General Psychology: Exam #3

Ch 9 Concept Development

Concept: When we mentally group or categorize ideas or things based on similarity we have formed a concept. Concept Hierarchy: an arrangement of related concepts in a particular way, with some being general and others specific. - Helps us order and understand our world. Concepts: - Concepts are mental representations of categories. *Concepts help us organize our perceptions of the world. We can store and process these concepts in at least 2 ways: in a hierarchy and by parallel distributed processing. - A concept hierarchy lets us known that certain concepts are elated in a particular way with some being general and other specific. *It helps us order and understand our world. *The location of a concept is based on its relation to other concepts. How Do We Reason about Evidence?: - Almost anytime we use the word "because," we are reasoning. *Reasoning is the process of drawing interferences or conclusions from principles and evidence. *Sometimes reasoning allows us to draw sound or correct conclusions, yet this is not always the case. Two Forms of Reasoning: - Cognitive psychologists distinguish between 2 kinds of reasoning drawn from formal logic: deductive and inductive. - Deductive reasoning occurs when we reason from general statements of what is known and then combine this info to reach specific conclusions. *It goes from the general to the specific. *The specific conclusion is always correct if the general statement is true. *When scientists make specific predictions from their general theories, they are engaging in deductive reasoning. - Inductive reasoning draws general conclusions from specific evidence. *Inductive reasoning, therefore, goes from the specific to the general. *Such conclusions are less certain than those drawn from deductive reasoning, because many different conclusions might be consistent with a specific fact. With induction, the best we can hope for are highly likely conclusions. = A better inductive conclusion would be that most peaches are sweet. = When scientists develop theories, they use inductive reasoning, because they offer general statements that explain many specific facts or observations. *When we use inductive reasoning, we often use casual interferences, judgements about whether one thing causes another thing. - Inductive reasoning and casual inferences are related to a phenomenon seen in most people, including scientists: confirmation bias, or the tendency to selectively attend to info that supports one's general beliefs while ignoring info or evidence that contradicts one's beliefs. People are so inclined to test only ideas that confirm their beliefs that they forget that one of the best ways to test an idea is to try to tear it down or disconfirm it, the foundation of the scientific method. - Most people, look only for info that confirms what they already believe and seldom look for info that disconfirms their beliefs.

Ch 13 Carl Jung

Jung's signature idea was that the unconscious has 2 distinct forms: personal and collective. - The personal unconscious consists of all our personally experienced repressed and hidden thoughts, feelings, and motives. Jung also believed, however, that is a second kind of unconscious, one that belongs not to the individual but to the species. - He called it the collective unconscious, and it consists of the shared universal experiences of our ancestors that have been transmitted from generation to generation. Jung decided that there must be some kind of collective unconscious that would explain the many instances in which dreams, religions, legends, and myths share the same content, even though the people who created them have never directly or even indirectly communicated with one another. The collective unconscious is made up of archetypes: ancient or archaic images that result from common ancestral experiences. - Their content is made manifest most often in our dreams but also in fantasies, hallucinations, myths, and religious themes. - The shadow is the dark and morally objectionable part of ourselves. *We all have impulses that are dark and disturbing; in fact, most often we project evil and darkness onto our enemies and deny that we ourselves are evil or capable of it. *Shadow figures are found everywhere in politics, literature, and art, not to mention movies: Dark Vader in Star Wars. The anima is the female part of the male personality, and the animus is the male part of the female personality. - All people possess characteristics and traits that are typical of both genders. *Yet most people downplay or even repress in themselves the qualities and traits of the opposite sex - men tend to deny and repress their feminine side, or anima, and women tend to deny or repress their masculine side, or animus. Jung argues that full personality development requires acknowledging and being receptive to these unconscious or less well developed sides of one's personality. Carl Jung's (a student of Freud) signature idea was that the unconscious has two distinct forms: personal and collective. - Personal unconscious: According to Jung, the form of consciousness that consists of all our repressed and hidden thoughts, feelings, and motives. *Where the ID would be stored. - Collective unconscious: According to Jung, the form of consciousness that consists of the shared universal experiences of our ancestors that have been passed down from generation to generation. *A kin of the Superego. Archetypes: Ancient or archaic images that result from common ancestral experiences. - Ex: The Greek created Greek mythology to explain phenomenons they didn't understand. *Like Persephone: she spends half the year on the Earth making rain and the other half down in the underworld. Among the archetypes Jung postulated: - Shadow: the dark and morally objectional part of ourselves. *Anima: the female part of the male personality. *Animus: the male part of the female personality.

Ch 11 Challenges of Dieting: Eating Disorders

Some people develop such concern about their bodies and how much they weigh that they develop an eating disorder. - For any behavior to be considered a disorder, it must be dysfunctional, disturbing, distressing, and deviant. *Dysfunction is interference with everyday functioning, as well as disruption of one's personal and professional life. *Disturbing and distressing imply that the behavior is not wanted and causes stress for either the person suffering from it or the individual's family, friends, and social contacts. *Deviant implies that these are not common, everyday behaviors but relatively rare in the population. The 2 primary types of eating disorders are anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. - Anorexia Nervosa involves an extreme fear about being overweight that leads to a severe restriction of food intake. *This caloric restriction typically does not allow a person to maintain at least 85% of the low end of his or her ideal weight (BMI of about 16 or less). *Anorexia involves an extremely distorted body image, with the person believing he or she is too heavy regardless of how thin he or she really is. *BMIs in the range of 15 or less can lead to death, and about 4% of those who suffer from anorexia will die from the disorder. A person suffering from Bulimia Nervosa is prone to binge eating and feeling a lack of control during the eating session. - Binge eating involves eating much more food at one time than most people would eat, such as having a half-gallon of ice cream as a late-night snack. - A person with bulimia regularly engages in self-induced vomiting, the use of laxatives or diuretics, strict dieting or fasting, or vigorous exercise in order to prevent weight gain. A number of social and environmental factors play a role in whether one develops an eating disorder. - Girls and women are more likely to develop eating disorders than boys and men are. *More and more young men are at risk than ever before. - Studies suggest that both men and women are more likely to develop eating disorders seek approval from others and are more likely to have had insecure attachments to their caregivers during infancy and childhood. *Binge eating spreads in social groups especially sororities. - Ethnicity also influences the prevalence of eating disorders. *Eating disorders are becoming more common in African American, Asian American, and Latina girls. *Hispanic women are much less likely than European American women to develop anorexia, but they are about equally likely to be bulimic. - Young women who are high achievers in school are at increased risk of disordered easing. *Perhaps the risk factor of having a college educated parent may help explain why high achieving young women have a higher risk for disordered eating. Forces of nature impact eating disorders. - A growing body of literature has examined genetic and epigenetic influences on eating disorders. *Genes explain about 60% of the variance in eating disorders. Personality matters as well, and personality trait have a basis in biology and genetics. - People who had demonstrated a proneness to anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem later were more likely to develop anorexia. - Anorexics are also more conscientious, more introverted, more likely to suffer from attention deficit and hyperactivity, and are less open to new situations than are non-anorexics.

