Exam 2 David Myers, Psychology in Modules 11th

Lakukan tugas rumah & ujian kamu dengan baik sekarang menggunakan Quizwiz!

An in-depth observation of a small sample or single individual is an example of which research method?

A case study

Correlation

A measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and thus of how well either factor predicts the other. (p. 32)

Twenty-five-year-old Jonah is wondering whether his rate of sperm cell production is within normal range. For a man his age, his doctor will likely tell him that the average rate of production is:

1,000 per second

What does a good theory do?

1. It organizes observed facts. 2. It implies hypotheses that offer testable predictions and, sometimes, practical applications. 3. It often stimulates further research.

Hypothesis

A testable prediction, often implied by a theory. (p. 26)

Toddlerhood

Autonomy vs. shame and doubt

Michelle has a high level of oxytocin in her body. This helps her ______ with her baby.

Bond

It is easier to remember information that is organized into meaningful units than information that is not. This is known as:

Chunking

Which component of the Type A personality has been linked most closely to coronary heart disease?

Feeling angry and negative much of the time.

Would the heritability of aggressiveness be greater in Belyaev and Trut's foxes, or in a wild population of foxes?

Heritability of aggressiveness would be greater in the wild population, with its greater genetic variation in aggressiveness.

Which theory implies the hypothesis that hungry adults will score higher on a math test than adults who are not hungry?

Hunger improves intellectual performance.

Adolescence

Identity vs. role confusion

Perceiving Order in Random Events

In our natural eagerness to make sense of our world, we perceive patterns.

A good theory has which of the following characteristics?

It includes an integrated set of principles.

In the early twentieth century, ________ redefined psychology as "the science of observable behavior."

John B. Watson

Which philosopher said that knowledge is not preexisting but grows from experiences?

John Locke

The more children and youth used various media, the less happy they were with their lives (Kaiser, 2010). __________

Negative correlation

A friend has asked one to explain how hormones influence our interest in certain behaviors. Which of the following topics could one address?

One could address all of these topics. (food and sex/sex and aggression/aggression and food)

What characterizes the relationships between adolescents and their parents?

Parents remain influential throughout their children's adolescence.

Enjoying imaginary play (such as dress-up).

Preoperational

Severe substance use disorder

Six or more indicators

The law of effect most clearly influenced:

Skinner's experiments on reinforcement.

What do split brains reveal about the functions of our two brain hemispheres?

Split-brain research (experiments on people with a severed corpus callosum) has confirmed that in most people, the left hemisphere is the more verbal, and that the right hemisphere excels in visual perception and the recognition of emotion. Studies of healthy people with intact brains confirm that each hemisphere makes unique contributions to the integrated functioning of the brain.

Central nervous system (CNS)

The brain and spinal cord. (p. 60)

Axon

The neuron extension that passes messages through its branches to other neurons or to muscles or glands. (p. 53) Axons speak

Mutation

a random error in gene replication that leads to a change. (p. 145)

Meaningful _____ helps in remembering information from novel, abstract paragraphs.

context

Spermarche [sper-MAR-key]

first ejaculation. (p. 166)

Mary's inability to toilet train her 10-month-old infant is most likely due to:

maturation.

Being born with six fingers on one's hand best illustrates:

mutation

This activated memory briefly holds a few items, such as a phone number, before the information is stored or forgotten.

short-term memory

Descriptive statistics

summarize data

Neurogenesis

the formation of new neurons. (p. 82) 700 new hippocampus neurons are born daily, making nearly a 2 percent annual turnover rate

While eating at the university cafe, students see a waiter's serving tray tilt and the food and beverages spill all over four people. "What a careless, clumsy idiot," they mumble to themselves as they resume eating. They have just committed an attributional bias called:

the fundamental attribution error.

Interaction

the interplay that occurs when the effect of one factor (such as environment) depends on another factor (such as heredity). (p. 142)

Stress

the process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging. (p. 488)

Retrieval

the process of getting information out of memory storage. (p. 320)

Y chromosome

the sex chromosome found only in males. When paired with an X chromosome from the mother, it produces a male child. (p. 165)

Mood-congruent memory

the tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one's current good or bad mood. (p. 336)

Freida's mother suffers from frequent panic attacks. The doctor has prescribed Nembutal (a depressant drug that reduces anxiety and induces relaxation). Nembutal is classified as a(n) _____.

tranquilizer

Clay tells his daughter that biracial relationships are against her upbringing. The words he has chosen to use to express his opinion reflect his _____.

values

According to your text, emotionality is "more true of women," a perception expressed by nearly 100 percent of ____________________ Americans.

18- to 29-year-old

A single act of intercourse is half as likely to produce a pregnancy for a woman between the ages of ______to______ as compared to a woman aged 19 to 26.

35;39

Alzheimer's disease strikes _____ percent of the world's population by age 75.

3

The number _____ is the mode of the following set of numbers: 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 7, 7, 7, 8, 9.

7 (The most frequently occurring score)

Community psychology

A branch of psychology that studies how people interact with their social environments and how social institutions affect individuals and groups. (p. 12) Works to create social and physical environments that are healthy for all. (think school psychologist)

Neuron

A nerve cell; the basic building block of the nervous system. (p. 53) cell body and its branching fibers

SQ3R

A study method incorporating five steps: Survey, Question, Read, Retrieve, Review. (p. 14)

Theory

An explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes observations and predicts behaviors or events. (p. 26)

Forensic psychologists (applied science)

Apply psychology's principles and methods in the criminal justice system.

Imagine a study in which participants are shown 2,000 slides of houses and storefronts, each for only 10 seconds. Later, these same participants are shown 300 of the original slides paired with slides they have not seen before. According to research, these participants would be able to recognize _____ percent of the slides they had seen before.

90

Elementary school

Competence vs. inferiority

Examples of spontaneous altered states of consciousness

Daydreaming, drowsiness, dreaming

Ebbinghaus' retention curve

Ebbinghaus found that the more times he practiced a list of nonsense syllables on Day 1, the less time he required to relearn it on Day 2. Speed of relearning is one measure of memory retention. (From Baddeley, 1982.)

Having the ability to reverse math operations.

Concrete operational

Biological Influences

Genetic predispositions (genetically influenced traits) Genetic Mutation Natural Selection of adaptive traits and behaviors passed down through generations Genes responding to the environment

Examples of physiologically induced altered states of consciousness

Hallucination, orgasm, food or oxygen starvation

John Locke

In the 1600s, European philosophers rekindled the debate. John Locke argued that the mind is a blank slate on which experience writes.

Research has proven which of the following statements to be untrue?

Memory in the brain works like memory in a computer; we take in information and then file it away for recollection.

Curare poisoning paralyzes its victims by blocking ACh receptors involved in muscle movements. Morphine mimics endorphin actions. Which is an agonist, and which is an antagonist?

Morphine is an agonist; curare is an antagonist.

How do we communicate nonverbally?

Much of our communication is through body movements, facial expressions, and voice tones. Even seconds-long filmed slices of behavior can reveal feelings.

What is the capacity of long-term memory? are our long-term memories processed and stored in specific locations?

Our long-term memory capacity is essentially unlimited. Memories are not stored intact in the brain in single spots. Many parts of the brain interact as we encode, store, and retrieve memories.

In terms of speed, it is clear that the _____ system is the tortoise and the nervous system is the hare.

Parasympathetic

According to operant conditioning principles, which of the following would NOT be recommended when dealing with a young girl who is resistant to going to school every morning?

Parents should express their anger by yelling at the girl.

___________________ are the body structures that make sexual reproduction possible.

Primary sex characteristics

How can you use memory research findings to do better in this and other courses?

Rehearse repeatedly Make the material meaningful. Activate retrieval cues. Use mnemonic devices. Minimize interference. Sleep more. Test your own knowledge, both to rehearse it and to find out what you don't yet know.

What event defined the start of scientific psychology?

Scientific psychology began in Germany in 1879 when Wilhelm Wundt opened the first psychology laboratory.

General adaptation syndrome (GAS)

Selye's concept of the body's adaptive response to stress in three phases—alarm, resistance, exhaustion. (p. 491)

The synapse was discovered and named by _____.

Sir Charles Sherrington

Overconfidence

We humans tend to think we know more than we do

In 1879, in psychology's first experiment, _________________ and his students measured the time lag between hearing a ball hit a platform and pressing a key.

Wilhelm Wundt

What were some important milestones in psychology's early development?

Wilhelm Wundt established the first psychological laboratory in 1879 in Germany. Two early schools were structuralism and functionalism.

Psychoactive drug

a chemical substance that alters perceptions and moods. (p. 117)

As scientists, psychologists

are willing to ask questions and to reject claims that cannot be verified by research.

When the mother's egg and the father's sperm unite, each contributes 23 _________.

chromosomes

Addiction

compulsive craving of drugs or certain behaviors (such as gambling) despite known adverse consequences. (p. 118)

basal ganglia

deep brain structures involved in motor movement

John had a brain tumor removed. Now he has no vision in his left ____. His tumor was located in his right occipital lobe.

eye

ventricle

fluid-filled brain area

procedural memory

for automatic skills (such as how to ride a bike)

Random samples provide _____ estimates of population averages if the samples have small _____.

good; standard deviations

After seeing case information and an autopsy report, physicians may claim that they could have used the case information alone to predict the accurate cause of death. This illustrates an error in thinking known as _____.

hindsight bias

Sue has Parkinson's disease. She takes medication that:

increases the level of dopamine.

Someone needs to be hired who is good at reading emotions from minor, quick changes in people's facial expressions. Which of the following personality types would be chosen?

introverted

inhibitory signal

like pushing a neuron's brake

Freud defined the healthy adult as one who is able to _________ and to _________.

love; work

The high frequency of inaccurate eyewitness testimony is due to _____.

memory reconstruction

Terri's friend is going through a romantic break-up, but she really does not understand the reason for it. According to Katherin Vaughan and John Lanzetta, what could she do to increase her empathy with her situation?

mimic her facial expressions

Which of the following is NOT a way to improve memory?

minimize retrieval cues

Humans share an irresistible urge to:

organize our world into simple categories.

Theory of mind

people's ideas about their own and others' mental states—about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts, and the behaviors these might predict. (p. 190)

Motor and sensory neurons together comprise the _____ nervous system.

peripheral

Research on the role of cognitive processes in learning indicates that the strength of a conditioned response (CR) depends primarily on the ________ of the CS-US association.

predictability

During a Spanish language exam, Janice easily remembers the French vocabulary she studied that morning. However, she finds it difficult to recall the Spanish vocabulary she rehearsed that afternoon. Her difficulty best illustrates:

proactive interference.

A mental health professional with a medical degree who can prescribe medication is a ________________

psychiatrist

Continuous reinforcement schedule

reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs. (p. 293)

Millie has been having difficulties remembering what people have just said. She is unable to follow along during her favorite television shows. Millie is having difficulty with her:

short-term memory

A local school board is setting up a program to help prepare children to become scientists. To carry out this program, teachers should encourage curiosity, _____, and humility in their students.

skepticism

Skepticism

skepticism about unproven claims and ideas

For older people, which of these is easiest to remember?

skills

If you try to make the material you are learning personally meaningful, are you processing at a shallow or a deep level? Which level leads to greater retention?

Making material personally meaningful involves processing at a deep level, because you are processing semantically—based on the meaning of the words. Deep processing leads to greater retention.

What—given the commonality of source amnesia—might life be like if we remembered all our waking experiences and all our dreams?

Real experiences would be confused with those we dreamed. When meeting someone, we might therefore be unsure whether we were reacting to something they previously did or to something we dreamed they did.

How does sensory memory work?

Sensory memory feeds some information into working memory for active processing there. An iconic memory is a very brief (a few tenths of a second) sensory memory of visual stimuli; an echoic memory is a three- or four-second sensory memory of auditory stimuli.

The __________ __________ describes the enhanced memory that results from repeated retrieval (as in self-testing) rather than from simple rereading of new information

Testing effect

Regression toward the mean

The tendency for extreme or unusual scores or events to fall back (regress) toward the average. (p. 33) When a fluctuating behavior returns to normal, there is no need to invent fancy explanations for why it does so. Regression toward the mean is probably at work.

If you undergo hypnosis in hopes of uncovering information about your past, you are likely to _____.

accidentally create false memories

Short-term memory

activated memory that holds a few items briefly, such as the seven digits of a phone number while calling, before the information is stored or forgotten. (p. 320)

environmental relatives

adoptive parents and siblings

Dr. Han is studying what brain structure is associated with aggressive behavior among rats. Which part of the brain is she likely to see activated when using neuroimaging techniques?

amygdala

Electroencephalogram (EEG)

an amplified recording of the waves of electrical activity sweeping across the brain's surface. These waves are measured by electrodes placed on the scalp. (p. 67)

To examine the effect of hunger on taste sensitivity, groups of research participants are deprived of food for differing lengths of time before they engage in a taste-sensitivity test. This research is an example of:

an experiment.

Anterograde amnesia

an inability to form new memories. (p. 338)

Retrograde amnesia

an inability to retrieve information from one's past. (p. 338)

Long-term potentiation (LTP) refers to

an increase in a cell's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation.

Less-variable observations

are more reliable than those that are more variable. As we noted earlier in the example of the basketball player whose game-to-game points were consistent, an average is more reliable when it comes from scores with low variability.

In science, the clearest way to isolate _____ is to conduct an experiment.

cause and effect

Jessica is in labor with her first child. Her _____, which are enabled by oxytocin, are about 5 minutes apart

contractions

Your brother often pretends to listen to what you are saying, but really he is focused elsewhere. When you ask him, "What did I just say?" he can sometimes repeat your last few words. This is likely due to:

echoic memory.

Less than _____of all _____ survive beyond the first two weeks after fertilization.

half, zygotes

What type of memory is not consciously accessible to us?

implicit memory

Unconditioned stimulus (US):

in classical conditioning, a stimulus that unconditionally—naturally and automatically—triggers an unconditioned response (UR). (p. 283) in classical conditioning, an unlearned, naturally occurring response (such as salivation) to an unconditioned stimulus (US) (such as food in the mouth). (p. 283)

Sex

in psychology, the biologically influenced characteristics by which people define males and females. (p. 161)

Gender

in psychology, the socially influenced characteristics by which people define men and women. (p. 161)

Children who talk with involved adults prior to an interview about a past event tend to have more _____ recall.

inaccurate

If a researcher is studying different approaches to dieting to determine which is the most effective for weight loss, the experimenter's manipulation of dieting is the:

independent variable

If a parent wants to increase the amount of time a child spends reading as opposed to playing video games, the parent will need to increase the _____ of reading.

intrinsic motivation

excitatory signal

like pushing a neuron's accelerator

Dr. Hernandez is interested in parent-child interaction during a play environment. Dr. Hernandez will more than likely use _______ to collect data.

naturalistic observation

Michael is busy with the work project that he brought home. His son wants him to put a movie in the DVD player. Michael tells him to wait 10 minutes; however, his son whines and complains so much that Michael decides to put the movie in right now. This best illustrates the value of:

negative reinforcement.

Your dog is barking so loudly that it's making your ears ring. You clap your hands, the dog stops barking, your ears stop ringing, and you think to yourself, "I'll have to do that when he barks again." The end of the barking was for you a

negative reinforcer

In terms of speed, it is clear that the endocrine system is the tortoise and the _____ system is the hare.

nervous (fast) endocrine (slow)

At work, there is a vending machine that gives extra candy bars when either the "a" or "b" choice is selected. Employees continue to frequent this machine regularly. This best illustrates:

operant conditioning.

Findings from Garcia's research on taste aversion in rats indicate that:

rats are more likely to develop aversions to taste than they are to sights or sounds.

All of the following are difficult for older adults EXCEPT:

recognizing words

According to evolutionary psychologists, our predisposition to overconsume fatty junk foods illustrates that we are biologically prepared to behave in ways that promoted the ________ of our ancestors.

reproductive success

According to the principle of natural selection, if a large number of dogs were released into the wild and no longer cared for by humans, which dogs would survive?

the most able to meet their basic needs

Recent research on babies has shown that babies prefer honest people over dishonest ones. This research is consistent with other findings showing that children globally have _____.

the same basic morality

What are two basic functions of working memory?

(1) Active processing of incoming visual-spatial and auditory information, and (2) focusing our spotlight of attention.

A serious life event may trigger difficulty during one's _____.

40's

Operational definition

A carefully worded statement of the exact procedures (operations) used in a research study. For example, human intelligence may be operationally defined as what an intelligence test measures. (p. 26)

Standard deviation

A computed measure of how much scores vary around the mean score. (p. 45)

Action potential

A neural impulse; a brief electrical charge that travels down an axon. (p. 54)

Refractory period

A period of inactivity after a neuron has fired. (pp. 55)

Pituitary and Stress and blood sugar

A stressful event triggers your hypothalamus to instruct your pituitary to release a hormone that causes your adrenal glands to flood your body with cortisol, a stress hormone that increases blood sugar.

What is the selection effect, and how might it affect a teen's decision to drink alcohol?

Adolescents tend to select out similar others and sort themselves into like-minded groups. This could lead a teen who wants to experiment with drinking alcohol to seek out others who already drink alcohol.

Marcia has the intense desire to create a mentoring program at her company. According to Erik Erikson, she is likely experiencing the_____ versus stagnation stage.

Generativity

Dallas thinks two of his friends are highly compatible, so he is trying to get them together. Which of the following might help to get them interested in each other?

Have them gaze into each other's eyes for a couple of minutes.

Young adulthood

Intimacy vs. isolation

The idea that an animal's natural behavior patterns did not matter and had little or no effect on the effectiveness of operant conditioning principles was challenged by research conducted by _____.

Keller and Marian Breland

The whole picture

Like two-dimensional views of a three-dimensional object, each of psychology's perspectives is helpful. But each by itself fails to reveal the whole picture.

What happens in the synaptic gap?

Neurons send neurotransmitters (chemical messengers) across this tiny space between one neuron's terminal branch and the next neuron's dendrite or cell body.

What are the mind's two tracks, and what is "dual processing"?

Our mind has separate conscious and unconscious tracks that perform dual processing-organizing and interpreting information simultaneously.

What is regression toward the mean?

Regression toward the mean is the tendency for extreme or unusual scores to fall back toward their average.

How do children's self-concepts develop?

Self-concept, an understanding and evaluation of who we are, emerges gradually. By 15 to 18 months, children recognize themselves in a mirror. By school age, they can describe many of their own traits, and by age 8 or 10 their self-image is stable.

The three parenting styles have been called "too hard, too soft, and just right." Which one is "too hard," which one "too soft," and which one "just right," and why?

The authoritarian style would be too hard, the permissive style too soft, and the authoritative style just right. Parents using the authoritative style tend to have children with high self-esteem, self reliance, and social competence.

Range

The difference between the highest and lowest scores in a distribution. (p. 45)

Levels of analysis

The differing complementary views, from biological to psychological to social-cultural, for analyzing any given phenomenon. (p. 9)

Culture

The enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions shared by a group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next. (pp. 7, 155)

Do gestures and facial expressions mean the same thing in all cultures?

The meaning of gestures varies with culture, but facial expressions, such as those of happiness and sadness, are common the world over. Cultures also differ in the amount of emotion they express.

Formal operational

Thinking about abstract concepts, such as "freedom."

Critical thinking

Thinking that does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions. Rather, it examines assumptions, appraises the source, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions. (p. 24) Critical thinking, informed by science, helps clear the colored lenses of our biases.

_____________ (Women/Men) report experiencing emotions more deeply, and they tend to be more adept at reading nonverbal behavior.

Women

DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)

a complex molecule containing the genetic information that makes up the chromosomes. (p. 134)

Employing the single word "HOMES" to remember the names of North America's five Great Lakes best illustrates the use of:

a mnemonic device.

Reinforcement schedule

a pattern that defines how often a desired response will be reinforced. (p. 293)

The elderly are more susceptible to _____________ than when they were younger.

cancer

The elderly are more susceptible to diseases such as_____ than when they were younger.

cancer

The concept of working memory

clarifies the idea of short-term memory by focusing on the active processing that occurs in this stage.

Substance use disorder

continued substance craving and use despite significant life disruption and/or physical risk. (p. 117) resulting brain changes may persist after quitting use of the substance (thus leading to strong cravings when exposed to people and situations that trigger memories of drug use)

Alcohol, barbiturates, and opiates are all in a class of drugs called _________.

depressants

Given the research on _______, it is likely that many mammalian species can differentiate animals by their facial characteristics.

facial recognition

The best basis for _____ about human behavior is from a representative sample of cases.

generalizing

In his own life, Steven Pinker has made a conscious decision NOT to:

have children

Macrophages ("big eaters")

identify, pursue, and ingest harmful invaders and worn-out cells.

Latent learning

learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it. (p. 305)

When someone is unsuccessfully trying to remember something, there is activity in the:

left frontal lobe.

Central route persuasion

occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts. (p. 520)

Dianne feels overwhelmed. She helps her adult daughter regularly with finances and caring for her grandchildren. But she also is the primary caregiver of both her aging mother and her father-in-law. She feels like she never has a minute to herself. Dianne can be referred to as being in the _____ generation.

sandwich

Foot-in-the-door phenomenon

the tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request. (p. 521)

Behaviorism

the view that psychology (1) should be an objective science that (2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes. Most research psychologists today agree with (1) but not with (2). (pp. 4, 282)

What are three ways we forget, and how does each of these happen?

(1) Encoding failure: Unattended information never entered our memory system. (2) Storage decay: Information fades from our memory. (3) Retrieval failure: We cannot access stored information accurately, sometimes due to interference or motivated forgetting.

What findings in psychology support (1) the stage theory of development and (2) the idea of stability in personality across the life span? What findings challenge these ideas?

(1) Stage theory is supported by the work of Piaget (cognitive development), Kohlberg (moral development), and Erikson (psychosocial development), but it is challenged by findings that change is more gradual and less culturally universal than these theorists supposed. (2) Some traits, such as temperament, do exhibit remarkable stability across many years. But we do change in other ways, such as in our social attitudes.

According to Kohlberg, _______________ morality focuses on self-interest, _______________ morality focuses on self-defined ethical principles, and _______________ morality focuses on upholding laws and social rules.

(Stages of moral development )preconventional; postconventional; conventional

Which strategies are better for long-term retention: cramming and rereading material, or spreading out learning over time and repeatedly testing yourself?

Although cramming may lead to short-term gains in knowledge, distributed practice and repeated self-testing will result in the greatest long-term retention.

Which of the following is an example of a biological constraint on conditioning?

An animal's unique characteristics and natural behavior patterns can influence what it is capable of learning.

Intuition

An effortless, immediate, automatic feeling or thought, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning. (pp. 20, 359)

Double-blind procedure:

An experimental procedure in which both the research participants and the research staff are ignorant (blind) about whether the research participants have received the treatment or a placebo. Commonly used in drug-evaluation studies. (p. 36)

Biopsychosocial approach

An integrated approach that incorporates biological, psychological, and social-cultural levels of analysis. (p. 9)

Adrenal [ah-DREEN-el] glands

A pair of endocrine glands that sit just above the kidneys and secrete hormones (epinephrine and norepinephrine) that help arouse the body in times of stress. (p. 64) (also called adrenaline and noradrenaline). These hormones increase heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar, providing a surge of energy. When the emergency passes, the hormones—and the feelings—linger a while.

The amount of genetic variation between members of different population groups is about _____ percent of total human genetic variation.

5

It is not unreasonable to predict that when today's U.S. teenagers are in their mid-70s, they will have watched TV for the equivalent of about _____ years.

9

Members of the same population groups share roughly _____ percent of the genetic variation that exists in humans.

95

Case studies

A descriptive technique in which one individual or group is studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principles. (p. 28) Case study does not explain behavior. In-depth analyses of individuals or groups. Individual cases can suggest fruitful ideas. What's true of all of us can be glimpsed in any one of us. But to discern the general truths that cover individual cases, we must answer questions with other research methods.

How do different reinforcement schedules affect behavior?

A reinforcement schedule defines how often a response will be reinforced. In continuous reinforcement (reinforcing desired responses every time they occur), learning is rapid, but so is extinction if rewards cease. In partial (intermittent) reinforcement (reinforcing responses only sometimes), initial learning is slower, but the behavior is much more resistant to extinction. Fixed-ratio schedules reinforce behaviors after a set number of responses; variable-ratio schedules, after an unpredictable number. Fixed-interval schedules reinforce behaviors after set time periods; variable-interval schedules, after unpredictable time periods.

Thorndike's law of effect was the basis for _______ work on operant conditioning and behavior control.

A sexual image is a US that triggers a UR of interest or arousal. Before the advertisement pairs a product with a sexual image, the product is an NS. Over time the product can become a CS that triggers the CR of interest or arousal.

Angela is 60 years old and is slightly overweight. Which of the following is her physician likely to recommend?

Become more physically active

How is a "shopping addiction" different from the psychological definition of addiction?

Being strongly interested in something in a way that is not compulsive and dysfunctional is not an addiction. It does not involve obsessive craving in spite of known negative consequences.

vicarious reinforcement or vicarious punishment

By watching a model, we experience vicarious reinforcement or vicarious punishment, and we learn to anticipate a behavior's consequences in situations like those we are observing.

Which of the following is NOT one of the descriptive methods psychologists use to observe and describe behavior?

Correlational research

Taste-aversion research has shown that some animals develop aversions to certain tastes but not to sights or sounds. This finding supports

Darwin's natural selection

Which of the following is an example of a psychologically induced altered state of consciousness?

Deirdre has just entered a state of hypnosis with the help of a psychologist.

When a situation triggers the feeling that "I've been here before," you are experiencing

Déjà vu

How do evolutionary psychologists explain sex differences in sexuality?

Evolutionary psychologists theorize that females have inherited their ancestors' tendencies to be more cautious, sexually, because of the challenges associated with incubating and nurturing offspring. Males have inherited an inclination to be more casual about sex, because their act of fathering requires a smaller investment.

Placebo effect - Latin for "I shall please"

Experimental results caused by expectations alone; any effect on behavior caused by the administration of an inert substance or condition, which the recipient assumes is an active agent. (p. 36)

What are the roles of the frontal lobes and hippocampus in memory processing?

Explicit (declarative) memories―our conscious memories of facts and experiences―form through effortful processing, which requires conscious effort and attention. The frontal lobes and hippocampus are parts of the brain network dedicated to explicit memory formation. Many brain regions send information to the frontal lobes for processing. The hippocampus, with the help of surrounding areas of cortex, registers and temporarily holds elements of explicit memories before moving them to other brain regions for long-term storage. The neural storage of long-term memories is called memory consolidation.

From ages 3 to 6, the brain's neural network is sprouting most rapidly in the _____ lobes

Frontal

Random sampling

Helps researchers generalize from a small set of survey responses to a larger population

Dependent variable

In an experiment, the outcome that is measured; the variable that may change when the independent variable is manipulated. (p. 37)

How does observational learning differ from associative learning? How may observational learning be enabled by mirror neurons?

In observational learning, as we observe and imitate others we learn to anticipate a behavior's consequences because we experience vicarious reinforcement or vicarious punishment. In associative learning, we merely learn associations between different events. Our brain's frontal lobes have a demonstrated ability to mirror the activity of another's brain. Some psychologists believe mirror neurons enable this process. The same areas fire when we perform certain actions (such as responding to pain or moving our mouth to form words) as when we observe someone else performing those actions.

spinal cord

Is a two-way information highway connecting the peripheral nervous system and the brain. Ascending neural fibers send up sensory information, and descending fibers send back motor-control information. The neural pathways governing our reflexes, our automatic responses to stimuli, illustrate the spinal cord's work.

Imagine being a jury member in a trial for a parent accused of sexual abuse based on a recovered memory. What insights from memory research should you offer the jury?

It will be important to remember the key points agreed upon by most researchers and professional associations: Sexual abuse, injustice, forgetting, and memory construction all happen; recovered memories are common; memories from before age 3 are unreliable; memories claimed to be recovered through hypnosis or drug influence are especially unreliable; and memories, whether real or false, can be emotionally upsetting

William James

James' writings moved the publisher Henry Holt to offer James a contract for a textbook of the new science of psychology. James agreed and began work in 1878, with an apology for requesting two years to finish his writing. The text proved an unexpected chore and actually took him 12 years. (Why am I not surprised?) More than a century later, people still read the resulting Principles of Psychology (1890) and marvel at the brilliance and elegance with which James introduced psychology to the educated public.

Dr. Fiero is studying prejudice among White Americans using neuroimaging technology. She is particularly interested in which part of the brain is active when those who are prejudice view photographs of White and Black people. The _______ scan would be the best neuroimaging technique for Dr. Fiero to use.

PET

How do psychologists describe the human memory system?

Psychologists use memory models to think and communicate about memory. Information-processing models involve three processes: encoding, storage, and retrieval. Our agile brain processes many things simultaneously (some of them unconsciously) by means of parallel processing. The connectionism information-processing model focuses on this multitrack processing, viewing memories as products of interconnected neural networks. The three processing stages in the Atkinson-Shiffrin model are sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. This model has since been updated to include two important concepts: (1) working memory, to stress the active processing occurring in the second memory stage; and (2) automatic processing, to address the processing of information outside of conscious awareness.

What bodily changes does your ANS direct before and after you give an important speech?

Responding to this challenge, your ANS sympathetic division will arouse you. It accelerates your heartbeat, raises your blood pressure and blood sugar, slows your digestion, and cools you with perspiration. After you give the speech, your ANS parasympathetic division will reverse these effects.

Humanistic psychologists - Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow

The first, the humanistic psychologists, led by Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, found both Freudian psychology and behaviorism too limiting. Rather than focusing on the meaning of early childhood memories or the learning of conditioned responses, the humanistic psychologists drew attention to ways that current environmental influences can nurture or limit our growth potential, and to the importance of having our needs for love and acceptance satisfied.

Positive psychology

The scientific study of human flourishing, with the goals of discovering and promoting strengths and virtues that help individuals and communities to thrive. (pp. 9, 479)

How do we know whether an observed difference can be generalized to other populations?

