MCAT Psych/Sociology, MCAT

The authoritarian personality

Obedient to superiors but don't have much sympathy to those inferior to themselves (oppressive). Rigid thinkers, inflexible with viewpoints. Use prejudice to protect their ego and avoid confronting aspects of themselves. HARD to change.

Distal stimuli

Objects and events out in the world around you

Material culture

Objects involved in a certain way of life

Principle of common region

Objects sharing a common background will be perceived as a group even if they would be separated by eh principles of nearness and/or similarity

Principle of similarity

Objects with a shared feature (shape) will likewise be perceived as a single group

Case-control study

Observational study where 2 people differing in outcome are identified and compared to find a causal factor

Obsessions vs compulsions

Obsessions = repeated intrusive uncontrollable thoughts/impulses that cause distress Compulsions = repeated physical/mental behaviors that are done in RESPONSE to an obsession

Blue-collar work

Occupations that require skilled or unskilled manual labor

Memory construction

Occurs during retrieval. Memory is a construct of the mind and therefore can be updated with new info and experiences.

Fundamental movement stage

Occurs from age 2-7. During this time, child is learning to manipulate his body through actions like running, jumping, throwing. Necessary for proper motor development

Categorical self

Occurs once babies realize they are separate. It is becoming aware that even though we're separate, we exist in the world with others. Babies first learn AGE and GENDER, then SKILLS and SIZE. They learn concepts like traits, comparisons, and careers last.

Source monitoring

Occurs when a person attributes a memory to a particular source. May not always be accurate. Memory construction may follow, where a person converts their inference into memory. Also can lead to incorrect construction of memories that never actually happened.

Peripheral route processing

Occurs when an individual does not think deeply to evaluate an argument (occurs when a person isn't very invested in an argument/has no knowledge). If a person is using this route, is more likely to change attitude based on situational cues (strength of argument d/n matter)

Non associative learning

Occurs when an organism is repeatedly exposed to one type of stimulus

Amalgamation

Occurs when majority and minority groups combine to form a new group

Spreading activation

Occurs when one item brought into working memory triggers an activation of related memory

Individual discrimination

Occurs when one person behaves negatively toward another because of that person's membership in a specific social group or category

Incongruence

Occurs when people encounter experiences in life that contradict their self-concepts. Can help a person learn what their true values are and then become healthy again by modifying their self-concept.

De-individuation

Occurs when people lose awareness of their individuality and instead immerse themselves in the mood or activities of a crowd

According to humanistic theory, what causes psychological distress in an individual?

Occurs when the actual self, ideal self, and perceived self (self concept) are different from one other

Drug overdoses

Often occur when a person takes a new drug at a high dose, or when a regular drug user takes their normal level of drug dose in an unfamiliar location--> no external cues to alert body that they're getting a dose.

Disengagement Theory

Older adults and society separate, assume that they become more self-absorbed as they age. Considers elderly people still involved in society as not adjusting well

Positive transfer

Older information can facilitate the learning of new information

Side-effect discrimination

One institution can unintentionally influence another institution negatively.

Bystander effect

Onlookers in a crowd fail to offer assistance to a person who is in trouble because they assume someone else will help. Willingness to help is inversely proportional to # of people present

Big 5 Model of Traits

Openness to experience Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness Neuroticism (OCEAN)

Skinner box

Operant conditioning chamber for animals, where food is dispensed to animals only after carrying out a specific behavior. Sometimes included areas of electrical shock, used for animals to learn to avoid.

According to Freud, adult personality is largely determined by what three psychosexual stages?

Oral, anal, phallic

Semantic networks

Organization of information in networks of meaningfully related memories

Utilitarian organizations

Organization where members get paid for their efforts (ex. businesses)- incentives

Normative organizations

Organizations motivated based on morally relevant goals (ex. MADD)

Coercive organizations

Organizations where members do not have a choice in joining (ex. prisons)

Retinal disparity

Our eyes are 2.5 inches apart, so they create slightly different images that the brain puts together to give a solid image with an idea of DEPTH.

The self as a social construct

Our identity is created by interactions with other people, and our reactions to the other people

Public conformity

Outwardly changing behaviors to align with group, but maintaining inner core beliefs

Inclusive fitness

Overall fitness, considering both individual's own progeny as well as the offspring of its close relatives. Can increase it with altruism

Intersectionality

Overlapping of social categories such as race, class, gender as they apply to a given individual or group. Creates interdependent systems of discrimination/disadvantage

Acute stress disorder

PTSD symptoms that appear for a month or less

Visual processing

Parallel processing occurs at the level of bipolar and ganglion cells in the eye. Visual info is then split into two distinct pathways: one that detects motion and one that detects form, and these pathways project to separate areas of the LGN and visual cortex. From there, feature detection occurs via serial processing of the information.

Types of Schizophrenia

Paranoid: psychosis involves hallucinations/delusions Disorganized: Flat/inappropriate affect, disorganized speech, disorganized behavior, negative symptoms Catatonic: Negative symptoms predominant Undifferentiated: Basic criteria are met, but symptoms do not fit a subtype Residual: Acute phase has resolved, but person still appears odd and suffers some symptoms

Assisted marriage

Parents provide children with possible mates, out of which the child can choose

What is the most sustainable way to establish a learned response?

Partial reinforcement

Reward pathway

Pathway within the limbic system that is associated with feelings of reward in day-to-day life and the feelings of pleasure that lead to craving and addition. Activation of this pathway by addictive drugs leads to increase levels of dopamine.

Proximal stimuli

Patterns of stimuli from objects and events that actually reach your senses

Cultural universals

Patterns/traits that are common to all people. Tend to pertain to basic human survival and needs (eg. securing food and shelter)

Incentive theory

People are motivated by external rewards, and get psychological feeling of pleasure that comes with receiving an incentive DISTINCT from operant conditioning because it focuses on the internal motivations of the individual rather than their outward behavior

Need based theory

People are motivated by the desire to fulfill unmet needs

Foot-in-the-door phenomenon

People are much more likely to agree to a large request if they first agree to a smaller one

Mere presence

People are simply in each other's presence, either completing similar activities or apparently minding their own business

Cognitive theory

People behave based on what they predict will yield the most favorable outcome

Generalized anxiety disorder

People feel tense or anxious much of the time about many issues, but do not experience panic attacks.

Rural rebound

People getting sick of cities and moving back to rural areas

Belief perseverance

People hold on to their initial beliefs even when rational argument would suggest they are incorrect

Appraisal view of stress

People make two appraisals which determine their overall emotional reaction to the event.

Justification of effort

People may modify their attitudes to match their behaviors

Mere exposure effect

People prefer repeated exposure to the same stimuli (aka familiarity breeds fondness)

Continuity Theory

People try to maintain same basic structure throughout their lives. As they age, they make decision to adapt to external changes and internal changes of aging

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

People understand the world through language and language shapes how we experience the world

Aggregate

People who exists in the same space but do not interact or share a common sense of identity

Dependency theory

Periphery countries export resources to core countries, and don't have means to develop

Obsessive compulsive personality disorder

Person does not have any true obsessions/compulsions, but may instead accumulate money and worthless objects. Person is perfectionistic, rigid, and stubborn

Dependent personality disorder

Person feels a need to be taken care of by others and an unrealistic fear of being unable to take care of himself

Narcissistic personality disorder

Person feels grandiosely self-important, and feels desperate need for admiration. Feels envy toward/from others. Lacks empathy for others, feels entitled, arrogant, and haughty

Avoidant personality disorder

Person feels inadequate, inferior, and undesirable and is preoccupied with fears of criticism

Antisocial personality disorder

Person has history of serious behavior problems beginning in adolescence, including aggression and rule violation.

Schizotypal personality disorder

Person has several traits that causes interpersonal problems, including inappropriate affect, paranoid/magical thinking, off beliefs

Schizoid personality disorder

Person is a loner with little interest or involvement in close relationships with anyone

Paranoid personality disorder

Person mistrusts and misinterprets others' motives and actions without sufficient cause

Borderline personality disorder

Person suffers from enduring/recurrent instability in his impulses, mood, and self image. Results in instability in behavior and relationships with other. Person feels empty with an unstable sense of self, terrified of abandonment,

Cognitive appraisal

Personal interpretation of the situation that triggers stress

Trait theory of personality

Personality consists of a set of traits which are characteristics that vary between people and are STABLE over the course of the lifetime. Key: NO ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES. Very little personal control over personality, and personality is hereditable.

Behaviorist theory of personality

Personality is constructed by a series of learning experiences that occur through interactions between the individual and their environment. Individuals have learning experiences through their lifetimes that lead to predictable behaviors (behaviors make up the personality). People are born as BLANK STATES, and environmental reinforcement/punishment determine the personality. KEY: Environment shapes personality

Surface traits

Personality traits that are evident from a person's behavior

Verbal info is processed in the:

Phonological loop

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Physiological- food, sex, etc. Safety- physical/emotional security Belongingness- Socialness Esteem- Approval and recognition Self-actualization- Equation, hobbies, religion

Arousal

Physiological/psychological tension

Albert Bandura

Pioneer in the field of observational learning. Demonstrated the learning of aggressive behaviors in children after watching violent videos conducted the famous Bobo doll experiments that showed that people imitate others' actions, regardless of whether or not they observe the consequences

Primary groups

Play a more important role in an individual's life; usually smaller and include those with whom the individual engages with in person, in long-term emotional ways. Serve EXPRESSIVE functions

Hippocampus

Plays an important role in the initial consolidation of declarative memory and long term potentiation.

Affirmative action

Policies that take factors like race or sex into consideration to benefit underrepresented groups in admissions or job hiring decisions. It is an attempt to limit discrimination, but has been accused of perpetuating reverse discrimination

Freud's Theory of development

Posits stages of development in terms of the impulses of the id (and overcoming these impulses) Oral - 1st year- Nursing, oral stimulation-Requires development of trust and capacity of delayed gratification Anal - 2nd year- Toilet training- Allows the development of self control Phallic- 3-6 years- Gender and sexual identification- Allows internalization of society's rules and development of superego Latent- 7-12 years- Social development & suppression o sexual impulses- Allows children to focus on other developmental tasks Genital-Adolescence-Mature sexuality & return of sexual urges

Erikson's Theory of Development

Posits stages of development in terms of the interaction between self and society experienced across society, with each stage presenting a crisis that must be resolved 8 stages! 1st year - Trust vs mistrust (ability to trust) 2nd year: Autonomy vs shame/doubt (ability to self-care) 3-6 years: Initiative vs guilt (ability to carry out a plan) 7-12 years: Industry vs inferiority (ability to learn new tasks) Adolescence: Identity vs role confusion (stable identity formation) Young adulthood: Intimacy vs isolation (ability to form relationships w/ others) Adulthood: Generativity vs stagnation (ability to put energy into others) Maturity: Integrity vs despair (determining how well they have lived)

Piaget's Theory of Development

Posits that all children develop cognitively by experimenting with their environment and passing through same set of developmental stages. 0-2 years: Sensorimotor -Children learn to separate themselves from the world -Learn object permanence 2-7 years: Preoperational -Children learn to use language -Children think literally and egocentrically -Children unable to take on perspectives of others 7-11 years: Concrete Operational -Children develop inductive reasoning -Understand conservation of mass 11 years +: Formal Operational -Children develop deductive reasoning -Can think theoretically and philosophically -Children at this stage are able to reach post-conventional moral reasoning

Traditional authority

Power due to custom, tradition, or accepted practice

Charismatic authority

Power due to persuasion (eg. MLK)

People in higher social class tend to have more:

Power, Privilege, and Prestige

Population projections

Predict changes in populations by examining current data

Matrilineal descent

Preference for maternal relations in the kin group

Patrilineal descent

Preference for paternal relations in the kin group

Racism

Prejudices and actions that discriminate based on race, or hold that one race is inferior to another

Nonsense mutation

Premature stop

Proactive interference

Previously held knowledge prevents successful retrieval of more newly learned information . Occurs when information that is newly learned is similar to that in older memories.

Learning occurs more quickly through what type of stimuli?

Primary stimuli ---> learning is quicker if it's biologically relevant

Primary versus secondary deviance

Primary: no big consequences Secondary: more serious consequences

Reflexive movements

Primitive, involuntary movements of infants that serve to prime the neuromuscular system and form the basis for more complex movements later in life.

Means-end analysis

Problem solving method where we analyze main problem and break it down into smaller problems, and reduce differences between the problem and goal

Intuition

Problem solving using personal perception or feeling rather than logic. Aka the "gut feeling". Time saving but potentially flawed.

Binding problem

Problem with feature detection theory regarding how all of different aspects of feature detection are assembled together and related to a single object. This problem is solved by visual attention.

Illness experience

Process of being ill and how people cope with illness. Can change a person's self identity

Models

Provide an approximation (physical/conceptual representation) of a scientific phenomenon that cannot be observed directly

Education as a social institution

Provides a formal structure during childhood and the transition to adulthood, and an opportunity to instruct youth on social norms, expectations for behavior, knowledge, and skills needed to operate within society. manifest function = systematically pass down knowledge and give status to those who have been educated. latent function = socialization, serving as agents of change, and maintaining social control. Serves to reinforce and perpetuate social inequalities. Experience educational segregation because of differential funding of schools based on residential segregation.

Humanistic therapy

Provides an environment that will help clients trust and accept themselves and their emotional reactions, so they can learn and grow from their experiences. Personal growth through self-insight is the goal, achieved through active listening and unconditional positive regard

Government/economy as a social institution

Provides order to a society through the services it provides and the making and enforcement of law

Death instinct

Psychoanalytic concept--> drives aggressive behaviors fueled by an unconscious wish to die or to hurt oneself/others

Libido

Psychoanalytic concept--> it is the life instinct that drives behaviors focused on survival, growth, creativity, pain avoidance, and pleasure

Somatoform disroders

Psychological disorders characterized by bodily symptoms

Thermodynamics

Q = mc Δ T (MCAT !) Q = mL

Dreaming occurs during ________ sleep.

REM

Racial formation theory

Race is a social construct, with no basis in actual genetic differences

Fundamentalism

Reaction to secularization, by going back to strict religious beliefs. Creates social problems when people become too extreme.

Self-actualization

Realizing one's human potential

Primacy effect

Recall of items at the beginning of the list is strongest

Recency effect

Recall of items at the end of the list is strongest

Negative symptoms of psychosis

Reduced/absent emotional expression, reduced quantity/fluency of speech, reduced initiative or will to do things (avolition)

Non-declarative/Procedural memory- implicit

Refers to unconscious abilities to remember how to perform a particular task

Circadian rhythm

Regulates the body's functions on a predictable schedule. Regulated by the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the hypothalamus.

The hypothalamus is associated with:

Regulating the autonomic nervous system (sympathetic and parasympathetic)

Is reinforcement or punishment a more effective form of conditioning?

Reinforcement---> punishment does not have a long lasting effect

Prospective memory

Remembering to do things in the future

Negative punishment

Removal of a desired stimulus in response to an undesired behavior. AKA removes stimulus to reduce likelihood of behavior

Negative reinforcement

Removal of an unpleasant stimulus in response to a desired behavior. AKA takes away stimulus to increase likelihood of behavior

Chunking

Reorganizing large number of items into a smaller number of "chunks". A process that allows a larger amount of info to be maintained in working memory

Trial and error

Repeated, unsystematic attempts to solve a problem until the desired outcome is achieved

Resistors (series, par.)

Req = R1 + R2 . . . 1/ Req = 1/ R1 + 1/ R2

Diffusion of responsibility

Responsible for bystander effect. People in a large, anonymous crowd are less likely to feel accountable for the outcome of a situation or to feel responsibility to take action

Dishabituation

Results when a repeated stimulus is removed

State-dependent cues

Retrieval cues that are related to the state you were in when you learned the information.

Urban renewal

Revamping old parts of cities to become better. Can lead to gentrification.

Sanctions

Rewards and punishments for behaviors that are in accord with or against norms

Representativeness heuristic

Rule of thumb where people look for the most representative answer, such as if a person matches a prototype. Essentially seeing the most likely/probable answer as the correct answer

Availability heuristic

Rule of thumb where we use examples that come to mind to apply to a new problem.

(Spec Grav)

SG = ρ substance / ρ water ρ = 1 g/cm^3 = 103 kg/m^3

Norms are reinforced by _________.

Sanctions

Hidden curriculum

School curricula transmits cultural ideals beyond the stated goal of the institution. Encompasses the unspoken aims of education (teaching children to conform to social expectations)

Superego

Seeks psychological rewards/moralistic goals to serve a higher purpose. Feelings of pride and self-love are sought by the superego, and guilt/inferiority are avoided

Hyperglobalist perspective

Sees it as a new age in human history: countries become interdependent and nation-states themselves are less important

Attention

Selects sensory information for perceptual processing and conscious awareness. Any information not paid attention to will only be processed unconsciously.

Sense organs differ in __________.

Sensitivity

Educational stratification

Separation of students into groups on the basis of academic achievement

Foraging behavior

Set of behaviors through which animals obtain food. A social behavior. Animals optimize this to maximize the energy available through food and to minimize the energy expenditure involved in obtaining it.

Dementia

Severe loss of cognitive ability beyond what would be expected from normal aging.

Diana Baumrind

She is a clinical and developmental psychologist known for having identified, in 1967, four parenting styles: authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved. In the Authoritarian Parenting style, children are expected to follow the strict rules established by the parents. Failure to follow such rules usually results in punishment without explanations. If asked to explain, the parent might simply reply, "Because I said so." In the Authoritative Parenting style, rules and guidelines that children are expected to follow are also set. However, this parenting style is much more democratic. Authoritative parents are responsive to their children and willing to listen to questions. When children fail to meet the expectations, these parents are more nurturing and forgiving rather than punishing. In the Permissive Parenting style, sometimes referred to as indulgent parenting, very few demands are made to children. These parents rarely discipline their children because they have relatively low expectations of maturity and self-control. Finally, the Uninvolved Parenting style is characterized by few demands, low responsiveness, low involvement, and little communication. While these parents fulfil the child's basic needs, they are generally detached from their child's life. In extreme cases, these parents may even reject or neglect the needs of their children.

Sandra Bem

She is a feminist psychologist known for developing the Gender schema theory in the 1980's. She maintained that certain traits or attributes were linked to males and females. These were perpetuated and reinforced by societal and cultural norms and stereotypes people held about what was characteristic of men and women. For her, individual differences were socially rooted on existing gender schemata of masculinity and femininity. The Bem Sex Role Inventory, developed in 1971 by Bem, is a survey commonly employed to assess the extent to which people hold gender stereotypes and as a measure of masculinity/femininity.

Alice Eagly

She is a feminist, social and organizational psychologist, who is still publishing about topics such as leadership, gender, and prejudice. Her Social role theory maintains that biological sex differences and similarities create a division of labor from which gender roles emerge. The characteristics or attributions associated with those roles become stereotypical of what society thinks about what it means to be male or female. She also developed the Role congruity theory. It claims that, when there is a mismatch between the stereotype regarding someone's social group (e.g., female stereotype) and the value of their success in another social role (e.g., leadership), prejudice arises. That is, it is as if there is some exclusivity regarding one's social group; one cannot belong simultaneously to two different (stereotypically conflicting) groups.

Judith Butler

She is a philosopher and gender theorist, known for discussing, from 1988 onwards, how even commonplace communication and speech are performative acts. The concept of performativity refers to the way speech and behaviors shape one's identity. That is, she reverses the idea that identity is the source of more secondary actions (speech, gestures). This view is influenced by philosophers including Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida.

Carol Gilligan

She is a philosopher, feminist, and psychologist known for having formulated a Theory of moral development in 1982 that refuted Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development. She argued that Kohlberg's theory was androcentric; that is, it was premised on results collected predominantly from male research subjects. This had led him to conclude that females reached lower levels of moral development compared with their male counterparts. Gilligan maintained that females made moral decisions based on ethics of care as opposed to males, who made moral decisions based on ethics of justice. In other words, the question was not that they were not as developed as man; they just used a different moral reasoning that was not assessed via Kohlberg's test. Namely, females tended to make moral decision based on the selves as interconnected with others; on more affective relational aspects.

Cyclothymic disorder

Similar to bipolar disorder but the moods ar else extreme

Missense mutation

Single nucleotide changed resulting in different aa

Compliance

Situations where we do behavior to get a reward or avoid punishment. Aka going along with behavior without questioning why. Goes away when rewards/punishments removed

Somnambulism

Sleepwalking

Relative poverty

Social inequality in which people are relatively poor compared to other members of society in which they live unable to meet standards of living in a given area

Institutional discrimination

Social institutions employ policies that differentiate people based on social grouping

Group produced reduction of individual effort is a result of _____________.

Social loafing

Social dysfunction

Social process that has undesirable consequences, reducing the stability of society

Ethnicity

Socially defined concept referring to whether or not people identify with each other based on shared social experience or ancestry

Meritocracy

Society in which advancement is based solely on the abilities and achievements of the individual high degree of social mobility

Conversion disorder

Somatoform disorder where a person experiences a change in sensory/motor function that has no discernible physical or physiological cause, but seems affected by psychological factors

Somatization disorder

Somatoform disorder where a person experiences a variety of physical symptoms over an extended period of time. The person needs to have many somatic symptoms (pain, GI stress, sexual stress, and neurological)

Body dysmorphic disorder

Somatoform disorder where a person is preoccupied with a slight physical anomaly or imagined defect in appearance

Pain disorder

Somatoform disorder where a person suffers clinically important pain whose onset or severity seems significantly affected by psychological factors

Mindguarding

Some members of the group prevent dissenting opinions from permeating the group by filtering out information and facts that go against the beliefs of the group

Mirror neurons

Specialized nerve cells which fire both when a person is completing an action and when the person observes someone else completing the same action. Critical for observational learning (learning by imitation), and responsible for vicarious emotions

Egalitarian family

Spouses are treated as equals and may be involved in negotiation when making decisions

Diffusion

Spread of an invention or discovery from one place to another

Spacing

Spreading out studying to shorter periods for greater encoding of information

Social institutions

Stable hierarchical systems that bring order to interpersonal interactions, structuring society. Examples are: - government/economy - education - religion - family, - health/medicine

Malthusian theory

Starvation is the inevitable result of population growth, because the population increases at a geometric rate while food supply can only increase arithmetically

Demographics

Statistics used to examine the nature of a specific population by quantifying subsets of that population. They are a statistical snapshot in time, and do not capture the ever-changing nature of society.

Master status

Status that dominates the others and determines the individual's general position in society

The effects of alcohol on the nervous system

Stimulates GABA and dopamine systems--> creates feelings of reduced anxiety and minor euphoria

Self-handicapping

Strategy in which people create obstacles and excuses to avoid self-blame when they do poorly

Histrionic personality disorder

Strongly desires to be center of attention, and seeks to attract attention through personal appearance and seductive behavior. Dramatic emotional affect with shallow actual emotions, with vague speech

Vygotsky's Theory of Development

Studied the role that social interaction plays in development of cognition. Current developmental level: tasks that a child can perform w/o help from others Zone of proximal development: range of abilities b/t current & potential developmental level. Consists of all of the skills that can be accomplished with help Potential developmental level: The most advanced takes that a child can do with guidance from more knowledgable people

State capitalism

System in which companies are privately run, but work closely with the government in forming laws and regulations

Token economy

System of behavior modification based on systematic reinforcement of target behavior. Reinforcers are "tokens" that can be exchanged for other reinforcers

Social class

System of stratification that groups members of society according to similarities in social standing. Multifaceted, and tied to status within a community and power

Welfare capitalism

System where most of the economy is private with the exception of extensive social welfare programs to serve certain needs within society.