Ch 11 Challenges of Dieting: Why Dieting Does Not Work - and What Does Work

Traci Mann and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis of 31 high quality published studies on long-term weight loss from dieting and reported that diets work only for a minority of the population. - People typically lose about 5 to 10 pounds within the first 6 months after they start dieting. - Within 2-5 years, the vast majority of dieters have not only gained all of the weight back but also weigh more than they did when they started dieting. Losing and regaining weight is associated with heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and altered immune function. - The reason for the nearly inevitable regaining of the original weight is the fact that metabolism slows down after weight loss. Research confirms the remarkable power of our social groups to affect our overall health and lifestyle habits, including weight loss and weight gain. - On average, those who enrolled with friends lost 33% more weight than those who enrolled alone. Sometimes a support network helps with weight loss - but other times, it doesn't. - We create our real world social networks as a function of what we are hoping to get and who we like being around. - A study of over 7,000 people in a national poll showed that when people are motivated to lose weight, they tend to prefer being around other people who are heavier and motivated to lose. *In terms of what predicts actual weight loss, spending time with thinner people is associated with greater success in losing weight. *Physical exercise is important not only for weight loss but for also maintenance of a healthy weight. People who do not get enough sleep have more trouble losing weight than those who get adequate sleep. - Sleep deprivation seems to change brain signals, making food more appealing. - Sleep deprivation decreases the activity of the appetite suppressing hormone leptin, leading to a sense of never being full. Some widely held beliefs about weight loss have little or no empirical or scientific support. - It is too simplistic to say that high-fat and high-carb diets are bad. - Evidence for eating smaller but more frequent meals is mixed at best. - Healthy approaches include avoiding high-glycemic (blood sugar) foods and focusing on low-glycemic foods; and controlling portion sizes. Traci Mann has found that dieting generally does not work—not in the long-term, at least. - Losing and regaining weight ("yoyoing") is associated with heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and altered immune function. Approaches supported by the evidence: - Eat slowly; stop when you feel full. *The faster you eat, the slower the signal goes to your brain to let you know you're full. - Log your eating and monitor your weight regularly. - Choose low-fat and/or whole-grain (low-glycemic) foods. - Follow a realistic eating pattern that includes breakfast. - Eat what you want, but in moderation. - Drink lots of water. - Engage in at least moderate daily physical activity.

Ch 11 Popular Theories of Emotions

- James Lange Theory of Emotion - Neocultural Theory of Emotion - Facial Feedback Hypothesis

Ch 13 Humanistic Approach to Personality

A second major perspective explaining personality comes from a human nature, believing that humans are naturally interested in realizing their full potential. - Humanists argue that psychology needs to study humans at their best as well as at their worst. The term "humanism" is not commonly used today, mostly because many adherents of this approach did not conduct empirical research, yet the movement has been rekindled since the late 1990s under a new label; positive psychology. - Positive psychology embraces and generates empirical research, but its fundamental ideas come from 2 major thinkers in the humanistic tradition: Abraham Maslow and Carl Rodgers.

Ch 13 Alfred Adler

Adler's first major assumption was that humans naturally strive to overcome their inherent inferiorities or deficiencies, both physical and psychological. - This striving for superiority, not sex or aggression, is the major drive behind all behavior. Alder introduced the term "compensation" to explain how this process unfolds. - Compensation is an unconscious reaction people have to cover up their weaknesses and sense of inferiority by striving for superiority. All people, begin life as young, immature, and helpless beings. - As they grown, they strive toward growth and completion. - In this process, they attempt to compensate for their feelings of weakness or inferiority. *Although all people do this to some extent, some develop an unhealthy need to dominate or upstage others as a way of compensating for feelings of inferiority - they develop an inferiority complex. Another idea key in Adler's theory of individual psychology is the influence of birth order on personality. - Notice consistent psychological differences in the personalities of first-born, middle-born, and last-born individuals. *First-born can behave in nurturing ways with others, but they are sometimes highly critical and have a strong need to be right. *Second children tend to be motivated and cooperative, but they can become overly competitive. *Youngest children can be realistically ambitious but also pampered and dependent on others. *Finally, only children can be socially mature, but they sometimes lack social interest and have exaggerated feelings of superiority. Alfred Adler disagreed with Freud on the major motives underlying behavior. Humans are trying to do a good job for themselves: they are trying to be a good person. Striving for superiority: According to Adler, the major drive behind all behavior, whereby humans naturally strive to overcome their inherent inferiorities or deficiencies, both physical and psychological. - A hard thing to do: to be on the top of your game 24/7. Defense Mechanisms: - Compensation: Adler's description of an unconscious reaction people have to cover up their weaknesses and sense of inferiority by striving for superiority. *Our society's obsession for material goods. *Ex: you see someone driving a fancy car, we may think "hey, they must have a great life." But it could be possible that the person in the fancy car is projecting false things about themselves; that "rich person" may have a failing marriage. - Inferiority complex: An unhealthy need to dominate or upstage others as a way of compensating for feelings of deficiency.

Ch 13 Humanistic Approach to Personality: Abraham Maslow

An important concept that followed form his theory of needs was that of self-actualization, which stood at the top of the hierarchy. - This term refers to people's inherent drive to realize their full potential. *Very few people attain this highest level of the hierarchy of needs, because very few are "fully human," or living life at its fullest and achieving their full potential. Maslow identified a set of characteristics that he believed to be more common in self-actualizing individuals than in other people. - He listed 15 characteristics, 5 of which are below: 1. Spontaneity, Simplicity, Naturalness *Self-actualizing people sometimes can appear quite childlike in their ability to be spontaneous and straightforward; they do not pretend to be what they are not. 2. Problem-Centered (having a "calling") - Self-actualizing people often experience moments of profound personal importance or personal meaning, and these experiences shape the rest of their lives. - These individuals are focused and secure in who they are and what matters most to them - and often their concerns have great philosophical, spiritual, political, artistic, or scientific meaning. 3. Creativity (self-actualizing rather than specialized) - Self-actualizing people are able to readily solve problems with originality and novelty. - By creativity, Maslow does not mean creativity as expressed in art or science but rather the kind of creativity that can be formed in everyday life. *Everyday creativity is more important than professional achievement, although self-actualized people may be creative in their work as well. 4. Deep Interpersonal Relations - Self-actualizing individuals are likely to have few but profound relationships. *These relationships, however, are intensely intimate; they share deep thoughts and feelings about themselves, each other, and the world. 5. Resistance to Enculturation - Self-actualizing people are less likely than most people to be influenced by the ideas and attitudes of others. - Their ideas are solidly their own; they have a clear sense of direction in life, they don't look to others for guidance on what to think or how to behave.

Ch 10 Multiple Factor Theory of Intelligence

Asks, "How are you intelligent?" - Some people may be better on things than others. *Math vs. Art *Science vs. *History/Dates The person who has developed the most elaborate theory of multiple intelligences is Howard Gardner. - He argues that intelligence consists of at least 8 distinct capacities: linguistic, mathematical-logical, musical, bodily kinesthetic, spatial, intrapersonal, interpersonal, and naturalistic. - Naturalistic intelligence is the ability to recognize, classify, and understand the plants and animals in one's environment. - Interpersonal intelligence is the ability to perceive and understand other people's intentions, emotions, motives, and behaviors and is very closely related to what other psychologists refer to as "emotional intelligence." - Interpersonally intelligent people therefore work well with others and know how to get along with them.

