PSY 101 Exam 1

Culture

Behavior, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions shared by a group transmitted from one generation to the next

Evolutionary psychology

Believes our tendicies as humans have been shaped by evolution. For example, some women's experience of nausea in the first three months of pregnancy predisposes them to avoid foods that may be toxic to the fetus

Genes

Biochemical units of heredity that make up chromosomes and can either be repressed or activated. They provide codes

Operational definition

A specific statement of the procedures used to define research variables, so as to allow others to replicate the original observations

Correlation coefficient

A statistical index from -1 to 1 of the relationship between two variables. Correlation is not causation.

hypothesis

A testable prediction implied by a theory. A theory is turned into a hypothesis

Neural impulse

Action potential which is an electrical signal traveling down the axon

Serotonin

Affects mood, hunger, sleep, and arousal. It is deep in the brain structures and an undersupply is linked to depression

The relatively slow brain waves of a relaxed, awake state are called

Alpha waves

Given findings from adoptive studies, which of the following scenarios is the MOST likely? 1) An adopted brother and sister reared together will be similarly outgoing and agreeable. 2) An adopted brother and sister reared together will share the same political and religious beliefs. 3) A biological brother and sister reared together will be similarly outgoing and agreeable 4) A biological brother and sister reared apart will share the same political and religious beliefs

An adopted brother and sister reared together will share the same political and religious beliefs

Theory

An explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes observations

Case study

An in depth investigation of a single (or very few) subject or participant

Survey

An investigation of many cases in less depth by asking people to report opinions and behaviors

Sigmund Freud

Argued that much of our behavior is driven by unconscious drives

Limbic system

Associated with emotions and drives, and memory formation

Cerebral cortex

At least 2/3 of total mass of the brain and is 2mm deep layer. It is convoluted and consists of twenty billion cells and 300 synaptic connections

Reticular formation

Filters incoming stimuli from the spinal cord and relays information to other areas of the brain. It is the bounder to your brain and is located between the ears. It aids in the sleep/wake cycle. It would be active, for example, when a train comes in and your brain automatically tunes it out.

Sigmund Freud

Freud focused on the etiology, development, and treatment of abnormal behavior; which is a phenomenon called psychoanalysis. Freud also stated that dreams of adults can be traced back to unfulfilled wishes

fMRI

Functional magnetic resonance imaging which detects changes in blood oxygenation in different brain regions and can be used to detect lies

PNS

Gather information and transmits it to other parts of the body. It transmits the CNS decisions to other body parts.

Dopamine

Influences movement, learning, attention, and emotion. Excess dopamine is liked to schizophrenia and too little dopamine is linked to parkinsons

What is gene-environment interaction?

Interaction is the interplay that occurs when the effect of one factor (such as environment) depends on another factor (such as heredity)

Temporal lobes

Involved in hearing, understanding language, and storing autobiographical memroeis; it contains the auditory cortex

Frontal lobes

Involved in motor function, language, and memory, and executive functions. It aids in planning, judgement, and is the "personality lobe. It executes the information coming from the limbic system

Parietal lobes

Involved in sensations of touch, pain, and temperature

Occipital lobes

Involved vision and contains the visual cortex which is involved with consciousness

Broca's area

Is an area of the frontal lobe, usually in the left hemisphere that is associated with the production of language, or language outputs

Hippocampus

Is involved in acquisition of memories and if it is damaged it is impossible to make new memories.

Motor cortex

Is the area at the rear of the frontal lobes that controls voluntary movements

William James

James is one of the most important figures in the history of American psychology and he was the first psych professor at an American university. He introduced experimental psychology to the united states. James founded the functionalism movement in psychology.

Sensory neurons

Carry messages from the body's tissues and sensory organs inward to the brain and the spinal cord for processing. It is part of the PNS.

Motor neurons

Carry messages from the brain and out to the body's tissues. They go from dendrites to the cell body to the axon, to the axon terminal

Why shouldn't we rely upon common sense to answer empirical questions?

Common sense is often contradictory, supporting any statement and its opposite.

Arcuate fasciulus

Connects brocas area and wernickes area by a large bundle of nerve fibers

The "high road"

Conscious, deliberate processing of which we are aware

Somatic Nervous system

Enables voluntary control of skeletal muscles for example the ability to take notes, grab a pen, etc.

Chromosome

Every cell in our body contains 46 of these, and they are made up of two strands of dna connected in a double helix.

What do evolutionary psychologists study?

Evolutionary psychology is the study of the evolution of behavior and the mind, using principles of natural selection.

