjustifiable and usually negative attitude toward a group and its members. Prejudice generally involves stereotyped beliefs, negative feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory action People at Orange tend to have a __________________ towards the Girls JV Basketball team because they believe that they aren't as good as the JV Boy's team and are more likely to lose due to previous teams that have done poorly.

Bottom-up processing

analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information ____________________ was used when Hannah's eyes detected the light energy reflecting off of the picture.

aggression

any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy The amygdala controls the emotions ____________ and fear.

aggression

any physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt or destroy When I saw my sister spill juice on my science project, I used __________________________ to push her out of her chair and call her mean names to make her feel bad.

sensory cortex

area at the front of the parietal lobes that registers and processes body touch and movement sensation When she touched the hot pan, Hannah's __________ registered and processed the feeling of the temperature of the pan.

Alternative Medicine

as yet unproven health care treatments intended to serve as alternatives to conventional medicine, and which typically are not widely taught in medical schools, used in hospitals, or reimbursed by insurance companies. When research shows a therapy to be safe and effective, it usually then becomes part of accepted medical practice Hannah went to a form of _____________________ to treat her anxiety instead of seeking a doctor: she bought a Himalayan Salt Lamp that claimed it removed negative ions and negativity from the bedroom.

Complementary Medicine

as yet unproven health care treatments intended to supplement to conventional medicine, and which typically are not widely taught in medical schools, used in hospitals, or reimbursed by insurance companies. When research shows a therapy to be safe and effective, it usually then becomes part of accepted medical practice Hailey was advised to go to yoga as ______________________ to help treat her back pain in addition to going to physical therapy and getting injections.`

random assignment

assigning participants to experimental and control groups by chance, thus minimizing preexisting differences between the different groups Hannah used ______________________ to set up her study to minimize bias.

Emotion-focused coping

attempting to alleviate stress by avoiding or ignoring a stressor and attending to emotional needs related to one's stress reaction I used the ________________________ strategy to deal with my psychology homework stress by trying to relieve my emotion by running and taking a warm bath when I got home from school.

Problem-focused coping

attempting to alleviate stress directly - by changing the stressor or the way we interact with that stressor I used the ______________________________ strategy to deal with my stress related to the psychology homework stress by dropping the class.

source amnesia

attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined. (Also called source misattribution) When I was telling a story about how I saw a girl without pants in Target, ________________ caused me to think that it had occurred in real life, but it was actually a dream.

counterconditioning

behavior therapy procedures that use classical conditioning to evoke new responses to stimuli that are triggering unwanted behaviors; include exposure therapies and aversive conditioning When Gerald couldn't stop picking his nose, he went through ___________________ and he was awarded a M&M for each 5 minutes he went without picking his nose.

exposure therapies

behavioral techniques, such as systematic desensitization and virtual reality exposure therapy, that treat anxieties by exposing people (in imagination or actual situations) to the things they fear and avoid To get over her fear of going to the bathroom in public, Tammy went to __________________ to overcome her phobia. She did not want to sign up for this type of therapy because she knew it would force her to directly face her fear.

Subliminal

below one's absolute threshold for conscious awareness The word "rat" flashed on the screen so briefly that I didn't consciously perceive it, but it provided a ____________ message that Gore is a rat.

maturation

biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience The ____________ of the prefrontal cortex helps young adults make better decisions than teens.

Belief perseverance

clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited After Hannah's brother proved Hannah's belief wrong with evidence, her ____________________ caused her to really mad and kept searching for proof of her belief that thunder and lighting are the same thing.

Broca's area

controls language expression - an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere, that directs the muscle movements involved in speech A patient that has aphasia and has trouble moving their mouth to speak probably has damage in their ________________.

Wernicke's area

controls language reception - a brain area involved in language comprehension and expression; usually in the left temporal lobe As Hannah learned Spanish, she was exercising her _____________ to comprehend the language and express herself.

Transduction

conversion of one form of energy into another. In sensation, the transforming of stimulus energies, such as sights, sounds, and smells, into neural impulses our brain can interpret When I saw the image of the green leaf, the light energy was converted to neural impulses in the rods and cones through the process of _____________.

habituation

decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a visual stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner. Habituation has caused me to feel less of a shock when taking an ice bath because I have taken so many.

intelligence quotient (IQ)

defined originally as the ratio of mental age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100 (thus, IQ = ma/ca x 100). On contemporary intelligence tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100, with scores assigned to relative performance above or below average To become a part of the Mensa club, one must have an extremely high ____________________ (higher than 130).

Standardization

defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group If the ACT did not have ___________________, scores could vary greatly between years depending on how other students perform on the test. Since it is, test scores remain fairly consistent by year.

Monocular cues

depth cues, such as interposition and linear perspective, available to either eye alone When I was in art, I used ________________ to create the illusion of depth in my paintings; I had the road converge to a vanishing point and the closer object overlap the further one.

Binocular cues

depth cues, such as retinal disparity, that depend on the use of two eye Since my eyes are 2.5 inches apart, I see two different images from each eye. By judging the __________ (which are the differences between the images), I can see depth and judge how far away an object is.

Sensory adaptation

diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation When I first started wearing my perfume, it seemed really strong and fragrant, but now, I barely notice the sent because of _____________.

Depressants

drugs (such as alcohol, barbiturates, and opiates) that reduce neural activity and slow body functions Josh drank alcohol, a _______________, to calm his nerves, but it ended up causing him to make bad decisions.

functionalism

early school of thought promoted by James and influenced by Darwin; explored how mental and behavioral processes function - how they enable the organism to adapt, survive, and flourish. Using _______, James explored the purpose of behaviors in rats and how they used the behaviors to survive.

structuralism

early school of thought promoted by Wundt and Titchener; used introspection to reveal the structure of the human mind. The school of __________ is no longer popular because it relied on people describing their thoughts in different situations (when these people may not be credible or they may not know why they feel certain ways).

active listening

empathic listening in which the listener echoes, restates, and clarifies. A feature of Rogers' client-centered therapy When I was discussing my problems with Tyson, he was __________________ and he asked me for further explanation in my testing troubles and made comments like "that sounds frustrating".

visual encoding

encoding of picture images When I was learning how to do my Halloween makeup, I used ____________________ to remember the final image of how I wanted the makeup to turn out.

effortful processing

encoding that requires attention and conscious effort When I was studying the approaches to psychology, I had to use _____________________ and focus all my effort on trying to remember the approaches and their definitions.

