Ap Psych Unit 8

Collective unconscious

Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species' history and universal experiences.

Allport

Psychologist who met with Freud. Through this experience Allport was lead to do what Freud did not do- to describe personality in terms of fundamental traits. Came to define personality in terms of identifiable behavior patterns. He was concerned with DESCRIBING individual traits, not explain them.

Freud

Searched for a cause for neurological disorders that made no neurological sense. He "discovered" the unconscious through doing so. Believed that he could glimpse the unconscious through not only free associations, beliefs, habits, and symptoms, but also slips of the tongue and pen. He viewed jokes as expressions repressed sexual and aggressive tendencies. Used dream analysis as a road to the unconscious. The remembered part of dreams (manifest content) he believed to be a censored expression of ones unconscious wishes (latent content). Proposed three interacting systems: id, ego, superego. Today his ideas of Oedipal conflict and castration anxiety are disputed even by later psychodynamic theorist and therapists.

How do humanistic psychologists asses a person's sense of self?

Some rejected any standardized assessments and relied on interviews and conservations. Rogers sometimes used questionnaires in which people described their ideal and actual selves, which he later used to judge progress during therapy.

Environmental influences on intelligence

Test scores of identical twins raised apart are slightly less similar, though still highly correlated, than the scores of identical twins raised together. Studies of children raised in extremely impoverished environments with minimal social interaction indicate that life experiences can significantly influence intelligence test performance. No evidence supports the idea that normal, healthy, children can be molded into geniuses by growing up in an exceptionally enriched environment. Environment can't create geniuses.

Emotional intelligence

The ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions. Four components: 1. Perceiving emotions 2. Understanding emotions 3. Managing emotions 4. Using emotions to enable adaptive or creating thinking Less a matter of conscious effort thank of one's unconscious processing of emotional information.

Predictive validity

The degree to which a particular assessment predicts success on some future measure. Ex. Do high school grades and SAT scores predict success in college? IN THE FUTURE.

Construct validity

The degree to which an assessment accurately measures a given hypothetical or theoretical idea. Construct ideas are difficult to define operationally. Ex. Personality traits.

Content validity

The degree to which an assessment accurately measures what it claims to test. The individuals taking the tests are either experts or targets of the target population. Does it have questions that are designed to assess what it wants to measure?

Alternate form reliability

The degree to which different versions of an instrument result in the same or a similar result. Involves comparing the results of 2 different but equivalent versions of a test given to the same subjects and if a strong positive correlation is found between the scores on the 2 versions it is alternate forms reliability.

Personality inventory

A questionnaire on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors; used to assess selected personality traits. Scored objectively- doesn't guarantee validity.

Eysenck

Believed that we can reduce many of our normal individual variations to two or three dimensions, including extraversion- introversion and emotional stability- instability. Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. They believed that these factors are genetically influenced, and research supports this.

Biopsychosocial approach to the study of personality

Biology's influences: Genetics (temperament), brain activity, ANS activity Psychology's influences: Learned responses, unconscious thought processes, expectations, interpretations Social- Cultural influences: Childhood experiences, influences of the situation, cultural expectations, social support. This all influence personalty.

Narcissism

Excessive self love and self absorption. Self dictated putdowns can be subtly strategic, prepare us for possible failure and help us learn from our mistakes.

Person/client Centered Perspective Conditions

Held that a growth promoting climate required three conditions: 1) Genuineness- When people are genuine they are open with their own feeling, not fake, and self trusting. 2) Acceptance- When people are accepting they offer unconditional positive regard. You aren't afraid to be yourself because you feel accepted. You therefore accept yourself other people and put behind your differences. 3) Empathy- When people are empathetic, they share and mirror other's feelings and reflect their meanings These allow people to grow healthily and into caring people.

Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon (Mostly Binet)

Hired by the French government to create intelligence tests. Their goal was to measure each child's mental age. They theorized that mental aptitude is a general capacity that shows up in various ways. They began by assuming that all children follow the same course of intellectual development but that some develop more rapidly. They made no assumptions concerning why a particular child was slow, average, or smart. Binet leaned toward an environmental explanation. Intelligence tests d no measure inborn intelligence, it had a single practical purpose: to identify french schoolchildren needing special attention.

