Ultimate Psych review

Control Group

A group of participants in an experiment, which is similar to the experimental group, except it does not receive the treatment of the independent variable. Thus, it can be used as a comparison with the experimental group to determine whether subjects were affected by the experimental procedure. Also called the control condition.

Inferential Statistics

A group of statistical measurements that indicate whether or not results based on the sample are significant enough to be applied to the larger population, or if the results of the research were most like caused by chance.

Neuron

A highly specialized nerve cell responsible for receiving and transmitting information in electrical and chemical forms. These are the fundamental building blocks of the nervous system.

Psychoanalysis

A lengthy insight therapy that was developed by Freud and aims at uncovering conflicts and unconscious impulses through special techniques, including free association, dream analysis, and transference.

Longitudinal Study

A research method that focuses on a specific group of individuals at different ages to examine changes that have occurred over time

Double-blind techniques

A research technique in which neither the experimenter nor the participants know who is in the control and experimental groups.

Id

A reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives. This operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification. According to Freud, the part of the personality that is completely unconscious. This consists of innate sexual and aggressive instincts and drives. It operates on the pleasure principle, seeking to achieve immediate gratification and avoid discomfort.

Regression

A return to a prior stage after a person has progressed through the various stages of development; caused by anxiety.

Random Sampling

A sample of cases drawn from the larger population in such a way that every member of the population has an equal chance of being drawn for the sample.

Representative sample

A sample of individuals who match the population with whom they are being compared with regard to key variables such as socioeconomic status and age

Representative sample

A sample that reflects the characteristics of the population from which it is drawn

Percentile score

A score indicating what percentage of the test population would obtain a lower score

Standard score

A score that expresses an individual's position relative to the mean, based on the standard deviation

Altruism

A selfless concern for others or an action taken by an individual to help others that involves risk or personal cost without providing any incentives or personal benefits.

Experimental design

A design in which researchers manipulate an independent variable and measure a dependent variable to determine a cause-and-effect relationship

Sociobiology

A discipline based on the premise that even day-to-day behaviors are determined by the process of natural selection - that social behaviors that contribute to the survival of a species are passed on via the genes from one generation to the next.

Autism

A disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by deficient communication, social interaction, and understanding of others' states of minds.

Psychoactive Drug

A drug that alters behavior, thought, or perception by altering biochemical reactions in the nervous system, thereby affecting consciousness

Stimulant

A drug that increases alertness, reduces fatigue, and elevates mood

Creativity

A feature of thought and problem solving that includes the tendency to generate or recognize ideas considered to be high-quality, original, novel, and appropriate.

Zygote

A fertilized egg

Gender stereotype

A fixed, overly simple, sometimes incorrect idea about traits, attitudes, and behaviors of males or females

Scatter Plot

A graph that illustrates the correlation between two or more variables. Positive correlations create these where the data forms a curve or line going up and negative correlations create curves on these that go down. Also called a scatter gram.

Experimental Group

A group of participants in an experiment that receive the independent variable (treatment). Also called the experimental condition.

Dream

A sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person's mind. These are notable for their hallucinatory imagery, discontinuities, and incongruities, and for the person's delusional acceptance of the content and later difficulties remembering it.

Conflict

A situation that occurs when a person is forced to choose between two or more opposing options, goals, or desires. It can be classified as approach-approach, avoidance-avoidance, or approach-approach.

Puzzle Box

A small cage with a lever that can be pressed to release a latch and free the animal. Edward Thorndike used these to study instrumental learning and the law of effect with cats.

Sample

A small subset of individuals chosen to represent the population in research; an attempt should be made to make the sample as representative of the population as possible.

Hypnosis

A social interaction in which one person (the hypnotists) suggests to another (the subject) that certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts or behaviors will spontaneously occur. Hypnotic induction- when a hypnotist is putting you into a relaxed state. Hypnotic suggestibility- the likelihood that somebody can be put into a hypnotic state. A state of heightened suggestibility, deep relaxation, and intense focus considered by some psychologists to be an altered state of consciousness.

Need for achievement

A social need that directs a person to strive constantly for excellence and success

Gender

A socially and culturally constructed set of distinctions between masculine and feminine sets of behaviors that is promoted and expected by society

Personality Psychology

A specialty of psychology that examines an individual's stable traits and factors that influence temperament. Personality psychologists develop methods of personality assessment.

Social Psychology

A specialty of psychology that focuses on the individual in relation to society and emphasizes how we think about, shape, and connect with one another.

Developmental Psychology

A specialty of psychology that focuses on the physical, cognitive, social, and moral development of humans that occurs across the lifespan from conception to death.

Ethnocentrism

A specific type of prejudice in which an individual favors their own culture or ethnic group's values, attitudes, and actions over other cultural groups.

Deviation IQ

A standard IQ test score whose mean and standard deviation remain constant for all ages

Consciousness

A state of awareness. You are aware/alert and responsive to things in the environment. Our awareness of ourselves and our environment.

Intimacy

A state of being or feeling in which each person in a relationship is willing to self-disclose and to express important feelings and information to the other person.

Dream

A state of consciousness that occurs during sleep, usually accompanied by vivid visual, tactile, or auditory imagery.

Cognitive Dissonance

A state of mental discomfort arising from a discrepancy between two or more of a person's beliefs or between a person's beliefs and overt behavior.

Resting Potential

A state of polarization; balanced. Negative particles inside, positive particles outside. While the neuron is waiting for a message, the fluid filled interior of the axon has a negative charge and the fluid exterior has a positive charge.

Factor Analysis

A statistical procedure that reduces the number of variables by placing them in clusters of related items. 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.

Emotion

A subjective response, usually accompanied by a physiological change, which is interpreted n a particular way by the individual and often leads to a change in behavior

Biofeedback

A system for electronically recording, amplifying, and feeding back information regarding a subtle physiological state, such as blood pressure or muscle tension. A method that involves the use of a device to reveal physiological responses that are usually difficult to observe such as changes in heart rate, respiration, EEG activity, or similar responses in order to enable individuals to achieve some degree of control over their responses. This is often used in behavior therapy as a method for teaching individuals to gain control over their physiological states in order to reduce anxiety and its symptoms.

Morality

A system of learned attitudes about social practices, instituations, and individual behavior used to evaluate situations and behavior as right or wrong, good or bad

Language

A system of symbols, usually words, that convey meaning and a set of rules for combining symbols to generate an infinite number of messages.

Frequency Distribution

A table that contains data about how often certain scores occur or how many subjects fit into each category that is so often used for nominal data.

Empirically Derived Test

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

Raw score

A test score that has not been transformed or converted in any way

Terror-Management Theory

A theory of death-related anxiety; explores people's emotional and behavioral responses to reminders of their impending death.

Behavior therapy

A therapy that is based on the application of learning principles to human behavior and that focuses on changing overt behaviors rather than on understanding subjective feelings, unconscious processes, or motivations; also known as behavior modification.

Systematic desensitization

A three-stage counterconditioning procedure in which people are taught to relax when confronting stimuli that forming elicited anxiety.

Pitch

A tone's experienced highness or lowness; depends on frequency. The highness or lowness of a sound determined by the frequency of the sound wave.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)

A treatment for severe mental illness in which an electric current is briefly applied to the head in order to produce a generalized seizure.

Aversive Conditioning

A type of counterconditioning that associates an unpleasant state (such as nausea) with an unwanted behavior (such as drinking alcohol). A variant of counterconditioning that attempts to change or remove a negative behavior by attaching a negative experience or emotion to the stimuli. Also called aversion therapy.

Ex Post Facto Design

A type of design that contrasts groups of people who differ on some variable of interest to the researcher.

Episodic Memory

A type of explicit or declarative memory that consists of personal experiences and events tied to particular times and places.

Cross-sectional Studies

A type of research design that compares individuals of different ages to determine how they differ

Cross-sectional study

A type of research design that compares individuals of different ages to determine how they differ on an important dimension

Descriptive Studies

A type of research method that allows researchers to measure variables so that they can develop a description of a situation or phenomenon

Family therapy

A type of therapy in which two or more people who are committed to one another's well-being are treated at once, in and effort to change the ways the interact.

Amygdala

Aggression and fear. Emotion (oversimplification). Two almond-shaped structures in the limbic system linked to the regulation of emotional responses, especially fear and aggression.

Psychometrics

All based on statistics. Making sure surveys are actually measuring what they are supposed to measure. A specialty of psychology concerned with mathematical or numerical methods of measuring psychological variables by creating valid and reliable tests.

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. A reward system with objects or points that can then be traded in for primary reinforcers. These have been successful at changing behaviors in institutional settings including schools, prisons, and mental hospitals.

Acetaminophen

An over-the-counter pain reliever and fever reducer. Mild analgesic (pain reliever).

Defense Mechanism

An unconscious way of reducing anxiety by distorting perceptions of reality.

Theory of mind

An understanding of mental states such as feelings, desires, beliefs, and intentions and of the causal role they play in human behavior

Socrates

Ancient Greek philosopher. Promoted introspection by saying, "Know thyself."

Aristotle

Ancient Greek philosopher. Wrote "Peri Psyches" ("About the Mind").

Trait

An enduring and stable personality characteristic that influences a person to act in a consistent way and serves to distinguish one person from another. A characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self-report inventories and peer reports.

Stressor

An environmental stimulus that affects an organism in physically or psychologically injurious ways, usually producing anxiety, tension, and physiological arousal

Fixation

An excessive attachment to some person or object that was appropriate only at an earlier stage of development

Random Assignment

An experimental method that ensures that each participant has an equal chance of being assigns to either the experimental or the control group. This is required in order to determine if there is a cause and effect relationship between the independent and dependent variables.

Attribution

An explanation created by an individual for his or her own behavior or the behavior of others.

Humanistic theory

An explanation of behavior that emphasizes the entirety of life rather than individual components of behavior and focuses on human dignity, individual choice, and self-worth

Semantic Memory

An explicit memory of general knowledge material that is not specifically related to particular places, times, or events.d

Mere Exposure Effect

An increase in liking for a stimulus due to repeated contact.

p Value

An inferential statistic that indicates if the data from an experiment are statistically significant. In order for the results to be statistically significant, this must be =.05.

Client-centered therapy

An insight therapy, developed be Carl Rogers, that seeks to help people evaluate the world and themselves from their own perspective by providing them with a nondirective environment and unconditional positive regard; also known as person-centered therapy.

Biopsychosocial Approach

An integrated approach that incorporates biological, psychological, and social-cultural levels of analysis.

Psychoneuroimmunology

An interdisciplinary area of study that includes behavioral, neurological, and immune factors and their relationship to the development of disease

Time-out

An operant conditioning procedure in which a person is physically removed from sources of reinforcement to decrease the occurrence of undesired behaviors.

Token economy

An operant conditioning procedure in which individuals who display appropriate behavior receive tokens that they can exchange for desirable items or activities.

Theory

Explanation that helps predict behavior. "Mere hunch" or well-supported idea Rigorously tested idea This is useful if it: 1. Effectively organizes a range of self-reports and observations 2. Implies clear prediction that anyone can use to check the theory An organized explanation for data gained through empirical processes.

Expectancy Theories

Explanations of behavior that focus on people's expectations about reaching a goal and their need for achievement as energizing factors

Figure-Ground Relationship

Figure is just the thing you are looking at. Everything else is the ground. Can easily switch. A Gestalt principle in which an individual views an object in the visual field as two separate components. The object (figure) is separate and more important than the area surrounding it (ground) or the background.

Stereotypes

Fixed, overly simple and often erroneous ideas about traits, attitudes, and behaviors of groups of people; stereotypes assume that all members of a given group are alike.

Echoic Memory

Fleeting auditory sensory memory; few seconds. The storage of a brief auditory stimulation for a few seconds.

Iconic Memory

Fleeting visual sensory memory; fraction of a second. The storage of a very brief visual image for a fraction of a second. Also called visual sensory store.

Lens

Focus light energy on retina. Accommodation. A transparent tissue that focuses the sensory information in the form of light waves on the retina.

Accommodation

Focus. The process in which the lens in the eye changes shape either by flattering or by curving to focus an image on the retina.

REM Rebound

Have sleep debt and go to sleep- might launch into REM faster to catch up.

Androgynous

Having both stereotypically male and stereotypically female characteristics

Audition

Hearing. A synonym for the sense of hearing.

Depth Perception

Help us walk that run into things; 3D form. ex. Visual cliff. The awareness of a world that is three-dimensional and an understanding of the distance between an individual and other objects.

Binocular Cues

Helping to perceive depth and position of objects in our environment. Retinal disparity. Convergence. The specific cues or aids for determining distance that require two eyes. Examples include retinal (binocular) disparity and convergence.

Counseling Psychology

Helps you with your daily problems. Usually has a Masters. Works with people coping with everyday problems including making career decisions, marriage counseling, and social skills training.

Subgoal analysis

Heuristic procedure in which a problem is broken down into smaller steps, each of which has a subgoal.

Backward search

Heuristic procedure in which a problem solver works backward from the goal or end of a problem to the current position, in order to analyze the problem and reduce the steps needed to get from the current position to the goal.

Means-ends analysis

Heuristic procedure in which the problem solver compares the current situation with the desired goal to determine the most efficient way to get from one to the other.

Place Theory

High pitched sounds. Hair cells at the front of cochlea have localized function of sensing high pitch. No explanation for low pitched sounds; no rear localization. A theory for pitch that states that an individual perceives a range of pitches because sound waves activate hair cells in different locations (places) along the basilar membrane.

Rosy Retrospection

Highlight reel of events. Recalling the highs more often than the average details. Dull moments fade away in hindsight.

Limbic System

Hippocampus. Amygdala. Hypothalamus. A bagel-shaped group of structures between the brainstem and the cerebral cortex in charge of learning, memory emotion, and basic drives.

Defense Mechanisms

In psychoanalytic theory, the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality. According to Freud, the various unconscious methods individuals use to reduce the anxiety caused by unacceptable thoughts or desires through the process of distorting reality. Examples include repression, rationalization, reaction formation, projection, and regression.

Circadian Rhythms

Internally generated patterns of body functions, including hormonal signals, sleep, blood pressure, and temperature regulation, which have approximately a 24-hour cycle and occur even in the absence of normal cues about whether it is day or night

Operant Chamber

In operant condition research, this (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. A small apparatus that studies operant behavior in animals by providing a controlled environment.

Convergent thinking

In problem solving, the process of narrowing down choices and alternatives to arrive at a suitable answer.

Divergent thinking

In problem solving, the process of widening the range of possibilities and expanding the options for solutions.

Free Association

In psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing. A pyschoanalytic method in which the patient is insstructed to say anything that comes to mind, no matter how trivial or unimportant it may seem.

Resistance

In psychoanalysis, an unwillingness to cooperate, which a patient signals by showing a reluctance to provide the therapist with information or to help the therapist understand or interpret a situation.

Working through

In psychoanalysis, the repetitive cycle of interpretation, resistance to interpretation, and transference.

Homeostasis

Maintenance of a constant state of inner stability or balance

Self-Reference Effect

Make new information meaningful to you; you'll be more apt to remember. The tendency for an individual to have improved recall for information that personally relates to their life.

Long-Term Memory

More enduring. Comes from repeated rehearsal to go into long-term storage. Relatively permanent. The third-stage of memory and considered to be a generally permanent storage capable of containing a limitless amount of information.

Prototype

Most representative mental image for a concept. The closer the stimulus is to our rule(s) for a concept, the faster we recognize it as an example of that concept. Will differ by person/culture. A mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to this provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories (as when comparing feathered creatures to prototypical bird, such as a robin). The best example of a category.

Stanley Schacter

Motivation and Emotion two-factor theory for emotion

Abraham Maslow

Motivation and Emotion, and Treatment of Psychological Disorders humanstic psychologist hierarchy of needs, self-actualization

Extrinsic motivation

Motivation supplied by rewards that come from the external environment

Intrinsic motivation

Motivation that leads to behaviors engaged in for no apparent reward except the pleasure and satisfaction of the activity itself

Neutral Stimulus

NS Has no response yet. ex. bell (prior to acquisition) Factor in the environment that does not cause the reaction being studied prior to acquisition.

Skinner Box

Named for its developer, B.F. Skinner, a box that contains a responding mechanism and a device capable of delivering a consequence to an animal in the box whenever it makes the desired response

Attitudes

Patterns of feelings and beliefs about other people, ideas, or objects that are based on a person's past experiences, shape his or her future behavior, and are evaluative in nature.

Concrete operational stage

Piaget's thrid stage of cognitive development (lasting from approximately age 6 or 7 to age 11 or 12), during which the child develops the ability to understand constant factors in the environment, rules, and higher-order symbolic systems

Optic chiasm

Point at which half of the optic nerve fibers from each eye cross over and connect to the other side of the brain.

Stimulus Generalization

Process by which a conditioned response becomes associated with a stimulus that is similar but not identical to the original conditioned stimulus

Higher-order Conditioning

Process by which a neutral stimulus takes on conditioned properties through pairing with a conditioned stimulus

Transduction

Process by which a perceptual system analyzes stimuli and converts them into electrical impulses; also known as coding.

Coping

Process by which a person takes some action to manage, master, tolerate, or reduce environmental or internal demands that cause or might cause stress and that tax the individual's inner resources

Stimulus Discrimination

Process by which an organism learns to respond only to a specific stimulus and not to other stimuli

Perception

Process by which an organism selects and interprets sensory input so that it acquires meaning.

Parallel Processing

Process everything in at the same time. Motion, color, form, depth, etc. Blindsight. The activity of a combination of many neurons firing in multiple brain regions at once, rather than individually in order for the brain to be faster and more efficient. 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.

Sensation

Process in which the sense organs' receptor cells are stimulated and relay initial information to higher brain centers for further processing.

Decentration

Process of changing from a totally self-oriented point of view to one tha recognizes other people's feelings, ideas, and viewpoints

Standardization

Process of developing uniform procedures for administering and scoring a test and for establishing norms

Assessment

Process of evaluating individual differences among human beings by means of tests interviews, observations, and recordings of physiological.

Punishment

Process of presenting an undesirable or noxious stimulus, or removing a desirable stimulus, to decrease the probability that a preceding response will recur

Counterconditioning

Process of reconditioning in which a person is taught a new, more adaptive response to a familiar stimulus.

Continuity

Process things that are continually moving grouped together.

Top-Down Processing

Processing things before senses. Processing from experience, outside information, etc. The formation of perception that occurs by utilizing one's memories, expectations, and experiences.

Bottom-Up Processing

Processing things from sensory receptors to the brain. The assembling of the basic elements of a stimulus in the brain to form a complete perception. For example, the visual system in the brain uses this by creating perceptions based on input form sensory receptors and feature detectors.

Creativity

Producing new and valuable ideas. Convergent thinking/Divergent thinking. Sternberg's five components of creativity. The ability to produce novel and valuable ideas. The ability to generate novel and useful products or solutions to problems.

Cornea

Protecting outside of your eye. Can become damaged. The outer transparent coating that protects the eye's interior and focuses incoming light.

Hallucinogens

Psychedelics. LSD. Marijuana. Psilocybin- "mushrooms" Peyote- small cactus plants. Can enhance experiences. A category of psychotropic drugs that lead to hallucinations, delusions, or unusual perceptions. Also called psychedelic drugs.

Benzodiazepine

Psychoactive drug that enhances the effect of GABA. Induces sleep, reduces anxiety, relaxes muscles. May be used to treat insomnia and anxiety.

Projection

Psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others. A defense mechanism that involves unconsciously reducing anxiety by attributing one's own fears, feelings, faults, or unacceptable thoughts and behaviors to another person or group.

Sublimation

Psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people re-channel their unacceptable impulses into socially approved activities. A defense mechanism that involves unconsciously reducing anxiety by directing aggression toward a more socially acceptable outlet, such as exercise, hard work, sports, or hobbies. This is a healthier version of displacement.

Denial

Psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which people refuse to believe or even to perceive painful realities. A defense mechanism that involves unconsciously reducing anxiety by refusing to accept reality even when presented with large amounts of evidence.

Encoding

Put information in our brains. Putting new information from our environment into our brains. The process in which information is combined, organized, and placed into memory.

Effortful Processing

Putting in conscious effort. Extra cognitive focus to process. Also known as controlled (conscious) processing. A conscious decision is being made to process.

Dissociative identity disorder

dissociative disorder characterized by the existence within an individual of two or more distinct personalities, each of which is dominant at different times and directs the individual's behavior at those times; commonly known as multiple personality disorder.

genetic mapping

dividing the chromosomes into smaller fragments that can be characterized and ordered so that the fragments reflect their respective locations on specific chromosomes

somatic nervous system

division of peripheral nervous system; controls voluntary actions

peripheral nervous system

division that connects the central nervous system to the rest of the body; includes all sensory and motor neurons; divided into somatic nervous system and autonomic nervous system

hindbrain

division which includes the cerebellum, Pons, and medulla; responsible for involuntary processes: blood pressure, body temperature, heart rate, breathing, sleep cycles

engineering psychologist

does research on how people function best with machines

bulimia nervosa

eating disorder characterized by pattern 9of eating binges followed by purging (e.g., vomiting, laxatives, exercise)

anorexia nervosa

eating disorder most common in adolescent females characterized by weight less than 85% of normal, restricted eating, and unrealistic body image

motor neurons

efferent neurons; neurons that carry messages from spinal cord/brain to muscles and glands

ions

electrically charged particles found both inside and outside a neuron; negative ions are found inside the cell membrane in a polarized neuron

Paul Ekman

emotion; found that facial expressions are universal

Stanley Schachter

emotion; stated that in order to experience emotions, a person must be physically aroused and know the emotion before you experience it

Daniel Goleman

emotional intelligence

pituitary gland

endocrine gland that produces a large amount of hormones; it regulates growth and helps control other endocrine glands; located on underside of brain; sometimes called the "master gland"

pineal gland

endocrine gland that produces melatonin that helps regulate sleep/wake cycle

adrenal glands

endocrine glands located above the kidney and secretes epinephrine and norepinephrine, which prepare the body for "fight or flight"

terminal buttons (axon terminals)

ends of axons that secrete neurotransmitters

correlational research

establish the relationship between two variables

David Weschler

established an intelligence test especially for adults (WAIS); also WISC and WPPSI

Han Seyle

established the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)

Konrad Lorenz

ethology (animal behavior); studied imprinting and critical periods in geese

significant difference

in an experiment, a difference that is unlikely to have occurred because of chance alone and is inferred to be most likely due to the systematic manipulations of variables by the researcher

experimental group

in an experiment, the group of participants to whom a treatment is given

positive psychology

in emerging Theo psychology that focuses on positive experiences; includes subjective well-being, self-determination, the relationship between positive emotions and physical health, and the factors that allow individuals, communities, and societies to boorish

scientific method

in psychology, the techniques used to discover knowledge about human behavior and mental processes

amnesia

inability to remember information (typically, all events within a specific period), usually due to physiological trauma

aphasia

inability to understand or use language

neuron

individual cells that are the smallest unit of the nervous system; it has three functions: receive information, process it, send to rest of body

top-down processing

information processing guided by pre-existing knowledge or expectations to construct perceptions

bottom-up processing

information processing that begins at the sensory receptors and works up to perception

instinct

inherited, automatic species-specific behaviors

Zajonc & Markus

intelligence and development; discovered that first born and only children tend to have higher IQs than latter born children

Robert Yerkes

intelligence, comparative; Yerkes-Dodson law: level of arousal as related to performance

Raymond Cattell

intelligence: fluid & crystal intelligence; personality testing: 16 Personality Factors (16PF personality test)

Robert Sternberg

intelligence; devised the Triarchic Theory of Intelligence (academic problem-solving, practical, and creative)

Charles Spearman

intelligence; found that specific mental talents were highly correlated, concluded that all cognitive abilities showed a common core which he labeled 'g' (general ability)

Harry Stack Sullivan

interpersonal psychoanalysis; groundwork for enmeshed relationships, developed the Self-System, a configuration of personality traits

Ivan Pavlov

known for discovering classical conditioning (father of Classical Conditioning)—An unconditional stimulus naturally elicits a reflexive behavior called an unconditional response. But with repeated pairings with a neutral stimulus, the neutral stimulus will elicit the response. Dog salivation, etc.