An informed consent explains everything about an upcoming experiment (including the hypotheses and the deceptions that are going to be used) to a participant (True or False)

False

Hands free cellphones (compared to hand held cellphones) have been show to decrease the chances of auto accidents because they increase the driver's ability to selectively attend to the road

False

The neurons that carry outgoing information from the brain and spinal cord to the body's tissues are the ___

Motor neurons

During a normal night of sleep, about half of your sleep time is spent in

NREM-2

Bacteria that resist a hospital's antibiotics rapidly multiply as other bacteria die off. This best illustrates

Natural selection

Circadian rhythm

Occurs on a 24-hour cycle and includes sleep and wake. Termed our "biological clock"

Natural selection

Organism's offspring compete for survival. Certain behavioral characteristics increase odds of survival ina particular environment. Offspring that survive reproduce and pass on their genes

Axons

Pass messages away from the cell body to other neurons, muscles, or glands.

These are the biochemical units of heredity that make up the chromosomes

genes

You are in charge of hiring a cruise-ship social director and you want to pick someone who is very outgoing. Unfortunately, you only have information about that siblings of the potential candidates. Given what we know about the genetic transmission of outgoingness, which of the following candidates would you choose?

genes do not influence extraversion

Evolutionary psychologists attribute gender differences in sexuality to the fact that women have

greater reproductive potential than do men

Men have a ___ threshold for perceiving ___ responses as a sexual come-on

higher;warm

Defining one's identity in terms of one's extended family or work group is most closely associated with

collectivism

Sleep helps us consolidate memories. Therefore, and fMRI would show that the ____ is active during NREM-3 and REM

hippocampus

The limbic system structure that is involved in the acquisition of memories is the

hippocampus

The ____ is responsible for heartbeat and breathing

medulla

Bright light effects our feelings of sleepiness by increasing or decreasing the production of

melatonin

Broca's area is associated with language ____. Wernicke's area is associated with language ____.

outputs; inputs

Botox injections smooth facial wrinkles because botox is an ACh antagonist that

paralyzes underlying facial muscles

After being startled awake in the middle of the night, it turns our the noise the woman heard was the closet rod breaking from the weight of her winter coats. Knowing that, she begins to calm down and her heart stops racing, which means her ____ has been activated

parasympathetic nervous system

In stressful situations, the sympathetic nervous system ____ your blood pressure and ____ the pupils of the eyes

raises; dilates

In his research on the limbic system, Dr. Harrington electrically stimulates the ____ of cats and then measures their rage and fear reactions

thalamus

My sister and I (i'm a mad) developed from a single fertilized egg. We are:

that's not possible

Some smokers will be given Nicorette for one week; they will be compared with other smokers not given any Nicorette. If random assignment was used ...

the average number of cigarettes a day each participant smoked before the study began should be roughly equal

A Significant correlation of +0.70 between children's physical height and popularity among their peers indicates that:

there is no statistically significant relationship between children's height and their popularity

Dendrites transmit messages ____ the cell body and axons transmit messages ____ to the cell body

toward; away from

Cerebellum

"little brain" that is attached to the rear of the brainstem. It helps coordinate voluntary movements and balance; it also plays a role in learning motor skills. It is baseball sized and helps judge time, learning motor skills and can be affected by alcohol.

You are trying to convince a group of parents that their elementary school-aged children need more sleep. Which of the following sleep theories would you use to convince them?

1) the pituitary gland releases growth hormones while we are sleeping. 2) our memories of the day, including things learned in school, are restored while we sleep 3) sleep aids in the restoration and repair the brain tissue

Why does correlation not equal causation?

1) you do not know that direction of the effect 2) it could be due to change 3) there could be a third variable that is responsible for the relationship

How does neural communication occur? (Ch. 2 Review)

1. electrical impulses (action potentials) travel down a neuron's axon until reaching a tiny junction known as a synapse 2. when an action potential reaches an axon terminal, it stimulates the release of neurotransmitter molecules. These molecules cross the synaptic gap and bind to receptor sites on the receiving neuron. This allows electrically charges atoms to enter the receiving neuron and excite or inhibit a new action potential 3. the sending neuron normally reabsorbs excess neurotransmitter molecules, a process called reuptake.