To feel confident about generalizing an observed difference to other populations, we would want to know that the sample studied was representative of the larger population being studied; that the observations, on average, had low variability; that the sample consisted of more than a few cases; and that the observed difference was statistically significant.

John believes that animal testing is morally acceptable. John is most likely from where?

United States

How does selective attention direct our perceptions?

We selectively attend to, and process, a very limited portion of incoming information, blocking out much and often shifting the spotlight of our attention from one thing to another. Parallel processing takes care of the routine business, while sequential processing is best for solving new problems that require our attention. Focused intently on one task, we often display inattentional blindness to other events and change blindness to changes around us.

State-Dependent Memory

What we learn in one state—be it drunk or sober—may be more easily recalled when we are again in that state. What people learn when drunk they don't recall well in any state (alcohol disrupts storage). But they recall it slightly better when again drunk. Someone who hides money when drunk may forget the location until drunk again.

Nicotine

a stimulating and highly addictive psychoactive drug in tobacco. (p. 121)

Conditioned reinforcer (secondary reinforcer)

a stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer; also known as a secondary reinforcer. (p. 292)

Cross-sectional study

a study in which people of different ages are compared with one another. (p. 218)

Health psychology

a subfield of psychology that provides psychology's contribution to behavioral medicine. (p. 492)

MRI (magnetic resonance imaging)

a technique that uses magnetic fields and radio waves to produce computer-generated images of soft tissue. MRI scans show brain anatomy. (p. 67)

Strangers placed in male-female pairs were instructed to stare into each other's eyes for 2 minutes. They reported feeling:

a tingle of attraction and affection

Operant conditioning

a type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher. (p. 290)

In some cultures, _____ does not exist, rather children move straight to the adulthood stage.

adolescense

Attachment

an emotional tie with another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the caregiver and showing distress on separation. (p. 195)

Some psychologists suggest that older men in many cultures tend to marry women younger than themselves because men are genetically predisposed to seek female features associated with youthful fertility. This suggestion best illustrates:

an evolutionary perspective

Mental processes

are the internal, subjective experiences we infer from behavior—sensations, perceptions, dreams, thoughts, beliefs, and feelings.

Because memories are _____, "hypnotically refreshed" memories may prove inaccurate, especially if the hypnotist asks leading questions.

constructed

As far as we know, the primary cause of Alzheimer's disease is:

deterioration of neurons that produce the neurotransmitter acetylcholine

Evidence that cognitive processes play an important role in learning comes in part from studies in which rats

develop cognitive maps

Memory disruption

disrupt memory formation, long-term effects on the brain and cognition, contributes to nerve cell death, reduces the birth of new nerve cells, impairs the growth of synaptic connections

Stimulants

drugs (such as caffeine, nicotine, and the more powerful amphetamines, cocaine, Ecstasy, and methamphetamine) that excite neural activity and speed up body functions. (p. 120) People use stimulants to feel alert, lose weight, or boost mood or athletic performance.

A neuron will fire if _____ signals are stronger than inhibitory signals.

excitatory

When conducting an experiment, it is important to manipulate the _____ of interest and to hold constant or control other factors.

factors

Men are about _____ times more likely to suffer alcoholism than women.

four

Humility

humility about one's own understanding

Shannon is 15 years old. She has stopped going to church with her family. She does not agree with everything the church preaches. She doesn't understand how her parents still go every weekend, when they don't always practice their religion during the week. Shannon has become able to see the _____ in her parents' lives.

hypocrisy

Reinforcement

in operant conditioning, any event that strengthens the behavior it follows. (p. 291)

By _______ clusters of brain cells, scientists have discovered that damage to part of the pons results in sleep difficulties.

lesioning

Jake is a 3-month-old baby who has become habituated to his puppet head. He will probably look at it _____ frequently now.

less

T lymphocytes (white blood cells)

mature in the thymus and other lymphatic tissue and attack cancer cells, viruses, and foreign substances.

"Sex sells!" is a common saying in advertising. Using classical conditioning terms, explain how sexual images in advertisements can condition your response to a product.

A sexual image is a US that triggers a UR of interest or arousal. Before the advertisement pairs a product with a sexual image, the product is an NS. Over time the product can become a CS that triggers the CR of interest or arousal.

Reflex

A simple, automatic response to a sensory stimulus, such as the knee-jerk response. (p. 63) The neural pathways governing our reflexes, our automatic responses to stimuli, illustrate the spinal cord's work. A simple spinal reflex pathway is composed of a single sensory neuron and a single motor neuron. These often communicate through an interneuron. The knee-jerk response, for example, involves one such simple pathway. A headless warm body could do it. Or pain, hot/cold...

In order to access a memory, we often need retrieval cues that help us ____.

recall associated information, organize information, put memory in context

cultural neuroscience

studying how neurobiology and cultural traits influence each other

Correlation coefficient

A statistical index of the relationship between two things (from −1.00 to +1.00). (p. 32) A correlation coefficient helps us see the world more clearly by revealing the extent to which two things relate.

_____ is now referred to as a neurocognitive disorder.

Dementia

Indicators of a substance use disorder

Diminished Control Diminished Social Functioning Hazardous Use Drug Action

What are gender roles, and what do their variations tell us about our human capacity for learning and adaptation?

Gender roles are social rules or norms for accepted and expected behavior for females and males. The norms associated with various roles, including gender roles, vary widely in different cultural contexts, which is proof that we are very capable of learning and adapting to the social demands of different environments.

How did the cognitive revolution affect the field of psychology?

It recaptured the field's early interest in mental processes and made them legitimate topics for scientific study.

According to _____, the majority of children younger than age 9 have a preconventional morality.

Lawrence Kohlberg

Dr. Pennis a clinical psychologist studying the onset of psychological disorders, such as schizophrenia. Dr. Penn is most likely to use which of the following to get a glimpse of his subjects brains?

MRI

According to evolutionary psychologists, there are clear differences between male and female behaviors related to reproduction. Imagine a study in which an attractive woman approaches a man in a bar and starts a casual conversation with him. What will observers of this interaction think?

Many men watching this scenario will perceive the woman's friendliness as sexual interest.

Why are habits, such as having something sweet with that cup of coffee, so hard to break?

Habits form when we repeat behaviors in a given context and, as a result, learn associations—often without our awareness. For example, we may have eaten a sweet pastry with a cup of coffee often enough to associate the flavor of the coffee with the treat, so that the cup of coffee alone just doesn't seem right anymore!

Another name for a bell-shaped distribution, in which most scores fall near the middle and fewer scores fall at each extreme, is a ___________ ______________

Normal curve or normal distribution

An American truck manufacturer offered graph (a)—with actual brand names included—to suggest the much greater durability of its trucks. What does graph (b) make clear about the varying durability, and how is this accomplished?

Note how the y-axis of each graph is labeled. The range for the y-axis label in graph (a) is only from 95 to 100. The range for graph (b) is from 0 to 100. All the trucks rank as 95% and up, so almost all are still functioning after 10 years, which graph (b) makes clear.

How do early experiences modify the brain?

Our genetic predispositions and our specific environments interact. Environments can trigger gene activity, and genetically influenced traits can evoke responses from others. As a child's brain develops, neural connections grow more numerous and complex. Experiences then prompt a pruning process, in which unused connections weaken and heavily used ones strengthen. Early childhood is an important period for shaping the brain, but throughout our lives our brain modifies itself in response to our learning.

Your friend has experienced brain damage in an accident. He can remember how to tie his shoes but has a hard time remembering anything told to him during a conversation. What's going on here?

Our explicit conscious memories of facts and episodes differ from our implicit memories of skills (such as shoe tying) and classically conditioned responses. Our implicit memories are processed by more ancient brain areas, which apparently escaped damage during the accident.

classically conditioned associations among stimuli.

If attacked by a dog in childhood, years later you may, without recalling the conditioned association, automatically tense up as a dog approach

_____ and change is one major issue of debate among developmental psychologists.

Stability

What general effect does stress have on our overall health?

Stress tends to reduce our immune system's ability to function properly, so that higher stress generally leads to greater incidence of physical illness.

How does our nervous system allow us to experience the difference between a slap and a tap on the back?

Stronger stimuli (the slap) cause more neurons to fire and to fire more frequently than happens with weaker stimuli (the tap).

Leonard is a heroin addict. He is very careful about overdosing. He typically shoots up in his basement apartment, but is now at a friend's house and needs a fix really badly. He's never done drugs at his friend's house before, but he's desperate. He injects his normal safe dosage of heroin but almost dies of an overdose. According to the principles of classical conditioning, what happened?

The effect of the heroin was increased because Leonard injected it in a strange environment and his body could not use the stimuli in his basement to prepare for it.

Forgetting as encoding failure

We cannot remember what we have not encoded.

How does the cognitive view of classical conditioning differ from the traditional behaviorist perspective?

The cognitive view maintains that mental processes as well as external events are important components in the learning process.

Why, after friends start dating, do we often feel that we knew they were meant to be together?

We often suffer from hindsight bias—after we've learned a situation's outcome, that outcome seems familiar and therefore obvious.

Reluctantly, Dahlia decides to take a long-awaited trip to New Zealand. The thing that is most disturbing to her is that she must leave her pet monkey behind. There is a pet hotel in the city that has agreed to take him. Should she worry about him?

Yes. Monkeys under stress because of social disruptions have weakened immune systems.

infantile amnesia

Yet as adults, our conscious memory of our first three years is blank, an experience called infantile amnesia

frequency

You effortlessly keep track of how many times things happen, as when you realize, "This is the third time I've run into her today."

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. (p. 83)

A word of praise is to a delicious meal as _____ is to _____.

a conditioned reinforcer; a primary reinforcer

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

a disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by significant deficiencies in communication and social interaction, and by rigidly fixated interests and repetitive behaviors. (p. 192)

Women appear to be more sensitive to nonverbal cues than men. Which of the following research findings support this?

Research has found all of these things are true. ~Women surpass men at reading emotional cues. ~Looking at a photo of two people, women are better able to discern who the supervisor is. ~Women surpass men in determining whether a male-female couple is genuinely romantic or phony.

Higher-order conditioning

a procedure in which the conditioned stimulus in one conditioning experience is paired with a new neutral stimulus, creating a second (often weaker) conditioned stimulus. For example, an animal that has learned that a tone predicts food might then learn that a light predicts the tone and begin responding to the light alone. (Also called second-order conditioning.) (p. 285)

Thirteen-year-old Ariana is getting more involved in risky behaviors, which has her mother very worried. Ariana is also more impulsive and emotionally volatile than she used to be. What is the most likely explanation for Ariana's behavior?

a pubertal hormonal surge

Relational aggression

an act of aggression (physical or verbal) intended to harm a person's relationship or social standing. (p. 162)

In using operant conditioning principles to train animals to perform tricks, Keller and Marian Breland found that:

an animal's inborn or instinctive behavior patterns could interfere with the operant conditioning of new behaviors.

Primary reinforcer

an innately reinforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfies a biological need. (p. 292)

If a study were to show the correlation of -0.70 between children's physical height and popularity among their peers, then it would indicate that:

being short has a negative impact on children's popularity.

Massed practice (cramming)

can produce speedy short-term learning and a feeling of confidence.

Dr. McDougal decided to publish a paper based on a patient who presented her with a complicated case of depression and anxiety. Her hope, besides getting published, was to share universal principles with the psychology community. This is an example of a(n):

case study

Kari is conducting a study for which it is critical that the findings represent the population of interest. Which of the following research methods runs the greatest risk that its findings may be unrepresentative of what is generally true?

case study

Marcus is going through a particularly difficult time because of work related stress, his parents' health problems, impending final exams, and term paper deadlines. Marcus has a history of not dealing well with stress. The continuous stress is likely to cause all of the following EXCEPT:

causing cancer.

Christy had other, but her friend convinced her they should go to the movies, so Christy went along. That was the night she met her husband, John. They have now been married for 18 years. Their meeting was a _____.

chance event

Questions about the extent to which maladaptive habits learned in childhood can be overcome in adulthood are most directly relevant to the issues of stability or _____.

change

Your psychology professor explains that her current research involves studying changes in brain activity in the visual areas of the brain when one is shown pictures of people making a variety of facial expressions. You conclude that your professor's area of research is:

cognitive neuroscience

After repeatedly drinking alcohol spiked with a nauseating drug, people with alcohol use disorder may fail to develop an aversion to alcohol because they blame their nausea on the drug. This illustrates the importance of ________ in classical conditioning.

cognitive processes

Laurie, Jim's wife, complains that he never notices when she has made changes in her hair style. At her latest hair appointment, she had several inches cut from her hair. When Jim came home from work he greeted her and did not notice or make a comment about her new hair style until Laurie pointed out his failure to notice. Jim likely did not notice the difference because of a(n)_____ failure.

encoding

Deep processing

encoding semantically, based on the meaning of the words; tends to yield the best retention. (p. 326)

A professor suggests that the increasing problem of obesity in the United States might be attributable to an inherited predisposition to love the taste of sweets and fats. Although these foods were difficult for ancestors to find, they helped them to survive famines. Now, these foods are easily available and Americans are eating too much of them. What field does this theory belong to?

evolutionary psychology

John remembers very clearly the day his best friend died in a bicycle accident at the hands of a drunk driver. This most specifically illustrates _____ memory.

flashbulb

In Laurie's psychology laboratory she and her lab partner conditioned a rat to press a lever for food when a red light was on, but discovered that the rat would also press the lever when a white light was on. Laurie and her partner reported that the rat had exhibited _____ through _____ conditioning.

generalization; operant

Dr. Petrie administers surveys to 15 migrants from Somalia who reside in Minnesota. Dr. Petrie is interested in their immigration experiences. After examining the survey answers, Dr. Petrie concludes that all immigrants in Minnesota have experienced racism and discrimination since coming to the United States. Dr. Petrie can _______ the results to other immigrants from Somalia in Minnesota.

generalized

Some baby animals form a rigid attachment known as _____.

imprinting

Unconditioned response (UR)

in classical conditioning, an unlearned, naturally occurring response (such as salivation) to an unconditioned stimulus (US) (such as food in the mouth). (p. 283)

In some species of animals there is the nucleus accumbens

in front of the hypothalamus. Animal research has also revealed both a general dopamine-related reward system and specific centers associated with the pleasures of eating, drinking, and sex. Animals, it seems, come equipped with built-in systems that reward activities essential to survival.

Variable-interval schedule

in operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals. (p. 294)

Inferential statistics

is used to determine whether a study's outcome is due to chance or not, and whether the outcome can be generalized to a larger population.

The experimental method offers the most reliable way of assessing whether caffeine consumption causes increased athletic performance because:

it is the only method that measures cause and effect.

Rats that explored a maze without any reward were later able to run the maze as well as other rats that had received food rewards for running the maze. The rats that had learned without reinforcement demonstrated ________ ________.

latent learning

Associative learning

learning that certain events occur together. The events may be two stimuli (as in classical conditioning) or a response and its consequences (as in operant conditioning). (p. 281)

Parents and peers influence different domains. Parents influence _____ while peers influence _____.

long-range and large-scale plans; social status

This is a relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of your memory system.

long-term memory

Depressed mood states are linked to low levels of serotonin and _____ levels of norepinephrine.

low

Due to a random error in genetic replication, a lion is born with a heightened sense of smell. This variation in an inherited trait is due to:

mutation

In a double-blind procedure,

neither the participants nor the researchers know who is in the experimental group or control group.

A series of small strokes that progressively damage an older adult's brain is most likely to produce:

neurocognitive disorder.

Sensory (afferent) neurons

neurons that carry incoming information from the sensory receptors to the brain and spinal cord. (p. 60) carry messages from the body's tissues and sensory receptors inward (thus, they are afferent)Motor (efferent) neurons: neurons that carry outgoing information from the brain and spinal cord to the muscles and glands. (p. 60) Our nervous system has a few million sensory neurons.

Secondary sex characteristics

nonreproductive sexual traits, such as female breasts and hips, male voice quality, and body hair. (p. 165)

The dramatic increase in Americans' premarital sexual activity over the past half century best illustrates that sexual behavior is influenced by:

norms

Children who have fathers who are incarcerated for committing violent crimes are at high risk for following the same path in life, unless the child is adopted near the time of his birth. Then, he is no more at risk for violence than the average child. This difference in outcome can be attributed to _____.

observational learning

In cultures around the world, toddlers learn to toilet train fastest when they are able to view others toileting. This follows the principles of _____.

observational learning

One chimp watches a second chimp solve a puzzle for a food reward. The first chimp then imitates how the second chimp solved the puzzle. This best illustrates:

observational learning.

To test the effect of a new drug on depression, we randomly assign people to control and experimental groups. Those in the control group take a pill that contains no medication. This is a _______.

placebo

Alcohol use disorder

popularly known as alcoholism - alcohol use marked by tolerance, withdrawal, and a drive to continue problematic use. (p. 120) can shrink the brain

Prosocial behavior

positive, constructive, helpful behavior. The opposite of antisocial behavior. (p. 310)

In a __________ correlation, the scores rise and fall together; in a __________ correlation, one score falls as the other rises.

positive; negative

According to Kohlberg, those who develop an abstract level of reasoning, wherein they perceive basic ethical principles and the moral good as more important than their own self, have developed what is known as:

postconventional morality

In an effort to recall his early life experiences, Aaron formed vivid mental images of the rooms in his childhood home. Aaron was engaged in the process of:

priming

Studies of people with split brains and brain scans of those with undivided brains indicate that the left hemisphere excels in

processing language

Katrina studied the Russian language in high school. Although not fluent, she did accumulate a large vocabulary. Years later, she decided to go to Russia, so she wanted to brush up on her vocabulary. She picked up the vocabulary much more quickly because it is easier to _____; that is, to learn the material for a second time.

relearn

Longitudinal study

research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period. (p. 218)

While taking an American history exam, Marie was surprised and frustrated by her momentary inability to remember the name of the first president of the United States. Her difficulty most clearly illustrates _____ failure.

retreival

The hour before sleep is a good time to memorize information, because going to sleep after learning new material minimizes ________________ interference.

retroactive

To make a long-distance call, you have to dial an unfamiliar phone number. You are likely to have trouble retaining the number you just looked up. This best illustrates the limited capacity of ___________ memory.

short-term

Consolidation is the process by which:

short-term memory can be encoded to form long-term memories.

When forgetting is due to encoding failure, meaningless information has not been transferred from

short-term memory into long-term memory.

Differences between two samples are LESS likely to be statistically significant if the samples are _____.

small Generalizations based on a small number of cases are unreliable.

Sequential processing

solving new problems, which requires our focused attention.

Our brain's ____________cortex registers and processes body touch and movement sensations.

somatosensory

Social identity

the "we" aspect of our self-concept; the part of our answer to "Who am I?" that comes from our group memberships. (p. 209)

Brain Plasticity

the brain's ability to change, especially during childhood, by reorganizing after damage or by building new pathways based on experience. (p. 81)

Carmen is participating in a dichotic listening study and is asked to ignore any information that is presented to her right ear. She finds that she has no problems in following the instruction except for when she thinks she hears her name in her right ear. Carmen is experiencing:

the cocktail party effect

Genome

the complete instructions for making an organism, consisting of all the genetic material in that organism's chromosomes. (p. 135)

Encoding specificity principle

the idea that cues and contexts specific to a particular memory will be most effective in helping us recall it. (p. 335)

Sensory memory

the immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system. (p. 320)

THC

the major active ingredient in marijuana; triggers a variety of effects, including mild hallucinations. (p. 125)

Natural selection

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. (pp. 6, 144)

Storage

the process of retaining encoded information over time. (p. 320)

Encoding

the processing of information into the memory system—for example, by extracting meaning. (p. 320)

Four-year-old Katie observed Maggie, two years younger, begin to cry when she fell down. Katie immediately ran over to Maggie and patted her on the back and told her everything would be alright. She even began to cry herself. Katie's ability to infer Maggie's mental and emotional state is an example of:

theory of mind.

Juan's son was just arrested for setting the school's outdoor shed on fire. Juan and his wife admitted to the police that their son has always had an aggressive streak. This example represents:

the stability side of the "stability and change" developmental issue.

Psychoneuroimmunology

the study of how psychological, neural, and endocrine processes together affect the immune system and resulting health. (p. 492)

Molecular genetics

the subfield of biology that studies the molecular structure and function of genes. (p. 142)

Spacing effect

the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice. (p. 325)

Lesion

tissue destruction. A brain lesion is a naturally or experimentally caused destruction of brain tissue. (p. 66)

If you were to compare the endocrine system and the body's electrochemical information system in terms of speed, you might call the former a _____ and the latter a _____.

tortoise, hare

One potential drawback of false memory research is that

true victims aren't believed

Of the following, who are likely to show greater genetic differences?

two individuals from the same small village in Denmark

When we are generalizing from a sample, we must keep in mind all of the following EXCEPT:

unrepresentative samples are better than biased samples.

In observational learning, the most effective models are those who:

use consistent actions and words.

The partial reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response after unpredictable time periods is a ________ schedule.

variable-interval

According to Bandura, we learn by watching models because we experience ________ reinforcement or ________ punishment.

vicarious - vicarious

Professor Kim is studying how the brain is involved in _____ movements. Professor Kim stimulates the motor cortex of his participants' brain with mild electrical signals. As a result, the right hand of his participants forms a fist.

voluntary

What are the three main criticisms of the evolutionary explanation of human sexuality?

(1) It starts with an effect and works backward to propose an explanation. (2) Unethical and immoral men could use such explanations to rationalize their behavior toward women. (3) This explanation may overlook the effects of cultural expectations and socialization.

What two new concepts update the classic Atkinson-Shiffrin three-stage information-processing model?

(1) We form some memories through automatic processing, without our awareness. The Atkinson-Shiffrin model focused only on conscious memories. (2) The newer concept of a working memory emphasizes the active processing that we now know takes place in Atkinson-Shiffrin's shortterm memory stage.

Which pioneering learning researcher highlighted the antisocial effects of aggressive models on children's behavior?

Bandura (bobo doll experiment)

Cognitive psychologists

Experiment with how we perceive, think, and solve problems

Psychological Influences

Learned fears and other learned expectations Emotional responses Cognitive processing and perceptual interpretations

Hypothalamus

Location: Above the pituitary gland and below the thalamus Function: Responsible for behaviors such as hunger and thirst, as well as the maintenance of body temperature

Thalamus

Location: Part of the forebrain, below the corpus callosum Function: Responsible for relaying information from the sensory receptors to proper areas of the brain where it can be processed

Memory aids that use visual imagery (such as peg words) or other organizational devices (such as acronyms) are called_________________.

Mnemonic

Object permanence, pretend play, conservation, and abstract logic are developmental milestones for which of Piaget's stages, respectively?

Object permanence for the sensorimotor stage, pretend play for the preoperational stage, conservation for the concrete operational stage, and abstract logic for the formal operational stage.

Replication

Repeating the essence of a research study, usually with different participants in different situations, to see whether the basic finding extends to other participants and circumstances. (p. 26)

What structures make up the brainstem, and what are the functions of the brainstem, thalamus, reticular formation, and cerebellum?

The brainstem, the oldest part of the brain, is responsible for automatic survival functions. Its components are the medulla (which controls heartbeat and breathing), the pons (which helps coordinate movements), and the reticular formation (which affects arousal). The thalamus, sitting above the brainstem, acts as the brain's sensory control center. The cerebellum, attached to the rear of the brainstem, coordinates muscle movement and balance and also helps process sensory information.

Mode

The most frequently occurring score(s) in a distribution. (p. 43)

Diminished Social Functioning

Use disrupts commitments at work, school or home. Continues to use despite social problems. Causes reduced social, recreational and work activities.

Industrial-organizational psychologists (applied Science)

Use psychology's concepts and methods in the workplace to help organizations and companies select and train employees, boost morale and productivity, design products, and implement systems.

Diminished Control

Uses more substance, or for longer than intended. Tries unsuccessfully to regulate use of substance. Spends much time acquiring, using, or recovering from effects of substance. Cravings

action potential

When a neuron fires, however, the security parameters change: The first section of the axon opens its gates, rather like sewer covers flipping open, and positively charged sodium ions flood in. The loss of the inside/outside charge difference, called depolarization, causes the next axon channel to open, and then the next, like falling dominos, each tripping the next. This temporary inflow of positive ions is the neural impulse—the action potential.

How do nerve cells communicate with other nerve cells?

When action potentials reach the end of an axon (the axon terminals), they stimulate the release of neurotransmitters. These chemical messengers carry a message from the sending neuron across a synapse to receptor sites on a receiving neuron. The sending neuron, in a process called reuptake, then normally reabsorbs the excess neurotransmitter molecules in the synaptic gap. If incoming signals are strong enough, the receiving neuron generates its own action potential and relays the message to other cells.

Cognitive map

a mental representation of the layout of one's environment. For example, after exploring a maze, rats act as if they have learned a cognitive map of it. (p. 305)

Hypothalamus [hi-po-THAL-uh-muss]

a neural structure lying below (hypo) the thalamus; it directs several maintenance activities (eating, drinking, body temperature), helps govern the endocrine system via the pituitary gland, and is linked to emotion and reward. (p. 71)

Temperament

a person's characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity. (p. 140) difficult—irritable, intense, fidgety, and unpredictable. Others are easy—cheerful and relaxed, feeding and sleeping on predictable schedules. Still others tend to be slow to warm up, resisting or withdrawing from new people and situations

A drug that blocks the reuptake of a particular neurotransmitter is called a(n):

agonist

The correct order of the phases of the general adaptation syndrome (GAS) is:

alarm reaction, resistance, exhaustion.

Hussein is concerned because he cannot remember events before he was about 4 years old. This is called infantile _____.

amnesia

Colin was always a mild-mannered man. Suddenly his behavior changed radically. He instigated fights and was verbally abusive to the people around him. It is likely that John's problem initiated in his _____.

amygdala

Sam is a 12-month-old infant who just began crawling. He has not attempted to walk yet. This is may be a result of Sam sleeping on his _____.

back

neural inhibitor

by slowing sympathetic nervous system activity a neural inhibitor can cause reactions to slow, speech to slur, and skilled performance to deteriorate. Alcohol is a neural inhibitor

In an interview, a movie star was going on and on about how horrible it is that people use psychoactive drugs. She proudly announced that she had quit smoking, stopped drinking, and had never touched any illegal drugs in her life. While talking, she would periodically take a sip from a cup on the table. What she did not realize was that the _____ in her cup also contains a psychoactive drug.

coffee

In defending their experimental research with animals, psychologists have noted that

d. all of these statements are correct. (a.animals' physiology and behavior can tell us much about our own. b.animal experimentation sometimes helps animals as well as humans. c.advancing the well-being of humans justifies animal experimentation.)

In a classic experiment with preschoolers, Walter Mischel gave children a choice to eat one marshmallow now or two marshmallows when he returned a few minutes later. Mischel was testing _____ in the children.

delayed gratification

Thomas Bouchard's research on identical twins reared apart revealed that:

despite being reared differently, they're often strikingly alike.

Fraternal twins (dizygotic twins)

develop from separate fertilized eggs. They are genetically no closer than ordinary brothers and sisters, but they share a prenatal environment. (p. 136)

temperament

difficult—irritable, intense, and unpredictable easy—cheerful, relaxed, and feeding and sleeping on predictable schedules

Shelby just finished eating lunch. Her autonomic nervous system is responsible for the _____ of her food

digestion

Dogs have been taught to salivate to a circle but not to a square. This process is an example of .

discrimination

Androgyny

displaying both traditional masculine and feminine psychological characteristics. (p. 169)

In research examining genes and neurons on addiction, the neurotransmitter _____ appears to be involved.

dopamine

A school psychologist works with a teenage student who has lower intelligence, is hyperactive, and has behavior problems. What other problems might the psychologist suspect?

drinking

People with autism have a tendency to be aloof, so that they keep a distance from others that feels emotionally manageable to them. Others, in turn, are likely to maintain that interpersonal distance. In this case, aloofness is a(n) _____ trait.

evocative

Compared to younger people, older people are more likely to:

experience greater contentment

Attitude

feelings, often influenced by our beliefs, that predispose us to respond in a particular way to objects, people, and events. (p. 520)

Put the following cell structures in order from smallest to largest: nucleus, gene, chromosome

gene, chromosome, nucleus

Shelby was in a car accident and now has problems moving information from her short-term memory into her long-term memory. Shelby's _____ was damaged in the car accident.

hippocampus

Growing up on the South Side of Chicago was rough for Lee. He worked hard in school, kept out of trouble, and graduated college this past year. All of the following are possible reasons for his success to this point EXCEPT:

his parents were not involved in his life.

Humanistic psychology

historically significant perspective that emphasized human growth potential. (p. 5)

During a presentation to the committee, one of the advisors folds her arms. The presenter is unsure if she is:

irritated or relaxed.

John is 58 years old and is worried about Alzheimer's disease. He asks what he can do to prevent it. You give him the following advice:

keep your mind active

The neural basis for learning and memory, found at the synapses in the brain's memory-circuit connections, results from brief, rapid stimulation. It is called _________-_________ _________.

long-term potentiation

A negative correlation between people's work-related stress and their marital happiness would indicate that higher levels of marital happiness are associated with _____ levels of work-related stress.

lower

Chunking

organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically. (p. 324)

Identity

our sense of self; according to Erikson, the adolescent's task is to solidify a sense of self by testing and integrating various roles. (p. 209)

An experimenter flashes the word HERON across the visual field of a man whose corpus callosum has been severed. HER is transmitted to his right hemisphere and ON to his left hemisphere. When asked to indicate what he saw, the man says he

saw on but points to her

Three-year-old Adam happily explores the attractive toys located in the dentist's waiting room while his mother is in the room. However, if she briefly leaves he will be distressed. When she returns, he will go to her for reassurance. Then he will continue to play and periodically go to her side for brief moments. Adam most clearly displays signs of _____ attachment.

secure

Examples of psychologically induced states of consciousness

sensory deprivation, hypnosis, meditation

Steven Pinker states that an important difference exists between men and women in:

sexuality

One way to change behavior is to reward natural behaviors in small steps, as they get closer and closer to the desired behavior. This process is called:

shaping

Thorndike's law of effect was the basis for _______ work on operant conditioning and behavior control.

skinner's

ecologically relevant

something similar to stimuli associated with sexual activity in the natural environment, such as the stuffed head of a female quail.