Ch 13 Big Factor Theory of Personality

Big Five (Five-Factor Model): A theory of personality that includes the following five dimensions: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (OCEAN). Personality researchers had amassed evidence for the existence of 5 universal and widely agreed-upon dimensions of personality. - This perspective is known as the Big Five or Five-Factor Model; the 5 dimensions are openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. *O-C-E-A-N or C-A-N-O-E The Big Five: Dimension/Description: - Openness (O) *How interested in new experiences or new ideas is someone? *How imaginative, original, and curious is he or she? *Ex: Youtubers have to be open to new experiences or ideas because it could lead them to new content. - Conscientiousness (C) *How planned, organized, orderly, hard-working, controlled, persevering, punctual, and ambitious is someone? - Extraversion (E) *How sociable, talkative, active, outgoing, confident, and fun-loving is someone? - Agreeableness (A) *How friendly, warm, trusting, generous, and good-natured is someone? *Really good intra-intelligence skills. - Neuroticism (N) *How anxious, worrying, tense, emotional, and high-strung is someone?

Ch 11 Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Combines drives and incentives - is Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. - Needs range from basic physiological necessities to psychological needs for growth and fulfillment. Maslow himself never developed nor proposed a pyramid. - Instead, he envisioned the model to be like later for which you become closer to reaching the levels of the model. *The ladder view is best because it indicates that movement up and down the hierarchy is possible. Levels: - At the lowest level of the hierarchy are physiological needs for things such as food, water, oxygen, and adequate body temperature. - The second/middle level is safety needs, which include attaining physical security, stability, dependency, protection, and freedom from threats such as war, assault, and terrorism. - The third level consists of love and belongingness needs including the desire for friendship, sex, a mate, and children, as well as the desire to belong to a family or social group. - The fourth level is the need for esteem - that is, the need to be liked, appreciated, and respected by other people as well as oneself. *The need for esteem is behind the desire to achieve and succeed. - The top level is self-actualization, the full realization of one's potentials and abilities in life. *Only when lower-level needs have been satisfied can people focus on higher-level needs. Maslow's hierarchy has had relatively little scientific support or updating. - Doug Kenrick and colleagues bridged the evolutionary and hierarchical models of motivation by modifying Maslow's hierarchy from an evolutionary perspective. *The new model builds on the basic needs - physiological, safety, love, and belongingness, and esteem - and replaces self-actualization with 3 types of reproductive goals: acquiring a mate, retaining a mate, and parenting. *The levels overlap rather than replace earlier needs, clarifying that they do not go away but can be activated whenever needed. - The 2 most basic ones are hunger and sex. - Hunger is a fundamental drive behind survival, and sex is the drive behind reproduction.

Ch 9 Critical and Scientific Thinking

Critical thinking is a particular form of reasoning that involves our ability to question, evaluate, and analyze info and then form sound opinions based on evidence. - At its core, it is making sound, evidence-based judgements. We have to be able to know the difference between ideas and arguments that have evidence behind them vs those that don't. - To make this distinction, we need to be able to think critically. Scientific thinking is closely connected to critical thinking and involves the ability to know and understand that our thoughts and beliefs are separate from evidence. - Just because we believe something doesn't make it true. The essence of science and scientific thinking is forming beliefs (hypotheses) that then are empirically tested to determine whether they are valid or not. - The starting point of scientific thinking is questioning and being skeptical about the validity of an idea, and only when it withstands the rigors of empirical testing do we decide there is enough evidence for us to believe it.

Ch 10 Crystallized vs. Fluid Intelligence

Crystallized Intelligence: The kind of knowledge that one gains from experience and learning education, and practice. - Prior learning and past experiences - Based on facts - Increases with age *Think of reading a book *Think of a crystal - it takes time for crystals to form similar to people having to learn over a course of time to form knowledge. Crystallized intelligence involves using already learned skills, experience, and knowledge to solve problems. - It involves what we have already learned (acquired) knowledge, crystallized intelligence becomes more and more stable with time - much like a crystal. Crystallized intelligence is more influenced by culture, experience, and environment than fluid intelligence is. - This form of intelligence stems from the size of your vocabulary, as well as your knowledge of your culture. Fluid Intelligence: Raw mental ability, pattern recognition, and abstract reasoning that can be applied to a problem one has never confronted before. - Global capacity to reason - Ability to learn new things - Thinking abstractly and solve problems *Think of solving a puzzle Fluid intelligence involves raw mental ability, pattern recognition, and abstract reasoning and is applied to a problem that you have never confronted before. - Fluid intelligence is not based on what you have already learned, and it is relatively uninfluenced by culture or the size of your vocabulary. *It mostly involves how rapidly you learn new things.

Ch 13 Quantitative Trait Loci Approach

Definition: A technique in behavioral genetics that looks for the location on genes that might associated with particular behaviors. Gene studies investigate differences in form and structure in particular gene locations. - There are 2 kinds of gene studies: candidate gene and genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Candidate gene studies take a Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) Approach to look for the location of specific bits of DNA on genes that might be associated with particular behaviors. - There studies search for "genetic markers" of behavior. - The traits are markers for behaviors that are expressed on a broad continuum, from very little to very much. - Anxiety is a quantitative trait because some people are not at all anxious, most people have average levels of anxiety, and a few are very anxious. QTL research points to genetic markers for several basic personality traits, such as novelty or thrill-seeking, impulsivity, and neuroticism/anxiety.

Ch 10 Gardner's Multiple Intelligences Theory

Definition: The idea that intelligence consists of distinct dimensions and is not just a single factor. Asks, "How are you intelligent?" - Some people may be better on things than others. *Math vs. Art *Science vs. *History/Dates The person who has developed the most elaborate theory of multiple intelligences is Howard Gardner. - He argues that intelligence consists of at least 8 distinct capacities: linguistic, mathematical-logical, musical, bodily kinesthetic, spatial, intrapersonal, interpersonal, and naturalistic. *Naturalistic intelligence is the ability to recognize, classify, and understand the plants and animals in one's environment. *Interpersonal intelligence is the ability to perceive and understand other people's intentions, emotions, motives, and behaviors and is very closely related to what other psychologists refer to as "emotional intelligence." *Interpersonally intelligent people therefore work well with others and know how to get along with them. Scholars are strongly divided, however, in their evaluations of Gardner's theory. - On one side are scholars who see little value in calling skills such as music, movement, and social skills "intelligence" and argue that Gardner has not provided tests of these intelligences. *In the last few years, researchers have found growing evidence that the 8 intelligences can be reliably and validly measured. - On the other side are psychologists and many educators who believe that Gardner's ideas address 2 important facts overlooked by traditional models of intelligence: *Different students learn in different ways. *Some students who have demonstrated ability in some areas fail academic subjects and do poorly on traditional intelligence tests.