Wilhelm Wundt

established the first psychology laboratory, conducted the first psychological experiment, known as the Father of Psychology, structuralist ____________ thought that the brain could be broken down and he used introspection to try to learn more about the brain.

environment

every external influence, from prenatal nutrition to the people and things around us Socio-cultural psychologists evaluate how the cultural and social aspects of your ________________ impact your behavior.

Inattentional blindness

failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere I didn't notice Angela's face in a crowd when I was looking for my mother because of __________.

delusions

false beliefs, often of persecution or grandeur, that may accompany psychotic disorders When Harry was going through the manic state of bipolar disorder, he had ___________________ and thought that he had to go to the white house for an interview with Donald Trump.

Hallucinations

false sensory experiences, such as seeing something in the absence of an external visual stimulus During the NREM-1 stage of sleep, Anna experienced a ______________________because she felt like she was falling even though she was lying still in her bed.

Attitude

feelings, often influenced by our belief, that predispose us to respond in a particular way to objects, people, and events My negative __________________________ towards Hailey caused me to treat her poorly and avoid talking to her.

mirror neurons

frontal lobe neurons that some scientists believe fire when performing certain actions or when observing another doing so. The brain's mirroring of another's action may enable imitation and empathy My ______________ fired when I was watching how Chassidy knotted the friendship bracelet and the same set fired again when I tried to recreate it; this refiring of the same neurons enabled me to learn how to make the bracelet.

social facilitation

improved performance on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others Our dress rehearsal for the Three Musketeers was awful (even though we had learned it very well), but __________________________ caused our first performance to be excellent due to the presence of an audience.

egocentrism

in Piaget's theory, the preoperational child's difficulty taking another's point of view Toddlers normally have trouble sharing their toys due to their ____________.

preoperational stage

in Piaget's theory, the stage (from about 2 to about 6 or 7 years of age) during which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic A toy that encourages make-believe play and conversational skills is fit for a child in the __________________ of development.

sensorimotor stage

in Piaget's theory, the stage (from birth to about 2 years of age) during which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities A toy that engages senses and encourages motor development is best fit for the ________________________ of development.

concrete operational stage

in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (from about 6 or 7 to 11 years of age) during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events A toy that boosts self esteem, follows logical structure, and allows the child to manipulate it is fit for a child in the ___________ of development.

formal operational stage

in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (normally beginning about age 12) during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts A toy or game that encourages players to answer hard questions or think about hypothetical situations is fit for people in the ___________________ of development.

Phoneme

in a language, the smallest distinctive sound unit The ____________________ of the word "perfectionist" are the sounds "p", "er", "f", "e", "c", "tion", "i" and "st".

Morpheme

in a language, the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or a part of a word (such as a prefix) The ____________________ of the word "perfectionist" are the word parts "perfec", "tion", and "ist".

discrimination

in classical conditioning, the learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus Because of a bad experience at the dentist, sitting in the waiting room makes me nervous; I have learned ____________ between the dentist's waiting room and the doctor's waiting room, so only the dentist's waiting room makes me nervous.

accommodation

in developmental psychology, adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information Hannah previously thought that women couldn't be pilots, but ________________ occurred when she saw a movie with a women pilot and her schema changed.

Place theory

in hearing, the theory that links the pitch we hear with the place where the cochlea's membrane is stimulated According to the ___________, the high pitch of a toddler's scream hits a different place in the ear than the low pitch of a man's yell.

Frequency theory

in hearing, the theory that the rate of nerve impulses traveling up the auditory nerve matches the frequency of a tone, thus enabling us to sense its pitch According to the ____________, I interpreted the tone as higher pitched than the tone Hannah was listening to because the nerve impulse in my brain was travelling at a faster speed than the speed of the impulse in her brain.

operant chamber

in operant conditioning research, a chamber (also known as a Skinner box) containing a bar or key that an animal can manipulate to obtain a food or water reinforcer; attached devices record the animal's rate of bar pressing or key pecking I used an ____________________ to conduct a study to see if squirrels have the ability of learning how to press buttons in a specific order to receive food.

interpretation

in psychoanalysis, the analyst's noting supposed dream meanings, resistances, and other significant behaviors and events in order to promote insight Tammy's psychologist used ____________________ and told her that her dream of her falling meant that she had hidden insecurities and anxieties.

resistance

in psychoanalysis, the blocking from consciousness of anxiety-laden material After the plane crash, Meredith used _____________ to stop thinking about planes and flying because those thoughts made her bring back bad flashbacks from the crash.

transference

in psychoanalysis, the patient's transfer to the analyst of emotions linked with other relationships (such as love or hatred for a parent) In movies, most of the psychologists use ________________________ to accredit a character's behaviors and feelings to their past problems with their parents.

repression

in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories After Hannah witnessed the Las Vegas shooting, she was able to immediately return to work because _____________________ pushed the thoughts of the shooting away, allowing her to work without anxiety.

repression

in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories When Hannah got in the plane crash, she used ___________ to push back the memory so she had no memory of the crash and was able to get back to work without having anxiety attacks.

rationalization

in psychoanalytic theory, the defense mechanism where one justifies failure with rational reasons rather than the real reason After Greg didn't meet the deadline, he used _______________________ by telling himself that the reason he didn't finish was because his boss overbooked him, instead of admitting that the actual reason was because he spent an hour on Facebook each day.

projection

in psychoanalytic theory, the defense mechanism where one projects his own unacceptable impulses onto others Hank, who struggles with an addiction to food, uses ___________ to defend his behavior by claiming everyone else in his family eats too much and he is just doing what they do.

displacement

in psychoanalytic theory, the defense mechanism where one releases hostility on object less dangerous than the initial cause of the emotional arousal After Tammy broke up with Greg, he used ____________________ to release his anger at her by punching a hole in his wall instead of hitting her.

regression

in psychoanalytic theory, the defense mechanism where one returns to a previous stage of development or primitive levels of behavior My little sister stopped sucking her thumb in kindergarten, but after the plane crash, she used _____________ to help her deal with the stress and started to suck her thumb again.

reaction formation

in psychoanalytic theory, the defense mechanism where one tacks the opposite beliefs because your beliefs cause anxiety Tammy, who thought that Hannah's dress looked awful, used _________________ to make up for her mean thought by overly complementing it and saying how much she loved it.

defense mechanisms

in psychoanalytic theory, the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality When Hannah missed the winning shot and made her team lose the game, she used ______________ to make her feel better about making the mistake. She came up with excuses, rationalized her failure, asked to be cuddled, and acted cruelly towards her little sister.