The parietal lobe is associated with:

Tactile information (somatosensory information)

Teacher expectancy

Teachers treat students differently according to preconceived ideas about their capabilities. Influences students' achievements

Systematic desensitization

Teaching an individual to replace feelings of anxiety with relaxation. Works great with phobias

Twin studies

Tease out the effects of the genetic and environmental influences of a trait, by determining the degree to which genetic inheritance influences it

Shadowing

Technique where a participant is asked to repeat a word or phrase immediately after its heard

Traditionalism

Tendency to follow authority. Shown to be common in twins

Functional fixedness

Tendency to view objects as having only a single function. Can be useful but also stifles creativity depending on context

Symbols

Terms, concepts, or items that represent specific meanings by accepted convention. Meanings ascribed to symbols are determined by social norms and cultural values.

Neural plasticity

The ability of the brain's networks of neurons and their synapses to change. Allows adaptation to chaining life circumstances as well as memory formation (memory can be stored as changes to networks of neurons)

Deductive reasoning

The ability to apply general concepts to specific situations

Signal Detection Theory

The ability to detect a meaningful stimulus in the midst of vast amounts of sensory info increases an organism's chances of survival. There is always some amount of error in the process of distinguishing signal from noise, but a higher hit rate will increase sensitivity by the organism.

Crystallized intelligence

The ability to think logically using specific, previously learned knowledge which remains stable throughout adulthood

Fluid intelligence

The ability to think logically without the need for previously learned knowledge. Peaks in young adulthood and then declines

Intelligence

The ability to understand and reason with complex ideas, adapt effectively to the environment, and learn from experience

Inductive reasoning

The ability to use specific situations to forming general concepts

General fertility rate

The annual number of live births per 1000 women of childbearing age

Stereotype threat

The anxiety and resulting impaired performance that a person may experience when confronted with negative stereotype about a group to which he belongs or when he feels his performance may confirm a negative stereotype about his group. Can cause stereotypes to become self-fulfilling prophecies

Optimism bias

The belief that bad things happen to other people but not to us

Ethnocentrism

The belief that one's group is of central importance. Includes the tendency to judge the practices by other groups by one's own cultural standards create negative opinions about the out group

Class consciousness

The beliefs that a person holds regarding their social class or economic rank in society, the structure of their class, and their class interests.

Race

The biological, anthropological, or genetic origin of an individual

Information-processing model

The brain receives a stimulus input, process the stimulus, and selects and output function.

Principle of continuity

The brain will perceive an ambitious stimulus according to the simplest possible continuous forms

Weber's Law

The change in a stimulus required to meet the difference threshold is a certain fraction of the originally presented stimulus. The fraction is constant for each sense but differs based on the original stimulus and what sense we are using.

Personality

The characteristics that make a person different from others and may be predictive of behaviors. Considered the individual pattern of thinking, feeling, and behavior associated with each person.

Conjunction fallacy

The co-occurrence of two instances is more likely than a single one.

Working memory

The combination of storing and activity using short term memory. Info is encoded here through auditory representation (you hear the info you may have initially processed as visual info).

Situational approach to explaining behaviors

The concept of enduring personality traits is fatally flawed because of variations in behavior that occur across different situations. Still allows stability in personality, however, because people behavior according to their interpretations of situations.

The nuclear family

The concept of family in which one man and one woman live together with their children; direct blood relations

Cognitive dissonance theory

The conflict between internal attitudes and external behaviors. People have an inherent desire to avoid the internal discomfort associated with a mismatch b/t the two. ASSUMES people have a self-concept of consistency and honesty --> will not occur in people who do not view themselves as honest and consistent

Bottom-up processing

The construction of perceptions from individual pieces of information provided by sensory processing

Sensation

The conversion of physical stimuli into electrical signals that are transferred through the nervous system by neurons. This is a PHYSICAL process.

Consolidation

The conversion of working memory into long term memory

Recognition

The correct identification of information that is presented. An easier form of retrieval.

Mortality

The death rate within a population.

Alertness

The default state of consciousness--> most people are generally alert when awake

Social potency trait

The degree to which a person assumes leadership roles in social situations

Trait versus state controversery

The degree to which a person's reaction in a given situation is due to their personality or due to the situation itself.

Culture shock

The discomfort and ensuring reevaluation of personal cultural assumptions when an individual experiences a culture different from her own

Social facts

The elements that serve some function in society, such as the laws, morals, values, religions, customs, rituals, and rules that make up a society.

Environmental justice

The equal treatment of all people regardless of race, gender, or other social grouping with regard to prevention and relief from environmental and health hazards

Religiosity

The extent of influence of religion in a person's life

Stranger anxiety

The fear a child feels for faces that are not recognized by their developed schemas

Self-efficacy

The feeling of being able to carry out an action successfully

Selective attention

The focus of attention on one particular stimulus or task at the expulsion of other stimuli. Limitation: potentially important information may be discarded and missed

The hippocampus is critical in:

The formation of NEW memories (and emotional, flashbulb memories)

Ego depletion

The idea that self-control is a limited resource. If you use a lot of it, it can get used up and you'll have less to use in the future

Conduction aphasia

The inability to conduct between listening and speaking is disrupted

Expressive aphasia

The inability to produce language ( despite being able to understand language)

Infantile amnesia

The inability to remember memories before age 3.5

Receptive aphasia

The inability to understand language (despite being able to hear it and produce it)

Sensitivity bias

The individual's tendency toward or against accepting evidence of a signal. It is a cognitive appraisal of input by sensory system, and can occur consciously or unconsciously.

Immigration

The influx of new people to a specific area; increases population size

Reciprocal determinism

The interaction between a person's behaviors, personal factors (individual motivational forces), and environment. Posits that people both shape and are shaped by their environments.

Stimulus discrimination

The learned lack of response to a stimulus similar to a conditioned stimulus

The blind spot

The location on the retina where the optic nerve connects. It has no cones or rods, so images projected there are not visible.

Absolute threshold

The lowest intensity of a stimulus that can be sensed and perceived. The intensity level that is detected 50% of the time. While mostly a biological trait, can change based on factors such as strong emotions or degree of subjective importance of correctly identifying a stimulus

Attenuation Model

The mind has an attenuator which is able to turn down unattended sensory input rather than eliminating it.

Existential self

The most basic part of self concept. It is the sense of being separate and distinct from others. Awareness that the self is constant throughout life.

Self-concept

The most personal aspect of identity. The knowledge of oneself as a person both separate from other people and constant throughout changing situations. AKA a person's view of his/her own personality. Developed and refined through interactions with others

Downward mobility

The movement of an individual down the class hierarchy. Due to unemployment, underemployment, reduced household income, lack of education, or health issues

Upward mobility

The movement of an individual up the class hierarchy. Achieved through education, marriage, career, or financial success

Replacement level fertility

The number of children that a woman/couple must have in order to replace the number of people in the population who die

Life expectancy

The number of years that an individual at a given age can expect to live at present mortality rates

Emigration

The outflow of people to other areas; reduces population size

Interposition

The overlapping of objects signifies positioning relative to one another. A monocular cue

Social identity

The perception of oneself as a member of certain social groups. Characteristics that are associated with the group come to be seen as part of the self. Cognitive component: categorization of oneself into a certain group Emotional component: individual's emotional attachment to the groups w/ which they identify

Constancy

The perceptual problem of distinguishing between information received by the retina and chances in the surrounding. Two types: Size--> allows a single object to be perceived as being the same size regardless of whether it is moved closer/further from the eye Shape--> allows us to know an object has the same shape regardless of how light reflects onto it

REM rebound

The phenomenon that occurs when someone misses REM sleep in a night. Causes an increase in REM sleep the next night

Groupthink

The phenomenon where a group's members tend to think alike and agree for the sake of group harmony. May cause individuals to self-censor ideas and opinions that go against group norms, or may be pressured by other group members to keep silent on these opinions.

Instinctual drift

The phenomenon whereby established habits learned using operant techniques, eventually are replaced by innate food-related behaviors

Fecundity

The potential reproductive capacity of a female

Endogamy

The practice of marrying within a particular group

Cultural relativism

The practice of trying to understand a culture on its own terms, and to judge a culture by its own standards rather than by one's own standards

Multiculturalism

The practice of valuing and respecting differences in culture. Believes that the harmonious coexistence of separate cultures is a valuable goal, rather than encouraging all cultures to blend together through assimilation

Cortisol is:

The primary stress hormone, which increases blood glucose

Gatekeeping

The process by which a small number of people/corporations control what info is presented to the media

Cultural assimilation

The process by which an individual or group becomes part of a new culture. Can occur through a variety of means (language acquisition, gaining knowledge of social norms)

Socialization

The process by which people learn customs and values of their culture. It is the way that children learn the culture into which they have been born

Impression management

The process of consciously making behavioral choices in order to create a specific impression in the minds of others

Fertility

The production of offspring within a population

Spontaneous recovery

The reappearance of a conditioned response after a period of lessened response

Migration

The relocation of people from one place to another influences population size

Rehearsal

The repetition of a phonetic representation. A process used to maintain information in working memory.

Recall

The retrieval of memory from scratch. A harder form of retrieval.

Retrieval

The return of information stored in long-term memory into working memory for the purpose of problem-solving and guidance of behavior

Cultural capital

The set of non-monetary social factors that contribute to social mobility. Examples include dress, accent, vernacular, manners, education, cultural knowledge, intellectual pursits

Peer pressure

The social influence exerted by one's peers to act in a way that is acceptable or similar to their own behaviors

Divided attention

The splitting of perceptual resources between multiple stimuli or behaviors. Results in the stimuli receiving less attention than if they were focused on individually.

cultural diffusion

The spread of ideas, customs, and technologies from one people to another

Acquisition

The stage of learning over which a conditioned response to a new stimulus is established

Stress

The strain that is experienced when an organism's equilibrium is disrupted and it must adapt

Memory consolidation

The strengthening of the neural network that represents a memory

Self-fulfilling prophecies

The stress and lowered expectations regarding a situation contribute to making beliefs into reality

Behaviorism

The study of external observable behaviors (as opposed to internal motivaitons/thoughts)

Sociobiology

The study of how biology and evolution have affected human behavior. Applies Darwin's theory of natural selection to social behavior, suggesting there is a biological basis for many behaviors. Additionally, argues that biological predisposition is influenced by social factors, and that the origins of culture lie in human evolution.

Sociology

The study of how individuals interact with, shape, and are subsequently shaped by the society in which they live. Attempts to understand the behavior of GROUPS.

Naroclepsy

The takeover of waking life by REM that occurs without warning

Conformity

The tendency of individuals to CHANGE their attitudes, opinions, and behaviors to align with group norms. Necessary for the smooth functioning of social communities

Causation bias

The tendency to assume a cause and effect relationship

Self serving bias

The tendency to attribute one's success to internal factors and one's failures to external factors. Functions to support self esteem -Invoked by members of individualistic cultures more Here we are JUDGING OURSELVES

Fundamental attribution error

The tendency to automatically favor dispositional attributions over situational ones when judging other people (assuming another person commits an action because of their personal qualities rather than environmental influences) Here we are JUDGING OTHERS

Halo effect

The tendency to believe that people have inherently good/bad natures, rather than looking at individual characteristics. Our overall impression of a person is influenced by how we feel/think about his character

Self-reference effect

The tendency to better remember information relevant to ourselves and consistent with one's self-schemas

Belief bias

The tendency to judge arguments based on what one believes about their conclusions rather than on whether they use sound logic

Misinformation effect

The tendency to misremember information

Social facilitation

The tendency to perform better when a person knows he is being watched. Usually most pronounced for tasks at which the performer is highly practiced or skilled

Stimulus generalization

The tendency to respond to stimuli that are similar to the conditioned stimulus

Prejudice

The thoughts, attitudes, and feelings someone holds about a group that are not based on actual experience. Power, prestige, and class can contribute to the effect that it has on the lives and opportunities of individuals as well as the structure of social institutions. Think: PREJUDGment about a group.

Social inequality

The unequal distribution of opportunities or treatment of individuals within a society based on various demographic categories

Perception

The use of sensory information and pre-existing knowledge to create a functional representation of the world

Language

The use of symbols to represent ideas

Social stratification

The way that people are categorized in society

STRONG social constructionism

The whole of reality is dependent on language and social habits. All knowledge is social construct and no brute facts. There are no facts that just exist.

Gardner's Theory of Intelligence

Theorizes that everyone has a variety of intelligences that are used in combination to solve problems and perform tasks. Intelligence has multiple domains: Linguistic Musical Logical-mathematical Spatial Bodily-kinesthetic Interpersonal

Cannon-Bard Theory

Theory of emotion that states that emotional feelings and physiological reactions to stimuli are experienced SIMULTANEOUSLY physiological and cognitive appraisal simultaneously--> emotion

Place theory

Theory of hearing. Our perception of sound depends on where each component frequency produces vibrations along the basilar membrane

Elaboration Likelihood Model

There are two routes to attitude formation: peripheral route processing and central route processing. Each route is defined by the likelihood that the person who receives an argument will elaborate on it by generating his/her own thoughts and opinions in response

Fergus Craik and Robert Lockhart

They are cognitive psychologists who were interested in studying memory. In 1972, they described the Levels of processing effect, which showed how differences in recall were associated with different levels of information processing. Currently, two main processing levels are investigated: narrow and deep. Narrow processing involves the repetition or rehearsal of superficial aspects of the material, such as spelling. The associated type of memorization process is named maintenance rehearsal. One example would be repeating a phone number out loud until one writes it down. Deep processing involves establishing semantic associations with the material to be remembered (elaborative rehearsal), for example, considering the meaning of the material and associating images with each item.

Don Zimmerman and Candice West

They are known for discussing, in a 1987 paper, gender and sex issues. Specifically, they discussed the concept of "doing gender"; how one's gender comes about as a symbolic routine embedded in every social interaction. They further argued that the finding that the gap in housework time between men and women in married-couple households is larger than in unmarried-couple households showed the strong significance of gendered concepts such as "husband" and "wife."

Richard Rahe and Thomas Holmes

They are psychiatrists known for having developed, in 1967, the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS), or, as sometimes named, the Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory. They argued that the type and number of stressful social or life events someone had experienced could be used to partly explain one's illness and disorders. That is, they regarded stress as one of the causes of illness. Their questionnaire aims at identifying of those at risk of illness by inquiring whether people have experienced, in the past year, any of the listed 43 different life events. They further ranked more severe stressors, which are: death of a spouse, divorce, and marital separation.

Walter Cannon and Philip Bard

They are psychologists known for developing the Cannon-Bard theory of emotions in the late 1920s. They maintained that emotions were not the product of bodily reactions. Rather, both emotions and physiological reactions to a stimulus event were experienced at the same time. This theory refuted the precedent James-Lange Theory of emotion, which claimed that bodily changes and emotions shared a cause-and-effect relationship.

Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch

They are psychologists known for having put forward the Working memory model between 1974 and 2000 in two stages. In the first stage, the working memory system components included the central executive, which is thought to mainly focus and divide attentional; and the the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad, which are thought to hold storage and rehearsal functions, to be subordinate to the central executive, and to be similar to short-term memory. That is, they store information for short periods of time, sometimes repeating or rehearsing it before its transfer to long-term storage. The difference between these two components lies in the type of information held: auditory for the phonological loop, and visual and spatial for the visuospatial sketchpad. The episodic buffer was a component subsequently added to the model around 2000. It is thought to act as an interface by integrating and storing information existing within the phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, and long-term memory into a multimodal gestalt or single episodic representation.

Richard Solomon and John Corbit

They are psychologists known their Opponent process theory of emotions, devised from the 1970's onward. It posits that an emotional stimulus creates an emotional reaction. This emotional reaction corresponds to an intensity peak, which then decreases, achieves stability, moves on to its emotional opposite (e.g., from joy to sadness), and then once more to balance. That is, emotions would act as a disruption of balance, and both the triggered emotion and its opposite would be experienced for the state of balance to be regained.

Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis

They are sociologists and economists mainly known for having put forward the Correspondence principle in the 1970's. It posits that the education system mirrors the labor market; there is a correspondence between the two. For example, schools and the world of work are hierarchically organized, they both often involve uniforms or a dress code, and extrinsic rewards such as wages or qualifications are signs of achievement. The hidden curriculum is a concept they used to describe how people are taught capitalist ideology beneath the official curriculum in subtle ways. In their theory, the correspondence principle is one of the ways the hidden curriculum operates.

William I. Thomas and Dorothy S. Thomas

They are sociologists known for having formulated the Thomas theorem in 1928. It states that: "If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences." In other words, people's perception and interpretation of a situation causes the event to come about. In this sense, subjective measurements can be more influent than objective measurements and empirical findings. The later described Placebo effect, widely controlled for in medical studies, supports their claims.

Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann

They are sociologists known for having taken the constructionist theory of society to a higher level in their 1966 book The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. This book is a touchstone in the sociology of knowledge. It states that people, in their relation with everyday life, deal with three "realities" or aspects of reality: objective, intersubjective, and self-evident. It also approaches the notions of space and time in human interactions. Namely, it claims that, over time, people's interactions lead to the construction of mental representations of other's actions, and these eventually become habits enacted by role playing social exchanges.

Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray

They were the psychologist (Herrnstein) and political scientist (Murray) responsible for the publication of the book entitled The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life in 1994. The theory outlined in the book draws on elements of evolutionary biology and sociology to explain the relationship between Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and social stratification, as measured by factors such as race and social class. It is there argued that intelligence follows a normal distribution (or bell curve, as it is designated in the book). It is also claimed that differences in intelligence are, at least partly, genetically inherited. The authors further claim that membership to lower or higher social class is explainable through genetically inherited differences in intelligence. This theory has been widely criticized for its essentialist view of intelligence and neglect of socialization as an important force in explaining social inequalities. The book was also quite controversial for arguing that IQ differences were linked to race or ethnic membership.

Motion parallax

Things farther away move slower, while things closer to us move faster

Self-referencing

Thinking about new information and how it relates to you personally. Form of encoding

Skeptical perspective

Third world countries aren't being integrated into global economy with same benefits

People with longer dopamine-4 receptor gene are more likely to be:

Thrill seekers

Group polarization

Through the interactions and discussions of a group, the attitude of the group as a whole toward a particular issue becomes stronger than the attitudes of its individual members

Central traits

Traits such as honesty, sociability, and shyness. Less dominant traits

Cardinal traits

Traits that are characteristics that direct most of the person's activities (the person's dominant traits that influence all of our behaviors)

Secondary traits

Traits that are more preferences/attitudes

Social reproduction

Transmission of social inequality from one generation to the next.. so if rich your kids will be rich and if you are poor your children will be poor

Positive control

Treatment with known response

Sternberg's Theory of Intelligence

Triarchic theory of intelligence that emerges from a person's adaptive abilities Analytical intelligence Creative intelligence Practical intelligence

Schacter-Singer theory

Two components of emotional response: physiological arousal and situational cues. Must evaluate BOTH before cognitive appraisal of emotion physiological arousal--> cognitive appraisal of situation--> emotion

Society

Two or more individuals living together in a definable area and/or sharing elements of a culture. A society can encompass multiple cultures.

Vehicular control

Type of experimental control that determines what experimental group does without the directly desired impact

Spatial inequality

Unequal access to resources and variable quantity of life within a population or geographical distribution. Can be affected by income, unemployment, and unequal access to resources. Influences health by affecting access to healthcare

Discrimination

Unfair treatment of others base don their membership in a specific social group. Its effects are mediated by factors such as power, prestige, and class. THINK: it is an ACTION

Latent functions

Unintended or less recognizable consequence of a social structure. Can be considered beneficial, neutral, or harmful

Upper vs lower class families

Upper class families have concerns related to continuing a larger family tradition and properly training children; parents are more authoritative/permissive Lower class families are focused on completing the everyday tasks necessary for survival; parents are more authoritarian.

Hypothesis of Relative Deprivation

Upsurge in prejudice when people are deprived of something they feel entitled to

Drives

Urges to perform certain behaviors in order to resolve physiological arousal when that arousal is caused by the biological needs of the organism

Elimination disorder

Urination/defecation at inappropriate times

Game Theory

Use of mathematical models to represent complex decision making in which the actions of other group members must be taken into account. Success of an individual in the "multiplayer game" depends not only on his or her own strategy but also on the strategies and decisions of the other "players". The most successful strategies result in greater fitness and will be favored by natural selection

Behavioral therapy

Uses conditioning to shape a client's behaviors in the desired direction. Commonly used to desensitize anxiety patients to phobias or anxiety-provoking stimuli

Psychoanalytic therapy

Uses various methods to help a patient become aware of his/her unconscious motives, in order to help the patient be more able to choose behaviors consciously. Therapy sessions usually focus on patients talking about their lives and reducing anxiety through self insight through analysis and interpretation.

False memories

Using imagination to create inaccurate memories

Mnemonic device

Using unrelated stimuli or words to help you remember information. Encoding strategy

Paired Use

V = IR P = IV

trickle down effect

Veblen's theory about markets. He claimed that markets operate by making consumer goods available at a price point that initially only people from higher classes can afford. Lower classes begin to purchase those products when they are produced in larger quantities and are therefore more affordable

The occipital lobe is associated with:

Visual information

Work, Power

W = F d cosθ P = ΔW/Δt

Feature detection theory

We activate different areas of the brain when looking at different features of an image. Allows for parallel processing of a visual stimulus.

Actor-observer bias

We are victims of circumstance, but others are willful actors. Form of fundamental attribution error.

Inattentional blindness

We aren't aware of things not in our visual filed when our attention is directed elsewhere in that field

Resource model of attention

We have a limited pool of resource son which to draw when performing tasks. Practicing a task diminishes task resource demand

Principle of closure

We perceive whole shapes even when they are not actually present in the stimulus

Secularization

Weakening of social and political power of religious organizations, as religious involvement declines

Subject bias

When a study participate intentionally/unintentionally reports distorted measurements

Extinctive burst

When an individual no longer receives regular reinforcement, its original behavior will sometimes spike (increase dramatically)

Observer bias

When an observer intentionally/unintentionally records a distorted measurement

Global aphasia

When both production and understanding of language is damaged

dissociative state

When individuals are in a dissociative state, their awareness, attention, and emotions are disconnected from their environment

Identification

When people act/dress a certain way to be like someone they respect. Will do this as long as they maintain respect for that individual

Frustration-aggression principle

When someone is blocked from achieving a goal, the frustration can trigger anger, leading to aggression

Frustration Aggression principle

When someone is blocked from achieving a goal, this frustration can trigger anger and lead to aggression

According to humanistic theory, when is an individual's personality healthy?