What are the major steps in the research process? (Ch. 1 Review)

1. generate a research question (questions that can be answered through objective observations and must be able to be proven with data.) 2. Establish operational definitions (Statements of procedures that are used to define research variables, so as to allow others to replicate the original observations.) 3. Choose a research design {(Setting)- will it be in the lab or in the field?} {(Method)- will it be descriptive, correlational, or experimental} {(What study will be used?)- Case study, survey, naturalistic observation, experimental methods, etc.}

When is an observed difference reliable? (Ch. 1 Review)

1. representative samples are better than biased samples (it is important to keep in mind what population a study has sampled) 2. less-variable observations are more reliable than those that are more variable (an average is more reliable when it comes from scores with low variability) 3. more cases are better than fewer

Selection attention

A mental "spotlight" that focuses conscious awareness on a very limited aspect of all that you experience

Phrenology

A popular but wrongheaded theory that claimed that bumps on the skull could reveal mental abilities and character traits as specific as the desire to have children.

How do psychologists think about consciousness? (Ch. 3 Review)

Consciousness is a slippery concept, which psychologists have tried to define for more than a century. In general, it is our awareness of ourselves and our environment. There is also some agreement on what some of the key functions consciousness serves. Brain activity in a patient showing no outward signs of conscious awareness after being asked to imagine playing tennis and moving around her home.

Autonomic nervous system

Controls our glands and the muscles of our internal organs. It includes the digestive system, heartbeat, and it is on autopilot but can be overridden.

Cerebral cortex

Convoluted mass that enables higher-level functions, including perceiving, thinking, and speaking

Myelin sheath

Covers the axon of some neurons and helps speed neural impulses. It speeds everything up. If the myelin sheath degenerates, MS results.

The correct order of the structures of the motor neuron is:

Dendrites, the cell body, axon, terminal branches of the axon

Commonsense

Describes what has happened after the fact more easily than it predicts what will happen before the fact. It can be contradictory and it is different from person to person. Common sense is often based on private, careless observation, or upon wholly non-empirical bases. It is often hindsight that "everybody knows"

Fraternal twins

Develop from separate fertilized eggs and share half of their genes, just like siblings

What is the notion of dual processing? (Ch. 3 Review)

Dual processing is the principle that info is often simultaneously processed on two unconscious tracks, the high road and the low road. It also involves the concept of blindsight which is a condition in which a person can respond to a visual stimulus without consciously experiencing it.

EEG

Electroencephalogram which provides amplified tracings of waves of electrical activity in the brain. It is used by attaching gel and wires to a head

Some smokers will be given Nicorette for one week; they will be compared with other smokers not given any Nicorette. The dependent variable in this experiment is ...

How many participants quit smoking

What is hypnosis? (Ch. 3 Review)

Hypnosis is a social interaction in which one person suggests to another that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or behaviors will spontaneously occur. A posthypnotic suggestion is a suggestion made during hypnosis session to be carried out after the subject is no longer hypnotized; it is used by some clinicians to help control undesired symptoms and behaviors.

After a masculinity threat, men will place higher bets during a gambling game. This is an example of a ____

Hypothesis

Inattentional blindness

If we are distracted, we can even miss things that happen right before our eyes defines this.

What is known about peer versus parent influence on traits?

Peers are important for learning cooperation, for finding the road to popularity, for inventing styles of interaction among people of the same age. Young people may find their peers more interesting, but they will look to their parents when contemplating their own futures. Peers normally influence how we will act in groups. For example, preschoolers who disdain a certain food often will eat that food if put at a table with a group of children who like it.

Experimental methods

Purpose is to explore cause and effect by manipulating one or more factors, while holding all other factors constant

Correlational methods

Purpose is to observe naturally occurring relationships between variables

Dendrites

Receive messages from other cells and transmit them towards the cell

Thalamus

Receives information from all of the sense and routes it to higher brain regions. Ex: from eyes to cortical areas for vision. It is the switch-board operator of the brain.

Naturalistic observation

Recording behavior in its natural environments, and describing it in detail

Amygdala

Regulates fear and aggression and helps process emotional memories

Norms

Rules for expected and accepted behavior, for example personal space

Replication

Seeing whether a basic finding can be observed again with different participants and under different circumstances

What is selective attention, and associated phenomena of inattentional and change blindness? (Ch. 3 Review)

Selective attention is the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus. Inattentional blindness is failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed somewhere else, for example, the gorilla video. Change blindness is when one fails to notice changes in the environment.

Whenever you turn the pages of a book, use your pen to take notes, or raise your hand, you know that this is possible due to your

Somatic nervous system

Wernicke's area

Spans the region between left temporal and parietal lobes it isn involved in language input and hearing. It is associated with the processing of words that we hear being spoken, or language inputs.