Catharsis

in psychology, the idea that "releasing" aggressive energy (through action or fantasy) relieves aggressive urges The "Rage Room" is a room in which a person is supposed to release their anger through ____________________: they act upon their anger to supposedly make them feel better and reduce aggression in the real world.

Accommodation

in sensation and perception, the process by which the eye's lens changes shape to focus near or far objects on the retina As I moved my finger towards my eye, ________ caused my lense to become more round so I could see it better.

discrimination

in social psychology, unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its members In Elliott's social experiment, she taught children what _______________ felt like by having one group of students with a particular eye color feel inferior to another group.

Perceptual adaptation

in vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field I conducted an experiment studying _______________ where participants constantly wore glasses that made everything appear to be upside down, and after 3 weeks I asked them if their vision had adapted to understand the upside down images.

misinformation effect

incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event Through the _______________, Ms. Connor's memory of watching the Challenger takeoff was distorted because she remembered watching it on her home TV, although it took place during a school day and she actually watched it in her second grade classroom.

positive reinforcement

increasing behaviors by presenting positive reinforcers. A positive reinforcer is any stimulus that, when presented after a response, strengthens the response Every time I get an A, my parents give me $10 (and I like money) as a ______________________ to encourage me to get better grades.

negative reinforcement

increasing behaviors by stopping or reducing negative stimuli. A negative reinforcer is any stimulus that, when removed after a response, strengthens the response Every time I get an A, my parents take away my chores (which I don't like) for a week as ________________ to encourage me to get better grades.

normative social influence

influence resulting from a person's desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval Hannah started wearing makeup because of _____________________: she wanted to be accepted by the other girls in her friend group.

informational social influence

influence resulting from one's willingness to accept others' opinions about reality Hannah started wearing makeup because of _____________________________: she was new to the school and didn't know if girls were supposed to wear makeup or not, so she conformed because that's how she thought girls were supposed to act.

Top-down processing

information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations Hannah used ____________________ when she interpreted the picture as sad (due to her mood and because the color blue is associated with sadness).

observational learning

learning by observing others. (Also called social learning) When I was in preschool, I learned that girls and boys play separate through _______________ by watching how other kids in my class behaved.

associative learning

learning that certain events occur together. The events may be two stimuli (as in classical conditioning) or a response and its consequences (as in operant conditioning) Through the process of _________________________, the baby learned that the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs led to his mom was coming to see him.

latent learning

learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it Every day, I sit on the bus next to two women speaking Spanish and I listen to their conversations; through _________ I learned a few words in Spanish but I didn't realize how much I learned until I took a Spanish placement test.

Psychophysiological illness

literally, "mind-body" illness; any stress-related physical illness, such as hypertension and some headaches Hannah was diagnosed with a ____________________ when she started getting migraine headaches whenever she got extremely stressed.

explicit memory

memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare." (Also called declarative memory) Martin, the winner of jeopardy, has an exceptional ___________________ that allows him to memorize many facts and names.

imagery

mental pictures I struggled using the Memory Palace technique for remembering things because I have trouble creating ___________________ so it is hard for me to see the objects I'm trying to remember in my mind.

sensory (afferent) neurons

neurons that carry incoming information from the sensory receptors to the brain and spinal cord Hannah's eyes saw the balloon and her ____________ interpreted the information and passed it to interneurons, which brought the message to the brain.

motor (efferent) neurons

neurons that carry outgoing information from the brain and spinal cord to the muscles and glands Hannah wanted to write, so her brain sent the message through _______________________ to the muscles in her hand, which allowed her to write.

interneurons

neurons within the brain and spinal cord that communicate internally and intervene between the sensory inputs and motor outputs After the image of the balloon was passed from afferent neurons, ______________ helped to pass the message along to the brain.

inferential statistics

numerical data that allow one to generalize - to infer from sample data the probability of something being true of a population Hannah used ___________ to determine that her random sample was effective in portraying the population.

descriptive statistics

numerical data used to measure and describe characteristics of groups. Includes measures of central tendency and measures of variation Hannah's survey asked questions about age and profession to obtain ______________ about her population.

chunking

organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically When memorizing a monologue for a theatre production, I use ____________________ by grouping the passage into groups of two sentences to make it easier to memorize.

fluid intelligence

our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease during late adulthood Engineers have high ____________ because they have to use it to think of abstract ways to solve problems.

crystallized intelligence

our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age An educated person has a much higher ______________ than someone who hasn't gone to school.

gender identity

our sense of being male or female People who are transgender have a _____________ that does not match their anatomy from birth.

identity

our sense of self; according to Erikson, the adolescent's task is to solidify a sense of self by testing an integrating various roles Hannah went through many changes of friend groups in middle school as she tried to develop her _________.

Adaptation-Level phenomenon

our tendency to form judgments (of sounds, of lights, of income) relative to a neutral level defined by our prior experience Grant was not bothered by the person clicking their pen behind him (since he was used to the sound since his mom did it at home), but Jenny was annoyed by the sound (since she was used to studying in silence) due to the ______________________.

serial positioning effect

our tendency to recall best the last (a recency effect) and first items (a primary effect) in a list Because of the ___________________________, I remembered the first song I danced to on Just Dance (Monster Mash) and the last song (Hot Stuff), but I couldn't list all of the songs I danced to in total.

spotlight effect

overestimating others' noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders (as if we presume a spotlight shines on us) When Hannah had a big zit on her forehead, the ____________________ made her feel very self-conscious because she felt like she was being examined and judged by everyone at her school.

theory of mind

people's ideas about their own and others' mental states - about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts, and the behaviors these might predict Hannah's ___________ about Joey made her believe his behaviors and actions were a result of stress.