When the individual's actual self, ideal self, and perceived self (self-concept) overlap (are the same)

False consensus bias

When we assume everyone else agrees with what we do, even if they do not

Projection bias

When we assume others share the same beliefs we do

Informational social influence

When we conform because we feel others are more knowledgable than us, because we think they know something we don't

Construct validity

Whether a tool is measuring what it is intended to measure

External validity

Whether the results of a study can be generalized to other situations and to other people. Protected for by randomization of sample and control of situational variables

Cognition

Wide range of higher level internal mental activities (eg. logical reasoning, language) that influence external behaviors

Modeling

Witnessing another person's actions, retaining info on that person's behavior, and later re-enacting what was learned

Gender bias

Women and men receive different treatment for the same disease or illness. In healthcare, often due to research being conducted only on male subjects

Gender oppression

Women are not only unequal as men, but they're oppressed and abused.

Structural oppression of women

Women's oppression and inequality are due to capitalism, patriarchy and racism. Women are exploited because of capitalism model, but not all women express oppression in the same way. Men are associated with the mind, while women are associated with the body.

Formal norms

Written down rules that are precisely defined, publicly presented, and often accompanied by strict penalties for those who violate them

Is conformity necessary for a society to function smoothly?

Yes

Recency bias

Your most recent actions are important--> people place emphasis on your more recent actions/performances

self-efficacy

a belief in one's own competence and effectiveness

status

a broad term in sociology that refers to all the socially defined positions within a society

sick role

a certain set of behavors that patients are expected to display

schizophrenia

a chronic, incapacitating disorder by which a person is out of touch with reality and suffers material impairment in social, occupational, or personal functioning

personalization

a cognitive distortion whereby the individual believes that events or something another person says are linked back to him/her

Bloom's taxonomy

a concept that is sued in education to asses whether educational objectives fit into the categories of cognitive, affective, or psychomotor

Values

a culture's standard for evaluating what is good and bad

values

a culture's standard for evaluating what is good or bad

suppression

a defense mechanism whereby an individual consciously chooses to keep an uncomfortable feeling or action in the unconscious

repression

a defense mechanism whereby an individual pushes his feelings, wishes, and/or desires from his consciousness

episodic memory

a dimension of long-term memory. It is involved in storing information about individuals' experiences of events or incidents

conversion disorder

a disorder characterized by changes in sensory or motor function that has no discernible physical or physiological cause

narcissistic personality disorder

a disorder in which one feels grandiosely self-important, with fantasies of beauty, brilliance, and power

ecclesia

a dominant religious organization that includes more members of society, is recognized as the national or official religion, and tolerates no other religions

delusion

a false belief that is not due to culture, and is not relinquished despite evidence that it is false

illusory correlation

a false connection created between a group of people and a characteristic based on unique cases

hallucination

a false sensory perception that occurs while a person is conscious; usually auditory or visual

master status

a form of social status that has the power to entirely define and shape a person's identity. This type of status can be negative or positive

personality trait

a generally stable predisposition toward a certain behavior

rational-legal authority

a government based on legal rules and regulations that are stipulated in a document like the Constitution

in-group

a group that an individual belongs to and believes to be an integral part of who he or she is

out-group

a group that an individual does not belong

ghrelin

a hormone that heightens the sensation of hunger, released by the stomach and pancreas

leptin

a hormone that reduces hunger; released by white adipose tissue (fat)

dysthymic disorder

a less intense, chronic form of depression; patient has felt milder symptoms of depression most days for at least two years

biofeedback

a means of recording feeding back information about subtle autonomic responses in an attempt to train the individual to control those involuntary responses

inter-rater reliability

a measure of the degree to which two different researchers or raters agree in their assessment

test-retest reliability

a measure of the reliability of an assessment tool in obtaining similar scores over time

representative heuristic

a mental shortcut by which the individual uses the frequency of an incident occurring to make decisions

acronym

a mnemonic device that is a short word or phrase that represents longer strings of information

temporal summation

a neuron fires action potentials very rapidly, causing EPSPs and IPSPs to stack onto one another and potentially induce an action potential

taboo

a norm about actions that cannot be performed by ordinary people, being either too sacred or too dangerous. ex incest

mood disorder

a persistent pattern of abnormal mood serious enough to cause significant personal distress and/or significant impairment to social, occupational, or personal functioning

specific phobia

a persistent, strong, and unreasonable fear of a certain object or situation

dissociative identity disorder

a person alternates among two or more distinct personality states (or identities), only one of which interacts with other people at any one time; also called multiple personality disorder

panic attack

a person experiences dread, shortness of breath, chest pain, choking, rapid heartbeat; many fear they are dying of a heart attack

avoidant personality disorder

a person feels inadequate, inferior, and undesirable; the person feels ashamed, and avoids interpersonal contact

generalized anxiety disorder

a person feels tense or anxious much of the time about many issues; focus shifts rapidly from issue to issue

depersonalization disorder

a person has recurring or persistent feelings of being cutoff or detached from his or her body or mental processes

panic disorder

a person has suffered at least one panic attack and is worried about having more of them

body dysmorphic disorder

a person is extremely preoccupied by a slight physical anomaly or imagined defect in appearance

paranoid personality disorder

a person mistrust and misinterprets others' motives without sufficient cause, suspecting them of deceiving, harming, betraying, or attacking him or her

dissociative fugue

a person suddenly goes on a journey during which he or she cannot recall personal history prior to the journey; usually ends suddenly, with amnesia for the entire episode

schizotypal personality disorder

a person that has constricted or inappropriate affect, magical or paranoid thinking, and odd beliefs, speech, behavior, appearance, and perceptions; most cases eventually develop schizophrenia

obsessive-compulsive personality disorder

a person who is perfectionistic, rigid, and stubborn, with a need for control interpersonally and mentally

mood

a person's sustained internal emotion that colors one's view of life

affect

a person's visible emotion in the moment

Labeling Theory

a perspective on deviance that suggests labels get applied to certain groups or individuals regardless of specific behavior

foot in the door

a persuasive technique whereby something small is requested at first, and when the person gives in to the small request, there is a greater likelihood that the person will agree to the larger request

social dysfunction

a process that has undesirable consequences

collective unconscious

a psychological term used by Carl Jung to describe the unconscious mind that is shared by different individuals

ethnography

a qualitative method often used in anthropology to study a cultural group and its norms, values, and cultural practices

meta-analysis

a quantitative method that employs statistical techniques to review existing quantitative studies involves collecting studies on a topic to answer whether an intervention is effective by reporting the effect size of that intervention, as combined across collected studies tells how much change as well as similarities and differences occurred across all the collected studies

sect

a religious organization that is distinct from that of the larger society; may be fairly exclusive and often formed from breaking away from larger religious institutions

cult/new religious movement

a religious organization that is far outside society's norms and often involves a very different lifestyle

subculture

a segment of society that shares a distinct pattern of traditions and values that differs from that of the larger society

stereotype threat

a self-fulfilling fear that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype

learned helplessness

a sense of exhaustion and lack of belief in one's ability to manage situations

insomnia

a sleep disorder characterized by difficulty falling or staying asleep; treated with sedatives, but this runs the risk of dependency

ethnicity

a socially defined concept referring to whether or not people identify with each other based on shared social experience or ancestry

Parson's Gloss

a sociological concept that was used by Talcott Parsons to describe how the existence of the world as a social system leads to a consensus in perception the way people make sense of the world, based on written and unwritten rules

unconditioned stimulus

a stimulus that elicits an unconditioned response (think of the unconditioned response like a reflex)

neutral stimulus

a stimulus that initially does not elicit any intrinsic response

chunking

a strategy in which information to be remembered is organized into discrete groups of data

phobia

a strong fear that the person recognizes as unreasonable

insight

a sudden flash of inspiration about the solution to a problem

language

a symbolic system that is codified for communication

state capitalism

a system in which companies are privately run, but work closely with the government in forming laws and regulations

welfare capitalism

a system in which most of the economy is private with the exception of extensive social welfare programs to serve certain needs within society

social loafing

a tendency for people to exert less effort if they are being evaluated as a group than if they are individually accountable

halo effect

a tendency to believe that people have inherently good or bad natures, rather than looking at individual characteristics

just world phenomenon

a tendency to believe that the world is fair and people get what they deserve

belief perseverance

a tendency to cling to beliefs despite the presence of contrary evidence

mental set

a tendency to fixate on solutions that worked in the past though they may not apply to the current situation

representativeness heuristic

a tendency to judge the likelihood of an event occurring based on our typical mental representations of those events

availability heuristic

a tendency to make judgements based on how readily available information is in our memory

misinformation effect

a tendency to misremember

functional fixedness

a tendency to perceive the functions of objects as fixed and unchanging

confirmation bias

a tendency to search only for information that confirms our preconceived thinking, rather than information that might not support it

false consciousness

a term used by Marxists to describe how members of the working class are misled by capitalist institutions and ideology

eudaimonic happiness

a type of happiness that strives for a good and virtuous life, doing activities that are deemed worth doing. When individuals experience growth and community and live life with a purpose, they experience happiness and well-being. Eudaimonic happiness is correlated with good physical and mental health

church

a type of religious organization that is well-integrated into larger society; may be tied to the state or independent of it

functionalism

a view that conceptualizes society as a living organism with many different parts and organs, each of which has a distinct purpose

hierarchies

a way of memorizing data by organizing it into groups, significantly improving recall

social institution

a whole set of norms, beliefs, and values expressed in a structured form

rite of passage

a whole set of rituals that is carried out in a community at a particular time and location

psychoanalytic perspective

according to this perspective, a person's unconscious thoughts, feelings and memories shape one's personality

discrimination

acting in a negative way towards a group

vagus nerve

acts to decrease the heart rate and increase the GI activity; part of the parasympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system; uses ACh

repolarization

acts to return the membrane potential to normal

assimilation

adding experience into our existing schemas

fundamentalists

adhere strictly to religious beliefs

accommodation

adjusting our schemas to take into account new experiences

Max Weber

agreed with Marx about inequalities in a capitalist system, but did not think that the collapse of capitalism was inevitable; believed there was more than one source of conflict

visuospatial sketchpad

aids us with visuospatialization through the use of mental images

behaviorism

all psychological phenomena are explained by describing the observable antecedents of behaviors and its consequences

oxytocin

allows for uterine contractions during labor and causes milk production

amygdala

almond-shaped structure deep within the brain that conducts our emotional experiences

A sleepy, relaxed state of awakeness will show what type of wave on an EEG?

alpha waves

Difference threshold

"Just noticeable difference"--> the smallest difference that is sufficient for a change in a stimulus to be perceived. The more sensitive the sensory system, the smaller the threshold.

reverse discrimination

"discriminating against the majority"

food desert

an area, typically in a highly populated lower-income urban environment, where healthy, fresh food is difficult to find

principle of aggregation

an attitude affects a person's aggregate or average behavior, but not necessarily each isolated act

capitalism

an economic system in which resources and production are mainly privately owned, and goods/services are produced for a profit

socialism

an economic system where resources and production are collectively owned; goods and services are produced for direct use instead of profit

anxiety

an emotional state of unpleasant physical and mental arousal—a preparation to fight or flee

semantic memory

an example of long-term memory; it is where general facts of knowledge (ideas, concepts, words, types of food, etc.) are stored

social norm

an expectation to behave (e.g., to dress) in a way that is in accordance with a particular social situation many rites and customs are expressions of social norms

Solomon four-group design

an experimental design that includes two experimental and two control groups. Each of the groups is exposed to different components of the intervention

anterograde amnesia

an inability to encode new memories

retrograde amnesia

an inability to recall information that was previously encoded

fixation

an inability to see a problem from a fresh perspective

upward mobility

an increase in social class

sensitization

an increase in the responsiveness due to either a repeated application of a stimulus or a particularly aversive or noxious stimulus; usually only temporary

long-term potentiation

an increase in the synaptic strength between two neurons that leads to a stronger electrochemical response to a given stimuli

assimilation

an individual forsakes aspects of his or her own cultural tradition to adopt those of a different culture

escape

an individual learns how to get away from an aversive stimulus by engaging in a particular behavior

moro (startle) reflex

an infant will startle in response to a loud sound or sudden movement

language acquisition device

an innate feature unique to the human mind that allows people to gain mastery of language from limited exposure during the sensitive developmental years; later renamed as universal grammar

Poverty

an insufficiency of material goods, monetary wealth, and access to resources

modeling

an observer watching the behavior being performed by another person

overconfidence

an overestimation of the accuracy of knowledge and judgments

Hans Eysenck's personality theory

analysis of self-reported questionnaires. He proposed that personality operates along two axes: introversion/extraversion and neuroticism/stability

crude death rate

annual number of deaths per 1000 people

general fertility rate

annual number of live births per 1000 women of childbearing age

crude birth rate

annual number of live births per year

Dementia is characterized by ____________ amnesia.

anterograde

mnemonic

any technique for improving retention and retrieval of information from memory

reinforcement

anything that will increase the likelihood that a preceding behavior will be repeated

secondary (conditioned) reinforcers

are learned to be reinforcers; must be paired with a primary reinforcer in order to produce a learned behavior (like a coupon being paired with earning a pizza for good behavior)

primary (unconditioned) reinforcers

are somehow innately satisfying or desirable (such as food)

beliefs

are the convictions or principles that people hold

synaptic cleft

area across which the neurotransmitter travels

social constructionism

argues that people actively shape their reality through social interactions; therefore, it is something that is constructed, not inherent

post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

arises when a person feels intense fear, horror, or helplessness while experiencing, witnessing, or otherwise confronting an extremely traumatic event that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury to the self or others

Phenylalanine, Phe, F

aromatic, non-polar

Tryptophan, Try, W

aromatic, polar

Tyrosine, Tyr, Y

aromatic, polar

prospective memory

"remembering to remember" something

Refraction

( sin θ1 )/(sin θ2 ) = v1 /v2 = n2 /n1 = λ1 /λ2 n = c/v

Biomedical approach to health and illness

*Disease is studied by examining only the biological factors of illness*, neglecting contributing factors of psychological life and sociological context.

Biopsychosocial approach to health and illness

*Illness is determined by a variety of influences, rather than a single cause*. The causes and effects of illness can be examined at multiple levels in the life of an individual, and no single level provides the whole picture. Collecting info about psychosocial context is key to the understanding of physical health and illness.

Emile Durkheim

- Father of sociology, pioneer of modern social research and established the field as separate and distinct from psychology and politics - Major proponent of functionalism - Argued that modern society was more complex than primitive societies because they were all similar, shared a common language. - Even when people were dissimilar, they relied on each other to make society function.

Social constructionism

- Human actors actively construct their "reality" - The beliefs and shared understandings of individuals create social realities. - In the context of illness, there is a gap b/t the biological reality of a medical condition and the societally created meaning of the condition

Symbolic interactionism

- Micro social perspective - Through social interactions, individuals develop shared meanings and labels for various symbols. - Meaning can change with a single interaction, so addresses subjective meanings. - Humans ascribe meaning to things, act based on those meanings, use language to generate meaning through social interaction, and modify meanings through thought processes. - Ignores larger societal forces that shape people's lives.

Factors Affecting Attitude Change

-Behavior change -Characteristics of the message -Characteristics of the target -Social factors

5 Considerations of Gender

-Biological--> XX vs XY -Identity --> What gender they identify -Expression--> What gender they express -Attraction--> Not dependent on gender of a person (is not limited to sexual attraction, can be romantic) -Fornication --> sexual attraction

3 Main Assumptions of Rational Choice Theory

-Completeness (every action can be ranked) -Transitivity (Since A is preferable to B, A is also preferable to C) -Independence of irrelevant alternatives (if I have a 4th option, it won't change order of how I ranked first 3 options)

George Herbert Mead's I vs Me

-Description of a restricted influence of other people on our perceptions of self -Generalized other: society as a whole and its expectations on an individual -Me: our social self (how we believe society sees us) -I: response to the social self (our personal responses to what society thinks) -Our actual self balances the I and the Me

Weber's 5 main characteristic of an ideal bureaucracy

-Division of labor -Hierarchy of organization -Written rules and regulations -Impersonality -Employment based on technical qualifications

Industry vs inferiority

-Erikson psychosocial crisis -Resolved age 7-12 years -Ability to learn new tasks

Identity vs role confusion

-Erikson psychosocial crisis -Resolved in adolescence -Ability to form a stable identity

Initiative vs guilt

-Erikson psychosocial crisis -Resolved in age 3-6 years -Ability to carry out a plan

Integrity vs despair

-Erikson psychosocial crisis -Resolved in mature adulthood -Determining how well one has lived

Generativity vs stagnation

-Erikson psychosocial crisis -Resolved in middle adulthood -Ability to put energy into others

Intimacy vs isolation

-Erikson psychosocial crisis -Resolved in young adulthood -Ability to form relationships with others

Collective behavior

-Happens when large numbers of individuals rapidly behave in ways that are not in line with societal norms -Time limited -Involves short social interactions -Have loose norms

Stage 1 Sleep

-Light sleep -theta waves

Brute facts vs Institutional Facts

-Part of WEAK social constructionism -Brute facts = physical realities that exist outside of human input -Institutional facts = only exist as a function of society's structures and beliefs

The components of Emotional Intelligence

-Perceiving emotions -Using and reasoning with emotions -Understanding emotions -Managing emotions

Structures involved in the reward pathway

-Prefrontal cortex -VTA -Nucleus accumbens

3 Stages of Self Consciousness Development

-Prepatory stage--> imitation of others -Play stage--> pretend play, focused on perspectives of other people (role taking) -Game stage--> understanding of generalized other, starting to understand that people can take multiple roles in society

Factors Associated with Performance on Multitasking

-Task similarity -Task difficulty -Task practice

Anxiety is characterized by:

-The experience of unwanted fear -A physical manifestation of excessive sympathetic nervous system activation -The frequent experience of excessive responses to stress -Concerns about the future and hypothetical situations

Three ways that behavior may be motivated by social influence

1) Compliance 2) Identification 3) Internalization

Factors that influence conformity

1) Group size (the larger, the better) 2) Unanimity 3) Cohesion 4) Status 5) Accountability 6) No prior commitment

Two reasons why group polarization occurs

1) Informational influence 2) Normative influence

Broadbent Filter Model of Selective Attention

1. Inputs from the system enter a sensory buffer. 2. Inputs are selected and filtered, and other sensory information quickly decays.

Capacitors in Ser. and Par.

1/ Ceq = 1/ C1 + 1/ C2 + 1/ C3 . . . Ceq = C1 + C2 . .

Optics

1/ i + 1/ o = 1/ f = 2/r = Power M = magnification = - i/o

Sensorimotor stage

1st stage of Piaget's theory of cognitive development -Ages 0-2 years -Children learn to separate themselves from the world -Object permanence is learned here

People under 20 make up approximately ________ of the US population.

25%

What percentage of adults in America suffer from a diagnosable psychological disorder?

26%

Pre operational stage

2nd stage of Piaget's theory of cognitive development -Ages 2-7 years -Children learn to use language -Children think literally and egocentrically here--> unable to take on perspective of others

Concrete Operational stage

3rd stage of Piaget's theory of cognitive development -Ages 7-11 years -Children develop inductive reasoning -Children learn about conservation of mass

Formal Operational stage

4th stage of Piaget's theory of cognitive development -Ages 11+ -Children develop deductive reasoning -Children start to think theoretically and philosophically -Children can begin to develop post-conventional moral reasoning (Kohlberg's theory!)

How much information can be held in working memory?

5-9 pieces of information (7 +/- 2)

What percent of the American population will have a serious mental illness?

6%

Unconditioned response

A behavioral response that is innate (not learned)

Instinct

A biological, innate tendency to perform a central behavior that leads to the fulfillment of a need

Episodic buffer

A component of working memory where information in working memory interacts with information in long term memory (eg. relating information you are processing to a previous memory)

Visuospatial sketchpad

A component of working memory where we create mental images to remember visual information

Phonological loop

A component of working memory where we repeat verbal information to help us remember it

Social construct

A concept or practice that is construct of a group. pEverybody in society agrees to treat a certain aspect a certain way regardless of its inherent value in nature.

Subculture

A culture that is shared by a smaller group of people who are also part of a larger culture but have specific cultural attributes that set them apart from the larger group

Habituation

A decrease in response to a stimulus after repeated presentations

Projection

A defense mechanism that involves attributing one's own unacceptable thoughts/feelings to another person

Sublimation

A defense mechanism that involves channeling aggressive/sexual energy into positive, constructive activities

Rationalization

A defense mechanism that involves explaining and intellectually justifying one's impulse behavior

Reaction Formation

A defense mechanism that involves expressing the opposite of of what one really feels, when it would be dangerous to express the real feeling

Denial

A defense mechanism that involves forceful refusal to acknowledge an emotionally painful memory

Repression

A defense mechanism that involves lack of recall of an emotionally painful memory

Displacement

A defense mechanism that involves redirecting aggressive or sexual impulses from a forbidden action or object onto a less dangerous one

Regression

A defense mechanism that involves reverting to an earlier, less sophisticated behavior

Monoamine hypothesis

A deficiency in the availability of monoamines (serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine) in the synapses contributes to depression

Demographic transition

A demographic change that takes place over time from high to low crude birth/death rates as transition to industrialized

Ecclesia

A dominant religious organization that includes most members of society, is recognized as the national or official religion, and tolerates no other religions

Change blindness

A failure to bring attention to changes in our environment

Fixed-interval reinforcement

A form of partial reinforcement where rewards are provided after a specific time interval has passed after a response

Fixed-ratio reinforcement

A form of partial reinforcement where rewards are provided after a specified # of responses

Variable-ratio reinforcement

A form of partial reinforcement where rewards are provided after an unpredictable number of responses

Variable-interval reinforcement

A form of partial reinforcement where rewards are provided after an unpredictable time interval has passed since the response

Out-group

A group with which an individual does not identify and toward which she may feel competition or hostility

In-group

A group with which an individual shares identity and toward which she feels loyalty

Leptin

A hormone released by white adipose tissue to reduce hunger

Melatonin

A hormone secreted by the pineal gland that stimulates the drive for sleep as part of the sleep-wake cycle

Polygyny

A man married to more than one woman

Counterbalancing

A method of controlling for order effects in a repeated measure design by either including all orders of treatment or by randomly determining the order for each subject

The later sleep cycles are ____________.

A mixture between REM and non-REM sleep.