What is statistical reasoning? (Ch. 1 Review)

Statistics are tools that help us see and interpret what the unaided eye might miss, gives researches a way to organize their data into a simple graph or chart, it must also be summarized using some measure of central tendency,( mean , median, or mode) of a set of data and it summarizes data in a neat fashion. There is also a standard for measuring how much scores deviate from one another called the standard deviation. It better gauges whether scores are packed together or dispersed, because it uses information from each score. In summary, the average distribution of scores is the mean. The score that shows up most often is the mode, and the score right in the middle of distribution is the mode. We determine how much scores vary around the average in a way that includes information about the range of scores by using the standard deviation formula.

REM sleep

Still asleep, the brain engages in low-amplitude, fast and regular beta waves, much like awake-aroused state. You are essentially patalyzes and cannot be easily awakened. This is when most dreams happen, even if we do not remember them. It occupies 20-25% of total sleep time in adults but 80% for neworns

A participant has blind-sight and is shown the face below. What do they report? (A smiling happy baby)

That they cannot see the face but can tell you the emotion

You drive the same route on campus every single day. Based on the duel processing model of consciousness, what "road" are you using while driving?

The "low road"

Medulla

The base of the brainstem that controls involuntary functions such as heartbeat and breathing. It is the slight swelling at the end of the spinal cord and controls the autonomic NS and helps with movement.

What do biological psychologists study? (Ch. 2 Review)

The basic assumption of biological psychology is that everything psychological is also biological. The basic question is "what is the role of the brain in behavior and thinking". The goal of contemporary biological psychology is to study the link between biological activity and psychological events. For example; it would study what areas of the brain are responsible for our ability to perceive human faces, and why do humans have a stronger response to an infants face rather than an adults.

What is known about gender differences and similarities?

The biggest difference between genders is the fact that males are more likely to initiate sexual activity than women would be. Men are more attracted to women who seem more fertile, with a skinny waist and in her prime years of fertileness. Women are more attracted to men who are mature, dominant, bold and affluent. Males and females do not have significant differences in self-esteem. Men are more prone to aggression than women and women have a keener sense of smell than men and are twice as vulnerable to depression and anxiety

Personal space

The buffer zone we like to maintain around our bodies which is greater in north America rather than latin America

Cell body

The cell's life support center

What is our divided brain? (Ch. 2 Review)

The corpus callosum is the large band of neural fibers that connects the two brain hemispheres and carries messages between them. After a surgery, one may have a split brain which isolates the brain's two hemispheres by cutting the fibers, mainly those of the corpus callosum which connects them.

The central nervous system

The decision maker and includes the brain and spinal cord

Fissures

The folds in the brain that divide it into four hemispheres

Molecular genetics

The goal is to identify specific genes that influence normal human traits such as body weight, sexual orientation, and basic personality traits.

Brainstem

The oldest and innermost region of the brain which is responsible for "primitive" functions, such as control of heartbeat and breathing

The "low road"

Unconscious, automatic processing of which we are unaware, we can only deal with so much processing so the low road comes into play during routine experiences

How do psychologists ask and answer questions? (Ch. 1 Review)

The scientific method is the basis of all questions that psychologists ask and answer; they turn their theories into testable hypotheses.

Behavioral genetics

The study of effects of environment and genetic factors, and their interplay on differences in psychological traits. It studies the relative power of genes and environment.

Hindsight bias

The tendency for people to exaggerate how much they could have predicted an outcome after knowing that it occurred; it as an overconfidence

Independent variable

The variable that is manipulated by the experimenter. It is the factor of interest to the experimenter the one that is being studied to see if it will influence behavior. We manipulate the IV to see if it has an effect on the DV

Sleep boosts memory. This is an example of a ____

Theory

Justice White says that "of course the death penalty will deter murders; everyone knows that punishment keeps kids in line." How is Justice White resolving the question of the deterrent effect on the death penalty?

Theory that people know that if they commit crimes, they know they will have to pay the time - in hope that the crime rate will go down? (guessed on this)

Identical twins

These twins develops from a single fertilized egg and are genetically identical

NREM-2

Theta waves and sleep spindles form. It is harder to awaken from this stage and conscious awareness of the external environment disappears. It occupies 45-55% of total sleep in adults

Acetylochine (Ach)

They enable muscle action, learning and memory. Ach is used in Botox with the paralyzaiton of muscles

Karen is a research assistant at the University Psychology lab and finds that the mice cortexes she is studying are thinner and lighter. What happened?

They were raised in deprived environments

NREM-3

This is a deep sleep; slow delta waves; hard to awaken; night terrors and sleeping walking occur during this stage

Parasympathetic

This nervous system conserves energy and decelerates hear rate, lowers pressure, etc.