Feel-good do-good phenomenon

people's tendency to be helpful when already in a good mood The Life Vest videos shows the _________________ by showing how small acts of kindness (the woman giving a large tip) can lead to small acts of kindness in others (the lady giving the construction worker water).

Color constancy

perceiving familiar objects as having consistent color, even if changing illumination alters the wavelengths reflect by the object Jordan's black hoodie may have reflected more light when she was standing in the sunlight than when she was in the shade, but I knew it was still the same shade of black because of __________________.

fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)

physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman's heavy drinking. In severe cases, signs include a small, out-of-proportion head and abnormal facial features Hannah's doctor warned her against drinking while pregnant because it could cause her baby to have alcoholism, hyperactivity, lower intelligence, and most severely, ___________________.

Ian Pavlov

pioneered the study of learning and his experiments explored classical conditioning ______________ conducted an experiment that taught dogs to salivate in response to a tone.

biomedical therapy

prescribed medications or procedures that act directly on the person's physiology When Terry was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, he only accepted ____________________________ as treatment and demanded a Lithium prescription.

partial reinforcement

reinforcing a response only part of the time; results in slower acquisition of a response but much greater resistance to extinction than does continuous reinforcement Every so often, my mom walks into my room and rewards me with a cupcake if she finds my room to be clean; since she doesn't always give a cupcake, she is using _________________.

continuous reinforcement

reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs When I was first training my dog to sit, I used ___________ by giving him a treat every time I told him to sit so he would learn the behavior.

longitudinal study

research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period When I was born, my mother signed me up for a ______________ so I have to get studied once each year.

self-disclosure

revealing intimate aspects of oneself to others Ruth loves _____________________, so she goes on dates often. In each first date, she tells her partner her entire life story, which makes her feel like her life is significant.

Subjective well-being

self-perceived happiness or satisfaction with life. Used along with measures of objective well-being (for example, physical and economic indicators) to evaluate people's quality of life After Lily had an okay day, she passed a bunch of sad people on the way home, making her ___________________ higher and making her think that her day was a lot better than it actually was.

superordinate goals

shared goals that override differences among people and require their cooperation When they were stuck on the deserted island, the ________________________ of trying to stay alive and be rescued united the students and forced them to work together, even though they didn't really get along on the mainland.

Acuity

sharpness or keenness of thought, vision, or hearing As people age, they generally lose _____________ of their vision and audition because their senses start to deteriorate.

psychosurgery

surgery that removes or destroys brain tissue in an effort to change behavior Gerald, who was diagnosed with depression, went through a ________________________ that cut the connections between his limbic system and frontal cortex in an attempt to regulate his mood. In the end, the surgery made him more depressed because of the long recovery time in the hospital.

Aerobic exercise

sustained exercise that increases heart and lung fitness; may also alleviate depression and anxiety When I was stressed about my psych test, I went to basketball practice to do _____________________ to run, which increased my heart and breathing rates and decreased my stress.

Two-factory theory

the Schachter-Singer theory that to experience emotion one must (1) be physically aroused and (2) cognitively label the arousal The _________________________ explains why I wasn't able to feel fear when I was half asleep and unaware of the fact that I was aroused by the beeping alarm.

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)

the WAIS is the most widely used intelligence test; contains verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests When a new student named Tony who could not speak came to my school, he took a test to judge his ____________________________ to create a personalized education plan for him.

emotional intelligence

the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions Tammy has a high ________________, so everyone goes to her for advice in their friendship and relationship problems because she is good at understanding others emotions and giving advice to manage one's own emotions.

creativity

the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas When we were coming up with solutions to the pasta tower challenge, everyone wanted Tammy to be on their team because she has a lot of ____________________ and came up with many imaginative ideas to conquer the challenge.

Depth perception

the ability to see objects in three dimensions although the images that strike the retina are two-dimensional; allows us to judge distance 3-D movies trick our _________________ because they cause the images we are viewing on the screen to appear that they occupy space instead of being flat as they actually appear on the screen.

gender-typing

the acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role A girl who is a tomboy might be thought to have a masculine ___________.

Priming

the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response Big companies often pay money to place their products in movies to use __________ to unconsciously convince you to buy their products.

priming

the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response Though I didn't consciously notice it, YouTube's constant advertisement in the World Series used ____________________ to make me more likely to open the YouTube app when I opened my phone.

hawthorne effect

the alteration of behavior by the subjects of a study due to their awareness of being observed Due to the ____________, Hannah didn't pick her nose when she knew there was a camera set up in her room.

Intensity

the amount of energy in a light or sound wave, which we perceive as brightness or loudness, as determined by the wave's amplitude Babies can not handle high ____________ sounds because their ears are not developed to handle the high energy sound waves.

generalized anxiety disorder

the anxiety disorder in which a person is continually tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal Teresa had to get a specialized education plan because she has _______________________and her intense feelings of stress, tension, and worry can force her to avoid the stresses of school and cause her to stay home.

repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS)

the application of repeated pulses of magnetic energy to the brain; used to stimulate or suppress brain activity After Fred's brain was damaged by the ECT procedure, his sister, who was also struggling through major depression, signed up for a ___________________________, since it doesn't damage the brain and she could be awake during the procedure.

object permanence

the awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived We play peek-a-boo with babies because they have issues with ______________; when you put your hands over their face, they think that your face disappears.

criterion

the behavior a test is designed to predict The ____________________ of the SAT is performance in college, which is why many colleges assess it in the application process.

Convergence

the binocular cue that refers to the fact that the closer an object, the more inward our eyes need to turn in order to focus. The farther our eyes converge, the closer an object appears to be Because of _____________, my eyes slightly crossed when I tried to read the book when I held it an inch away from my eyes; the fact that they crossed helped me to judge how far away the book was.

genes

the biochemical units of heredity that make up the chromosomes; segments of DNA capable of synthesizing proteins Since color-blindness is a dominant trait, if both parents are color blind then their child has a 100% of inheriting the color-blindness ________.