Spotlight model

A model of visual attention. Shifts in attention precede the movement of our eyes

Stigma

A negative social label that changes a person's social identity by classifying the labeled person as abnormal/tainted

Orexin

A neurotransmitter associated with narcolepsy

Specific phobia

A persistent, strong, and unreasonable fear of a certain object or situation

Dissociative fugue

A person goes on a journey, during which he cannot recall personal history prior to the journey. During the journey, the person may be disoriented, confused, or violent. Usually involves the assumption of a new identity/occupation. Journey usually ends suddenly with recovery of prior memories but amnesia for the episode

Depersonalization disorder

A person has a recurring or persistent feeling of being cut off or detached from his body or mental processes, as if observing themselves from the outside. May feel that the external world is unreal

Identity foreclosure

A person has a sense of identity but has failed to identify an identity crisis (unquestionably adopts the values and expectations of others)

Dissociative amnesia

A person has had at least one episode of suddenly forgetting important personal information. Person usually wanders aimlessly during the episode. Disorder usually ends suddenly with full recovery of memory

Panic disorder

A person has suffered at least one panic attack and are worried about having more of them. Can be cued by certain situations, but are more often spontaneous

Affect

A person's VISIBLE emotion in the moment

Self-regulation

A person's ability to control their behavior in the absence of rewards or punishments; in association with observational learning

Locus of control

A person's belief about the extent to which internal or external factors play a role in shaping his/her life

Cognitive behavioral therapy

A person's feelings/behaviors are seen as reactions not to actual events, but to the person's thoughts about those events. Helps the client become aware of their irrational thoughts and substitute rational/accurate beliefs and thoughts through reconditioning, desensitization, and reversal of self-blame.

Biological theory of personality

A person's genome contributes to the formation of personality, and that personality traits differ in the event to which they are influenced by heredity versus environmental factors

Self esteem

A person's overall value judgment of himself. Acts as a mediating factor between self-concept and experience by shaping interpretations of events. High --> positive self concept Low --> negative self concept

Mood

A person's sustained INTERNAL emotion that colors his/her view of life

Identity

A person's view of who they are in terms of both internal factors and social/external factors. Places a larger emphasis on the individual's own perception of self, which contrasts from a "personality".

Fixation

A psychoanalytic concept referring to a permanent aspect of the individual's personality that is related to an unbalanced urge experienced in childhood development

Motivation

A psychological factor that provides a directional force or reason for behavior

Primary punisher

A punishing stimulus that is based on a physiological need (eg. exposure to extreme temperature). Harness physiological needs and the drive for survival.

Secondary punisher

A punishing stimulus that requires learning and social context to affect behavioral decisions, but is just as effective at controlling behavior as primary punishers. Includes fines, scolding, ostracism, and bad grades.

Primary reinforcer

A reinforcing stimulus that is based on a physiological need (ex. food, water, shelter). Harness physiological needs and the drive for survival.

Sect

A religious organization that is distinct from that of the larger society. Formed from breaking away from larger religious institutions. Membership may be by birth or through conversion.

Cult/New religious movement

A religious organization that is far outside society's norms and often involves a very different lifestyle. Many major world religions originated as cults.

Exogamy

A requirement to marry outside a particular group, with it being the norm in almost all cultures to prohibit sexual relationships between certain relatives

Conditioned response

A response that is learned (elicited through a conditioned stimulus). similar to the original unconditioned response that is used to create a conditioned stimulus

Hypnic jerks

A sensation of falling as you enter stage one sleep

Family

A set of people related by blood, marriage, adoption, or some other agreed-upon relationship that signifies some responsibility to each other. Serves five functions: -Reproduction and the monitoring of sexual behavior -Protection -Socialization -Affection and companionship -Social status

Role strain

A single status results in conflicting expectations

Learned helplessness

A situation that arises where a person learns to not act because they perceive they do not have an internal locus of control, after experiencing an extreme situation

Physical attractiveness stereotype

A specific type of halo effect where people tend to rate attractive individuals more favorably for personality traits and characteristics

Reference group

A standard measure that people compare themselves to

Hypnosis

A state of relaxation, focused attention and increased willingness to relinquish control over one's actions. Induced through cooperation with a hypnotist or later as self-hypnosis. CANNOT be done against someone's will.

Ascribed status

A status that is assigned to a person by society regardless of the person's own efforts (ex. gender, race)

Achieved status

A status that is earned by a person due to the person's individual efforts

Algorithm

A step by step procedure that leads to a definite solution. It is an exhaustive technique but is not always the most efficient

Nicotine

A stimulant that disrupts sleep and suppresses appetite. Also causes muscles to relax and release stress-reducing neurotransmitters.

Caffeine

A stimulant that inhibits adenosine receptors, disrupting sleep.

Neutral stimulus

A stimulus that does not elicit a behavioral response. Can eventually become conditioned response if presented immediately before unconditioned stimuli.

Conditioned stimulus

A stimulus that has been associated with an unconditioned stimulus that elicits a learned response

Unconditioned stimulus

A stimulus that results in an innate behavioral response (a response that is not learned)

Analogies

A strategy where a new problem is reduced to a previously known problem, and prior knowledge of how to determine the solution can be applied

Social group

A subset of a population that maintains social interactions. Alternatively, includes a collection of shared experiences that create a group identity among a set of individuals

Religion

A system of beliefs that affects how people make sense of their experiences and provides a framework for questions about life, death, and the purpose of existence

Mental set

A tendency to fixate on solutions that worked in the past but might apply to a current situation.

Methadone

A treatment that activates opiate receptors slowly than other opiates, dampening the high that addicts get. Eases withdrawal.

Shaping

A type of operant conditioning where successive approximations of a desired behavior are reinforced in order to gradually achieve the desired behavior

Church

A type of religious organization that is well-integrated into the large society. Membership teds to occur by birth, but most churches allow people to join. Can be tied to the state or independent of it.

Continuity (fluids)

A v = const. ρAv = const.

Secondary reinforcer

AKA conditioned reinforcers. Require learning and social context to affect behavioral decisions, but are just as effective at controlling behavior as primary reinforcers. Include money, praise, prestige, and good grades.

Associative learning

AKA conditioning. Refers to learning that involves associations between certain stimuli and specific responses

Partial reinforcement

AKA intermittent reinforcement. Reinforcement of a behavior by delivering a response only part of the time. Four types: Fixed-ratio, Variable-ratio, Fixed-interval, and Variable-interval

Cocktail party effect

Ability to concentrate on one voice amongst a crowd

Relative Deprivation Theory

Actions of groups that are oppressed/deprived of rights that others in society enjoy. ex. Civil Rights Movements

Confederate

Actors that are told what to do during an experiment

Religion as a social institution

Acts as an organized structure of behaviors and social interactions that addresses the spiritual needs of society. From a functionalist standpoint, can create social cohesion/dissent, social change/control, and provide believers with meaning and purpose.

Emotion is:

Adaptive

Role taking

Adopting the role of another person either by imitating behaviors associated with specific social roles or by taking the other person's POV in a social interaction

Advantages and Disadvantages to IQ Tests

Advantages -Simple to administer -Provides scores that are easy to compare -Correlates with academic performance Disadvantages -Less able to predict later career success/advancement -Shows a cultural bias against minorities -Single number score is misleading

Age stratified theory

Age is a way of regulating behavior of a generation

Quantified demographic parameters include:

Age, gender, nationality, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, SES, immigration status, education level

Life Course theory

Aging is a social, psychological, and biological process that begins from the time you are born until you die.

Health disparity

Aka health inequity. Differences in health and healthcare that occur between groups of people

Nonverbal communication

All communication between individuals that does not involve words (eg. body language, touch, appearance, facia l expressions)

Social behavior

All interactions taking place between members of the same species

Culture

All of the beliefs, assumptions, objects, behaviors, and processes that make up a shared way of life.

Statistical regression

All variables examined are continuous. Makes assumptions about which variable is influencing the other

Correlation

All variables examined are continuous. Makes no assumptions about causation.

Function of sleep cycles

Allows the individual to enjoy benefits of both light and deep sleep.

Isolation

Also known as social exclusion. Describes how impoverished people are often excluded from opportunities available to others.

The most prevalent form of dementia is:

Alzheimer's disease

What region of the brain is particularly important in negative conditioning?

Amygdala

Emotional Regulatory Centers of Brain

Amygdala--> conduction and identification emotions Hypothalamus--> creates physiological aspects of emotions Prefrontal cortex--> controls behavioral aspects of emotions

Habit

An action that is performed repeatedly until it becomes automatic

Principle of aggregation

An attitude affects a person's average behavior, but not necessarily each isolated act

Capitalism

An economic system in which resources and production are mainly privately owned, and goods/services are produced for a profit. Driving force in society is the pursuit of personal profit. Emphasizes personal freedom by limiting government restrictions and regulations

Socialism

An economic system where resources and production are collectively owned. System of production and distributed designed to satisfy human needs, with goods/services produced for direct use instead of profit.

Sensitization

An increase in the responsiveness to a stimulus due to either repeated application of a stimulus or a particularly aversive/noxious stimulus

Operant conditioning

An individual becomes more or less likely to carry out a certain behavior based on its consequences. Think: BEHAVIOR ---> RESPONSE. Discovered by B.F Skinner.

Classical conditioning

An individual develops a response to a previously neutral stimulus by associating the stimulus with another the already elicits the response. Think: STIMULI ---> BEHAVIOR. Discovered by Ivan Pavlov and his dogs.

Central route processing

An individual thinks deeply and even elaborates on argument presented ( occurs when a person is deeply invested in a situation/has not knowledge). If a person is using this route, is more likely to change attitude if argument is strong and persuasive

Social capital

An individual's social networks and connects that may confer economic or personal benefits

Coercive organization

An organization by which its members do not have a choice

Utilitarian organization

An organization where people are paid/rewarded for their efforts

Social phobia

An unreasonable, paralyzing fear of feeling embarrassed or humiliated while one is watched by others

Crude birth rate

Annual number of live births per 1000 people

Neuroleptic agents

Antipsychotic medications that have an added side effect of enhancing negative symptoms. The "original" drugs

Atypical antipsychotics

Antipsychotics that do not have significant side effects common to older antipsychotics

Prevalence of psychological disorders in adults

Anxiety disorders -20% Mood disorders- 10% Schizophrenia - 1% Personality disorder - 9% Dissociative disorders- 19% Eating disorders -1-6% Somatoform disorders- up to 2%

Exchange Theory

Application of rational choice theory to social interactions. Looks at society as series of interactions between individuals. Used to study family relationships, partner selection, parenting, etc. Interactions are determined by weighing rewards and punishments of each action.

What is required for associative learning of non-instinctual behaviors?

Appropriate cognitive processes (higher level brain function)

Operationalization

Approximating the true variables of interests with one that can be measured or tabulated

Reticular formation

Area of the brainstem involved in alertness and arousal

Food deserts

Areas where it is difficult to find affordable, healthy food options. More common in highly populated low-income urban neighborhoods where there are fewer grocery stores/transportation options to seek out other food choices. Contribute to obesity in these areas bc people resort to buying cheap, highly caloric foods

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

Arises when person feels intense fear, horror, or helplessness while experiencing, witnessing, or otherwise confronting an extremely traumatic event

Dynamic equilibrium

Aspect of functionalism. Complex societies contain many different but interdependent parts working together to maintain stability. Unhealthy cites are unable to maintain this.

Secondary appraisal

Assessing personal ability to cope with a threat. An individual who does not think they can handle a threat will experience greater stress than someone who appraises their ability more highly.

Dispositional attribution

Assigning the cause of an inherent quality or desire (internal locus of control)

Stage 2 Sleep

Associated with bursts of brain wave activity that indicate a full transition into sleep k complex and sleep spindles

State 3 Sleep

Associated with the appearance of delta wave brain emissions, reflecting the transition into deep sleep.

Dramaturgical approach

Assumes that people are theatrical performers and that everyday life is a stage, where people choose what kind of image they want to communicate verbal and nonverbally to others. Critics say this research may not be objective, ad that theory is focused too narrowly on symbolic interaction.

What determines which sensed stimuli continue to the level of perception?

Attention

What is the gatekeeper of consciousness?

Attention

Stereotype

Attributing a certain thought/cognition to a group of individuals and overgeneralizing

The temporal lobe is associated with:

Auditory/ olfactory information, emotion and language, and memory formation

Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

Average is defined at 100. Every 15 points above or below this score represents 1 SD above or below the man.

Avoidance conditioning

Avoidance of unpleasant stimuli by learning new behaviors to help avoid the unpleasant stimuli before it occurs.

Escape conditioning

Avoidance of unpleasant stimuli by learning new behaviors to help terminate the occurring unpleasant stimuli.

Consciousness

Awareness of oneself, one's surroundings, one's thoughts, and one's goals

Prototype willingness model

Behavior is a function of: past behavior, attitudes, subjective norms, our intentions, our willingness to engage in a specific type of behavior, and prototypes/models. Argues that a lot of our behavior is carried out from prototyping

Mating behavior

Behavior surrounding propagation of a species through reproduction. Natural selection plays a role in this.

Altruism

Behavior that is disadvantageous to the individual, but confers benefits to other members of its social group. Appears to have no evolutionary benefit, but in actually improves inclusive fitnesses

Deviance

Behavior that violates social expectations or fails to conform to social norms

Innate behaviors

Behaviors that are developmentally fixed (cannot be modified through experience)

What is necessary for an individual to be capable of observational learning?

Biological processes (mirror neurons)

Bipolar I vs Bipolar II

Bipolar I: Person experiences one manic/mixed episode Bipolar II: Person experiences less extreme manic phases

What point in the human lifespan has the highest amount of neurons?

Birth!

Three types of kinship

Bloodline marriage adoption

Activation Synthesis Hypothesis

Brain gets a lot of neural impulses in brainstem, which is sometimes interpreted by the frontal cortex. Our brain tries to find meaning from random brain activity--> explanation that dreams may not actually have meaning.

Delta waves

Brainwaves detected by an EEG during Stage 3 and Stage 4 sleep that are stronger than alpha waves; signify a person is in deep sleep

Alpha waves

Brainwaves detected by an EEG sleep that represent a relaxed state of wakefulness

Beta waves

Brainwaves detected by an EEG that represent a state of fully alert wakefulness

Anomie

Breakdown of social bonds between an individual and community

Social anomie

Breakdown of social bonds between an individual and community- society doesn't have the support of a firm collective consciousness. Can be resolved by strengthening social norms and redeveloping group's set of shared norms.

Iconic memory

Brief and fleeting photographic memory

Warning colors

Bright colors meant to advertise to predators that an organism is toxic or noxious

Top-down processing

Brings the influence of prior knowledge into play to make perception more efficient.

Sleep spindles

Bursts of waves on an EEG distinctive for stage 2 sleep

Perceiving depth

Cannot be represented on the 2D surface of the retina, so the brain compensates by comparing images seen by each eye--> the differences in the two versions of the same stimulus from slightly different locations allows the brain to estimate depth of object being viewed

Perceiving motion

Cannot be represented on the brain based only on pattern of information received by retina. Visual cortex integrates information gathered by retina and by eye movements to develop correct inferences about motion.

What aspect of cognition is unaffected by aging?

Capacity for retrieving general information

Humanistic theory of personality

Carl Rogers. People continually seek experiences that make them better, more fulfilled individuals- motivated by enhancing the organism. The individual shapes his or her own personality through free will. Conscious decisions make people who they are.

Gender inequality

Central to all behavior. Women subordination is viewed as an inherent feature in our patriarchal society.

Information processing takes place in the:

Cerebral cortex

The most evolved portion of the brain is the:

Cerebral cortex

Global inequality

Certain countries hold a majority of the resources. Access to resources among countries seriously impacts social factors such as mortality. The burden of inequality is placed on certain segments of the population.

McDonaldization

Chains are predicable, uniform, efficient and automated homogeny of the organization leads to loss of originality/creativity

Accommodation

Changing a schema in response to new information that is unable to fit into previously held schemas

Private conformity

Changing internal behaviors/opinions to align with the group

Pheromones

Chemical messengers employed by animals to communicate with each other

Role of culture in cognitive development

Children in Western cultures are generally object-focused, while those raise in Eastern cultures are more relationally focused.

Specialized movement stage

Children learn to combine fundamental movements and apply them to specific tasks.

Schizophrenia

Chronic, incapacitating disorder by which a person is out of touch with reality

Panic attack

Classified as a person experiences intense dread, SOB, chest pain, choking sensation, cardiac symptoms

Communism

Classless, moneyless community where all property is owned by community

Principle of nearness

Clusters of objects will each be perceived as a distinct group

The components of emotion

Cognition: Personal assessment of the significance of particular situation Physiological: Activation of the autonomic nervous system Behavioral: Urges to act in a certain way NOTE: these components can act in ANY order

Gender schema

Cognitions that constitute the gender identity

Proprioception

Cognitive awareness of of balance/position of body in space.

Serial processing

Cognitive process involving considering each input one at a time

Parallel processing

Cognitive process involving devotion to multiple inputs at once

T-test

Compares mean values of a continuous variable between 2 categories/groups.

ANOVA

Compares mean values of a contributes variable for multiple categories/groups

Front stage self

Component of the dramaturgical approach. Encompasses the behavior that a player performs in front of an audience. The player know they are being watched and that their behavior is subject to judgment by an audience

Back stage self

Component of the dramaturgical approach. Encompasses the behavior that a player performs when with other players, but no audience is present. Can include behavior that would be unacceptable when performed in front of the audience.

Aggression

Conflict and competition between individuals. A social behavior

Ludwig Gumplowicz

Conflict theory idea Proposed that society is shaped by war and conquest, and that cultural and ethnic conflicts lead to certain groups becoming dominant over other groups.

Attribution theory

Conscious and unconscious processes both contribute to the formation of ideas about what caused another person to behave in a particular way

The prefrontal cortex is associated with:

Conscious regulation of emotional states, and CRITICAL in temperament and decision making

Class system

Considers both social variables and individual initiative in social stratification

Social cognitive theory of personality

Considers learned experiences and observable behaviors as shaping personality, but also considers the contributions of an individual's mental life and personal choices. Posits reciprocal interaction between behavior, personal factors, and environment in shaping personality/ Includes process of observational learning. Individual have personal control over personality by choosing experiences

Agents of socialization

Consist of the groups and people who influence personal attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Include family, friends, neighbors, social institutions, consumption of mass media, and environments

Three factors impacting attribution of behavior

Consistency--> is the person's behavior typical Distinctiveness--> is the person's behaviors towards everything, or just one thing? Consensus--> are they the only person with that behavior

Feminist Theory

Contemporary approach of looking at work from macro perspective, focusing on stratifications/inequalities in society, particularly women's social roles in education, family, and workforce. Women face DISCRIMINATION, OBJECTIFICATION, OPPRESSION, AND STEREOTYPING. NOT an attempt to replace men.

What is the most rapid way to establish a learned response?

Continuous reinforcement

Beliefs

Convictions or principles that people hold in a culture

Biological basis of Alzheimer's disease

Cortical disease (affects outermost tissue of brain) due to formation of neuritic plaques (hard formations of beta-amyloid protein) and neurofibrillary tangles (clumps of tau protein). Some evidence of acetylcholine activity abnormality in the hippocampus

Family as a social institution

Creates a social group in which to procreate, rear children, pass on cultural knowledge, and cooperate to better meet life's challenge

Iron law of oligarchy

Criticizes the hierarchal nature of bureaucracy ,stating that people at the top of the hierarchy will inevitably come to value their power over the purpose of the orgnanization

Culture lag

Culture takes time to catch up with technological innovations, resulting in social problems

The most recent edition of the guidebook for diagnosis of psychological disorders is the:

DSM-V

Situational attribution

Deciding that environmental forces were in control (external locus of control)

Stage 4 Sleep

Deep sleep. Characterized entirely by delta waves on an EEG

Socioeconomic status (SES)

Defines the economic and social position of a person in terms of income, wealth, education, and occupation (negatively correlated with death rate)

Positive symptoms of psychosis

Delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and disorganized/catatonic behavior

What is Alzheimer's disease?

Dementia that is characterized behaviorally by anterograde amnesia (can remember the past but cannot form new memories). Visual memory is also impaired, leading to confusion with regard to orientation.

Tactics

Describe how the movement implements a strategy

Gestalt Principles

Describe the top-down processing that organizes sensory information into distinct forms. Six principles: nearness, similarity, common region, closure, continuity, and figure & ground

Identity moratorium

Describes a person actively attempting to develop a unique set of values and an understanding of self in society

Identity diffusion

Describes a person with no sense of identity or motivation to engage in identity exploration. Associated with an external locus of control

Obedience

Describes behavioral changes made in response to a command by an authority figure

Reinforcement schedule

Describes how often and under what conditions a behavior is reinforced

Context effects

Describes how the context in which a stimulus occurs can contribute to how people perceive that stimulus

Decay

Describes the fading of a memory. Fate of information in working memory that is not encoded into long term memory. Neurologically, represents wearing of connections that make up the neural network holding a memory.

Long term potentiation

Describes the increase in likelihood that presynaptic input will trigger an action potential in the postsynaptic neuron. Repeated stimulation by the presynaptic neuron leads to increase in strength of the excitatory postsynaptic potential--> makes the postsynaptic neuron more likely to fire in response to stimulation by the presynaptic neuron. Can take place via additive influence of multiple inputs.

Latent learning

Describes the manifestation of previously unseen behavior. Somethings is learned by not expressed as can observable behavior until it is required

ABC Model

Describes three major components of attitudes Affective component- person's feelings about the thing Behavioral component- The influence that attitudes have on behavior Cognitive component- Beliefs/knowledge about a specific object of interests

Insight learning

Describes when previously learned behaviors are suddenly combined in unique ways.

Mate choice

Determined by a number of factors, including genetic qualities, overall health, and potential parenting skills of prospective mates

Why is the problem with characterizing mental illness?

Determining what classifies ""abnormal" psychological conditions is ARBITRARY. Imposes categories on traits that exist on a continuum

George Herbert Mead

Developed Symbolic Interactionism. Believed development of individual was a social process as were the meanings individuals assigned to things

Theory of Differential Association

Deviance is a learned behavior that results from continuous exposure to others whom violate norms and laws

Social control

Direct form of socialization in which one group or individual imposes a set of rules to control the behavior of others

Operant extinction

Disappearance of a behavior through removal of reinforcers (ex. if a dog learns to sit down in order to receive a treat, and treats are no longer given, the "sit down" behavior will eventually disappear)

Classical extinction

Disappearance of a conditioned response through disassociation of the conditioned and unconditioned response

Reverse discrimination

Discrimination against the majority. Used to describe the negative consequences of affirmative action

Role exit

Disengaging from a role that that has become closely tied to one's self-identity to take on another

Neurodevelopment disorders

Disorders that involve distress/disability due to abnormality in development of nervous system. Include intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorders, and ADHD

Neurotransmitter associated with additive behaviors

Dopamine

Hallucinogens

Drugs that alter sensory and perceptual experience. Most act as agonists.

Barbituates

Drugs that are used to induce sleep or reduce anxiety. Act as depressants.

Opiates

Drugs that are used to treat pain and anxiety. NOT depressants--> act on endorphins.

Antagonists

Drugs that bind to neurotransmitter receptors without activating them, thereby blocking the binding of the associated neurotransmitter and undermining its normal effects.

Depressants

Drugs that cause a decrease of activity in the CNS.

Reuptake inhibitors

Drugs that interfere with the reuptake of neurotransmitters in the synapse so that a greater amount remains in the synapse

Agonists

Drugs that mimic chemically similar, naturally occurring neurotransmitters

Enzyme inhibitors

Drugs that prevent the breakdown of neurotransmitters that have been taken up by the presynaptic neuron

Stimulants

Drugs that raise the level of activity in the CNS. Many act by increasing the amount of monoamine neurotransmitters (epinephrine/dopamine) in the synapse.