Noam Chomsky

language development; disagreed with Skinner about language acquisition, stated there is an infinite # of sentences in a language, humans have an inborn native ability to develop language

Benjamin Whorf

language; his hypothesis is that language determines the way we think

corpus callosum

large band of white neural fibers that connects to to brain hemispheres and carries messages between them; myelinated; involved in intelligence, consciousness, and self-awareness; does it reach full maturity until 20s

forebrain

largest, most complicated, and most advanced of the three divisions of the brain; comprises the thalamus, hypothalamus, limbic system, basal ganglia, corpus callosum, and cortex

crystallized intelligence

learned knowledge and skills such as vocabulary, which tends to increase with age

aversive conditioning

learning involving an unpleasant or harmful stimulus or reinforcer

Martin Seligman

learning; Positive Psychology; learned helplessness theory of depression; Studies: Dogs demonstrating learned helplessness

Wolpe

learning; systematic desensitization

unconscious

level of consciousness that includes unacceptable feelings, wishes, and thoughts not directly available to conscious awareness

preconscious

level of consciousness that is outside awareness but contains feelings and memories that can easily be brought into conscious awareness

photoreceptors

light sensitive cells (rods and cones) that convert light to electrochemical impulses

retina

light-sensitive surface on back of eye containing rods and cones

Broca's area

located in left frontal lobe; controls production of speech

Wernicke's area

located in left temporal lobe; plays role in understanding language and making meaningful sentences

thyroid gland

located in neck; regulates metabolism by secreting thyroxine

decay

loss of information from memory as a result of disuse and the passage of time

anterograde amnesia

loss of memory for events and experiences occurring from the time of an amnesia-causing event forward

retrograde amnesia

loss of memory of events and experiences that preceded an amnesia-causing event

temporal lobes

main area for hearing, understanding language (Wernicke's area), understanding music; smell

chunks

manageable and meaningful units of information organized in such a way that it can be easily encoded, stored, and retrieved

dominant genes

member of a gene terror that controls the appearance of a certain trait

recessive gene

member of the gene terror that controls the appearance of a certain trait only if it is paired with the same gene

implicit memory

memory a person is not aware of possessing

procedural memory

memory for skills, including perceptual, motor, and cognitive skills required to complete tasks

declarative memory

memory for specific information

semantic memory

memory of ideas, rules, words, and general concepts about the world

episodic memory

memory of specific personal events and situations (episodes) tagged with information about time

Hermann Ebbinghaus

memory; studied memorization of meaningless words

difference threshold

minimum difference between any two stimuli that person can detect 50% of the time

Bipolar disorder

mood disorder originally know as manic-depressive disorder because it is characterized by behavior that vacillates between two extremes; mania and depression.

Carol Gilligan

moral development studies to follow up Kohlberg. She studied girls and women and found that they did not score as high on his six stage scale because they focused more on relationships rather than laws and principles. Their reasoning was merely different, not better or worse

Lawrence Kohlberg

moral development; presented boys moral dilemmas and studied their responses and reasoning processes in making moral decisions. Most famous moral dilemma is "Heinz" who has an ill wife and cannot afford the medication. Should he steal the medication and why?

preconventional level of moral development

morality based on consequences to self

conventional level of moral development

morality based on fitting in to the norms of society

postconventional level of moral development

morality based on one's own individual moral principles (i.e., conscience)

Clark Hull

motivation theory, drive reduction; maintained that the goal of all motivated behavior is the reduction or alleviation of a drive state, mechanism through which reinforcement operates

Walter B. Cannon

motivation; believed that gastric activity as in empty stomach, was the sole basis for hunger; did research that inserted balloons in stomachs

Robert Zajonc

motivation; believes that we invent explanations to label feelings

Masters & Johnson

motivation; human sexual response—studied how both men and women respond to and in relation to sexual behavior

thalamus

motor sensory relay center for four of the five senses; and with a brain stem and composed of two egg-shaped structures; integrates in shades incoming sensory signals; Mnemonic-"don't smell the llamas because the llamas smell bad"

Carl Jung

neo-Freudian, analytic psychology; archetypes; collective unconscious; libido is all types of energy, not just sexual; dream studies/interpretation

Erik Erikson

neo-Freudian, humanistic; 8 psychosocial stages of development: theory shows how people evolve through the life span. Each stage is marked by a psychological crisis that involves confronting "Who am I?"

Alfred Adler

neo-Freudian, psychodynamic; Contributions: inferiority complex, organ inferiority; Studies: birth order influences personality

Karen Horney

neo-Freudian, psychodynamic; criticized Freud, stated that personality is molded by current fears and impulses, rather than being determined solely by childhood experiences and instincts, neurotic trends; concept of "basic anxiety"

Karen Horney

neo-freudian who found psychoanalysis negatively biased toward women and believed cultural variables are the foundation of personality development

efferent neuron

nerve cell that send messages from brain and spinal cord to other parts of body; also called motor neurons

afferent neuron

nerve cell that sends messages to brain or spinal cord from other parts of the body; also called sensory neurons

interneurons

nerve cell that transmits messages between sensory and motor neurons

reticular formation (RF) (RES)

netlike system of neurons that weaves through limbic system and plays an important role in attention, arousal, and alert functions; arouses and alerts higher parts of the brain; anesthetics work by temporary shutting off RF system

Gazzaniga or Sperry

neuroscience/biopsychology; studied split brain patients

serotonin

neurotransmitter that affects sleep, arousal, mood, appetite; lack of it is linked with depression

acetylcholine (ACh)

neurotransmitter that causes contraction of skeletal muscles; lack of Ach linked with Alzheimer's disease;

dopamine

neurotransmitter that influences voluntary movement, attention, alertness; lack of dopamine linked with Parkinson's disease; too much is linked with schizophrenia

GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid)

neurotransmitter that inhibits firing of neurons; linked with Huntington's disease

retroactive interference

newly learned information interferes with the ability to recall previously learned information

norepinephrine

noradrenaline; chemical which is excitatory, similar to adrenaline, and affects arousal and memory; raises blood pressure by causing blood vessels to become constricted, but also carried by bloodstream to the anterior pituitary which relaxes ACTH thus prolonging stress response

frequency

number of wavelengths that pass a point in a given amount of time; determines hue of light and the pitch of a sound

rehearsal

process of repeatedly verbalizing, thinking about, or otherwise acting on or transforming information in order to keep that information active in memory

parietal lobes

processes sensory information including touch, temperature, and pain from other body parts

neurogenesis

production of new brain cells; November 1988: cancer patients proved that new neurons grew until the end of life

psychologist

professional who studies behavior and uses behavioral principles in scientific research or in applied settings

Dissociative disorders

psychological disorders characterized by a sudden but temporary alteration in consciousness, identity, sensorimotor behavior, or memory

Personality disorders

psychological disorders characterized by inflexible and longstanding maladaptive behaviors that typically cause stress and/or social or occupational problems.

clinical psychologist

psychologist who treats people serious psychological problems or conducts research into the causes of behavior

counseling psychologist

psychologist who treats people with adjustment problems

Phineas Gage

railroad worker who survived a severe brain injury that dramatically changed his personality and behavior; case played a role in the development of the understanding of the localization of brain function

elaborative rehearsal

rehearsal involving repletion and analysis, in which a stimulus may be associated with (linked to) other information and further processed

ACTH (arenocorticotropic hormone)

released by adrenal glands; triggered by norepinephrine to prolong the response to stress (used in the sympathetic nervous system)

thyroxine

released by thyroid; hormone that regulates the body's metabolism; OVERACTIVE-over-excitability, insomnia, reduced attention span, fatigue, snap decisions, reduced concentration (hyperthyroidism); UNDERACTIVE-desire to sleep, constantly tired, weight gain (hypothyroidism)

maintenance rehearsal

repetitive review of information with little or no interpretation

gonads

reproductive glands-male, testes; female, ovaries

placebo effect

response to the belief that the IV will have an effect, rather than the IV's actual effect, which can be a confounding variable

encoding specificity principle

retrieval cues that match original information work better

Lewis Terman

revised Binet's IQ test and established norms for American children; tested group of young geniuses and followed in a longitudinal study that lasted beyond his own lifetime to show that high IQ does not necessarily lead to wonderful things in life

ethics

rules of proper and acceptable conduct that investigators use to guide psychological research

Gestalt psychology

school of psychological thought that argued that behavior cannot be studied in parts but must be viewed a s whole

structuralism

school of psychological thought that considered the structure and elements of conscious experience to be the proper subject matter of psychology

functionalism

school of psychological thought that was concerned with how and why the conscious mind works

monism

seeing mind and body as different aspects of the same thing

dualism

seeing mind and body as two different things that interact

representative sample

selection of a part of the population which mirrors the current demographics

random sample

selection of a part of the population without reason; participation is by chance

olfaction

sense of smell

gustation

sense of taste

Wilhelm Wundt

set up the first psychological laboratory in an apartment near the university at Leipzig, Germany theory of structuralism

visual acuity

sharpness of vision

graded potential

shift in electrical charge in a tiny area of the neuron (temporary); transmits a long cell membranes leaving neuron and polarized state; needs higher than normal threshold of excitation to fire

functional MRI (fMRI)

shows brain activity at higher reolution than PET scan when changes in oxygen concentration in neurons alters its magnetic qualities

positron emission tomography (PET scan)

shows brain activity when radioactively tagged glucose rushes to active neurons

EEG (electroencephalogram)

shows brain's electrical activity by positioning electrodes over the scalp

parallel processing

simultaneously analyzing different elements of sensory information, such as color, brightness, shape, etc.

REM (rapid eye movement) sleep

sleep stage when the eyes move about, during which vivid dreams occur; brain very active but skeletal muscles paralyzed

Hobson & McCarley

sleep/dreams/consciousness; pioneers of Activation-Synthesis Theory of dreams; sleep studies that indicate the brain creates dream states, not information processing or Freudian interpretations

fovea

small area of retina where image is focused

pupil

small opeing in iris that is smaller in bright light and larger in darkness

cochlea

snail-shaped fluid-filled tube in the inner ear involved in transduction

Leon Festinger

social cognition, cognitive dissonance; Study Basics: Studied and demonstrated cognitive dissonance

Kurt Lewin

social psychology; German refugee who escaped Nazis, proved the democratic style of leadership is the most productive; studied effects of 3 leadership styles on children completing activities

REM Behavior Disorder

RBD Their body doesn't go into paralysis during REM. Act out dreams. Not same as somnambulism, night terrors, or somniloquy. Middle-age to late adulthood.

Measures of Variability

Range- highest minus lowest. Standard deviation- formula: the square root of the sum of deviation squared divided by the number of scores. Normal curve (bell shaped).

REM Sleep

Rapid Eye Movement. Eye rapidly moving under eyelids. Brain has same electrical activity all the time. Basically "paralyzed" so you don't go anywhere. Paradoxical sleep- brain is still as active. but body is not. Internal arousal vs. external stillness. The stage of sleep during which rapid eye movements and dreams usually occur.

Saccades

Rapid voluntary movements of the eyes.

Ethics in Animal Research

Reasons for Using Animals in Research- if benefits outweigh the risks. The value of a test in animals to help humans. Comparative Psychology- comparing the testing of animals to humans. Safeguard for Animal Use.

Sensation

Receiving signs from environment. Taking in information. The experience of sensory stimuli and knowledge about the surrounding world based on information received via the sensory organs.

Nociceptors

Receptors that detect pain, noxious signals.

Spontaneous Recovery

Recurrence of an extinguished conditioned response, usually following a rest period

Phillip Zimbardo

social psychology; Stanford Prison Study; college students were randomly assigned to roles of prisoners or guards in a study that looked at who social situations influence behavior; showed that peoples' behavior depends to a large extent on the roles they are asked to play

Darley & Latane

social psychology; bystander apathy, diffusion of responsibility

Robert Rosenthal

social psychology; focus on nonverbal communication, self-fulfilling prophecies; Studies: Pygmalion Effect-effect of teacher's expectations on students

Kenneth Clark

social psychology; research evidence of internalized racism caused by stigmatization; doll experiments-black children chose white dolls

hypnosis

state with deep relaxation and heightened suggestibility

Unconditional Positive Regard

The acceptance and appreciation of an individual, faults and all. This was proposed by humanist Carl Rogers and is a critical component of client-centered therapy. A caring, accepting, nonjudgmental attitude, which Carl Rogers believed would help clients to develop self-awareness and self-acceptance.

Semantics

The analysis of the meaning of language, especially of individual words.

Symptom substitution

The appearance of one overt symptom to replace another that has been eliminated by treatment.

Midbrain

The area located above the hindbrain that is very small in humans and coordinates simple movements with sensory information.

Medulla

The area of the hindbrain below the pons on the brainstem in charge of survival functions (heartbeat, breathing, and digestion), and reflexes (sneezing, coughing, vomiting, and swallowing). Also called the medulla oblongata.

Hindbrain

The area often referred to as the "primitive" part of the brain that coordinates basic bodily functions and is composed of the cerebellum, pons, and medulla.

Receptor Sites

The areas at the end of dendrites on postsynaptic neurons that receive neurotransmitters to initiate cell firing. These are specifically designed for particular neurotransmitters.

Central Route Persuasion

The basis for attitude chance that focuses on the factual content of the message and the use of evidence and logical arguments. Individuals are persuaded based on the strength of the argument presented.

Peripheral Route Persuasion

The basis for attitude change that focuses on positive or negative associations and emotional appeals. Individuals are persuaded by surface or external factors and not the strength of the argument presented.

Learned Helplessness

The behavior of giving up or not responding to punishment, exhibited by people or animals exposed to negative consequences or punishment over which they have no control

Problem Solving

The behavior of individuals when confronted with a situation or task that requires insight or determination of some unknown elements.

Diffusion of Responsibility

The belief of each individual in a crowd that they so not need to help because somebody else will take action; results in the bystander effect.

Self-efficacy

The belief that a person can successfully engage in and execute a specific behavior

Genes

The biochemical units of heredity that make up the chromosomes; segments of DNA capable of synthesizing a protein.

Sex

The biologically based categories of male and female

Nervous System

The brain and spinal cord, plus all of the neurons traveling throughout the rest of the body.

Gestalt Theory

The brain organizes information holistically and automatically. They eye sees an object in its entirety before perceiving its parts. Founders: Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Kohler.

Parasympathetic Nervous System

The branch of the autonomic nervous system that acts to calm the body, maintain bodily functions, and conserve energy. When this is activated, the body is in a state of "rest and digest" as all the bodily systems slow down except for digestion. This is key to replenishment of bodily resources.

Sympathetic Nervous System

The branch of the autonomic nervous system that is active during emergencies. The fight-or-flight response in which all of the bodily systems are aroused except for digestion.

Somatic Nervous System

The branch of the peripheral nervous system that consists of the nerves that carry information from the central nervous system and the nerves that send information from the central nervous system to regulate voluntary control of skeletal muscles.

Autonomic Nervous System

The branch of the peripheral nervous system that consists of the nerves that control automatic bodily functions by integrating the central nervous system with the organs and glands. It is divided into the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems.

Cell Body

The cell's life support system. The center of the neuron that contains the nucleus and produces energy for the neuron.

Tolerance

The characteristic of requiring higher and higher doses of a drug to produce the same effect.

Neurotransmitters

The chemical messages/messengers being sent from one neuron to the next. The chemical messengers that bind with the dendrites of the receiving neuron at specific receptor sites.

Stereotype

The cognitive component of prejudice consisting of schemas for entire groups that assume that all or most of the members share the same negative traits.

Nonverbal Communication

The communication of information by cues or actions that include gestures, tone of voice, vocal inflections, and facial expressions.

long-term memory

storage mechanism that keeps a relatively permanent record of memory

Holmes & Rahe

stress and coping; used "social readjustment scale" to measure stress

Wilhelm Wundt

structuralism; in 1879 founded first psychology laboratory in world at University of Leipzig; introspection, basic units of experience

lens

structure behind pupil that changes shape to focus light rays onto the retina

twin studies

studies as identical and rhetorical twins to determine relative influence of heredity and environment on human behavior

strain studies

studies of hereditability it be a behavioral traits using animals that have been inbred to produce strains that are genetically similar to one another

family studies

studies of hereditability on the assumption that if a gene influences a certain trait, close relatives should be more similar on that trait in distant relative

developmental psychologist

studies psychological development across the lifespan

selection studies

studies that estimate the hereditability of a trait by breeding animals with another animal that has the same trait

behavioral genetics

study of hereditary influences and how it influences behavior and thinking

genetics

study of how traits are transmitted from one generation to the next

neuroscience

study of the brain and nervous system; overlaps with psychobiology

Medical Model

The concept that diseases, in this case psychological disorders, have physical causes that can be diagnosed, treated, and in most cases, cured, often through treatment in a hospital. A model of psychopathology that proposes that mental illness is the result of disease or injury. This views mental illness as a disease that requires medical care.

psychobiology

study that focuses on biological foundations of behavior and mental processes; overlaps with neuroscience

authoritarian parenting

style of parenting marked by emotional coldness, imposing rules and expecting obedience

Cones

The cone-shaped photoreceptor cells located in the retina, particularly the fovea, which are responsible for color and high-acuity vision. People who are color-blind typically have deficiencies in these.

Reliability

The consistency or repeat ability of a particular assessment over repeated measurements.

Little Albert

subject in John Watson's experiment, proved classical conditioning principles, especially the generalization of fear

control group

subjects and not exposed to a changing variable in an experiment

Psychotic

suffering from a gross impairment in reality testing that interferes with the ability to meet the ordinary demands of life.

glial cells

supportive cells of nervous system that guide growth of new neurons; forms myelin sheath; holds neuron in place; provides nourishment and removes waste

Tolerance

The more regularly you take a specific dose of substance, the less effect it has on you so you have to have more to achieve the same effect. A condition in which an individual will need to take greater amounts or stronger versions of a drug in order to achieve the same psychotropic effect.

Deindividuation

The process by which individuals lose their self-awareness and distinctive personality in the context of a group, which may lead them to engage in antinormative behavior.

Extinction (operant conditioning)

The process by which the probability of an organism's emitting a response is reduced when reinforcement no longer follows the response

synaptic cleft

synaptic gap or synaptic space; tiny gap between the terminal of one neuron and the dendrites of another neuron (almost never touch); location of the transfer of an impulse from one neuron to the next

double-blind procedure

technique in which neither the persons involved for those conducting the experiment know in what group to participate is involved

sensory adaptation

temporary decrease in sensitivity to a stimulus that occurs when stimulation is unchanging

ethnocentrism

tendency to believe that one's own group is the standard, the reference point by which other people and groups should be judged

Identification

The process by which, according to Freud, children incorporate their parent's values into their developing superegos. According to Freud, the resolution of the phallic stage conflict that results when an individual adopts the values, behaviors, and social roles of the same sex parents.

Reuptake

The process in which the neurotransmitter is reabsorbed by the presynaptic neuron.

Social Cognition

The process of analyzing and interpreting events, other people, oneself, and the world in general.

axon terminal

terminal button, synaptic knob; the structure at the end of an excellent terminal branch; houses the synaptic vesicles and neurotransmitters

achievement test

test designed to determine a person's level of knowledge in a given subject area

emotional intelligence

the ability to perceive, express, understand, and regulate emotions

memory

the ability to recall past events, images, ideas, or previously learned information or skills; the storage system that allows a person to retain and retrieve previously learned information

informed consent

the agreement of participants to take part in an experiment and their acknowledgement that they understand the nature of their participation in the research, and have been fully informed about the general nature of the research, its goals, and methods

mean

the arithmetic average of a set of scores

Learned helplessness

the behavior of giving up or not responding, exhibited by people and animals exposed to negative consequences or punishment over which they feel they have no control.

long-term potentiation

the biochemical processes that make it easier for the neuron to respond again when it has been stimulated

endocrine glands

the bodies "slow" chemical communication by secreting hormones directly into the bloodstream

central nervous system

the brain and spinal cord

menopause

the cessation of the ability to reproduce

ESP

the controversial claim that sensation can occur apart from sensory input

imagery

the creation or re-creation of a mental picture of a sensory or perceptual experience

Appraisal

the evaluation of the significance of a situation or event as it relates to a person's well-being

phenotype

the expression of genes

variability

the extent to which scores differ from one another

Hermann Ebbinghaus

the first person to study memory scientifically and systematically; used nonsense syllables and recorded how many times he had to study a list to remember it well

Excitement phase

the first phase of the sexual response cycle during which there are increases in heart rate blood pressure and respiration

convolutions

the folds in the cerebral cortex that increase the surface area of the brain

Resolution Phase

the fourth phase of the sexual response cycle, following orgasm, during which the body returns to its resting, or normal state

pitch

the highness or lowness of a sound

self-actualization

the human need to fulfill one's potential

all-or-none principle

the law that the neuron either fires at 100% or not at all

nonconscious

the level of consciousness devoted to processes completely unavailable to conscious awareness (e.g., fingernails growing)

median

the measure of central tendency that is the data point with 50% of the scores above it and 50% below it

survey research

the measurement of public opinion through the use of sampling and questioning

midbrain

the middle division of brain responsible for hearing and sight; location where pain is registered; includes temporal lobe, occipital lobe, and most of the parietal lobe

primacy effect

the more accurate recall of items presented at the beginning of a series

recency effect

the more accurate recall of items presented at the end of a series

mode

the most frequently occurring score in a set of data

William Jones

the most influential early Functionalist. James was highly influenced by Darwin's evolutionary theory that all characteristics of a species serve some adaptive purpose. Wrote "The Principles of Psychology"

hindbrain

the most primitive of the three functional divisions of the brain, consisting of the pons, medulla, reticular formation, and cerebellum

memory span

the number of items a person can reproduce from short-term memory, usually consisting of one or two chunks

Prevalence

the percentage of a population displaying a disorder during any specified period.

percentile score

the percentage of scores at or below a certain score

natural selection

the principle that those characteristics and behaviors that help organisms adapt, be fit, and survive will be passed on to successive generations, because flexible, fit individuals have a greater chance of reproduction

sound localization

the process by which the location of sound is determined

consolidation

the process of changing a short-term memory to a long-term one

storage

the process of maintaining or keeping information readily available; the locations where information is held

heritability

the proportion of variation among individuals that is due to genetic causes

timbre

the quality of a sound determined by the purity of a waveform

zone of proximal development

the range between the level at which a child can solve a problem working alone with difficulty, and the level at which a child can solve a problem with the assistance of adults or children with more skill

replication

the repetition of an experiment to test the validity of its conclusion

psychology

the scientific study of behavior and mental processes

midbrain

the second level of the three organizational structures of the brain that receives signals from other parts of the brain or spinal cord and either relays the information to other parts of the brain or causes the body to act immediately; involved in movement

Plateau phase

the second phase of the sexual response cycle, during which physical arousal continues to increase as the partners bodies prepare for orgasm

audition

the sense of hearing

synapse

the space between two neurons where neurotransmitters are secreted by terminal buttons and received by dendrites

range

the spread between the highest and the lowest scores in a distribution

nervous system

the structures and organs that facilitate electrical and chemical communication in the body and allow all behavior and mental processes to take place

interference

the suppression of one bit of information by another

state-dependent learning

the tendency to recall information learned while in a particular physiological state most accurately when one is in that physiological state again

Orgasm phase

the third phase of the sexual response cycle, during which autonomic nervous system activity reaches its peak and muscle contractions occur in spasms throughout the body, but especially in the genital area

dependent variable

the variable in a controlled experiment that is expected to change due to the manipulation of the independent variable

independent variable

the variable in a controlled experiment that the experimenter directly and purposefully manipulates to see how the other variables under study will be affected

empiricism

the view that knowledge should be acquired through observation and often an experiment

chromosome

threadlike structure within the nucleus of cells that contain genes

Wechsler intelligence tests

three age individual IQ tests: WPPSI (children), WISC (children), WAIS (adults)

Selye's General Adaptation Syndrome

three-stage process which describes the body's reaction to stress: 1) alarm reaction, 2) resistance, 3) exahaustion

synaptic vesicles

tiny oval-shaped sacs in a terminal of one neuron; assist in transferring mineral impulse from one neuron to another neuron by releasing specific neurotransmitters

forebrain

top of the brain which includes the thalamus, hypothalamus, and cerebral cortex; responsible for emotional regulation, complex thought, memory aspect of personality

brainstem

top of the spinal column

Gordon Allport

trait theory of personality; 3 levels of traits: cardinal, central, and secondary

cornea

transparent covering of the eye

identical twins

twins from a single fertilized egg (zygote) with the same genetic makeup; also called monozygotic (MZ) twins

fraternal twins

twins from two separate fertilized eggs (zygotes); share half of the same genes

Paranoid type of schizophrenia

type of schizophrenia characterized by hallucinations and delusions of persecution or grandeur (or both), and sometimes irrational jealousy.

Disorganized type of schizophrenia

type of schizophrenia characterized by severely disturbed thought processes, frequent incoherence, disorganized behavior, and inappropriate affect.

placebo

typically a pill that is used as a control in the experiment; a sugar pill

mutation

unexpected changes in the gene replication process that are not always evident in phenotype and create unusual and sometimes harmful characteristics of body or behavior

eclectic

use of techniques and ideas from a variety of approaches

science

way of getting knowledge about the world based on observation

Schachter-Singer theory of emotion

we determine our emotion based on our physiological arousal, then label that emotion according to our explanation for that arousal

resting potential

when a neuron is in polarization; more negative ions are inside the neuron cell membrane with a positive ions on the outside, causing a small electrical charge; release of this charge generates a neuron's impulse (signal/message)

self-fulfilling prophecy

when a researcher's expectations unknowingly create a situation that affects the results

polarization

when the neuron is at rest; condition of neuron when the inside of the neuron is negatively charged relative to the outside of Enron; is necessary to generate the neuron signal in release of this polarization

(cerebral) cortex

wrinkled outer portion of brain; center for higher order brain functions such as thinking, planning, judgment; processes sensory information and directs movement

Stratified Sampling

The process of dividing the population into subgroups (strata) to create a sample that contains members of each subgroup in the same proportion that exists in the same proportion that exists in the larger population. For example, if the population being studied is 40% Danish and 60% Swedish, this would be 40% Danish and 60% Swedish as well.

Social Categorization

The process of dividing the world into "in" groups and "out" groups.

Self-actualization

The process of growth and the realization of individual potential; in the humanistic view, a final level of psychological development in which a person attempts to minimize ill health, be fully functioning, have a superior perception of reality, and feel a strong sense of self-acceptance.