Biological rhythms

the biological clock; regular bodily rhythms (for example, of temperature and wakefulness) that occur on a 24-hour cycle Sleep is a part of your __________________, so your body may face adverse affects if you don't follow a specific bedtime routine or sleep schedule.

primary sex characteristics

the body structures (ovaries, testes, and external genitalia) that makes sexual reproduction possible Hannah's _____________ would include her ovaries and her vagina.

Basal metabolic rate

the body's resting rate of energy expenditure My little sister can eat whatever she wants and gain no weight if she doesn't exercise, but my dad would gain a lot of weight if he ate poorly and stopped exercising. This is because his _____________________ is much higher than hers.

plasticity

the brain's ability to change, especially during childhood, by reorganizing after damage or by building new pathways based on experience The _______________ of the brain allows for children to learn languages quickly and easily.

psychosexual stages

the childhood stages of development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, genital) during which, according to Freud, the id's pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones According to Freud's ______________________, my one-year-old sister is happy after she dirties her diaper because she is in the anal stage and her pleasure is focused around going to the bathroom.

Coronary heart disease

the clogging of the vessels that nourish the heart muscle; the leading cause of death in many developed countries Since blood vessels constrict when stress occurs, people with high stress levels are more likely to develop ____________________ as their blood vessels become clogged or experience heart attacks.

genome

the complete instructions for making an organism, consisting of all the genetic material in that organism's chromosomes The human _____________ shares 80% of DNA with the cow _________.

medical model

the concept that diseases, in this case psychological disorders, have physical causes that can be diagnosed, treat, and in most cases, cured, often through treatment in a hospital On the island of Bribeka, they do not use the ______________________ to treat patients with mental disorders. Instead of treating people with psychological disorders as patients in a psychology ward in a hospital, they treat them as evil people doing the work of the devil and lock them in a hut.

Extrasensory perception (ESP)

the controversial claim that perception can occur apart from sensory input; includes telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition Ava believes that she has the ____________________ to detect that people and objects are around her without using any of her other senses.

social clock

the culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement As time has passed, the __________ about marriage has made it more socially acceptable to marry at a later age.

Glucose

the form of sugar that circulates in the blood and provides the major source of energy for body tissues. When its level is low, we feeling hunger Before basketball, Shy was feeling tired because she hadn't eaten in a while and her ___________________ was very low.

companionate love

the deep affectionate attachment we feel for those with whom our lives are intertwined The ______________________ between Greg and Sara is obvious: they turn to each other when they have problems, they always are happy to be together, and they tell others how they have strong feelings of trust and love for each other.

Hue

the dimension of color that is determined by the wavelength of light; what we know as the color names blue, green, and so forth I am very good at detecting differences in ______s, I can tell the difference in color between countless paint swatches.

Tolerance

the diminishing effect with regular use of the same dose of a drug, requiring the user to take larger and larger doses before experiencing the drug's effect My doctor prescribed me antibiotics so much that the bacteria in my body built up a _________ to the drug; so, I had to have a stronger dosage to kill the bacteria.

extinction

the diminishing of a conditioned response; occurs in classical conditioning when an unconditioned stimulus (US) does not follow a conditioned stimulus (CS); occurs in operant conditioning when a response is no longer reinforced When Hunter went to college, his parents no longer punished him for having a messy room so he stopped cleaning it. ___________ occurred in the behavior of cleaning his room because he wasn't around his parents to punish him.

retroactive interference

the disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information _______________________ caused me to do poorly on my final exam because I forgot all of the information we learned at the beginning of chemistry class, because my mind was too preoccupied trying to learn the final units of the class.

proactive interference

the disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information _________________________ caused me to wish Lily a Happy Birthday on the wrong day. In fifth grade, Ainsley told me it was August 8th (when it is actually August 11th), so whenever I thought of her birthday, I thought it was the eighth, even after trying to relearn the correct date.

Wavelength

the distance from the peak of one light or sound wave to the peak of the next. Electromagnetic wavelengths vary from the short blips of cosmic rays to the long pulses of radio transmission The ___________ of the light increased as the party lights faded from blue to green.

sympathetic nervous system

the division of the autonomic nervous system that arouses the body, mobilizing its energy in stressful situations When Hannah is scared, her _________________ was responsible for increasing her heartbeat.

parasympathetic nervous system

the division of the autonomic nervous system that calms the body, conserving its energy After she ran the race, Hannah's _________________ was responsible for slowing her heartbeat and breathing.

somatic nervous system

the division of the peripheral nervous system that controls the body's skeletal muscles Without her ________________, Hannah's body wouldn't be able to send the message to her leg muscles to run.

semantic encoding

the encoding of meaning, including the meaning of words I used __________________ when studying my psychology vocabulary on Quizlet by associating each word with their definition in my mind.

acoustic encoding

the encoding of sound, especially the sound of words When I was learning how to do my Halloween makeup, I used __________________ when I recited the steps outloud to myself to remember them.

pituitary gland

the endocrine system's most influential gland. Under the influence of the hypothalamus, it regulates growth and controls other endocrine glands The ____________ was the gland that was responsible for releasing the growth hormone when she hit a growth spurt.

culture

the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions shared by a group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next The ________ in Spain is very different than the ______ here because eating times, greetings, language, and traditions are different.

group polarization

the enhancement of a group's prevailing inclinations through discussion within the group Before the debate on cloning, each side of the argument met and discussed their reasonings for their beliefs. ____________________________ strengthened each side's beliefs, making the debate heated.

independent variable

the experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect is being studied Hannah studied the effects of caffeine intake on test scores; caffeine intake was the _________________ of this study.

validity

the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to Hannah's tried to figure out what the favorite ice cream shop in the town was, but she only interviewed people who worked at SweetTreats. This made her data have very little ______________________ because it did not effectively relay the opinions of the entire population.

content validity

the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest The written test required for the NC learners permit does not have a high ________________ because the questions ask about random facts that wouldn't normally come up in a standard driving session.

reliability

the extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternate forms of the test, or on retesting Hannah conducted several studies with different populations and her results were not very consistent. This made others question the ____________ of the study.

menarche

the first menstrual period Girls normally experience their _________ when they are 10-14 years old.