Self

In contemporary psychology, assumed to be the center of personality, the organizer of our thoughts, feelings and actions. Your possible self includes the visions of the self you dream of becoming. You work towards becoming that self, it motivates you by laying out specific goals and calling forth the energy to work toward them.

Behavioral approach

In personality theory, this perspective focuses on the effects of learning on our personality development. We are conditioned to repeat certain behaviors, and we learn by observing and imitating others. Ex. A child with a very controlling parent may learn to follow orders rather than think independently, and they may exhibit a more timid personality. Behaviorists focus solely on how our environment CONTROLS us.

Free association

In psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious in which a person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing. Freud did this to discover one's unconscious

Repression

In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories. Enables other defense mechanisms (7).

Defense mechanisms

In psychoanalytic theory, the ego's protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality. Sometimes the ego fears losing control of the inner war between the id and superego, and the result is anxiety. For Freud, all defense mechanisms function indirectly and unconsciously. Ex. Repression

Personal control

Whether we learn to see ourselves as controlling, or as controlled by our environment. Social cognitive psychologists emphasize our sense of this. You can measure this with optimism vs. pessimism. Your sense of personal control is your ATTRIBUTIONAL STYLE- your expectations often shape your results. EXTERNAL LOCUS OF CONTROL- When you think your life is controlled by outside force. INTERNAL LOCUS OF CONTROL- When you think that you control your own life.

William Stern

Developed the intelligence quotient (IQ) from the Stanford Binet.

Edward Thorndike

Social intelligence.

Aging and Intelligence research

1. Cross sectional evidence for intellectual decline 2. Longitudinal evidence for intellectual stability 3. It all depends

What questions have Big Fiver research explored?

1. How stable are these traits? Quite stable in adulthood, with some tendencies waning and others rising. 2. How heritable are they? Heritability varies with the diversity of people studies, but it generally runs 50 percent or a little more for each dimension, and genetic influences are similar in different nations. 3. Do the Big Five traits predict our actual behaviors? Yes. Ex. Shy introverts are more likely than extroverts to prefer communicating by email than face to face.

Trait

A characteristic pattern of behavior or a disposition to feel and act, as assessed by self report inventories and peer reports. People's characteristic behaviors and CONSCIOUS motives. Ex. The curiosity that motivated Allport to see Freud. Trait theorists describe our differences rather than trying to explain them.

Savant syndrome

A condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing. 4/5 people with this are men and many have autism.

Intellectual disability

A condition of limited mental ability, indicated by an intelligence score of 70 or below and difficulty in adapting to the demands of life. Limitation in adaptive behavior is expressed in conceptual skills, social skills, and practical skills.

Down syndrome

A condition of mild to severe intellectual disability and associated physical disorders caused by an extra chromosome 21.

General intelligence (g)

A general intelligence factor that, according to Spearman and others, underlies specific mental abilities and therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test. Controversial. Evidence is that people who scored really high in one section also scored high in others. Recent studies show that there is a general intelligence (g) factor. Predicts performance on tasks and jobs.

Cohort

A group of people from a given time period. Scientists used cohorts to study intelligence LONGITUDINALLY. They retested the same cohort over a period of years. This type of study suggests more stability.

Split half reliability

A measure of consistency, which compares the results of the half of a test with the results of the other half of the same test to be sure that the assessment divide has internal consistency. Ex. Score odds and evens separately and have around the same score you would have split half reliability.

Mental age

A measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet. The chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance. Thus, a child who does as well as the average 8 year old is said to have a mental age of 8

Intelligence test

A method for assigning an individual's mental aptitudes an comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores.

Projective tests

A personality test that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner feelings and conflicts.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

A projective test in which people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about what they see when shown ambiguous pictures.

Self- serving bias

A readiness to perceive oneself favorably. People accept more responsibility for good deeds than for bad, and for success than for failures. Most people see themselves as better than average

Id

A reservoir of unconscious psychic energy that, according to Freud, tries to satisfy basic drives to survive, reproduce (sexual) and aggress. The id operates on the PLEASURE PRINCIPLE: It seeks immediate gratification. Ex. A newborn infant crying for satisfaction, careless about the outside world.