Hue

The psychological property of light referred to as color, determined by the wavelengths of reflected light.

Basic Research

The psychological research that investigates answers to scientific questions and expands the overall information base of psychology.

Applied Research

The psychological research that utilizes descriptive, correlational, and experimental designs to positively influence behavior and solve real-world problems.

Reasoning

The purposeful process by which a person generates logical and coherent ideas, evaluates situations, and reaches conclusions.

Object permanence

The realization of infants that objects continue to exist even when they are out of sight

Actor-observer Effect

The tendency to attribute the behavior of others to dispositional causes but to attribute one's own behavior to situational causes.

Conformity

The tendency to change one's behavior or beliefs to fit in with others due to real or imagined social pressures.

Sunk Cost Effects

The tendency to continue putting time, money, and effort where we've already lost it. Ex. car needs repair but the repair costs more than the value; dating someone for a year and they do something damaging, do you keep putting effort in or sever ties?

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency to use a dispositional (internal) explanation without considering the situational (external) factors that might be influencing the behavior of someone else.

Frustration-Aggression Principle

The theory that aggression is caused by stress (frustration), which results when an individual is prevented form reaching a goal.

Gender Schema Theory

The theory that children and adolescents use gender as an organizing theme to classify and interpret their perceptions about the world and themselves

Social Exchange Theory

The theory that individuals balance the costs and rewards of helping and are more likely to assist others if the potential for reward is high and potential costs are low.

Activation-Synthesis Dream Theory

The theory that states that dreams are merely the result of the forebrain attempting to interpret the stimulation it is receiving during sleep from areas in the lower brain. Also called activation-synthesis hypothesis and activation-synthesis model.

Critical Period

The time in to development of an organism when it is especially sensitive to certain environmental influences; outside of that period the same influences will have far less effect

Psychotherapy

The treatment of emotional or behavior problems through psychological techniques.

Self-Concept

The unique beliefs and personality characteristics one has about oneself. All our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, "Who am I?"

Mediation

The use of a variety of techniques including concentration, restriction of incoming stimuli, and deep relaxation to produce a state of consciousness characterized by a sense of detachment.

Self-Esteem

The value judgment one makes about how worthy of a person one is based on comparisons with oneself in the past as well as how one measures up to others. One's feelings of high or low self-worth.

Representativeness Heuristic

The way something is worded brings us to something because it seems to be our prototype. Ignoring base rate information and judging the likelihood of something due to how well it matches a prototype. Judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent, or match, particular prototypes; may lead us to ignore other relevant information. A shortcut that involves judging the likelihood of an event in terms of how well it seems to match a particular prototype, which can result in either a correct or incorrect analysis of the situation.

Syntax

The way words and groups of words combine to form phrases, clauses, and sentences.

Social Influence

The ways people alter the attitudes or behaviors of others, either directly or indirectly.

Framing

The wording or phrasing of an issue may impact judgments and decisions. The way an issue is posed; how an issue is show can significantly affect decisions and judgments. The way a problem is worded influences the conclusions that are made.

Herman von Helmholtz

Theorist who both aided in the development of the trichromatic theory of color perception and Place theory of pitch perception.

Mcgurk Effect

What we see overrides what we hear. Vision and sound interaction. Combination produces perception not exactly sensed.

measure of central tendency

a descriptive statistic that tells which result or score best represents an entire set of scores

Case study

a descriptive study that includes an intensive study of one person and allows an intensive examination of a single case, usually chosen for its interesting or unique characteristics

autonomic nervous system

a division of the peripheral nervous system that regulates involuntary functions; made up of sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems

limbic system

a donut ring-shaped of loosely connected structures located in the forebrain between the central core and cerebral hemispheres; consists of: septum, cingulate gyrus, endowments, hypothalamus, and to campus, and amygdala; associated with emotions and memories

Anxiety

a generalized feeling of fear and apprehension that may be related to a particular situation or object and is often accompanied by increased physiological arousal.

sample

a group of participants who are assumed to be representative of the population about which an inference is being made

Schizophrenic disorders

a group of psychological disorders characterized by a lack of reality testing and by deterioration of social and intellectual functioning and personality beginning before age 45 and lasting at least 6 months

case study

a highly detailed description of a single individual or a vent

receptor site

a location on a receptor neurons which is like a key to a lock (with a specific nerve transmitter); allows for orderly pathways

psychiatrist

a medical doctor who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders

motive

a need or want that causes someone to act

correlation coefficient

a number that expresses the degree and direction of the relationship between 2 variables, ranging from -1 to +1

relative refractory period

a period after firing when a neuron is returning to its normal polarize state and will only fire again if the incoming message open parentheses impulse) is stronger than usual; returning to arresting state

introspection

a person's description and analysis of what he or she is thinking and feeling or what he or she has just thought about

nurture

a person's experiences in the environment

nature

a person's inherited traits, determined by genetics

experiment

a procedure in which a researcher systematically manipulates and observes elements of a situation in order to test a hypothesis and make a cause-and-effect statement

debriefing

a procedure to inform participants about the true nature of an experiment after its completion

Residual type of schizophrenia

a schizophrenic disorder in which the person exhibits inappropriate affect, illogical thinking, and/or eccentric behavior but seems generally in touch with reality.

Undifferentiated type of schizophrenia

a schizophrenic disorder that is characterized by a mixture of symptoms and does not meet the diagnostic criteria of any one type.

axon

a single long, fiber that carries outgoing messages to other neurons, muscles, or glands

Double bind

a situation in which an individual is given two different and inconsistent messages.

Motive

a specific (usually internal) condition, usually involving some form of arousal, which directs an organism's behavior toward a goal.

hypothesis

a tentative statement or idea expressing a causal relationship between two events or variables that is to be evaluated in a research study

aptitude test

a test designed to predict a person's future performance

adaptation

a trait or inherited characteristic that has increased in a population because it solved a problem of survival or reproduction

ex post facto study

a type of design that contrasts groups of people who differ on some variable of interest to the researcher

myelin sheath

a white, fatty covering of the axon which speeds transmission of message

association areas

areas of the cerebral cortex that are not involved in primary motor or sensory functions, rather, they are involved in higher mental processes such as thinking, planning, and communicating

school psychologist

assesses and counsels students, consults with educators and parents, and performs behavioral intervention when necessary

John B Watson

behaviorism; emphasis on external behaviors of people and their reactions on a given situation; famous for Little Albert study in which baby was taught to fear a white rat

B.F. Skinner

behaviorism; pioneer in operant conditioning; behavior is based on an organism's reinforcement history; worked with pigeons

Law of Effect

behaviors followed by pleasant consequences are strengthened while behaviors followed by unpleasant consequences are weakened (Thorndike)

Charles Darwin

biologist; developed theory of evolution; transmutation of species, natural selection, evolution by common descent; "The Origin of Species" catalogs his voyage on The Beagle

vestibular sense

body sense of equilibrium and balance

kinesthesis

body sense that provides information about the position and movement of individual parts of the body

levels-of-processing approach

brain encodes information in different ways or on different levels; deeper processing leads to deeper memory

statistics

branch of mathematics that deals with collecting, classifying, and analyzing data

dendrites

branching extensions of neuron that receives messages from neighboring neurons

nerve

bundles of axons

excitatory neurotransmitter

chemical secreted at terminal button that causes the neuron on the other side of the synapse to fire

inhibitory neurotransmitter

chemical secreted at terminal button that prevents (or reduces ability of) the neuron on the other side of the synapse from firing

endorphins

chemical similar to opiates that relieves pain; may induce feelings of pleasure

hormone

chemical that carries messages that travel through the bloodstream to help regulate bodily functions

agonist

chemical that mimics or facilitates the actions of a neurotransmitter

antagonist

chemical that opposes the actions of a neurotransmitter

Lev Vygotsky

child development; investigated how culture & interpersonal communication guide development; zone of proximal development; play research

Anna Freud

child psychoanalysis; emphasized importance of the ego and its constant struggle

demand characteristics

clues participants discover about the purpose of a study that suggest how they should respond

Elizabeth Loftus

cognition and memory; studied repressed memories and false memories; showed how easily memories could be changed and falsely created by techniques such as leading questions and illustrating the inaccuracy in eyewitness testimony

Tolman

cognition; studied rats and discovered the "cognitive map" in rats and humans

fluid intelligence

cognitive abilities requiring speed or rapid learning that tends to diminish with age

Jean Piaget

cognitive psychology; created a 4-stage theory of cognitive development, said that two basic processes work in tandem to achieve cognitive growth (assimilation and accommodation)

iris

colored part of the eye that regulates size of pupil

Premack principle

commonly occurring behavior can reinforce a less frequent behavior

neuropsychologist

concerned with the relationship between brain/nervous system and behavior

Solomon Asch

conformity; showed that social pressure can make a person say something that is obviously incorrect ; in a famous study in which participants were shown cards with lines of different lengths and were asked to say which line matched the line on the first card in length

James-Lange theory of emotion

conscious experience of emnotion results from one's awareness of physiological arousal

Cannon-Bard theory of emotion

conscious experience of emotion and physiological arousal occur at the same time

explicit memory

conscious memory that a person is aware of

Stanford-Binet intelligence tests

constructed by Lewis Terman, originally used ratio IQ (MA/CA x 100); now based on deviation from mean

frontal lobes

control emotional behaviors, make decisions, carry out plans; speech (Broca's area); controls movement of muscles

magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

creates a computerized image using a magnetic field and pulses of radio waves

computerized axial tomography (CT scan)

creates a computerized image using x-rays passed through the brain

Mary Ainsworth

developmental psychology; compared effects of maternal separation, devised patterns of attachment; "The Strange Situation": observation of parent/child attachment

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross

developmental psychology; wrote "On Death and Dying": 5 stages the terminally ill go through when facing death (1. denial, 2. anger, 3. bargaining, 4. depression, 5. acceptance)

Judith Langlois

developmental psychology;: social development & processing, effects of appearance on behavior, origin of social stereotypes, sex/love/intimacy, facial expression

Howard Gardner

devised theory of multiple intelligences: logical-mathematic, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, intrapersonal, linguistic, musical, interpersonal, naturalistic

David Rosenhan

did study in which healthy patients were admitted to psychiatric hospitals and diagnoses with schizophrenia; showed that once you are diagnosed with a disorder, the label, even when behavior indicates otherwise, is hard to overcome in a mental health setting

Lloyd and Margaret Peterson

did work on short-term memory

Francis Galton

differential psychology AKA "London School" of Experimental Psychology; Contributions: behavioral genetics, maintains that personality & ability depend almost entirely on genetic inheritance; compared identical & fraternal twins, hereditary differences in intellectual ability

Ivan Pavlov

discovered classical conditioning; trained dogs to salivate at the ringing of a bell

Ernest Weber

discovered that the smallest change in a stimulus that can be detected is a constant proportion of the stimulus level: Weber's Law

Arousal

Activation of the central nervous system, the autonomic nervous system, and the muscles and glands

Amphetamines

Adderall. Treatment of narcolepsy (fall into sleep randomly; deficiency of neurotransmitter orexin) Help focus.

Positive Reinforcement

Adding a stimulus to strengthen a behavior. ex. Giving a cookie for good behavior.

Positive Punishment

Adding stimulus in order to weaker a behavior. ex. Spanking; parking ticket.

Social Phobia

Afraid of being in social situations where you could be publicly scrutinized or judged. An Axis I anxiety disorder in which the irrational fear an individual has regarding social situations or performing in public prevents him or her from taking part in normal interactions because of the potential threat of embarrassment. Also called social anxiety disorder.

Storage

After encoding information, our brain puts it into here. Maintaining encoded information in memory over time.

Bulimia Nervosa

An eating disorder characterized by repeated episodes of binge eating (and a fear of not being able to stop eating) followed by purging

habituation

decreased responsiveness with repeated presentation of the same stimulus

DNA

deoxyribonucleic acid; genetic formation in a double-helix; can replicate or reproduce itself; made of genes

monocular cues

depth cues that are based on one eye

binocular cues

depth cues that are based on two eyes

ex post facto study

describes differences between groups of participants that differ naturally on a variable such as race or gender

flashbulb memories

detailed memory for events surrounding a dramatic event that is vivid and remembered with confidence

Hermann Rorschach

developed one of the first projective tests, the Inkblot test which consists of 10 standardized inkblots where the subject tells a story, the observer then derives aspects of the personality from the subject's commentary

Harry Harlow

development, contact comfort, attachment; experimented with baby rhesus monkeys and presented them with cloth or wire "mothers;" showed that the monkeys became attached to the cloth mothers because of contact comfort

Gibson & Walk

developmental psychology; "visual cliff" studies with infants

encoding

organizing sensory information so it can be processed by the nervous system

Sensory Cortex

Area at the front of the parietal lobes that registers and processes body touch and movement sensations.

Wavelength

Determines hue you are seeing. The distance between the peak of one wave and the peak of the next wave.

Impression Formation

The process by which a person uses behavior and appearance of others to form attitudes about them.

cognitive-appraisal theory of emotion

our emotional experience depends on our interpretation of the situation we are in

gate control theory

pain is only experienced in the pain messages can pass through a gate in the spinal cord on their route to the brain

authoritative parenting

parenting style characterized by emotional warmth, high standards for behavior, explanation and consistent enforcement of rules, and inclusion of children in decision making

pons

part of the brain involved in sleep/wake cycles; also connects cerebellum and medulla to the cerebral cortex

cerebellum

part of the brain that coordinates balance, movement, reflexes

hippocampus

part of the limbic system and is involved in learning and forming new long-term memories

amygdala

part of the limbic system; influences emotions such as aggression, fear, and self-protective behaviors

split brain patients

people whose corpus callosum has been surgically severed

polygenic inheritance

process by which several genes interact to produce a certain trait; responsible for most important traits

retrieval

process by which stored information is recovered from memory

Hindsight Bias

"I knew it all along" Thinking you know something would have happened after it happened. Overconfidence- together with this can lead to overestimate our intuition. The tendency for an individual to believe that he or she could have predicted the outcome of an event after it already happened.

Deja-Vu

"I've been/experienced this before" Several explanations for why this happens. 1. Retrieval cues of current context conjure up previous related situation. 2. Glitch in our dual processing, causing us to process something unconsciously a fraction of a second before we process it consciously.

PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder)

"Shell Shock" or "Battle Fatigue." Not just due to a war situation. Common- flashbacks; recurring memories of what happened. Symptoms: Flashbacks, or reliving the traumatic event for minutes or even days at a time. Upsetting dreams about the traumatic event. Trying to avoid thinking or talking about the traumatic event. Feeling emotionally numb. Avoiding activities you once enjoyed. Hopelessness about the future. Memory problems. Trouble concentrating. Difficulty maintaining close relationships. Irritability or anger. Overwhelming guilt or shame. Self-destructive behavior, such as drinking too much. Trouble sleeping. Being easily startled or frightened. Hearing or seeing things that aren't there. An anxiety disorder characterized by haunting memories, nightmares, social withdrawal, jumpy anxiety, and/or insomnia that lingers for four weeks or more after a traumatic experience. Axis I anxiety disorder characterized by intense feelings of anxiety, horror, and helplessness after experiencing a traumatic event such as a violent crime, natural disaster, or military combat.

Critical Thinking

"Smart thinking" Four Elements: examine assumptions, discern hidden values, evaluate evidence, and assess conclusions.

Karl Wernicke

"Wernicke's area"; discovered area of left temporal lobe that involved language understanding: person damaged in this area uses correct words but they do not make sense

Glial Cells

"glue cells" Many different cells. Nourish, support, and protect the neurons. The cells that provide nourishment, protection, and insulation for neurons. These supportive brain cells also protect the brain from toxins and produce the myelin sheath.

Role Theory

"good hypnotic subjects"- following directions. Playing role to please hypnotist. A theory for hypnosis that states that individuals who are hypnotized are simply playing a role that they have become caught up in, and the behavior they demonstrate is a result of doing what is expected of them in their role.

Cerebellum

"little brain" 2 of them, each hemisphere. Coordinates voluntary movement (with pons). Sensory discrimination. What to expect from own movements (tickling- can't tickle yourself). Stores conditioned, procedural memories. The hindbrain structure responsible for balance, coordination, fine motor movements, and procedural memory. Looks like a miniature brain attached to the brainstem. The "little brain" at the rear of the brainstem; functions include processing sensory input and coordinating movement output and balance.

Thalamus

"post office" Sensory relay center. Send sensory information to appropriate brain regions for processing. All the sense EXCEPT smell. A forebrain area consisting of two connected egg-shaped structures located at the top of the brainstem that filters and relays sensory information except for smell to the appropriate parts of the cerebral cortex.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

(1) a phenomenon that occurs when the expectations people have about themselves lead them to alter their behavior, causing their expectations to come true. (2) a phenomenon that occurs when your beliefs about another person or group lead you to act in a way that brings about the behaviors you expect from them and confirm your original impression.

Fissure

(AKA sulcus; plural=sulci) A groove or deep division, as in between masses in the brain (e.g., lobes). Examples: central fissure (divides frontal and parietal lobes); lateral fissure (divides frontal and parietal lobes from the lower temporal lobes).

Social-Cultural Psychology

(Socio-cultural) How behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures.

Gyrus

(plural=gyri) Raised fold of brain tissue.

Pseudoscience

(pseudopsychology) A system of theories, assumptions, and methods erroneously regarded as scientific. ex. Urine therapy, horoscopes, psychics.

Methamphetamine

(speed) Crystal meth. Depletes dopamine stores. Longer high (hours long) Aggression, crime, rapid breakdown. A stimulant and psychotropic drug commonly called crystal meth that results in long-lasting and intense feelings of euphoria. An extremely physically and psychologically addictive illicit drug.

Cognition

(thinking) Knowing. Remembering. Making judgments and decisions. Solving problems. Communicating. The mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating. The various mental processes studied in psychology that can be translated simply to mean thinking.

Antagonists

*blockers* Block up receptor sites on receiving postsynaptic neurons (dendrites) Blocks release of neurotransmitters from presynaptic neuron (terminal buttons) *inhibits the natural activity of neurotransmitters. ex. antipsychotics. A drug that works by occupying the receptor sites on the postsynaptic neuron and blocking the transmission of neurotransmitters.

Neurogenesis

*brain damage* Birth of new neurons. Very active when younger. The development of new neurons.

Plasticity

*brain damage* Substitution of function. The ability of the brain to modify itself as an adaptation to experience or repair itself after damage. For example, if a particular area in the brain is damaged, nearby areas can learn to assume the functions of the regions that were destroyed by developing new connections between dendrites.

Case Study

*Descriptive Research* Deep observation of (generally) one individual. Suggest further study. Cannot discern general truths. (limited individuals) ex. Freud's research; Phineas Gage (accident); Henry Molaison (severe seizures) A descriptive research method that involves an in-depth examination of individual or groups.

Naturalistic Observation

*Descriptive Research* Describes behavior. Does not explain behavior. (not altering behavior) Observing in natural environment. The descriptive research method that involves carefully and systematically watching human or animal behavior as it occurs in the natural environment.

Survey

*Descriptive Research* Looks at many cases at once. WORDING EFFECTS (important) Random sampling. (representative sampling) Sampling: population- sum of all people you are studying, not every person you study. A descriptive research method in which individuals are asked to reply to a series of questions or to rate their agreement with various statements. Surveys are designed to discover the beliefs, opinions, and attitudes of a sample to draw conclusions about the population.

Unconscious

*Freud state* *can refer to subconscious* (mostly) permanently out of reach. Has to have a trained professional to even help reach it. According to Freud, the level of the mind that contains hidden thoughts, wishes, memories, and feelings that an individual cannot bring into conscious awareness. The unconscious is mainly filled with unacceptable sexual or aggressive thoughts and wishes and unresolved conflicts from childhood that could result in personality difficulties for individuals. According to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. According to contemporary psychologists, information processing of which we are unaware.

Conscious

*Freud state* Aware of or responsive to at present. The part of the mind that is currently active and responsive to events and stimuli in the environment and is currently aware of internal thoughts.

Preconscious

*Freud state* *can refer to subconscious* May be aware of or currently out of reach. Right below surface; are aware, but not thinking of it. But you can become aware of it into consciousness. According to Freud, the level of the mind that contains information an individual is aware of but not currently thinking about and is located between the unconscious and conscious.

Latent Content

*Freud* What the objects/dreams mean. A lot driven by sex and aggression. According to Freud, the unconscious desires are the cause of dreams. These latent (hidden) desires are usually related to sexual or aggressive drives. This is determined by the analyst through interpretation.

Manifest Content

*Freud* What's on the surface, the details of the dream. What you remember. According to Freud, the plot of the dream that the dreamer can remember and report afterward.

Classical Conditioning

*Pavlovian conditioning* Involuntary or automatic conditioning. Learning automatic/involuntary responses. Form of associative learning. ex. Lightning and thunder. Ivan Pavlov. A type of learning based on the pioneering work of Ivan Pavlov that involves pairing a previously neutral stimulus (NS) with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) to generate a conditioned response (CR). Based on involuntary responses that include reflexes. Also called respondent conditioning.

Proactive Interference

*also called negative transfer* Forward acting. You can't learn new things or recall new things because you learned the old stuff and it is interfering your ability to remember the new. A memory problem that occurs when previously learned information interferes with the ability to recall a new memory. For this, old information gets in the way of new information and prevents the recall of new information. Also called negative inhibition.

Social Desirability

*bias* The tendency for participants to not answer personal questions honestly in order to depict themselves in a positive way. Also called social desirability response set.

Interneurons

*billions* Connect the sensory and motor neurons. Relay messages between the neurons Neurons within the brain and spinal cord that communicate internally and intervene between the sensory inputs and motor outputs. The neurons which are located in the brain and spinal cord that facilitate communication between afferent and efferent neurons. Also called association neurons.

Repression

*controversial* A defense mechanism (according to Freud). Certain traumatic or painful memories that your body shoves into your unconscious; remove the memory all together; can't retrieve. You can't have pain from memory. A defense mechanism that involves unconsciously reducing anxiety by blocking a painful incident or event from awareness. Anxiety-producing unacceptable wishes and thought are pushed into the unconscious.

Conduction Hearing Loss

*deafness* Induction issue. Problem with middle ear structures; loss of vibrations. Hearing loss that is the result of problems with funneling and amplifying sound waves to the inner ear. Damage to the eardrum or the bones of the middle ear that prevent the transmission of sound waves are typical causes of this type of hearing loss.

Dichromatic Vision

*deficiency* Only 2 color receptors working. Typically more male-sex linked.

Monochromatic Vision

*deficiency* Only have one functioning color receptor. Usually red or free. Typically see in shade of grey.

Alcohol

*depressant* Disinhibition and reduced self-control. Slowed neural processing- reduced reaction time; poor focus and cognition. Memory disruption. Diminished motor control. This+sex=the perfect storm. Impedes your ability to sleep- specifically REM sleep.

Monocular Cues

*each eye sees position and depth* Perceptual cues for distance and how objects are positioned in the environment that involves only one eye.

Hippocampus

*explicit memories* Memory formation (encoding and storage). A limbic system structure surrounding the thalamus responsible for explicit memory formation and learning. A neural center that is located in the limbic system; helps process explicit memories for storage.

How Sleep Affects Us Positively

*guards against* weight gain. immune deficiencies and illness. high blood pressure. memory impairment. irritability<->poor communication skills. diminished creativity. poor concentration.

Aphasia

*language* Language impairment. Broca's area. Wernicke's area. A neurological condition in which brain damage from disease or injury to the portions of the brain responsible for language produce difficulties in communication.

Wernicke's Aphasia

*language* Left temporal lobe in Wernicke's area. Speech comprehension. Your own language and other's language. May not comprehend, can't string intelligible words. A neurological condition that occurs as a result of damage to Wernicke's area in the left temporal lobe. Individuals have problems understanding language in others and/or producing meaningful speech.

Sensory Neurons

*millions* Carries messages towards the brain and towards the spinal cord. Afferent (at the brain from tissues/organs). Transfer information from the sense organs to the brain for analysis. Neurons that carry incoming information from the sensory receptors to the brain and spinal cord.

Motor Neurons

*millions* Communicating to our body to move. Efferent (exits the brain to tissues/organs). Transfer information from the brain and spinal cord to the muscles, organs, and glands of the body. Neurons that carry outgoing information from the brain and spinal cord to the muscles and glands.

Deindividuation

*mob mentality* When you're in a group setting you are more likely to do something you normally wouldn't do. Loss of self-awareness and personal restraint. Causes- mixture of anonymity and arousal. A state of lessened personal responsibility and self-restraint due to feelings of anonymity created by being part of a crowd.

Relative Brightness

*monocular cue* More light is reflected off of objects or parts of objects are closer to you and less light is reflected off objects or parts of objects farther from you. A monocular cue in which an object appears closer to the viewer because it is bright and reflects a greater amount of light.

Linear Perspective

*monocular cue* Objects that appear closer to the point where lines converge in the distance appear farther and objects farther from the point where lines converge appear closer. A monocular cue for depth in which objects appear closer to the viewer if they are located farther away from the point where two parallel lines converge (meet).

Relative Height

*monocular cue* Objects that appear lower in your visual field appear to be closer to you and objects that appear higher in your visual field appear to be farther away.

Interposition

*monocular cue* Objects that are blocking other objects are closer to you. A monocular depth cue in which one object appears closer to the viewer because it partially blocks the view of another object. Also called overlap.