Ch 11 Yerkes Oodson Law

Definition: The principle that moderate levels of arousal lead to optimal performance. The "optimal level of arousal" is another model that focuses on internal drive states; it is based on research by Yerkes and Doson. - According to the optimal arousal model, we function best when we are moderately aroused or energized. *Both low and high arousal/energy levels lead to poor performance. The optimal arousal model of motivation argues that humans are motivated to be in situations that are neither too stimulating nor not stimulating enough. - Support for the optimal arousal model comes from sensory deprivation research. - It involves having a person lie down on a bed or in a sensory deprivation tank. *People could not remain in the sensory deprivation tank for more than 2-3 days, even if they were paid to double their daily wage for each day they remained in the tank. *After long periods of sensory deprivation, people begin to hallucinate, their cognitive ability and concentration suffer, and they develop childish emotional responses. - Sensory deprivation in rodents shrinks the brain regions most involved in the senses that have been deprived, another example of the plasticity of the brain.

Ch 9 Linguistic Determinism Hypothesis

Definition: The proposition that our language determines our way of thinking and our perceptions of the world; the view taken by Sapir and Whorf. - Language patterns lead to different patterns in thought. Benjamin Whorf and Edward Sapir proposed the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis—that language creates thought as much as thought creates language. Research suggests that language influences, but does not necessarily determine, the way we think about and perceive the world around us. The Whorf-Sapir view leads to the linguistic determinism hypothesis, which states that our language determines our way of thinking and our perceptions of the world. - If there are no words for certain objects or concepts in one's language, it is not possible to think about those objects or concepts. The Piraha, a very small tribe of only about 200 people living in the Amazon area of Brazil are challenging some of science's basic notions of language, numbers, memory, perception, and thought. - Piraha have no words for numbers higher than 2. *It is nearly impossible for them to learn concepts such as 10 because their language has no system higher than 2. - Piraha have no way to include one clause within another and do not construct sentences that start with words like "when, before, and after." *It directly challenges the concept of a universal grammar.

Ch 11 Neocultural Theory of Emotion

Ekman's explanation that some aspects of emotion, such as facial changes associated with emotion, are universal and others, such as emotion regulation, are culturally derived. Ekman proposed the neuro-cultural theory of emotion to account for the fact that certain aspects of emotion, such as the facial expressions and physiological changes associated with basic emotions, are similar in all humans, whereas other aspects ,such as how people appraise situations and regulate their emotion expressions in front of others vary from one culture to another. - Anthropologists have offered numerous examples of cultural variability in emotion expression - such as the case of Samurai women who smiles broadly after learning that their husbands or sons had died in battle. *This example suggests that facial expressions of happiness and sadness are not universal. Ekman and Friesen proposed the concept of display rules to address this dilemma. - Display rules are learned norms or rules, often taught very early, about when it is appropriate to show certain expressions of emotion and to whom one should show them. *Samurai women were expected to be proud of a son or husband who had been killed in battle, and the society required them to display joy at the news. The first empirical support for display rules came from a study comparing disgust expressions in American and Japanese students. - Both groups viewed a film showing a very graphic medical procedure, but in 2 different conditions: in the presence of an authority figure and alone. *When alone, both groups felt perfectly comfortable expressing the obvious response - disgust. *When in the presence of an authority figure, the Japanese students did not show disgust, and they masked their responses with non-Duchenne (fake) smiles. *American students, showed about the same level of disgust in both conditions. - The expressive differences between groups emerged in a situation in which the cultures had very different norm as about expression, but not in the solo viewing condition. Darwin asserted that facial expressions evolved due to their functional role in survival, which if true would speak to why some expressions may be universal. - Recent research shows that people posing fear faces actually see better in tests of peripheral vision and quickness of eye movements. *These appearance changes may reveal the function of the fear face hypothesized by Darwin - to enable people to respond more quickly to danger. There seem to be some universals in the vocalization of emotion as well. - Across several cultures, people tend to recognize common patterns of vocal changes as representing certain emotional states for a small set of emotions. Non-verbal vocalizations of emotion, such as grunts, retching noises, and laughs, also seem to be recognized cross-culturally. - The evidence suggests that all humans share a core set of basic facial expressions of emotion, though there continues to be some debate as to the exact forms of some of these expressions. Early research on the recognition of facial expressions of emotion relied only on asking people to look at pictures of posed emotion expressions and say what they thought the people in the pictures were feeling. - Those kinds of studies suggested there were 5 to 7 basic emotions. *There are also great differences between cultures in vocalization, the context in which certain emotion expressions occur, and the ways people describe their emotional experiences. Overall, the research on emotional behavior tells us that when and how we express emotion is determined both by innate, biologically determined factors and by culturally learned influences, such as display rules, that may vary from one culture to another.

Ch 10 G-Factor Theory

G-Factor Theory: Spearman's theory that intelligence is a single general (g) factor made up of specific components. Charles Spearman's G-Factor Theory: intelligence is a single general (g) factor made up of specific components. Verbal intelligence: The ability to solve problems and analyze information using language based reasoning. - Has to do with people who tend to have different words or technologies for explaining. - Words for describing. Spatial intelligence: Defined as the ability or mental skill to solve spatial problems such as navigating and visualizing objects from different angles. - Can come into play when one plays a video game. *Ex: Having to maneuver, change views, multitasking, etc. Quantitative intelligence: The ability to reason and solve problems by carrying out mathematical operations using logic. - People who can carry out math problems while using past knowledge and reasoning. *Ex: Mathematician and scientists. Charles Spearman developed the first theory of intelligence and proposed that it is best thought of as a single, general capacity or ability. - Research consistently showed that specific dimensions, or factors, of intelligence were correlated strongly with one another, suggesting that they all measured pretty much the same thing. The 3 dimensions that are correlated are: verbal, spatial, and quantitative intelligence. - Verbal intelligence is the ability to solve problems and analyze information using language-based reasoning. *It includes knowledge of vocabulary and the capacities for producing and comprehending written or spoked language. - Spatial intelligence is defined as the ability or mental skill to solve spatial problems such as navigating and visualizing objects from different angles. - Quantitative intelligence is the ability to reason and solve problems by carrying out mathematical operations using logic. *People who achieve high scores on their verbal section of an intelligence test, are likely to have high scores on the spatial and quantitative sections as well. G-Factor Theory of intelligence because it describes intelligence as a single, general factor made up of specific components. - Most intelligence tests determine a person's overall intelligence score based on his or her scores on specific subtests. - G-Factor theory implies that this single number accurately reflects a person's intelligence - the higher, the better. *The theory of general intelligence allows us to assign a single number to represent how intelligent a person is.