Sexual response cycle

the four stages of sexual responding described by Masters and Johnson - excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution Hannah, who had never learned about the ___________________ had no idea what to expect in terms of her feelings during her first time having sex.

reciprocal determinism

the interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment ______________________ explains Hannah's loving personality because she is in a loving environment, she exhibits loving behaviors like hugging and praising others, and her brain tends to act calmly and positively.

interaction

the interplay that occurs when the effect of one factor (such as environment) depends on another factor (such as heredity) The field of epigenetics studies gene expression and the effects of ____________ of environment and heredity.

cerebral cortex

the intricate fabric of interconnected neural cells covering the cerebral hemispheres; the body's ultimate control and information-processing center When Hannah watched the movie, her _________________ was responsible for processing most of the information she obtained from the visual and auditory stimuli of the movie.

synapse

the junction between the axon tips of the sending neuron and the dendrite or cell body of the receiving neuron. The tiny gap at this junction is called the ___________ gap or ____________ cleft Neurons don't touch, signals are passed between neurons through gaps between them called _______________.

Delta waves

the large, slow brain waves associated with deep sleep During the sleep test, Ben's ___________ from his brain appeared slow and tall when he passed into the NREM-3 stage of sleep.

ego

the largely conscious, "executive" part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. It operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id's desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain When George tripped me in the hallway, my ___________ assessed the id and the superego and decided to give George a nasty look to make him feel bad without hurting him.

left hemisphere

the left-hand side of the human brain, which is believed to be associated with linear and analytical thought Mostly the _____________________ of Hannah's brain is used when she does math.

Retina

the light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing the receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin with processing of visual information After the light from an image is focussed through the lense, it is _____________ onto the retina where transduction occurs.

Nature vs. Nurture Debate

the longstanding controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors. In the _____________, biological psychologists would argue that genes have more of an impact on ones' psychology.

Difference threshold

the minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50 percent of the time. We experience the difference threshold as a just noticeable difference I have a very low _____________ when it comes to hearing pitch; I can detect a very small difference between two tones.

Absolute threshold

the minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time My _______________ for auditory stimulation is 15 decibels; I can hear a tone in my ear half of the time when it is at this volume.

groupthink

the mode of thinking that occurs when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives. In english class, nobody would say which topic they wanted Ms. Connor to write her example paragraph on. I offered one random topic, and _________________ caused Stephen to say "yeah I like that topic too" and the rest of the class to agree with me.

testosterone

the most important of the male sex hormones. Both males and females have it, but the additional testosterone in males stimulates the growth of the male sex organs in the fetus and the development of the male sex characteristics during puberty The higher levels of ______________ in males during puberty cause increased sexual arousal and development of sex organs.

axon

the neuron extension that passes messages through its branches to other neurons or to muscles or glands As the feeling of pain passed through Hannah's body, the message of pain passed through the __________ of the neuron after it was processed in the soma.

Frequency

the number of complete wavelengths that pass a point in a given time (for example, per second) The ____________ of a sound wave with short wavelength produces a higher pitched sound and has a __________ that is higher than the _______ of a sound wave with a long wavelength.

Figure-ground

the organization of the visual field into objects (the figures) that stand out from their surroundings (the ground) When looking at the portrait of Mona Lisa, I interpreted the image's ________________ organization. The lady caught my attention, so she comprised the figure of the painting and the landscape behind her was the ground.

dependent variable

the outcome factor; the variable that may change in response to manipulations of the independent variable Hannah studied the effects of caffeine intake on test scores; the test scores were the ___________ of the study.

superego

the part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations When George tripped me in the hallway, my ___________ told me "maybe it was an accident, George is a good kid, punching him would get you in trouble."

autonomic nervous system

the part of the peripheral nervous system that controls the glands and the muscles or the internal organs (such as the heart). Its sympathetic division arouses; its parasympathetic division calms Hannah's _________________ is responsible for sending the message to her heart to beat and to her lungs to breathe.

Relative Deprivation

the perception that we are worse off relative to those with whom we compare ourselves The saying "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" is true because of _______________________; we tend to view our lives worse than others'.

Grouping

the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups I use ___________ when I perceive the flowers in front of my house because I see the flower patch as a whole instead of focussing on each individual flower and plant.

puberty

the period of sexual maturation, during which a person becomes capable of reproducing During ___________, girls experience breast growth, body hair growth, and they start to menstruate.

mere exposure effect

the phenomenon that repeated exposure to novel stimuli increases liking of them My mom started burning incense in my house each Saturday. At first, I didn't like the smell, but the _________________________ caused me to start to like the smell and I felt happy when I smelled incense in my friend Brooke's house.

Set point

the point at which an individual's "weight thermostat" is supposedly set. When the body falls below this weight, an increase in hunger and a lowered metabolic rate may act to restore the lost weight People in Hannah's family tend to be heavier from birth than people in her friend Tara's family, so Hannah's ___________ for her weight is higher than Tara's (assuming the girls are the same height).

Blind spot

the point at which the optic nerve leaves the eye, creating a "blind" spot because no receptor cells are located there When closing one eye and focussing on a specific point, a bit of the image is not able to be seen due to the __________________ in the eye; however, when looking at something with two eyes or by moving the eyes this gap in vision is accounted for.

debriefing

the postexperimental explanation of a study, including its purpose and any deceptions, to its participants _____________ is important in conducting ethical studies because it explains to participants what researchers were looking for or if they were deceived.

frustration-aggression principle

the principle that frustration - the blocking of an attempt to achieve some goal - creates anger, which can generate aggression When my sister kept singing when I was trying to take my timed quiz, the _________________________ explains why I started getting angry and yelling at her when she was preventing me from doing well on the quiz.

Sensory interaction

the principle that one sense may influence another Food that is presented well will taste better than the same food that is poorly presented because of ______________ between vision and taste.

natural selection

the principle that, among the range of inherited trait variations, those contributing to reproduction and survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations Charles Darwin learned about ____________ when he studied finches in the Galapagos Islands.