Relative Size

*monocular cue* Objects that take up more space on our retinas seem closer to us. A monocular cue in which an object appears closer to the viewer because it is larger in comparison with other objects in the visual field.

Phi Phenomenon

*motion perception* Same as stroboscopic movement with lights. An illusion of movement created when a group of stationary lights placed in a row turn on and off in rapid sequence. The result is the perception by the brain of a single light moving across space.

Stroboscopic Movement

*motion perception* The brain's perception of movement when a series of objects are shown in sequence. Also called the stroboscopic illusion.

Serotonin

*neurotransmitter* Mood, sleep, appetite. SSRI- selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. A neurotransmitter involved in mood, sleep, and appetite. Low levels are associated with depression, eating disorders, sleep disturbances, and aggression.

Dopamine

*neurotransmitter* Movement, perception, cognition, emotion. *impact on psychological disorders* A neurotransmitter involved in pleasure, reward, voluntary movement, learning, and attention. Certain of these pathways are involved in drug addiction. Parkinson's disease is marked in part by low levels of this and schizophrenia is associated with elevated levels of this.

Olfaction

*why smell triggers memories* Chemical sense. Sense of smell. Odor molecules- enter nose. Travel to olfactory membrane- which have olfactory receptor sites. Then to olfactory bulbs. Olfactory bulbs to limbic system, where hippocampus house memories and amygdala foremotion. One sense that does not travel through thalamus. Typically women smell better than men. A synonym for the sense of smell.

Longitudinal Study

A research approach that follows a group of people over time to determine change or stability in behavior.

Receptive fields

Areas of the retina that, when stimulated, produce a change in the firing of cells in the visual system.

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.

Descriptive Research

1. Case Study 2. Survey 3. Naturalistic Observation 4. Correlation 5. Illusory Correlation

René Descartes

17t century French philosopher. Famously known for writing "cogito ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am"). Wrote about concept of dualism.

John Locke

17th century English philosopher. Wrote that the mind was a "blank slate" or "tabula rasa"; that is, people are born without innate ideas. We are completely shaped by our environment .

Carl Jung

1875-1961; Field: neo-Freudian, analytic psychology; Contributions: people had conscious and unconscious awareness; archetypes; collective unconscious; libido is all types of energy, not just sexual; Studies: dream studies/interpretation

Benjamin Whorf

1897-1941; Field: language; Contributions: his hypothesis is that language determines the way we think "linguistic determinism"

Mary Ainsworth

1913-1999; Field: development; Contributions: compared effects of maternal separation, devised patterns of attachment; Studies: The Strange Situation-observation of parent/child attachment (secure or insecure)

Albert Bandura

1925-present; Field: sociocultural; Contributions: pioneer in observational learning, stated that people profit from the mistakes/successes of others; Studies: Bobo Dolls-adults demonstrated 'appropriate' play with dolls, children mimicked play; Observational Learning

Lawrence Kohlberg

1927-1987; Field: cognition, moral development; Contributions: created a theory of moral development that has 3 levels(preconventional, conventional, and postconventional); focuses on moral reasoning rather than overt behavior

Aversive counterconditioning

A counterconditioning technique in which an aversive or noxious stimulus is paired with a stimulus with the undesirable behavior.

Naturalistic observation

A descriptive research method in which researchers study behavior in its natural context.

Circadian Rhythm

24 hour cycle sleep wake pattern. Changes everyday-environment effects (ex. school, technology, stress, jet lag) Temperature changes along with this. As you are more alert, you are warmer. As you get more drowsy, you get colder. Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN) + pineal gland- light hits retina and sends signal to SCN then to pineal gland, telling it to either release or suppress melatonin (sleep hormone). A specific type of biological rhythm in which a predictable pattern occurs over a twenty-four hour period. Controls the fluctuations of hormones, blood pressure, temperature, and wakefulness.

Higher-Order Conditioning

2nd order conditioning. Conditioned a new stimulus to the other one- linked them. ex. Initially salivate to food and eventually to bell but then learns a new conditioned stimulus before the bell (another sound) Turning a seconds neutral stimulus (new NS) into a conditioned stimulus (new CS) by pairing it with the conditioned stimulus (original CS) that was already established. Eventually the CR will be produced without the new CS having been paired with the UCS.

human genomes

30,000 genes needed to build a human

Similarity

A Gestalt principle in which objects, events, or individuals that are alike in appearance are perceived to belong to the same group.

Proximity

A Gestalt principle that objects, events, or individuals that are physically close to each other are perceived as a group.

Phoneme

A basic or minimum unit of sound in a language.

Morpheme

A basic unit of meaning in a language.

Normal curve

A bell-shaped graphic representation of data showing what percentage of the population falls under each part of the curve

Sleep Spindle

A burst of electrical activity quickly. Short and rapid. Very high frequency. After muscle twitches; assimilating new information into knowledge base.

Alzheimer's Disease

A chronic and progressive disorder of the brain that is the most common cause of degeneration dementia

Information-Processing Theory

A cognitive approach that explains that dreams are methods that the mind uses to sort out the events of the day and place them into memory.

Rational-emotive therapy

A cognitive behavior therapy that emphasizes the importance of logical, rational thought processes.

Personal Fable

A cognitive distortion experienced by adolescents, in which they believe they are so special and unique that other people cannot understand them and risky behaviors will not harm them

Imaginary Audience

A cognitive distortion experienced by adolescents, in which they see themselves as always "on stage" with an audience watching

Placenta

A mass of tissue that is attached to the wall f the uterus and connected to the developing fetus by the umbilical cord; it supplies nutrients and eliminates waste products

Blood-Brain Barrier

A mechanism that prevents certain molecule from entering the brain but allows others to cross

Cognitive Map

A mental representation (map) of your environment. A mental representation of the layout of one's environment. ex. Wake and power's out and you can still make it to bathroom because you know where things are.

Afterimage

A misperception that lingers after the visual stimulus is removed. A positive one of these is viewed in the same color as the original stimulus. A negative one of this is viewed in the opposite color than the original stimulus and is used as evidence for the opponent-process theory of color vision.

Texture Gradient

A monocular cue in which an object appears closer to the viewer because it has a more detailed, distinct texture.

Motivation

A need or desire that strengthens and directs our behavior.

Action Potential

A neural impulse. Electrical signal traveling down the axon when the neuron fires. Message being sent.

Placebo effect

A nonspecific improvement that occurs as a result of a person's expectations of change rather than as a direct result of any specific therapeutic treatment.

Stress

A nonspecific, emotional response to real or imagined challenges or threats; a result of a cognitive appraisal by the individual

Correlation Coefficients

A numerical value that represents the strength of the relationship between two or more variables. A statistical measure of the strength of the relationship between variables. The most common example is the Pearson correlation coefficient represented by the letter "r" and ranging from +1.00 to -1.00 that indicates the strength and direction of the relationship between two variables. A positive correlation indicates that the two variables move or vary in the same direction. A negative correlation indicates that the two variables move or vary in opposite directions. A zero correlation or non correlation indicates that there is no relationship between the two variables.

Eidetic Imagery

A particularly vivid subject visual experience, where an individual claims to "see" an object that is no longer objectively present; not the same as a hallucination. The individual believes the object to be present when it is not, either with eyes open or closed. Rarely occurs within adults; affects 2-10% of children.

Personality

A pattern of relatively permanent traits, dispositions, or characteristics that give some consistency to people's behavior.

Substance Abuser

A person who overuses and relies on drugs to deal with everyday life

Attitude

A person's belief about another person, object, or situation. Each of these consists of a cognition (belief), affect (feeling), and behavior (action).

Self-efficacy

A person's belief about whether he or she can successfully engage in and execute a specific behavior.

Vulnerability

A person's diminished ability to deal with demanding life events.

Negative Correlation

As 1 variable's levels go up, the other variable's levels go down.

Gender Identity

A person's sense of being male or female

Projective Test

A personality assessment in which the participant is given an ambiguous stimulus and asked to respond to it. These are used in psychodynamic and psychoanalytic therapy. Common examples include the Rorschach Inkblot Test and the Thematic Apperception Test. A personality test, such as the Rorschach or TAT, that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics.

Door-in-the-Face Phenomenon

A persuasion method in which the individual begins by making a large request that most likely will be turned down. After this large initial request is denied, the person makes a more reasonable request that is now more likely to be granted.

Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon

A persuasion method that involves having someone comply with a small request first in order to increase the likelihood that they will agree to a second larger request later.

Double-Blind Procedure

A procedure in which both the experimenter and the participants are unaware of who has receive the independent variable (treatment). These studies eliminate both experimenter and participant bias.

Single-Blind Procedure

A procedure in which the participants are unaware of whether they are receiving the independent variable (drug) or the placebo.

Biofeedback

A process through which people receive information about the status of a physical system and use this feedback information to learn to control the activity of that system

Tay-Sachs Disease

A progressive deterioration of nerve cells and mental and physical abilities. Onset around 6 months old; death usually by 4 years old. Fates of certain cells build up in nerve cells causing the death of brain cells. No known cure.

Rorschach Inkblot Test

A projective assessment that involves participants being presented with a series of cards that have blots of ink on them one at a time in a specific order. Participants must explain what they see and their response is interpreted by the test administrator. The most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots, designed by Hermann Rorschach; seeks to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots.

ADHD (Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)

A psychological disorder marked by the appearance by age 7 of one or more of three key symptoms: extreme inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. A developmental disorder typically diagnosed in childhood that is characterized by difficulty in focusing on tasks or the tendency to be overly active and impulsive, leading to difficulties in functioning within school, work, or social situations.

Psychodynamic Theory

A psychological perspective that emerged from pioneering work of Freud's psychoanalysis. This perspective continues to emphasize the importance of the unconscious and childhood experiences, but disagrees with Freud's emphasis on sexual drives in determining personality. These revisions include an increased focus on conscious influences, social interaction, and culture in the development of personality and how development continues across the lifespan. A branch of psychology that studies how unconscious drives and conflicts influence behavior, and uses that information to treat people with psychological disorders.

Ernest Hilgard

A psychologist who believed that hypnosis worked only on the immediate conscious mind of a person. he also believes that there is a hidden part of the mind(hidden observer) that is very much aware of the hypnotic subjects activities and sensations.

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.

Variable-ratio Schedule

A reinforcement schedule in which a reinforcer (reward) is delivered after a predetermined but variable number of responses has occurred

Fixed-interval Schedule

A reinforcement schedule in which a reinforcer (reward) is delivered after a specified interval of time, provided that the required response occurs at least once in the interval

Variable-interval Schedule

A reinforcement schedule in which a reinforcer (reward) is delivered after predetermined but varying amounts of time, provided that the required response occurs at least once after each interval

Fixed-ratio Schedule

A reinforcement schedule in which a reinforcer(reward) is delivered after a specified number of responses has occurred

Anorexia Nervosa

An eating disorder characterized by an obstinate and willful refusal to eat, a distorted body image, and an intense fear of being fat

Internal Locus of Control

According to Rotter, the belief that some individuals hold that what happens to them may be largely determined by hard work or effort. The perception that you control your own fate.

External Locus of Control

According to Rotter, the belief that some individuals hold, that is what happens to them may be largely determined by fate, luck, or the actions of others. The perception that chance or outside forces beyond your personal control determine your fate.

Acetylcholine

ACH *neurotransmitters* Memory and movement. Alzheimer's. A neurotransmitter involved in memory and movement. Low levels of this are associated with Alzheimer's disease.

Validity

Ability of a test to measure what it is supposed to measure and to predict what it is supposed to predict

Reliability

Ability of a test to yield very similar scores for the same individual over repeated testings

neural plasticity

Ability of the brain to change their experience, both structurally and chemically

Size constancy

Ability of the visual perceptual system to recognize that an object remains constant in size regardless of its distance from the observer or the size of its image on the retina.

Discrimination

Ability to differentiate between which signals do and do not signal the unconditioned response (and lead to conditioned response). ex. Dog may learn to respond to a bell (CS) but not metronome. (1) a phenomenon in classical conditioning in which an organism learns to respond (CR) to only the conditioned stimulus (CS). (2) a phenomenon in operant conditioning in which an organism learns to voluntarily respond to only the stimulus that was reinforced.

Conservation

Ability to recognize that objects can e transformed in some way, visually or phycially, yet still be the same in number, weight, substance, or volume

Myopic

Able to see clearly things that are close but having trouble seeing objects at a distance; nearsighted.

Hyperopic

Able to see objects at a distance clearly but having trouble seeing things up close; farsighted

Sins of Forgetting

Absent-mindedness- encoding failure. Transcience- unused information decays; storage failure. Blocking- retrieval failure; tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon or TOT state.

Norm

Accepted or expected behavior. Throughout cultures. i.e. personal space, pace of life. The conditioned social rule that provides information on how to behave.

Inferiority Complex

According to Adler, a feeling of helplessness and insecurity that results form constant criticism and repeated failure.

Reciprocal Determinism

According to Bandura, how people think, how people behave, and what their environment is like all interact to influence the consistency of behavior. The interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment.

Natural Selection

According to Darwin, traits and behaviors exist in humans because these attributes allowed our ancestors to adapt, survive, and reproduce. 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.

Oedipus Complex

According to Freud, a boy's sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father. According to Freud, a boy's sexual attraction to the opposite sex parent (mother) and a desire to eliminate the parent of the same sex (father) who is seen as a rival. Also called Electra complex for girls.

Fixation

According to Freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved. According to psychoanalytic theory, the failure of psychosexual development to proceed normally from one stage to the next, results in an individual engaging in activities associated with the stage that has the unresolved conflict.

Reality Principle

According to Freud, the ego works according to this by balancing the impulses of the id with the constraints of reality and the superego's desire for perfection.

Pleasure Principle

According to Freud, the id's desire for immediate satisfaction and the avoidance of pain.

Multiple Intelligences

According to Gardner, the theory that there are various types of intelligence including verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist with the possibility of more to come.

Archetypes

According to Jung, the images that comprise the collective unconscious and allow individuals to respond universally to particular situations.

Self-Actualization

According to Maslow, the motive that drives people to reach their greatest potential. 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.

Accommodation

According to Piaget, the process by which existing mental structures and behaviors are modified to adapt to new experiences

Assimilation

According to Piaget, the process by which new ideas and experiences are absorbed and incorporated into existing mental structures and behaviors

Divergent Thinking

All of our thoughts coming together to create multiple solutions. More typical for creativity. The cognitive process that results in a number of possible answers to a particular problem. This type of cognition is a major element in creativity.

Population

All the members of a group that could be selected for research and to whom the results apply.

Psychosexual Stages

Also Psychosexual Stage Theory. 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. Oral- (0-18 months) Pleasure centers on the mouth- sucking, biting, chewing. Anal- (18-36 months) Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination; coping with demands for control. Phallic- (3-6 years) Pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with incestuous sexual feelings. Latency- (6 to puberty) Dormant sexual feelings. Genital- (puberty on) Maturation of sexual interests.

Nerve Deafness

Also known as Sensorineural Deafness. Hearing loss caused by damage to the cochlea's receptor cells or to the auditory nerves. Hearing loss that results from damage to the aspects of the auditory system related to the transduction of sound waves. Damage to the cochlea or cilia on the basilar membrane, or the auditory nerve can all result in this. Severe sensorineural deafness may be treated with a cochlear implant.

Sternberg's Three Intelligences

Also known as Sternberg's triarchic theory. Analytical. Creative. Practical.

Perceptual Adaptation

Also known as sensory habituation. In vision, the ability to adjust to an artificially displaced or even inverted visual field.

Edward Tolman

American psychologist who used the terms cognitive map and latent learning too describe experimental findings that strongly suggested that cognitive factors play a role in animal learning.

Prototype

An abstraction, an idealized pattern of an object or idea that is stored in memory and used to decide whether similar objects or ideas are members of the same class of items.

Generalized anxiety disorder

An anxiety disorder characterized by persistent anxiety occurring on more days than not for at least 6 months, sometimes with increased activity of the autonomic nervous system, apprehension, excessive muscle tension, and difficulty in concentrating

Visual Cliff

An apparatus designed to examine if depth perception exists in newborn animals and infants who have just learned to crawl. This consists of a glass-topped table that creates the illusion of a drop-off on one side.

Social Need

An aroused condition that directs people to behave in ways that allow them to feel good about themselves and others and to establish and maintain relationships

Positive Correlation

As 1 variable's levels go up, the other variable's levels go up.

Conversion Disorder

Anxiety being converted into physiological symptoms. Symptoms: Poor coordination or balance. Paralysis in an arm or leg. Difficulty swallowing or "a lump in the throat". Inability to speak. Impaired vision, including double vision and blindness. Deafness. Seizures or convulsions. Loss of balance. Numbness or loss of the touch sensation. Inability to feel pain. Hallucinations. Difficulty with walking. Urinary retention. A rare somatoform disorder in which a person experiences very specific genuine physical symptoms for which no physiological basis can be found. Axis I somatoform disorder in which individuals experience impaired voluntary motor or sensory function despite the fact that no medical reason can be found to explain the problem.

Social phobia

Anxiety disorder characterized by fear of, and desire to avoid, situations in which the person might be exposed to scrutiny by others and might behave in an embarrassing or humiliating way.

Specific phobia

Anxiety disorder characterized by irrational and persistent fear of a particular object or situation, along with a compelling desire to avoid it.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Anxiety disorder characterized by persistent and uncontrollable thoughts and irrational beliefs that cause the performance of compulsive rituals that interfere with daily life.

Panic Attack

Anxiety disorders characterized as acute anxiety, accompanied by sharp increases in autonomic nervous system arousal, that is not triggered by a specific event.

Phobic disorders

Anxiety disorders characterized by excessive and irrational fear of, and consequent attempted avoidance of, specific objects or situations.

Discrimination

Any action that results from prejudiced points of view.

Aggression

Any behavior intended to harm another person or thing.

Drug

Any chemical substance that, in small amounts, alters biological or cognitive processes or both

Confounding Variable

Any difference present other than the independent variable between the experimental and control group that might have an effect on the dependent variable.

Reinforcer

Any event that increases the probability of a recurrence of the response that preceded it

Out-group

Any group of people who you don't identify with. A group that is perceived as being different from the group one belongs to.

In-group

Any group of people who you identify with. Individuals that we view as being similar to ourselves.

Secondary Punisher

Any neutral stimulus that initially has no intrinsic negative value for an organism but acquires punishing qualities when linked with a primary punisher

Secondary Reinforcer

Any neutral stimulus that initially has no intrinsic value for an organism but that becomes rewarding when linked with a primary reinforcer

depressants (AKA sedative-hypnotics)

Any of a class of drugs that relax and calm a user and, in higher doses, induce sleep; also known as a depressant

Trait

Any readily identifiable stable quality that characterizes how an individual differs from other individuals.

Primary Punisher

Any stimulus or event that is naturally painful or unpleasant to an organism

Reinforcer

Any stimulus that's designed to strengthen a behavior. Any stimulus that increases the chance that a particular voluntary behavior will be repeated in the future.

Insight therapy

Any therapy that attempts to discover relationships between unconscious motivations and current abnormal behavior.

Industrial/Organizational Psychology

Applied Research. Everyone wants to make money. Accesses business to see what needs to be strengthened. A specialty in psychology concerned with psychological issues related to the work environment: employee motivation and selection. There are multiple subfields of this including human factors, personnel, and organizational.

Self-perception Theory

Approach to attitude formation that assumes that people infer their attitudes and emotional states from their behavior.

Decision making

Assessing and choosing among alternatives.

Extinction

Associated pair broken. When the conditioned stimulus (CS) no longer creates a conditioned response (CR). The elimination or weakening of a learned response occurs because the UCS and CS were no longer paired. ex. Dogs salivate to bell but food doesn't come and after a while stop salivating.

Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Associated with OCD, depression, and social phobia. Obsess over what they perceive to be an imperfection with a particular part of their body. Psychologically doesn't see what they look like. Never good enough. Symptoms: Preoccupation with your physical appearance. Strong belief that you have an abnormality or defect in your appearance that makes you ugly. Frequent examination of yourself in the mirror or, conversely, avoidance of mirrors altogether. Belief that others take special notice of your appearance in a negative way. The need to seek reassurance about your appearance from others. Frequent cosmetic procedures with little satisfaction. Excessive grooming, such as hair plucking. Extreme self-consciousness. Refusal to appear in pictures. Skin picking. Comparison of your appearance with that of others. Avoidance of social situations. The need to wear excessive makeup or clothing to camouflage perceived flaws.

Retrieval Cues

Associations. Contexts. States and moods. A stimulus or aid that helps to elicit the recall of a memory by an individual.

Three-Stage Information Processing Model of Memory

Atkinson-Shiffrin Encoding Storage Retrieval

Source Amnesia

Attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined. (Also called source misattribution.) This, along with the misinformation effect, is at the heart of many false memories. The inability to recall the origin (source) of where a particular memory was acquired despite having a strong recollection of the actual detail about the memory itself.

Temporal Lobes

Auditory info; speech comprehension. Auditory cortex. Facial recognition. An area of the cerebral cortex located above the ears responsible for auditory processing (hearing), olfaction (small), and the recognition of faces.

Sigmund Freud

Austrian neurologist who originated psychoanalysis (1856-1939); Said that human behavior is irrational; behavior is the outcome of conflict between the id (irrational unconscious driven by sexual, aggressive, and pleasure-seeking desires) and ego (rationalizing conscious, what one can do) and superego (ingrained moral values, what one should do).

Anna O.

Austrian-Jewish woman (real name: Bertha Pappenheim) diagnosed with hysteria, treated by Josef Breuer for severe cough, paralysis of the extremities on the right side of her body, and disturbances of vision, hearing, and speech, as well as hallucinations and loss of consciousness. Her treatment is regarded as marking the beginning of psychoanalysis.

Reflex

Automatic behavior that occurs involuntarily in response to a stimulus and without prior learning and usually shows little variability from instance to instance

Reflex

Automatic response to a stimulus. Unlearned responses that happen without communication with the brain. An automatic response to a stimulus dependent on unlearned neural connections; exhibiting reflexive behavior.

Nonconscious

Automatic. *heart beating; breathing*

Terminal Branches

Axon terminals. Very similar to dendrites but on opposite pole. Branch like.

Abnormal Behavior

Behavior characterized as atypical, socially unacceptable, distressing to the individual or others, maladaptive, and/or the result of distorted cognitions

Superstitious Behavior

Behavior learned through coincidental association with reinforcement

Type A behavior

Behavior pattern characterized by competitiveness, impatience, hostility, and constant efforts to do more in less time

Type B behavior

Behavior pattern exhibited by people who are calmer, more patient, and less hurried than Type A individuals

Psychodynamic Psychology

Behavior springs form unconscious drives and conflicts. A psychological perspective that emerged from the pioneering work of Freud's psychoanalysis. This perspective continues to emphasize the importance of the unconscious and childhood experiences, but disagrees with Freud's emphasis on sexual drives in determine personality. These revisions include an increased focus on conscious influences, social interaction, and culture in the development of personality and how development continues across the lifespan.

Discrimination

Behavior targeted at individuals or groups and intended to hold them apart and treat them differently.

Prosocial Behavior

Behavior that benefits someone else or society but that generally offers no obvious benefit to the person performing it and may even involve some personal risk or sacrifice.

Respondent Behavior

Behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus.

Operant Behavior

Behavior that operates on the environment, producing consequences.

John Watson

Behaviorism; emphasis on external behaviors of people and their reactions on a given situation; famous for Little Albert study in which a baby was taught to fear a white rat. Proposed that most human learning and behavior was controlled by experience (not genetically predetermined). Believed the only behaviors that should be studied are the "observable" ones.

Altruism

Behaviors that benefit other people and for which there is no discernable extrinsic reward, recognition, or appreciation.

Metal retardation

Below-average intellectual functioning, as measured on an IQ test, accompanied by substantial limitations in functioning that originate before age 8

Imagery

Better memory for things you can visualize rather than about abstract ideas or descriptive words.

Representative Samples

Better than biased samples. Random groups selected. A sample that is similar to the population as a whole in regard to variables that might impact the results such as gender, religious affiliation, income, and ethnicity.

Alfred Binet

Binet IQ Test: pioneer in intelligence (IQ) tests, designed a test to identify slow learners in need of help-not applicable in the U.S. because it was too culture-bound (French)

Retinal Disparity

Binocular disparity. Difference images that each retina sees.

Levels of Analysis

Biological Psychological Social-cultural The differing complementary views, from biological to psychological to social-cultural, for analyzing any given phenomenon.

Instinctive Drift

Biological constraints predispose organisms to learn associations that are naturally adaptive. e.g. dogs driving- after motivation goes away, won't drive because not biologically made to. The tendency for animals to abandon learned behaviors and replace them with ones that are instinctive or innate.

Nature vs Nurture

Biology versus Experience. The longstanding controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors. Today's science sees traits and behaviors arising from the interaction of these. The ongoing debate in psychology regarding the relative contributions of genes and environment in regard to particular behaviors.

Biological Psychology

Biopyschosocial systems. A branch of psychology concerned with the links between biology and behavior. A branch of psychology concerned with the links between biology and behavior.

Psychosurgery

Brain surgery used in the past to alleviate symptoms of serious mental disorders.

Dendrites

Branch-like structures that are receiving messages from other neurons. "Listeners" Branches extending from the cell body that receive chemical messages via neurotransmitters from other neurons and transports them to the cell body of the neuron.