Ch 11 Parental Investment Theory

Gender difference in casual sex is parental investment theory, which states that potential pregnancy costs differ greatly between women and men. - Biologically, the only assured contribution from men to parenthood is the act of sex itself. *If a woman becomes pregnant, her contribution includes 9 months of carrying the fetus, a good portion of which might involve pregnancy sickness; the painful labor and delivery; and approximately 18 years of caring for the child. Women would be less motivated to have sex with little emotional commitment, since a single sexual encounter could have consequences that last a lifetime. The proposition that many sex differences in sexually reproducing species (including humans) can be understood in terms of the amount of time, energy, and risk to their own survival that males and females put into parenting versus mating (including the seeking, attaining, and maintaining of a mate). Differences in parenting and mating investment between males and females vary among species and as a function of environmental conditions. (came from American Psychological Association)

Ch 10 Traditional Measures of Intelligence

Intelligence tests were among the first psychological tests. Alfred Binet gets most credit for developing the first true test of intelligence. - Binet and a colleague, Theodore Simon, developed a test containing 30 problems of increasing difficulty. - Their idea that the ability to solve increasingly difficult problems depends on age became widely influential and has since becomes known as mental age, the age a child has reached, regardless of chronological age, based on his or her performance on an intelligence test relative to other children. Mental age is a norm, or average, because it is based on what most children at a particular age level can do. Willliam Stern introduced the Intelligence Ratio, in which mental age (MA) is divided by chronological age (CA) and multiplied by 100 to determine an intelligence score. - The score is known as someone's intelligence quotient or IQ. Today IQ scores are based on how well a child does on tests relative to norms or standards established by testing children of the same age. Lewis Terman created the Stanford-Binet test. - The most significant changes Terman made were to establish national norms and to adopt and apply the ratio score of MA/CA to a widely used IQ test. David Wechsler created new intelligence tests to measure adult intelligence. - Wechsler's test became known as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). - Later, her developed a test for children, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). *These 2 tests are the ones most frequently administered in the US.

Ch 10 Why are Standardized Tests Controversial?

It is tempting to conclude that IQ tests are biased and unfair. - Whether a test is biased or unfair or both involves 2 separate, though related, issues. The general public may use the term bias to refer to the notion that group differences in IQ scores are caused by different cultural and educational environments, not by real differences in intelligence. - Cultural test bias There is quite a bit of disagreement in the general population about what causes group differences on IQ test scores. - Even when different groups agree that IQ testing has cultural bias, the underlying causes are still disputed. When scientists speak of test bias in an IQ test, they most often refer to whether the items/questions are biased toward one group or another and whether a test predicts outcomes equally well for different groups. - Bias is more of a scientific than a social concern. *A test is biased if it is a more valid measure for one group than for another. IQ tests are not directly used as admissions exams for colleges, but another related cognitive abilities test is the SAT. - There is some degree of prediction bias or test bias. When high school grades and SAT scores are used to predict freshman GPA in college, grades in college are over predicted in Black and Hispanic students and under predicted for female students. - When grades and SAT scores are used to predict college grades there is some bias in prediction and test bias occurs at some institutions more than others. Another way to determine whether cognitive tests are biased is to examine how difficult each item or question is for different groups (ex: for ethnic groups or genders). - One approach that does this is called differential item functioning. - It examines group differences in how people respond to items after controlling for other traits such as intelligence. *For example, differential item functioning analyses can explore whether equally intelligent white and black responders have the same probability of answering a given question correctly. *To the extent that they do not, there is differential item functioning (bias). Compared with white participants, Black participants respond less well on easier items but better on more difficult SAT and GRE items. - Minorities are significantly disadvantaged on easy items and slightly advantaged on difficult verbal SAT and GRE items. Freedle and Kostin argue that this finding may be due to differences in cultural familiarity with vocabulary. - Other cognitive skills, such as critical thinking ability, can do a better job of predicting negative real-world outcomes than intelligence tests can. - Negative real-world outcomes ranged from mild, to moderate, to severe. Test fairness is more of a social concern and involves how these IQ scores are applied in the real-world. - Test results, especially IQ test results, are meant to be applied. - Problems arise when people use IQ test results unfairly to deny certain groups access to universities or jobs. *Test fairness, in this sense, concerns the application of the test results rather than the test items and the score themselves. *An unbiased test result could be applied unfairly.

Ch 13 Karen Horney

Karen Horney focused more on the social and cultural forces behind neurosis and the neurotic personality, and indeed her approach is labeled "psycho-analytic social theory." - The essence of Horney's theory is that neurosis originates in 2 emotions: basic hostility and basic anxiety. *"Basic Hostility" is anger or rage that originates in childhood and stems from fear of being neglected or rejected by one's parents. Although basic anxiety in itself is not neurotic, in some people it can result in neurotic behaviors. - Horney argued that all people defend themselves against basic anxiety by developing either normal or neurotic defenses. - If these needs become compulsive and the person is unable to switch from one need to another as the situation demands then that person has neurotic defenses. *If the people can move between needs when appropriate, then that person has normal (non-neurotic) defenses. The 3 neurotic trends or needs are: - Moving Toward Others (the compliant personality) - Moving Against Others (the aggressive personality) - Moving Away from Others (the detached personality) Neurotically moving toward others involves consistently needing or clinging to other people, belittling oneself, getting people to feel sorry for "poor little me," and almost completely repressing feelings of anger and hostility. - Neurotically moving against others involves puffing oneself up in an obvious and public manner, "chest-beating," competing against others at almost everything, and being prone to hostility and anger. Finally, neurotically moving away from others involves developing a detached and "cool" demeanor - not responding emotionally, not caring, and being "above it all." - One way to avoid feeling isolated and helpless is not to feel anything and avoid committed long-term relationships. - Whenever a detached person withdraws and closes up. Karen Horney, one of the first major female voices in the psychoanalytic movement, focused more on social and cultural forces. - Her approach is called psychoanalytic social theory. - Neurosis originates in two emotions: basic hostility and basic anxiety - Basic hostility is anger or rage that originates in childhood. *This is often turned inward and converted into basic anxiety. Normal Defenses - Spontaneous movement *Moving toward others (friendly, loving personality) *Moving against others (survivor in a competitive world) *Moving away from others (autonomous, serene personality) Neurotic Defenses - Compulsive movement *Moving toward others (compliant personality) *Movement against others (aggressive personality) *Moving away from others (detached personality)

Ch 11 Hormones & Motivation: The Biology of When We Eat

Many regions of the brain are involved in eating. - The hypothalamus regulates all basic physiological needs and acts as hunger's sensory detector. *The body alerts the hypothalamus to the nutritional needs of the cells. *Various parts of the hypothalamus in turn send signals to different brain regions to either start or stop eating. Hormones and neurochemicals are substances that stimulate appetites, but is can also suppress it. - 2 of the numerous hormones that stimulate appetite are neuropeptide Y (NPY) and ghrelin . - When an animal is hungry or underfed, NPY is released in the hypothalamus to stimulate appetite. *Ghrelin regulates specific neurons and stimulates and sends hunger signals to the brain, thereby stimulating hunger. *Ghrelin levels rise when we are hungry and fall drastically after we eat. Endocannabinoids are naturally occurring neurochemicals that bind to cannabinoid receptors and increase appetite. - Blocking receptor sites for endocannabinoids leads to decreased eating and subsequent weight loss. Hormones that suppress appetite are insulin and leptin. - One of the most important hormones effects on hunger comes from insulin, which is produced by the pancreas. - Rising glucose levels stimulate insulin production; insulin in turn transports glucose out of the blood and into the cells. *Hunger decreases as a result. - Leptin is produced by fat cells and inhibits neurons in the hypothalamus that contain NPY thereby signaling the body that it has had enough to eat.