Stereotype threat

A self confirming concept that one will be evaluated based on negative stereotype. Stereotypes threaten our potential if we internalize them. When black students were reminded of their race before taking an aptitude test, they performed worse. Ex. Women do better when told "women do better on this test"

Factor analysis

A statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related traits (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie a person;s total score.

Factor analysis

A statistical procedure used to identify clusters of behavior and tendencies that occur together. (Used to narrow down number of basic traits)

Empirically derived test

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

Achievement test

A test designed to assess what a person has learned. Ex. School test.

Aptitude test

A test designed to predict a persons future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn. Ex. College entrance.

Terror management theory

A theory of death related anxiety. Explores people emotional and behavioral responses to reminders of their impending death. The idea of death causes us to act differently, be more loving , seek religion, enhance self esteem, try to find life meaning, which ultimately makes us less defensive.

neo- Freudians

Accepted Freud's basic ideas about id, ego, superego, importance of unconscious, shaping of personality in childhood, and dynamics of anxiety and defense mechanisms. BUT, they broke off from Freud by placing emphasis on the conscious minds role in interpreting experience and in coping with the environment, and by doubting that sex and aggression are all consuming motivations. Adler and Horney

Oedipus complex

According the Freud, a boy's sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and hated for the rival father. Girls experience a parallel electra complex. Given these feelings, Freud thought boys also experience a feeling of guilt and lurking fear of punishment from their father (perhaps by castration).

Unconditional positive regard

According the Rogers, an attitude of total acceptance toward another person.

Unconscious

According to Freud, a receiver of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings and memories. Contemporary psychologists believe that the unconscious processes information that we are unaware of. Some of the thoughts are temporarily stored in an preconscious area from which we can retrieve them into conscious awareness. Freud believed that we repress or forcibly block our unacceptable passions and thoughts (unconscious).

Robert Sternberg

Agrees that there is more to success than traditional intelligence and also agrees with Gardiner;s idea of multiple intelligences. Proposes a TRIARCHIC THEORY of 3 (not eight) intelligences: 1. Analytical intelligence- School smarts, assessed by intelligence tests. 2. Creative intelligence- Demonstrated in reacting adaptively to novel situations and generating novel ideas. Inventions come from this. 3. Practical intelligence- Required for everyday tasks which may be ill defined, with multiple solutions. Ex. how to move a large object up a windings staircase.

Self concept

All our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, "Who am I?" If our self concept is positive, we tend to act and perceive the world positively. If it is negative, we fall short of our IDEAL SELF in our eyes and feel unhappy and dissatisfied. This is a central feature of personality according to Maslow and Rogers.

Personality

An individual's characteristic pattern of thinking feeling and acting.

Are intelligence tests inappropriately biased?

Aptitude tests are necessarily biased in the sense that they are sensitive to performance differences caused by cultural cultural experiences. Inappropriately biased means that a test predicts less accurately for one group than for another. In this sense, most experts consider the major aptitude tests unbiased.

Stability of intelligence over life span

Casual observation and intelligence tests before age 3 only modestly predict children's future aptitude. By age 4, children performance on intelligence tests begins to predict their scores when they're older. The consistency of scores over time increases with the age of the child. More intelligent children and adults live healthier and longer. Intelligence is stable.

Identification

Children eventually cope with these threatening feelings (oedipus complex) by repressing them and trying to identify with the rival parent (if you can't beat them, join them). Through this identification process, children's superegos gain strength as they incorporate many of their parents' values. Freud believed that identification with same sex parents provides what psychologists now call our gender identity- our sense of being male or female.

Standardization

Defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group. Your score is compared with the sample's scores to determine your position relative to others. Scores are typically distributed in a bell shape.

Social intelligence

Distinct from academic intelligence, the know how involved in successfully comprehend social situations.

Big Five

Expands Eysenck's personality belief. Expanded set of factors that does a better job. Where we fall on these 5 dimensions (below) reveals much of what there is to say about our personality. 1. Conscientiousness (organization, careful, discipline) 2. Agreeableness (soft hearted, trusting, helpful) 3. Neuroticism (anxious, insecure, self pitying) 4. Openness (imaginative, prefers variety, independent) 5. Extraversion (sociable, fun0loving, affectionate) CANOE.