Nerves

Bundled axons (neurons) Sending information in the same direction.

Central Nervous System

CNS The nervous system consisting of all the neural cells and nerves making up the brain and spinal cord.

Conditioned Response

CR Same as unconditioned response. Now comes from conditioned stimulus. ex. to salivate (to the bell) Learned reaction caused by a conditioned stimulus that is the same or similar to the unconditioned response.

Conditioned Stimulus

CS Was NS before pairings. Takes on same response as unconditioned stimulus. ex. bell *after being paired with meat powder) Factor in the environment that causes a learned reaction due to having been paired with the unconditioned stimulus.

Walter Cannon/Philip Bard

Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion; physiological response and exprienced emotion are separate and then occur simultaneously

Fovea

Central point of focus. A small central region of the retina where cones are concentrated and visual acuity is the sharpest.

Cerebrum

Cerebral Cortex. Glial Cells. Lobes- frontal lobes, parietal lobes, occipital lobes, and temporal lobes. The largest and most highly developed area of the brain. It includes all of the brain except for the brainstem and cerebellum.

Social Facilitation

Change in behavior that occurs when people believe they are in the presence of other people.

Panic Disorder

Characterized by recurring panic attacks. Comes on suddenly. Symptoms: A sense of impending doom or death. Rapid heart rate. Sweating. Trembling. Shortness of breath. Hyperventilation. Chills. Hot flashes. Nausea. Abdominal cramping. Chest pain. An anxiety disorder marked by unpredictable minutes-long episodes of intense dread in which a person experiences terror and accompanying chest pain, choking, or other frightening sensations. Axis I anxiety disorder characterized by recurrent unexpected panic attacks, followed by at least one month of persistent concern about having another panic attack.

Belief Perseverance

Clinging to one's initial conception after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited. Initially clinging to our beliefs. "sticking to our guns" even when facts refute our belief. To avoid... Consider the opposite. Related to confirmation bias. Ex. arguments with parents or siblings; debating whose sports team is better; Rosenthal's labeling effect (sends people to act with schizophrenia, admit to the hospital and then act normal again, but still treat the same because they now have been labeled). The tendency to hold onto an assumption or belief even after it has been disproven.

Elizabeth Loftus

Cognition demonstrated the problems with eyewitness testimony and constructive memory

Benjamin Whorf

Cognition the linguistic relativity hypothesis

Noam Chomsky

Cognition theorized the critical-period hypothesis for language acquisition

Depressants

Cognitive functioning might be slowed down (e.g slurred speech). Parasympathetic nervous system. Alcohol. Barbiturates. Opiates. A category of psychotropic drugs that lead to muscle relaxation, sleep, and inhibition of the cognitive centers in the brain.

Carol Gilligan

Developmental Psychology Challenged the universality of Kohlberg's moral development theory

Flashbulb Memories

Come from stressful, traumatic or emotional events. Don't have to rehearse to go into long term memories. Stress hormones are released->increased glucose in brain->heighten brain activity and vigilance->amygdala makes protein for hippocampus->hippocampus makes new memories. A specific type of episodic memory that involves an especially detailed remembrance of an event that is highly personal and intensely emotional.

Body Language

Communication of information through body positions and gestures.

Obedience

Compliance with the orders of another person or group of people.

CT Scan

Computed Tomography Scan A series of advanced x-rays that may be combined to create a three-dimensional image. Uses: locating damage or deterioration from emery loss, language disorder, or stroke. A brain imaging method that creates advanced and specific x-rays of the brain's structure.

Operant Conditioning

Conditioning in which an increase or decrease in the probability that a behavior will recur is affected by the delivery of reinforcement or punishment as a consequence of the behavior;

Classical Conditioning

Conditioning process in which an originally neutral stimulus, by repeated pairing with a stimulus that normally elicits a response, comes to elicit a similar or even identical response; aka Pavlovian conditioning

Chaining

Conditioning successive behaviors. Individual behaviors are reinforced at start, but over time only sequential behaviors or reinforced. Only the complete chain is reinforced. A method for teaching a series of behaviors where each response cues the next response.

Approach-avoidance conflict

Conflict that results from having to choose an alternative that has both attractive and unappealing aspects

Approach-approach conflict

Conflict that results from having to choose between two attractive alternatives

Avoidance-avoidance conflict

Conflict that results from having to choose between two distasteful alternatives

Association Areas

Connected to motor and sensory function. Link senses to memories. Frontal lobes. (Phineas Gage) Cerebral cortex. Parietal lobes. (math and spatial reasoning) Temporal lobes. (face recognition or lack there of) The portions of the cerebral cortex that are not devoted to motor or sensory functions and are instead responsible for higher level thinking process including language and reasoning.

Rehearsal

Conscious repetition. Use in effortful processing. Allows items in short-term memory to be retained and facilitates the transfer of material from short-term to long-term memory.

Recall

Conscious thought to retrieve information. ex. Free response on test. The ability to retrieve information or experiences from memory consciously without clues such as an essay question.

hallucinogens (AKA psychedelic drugs)

Consciousness-altering drugs that affect moods, thoughts, memory, judgment, and perception and that are consumed for the purpose of producing those results

Posterior Pituitary Gland

Constricts blood vessels, raise blood pressure.

Operant Conditioning

Control over behavior as you operate on your environment and it operates back on you. A type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punishment. According to Skinner, a type of learning that involves voluntary, goal-directed behavior that is under the organism's control. Behavior is shaped and maintained by consequences (rewards or punishments) that follow a response.

Thyroid

Controls metabolism or the rate at which glucose is converted into energy. Together these glands regulate calcium levels in the blood. Increases metabolic rate, growth, and maturation.

Transduction

Conversion of light or sound waves or energy into neural impulses. The transformation of energy received from environmental stimuli by specialized receptor cells in sensory organs into neural messages.

Henry Harlow

Developmental Psychology Experimented with Infant monkeys and attachment

Hypochondriasis

Convinced something is always wrong with them. Think they have something serious form little symptoms; start obsessing over it. Symptoms: Having a long-term intense fear or anxiety about having a serious disease or health condition. Worrying that minor symptoms or bodily sensations mean you have a serious illness. Seeing doctors repeated times or having involved medical exams such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), echocardiograms or exploratory surgery. Frequently switching doctors — if one doctor tells you that you aren't sick, you may not believe it and seek out other opinions. Continuously talking about your symptoms or suspected diseases with family and friends. Obsessively doing health research. Frequently checking your body for problems, such as lumps or sores. Frequently checking your vital signs, such as pulse or blood pressure. Thinking you have a disease after reading or hearing about it. A somatoform disorder in which a person interprets normal physical sensations as symptoms of a disease. Axis I somatoform disorder in which individuals are convinced that they have a very serious medical condition despite the fact that they remain in good health and medical tests come back negative. These individuals may dramatically misinterpret small physical changes as indicators of serious medical conditions and suffer from chronic fear and worry.

Erik Erikson

Developmental Psychology Psychosocial stage theory of development (eight stages) Neo-Freudian

Jean Piaget

Developmental Psychology Stage theory of cognitive development (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operations, and formal operations)

Lawrence Kohlberg

Developmental Psychology State theory of moral development (preconvenional, conventional, and postconventional)

Mary Ainsworth

Developmental Psychology placed human infants into a "strange situation" in order to examine attachment to parents

Alfred Binet

Developmental Psychology, and Testing and Individual Differences creator of the first intelligence test

Psychological Disorder

Deviant, distressful, and dysfunctional patterns of thoughts, feelings, or behaviors.

Projective Tests

Devices or instruments used to assess personality, in which examinees are shown a standard set of ambiguous stimuli and asked to respond to the stimuli in their own way.

Psychophysics

Subfield of psychology that focuses on the relationship between physical stimuli and people's conscious experiences of them.

Addiction

Substance dependence. Repeated use of something. Damaging cycle of use and craving with negative consequences.

Self-actualization

In humanistic theory, the final level of psychological development, in which one strives to realize one's uniquely human potential-to achieve everything one is capable of achieving

DSM-IV-TR

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, updated as a 2000 "text revision"; widely used system for classifying psychological disorders.

Latent Learning

Learning that occurs in the absence of direct reinforcement and that is not necessarily demonstrated through observable behavior

Measures of Central Tendency

Descriptive statistics. Mode- occurs the most. Mean- arithmetic average. Median- middle score. Not affected by outliers.

Myelin Sheath

Covers the axon to insulate it- helps message to be sent faster. Multiple Sclerosis- results from the breakdown of this. An insulating layer of fat cells surrounding the axon of the neuron that provides insulation and increases the speed of the electrical message (action potential).

Cocaine

Crack. Depletes serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine stores. 10-30 min high. Blocks reuptake so neurotransmitters stay flooded in synapse (causes excessive energy for a prolonged period). A very powerful stimulant that produces a euphoric "high" lasting approximately ten to thirty minutes followed by a crash characterized by cravings and withdrawal.

Spacing Effect

Cramming (massed practice) is bad. Distribute practice. Builds up. Rehearsal every day. Distributed study time. Study time is broken up over several days resulting in increased retention as compared to massed practice.

Hypothalamus

Critical function of all behavior- eating, sex, stress response. Influence on the pituitary gland. Reward centers- dopamine release. Reward deficiency syndrome- natural, genetic deficiency of pleasure and well-being. Addiction occur to fill void. A limbic system structure located below (hypo) the thalamus responsible for maintenance functions (eating, drinking, body temperature, and sex) and control of the autonomic nervous system. It also controls much of the endocrine system's activities through connections with the pituitary gland.

Groupthink

Desire for group harmony supersedes realistic appeal of alternatives. Group harmony>smart decisions. ex. Bay of Pigs; Pursuit of WMD; Japanese nuclear power plant. The tendency for cohesive decision-making group to ignore or dismiss reasonable alternatives because of the desire for a unanimous decision.

Lesion

Destroying or removing a specific brain structure or a cluster of neural tissue.

Explicit Memory

Declarative memory. Factual content, like experiences. Manufactured by the hippocampus. The information that can be consciously recalled when requested and sometimes becomes disrupted because of age or amnesia. This type of memory includes conversations, facts and events, and everything we normally think of as a memory. Also includes both semantic and episodic memory.

Social Loafing

Decrease in effort and productivity that occurs when an individual works in a group instead of alone.

Overjustification effect

Decrease in likelihood that an intrinsically motivated task, after having been extrinsically rewarded, will be performed when the reward is no longer given.

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. A type of conditioning in which organisms demonstrate weaker responses to a stimulus that has been presented repeatedly indicating that they have become used to or familiar with that particular stimulus.

Repression

Defense mechanism by which anxiety-provoking thoughts and feelings are forced to the unconscious.

Projection

Defense mechanism by which people attribute their own undesirable traits to others.

Reaction Formation

Defense mechanism by which people behave in a way opposite to what their true but anxiety-provoking feelings would dictate.

Displacement

Defense mechanism by which people divert sexual or aggressive feelings for one person onto another person.

Sublimation

Defense mechanism by which people redirect socially unacceptable impulses toward acceptable goals.

Denial

Defense mechanism by which people refuse to accept reality.

Rationalization

Defense mechanism by which people reinterpret undesirable feelings or behaviors in terms that make them appear acceptable.

Modeling

Demonstrating the behaviors that you have previously observed (imitating). The process of observing and imitating a specific behavior.

DNA

Deoxyribonucleic acid. A complex molecule containing the genetic information that makes up the chromosomes.

Process of Firing of a Neuron

Depolarize- balance becomes inbalanced. What's causing the action potential. Refractory Period- brief resting period between action potentials. Excitatory versus Inhibitory Threshold- reaches the limit of positive or negative charge. All or none response.

Major depressive disorder

Depressive disorder characterized by loss of interest in almost all of life's usual activities; a sad, hopeless, or discourage mood, sleep disturbance; loss of appetite; loss of energy; and feelings of unworthiness and guilt.

Motion Parallax

Depth cue for difference in distance and motion. Objects close to you appear to move much more than objects in the distance. Objects close to you appear to move faster than objects in the distance.

Negative Skew

Descriptive statistics. High scores, but few low outliers to bring down mean. A distribution in which most of the scores will be high and the tail of the distribution will be pointing to the left or the negative side of the number line. The mean will be lower than the median. Also called left skewed.

Positive Skew

Descriptive statistics. Low scores, but few high outliers to bring up mean. A type of distribution in which most of the scores will be low and the tail of the distribution will be pointing toward the right, or positive side, of the number line. The mean will be higher than the median. Also called right skewed.

Heritability

Differences among people due to genes (genetic variability). Not a measure of percentages contributed by genes vs. environment. (i.e. 82% of Lebron's skills are genetic and 18% are environmental) i.e. 65% of extraversion is heritability then there is a 65% difference between people due to genes. A mathematical measure that indicates the amount of variation among individuals that is related to genes, which is an estimate and only applies to the population and not individuals. It is expressed as a numerical value ranging from 0 to 1.0 and can be translated into a percentage.

Dissociative Disorders

Dissociate (become separated). Lose touch with themselves. May serve as a defense mechanism (repressed memories). Disorders in which conscious awareness becomes separated (dissociated) from previous memories, thoughts, and feelings. A category of Axis I disorders that involve a portion of the mind "splitting off" from the mainstream of consciousness, producing behavior that is incompatible with the rest of the individual's awareness, memory, or identity.

Dissociative amnesia

Dissociative disorder characterized by the sudden and extensive inability to recall important personal information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature.

Lucid Dream

Dream in which the dreamer is aware of dreaming while it is happening

opiates (AKA narcotics)

Drugs derived from the opium poppy, including opium, morphine, and heroin

Rene Descartes

Dualist. Studied nerves connecting mind and body. Found nerves- believed fluid was "animal spirits." (actually cerebral spinal fluid)

Empiricism

Experimental approach to psychology. According to Locke, the view that knowledge should be gained through careful observation and from experimental evidence. The view that knowledge originates in experience and that science should, therefore, rely on observation and experimentation.

Sternberg's Five Components of Creativity

EXPERTISE- knowledge base. Have to have some skill in the area. (ex. painting- if you don't know different paints it wont work, etc.) Furnishes the ideas, images, and phrases we use as mental building blocks. IMAGINATIVE THINKING SKILLS- have to think outside the box. Provide the ability to see things in novel ways, to recognize patterns, and to make connections. A VENTURESOME PERSONALITY- curious, risk-taker. Have to be willing to take risks. Seeks new experiences, tolerates ambiguity and risk, and perseveres in overcoming obstacles. INTRINSIC MOTIVATION- have to want to do it for themselves; you love it. (eg. Sara Bareilles- "Love Song") Being driven more by interest, satisfaction, and challenge than by external pressures. A CREATIVE ENVIRONMENT- environment that cultivates creative thinking. It will make you more creative. Sparks, supports, and refines creative ideas.

Temperament

Early-emerging and long-lasting individual differences in disposition and in the intensity and especially the quality of emotional reactions

Law of Effect

Edward Thorndike. Behaviors change based on their consequences. Behaviors followed by positive outcomes are strengthened. Behaviors followed by negative outcomes are weakened. Law=universally true and accepted. According to Thorndike, the law that states that a voluntary behavior followed by a positive outcome will be repeated and a voluntary behavior followed by failure would not be repeated.

Margaret Floy Washburn

Edward Titchener's student. First Female to RECEIVE her PhD. Experimental Psychology. 2nd female president of APA.

Demand characteristics

Elements of an experimental situation that might cause a participant to perceive the situation in a certain way or become aware of the purpose of the study and thus bias the participant to behave in a certain way, and in so doing, distort results.

Adrenal Glands

Epinephrine and norepinephrine. Adrenaline and noadrenaline. Fight or flight response. Kidneys. Controlled by the sympathetic nervous system's fight or flight response which increases heart rate, blood pressure, and glucose levels to respond to a threat.

Dissociation Theory

Ernest Hilgard Divided attention or divided consciousness. Part of you is attending to environment- hidden observer- monitors the background. The splitting of consciousness into two or more simultaneous streams of mental activity. Also called divided consciousness.

Size Constancy

Even is something appears to be bigger or smaller, we just know they are coming closer. Perceived size vs. perceive distance: moon illusion context Ponzo illusion based on contextual cues, objects the same size appear to be different sizes. Ames Room. The tendency to perceive objects as being the same size despite the fact that the image on the retina may increase or decrease.

Shape Constancy

Even though something may appear to change shape, we know they do not. The tendency to perceive objects as being the same shape despite the fact that the image on the retina may involve a change in the angle or orientation.

Overlearning

Extra rehearsal. e.g. repeat new people's names. Continuing to rehearse material after you have mastered and has been shown to reduce the amount of forgetting and help individuals hold on to material over longer periods of time.

ESP

Extrasensory perception. The perception of events/stimuli without sensing them. Telepathy- read people's minds. Clairvoyance- perceiving remote events. Precognition- seeing the future/predict. Pschokinesis. The idea that perception can occur without sensation; not supported by scientific research.

Delusions

False beliefs that are inconsistent with reality but are held in spite of evidence that disproves them.

Hallucination

False sensory experiences, such as seeing something in the absence of an external visual stimulus. A false perceptual experience in which an individual sees, hears, smells, tastes, or feels something that is not actually present. These are considered positive symptoms in schizophrenia.

In-group Bias

Favoritism to those who are in your group. The natural tendency for people to notice negative characteristics in members of out-groups, and not in members of their own in-group.

Kinesthesis

Feeling of body movement and positioning. ex. Imagine trying to feed yourself with no sense of positioning the arm and it's movement toward your mouth. The sense that provides information about the location of body parts in relation to one another. The specialized receptor cells for this are called proprioceptors and are located in the joints and muscles of the body.

Oedipus Complex

Feelings of rivalry with the parent of the same sex and sexual desire for the parent of the other sex, occurring during the phallic stage and ultimately resolved through identification with the parent of the same sex.

Carl Rogers

Field: humanistic; Contributions: founded person-centered therapy, theory that emphasizes the unique quality of humans especially their freedom and potential for personal growth, unconditional positive regard, fully functioning person

Rape

Forcible sexual assault on an unwilling partner.

G. Stanley Hall

Founded first U.S psychology lab. First APA president. Started first psychological journal.

Non-rapid Eye Movement Sleep

Four distinct stages of sleep during which no rapid eye movements occur.

Jean Piaget

Four stage theory of cognitive development: 1. sensorimotor, 2. preoperational, 3. concrete operational, and 4. formal operational. He said that the two basic processes work in tandem to achieve cognitive growth-assimilation and accomodation

Oral Stage

Freud's first stage of personality development, from birth to about age 2, during which the instincts of infants are focused on the mouth as the primary pleasure center.

Latency Stage

Freud's fourth stage of personality development, from about age 7 until puberty, during which sexual urges are inactive.

Genital Stage

Freud's last stage of personality development, from the onset of puberty through adulthood, during which the sexual conflicts of childhood resurface (at puberty) and are often resolved during adolescence).

Unconscious

Freud's level of mental life that consists of mental activities beyond people's normal awareness.

Consciousness

Freud's level of mental life that consists of those experiences that we are aware of at any given time.

Preconscious

Freud's level of the mind that contains those experiences that are not currently conscious but may become so with varying degrees of difficulty.

Anal Stage

Freud's second stage of personality development, from about age 2 to about age 3, during which children learn to control the immediate gratification they obtain through defecation and to become responsive to the demands of society.

Psychoanalysis

Freud's theory of personality and therapeutic technique that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts. Freud believed 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.

Phallic Stage

Freud's third stage of personality development, from about age 4 through age 7, during which children obtain gratification primarily from the genitals.

fMRI

Functional MRI Tracks bloodflow as it moves to active areas of the brain. You engage in a task while the MRI machine takes images of your brain, which you can then put into sequence to see activity via expanding blood vessels (blood flow), chemical changes, and oxygenation. The brain imaging technique that uses magnetic fields to produce images of the brain and tracks brain activity in real time by measuring blood flow carrying oxygen to active brain tissues.

General Intelligence

G. Charles Spearman. Factor analysis. Comparison to athleticism. According to Spearman and others, underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test. According to Spearman, the the construct of a factor that is responsible for a person's overall performance on tests of mental ability as opposed to specific abilities.

Learned Taste Aversion

Garcia- experiment of responses to food and other stimuli. Bad event with food- (even between time) associate it. Only need one pairing to know connection. The classically conditioned avoidance of a particular food item or liquid after it becomes associated with nausea.

Middle Ear

Ossicles. Connected to eardrums. Tiny bones. Hammer, Anvil, Stirrup. Vibrate and conduct sound waves to inner ear.

Stimulants

Generate a sense of alertness. Amphetamines. Methamphetamine. Caffeine- coffee, soda, everything. #1 stimulant in terms of consumption. Nicotine- cigarettes. Can be habit forming. Cocaine. Ecstasy. A category of psychotropic drugs that leads to increased physiological activity and alertness. Such drugs counteract fatigue and produce mood upswings. Side effects: Headaches Insomnia Irritability Loss of appetite/weight loss Depression Hypertension Seizures Social isolation Aggression Paranoia Anxiety

Wolfgang Kohler

Gestalt psychologist that first demonstrated insight through his chimpanzee experiments. He noticed the solution process wasn't slow, but sudden and reflective.

Collectivism

Giving priority to goals of one's group (often one's extended family or work group) and defining one's identity accordingly.

Individualism

Giving priority to one's own goals over group goals and defining one's identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications.

Electroencephalogram (EEG)

Graphical record of brain-wave activity obtained through electrodes placed on the scalp and forehead

Proximity

Group things close in proximity.

Anterior Pituitary Gland

Growth hormone which can lead to dwarfism or gigantism.

Somatotropin

Growth hormone. A peptide hormone that stimulates growth, cell reproduction and regeneration in humans and other animals.

Ethics

Guidelines to protect the rights to direct the fair treatment of nonhuman and human participants (and animal) in scientific research.

Agoraphobia

Have a history of having one or more panic attacks. Become afraid of going into social situations because they have panic attacks publicly and don't know how to get out. Axis I anxiety disorder that involves the fear of public places and open spaces due to the worry that one would not be able to escape.

Scientific Method

How Psychology utilizes this- 1. Identifying a problem 2. Formulate a hypothesis, or prediction 3. Conduct research and collect data findings 4. Analyze data 5. Draw conclusions and report findings

Evolutionary Psychology

How the natural selection of traits promoted the survival of genes. The psychological perspective that focuses on how social behaviors and mental processes are the product of natural selection and human adaptation to the environment over the course of evolution. Heavily influenced by the seminal writings of Charles Darwin. Organisms who are more fit for their environment pass their traits down. The study of the roots of behavior and mental processes using the principles of natural selection.

Cognitive Psychology

How we encode, process, store, and retrieve information.

Abraham Maslow

Humanistic Psychology --"Hierarchy of Needs," known for establishing a theory of a hierarchy of needs in which certain lower needs must be satisfied before higher needs can be met. 1. Physiological: food, water 2. Safety: 3. Love and Belongingness: 4. Esteem: mastery of a task, recognition form others 5. Self-Actualization: peace, self-fulfillment

Intelligence Quotient

IQ Scoring system for Stanford-Binet. William Stern. IQ= (mental age/chronological age)x100. IQ of 100 is considered average. A specific score on an intelligence test that may or may not be an accurate measure of the cognitive capabilities of that particular individual. The original formula for this was created by William Stern to enable comparisons to be made between individuals of different ages.

Social Facilitation

If you are already good at something, you will do better in front of a crowd, but if you aren't very good, you do worse. Factors- task difficulty, expertise effects, crowding effects. Arousal strengthens most likely response. The tendency for the presence of others, such as an audience or coworkers, to increase individual performance on easy or well-rehearsed tasks.

Pyschoactive Drugs

Illegal or legal drugs that alter perceptions and moods. A substance that produces changes in consciousness effecting thought, mood, and perception. Also called psychotropic drugs. Depressants. Stimulants. Hallucinogens.

Psychoanalytic Theory

Impact of childhood experiences and unconscious thoughts on emotions and actions. Developed by Sigmund Freud. A psychological perspective developed by Sigmund Freud that explains personality and human behavior as being the result of unresolved unconscious sexual and aggressive instincts. Freud's theory of personality and therapeutic technique the attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts. Freud believed 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.

Dementia

Impairment of mental functioning and global cognitive abilities in otherwise alert individuals, causing memory loss and related symptoms and typically having a progressive nature

Social Interest

In Adler's theory, a feeling of openness with all humanity.

Libido

In Freud's theory, the instinctual (and sexual) life force that, working on the pleasure principle and seeking immediate gratification, energizes the id.

Superego

In Freud's theory, the moral aspect of mental functioning comprising the ego ideal (what a person would ideally like to be) and the conscience and taught by parents and society.

Ego

In Freud's theory, the part of personality that seeks to satisfy instinctual needs in accordance with reality.

Id

In Freud's theory, the source of a person's instinctual energy, which works mainly on the pleasure principle.

Interpretation

In Freud's theory, the technique of providing a context, meaning, or cause for a specific idea, feeling, or set of behaviors; the process of tying a set of behaviors to its unconscious determinant.

Collective Unconscious

In Jung's theory, a shared storehouse of primitive ideas and images that reside in the unconscious and are inherited from one's ancestors.

Archetypes

In Jung's theory, the emotionally charged ideas and images that are rich in meaning and symbolism and exist within the collective unconscious.