Ch 9 Heuristics

Most often we use mental shortcuts to make decisions. - The shortcuts, known as heuristics, are methods for making complex and uncertain decisions and judgements. *Consider the thought processes involved in deciding how to avoid being hit by a car when crossing a busy street. Heuristics allow us to make quick and efficient decisions. - We use many types of heuristics. *The 2 most common types: the representativeness heuristic and the availability heuristic. The Representativeness Heuristics: - We use the representativeness heuristic when we estimate the probability of one event based on how typical or representative it is of another event. *We need to be aware of base rates, or how common something is in the population as a whole. - The concept of a base rate can be applied to people, events, or things. The Availability Heuristics: - The second major type of heuristic is the availability heuristic, which is a strategy we use when we make decisions based on the ease with which estimates come to mind or how available they are to our awareness. *One example of the availability heuristic occurs when people are asked whether they are more likely to be killed while flying in an airplane or while traveling in a car. - Vividness and availability lead us to overestimate how likely certain events are. *The question asked you to step outside of your own personal experience, but because our personal experience is more available in our minds, we are influenced by it when making decisions or judgements. Additional research by Kahneman and Tversky revealed other areas in which people are less than rational in their decision making and judgements. - Sometimes, we get info that can be so representative of a stereotype that is biases us, and we are likely to forget this simple rule of logic and make an error in judgement. The representativeness heuristic led to an error known as the conjunction fallacy, which occurs when people say that the combination of 2 events is more likely than either event alone. - These findings and others like them point to the conclusion that people sometimes ignore base rates, sometimes are biased by stereotypes, and sometimes use shortcuts to arrive quickly, but not completely rationally, at their decisions and conclusions. Kahneman and Tversky demonstrated that people by pass fully rational decision making and make use of automatic shortcuts in their reasoning and judgments. - Heuristics and their importance in decision making and judgement are relatively new concepts in psychology.

Ch 13 Individualistic vs. Collectivistic Cultures

People in different cultures differ in certain dimensions of personality. - Personality change over the life span is not identical all over the world. *People in Asian cultures exhibit qualities that fit a dimension of "interpersonal relatedness" that is rarely seen in Western cultures. - Interpersonal relatedness includes such behavior and attitudes as a respectful, obedient demeanor towards others, a belief in saving "face" and an emphasis on maintaining harmonious relationships. *Asian cultures tend to be more concerned about the impact of their behavior on their family, friends, and social groups (known as collectivism), whereas people in Western cultures are more concerned with how their behavior will affect their personal goals (known as individualism). Research suggests that compared with people in individualist cultures, those in collectivist cultures tend to score higher on the big Five dimensions of agreeableness and conscientiousness and lower one openness to experience. The interaction between culture and personality development is seen in people who are bicultural - that is, those who spend a substantial amount of time in 2 cultures and speak 2 languages. - Some bicultural people "blend" and harmoniously integrate their 2 identities, but others are more conflicted and less integrated in their 2 cultural identities. - The extent to which a bicultural person is either blended or conflicted is associated with personality traits. *Bicultural people who are blended are high in openness to experience and higher in psychological well-being, whereas those who are conflicted tend to be higher in neuroticism. It is important to point out that whether personality influences our response to cultural forces or whether cultural forces influences our response to cultural forces or whether cultural force influence our personality is yet to be determined. For example, the "interpersonal relatedness" dimension seen in Asian cultures is rarely seen in Western cultures. - Collectivism: Cultures that tend to be more concerned about the impact of their behavior on their family, friends, and social groups. - Individualism: Cultures that are more concerned with how their behavior will affect their own personal goals. From the internet: Collectivist: - Fosters independence and group success - Promotes adherence to norms, respect for authority/elders, group consensus - Associated with stable, hierarchical roles - Associated with shared property and group ownership Individualist: - Fosters independence and individual achievement - Promotes self-expression, individual thinking and personal choice - Associated with egalitarian relationships and flexibility in roles - Associated with private property and individual ownership.

Ch 13 Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory of Personality

Psychoanalytic theories are all based on or are variations of Freud's seminal ideas. Freud not only proposed an overarching theory of personality and psychotherapy but also founded the movement known as psychoanalysis and, in the process of doing so, essentially invented the field of psychotherapy. Freud described 3 layers of consciousness: unconscious, preconscious, and conscious. - The conscious layer is what we are aware of at any given moment in time. - The preconscious is just below the surface of awareness. - The unconscious contains all the drives, urges, or instincts that are outside awareness but nonetheless motivate most of our speech, thoughts, feelings, or actions. (according to Freud) Freud believes that much of what we do and the reasons we do it are hidden from our awareness and revealed to us only in distorted forms, such as slips of the tongue and dreams. - The technique of free association, whereby people are encourages to speak about anything on their minds without censoring their thoughts, also provides access to the unconscious. Freud also developed the notion that the human mind has 3 distinct "provinces" or regions, involved in the control and regulation of impulses. - These regions are where the internal conflict between having an impulse and controlling it gets played out. The first province (developed in infancy) is the id, the seat of impulses and desire. - The id is the part of our personality that owns or controls us. - It is impulse. - Its sole function is to seek pleasure; it is therefore founded in the "pleasure principle" and operates on the "do it" principle. By the end of the first year of life, a sense of self, or ego, has begun to emerge. - The ego is the only part of the mind that is in direct contact with the outside world, and it operates on the "reality principle." *If direct contact with the outside world, and it operates on the "reality principle." - If the id wants pleasure, the ego makes a realistic attempt to obtain it. Around age 2 or 3, is the superego. - It is the part of the self that monitors and controls impulse and behavior. - The superego "stands over us" and evaluates our actions in terms of right and wrong: hence, it is our conscience. - It operates on the "moralistic principle," is the control center of the personality and frequently applies that brakes to the impulses of the id. In the healthy person, the ego mediates this conflict between impulse and control. - Freud believed that some people are mostly id-driven, whereas others are mostly superego-driven. - People who are overly impulsive and pleasure-seeking have an uncontrolled id. - People who are overly controlling and repress their impulses have an exaggerated superego. *The healthiest person is one in whom the ego is most developed and can control, in a realistic and healthy way, the conflict between impulse and control. Defense Mechanisms: - Just as the physical body has an immune system to protect us from foreign substances, the purpose of defense mechanisms is to protect us from harmful, threatening, and anxiety provoking thoughts, feelings, or impulses. - All defense mechanisms share 2 qualities: *They operate unconsciously. *They deny and distort reality in some way. The most basic of all defense mechanisms is repression; it underlies all the other defense mechanisms. - Repression is the unconscious act of keeping threatening or disturbing thoughts, feelings, or impulses out of consciousness. - The impulses that are most likely to be repressed are sexual and aggressive impulses, because there are inherently the most threatening. *They may be expressed in disguised or distorted form. *They often reveal themselves through dreams, slips of the tongue, or neurotic behavior. Reaction formation occurs when an unpleasant idea, feeling, or impulse is turned into its opposite. - This often results in exaggerated or compulsive feelings and behavior. - Ex: Homophobia is another examples: hatred and aggression toward homosexuals might well be a reaction against fear of one's own latent homosexual impulses. In projection, people deny and repress their own particular ideas, feelings, or impulses and project them onto others. His theories have had a significant and lasting influence on Western thought. - Over the last 2 decades, many research oriented psychologists have dismissed Freud as a pseudoscientist because he did not support his ideas with research that could be replicated. *His status as a scientist is questionable, but his insights as a clinician still have scientific merit.