James Flynn

First calculated the magnitude of the FLYNN EFFECT- average intelligence test scores have been rising over time. The cause of this is unknown.

Mayer, Salovey, Caruso

Found emotional intelligence

Lewis Terman

Found that the French mental age test didn't work with California schoolchildren. He adapted Binet's original items, added more, and extended the test to range from teens to adults also. He named it the Stanford Binet. For him, intelligence tests reveal the intelligence with which someone is born. Envisioned that the use of intelligence tests would ultimately result in measuring human traits and using the results to encourage only the fir to reproduce.

Freud on personality structure (three interacting systems)

Freud believed that human personality arises from a conflict between impulse and restraint. Personality comes from the effort to resolve this conflict, to express these impulses in ways that bring satisfaction without also bringing guilt or punishment. We have the id, ego, superego.

Freud on Personality development (psychosexual stages)

Freud believed that personality forms during life first few years. He concluded that children pass through a series of psychosexual stages, during which the ids pleasure seeking energies focus on distinct pleasure sensitive areas in the body called EROGENOUS ZONES. Each stage offers its own challenges, which Freud saw as conflicting tendencies.

Fixate

Freud presumed that our early childhood relations, especially with our parents and caregivers, influence our developing identity, personality, and frailties. In Freud's view, fixation is a lingering focus of pleasure seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, in which conflicts were unresolved. Ex. A person that had either been orally overindulged or deprived might fixate at the oral stage and will consequently continue to seek oral gratification (by smoking or over eating).

Psychoanalysis

Freud's theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts; treats psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious tensions.

Charles Spearman

General intelligence, factor analysis, g factor.

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. People (western) give relatively greater priority to personal goals- they strive for personal control and individual achievement. Individualists share the human need to belong. They join groups, and easily move in and out of social groups. Ex. American culture.

Collectivist

Giving priority to the goals of one's group (often extended family or work group) and defining ones' personality accordingly. You will experience a grouter loss of identity. You are defined by your group, and this assures you security and gives you a network of caring people. More focus on tradition and shared practices. Collectivists often defer to others' wishes and display a polite, self effacing humility. Elders receive respect, family is chosen over other priorities. Ex. South Korea

Rogers

Humanistic psychologist who believed that people are basically good and are endowed with self actualizing tendencies. Unless thwarted by an environment that inhibits growth, each of us is primed for growth and fulfillment. His PERSON CENTERED PERSPECTIVE (aka client centered perspective) held that a growth promoting climate required three conditions.

How have humanistic theories influenced psychology? What criticisms have they faced?

Humanistic psychology helped renew interest in the concept of self. Critics have said that humanistic psychology's concepts were vague and subjective and its assumptions naively optimistic ROGER.

Maslow

Humanistic theorist who proposed that we are motivated by a HIERARCHY OF NEEDS. If our psychological needs are met, we become concerned with safety, if we achieve a sense of security, we then seek to love, to be loved and to love ourselves; with our love needs satisfied, we seek self esteem. Having achieved self esteem, we ultimately seek self actualization and self transcendence. Studied healthy, creative people rather than troubled clinical cases to develop his ideas. Most had been moved by spiritual or personal PEAK EXPERIENCES that surpassed ordinary consciousness.

David Wechsler

Made the WAIS. After finding that older adults score lower on intelligence tests, he concluded that the decline of mental ability with age is part of the general aging process of the organism as a whole.

Male vs. Female Mental Ability

Males and females tend to have the same average intelligence test scores. They differ in some specific abilities though. Girls are better spellers, more verbally fluent, better at locating objects, better at detecting emotions, and more sensitive to touch, taste, and color. Boys outperform girls at spacial ability and related mathematics, though girls outperform boys in math computation. Boys also outnumber girls at the low and high extremes of mental abilities. Psychologists debate evolutionary, brain based, and cultural explanations of such gender differences.

Intelligence

Mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations. Its a concept that is operationally defined as whatever intelligence tests measure (school smarts). Assigned to qualities that enable success.

Psychodynamic theories

Modern day approaches that view personality with a focus on the unconscious and the importance of childhood experiences. Views our behavior as emerging from the interaction between the conscious and unconscious mind. These theories defended from Freud's psychoanalytic theory, but differs (less about sexuality and aggression).