Several months after watching a science fiction movie about space travel and alien abduction, Steve began to remember that aliens had abducted him and had subjected him to many of the horrors portrayed in the movie. His mistaken recall best illustrates:

source amnesia.

Coyotes who have been fed sheep carcasses that have been laced with a nausea-inducing poison are less likely to prey on sheep in the wild. This phenomenon is best explained by which classical conditioning phenomenon?

taste aversion learning

Embryo

the developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month. (p. 181)

Cheree is trying to convince her parents to send her to Europe. First, she asks them for a small favor (a bus ticket to a local city), hoping that later they will be more willing to send her on the longer trip. This technique is known as:

the foot-in-the-door phenomenon.

Two forms of associative learning are classical conditioning, in which the organism associates ________, and operant conditioning, in which the organism associates ________.

two or more stimuli; a response and consequence

If the functioning of your cerebellum is impaired, you would have trouble learning which of the following?

tying a knot

Automatic processing

unconscious encoding of incidental information, such as space, time, and frequency, and of well-learned information, such as word meanings. (p. 321)

Our environment often influences us by activating our principles through priming. This process is ____.

unconsicous

Because she is responsible for overseeing the servicing and repair of her company's fleet of cars, Rhonda frequently calls the garage mechanic to inquire whether service on various cars has been completed. Because service completion times are unpredictable, she is likely to be reinforced with positive responses to her inquiries on a _____ schedule.

variable-interval

Misinformation effect

when misleading information has corrupted one's memory of an event. (p. 344) Exposed to misleading information, we often, though feeling confident, misremember. A yield sign becomes a stop sign, hammers become screwdrivers, Coke cans become peanut cans, breakfast cereal becomes eggs, and a clean-shaven man morphs into a man with a mustache (Loftus et al., 1992).

Regarding a neuron's response to stimulation, the intensity of the stimulus determines

whether or not an impulse is generated.

Laura must always have an early morning cup of coffee. She usually has several more cups throughout the day. If she misses her daily cups of coffee, she gets a headache. The fact that Laura experiences headaches when she discontinues the use of caffeine is an example of ______ symptoms.

withdrawal

What are the three key structures of the limbic system, and what functions do they serve?

(1) The amygdala is involved in aggression and fear responses. (2) The hypothalamus is involved in bodily maintenance, pleasurable rewards, and control of the hormonal systems. (3) The hippocampus processes conscious memory.

Discrimination

(1) in classical conditioning, the learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus. (2) in social psychology, unjustifiable negative behavior toward a group and its members. (pp. 267, 538)

More cases are better than fewer.

An eager prospective student visits two university campuses, each for a day. At the first, the student randomly attends two classes and discovers both instructors to be witty and engaging. At the next campus, the two sampled instructors seem dull and uninspiring. Returning home, the student (discounting the small sample size of only two teachers at each institution) tells friends about the "great teachers" at the first school, and the "bores" at the second. Again, we know it but we ignore it: Averages based on many cases are more reliable (less variable) than averages based on only a few cases.

Cruel acts shape the self. But so do acts of good will. Act as though you like someone, and you soon may. Changing our behavior can change how we think about others and how we feel about ourselves.

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

Improved judgment, impulse control, and the ability to plan for the future all develop during the teens and early twenties, largely as a result of:

development of the frontal lobe of the brai

Moderate substance use disorder

four to five indicators

Twelve-year-old Tommy was watching the movie Jaws with his 10-year-old sister. He wanted her to become scared during certain parts of the movie, so he displayed a fearful facial expression during parts of the movie to stimulate fear in his little sister. According to facial feedback theory, while he did succeed in stimulating fear in his sister, he is likely to:

increase his fear during the parts of the movie he displayed the fearful facial expression.

In an experimental study of the effects of dieting on weight loss, dieting would be the:

independent variable.

Six-year-old Fiona has no memory of a trip she took to the hospital when she was 2 years old, yet the rest of her family recalls what happened in vivid detail. Her inability to remember this event is known as:

infantile amnesia

Juan easily taught his cat to jump through a hoop for the reward of food, but could not get his cat to fetch a ball and return the ball to him. The cat would chase the ball but use his paws to roll the ball so he could chase the ball again. The reason the cat had difficulties with fetching the ball was because of:

instinctive drift.

Wilbur is 68 years old and is sitting in his recliner reflecting on the mistakes he's made and his dreams that went unfulfilled. Wilbur is in the stage of development called:

integrity versus despair.

Preschool

Initiative vs. guilt

Late adulthood

Integrity vs. despair

Jason's parents and older friends all smoke, but they advise him not to. Juan's parents and friends don't smoke, but they say nothing to deter him from doing so. Will Jason or Juan be more likely to start smoking?

Jason may be more likely to smoke, because observational learning studies suggest that children tend to do as others do and say what they say.

symbolic thinking and pretend play

Judy DeLoache (1987) discovered this when she showed children a model of a room and hid a miniature stuffed dog behind its miniature couch. The 2½-year-olds easily remembered where to find the miniature toy, but they could not use the model to locate an actual stuffed dog behind a couch in a real room. Three-year-olds—only 6 months older—usually went right to the actual stuffed animal in the real room, showing they could think of the model as a symbol for the room.

How could your psychology instructor use negative reinforcement to encourage your attentive behavior during class?

Your instructor could reinforce your attentive behavior by taking away something you dislike. For example, your instructor could offer to shorten the length of an assigned paper or replace lecture time with an in-class activity. In both cases, the instructor would remove something aversive in order to negatively reinforce your focused attention.

How does our everyday thinking sometimes lead us to a wrong conclusion?

Our everyday thinking can be perilous because of three phenomena: hindsight bias, overconfidence, and a tendency to perceive patterns in random events. Hindsight bias (also called the "I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon") is the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that we would have foreseen it. Overconfidence in our judgments results partly from our bias to seek information that confirms them. These tendencies, plus our eagerness to perceive patterns in random events, lead us to overestimate our intuition. Although limited by the testable questions it can address, scientific inquiry can help us overcome our intuition's biases and shortcomings.

Chanice is twelve years old. When she woke up this morning she notices blood on her bed. This has never happened before. Chanice is experiencing which of the following?

menarche

Chantel is eleven years old. She already has breast buds and visible pubic hair. What is physical change is likely to happen next?

menarche

Marla and Dave, a married couple in their thirties, have a 2-year-old child. They are most likely to feel:

more satisfaction out of life

Developmental psychologists

Study our changing abilities from womb to tomb

On a business trip last year, Susan and Pam flew from Los Angeles to Boston. Susan really hates to fly. In the middle of the flight, Susan and Pam experienced 20 minutes of very severe turbulence. Susan remembers this incident as if it were yesterday, but Pam cannot recall it. Why?

Susan experienced emotion-triggered hormonal changes.

long-term potentiation (LTP)

an increase in a cell's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory. (p. 332)

Shaping

an operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior. (p. 291)

Critical period

an optimal period early in the life of an organism when exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces normal development. (p. 196)

Transgender

an umbrella term describing people whose gender identity or expression differs from that associated with their birth sex. (p. 169)

Psychologist John Garcia found that rats did not learn to associate a taste with flashing lights and noise. However, rats do learn to associate a taste with getting ill. Which of the following concepts best accounts for this observation?

biological preparedness

Psychology's Three Main Levels of Analysis

biological, psychological, and social-cultural

Nature is to nurture as

biology is to experience.

According to Kohlberg, the majority of children younger than age 9 have a __________________ of self-interest.

preconventional morality

Withdrawal

the discomfort and distress that follow discontinuing an addictive drug or behavior. (p. 118)

Heritability

the proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes. The heritability of a trait may vary, depending on the range of populations and environments studied. (pp. 140, 406)

Desensitization and imitation are two factors that contribute to:

the violence-viewing effect.

Why is replication important?

Psychologists watch eagerly for new findings, but they also proceed with caution—by awaiting other investigators' repeating the experiment to see if the finding can be confirmed (the result replicated).

John Watson and BF Skinner's definition of Psychology

Psychology was defined as "the scientific study of observable behavior."

Biopsychosocial influences on learning

Psychological Influences

A good theory uses an integrated set of principles that organizes _____ and predicts behaviors or events.

observations

Pamela is a 15-year-old white teen who lives in the suburbs. She is likely to have her _____ influence her clothing selection and her _____ influence her college choice.

peers, parents

Shelby and colleagues measured stress hormone levels in baby rats who were separated from their mothers at birth. They found that these baby rats had high stress levels and refused to eat. Many of them died. Shelby and colleagues concluded that the mother-infant bonding is important for human babies to thrive. Who has benefitted from this research?

people

Recent research found that 3-year-old children whose parents had problems controlling were more likely to smoke cigarettes as teenagers in comparison to those who were obedient to their parents when they were 3 years of age. This finding is consistent with the view that development is _____.

stable

Endocrine [EN-duh-krin] system

the body's "slow" chemical communication system; a set of glands that secrete hormones into the bloodstream. (p. 63)

Coronary heart disease

the clogging of the vessels that nourish the heart muscle; the leading cause of death in many developed countries. (p. 496)

Social clock

the culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement. (p. 220)

Tolerance

the diminishing effect with regular use of the same dose of a drug, requiring the user to take larger and larger doses before experiencing the drug's effect. (p. 118)

Extinction

the diminishing of a conditioned response; occurs in classical conditioning when an unconditioned stimulus (US) does not follow a conditioned stimulus (CS); occurs in operant conditioning when a response is no longer reinforced. (p. 285)

Nanette's daughter refused to brush her teeth and threw her toys across the room. Nanette gave her daughter a 20-minute time-out. This is an example of a(n):

negative punishment

In one survey of sixth-graders in 22 U.S. states, _____ percent believed their friends had smoked marijuana while 4 percent acknowledged doing so.

14

personality psychologists

Investigate our persistent traits

Shallow processing

encoding on a basic level based on the structure or appearance of words. (p. 326)

The only way to demonstrate causation is to conduct a(n) _____.

experiment

Attribution theory

the theory that we explain someone's behavior by crediting either the situation or the person's disposition. (p. 518)

Madeleine L'Engle

"The naked intellect is an extraordinarily inaccurate instrument"

Endorphins [en-DOR-fins]

"morphine within"—natural, opiate-like neurotransmitters linked to pain control and to pleasure. (p. 58)

What percentage of adults reports a mid-life crisis?

25

Independent variable

In an experiment, the factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect is being studied. (p. 3

What is included in the biopsychosocial approach to development?

Individual development results from the interaction of biological, psychological, and social-cultural influences. Biological influences include our shared human genome; individual variations; prenatal environment; and sex-related genes, hormones, and physiology. Psychological influences include gene-environment interactions; the effect of early experiences on neural networks; responses evoked by our own characteristics, such as gender and temperament; and personal beliefs, feelings, and expectations. Social-cultural influences include parental and peer influences; cultural traditions and values; and cultural gender norms.

Modern Definition of Psychology

Psychology is defined as as the science of behavior and mental processes.

Why do some people become regular users of consciousness-altering drugs?

Some people may be biologically vulnerable to particular drugs, such as alcohol. Psychological factors (such as stress, depression, and hopelessness) and social factors (such as peer pressure) combine to lead many people to experiment with—and sometimes become addicted to—drugs. Cultural and ethnic groups have differing rates of drug use. Each type of influence—biological, psychological, and social-cultural—offers a possible path for drug misuse prevention and treatment programs.

Mean

The arithmetic average of a distribution, obtained by adding the scores and then dividing by the number of scores. (p. 43)

How do explicit and implicit memories differ?

The human brain processes information on dual tracks, consciously and unconsciously. Explicit (declarative) memories—our conscious memories of facts and experiences—form through effortful processing, which requires conscious effort and attention. Implicit (nondeclarative) memories—of skills and classically conditioned associations—happen without our awareness, through automatic processing.

Cognitive neuroscience

The interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked with cognition (including perception, thinking, memory, and language). (pp. 5, 93)

Freudian psychology

The other major force was Freudian psychology, which emphasized the ways our unconscious thought processes and our emotional responses to childhood experiences affect our behavior.

Debriefing

The post-experimental explanation of a study, including its purpose and any deceptions, to its participants. (p. 41)

Brain → pituitary → other glands → hormones → body and brain

This feedback system (brain → pituitary → other glands → hormones → body and brain) reveals the intimate connection of the nervous and endocrine systems. The nervous system directs endocrine secretions, which then affect the nervous system. Conducting and coordinating this whole electrochemical orchestra is that maestro we call the brain.

What themes and influences mark our social journey from early adulthood to death?

Adults do not progress through an orderly sequence of age-related social stages. Chance events can determine life choices. The social clock is a culture's preferred timing for social events, such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement. Adulthood's dominant themes are love and work, which Erikson called intimacy and generativity.

How do psychologists use case studies, naturalistic observations, and surveys to observe and describe behavior, and why is random sampling important?

Descriptive methods, which include case studies, naturalistic observations, and surveys, show us what can happen, and they may offer ideas for further study. The best basis for generalizing about a population is a representative sample; in a random sample, every person in the entire population being studied has an equal chance of participating. Descriptive methods cannot show cause and effect because researchers cannot control variables.

Informed consent

Giving potential participants enough information about a study to enable them to choose whether they wish to participate. (p. 41)

Accommodation

In developmental psychology, adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information. (p. 187)

What is operant conditioning?

In operant conditioning, behaviors followed by reinforcers increase; those followed by punishers often decrease.

The Pons

Location: Area of the hindbrain that sits directly above the medulla Function: Connects upper and lower parts of the brain It also plays a key role in sleep and dreaming, where REM sleep, or the sleeping state where dreaming is most likely to occur, has been proven to originate here, in the pons.

Temporal Lobe

Location: Bottom middle part of cortex, right behind the temples Function: Responsible for processing auditory information from the ears (hearing)

Occipital Lobe

Location: Bottom, back part of the cortex Function: Responsible for processing visual information from the eyes

______________ aids can be used to help remember things like speeches or lists of items. These aids often incorporate the use of vivid imagery and organizational devices.

Mnemonic

How did Piaget, Kohlberg, and later researchers describe adolescent cognitive and moral development?

Piaget theorized that adolescents develop a capacity for formal operations and that this development is the foundation for moral judgment. Lawrence Kohlberg proposed a stage theory of moral reasoning, from a preconventional morality of self-interest, to a conventional morality concerned with upholding laws and social rules, to (in some people) a postconventional morality of universal ethical principles. Other researchers believe that morality lies in moral intuition and moral action as well as thinking. Some critics argue that Kohlberg's postconventional level represents morality from the perspective of individualist, middle-class people.

What are the recommended memory strategies you just read about?

Rehearse repeatedly to boost long-term recall. Schedule spaced (not crammed) study times. Spend more time rehearsing or actively thinking about the material. Make the material personally meaningful, with well-organized and vivid associations. Refresh your memory by returning to contexts and moods to activate retrieval cues. Use mnemonic devices. Minimize interference. Plan for a complete night's sleep. Test yourself repeatedly—retrieval practice is a proven retention strategy.

What is reuptake? What two other things can happen to excess neurotransmitters after a neuron reacts?

Reuptake occurs when excess neurotransmitters are reabsorbed by the sending neuron. (They can also drift away or be broken down by enzymes.)

Yasmin is trying to decide between two schools for her eight-year-old daughter to attend. Two schools brag that the average IQ test score of its students is 125, which is higher than the norm of 100. If Yasmin is most interested in finding a school that has children with diverse abilities, she would want to know the _____ of the IQ scores for each school.

Standard deviation

During infancy and childhood, how do the brain and motor skills develop?

The brain's nerve cells are sculpted by heredity and experience. As a child's brain develops, neural connections grow more numerous and complex. Experiences then trigger a pruning process, in which unused connections weaken and heavily used ones strengthen. This process continues until puberty. Early childhood is an important period for shaping the brain, but our brain modifies itself in response to our learning throughout life. In childhood, complex motor skills—sitting, standing, walking—develop in a predictable sequence, though the timing of that sequence is a function of individual maturation and culture. We have no conscious memories of events occurring before about age 3½. This infantile amnesia occurs in part because major brain areas have not yet matured.

What are the functions of the various cerebral cortex regions?

The cerebral cortex has two hemispheres, and each hemisphere has four lobes: the frontal, parietal, occipital, and temporal. Each lobe performs many functions and interacts with other areas of the cortex. The motor cortex, at the rear of the frontal lobes, controls voluntary movements. The somatosensory cortex, at the front of the parietal lobes, registers and processes body touch and movement sensations. Body parts requiring precise control (in the motor cortex) or those that are especially sensitive (in the somatosensory cortex) occupy the greatest amount of space. Most of the brain's cortex—the major portion of each of the four lobes—is devoted to uncommitted association areas, which integrate information involved in learning, remembering, thinking, and other higher-level functions. Our mental experiences arise from coordinated brain activity.

In classical conditioning _____ is associating events where the CS announces the US, while in operant conditioning it is associating a response with a consequence (reinforcer or punisher).

acquisition

By using random assignment, researchers are able to control for ______________ ___________ , which are other factors besides the independent variable (s) that may influence research results.

confounding variables

One important reason that sleep is so important in remembering what you have studied is because:

during sleep, the brain organizes and consolidates information for long-term memory.

Dr. Miller is working on a research grant about the impact of evolution in everyday society. Dr. Miller is most likely a(n):

evolutionary psychologist

Mr. Nydam suffers amnesia and is unable to remember playing golf on a particular course. However, the longer he plays the course, the more his game improves. His experience illustrates the difference in:

explicit memory and implicit memory.

Change blindness

failing to notice changes in the environment. (p. 98) While a man (in red) provides directions to a construction worker, two experimenters rudely pass between them carrying a door. During this interruption, the original worker switches places with another person wearing different-colored clothing. Most people, focused on their direction giving, do not notice the switch (Simons & Levin, 1998).

Mirror neurons

frontal lobe neurons that some scientists believe fire when performing certain actions or when observing another doing so. The brain's mirroring of another's action may enable imitation and empathy. (p. 307) Cognitive imitation Monkey A (left) watched Monkey B touch four pictures on a display screen in a certain order to gain a banana. Monkey A learned to imitate that order, even when shown the same pictures in a different configuration (Subiaul et al., 2004). human predisposition to learn from watching adults that 2-to 5-year-old children overimitate

William James would be considered a(n) ________. Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Titchener would be considered ________.

functionalist; structuralists

Freud's ideas of love and work correspond to Erikson's stages of intimacy and _____.

generativity

In the United States and Canada, ____________ rates doubled between 1957 and 1974, coinciding with the introduction and spread of television.

homocide

These chemical messengers are mostly manufactured by the endocrine glands, and they can influence our interest in sex, food, and aggression.

hormones

Roger believes he has extrasensory perception (ESP). He predicts that he will be able to correctly guess heads or tails at least 85 times out of 100 coin flips. Because this is a testable prediction, it is a(n) _____.

hypothesis

Interneurons

neurons within the brain and spinal cord; communicate internally and process information between the sensory inputs and motor outputs. (p. 60) Our complexity resides mostly in these interneurons. Our nervous system has billions and billions of interneurons.

Serotonin, dopamine, and endorphins are all chemical messengers called _________.

neurotransmitters

Your friend was in a car accident in which his heart stopped briefly and he had to be resuscitated. He tells you that he experienced an out-of-body sensation and had visions of bright lights and tunnels. His description is:

similar to other people who have reported near-death experiences.

Culture

the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions shared by a group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next. (pp. 7, 155)

Corpus callosum [KOR-pus kah-LOW-sum]

the large band of neural fibers connecting the two brain hemispheres and carrying messages between them. (p. 82)

moral intuition

"quick gut feelings, or affectively laden intuitions."

Your friend was in a car accident in which his heart stopped briefly and he had to be resuscitated. He informs you that he had a near-death experience. You are likely to believe him because up to _____ percent of people recall near-death experiences.

15

The number of those aged 60 and older is expected to double by _____.

2050

The period of adolescence is lengthening in industrialized cultures such as in Europe, the United States, and Australia. Adolescents are taking more time to finish their education and establish careers. The average age at first marriage in the United States has increased more than four years since 1960, to _______ for men and _______ for women.

28; 26

In the 1890s, the average interval between a woman's first menstrual period and marriage, which typically marked a transition to adulthood, was about _____ years; a century later in industrialized countries it was about _____ years.

7; 14

Participants in a study conducted by Ralph Haber were shown more than 2,500 slides of faces and places for only 10 seconds each. Later, they were shown 280 of these slides, paired with an unseen slide. The participants were able to recognize approximately_____ percent of the slides they had seen before.

90

Counseling psychology

A branch of psychology that assists people with problems in living (often related to school, work, or marriage) and in achieving greater well-being. (p. 12) Help people to cope with challenges and crises (including academic, vocational, and marital issues) and to improve their personal and social functioning. Both counseling and clinical psychologists administer and interpret tests, provide counseling and therapy, and sometimes conduct basic and applied research.

Naturalistic observations

A descriptive technique of observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate and control the situation. (p. 28) Like the case study, naturalistic observation does not explain behavior. Watching and recording the natural behavior of many individuals. Naturalistic observation offers interesting snapshots of everyday life, but it does so without controlling for all the factors that may influence behavior. It's one thing to observe the pace of life in various places, but another to understand what makes some people walk faster than others.

Surveys and interviews

Asking people questions.

A psychologist treating emotionally troubled adolescents at a local mental health agency is most likely to be a(n) __________

Clinical psychologist

Those working in the interdisciplinary field called ___________ ___________ study the brain activity associated with perception, thinking, memory, and language.

Cognitive neuroscience

In Pavlov's experiments, the tone started as a neutral stimulus, and then became a(n) ________________ stimulus.

Conditioned

Hazardous Use

Continues to use despite hazards. Continues use despite worsening physical or psychological problems.

________ ________ refers to our tendency to perceive events as obvious or inevitable after the fact.

Hindsight bias

The ages of 40 to 65 is known as _____ adulthood.

Middle

Median

The middle score in a distribution; half the scores are above it and half are below it. (p. 43)

Psychologists involved in the study of memories of abuse tend to DISAGREE about which of the following statements?

We tend to repress extremely upsetting memories.

Evolutionary psychologists attribute the human tendency to fear snakes and heights to:

genetic predispositions

At which of Atkinson-Shiffrin's three memory stages would iconic and echoic memory occur?

sensory memory

When we are tested immediately after viewing a list of words, we tend to recall the first and last items best, which is known as the__________ __________ effect.

serial position

The retention of information over time is called:

storage

Imprinting

the process by which certain animals form strong attachments during early life. (p. 196)

Chromosomes

threadlike structures made of DNA molecules that contain the genes. (p. 134)

operant conditioning

we learn to associate a response (our behavior) and its consequence. Thus we (and other animals) learn to repeat acts followed by good results and avoid acts followed by bad results

Punishment

an event that tends to decrease the behavior that it follows. (p. 295)

It has been suggested that men in many cultures tend to marry women younger than themselves because men are genetically predisposed to seek female features associated with youthful fertility. This suggestion best illustrates:

an evolutionary perspective

Knowing that two events are correlated provides

an indication that an underlying third factor is at work.

Disorder of sexual development

an inherited condition that involves unusual development of sex chromosomes and anatomy. (p. 167)

Dr. Petrie is interested in the immigration experiences of Somalian migrants in Minnesota. Which of the following would be best for this research interest?

a survey

PET (positron emission tomography) scan:

a visual display of brain activity that detects where a radioactive form of glucose goes while the brain performs a given task. (p. 67)

When research participants were asked to raise their middle finger through a motion sensor while reading a story, the behaviors they read about were perceived as more hostile. This best illustrated the:

behavior feedback effect.

Respondent behavior

behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus. (p. 281)

Respondent behavior

behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus. (p. 281) We typically learn to repeat acts that bring rewards and avoid acts that bring unwanted results We associate stimuli that we do not control, and we respond automatically

Operant behavior

behavior that operates on the environment, producing consequences. (p. 281)

Conditioning is the process of:

learning associations.

Someone with a split brain will have trouble verbally identifying an object projected in their _____ visual field.

left

Almost all right-handers process speech in the __________ hemisphere; most left-handers process speech in the _____________ hemisphere.

left; left—the other 30 percent vary, processing speech in the right hemisphere or in both hemispheres

Dr. Perry is examining academic performance based on parental income level. Dr. Perry finds that the sample variances are small and the differences between the groups are large. Dr. Perry expects that the results will be _______.

significant

Limbic system (limbus means "border")

neural system (including the hippocampus, amygdala, and hypothalamus) located below the cerebral hemispheres; associated with emotions and drives. (p. 71)

recall—

retrieving information that is not currently in your conscious awareness but that was learned at an earlier time. A fill-in-the-blank question tests your recall.

Our short-term memory for new information is limited to about ________ items.

seven

In teaching her son to play basketball, Mrs. Richards initially reinforces him with praise for simply dribbling while standing still, then only for walking while dribbling, and finally only for running while dribbling. She is using a procedure known as:

shaping.

As one is reading this question right now, in which stage of memory is one consciously processing the meaning of the words?

short-term

A guest will be spending time in a classroom. To make sure the students imitate this person's prosocial behaviors, the teacher should pick a guest who the children think is:

similar to them.

Which of the following scenarios is true based on research from cognitive neuroscience?

A researcher can tell that Julie is looking at a telephone based on cortical activation patterns.

How can you use memory research findings to do better in this and other courses?

Memory research findings suggest the following strategies for improving memory: Study repeatedly, make material meaningful, activate retrieval cues, use mnemonic devices, minimize interference, sleep more, and test yourself to be sure you can retrieve, as well as recognize, material.

Social-cultural influences

Presence of others Cultural, societal and family expectations Peer and other group influence Compelling Models (media-sports-entertainment-politics)

What is priming?

Priming is the activation (often without our awareness) of associations. Seeing a gun, for example, might temporarily predispose someone to interpret an ambiguous face as threatening or to recall a boss as nasty.

What is contemporary psychology's position on the nature-nurture debate?

Psychological events often stem from the interaction of nature and nurture, rather than from either of them acting alone.

How has the concept of addiction changed?

Psychologists debate whether the concept of addiction has been stretched too far, and whether addictions are really as irresistible as commonly believed. Addictions can be powerful, and many with addictions do benefit from therapy or group support. But viewing addiction as an uncontrollable disease can undermine people's self-confidence and their belief that they can change. The addiction-as-disease-needing-treatment idea has been extended to a host of excessive, driven behaviors, but labeling a behavior doesn't explain it. The concept of addiction continues to evolve, as psychiatry's manual of disorders now includes behavior addictions such as "gambling disorder" and proposes "Internet gaming disorder" for further study.

In psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories is called _____.

Repression

Hindsight bias

The tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it. (Also known as the I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon.) (p. 20)

How do individualist and collectivist cultures differ in their values and goals?

Within any culture, the degree of individualism or collectivism varies from person to person. Cultures based on self-reliant individualism, like those found in North America and Western Europe, tend to value personal independence and individual achievement. They define identity in terms of self-esteem, personal goals and attributes, and personal rights and liberties. Cultures based on socially connected collectivism, like those in many parts of Asia and Africa, tend to value interdependence, tradition, and harmony, and they define identity in terms of group goals, commitments, and belonging to one's group.

Which of the following is a statistical measure used to assess the extent to which two factors vary together and therefore how well the variables predict each other?

a correlation coefficient

Intrinsic motivation

a desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake. (p. 305)

Extrinsic motivation

a desire to perform a behavior to receive promised rewards or avoid threatened punishment. (p. 305)

Endocrine glands that play an important role in helping us respond to stress are the:

adrenal glands.

The wear and tear of telomeres is accelerated by all of the following EXCEPT:

alcohol consumption.

Self-concept

all our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question, "Who am I?" (pp. 200, 584)

Manipulation of the experiment means that __________

all variables are controlled for, except the one being tested.

Near-death experience

an altered state of consciousness reported after a close brush with death (such as through cardiac arrest); often similar to drug-induced hallucinations. (p. 124)

Echoic memory

a momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3 or 4 seconds. (p. 323)

Iconic memory

a momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli; a photographic or picture-image memory lasting no more than a few tenths of a second. (p. 323)

Motor cortex

an area at the rear of the frontal lobes that controls voluntary movements. (p. 75)

Methamphetamine

a powerfully addictive drug that stimulates the central nervous system, with speeded-up body functions and associated energy and mood changes; over time, appears to reduce baseline dopamine levels. (p. 123)

Reconsolidation

a process in which previously stored memories, when retrieved, are potentially altered before being stored again. (p. 343)

Thalamus [THAL-uh-muss]

the brain's sensory control center, located on top of the brainstem; it directs messages to the sensory receiving areas in the cortex and transmits replies to the cerebellum and medulla. (p. 70) Think of the thalamus as being to sensory information what London is to England's trains: a hub through which traffic passes en route to various destinations.

Stranger anxiety

the fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 months of age. (p. 195)

When tested immediately after viewing a list of words, people tend to recall the first and last items more readily than those in the middle. When retested after a delay, they are most likely to recall

the first items on the list.