Ch 10 The Different Types of Problem Solving

Psychologists describe 3 kinds of strategies people use to solve different kinds of problems algorithms, insight, and thinking outside the box. - Algorithms are step by step formulas or procedures for solving problems. Not all solutions problems involve algorithms. - Some occur with a flash of insight. - Best known example: Archimedes solved the problem of how to determine whether a crown contained anything besides gold. *The solution came to him in a flash when he saw the water level rise as he entered the public baths. *Because gold is heavier than other metals, it will displace more water, so by seeing how much water it displaced. *Archimedes would be able to determine whether the crown was pure displaced, Archimedes would be able to determine whether the crown was pure gold without melting it down. *He yelled "Eureka!" *These kinds of sudden solution are referred to as either Eureka insights or insight solutions. The third problem solving strategy is turning a problem around and thinking about it from a different perspective. - Thinking outside of the box requires you to break free of self imposed conceptual constraints and think about a problem differently in order to solve it. *If you came up with a solution, it required that you go outside the self imposed "box" that the 9 dots create in your mind. - Once you think outside of the box, a couple of solutions may come to you rather easily. *Creative thinkers regularly think flexibly and differently about problems by challenging their own assumptions.

Ch 13 Humanistic Approach to Personality: Carol Rogers

Rogers developed a unique form of psychotherapy based on the assumption that people naturally strive toward growth and fulfillment and need unconditional positive regard for that to happen. - Unconditioned Positive Regard is the ability to respect and appreciate another person unconditionally - that is, regardless of the person's behavior. *It requires that we separate person from behavior, which can be difficult even for parents and their children. *To love people only when they do things that we want and like is to love them conditionally. Rogers had a specific, measurable way of defining the self-actualizing tendency and psychological adjustment. - To Rogers, all of us have 2 distinct ways of seeing and evaluating ourselves: as we really are and as we ideally would like to be. *The first he called the Real Self and the second the Ideal Self. - Rogers than defined psychological adjustment as congruence between the real and ideal shelves. Positive Psychology: the core idea behind it is a focus on positive states and experiences, such as hope, optimism, wisdom, creativity, spiritually, and positive emotions. - Positive psychologists are more likely to base their ideas on research than on speculation, clinical practice, and observation.

Ch 11 Facial Feedback Hypothesis

Sensory feedback from the facial musculature during expression affect emotional experience. Research on facial feedback also supports the idea that feedback from bodily sensations creates emotional experience. According to the facial feedback hypothesis, sensory feedback from the facial musculature during expression affects emotional experience. - Sensory neurons from the face do innervate key emotion areas of the brain, especially the amygdala. Research suggests that our facial expressions enhance our emotional feelings. - Ratings of pleasantness increase when certain key emotion relevant facial muscles are contracted. *The more authentically people perform in posing facial expressions of emotion, the more intensely they feel those emotions.

Ch 9 Children and Language Development

Stages of Language Development: The first speech sounds humans make consist almost exclusively of vowels such as "aah, ee, ooh." - Most infants begin uttering repeated vowel sounds, called cooing, during the first 6 months. *Cooing sounds are universal. Babbling, the infant's experimentation with a complex range of sounds or phonemes, overlaps with cooing, and it starts at around 5-6 months of age. - Babbling includes consonants as well as vowels, the sounds are not yet recognizable words. *At first, babies babble single syllables, such as "buh" and "duh," later they utter gibberish - simply a string of single syllables, such as "da, buh, ma, wee." At first, babbling babies make many more sounds than they hear in their native language, because babies' brains have not yet been fully shaped by their native language. - Adults who speak certain Asian languages - which do not distinguish between "r" and "l," - do not perceive a difference between these 2 sounds, but their toddlers do. *The adults "prune" away sounds that are not used in that language and lose the ability to say or perceive nonnative sounds. *Adult Japanese speakers can partially learn how to hear the difference between "r" and "l" with a little training. At the end of the babbling stage, usually at around 12 months, one-word utterances emerge. - Children first speak such classic words as mama, dada, more, and the all-important no. Whether a word is at the beginning, middle, or end of a sentence seems to be related to how likely young children are to learn that word. - Children tend to acquire words that are spoken at the ends of sentences first. In languages that are structured in the order of subject-verb-object, such as English, children acquire nouns earlier than verbs because objects are nouns. - In languages that are structured subject-object-verb, such as Japanese, children acquire verbs earlier than nouns. *In English, we say, "Maria read the book," whereas in Japanese people say, "Maria the book read." This tendency to learn the last word in a sentence first may reflection the memory phenomenon called the recency effect. - Starting around 18 months, children make 2 word utterances, such as "my ball," "mo wawa" (more water), and "go way" (go away). *During this phase of language development, parents often find themselves serving as translators for other people, because their children create unique ways of saying things. By age 2 ½ or 3, most children have entered the third phase of language development - the sentence phase 0 in which they begins speaking in fully grammatical sentences. - This transition happens so quickly that linguists usually have a tough time studying it. - Linguist Steven Pinker uses a boy named Adam as an example. *At 2, Adam would say "Play checkers. Big drum. I got horn." *Less than a year later, at age 3, he would say, "I going come in 14 minutes. You dress me up like a baby elephant. You know how to put it back together." *These sentences may not always be what adults consider grammatically correct, but they are grammatical sentences. In sum, children go through a very predictable sequence in acquiring language: from cooing to babbling, 1 word utterances, 2 word utterances, and finally adultlike sentence structure, a stage that is reached around age 3. - Stages in speech development map remarkably well onto the growth in the child's overall brain size. *There is a steep rise in both brain growth and language between the ages of 1 and 3. *The brain of a 3 year old child has reached about 80% of adult size. *Children can form adultlike sentences.