Schema

In Piaget's view, a specific mental structure; an organized way of interacting with the environment and experiencing it- a generalization a child makes based on comparable occurences of various actins, usally physical, motor actions

Fulfillment

In Roger's theory of personality, an inborn tendency directing people toward actualizing their essential nature and thus attaining their potential.

Self

In Roger's theory of personality, the perception an individual has of himself or herself and of his or her relationships to other people and to various aspects of life.

Ideal Self

In Roger's theory of personality, the self a person would ideally like to be.

Self

In contemporary psychology, assumed to be the center of personality, the organizer of our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Withdrawal

In the absence of psychoactive drug, your body goes through intense, unpleasant physiological or psychological symptoms. ex. sweating, headache, anxiety, hallucinate, depression, etc. The unpleasant physical symptoms that result if the addict stops taking the drug associated with substance dependence. These symptoms vary depending on the drug and often include cold sweats, vomiting, convulsions, hallucinations, depressed mood, and anxiety.

Vasocongestion

In the sexual response cycle, engorgement of the blood vessels, particularly in the genital area, due to increased blood flow

Cognitive theories

In the study of motivation, an explanation of behavior that asserts that people actively and regularly determine their own goals and the means of achieving them through thought.

Egocentrism

Inability to perceive a situation or event except in relation to oneself; also know as self-centeredness

Functional fixedness

Inability to see that an object can have a function other than its stated or usual one.

Confirmation Bias

Information to back up what you believe. A tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence. The tendency to selectively attend to information that is consistent with one's viewpoint and ignore or minimize information that challenges one's beliefs.

Working Memory

Information you consciously attend to (and juggle) at a given time, which may include both novel information and information from long-term memory. Lasts longer than short-term memory, but not permanent. Mental juggling memory.

Cerebral Cortex

Information-processing. Higher-order functions. Intelligence. A thin surface layer on the cerebral hemispheres that regulates most complex behavior, including sensations, motor control, and higher mental processes such as decision making. It is made up of gray-tinted cells and thus is sometimes called gray matter.

Sensory Adaptation

Informative changes. Taking new information in form the environment. The decline in sensitivity that is the result of exposure to a constant and unchanging stimulus.

Ethics in Human Research

Informed Consent- general expectations and risks from study. Sign a paper. Protect from Harm and Discomfort- no physiological or psychological harm. Withdrawl at any time. Maintain Confidentiality. Debriefing- end of study: lets everyone know what went on. Resolution.

Debriefing

Informing participants about the true nature of a experiment after its completion.

Instinct

Innate, unlearned and fixed pattern. Instincts in animals (kangaroos, sea turtles, dogs (walk in circles before sits down) ). Instincts in humans. Drive/direct behavior. A complex behavior that is rigidly patterned throughout a species and is unlearned.

Sleep Disorders

Insomnia Narcolepsy Sleep Apnea Night Terrors Sleep Walking REM Behavior Disorder (RBD) Sleep-Related Eating Disorder (SRED)

Post-Traumatic Growth

Instead of feeling debilitating stress from trauma- grow from it. Positive psychological changes as a result of struggling with extremely challenging circumstances and life crises.

IRB

Institutional Review Board. Body of individuals from different departments on campus universities- studies departments proposals of research.

Rosenthal & Jacobson

Intelligence and learning, self-fulfilling prophecy; Study Basics: Researchers misled teachers into believing that certain students had higher IQs. Teachers changed own behaviors and effectively raised the IQ of the randomly chosen students

Sensory Interaction

Interaction of smell and taste. All senses. Synesthesia- form of sensory interaction- getting perception of one sense through another.

Teratogen

Substance that can produce developmental malformations (birth defects) during the prenatal period

Correlation

Is there a relationship between two variables/factors? (behaviors; personality traits) Correlation coeffecients. How well does A predict B? How closely related? Positive vs. negative. Strength of correlation (between -1.0 and 1.0) Scatter plot. Correlation helps predict. Does not imply cause and effect. One does not cause other to happen.

Collective Unconscious

Jung's theory of a shared storehouse of primitive ideas and images that are inherited ideas and images, called archetypes, are emotionally charged and rich in meaning and symbolism

Difference Threshold

Just noticeable difference. Minimum difference between two stimuli that you detect 50% of the time. ex. Half the time detects difference between two degrees in shower. The smallest difference in intensity between stimuli that can be detected by an individual. Also called the differential threshold or the just noticeable difference.

Edward Titchener

Kind of came up with structuralism. What is mind/thought? Used introspection.

Long Term Potentiation

LTP Increase in synaptic strength/efficiency during learning (potentiation) The repeated stimulation of neural networks that strengthens the connections between neurons and results in the formation of new dendrites, leading to learning and memory creation.

Carl Lange

Lange Theory of Emotion; physiologist who proposed a theory of emotion similar to, and about the same time as James' theory that awareness of physiological responses leads to experiences of emotion

Acoustic Encoding

Learn by auditory processes. Typically better than visual encoding. (rhymes with...)

Visual Encoding

Learn by seeing things. Not necessarily the best way to encode, better for some people. (written in capitals) Refers to how the memory system processes what we experience in terms of a visual image.

John Watson

Learning Father of behaviorism Baby Albert experiment -- classically conditioned fear

B.F. Skinner

Learning Operant conditioning Invented Skinner box

Ivan Pavlov

Learning classical conditioning studies with dogs and salivation

Robert Rescorla

Learning revised the Pavlovian contiguity model of classical conditioning

Albert Bandura

Learning and Personality social-learning theory (modeling) reciprocal determinism (triadic reciprocality) self-efficacy

Semantic Encoding

Learning by meaning of words, as in meaningful context. Self-reference effect. (type of...) The processing of meaning.

Broca's Aphasia

Left frontal lobe in Broca's area. *language* Speech production. Can't come up with the words you want to say. A neurological condition caused by damage to Broca's area in the left frontal lobe resulting in problems with speech production including pronunciation, speaking, writing, and coordinating the facial muscle movements required for speech. A type of expressive aphasia.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Leon Festinger's theory about the state of psychological tension, anxiety, and discomfort that occurs when an individual's attitude and behavior are inconsistent, which motivates a change in attitude or behavior to reduce the discomfort.

Stanford-Binet Test

Lewis Terman. Takes Binet's test to attempt to assess intelligence, but doesn't work in America. Was made for French children, bu the was trying to use for a different culture and age demographic. He revised, added questions to include measurement of teens and adults. The widely used American revision (by Terman at Stanford University) of Binet's original intelligence test.

Brightness Constancy

Light Constancy. Perceiving little difference in the lightness of familiar objects despite dramatic differences in the degree of light hitting the object and your retina. For white, gray, and black objects. Our brain expects a certain brightness reflecting off objects- top-down processing.

Short-Term Memory

Lightly encoded and rehearsed information. Lasts roughly 30 seconds to a minute unless rehearsed. At least remember for a short-term. Also called working memory (newer term with more information) because it allows information to be stored long enough to solve problems.

Fixation

Limited focus; failing to see things from alternative perspective. The inability to see a problem from a new perspective, by employing a different mental set.

Sleep Debt

Literally behind on sleep. Sleep deficit. Builds up. Get a night where we just sleep-might catch up. Might launch into REM faster.

Introspection

Looking inward at oneself. An early research process used by structuralists like Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener that involves having subjects report the contents of their own mind as objectively as possible, usually in relation to stimuli such as light, sound, or odors.

Frequency Theory

Low pitched sounds. Entire basilar membrane vibrates, and the neural pulse rate received by auditory cortex is proportional to frequency of sound waves, which may be low.

LSD

Lysergic Acid Diethylamide. Acid. Similar to serotonin. "trips" can range in time. Hallucinations in stages (impact of drug depends on expectations (does have effect)) 1. Vivid shapes, forms, and colors. 2. Meaningful imagery or emotional experiences. 3. Detachment from body. Synesthesia- mix up your senses (see sounds, taste colors, smell shapes, etc.) Similar to a near death experience (oxygen deprivation)- experience you have might resemble hallucinations you might have with a near death experience.

Ecstasy

MDMA Is a stimulant that is also a mild hallucinogen. "club" drug- tons of energy. Triggers dopamine and serotonin release, and blocks serotonin reuptake. Super dehydrated- you can die.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

MMPI. A widely used empirically derived assessment that measures differences in personality and identifies emotional and behavioral problems. The most widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests. Originally developed to identify emotional disorders (still considered its most appropriate use), this test is now used for many other screening purposes.

MRI

Magnetic Resonance Imaging. A magnetic field is generated around a participant's body before radio waves are used to create images of the individual's tissue and biochemical activities. Clear images; safest and fewest drawbacks.

Priming

Masking stimulus. Occurs below your level of consciousness, but can occur when you're conscious (above or below). Being exposed to a sensory stimulus consciously or unconsciously that affects your actions. The retrieval process is aided for an individual if they have been exposed to a stimulus previously. This prior exposure or priming will make it more likely that they will recall that same or similar stimulus later. The activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response.

Conditioned Reinforcer

May be associated with basic needs but in of themselves do not meet those needs. Secondary reinforcer. A stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer.

Mental Age

Measure intelligence and compares it to what it could be at a chronological age. Assesses ages of functioning. 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 9.

Electroencephalogram

Measures electrical activity of the neurons below the electrodes placed on the scalp. Often used to show brain wave patterns of electrical activity during sleep stages and seizures. Measures electrical activity between neurons in the nervous system. Often used in sleep research.

Primary Reinforcer

Meets basic biological needs. Food, water, sleep. An innately reinforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfies a biological need.

Mnemonics

Memory aids. Peg-word system- rhyming words with things you remember, using acoustic encoding to help. A memory aid, especially one that utilizes vivid imagery, meaning, and organizational devices. Ex. Substitution effect- numbers. First letter technique. Chunking.

Retrograde Amnesia

Memory loss for things of the past; wipes away previous memories. The inability to remember events or information stored before the illness or injury that cause the amnesia.

Concept

Mental category used to classify an event or object according to some distinguishing property or feature.

Perceptual Set

Mental disposition framework to interprets subsequential information. Schemas (concepts for organization). Context effects- context affects perception. Motivation on perception- motivation can really increase perception. Emotions on perception- if you're upset or in a bad mood, stuff is harder. The predisposition to interpret an event or stimulus in a particular way based on beliefs, emotions, or previous experiences.

Concepts

Mental grouping of information for efficient storage and use. Ex. we employ hierarchies. Eg. furniture, aircraft. Categorical hierarchies- ex aircraft: airplanes, blimps, remote operated. A mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people. The mental categories individuals create for objects or experiences that are similar to one another, allowing for large amounts of information to be represented in an efficient way.

William James

Methods, Approaches, and History published The Principles of Psychology, psychology's first textbook Functionalism

Cochlear Implant

Mimics hair cell function. Optimal to give at a young age; critical period. An electronic device that converts sound waves into electrical signals and works by taking over the function of the hair cells directly stimulating the auditory nerve. These are used for individuals with severe sensorineural hearing loss.

Agonists

Mimics neurotransmitters. Blocks reuptake of neurotransmitter to increase transmission. *prolongs effects of neurotransmitter or psychoactive substance. ex. cocaine. A drug that works by either blocking reuptake or kicking the natural neurotransmitters by fitting into receptor sites on the postsynaptic neuron.

Sins of Distortion

Misattribution- confusing sources of information. Remember some information but change some information (teacher said something but later think friend told you). Suggestibility- leading information can shape false memories. New information affects/distorts memories. Bias- current regard for person or thing alters memory of that person or thing.

Misinformation Effect

Misleading information affects formation of memories. Suggestion. According to Loftus, the tendency for individuals who have been provided with misleading information to alter their memories by adding the false information to their recollections.

Preoperational stage

Piaget's second stage of cognitive development (lasting from about age 2 to age 6 or 7), during which the child begins to represent the world symbolically

Opiates

Narcotics. Reduce sensitivity to pain. Provide euphoric feelings. Deplete endorphins (natural of these) Physically and psychologically active. ex. heroine. Narcotics- morphine; codeine. A specific type of depressant that comes form an opium poppy plant that produces euphoria, pain reduction, and insensitivity to stimuli in the environment. These are extremely physically and psychologically addictive.

Reasons for Highest Levels of Obedience

Nearness of a perceived legitimate authority figure. The authority is affiliated with a reputable institution. The victim (i.e. learner) was depersonalized or at a distance from the participant executing the shocks. There were no role models of defiance (i.e. individuals demonstrating disobedience to authority).

Prejudice

Negative evaluation of an entire group of people, typically based on unfavorable (and often wrong) stereotypes about groups.

Feature Detectors

Neurons (or neural networks) that fire in response to specific stimuli. Important for perception- not sensation. Different of these working together creates parallel processing. According to Hubel and Wiesel, the specialized neurons in the brain that are responsive to particular elements of an image including straight lines, edges, curves, angles, or direction.

Mirror Neurons

Neurons int eh brain that fire in response to seeing other people do things or feel things. Frontal lobe neurons that fire when performing certain actions or when observing another doing so. The brain's mirroring of another's action may enable imitation and empathy. ex. EMPATHY- sympathy=pity, but to empathize is to truly take on and understand their emotional state.

Conditioned Stimulus

Neutral stimulus that, through repeated association with an unconditioned stimulus, begins to elicit a conditioned response

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

No specific trigger; just broad sense of anxiety. "free floating" anxiety. 2/3 of the people with this are women. 3% of American population 18 and up. Symptoms: Constant worrying or obsession about small or large concerns. Restlessness and feeling keyed up and on edge. Fatigue. Difficulty concentrating or your mind "going blank." Irritability. Muscle tension or muscle aches. Trembling, feeling twitchy, or being easily startled. Trouble sleeping. Sweating, nausea, or diarrhea. Shortness of breath or rapid heartbeat. An anxiety disorder in which a person is continually tense, apprehensive, and in a state of autonomic nervous system arousal. Axis I anxiety disorder characterized by chronic, widespread, and persistent anxiety. Because the source of the anxiety cannot be identified, this is sometimes called free floating.

NREM Sleep

Non-rapid eye movement sleep; encompasses all sleep stages except for REM sleep. The stages of sleep that do not include REM consisting of stages one to four. Also called non-REM sleep.

Implicit Memory

Nondeclarative memory. Procedural memory. Stored in the cerebellum ex. riding a bike; swimming; just something you know how to do. The information that is created automatically without conscious effort and can be tested through behavioral responses. The categories of implicit memory are debatable but often include priming, conditioned reflexes, and procedural memory.

Ebbinghaus

Nonsense syllables. Practiced lists for different amounts of time each day. Looks at retention each day. Theory: the more time you engage in repetition or rehearsal, the more you retain and relearning time decreases.

Narcolepsy

Not microsleep. In the middle of something- just nod into sleep. Skip stages 1-4 and go straight into REM. 10-20 minutes. Orexin (aroused hormone) deficiency. Treated with amphetamines (stimulants) and naps. A rare sleep disorder characterized by chronic sleep attacks. An individual with narcolepsy may suddenly fall into REM sleep at any time, in any place, and often at inappropriate times.

Illusory Correlation

Not related, third variable involved. Perceive but non-existent correlation. Little supportive evidence. A random coincidence. An incorrect perception that two variables are related, or an overestimation about the strength of the relationship. Third Variable. Examples: 1. Superstitions 2. Positive correlation between shark attacks and ice cream sales- but both are from summer because more ice cream is bought in the summer and more people go to the beach thus causing more shark attacks.

Blindsight

Not split brain patients. Hemispheres still in connection- but have deficiencies in visual field (one or both) and can't see, but unconsciously still seeing. The gap within the field of vision that exists within each eye, which is caused by the optic disk or the place on the retina where the optic nerve leaves the eye.

Big Five Personality Model

OCEAN or CANOE The common personality traits identified by Costa and McCrae that include openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

Prosocial Behavior

Observing something that leads to something positive, helpful. Positive, constructive, helpful behavior. The actions taken by an individual that are intended to help others.

Antisocial Behavior

Observing something that leads to somethings damaging, harmful, hurtful, negative, aggressive.

OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)

Obsession versus compulsion. Repetitive thoughts vs. repetitive behaviors. O: persistent, anxiety inducing thought. C: Repetitive behavior to reduce anxiety. Hoarders, checkers, cleaners, counters. Obsession Symptoms: Fear of being contaminated by shaking hands or by touching objects others have touched. Doubts that you've locked the door or turned off the stove. Thoughts that you've hurt someone in a traffic accident. Intense stress when objects aren't orderly or facing the right way. Images of hurting your child. Impulses to shout obscenities in inappropriate situations. Avoidance of situations that can trigger obsessions, such as shaking hands. Replaying pornographic images in your mind. Dermatitis because of frequent hand washing. Skin lesions because of picking at your skin. Bald spots or hair loss because of hair pulling. Compulsion Symptoms: Hand washing until your skin becomes raw. Checking doors repeatedly to make sure they're locked. Checking the stove repeatedly to make sure it's locked. Counting in certain patterns. Arranging your canned goods to face a certain way. An anxiety disorder characterized by unwanted repetitive thoughts (obsessions) and/or actions (compulsions). Axis I anxiety disorder that is characterized by persistent, repetitive, and unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and behaviors (compulsions).

Superordinate Goals

Obstacles that require cooperation to ensure success.

Perception

One continuous process. Organizing information. The interpretation of sensations in the brain. It includes the cognitive processes of receiving, encoding, storing, and organizing sensations.

Identical Twins

One egg that splits. Always same sex. Monozygotic twins. Twins who share one hundred percent of the same genes, because they developed from a single fertilized egg.

Survey

One of the descriptive methods of research; it requires construction of a set of questions to administer to a group of participants

Partial Reinforcement

Only reinforcing the desired behavior part of the time. Intermittent. Fixed-ratio schedule. Variable-ratio schedule. Fixed-interval schedule. Variable-time schedule.

Chunking

Organizing items in familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically. The grouping of related items into meaningful units that can increase the amount of material that can be held in short-term memory.

Gender Identity

Our sense of being male or female. The internal recognition that an individual is male or female and the assimilation of this belief into one's self-concept.

Categorization

Out-group homogeneity. More unique in your own group, but other people in other groups are all the same.

Inner Ear

Oval Window- connected to stirrup. Membrane that connects to cochlea. Cochlea- filled with fluid. Basilar membrane: has hair cells (cilia) (the ears "rods and cones"). Responsible for transduction. The coiled, snail-shaped structure in the inner ear containing cilia or hair cell receptors for transduction in audition.

Sleep Apnea

Over course of night- breathing and stop breathing, constantly wake up. Don't know, but wake up tired. Can use a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine to increase breathing. People can die. Causes- obesity, high blood pressure, etc. A sleep disorder in which the individual suffers from momentary cessations of breathing that last about ten seconds, until the person briefly wakes up, begins breathing, and falls back asleep.

Spotlight Effect

Overestimating others' noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders (as if we presume a spotlight shines on us).

Psychokinesis

PK Being able to move or alter things with your mind.

Phenylketonuria

PKU Genetic disorder caused by a mutation in the genetic sequence. Treatable. If not treated, can lead to intellectual disability, seizures, and other serious disorders.

Peripheral Nervous System

PNS The part of the nervous system that includes all the neural cells and nerves outside of the spinal cord and skull and carries information to and from the central nervous system through motor and sensory neurons.

Panic Attack

Palpitations, sweating, trembling, shortness of breath, choking, chest pain, nausea, dizziness, unreality, fear of loss of control, fear of dying, paresthesias, hot or cold flashes.

Automatic Processing

Parallel processing. Taking in things automatically. Space (location)- you automatically processed where something was. Time- you know generally when something happened. Frequency- you realized frequency of things automatically. Well-learned information- like reading; it's automatic, easy.

Algorithm

Procedure for solving a problem by implementing a set of rules over and over again until the solution is found.

Availability Heuristic

People tend to be biased toward information that is easier for them to recall. Ignoring base rate information and judging the likelihood based on how recognizable something is. Estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness), we presume such events are common. A shortcut for judging the likelihood that an event will happen in terms of how readily it comes to mind based on either personal experience or exposure through media.

Dichromats

People who can distinguish only two of the three basic colors.

Trichromats

People who can perceive all three primary colors and thus can distinguish any hue.

Monochromats

People who cannot perceive any color, usually because their retinas lack cones.

Self-serving Bias

People's tendency to ascribe their positive behaviors to their own internal traits, but their failures and shortcomings to external, situational factors.

Conformity

People's tendency to change attitudes or behaviors so that they are consistent with those of other people or with social norms.

Emotional Intelligence

Perceive emotions. Understand emotions. People with high levels of this can understand their own emotions and the emotions of other people. Manage emotions. Use emotions for adaptive or creative thinking. The ability to recognize emotion in others and oneself and incorporate knowledge about emotion into reasoning and thought processes. The ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions.

Subliminal perception

Perception below the threshold of awareness.

Sleep

Periodic, natural loss of consciousness- as distinct from unconsciousness resulting from a coma, general anesthesia, or hibernation. A state of consciousness during which the brain passes through a series of distinct stages.

Sin of Intrusion

Persistence- memories which linger and never vanish.

Sigmund Freud

Personality and States of Consciousness Psychosexual stage theory of personality (oral, anal, phallic, and adult genital) stressed importance of unconscious and sexual drive psychoanalytic therapy theory of dreaming

Types

Personality categories in which broad collections of traits are loosely tied together and interrelated.

Antisocial personality disorder

Personality disorder characterized by egocentricity, and behavior that is irresponsible and that violates the rights of other people, a lack of guilt feelings, an inability to understand other people and a lack of fear of punishment.

Cocktail Party Effect

Phenomenon where in a group we can focus on a conversation in a large group. Only attends to one sensory information. *noise-any distractive information* The ability to focus attention on one voice while ignoring all other noises. However, information that is of special interest (such as your name) will most likely be noticed.

Dependence

Physical- need to have the drug or your body does "xyz" Psychological- need to have it or you mind does "xyz" Convinced yourself you have to have a drug or bad things will happen.

Formal operational stage

Piaget's fourth and final stage of cognitive development (beginning at about age 12), during which the individual can think hypothetically, can consider future possibilites, and can use deductive logic

PET Scan

Positron-Emission Tomography Scan Measures the amount and location of glucose (sugar) in the brain, which is limited to the degree and region of the brain activity. Small amount of radioactive glucose is injected, swallowed, or inhaled. Active neurons use sugar as fuel. Bright areas indicate high activity, which may reveal disease. A brain imaging device that involves the injection of a small harmless amount of radioactive material such as glucose (sugar) into the bloodstream and indicates areas of the brain active during cognitive tasks by tracking the specific structures using the radioactive material as fuel resulting in a color-coded image.

Humanistic Psychology

Potential to grow and have needs (e.g.: acceptance love) met. Carl Rogers Abraham Maslow Historically significant perspective that emphasized the growth potential of healthy people and the individual's potential for personal growth.

Functionalism

Practical application of mind; thought is adaptive. An early theoretical perspective in psychology used by William James, which emphasized how conscious behavior helps one adapt to the environment. This perspective of thought held that the mind should be studied in terms of its usefulness to the organism in adapting to its environment. A school of psychology that focused on how our mental and behavioral processes function- how they enable us to adapt, survive, and flourish.

Mainstreaming

Practice of placing children with special needs in regular classroom settings, with the support of professionals who provide special education services

Mental Set

Preconceived way of thinking and, consequently, doing something. Often an outdated and ineffective (or less effective) way of doing something. A tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past. The tendency for people to cling to old methods of solving problems even when they are no longer working. This sometimes facilitates performance and sometimes impairs it. An impairment resulting from this is referred to as functional fixedness.

Overconfidence

Predicted performance exceeds actual performance. More confident than correct. Inaccurate beliefs and judgments. The tendency to be more confident than correct- to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments. The tendency to overestimate how correct one's predictions and beliefs about ideas actually are.

Prejudice

Prejudgment; usually negative. Unjustifiable, often negative attitude; a prejudgment. A negative attitude held regarding members of another group that is emotionally, rigidly, or inflexibly felt and acted on.

Ageism

Prejudice against the elderly and the resulting discrimination against them

Positive Reinforcement

Presentation of a stimulus after a particular response in order to increase the likelihood that the response will recur

Types of Touch

Pressure. Warmth. Cold. Pain.

Sensorineural Hearing Loss

Problem with inner ear; damaged hair cells. Nerve deafness. Transduction issue. Cochlear implant. Hearing loss that results from damage to the aspects of the auditory system related to the transduction of sound waves. Damage to the cochlea or cilia on the basilar membrane, or the auditory nerve can all result in this. Severe of this may be treated with a cochlear implant.

Brainstorming

Problem-solving technique that involves considering all possible solutions without making prior evaluative judgments.

Insomnia

Problems in going to sleep or maintaining sleep

Reaction Formation

Psychoanalytic defense mechanism by which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites. Thus, people may express feelings that are the opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings. A defense mechanism that involves unconsciously reducing anxiety by acting or saying the exact opposite of the morally or socially unacceptable beliefs held by an individual.

Regression

Psychoanalytic defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated. A defense mechanism that involves unconsciously reducing anxiety by reverting to thoughts and behaviors that would be more appropriate during an earlier period of development. Individuals may behave in a childlike manner to get what they want.