Menarche [meh-NAR-key]

the first menstrual period. (p. 166)

When you go for a job interview and are introduced to many people, whose name are you most likely to remember?

the first person you met

Parallel processing

the processing of many aspects of a problem simultaneously; the brain's natural mode of information processing for many functions. (pp. 96, 246, 320)

Spontaneous recovery

the reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished conditioned response. (p. 285)

Long-term memory

the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system. Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences. (p. 320)

John had a brain tumor removed. Now he has no vision in his left eye. Where was the tumor located?

the right occipital lobe

Social psychology

the scientific study of how we think about, influence, and relate to one another. (p. 418)

X chromosome

the sex chromosome found in both men and women. Females have two X chromosomes; males have one. An X chromosome from each parent produces a female child. (p. 165)

Ever since she foolishly drank too much tequila at a rock concert and vomited all over her best friend, Erin becomes nauseous at the smell or taste of tequila. In this example, the conditioned stimulus is _____ and the conditioned response is _____.

the smell or taste of tequila; nausea

Epigenetics

the study of environmental influences on gene expression that occur without a DNA change. (pp. 143, 612)

Molecular behavior genetics

the study of how the structure and function of genes interact with our environment to influence behavior. (p. 142)

Evolutionary psychology

the study of the evolution of behavior and the mind, using principles of natural selection. (pp. 7, 144)

Behavior genetics

the study of the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behavior. (pp. 7, 134)

Generalization

the tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses. (p. 286)

Menopause

the time of natural cessation of menstruation; also refers to the biological changes a woman experiences as her ability to reproduce declines. (p. 214)

Adolescence

the transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to independence. (p. 203)

cerebral hemispheres

the two halves of the brain

Parents are most effective in getting their children to imitate them if

their words and actions are consistent.

"If hunger improves intellectual performance, then hungry adults will score higher on a math test than adults who are not hungry." In that statement, "hunger improves intellectual performance" is a(n) _____.

theory

Mnemonics [nih-MON-iks]

memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices. (p. 325)

Scatterplot

A graphed cluster of dots, each of which represents the values of two variables. The slope of the points suggests the direction of the relationship between the two variables. The amount of scatter suggests the strength of the correlation (little scatter indicates high correlation). (p. 32)

The scientific method

A self-correcting process for asking questions and observing nature's answers.

electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)

After long-term potentiation has occurred, passing an electric current through the brain won't disrupt old memories. But the current will wipe out very recent memories. Such is the experience both of laboratory animals and of severely depressed people given electroconvulsive therapy.

Christy's 17-year-old nephew seems to take a lot of risks compared to his sister. He drives faster than she does, smokes cigarettes, and has several casual sexual partners. How would an evolutionary psychologist explain the difference between her niece and nephew?

Females are supposedly attracted to males who appear healthy and bold, which encourages males to behave this way.

A police officer was fatally wounded. He was shot in the head and immediately stopped breathing. It is likely the bullet pierced his _____.

Medulla

The _____ effect occurs when one incorporates misleading information into one's memory of an event.

Misinformation

Why do tobacco companies try so hard to get customers hooked as teens?

Nicotine is powerfully addictive, expensive, and deadly. Those who start paving the neural pathways when young may find it very hard to stop using nicotine. As a result, tobacco companies may have lifelong customers.

If different researchers get consistent results from testing a hypothesis, the results are said to be ________

Reliable

René Descartes

René Descartes disagreed with John Locke, believing that some ideas are innate.

Cognitive neuroscience

The interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked with cognition (including perception, thinking, memory, and language).

Dr. Aba is conducting a study to see whether there is a relationship between birth order and shyness. Before conducting this study, Dr. Aba needs to develop an operational definition of:

both shyness and birth order

All of the following are main components of the scientific attitude EXCEPT:

critical thinking

Critics of evolutionary psychology are particularly likely to emphasize that gender differences in mate preferences can also be byproducts of:

cultural practices

Effortful processing

encoding that requires attention and conscious effort. (p. 321)

Observational learning

learning by observing others. (p. 306)

A correlation is a measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and thus of how well either factor _____ the other.

predicts

Learning

the process of acquiring through experience new information or behaviors. (p. 280)

Gender refers to:

the social construction of what it means to be male or female.

Amygdala [uh-MIG-duh-la]

two lima-bean-sized neural clusters in the limbic system; linked to emotion. (p. 71)

cocktail party effect

your ability to attend to only one voice among many. Let another voice speak your name and your cognitive radar, operating on your mind's other track, will instantly bring that unattended voice into consciousness. This effect might have prevented an embarrassing and dangerous situation in 2009, when two Northwest Airlines pilots "lost track of time." Focused on their laptops and in conversation, they ignored alarmed air traffic controllers' attempts to reach them and overflew their Minneapolis destination by 150 miles. If only the controllers had known and spoken the pilots' names.

Impulse control lags reward seeking

National surveys of more than 7000 American 12- to 24-year-olds reveal that sensation seeking peaks in the mid-teens, with impulse control developing more slowly as frontal lobes mature. (National Longitudinal Study of Youth and Children and Young Adults survey data presented by Steinberg, 2013.)

How do neurocognitive disorders and Alzheimer's disease affect cognitive ability?

Neurocognitive disorders (NCDs) are acquired (not lifelong) disorders marked by cognitive deficits, which are often related to Alzheimer's disease, brain injury or disease, or substance abuse. This damage to brain cells results in the erosion of mental abilities that is not typical of normal aging. Alzheimer's disease is marked by neural plaques, often with an onset after age 80, entailing a progressive decline in memory and other cognitive abilities.

Identical twins (monozygotic twins)

develop from a single fertilized egg that splits in two, creating two genetically identical organisms. (p. 134) Although identical twins have the same genes, they don't always have the same number of copies of those genes. That variation helps explain why one twin may have a greater risk for certain illnesses and disorders, including schizophrenia (Maiti et al., 2011). Most identical twins share a placenta during prenatal development, but one of every three sets has separate placentas. One twin's placenta may provide slightly better nourishment, which may contribute to identical twin differences (Davis et al., 1995b; Phelps et al., 1997; Sokol et al., 1995).

Depressants

drugs (such as alcohol, barbiturates, and opiates) that reduce neural activity and slow body functions. (p. 119) calm neural activity and slow body functions

Barbiturates

drugs that depress central nervous system activity, reducing anxiety but impairing memory and judgment. (p. 120) tranquilizers, sometimes prescribed to induce sleep or reduce anxiety, can impair memory and judgment.

Our ability to believe our own lies is due to _____.

motivated forgetting

Try moving your right hand in a circular motion, as if cleaning a table. Then start your right foot doing the same motion, synchronized with your hand. Now reverse the right foot's motion, but not the hand's. Finally, try moving the left foot opposite to the right hand. Why is reversing the right foot's motion so hard? Why is it easier to move the left foot opposite to the right hand?

1. The right limbs' opposed activities interfere with each other because both are controlled by the same (left) side of your brain. 2. Opposite sides of your brain control your left and right limbs, so the reversed motion causes less interference.

In what brain region would damage be most likely to (1) disrupt your ability to skip rope? (2) disrupt your ability to hear and taste? (3) perhaps leave you in a coma? (4) cut off the very breath and heartbeat of life?

1. cerebellum, 2. thalamus, 3. reticular formation, 4. medulla

The life expectancy in the United States is:

79

Janelle has five brothers who are 4, 6, 6, 9, and 15 years of age. The mean age of Janelle's brothers is:

8

Psychiatry

A branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders; practiced by physicians who sometimes provide medical (for example, drug) treatments as well as psychological therapy. (p. 12) Branch of medicine dealing with psychological disorders. Psychiatrists may provide psychotherapy, are medical doctors licensed to prescribe drugs and otherwise treat physical causes of psychological disorders.

Clinical psychology

A branch of psychology that studies, assesses, and treats people with psychological disorders. (p. 12) Studies, assesses, and treats people with psychological disorders but usually does not provide medical therapy. Assess and treat people with mental, emotional, and behavior disorders. Both counseling and clinical psychologists administer and interpret tests, provide counseling and therapy, and sometimes conduct basic and applied research.

Agonist

A molecule that increases a neurotransmitter's action. (p. 59) Agonists may increase the production or release of neurotransmitters, or block reuptake in the synapse. Other agonists may be similar enough to a neurotransmitter to bind to its receptor and mimic its excitatory or inhibitory effects. Some opiate drugs are agonists and produce a temporary "high" by amplifying normal sensations of arousal or pleasure.

All-or-none response

A neuron's reaction of either firing (with a full-strength response) or not firing. (p. 55) Increasing the level of stimulation above the threshold will not increase the neural impulse's intensity. How do we distinguish a gentle touch from a big hug? A strong stimulus can trigger more neurons to fire, and to fire more often. But it does not affect the action potential's strength or speed. Squeezing a trigger harder won't make a bullet go faster.

Statistical significance

A statistical statement of how likely it is that an obtained result occurred by chance. (p. 47) When sample averages are reliable and the difference between them is large, we can say the difference has statistical significance. Statistical significance indicates the likelihood that a result will happen by chance. But this does not say anything about the importance of the result. Most often, psychologists look for a probability of 5% (.05) or less that the results are due to chance, which means a 95% chance the results are "not" due to chance. When you hear that the results of an experiment were statistically significant, it means that you can be 95% sure the results are not due to chance...this is a good thing

Normal curve or normal distribution

A symmetrical, bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many types of data; most scores fall near the mean (about 68 percent fall within one standard deviation of it) and fewer and fewer near the extremes. (pp. 45, 396)

How is adolescence defined, and how do physical changes affect developing teens?

Adolescence is the transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to social independence. Boys seem to benefit (though with risks) from "early" maturation, girls from "late" maturation. The brain's frontal lobes mature and myelin growth increases during adolescence and the early twenties, enabling improved judgment, impulse control, and long-term planning.

Christina walks into her Introduction to Psychology course on the first day of class. She becomes immediately aware that she is the only African-American in the entire class. Being _____ is her social identity.

African-American

Constraint-induced therapy

Aims to rewire brains and improve the dexterity of a brain-damaged child or even an adult stroke victim (Taub, 2004). By restraining a fully functioning limb, therapists force patients to use the "bad" hand or leg, gradually reprogramming the brain. One stroke victim, a surgeon in his fifties, was put to work cleaning tables, with his good arm and hand restrained. Slowly, the bad arm recovered its skills.

How are animal and human research participants protected?

Animal protection legislation, laboratory regulation and inspection, and local ethics committees serve to protect animal and human welfare. At universities, Institutional Review Boards screen research proposals. Ethical principles developed by international psychological organizations urge researchers using human participants to obtain informed consent,to protect them from harm and discomfort, to treat their personal information confidentially, and to fully debrief all participants.

Why do we forget?

Anterograde amnesia is an inability to form new memories. Retrograde amnesia is an inability to retrieve old memories. Normal forgetting can happen because we have never encoded information (encoding failure); because the physical trace has decayed (storage decay); or because we cannot retrieve what we have encoded and stored (retrieval failure). Retrieval problems may result from proactive (forward-acting) interference, as prior learning interferes with recall of new information, or from retroactive (backward-acting) interference, as new learning disrupts recall of old information. Some believe that motivated forgetting occurs, but researchers have found little evidence of repression.

Feynman, 1997

As a Nobel Prize-winning physicist explained, "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool" (Feynman, 1997).

How does memory change with age?

As the years pass, recall begins to decline, especially for meaningless information, but recognition memory remains strong. Older adults rely more on time management and memory cues to remember time-based and habitual tasks. Developmental researchers study age-related changes such as in memory with cross-sectional studies (comparing people of different ages) and longitudinal studies (retesting the same people over a period of years). "Terminal decline" describes the cognitive decline in the final few years of life.

Why are association areas important?

Association areas are involved in higher mental functions—interpreting, integrating, and acting on information processed in other areas. Our mental experiences arise from coordinated brain activity.

A modified three-stage processing model of memory

Atkinson and Shiffrin's classic three-step model helps us to think about how memories are processed, but today's researchers recognize other ways long-term memories form. For example, some information slips into long-term memory via a "back door," without our consciously attending to it (automatic processing). And so much active processing occurs in the short-term memory stage that many now prefer the term working memory.

How have psychologists studied attachment differences, and what have they learned?

Attachment has been studied in strange situation experiments, which show that some children are securely attached and others are insecurely attached. Infants' differing attachment styles reflect both their individual temperamentand the responsiveness of their parents and child-care providers. Adult relationships seem to reflect the attachment styles of early childhood, lending support to Erik Erikson's idea that basic trust is formed in infancy by our experiences with responsive caregivers.

What distinguishes imprinting from attachment?

Attachment is the normal process by which we form emotional ties with important others. Imprinting occurs only in certain animals that have a critical period very early in their development during which they must form their attachments, and they do so in an inflexible manner.

Luca's parents set firm rules but are responsive to his needs. They give him a chance to explain himself and also explain their position on why they cannot allow him to stay out past midnight. Luca's parents have a(n) _____ parenting style.

Authoritative

The registrar's office at the University of Michigan has found that usually about 100 students in Arts and Sciences have perfect marks at the end of their first term at the University. However, only about 10 to 15 students graduate with perfect marks. What do you think is the most likely explanation for the fact that there are more perfect marks after one term than at graduation (Jepson et al., 1983)?

Averages based on fewer courses are more variable, which guarantees a greater number of extremely low and high marks at the end of the first term.

Biopsychosocial influences on learning Our learning results not only from environmental experiences, but also from cognitive and biological influences.

Biological Influences

How do sex hormones influence prenatal and adolescent sexual development, and what is a disorder of sexual development?

Both sex chromosomes and sex hormones influence development. Biological sex is determined by the father's contribution to the twenty-third pair of chromosomes. The mother always contributes an X chromosome. The father may also contribute an X chromosome, producing a female, or a Y chromosome, producing a male by triggering additional testosterone release and the development of male sex organs. During puberty, both primary and secondary sex characteristics develop. Sex-related genes and physiology influence behavioral and cognitive differences between males and females. Disorders of sexual development are inherited conditions that involve unusual development of sex chromosomes and anatomy.

Dr. Paivio studies the ways in which the endocrine system and the nervous system are similar. Which of the following might he conclude?

Both systems secrete molecules that activate receptors elsewhere.

Of the following people, who is at greatest risk for drug use?

Brett, whose family just moved to a new state midway through the school year

Nerves

Bundled axons that form neural cables connecting the central nervous system with muscles, glands, and sense organs. (p. 60)

primacy effect

But after a delay, when their attention was elsewhere, their recall was best for the first items

What advantage do we gain by using the biopsychosocial approach in studying psychological events?

By incorporating different levels of analysis, the biopsychosocial approach can provide a more complete view than any one perspective could offer.

Glial cells (glia) - glue cells

Cells in the nervous system that support, nourish, and protect neurons; they may also play a role in learning, thinking, and memory. (p. 54) In more complex animal brains, the proportion of glia to neurons increases. Glial cells are worker bees. They provide nutrients and insulating myelin, guide neural connections, and mop up ions and neurotransmitters. Glia also play a role in learning and thinking. By "chatting" with neurons they participate in information transmission and memory (Fields, 2011, 2013; Miller, 2005).

What are some of the most significant challenges and rewards of growing old?

Challenges: decline of muscular strength, reaction times, stamina, sensory keenness, cardiac output, and immune system functioning. Risk of cognitive decline increases. Rewards: positive feelings tend to grow, negative emotions are less intense, and anger, stress, worry, and social-relationship problems decrease.

How reliable are young children's eyewitness descriptions?

Children are susceptible to the misinformation effect, but if questioned in neutral words they understand, they can accurately recall events and people involved in them.

What have been some applications of pavlov's work to human health and well-being? How did Watson apply these principles to learned fears?

Classical conditioning techniques are used to improve human health and well-being in many areas, including behavioral therapy for some types of psychological disorders. The body's immune system may also respond to classical conditioning. Pavlov's work also provided a basis for Watson's idea that human emotions and behaviors, though biologically influenced, are mainly a bundle of conditioned responses. Watson applied classical conditioning principles in his studies of "Little Albert" to demonstrate how specific fears might be conditioned.

How do neuroscientists study the brain's connections to behavior and mind?

Clinical observations and lesioning reveal the general effects of brain damage. Electrical, chemical, or magnetic stimulation can also reveal aspects of information processing in the brain. MRI scans show anatomy. EEG, PET, and fMRI (functional MRI) recordings reveal brain function.

_____ is the capacity to selectively focus senses and awareness on particular stimuli or aspects of the environment.

Consciousness

Why do correlations enable prediction but not cause-effect explanation?

Correlations enable prediction because they show how two factors move together, either positively or negatively. A correlation can indicate the possibility of a cause-effect relationship, but it does not prove the direction of the influence, or whether an underlying third factor may explain the correlation.

How can critical thinking help you evaluate claims in the media, even if you're not a scientific expert on the issue?

Critical thinking examines assumptions, appraises the source, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions. In evaluating a claim in the media, look for any signs of empirical evidence, preferably from several studies. Ask the following questions in your analysis: Are claims based on scientific findings? Have several studies replicated the findings and confirmed them? Are any experts cited? If so, research their background. Are they affiliated with a credible university, college, or institution? Have they conducted or written about scientific research?

What are the levels of processing, and how do they affect encoding?

Depth of processing affects long-term retention. In shallow processing, we encode words based on their structure or appearance. Retention is best when we use deep processing, encoding words based on their meaning. We also more easily remember material that is personally meaningful—the self-reference effect.

_____________ statistics summarize data, while _____________ statistics determine if data can be generalized to other populations.

Descriptive; inferential

To monitor the electrical activity in the brain that is triggered by hearing one's own name, researchers would make use of a(n) _____.

EEG

Structuralism - Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Bradford Titchener

Early school of thought promoted by Wundt and Titchener; used introspection to reveal the structure of the human mind. (p. 3) elements of their experience as they looked at a rose, listened to a metronome, smelled a scent, or tasted a substance. Failed school of thought because it required smart, verbal people, and its results varied from person to person and experience to experience. As introspection waned, so did structuralism.

What are some effortful processing strategies that can help us remember new information?

Effective effortful processing strategies include chunking, mnemonics, hierarchies, and distributed practice sessions. The testing effect is enhanced memory after consciously retrieving, rather than simply rereading, information.

Shelly just drew a picture for her mother. When her mother asked to see it, Shelly held it up to her own eyes. Shelly is demonstrating _____.

Egocentrism

Eliza's family loves to tell the story of how she "stole the show" as a 2-year-old, dancing at her aunt's wedding reception. Even though she was so young, Eliza can recall the event clearly. How is this possible?

Eliza's immature hippocampus and lack of verbal skills would have prevented her from encoding an explicit memory of the wedding reception at the age of two. It's more likely that Eliza learned information (from hearing the story repeatedly) that she eventually constructed into a memory that feels very real.

How do emotions affect our memory processing?

Emotional arousal causes an outpouring of stress hormones, which lead to activity in the brain's memory-forming areas. Significantly stressful events can trigger very clear flashbulb memories.

Testing effect

Enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simply rereading, information. Also sometimes referred to as a retrieval practice effect or test-enhanced learning. (pp. 13, 326)

What are the social tasks and challenges of adolescence?

Erikson theorized that each life stage has its own psychosocial task, and that a chief task of adolescence is solidifying one's sense of self—one's identity. This often means trying out a number of different roles. Social identity is the part of the self-concept that comes from a person's group memberships.

How do external cues, internal emotions, and order of appearance influence memory retrieval?

External cues activate associations that help us retrieve memories; this process may occur without our awareness, as it does in priming. The encoding specificity principle is the idea that cues and contexts specific to a particular memory will be most effective in helping us recall it. Returning to the same physical context or emotional state (mood congruency) in which we formed a memory can help us retrieve it. The serial position effect accounts for our tendency to recall best the last items (which may still be in working memory) and the first items (which we've spent more time rehearsing) in a list.

successive approximations

First, you would watch how the animal naturally behaves, so that you could build on its existing behaviors. You might give the rat a bit of food each time it approaches the bar. Once the rat is approaching regularly, you would give the food only when it moves close to the bar, then closer still. Finally, you would require it to touch the bar to get food. With this method of successive approximations, you reward responses that are ever closer to the final desired behavior, and you ignore all other responses.

Many people can easily recall exactly what they were doing when they heard news of the attacks on the United States in September 2001. This BEST illustrates _____ memory.

Flashbulb

Pituitary and Sex

For example, under the brain's influence, the pituitary triggers your sex glands to release sex hormones. These in turn influence your brain and behavior.

Research conducted by Dmitry Belyaev and Lyudmila Trut has shown that _____ can be domesticated, over the course of many generations, by selecting and mating animals with certain traits.

Foxes

The physician _____ claimed that bumps on the skull were correlated with intelligence and personality traits.

Franz Gall

The tendency to emphasize the impact of parents' child-rearing practices on children's personality has been most characteristic of:

Freudian psychologists

Left Hemisphere

Functions: Responsible for control of the right side of the body, and is the more academic and logical side of the brain

How do gender roles and gender identity differ?

Gender roles, the behaviors a culture expects from its males and females, vary across place and time. Social learning theory proposes that we learn gender identity—our sense of being male, female, or some combination of the two—as we learn other things: through reinforcement, punishment, and observation. Critics argue that cognition also plays a role because modeling and rewards cannot explain gender typing. Some children organize themselves into "boy worlds" and "girl worlds"; others prefer androgyny. Transgender people's gender identity or expression differs from their birth sex. Their sexual orientation may be heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or asexual.

Middle adulthood

Generativity vs. stagnation

You think two of your friends are highly compatible, so you are trying to get them together. Which of the following might help to get them interested in each other?

Have them gaze into each other's eyes for a couple of minutes.

Henry, a heavy smoker, is interested in quitting. Given what is known about the cognitive processes involved in classical conditioning, what is the MOST likely reason he still has trouble quitting after he is treated with a drug that induces nausea when he smokes a cigarette?

He realizes his nausea is due to the drug, not simply the cigarette.

How does stress make us more vulnerable to disease?

Health psychology is a subfield of psychology that provides psychology's contribution to behavioral medicine. Psychoneuroimmunologists study mind-body interactions, including stress-related physical illnesses, such as hypertension and some headaches. Stress diverts energy from the immune system, inhibiting the activities of its B and T lymphocytes, macrophages, and NK cells. Stress does not cause diseases such as AIDS and cancer, but by altering our immune functioning it may make us more vulnerable to them and influence their progression.

What is heritability, and how does it relate to individuals and groups?

Heritability describes the extent to which variation among members of a group can be attributed to genes. Heritable individual differences (in traits such as height or intelligence) need not imply heritable group differences. Genes mostly explain why some people are taller than others, but not why people are taller today than they were a century ago.

Overestimate of our intuition vs Scientific Inquiry

Hindsight bias, overconfidence, and our tendency to perceive patterns in random events often lead us to overestimate our intuition. But scientific inquiry can help us sift reality from illusion.

Can you believe in science and religion?

Historians of science tell us that these three attitudes—curiosity, skepticism, and humility—helped make modern science possible. Some deeply religious people today may view science, including psychological science, as a threat. Yet, many of the leaders of the scientific revolution, including Copernicus and Newton, were deeply religious people acting on the idea that "in order to love and honor God, it is necessary to fully appreciate the wonders of his handiwork" (Stark, 2003a,b).

Cory's boss tells her some news that disturbs her, but a phone call from her spouse distracts her. After she gets off the phone, she has a lingering feeling that something is not quite right, but she cannot pinpoint what it is. It is likely she is reacting to the continued effect of _____.

Hormones

Dr. Clark published an article on teen parenting behaviors that demonstrated teen parents tend to develop insecure attachments with male infants but not female infants. However, three subsequent studies by other psychologists failed to confirm these results. After reading these other studies, Dr. Clark redid her study, found an error, and then decided to publish a retraction of her original results. She is demonstrating _____, which is one of the three main components of the scientific attitude.

Humility

What roles do the cerebellum and basal ganglia play in memory processing?

Implicit (nondeclarative) memories―of skills and classically conditioned associations―happen without our awareness, through automatic processing. The cerebellum and basal ganglia are parts of the brain network dedicated to implicit memory formation. The cerebellum is important for storing classically conditioned memories. The basal ganglia are involved in motor movement and help form procedural memories for skills. Many reactions and skills learned during our first three years continue into our adult lives, but we cannot consciously remember learning these associations and skills, a phenomenon psychologists call "infantile amnesia."

What information do we process automatically?

In addition to skills and classically conditioned associations, we automatically process incidental information about space, time, and frequency.

Confounding variable

In an experiment, a factor other than the independent variable that might produce an effect. (p. 37)

Experimental group

In an experiment, the group exposed to the treatment, that is, to one version of the independent variable. (p. 35)

Control group

In an experiment, the group not exposed to the treatment; contrasts with the experimental group and serves as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment. (p. 35)

How do cognitive processes affect classical and operant conditioning?

In classical conditioning, animals may learn when to expect a US and may be aware of the link between stimuli and responses. In operant conditioning, cognitive mapping and latent learning research demonstrate the importance of cognitive processes in learning. Other research shows that excessive rewards (driving extrinsic motivation) can undermine intrinsic motivation.

Change deafness

In one experiment, 40 percent of people focused on repeating a list of words that someone spoke failed to notice a change in the person speaking (Vitevitch, 2003). In two follow-up phone interview experiments, only 2 of 40 people noticed that the female interviewer changed after the third question (a change that was noticeable if people were forewarned of a possible interviewer change) (Fenn et al., 2011).

How does operant conditioning differ from classical conditioning?

In operant conditioning, an organism learns associations between its own behavior and resulting events; this form of conditioning involves operant behavior (behavior that operates on the environment, producing rewarding or punishing consequences). In classical conditioning, the organism forms associations between stimuli—events it does not control; this form of conditioning involves respondent behavior (automatic responses to some stimulus).

Punishment teaches discrimination among situations.

In operant conditioning, discrimination occurs when an organism learns that certain responses, but not others, will be reinforced. Did the punishment effectively end the child's swearing? Or did the child simply learn that while it's not okay to swear around the house, it's okay to swear elsewhere?

How do individualist and collectivist cultures differ?

Individualists give priority to personal goals over group goals and tend to define their identity in terms of their own personal attributes. Collectivists give priority to group goals over individual goals and tend to define their identity in terms of group identifications.

Dr. Nguyen wants to conduct research on a new potential vaccine for Alzheimer's on rats with the hopes that the research will be successful and can progress to human trials. Dr. Nguyen needs to have his research idea reviewed by the _______.

Institutional Review Board

The _______ uses the guidelines of the American Psychological Association and the British Psychological Society to screen research proposals.

Institutional Review Board

Given the proportional amounts of the different types of neurons, the type of neuron one would be LEAST likely to worry about if one lost 100,000 of them would be _____

Interneurons

If you want to be sure to remember what you're learning for an upcoming test, would it be better to use recall or recognition to check your memory? Why?

It would be better to test your memory with recall (such as with short-answer or fill-in-the-blank self-test questions) rather than recognition (such as with multiple-choice questions). Recalling information is harder than recognizing it. So if you can recall it, that means your retention of the material is better than if you could only recognize it. Your chances of test success are therefore greater.

What was behaviorism's view of learning?

Ivan Pavlov's work on classical conditioning laid the foundation for behaviorism, the view that psychology should be an objective science that studies behavior without reference to mental processes. The behaviorists believed that the basic laws of learning are the same for all species, including humans.

Who was Pavlov, and what are the basic components of classical conditioning?

Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, created novel experiments on learning. His early twentieth-century research over the last three decades of his life demonstrated that classical conditioning is a basic form of learning. Classical conditioning is a type of learning in which an organism comes to associate stimuli. In classical conditioning, an NS is a stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning. A UR is an event that occurs naturally (such as salivation), in response to some stimulus. A US is something that naturally and automatically (without learning) triggers the unlearned response (as food in the mouth triggers salivation). A CS is a previously neutral stimulus (such as a tone) that, after association with a US (such as food) comes to trigger a CR. A CR is the learned response (salivating) to the originally neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus.

_____ level of moral thinking is to a ladder as Piaget's stages of cognitive development are to steps.

Kohlberg's

What is learning, and what are some basic forms of learning?

Learning is the process of acquiring through experience new information or behaviors. In associative learning, we learn that certain events occur together. In classical conditioning, we learn to associate two or more stimuli (a stimulus is any event or situation that evokes a response). We associate stimuli that we do not control, and we respond automatically. This is called respondent behavior. In operant conditioning, we learn to associate a response and its consequences. These associations produce operant behaviors. Through cognitive learning, we acquire mental information that guides our behavior. For example, in observational learning, we learn new behaviors by observing events and watching others.

Frontal Lobe

Location: Frontal and upper area of the cortex Function: Carries out higher mental processes such as thinking, decision making, and planning

According to B. F. Skinner, which of the following alternatives to punishment represents the BEST method for reducing an undesirable behavior?

Mark is reinforced for working quietly in class instead of being punished for disrupting class.

Maureen is an introvert who prefers staying in and reading a good book. Her friend Paula is an extravert who would much rather spend her time partying. In terms of their ability to recognize facial expressions of emotion and express emotions:

Maureen is better at recognition and Paula is more expressive.

When you feel sad, why might it help to look at pictures that reawaken some of your best memories?

Memories are stored within a web of many associations, one of which is mood. When you recall happy moments from your past, you deliberately activate these positive links. You may then experience mood-congruent memory and recall other happy moments, which could improve your mood and brighten your interpretation of current events.

What is memory, and how is it measured?

Memory is learning that has persisted over time, through the encoding, storage, and retrieval of information. Evidence of memory may be recalling information, recognizing it, or relearning it more easily on a later attempt.

How might an evolutionary psychologist explain male-female differences in sexuality and mating preferences?

Men tend to have a recreational view of sexual activity; women tend to have a relational view. Evolutionary psychologists reason that men's attraction to multiple healthy, fertile-appearing partners increases their chances of spreading their genes widely. Because women incubate and nurse babies, they increase their own and their children's chances of survival by searching for mates with the potential for long-term investment in their joint offspring.

Some scientists believe that the brain has __________ neurons that enable empathy and imitation.

Mirror

Which of the following neurons fire both when action is performed and when action is simply observed?

Mirror Neurons

How is molecular genetics research changing our understanding of the effects of nature and nurture?

Molecular genetics research on structure and function of genes is building new understandings of how teams of genes influence many human traits. One goal of molecular behavior genetics, the study of how the structure and function of genes interact with our environment to influence behavior, is to find some of the many genes that together orchestrate complex traits (such as body weight, sexual orientation, and impulsivity). Environments can trigger or block genetic expression. The field of epigenetics studies the influences on gene expression that occur without changes in DNA.