Ch 10 Triarchic Theory of Intelligence

Sternberg's three part model of intelligence, including analytic, creative, and practical intelligence. Robert Sternberg has focused not simply on intelligence but on successful intelligence—an integrated set of abilities needed in life. - How does your intelligence help society? What can you do with your gifted intelligence? - Sternberg's triarchic theory of intelligence is a three-part model consisting of: *Analytic intelligence: Analytical intelligence is the ability to analyze and evaluate ideas, solve problems and make decisions. *Creative intelligence involves going beyond what is given to generate novel and interesting ideas. *Creative intelligence: Creative intelligence in psychology is related to the ability to solve problems by imagining new and unique solutions. *Creative intelligence is strongly associated with individuals who have a knack for storytelling, art, and developing new ideas. *Practical intelligence: Practical intelligence is defined as the ability that individuals use to find a more optimal fit between themselves and the demands of the environment through adapting, shaping, or selecting a new environment in the pursuit of personally valued goals (Sternberg, 1985, 1997). Sternberg focused on successful intelligence, which he defines as an integrated set of information-processing and cognitive abilities needed for success in life. - 3 interrelated but distinct abilities make up successful intelligence: analytic, creative, and practical intelligence. *Sternberg's 3 part theory is the triarchic theory of intelligence. Analytic intelligence involves judging, evaluating, or comparing and contrasting information. - Analytic intelligence resembles the kind of academic intelligence that leads to high scores on tests of intelligence. Creative intelligence involves coming up with fresh and useful ideas for solving problems. Practical intelligence is the ability to solve problems of every day life efficiently. - Practical intelligence plays a role in knowing how to do one's job well and requires knowledge and skills that one learns "on the street" rather than in the classroom.

Ch 11 Hormones & Motivation: The Biology of Sexual Behavior

Testosterone controls sex drive in both men and women. - The role of testosterone in the female sex drive was discovered accidentally when women whose adrenal glands had been removed lost their sex drive. *The adrenal glands produce testosterone. Younger women have both higher levels of male sex hormones and more frequent sexual activity than do older women. - Males and females with high baseline levels of testosterone are more sexually active at earlier ages and engage in sex more frequently than those with low baseline levels of testosterone. Testosterone treatments increase sex drive in both men and women.

Ch 10 Reliability and Validity of IQ Tests

Tests are meaningful only if they are both reliable and valid. - Reliability refers to the consistency of results. *If a test is reliable, a person who takes the same test on 2 different occasions will obtain very similar scores on both occasions. *IQ tests tend to be extremely reliable over time. A second form of reliability exists when questions on a given subtest tend to correlate very highly with other items on the subtest, meaning that the test's internal reliability is very high. - Validity requires that the tests really measure intelligence, not something else, and that test scores predict real-world outcomes. *In evaluating a test, it is more difficult to establish validity than reliability. Many intelligence experts - notably Sternberg and Gardner - have argued that they measure only verbal, spatial, and mathematical forms of intelligence. - The other forms that Gardner identified - social, emotional, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, practical, and naturalistic - are not measured at all. There are at least 2 distinct forms of validity: construct and predictive. - Construct validity refers to what a test measures the concept, or construct, it claims to measure. - Predictive validity addresses the question of whether the construct is related positively to real-world outcomes, such as school achievement or job success. *IQ tests do predict certain real-world outcomes, especially academic performance. * IQ tests predict students' grades, school performance, and class rank in high school quite well. * IQ tests are purposefully made to predict. However, IQ testing has its limits. - Even though it can be predict the kind of job you may get and how much money you may earn, your IQ cannot predict how happy and satisfied you will be with your life or how well you will do in your job.

Ch 10 Modern Measures of Intelligence

The developers of both the Stanford-Binet and the Wechsler tests failed to take into account Jean Piaget's work on cognitive development and newer findings from neuroscience. - Piaget found that the cognitive abilities of young children are fundamentally different from those of adolescents and that cognitive development occurs in stages rather than gradually over time. *IQ tests continued to give very similar problems to young children, teens, and adults, changing only the level of difficulty. One of the best known alternative to the Standford-Binet and Wechsler tests was the Kaufman-Assessment Batter for Children (K-ABC). - The K-ABC gave psychologists 4 different kinds of information, compared with the more limited data provided by the traditional Standford-Binet and Wechsler tests. *First, it was the first IQ test to be more systematically guided by theories of intelligence, in particular Cattell and Horn's concepts of fluid and crystallized intelligence and Piaget's theory of cognitive development. *Second, Kaufman's included fundamentally different kinds of problems for children of different ages, as well as problems at varied levels of difficulty. *Third, the K-ABC measured several distinct aspects of intelligence more explicitly and in a more detailed manner than traditional measures of intelligence. - The K-ABC was the first of many intelligence tests informed by contemporary ideas about how the brain works and develops. Tests may still produce an overall IQ score, but now they also yield scores on as many as 7 dimensions of intelligence. - The newest versions of both the WAIS and WISC include scores on 4 dimensions: verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, and processing speed. *Working memory is one dimension that was missing before 1985. The fifth edition of the Standford-Binet test assesses 5 factors of general intelligence, each with verbal and nonverbal dimensions. - The newest version of the Standford-Binet assesses quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing, and working memory. Children's drawings cannot be used as direct measures of intelligence, but they are effective predictors of intelligence and mathematical ability later in life. - Arden and colleagues had 4 year olds draw a human figure. *These drawings were then rated on how many features they had, such as arms, legs, nose, eyes, etc. *They found that the more features children drew, the higher their IQ scores were at age 4 and at the age of 14. - It is important to point out that this relationship between drawing and IQ is correlational rather than cause-and-effect. *Detailed drawings do not cause high IQ - they are simply correlated with it. Current intelligence tests reflect contemporary thinking about intelligence as a general quality with many dimensions.

Ch 11 Popular Theories of Emotions: James-Lange Theory of Emotions

The idea that it is the perception of the physiological changes that accompany emotions that produces the subjective emotional experience. Perhaps the most influential theory was proposed by William James. The James-Lange Theory of Emotion says that our perception of the physiological changes that accompany emotions creates the subjective emotional experience. - Without the perception of bodily changes, they argued, there is no emotional experience. - We experience fear as feeling different from sadness because we perceive different body changes for each emotion. The James Lange Theory is not without its critics, most notable among them Walter Cannon, who argued that feedback from bodily organs is not specific enough to account for the varieties of emotional experience. - Several lines of evidence support the James Lange view that sensory feedback from physiologically activated body systems plays a role in emotional experience.

Ch 11 Challenges of Dieting: Common Myths about Dieting

The thinking is that low-fat and low-carb diets are good and high-fat and high-carb diets are bad, but it's not that simple. There are different kinds of fats and carbs; some are good and healthy, while others are not. - Saturated fats, found in red meats, are less healthy and lead to greater weight gain than unsaturated fats, such as those found in avocados or olive oils. Carbs can be simple or complex, with high-fiber foods being high in complex carbs and sugars being high in simple carbs. - A more sound approach to losing weight and choosing a healthful diet to aim for a low-glycemic diet, defined as approximately 40% carbs, 40% fat, and 20% protein. A healthier and easier way to lose weight is to consume foods that are relatively low-glycemic while avoiding high-glycemic foods such as white bread, pasta, rice, baked foods, and low-fiber cereals. - Low-glycemic foods are digested more slowly than high-glycemic foods and hence a person feels full longer after eating these foods. - High-glycemic diets are risk factors for coronary heart disease and adult-onset diabetes. Having smaller but more frequent meals is one way to lose weight. - Eating smaller, more frequent meals does not lead to weight loss, but controlling portions while not adding more frequent meals does.