Psych Final Vocab

intellectual disability

(formerly referred to as 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; varies from mild to profound.

a neurocognitive disorder marked by neural plques, often with onset after age 80, and entailing a progressive decline in memory and other cognitive abilities

Alzheimers Disease

Interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas

Assimilation

An emotional tie with another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to their caregiver and showing distress on seperation

Attachment

A disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by significant defiencies in communication and social interaction, and by rigidly fixated interests and repetitive behaviors

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

growth mindset

Believing intelligence is changeable, results in a focus on learning and growing

Driving to school one snowy day, Marco narrowly misses a car that slides through a red light. "Slow down! What a terrible driver," he thinks to himself. Moments later, the city plows need to get out here." What social psychology principle has Marco just demonstrated? Explain

By attributing the other person's behavior to the person("he's a terrible driver") and his own to the situation ("these roads are awful"), Marco has exhibited the FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR

Tanya Chartrand and John Bargh call this social contagion the ___________________

Chamelean effect

All the mental actities associted with thinking,knowing,remembering, and communicating

Cognition

When people act in a way that is not in keeping with their attitudes, and then change their attitudes to match those actions, ______________ ______________ theory attempts to explain why.

Cognitive dissonance

Jamal's therapist has suggested that Jamal should "act as if" he is confident, even though he feels insecure and shy. Which social psychological theory would best support this suggestion, and what might the therapist be hoping to achieve?

Cognitive dissonance theory best supports this suggestion.

In Piagets theory, the stage of cognitive development (from about 7 to 11 years of age) during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events

Concrete Operational stage

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

Consvervation

an optimal period early in the life of an organism when exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces normal development

Critical Period

research that compares people of different ages at the same point in time

Cross sectional study

A branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span

Developmental Psychology

In Piagets theory, the preoperational childs difficulty taking anothers point of view

Egocentrism

The developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the 2nd month

Embryo

A period from about age 18 to the mid twenties, when many in Western Cultures are no longer adolescents but have not yet achieved full independence as adults

Emerging Adulthood

Attitude is define as ??

Feelings, often influenced by our beliefs, that predispose us to respond in a particular way to objects, people, and events.

Physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a preganant womans heavy drinking. In severe cases, signs include a small, out of porportion head and abnormal facial features

Fetal alcohol syndrome

The developing human organism feom 9 weeks after conception to birth

Fetus

We tend to agree to a larger request more readily if we have already agreed to a small request. This tendency is called the ___ - ___ - ___ - ___ phenomenon.

Foot-in-the-door

in Piagets theory, the stage of cognitive development (normally beginning about the age of 12) during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts

Formal Operational Stage

Decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner

Habituation

our sense of self; according to Erikson, the adolescents task is to solidify a sense of self by testing and intergrating various roles

Identity

the process by which certain animals form strong attachments during early life

Imprinting

in Eriksons theory, the ability to form close, loving relationships; a primary developmental task in young adulthood

Intimacy

research that follows and retests the same people over time

Longitudinal Study

the time of natural cessation of menstruation;also refers to the biological changes a woman experiences as her ability to reproduce declines

Menopause

If we encounter a person who appears to be high on drugs, and we make the fundamental attribution error, we will probably attribute the person's behavior to

Moral weakness or an addictive personality.

acquired disorders marked by cognitive deficits; often related to Alzheimers disease, brain injury or disease, or substance abuse. In older adults, neurocognitive disorders were formerly called dementia

Neurocognitive Disorders (NCDs)

Actions affect attitudes

Not only will people stand up for what they believe, they also will more strongly believe in what they have stood up for.

The awareness that things continue to exist even when not percieved

Object Permanence

IQ (intelligence quotient)

Originally a ratio of mental age to chronological age x 100 developed by William Stern, contemporary average is 100, this scoring doesn't work on adults so relative scoring is used

How do our attitudes and our actions affect each other?

Our attitudes often influence our actions as we behave in ways consistent with our beliefs. However our actions also influence our attitudes; we come to believe in what we have done.

Celebrity endorsements in advertising often lead consumers to purchase products through ______________ route persuasion.

Peripheral

in Piagets theory,the stage (from about 2 to 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

Preoperational Stage

Attitude follows behavior

Promote both good and bad behavior.