Marlee has just been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). As the disease progresses, communication to some of her muscles may slow down and she could lose some muscle control as a result of the degeneration of the _____ sheath.

Myelin

Explain three attentional principles that magicians may use to fool us.

Our selective attention allows us to focus on only a limited portion of our surroundings. Inattentional blindness explains why we don't perceive some things when we are distracted by others. And change blindness happens when we fail to notice a relatively unimportant change in our environment. All these principles help magicians fool us, as they direct our attention elsewhere to perform their tricks.

Nurture works on what nature endows

Our species is biologically endowed with an enormous capacity to learn and adapt. Moreover, every psychological event (every thought, every emotion) is simultaneously a biological event. Thus, depression can be both a brain disorder and a thought disorder.

The _____ nervous system helps one to conserve energy as it calms one down after a stressful event.

Parasympathetic

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

Parasympathetic nervous system

The _____ nervous system conserves energy, while the sympathetic nervous system consumes energy.

Parasympathetic nervous system

What are three parenting styles, and how do children's traits relate to them?

Parenting styles—authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative—reflect varying degrees of control. Children with high self-esteem tend to have authoritative parents and to be self-reliant and socially competent, but the direction of cause and effect in this relationship is not clear. Child-raising practices reflect both individual and cultural values.

Why does pavlov's work remain so important?

Pavlov taught us that significant psychological phenomena can be studied objectively, and that classical conditioning is a basic form of learning that applies to all species.

Studies indicate that anxiety may be caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. A chemist at a pharmaceutical company wants to conduct a research study of a new medication that she thinks will correct the imbalances. Which of the following hypotheses would move this research in a useful direction?

People with anxiety disorders who take the new medication will experience decreased anxiety.

Why did introspection fail as a method for understanding how the mind works?

People's self-reports varied, depending on the experience and the person's intelligence and verbal ability.

Anders has just received devastating news about the coffee shop he owns. Things seem very bleak because a nationally-known competitor is moving in on the same block. Anders has many debts to pay and his wife is expecting their fourth child. When he hears the bad news, his heart rate zooms and he feels faint, as if he were in shock. According to Hans Seyle, he is:

Phase 1 of GAS, experiencing an alarm reaction.

Roger works full-time, has a part-time job, and has a new consulting company in response to his son's special needs. He seems to be coping with everything quite well for the moment. According to Hans Selye, he is in which stage of the general adaptation syndrome?

Phase 2 of GAS, in a state of resistance.

Maya owes the credit card company $20,000, her adjustable rate mortgage has just gone up, and she has been out of work for 3 months. Her husband of 15 years came home today to tell her he was having an affair and wants a divorce. With that news, she collapsed and had to be taken to the emergency room. According to Hans Selye, she is in which stage of the general adaptation syndrome?

Phase 3 of GAS, in a state of exhaustion

Acetylcholine (ACh) one of the best-understood neurotransmitters

Plays a role in learning and memory. In addition, it is the messenger at every junction between motor neurons (which carry information from the brain and spinal cord to the body's tissues) and skeletal muscles. When ACh is released to our muscle cell receptors, the muscle contracts. If ACh transmission is blocked, as happens during some kinds of anesthesia and with some poisons, the muscles cannot contract and we are paralyzed.

The less sexual content teens saw on TV, the less likely they were to have sex (Collins et al., 2004). __________

Positive correlation

The longer children were breast-fed, the greater their later academic achievement (Horwood & Ferguson, 1998). __________

Positive correlation

Studies have found that people who begin drinking in their early teens are much more likely to develop alcohol use disorder than those who begin at age 21 or after. What possible explanations might there be for this correlation?

Possible explanations include (a) a biological predisposition to both early use and later abuse; (b) brain changes and taste preferences triggered by early use; and (c) enduring habits, attitudes, activities, or peer relationships that foster alcohol misuse.

Having difficulty taking another's point of view (as when blocking someone's view of the TV).

Preoperational

How does this pleasure-pain description apply to the repeated use of psychoactive drugs?

Psychoactive drugs create pleasure by altering brain chemistry. With repeated use of the drug, the brain develops tolerance and needs more of the drug to achieve the desired effect. (Marijuana is an exception.) Discontinuing use of the substance then produces painful or psychologically unpleasant withdrawal symptoms.

How do theories advance psychological science?

Psychological theories are explanations that apply an integrated set of principles to organize observations and generate hypotheses—predictions that can be used to check the theory or produce practical applications of it. By testing their hypotheses, researchers can confirm, reject, or revise their theories. To enable other researchers to replicate the studies, researchers report them using precise operational definitions of their procedures and concepts. If others achieve similar results, confidence in the conclusion will be greater.

How does punishment differ from negative reinforcement, and how does punishment affect behavior?

Punishment administers an undesirable consequence (such as spanking) or withdraws something desirable (such as taking away a favorite toy) in an attempt to decrease the frequency of a behavior (a child's disobedience). Negative reinforcement (taking an aspirin) removes an aversive stimulus (a headache). This desired consequence (freedom from pain) increases the likelihood that the behavior (taking aspirin to end pain) will be repeated. Punishment can have undesirable side effects, such as suppressing rather than changing unwanted behaviors; teaching aggression; creating fear; encouraging discrimination (so that the undesirable behavior appears when the punisher is not present); and fostering depression and feelings of helplessness.

What is regression toward the mean, and how can it influence our interpretation of events?

Regression toward the mean is a statistical phenomenon describing the tendency of extreme scores or outcomes to return to normal after an unusual event. Without knowing this, we may inaccurately decide the return to normal was a result of our own behavior.

How do positive and negative reinforcement differ, and what are the basic types of reinforcers?

Reinforcement is any consequence that strengthens behavior. Positive reinforcement adds a desirable stimulus to increase the frequency of a behavior. Negative reinforcement removes an aversive stimulus to increase the frequency of a behavior. Primary reinforcers (such as receiving food when hungry or having nausea end during an illness) are innately satisfying—no learning is required. Conditioned (or secondary) reinforcers (such as cash) are satisfying because we have learned to associate them with more basic rewards (such as the food or medicine we buy with them). Immediate reinforcers (such as a purchased treat) offer immediate payback; delayed reinforcers (such as a weekly paycheck) require the ability to delay gratification.

How do researchers use twin and adoption studies to learn about psychological principles?

Researchers use twin and adoption studies to understand how much variation among individuals is due to genetic makeup and how much to environmental factors. Some studies compare the traits and behaviors of identical twins (same genes) and fraternal twins (different genes, as in any two siblings). They also compare adopted children with their adoptive and biological parents. Some studies compare traits and behaviors of twins raised together or separately.

A ________________ provides a visual representation of the direction and the strength of a relationship between two variables.

Scatterplot

What is the "dual processing" being revealed by today's cognitive neuroscience?

Scientists studying the brain mechanisms underlying consciousness and cognition have discovered that the mind processes information on two separate tracks, one operating at an explicit, conscious level (conscious sequential processing) and the other at an implicit, unconscious level (unconscious parallel processing). This dual processing affects our perception, memory, attitudes, and other cognitions.

How does our well-being change across the life span?

Self-confidence tends to strengthen across the life span. Surveys show that life satisfaction is unrelated to age. Positive emotions increase after midlife and negative ones decrease.

What is the capacity of our short-term and working memory?

Short-term memory capacity is about seven items, plus or minus two, but this information disappears from memory quickly without rehearsal. Working memory capacity varies, depending on age, intelligence level, and other factors.

Understanding that something is not gone for good when it disappears from sight, as when Mom "disappears" behind the shower curtain.

Sensorimotor

Which of the following students utilized the type of studying that helps retain information successfully?

Shelly, who studied for her sociology exam by rehearsing the information by associating it with personal experiences to help her retain the information

What is the place of consciousness in psychology's history?

Since 1960, under the influence of cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive neuroscience, our awareness of ourselves and our environment—our consciousness— has reclaimed its place as an important area of research. After initially claiming consciousness as its area of study in the nineteenth century, psychologists had abandoned it in the first half of the twentieth century, turning instead to the study of observable behavior because they believed consciousness was too difficult to study scientifically.

Biopsychosocial influences on learning

Social Cultural Influences

What does research tell us about being left-handed? Is it advantageous to be right-handed?

Some 10 percent of us (somewhat more among males, somewhat less among females) are left-handed. Handedness appears to be influenced by genetic or prenatal factors. Most left-handers process speech in the left hemisphere, as right-handers do, but some do so in the right hemisphere or use both hemispheres. Left-handers are more likely to be among those with reading disabilities, allergies, and migraine headaches, but sometimes do better academically. Left-handedness is also more common among musicians, mathematicians, architects, artists, and in professional baseball and cricket players. The pros and cons of being left-handed seem roughly equal.

endocrine system vs nervous system

Some hormones are chemically identical to neurotransmitters (the chemical messengers that diffuse across a synapse and excite or inhibit an adjacent neuron). The speedy nervous system zips messages from eyes to brain to hand in a fraction of a second. Endocrine messages trudge along in the bloodstream, taking several seconds or more to travel from the gland to the target tissue. If the nervous system transmits information with text-message speed, the endocrine system delivers an old-fashioned letter. Endocrine messages tend to outlast the effects of neural messages. The persistence of emotions—without conscious awareness of what caused them—was dramatically evident in one ingenious experiment. Brain-damaged patients unable to form new conscious memories watched a sad film and later a happy film. After each viewing, they did not consciously recall the films, but the sad or happy emotion persisted

What are stimulants, and what are their effects?

Stimulants—including caffeine, nicotine, cocaine, the amphetamines, methamphetamine, and Ecstasy—excite neural activity and speed up body functions, triggering energy and mood changes. All are highly addictive. Nicotine's effects make smoking a difficult habit to kick, yet the percentage of Americans who smoke has been dramatically decreasing. Cocaine gives users a fast high, followed within an hour by a crash. Its risks include cardiovascular stress and suspiciousness. Use of methamphetamines may permanently reduce dopamine production. Ecstasy (MDMA) is a combined stimulant and mild hallucinogen that produces euphoria and feelings of intimacy. Its users risk immune system suppression, permanent damage to mood and memory, and (if taken during physical activity) dehydration and escalating body temperatures.

How do twin and adoption studies help us understand the effects and interactions of nature and nurture?

Studies of identical (monozygotic) twins versus fraternal (dizygotic) twins, separated twins, and biological versus adoptive relatives allow researchers to tease apart the influences of heredity and environment. Research studies on separated identical twins maintain the same genes while testing the effects of different home environments. Studies of adoptive families let researchers maintain the same home environment while studying the effects of genetic differences. Heritable individual differences (in traits such as height and weight) do not necessarily explain gender or ethnic group differences. Shared family environments have little effect on personality.

What does the acronym SQ3R stand for?

Survey, Question, Read, Retrieve, Review

Telemarketers are reinforced by which schedule? People checking the oven to see if the cookies are done are on which schedule? Airline frequent-flyer programs that offer a free flight after every 25,000 miles of travel are using which reinforcement schedule?

Telemarketers are reinforced on a variable-ratio schedule (after a varying number of calls). Cookie checkers are reinforced on a fixed-interval schedule. Frequent-flyer programs use a fixed-ratio schedule.

In Watson and Rayner's experiments, "Little Albert" learned to fear a white rat after repeatedly experiencing a loud noise as the rat was presented. In this experiment, what was the US? The UR? The NS? The CS? The CR?

The US was the loud noise; the UR was the fear response to the noise; the NS was the rat before it was paired with the noise; the CS was the rat after pairing; the CR was fear of the rat.

What are psychology's levels of analysis and related perspectives?

The biopsychosocial approach integrates information from three differing but complementary levels of analysis: the biological, psychological, and social-cultural. This approach offers a more complete understanding than could usually be reached by relying on only one of psychology's current perspectives (neuroscience, evolutionary, behavior genetics, psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, and social-cultural).

Nervous system

The body's speedy, electrochemical communication network, consisting of all the nerve cells of the peripheral and central nervous systems. (p. 60)

Which area of the human brain is most similar to that of less complex animals? Which part of the human brain distinguishes us most from less complex animals?

The brainstem; the cerebral cortex

If the aroma of a baking cake sets your mouth to watering, what is the US? The CS? The CR?

The cake (and its taste) are the US. The associated aroma is the CS. Salivation to the aroma is the CR.

How does the endocrine system transmit information and interact with the nervous system?

The endocrine system is a set of glands that secrete hormones into the bloodstream, where they travel through the body and affect other tissues, including the brain. The endocrine system's master gland, the pituitary, influences hormone release by other glands, including the adrenal glands. In an intricate feedback system, the brain's hypothalamus influences the pituitary gland, which influences other glands, which release hormones, which in turn influence the brain.

Pituitary gland

The endocrine system's most influential gland. Under the influence of the hypothalamus, the pituitary regulates growth and controls other endocrine glands. (p. 64) a pea-sized structure located in the core of the brain, where it is controlled by an adjacent brain area, the hypothalamus. Excretes oxytocin, which enables contractions associated with birthing, milk flow during nursing, and orgasm. Oxytocin also promotes pair bonding, group cohesion, and social trust Pituitary secretions also direct other endocrine glands to release their hormones. The pituitary, then, is a master gland (whose own master is the hypothalamus).

resting potential

The fluid outside an axon's membrane has mostly positively charged sodium ions; a resting axon's fluid interior has mostly negatively charged ions. This positive-outside/negative-inside state is called the resting potential.

Threshold

The level of stimulation required to trigger a neural impulse. (p. 55) If excitatory signals exceed the inhibitory signals by a minimum intensity, or threshold, the combined signals trigger an action potential. (Think of it this way: If the excitatory party animals outvote the inhibitory party poopers, the party's on.) The action potential then travels down the axon, which branches into junctions with hundreds or thousands of other neurons or with the body's muscles and glands.

What is the course of prenatal development, and how do teratogens affect that development?

The life cycle begins at conception, when one sperm cell unites with an egg to form a zygote. The zygote's inner cells become the embryo, and the outer cells become the placenta. In the next 6 weeks, body organs begin to form and function, and by 9 weeks, the fetus is recognizably human. Teratogens are potentially harmful agents that can pass through the placental screen and harm the developing embryo or fetus, as happens with fetal alcohol syndrome

Nature-nurture issue

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 nature and nurture. (p. 6) The Greek philosopher Plato (428-348 B.C.E.) assumed that we inherit character and intelligence and that certain ideas are inborn. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.) countered that there is nothing in the mind that does not first come in from the external world through the senses.

depolarization

The loss of the inside/outside charge difference, called depolarization, causes the next axon channel to open.

Autonomic [aw-tuh-NAHM-ik] nervous system (ANS)

The part of the peripheral nervous system that controls the glands and the muscles of the internal organs (such as the heart). Its sympathetic division arouses; its parasympathetic division calms. (p. 60) Our autonomic nervous system (ANS) controls our glands and our internal organ muscles, thus influencing glandular activity, heartbeat, and digestion. (Autonomic means "self-regulating.") Like an automatic pilot, this system may be consciously overridden, but usually operates on its own (autonomously).

Natural selection

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. (pp. 6, 144)

In the classical conditioning experiment by Robert Rescorla that involved two groups of rats, one group of rats heard a tone just before each of 20 shocks. The second group of rats experienced the same 20 tone-shock pairings but also experienced an additional 20 shocks that were not paired with a tone. How did the two groups differ?

The rats in the first group displayed a much stronger conditioned fear response to the tone than did the rats in the second group.

"For a lot of bad ideas, science is society's garbage disposal." Describe what this tells us about the scientific attitude and what's involved in critical thinking.

The scientific attitude combines (1) curiosity about the world around us, (2) skepticism about unproven claims and ideas, and (3) humility about one's own understanding. Evaluating evidence, assessing conclusions, and examining our own assumptions are essential parts of critical thinking.

Peripheral nervous system (PNS)

The sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system (CNS) to the rest of the body. (p. 60)

What have psychologists learned about temperament?

The stability of temperament, a person's characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity, from the first weeks of life suggests a genetic predisposition. The genetic effect appears in physiological differences such as heart rate and nervous system reactivity.

synaptic gap or synaptic cleft

The tiny gap at this junction (synapse)

What is emerging adulthood?

The transition from adolescence to adulthood is now taking longer. Emerging adulthood is the period from age 18 to the mid-twenties, when many young people are not yet fully independent. But observers note that this stage is found mostly in today's Western cultures.

Behaviorism

The view that psychology (1) should be an objective science that (2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes. Most research psychologists today agree with (1) but not with (2). (pp. 4, 282)

If a researcher asked participants to report at what time they consciously made a decision to throw a ball, while simultaneously monitoring their brain activity, what would he likely find?

Their brain shows activity before their conscious decision to act

A(n) _____ organizes observations and predicts behaviors or events.

Theory

_____refers to people's ideas about their own and others' mental states; that is, how feelings, perceptions, or thoughts might predict behavior.

Theory of mind

What does theory of mind have to do with autism spectrum disorder?

Theory of mind focuses on our ability to understand our own and others' mental states. Those with autism spectrum disorder struggle with this ability.

What do phrenology and psychology's biological perspective have in common?

They share a focus on the links between the brain and behavior. Phrenology (pioneered by Franz Gall) faded because it had no scientific basis—skull bumps don't reveal mental traits and abilities.

Kendra is a 20-month-old baby who is still crawling. She has not started to walk yet. What would her pediatrician likely say to her mother?

This is actually rare as most babies are walking by the time they are 15 months of age.

What is natural selection?

This is the process by which nature selects from chance variations the traits that best enable an organism to survive and reproduce in a particular environment.

Punished behavior is suppressed, not forgotten.

This temporary state may (negatively) reinforce parents' punishing behavior. The child swears, the parent swats, the parent hears no more swearing and feels the punishment successfully stopped the behavior. No wonder spanking is a hit with so many U.S. parents of 3- and 4-year-olds—more than 9 in 10 of whom acknowledged spanking their children (Kazdin & Benjet, 2003).

The law of effect states that rewarded behavior is likely to recur; it is this psychologist's principle.

Thorndike

Law of effect

Thorndike's principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely, and that behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely. (p. 290)

What are substance use disorders, and what roles do tolerance, withdrawal, and addiction play in these disorders?

Those with a substance use disorder may exhibit impaired control, social disruption, risky behavior, and the physical effects of tolerance and withdrawal. Psychoactive drugs alter perceptions and moods. They may produce tolerance—requiring larger doses to achieve the desired effect—and withdrawal—significant discomfort accompanying attempts to quit. Continued use may lead to addiction, which is the compulsive craving of drugs or certain behaviors (such as gambling) despite known adverse consequences.

Reduced reaction in the amygdala

Those with amygdala lesions often display reduced arousal to fear-and anger-arousing stimuli

What are the characteristics of experimentation that make it possible to isolate cause and effect?

To discover cause-effect relationships, psychologists conduct experiments, manipulating one or more factors of interest and controlling other factors. Using random assignment, they can minimize confounding variables, such as preexisting differences between the experimental group (exposed to the treatment) and the control group (given a placebo or different version of the treatment). The independent variable is the factor the experimenter manipulates to study its effect; the dependent variable is the factor the experimenter measures to discover any changes occurring in response to the manipulations. Studies may use a double-blind procedure to avoid the placebo effect.

Experiments manipulate a factor to determine its effect.

Unlike correlational studies, which uncover naturally occurring relationships, an experiment manipulates a factor to determine its effect.

Dr. Kim experienced the divorce of her parents when she was a small child. She has devoted a considerable amount of her research endeavors studying the impact of parental divorce on children. Dr. Kim's research interests are affected by her _______.

Values

According to Bandura's theory of observational learning, which of the following characteristics make portrayals of violence on television more likely to be imitated?

Violent behavior is performed by the hero or another attractive, high-status individual.

What does it mean when we say two things are correlated, and what are positive and negative correlations?

When we say two things are correlated, we are saying that they accompany each other in their movements. In a positive correlation, two factors increase or decrease together. In a negative correlation, one item increases as the other decreases. The strength of their relationship is expressed as a correlation coefficient, which ranges from +1.00 (a perfect positive correlation) through 0 (no correlation) to - 1.00 (a perfect negative correlation). Their relationship may be displayed in a scatterplot, in which each dot represents a value for the two variables.

time

While going about your day, you unintentionally note the sequence of its events. Later, realizing you've left your coat somewhere, the event sequence your brain automatically encoded will enable you to retrace your steps.

space

While studying, you often encode the place on a page where certain material appears; later, when you want to retrieve the information, you may visualize its location on the page.

What is the process that leads to drug tolerance?

With repeated exposure to a psychoactive drug, the drug's effect lessens. Thus, it takes bigger doses to get the desired effect.

The production and transmission of hormones in the endocrine system is MOST similar to which of the following scenarios?

You type a text message, which your friend shows to a third party who reacts to it.

Dr. Hernandez is interested in how Jake and his mother interact with each other during a play environment. Which of the following would be the best option for this research topic?

a case study

Flashbulb memory

a clear memory of an emotionally significant moment or event. (p. 331) Emotion-triggered hormonal changes help explain why we long remember exciting or shocking events, such as our first kiss or our whereabouts when learning of a loved one's death.This perceived clarity of memories of surprising, significant events leads some psychologists to call them flashbulb memories. It's as if the brain commands, "Capture this!"

Schema

a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information. (p. 187)

Blindsight

a condition in which a person can respond to a visual stimulus without consciously experiencing it. (p. 94) Is the brain ahead of the mind? In this study, volunteers watched a computer clock sweep through a full revolution every 2.56 seconds. They noted the time at which they decided to move their wrist. About one-third of a second before that decision, their brain-wave activity jumped, indicating a readiness potential to move. Watching a slow-motion replay, the researchers were able to predict when a person was about to decide to move (following which, the wrist did move) (Libet, 1985, 2004). Other researchers, however, question the clock measurement procedure (Miller et al., 2011).

Reticular ("net-like") formation

a nerve network that travels through the brainstem into the thalamus and plays an important role in controlling arousal. (p. 70) As the spinal cord's sensory input flows up to the thalamus, some of it travels through the reticular formation, which filters incoming stimuli, relays important information to other brain areas, and controls arousal. In 1949, Giuseppe Moruzzi and Horace Magoun discovered that electrically stimulating a sleeping cat's reticular formation almost instantly produced an awake, alert animal. When Magoun severed a cat's reticular formation without damaging nearby sensory pathways, the effect was equally dramatic: The cat lapsed into a coma from which it never awakened. The conclusion? The reticular formation enables arousal. Controls arousal and attention

Hippocampus

a neural center located in the limbic system; helps process explicit memories for storage. (pp. 71, 329)

Alzheimer's disease

a neurocognitive disorder marked by neural plaques, often with an onset after age 80, and entailing a progressive decline in memory and other cognitive abilities. (p. 218)

Children can be accurate eyewitnesses if

a neutral person asks nonleading questions soon after the event, in words the children can understand.

Working memory

a newer understanding of short-term memory that focuses on conscious, active processing of incoming auditory and visual-spatial information, and of information retrieved from long-term memory. (p. 321) Alan Baddeley's (2002) model of working memory, simplified here, includes visual and auditory rehearsal of new information. A hypothetical central executive (manager) focuses attention and pulls information from long-term memory to help make sense of new information.

Emerging adulthood

a period from about age 18 to the mid-twenties, when many in Western cultures are no longer adolescents but have not yet achieved full independence as adults. (p. 212)

Cocaine

a powerful and addictive stimulant derived from the coca plant; produces temporarily increased alertness and euphoria. (p. 123)

LSD

a powerful hallucinogenic drug; also known as acid (lysergic acid diethylamide). (p. 124)

A psychologist who asks you to write down as many objects as you can remember having seen a few minutes earlier is testing your

recall

Role

a set of expectations (norms) about a social position, defining how those in the position ought to behave. (pp. 167, 523) Guard study

Gender role

a set of expected behaviors, attitudes, and traits for males or for females. (p. 167)

Ecstasy (MDMA)

a synthetic stimulant and mild hallucinogen. Produces euphoria and social intimacy, but with short-term health risks and longer-term harm to serotonin-producing neurons and to mood and cognition. (p. 124)

FMRI (functional MRI)

a technique for revealing bloodflow and, therefore, brain activity by comparing successive MRI scans. fMRI scans show brain function as well as structure. (p. 68)

classical conditioning

a type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events. (p. 282) We learn to expect and prepare for significant events such as food or pain. We learn to associate two stimuli and thus to anticipate events. one way that virtually all organisms learn to adapt to their environment.

While you probably wish that your study time was automatic, unfortunately successful studying for Introductory Psychology requires attention and conscious effort known as:

effortful processing

Somatosensory cortex

area at the front of the parietal lobes that registers and processes body touch and movement sensations. (p. 78) The more sensitive the body region, the larger the somatosensory cortex area devoted to it. Your super sensitive lips project to a larger brain area than do your toes, which is one reason we kiss with our lips rather than touch toes. Rats have a large area of the brain devoted to their whisker sensations, and owls to their hearing sensations.

Association areas

areas of the cerebral cortex that are not involved in primary motor or sensory functions; rather, they are involved in higher mental functions such as learning, remembering, thinking, and speaking. (p. 79) these areas interpret, integrate, and act on sensory information and link it with stored memories The "uncommitted" areas that make up about three-fourths of the cerebral cortex.

Tommy was at the park with his father and excitedly pointed to the squirrel and exclaimed, "Kitty, kitty." His father pointed out that this was a squirrel, not a kitty. This best illustrates the process of:

assimilation.

Steven Pinker, a world-renowned evolutionary psychologist, states that many human traits are due to evolutionary heritage. Which trait is NOT one thought to be due primarily to natural selection?

attention span

Concerning the stability and change developmental issue, our temperament is more predictable than our social _____.

attitudes

Strange as it may seem, James has run into the same co-worker four times today, in four different locations. He gets a little nervous, wondering if she is following him. His ability to unconsciously keep track of the number of times he's run into the co-worker is known as _____ processing.

automatic

From the 1920s through the 1960s, the two major forces in psychology were __________ and __________ psychology.

behaviorism; Freudian

Marcus is the son of a teenage mother. She could not handle taking care of him and put him up for adoption when he was 4 weeks old. Marcus was adopted by a family that loves and cares for him. It is most likely that Marcus will:

become a normal adult with average intelligence.

Dr. Wright is studying physiological changes when students are cheating. Dr. Wright sets up a study where participants are given a series of questions. Some questions are easy while other questions are difficult. It is not likely that the participants would be able to answer the difficult questions correctly. Dr. Wright makes it clear that she forgot the answer key to the questions prior to leaving the room of participants unattended. There is a hidden camera in the room to see what the participants do. After Dr. Wright is absent for 10 minutes she returns to the room. Participants then turn in their responses and have their heart rate, perspiration, etc. measured once they leave the testing room. Dr. Psychologist is measuring the _____ of participants.

behavior

When Laura acts happy, she experiences increased feelings of cheerfulness. This best illustrates the:

behavior feedback effect.

Which of the following factors does NOT help explain why 26 percent of U.S. high school dropouts, but only 6 percent of people with a postgraduate education smoke cigarettes?

biological

Maturation

biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience. (p. 184)

genetic relatives

biological parents and siblings

In the _____ model, good nutrition has a biological influence for successful aging.

biopsychosocial

Which of the following does the autonomic nervous system most directly control?

bladder contractions

A scatterplot shows a pattern indicating a positive correlation. The pattern would be:

both scores going up.

Behavior

is anything an organism does—any action we can observe and record. Yelling, smiling, blinking, sweating, talking, and questionnaire marking are all observable behaviors.

Janis volunteered to participate in a psychology experiment. When Janis arrives to the lab she is greeted by a lab assistant standing on the other side of a counter. The lab assistant explains the informed consent and asks her to sign the form. As the lab assistant reaches for the form he drops it behind the counter. The lab assistant reaches down behind the counter to pick up the form and unbeknownst to Janis another person stands up holding the form. After Janis signs the form, she is asked if she noticed the change. She replies that she did not. This phenomenon is known as:

change blindness

Hormones

chemical messengers that are manufactured by the endocrine glands, travel through the bloodstream, and affect other tissues. (p. 63) When hormones act on the brain, they influence our interest in sex, food, and aggression.

Neurotransmitters

chemical messengers that cross the synaptic gaps between neurons. When released by the sending neuron, neurotransmitters travel across the synapse and bind to receptor sites on the receiving neuron, thereby influencing whether that neuron will generate a neural impulse. (p. 56) For an instant, the neurotransmitter unlocks tiny channels at the receiving site, and electrically charged atoms flow in, exciting or inhibiting the receiving neuron's readiness to fire. The excess neurotransmitters then drift away, are broken down by enzymes, or are reabsorbed by the sending neuron—a process called reuptake.

hierarchies

composed of a few broad concepts divided and subdivided into narrower concepts and facts. (Figure 25.4 in the next module provides a hierarchy of our automatic and effortful memory processing systems.) Organizing knowledge in hierarchies helps us retrieve information efficiently, as Gordon Bower and his colleagues (1969) demonstrated by presenting words either randomly or grouped into categories. When the words were grouped, recall was two to three times better.

Experiments show that when you move your wrist at will, you consciously experience the decision to move it about 0.2 seconds before the actual movement (Libet, 1985, 2004). But your brain waves jump about 0.35 seconds before you consciously perceive your decision to move. From this study one can conclude:

consciousness sometimes arrives after decision-making

During the local evening news program, viewers were asked to send text messages indicating whether they supported or opposed an increase in property taxes. Later in the broadcast, the results were posted: 68 percent of the messages indicated support for an increase. The news anchor then said, "Sixty-eight percent of our viewers think a property tax hike is a good idea." Jane and Sarah wondered whether the evidence justified this conclusion; after all, only about 3,000 text messages had been received, but the program probably had tens of thousands of viewers. Jane and Sarah were demonstrating:

critical thinking

Social script

culturally modeled guide for how to act in various situations. (pp. 150, 548)

A local school board is setting up a program to help prepare children to become scientists. To carry out this program, which attitudes should teachers encourage in their students?

curiosity, skepticism, and humility

Which of the following is not a psychologically induced altered state of consciousness?

daydreaming

Nicotine triggers a(n) _____ in anxiety and an increase in mental alertness.

decrease

Most experts agree that repeated viewing of media violence

dulls viewers' sensitivity to violence

Fill-in-the-blank test questions are to multiple-choice questions as:

recall is to recognition

Inattentional blindness

failing to see visible objects when our attention is directed elsewhere. (p. 97) Viewers who were attending to basketball tosses among the black-shirted players usually failed to notice the umbrella-toting woman sauntering across the screen (Neisser, 1979).

