Science Part 2

Law of Effect

Lloyd Morgan The law of effect basically states that "responses that produce a satisfying effect in a particular situation become more likely to occur again in that situation, and responses that produce a discomforting effect become less likely to occur again in that situation."

Fundamental Attribution Error

The phrase was coined by Lee Ross some years after a now classic experiment by Edward E. Jones and Victor Harris (1967). In social psychology, this error (also known as correspondence bias or attribution effect) is the tendency to overestimate the effect of disposition or personality and underestimate the effect of the situation in explaining social behavior. It is most visible when people explain the behavior of others. It does not explain interpretations of one's own behavior — where situational factors are more easily recognized and can thus be taken into consideration. This discrepancy between attributions for one's own behavior and for that of others is known as the actor-observer bias.

Attention Theory

This asserts that people can concentrate better after spending time in nature, or even looking at scenes of nature. Natural environments abound with "soft fascinations" which a person can reflect upon in "effortless attention", such as clouds moving across the sky, leaves rustling in a breeze or water bubbling over rocks in a stream.

Intelligence

This has been defined in many different ways including logic, abstract thought, understanding, self-awareness, communication, learning, having emotional knowledge, retaining, planning, and problem solving. Intelligence is most widely studied in humans, but has also been observed in animals and in plants. Artificial intelligence is the simulation of intelligence in machines. Within the discipline of psychology, various approaches to human intelligence have been adopted. The psychometric approach is especially familiar to the general public, as well as being the most researched and by far the most widely used in practical settings.

Field Theory

This holds that behavior must be derived from a totality of coexisting facts. These coexisting facts make up a "dynamic field", which means that the state of any part of the field depends on every other part of it. Behavior depends on the present field rather than on the past or the future.

Social Learning

According to this theory, models are an important source for learning new behaviors and for achieving behavioral change in institutionalized settings. This theory is derived from the work of Albert Bandura which proposed that observational learning can occur in relation to three models: Live model in which an actual person is demonstrating the desired behaviour Verbal instruction in which an individual describes the desired behaviour in detail, and instructs the participant in how to engage in the behavior Symbolic in which modeling occurs by means of the media, including movies, television, Internet, literature, and radio. This type of modeling involves a real or fictional character demonstrating the behaviour. Bandura proposed that the modeling process involves several steps: Attention: In order for an individual to learn something, they must pay attention to the features of the modeled behaviour. Retention: Humans need to be able to remember details of the behaviour in order to learn and later reproduce the behaviour. Reproduction: In reproducing a behavior, an individual must organize his or her responses in accordance with the model behavior. This ability can improve with practice. Motivation: There must be an incentive or motivation driving the individual's reproduction of the behaviour. Even if all of the above factors are present, the person will not engage in the behaviour without motivation.

Serotonin

C10H12N2O This is a neurotransmitter and is found in all bilateral animals, where it mediates gut movements and the animal's perceptions of resource availability. In less complex animals, such as invertebrates, resources simply mean food availability. In more complex animals, such as arthropods and vertebrates, resources also can mean social dominance. In response to the perceived abundance or scarcity of resources, an animal's growth, reproduction or mood may be elevated or lowered. This may somewhat depend on how much of the hormone the organism has at its disposal.

Forms of Conditioning

Classical conditioning (also Pavlovian conditioning or respondent conditioning) is a form of learning in which the conditioned stimulus or CS, comes to signal the occurrence of a second stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus or US. (A stimulus is a factor that causes a response in an organism.) The conditioned response is the learned response to the previously neutral stimulus. The US is usually a biologically significant stimulus such as food or pain that elicits a response from the start; this is called the unconditioned response or UR. The CS usually produces no particular response at first, but after conditioning it elicits the conditioned response or CR. Classical conditioning differs from operant or instrumental conditioning, in which behavior emitted by the subject is strengthened or weakened by its consequences (i.e. reward or punishment).

Four Humors

Hippocrates Humorism, or humoralism, is a now discredited theory of the makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by Ancient Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers, positing that an excess or deficiency of any of four distinct bodily fluids in a person directly influences their temperament and health. The four humors of Hippocratic medicine are black bile (Gk. melan chole), yellow bile (Gk. chole), phlegm (Gk. phlegma), and blood (Gk. haima), and each corresponds to one of the traditional four temperaments.

DSM IV

In 1994, this was published, listing 297 disorders in 886 pages. A major change from previous versions was the inclusion of a clinical significance criterion to almost half of all the categories, which required that symptoms cause "clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning". Some personality disorder diagnoses were deleted or moved to the appendix.

Subconscious

In psychology, this is the part of consciousness that is not currently in focal awareness. The word is an anglicized version of the French subconscient as coined by the psychologist Pierre Janet, who argued that underneath the layers of critical thought functions of the conscious mind lay a powerful awareness. Because there is a limit to the information that can be held in conscious focal awareness, a storehouse of one's knowledge and prior experience is needed.