Carl Jung

Neo- Freudian. Freud's disciple turned dissenter (doubter) placed less emphasis on social factors and agreed with Freud that the unconscious exerts a powerful influence. But to him, the unconscious contains more than our repressed thought and feelings. He believed we have a collective unconscious.

Adler and Horney

Neo- Freudians who agreed with Freud that childhood is important, but believed that childhood's social, not sexual, tensions are crucial for personality formation. Adler- Proposed the idea of INFERIORITY COMPLEX. Believed that much of our behavior is driven by efforts to conquer childhood inferiority feelings that trigger our strivings for superiority and power. Horney- Said that childhood anxiety triggers our desire for love and security. Also countered Freud's assumptions about women by attempting to balance the bias she detected in his masculine view of psychology.

Self esteem

One's feelings of high or low self- worth. Having a high self esteem is very important in one's everyday life. DEFENSIVE SELF ESTEEM- failures and criticism feel threatening. Feed anger and disorder. SECURE SELF ESTEEM- Less contingent on external evaluations. We feel accepted for who we are, not for what we have. We achieve this by becoming involved with relationships and purposes larger than self.

Self- efficacy

One's sense of competence and effectiveness. Ex. Children's academic self- efficacy predicts school achievement, but general self image doesn't

Self- image

One's view of themselves. A healthy self image pays dividends. Accept yourself and you will find it easier to accept others.

LL Thrustone

Opposed Spearman's g factor idea. Gave 56 different test to people and men thematically identified 7 clusters of primary mental abilities (word fluency, verbal ability, spacial ability, perceptual speed, numerical ability, inductive reasoning, memory). He did not rank people on a single scale of general aptitude. There is still evidence of g factor people people who scored high in one section scored higher in all others.

Psychosexual stages

Oral (0- 18 mo.)- Pleasure centers on the mouth (sucking, biting, chewing). Anal (18- 36 mo.)- Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder elimination; coping with demands for control. Phallic (3- 6 yr.)- Pleasure zone in the genitals coping with incestuous sexual feelings. Boys seek genital stimulation. Oedipus complex. Latency (6- puberty)- A phase of dormant sexual feelings. You don't feel sexual. Genital (Puberty on)- Maturation of sexual interests.

Albert Bandura

Proposed the social cognitive perspective. Views the person- environment interaction as reciprocal determinism.

Fluid intelligence

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

Crystallized intelligence

Our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age.

Spotlight effect

Overestimating others' noticing and evaluating our appearance, performance, and blunders (as if we presume that a spotlight shines on us). Fewer people notice than we presume and are also less aware than we suppose of the variability of our appearance and performance.

Grit

Passion and perseverance in the pursuit of long term goals. Recipe for success.

Blindness to ones own incompetence

People are often overconfident when most incompetent and therefore blind to their incompetence. Thinking that we are good at something drives how we perceives ourselves doing.

To what extent is intelligence related to neural processing speed?

People who score high on intelligence tests tend also to have agile brains and score high in speed of perception and speed of neural processing.

Martin Seligman

Proposed a more positive psychology after studying personal control.

Racial and ethnic group mental ability

Racial and ethnic groups differ in their average intelligence test scores. The evidence suggests that environmental differences are largely, perhaps entirely, responsible for these group differences

Intelligence and brain size

Recent studies that directly measure brain volume using MRI scans do reveal correlations of about +3.3 between brain size and intelligence score. Bigger better. Brain imaging studies revealed associations between intelligence and brain size and activity in specific areas, especially within the frontal and parietal lobes. Ample grey matter and white matter enable efficient communication between brain circuits.

Cross sectional studies

Researchers at one point in time test and compare people of various ages. In such studies, researchers have consistently found that older adults give fewer correct answers on intelligence tests than do younger adults.

Modern research's understanding of unconscious

Researchers see the unconscious as a separate and parallel track of information processing that occurs outside our awareness. Such as schemas that control our perceptions; priming; implicit memories; learned skills; instantly activated emotions; self concepts and stereotypes that filter information about ourselves and others; and mechanisms that defend our self esteem and defer anxiety such as the fall consensus effect, projection, and terror management. We do not have full access to our mind. The current view of the unconscious is NOT that of a hidden storehouse filled with repressed feelings and thoughts.