Aging results in a gradual decline in female _____. As an example, for women in their thirties, a single act of intercourse is half as likely to produce a pregnancy as it would for a woman 19 to 26 years old.

fertility

Fewer than half of all fertilized eggs, called zygotes, survive beyond the first 2 weeks (Grobstein, 1979; Hall, 2004).

fertilized eggs, called zygotes,

Due to complications from diabetes, Molly's pregnancy had to be terminated during the third month in order to save her life. She had the termination during the _____ stage of prenatal development.

fetus

Shaping is a method used by Skinner to:

guide an organism to exhibit a complex behavior using successive approximations.

The assistant chief of police has decided to forego using the polygraph test on a suspect and will use a different technique to assess the suspect's physiological responses to crime-scene details. This is known as the:

guilty knowledge test.

Developmental psychologists use repeated stimulation to test an infant's ____________ to a stimulus.

habituation

Critics of B. F. Skinner were concerned that:

he dehumanized people because he ignored the existence of personal freedom and dignity.

Hakeem has a very clear memory of his daughter's birth. He remembers the weather, what he was wearing, the sounds in the hallway, and the joy he felt. Psychologists would say that:

he has a flashbulb memory for this event.

Before the annual "Blue versus Red" football game, Sara bet on the Blue team, which then lost. After the game, she claimed she knew Blue would lose. This illustrates an error in thinking known as _____.

hindsight bias

Jaiden's high school's homecoming queen married the captain of the football team right after graduation, and he has just found out that they are splitting up. Thinking back to his high school days, he has the feeling that he would have predicted this, but he fails to remember that he said to his best friend at the time that he could not imagine them apart from each other. This illustrates an error in thinking known as _____.

hindsight bias

According to Erik Erikson, older adults can most effectively cope with the prospect of their own death if they have achieved a sense of _____.

integrity

Assimilation

interpreting our new experiences in strongs of our existing schemas. (p. 187)

Angular gyrus

is a region of the brain lying mainly in the anterolateral region of parietal lobe, that lies near the superior edge of the temporal lobe, and immediately posterior to the supramarginal gyrus. Its significance is in transferring visually perceived words to Wernicke's area (making read words have meaning) It is also involved in a number of processes related to language, number processing and spatial cognition, memory retrieval, attention, and theory of mind.

Damage to the brain's right hemisphere is most likely to reduce a person's ability to

make inferences

If a gender-neutral face is made to look angry, most people perceive it as ________. If asked to imagine an angry face, most identify it as ________.

male; male

B lymphocytes (white blood cells)

mature in the bone marrow and release antibodies that fight bacterial infections.

The average of a distribution of scores is the ___________. The score that shows up most often is the __________. The score right in the middle of a distribution (half the scores above it; half below) is the ___________. We determine how much scores vary around the average in a way that includes information about the __________ of scores (difference between highest and lowest) by using the __________ __________ formula.

mean; mode; median; range; standard deviation

In adulthood, we have difficulty recalling our experiences and perspective in youth. This is due to ____.

memory reconstruction

Johnny is hammering a nail with his toy hammer as his father is hammering the deck boards. His behavior is a clear example of:

modeling.

Gender identity

our sense of being male, female, or a combination of the two. (p. 168)

While surfing in Hawaii Barry was thrown by a huge wave that caused his surfboard to hit his head, causing him to temporarily lose consciousness and almost drown. After being revived by a fellow surfer Barry reported seeing a light in a tunnel which he felt compelled to enter. He also reported hearing his late grandmother's voice telling him to come towards the light. This experience can be explained as being caused by lack of _____ to the brain.

oxygen

Hallucinations similar to those that accompany the near-death experience can be produced by _____.

oxygen deprivation

Botox injections smooth facial wrinkles because botulin is an ACh antagonist that:

paralyzes underlying facial muscle

Reinforcing a desired response only some of the times it occurs is called reinforcement.

partial

John is convinced that his potato chip is in the shape of Elvis's face. John is demonstrating _______.

perceiving order in random events

Motor and sensory neurons together comprise the

peripheral nervous system

This occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues.

peripheral route persuasion

Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)

physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman's heavy drinking. In severe cases, signs include a small, out-of-proportion head and abnormal facial features. (p. 182)

recency effect

recalled the last items especially quickly and well

In the brain, the massive loss of unused neural connections is known as:

pruning

Hallucinogens

psychedelic ("mind-manifesting") drugs, such as LSD, that distort perceptions and evoke sensory images in the absence of sensory input. (p. 124)

The animal protection movement protests the use of animals in which of the following types of research?

psychological and biological

The field of ______________ studies mind-body interactions, including the effects of psychological, neural, and endocrine functioning on the immune system and overall health.

psychoneuroimmunology

Adolescence is marked by the onset of ________________ .

puberty

A medieval proverb notes that "a burnt child dreads the fire." In operant conditioning, the burning would be an example of a

punisher

Margaret suffered from a stroke over six months ago. She lost the ability to recognize faces and the ability to move her left arm and leg. She went through physical therapy to regain the use of her left arm and leg. While she is now able to walk with the use of a cane and can do many things with her left arm, she still has problems recognizing faces and is often unable to recognize her own children and grandchildren. Her stroke most likely impacted her _______.

right temporal lobe

Since the Great Recession, Americans' primary daily hassle has been:

rising costs and stagnant income.

A woman, alone in a house, ignores the creaking sounds she hears and experiences no stress. Another woman might hear the same sounds, suspect an intruder, and thus become alarmed. These different reactions illustrate the importance of:

stress appraisal

Lonnie often has vivid dreams. In the morning, he can recall them in great detail. This sometimes gets him in trouble, because he can't figure out if he is remembering a dream or something that he actually experienced. This problem is known as:

source amnesia

We may recognize a face at a social gathering but be unable to remember how we know that person. This is an example of

source amnesia

If you learn a list of chemistry terms while you are in a great mood, you have a better chance of recalling that list if you are in the same kind of mood when you take the exam. This is known as:

state-dependent memory

Your friend disappointed you, and you tell another friend, "That friend is really unreliable. She doesn't care about people's feelings." Later, when she apologizes and does something kind, you tell a friend, "That friend is always so nice to me!" This alteration of perception is explained by ______.

state-dependent memory

stimulation of the amygdala

stimulated amygdala creates a fear response.

In one study, monkeys who were housed with three or four new roommates each month were more likely to experience _____ compared with monkeys left in stable groups.

suppressed production of lymphocytes

The stress response system: When alerted to a negative, uncontrollable event, our ______________ nervous system arouses us. Heart rate and respiration ______________ (increase/decrease). Blood is diverted from digestion to the skeletal ______________. The body releases sugar and fat. All this prepares the body for the ______________ - ______________ - ______________response.

sympathetic; increase; muscles; fight-or-flight

The tiny space between the axon of one neuron and the dendrite or cell body of another is called the

synaptic gap

Garcia and Koelling's _____________ ______________ studies showed that conditioning can occur even when the unconditioned stimulus (US) does not immediately follow the neutral stimulus (NS).

taste - aversion

Gender typing

the acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role. (p. 168)

Cognitive learning

the acquisition of mental information, whether by observing events, by watching others, or through language. (p. 282)

Cognitive learning

the acquisition of mental information, whether by observing events, by watching others, or through language. (p. 282) We learn new behaviors by observing events and watching others, and through language, we learn things we have neither experienced nor observed

Priming

the activation, often unconsciously, of certain associations, thus predisposing one's perception, memory, or response. (pp. 231, 334)

Which brain area responds to stress hormones by helping to create stronger memories?

the amygdala

Lori decides to make a positive change in her life. Instead of going to work with a frown on her face, she will force herself to smile when she walks out the door. According to _____, by altering her behavior she stands a good chance of changing her attitude.

the attitudes-follow-behavior principle

Object permanence

the awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived. (p. 188)

Retroactive interference

the backward-acting disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information. (p. 341) If someone sings new lyrics to the tune of an old song, you may have trouble remembering the original words. It is rather like a second stone tossed in a pond, disrupting the waves rippling out from the first.

Medulla

the base of the brainstem; controls heartbeat and breathing. (p. 69)

Genes

the biochemical units of heredity that make up the chromosomes; segments of DNA capable of synthesizing proteins. (p. 134) Environmental events "turn on" genes, rather like hot water enabling a tea bag to express its flavor. When turned on, genes provide the code for creating protein molecules, our body's building blocks.

Primary sex characteristics

the body structures (ovaries, testes, and external genitalia) that make sexual reproduction possible. (p. 165)

Fetus

the developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth. (p. 181)

In a double-blind procedure, one group of men is given a beverage containing alcohol and a second group is given a similar-tasting beverage that contains no alcohol. In each group, half the men are told they are drinking an alcoholic beverage and half are told their beverage is non-alcoholic. All the men then view erotic movies. After watching the erotic material, research indicates that:

the men who thought they were drinking alcohol will feel LESS guilty than those who did NOT think they were drinking alcohol, regardless of the true content of the beverage.

Cognition

the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating. (pp. 186, 356)

One reason false memories form is our tendency to fill in memory gaps with our reasonable guesses and assumptions, sometimes based on misleading information. This tendency is an example of

the misinformation effect.

Yancy was sitting in the park one day and witnessed a robbery. When asked by the police to describe the young criminal, Yancy recalled erroneously that the criminal was a teenager rather than a young adult. Yancy's experience best illustrates:

the misinformation effect.

Testosterone

the most important of the male sex hormones. Both males and females have it, but the additional testosterone in males stimulates the growth of the male sex organs during the fetal period, and the development of the male sex characteristics during puberty. (pp. 165, 433)

A pharmaceutical company has developed a new medication to treat depression. The results of the company's studies indicate that the medication significantly reduces symptoms of depression in 90 percent of people diagnosed with depression. However, numerous well-constructed replications of these studies fail to obtain the same results; rather, the replication studies indicate that the new medication is no more effective than a placebo in reducing the symptoms of depression. We can conclude that it is likely that:

the new medication is not an effective treatment for depression.

Brainstem

the oldest part and central core of the brain, beginning where the spinal cord swells as it enters the skull; the brainstem is responsible for automatic survival functions. (p. 69) The brainstem is a crossover point, where most nerves to and from each side of the brain connect with the body's opposite side. This peculiar cross-wiring is but one of the brain's many surprises.

cerebellum

the part of the brain at the back of the skull in vertebrates. Its function is to coordinate and regulate muscular activity. Practiced movement

Social learning theory

the theory that we learn social behavior by observing and imitating and by being rewarded or punished. (p. 168)

Do as Kazuo Mori and Hideko Mori (2009) did with students in Japan: Attach rubber bands to the sides of the face with adhesive bandages, and then run them either over the head or under the chin. (1) Based on the facial feedback effect, how might students report feeling when the rubber bands raise their cheeks as though in a smile? (2) How might students report feeling when the rubber bands pull their cheeks downward?

1) Most students report feeling more happy than sad when their cheeks are raised upward. (2) Most students report feeling more sad than happy when their cheeks are pulled downward.

How do attitudes and actions interact?

Attitudes are feelings, often influenced by our beliefs, that predispose us to respond in certain ways. Peripheral route persuasion uses incidental cues (such as celebrity endorsement) to try to produce fast but relatively thoughtless changes in attitudes. Central route persuasion offers evidence and arguments to trigger thoughtful responses. When other influences are minimal, attitudes that are stable, specific, and easily recalled can affect our actions. Actions can modify attitudes, as in the foot-in-the-door phenomenon (complying with a large request after having agreed to a small request) and role playing (acting a social part by following guidelines for expected behavior). When our attitudes don't fit with our actions, cognitive dissonance theory suggests that we will reduce tension by changing our attitudes to match our actions.

How do our attitudes and our actions affect each other?

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

How do our facial expressions influence our feelings?

Research on the facial feedback effect shows that our facial expressions can trigger emotional feelings and signal our body to respond accordingly. We also mimic others' expressions, which helps us empathize. A similar behavior feedback effect is the tendency of behavior to influence our own and others' thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Kai watches as a student stumbles and drops her books in the hall. According to the fundamental attribution error, how would he explain the student's behavior?

She is a clumsy person.

What do social psychologists study? How do we tend to explain others' behavior and our own?

Social psychologists use scientific methods to study how people think about, influence, and relate to one another. They study the social influences that explain why the same person will act differently in different situations. When explaining others' behavior, we may—especially if we come from an individualist Western culture—commit the fundamental attribution error, by underestimating the influence of the situation and overestimating the effects of stable, enduring traits. When explaining our own behavior, we more readily attribute it to the influence of the situation.

egocentrism

Without the vocal nuances that signal whether our statement is serious, kidding, or sarcastic, we are in danger of what Piaget called egocentrism, by failing to perceive how others interpret our "just kidding" message (Kruger et al., 2005).

Do the genders differ in their ability to communicate nonverbally?

Women tend to read emotional cues more easily and to be more empathic. Their faces also express more emotion.

People become exhausted from chronic stress because the _____is/are overloaded.

adrenal glands

A professor is curt with everyone on the first day of class. The students think that their new professor is rude. This _____ will likely influence them to act negatively toward their professor

attitude

Before Rhonda left for college, she told her friend Michelle that she thought sororities were filled with snobs and that she would never consider joining one. However, during Rhonda's first week on campus, she was approached by a sorority member who invited her to a social function and encouraged her to pledge. After Rhonda attended the party, she told Michelle, "Sororities do a lot of good things for the community. They're really service organizations." Rhonda's change in attitude to match her behavior reflects:

cognitive dissonance

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

cognitive dissonance

John has just finished a brutal tour of combat in Afghanistan where he saw a lot of fighting. Several of his friends were killed, but he was able to fight despite the death around him. The two stress hormones at play were:

cortisol and epinephrine.

If people wrinkle their noses in disgust when presented with a strange-looking food, they are likely to experience an increasingly intense emotional aversion to the food. This BEST illustrates the:

facial feedback effect.

Natural killer cells (NK cells)

pursue diseased cells (such as those infected by viruses or cancer).

Christine thinks her job's strict tardiness policy is a result of the company's high sales goal (her boss has to report how many shoes were sold each day to the corporate headquarters). She is attributing her boss's behavior to her boss's:

responsibilities as a result of the job.

under-reactive immune system

the immune system may allow a bacterial infection to flare, a dormant virus to erupt, or cancer cells to multiply. To protect transplanted organs, which the recipient's system would view as a foreign body, surgeons may deliberately suppress the patient's immune system.

over-reactive immune system

the immune system may attack the body's own tissues, causing an allergic reaction or a self-attacking disease, such as lupus, multiple sclerosis, or some forms of arthritis. Women, who are immunologically stronger than men, are more susceptible to self-attacking diseases (Nussinovitch & Schoenfeld, 2012; Schwartzman-Morris & Putterman, 2012).

The facial expressions associated with particular emotions are:

the same throughout the world.

Fundamental attribution error

the tendency for observers, when analyzing others' behavior, to underestimate the impact of the situation and to overestimate the impact of personal disposition. (p. 518) They had students talk, one at a time, with a young woman who acted either cold and critical or warm and friendly. Before the conversations, the researchers told half the students that the woman's behavior would be spontaneous. They told the other half the truth—that they had instructed her to act friendly (or unfriendly). Did hearing the truth affect students' impressions of the woman? Not at all! If the woman acted friendly, both groups decided she really was a warm person. If she acted unfriendly, both decided she really was a cold person. They attributed her behavior to her personal disposition even when told that her behavior was situational—that she was merely acting that way for the purposes of the experiment.

Behavior feedback effect

the tendency of behavior to influence our own and others' thoughts, feelings, and actions. (p. 474) You can duplicate the participants' experience: Walk for a few minutes with short, shuffling steps, keeping your eyes downcast. Now walk around taking long strides, with your arms swinging and your eyes looking straight ahead. Can you feel your mood shift? Going through the motions awakens the emotions.

Facial feedback effect

the tendency of facial muscle states to trigger corresponding feelings such as fear, anger, or happiness. (p. 474) Just activating one of the smiling muscles by holding a pen in the teeth (rather than gently in the mouth, which produces a neutral expression) makes stressful situations less upsetting (Kraft & Pressman, 2012). A heartier smile—made not just with the mouth but with raised cheeks that crinkle the eyes—enhances positive feelings even more when you are reacting to something pleasant or funny (Soussignan, 2001). Smile warmly on the outside and you feel better on the inside. When smiling, you will even more quickly understand sentences that describe pleasant events (Havas et al., 2007). Scowl and the whole world seems to scowl back.

Cognitive dissonance theory

the theory that we act to reduce the discomfort (dissonance) we feel when two of our thoughts (cognitions) are inconsistent. For example, when we become aware that our attitudes and our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes. (p. 523)

Phase 1 GAS alarm reaction

your sympathetic nervous system is suddenly activated. Your heart rate zooms. Blood is diverted to your skeletal muscles. You feel the faintness of shock. With your resources mobilized, you are now ready to fight back.

Why are some of us more prone than others to coronary heart disease?

Coronary heart disease, the United States' number one cause of death, has been linked with the reactive, anger-prone Type A personality. Compared with relaxed, easygoing Type B personalities, Type A people secrete more stress hormones. Chronic stress also contributes to persistent inflammation, which heightens the risk of clogged arteries and depression.

Correlation need not mean causation

Correlation does not prove causation. Correlation indicates the possibility of a cause-effect relationship but does not prove such. Remember this principle and you will be wiser as you read and hear news of scientific studies.

The _____________cortex controls our voluntary movements.

motor

Teaching a dog to touch a target with its nose is fairly easy, because it works with the dog's _____.

natural instinct

Ants that become less sensitive to the repellants that are sprayed on them and are able to multiply are an example of:

natural selection

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

natural selection

Dr. Hernandez is interested in parent-child interaction during a play environment. Which of the following would be the best option for this research topic?

naturalistic observation

Kayla sat in her local fast food restaurant and recorded what people ordered. She is using what descriptive method?

naturalistic observation

Which of the following research methods is best for observing and recording behavior in various environments without trying to control the situation?

naturalistic observation

A study finds that the more childbirth training classes women attend, the less pain medication they require during childbirth. This finding can be stated as a (positive or negative?) correlation.

negative

Distributed practice

produces better long-term recall. After you've studied long enough to master the material, further study at that time becomes inefficient. Better to spend that extra reviewing time later—a day later if you need to remember something 10 days hence, or a month later if you need to remember something 6 months hence (Cepeda et al., 2008).

In a survey, a sample that gives each person in the general population an equal chance of participating is a _____ sample.

random

Sally visited two casinos and won large jackpots at the slot machines. Her friends told her to keep playing because she is on a lucky streak. Sally just took an introductory psychology class and decided not to spend any more money. She realized the two winning events were:

random

A professor conducts a survey of her class about whether the number of breaks is adequate for the three-hour course. For her survey, she decides to take all 40 students' names and assigns them each a number in order to have 20 students randomly chosen by her computer program. One could say that her survey will be both:

random and representative

Dr. Miller decided to conduct an exercise in his class wherein he had two students each flip a coin and record how many times they received heads or tails. One student had five heads in a row, while the other student's coin toss had no pattern. Dr. Miller explained that while the pattern is interesting it is best explained by:

random events

When trying to interpret a bar graph, do not be misled. Make sure to check the scale labels and note their _____.

range

The laboratory environment is designed to

re-create psychological forces under controlled conditions.

When viewing graphs

read the scale labels and note their range.

three measures of retention:

recall recognition relearning

recall ability

recall about seven digits, or about six letters or five words (Baddeley et al., 1975).

Multiple-choice questions test our ____________. Fill-in-the-blank questions test our _________.

recognition; recall

Seventy-year-old Barbara has been asked to memorize a series of thirty words. She is likely to perform similar to that of young adults if she is asked to _____ the words rather than recall them.

recognize

Development

(1) growth in body size, from a single cell to a full-size baby; (2) shift in proportions, as the lower portion of the body begins to catch up with the early development of the head; and (3) functional development of the various organ systems, as each system gradually begins working and then becomes more efficient as the fetus reaches viability and then prepares for birth.

In the end, our theory will be useful if it

(1) organizes a range of self-reports and observations, and (2) implies predictions that anyone can use to check the theory or to derive practical applications. (Does people's sleep predict their retention?) Eventually, our research may (3) stimulate further research that leads to a revised theory that better organizes and predicts what we know.

Teratogens

(literally, "monster maker") agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm. (p. 182)

Myelin sheath

A fatty tissue layer segmentally encasing the axons of some neurons; enables vastly greater transmission speed as neural impulses hop from one node to the next. (p. 53)

(1) If we flash a red light to the right hemisphere of a person with a split brain, and flash a green light to the left hemisphere, will each observe its own color? (2) Will the person be aware that the colors differ? (3) What will the person verbally report seeing?

1. yes, 2. no, 3. green

Today, 1 in _____ people worldwide are age 60 or older.

10

By _____ years of age, women outnumber men 5 to 1.

100

How does culture affect our behavior?

A culture is an enduring set of behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, and traditions shared by a group and transmitted from one generation to the next. Cultural norms are understood rules that inform members of a culture about accepted and expected behaviors. Cultures differ across time and space

How do we describe data using three measures of central tendency, and what is the relative usefulness of the two measures of variation?

A measure of central tendency is a single score that represents a whole set of scores. Three such measures that we use to describe data are the mode (the most frequently occurring score), the mean (the arithmetic average), and the median (the middle score in a group of data). Measures of variation tell us how diverse data are. Two measures of variation are the range (which describes the gap between the highest and lowest scores) and the standard deviation (which states how much scores vary around the mean, or average, score). Scores often form a normal (or bell-shaped) curve.

Antagonist

A molecule that inhibits or blocks a neurotransmitter's action. (p. 59) Botulin, a poison that can form in improperly canned food, causes paralysis by blocking ACh release. (Small injections of botulin—Botox—smooth wrinkles by paralyzing the underlying facial muscles.) These antagonists are enough like the natural neurotransmitter to occupy its receptor site and block its effect, as in FIGURE 5.6, but are not similar enough to stimulate the receptor (rather like foreign coins that fit into, but won't operate, a candy machine). Curare, a poison some South American Indians have applied to hunting-dart tips, occupies and blocks ACh receptor sites on muscles, producing paralysis in their prey.

Dendrites

A neuron's bushy, branching extensions that receive messages and conduct impulses toward the cell body. (p. 53) Dendrites listen

reuptake

A neurotransmitter's reabsorption by the sending neuron. (p. 56) For an instant, the neurotransmitter unlocks tiny channels at the receiving site, and electrically charged atoms flow in, exciting or inhibiting the receiving neuron's readiness to fire. The excess neurotransmitters then drift away, are broken down by enzymes, or are reabsorbed by the sending neuron—a process called reuptake.

Experiment

A research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors (independent variables) to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process (the dependent variable). By random assignment of participants, the experimenter aims to control other relevant factors. (p. 35)

Here are some recently reported correlations, with interpretations drawn by journalists. Knowing just these correlations, can you come up with other possible explanations for each of these?

Adolescents who frequently see smoking in movies are more likely to smoke. (One interpretation: Movie stars' behavior influences impressionable teens.) Perhaps adolescents who smoke and attend movies frequently have less parental supervision and more access to spending money than other adolescents.

Behavioral geneticists focusing on the molecular approach:

All of these choices are correct. A. study chromosomes using DNA scanning and genome sequencing. B. may open the door to a realm of ethical dilemmas. C. All of these choices are correct. D. strive to reveal at-risk populations for some of the most prevalent diseases today.

Studies show gender differences in the:

All of these choices are correct. B. amygdala. C. volume of gray matter versus white matter in the brain. D. hippocampus.

Random assignment

Assigning participants to experimental and control groups by chance, thus minimizing preexisting differences between the different groups. (p. 35)

How do parent-infant attachment bonds form?

At about 8 months, soon after object permanence develops, children separated from their caregivers display stranger anxiety. Infants form attachments not simply because parents gratify biological needs but, more important, because they are comfortable, familiar, and responsive. Many birds and other animals have a more rigid attachment process, called imprinting, that occurs during a critical period.

What is autism spectrum disorder?

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a disorder marked by social deficiencies and repetitive behaviors. By age 8, 1 in 68 U.S. children now gets diagnosed with ASD, though the reported rates vary by place. The increase in ASD diagnoses has been offset by a decrease in the number of children with a "cognitive disability" or "learning disability," suggesting a relabeling of children's disorders.

What is the difference between automatic and effortful processing, and what are some examples of each?

Automatic processing occurs unconsciously (automatically) for such things as the sequence and frequency of a day's events, and reading and comprehending words in our own language. Effortful processing requires attention and awareness and happens, for example, when we work hard to learn new material in class, or new lines for a play.

Who was skinner, and how is operant behavior reinforced and shaped?

B. F. Skinner was a college English major and aspiring writer who later entered psychology graduate school. He became modern behaviorism's most influential and controversial figure. Operant behavior operates on the environment, producing consequences. Expanding on Edward Thorndike's law of effect, Skinner and others found that the behavior of rats or pigeons placed in an operant chamber (Skinner box) can be shaped by using reinforcers to guide closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior.

What are some newborn abilities, and how do researchers explore infants' mental abilities?

Babies are born with sensory equipment and reflexes that facilitate their survival and their social interactions with adults. For example, they quickly learn to discriminate their mother's smell and sound. Researchers use techniques that test habituation, such as the novelty-preference procedure, to explore infants' abilities.

A researcher can tell that a person is looking at an object based on _____ activity.

Brain

We cannot assume that case studies always reveal general principles that apply to all of us. Why not?

Case studies involve only one individual or group, so we can't know for sure whether the principles observed would apply to a larger population.

An 89-year-old man has smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for more than 60 years and is in excellent health. A researcher does an in-depth study of this man in hopes of revealing universal principles related to the effects of smoking on health. However, the study may not provide useful results because the man is atypical. This illustrates a weakness of the _____ method of descriptive research.

Case study

Dr. Ahn is interested in the opinions of immigration among Caucasian-American citizens. Dr. Ahn distributes a survey and collects data from Caucasian-American citizens in Minnesota who have experienced an influx of immigrants from Somalia. The results of the study are representative of whom?

Caucasian-American citizens from Minnesota

Stability and _____ is one major issue of debate among developmental psychologists

Change

How does childhood neglect or abuse affect children's attachments?

Children are very resilient, but those who are severely neglected by their parents, or otherwise prevented from forming attachments at an early age, may be at risk for attachment problems.

What is the impact of prosocial modeling and of antisocial modeling?

Children tend to imitate what a model does and says, whether the behavior being modeled is prosocial (positive, constructive, and helpful) or antisocial. If a model's actions and words are inconsistent, children may imitate the hypocrisy they observe.

How do biological constraints affect classical and operant conditioning?

Classical conditioning principles, we now know, are constrained by biological predispositions, so that learning some associations is easier than learning others. Learning is adaptive: Each species learns behaviors that aid its survival. Biological constraints also place limits on operant conditioning. Training that attempts to override biological constraints will probably not endure because animals will revert to predisposed patterns.

Biological perspective

Concerned with the links between biology and behavior. Includes psychologists working in neuroscience, behavior genetics, and evolutionary psychology. These researchers may call themselves behavioral neuroscientists, neuropsychologists, behavior geneticists, physiological psychologists, or biopsychologists. (p. 52)

Understanding that physical properties stay the same even when objects change form.

Concrete operational

What are the key criticisms of evolutionary explanations of human sexuality, and how do evolutionary psychologists respond?

Critics argue that evolutionary psychologists start with an effect and work backward to an explanation. They also charge that evolutionary psychologists try to explain today's behavior based on decisions our distant ancestors made thousands of years ago, noting that a better, more immediate explanation takes learned social scripts into account. And, the critics wonder, does this kind of explanation absolve people from taking responsibility for their sexual behavior? Evolutionary psychologists respond that understanding our predispositions can help us overcome them. They recognize the importance of social and cultural influences, but they also cite the value of testable predictions based on evolutionary principles.

Why did skinner's ideas provoke controversy, and how might his operant conditioning principles be applied at school, in sports, at work, and at home?

Critics of Skinner's principles believed the approach dehumanized people by neglecting their personal freedom and seeking to control their actions. Skinner replied that people's actions are already controlled by external consequences, and that reinforcement is more humane than punishment as a means for controlling behavior. At school, teachers can use shaping techniques to guide students' behaviors, and they can use interactive software and websites to provide immediate feedback. In sports, coaches can build players' skills and self-confidence by rewarding small improvements. At work, managers can boost productivity and morale by rewarding well-defined and achievable behaviors. At home, parents can reward desired behaviors but not undesirable ones. We can shape our own behaviors by stating our goals, monitoring the frequency of desired behaviors, reinforcing desired behaviors, and gradually reducing rewards as behaviors become habitual.

_______ is most likely to influence our attitude toward premarital sex.

Culture

Three components of Scientific Attitude

Curious, Skeptical, and Humble

What are depressants, and what are their effects?

Depressants, such as alcohol, barbiturates, and the opiates, dampen neural activity and slow body functions. Alcohol tends to disinhibit, increasing the likelihood that we will act on our impulses, whether harmful or helpful. It also impairs judgment, disrupts memory processes by suppressing REM sleep, and reduces self-awareness and self-control. User expectations strongly influence alcohol's behavioral effects.