"Six Basic Emotions"

Paul Ekman has supported the view that emotions are discrete, measurable, and physiologically distinct. Ekman's most influential work revolved around the finding that certain emotions appeared to be universally recognized, even in cultures that were preliterate and could not have learned associations for facial expressions through media. Another classic study found that when participants contorted their facial muscles into distinct facial expressions (e.g. disgust), they reported subjective and physiological experiences that matched the distinct facial expressions. His research findings led him to classify these as basic: anger disgust fear happiness sadness surprise.

Mind-Body Problem

René Descartes This problem in philosophy examines the relationship between mind and matter, and in particular the relationship between consciousness and the brain.

Myers-Briggs

The (MBTI) assessment is a psychometric questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions. These preferences were extrapolated from the typological theories proposed by Carl Gustav Jung and first published in his 1921 book Psychological Types (English edition, 1923). Jung theorized that there are four principal psychological functions by which we experience the world: sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking. One of these four functions is dominant most of the time.

Self-actualization

The concept was brought most fully to prominence in Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory as the final level of psychological development that can be achieved when all basic and mental needs are essentially fulfilled and the "actualization" of the full personal potential takes place, although he adapted this viewpoint later on in life, and saw it more flexibly.

Forgetting Curve

This hypothesizes the decline of memory retention in time. This curve shows how information is lost over time when there is no attempt to retain it. A related concept is the strength of memory that refers to the durability that memory traces in the brain. The stronger the memory, the longer period of time that a person is able to recall it. A typical graph purports to show that humans tend to halve their memory of newly learned knowledge in a matter of days or weeks unless they consciously review the learned material.

Extraversion

This is "the act, state, or habit of being predominantly concerned with and obtaining gratification from what is outside the self". Extroverts tend to enjoy human interactions and to be enthusiastic, talkative, assertive, and gregarious. They tend to be energized when around other people, and they are more prone to boredom when they are by themselves.

Introversion

This is "the state of or tendency toward being wholly or predominantly concerned with and interested in one's own mental life". An introvert is likely to enjoy time spent alone and find less reward in time spent with large groups of people, though he or she may enjoy interactions with close friends. Trust is usually an issue of significance: a virtue of utmost importance to introverts is choosing a worthy companion. They prefer to concentrate on a single activity at a time and like to observe situations before they participate, especially observed in developing children and adolescents. They are more analytical before speaking.

Nature vs. Nurture

This is a debate concerning the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities ("nature," i.e. nativism, or innatism) versus personal experiences ("nurture," i.e. empiricism or behaviorism) in determining or causing individual differences in physical and behavioral traits.

Positive Psychology

This is a recent branch of psychology whose purpose was summed up in 1998 by Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: "We believe that a psychology of positive human functioning will arise, which achieves a scientific understanding and effective interventions to build thriving individuals, families, and communities." These kinds of psychologists seek "to find and nurture genius and talent" and "to make normal life more fulfilling", rather than merely treating mental illness. It is primarily concerned with using the psychological theory, research and intervention techniques to understand the positive, adaptive, creative and emotionally fulfilling aspects of human behavior.

Structuralism

This is a theoretical paradigm positing that elements of human culture must be understood in terms of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or structure. It works to uncover the structures that underlie all the things that humans do, think, perceive, and feel. Alternately, as summarized by philosopher Simon Blackburn, it is "the belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract culture".

Behaviorism

This is an approach to psychology that combines elements of philosophy, methodology, and theory. It emerged in the early twentieth century as a reaction to "mentalistic" psychology, which often had difficulty making predictions that could be tested using rigorous experimental methods.

Unconscious

This is the condition of being not conscious—in a mental state that involves complete or near-complete lack of responsiveness to people and other environmental stimuli. Being in a comatose state or coma is a type. Fainting due to a drop in blood pressure and a decrease of the oxygen supply to the brain is a temporary loss of consciousness. Loss of consciousness must not be confused with altered states of consciousness, such as delirium (when the person is confused and only partially responsive to the environment), normal sleep, hypnosis, and other altered states in which the person responds to stimuli.

Neuropsychology

This is the structure and function of the brain as they relate to specific psychological processes and behaviors. It is seen as a clinical and experimental field of psychology that aims to study, assess, understand and treat behaviors directly related to brain functioning. The term has been applied to lesion studies in humans and animals. It has also been applied to efforts to record electrical activity from individual cells (or groups of cells) in higher primates (including some studies of human patients). It is scientific in its approach and shares an information processing view of the mind with cognitive psychology and cognitive science.

Imprinting

This is the term used in psychology and ethology to describe any kind of phase-sensitive learning (learning occurring at a particular age or a particular life stage) that is rapid and apparently independent of the consequences of behavior. It was first used to describe situations in which an animal or person learns the characteristics of some stimulus, which is therefore said to be "imprinted" onto the subject. It is hypothesized to have a critical period.

"Seven Sins of Memory"

Transience Absent-mindedness Blocking Misattribution Suggestibility Bias Persistence

Choice Theory

William Glasser This posits that behavior is central to our existence and is driven by five genetically driven needs, similar to those of Abraham Maslow: Survival (food, clothing, shelter, breathing, personal safety and others) And four fundamental psychological needs: Belonging/connecting/love Power/significance/competence Freedom/autonomy, and Fun/learning