Sleep terrors are most likely to occur:

During NREM sleep

EEG and Alertness

EEGs show particular types of brainwaves called beta waves when a person is alert

spatial summation

EPSPs and IPSPs from all the synapses are summed at a given moment in time

Energy (conservation)

ET = Ek + Ep E = mc2

(kin, pot E)

Ek = 1/2 mv^2 Ep = mgh

The amygdala is associated with:

Emotional reactions of fear and anger

Role of Emotion in Memory Retrieval

Emotions act as retrieval cues, in that retrieval of memory is strongest when the emotional state during retrieval is similar to that of memory formation. Additionally, memories of higher emotional significance are more readily available for retrieval.

Interactionist theory of language development

Emphasizes interaction between biology and environment in developing language. The human brain develops so that it can be receptive to new language input and development. Children are motivated to practice the language in order to communicate/socialize

Serial position effect

Encompass the primacy and recency effects that come with trying to remember a list of items

Nonmaterial culture

Encompasses the elements of cultures that are not physical. Includes shared ideas, knowledge, assumptions, values, and beliefs that unify a group of people.

Pluralism

Encourages racial/ethnic variation

Retrieval cues

Environmental stimuli or pieces of information that are associated in some way with a memory being sought. Typically present at the time the memory was originally formed

What are the two main hormones released by the sympathetic nervous system?

Epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine (noradrenaline)

Trust vs Mistrust

Erikson psychosocial crisis resolved in the first year of life. Ability to trust.

Autonomy vs shame/doubt

Erikson psychosocial crisis resolved in the second year of life. Ability to self-care.

Random error

Error that is due to chance and is not standardized. Decreases precision.

Systematic error

Error that shifts all measurements in a standardized way. Decreases accuracy. Can result in bias

Instrument bias

Errors due to systematic malfunctioning of a mechanical instrument

Primary appraisal

Evaluating a situation for the presence of any potential threat. If present, a secondary appraisal is generated

Social comparison

Evaluating our opinions by comparing them to those of others. Facilitates the development of a distinct self of self in terms of similarity/difference from other people

Past-in-present discrimination

Even if discrimination done in the past is no longer allowed, can still have consequences for people in the present

Iron rule of oligarchy

Even the most democratic of organizations become more bureaucratic over time until they're governed by a select few

Episodic memory

Event-related memories

Rational choices Perspective/Theory

Every action people do is fundamentally rational. A person acts as if they are weighing costs and benefits of each action. People act in self-interest, driven by personal desires and goals.

fMRI

Examines brain activity by measuring blood flow, which an indicator of metabolic activity (b/c of need for oxygen for increased metabolic activity)

Period study

Examining the number of offspring produced during a specific time period

Anxiety disorders manifest physically as:

Excessive sympathetic nervous system activation

Sick role

Expectation in society that allows you to take a break from responsibilities . However, if you don't get better or return you are viewed as deviant

Gender differences

Expectations for gender are passed down from generation to generation.

Social norms

Expectations that govern what behavior is acceptable within a group. Social interactions help define a culture by establishing these

Lazarus Theory

Experience of emotion depends on how the situation is labelled. We label the situation, which then leads to emotional and physiological response

Priming

Exposure to one stimulus affects a response to another stimulus, even if we haven't been paying attention to it

Internal validity

Extent to which a causal conclusion based on a study is warranted. Impacted by confounding factors

Spring Force, Work

F = -kx W = kx^2 /2

Similar Form

F = ma F = qE F = KG ( m1 m2 / r2 ) F = k ( q1 q2 / r2 )

Microsociology

Face to face interactions, families, schools, other social interactions. Interpretive analysis of society, looking at sample of society and how individual interactions would affect larger groups in society

Economic interdependence

Factor in globalization where corporations often conduct operations across multiple continents

Attraction

Factors that draw members of a species together. A social behavior

Source traits

Factors underlying human personality and behavior

Type II error

False negative

Type I error

False positive

Hyperopia

Farsightedness

Karl Marx

Father of sociology Associated with Conflict Theory. Looked at the economic conflict between different social classes, and argued that societies progress through class struggle between those who own and control production and those who labor and provide the manpower for production. Believed that capitalism would ultimately lead to self-destruction of society due to internal tensions.

Max Weber

Father of sociology. conflict theory idea Argued that in a capitalist society inequalities would lead to conflict, but that there would be more than one source of conflict. Argued that there were several factors that moderated people's reaction to inequality.

Uniform circular motion

Fc = mac = mv2 /r ac= v2 /r

Universal emotions include:

Fear Anger Happiness Surprise Disgust Sadness

Vicarious emotions

Feeling the emotions of others as though they are one's own, in order to learn from the successes and mistakes of others through observation

Social class in America is largely determined by ________.

Financial wealth

Social support

Finding help through social connections. A social behavior

Primacy bias

First impressions are important-- extra emphasis on information that reinforces first impression

Sensory memory

First phase in memory formation. Acts as temporary storage for incoming sensory stimuli. Encoding at this state is simply transducing physical stimuli into electrical information--> unconscious, neurological process. Information from here will either be lost or encode as short-term memory. Can hold a LOT of information at any given time.

Rudimentary movements

First voluntary movements performed by a child

Assimilation

Fitting new information into preexisting schemas

Fad

Fleeting behavior that occurs when something becomes incredibly popular very quickly but loses popularity just as quickly

Echoic memory

Fleeting memory for sound

Resource Mobilization Theory

Focus on factors that help/hinder a social movement like access to resources

Drive reduction theory

Focuses on internal factors in motivations. Posits that people are motivated to take action in order to lessen the state of arousal caused by a physiological need

Cohort study

Following a subset of a population over a lifetime

Attachment

Forming relationships between individuals. A social behavior

Psychoanalytic theory of personality

Founded by Sigmund Freud. Personality is determined by a person's unconscious- the flow of psychic energy between three systems in the stream of consciousness (id, ego, and superego). Development of personality takes place according to a process of conflict between components of the SoC. CRUCIAL: Personality processes take place outside of conscious awareness.

Functionalism

Founder: Emile Durkheim Macrosocial perspective - Society works together to maintain stability - Society is a system that consists of different components working together, with distinct institutions that contribute to functioning. Seeks to understand what different structures in society contribute to society at large. When disruptions occur, the interacting systems respond to get back to a stable state.

Conflict Theory

Founder: Karl Marx Macrosocial perspective Views society in terms of competing groups that act according to their own self-interests, rather than according to the need for societal equilibrium. Society is a competition for limited resources. Explains societal changes but NOT societal societal stability (assumes stability is undesirable to societal groups that are oppressed) Views human actions in terms of larger forces of inequality, but leaves motivations choices of individuals unexamined. Ignores the non-forceful ways in which people reach agreement, and approaches society more from those who lack power. Tends to be too economically focused. Weber: religion, economy, other conflicts Gumplowicz: war

Health/medicine as a social institution

Fulfills the need for healthcare in an organized manner, with beliefs about diseases and approaches to healing varying between societies and cultures

Mass Media as viewed by functionalism and conflict theory

Functionalist: provides entertainment Conflict: portrays divisions that exist in society

Gender script

Gender-specific organized information regarding order of actions appropriate to familiar situations

Evolutionary psychology

Gene associated with certain psychological traits that improve an individual's chances for successful reproduction tend to be conserved

Strategy

General plan describing the goals of a movement

Informal norms

Generally understood but are less precise and often carry no specific punishments

Stress-diathesis theory

Genetics provides a biological predisposition for schizophrenia, but environmental stressors elicit the onset of the disease

Biological factors associated with schizophrenia

Genetics, excess dopamine activity, brain atrophy (smaller brain)

The most powerful predictor of friendships and relationships:

Geographical proximity

Monarchy

Government embodied by single person, king/queen is the figurehead

Population pyramid

Graphs a population's sex and age cohorts

Social movement

Group of people who share an ideology and work together toward a specific set of goals

Negative control

Group with no response expected

Mass society theory

Groups only form for people seeking refuge from main society (ex. Nazism)

Role conflict

Happens when there is a conflict in society's expectations for multiple statuses held by the same person

Divorce rate in America

Has generally increased due to social and religious acceptance, more opportunities for women's autonomy, and lessened financial and legal barriers

Dizygotic twins

Have genomes that are no more similar than any other biological sibling

Monozygotic twins

Have virtually identical genomes

Paraphilia

Having sexual arousal to unusual stimuli

Auguste Comte

He is a 19th century philosopher who, together with Émile Durkheim and Herbert Spencer, is considered the founding father of functionalism. Functionalism is a macro-sociological theory that sees society as an organic entity. It argues the each element of society should be understood with regard to the function it serves its overall construction. Functionalism would ask how certain behaviors contribute to the stable order of society; what is their purpose or function within a specific social context.

John Bowlby

He is a child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst known for having developed the evolutionary Attachment theory, from the 1950's onwards. He argued that attachment, or the biological bond between a child and the primary caregiver, is the basis of people's subsequent relations with others and of their mental representation of the world, self, and others. His student Mary Ainsworth developed an attachment style test in 1967 that demonstrated the validity of Bowlby's claims and is known as the strange situation. Specifically, through the observation of caregiver-child interactions in controlled situation, thee attachment styles can be detected: Secure (seeking both autonomy and contact with caregiver), Avoidant (generally rejecting or avoiding contact with caregiver, and mainly seeking autonomous play) and Anxious-ambivalent (generally clinging to caregiver and not seeking to engage in autonomous play). Subsequently, the Disorganized or Fearful-dismissing attachment style was added to describe those who exhibited insecure behaviors that did not clearly fit existing insecure categories.

James Marcia

He is a clinical and developmental psychologist known for having expanded Erik Erikson's identity theory in the 1970's. He defined four identity statuses characteristic of late adolescence, a period characterized by Erikson as corresponding to the crisis of Identity vs. Role Confusion. These ways of dealing with identity issues were: identity achievement (commitment to self-chosen goals and principles), foreclosure (commitment to parentally chosen goals and principles), identity diffusion (absence of goals and principles), and moratorium (struggling with setting goals and principles).

Howard Gardner

He is a developmental psychologist interested in the study of intelligence, well-known for having developed the Multiple intelligence theory. Firstly described in 1983, it states that there are many behaviors that are intelligent and that someone's intelligence can only be understood from the multiple intelligence perspective. According to him, there are nine types of intelligence: musical-rhythmic; visual-spatial; verbal-linguistic; logical-mathematical; bodily-kinesthetic; interpersonal; intrapersonal; naturalistic; and existential. The original work described eight types of intelligence; the latter 9th form of intelligence (existential) was only subsequently added.

Martin Seligman

He is a humanist psychologist sometimes considered the father of Positive Psychology. This is due to his published manifesto, written in the 2000's, which urged psychologists to move away from the disease model toward a positive psychology model. Rather than correcting weaknesses and treating diseases, as most of clinical psychology models, Positive psychology seeks to foster qualities and build strengths in human beings. He believes that this change is preventive in itself because it acts as a buffer against mental illness. He also developed the Theory of learned helplessness, which speculates that when people are in situations where they perceive that they have no control, they will eventually just give up trying to solve their problems. The theory of learned helplessness has been used to explain depression, as well as to some extent suicide and addiction.

James Flynn

He is a political sciences professor, interested in the study of intelligence, and known for having described the Flynn effect in 1987. The Flynn effect shows that average IQ has risen by an average of three points per decade. He further argues that environmental factors (e.g., culture, education) explain genetic differences in intelligence, inclusively between races.

Aaron Beck

He is a psychiatrist known for having developed the Cognitive therapy model in the 1960's, initially for the treatment of clinical depression, and as a follow up of Albert Ellis' Rational-emotive therapy model. Both were attempts to reduce the clients' treatment length, one which was usually long under psychoanalytic therapies. He posited that cognitive distortions, which are patterns of false, illogical, and erroneous thought patterns or beliefs, influence people's emotions and behaviors and could result in psychological disorders. To improve mental health, therapists should identify existing cognitive distortions and restructure people's automatic thoughts. His model was applied to pathologies other than depression. It has also shown moderate therapeutic success for the treatment of anxiety disorders and it is the one most often used due to it being a very structured, evidence-based approach to people's problems. Nevertheless, it has also shown to be ineffective with certain clients and pathologies.

Murray Bowen

He is a psychiatrist known for having developed the Family systems theory from the 1950's onwards. It generally argues that people can only be understood from the viewpoint of their relationships with others, as part of a social system. They cannot be understood in isolation, cut-off from their relations with family members and others with whom they interact. In this theory, the concept of self-differentiation, which is to be opposed to the psychoanalytic concept of fusion, is core. Self-differentiation refers to the ability to simultaneously maintain one's individuality and identity while relating to others.

Phillip Zimbardo

He is a psychologist famous for his Theory of deindividuation and his Stanford Prison Experiment, firstly performed in 1971. Deindividuation is a psychological state whereby self-awareness is reduced and loss of identity is experienced. This can be brought on by external circumstances that promote anonymity, such as diffusion of responsibility, sensory overload, altered states of consciousness, and group membership. His experiment was used to illustrate deindividuation, as well as the constructs of cognitive dissonance theory, obedience to authority, conformity to peer pressure, and situational attribution theory. Against Zimbardo's beliefs, it has been found that deindividuation does not necessarily increase antisocial behaviors. It now seems that it is not the fact that they are deindividuated but rather the specific situation that determines whether people perform more antisocial or prosocial behaviors.

Paul Ekman

He is a psychologist famous for his cross-cultural research on emotions. Between the 1980's and 1990's, he travelled the world showing pictures of people expressing six basic or universal emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise) to literate Eastern and Western people. There was a high agreement between participants about which emotion was being expressed in the picture. He concluded that emotion expression and recognition had a universal trait; every human being expressed and interpreted emotional expressions in similar ways, regardless of their culture. Subsequent research lead by him showed that some emotions, such as contentment, had a lower consensus across cultures; that positive emotions (but not negative ones) were culturally sensitive; and that women were more accurate at emotion recognition than men. His views on nonverbal behavior and emotion expression and detection have evolved considerably throughout the years alongside continuous research.

Paul Pedersen

He is a psychologist interested in intercultural and multicultural psychological aspects since the 1960's. He claims that multiculturalism should be regarded as a fourth force or dimension in psychology, to add to behaviorism, psychoanalysis, and humanism. This force is dedicated to the cross-cultural systematic comparison and study of behavior, cognition, and affect in different cultural settings and/or in settings where people of different cultural backgrounds interact. According to him, cultural differences in expressing and interpreting emotion, as well as in behavior and cognition, can account for communication problems, not only in treatment settings, but also in all areas of an individuals' life. Thus, beyond inter-individual differences, it would be importance to take cultural differences into account in every intercultural and multicultural psychological study or intervention.

Icek Azjen

He is a psychologist known for having developed the Theory of planned behavior in the field of social psychology in the end of the 20th century. It can be considered a model for deliberate action, as derived from motivational and informational factors. It states that individuals' beliefs, attitudes and subjective norms influence their intentions, which in turn influence their decisions and actual behaviors. It was a modification of the Theory of reasoned action, also partly developed by Azjen in 1980. Namely, the factor "perceived behavioral control" was added so as to increase that theory's predictive power. His Theory of planned behavior has been used to understand many behaviors. For example, health educators frequently use it to formulate health promotion and disease prevention communication strategies. They target beliefs, attitudes and subjective norms associated with unhealthy and healthy behaviors with the goal of increasing the actual adoption of healthy behaviors.

Robert Sternberg

He is a psychologist who has been interested in the study of aspects such as intelligence, creativity, and love since the 1970's. His Triangular model of love suggests that there are three components of love: intimacy (i.e., feelings of attachment, closeness, connectedness, and bondedness), passion (i.e., drives connected to both limerence and sexual attraction), and commitment (the decision to remain with another and the plans made with that other). According to him, for any given couple, love can be based on any one of these three components, a combination of any two of them, or all three. The amount of love one experiences and the duration of the relationship depend upon the absolute strength of these three components. His Triarchic theory of intelligence also distinguished between three different factors: analytic intelligence (i.e., problem solving), creative intelligence (i.e., capacity to deal with new situations), and practical intelligence (i.e., ability to adapt to a changing environment). They would function in the same way the three types of love function, that is, they would be graded, non-mutually exclusive qualities of intelligence.

Stanley Milgram

He is a psychologist, well-known for his experiments about the process of Obedience to authority figures, firstly described in 1963. He executed his studies in an effort to understand the atrocities performed during World War II. His most known laboratory experiment involved research subjects being told that they were the "teachers" and that a "learner" would have electrical shocks administered by them, at incremental levels depending on the learner's mistakes. The learner was a confederate, who would feign pain when a light appeared, and no real electrical shocks were actually administered. There was also confederate "authority figure" who constantly incentivized the teacher to administer shocks, regardless of the teacher's objections. The use of Milgram's standardized experiment has consistently found that people are obedient; that is, they will in the main obey an authority figure even if that means harming others and when they personally object to such conduct.

Harold Garfinkel

He is a sociologist interested in social relations and known for having popularized Ethnomethodology from the 1950's onwards. This research method focuses on how people make sense of everyday social situations and social order. People are seen as rational actors, who employ practical reasoning rather than formal logic to make sense of and function in society. Their rationality and understanding would transpire in their attitudes. Thus, studying their attitudes and discourse, which are named "methods" for sense-making in his theory, would allow describing what they think about society and how they enact social order. The theory argues that human society is entirely dependent on people's "methods" of achieving and displaying understanding.

Robert K. Merton

He is a sociologist interested in sociology of knowledge and mass communication. Sociology of knowledge mainly analyzes the way scientific understanding is socially constructed; as he would say, science becomes "socially organized skepticism." One of his most famous theories regards his Theory on deviance. For him, deviance can be explained through the relationship between cultural and social goals and structural socially accepted means required to achieve them. Their analysis would allow the distinction between four long-term attitudes: conformism (accepting social goals and means), innovation (accepting social goals and rejecting means) and ritualism (rejecting goals but accepting means), retreatism (rejecting both goals and means). Rebellion would be an additional short-term attitude that aimed at replacing existing goals and means, unlike the other attitudes. He also introduced the term self-fulfilling prophecies in 1948 to address issues of financial crisis, racism and discrimination. It states that when people believe something to be true, even if it is not, that thing will eventually become true. That is, people's beliefs shape reality.

Milton Bennett

He is a sociologist known for having developed the Developmental model of intercultural sensitivity, initially in the 1980's. This is a framework that describes how people relate to cultural differences. According to this model, there are two main stages, each with three sub-stages. The ethnocentric stage includes the stages of denial, defense, and minimization of cultural differences. In these stages, one's own culture forms the basis for reality perception and organization. The more complex ethnorelative stage includes the sub-stages of acceptance, adaptation, and integration of cultural differences. In each one of these ethnorelative stages one's own culture is seen in relation to other cultures.

James Fowler

He is a theologian interested in the study of the development of morals and religious faith. His Faith development theory, firstly described in 1981, is based on findings obtained via in-depth interviews conducted with adults and children. According to this theory, faith develops through seven stages: Primal or Undifferentiated faith (from birth to two years); Intuitive-Projective faith (three to seven years); Mythic-Literal faith (from seven to puberty); Synthetic-Conventional faith (adolescence to young adulthood); Individuative-Reflective faith (young adulthood to late thirties); Conjunctive faith (during mid-life crisis); and "Universalizing" faith or enlightment (middle to late adulthood).

Thomas Malthus

He is an economist famous for having laid out the Malthusian theory of population growth in his 1798 essay. He believed that populations could grow exponentially at a much faster rate than the available food supply. Eventually, population growth would outpace means of subsistence, and this would lead to human catastrophe and misery.

John R. Stroop

He is the psychologist known for having devised the famous Stroop Test in 1935. This is a test that shows how quickly individuals can react in a task when there is interference between Conflicting information or cognitive processes. Specifically, individuals are asked to name the color of a word that is printed with a font color that sometimes is the same and sometimes is different from the written color's name (e.g., the word blue being typed in a yellow font). Typically, it takes longer and people make more errors when there is a mismatch between the color font and the meaning of the word. This is known as the Stroop effect.

Herbert Spencer

He was a 19th century sociologist and philosopher. He is famous for his structural-functionalist perspective and is contributions to the Evolutionary theory. Some argue he, and not Charles Darwin, is responsible for introducing the expression survival of the fittest to describe the main mechanism behind species' evolution throughout the ages. Only the fittest organisms would survive and pass along their genes. As such, species would be increasingly fitter, and "evolve". He then adopted the perspective to describe the evolution of societies, thereby influencing the development of Social Darwinism. For this purpose, he made a parallel between what amounted to regulatory, sustaining, and distribution systems in the natural and the social world. As organisms, societies evolved from simple to complex forms. Yet, they were superorganisms and could more swiftly adapt to the changing environment. This, for Herbert Spencer, was a way of better understanding the division between nature and culture.

Frank Notestein

He was a demographer who published about population growth and economic development between the 1930's and the 1970's. His Theory of demographic transition claimed that every country passed through sequential stages of population growth: High Growth Potential (high birth and death rates); Transitional Growth (declining death, and then birth rates); and Incipient Population Growth (low birth and death rates and population stability). The transitional growth stage is sometimes divided into two stages: early transition, characterized by declining death rates; and late transition, characterized by both death and birth rates' decline. The terms Pre-transition and Post-transition are also sometimes utilized to refer to the High Growth Potential and the Incipient Population Growth stages, respectively.

Erik Erikson

He was a developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst who started publishing around the 1950s. He developed a Psychosocial development theory of personality and made significant contributions to Ego psychology. His is an epigenic theory; it accepts that both biological and behavioral phenotypic traits can be genetically predetermined. It argues that identity development goes through epigenically determined bipolar crises that involves making mutually exclusive adaptive vs. non-adaptive (or un healthy) emotional choices Developmentally, these are: Trust vs. Mistrust (from birth to one year), Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (two to three years), Initiative vs. Guilt (four to five years), Industry vs. Inferiority (six years to puberty), Identity vs. Role Confusion (adolescence), Intimacy vs. Isolation (young adulthood), Generativity vs. Stagnation (middle adulthood), and Integrity vs. Despair (late adulthood). The person can experiment with constructive and destructive choices during each crisis. Yet, for the crisis to be successfully resolved, adaptive choices would have to be made.

Gustav Theodor Fechner

He was a doctor, philosopher, and physicist from the 19th century. He is usually considered the father of psychophysics, even though Ernst Heinrich Weber, his tutor, was the first person to scientifically approach the field. This science aims at investigating the mathematical relationship between environmental stimuli (physical event) and sensations (psychological event) through experimental procedures, as those outlined in his 1960 book entitled Elemente der Psychophysik (Elements of Psychophysics), vol.2. Weber's law, also sometimes named Weber-Fechner's law, is central to this theory. It was formulated by Ernst Heinrich Weber, and then explained by Fechner in logarithmical terms. Both laws delve into the same aspects and only differ in the way they are formally expressed. This is partly the reason for Fechner being perhaps improperly credited as the father of psychophysics. It is more precise to say that Fechner utilized the data obtained by Weber during his experiments about discrimination threshold across sensory organs and Weber's law to formulated the Fechner's law (or Fechner's scale). It states that, for "the intensity of a sensation to increase in arithmetical progression, the stimulus must increase in geometrical progression."