Lewis Terman

Studied 1500 schoolchildren with IQ scores above 135. Contrary to the popular notion that intellectually gifted children and maladjusted, he found that they were healthy, well adjusted, and successful academically. All of them had attained high levels of education. Children with extraordinary academic gifts are sometimes more isolated introverted and in their own worlds.

Criterion validity

The degree to which scores on a particular assessment are positively correlated with scores on another preexisting and well-established assessment tool (the criterion) for a particular skill, trait, or ability. Do the scores on the test being considered correlate with another already established test? Usually comparing and old test to a new test, but it could be two different tests that measure the same thing. 2 Different measures IN THE MOMENT Ex. Driving test and written tests are both exams for the same skill. If there is a positive correlation between the written and driving test then you would say that it has criterion validity.

Inter rater reliability

The degree to which the same assessment given by multiple individuals achieves the same results. Involved comparing scores given by 2 different examiners of the same percipients. If both examiners give the same score, the testing instrument has inter rater reliability. Ex. Essay section of SAT- if you get the same grade from 2 different graders, then you have inter rater reliability. Its about people.

Test retest reliability

The degree to which the same outcome is achieved on at least two occasions. Comparing the results when the same individuals take the same test twice. One major problem is the practice effects. Ex. Taking the SAT and getting the same score would have test retest reliability. However, because of practice effects, there can be problems and you can do better.

Face validity

The degrees to which the material on an assessment appears valid on the surface ("face value"). Its like a superficial vision of content.

Validity

The extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to do. There is content validity and predictive validity. The accuracy of a test or assessment. Content, construct, face, predictive, criterion ACCURACY

Reliability

The extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternate forms of the test, or on retesting. Alternate form, inner rater, split half, test retest. CONSISTENCY

Self fulfilling prophecy

The idea that you become what you are labeled as.

Reciprocal determinism

The interacting influences of behavior, internal cognition, and environment. The social cognitive perspective proposes that our personalities are shaped by the interaction of our personal traits (including our thoughts and feelings), our environment, and our behaviors Ex. Children's TV viewing habits (past behavior) influence their view preferences (internal factor), which influence how television (environmental factor) affects their current behavior.

Ego

The largely conscious, "executive" part of personality that according to Freud mediates among the demands of the id, superego, and reality. The ego operates on the REALITY PRINCIPLE: Satisfying the id's desires in realistic ways that will bring long term pleasure. The ego contains our partly conscious perceptions, thoughts, judgements, and memories. As the ego develops, a young child responds to the real world. Because the superego's demands often oppose the ids, the ego struggles to reconcile the two.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

The list widely researched and clinically used of all personality tests. Originally developed to identify emotional disorders, this tests is now used for many other screening purposes. Hathaway

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)

The most widely used intelligence tests contains verbal and performance subsets. There are different versions for different age groups. It yields not only an overall intelligence score like the Stanford Binet, but also separates scores for verbal comprehension, perceptual organization, working memory, and processing speed.

Rorschach inkblot test

The most widely used projective test, a set of 10 inkblots, designed by Rorschach. Seeks to identify peoples inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots. Some people argue that it has low validity and reliability.

Self actualization

The motivation to fulfill ones 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.

Self transcendence

The motivation to make ones life meaningful, purposeful, and communal beyond ones self. Maslow

Superego

The part of the personality that, according the Freud, represents internalized ideals and provides standards for judgement (the conscience) and for future aspirations. Freud theorized that this develops at age 4 or 5. Our superego is the voice of our moral compass (conscience) that forces the ego to be ideal. Focuses on how we ought to behave. It strives to perfection, judging actions and producing positive feelings of pride or negative feelings of guilt.

Heritability

The proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes. This may vary depending on the rage of populations and environments studied. Ranges from 50 to 80 for intelligence, meaning that a lot of intelligence is genetic. Intelligence is polygenetic, meaning that it involves a lot of genes

Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

The ratio of mental age to chronological age multiplied by 100. The average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100, which score assigned to relative performance above or below average. The original formula worked well for kids but not adults, so people don't use this manner anymore. Instead they represent the test takers performance relative to the average performance of others the same age.