Displacement

Psychoanalytic defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person, as when redirecting anger toward a safer outlet. A defense mechanism that involves unconsciously reducing anxiety by taking out aggression on someone or something that is less powerful or threatening than the true source of anxiety.

Transference

Psychoanalytic phenomenon in which a therapist becomes the object of a patient's emotional attitudes about an important person in the patient's life, such as a parent.

Dream analysis

Psychoanalytic technique in which a patient's dreams are described in detail and interpreted so as to provide insight into the individual's unconscious motivations.

Free association

Psychoanalytic technique in which a person is asked to report to the therapist his or her thoughts and feelings as they occur, regardless of how trivial, illogical, or objectionable their content may appear.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

Psychological disorder that may become evident after a person has undergone extreme stress caused by some type of disaster; common symptoms include vivid, intrusive recollections or reexperiences of the traumatic event and occasional lapses of normal consciousness

Anxiety Disorders

Psychological disorders characterized by distressing, persistent anxiety or maladaptive behaviors that reduce anxiety.

Rosenhan

Psychopathology and Social Psychology; effects of labeling; Rosenhan and colleagues checked selves into mental hospitals with symptoms of hearing voices say "empty, dull and thud." Diagnosed with schizophrenia. After entered, acted normally. Never "cleared" of diagnosis. Roles and labels in treating people differently.

Group therapy

Psychotherapeutic process in which several people meet as a group with a therapist to receive psychological help.

Rationalization

Psycoanalytic defense mechanism that offers self-justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one's actions. A defense mechanism that involves unconsciously reducing anxiety by creating logical excuses for unacceptable thoughts and behaviors.

Intelligence

Refers to the ability to: Learn from experience. Solve problems. Use knowledge to adapt to novel situations. The capacity to acquire knowledge, reason effectively, and adapt to one's surroundings by utilizing a combination of inherited abilities (nature) and learned experiences (nurture). Mental quality consisting of the ability to learn form experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.

Absolute Threshold

Refers to the minimum amount of sensory stimulus you can detect 50% of the time. The minimum intensity at which a stimulus can be detected at least 50 percent of the time.

Babinski reflex

Reflex in which a newborn fans out the toes when the sole of the foot is touched

Moro reflex

Reflex in which a newborn strectches out the arms and legs and cries in response to a loud noise or an abrupt change in the environment

Grasping reflex

Reflex that causes a newborn to grasp vigorously any object touching the palm or fingers or placed in the hand

Sucking reflex

Reflex that causes a newborn to make sucking motions when a finger or nipple if placed in the mouth

Rooting reflex

Reflex that causes a newborn to turn the head toward a light touch on lips or cheek

Dorothea Dix

Reformed mental health facilities.

Pituitary Gland

Regulates growth, breast milk production, childbirth, and bonding, and communicates to other glands to release hormones. Master gland; influences all other glands.

Pancreas

Regulates sugar metabolism. Secretes insulin to regulate sugar levels in blood stream.

Continuous Reinforcement

Reinforcement continuously. Reinforcing the desired response every time it is presented. Fastest way to learn an association between the behavior and the reinforcer and effective in terms of producing a steady, high rate of behavior.

Fixed-Ratio Schedule

Reinforcement is given after a set number of correct behaviors have occurred. Fixed schedule of 1- same as continuous reinforcement. ex. Every 1- responses- receive reinforcement.

Variable-Ratio Schedule

Reinforcement is given after an unpredictable number of responses. Leads to highest rate of responding (every time might get reinforcement).

Fixed-Interval Schedule

Reinforcement is given for the first correct response after a set amount of time. ex. 2 min interval- response before 2 min- no reinforcement. Any time after 2 min.- get reinforcement.

Primary Reinforcer

Reinforcer that has survival value for an organism; this value does not have to be learned

Learning

Relatively permanent change in an organism that occurs as a result of experiences in the environment

Primacy Effect

Remembering stuff better at beginning than middle or end. In verbal learning, the tendency to recall items at the beginning of the list better than the items in the middle.

Recency Effect

Remembering stuff from end because you just learned them last. The ability to recall the items at the end of a list well.

Negative Reinforcement

Removal of a stimulus after a particular response to increase the likelihood that the response will recur

Negative Reinforcement

Removing a stimulus to strengthen a behavior. ex. Fastening a seat belt to stop beeping.

Fields of Psychology

Research: Basic Research- foundational understanding of psychological experiments. Applied Research- solving practical problems. Applied: directly working with people to assist them in soling their problems.

John Garcia

Researched taste aversion. Showed that when rats ate a novel substance before being nauseated by a drug or radiation, they developed a conditioned taste aversion for the substance.

Conditioned Response

Response elicited by a conditioned stimulus

Endorphins

Response to pain; natural opiate. "runner's high" Morphine, heroine. Agonists. The chemical substances associated with the inhibition of pain and the regulation of pleasure.

Context Effects

Retrieval cue. Learn in an environment and retrieve information better when back in that environment. The retrieval process is aided if the individual is in a similar environment to the one where the material was originally encoded. Also called context-specific learning.

Retrieval

Retrieving information we encoded that is in our storage. The recovery of information from memory storage.

Shaping

Rewarding successive (in order) approximations of a desired behavior. Gradually building up entire behavior. Discriminative stimulus. An operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior. An operant conditioning technique of achieving a desired behavior by gradually reinforcing successively closer approximations of a behavior until the entire correct behavior is displayed.

triarchic theory of intelligence

Robert Sternberg's theory that describes intelligence as having analytic, creative and practical dimensions

Sleep-related Eating Disorder

SRED Preparing meals and eating excessively while asleep. More common in women- diet, more eating disorders, may already have anxiety disorder.

Hormones

Same role as neurotransmitters, to bind to receptors and send messages, but in the endocrine system. Travels slower, but linger longer. (seconds, not milliseconds) The endocrine system messengers that are transported by the bloodstream throughout the body, which are capable of influencing behavior over minutes, hours or weeks.

Stanley Schacter

Schacter Two-Factor Theory of Emotion: where emotion depends of physical arousal and then cognitively labeling that arousal

Recognition

See something and recognize it. ex. Multiple choice. The ability to remember information consciously through the use of previously learned material such as a multiple-choice question.

Shaping

Selective reinforcement of behaviors that gradually approach the desired response

Observational Learning

Semi-permanent behavior change from observations of the environment. Learning through watching other people or organisms demonstrating behaviors. Can have both prosocial or antisocial effects (positive or negative effects).

Vestibular Sense

Semicircular canals. Fluid stimulates hair receptors that communicate to cerebellum (helps coordination and movement). Equilibrium- senses of balance. Transduce information about balance. Vertigo- prolonged vestibular sense. The sense that helps one keep his or her balance by providing information about changes in body position in relation to gravity.

Axon

Sends messages to other neurons. "Talkers" A long tube-like extension attached to the cell body that sends the electrical message (action potential) away from the cell body of the neuron.

David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel

Sensation and Perception discovered feature detectors, groups of neurons in the visual cortex that respond to different types of visual images

Parietal Lobes

Sensory input for touch and body position; houses sensory cortex. Math and spatial reasoning. The area of the cerebral cortex located directly behind the frontal lobes that are in charge of receiving sensory information about the somatic senses of touch, pain, and temperature. The somatosensory cortex is at the front of these.

Collective Unconscious

Separate from personal unconscious. Universally inherited, directing similar responses. Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces for our species' history. According to Jung, the set of inherited images and experiences (archetypes) common to all humans throughout evolutionary time.

Dualism

Separation of mind and body.

Heuristics

Sets of strategies, rather than strict rules, that act as guidelines for discovery-oriented problem solving.

Selective Attention

Shifting our focus. Cocktail party effect. Inattentional blindness (change blindness [change deafness, choice blindness, choice blindness-blindness]). Popout. The process of making choices regarding which stimuli to focus on and which to ignore. It plays a significant role in determining what information is transferred from sensory memory to short-term memory or from shot-term memory to long-term memory.

Group Polarization

Shifts or exaggeration in group members' attitudes or behavior as a result of group discussion.

Heuristic

Shortcut. Eg. Skimming text book. Error prone; more mistakes can be made. Ex. racial profiling (don't think about them as a person). A simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms. A problem-solving strategy that is likely to produce a solution quickly, but does not guarantee a correct answer.

Sensory Memory

Shortest duration of storage. First record of information, perceived through senses. Visual Register= 1/4 second (iconic memory) Auditory Register= several seconds (echoic memory) Sometimes called the sensory register.

Amnesia

Significant memory loss. Anterograde amnesia. Retrograde amnesia.

State Dependent Memory

Similar to context effect,but with states of consciousness. Where you learn something in a state of consciousness you are more likely to remember when you're back in that state of consciousness. The retrieval process is aided if the individual is in the same physical and mental state that they were in when the information was encoded.

Schater's Sins of Memory

Sins of forgetting. Sins of distortions. Sin of intrusion.

William Dement

Sleep researcher who discovered and coined the phrase "rapid eye movement" (REM) sleep.

Night Terrors

Sleep stage 3 or 4. Freak out terribly during night, may get violent. Don't remember though. A sleep disorder characterized by an individual who abruptly awakens during stage four sleep and experiences increased physiological responses, such as faster heart rate and rapid breathing. Also called sleep terrors.

Alpha Waves

Slower, occur when almost asleep. Have low amplitude, high frequency.

Gate-Control Theory

Small pain nerve fibers; larger alternative sensory nerve fibers. The theory that pain signals travel to the brain through the spinal cord and pass through a series of "invisible gates" that can be opened or closed.

Erik Erickson

Social Development--Each challenge has an outcome that affects a persons social and personality development: Trust vs. Mistrust, Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt, Initiative vs. Guilt, Industry vs. Inferiority, Identity vs. Role Confusion, Intimacy vs. Isolation, Generatively vs. Stagnation, Integrity vs. Despair

Solomon Asch

Social Psychology conformity experiment -- people incorrectly reported lenghts of lines impression formation study -- professor was warm or cold

Stanley Milgram

Social Psychology obedience studies -- participants think they are shocking a learner

Langer & Rodin

Social Psychology; Helping behavior, personal responsibility; studied the effects of enhanced personal responsibility and helping behavior

Equity Theory

Social psychological theory that states that people attempt to maintain stable, consistent interpersonal relationships in which the ratio of member's contributions is balanced.

Ancient Greeks

Socrates and Pluto- Dualists. Believed you were born with your knowledge; innate. More Nature. Aristotle- believed you gained knowledge through your experiences. More Nature.

Retina

Soft inner tissue on back wall that contains sensory receptors (colors, etc.). Contains rods and cones. A photosensitive layer of receptor cells located at the back of the eye where transduction for vision occurs.

Serial Processing

Solving a problem one step at a time, a relatively slow process in comparison to parallel processing.

Somatoform Disorders

Somatic (body) Psychological disorders in which the symptoms take a somatic (bodily) form without apparent physical cause. A category of Axis I disorders characterized by physical complaints that do not have an identifiable physical cause.

Sleepwalking

Somnambulism. Sleep stage 4. Don't remember it. Not acting out dream. A sleep disorder characterized by walking during stage four of sleep.

Testing Effect

Spaced assessments of previously learned information aid in retention. The same thing as spacing effect with testing.

Frontal Lobes

Speaking, movement, decision making, impulsivity; houses motor cortex. The area of the cerebral cortex located behind the forehead responsible for higher-level thinking, reasoning, planning, judgment, and impulse control.

Bonding

Special process of emotional attachment that may occur between parents and babies in the minutes and hours immediately after birth

Specific Phobia

Specific identifiable cause of the fear. An Axis I anxiety disorder in which the individual has an irrational fear of objects and situations such as heights, closed spaces, snakes, and spiders that do not pose any actual threat, which prevents them from normal functioning.

Phobia

Specific phobia. Social phobia. Agoraphobia. An anxiety disorder marked by a persistent, irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object, activity, or situation. An Axis I anxiety disorder characterized by an intense, irrational, and persistent fear of a specific object or situation that poses no actual danger, which leads to avoidance and anxiety that disrupts normal life. The DSM-IV-TR divides this into separate categories.

Memory

Stable learning; learning that has persisted over time. Cognitive process that allows individuals to retain knowledge of information and events and is the result of 3 processes: encoding, storage, and retrieval.

Rapid Eye Movement Sleep

Stage of sleep characterized by high-frequency, low-amplitude brain-wave activity, rapid and systematic eye movements, more vivid dreams, and postural muscle paralysis

Burnout

State of emotional and physical exhaustion, lowered productivity, and feelings of isolation, often caused by work-related pressures

Need

State of physiological imbalance usually accompanied by arousal

Operational Definition

Statement of operations and measurement of variables. ex. Hooking up? Cheating? Attraction, friendship, intelligence, fear. A variable that is stated as precisely as possible including how it will be measure in order for replication to occur.

Hypothesis

Statement of relationship between variables. Testable prediction; can be confirmed or refuted. Can be falsifiable. A testable and falsifiable prediction explaining the relationship between an independent and a dependent variable.

Factor analysis

Statistical procedure designed to discover the independent elements (factors) in any set of data

Algorithm

Step-by-step; logical. Make certain we check everything to make sure the end is right. Eg. reading text book. Takes more time, might be most effective though. A methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier- but also more error-prone- use of heuristics. A logical, step-by-step procedure that, if followed correctly, will guarantee a solution.

Analytical Intelligence

Sternberg. Academic problem-solving intelligence. The logical reasoning typically measured on traditional IQ tests.

Creative Intelligence

Sternberg. Being able to generate new ideas. The inventive problem-solving abilities required to generate new ideas and learn from experience.

Practical Intelligence

Sternberg. Maybe social; being able to manage people in situations; solving practical problems. Refers to the realistic and useful thinking abilities that enable a person to cope with and thrive in their environment.

Subliminal Stimulation

Stimulation below the threshold.

Generalization

Stimulus is similar to conditioned stimulus so response is same. ex. Dogs respond to similar sounds-"mood" instead of food; "sandy," "candy," "handy" rather than mandy; opening containers: human food vs. dog treats. (1) a phenomenon in classical conditions in which an organism learns to respond (CR) to stimuli that are similar to the conditioned stimulus (CS) (2) a phenomenon in operant conditioning in which an organism learns to voluntarily respond to stimuli that are similar to the original stimulus.

Unconditioned Stimulus

Stimulus that normally produces a measurable involuntary response

Group Polarization

Strengthening of a groups beliefs through discussion within the group. The tendency for groups of like-minded individuals who interact to make more extreme decisions after an issue is discussed.

Structuralism

Structures of thought/mind. (what are the elements of mind?) An early theoretical perspective in psychology founded by Edward Titchener which emphasized examining consciousness by breaking it down into its basic components or structures including sensations, images, and feelings. An early school of psychology that used introspection to explore the structural elements of the human mind.

Edward Bradford Titchener

Student of Wilhelm Wundt; founder of Structuralist school of psychology.

Stanley Milgram

Studied obedience. Two subjects ("teacher" and "learner" was actually an actor. The teacher was told to shock the learner every time they answered a question incorrectly to see how far they were willing to go

Mary Whiten Calkins

Studied under William James. First women to EARN a PhD but she did not receive it. Became 1st female president of APA.

Human Factor Psychology

Studies connections to products; what is user friendly. Applied research. The specialty of psychology concerned with creating, designing, and producing machines and systems that are functional and easy to us by people. Simply stated, the study of human factors involves psychology plus engineering.

Educational Psychology

Studies theoretical issues related to how people learn and develop effective teaching practices.

Behaviorism

Study of observable behavior. A perspective in psychology founded by John B. Watson, which studied observable, measurable stimuli and responses only, without reference to consciousness or cognition. The view that psychology (1) should be an objective science that (2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes. Most research psychologists agree with (1) but not with (2).

Health psychology

Subfield concerned with the use of psychological ideas and principles to enhance health, prevent illness, diagnose and treat disease, and improve rehabilitation

Insight

Sudden awareness- conscious and unconscious. Kohler- stick problem and box problem. There's effortful processing/conscious thought but also unconscious too. A sudden and often novel realization of the solution to a problem; it contrasts with strategy-based solutions. A type of learning that involves a sudden flash of inspiration rather than a strategy that was researched by Kohler. The "Aha!" experience when a solution to a problem suddenly appears or becomes obvious.

Insight Learning

Sudden realization in how to solve a problem. Wolfgang Kohler- monkeys (stick and box problems)

Posthypnotic Suggestion

Suggestion to not smoke, eating disorders, insomnia, etc. The idea that statements made by a hypnotist, while a person is hypnotized, will be able to influence the person's behavior later.

5 Basic Tastes

Sweet-energy source. Salty-sodium essential to physiological processes. Sour-potentially toxic acid. Bitter-potential poison. Unami-proteins to grow and repair tissue.

Synapse

Synaptic cleft/gap. Meeting place for two neurons at the dendrites and terminal branches. Extremely narrow space between the terminal button of the sending neuron and the receptor site of the receiving dendrite and is the location of neurotransmission.

Conditioning

Systematic procedure through which associations and responses to specific stimuli are learned

Thematic Apperception Test

TAT. A projective test consisting of a series of cards that each has a different picture. Participants create a story about the picture and what the person chooses to discuss is considered important. The TAT is used to measure both achievement and affiliation motivations or as a starting point for converstions between clients and psychologists. A projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes.

Marijuana

THC (cause of mild hallucinations) Not as strong as LSD. Amplifies sensitivity to stimuli. Can be prescribed in some states medically- can be similar to opiates.

John Locke

Tabula Rose (blank slate)- acquire knowledge through experience. Used empiricism.

Negative Punishment

Taking away a stimulus in order to weaken a behavior. ex. Time out (losing freedom/privileges)

Scapegoat Theory

Target for anger becomes outlet for prejudice and discrimination. The theory for prejudice that states that innocent out-group members are blamed by an individual or community for a negative experience.

working memory

Temporarily holds current or recent information for immediate or short-term use; Information is maintained for 20-30 seconds while active processing (e.g., rehearsal) takes place

Serial Position Effect

Tend to remember from front or end of something. Primacy effect. Recency Effect. Practical application- First or last job interviews or college admissions position. First or last speed date. Convince parents or teacher- best points for first and last.

Withdrawal Symptoms

The Reaction experienced when a substance abuser stops using a drug with dependence properties

Validity

The ability of a test to measure what is designed to measure or, in other words, accuracy.

Perceptual Constancy

The ability to hold onto the perception of an object despite continuous change.

Grammar

The linguistic description of how a language functions, especially the rules and patterns used for generating appropriate and comprehensible sentences.

Threshold

The minimum amount of excitatory neurotransmitters that must be received in order for a neuron to fire. If a neuron's this is met, the cell fires, but if the minimum this is not reached the cell does not fire.

Homunculus

The model of distorted human features on the somatosensory cortex and motor cortex which indicates the degree of sensitivity of each brain region to feeling or movement.

Hypnotic Suggestibility

The more likely you are to be hypnotized. Highly attentive, imaginative, daydreamer, obedient.

Secondary Sex Characteristics

The genetically determined physical features that differentiate the sexes but are not directly involved with reproduction

Heritability

The genetically determined proportion of a trait's variation among individuals in a population

Learned Helplessness

The hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events. ex. Studying/lots of efforts- still failing-give up. Leads to depression. Martin Seligman-dogs experiment. According to Seligman, the loss of motivation and failure to attempt escape from unpleasant stimuli that occurs if the individual perceives that they are not able to exert control over his or her environment. Learned helplessness is sometimes used to explain that depression can result when individuals believe that they no longer have the ability to determine the course of their own lives due to repeated failures or negative consequences.

Hypnotic Alalgesia

The hypnosis is so strong you can have invasive surgery with no pain.

Anterograde Amnesia

The inability to form new long term memories. The inability to retain memories for events after the injury or disease that resulted in amnesia.

Color Blindness

The inability to perceive different hues.

Dark adaptation

The increase in sensitivity to light that occurs when the illumination level changes from high to low, causing chemicals in the rods and cones to regenerate and return to their inactive state.

Intrinsic Motivation

The internal drive to do something for the value or pleasure of it. A desire to perform a behavior effectively for it's own sake. e.g. someone who likes to learn- goes home and goes online to learn.

Delta Waves

The large, slow brain waves associated with deep sleep.

Attributions

The process by which a person infers other people's motives or intensions by observing their behavior.

Ego

The largely conscious, "executive" part of personality that, according to Freud, mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. This operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id's desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain. According to Freud, the problem solving and rational aspect of the personality. It operates on a reality principle, seeking to mediate between the demands of the id and the superego.

All-or-None Principle

The law that the axon of a neuron will fire either with full strength (100%) or not at all to a stimulus, regardless of its intensity, provided the stimulus is at least at the threshold value.

Photoreceptors

The light-sensitive cells in the retina- the rods and cones.

Brightness

The lightness or darkness of reflected light, determined in large part by the light's intensity.

Self-fulfilling prophecy

The creation of a situation that unintentionally allows personal expectancies to influence participants

Latent Content

The deeper meaning of a dream, usually involving symbolism hidden meaning, and repressed or obscured ideas and wishes

Concordance rate

The degree to which a condition or traits shared two or more individuals or groups

Statistical Significance

The degree to which a result is due to chance. We want to rule out chance. If statistically significant, then result was probably not due to chance and...- the effect found in the sample occurs in the overall population. The averages are reliable. The differences between averages is relatively large. The likelihood that the results of an experiment are not due to chance. Does not refer to how import ant the results are.

Saturation

The depth and richness of a hue determined by determined by the homogeneity of the wavelengths contained in the reflected light; also known as purity.

Informational Social Influence

The desire to conform to the behavior of others that occurs because an individual believes that the information presented is correct.

Normative Social Influence

The desire to conform to the behavior of others that occurs because of the need to be accepted and liked.

Insomnia

The difficulty of falling asleep and staying asleep. Number of reasons- exercising late, too much caffeine, etc. Can take sleep aids to help- but could become p physically or psychologically active. A sleep disorder characterized by the chronic inability to fall asleep or stay asleep.

Hawthorne Effect

The effect on participants' performance attributable to their knowledge that they are being watched or participating in an experiment. The tendency to work harder, perform better, or act more favorably under experimental conditions; a form of participant bias, akin to social facilitation in an experimental setting.

Conflict

The emotional state or condition that arises when a person must choose between two or more competing motives, behaviors, or impulses

Culture

The enduring ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared and transmitted by a large group. Cultural group identifications can include ethnicity, religion, language, and customs.

Electromagnetic Radiation

The entire spectrum of waves initiated by the movement of charged particles.

Independent Variable

The event, treatment, or condition that is being manipulated or controlled by the experimenter. Only the experimental group is exposed to this during an experiment.

Replication

The experimental method that involves repeating the exact procedures and obtaining the same results. In order to reduce the risk that the results occurred by chance all conclusions drawn from psychological research must be replicated.

Resilience

The extent to which people are flexible and respond adaptively to external or internal demands

Personal Control

The extent to which people perceive control over their environment rather than feeling helpless.

Extrinsic Motivation

The external drive to do something because you are receiving something or given a reason to do so. A desire to perform a behavior to receive promised rewards or avoid threatening punishment.

Change Blindness

The failure to perceive a difference (change) in a particular stimulus that has occurred after there has been a disruption in the field of vision.

Abnormal psychology

The field of psychology concerned with the assessment, treatment, and prevention of maladaptive behavior.

Sensorimotor stage

The first of Piaget's four stages of cognitive development (covering roughly the first 2 years of life), during which the child develops some motoer coordination skills and a memory for past events

Consciousness

The general state of being aware of and responsive to events in the environment, as well as one's own mental processes

Visual cortex

The most important area of the brain's occipital lobe, which receives and further processes information from the lateral geniculate nucleus; also known as the striate cortex.

Procedural Memory

The most well-known category of implicit memory that consists of the long-term memory of skills, habits, and cognitive rules involved in particular tasks. ex. Bike riding, playing an instrument.

Reactance

The negative response evoked when there is an inconsistency between a person's self-image as being free to choose and the person's realization that someone is trying to force him or her to choose a particular occurrence.

Reticular Formation

The network of nerves running vertically through the brainstem and extending to the thalamus responsible for arousal to stimuli, sleep, attentiveness, and the filtering of incoming stimuli. Damage can result in coma or death.

Corpus Callosum

The neural fibers between the two hemispheres. The large group of nerve fibers connecting the two cerebral hemispheres, which relays information between the two halves of the brain.

Frequency

The number of complete wavelengths that pass a specific point within a second. Lower pitch- lower frequency (longer waves) Higher pitch- higher frequency (shorter waves)

Dependent Variable

The observation and measurement of the behavior or mental process of participants in an experiment.

Intelligence

The overall capacity of an individual to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with the environment

Manifest Content

The overt story line, characters, and setting of a dream-the obvious, clearly discernible events of the dream

Superego

The part of personality that, according to Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgment (the conscience) and for future aspirations. According to Freud, the part of the personality that reminds individuals what ideal behavior consists of and begins developing during childhood. This operates on a morality principle, seeking to enforce ethical conduct.

Puberty

The period during which the reproductive system matures; it begins with an increase in the production of sex hormones, which signals the end of childhood

Adolescence

The period of extending from the onset of puberty to early adulthood

Acquisition

The phase during which the organism learns the association between the unconditioned stimulus and the neutral stimulus. Repeated pairings. ex. learning the bell with the food. The initial process of learning in either classical or operant conditioning.

Posthypnotic Amnesia

The phenomenon in which individuals are not able to remember what transpired while they were hypnotized.