Antonio Gramsci

He was a humanist, philosopher, and neo-Marxist known for having developed the concept of hegemony, first utilized in the early 1960. It describes the ideological control of the ruling class over the proletariat, in the context of a discussion of a "war of position". The ruling class' ideology imposed itself as normality, over and above the ideology of other classes. According to him, such control could be overcome through "organic intellectuals" and their new revolutionary ideas on how to run society.

Karl Marx

He was a philosopher, economist, and sociologist, famous for having developed a prominent socialist theory in the 19th century and for publishing the Communist manifesto. His theory is currently known as Marxism. For him, society progressed via class struggles, and specifically between the capitalist bourgeoisie and the working proletariat. The dominant class (capitalism bourgeoisies) would impose their ideology over the remaining class (es). For example, he argued that population growth was the result of the bourgeoisie's need for wealth and derived need for new labor. Due to capitalism, unemployment would increase and a reserve army of labor would be created. As a result, wages decreased, and a large part of the population could not feed itself. He is famous for having introduced many influent concepts. An example is False consciousness, which refers to the process of workers adopting the dominant classes' views, and then acting against their own interests without being able to identify the injustice, control, and distortion being created by capitalist institutions and ideology over the working class.

Thomas Szasz

He was a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst well known for criticizing the utilization of the medical model in the field of psychology. In his 1976 paper, he stated that mental health was a myth. In contrast with medical diseases, which were biological entities, mental health labels were merely metaphors utilized by people to describe the behaviors of others. For example, describing someone else as hysterical simply expressed how that person overreacted and was overly emotional.

Henry Murray

He was a psychologist and psychoanalyst, known for having developed a projective personality test entitled Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) in the 1950's, alongside students of his. This is a storytelling test still currently in use, principally with children. Prior to that, he also developed a personality theory sometimes named Personology. It posited that all human beings have psychogenic needs that are basic and rooted in the unconscious. Murray identified a total of 17 needs, each belonging to one of five particular need categories: Ambition, Materialistic, Power, Affection, and Information.

Louis Thurstone

He was a psychologist interested in the psychometric study of intelligence. He is known for having supported the development of statistical techniques for Factor analysis, one of which presented at length in his 1935 book entitled The Vectors of the Mind. He also developed a theory of intelligence. He believed that, rather than intelligence being a unified entity that could be expressed as a number, people had seven different "primary mental abilities." As assessed by the Primary Mental Abilities Test, published in 1938, these were: verbal comprehension, word fluency, number facility, spatial visualization, associative memory, perceptual speed, and reasoning.

Charles Spearman

He was a psychologist interested in the study of intelligence since the beginning of the 20th century. He is famous for having claimed that individuals who are intelligent possess the g factor. This factor translated a general cognitive ability, as those who perform well on one cognitive test tend to also perform well on others. This factor is sometimes called fluid intelligence, and opposed to crystalized intelligence. The g-factor would be concerned with the velocity with which reasoning, inferences, and conclusions are reached, whereas crystalized intelligence would rather be based on pre-acquired knowledge. Several tests were developed to assess the g factor, one of which is still widely used: the Raven Matrices. inferences and conclusions are reached, whereas crystalized intelligence would rather be based on pre-acquired knowledge.

Wolfgang Köhler

He was a psychologist, who, alongside Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, Kurt Koffka, and Edgar Rubin, is known for founding Gestalt psychology theory. In brief, it claims that the whole is different from the sum of its parts. That is, adding up the different elements that constitutes an object or a process is not sufficient arriving at the overall object or process. Gestalt psychology became famous for its studies on perception, wherein art and experimentation were utilized for illustrating perceptive mechanisms. Nevertheless, it was also applied to other research areas. Köhler in particular is credited with coining and studying the insight learning process. This theory posits that people and animals do not learn by operant conditioning or trial and error. Rather, they learn by having an insight or figuring out a solution for their problems. This solution is then applied to their situation. That is, the problem-solving attempts are meaning and purposeful, rather than random strategies carried out on the off-chance of getting lucky and finding out the solution. He published a book called Mentality of the Apes in 1917 in which his experiments with chimps, that illustrated the insight learning process, are described.

Ferdinand Tönnies

He was a sociologist and philosopher, famous for having presented the Theory of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft (translated as community and society) firstly in 1883. It described how a growing population and the rise of urban centers led to modern societies that are characterized through more impersonalized interactions between their members. The decline of small, traditional communities also led to more personal choice for individuals and increased social diversity.

Talcott Parsons

He was a sociologist from the functionalist school known for having formulated the Sick role theory in 1951. This theory claims that, when people are labelled sick, they may enter the sick role. This frees them from responsibilities other than treatment-related ones. That is, when in the sick role, individuals cease to be required to engage with their existing social roles, such as working and/or taking care of their family, and are required instead to seek help and address their health problems as quickly as possible. Only after regaining a healthy status, that is, when leaving the sick role are they expected to return to the performance of their other social roles.

Robert Agnew

He was a sociologist known for having developed Strain theory in the criminology field around 1990. He argued that stressors or strains (e.g., social pressure) can trigger negative emotions. These, in turn, increase the likelihood of the occurrence of certain negative or deviant behaviors such as crime. It was an expansion of Robert King Merton's theory on the sources of strain in society and has been applied to understanding other types of behaviors that are elicited by negative emotions.

Georg Simmel

He was a sociologist who has published about sociability, religion, and economy since the 1950's. He introduced the distinction between religiosity, an inner disposition toward the sacred, such as faith, for example, and religion, an objective, organizational form assumed by religiosity in the social world, such as the different existing churches. Religiosity would therefore be the substance, or content, of religious organizations. Among other aspects, he is also known for describing how the number of members determines the group's sociological form; and how fashion consumption of lower-class people was an attempt at upward social mobility. They adopted the tastes of higher-class people, which in return rendered certain products undesirable for the upper classes. This effect became known as the Trickle-down effect.

Wright Mills

He was a sociologist who published extensively between the 1940's and the 1960's. He was influenced by Max Weber's description of the impacts of class, status, and power in existing social and political systems and structures. In the book entitled Sociological Imagination, published in 1959, he criticizes sociology's methods and principles and introduces a new way of thinking about the self and society. Specifically, his macrosociological proposal emphasizes the importance of sociological imagination or creativity, as opposed to objectivity. Mills was also one of the first intellectuals to conceptualize power and the relation between it and the local government of the United States in his 1956 book entitled The Power Elite. Among other things, it is there claimed that the decisions or lack of thereof of the elite (dominant class in dominant institutions of dominant countries) have great global consequences. Moreover, the elite itself is neither necessarily aware of its status nor of the extensiveness of the impact of their decisions.

Ernst Heinrich Weber

He was an anatomist and physiologist from the 19th century. He is perhaps improperly uncredited as the father of psychophysics, a science that aims at investigating the mathematical relationship between environmental stimuli (physical event) and sensations (psychological event) through experimental procedures. He his most famous for having conducted a series of experiments about which increases in the intensity of some stimulus where detected by individuals across a set of sensory organs. These experiments helped to establish the Weber's law. It states that the minimum increase in the intensity of a physical stimulus that is detected by the individual amounts to a just-noticeable difference (or discrimination threshold). This discrimination threshold is a constant named Weber fraction.

Claude Lévi-Strauss

He was an anthropologist and philosopher, who was interested in the cultural evolution of mankind and started publishing around 1940. He is known for his contributions to the development of Structuralism. Structuralism argues that form takes precedence over content; that is, overarching social and cultural structures are critical for the understanding of smaller socio-cultural behaviors, objects, and events. One of Lévi-Strauss' thesis argued that savage thought differed from civilized thought because it resembled the bricolage-type of thought of the handyman, who utilizes whatever materials are already available to solve concrete, visible problems. This was compared to the civilized thought, that predefined strategies to learn new, sometimes intangible things, and selected means as a function of aims. For him, it was the structure of their culture that shaped their reasoning differences.

Thorstein Veblen

He was an economist and sociologist who approached the study of economic institutions through an evolutionary perspective. His first publication, entitled The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions, dates 1899. It linked business with survival, and industry with cooperativity. He also discussed how markets operate by making consumer goods available at a price point that initially only people from higher classes can afford. Lower classes began to purchase those products when they were produced in larger quantities and therefore more affordable.

Alfred Adler

He was the psychologist and psychanalyst who, in the beginning of the 20th century, was responsible for founding Individual psychology, in the suite of his criticism to Sigmund Freud's theory of psychosexual development. Individual psychology is a counseling theory that is concerned with the impact of sexual but also non-sexual individual motivations on people's personality. It revolves around concepts such as power, superiority, inferiority, and birth order. For example, it asserts that human beings are driven by their will to be superior, that is, to be competent at whatever they strive to do - sometimes even more competent than others. The expression inferiority complex is derived from this theory. It amounts to the set of attitudes, behaviors and thoughts shown by those who believe they are inferior, such as permanently seeking to compensate their so-perceived shortcomings with greater power and manifested superiority. His theory is sometimes named Adlerian theory.

Julian Rotter

He was the psychologist known for having devised, from 1954 onward, the social learning Locus of control theory. It explores the impact of the amount of control people believe they have in and over their life circumstances. In brief, it claims that those with an external locus of control of reinforcement will attribute their experiences and achievements to external events, while those with an internal locus of control will attribute their experiences and achievements to internal events such as personal effort. These beliefs differently affect the person's life and well-being. He also devised, in 1966, the tool to assess people's type of locus of control, known as the Rotter Internal-External Locus of Control Scale. As a variable, locus of control has been found to be associated with many important biopsychosocial constructs and measures, such as self-esteem and cortisol activity.

Lev Vygotsky

He was trained as a lawyer but spent his life researching in the area of psychology during the first decades of the 20th century. He is often considered the founder of Sociocultural psychology theory, an example of which is his is well-known approach to the development of language. In brief, his Theory of language development postulated that children learn from their environment and through social learning. That is, by communicating with others, children learnt language and developed; interacting with adults worked as "scaffolding."

Hypnagonic hallucinations

Hearing or seeing things that aren't there

Caste system

Hierarchy of society is strictly defined, position is inherited movement or marriage between castes is prohibited low social mobility

High neuroticism corresponds to:

High levels of emotional instability, anxiety, and moodiness

Flashbulb memories

Highly vivid memories that are tied to emotions. Can be subjected to reconstruction.

Professions

Highly-esteemed white collar occupations that require a great deal of education

Which region of then brain is particularly important in positive conditioning?

Hippocampus

Ghrelin

Hormone released by the stomach and pancreas that heightens the sensation of hunger

Self-presentation

How an individual is perceived

The looking glass self

How we see ourselves does not come from who we really are, but rather from how we believe others see us

Kinship/kin

How we think about who we are related to. Considered a cultural group rather than biological

Medicalization

Human conditions previously considered normal get defined as medical conditions, and are subject to studies, diagnosis, and treatment.

Dopamine hypothesis

Hypersensitive dopamine receptors and overabundance of dopamine is associated with schizophrenia

Momentum, Impulse

I = F Δt = ΔM M = mv

Current and Resistance

I = Q/t R = ρl/A

Social selection

Idea that an individual's health can influence their social mobility. Social conditions can affect reproductive rates of individual in a population

Just world phenomenon

Idea that the universe is fair so people must get what they deserve (Good things happen to good people, and vice versa)

Internalization

Idea/belief/behavior that has be been integrated into our own values. We conform to the belief privately. Stronger than other types of conformity

Looking glass self

Identity develops through interpersonal interactions with others in society and the perceptions of others. People shape their self-concepts based on their understanding of how others perceive them

Strain theory

If a person is blocked from attaining a culturally accepted goal, they may become frustrated/strained and turn to deviance

Thomas Theorem

If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences. AKA the objective reality of a situation doesn't matter as much as someone's perception of what they believe is happening. Theory of social constructionism.

Regression to the mean

If the first measurement is extreme, second measurement will be closer to the mean

Normative social influence

If we do something to gain respect/support of our peers, we're complying with social norms

World Systems Theory

Importance of world as a unit, dividing world into: CORE (Western Europe/US), PERIPHERY (Latin America, Africa) SEMI-PERIPHERY (India, Brazil)

Normative influence

In group discussion, taking a stronger stance than you initially would have in order to better relate with and internalize the group's belief system. Even if you know what's right, do group's actions to avoid social rejection

Informational influence

In group discussion, the most common ideas to emerge are the ones that favor the dominant viewpoint. Looking to group for guidance when you don't know what to do and you assume the group is correct

Punishment

In operant conditioning, a consequence of a behavior that decreases the likelihood of a behavior

Reinforcement

In operant conditioning, a consequence of a behavior that increases the likelihood of a behavior

Reality principle

In psychoanalytic theory of personality, the ego uses logical thinking/planning to control consciousness and the id. Tries to find realistic ways to satisfy the id.

Pleasure principle

In psychoanalytic theory of personality, the id seeks to reduce tension, avoid pain, and gain pleasure. The id does so with no logical/moral reasoning, and does not distinguish mental images from external objects.

Insecure attachment

In the presence of their caregiver, infants aren't likely to explore their environment and might cling to their caregiver. If the caregiver leaves, the child will either be extremely distressed or demonstrate indifference to her departure. Occurs when mothers are insensitive or unresponsive

Presbyopia

Inability to accommodate the lens of the eye. Normal part of age.

Anterograde amnesia

Inability to encode new memories

Retrograde amnesia

Inability to recall info previously encoded

Income vs wealth

Income = assets EARNED Wealth = assets already OWNED.

Urbanization

Increase in the proportion of people living in specified urban areas, due to industrialization

Globalization

Increasing amount of interaction and integration on the international scale through exchange of products, services, ideas and information

Self-serving bias is more prominent in ______________.

Individualistic cultures

Hawthorne Effect

Individuals modify or improve an aspect of their behavior in response to their awareness of being observed

Confirmation bias

Individuals tend to value new info that support a belief they already hold, while disregarding info that goes against preconceived notions. In groups, group members seek out information that support the majority view

Fundamentalists

Individuals who adhere strictly to religious beliefs

Feral children

Individuals who were not raised with human contact or care

Moro reflex

Infant reflex where a baby will startle in response to a loud sound or sudden movement.

Rooting reflex

Infant reflex where a baby will turn its head towards a stroke of cheek and open its mouth

Babinski reflex

Infant reflex where if its foot is stroked, the baby's toes fan out

Secure attachment

Infants will play in the presence of their primary caregiver, but will become distressed when the caregiver leaves the room. Upon the caregiver's return, the child will seek contact with her and is easily consoled

Power

Influence over a community

Short-term memory

Information that is held as items in conscious awareness. Info can be manipulated rather than stored passively (can be applied to real world).

Long-term memory

Information that is maintained outside of conscious awareness and can be called back into working memory when needed. HAS NO LIMIT OF STORAGE

Temperament

Innate, genetically influenced baseline of personality that includes the infant's tendency towards certain patterns of emotions and social interaction

Residential segregation

Instance of social inequality on the local scale, where demographic groups are separated into different locations with unequal access to resources

Manifest functions

Intended and obvious consequences of a social structure

Meditation

Intentional, self-produced state of consciousness induced by relying and systematically shifting attention away from day-to-day concerns

HPA axis

Interaction between the nervous and endocrine systems to produce the body's response to stress. Elevated levels of one of these hormones may lead to depression

Positive punishment

Introduction of a punishing stimulus in response to an undesired behavior. AKA adds stimulus to reduce likelihood of behavior

Positive reinforcement

Introduction of a reinforcing stimulus in response to a desired behavior. AKA adds a stimulus to increase likelihood of behavior

Chi-square

Involves categorical variables. Looks at 2 distributions of categorical data to see if they differ from each other.

Declarative memory- explicit

Involves information that is consciously known

General adaptation syndrome

Involves three distinct stages of stress: 1) Alarm phase--> stress kicks in and heart races 2) Resistance--> fleeing, huddling, a ton of cortisol 3) Exhaustion--> if this doesn't occur, we get tissue damage

The problem with heuristics is that:

It may lead to overgeneralization

Dual coding hypothesis

It's easier to remember words associated with images than either one alone.

White-collar work

Jobs that are professional, administrative, or managerial in nature defines the middle class

Kohlberg's Theory of Development

Key: Developing children progress through a predictable sequence of stages of moral reasoning. Levels are defined by REASONING for decision, not by what decision is made Level 1: Pre-conventional Morality -Based solely on consideration of anticipated consequences of behavior (reward vs punishment) -No internalization of what's right and wrong Stage 1: Punishment--> avoid punishment Stage 2: Reward---> seek reward Level II: Conventional Morality -Acceptance of conventional definitions of what is right and wrong -Stage 3: Social disapproval--> avoid social disapproval -Stage 4: Rule following --> duty to obey rules established Level III: Post-conventional morality (few people reach this stage) -Internal ethical guidelines, with rules being useful but malleable guidelines Stage 5: Social contract --> wants to ensure greatest good for greatest number of people Stage 6: Universal ethics --> ensures universal justice

Bilateral descent

Kin groups that involve both maternal and paternal relations

What is typically used to treat Parkinson's patients

L-dopa--> precursor to dopamine that is able to pass the blood-brain barrier (unlike dopamine)

Torque forces

L1 = F1× r1 (CCW + ve) L2 = F2 × r2 (CW - ve)

Absolute poverty

Lack of essential resources (food, shelter, clothing, hygiene). More extreme form of poverty

Learning theory of language development

Language is a form of behavior and is learned through operant conditioning--> continuing interaction with environmental reinforcement

Mass hysteria

Large # of people who experience unmanageable delusions and anxiety at same time

Macrosociology

Large scale perspective, looking at big phenomena that affect big portion of population. Social structures and institutions, whole civilizations/populations. Looking for patterns and effects the big picture has on lives on small groups. Broad social trends in cities and statistical data. Deals with matters like poverty, war, health care, world economy

Secondary groups

Larger, more impersonal groups that may interact for specific reasons for shorter periods of time. Serve INSTRUMENTAL functions

Learning-performance distinction

Learning a behavior and performing it are 2 different things

Observational learning

Learning through observation (and imitation) of others' behaviors. Very important in childhood.

Linguistic information is lateralized in the:

Left hemisphere

Rational-legal authority

Legal rules and regulations are stipulated in a document. How the United States government operates

Demographic transition theory

Links population growth to the society's use of technology, describing sequential stages of change in birth and death rates. AKA tech is what keeps population size in check

Suprachiasmic nucleus

Located in the hypothalamus. Regulates the body's sleep-wake cycle. Maintains drive for wakefulness by inhibiting melatonin. Light triggers SCN firing.

Activity theory

Looks at how older generation looks at themselves. Lost social interactions (work, certain activities) need to be replaced so elderly can be engaged

Encoding of information into long-term memory is guided by :

Meaning

What level of stress is optimal for performance?

Medium level of arousal

Social loafing

Members a group decrease the pace or intensity of their own work with the intention of letting other group members work harder

Semantic memory

Memory of words and phrases (remembering simple facts)

Schemas

Mental representations or frameworks of the world

Heuristics

Mental shortcuts or "rules of thumb" that often lead to a solution. They are timesaving but can potentially lead problem solving efforts astray

Biological basis of empathy

Mirror neurons are responsible

Elaboration likelihood model

Model of Persuasion. There are two ways information is processes: central processing (depending on quality of arguments by persuader) and peripheral (superficial-non-verbal persuasion cues)

MAOIIs

Monoamine oxidase inhibitors. Interfere with the breakdown of monoamine neurotransmitters (eg. serotonin, norepinephrine)

As group size increases, the group is ___________ stable and __________ intimate.

More stable, less intimate

Glutamate

Most common excitatory neurotransmitter in the CNS, EXCEPT vision. Acts as the major inhibitory neurotransmitter on bipolar cells of the eye in the absence of light.

GABA and glycine

Most common inhibitory neurotransmitters

Benzodiazepines

Most commonly prescribed suppressant. Act as a sleep aid or anti-anxiety aid. Enhances brain's response to GABA neurotransmitter.

Extrinsic motivation

Motivation driven by external rewards.

Intrinsic motivation

Motivation driven by internal factors (pleasurable feelings or satisfaction). Can be diminished if person continuously receive extrinsic rewards for the behavior

The frontal lobe is associated with:

Motor control, decision making, and long-term memory storage

What is Parkinson's disease?

Movement disorder caused by the death of cells that generate dopamine in the basal ganglia and substantial nigra. Characterized by resting tremor, slowed movement, rigidity of facial muscles, and shuffling gait, and reduction in capacity for language

Intragenerational mobility

Movement of a young person from a lower social class to a higher social class through merit (achieving the "American dream") comparing people within generations

Intergenerational mobility

Movement through the class system between generations (old generation is poor/rich, sets up environment for new generation to become rich/poor) comparing people from different generations

Polysomnography

Multimodal technique to measure physiological processes during sleep

Transformationalist perspective

National governments are changing, with world order (new world order) forming

Sexual selection

Natural selection arising through preference for one sex for characteristics in individuals of the other sex

Myopia

Nearsightedness

Language acquisition device

Neural cognitive system that allows for learning of syntax and grammar

Retroactive interference

Newly learned material that prevents successful retrieval of related older memories. Occurs when information that is newly learned is similar to that in older memories

Nativist theory of language development

Noam Chomsky. Language is an innate biological instinct, and everyone has a neural cognitive system allowing for learning of syntax and grammar.

Symbolic culture

Non-material culture that consists of the elements of culture that only have meaning in the mind. Based on a shared system of collective beliefs in the form of symbols. Includes the meanings ascribed to rituals, gestures, and objects.

Animal signals

Nonverbal methods to communication such as vocalizations, visual stimuli, touch, and smell

Mores

Norms that are highly important for the benefit of society and so are often strictly enforced

Folkways

Norms that are less important but shape everyday behavior

The pleasure center of the brain

Nucleus accumbens

Korsakoff's Syndrome

Nutritional deficiency of vitamin B1, which results in a deficit in the ability to recall recent events. Often due to severe alcoholism.