Charles Darwin

Descartes' views gained support from a curious naturalist two centuries later. In 1831, an indifferent student but ardent collector of beetles, mollusks, and shells set sail on a historic round-the-world journey. The 22-year-old voyager, Charles Darwin, pondered the incredible species variation he encountered, including tortoises on one island that differed from those on nearby islands. Darwin's 1859 On the Origin of Species explained this diversity by proposing the evolutionary process of natural selection:

Dr. Garcia believes that everyone passes through the same stages of development in the same order. Since this is Dr. Garcia's view, which of the following is he most likely to disagree with?

Development is a direct result of experience and learning.

What three issues have engaged developmental psychologists?

Developmental psychologists study physical, mental, and social changes throughout the life span. They focus on three issues: nature and nurture (the interaction between our genetic inheritance and our experiences); continuity and stages (whether development is gradual and continuous or a series of relatively abrupt changes); and stability and change (whether our traits endure or change as we age). 14-2 What is the course of prenatal development, and how do teratogens affect that development? 14-3 What are some newborn abilities, and how do researchers explore infants' mental abilities? TERMS AND CONCEPTS TO REMEMBER RETRIEVAL PRACTICE Match each of the terms on the left with its definition on the right. Click on the term first and then click on the matching definition. As you match them correctly they will move to the bottom of the activity. developmental psychology zygote embryo fetus teratogens fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) habituation the developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth. decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner. the fertilized egg; it enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division and develops into an embryo. physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman's heavy drinking. In severe cases, signs include a small, out-of-proportion head and abnormal facial features. a branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span. (literally, "monster maker") agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm. the developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month.

How do parents and peers influence adolescents?

During adolescence, parental influence diminishes and peer influence increases, in part because of the selection effect—the tendency to choose similar others. But adolescents also do adopt their peers' ways of dressing, acting, and communicating. Parents have more influence in religion, politics, and college and career choices.

Tina has trouble sleeping. She wakes up around the same time each night feeling like she can't breathe. Her physician suspects she may have sleep apnea, a sleep disorder. Her physician has decided to use _______ to view Tina's brain while she is sleeping in order to determine if Tina has a sleep disorder.

EEG

How did psychology continue to develop from the 1920s through today?

Early researchers defined psychology as "the science of mental life." In the 1920s, under the influence of John B. Watson and the behaviorists, the field's focus changed to the "scientific study of observable behavior." In the 1960s, the humanistic psychologists and the cognitive psychologists revived interest in the study of mental processes. Psychology is now defined as the science of behavior and mental processes.

How do evolutionary psychologists use natural selection to explain behavior tendencies?

Evolutionary psychologists seek to understand how our traits and behavior tendencies are shaped by natural selection, as genetic variations increasing the odds of reproducing and surviving in their particular environment are most likely to be passed on to future generations. Some variations arise from mutations (random errors in gene replication), others from new gene combinations at conception. Humans share a genetic legacy and are predisposed to behave in ways that promoted our ancestors' surviving and reproducing. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is an organizing principle in biology. He anticipated today's application of evolutionary principles in psychology.

Drug action

Experiences tolerance (needing more substance for the desired effect). Experiences withdrawal when attempting to quit.

social psychologists

Explore how we view and affect one another

Biological psychologists

Explore the links between brain and mind

Functionalism - William James influenced by Darwin

Explored how mental and behavioral processes function—how they enable the organism to adapt, survive, and flourish. (p. 3) explorations of the functions of emotions, memories, willpower, habits, and moment-to-moment streams of consciousness.

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

FMRI

If a researcher is interested in measuring both the structure and function of the brain, which of the following techniques would you recommend?

FMRI

inferential statistics

For guidance, we can ask how reliable and significant the differences are. These inferential statistics help us determine if results can be generalized to a larger population.

Right Hemisphere

Functions: Responsible for control of the left side of the body, and is the more artistic and creative side of the brain

What are chromosomes, DNA, genes, and the human genome? How do behavior geneticists explain our individual differences?

Genes are the biochemical units of heredity that make up chromosomes, the threadlike coils of DNA. When genes are "turned on" (expressed), they provide the code for creating the proteins that form our body's building blocks. Most human traits are influenced by many genes acting together. The human genome is the shared genetic profile that distinguishes humans from other species, consisting at an individual level of all the genetic material in an organism's chromosomes. Behavior geneticists study the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behavior.

What are some benefits and risks of prenatal genetic testing?

Genetic tests can now reveal at-risk populations for dozens of diseases, and the search is on to discover the markers of genetically influenced disorders. But prenatal screening poses ethical dilemmas. For example, testing for an offspring's sex has enabled selective abortions, which in some cultures has resulted in millions more male births. And future screening for vulnerability to psychological disorders could deprive the world of great talents. (Handel, van Gogh, Churchill, Lincoln, Tolstoy, and Dickinson were all troubled people, for example.)

What are hallucinogens, and what are their effects?

Hallucinogens—such as LSD and marijuana—distort perceptions and evoke hallucinations—sensory images in the absence of sensory input. The user's mood and expectations influence the effects of LSD, but common experiences are hallucinations and emotions varying from euphoria to panic. Marijuana's main ingredient, THC, may trigger feelings of disinhibition, euphoria, relaxation, relief from pain, and intense sensitivity to sensory stimuli. It may also increase feelings of depression or anxiety, impair motor coordination and reaction time, disrupt memory formation, and damage lung tissue (because of the inhaled smoke).

Ray drank too much tequila last night. He spent much of this morning vomiting and nauseated. According to the principles of classical conditioning, how will Ray likely react today when he tastes or smells the tequila bottle that he drank out of last night?

He will find the scent and taste of tequila aversive.

Branching Neural Networks

However, your nervous system was immature: After birth, the branching neural networks that eventually enabled you to walk, talk, and remember had a wild growth spurt (FIGURE 15.1). From ages 3 to 6, the most rapid growth was in your frontal lobes, which enable rational planning. This explains why preschoolers display a rapidly developing ability to control their attention and behavior (Garon et al., 2008).The brain's association areas—those linked with thinking, memory, and language—are the last cortical areas to develop. As they do, mental abilities surge (Chugani & Phelps, 1986; Thatcher et al., 1987). Fiber pathways supporting agility, language, and self-control proliferate into puberty. Under the influence of adrenal hormones, tens of billions of synapses form and organize, while a use-it-or-lose-it pruning process shuts down unused links (Paus et al., 1999; Thompson et al., 2000).

To what extent can a damaged brain reorganize itself, and what is neurogenesis?

If one hemisphere is damaged early in life, the other will pick up many of its functions by reorganizing or building new pathways. This plasticity diminishes later in life. The brain sometimes mends itself by forming new neurons, a process known as neurogenesis.

In slasher movies, sexually arousing images of women are sometimes paired with violence against women. Based on classical conditioning principles, what might be an effect of this pairing?

If viewing an attractive nude or seminude woman (a US) elicits sexual arousal (a UR), then pairing the US with a new stimulus (violence) could turn the violence into a conditioned stimulus (CS) that also becomes sexually arousing, a conditioned response (CR).

In classical conditioning, what are the processes of acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization, and discrimination?

In classical conditioning, acquisition is associating an NS with the US so that the NS begins triggering the CR. Acquisition occurs most readily when the NS is presented just before (ideally, about a half-second before) a US, preparing the organism for the upcoming event. This finding supports the view that classical conditioning is biologically adaptive. Through higher-order conditioning, a new NS can become a new CS. Extinction is diminished responding when the CS no longer signals an impending US. Spontaneous recovery is the appearance of a formerly extinguished response, following a rest period. Generalization is the tendency to respond to stimuli that are similar to a CS. Discrimination is the learned ability to distinguish between a CS and other irrelevant stimuli.

How do misinformation, imagination, and source amnesia influence our memory construction? How do we decide whether a memory is real or false?

In experiments demonstrating the misinformation effect, people have formed false memories, incorporating misleading details, after receiving wrong information after an event, or after repeatedly imagining and rehearsing something that never happened. When we reassemble a memory during retrieval, we may attribute it to the wrong source (source amnesia). Source amnesia may help explain déjà vu. False memories feel like real memories and can be persistent but are usually limited to the gist of the event.

From the perspectives of Piaget, Vygotsky, and today's researchers, how does a child's mind develop?

In his theory of cognitive development, Jean Piaget proposed that children actively construct and modify their understanding of the world through the processes of assimilation and accommodation. They form schemas that help them organize their experiences. Progressing from the simplicity of the sensorimotor stage of the first two years, in which they develop object permanence, children move to more complex ways of thinking. In the preoperational stage (about age 2 to about 6 or 7), they develop a theory of mind. In the preoperational stage, children are egocentric and unable to perform simple logical operations. At about age 7, they enter the concrete operational stage and are able to comprehend the principle of conservation. By about age 12, children enter the formal operational stage and can reason systematically. Research supports the sequence Piaget proposed, but it also shows that young children are more capable, and their development more continuous, than he believed. Lev Vygotsky's studies of child development focused on the ways a child's mind grows by interacting with the social environment. In his view, parents and caretakers provide temporary scaffolds enabling children to step to higher levels of learning.

Punishment can teach fear.

In operant conditioning, generalization occurs when an organism's response to similar stimuli is also reinforced. A punished child may associate fear not only with the undesirable behavior but also with the person who delivered the punishment or where it occurred. Thus, children may learn to fear a punishing teacher and try to avoid school, or may become more anxious (Gershoff et al., 2010). For such reasons, most European countries and most U.S. states now ban hitting children in schools and child-care institutions (stophitting.com). Thirty-three countries, including those in Scandinavia, further outlaw hitting by parents, providing children the same legal protection given to spouses.

How does the meaning of gender differ from the meaning of sex?

In psychology, gender is the socially influenced characteristics by which people define men and women. Sex refers to the biologically influenced characteristics by which people define males and females. Our gender is thus the product of the interplay among our biological dispositions, our developmental experiences, and our current situation.

Cognitive Revolution

In the 1960s, the cognitive revolution led the field back to its early interest in mental processes, such as the importance of how our mind processes and retains information.

secure attachment

In their mother's presence they play comfortably, happily exploring their new environment. When she leaves, they become distressed; when she returns, they seek contact with her. sensitive, responsive mothers—those who noticed what their babies were doing and responded appropriately—had infants who exhibited secure attachment

First Woman in Psychology - Mary Whiton Calkins

James' legacy stems partly from his Harvard mentoring and his writing. In 1890, over the objections of Harvard's president, he admitted Mary Whiton Calkins into his graduate seminar (Scarborough & Furumoto, 1987). (In those years women lacked even the right to vote.) When Calkins joined, the other students (all men) dropped out. So James tutored her alone. Later, she finished all of Harvard's Ph.D. requirements, outscoring all the male students on the qualifying exams. Alas, Harvard denied her the degree she had earned, offering her instead a degree from Radcliffe College, its undergraduate "sister" school for women. Calkins resisted the unequal treatment and refused the degree. She nevertheless went on to become a distinguished memory researcher and the American Psychological Association's (APA's) first female president in 1905.

baby math

Karen Wynn (1992, 2000, 2008) showed 5-month-olds one or two objects (FIGURE 15.7a). Then she hid the objects behind a screen, and visibly removed or added one (Figure 15.7d). When she lifted the screen, the infants sometimes did a double take, staring longer when shown a wrong number of objects (Figure 15.7f). But were they just responding to a greater or smaller mass of objects, rather than a change in number (Feigenson et al., 2002)? Later experiments showed that babies' number sense extends to larger numbers, to ratios, and to such things as drumbeats and motions (Libertus & Brannon, 2009; McCrink & Wynn, 2004; Spelke et al., 2013). If accustomed to a Daffy Duck puppet jumping three times on stage, they showed surprise if it jumped only twice.

Lee is only ten years old. He loves music and already plays seven different instruments. He frequently receives compliments on how well he plays. Following the trend of great musicians, Lee is probably _______.

Left handed

Significant Life Changes

Life transitions—leaving home, becoming divorced, losing a job, having a loved one die—are often keenly felt. Even happy events, such as getting married, can be stressful. Many of these changes happen during young adulthood.

Baby physics

Like adults staring in disbelief at a magic trick (the "Whoa!" look), infants look longer at an unexpected and unfamiliar scene of a car seeming to pass through a solid object, a ball stopping in midair, or an object violating object permanence by magically disappearing (Baillargeon, 1995, 2008; Wellman & Gelman, 1992).

The axon's surface is selectively permeable.

Like batteries, neurons generate electricity from chemical events. In the neuron's chemistry-to-electricity process, ions (electrically charged atoms) are exchanged. Like a tightly guarded facility, the axon's surface is very selective about what it allows through its gates.

neural networks

Like people networking with people, neurons network with nearby neurons with which they can have short, fast connections. Each layer's cells connect with various cells in the neural network's next layer. Learning—to play the violin, speak a foreign language, or solve a math problem—occurs as experience strengthens connections. Neurons that fire together wire together.

Cerebellum

Location: Lower area of the brain, below the pons Function: Responsible for balance and coordination of muscles and the body

Medulla Oblongata

Location: Lower part of the brain stem Function: Carries out and regulates life sustaining functions such as breathing, swallowing and heart rate

Cerebral Cortex

Location: Outermost layer of the brain Function: Responsible for thinking and processing information from the five senses The cortex is divided into four different lobes, the frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital, which are each responsible for processing different types of sensory information.

Amygdala

Location: Part of Limbic System, at the end of the hippocampus Function: Responsible for the response and memory of emotions, especially fear

Hippocampus

Location: Part of the Limbic system, in each temporal lobe Function: Responsible for processing of long term memory and emotional responses

Parietal Lobe

Location: Upper, back part of the cortex Function: Processes sensory information that had to do with taste, temperature, and touch

How do changes at the synapse level affect our memory processing?

Long-term potentiation (LTP) appears to be the neural basis of learning. In LTP, neurons become more efficient at releasing and sensing the presence of neurotransmitters, and more connections develop between neurons.

imagination inflation

Misinformation effect Digitally altered photos have also produced this imagination inflation. In experiments, researchers have altered photos from a family album to show some family members taking a hot air balloon ride. After viewing these photos (rather than photos showing just the balloon), children reported more false memories and indicated high confidence in those memories. When interviewed several days later, they reported even richer details of their false memories (Strange et al., 2008; Wade et al., 2002).

What physical changes occur during middle and late adulthood?

Muscular strength, reaction time, sensory abilities, and cardiac output begin to decline in the late twenties and continue to decline throughout middle adulthood (roughly age 40 to 65) and late adulthood (the years after 65). Women's period of fertility ends with menopause around age 50; men have no similar age-related sharp drop in hormone levels or fertility. In late adulthood, the immune system weakens, increasing susceptibility to life-threatening illnesses. Chromosome tips (telomeres) wear down, reducing the chances of normal genetic replication. But for some, longevity-supporting genes, low stress, and good health habits enable better health in later life.

An experimenter sounds a tone just before delivering an air puff to your blinking eye. After several repetitions, you blink to the tone alone. What is the NS? The US? The UR? The CS? The CR?

NS = tone before conditioning; US = air puff; UR = blink to air puff; CS = tone after conditioning; CR = blink to tone.

The more income rose among a sample of poor families, the fewer psychiatric symptoms their children experienced (Costello et al., 2003). __________

Negative correlation

What are neurons, and how do they transmit information?

Neurons are the elementary components of the nervous system, the body's speedy electrochemical information system. A neuron receives signals through its branching dendrites, and sends signals through its axons. Some axons are encased in a myelin sheath, which enables faster transmission. Glial cells provide myelin, and they support, nourish, and protect neurons; they may also play a role in learning and thinking. If the combined signals received by a neuron exceed a minimum threshold, the neuron fires, transmitting an electrical impulse (the action potential) down its axon by means of a chemistry-to-electricity process. The neuron's reaction is an all-or-none process.

How do neurotransmitters influence behavior, and how do drugs and other chemicals affect neurotransmission?

Neurotransmitters travel designated pathways in the brain and may influence specific behaviors and emotions. Acetylcholine (ACh) affects muscle action, learning, and memory. Endorphins are natural opiates released in response to pain and exercise. Drugs and other chemicals affect brain chemistry at synapses. Agonists increase a neurotransmitter's action, and may do so in various ways. Antagonists decrease a neurotransmitter's action by blocking production or release.

How has our understanding of biology and experience, culture and gender, and human flourishing shaped contemporary psychology?

Our growing understanding of biology and experience has fed psychology's most enduring debate. The nature-nurture issue centers on the relative contributions of genes and experience, and their interaction in specific environments. Charles Darwin's view that natural selection shapes behaviors as well as bodies led to evolutionary psychology's study of our similarities because of our common biology and evolutionary history, and behavior genetics' focus on the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behavior. Cross-cultural and gender studies have diversified psychology's assumptions while also reminding us of our similarities. Attitudes and behaviors may vary somewhat by gender or across cultures, but because of our shared human kinship, the underlying processes and principles are more similar than different. Psychology's traditional focus on understanding and treating troubles has expanded with positive psychology's call for more research on human flourishing and its attempt to discover and promote traits that help people to thrive.

How are Belyaev and Trut's breeding practices similar to, and how do they differ from, the way natural selection normally occurs?

Over multiple generations, Belyaev and Trut selected and bred foxes that exhibited a trait they desired: tameness. This process is similar to naturally occurring selection, but it differs in that natural selection normally favors traits (including those arising from mutations) that contribute to reproduction and survival.

Dr. Garcia is studying prejudice among White Americans using neuroimaging technology. She is particularly interested in which part of the brain is active when those who are prejudiced view photographs of White and Black people. Which of the following neuroimaging techniques is Dr. Garcia likely to use?

PET

The _____ nervous system conserves energy, while the sympathetic nervous system consumes energy.

Parasympathetic

In what ways do parents and peers shape children's development?

Parents influence their children in areas such as manners and political and religious beliefs, but not in other areas, such as personality. As children attempt to fit in with their peers, they tend to adopt their culture—styles, accents, slang, attitudes. By choosing their children's neighborhoods and schools, parents exert some influence over peer group culture.

A loved one's death triggers what range of reactions?

People do not grieve in predictable stages, as was once supposed. Strong expressions of emotion do not purge grief, and bereavement therapy is not significantly more effective than grieving without such aid. Erikson viewed the late-adulthood psychosocial task as developing a sense of integrity (versus despair).

Why are psychologists concerned with human biology?

Psychologists working from a biological perspective study the links between biology and behavior. We are biopsychosocial systems, in which biological, psychological, and social-cultural factors interact to influence behavior.

Early definition of Psychology - through the 1920s

Psychology was defined as "the science of mental life."

Basic research

Pure science that aims to increase the scientific knowledge base. (p. 11)

Context-Dependent Memory

Putting yourself back in the context where you experienced something, such as in a childhood home or neighborhood, can prime your memory retrieval.

What measures do researchers use to prevent the placebo effect from confusing their results?

Research designed to prevent the placebo effect randomly assigns participants to an experimental group (which receives the real treatment) or to a control group (which receives a placebo). A comparison of the results will demonstrate whether the real treatment produces better results than belief in that treatment.

Correlational methods

Research measures two or more factors and tries to discover if these factors are related. Prediction Correlational research allows researchers to predict when a behavior will occur. By knowing how changes in one factor (such as height) are related to another factor (such as weight) a person can measure one variable and be able to predict the value of the other variable.

Experimental methods

Researcher changes the setting of one factor in a situation to see how it changes the participants behaviors Causation Causation allows us to say that one factor (such as time spent studying a list of words) changes the value of another factor (such as memory for those words). An experiment is the only way to be able to draw this type of conclusion.

Descriptive methods

Researcher records ongoing behavior in a natural or laboratory setting Description Observational Research does an excellent job of allowing researchers to describe actual behavior and determine how often that behavior happens. However it does not do a good job of allowing us to predict when the behavior will happen or why it happens.

Can laboratory experiments illuminate everyday life?

Researchers intentionally create a controlled, artificial environment in the laboratory in order to test general theoretical principles. These general principles help explain everyday behaviors.

_____ occurs when something you learn now interferes with your ability to recall something you learned earlier.

Retroactive interference

Ricky has had his driver's license for less than a year. Ricky absolutely loves driving any car. His love of driving gave him the idea of getting a job delivering pizza 25 hours a week. After having the job for 6 months one can predict that:

Ricky's love of driving would decrease.

Nerves from the left side of the brain are mostly linked to the ___________ side of the body, and vice versa.

Right

The year is 1880 and Grace Marsh wants to attend a university to study psychology. Based on the history of the field, what is the likely outcome?

She will be denied acceptance.

Why do psychologists study animals, and what ethical guidelines safeguard human and animal research participants? How do human values influence psychology?

Some psychologists are primarily interested in animal behavior; others want to better understand the physiological and psychological processes shared by humans and other species. Government agencies have established standards for animal care and housing. Professional associations and funding agencies also establish guidelines for protecting animals' well-being. The APA ethics code outlines standards for safeguarding human participants' well-being, including obtaining their informed consent and debriefing them later. Psychologists' values influence their choice of research topics, their theories and observations, their labels for behavior, and their professional advice. Applications of psychology's principles have been used mainly in the service of humanity.

popout

Some stimuli, however, are so powerful, so strikingly distinct, that we experience popout, as with the only smiling face in FIGURE 8.9 We don't choose to attend to these stimuli; they draw our eye and demand our attention. Likewise, when the female phone interviewer changed to a male interviewer, virtually everyone noticed.

What events provoke stress responses, and how do we respond and adapt to stress?

Stress is the process by which we appraise and respond to stressors (catastrophic events, significant life changes, and daily hassles) that challenge or threaten us. Walter Cannon viewed the stress response as a "fight-or-flight" system. Hans Selye proposed a general three-phase (alarm-resistance-exhaustion) general adaptation syndrome (GAS). Facing stress, women may have a tend-and-befriend response; men may withdraw socially, turn to alcohol, or become aggressive.

Titchener is to _____ as Freud is to psychoanalysis.

Structuralism

____________ used introspection to define the mind's makeup; ____________ focused on how mental processes enable us to adapt, survive, and flourish.

Structuralism; functionalism

Physical punishment may increase aggression by modeling aggression as a way to cope with problems.

Studies find that spanked children are at increased risk for aggression (MacKenzie et al., 2013). We know, for example, that many aggressive delinquents and abusive parents come from abusive families (Straus & Gelles, 1980; Straus et al., 1997).

Sharing such similarities, should we not respect our animal relatives?

The animal protection movement protests the use of animals in psychological, biological, and medical research. "We cannot defend our scientific work with animals on the basis of the similarities between them and ourselves and then defend it morally on the basis of differences," noted Roger Ulrich (1991).

How does the biopsychosocial approach explain our individual development?

The biopsychosocial approach considers all the factors that influence our individual development: biological factors (including evolution and our genes, hormones, and brain), psychological factors (including our experiences, beliefs, feelings, and expectations), and social-cultural factors (including parental and peer influences, cultural individualism or collectivism, and gender norms).

What are the functions of the nervous system's main divisions, and what are the three main types of neurons?

The central nervous system (CNS)—the brain and the spinal cord—is the nervous system's decision maker. The peripheral nervous system (PNS), which connects the CNS to the rest of the body by means of nerves, gathers information and transmits CNS decisions to the rest of the body. The two main PNS divisions are the somatic nervous system (which enables voluntary control of the skeletal muscles) and the autonomic nervous system (which controls involuntary muscles and glands by means of its sympathetic and parasympathetic divisions). Neurons cluster into working networks. There are three types of neurons: (1) Sensory (afferent) neurons carry incoming information from sensory receptors to the brain and spinal cord. (2) Motor (efferent) neurons carry information from the brain and spinal cord out to the muscles and glands. (3) Interneurons communicate within the brain and spinal cord and between sensory and motor neurons.

Which parts of the brain are important for implicit memory processing, and which parts play a key role in explicit memory processing?

The cerebellum and basal ganglia are important for implicit memory processing and the frontal lobes and hippocampus are key to explicit memory formation.

Why are reports of repressed and recovered memories so hotly debated?

The debate (between memory researchers and some well-meaning therapists) focuses on whether most memories of early childhood abuse are repressed and can be recovered during therapy using "memory work" techniques using leading questions or hypnosis. Psychologists now agree that (1) sexual abuse happens; (2) injustice happens; (3) forgetting happens; (4) recovered memories are commonplace; (5) memories of things that happened before age 3 are unreliable; (6) memories "recovered" under hypnosis or the influence of drugs are especially unreliable; and (7) memories, whether real or false, can be emotionally upsetting.

Hailey is babysitting her 2-year-old nephew for the first time. While his back is turned, he touches his index finger to the pan she just took out of the oven. He pulls his finger away quickly, and a few seconds later begins to scream. Why does it take longer for him to scream than to pull away his finger?

The hand-withdrawal reflex involves only the spinal cord, so it takes time before the information about pain reaches the brain.

In the rental housing experiment, what was the independent variable? The dependent variable?

The independent variable, which the researchers manipulated, was the set of ethnically distinct names. The dependent variable, which they measured, was the positive response rate.

What are the limbic system's structures and functions?

The limbic system is linked to emotions, memory, and drives. Its neural centers include the hippocampus (which processes conscious memories); the amygdala (involved in responses of aggression and fear); and the hypothalamus (involved in various bodily maintenance functions, pleasurable rewards, and the control of the endocrine system). The hypothalamus controls the pituitary (the "master gland") by stimulating it to trigger the release of hormones.

Which of the three measures of central tendency is most easily distorted by a few very large or very small scores?

The mean

What are the advantages and disadvantages of naturalistic observation, such as Mehl and Pennebaker used in this study?

The researchers were able to carefully observe and record naturally occurring behaviors outside the artificiality of the lab. However, outside the lab they were not able to control for all the factors that may have influenced the everyday interactions they were recording.

How do the scientific attitude's three main components relate to critical thinking?

The scientific attitude equips us to be curious, skeptical, and humble in scrutinizing competing ideas or our own observations. This attitude carries into everyday life as critical thinking, which puts ideas to the test by examining assumptions, appraising the source, discerning hidden values, evaluating evidence, and assessing conclusions.

Evolutionary psychology

The study of the evolution of behavior and the mind, using principles of natural selection. (pp. 7, 144)

Behavior genetics

The study of the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behavior. (pp. 7, 134)

Electrical stimulation of a cat's amygdala provokes angry reactions. Which autonomic nervous system division is activated by such stimulation?

The sympathetic nervous system

You hear the school basketball coach telling her friend that she rescued her team's winning streak by yelling at the players after an unusually bad first half. What is another explanation of why the team's performance improved?

The team's poor performance was not their typical behavior. Their return to their normal—their winning streak—may just have been a case of regression toward the mean.

How can psychological principles help you learn and remember?

The testing effect shows that learning and memory are enhanced by actively retrieving, rather than simply rereading, previously studied material. The SQ3R study method—survey, question, read, retrieve, and review—applies principles derived from memory research. Four additional tips are (1) distribute your study time; (2) learn to think critically; (3) process class information actively; and (4) overlearn.

Infancy

Trust vs. mistrust

Bill is 65 years old and is worried about the upcoming winter months. He is very worried that he will catch a cold that would escalate to something worse due to his age. What would you tell Bill?

Try not to worry too much. Children and younger adults are more susceptible to short-term ailments due to older adults having more antibodies in their system.

How does Type D personality differ from Type A?

Type D individuals experience distress rather than anger, and they tend to suppress their negative emotions to avoid social disapproval.

What are some ways in which males and females tend to be alike and to differ?

We are more alike than different, thanks to our similar genetic makeup—we see, hear, learn, and remember similarly. Males and females do differ in body fat, muscle, height, age of onset of puberty, life expectancy, and vulnerability to certain disorders. Men admit to more aggression than women do, and they are more likely to be physically aggressive. Women's aggression is more likely to be relational. In most societies, men have more social power, and their leadership style tends to be directive, whereas women's is more democratic. Women focus more on social connectedness, and they "tend and befriend."

Why, when testing a new drug to control blood pressure, would we learn more about its effectiveness from giving it to half of the participants in a group of 1000 than to all 1000 participants?

We learn more about the drug's effectiveness when we can compare the results of those who took the drug (the experimental group) with the results of those who did not (the control group). If we gave the drug to all 1000 participants, we would have no way of knowing whether the drug is serving as a placebo or is actually medically effective.

What are psychology's main subfields?

Within the science of psychology, researchers may conduct basic research to increase the field's knowledge base (often in biological, developmental, cognitive, personality, and social psychology) or applied research to solve practical problems (in industrial-organizational psychology and other areas). Those who engage in psychology as a helping profession may assist people as counseling psychologists, helping people with problems in living or achieving greater well-being, or as clinical psychologists, studying and assessing people with psychological disorders and treating them with psychotherapy. (Psychiatrists also study, assess, and treat people with disorders, but as medical doctors, they may prescribe drugs in addition to psychotherapy.) Community psychologists work to create healthy social and physical environments (in schools, for example).

Wilhelm Wundt - Germany's University of Leipzig

Wundt was seeking to measure "atoms of the mind"—the fastest and simplest mental processes. So began the first psychological laboratory, staffed by Wundt and by psychology's first graduate students.

What withdrawal symptoms should your friend expect when she finally decides to quit smoking?

Your friend will likely experience strong craving, insomnia, anxiety, irritability, and distractibility. She'll probably find it harder to concentrate. However, if she sticks with it, the craving and withdrawal symptoms will gradually dissipate over about six months.

Basic trust

according to Erik Erikson, a sense that the world is predictable and trustworthy; said to be formed during infancy by appropriate experiences with responsive caregivers. (p. 199)

Neurocognitive disorders (NCDs)

acquired (not lifelong) disorders marked by cognitive deficits; often related to Alzheimer's disease, brain injury or disease, or substance abuse. In older adults neurocognitive disorders were formerly called dementia. (p. 218)

The first step of classical conditioning, when an NS becomes a CS, is called ______________. When a US no longer follows the CS, and the CR becomes weakened, this is called ______________.

acquisition, extinction

Norm

an understood rule for accepted and expected behavior. Norms prescribe "proper" behavior. (p. 156)

Studies show that physically abused children are much quicker at spotting the facial signals for the emotion of _____ than non-abused children.

anger

Tuber and colleagues measured stress hormone levels in dogs who resided in animal shelters and were able to come up with handling and stroking methods that could be used to reduce the stress of the dogs and help them adjust to their new home. This is an example of how _____ have benefited from animal research.

animals

People who suffer from schizophrenia have, among other things, an excess of dopamine. Therefore, medications used to treat this disorder are dopamine:

antagonists.