Rods

The photoreceptors that are very sensitive under low light conditions such as nighttime but do not provide as much acuity or detail and cannot see color. These are primarily responsible for peripheral vision and black-and-white vision.

Embryo

The prenatal organism from the 5th through the 49th day after conception

Fetus

The prenatal organism from the 8th week after conception until birth

Extinction (classical conditioning)

The procedure of withholding the unconditioned stimulus and presenting the conditioned stimulus alone, which gradually reduces the probability of the conditioned response

Spontaneous Recovery

The reappearance of an extinguished conditioned response (CR) after a delay. ex. The dog spontaneously salivates (CR) due to the presentation of a bell (CS) after the learned response had been extinguished for several days. In classical conditioning, the reoccurrence of an extinguished response following a rest period between extinction and retesting, and with no retraining.

Discriminative Stimulus

The reinforced stimulus. Target which leads to desired behavior (e.g. dog's specific "needs to go out" whine) In operant conditioning, a stimulus that elicits a response after association with reinforcement (in contrast to related stimuli not associated with reinforcement).

Electra Complex

The same thing as the Oedipus Complex except for girls.

Psychology

The scientific study of behavior and mental processes, how humans relate with each other, how the brain works. The scientific study of the behavior and mental processes of human and nonhuman animals. The science of behavior and mental processes.

Social Psychology

The scientific study of how people think about, interact with, influence, and are influenced by the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of other people.

Positive Psychology

The scientific study of human virtues such as wisdom, altruism, justice, and courage. The scientific study of optimal human functioning; aims to discover and promote strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive.

Norms

The scores and corresponding percentile ranks of a large and representative sample of individuals from the population for which a test was designed

Pons

The section of the hindbrain located above the medulla on the brainstem in charge of sleep, arousal, dreams, and facial expressions.

Dependence

The situation that occurs when the drug becomes part of the body's functioning and produces withdrawal symptoms when the drug is discontinued

Light

The small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to the human eye.

Forebrain

The sophisticated part of the human brain that includes the cerebral cortex and the subcortical structures of the cerebrum including the limbic system. It is the well-developed this that allows for the complex thoughts and behaviors unique to humans.

Absolute threshold

The statistically determined minimum level of stimulation necessary to excite a perceptual system.

Attachment

The strong emotional tie that a person feels toward special other persons in his or her life

Cognitive Psychology

The study if the overlapping fields of perception, learning, memory, and thought, with a special emphasis on how people attend to, acquire, transform, store, and retrieve knowledge.

Experimental Pyschology

The study of behavior and thinking using the experimental method.

Psycholinguistics

The study of how language is acquired, perceived, understood, and produced.

Linguistics

The study of language, including speech sounds, meaning, and grammar.

Parapyschology

The study of paranormal phenomenon- ESP and Pyschokinesis. The study of extrasensory perceptions.

Psychophysics

The study of the connection between physical properties of stimuli and people's experience of them. A specialty of psychology heavily influenced by German scientist Gustav Fechner who studies how physical stimuli (sensations) translate to psychological experiences (perceptions).

Developmental Psychology

The study of the lifelong, often age-related, processes of change in the physical, cognitive, moral, emotional, and social domains of functioning; such changes are rooted in biological mechanisms that are genetically controlled, as well as in social interactions

Phonology

The study of the patterns and distributions of speech sounds in a language and the tacit rules for their pronunciation.

Thanatology

The study of the psychological and medical aspects of death and dying

Logic

The system of principles of reasoning used to reach valid conclusions or make inferences.

Bystander Effect

The tendency for individuals to be less likely to assist in an emergency situation when other people are present.

False Consensus Effect

The tendency for individuals to overestimate how many others share their opinions or behave the same way that they do.

Halo effect

The tendency for one characteristic of an individual to influence a tester's evaluation of other characteristics

Experimenter Bias

The tendency for researchers to unknowingly influence the results in an experiment. Also called researcher bias.

Interpersonal Attraction

The tendency of one person to evaluate another person (or a symbol or image of another person) in a positive way.

Groupthink

The tendency of people in a group to seek concurrence with one another when reaching a decision, rather than effectively evaluating options.

Self-Serving Bias

The tendency to attribute one's successes to dispositional factors and failures in situational factors. This is due to the desire to see oneself in a positive way and is more common in individualistic cultures. A readiness to perceive oneself favorably.

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency to attribute other people's behavior to dispositional (internal) causes rather than situational (external) causes.

Signal-Detection Theory

Theory predicting when we will detect stimuli from noise based on expectations, experience, motivation, and alertness. Ration of "hits" to "false alarms." The theory used by psychologists to evaluate how accurately individuals notice faint stimuli under a variety of conditions. Whether or not an individual notices a faint stimulus depends on the stimulus itself, the background stimulation, and characteristics of the individual including their level of attention, motivation, and experience.

Elaboration Likelihood Model

Theory suggesting that there are two routes to attitude change: the central route, which focuses on thoughtful consideration of an argument for change, and the peripheral route, which focuses on less careful, more emotional, and even superficial evaluation.

Signal Detection Theory

Theory that holds that an observer's perception depends not only on the intensity of a stimulus but also on the observer's motivation, the criteria he or she sets for determining that a signal is present, and on the background noise.

Observational Learning Theory

Theory that suggests that organisms learn new responses by observing the behavior of a model and then imitating it; aka. Social learning theory

Psychodynamically

Therapies that use approaches or techniques derived from Freud, but that reject or modify some elements of Freud's theory.

Associative Learning

Things are associated together. Learning associations or pairings of things in the environment. Classical conditioning. Operant conditioning.

Convergent Thinking

Things come together. All of our thoughts are coming together to generate a solution. The cognitive process that results in one correct answer to a particular problem; not associated with creativity typically but can be.

Similarity

Things that are similar we group together.

Functional Fixedness

Thinking of things only in terms of their intended use. The tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions; an impediment to problem solving. In problem solving, a tendency or mental set in which one considers only the common uses of objects rather than the possibilities for novel or unusual functions.

Cognitive Neuroscience

What is going on in the brain, what the brain is doing while thinking. The interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked with cognition (including perception, thinking, memory, and language).

Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic Theory

Three color. Three forms of cone receptors that fire in response to red, green, or blue. Respond to different wave-lengths. Lead to all color. Stimulation of all three of these colors- white. Color we see- reflect off. All other colors are absorbed. The theory of color vision that states that there are three types of color photoreceptors (cones) in the retina of each eye that are either most sensitive to red, free, or blue wavelengths. All of the colors of the visible spectrum can be perceived by combining these three reflected wavelengths.

Weber's Law

To perceive a difference, two stimuli must vary by a constant percentage/proportion (NOT amount). ex. Weightlifting- add 5 to 300 lbs; no difference. Add 5 to 20 lbs; more difference. The formula for determining the just noticeable difference that states that the minimum amount of change needed to create a just noticeable difference is a constant percentage of the original stimulus. Larger stimuli require greater increases in intensity for a difference to be notice. It is effective for predicting the JND for most senses over a wide range of intensities, but it does not work as well for extremes.

Latent Learning

Tolman- came up with this. Rats and maze. Hidden (latent) learning. Learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it. A type of learning that involves an organism mastering a new behavior without effort, awareness, or reinforcement, and this behavior is not demonstrated unless a need or reinforcement is presented. The behavior the organism has mastered remains hidden until there is a need to perform the learned response.

Barbiturates

Tranquilizers. Sleep aids. Antianxiety medications- valium (diazepam); xanax.

Aqueous Humor

Transparent, gelatinous fluid secreted by a structure between the cornea and lens. Maintains eye pressure and spherical shape of eye. Supplies protein (nutrition) to parts of the eye.

Carl Rogers

Treatment of Psychological Disorders and Personality humanistic psychologist -- person-centered therapy and unconditional positive regard self theory of personality

Fraternal Twins

Two eggs. No more alike than regular siblings. Share same fetal environment. Can be same sex or different sex. Dizygotic twins. Twins that share 50 percent of the same genes because they developed from two separate fertilized eggs and are no more genetically similar to each other than siblings.

Group

Two or more individuals who are working with a common purpose or have some common goals, characteristics, or interests.

Spatial

Type of intelligence. Artists; conceive how to draw. ex. Pablo Picasso, artist.

Interpersonal

Type of intelligence. Being able to connect with others. ex. Mahatma Gandhi, leader.

Logical-Mathematical

Type of intelligence. Good with numbers. ex. Albert Einstein, scientist.

Musical

Type of intelligence. Has particular talent with music. ex. Igor Stravinsky, composer.

Natural

Type of intelligence. How to live off the land, etc. ex. Charles Darwin, scientist.

Bodily-Kinesthetic

Type of intelligence. Pretty athletic; good with their bodies. ex. Martha Graham, dancer.

Linguistic

Type of intelligence. Somebody who's good with words; writers. ex. T.S. Elliot, poet.

Intrapersonal

Type of intelligence. Understanding yourself; being intraspective. ex. Sigmund Freud, psychiatrist.

Catatonic type of schizophrenia

Type of schizophrenia characterized either by displays of excited or violent motor activity or by stupor.

Unconditioned Response

UCR Unlearned response. Ex. to salivate (to food) Unlearned reaction caused by an unconditioned stimulus.

Unconditioned Stimulus

US or UCS Unlearned, naturally leads to a response. Ex. food. Factor in the environment that causes an unlearned reaction including physiological reflexes.

Intuition

Unconscious, automatic, fast. Generally accurate for well-rehearsed tasks of knowledge. A gut reaction because you have exposure or experience with something. Used with heuristics. An effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning.

Sigmund Freud

What was behind your behavior. Psychoanalytic approach.

Ekman & Friesen

Universal Emotions (based upon facial expressions); Study Basics: Constants across culture in the face and emotion

Wilhelm Wundt

University of Leipzig. 1879- he founded the first laboratory in psychology. Reaction-time experiments.

Unconditioned Response

Unlearned or involuntary response to an unconditioned stimulus

Variable-Interval Schedule

Unpredictable amount of time must elapse before reinforcement. Reinforcement is give for the first correct response after a changing period of time has occurred.

Unconsciousness

Unresponsiveness, as in a coma or drug-induced state. The state in which an individual has no sense of who they are and are not experiencing thought or responding to the environment. Individuals in a coma or under the influence of anesthesia.

Bystander Effect

Unwillingness to help exhibited by witnesses to an event, which increase when there are more observers.

Punishment

Using stimuli to weaken behavior. Positive punishment. Negative punishment.

Psychiatry

Usually has a M.D. (Medical Doctor) Psychiatrist. Can prescribe drugs. Works with the diagnosis and treatment of psychological illnesses.

Clinical Psychology

Usually has a Ph.D. Treats psychological disorders. Works with the diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses.

Intelligence Test

Usually used to measure aptitude. ex. IQ test. A method for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores.

Aggression

Verbal or physical behavior intended to cause pain. Calculated (premeditated) or reactive. Any action, verbal or physical, meant to hurt others.

Phineas Gage

Vermont railroad worker who survived a severe brain injury that changed his personality and behavior; his accident gave information on the brain and which parts are involved with emotional reasoning

Savant Syndrome

Very gifted in some forms of intelligence, but sufficiently lacking in others. A rare condition marked by an island of brilliance in relation to limited cognitive abilities. A savant is someone who is diagnosed as cognitively disabled or with a developmental disorder such as autism but that also displays an exceptional skill in a limited domain such as music, art, math, or calculating dates. A condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing.

Social-Cognitive Perspective

Views behavior as influenced by the interaction between people's traits (including their thinking) and their social context.

Levels of Processing

Visual encoding. Acoustic encoding. Semantic encoding.

Occipital Lobes

Visual info. An area of the cerebral cortex located at the back of the cortex responsible for visual processing.

Opponent-process theory

Visual theory, proposed by Herring, that color is coded by stimulation of three types of paired receptors; each pair of receptors is assumed to operate in an antagonist way so that stimulation by a given wavelength produces excitation (increased firing) in one receptor of the pair and also inhibits the other receptor.

Trichromatic theory

Visual theory, stated by Young and Helmholtz that all colors can be made by mixing the three basic colors: red, green, and blue; a.k.a the Young-Helmholtz theory.

Closure

We fill in gaps to complete a whole.

Opponent-Process Theory

We have pairs of color receptors that work together. While one is being stimulated, the other is being inhibited. Three sets of colors: red-green blue-yellow black-white Afterimage. The theory of color vision that states that there are three pairs of opponent neurons that work together. One-half of the opponent pair is inhibited by the other half of the pair that is activated.

standard deviation

a descriptive statistic that measures the variability of data from the mean of the sample

Convergence

When objects are closer to you, it requires greater eye strain to see objects closer to you. A binocular aid or cue that provides information about depth perception based on the amount of muscle strain associated with the inward turning of the eyeballs. A greater amount of muscle strain indicates the object is closer.

Relearning

When reviewing, you remember doing it but have to brush up. Doesn't take as long because you already learned it previously. ex. Study formula for 45 min, take 10 min 2 months later.

Connectedness

When things are linked, we group them together.

Mood Congruent Memory

When you are in one emotional state, it affects the types of memories you recall. The retrieval process is aided if the individual is in the same emotional state (mood) when they are trying to remember some thing as when they first encoded the information. Also called mood-dependent memory.

Social Loafing

When you're in a group you don't put in as much because you know someone else will pick up the slack. Reasons why- less accountability, view themselves as dispensable. The phenomenon of people contributing less when working with others in a group that when performing the same task alone due to the lessoning of personal accountability.

Blind Spot

Where optic nerve leaves eye- no receptor there. Where axons are leaving the eye. The gap within the field of vision that exists within each eye, which is caused by the optic disk or the place on the retina where the optic nerve leaves the eye.

William James

Why is thought/mind? Developed functionalism. Wrote Principles of Psychology- first formal textbook in psychology.

Endocrine System

Works with the nervous system. Hormones- messengers. Slower- hormones travel through the blood stream- linger in the blood stream. Responsible for growth, responsibility, metabolism, mood. The body system consisting of ductless glands, which secrete hormones into the bloodstream in order to control and coordinate bodily functions including growth, metabolism, reproduction, and stress responses.

Motivated Forgetting

You choose to not think about it and shove it away, but someone mentions it you can recall it. Self-serving personal histories- protect against embarrassment, etc., forgetting a bad grade.

Striving for Superiority

You feel inferior than others so you strive to be better or superior (also known as the Napoleon complex) ex. small person driving big car.

Retroactive Interference

Your learning of new information interferes with your ability to recall old information. Backward acting. A memory problem that happens when recently learned information prevents the recall of old memories. For this, new information gets in the way of old information and prevents the recall of old information. Also called retroactive inhibition.

gene

a DNA segment on a chromosome that controls transmission of traits

sympathetic nervous system

a branch of the autonomic nervous system and prepares the body for quick action in emergencies; "fight or flight"

parasympathetic nervous system

a branch of the autonomic nervous system that maintains normal body functions; it calms the body after sympathetic stimulation

frequency distribution

a chart or array of scores, usually arranged from highest to lowest, showing the number of instances for each score

theory

a collection of interrelated ideas and facts put forward to describe, explain, and predict behavior and mental processes

schema

a conceptual framework that organizes information and allows a person to make sense of the world

variable

a condition or characteristic of a situation or a person that is subject to change (it varies) within or across situations or individuals

operational definition

a definition of a variable in terms of the set of methods or procedures used to measure or study that variable

David McClelland

achievement motivation; developed scoring system for TAT's use in assessing achievement motivation

neural impulse

action potential; the firing of a nerve cell; the entire process of the electrical charge (message/impulse) traveling through inner on; can be as fast as 400 fps (with myelin) or 3 fps (no myelin)

epinephrine

adrenaline; activates a sympathetic nervous system by making the heart beat faster, stopping digestion, enlarging pupils, sending sugar into the bloodstream, preparing a blood clot faster

sensory neurons

afferent neurons; neurons that carry messages from sensory organs to the brain and spinal cords

refractory period

after firing when a neuron will not fire again no matter how strong the incoming message may be

population

all of the individuals in the group to which a study applies

Model:

an analogy or a perspective that uses a structure from one field to help scientists describe data in another field

action potential

an electrical current sent down the axon of a neuron and is initiated by the rapid reversal of the polarization of the cell membrane

Drive theory (aka, drive-reduction theory)

an explanation of behavior that assumes that an organism is motivated to act because of a need to attain, reestablish, or maintain some goal that helps with survival

participant

an individual who takes part in an experiment and whose behavior is observed as part of the data collection process

genotype

an individual's genetic make-up

Drive

an internal aroused condition that directs an organism to satisfy a physiological need

behavior

an observable action

pseudoscience

an unscientific system which pretends to discover psychological information that his means are unscientific or deliberately fraudulent

Agoraphobia

anxiety disorder characterized by marked fear and avoidance of being alone in a place from which escape might be difficult or embarrassing

Motivation

any internal condition, although usually an internal one, that initates, activates, or maintains an organism's goal directed behavior

confounding variable

anything that causes a difference between the IV and the DV other than the independent variable

forensic psychologist

applies psychological concepts to legal issues

industrial/organizational psychologist

applies psychological principles to the workplace to improve productivity and the quality of work life

normal distribution

approximate distribution of scores expected when a sample is taken from a large population, drawn as a frequency polygon that often takes the form of a bell-shaped curve, called the normal curve

hypothalamus

area of the brain that is part of the limbic system and regulates behaviors such as, eating, drinking, sexual behaviors, motivation; also body temperature

blind spot

area on retina with no receptor cells (where optic nerve leaves the eye)

Mary Cover-Jones

behaviorism/learning; pioneer in systematic desensitization, maintained that fear could be unlearned

Edward Thorndike

behaviorism; Law of Effect-relationship between behavior and consequence

Edward Thorndike

behaviorism; Law of Effect-relationship between behavior and consequence. Instrumental learning in animals, trial, error, accidental success, led to law of effect that successful behaviors are likelier to be repeated; (i.e. cats in puzzle boxes: eventually they accidentally press escape door lever and are freed, later the cat activates lever right away)

nature-nurture controversy

deals with the extent to which heredity and the environment each influence behavior

optic nerve

carries impulses from the eye to the brain

neurotransmitters

chemical messengers released by terminal buttons into the synapse

Aptitude Tests

ex. SAT, ACT, GRE, GMAT, LSAT, MCAT. What you are CAPABLE of. Tests designed to predict a person's future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn. An assessment device that is designed to predict the success of an individual by evaluating their level of skill on a variety of general abilities necessary for success in academic or career environments.

Achievement Tests

ex. Unit tests, pop quizzes, AP Psych exam. What you HAVE learned. Tests designed to asses what a person has learned. An assessment device created for the purpose of determining the level of knowledge an individual has regarding a particular subject or skill that has resulted from learning.

experimenter bias

expectation of the person conducting an experiment which may be affect the outcome

observer bias

expectations of an observer which may distort an authentic observation

just noticeable difference (JND)

experience of the difference threshold

William Wundt

father of psychology, first psychology research lab in Leipzig, Germany; research on workings of senses; structuralism; applied scientific method to psychology; used Introspection

menarche

first menstrual period

selective attention

focused awareness of only a limited amount of all you are capable of experiencing

educational psychologist

focuses on how effective teaching and learning take place

social psychologist

focuses on how the individual's behavior and mental processes are affected by interactions with other people

psychometrician

focuses on methods of acquiring and analyzing data

health psychologist

focuses on psychological factors in illness

opponent-process theory of emotion

following a strong emotion, an opposing emotion counters the first emotion, lessening the experience of that emotion; on repeated occasions, the opposing emotion becomes stronger

parathyroid

for glands embedded in the thyroid; secretes parathormone; controls announces level of calcium and phosphate (which influence levels of excitability)

William James

founder of functionalism; studied how humans use perception to function in our environment

schema

framework of basic ideas about people, objects and events based on past experience in long-term memory

Depressive disorders

general category of mood disorders in which people show extreme and persistent sadness, despair, and loss of interest in life's usual activities.

descriptive statistics

general set of procedures used to summarize, condense, and describe sets of data

endocrine system

glands that secrete hormones into the bloodstream, which regulate body and behavioral processes

frequency polygon

graph of a frequency distribution that shows the number of instances of obtained scores, usually with the data points connect by straight lines

fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)

group of abnormalities that occur in the babies of mothers who drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy

moral development

growth in the ability to tell right from wrong, control impulses, and act ethically

Hans Eyesenck

he classified people along the introversion-extraversion scale and the stable-unstable scale

sports psychologist

helps athletes improve their focus, increase motivation, and deal with anxiety and fear of failure

short-term storage

holds information for processing; fragile; also called short term memory or working memory

insulin

hormone backpacks in the regulation of blood sugar by acting in the utilization of carbohydrates; released by pancreas; too much-hypoglycemia, too little-diabetes

parathormone

hormone that controls imbalances levels of calcium and phosphate in the blood and tissue fluid; influences levels of excitability; secreted by parathyroids

Carl Rogers

humanistic psychology; Contributions: founded client-centered therapy, theory that emphasizes the unique quality of humans especially their freedom and potential for personal growth, unconditional positive regard,

Abraham Maslow

humanistic psychology; hierarchy of needs-needs at a lower level dominate an individual's motivation as long as they are unsatisfied; self-actualization, transcendence

medulla (also medulla oblongata)

part of the brain which controls living functions such as breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature

Stanley Milgram

obedience to authority; had participants administer what they believed were dangerous electrical shocks to other participants; wanted to see if Germans were an aberration or if all people were capable of committing evil actions

cohort effect

observed group differences based on the era when people were born and grew up, exposing them to particular experiences that may affect the results of cross-sectional studies

naturalistic observation

observing and recording behavior naturally without trying to manipulate and control the situation

motivated forgetting

occurs when frightening, traumatic events are forgotten because people want to forget them

transfer appropriate processing

occurs when initial processing of information is similar to the process of retrieval; the better the match, the better the recall

Von Restorff effect

occurs when recall is better for a distinctive item, even if it occurs in the middle of a list

psychoanalyst

one who uses psychoanalysis to treat psychological problems

token economy

operant training system that uses secondary reinforcers (tokens) to increase appropriate behavior; learners can exchange tokens for desired rewards

pancreas

organ lying between the stomach and small intestine; regulates blood sugar by secreting to regulating hormones insulin and glucagon

Ernst Weber

perception; identified just-noticeable-difference (JND) that eventually becomes Weber's law

sensory memory

performs initial encoding; provides brief storage; also called sensory register

prenatal development

period of development from conception until birth

Henry Murray

personality assessment; created the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) with Christina Morgan, stated that the need to achieve varied in strength in different people and influenced their tendency to approach and evaluate their own performances

Hans Eysenck

personality theorist; asserted that personality is largely determined by genes, used introversion/extroversion

William Sheldon

personality; theory that linked personality to physique on the grounds that both are governed by genetic endowment: endomorphic (large), mesomorphic (average), and ectomorphic (skinny)

sociocultural psychology

perspective concerned with how cultural differences affect behavior

psychoanalytic

perspective developed by freud, which assumes that psychological problems are the result of anxiety resulting from unresolved conflicts and forces of which a person might be unaware

behaviorism

perspective that defines psychology as the study of behavior that is directly observable or through assessment instruments

humanistic psychology

perspective that emphasizes the uniqueness of the individual and the idea that humans have free will

cognitive psychology

perspective that focuses on the mental processes involved in perception, learning, memory, and thinking

evolutionary psychology

perspective that seeks to explain and predict behaviors by analyzing how the human brain developed over time, how it functions, and how input from the environment affects human behaviors

rods

photoreceptors that detect black, white, and gray, and movement; used for vision in dim light

cones

photoreceptors that detect color and fine detail in bright-light conditions; not present in peripheral vision

Child abuse

physical, emotional, or sexual mistreatment of a child.

Aaron Beck

pioneer in Cognitive Therapy. Suggested negative beliefs cause depression.

Albert Ellis

pioneer in Rational-Emotive Therapy (RET), focuses on altering client's patterns of irrational thinking to reduce maladaptive behavior and emotions

Alfred Binet

pioneer in intelligence (IQ) tests, designed a test to identify slow learners in need of help-not applicable in the U.S. because it was too culture-bound (French)

Albert Bandura

pioneer in observational learning (AKA social learning), stated that people profit from the mistakes/successes of others; Studies: Bobo Dolls-adults demonstrated 'appropriate' play with dolls, children mimicked play

BF Skinner

pioneer of operant conditioning who believed that everything we do is determined by our past history of rewards and punishments. Famous for use of his operant conditioning apparatus to study schedules of reinforcement on pigeons and rats. Skinner Box: Punishers, Reinforcers, and Neural Operants

brain

portion of the CNS above the spinal cord; consists of hindbrain, midbrain, and forebrain

spinal cord

portion of the CNS that carries messages to the PNS; connects brain to the rest of the body

shaping

positively reinforcing closer and closer approximation of a desired behavior to teach a new behavior

response bias

preconceived notions of a person answering [a survey] which may alter the experiments purpose

set point

preset natural body weight, determined by the number of fat cells in the body

proactive interference

previously learned information interferes with the ability to learn new information

occipital lobes

primary area for processing visual information

motor projection areas

primary motor cortex; areas of the three boat cortex for response messages from the brain to the muscles and glands

inferential statistics

procedures used to draw conclusions about larger populations from small samples of data