Heritability

This of a trait is a mathematical estimate of the extent to which variation among individuals can be attributed to their differing genes

Sympathetic nervous system

This system expands energy and accelerates heart rate, raises blood pressure, dilates eyes, and increases in time of stress

Random assignment is the great equalizer in terms of extraneous variables. Well, that's the hope anyways (True or False)

True

Dependent variable

Variable that is measured by experimenter, it depends upon the independent variable. It is the outcome variable.

John Watson

Watson led behaviorism, which stated that psychology was redefined as the study of observable behavior and how behaviors are learned and modified. This theory was then followed up by B.F. Skinner who is the head of modern behaviorism and a very controversial figure.

Why do we dream? (Ch. 3 Review)

We dream to satisy our own wishes. There is also manifest content, the remembered storyline of a dream, and latent content which is the underlying meaning of a dream. We also dream to develop and preserve neural pathways, to make sense of neural static, to suppress memories, and to reflect cognitive development.

Why do we need psychological science? (Ch. 1 Review)

We need psychological science so that we can relate findings to natural human tendencies. For example, three phenomena, the hindsight bias, judgmental overconfidence, and our tendency to perceive patterns in random events illustrate why we cannot rely solely on intuition and common sense. Psychology also makes the world a better and safer place to live based on its findings that can result in a safer environment for humankind.

Neurotransmitters

When a neural impulse reaches the terminal of an axon, these are released into the synaptic gap

Positive correlation

When a scatter plot has both variables increasing and so is the line

Awake but relaxed

When an individual closes his or her eyes but remains awake, brain activity slows down to a large amplitude and slow, regular alpha waves.

Negative correlation

When as scatter plot has one variable increasing and the other decreasing

When is a difference significant? (Ch. 1 Review)

When averages from two samples are each reliable measures of their respective populations, then their difference is likely to be reliable as well. And, when the difference between the sample averages is large, we have even more confidence that the difference between them reflects a real difference in their populations. Statistical significance indicates the likelihood that a result will happen by chance. But, this does not say anything about the importance of the result.

Blindsight

When patients have no awareness whatsoever of any stimuli but are able to process aspects of a visual stimulus such as location. With blindsight ,you cannot see the face, but you can tell someone the emotion of the face

Non-REM stage 1

When you slip into sleep and irregular brain waves begin to occur. It is early, light sleep with hallucinations, it is the transition from alpha waves to theta waves, muscles are active

Some smokers will be given Nicorette for one week; they will be compared with other smokers not given any Nicorette. The independent variable in this experiment is ...

Whether or not the participants are given Nicorette

Hypothalamus

Which regulates the four F's "fight, flee, feeding, fricking"

Wilhelm Wundt

Wilhelm is responsible for the birth of psychology happening in December of 1878

In terms of your heartbeat, digestion, and glandular functioning, your body is a fairly well oiled machine that works even when you are asleep. This is possible due to your

autonomic nervous system

You are from the United States and when on business in Mexico, you find yourself moving a step ___ from the person speaking with you

backward

What does the subfield of behavioral genetics focus on? (Ch. 4 Review)

behavior genetics is the study of the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behavior. Our environment is every non-genetic influence, from prenatal nutrition to the people and things around us. Behavior geneticists are more interested in studying the differences in our behaviors, while evolutionary psychologists are more interested in studying the similarities.

Genes are always active/expressed

false?

The ____ lobe is concerned with executive functioning (good vs. bad behavior)

frontal

Dr. Snell studies the part of the brain that is active when people are lying. She asks half of her participants to tell the truth about an event from their childhoods and half to tell a lie about an event from their childhoods. Which of the following brain imaging techniques should she use to detect specific brain areas that are active when the participants are lying?

functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

Adoptive parents are least likely to influence the _____ of their adopted children

personality traits?

Axons are to ___ as dendrites are to ___

speaking; hearing

What are research ethics? (Ch. 1 Review)

state that a participant in a psychological study must 1) be given informed consent 2) be protected from harm 3) remain confidential 4) be given a debrief. Research on animals must only be done if the good outweighs the bad and proper care is given for the animals before and after the study. The Institutional animal care and use committee, which is extremely regulated, is made up of several faculty members from the university and an outside member from the community

You are looking through the personal ads one day in the newspaper and notice all of the following in the ads EXCEPT that 1) women promote their beauty and health 2) women promote their maturity and affluence by citing career and wealth 3) men promote their maturity and affluence by citing career and wealth

women promote their maturity and affluence by citing career and wealth

Compared to an axon without mylein sheath, an axon with a mylein sheath

would be slower to transmit neural impulses