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

asserts that people understand their world through language, and that language, in turn, shapes how we experience our world

prefrontal cortex

associated with the reduction of emotional feelings like fear and anxiety; also plays a role in executive functions such as higher order thinking processes like planning, organizing, inhibiting behavior, and decision making

behavioral genetics

attempts to determine the role of inheritance in behavioral traits; the interaction between heredity and experience determines an individual's personality and social behavior

game theory

attempts to explain complex systems such as the overall behavior of a population

attribution theory

attempts to explain how individuals view behavior, both our own behavior and the behavior of others

sociology

attempts to understand the behavior of groups; the study of how individuals interact with, shape, and are subsequently shaped, by the society in which they live

episodic memory

autobiographical memory for information

proprioception

awareness of body position, aka the kinesthetic sense

consciousness

awareness of self, internal states, and the environment

A weak argument will be effective in changing attitudes through a) central route b) peripheral route or c) both

b--> weak arguments only work through peripheral route

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

based on Carl Jung's four principal psychological functions: sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking. The indicator is widely used for personality assessment purposes

actualizing tendency

basic tendency of a person is an innate drive to maintain and enhance the organism

bottom-up processing

begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the complex integration of information in the brain

altruistic behavior

behavior that helps ensure the success or survival of the rest of a social group

aggression

behavior that is forceful, hostile, or attacking

arousal

behaviors may be motivated by desire to achieve an optimum level of this

instinct

behaviors that are unlearned and present in fixed patterns throughout a species

hippocampus

brain structure that plays a key role in forming memories

shaping

breaking down a complex behavior and reinforcing the smaller pieces until the whole behavior is strung together

Harry Harlow and Margaret Harlow

bred monkeys and discovered that baby monkeys formed attachment based on "contact comfort," which was not based on nourishment

iconic memory

brief photographic memory for visual information, which decays in a few tenths of a second

warning colors

bright colors meant to advertise to predators that an organism is toxic or noxious

REM sleep

bursts of quick eye movements; dreams occur in this stage of sleep A period of high brain activity and rapid eye movements that occur during stage 1 sleep. The brain lives the massive amount of stimuli experienced during the day and consolidates important info into memory and discards less important info. The body is immobilized during this stage.

sleep spindle

bursts of waves in Stage 2, have a frequency of 12-14 Hz and are moderately intense

A strong argument will be effective in changing attitudes through a) central route b) peripheral route or c) both

c--> both

Erik Erikson

came up with a psychosocial theory of development relating to personality

society

can be defined as the group of people who share a culture and live/interact with each other within a definable area

locus of control

can be external or internal

egocentric

can't understand that others have different perspectives

afferent neurons

carry information towards the CNS (sensory neurons)

Kitty Genovese

case where a woman was stabbed in New York City but nobody reported it

sleep apnea

causes people to intermittently stop breathing during sleep

antidiuretic hormone

causes the kidney to retain water

glial cells

cells that provide structure and metabolic support to neurons

soma

central cell body of a neuron that contains the nucleus

leak channels

channels that are always open and allow ions to move along their gradient

Riots

characterized by large # of people who engage in dangerous behavior, such as vandalism, violence, or other crimes

Alzheimer's Disease

characterized by the formation of neuritic plaques, hard formation of beta-amyloid protein and neurofibrillary tangles; these may prevent nutrients from reaching neurons, causing death; causes anterograde amnesia

physical dependence

characterized by withdrawal; uncomfortable and physical pain experience without the use of a drug

pheromones

chemical messengers employed by animals to communicate with each other

pheromones

chemical signals that cause a social response in members of the same species

Oedipus/Electra complex

child is sexually attracted to opposite-sex parent and hostile towards the same-sex parent

secure attachment

children demonstrates playing and exploring in the presence of their mother, but when the mother leaves the infant becomes distressed; when the mother returns, the infant will seek contact with her

caste system

closed stratification where people can do nothing to change the category that they are born into

Karl Marx

closely identified with conflict theory; argued that societies progress through class struggle, in which one class controls production and the other class provides manpower for production; believed capitalism was destined to devolve into socialism

group

collection of any number of people who regularly interact and identify with each other, sharing similar norms, values, and expectations

cones

color vision, day vision, visual acuity, high light level or photopic vision exist in greater density in the fovea centralis of human retina

schizoaffective disorder

combines mood and psychotic symptoms; both the symptoms of schizophrenia and a major depressive, manic, or mixed episode are experienced for at least one month

twin studies

compare traits in monozygotic and dizygotic twins

compliance

compliant behavior is motivated by the desire to seek reward or to avoid punishment

social construct

concept or practice that is a construct of a group, but this concept or practice may have no inherent values; its only value is the value society ascribes to it

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory

conceptualized by Starke R. Hathaway and J. Charnley McKinley. It is a widely used standardized psychometric personality test that consists of multiple scales, such as hypochondriasis, depression, masculinity/femininity, and paranoia. It places greater emphasis on clinical aspects than the Big Five

macrosociology

concerned with the study of global, cross-cultural phenomena. It often takes a longitudinal, historical, and comparative approach to a topic with social relevance and gathers evidence from multiple social groups to derive its conclusions

procedural (implicit) memory

conditioned associations and knowledge of how to do something; is a form of memory that is not conscious

Mary Ainsworth

conducted experiments called "strange situation experiments" to study attachment

Philip Zimbardo

conducted the Stanford prison study that demonstrated the power of role-playing

Albert Bandura

conducted the famous Bobo doll experiments that showed that people imitate others' actions, regardless of whether or not they observe the consequences

medulla

connects the brain to the spinal cord; regulates blood pressure, digestion, heart rate, and breathing rhythm

corpus callosum

connects the two cerebral hemispheres

impression management (self-presentation)

conscious or unconscious process whereby people attempt to manage their own image by influencing the perceptions of others

traits

considered to be internal, stable, and enduring aspects of personality

Emile Durkheim

considered to be the father of sociology; he was a proponent of functionalism, and stated that modern societies are more complex than older ones due to the fact that people are quite dissimilar nowadays but have to work together

class system

considers both social variables and individual initiative; people can strive to reach a higher class

person-situation controversy (trait versus state controversy)

considers the degree to which a person's reaction in a given situation is due to their personality (trait) or is due to the situation itself (state)

personal identity

consists of one's own sense of personal attributes

social identity

consists of social definition of who you are (race, religion, gender, occupation, etc.)

forebrain

consists of the diencephalon and the telencephalon

hindbrain

consists of the medulla, pons, and the cerebellum

brainstem

consists of the pons, medulla, and midbrain

diencephalon

consists of the thalamus and hypothalamus

telencephalon

consists of the two separate cerebral hemispheres; left is responsible for speech and the right side os repsonsible for visual-spatial reasoning and music

ideal self

constructed out of one's life experiences, societal expectations, and ideal traits in role models

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)

contains classification and diagnosis of psychological disorders; updated to fit new research and norms in medicine

hypothalamus

controls emotions and autonomic functions; has a major role in hormone production and release by controlling the pituitary gland

hypothalamus

controls the anterior pituitary, which in turn controls most of the endocrine system

consolidation

conversion of short-term memory into long-term memory

cerebellum

coordinates complex movements like hand-eye coordination and balance

pons

coordinates movement and balance, and controls other autonomic functions

stranger anxiety

crying and clinging to caregiver when babies see faces that don't fit into existing schemas; occurs from approximately 8-12 months of age

Sound

dB = 10 log1o (I/Io ) beats = Δ ƒ

mortality

death rate in a population

adaptation

decrease in firing frequency when the intensity of stimulus remains constant

downward mobility

decrease in social class

depressants

depress neural activity; often stimulate GABA and dopamine systems

metacognition

describes how humans are able to observe their own minds at work helps us understand learning processes and evaluate the extent to which a new concept is successfully comprehended and stored

intragenerational mobility

describes the differences in social class between different members of the same generation

foraging behavior

describes the search for and exploitation of food resources by animals

Abraham Maslow

developed a hierarchy of needs whereby people are motivated to reach the highest level called self-actualization

Alan Baddeley

developed a model in an effort to define short-term memory; made up of the phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, episodic buffer, and the central executive

Lawrence Kohlberg

developed a theory of moral development that consisted of three main stages

Buddhism

developed based on the teachings of Siddhartha, later known as Buddha, in India; believe in overcoming cravings for physical or material pleasures primarily through meditative practices

behaviorism

developed by B.F. Skinner; holds that infants are trained in language by operant conditioning

Ivan Pavlov

developed classical conditioning

Hinduism

developed in India and is a polytheistic religion (many gods)

B.F. Skinner

developed operant conditioning

George Herbert Mead

developed the idea of social behaviorism, which led to the foundation of symbolic interactionism

Noam Chomsky

developed the language aquisition device theory

ADRESSING; age, disability status, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class, indigenous background, national origin, gender

different aspects of one's personality

Parkinson's disease

disease caused by death of cells that generate dopamine in the basal ganglia and substantia nigra

role exit

disengaging from a role that has become closely tied to one's self-identity to take on another

schizoid personality disorder

disorder in which a person is a loner with little interest or involvement in close relationships

brief psychotic disorder

displaying at least one basic psychotic symptom for less than one month

schizophreniform disorder

displaying the symptoms of schizophrenia for a period of one to six months, during which the symptoms may or may not have interfered with the person's functioning in life; usually leads to schizophrenia

hallucinogens

distort perceptions in the absence of any sensory input, creating hallucinations; include marijuana and LSD

death instinct

drives aggressive behaviors fueled by an unconscious wish to die or to hurt oneself or others

libido (sex drive)

drives behaviors focused on survival, growth, creativity, pain avoidance, and pleasure

social facilitation effect

effect whereby people tend to perform, simple, well-learned tasks better when other people are present, but complex tasks may be impaired

group polarization

effects whereby groups tend to intensify the preexisting views of their members

integrity vs. despair

eighth stage of Erikson's theory; if a person looks back with regrets and a lack of personal worth at this stage, he or she may feel hopeless, guilty, resentful, and self-rejecting

resting membrane potential

electric potential across the plasma membrane (-70 mV)

social facts

elements that serve some function in society, such as laws, morals, vales, religions, customs, rituals, and rules

temperament

emotional excitability

heuristics

employ mental shortcuts for efficiency

algorithm

employs an exhaustive step-by-step procedure

hypothalamic-pituitary portal system

enables the direct communication between the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland

acetylcholinesterase

enzyme that degrades acetylcholine

Na+/K+ ATPase

enzyme that pumps three sodium ions out of the cell and two potassium ions into the cell using a single molecule of ATP

social comparison

evaluating our opinions by comparing them to those of others

significant life changes

events such as moving, leaving home, losing a job

continuous reinforcement

every occurrence of the behavior is reinforced

daily hassles

everyday irritations

surface traits

evident from a person's behavior

general intelligence

exists as a foundational ability that underlies more specialized abilities

social roles

expectations for people of a given social status

cognitive dissonance theory

explains that we feel tension (dissonance) whenever we hold two thoughts or beliefs that are incompatible, or when attitudes and behaviors don't match.. theory states we are most likely to change attitude to match behavior than to change behavior to match attitude

elaboration likelihood model

explains when people will be influenced by the content of the speech, and when people will be influenced by other, more superficial characteristics like the appearance of the speaker

source traits

factors underlying personality and behavior

hyperopia

farsightedness; caused by eyeball that is too short or that has a lens that is too weak; corrected with a converging lens

identity vs. role confusion

fifth stage of Erikson's theory; adolescent must test limits and clarify his or her identity, goals, and life meaning

misguarding

filtering out information and facts that go against the beliefs of the group

lens

fine-tunes the angle of incoming light, so the beams are perfectly focused upon the retina

sensorimotor stage

first of Jean Piaget's developmental model; birth to age 2; experience the world through senses and movement; develop object permanence and exhibit stranger anxiety

trust vs. mistrust

first stage of Erikson's theory; if an infant's emotional needs are not met, they may mistrust the world

Frictional force

fmax = μ Ν μk < μs always

information-processing models

focus on what happens between the ears; assume that information is taken in from the environment and processed in a series of steps including attention, perception, and storage into memory

social cognitive theory

focuses on how we interpret and respond to external events, and how our past experience, memories, and expectations influence our behavior

hedonic happiness

focuses on living life in the moment, such as enjoying material things acquired, good food, or money. It is short-term and fleeting. Hedonic happiness is correlated with good physical and mental health

hypomanic episode

for at least four days, a person has experienced an abnormally euphoric or irritable mood, but at a less severe level than with mania

oligodendrocytes

form myelin—increase speed of conduction; found in the CNS

chemical synapses

found at the end of axons; action potential is converted into chemical signal

blind spot

found where many axons on the ganglion cells aggregate to form the optic nerve

industry vs. inferiority

fourth stage of Erikson's theory; if a child's needs to understand the world, develop a gender-role identity, succeed in school, and set and attain personal goals are not met at this stage, as an adult he or she may feel inadequate

formal operational stage

fourth stage of Jean Piaget's developmental model; 12 to adulthood; learn about abstract reasoning and moral reasoning

dissociative disorder

frequent disruptions in awareness, memory, and identity that cause distress or impair a person's functioning; usually begin and end rapidly

genotype

genetic makeup of an organism

habituation

getting used to an action because it occurs so frequently

charismatic authority

government based on power of leaders' persuasion

urbanization

growth of urban areas as the result of global change

astrocytes

guide neuronal development; regulate synaptic communication via regulation of neurotransmitter levels; found in the CNS

proactive interference

happens when information previously learned interferes with the ability to recall information learned later

retroactive interference

happens when newly learned information interferes with the recall of information learned previously

randomized control trial

has a treatment group and a control group; the treatment group receives the treatment under investigation and the control group either receives no treatment, a placebo, or the current standard of care

confounding factors

hidden variables that correlate in some way with the independent or dependent variable and have some sort of impact on the results; threat to internal validity

professions

highly-esteemed white-collar occupations that require a great deal of education

tropic hormones

hormones that regulate other hormones

herd behavior

how individuals in a group act without an obvious source of direction

retention interval

how long one keeps information since the material was learned

"me"

how the individual believes the generalized other perceives him or her

kinship

how we think about who we are related to

The autonomic nervous system is regulated primary by the:

hypothalamus

Jean Piaget

hypothesized that cognitive development involved forming schemas, which are mental frameworks that shape and are shaped by our experience

bilateral descent

if kingroups involve both the maternal and paternal relations

method of loci

imagining moving through a familiar place, and in each place leaving a visual representation of a topic to be remembered

palmar grasp reflex

in response to stroking the baby's palm, the baby's hand will grasp

tonic neck reflex

in response to the baby's head being turned to one side, it will stretch out its arm on the same side and the opposite arm bends up at the elbow

Babinski reflex

in response to the sole of the foot being stroked, the baby's big toe moves upward and toward the top surface of the foot and the other toes fan out

walking/stepping reflex

in response to the soles of a baby's feet touching a flat surface, they will attempt to walk

absolute poverty

inability to meet a bare minimum of basic necessities

social network

include direct and indirect social links

schwann cells

increase speed of AP conduction; found in the PNS

dual coding hypothesis

indicates that it is easier to remember words with associated images than either words or images alone

insecure attachment

infants in the presence of their mother are less likely to explore their surroundings and may even cling to their mother; when the mother leaves, they will either cry loudly and remain upset or will demonstrate indifference to her departure and return

cocktail party effect

information of personal importance from previously unattended channels catches our attention

superego

inhibits the id and influences the ego to follow moralistic and ideal goals rather than just realistic goals; strives for a higher purpose

adrenal medulla

inner portion of the adrenal gland; part of the sympathetic nervous system; releases epinephrine (adrenaline), which stimulates the body to prepare for action, which includes increasing heart rate

manifest functions

intended and obvious consequences of a structure

Broca's area

involved in speech production; found in the frontal lobe Located in the frontal lobe. Primarily involved in speech production. People who are damaged in this area cannot produce language but understand it normally.

Wernicke's area

involved in the comprehension of speech and written language; found in the temporal lobe Located in the temporal lobe. Primarily involved in speech comprehension. People who are damaged in this area can hear words and repeat them back, but do not understand language.

meditation

involved in training of attention

longitudinal cohort design

involves a group that shares a similar characteristic (e.g., age), and that is followed over a period of time to monitor the effect of time on a set of dependent variable(s)

nonverbal communication

involves all of the methods for communication that we use that do not include words

declarative (explicit) memory

involves being able to "declare" or voice what is known

recognition

involves retrieving information from memory with clues; this is the format that multiple choice tests assume

positive punishment

involves the application, or pairing, of a negative stimulus with the behavior

material culture

involves the physical objects that are particular to that culture

negative punishment

involves the removal of a reinforcing stimulus after the behavior has occurred

Response bias

is the tendency of a person to answer questions on a survey untruthfully or misleadingly. For example, they may feel pressure to give answers that are socially acceptable.

adoption studies

isolate the effects of environment on phenotype by comparing adopted individuals with genetic relatives and environmental relatives

self-reference effect

it is easier to remember things that are personally relevant

cultural relativism

judging another culture based on its own standards

synapse

junction between the axon terminus of a neuron and the dendrites, soma, axon of a second neuron, or even an organ

K-complex

large and slow sleep pattern in Stage 2, has a duration of half a second

organizations

large, impersonal groups that come together to pursue particular activities and meet goals efficiently

secondary groups

larger and more impersonal, and may interact for specific reasons; serve instrumental functions

recency effect

last items may be in the phonological loop still, so may be more readily available

associative learning

learning in which one event, object, or action is directly connected with another

C. Robert Cloninger

linked personality to brain systems involved with reward, motivation, and punishment; proposed that personality is linked to the level of activity of certain neurotransmitters

sucking reflex

linked with the rooting reflex, in response to anything touching the roof of the baby's mouth, it will begin to suck

authoritative

listen to their children, encourage independence, place limits on behavior, and consistently follow through with consequences when behavior is not met; warm and nurturing is expressed

action potential

localized area of depolarization in the plasma membrane

thalamus

located below the cerebral hemispheres and above the midbrain; relays sensory information

limbic system

located between the cerebrum and the diencephalon; important in emotion and memory

Cross-sectional study

looks at a group of different people at one moment in time

Broca's aphasia

loss of ability to speak (physically form words)

basal nuclei

made of gray matter and found deep within the cerebral hemispheres; are inhibitory, and help with subconscious motor control and procedural learning related to habits

self-concept

made up of the child's conscious, subjective perceptions and beliefs about him or herself

bipolar II disorder

manic phases are less extreme, and excludes manic or mixed episodes, although it may include a hypomanic episode

polysomnography

measures physiological processes during sleep

voltage-gated sodium channels

mediate the flow of sodium into the neuron when an action potential arrives

semantic memory

memory for facts

echoic memory

memory for sound, which lasts for about 3-4 seconds

patriarchy

men have more authority than women

Anne Treisman's Attenuation Model

model that states that the mind has an attenuator that "turns down" unattended sensory input rather than eliminating it

Judaism

monotheistic and formed the historical basis for Christianity and Islam; believe that God formed a covenant with Abraham and Sarah and that if the Ten Commandments were followed, God would bring paradise to Earth

Christianity

monotheistic, and its followers believe in prophets (Jesus), an afterlife, and a judgment day; largest single faith in the world

Islam

monotheistic, followers believe in prophets, an afterlife, and judgment day; rarely separated from government and often dictates law

conventional morality

morality judged by comparing actions to society's views and expectations

pre-conventional morality

morality judged by direct consequences to the self (no internalization of "right" and "wrong")

post-conventional morality

morality judged by internal ethical guidelines; rules viewed as useful but malleable guidelines

normative organizations

motivate membership based on morally relevant goals

identification

motivated by the desire to be like another person or group

internalization

motivated by values and beliefs that have been integrated into one's own value system; this is the most enduring motivation of the three

iris

muscles in the eye that regulate the diameter of the pupil

myopia

nearsightedness; caused by an eyeball that is too long or a lens that is too powerful; corrected with a diverging lens

needs

need for safety, belonging, love, achievement, etc. (also includes drives)

Aspartic acid, Asp, D

negatively charged, acidic

Glutamic acid, Glu, E

negatively charged, acidic

double-blind experiment

neither the participant nor the researchers know which participants belong to which group

autonomic nervous system

nervous system component responsible for digestion, metabolism, circulation, and other involuntary processes

somatic nervous system

nervous system component responsible for voluntary movement of skeletal muscle

voxel-based morphometry

neuroimaging method for looking at brain anatomy

mirror neurons

neurons involved in observational learning

efferent neurons

neurons that carry information away from the CNS (motor neurons)

The earlier sleep cycles are predominantly ____________.

non-REM sleep

cultural capital

non-financial social assets that promote social mobility e.g. education

Alanine, Ala, A

non-polar, aliphatic

Glycine, Gly, G

non-polar, aliphatic

Isoleucine, Ile, I

non-polar, aliphatic

Leucine, Leu, L

non-polar, aliphatic

Valine, Val, V

non-polar, aliphatic

Proline, Pro, P

nonpolar, aliphatic, Imino acid

mores

norms that are highly important for the benefit of society and are strictly enforced

folkways

norms that are less important but shape everyday behavior

knockout

nullifying the functionality of a gene in order to study its effects

life expectancy

number of years that an individual at a given age can expect to live at present mortality rates

phenotype

observable characteristics and traits of an organism

night terrors

occur during stage 3 of sleep, and may cause someone to appear terrified or walk around during sleep

electrical synapses

occur when the cytoplasms of two cells are joined by gap junctions

intermittent reinforcement

occurences are sometimes reinforced and sometimes not

avoidance

occurs when a person performs a behavior to ensure an aversive stimulus is not presented

depolarization

occurs when an action potential disturbs the membrane potential

situational attribution

occurs when individuals attribute behavior to external causes

dispositional attribution

occurs when individuals attribute behavior to internal causes

amalgamation

occurs when majority and minority groups combine to form a new group, resulting in a unique cultural group

incongruence

occurs when one encounters experiences in life that contradict their self-concepts

deindividuation

occurs when people lose their sense of restraint and their individual identity in exchange for identifying with a group or mob mentality

top-down processing

occurs when the brain applies experience and expectations to interpret sensory information

discrimination

occurs when the conditioned stimulus is differentiated from other stimuli

role conflict

occurs when there is a conflict in society's expectations for multiple statuses held by the same person

intergenerational mobility

occurs when there is an increase or decrease in social class between parents and children within a family

projection bias

occurs when we assume others have the same beliefs we do

false consensus

occurs when we assume that everyone else agrees with what we do

self-esteem

one's overall self-evaluation of one's self-worth

central executive

orchestrates the process of information processing by shifting and dividing attention

coercive organizations

organizations for which members do not have a choice in joining

utilitarian organizations

organizations in which members get paid for their efforts

stereotypes

oversimplified ideas about groups of people based on characteristics; can be positive or negative

nocireceptors

pain receptors

permissive

parenting style in which parents allow their children to lead the show; parents rarely discipline the child

authoritarian

parenting style in which parents attempt to control children with strict rules that are expected to be followed unconditionally

cornea

part of the eye mainly responsible for bending the light that enters the eye

universals

patterns or traits that are common to all people

internal locus of control

people are able to influence outcomes through their own efforts and actions

central route

people are persuaded by the content of the argument

deterministic

people begin as blank slates, and environmental reinforcement and punishment completely determine the individual's subsequent behavior and personalities

public declaration

people come to believe and think what they do on a regular basis, especially if the person made a public declaration stating they would do something

catatonic-type schizophrenia

people exhibit extremely retarded or excited motor activity; display only negative symptoms

peripheral route

people focus on superficial or secondary characteristics of the speech or the orator

confederates

people in on the experiment

environmental injustice

people in poorer communities are more likely to be subjected to negative environmental impacts to their health and well-being

justification of error

people may modify their attitudes to match their behaviors; as a person does more and more favors for someone or gets more and more involved in a certain task or project, they find that their attitude becomes more favorable to these things

external locus of control

people perceive outcomes as controlled by outside forces; can lead to learned helplessness

mere exposure effect

people prefer repeated exposure to the same stimuli

physical attractiveness stereotype

people tend to rate attractive individuals more favorably for personality traits and characteristics than they do those who are less attractive

scapegoats

people to whom displaced aggression is directed

aggregate

people who exist in the same space but do not interact or share a common sense of identity

category

people who share similar characteristics but are not otherwise tied together

imitation

performing the behavior that one previously observed

narcolepsy

periodic, overwhelming sleepiness during waking periods that usually last less than 5 minutes; treated with stimulants

behaviorist perspective

personality is a result of learned behavior patterns based on a person's environment

social cognitive perspective

personality is formed by a reciprocal interaction among behavioral, cognitive, and environmental factors

multiculturalism (pluralism)

perspective that endorses equal standing for all cultural traditions

heritability

pertains to how much two individuals differ; it gives the variation of a given factor (such as intelligence) due to genes

cognitive psychology

places a greater focus on the brain, cognitions, and their effects on how people navigate the world

primary groups

play an important role in one's life; serve expressive functions

role-playing

playing the role of someone can make a person act like that role

manifest content

plotlines of dreams

Asparagine, Asn, N

polar, uncharged

Glutamine, Gln, Q

polar, uncharged

Serine, Ser, S

polar, uncharged

Threonine, Thr, T

polar, uncharged

The genetic contribution to depression is:

polygenic

Charles Cooley

posited the idea of the looking-glass self

Histidine, His, H

positively charged, Basic

Arginine, Arg, R

positively charged, basic

Lysine, Lys, K

positively charged, basic

dramaturgical perspective

posits that we imagine ourselves playing certain roles when interacting with others; uses the theater as a metaphor for the way we present ourselves

excitatory

postsynaptic membrane is depolarized

inhibitory

postsynaptic membrane is hyperpolarized

traditional authority

power based on custom, tradition, or accepted practice

Socioeconomic status (SES) can be defined in terms of:

power, property, and prestige

racism

prejudices and actions that discriminate based on race, or hold that one race is inferior to another

sympathetic

prepares the body for "fight or flight"; adrenaline is released by the adrenal medulla

parasympathetic

prepares the body for "rest and digest"

delta waves

present in Stage 3; high amplitude, low frequency

theta waves

present in stage 1 and stage 2 of sleep; lower to moderate intensity and intermediate frequency

alpha waves

present when one is getting sleepy; low amplitude, high frequency

selective priming

priming someone to observe something, either by encountering it frequently or by having an expectation

temporal lobe

process auditory and olfactory sensation and are involved in short-term memory, language comprehension, and emotion

occipital lobe

process visual sensation

phonological loop

processing of auditory information; we take advantage of this when we repeat verbal information to help us remember it

ependymal cells

produce and circulate cerebrospinal fluid

conditioned stimulus

produces the conditioned response after the neutral stimulus and unconditioned stimulus are paired