Positive Psychology

The scientific study of optimal human functioning, aims to discover and promote strengths and virtues (and not only the weakness and damage) that enable individuals and communities to thrive. Positive psychology is about not only building a pleasant life, but also a good life that engages one's skills, and a meaningful life that points beyond oneself. The study of: 1) Positive emotions: Taken together, satisfaction with the past, happiness with the present, and optimism with the future make positive emotions. 2) Positive character traits: Focuses on exploring and enhancing creativity, courage, compassion, integrity, self control, leadership, wisdom, and spirituality. 3) Enabling institutions: Positive groups, communities, and cultures seeks to foster a positive social ecology. Health families, neighborhoods, schools.. It explores positive well being, positive health, positive health, positive neuroscience, positive education.

Normal curve

The symmetrical, bell shaped curve that describes the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes. Most scores fall near the average, and fewer and fernier scores lie near the extremes. On an intelligence test, we call the midpoint, the average score, 100.

False consensus effect

The tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and our behaviors. Baumeister found that people tend to see their attitudes in others.

Longitudinal study

They retested the same cohort over a period of years. This type of study suggests more stability. Found that until late in life, intelligence remained stable. On some tests, it even increase. With this, the myth that intelligence declines with age was put to rest. Problem: Those who survive to the end of a longitudinal study are probably those who are the healthiest and lest likely to have a decline in intelligence. This needs to be compensated for.

How does the correlation between age and intelligence "all depend"?

Those who survive to the end of a longitudinal study are probably those who are the healthiest and lest likely to have a decline in intelligence. This needs to be compensated for. The answers to our age and intelligence questions depend on what we assess and how we asses it. (Crystallized or fluid)

Principles of test construction

To be widely accepted, psychological tests must meet three criteria: They must be (1) standardized, (2) reliable, and (3) valid. The Stanford Binet and Wechsler tests meet these.

Contemporary psychologist's view of Freud's psychoanalysis

Today's psychologists give Freud credit for drawing attention to the vast unconscious, to the importance of our sexuality, and to the conflict between biological impulses and social restraints. But, his concept of repression, and his view of the unconscious as a collection of repressed and unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories, have not survived scientific scrutiny. Freud offered after the fact explantations which are hard to test scientifically (not predictive). Research does not support many of Freud's specific ideas, such as the view that development is fixed in childhood (we now know its lifelong).

7 Defense Mechanisms

Unconscious processes to avoid anxiety arousing thoughts or feelings. 1. Regression- Retreating to a more infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated. Ex. A little boy sucks his thumb when anxious on the first day of school. 2. Reaction formation- Switching unacceptable impulses into their opposites. Ex. Repressing angry feelings, a person displays exaggerated friendliness. 3. Projection- Disguising ones own threatening impulses by attributing them to other people. Ex. The thief thinks everyone else is a thief. 4. Rationalization- Offering self- justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening unconscious reasons for one's actions. Ex. A habitual drinking says she drinks just with her friends to be social. 5. Displacement- Shifting sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person. Ex. If you're mad at someone, you punch a wall instead of them. 6. Sublimation- Transferring of unacceptable impulses into socially valued motives. Ex. A man with aggressive urges becomes a football player. 7. Denial- Refusing the believe or even perceive painful realities. Ex. A partner denies evidence of his loved one's affair.

Humanistic theorists

View personality with a focus on the potential for healthy personal growth. They study people through their own self reported experiences and feelings. Maslow and Rogers offered a third force perspective that emphasized human potential.

Social Cognitive Perspective

Views behavior as influenced by the interaction between people's traits (including their thinking) and their social context (their situation). Bandura Social cognitive theorists also emphasize the importance of mental processes: What we think about our situations affects our behavior (cognitive). Social cognitive theorists focus on how we and our environment INTERACT. Ex. How do we interpret and respond to external events?

Gardener

Views intelligence as multiple abilities that come in different packages. Savant syndrome. People with brain damage may destroy one ability but leave others intact. He argues that we do not have an intelligence, but rather multiple intelligences. Apposes Spearman.

Myers and Briggs

Wanted to DESCRIBE important personality differences. Attempted to sort people according to Jungs personality types, based on their responses to questions. The Myers Birggs Type Indicator, is still used for counseling, leadership truanting, and work team development.