Stimulus

any event or situation that evokes a response - We learn that a flash of lightning signals an impending crack of thunder; when lightning flashes nearby, we start to brace ourselves (FIGURE 21.1).

Stimulus

any event or situation that evokes a response. (p. 281)

Aggression

any physical or verbal behavior intended to harm someone physically or emotionally. (pp. 162, 545)

Representative samples

are better than biased samples. The best basis for generalizing is not from the exceptional and memorable cases one finds at the extremes but from a representative sample of cases. Research never randomly samples the whole human population. Thus, it pays to keep in mind what population a study has sampled.

Authoritarian parents

are coercive. They impose rules and expect obedience: "Don't interrupt." "Keep your room clean." "Don't stay out late or you'll be grounded." "Why? Because I said so." hose with authoritarian parents tend to have less social skill and self-esteem

Authoritative parents

are confrontive. They are both demanding and responsive. They exert control by setting rules, but, especially with older children, they encourage open discussion and allow exceptions. Research indicates that children with the highest self-esteem, self-reliance, and social competence usually have warm, concerned, authoritative parents

An evolutionary psychologist would be likely to suggest that human preferences for sweet-tasting foods:

are genetically predisposed

Catastrophes

are unpredictable large-scale events, such as earthquakes, floods, wildfires, and storms. After such events, damage to emotional and physical health can be significant.

Generalizations based on a few unrepresentative cases

are unreliable.

Permissive parents

are unrestraining. They make few demands and use little punishment. They may be indifferent, unresponsive, or unwilling to set limits. those with permissive parents tend to be more aggressive and immature.

Source amnesia

attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined. (Also called source misattribution.) Source amnesia, along with the misinformation effect, is at the heart of many false memories. (p. 346)

"I don't care whether you want to wash the dishes; you will do so because I said so!" This statement is most representative of a(n) _____ parenting style.

authoritarian

The neuron fiber that passes messages through its branches to other neurons or to muscles and glands is the _____________.

axon

Dr. Wright is studying physiological changes when students are cheating. Dr. Wright sets up a study where participants are given a series of questions. Some questions are easy while other questions are difficult. It is not likely that the participants would be able to answer the difficult questions correctly. Dr. Wright makes it clear that she forgot the answer key to the questions prior to leaving the room of participants unattended. There is a hidden camera in the room to see what the participants do. After Dr. Wright is absent for 10 minutes she returns to the room. Participants then turn in their responses and have their heart rate, perspiration, etc. measured once they leave the testing room. Dr. Wright is probably an expert in ____.

behaviorism

Dr. Gerhardt has a client who suffers from substance use disorder. In therapy, she suggests that his abusive home environment, limited sense of life purpose, and deficient dopamine reward circuits might account for his addiction. Dr. Gerhardt is most clearly using a(n) _____ approach to understanding addictive behaviors.

biopsychosocial

While shopping at the local supermarket, Nora notices the "reduced for quick sale" table, which has discontinued items as well as dented cans. She buys some of the discontinued items and avoids the dented cans because she knows that improperly canned food can form:

botulin

Because of cataracts, a neighbor was deprived of visual experiences during early childhood. Last year, her vision was restored by surgery but she is having difficulty in dealing with the visual world. This is probably because:

brain cells normally devoted to vision died or were diverted to other uses.

Because humans live in the technology age, they are able to harness _____ so that they benefit from the preservation of innovation.

brain plasticity

If a child loses vision, his or her brain will respond by using the area previously devoted to vision for other abilities. This is an example of _____.

brain plasticity

If a child practices the piano every day for 30 minutes, 10 years later that child's brain will have a larger area of the brain devoted to fine motor control of the fingers than a child who never played. This is an example of _____.

brain plasticity

During commencement, a parent sat waiting for his child's name to be called. He failed to realize that the person initially reading off the graduates' names left and that a new person was now reading. This scenario illustrates:

change blindness

When asked to memorize the 15 letters C I A C B S A B C F B I I R S, Mary reorganizes them into CIA, CBS, ABC, FBI, and IRS. Mary used the tactic called _____.

chunking

Three-year-old Kirsten was playing with a balloon she was given by her father. While playing with the balloon it popped in her face, which frightened her and caused her to cry loudly. That weekend she was attending a birthday party, saw some balloons, began to cry, and ran out of the room. This is an example of:

classical conditioning

With __________ conditioning, we learn associations between events we do not control. With __________ conditioning, we learn associations between our behavior and resulting events.

classical; operant

At a large party with lots of music and conversations going on simultaneously, a person is talking to a friend. At the same time, the person hears his/her name spoken from the other side of the room. (S)he immediately looks in the direction of the voice and sees the person who spoke his/her name while conversing with another person. The ability to detect one's name being spoken in this situation is an example of the _____ effect.

cocktail party

Road construction prevents Binit from getting to campus using the route that he always travels. He thinks about the situation for a moment and then comes up with a different route to take. To figure out this alternative route, Binit is using his _____ of the area to devise a different route.

cognitive map

Developmental researchers who emphasize learning and experience are supporting ____________; those who emphasize biological maturation are supporting _________.

continuity; stages

Many people believe that positive thinking helps people overcome diseases like cancer. Often, this belief results from hearing about people with positive attitudes who were cured. However, this type of correlation typically does not take into account:

contradictory evidence.

Curiosity

curiosity about the world around us,

You invite a group of people to your house for a wine-tasting event, but you have not figured out how people will get home afterward. According to research, you should be concerned about this because as blood-alcohol level rises, people have _____ concerns about drinking and driving.

decreased

When a neuron fires an action potential, the information travels through the axon, the dendrites, and the cell body, but not in that order. Place these three structures in the correct order.

dendrites, cell body, axon

Jennah's friend's father has just passed away. She doesn't just say she is sorry for the loss, but rather she tells her friend that she truly feels the pain that she is going through. Jennah really understands her grief and both of them are crying together as she can actually feel the loss in her heart as well. This is an example of:

empathy

_____ is identification with others and the ability to imagine walking in their shoes.

empathy

The psychological terms for taking in information, retaining it, and later getting it back out are ______ , ______ , and _____ .

encoding; storage; retrieval

In terms of their length of effect, _____ messages last far longer than neural messages.

endocrine

Testing effect

enhanced memory after retrieving, rather than simply rereading, information. Also sometimes referred to as a retrieval practice effect or test-enhanced learning. (pp. 13, 326) One effective way to distribute practice is repeated self-testing, a phenomenon that researchers Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke (2006) have called the testing effect.

Environment

every nongenetic influence, from prenatal nutrition to the people and things around us. (p. 134)

Sam's sister has an independent study proposal due next week, and she has asked for help deciding on a topic. She is interested in studying what makes humans so similar to each other. On which of the following subfields of psychology would he recommend she focus?

evolutionary psychology

To explain behaviors and clarify cause and effect, psychologists use.

experiments

Ty's mother is frustrated that he will not spend the time on his school work that he does practicing and playing baseball. Ty will spend hours practicing in the hot sun every summer day without a coach telling him to do so. Ty's dedication to baseball can be explained by:

extrinsic motivation.

An experimenter visits a preschool with a big box of magic markers and paper. The children are told that they can draw as many pictures as they want. The children enjoyed the task very much. On another visit the children are told that for every picture they draw they would earn a prize. Two weeks later when the experimenter returned he offered up the markers and papers for play but no prizes would be given. The children played very little with the markers because:

extrinsic rewards can undermine intrinsic motivation.

Which of the following facial expressions is one of the supposed six basic facial expressions of emotions?

fear

Evolutionary psychologists believe that men in almost all cultures are attracted to women based on youthful physical characteristics that denote:

fertility and good health

You are excited to be studying developmental psychology in China. You know that children's facial expressions are universal and that children do all of the following EXCEPT:

fidget when they are sad.

A restaurant is running a special deal. After you buy four meals at full price, your fifth meal will be free. This is an example of a ________ schedule of reinforcement.

fixed-ratio

Scott received a great money-saving credit card offer in the mail complete with a frequent-flyer reward program. He reads on further to find that the one mile for every dollar spent may not be such a great offer after all because he gets a $500 airline ticket only after he acquires 25,000 miles or spend $25,000. This is a _____ schedule.

fixed-ratio

Abigail is disgusted at the album cover for a rapper's new album The cover displays the rapper in a pose showing off her backside, wearing nothing but a G-string. Abigail believes that this is a sexualized portrayal of the rapper and believes that young girls who are fans will see this form of self-objectification as acceptable. Abigail has vouched to boycott anything that is from the rapper. Abigail has entered the _____ stage of development.

formal operational

After Watson and Rayner classically conditioned Little Albert to fear a white rat, the child later showed fear in response to a rabbit, a dog, and a sealskin coat. This illustrates

generalization.

Those studying the heritability of a trait try to determine how much of the person-to-person variation in that trait among members of a specific group is due to their differing _________.

genes

If the heritability of intelligence is fifty percent, this means:

genetic influence explains fifty percent of the observed variation among people.

The shared human genetic profile is called the

genome

Are people in different cultures more likely to differ in their interpretations of facial expressions or of gestures?

gestures

Individualism

giving priority to one's own goals over group goals and defining one's identity in strongs of personal attributes rather than group identifications. (p. 157)

Collectivism

giving priority to the goals of one's group (often one's extended family or work group) and defining one's identity accordingly. (p. 157)

Whether you live in an African village or a European city, fast-paced music seems more ________ than slow-paced music.

happy

The majority of adults aged 65 and older in the United States are:

healthy, active, and self-sufficient.

Lara is trying to remember her life as an 18-month-old. However, as hard as she might try, she has no conscious memory for anything that occurred before her third birthday. This is likely due to the fact that her ___________, which is involved in storing explicit memories, was not fully developed at that age.

hippocampus

The standard deviation is the most useful measure of variation in a set of data because it tells us

how much individual scores differ from the mean.

Helena Cronin suggests that as a science, psychology does NOT seek to explain:

how we ought to live.

Theory-based predictions are called ___________

hypotheses

"If hunger improves intellectual performance, then hungry adults will score higher on a math test than adults who are not hungry." In that statement, "hungry adults will score higher on a math test than adults who are not hungry" is a(n) _____.

hypothesis

Egocentrism

in Piaget's theory, the preoperational child's difficulty taking another's point of view. (p. 189)

Dr. Han is examining the impact of parental separation on student academic performance. Dr. Han defines parental separation as no contact between the child and parent for a period of 6 months or more. Academic performance is being measured using students' grade point average and end-of-year grades. Dr. Han believes that if the children have experienced parental separation that they will perform poorly in school. The idea that parental separation will negatively impact academic performance is the _______ of the study.

hypothesis

As Jenny was watching television, the electricity went out. For a few tenths of a second, she was still able to see the last images from the screen. This is an example of:

iconic memory.

Sensory memory may be visual (____________memory) or auditory ( ___________ memory).

iconic; echoic

recognition

identifying items previously learned. A multiple-choice question tests your recognition.

relearning

identifying items previously learned. A multiple-choice question tests your recognition. learning something more quickly when you learn it a second or later time. When you study for a final exam or engage a language used in early childhood, you will relearn the material more easily than you did initially.

Jason is 16 years old. One day he has blonde hair, the next day it is green. One day he looks "goth" and the next he looks like a jock. He recently asked his parents if he could get a tattoo. Jason is probably trying to find his _____.

identity

Jeremy is 16 years old and is trying different clothes and hairstyles. His father is confused and sometimes shocked by the pairing of shirts and pants, the earrings, chains, and hair colors. His mother on the other hand, just laughs. According to Erik Erikson, Jeremy is in the stage of development called _____ vs. role confusion.

identity

There are several computerized game programs that are designed to improve cognitive functioning and reduce cognitive decline by exercising both memory and attention. Research has shown that those who engage in such games show _____ in the practiced skills.

improvement

Darwin's principles of evolution suggest that it would be easiest to classically condition an association that _____.

improves odds of survival

Intimacy

in Erikson's theory, the ability to form close, loving relationships; a primary developmental task in young adulthood. (p. 210)

Preoperational stage

in Piaget's theory, the stage (from about 2 to about 6 or 7 years of age) during which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic. (p. 189)

Sensorimotor stage

in Piaget's theory, the stage (from birth to nearly 2 years of age) during which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities. (p. 188)

Concrete operational stage

in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (from about 7 to 11 years of age) during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events. (p. 190)

Formal operational stage

in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (normally beginning about age 12) during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts. (p. 191)

Conditioned response (CR):

in classical conditioning, a learned response to a previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus (CS). (p. 284)

Neutral stimulus (NS)

in classical conditioning, a stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning. (p. 283)

Conditioned stimulus (CS):

in classical conditioning, an originally irrelevant stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus (US), comes to trigger a conditioned response (CR). (p. 284)

Acquisition

in classical conditioning, the initial stage, when one links a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus so that the neutral stimulus begins triggering the conditioned response. In operant conditioning, the strengthening of a reinforced response. (p. 284)

Operant chamber

in operant conditioning research, a chamber (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. (p. 290)

Variable-ratio schedule

in operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses. (p. 294)

Fixed-ratio schedule

in operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses. (p. 294)

Fixed-interval schedule

in operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed. (p. 294)

Repression

in psychoanalytic theory, the basic defense mechanism that banishes from consciousness anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories. (pp. 343, 575)

The prefrontal cortex

in the forward part of the frontal lobes enables judgment, planning, and processing of new memories. People with damaged frontal lobes may have intact memories, high scores on intelligence tests, and great cake-baking skills. Yet they would not be able to plan ahead to begin baking a cake for a birthday party

Josie intently watched the live tennis match and did not realize that a bird had landed on the empty seat next to her. Her inability to notice the bird can be explained by:

inattentional blindness.

Positive reinforcement

increasing behaviors by presenting positive reinforcers. A positive reinforcer is any stimulus that, when presented after a response, strengthens the response. (p. 292)

Negative reinforcement

increasing behaviors by stopping or reducing negative stimuli. A negative reinforcer is any stimulus that, when removed after a response, strengthens the response. (Note: Negative reinforcement is not punishment.) (p. 292)

The results of Jasper's dissertation showed that experimental Drug R had a minimal to modest effect in reducing the symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). He decided that his original hypothesis that 200 mg of Drug R will reduce GAD symptoms by 25 percent needed to be revised by increasing the drug dosage to 300 mg. This increase in Drug R is a manipulation of the _____ variable.

independent

A researcher wants to determine whether noise level affects workers' blood pressure. In one group, she varies the level of noise in the environment and records participants' blood pressure. In this experiment, the level of noise is the _______ __________.

independent variable

Learning is defined as "the process of acquiring through experience new and relatively enduring ________________ or ________________.

information ; behaviors

Marcus is taking advanced placement chemistry in high school because he loves science and is fascinated by chemistry experimentation. Wade is taking advanced placement chemistry because his guidance counselor told him he had to if he intended to apply to a pre-med program at a competitive university. Marcus is motivated by _____, while Wade is motivated by _____.

intrinsic motivation; extrinsic motivation

Broca's area or the Broca area

is a region in the frontal lobe of the dominant hemisphere (usually the left) of the hominid brain with functions linked to speech production. Language processing has been linked to Broca's area since Pierre Paul Broca reported impairments in two patients.

hippocampus

is a small organ located within the brain's medial temporal lobe and forms an important part of the limbic system, the region that regulates emotions. The hippocampus is associated mainly with memory, in particular long-term memory. The organ also plays an important role in spatial navigation.

Annabelle was physically abused as a child. Now a woman in her mid-30s, she finds herself often feeling threatened in social situations, when others with a secure history do not experience such a sense of threat. This is occurring because Annabelle _____.

is experiencing hypervigilance

Wernicke's area also called Wernicke's speech area,

is one of the two parts of the cerebral cortex that are linked to speech (the other is Broca's area). It is involved in the comprehension or understanding of written and spoken language (in contrast to Broca's area that is involved in the production of language).

A retrieval cue:

is something outside your head in the surrounding environment that is related to the memory you are trying to retrieve.

Which of the following is a component of culture that is unique to the human species?

language

Differences between two samples are LESS likely to be statistically significant if the standard deviations of the samples are _____.

large

A highly-efficient computer engineer would most likely have:

larger parietal lobes

Researchers often find it more challenging to train dolphins rather than dogs, even though dolphins are smarter. One of the reasons for this difficulty is that dolphins have _____ shared evolutionary heritage with humans than dogs, so they condition to stimuli that is different than what will affect dogs and humans.

less

Ebbinghaus' "forgetting curve" shows that after an initial decline, memory for novel information tends to

level out.

insecure attachment

marked either by anxiety or avoidance of trusting relationships. They are less likely to explore their surroundings; they may even cling to their mother. When she leaves, they either cry loudly and remain upset or seem indifferent to her departure and return insensitive, unresponsive mothers—mothers who attended to their babies when they felt like doing so but ignored them at other times—often had infants who were insecurely attached.

The biological growth process, called _________, explains why most children begin walking by about 12 to 15 months.

maturation

We remember information with _____ better than information without.

meaning

Explicit memory (also called declarative memory.)

memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare." (p. 321)

If a child is watching a favorite sibling getting scolded for misbehavior, which type of neuron is likely to be activated in an empathic response to this observation?

mirror neuron

Research participants are presented with the following scenario: "There is a runaway trolley headed for five people. All will certainly be killed unless you push a larger stranger onto the tracks, where he will die as his body stops the trolley. Will you push him?" What are the likely results to this question?

most will say no

Motor (efferent) neurons

neurons that carry outgoing information from the brain and spinal cord to the muscles and glands. (p. 60) carry instructions from the central nervous system out (thus, they are efferent) to the body's muscles and glands. Our nervous system has a few million motor neurons.

neuroscientists can also stimulate various brain parts

neuroscientists can also stimulate various brain parts—electrically, chemically, or magnetically—and note the effect

In a sending neuron, when an action potential reaches an axon terminal, the impulse triggers the release of chemical messengers called

neurotransmitters

A psychologist conducting basic research to expand psychology's knowledge base would be most likely to

observe 3- and 6-year-olds solving puzzles and analyze differences in their abilities.

instinctive drift

occurred as the animals reverted to their biologically predisposed patterns.

Peripheral route persuasion

occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues, such as a speaker's attractiveness. (p. 520)

Observational learning

one form of cognitive learning, lets us learn from others' experiences. Chimpanzees, for example, sometimes learn behaviors merely by watching others perform them. If one animal sees another solve a puzzle and gain a food reward, the observer may perform the trick more quickly. So, too, in humans: We look and we learn.

If children get attention for doing cartwheels, they will repeat the trick if they find this attention to be enjoyable. This best illustrates:

operant conditioning.

Opiates

opium and its derivatives, such as morphine and heroin; depress neural activity, temporarily lessening pain and anxiety. (p. 120) codeine, morphine, methadone, heroin pupils constrict, breathing slows, and lethargy sets in as blissful pleasure replaces pain and anxiety. eventual craving, need for progressively larger doses, extreme discomfort of withdrawal, the brain eventually stops producing endorphins, its own opiates.

Consciousness

our awareness of ourselves and our environment. (p. 92) This awareness allows us to assemble information from many sources as we reflect on our past and plan for our future. And it focuses our attention when we learn a complex concept or behavior.

Serial position effect

our tendency to recall best the last (a recency effect) and first (a primacy effect) items in a list. (p. 336)

Unlike short-term memory, long-term memory is:

permanent

Sabrina stated there was a _____ correlation between food intake and weight as the scores tended to rise and fall together.

positive

Anne has been working nights and weekends to get a project completed at work. She is successful, and a couple of weeks later she comes into work and her boss presents her with a bonus check. This best illustrates the value of:

positive reinforcement.

Marcus has decided to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity this summer. He has come to realize that he is very lucky. He wants to give back to people who are not as fortunate. Marcus has probably reached the _____ stage of moral development.

postconventional

Midbrain, also called mesencephalon

region of the developing vertebrate brain that is composed of the tectum and tegmentum. The midbrain serves important functions in motor movement, particularly movements of the eye, and in auditory and visual processing. responds to loud startling sounds

Rory agreed to join a biology study group. When the study group leader gave him her phone number, he had nothing in which to record the number. So Rory repeated the number to himself several times until he found a pen to write the number on his hand. The process Rory used to encode the number into memory is called:

rehearsal

Partial (intermittent) reinforcement schedule

reinforcing a response only part of the time; results in slower acquisition of a response but much greater resistance to extinction than does continuous reinforcement. (p. 293)

When sample averages are __________ and the difference between them is __________, we can say the difference has statistical significance.

reliable; large

A pharmaceutical company has developed a new medication to treat depression. The results of the company's studies indicate that the medication significantly reduces symptoms of depression in 90 percent of people diagnosed with depression. However, these studies will have to be re-evaluated if numerous well-constructed follow-up studies fail to _____ the findings.

replicate

A professor conducts a survey of her class about whether the number of breaks is adequate for the three-hour course. For her survey, she decides to take all 40 students' names and assigns them each a number in order to have 20 students randomly chosen by her computer program. One could say that her survey will be both a(n) _____ and a random sample.

representative

You wish to survey a group of people who truly represent the country's adult population. Therefore, you need to ensure that you question a _______________ sample of the population.

representative

Which terms would most likely occur in description of a single study?

representative sample and survey

Freud proposed that painful or unacceptable memories are blocked from consciousness through a mechanism called

repression

Salivating in response to a tone paired with food is a(n) __________ behavior; pressing a bar to obtain food is a(n) __________ behavior.

respondent; operant

Implicit memory (also called nondeclarative memory.)

retention of learned skills or classically conditioned associations independent of conscious recollection. (p. 321)

Specific odors, visual images, emotions, or other associations that help us access a memory are examples of

retrieval cues

Ivan recently suffered a severe stroke and is no longer able to remember events from his childhood. His memory problems are related to:

retrieval failure

Rashad is studying for tomorrow's biology exam. He has been reading and taking notes for hours, and he feels like he cannot study any longer. To avoid _____, the best thing for Rashad to do at this point is go directly to sleep.

retroactive interference

After switching dorm rooms and getting a new phone number, Samantha found that it was harder to remember her previous dorm room's phone number. Samantha was experiencing:

retroactive interference.

Michael recently suffered a stroke to his _____. Now he is unable to perceive accurately the emotions of others.

right hemisphere

Dr. Petrie administers surveys to 15 migrants from Somalia who reside in Minnesota. Dr. Petrie is interested in their immigration experiences. After examining the survey answers, Dr. Petrie concludes that all immigrants in Minnesota have experienced racism and discrimination since coming to the United States. What are some problems with this study?

sample size and selection bias

Every time 2-year old Rosa goes near the stove, her mother stops her and says, "No, hot!" Rosa's mother is providing her with a _____ to help her internalize.

scaffold

applied research

scientific study that aims to solve practical problems.

Although Jordan cannot recall the exact words of a poem he heard recently, he clearly remembers the poem's meaning. This best illustrates the importance of:

semantic encoding

disinhibitor

slow brain activity that controls judgment and inhibitions (you do the things that you would normally perhaps enjoy in moderation in excess or are to shy to do) Alcohol is a disinhibitor

Stephanie is 33 years old. She has a full-time career and is not married. She does not have any children. Stephanie's grandmother keeps asking her when she will get married and have children, insisting that Stephanie should be married and a mother by now. She also insists that Stephanie should not focus on her career because once she is married she should not be working. Stephanie's grandmother is referring to the _____ of her generation.

social clock

Social psychologists study how people think, feel, and behave in _____.

social situations

The __________ perspective in psychology focuses on how behavior and thought differ from situation to situation and from culture to culture, while the __________ perspective emphasizes observation of how we respond to and learn in different situations.

social-cultural; behavioral

An important point to remember about correlation is that it describes a(n) _____ relationship and does NOT equal causation.

statistical

Dr. James found a correlation of +0.81 between obesity and the consumption of fast foods. This would be considered a(n) _____ positive correlation.

strong

Dr. James found a correlation of -0.81 between obesity and the consumption of low-fat foods. This would be considered a(n) _____ negative correlation.

strong

Two early schools of psychology were

structuralism and functionalism.

Déjà vu

that eerie sense that "I've experienced this before." Cues from the current situation may unconsciously trigger retrieval of an earlier experience. (p. 346)

Nasim has a friend who tends to make errors based on hindsight bias, which is also known as:

the I-knew-it-all-along phenomenon.

Modeling

the process of observing and imitating a specific behavior. (p. 306)

Sympathetic nervous system

the division of the autonomic nervous system that arouses the body, mobilizing its energy. (p. 61) The autonomic nervous system serves two important functions (FIGURE 5.8). The sympathetic nervous system arouses and expends energy. If something alarms or challenges you (such as a longed-for job interview), your sympathetic nervous system will accelerate your heartbeat, raise your blood pressure, slow your digestion, raise your blood sugar, and cool you with perspiration, making you alert and ready for action.

Parasympathetic nervous system

the division of the autonomic nervous system that calms the body, conserving its energy. (p. 61) When the stress subsides (the interview is over), your parasympathetic nervous system will produce the opposite effects, conserving energy as it calms you. The sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems work together to keep us in a steady internal state called homeostasis.

Somatic nervous system

the division of the peripheral nervous system that controls the body's skeletal muscles. Also called the skeletal nervous system. (p. 60) Our somatic nervous system enables voluntary control of our skeletal muscles. As you reach the end of this page, your somatic nervous system will report to your brain the current state of your skeletal muscles and carry instructions back, triggering a response from your hand so you can read on.

When we place ourselves in the physical space our original learning process occurred, we prime ourselves to more readily retrieve memories that were encoded in the same space. This is called:

the encoding specificity principle.

Selective attention

the focusing of conscious awareness on a particular stimulus. (p. 96) By one estimate, your five senses take in 11,000,000 bits of information per second, of which you consciously process about 40 (Wilson, 2002). Yet your mind's unconscious track intuitively makes great use of the other 10,999,960 bits.

Proactive interference

the forward-acting disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information. (p. 341) If you buy a new combination lock, your well-rehearsed old combination may interfere with your retrieval of the new one.

Eulalia stops for a cup of coffee and the waitress yells at her when she sits at a table that has not been cleared. She is convinced that she should find another line of work--one in which her angry personality traits will not interfere with her job. However, she disregards the possibility that the restaurant is short of help that day. Eulalia has just fallen prey to:

the fundamental attribution error.

Stephanie's new roommate leaves dirty laundry all over her room, and she assume she must be a slob. She ignores the fact that she is currently taking finals and working 40 hours per week. Stephanie is demonstrating:

the fundamental attribution error.

Cognitive neuroscience

the interdisciplinary study of the brain activity linked with cognition (including perception, thinking, memory, and language). (pp. 5, 93)

Synapse [SIN-aps]

the junction between the axon tip of the sending neuron and the dendrite or cell body of the receiving neuron. The tiny gap at this junction is called the synaptic gap or synaptic cleft. (p. 56)

Memory consolidation

the neural storage of a long-term memory. (p. 330)

Puberty

the period of sexual maturation, during which a person becomes capable of reproducing. (pp. 165, 204)

Conservation

the principle (which Piaget believed to be a part of concrete operational reasoning) that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects. (p. 189)

Dual processing

the principle that information is often simultaneously processed on separate conscious and unconscious tracks. (p. 94) Perception, memory, thinking, language, and attitudes all operate on two levels—a conscious, deliberate "high road" and an unconscious, automatic "low road." The high road is reflective, the low road is intuitive (Evans & Stanovich, 2013; Kahneman, 2011).

B.F. Skinner believed that external influences NOT _____, shape animal and human behavior.

thoughts and feelings

T lymphocytes are to the _____ as B lymphocytes are to the _____.

thymus; bone marrow

Mild substance use disorder

two to three of these indicators

Tend and befriend

under stress, people (especially women) often provide support to others (tend) and bond with and seek support from others (befriend). (p. 492)

What do scientists think might have happened had the energy of the Big Bang been a little weaker?

universe would have collapsed in on itself

Pilar is reading the latest issue of the Journal of Neuropsychology and the article on a new neurocognitive test for Alzheimer's disease catches her attention. She is excited because it states that the new test is quite successful and has statistical significance. The article further states that the new test should be given to all Alzheimer's patients. She looks back at the beginning of the article and finds that the new test was given to 35 participants. She concludes generalizations based on a small number of cases are more likely to be _____.

unreliable

Seven-year-old Mark likes to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles every day after school. When the program is finished, he meets his friends in his back yard and they playfully drop kick each other over and over. This eventually leads to real fighting between the children. This is an example of the:

violence-viewing effect

Dr. James found a correlation of -0.33 between exercise and weight loss in men over 40. This would be considered a _____ correlation.

weak negative

When people breed dogs, are they capitalizing on any component of natural selection?

yes--they take advantage of variable traits in the dog population

Phase 3 GAS exhaustion

you become more vulnerable to illness or even, in extreme cases, collapse and death.

If you grimace in fear while taking a difficult exam, this facial expression is likely to cause:

you to experience increasingly intense feelings of fear.

Phase 2 GAS resistance

your temperature, blood pressure, and respiration remain high. Your adrenal glands pump hormones into your bloodstream. You are fully engaged, summoning all your resources to meet the challenge. As time passes, with no relief from stress, your body's reserves begin to dwindle.

The first two weeks of prenatal development is the period of the _________. The period of the _________ lasts from 9 weeks after conception until birth. The time between those two prenatal periods is considered the period of the _________.

zygote; fetus; embryo


Set pelajaran terkait

Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) concept

View Set

Econ Exam - Chapter's Assignment Review

View Set

sonnets mastery test edmentum english 12

View Set

CompTIA Security+ 501 (RAID levels)

View Set

IRSC Microeconomics final exam study guide 2023

View Set

Micro Ch. 22: Helicobacter pylori

View Set