Hans Eysench

proposed that extroversion is based on individual differences in the reticular formation, and that neuroticism is based on individual differences in the limbic system

Ludwig Gumplowicz

proposed that society is shaped by war and conquest, and that cultural and ethnic conflict lead to certain groups becoming dominant over other groups

dynamic equilibrium

proposes that complex societies involve many different but interdependent parts working together to maintain stability

confirmation bias

provess in which people attend to, interpret, and remember events in their life in a way that perpetuates their personal beliefs, norms, and values a systematic error that affects human reasoning

paranoid-type schizophrenia

psychosis is in the form of hallucination and/or delusions

pitch

quality of sound distinguished based on the region of stimulation in the ear

loudness

quality of sound distinguished by the amplitude of vibration

self-actualization

realizing one's human potential

dendrites

receive signals and relay them to the soma

cones

receptors in the eye responsible for color vision and visual acuity

rods

receptors in the eye responsible for night vision

thermoreceptors

receptors stimulated by changes in temperature

electromagnetic receptors

receptors stimulated by electromagnetic waves

mechanoreceptors

receptors that respond to mechanical disturbances

chemoreceptors

receptors that respond to particular chemicals

Older adults show minimal decline in ________ but greater decline in __________.

recognition, free recall

Gestalt grouping principles

refer to how human beings tend to perceive objects in organized patterns because the mind automatically perceives stimuli based on grouping rules Proximity - argues that people group things that are in close proximity to each other Symmetry - objects are grouped together because they are symmetrical Common region - objects are grouped together because they are perceived to be part of a larger region Similarity - objects are grouped together because they are perceived to be similar

polygyny

refers to a man married to more than one woman

exogamy

refers to a requirement to marry outside a particular group

polyandry

refers to a woman married to more than one man

validity

refers to how well an experiment measures what is trying to measure

groupthink

refers to processes within groups. The term describes how the desire for harmony within a group can become so strong that in order to minimize conflict and maximize conformity, people reach decisions without critically evaluating their own positions and the likely outcomes. Groupthink can inhibit creative and critical thinking

neural plasticity

refers to the malleability of the brain's pathways and synapses

endogamy

refers to the practice of marrying within a particular group

residential segregation

refers to the separation of groups into different neighborhoods, often based on racial or economic disparities

attrition bias

refers to the systematic loss or withdrawal of participants from follow-up

prejudice

refers to thoughts, attitudes, and feelings someone holds about a group that are not based on actual experience

external validity

refers to whether the results of the study can be generalized to other situations and other people; only refers to the independent variable

internal validity

refers to whether the results of the study properly demonstrate a causal relationship between two variables testing

midbrain

relays visual and auditory information, repsonsible for arousal or wakefulness

posterior pituitary

releases antidiuretic hormone and oxytocin

microglia

remove dead cells and debris; found in the CNS

compulsions

repeated physical or mental behaviors that are done in response to an obsession or in accordance with a set of strict rules

obsessions

repeated, intrusive, uncontrollable thoughts or impulses that cause distress or anxiety; person recognizes the thoughts are irrational

parietal lobe

responsible for sensations such as touch, temperature, pressure, vibration, etc. and in taste

pineal gland

responsible for the production of melatonin

Wernicke's aphasia

results in the loss of ability to form coherent sentences, but the person can still physically speak words

What are the two binocular cues?

retinal disparity and convergence

recall

retrieving information without any clues

sanctions

rewards and punishments for behaviors that are in accord with or against norms

autonomy vs. shame and doubt

second stage of Erikson's theory; if a toddler's need to explore, make mistakes, and test limits are not met, as an adult he or she may be dependent rather than autonomous

preoperational stage

second stage of Jean Piaget's developmental model; ages 2 to 7; children are egocentric

adrenal cortex

secrets glucocorticoids and mineralcorticoids such as cortisol; outer portion of the adrenal gland

humanistic therapy

seeks to provide an environment that will help clients trust and accept themselves and their emotional reactions, so that they can learn and grow from their experiences

symbolic interactionism

sees society as the buildup of everyday typical interactions

rods

sensory visual receptors that exist in the retina bigger than cones absent in fovea centralis concentrated at the periphery of the human retina responsible for low light intensity vision, aka night or scotopic vision

generativity vs. stagnation

seventh stage of Erikson's theory; if a person does not feel productive by helping the next generation and satisfied in their accomplishments, he or she may become stuck in psychological stagnation

dementia

severe loss of cognitive ability beyond what would be expected from normal aging

acute stress disorder

similar to PTSD but its symptoms are present for a month or less

cyclothymic disorder

similar to bipolar disorder but the moods are less extreme

intimacy vs. isolation

sixth stage of Erikson's theory; if a person does not form intimate relationships at this stage, he or she may become alienated and isolated

somnambulism

sleepwalking; occurs during slow wave sleep; occurs during the first third of the night during Stage 3 sleep

The more sensitive the sense organ, the __________ the Weber fraction required for detection of the stimulus.

smaller

negative reinforcement

some sort of negative stimulus that is removed immediately following a behavior

positive reinforcement

some sort of positive stimulus that occurs immediately following a behavior

latent learning

something is learned but not expressed as an observable behavior until it is required

id

source of energy and instincts; seeks to reduce tension, avoid pain, and gain pleasure; ruled by the pleasure principle

norms

spoken and unspoken rules and expectations for behavior of society's members

anal stage

stage during which child seeks sensual pleasure through control of elimination

oral stage

stage during which child seeks sensual pleasure through oral activities such as sucking and chewing

phallic stage

stage during which child seeks sensual pleasure through the genitals

latency stage

stage during which sexual interests subside and are replaced by other interests

genital stage

stage during which sexual themes resurface and a person's sexual energy fuels activities

reference group

standard measure that people compare themselves to

groupthink

state of harmony within a group, due to the fact that everyone is seemingly in a state of agreement

Carl Rogers

stated that humans are seen as inherently good and having free will; said that personality is composed of the ideal self and the real self

Jeffrey Alan Gray

stated that personality is governed by interactions among three brain systems that respond to rewarding and punishing stimuli

incentive theory

states that incentives are external stimuli, objects, and events in the environment that either help induce or discourage certain behaviors

Five-Factor Model

states that overarching components of human personality are extroversion, neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness

achieved statuses

statuses due largely to the individual's efforts

self-handicapping

strategy in which people create obstacles and excuses to avoid self-blame when they do poorly

meritocracy

stratification system that uses merit (or personal effort) to establish social standing; no society exists solely based on this

linguistic relativity hypothesis

structure of human language effects the way in which an individual conceptualizes their world.

Solomon Asch

studied the effects of group pressure and conformity in his classic line experiment

Stanley Milgram

studied the effects of group pressure and conformity in his classic shock experiment

sociobiology

study of how biology and evolution have affected human social behavior; posits that particular social behaviors have persisted over generations because they are adaptive for survival

social epidemiology

study of the distribution of health and disease across a population; focuses on the social determinants of health and disease.

activation-synthesis theory

suggests that dreams are byproducts of brain activation during sleep (suggests that dreams are unintentional)

Schachter-Singer Theory

suggests that once we experience physiological arousal, we make a conscious cognitive interpretation based on our circumstances

James-Lange Theory

suggests that the emotional experience is the result of the physiological and behavioral actions one takes; the cognitive aspect of emotion follows the physiological reaction Theory of emotion that states that an external stimulus elicits a physiological response, and that emotional experience depends on recognition and interpretation this physical reaction Physiological and behavior response---> cognitive awareness--> emotion

frustration-aggression principle

suggests that when someone is blocked from achieving a goal, this frustration can trigger anger, which can lead to aggression

Cysteine, Cys, C

sulfur containing

Methionine, Met, M

sulfur containing

self-concept or self-identity

sum of one's knowledge and understanding of oneself

symbolic culture

symbols that are recognized by people of the same culture

cognitive behavioral therapy

takes the approach that a person's feelings and behaviors are seen as reaction not to actual events, but to the person's thoughts about those events; the roots of psychopathology are irrational or dysfunctional thoughts and beliefs

self-reference effect

tendency to better remember information relevant to ourselves

Yerkes-Dodson Law

the U-shaped correlation between performance and emotional arousal; people perform best when they are moderately aroused Presence of others improves performance on simple tasks, and hinders it on difficult tasks. AKA people perform best when they are moderately aroused

fertility

the ability of females to generate offspring in abundance

social cognition

the ability of the brain to store and process information regarding social perception

social mobility

the ability to move up or down within a social stratification system

automatic processing

the ability to perform a task or activity in an effortless manner with almost no conscious thought

alertness

the ability to remain attentive to what is going on; controlled by the reticular formation

perception

the act of organizing, assimilating, and interpreting sensory input into useful and meaningful information

sensation

the act of receiving information

residual-type schizophrenia

the acute phase has resolved and the criteria for schizophrenia are no longer met, but the person will appear odd

infantile amnesia

the average age of earliest conscious memory is about 3.5 years; however, babies are still capable of learning and memory

rooting reflex

the baby will turn its head in the direction of the stroke in response to touching or stroking one of the baby's cheeks

undifferentiated-type schizophrenia

the basic criteria for schizophrenia are met, but the symptoms do not fit into one of the subtypes described above

optimism bias

the belief that bad things happen to other people, but not to us

circadian rhythm

the biological waxing and waning of alertness of the 24-hour day; known as a biological clock

generalized other

the common behavioral expectations of general society

reciprocal inhibition

the concurrent relaxation and contraction of muscles to enable movement; this is required, for example, to extend one's leg

false memories

the creation of a nonexistent memory resulting from simply repeatedly imagining that one did something

reliability

the degree to which a specific assessment tool produces stable, consistent, and replicable results

stigma

the devaluation of deviant members by the assignment of demeaning labels

religiosity

the extent of influence of religion in a person's life

social stigma

the extreme disapproval or dislike of a person or group based on perceived differences from the rest of society ex. mental illness has been stigmatized in american society

bystander effect

the finding that a person is less likely to provide help when there are other bystanders

primary effect

the first items are more easily recalled because they have had a longer time to be transferred to long-term memory

endowment effect

the hypothesis that people ascribe more value to the things they own than to the things they do not possess. Therefore they would tend to demand more money or assets to sell or give up their possessions than they would be willing to pay to acquire them

looking-glass self

the idea that a person's sense of self develops from interpersonal interactions with others in society and the perceptions of others; essentially, people shape their self-concepts based on their understanding of how others perceive them

conservation

the idea that quantity remains the same despite changes in shape

relative poverty

the inability to meet the average standard of living within a society

personality

the individual pattern of thinking, feeling, and behavior associated with each person

framing

the influence of one's perception of information based on how it is presented

reciprocal determinism

the interaction between a person's behaviors, personal factors, and environment

transgenesis

the introduction of an exogenous or outside gene into an organism; alter genotype of an animal so that researchers can study the effect of a gene

saltatory conduction

the jumping of the action potential from nodes to node

conditioned response

the learned response to the conditioned stimulus

social behaviorism

the mind and the self emerge through the process of communicating with others; beginning of the school of symbolic interactionism

absolute threshold

the minimum intensity required to activate a sensory receptor 50% of the time

difference threshold

the minimum noticeable difference between any two sensory stimuli

informational influence

the most common ideas to emerge are the ones that favor the dominant viewpoint

replacement level fertility

the number of children that a woman must have in order to replace the number of people in the population who die

inclusive fitness

the number of offspring an organism has, how it supports its offspring, and how its offspring support others in a group

dependency ratio

the number of people who are too young or too old to work, compared to the number of people in their productive years

relative refractory period

the period during which a neuron can be induced to transmit an action potential, but the depolarization required is greater than normal due to hyperpolarization

absolute refractory period

the period during which a neuron will not fire another action potential no matter how strong a membrane depolarization is induced; this is due to the fact that the voltage-gated sodium channels are completely inactivated

nodes of Ranvier

the periodic gaps in the myelin sheath

conformity

the phenomenon of adjusting behavior or thinking based on the behavior or thinking of others

Canon-Bard Theory

the physiological and cognitive aspects of emotion occur simultaneously that then lead to a behavioral action

nucleus accumbens

the pleasure center of the brain; enjoyable behavior produces activity in these dopamine circuits

social capital

the potential for social networks to allow for upward social mobility

fecundity

the potential reproductive capacity of a female

binding problem

the problem of assembling different aspects of an object together and relating them back to that same object

generalization

the process by which stimuli other than the original conditioned stimulus elicit the conditioned response

regression

the process of keeping uncomfortable or distressing thoughts or feelings in the unconscious, so that they do not emerge into the conscious, by regressing to an earlier developmental stage, wherein those states are not experienced defense mechanism

acquisition

the process of learning the conditioned response

collective identity

the process of producing an identity shared by several different individuals that is based on a shared definition of the group's values and beliefs

socialization

the process through which people learn to be proficient and functional members of society

ethonocentrism

the process when beliefs, norms, and values of one culture are assumed to be the values of all other cultures

disorganized-type schizophrenia

the psychosis is in the form of flat or inappropriate affect, disorganized speech, and disorganized behavior; positive symptoms usually not present

Prestige

the relative value assigned to something within a particular society

dishabituation

the removal of a stimulus after it has been habituated; may result in a very strong reaction when the stimulus is reintroduced

"I"

the response of the individual to the attitudes of others in symbolic interactionism

spotlight model

the spotlight is a beam that can shine anywhere within an individual's visual field; it describes attention, not movement of eyes

master status

the status that dominates the others and determines the individual's general position in society

Behavior

the sum coordinated responses of organisms to the internal and external stimuli that they experience

self-serving bias

the tendency to attribute success to ourselves and failures to others or the external environment

actor-observer bias

the tendency to blame our actions on the situation and blame the actions of others on their personalities

belief bias

the tendency to judge arguments based on what one believes about their conclusions rather than on whether they use sound logic

ethnocentrism

the tendency to judge people from another culture by the standards of one's own culture

modality

the type of stimulus

social perception

the understanding of others in our social world

object permanence

the understanding that things continue to exist when they are out of sight

social transmission

the way knowledge and skills are passed on within a group or a society

humanistic theory

theory that focuses on healthy personality development; humans are seen as inherently good and having free will; states that the discrepancy between conscious introjected values and unconscious true values is the root of psychopathology

signal detection theory

theory that predicts how and when someone will detect the presence of a given sensory stimulus

Stage 1 sleep is dominated by:

theta waves

initiative vs. guilt

third stage of Erikson's theory; child must be able to make decisions for themselves

concrete operational stage

third stage of Jean Piaget's developmental model; ages 7 to 11; develop conservation

psychoanalytic therapy

this therapy seeks to help the patient become more able to choose behaviors consciously; seeks to strengthen the ego

ascribed statuses

those assigned to a person by society regardless of the person's own efforts

Big Five personality model

tries to identify personality traits that are distinct. According to the model, the traits are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (i.e., emotional stability)

classical conditioning

two initially unrelated stimuli are paired such that the response to one of the stimuli changes

Weber's law

two stimuli must differ by 2% in weight order to detect a difference between them; two lights must differ in intensity by 8%; two tones must differ in frequency by 0.3%

latent content

unconscious drives and wishes that are difficult to express; according to Freud the purpose of dreams was to express this

fundamental attribution error

underestimating the impact of the situation and overestimating the impact of a person's character or personality

latent functions

unintended or less recognizable consequences of a structure

institutional discrimination

unjust and discriminatory practices employed by large organizations that have been codified into operating procedures, processes, or institutional objectives

catastrophes

unpredictable, large-scale events that include natural disasters and wartime events

social phobia

unreasonable, paralyzing fear of feeling embarrassed or humiliated while one is watched by others, even while performing simple tasks like going to the bathroom

states

unstable, temporary, and variable aspects of personality that are influenced by the external environment

drives

urges originating from a physiological discomfort such as hunger, thirst, or sleepiness

psychological dependence

use of a drug in response to painful emotions related to depression, anxiety, or trauma

ego defense mechanisms

used to cope with anxiety and protect ego by denying or distorting reality

construct validity

used to determine whether a tool is measuring what it is intended to measure

mindfulness-based stress reduction

used to help alleviate stress; meditators have increased alpha and theta waves while they are meditating

behavioral therapy

uses conditioning to shape a client's behaviors in the desired direction

ego

uses logical thinking and planning to control consciousness and the id; ruled by the reality principle

operant conditioning

uses reinforcement and punishment to mold behavior and eventually cause associative learning

stimulants

usually function by increasing the release of neurotransmitter, reducing the reuptake of neurotransmitter, or both

(f = 1/T)

v = λ f E = hf

ciliary muscles

vary the curvature of the lens

(avg vel, acc)

vav = Δ d / Δ t aav = Δ v / Δ t

conflict theory

views society as a competition for limited resources; social structures and institutions will reflect this competition in inherent inequality

deviance

violation of society's standards of conduct or expectations

The primary sense of humans is:

vision

Visual and spatial info are processed in the:

visuospatial sketchpad

frontal lobe

voluntary movement, reasoning, problem solving

drive reduction theory

we are motivated to reduce drives through behaviors such as eating and drinking; the greater the physiological need, the greater the physiological drive

source monitoring

we are prone to forgetting information's source

resource model of attention

we have a limited pool of resources on which to draw when performing tasks

Gestalt psychology

we see the whole rather than its separate constituent parts

normative influence

we want to be accepted or admired by others

mood-dependent memory

what we learn in one state is most easily recalled when we are in that emotional state again

histrionic personality disorder

when a person desires to be the center of attention, and often seeks to attract attention through personal appearance and seductive behavior

somatization disorder

when a person experiences a variety of physical symptoms over an extended time period

manic episode

when a person experiences an abnormally euphoric, unrestrained, or irritable mood

dependent personality disorder

when a person feels a need to be taken care of by others and has an unrealistic fear of being unable to take care of himself or herself

antisocial personality disorder

when a person has a history of serious problems beginning as a young teen, including significant aggression, lying or theft, etc.; demonstrates lack of regard for the rights of others

mixed episode

when a person has met the symptoms for both major depressive and manic episodes nearly every day for at least a week

dissociative amnesia

when a person has one at least one episode of suddenly forgetting some important personal information, usually related to severe stress or trauma; usually ends suddenly, with full recovery of memory

major depressive disorder

when a person has suffered one or more major depressive episodes; symptoms may include decreased interest, significant increase or decrease in weight, excessive or insufficient sleep, fatigue, feelings of low self-worth or guilt, impaired concentration, thoughts of death or suicide

hypochondriasis

when a person is preoccupied with fears of having a serious illness for at least six months

borderline personality disorder

when a person suffers from enduring or recurrent instability in his or her impulse control, mood, and image of self and others; terrified of abandonment by others

role strain

when a single status results in conflicted expectations

spontaneous recovery

when an extinct conditioned response occurs again when the conditioned stimulus is presented after some period of time

mimicry

when an organism benefits from another's protective traits by copying them

nonassociative learning

when an organism is repeatedly exposed to one type of stimulus

divided attention

when and if we are able to perform multiple tasks simultaneously

positive transfer

when old information facilitates the learning of new information

bipolar I disorder

when one experiences at least one manic or mixed episode

mere presence

when people are simply in each other's presence

bipolar disorder

when people experience cyclic mood episodes at both extremes or "poles": depression and mania

serial position effect

when someone attempts to memorize a series, such as a list of words, they are more likely to recall the first and last items on the list

pain disorder

when someone suffers clinically important pain whose onset or severity seems significantly affected by psychological factors

self-fulfilling prophecy

when stereotypes lead to behaviors that affirm the original stereotypes

extinction

when the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli are no longer paired, so the conditioned response eventually stops occurring

episodic buffer

where information in the working memory can interact with information in long-term memory helps us make associations

selective attention

where one input is attended to and the rest are tuned out

back stage

where we can "let down our guard" and be ourselves

front stage

where we play a role and use impression management to craft the way we come across to other people

real self

who you actually are

matriarchy

women have more authority than men

Translational motion

x = xo + vot + 1/2at2 (Vƒ)2 = (Vo)2 + 2ax Vƒ = Vo + at

Gibbs Free Energy

ΔG° = -RTln Keq ΔG = ΔH - TΔS

(pressure Ρ)

Ρ = F/A Δ Ρ = ρgΔh

Torque force at EQ

ΣFx = 0 and ΣFy = 0 ΣL = 0

Kirchoff's Laws

Σi = 0 at a junction ΣΔV = 0 in a loop

(buoyant F)

ρ = mass / volume Fb = Vρg = mg