Weber's law

the principle that, to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (rather than a constant amount) It was easier to tell the difference between the weights of the bags when they weighed 3.1 and 3 oz than when the bags weighed 8.1 and 8 oz, which shows _________________.

imprinting

the process by which certain animals form strong attachments during an early life critical period If a human touches a duckling right after it hatches, the duck might think that the human is their mother due to ________________.

Stress

the process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging I experienced ______________ in psychology class today when Mr. Webb said that this assignment is due tomorrow because I viewed the stressor (a vocabulary list due tomorrow) as a threat because I knew it would take time away from spending time with friends.

identification

the process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parents' values into their developing superegos After ________________ occurred and Tammy started listening to her parents' lectures, she started to hear the voice of her mother saying "don't you EVER do drugs" in her superego.

storage

the process of retaining encoded information over time After watching the video a few times, the steps to the tutorial were retained in my brain through the process of ____________ so I could keep the steps in my brain.

encoding

the processing of information into the memory system - for example, by extracting meaning When I was learning how to do my Halloween makeup, _______________ allowed for me to process the tutorial video and allowed it to proceed to my short term memory.

Parallel processing

the processing of many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain's natural mode of information processing for many functions, including vision. Contrasts with the step-by-step (serial) processing of most computers and of conscious problem solving When I looked at the image of the flower, ___________ occurred; I processed the size, shape, color, and depth of the image all at the same time!

heritability

the proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes. The heritability of a trait may vary, depending on the range of populations and environments studied As changes in environments decrease, the __________ of an observed trait increases because the variation in a group is more likely to be a result of genetic differences.

spontaneous recovery

the reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished conditioned response In school, Tom was conditioned to stand up when he heard the bell ring at the end of the day, but in his adulthood this behavior diminished. One day at work, _________________ of the behavior occurred and he randomly stood up when a tone sounded over the intercom.

Alpha waves

the relatively slow brain waves of a relaxed, awake state Before the sleep test, my _____________ in my brain were recorded so that researchers had a baseline of my brain activity when I was conscious and relaxed.

right hemisphere

the right-hand side of the human brain, believed to be associated with creative thought and the emotions Mostly the __________________ of Hannah's brain is used when she is in art class.

psychology

the science of behavior and mental processes Hannah studied ______________ to understand more about the behaviors and thoughts of people around her.

Social psychology

the scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another Zimmerman, who studied __________________, set up an experiment to study how people would act and relate to one another when put in a situation as a prisoner or as a guard.

positive psychology

the scientific study of human functioning, with the goals of discovering and promoting strengths and virtues that help individuals and communities to thrive Since I am an encouraging and positive person, I want to study ________________ to help others live their best lives so that they can be happy, exhibit their talents, and add a positive contribution to their world.

Syntax

the set of rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences When Genie started to communicate with others she struggled with __________ and didn't know how to form sentences that made sense, proving that there is a critical period for learning it.

Semantics

the set of rules for deriving meaning from sounds Using ___________________, I concluded that the word "read" in the sentence "Yesterday, Carla read a book." meant the past tense version of the word.

Parapsychology

the study of paranormal phenomena, including ESP and psychokinesis Ava went to the strange man claiming to study ____________ for a diagnosis if she actually had an ESP or not.

psychopharmacology

the study of the effects of drugs on mind and behavior Tim, who has a degree in __________________________, created the Mouse Party website to show kids how various drugs can affect neurotransmitters in the brain and can lead to different feelings and behaviors.

evolutionary psychology

the study of the evolution of behavior and mind, using principles of natural selection A psychologist who studies ________________ studies the evolution of behaviors and mental structure and the reasons that our psychology adapted.

behavior genetics

the study of the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behavior The field of ____________ provides evidence to the "nature" side of the nature-nurture debate.

molecular genetics

the subfield of biology that studies the molecular structure and function of genes The scientist who studied _________________ studied the effects of certain genes on behavior.

predictive validity

the success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behavior The SAT has a low __________________ because studies have shown that high SAT scores don't necessarily lead to high performance in college (which is what the SAT is supposed to test).

REM rebound

the tendency for REM sleep to increase following REM sleep deprivation (created by repeated awakenings during REM sleep) Every ninety minutes, a smoke detector in my house beeps loudly, which woke me up in the middle of my REM sleep for five sleep cycles. The next night, I fixed the detector which caused a ______________ in my sleep that night where I had much more time in REM sleep.

bystander effect

the tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present At the concert, they ____________________ caused no people in the crowd to provide CPR to the man, even though most of them had learned CPR in high school. All of them were expecting someone more qualified to step up, so nobody helped the man.

spacing effect

the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice I studied for the SAT for ten minutes a day for two months; because of the __________________, I did better on the test than my friend Chassidy who studied for two hours the night before the test.

regression toward the mean

the tendency for extreme or unusual scores to fall back (regress) toward their average Gretta accredited her recovery from severe depression, but it really was ________________________ since most other people recover from depression.

Fundamental attribution error

the tendency for observers, when analyzing others' behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition Since I only observed Gretta in church where she wore dresses, __________________________ caused me to incorrectly assume that wearing dresses was an internal attribution and she liked wearing dresses.

social loafing

the tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable George is an excellent 400m sprinter, but when he runs in the 4x400 relay, _____________ causes him to run slower than in his individual sprint.

just-world phenomenon

the tendency for people to believe the world is just and that people therefore get what they deserve and deserve what they get The ____________________ explains why Hitler felt that he was right in punishing the Jews: the world is just, so he was only punishing the Jews because they deserved it (since he thought they caused Germany's issues).

foot-in-door phenomenon

the tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request The consultants for Hilton get paid for bringing guests into a meeting (even if they don't buy anything) because the ___________________________ makes the buyers more likely to buy something once they've agreed to attend the meeting.