The period of sexual maturation, during which a person becomes capable of reproducing

Puberty

In Vygotskys theory, a framework that offers children temporary support as they develop higher levels of thinking

Scaffold

A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information

Schema

All our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, "who am I".

Self concept

In Piaget's theory, the stage (from birth to nearly 2 years of age) during which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities

Sensorimotor Stage

Adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information

Accommodation

The transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to independence

Adolescence

the "we" aspect of our self concept; the part of our answer to "who am I"? that comes from our group memberships

Social Identity

The fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 months of age

Stranger Anxiety

"monster makers" agents, such as chemicals and viruses , that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm

Teratogens

emotional intelligence

The ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions. generally more socially and self-aware

Peoples ideas about their own and others mental states about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts and the bahaviors these might predict

Theory of mind

Role Playing Affects Attitudes

Zimbardo (1972) assigned the roles of guards and prisoners to random students and found that guards and prisoners developed role- appropriate attitudes.

The fertilized egg; it enters a 2week period of rapid cell division and develops into an embryo

Zygote

savant syndrome

a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing, usually on the autism spectrum

cohort

a group of people sharing a common characteristic, such as from a given time period

mental age

a measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance

intelligence test

a method for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores

stereotype threat

a self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype (ex. reminding a kid that they are black before their test ruins their scores)

What is Role?

a set of expectations (norms) about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave

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, Spearman uses this to confirm that their is a g factor

achievement test

a test designed to assess what a person has learned, intended to reflect what you've learned

aptitude test

a test designed to predict a person's future performance; test the capacity to learn

general intelligence

according to Spearman and others, underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test (g)

According to Erik Erikson, a sense that th world is predictable and trustworthy; said to be formed during infancy by appropriate epxperiences with responsive caregivers

basic trust

Social Contagion is not confined to ___________________

behaviour

Adjusting our behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard is called what

conformity

standardization

defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group

normal curve

describes the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes. Most scores fall near the average, and fewer and fewer scores lie near the extremes, the peak is the average

Social psychologists great lesson is the

enormous power of social influence.

The central route persuasion is occurs when?

interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts.

Weshcler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)

most widely used intelligence test

fluid intelligence

our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease during late adulthood

crystalized intelligence

our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age, reflected in vocab/analogies tests

practical intelligence

required for everyday tasks, which may be ill-defined, with multiple solutions

cross-sectional study

research that compares people of different ages at the same point in time

longitudal study

research that follows and retest the same people over time

primary mental abilities

seven abilities proposed by Thurstone as crucial to intelligence (word fluency, verbal comprehension, spatial ability, perceptual speed, numerical ability, inductive reasoning, and memory)

Imitative behavior involving the spread of behavior, emotions, and ideas is known as

social contagion

analytical intelligence

the ability to break problems down into component parts, or analysis, for problem solving. assessed by intelligence tests with a single right answer, predicts school and vocational success more modestly

creative intelligence

the ability to deal with new and different concepts and to come up with new ways of solving problems (innovative smarts)

intelligence

the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations

existential intelligence

the ability to ponder large questions about life, death, and existence, the ninth possible intelligence

validity

the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to

predictive validity

the extent to which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict; assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and criterion behavior

content validity

the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest (ex. driver's road test)

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

heritability

the proportion of variation among individuals that can be attributed to genes. may vary, depending on the range of populations and environments studied

What is social psychology?

the scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another

What is the fundamental attribution error?

the tendency for observers, when analyzing another's behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition

What is the foot-in-the-door phenomenon?

the tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request

What is cognitive dissonance theory?

the theory that we act to reduce the discomfort we feel when two of our thoughts are inconsistent

relatively independent intelligences

the verbal and mathematical aptitudes assessed by standardized tests, eight identified by Gardner

Stanford-Binet

the widely used American revision (by Terman at Stanford University) of Binet's original intelligence test.

Flynn effect

the worldwide phenomenon that shows intelligence test performance has been increasing over the years

Attribution theory is define as what?

theory that we explain someones behavior by crediting either the situation or the person's disposition.

triarchic theory

three aspects of intelligence: (a) cognitive processes, (b) identifying situations that require intelligence, and (c) using intelligence in practical ways, developed by Sternberg

social intelligence

understanding social situations and managing ourselves, first proposed by Thorndike

When does the peripheral route to persuasion occur?

when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker's attractiveness.