Visual capture

the tendency to allow visual images to dominate our perception When watching a video of a person mouthing the sound "ba" while the audio says "ga", we tend to allow the visual dominate our perception of the sound because of ________________.

hindsight bias

the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it Hannah's _________ made her think, "I knew that was going to be the result of my experiment!".

ingroup bias

the tendency to favor our own group When I chose my seat in my kindergarten class, ______________ caused me to sit next to other girls, since they were in my ingroup since we had a common gender.

false consensus effect

the tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and our behaviors Due to the ______________, Hannah thought that most people shared her view that UNC was the best college in NC.

mood-congruent memory

the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood When I sprained my ankle yesterday, the feeling of pain and frustration triggered a ____________________________ as I remembered spraining my ankle during the East Chapel Hill game last year, when I felt the same feelings.

Cannon-Bard theory

the theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers (1) physiological responses and (2) the subjective experience of emotion The __________________ describes my feeling of happiness as a response to the dog that made me happy which occurs at the same time as I am smiling in a physiological response.

Opponent-process theory

the theory that opposing retinal processes (red-green, yellow-blue, white-black) enable color vision. For example, some cells are stimulated by green and inhibited by red; others are stimulated by red and inhibited by green There is no such thing as a "reddish green" color because the ______________ states that the cells that are stimulated by green inhibit red.

James-Lange theory

the theory that our experience of emotion is our awareness of our physiological responses to emotion-arousing stimuli The __________________ explains that people smile to show others they are happy when they are aware of a stimulus that makes them happy.

social exchange theory

the theory that our social behavior is an exchange process, the aim of which is to maximize benefits and minimize costs Hannah's love of hiking can be explained by the _____________________: she wants to have fun with her friends, get exercise, and do it all without the stress of paying money.

scapegoat theory

the theory that prejudice offers an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame The _______________________ explains why Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany's problems: he wanted to direct the anger people had towards the nation towards another source so he didn't have to deal with it.

Gate-control theory

the theory that the spinal cord contains a neurological "gate" that blocks pain signals or allows them to pass on to the brain. The "gate" is opened by the activity of pain signals traveling up small nerve fibers and is closed by activity in larger fibers or by information coming from the brain The _______________ explains the reason why your body goes into shock and you can't feel pain when you suffer from a terrible injury.

cognitive dissonance theory

the theory that we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent. For example, when we become aware that our attitudes and our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitude Hannah's hunts deer to eat them and she used to feel bad about killing the deer. She stopped feeling bad about killing the deer because of the ___________________: her actions were not matching her beliefs, so she changed her belief to feel comfortable about her action.

Attribution theory

the theory that we explain someone's behavior by crediting either the situation or the person's disposition Using the ________________________, I concluded that Hannah's yelling was due to the external factors of her bad hair day and bad test grade.

social learning theory

the theory that we learn social behavior by observing and imitating and by being rewarded or punished When children learn to use the potty because they get an M&M every time they go to the bathroom, the ________________ is being proved.

menopause

the time of natural cessation of menstruation; also refers to the biological changes a woman experiences as her ability to reproduce decline Women normally experience ____________ in their late 40s or 50, so they no longer can have children after that age.

Lymphocytes

the two types of white blood cells that are part of the body's immune system: B lymphocytes form in the bone marrow and release antibodies that fight bacterial infections; T lymphocytes form the thymus and other lymphatic tissue and attack cancer cells, viruses, and foreign substances I developed cancer because when I was stressed, my T ____________________ in my immune system stopped working as well so they couldn't kill my cancer cells. Then, the cells split and reproduced, spreading the cancer.

empiricism

the view that knowledge originates in experience and that science should, therefore, rely on observation and experimentation Using the scientific method is a way to ensure the way you collect data portrays __________.

behaviorism

the view that psychology (1) should be an objective science that (2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes. Most research psychologists today agree with (1) but not with (2) Bandura's Bobo Doll experiment studied modeling and ________________ by focussing on the effects of watching violence on the behaviors of children.

Stanford-Binet

the widely used American revision (by Terman at Stanford University) of Binet's original intelligence test I wanted to test my intelligence so I took the ___________________, a standardised intelligence that assesses fluid reasoning, knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing and working memory; I didn't take the Binet test because it primarily tests children and I wanted to compare my results to other adults.

behavior therapy

therapy that applies learning principles to the elimination of unwanted behaviors When Gerald couldn't stop picking his nose in public, he went to _____________________where he was taught that his behavior was bad by his therapist.

cognitive therapy

therapy that teaches people new, more adaptive ways of thinking; based on the assumption that thoughts intervene between events and our emotional reactions When Zoe had depression after blaming herself for her father's death, she had to see a psychologist for _________________ who taught her to look at her father's death differently and blame her father's habit of smoking on his death.

family therapy

therapy that treats the family as a system. Views an individual's unwanted behaviors as influenced by, or directed at, other family members When my dad cheated on my mom, our entire family went to _______________ to cope with our feelings of stress and anxiety and analyze the effects of our recent behaviors on the rest of the family.

Psychotherapy

treatment involving psychological techniques; consists of interactions between a trained therapist and someone seeking to overcome psychological difficulties or achieve personal growth When I told my doctor that I thought I was suffering from depression, she first suggested ______________________ to see if talking about my problems with a therapist would help my depression.

identical twins (monozygotic twins)

twins who develop from a single fertilized egg that splits in two, creating two genetically identical organisms Riley and Emmy are ___________________ and they look almost exactly alike.

fraternal twins (dizygotic twins)

twins who develop from separate fertilized eggs. They are genetically no closer than brothers and sisters, but they share a fetal environment Any set of twins with one girl and one boy are _____________ because they can't share all of their DNA if they are different genders.

Nearsightedness

unable to see things clearly unless they are relatively close to the eyes, owing to the focusing of rays of light by the eye at a point in front of the retina; myopic People with ___________ wear glasses with concave lenses to reflect light further back in the eye.

Farsightedness

unable to see things clearly, especially if they are relatively close to the eyes, owing to the focusing of rays of light by the eye at a point behind the retina; hyperopic People with ___________ wear glasses with convex lenses to reflect light further back in the eye.

automatic processing

unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings When I turned on the TV, I knew that it was on Channel 7 New because of ___________________, since I unconsciously associated the theme song and blue backdrop with the channel.

altruism

unselfish regard for the welfare of others Tillie has a lot of _________________, she can't walk down a street without donating money to all the homeless people, helping grandmothers cross the street, or donating to the Salvation Army buckets.