psych notes mcat 2015
Content
Emile Durkheim (founding father of sociology)- developed “anomie”- the disintegration of the
influence of social norms on individuals. But NORMALLY…. Individuals followed
functionalism……. manifest (overt) functions- intended and obvious consequences Latent
FUNCTIONS- unintended or less obvious consequences
For example: schools= manifest (formal education) latent (social knowledge)
Deviance- based on the cultural norm AND IS NOT INHERENT… (marrying first cousins) but
not all deviance is “bad/criminal” mental illness is deviance
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONALISM AND SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONALISM ARE
MICRO… LEVEL THEORIES of societies.
Social constructionalism(middle finger)- are interested in the construction of perceived social
realities through social interactions…. Basically you are a man because someone told you
that you were a man…. These social intrepretations must be restated many things… and
are mapped through knowledge and human choices…. FOCUSES ON LANGUAGE.
Weak social constructionalism- brute facts quarks make up electrons… institutional facts… paper
with value (money)
Strong social constructionalism- EVERYTHING is a institutional facts…. Our reality is what we
create it to be.
Symbolic interactionalism (the tree/ant example)- relates the individual with greater social
structure with a focus on communication. The action is depends on meaning…. And
experiences… the meanings can CHANGE through experiences.
BACK STAGE/ FRONT STAGE…
Dramaturgical perspective/approach- individuals play certain roles when interacting with
others.
Impression management is the conscious or unconscious process where individuals manage
their own image by influence others because of different roles….
Self-schema- stable set of beliefs, expereicnes, and generalizamation about one’s self….
Self-identity- an OVERALL understanding of one’s self
Feminism= conflict theory
Socialization- process by which an individual acquires the norms, values, customs, ideologies,
and behaviors of his or her society.
Indoctrination- coercive form of learning (when you go to catholic school as a kid)
Social facilitation- when an individual can perform better/worse when he/she is in a group
Better- when the task is simple to the individual
Worse- when it is the first time doing it… in front of senior professionals
Minorities- less access to health care facilities based on geographic location, socioeconomic
status, and dangerous environments
We are more likely to attribute to environment if EVERYONE is doing it…. Or if it rarely
happens…. Or if it only happens in a specific environment….
Rational choice and social exchange theories- take into account economic considerations when
decision-making…
Rational choice- extrinsic (measurable costs)… profit…. Advancement in education
Social exchange theories- extrinsic as well as intrinsic…. (non-measureable costs) like
friendship and companionship….
Fundamental attribution error- blames individuals for their behaviors and not environment
Actor/Observer Bias- blames ourselves but because of our environment….
Self-serving bias- attribute success to ourselves…. but failures on others (like the teacher)
Optimism bias- things happen bad to others but not ourselves.
Stanley Milgram- obedience with authority figure
Solomon Asch- conformity theory
BOTH used confederates to deceive people
“ascribed” status- is something you didn’t have to work for to get the status of… (female, OC
resident…., Vietnamese)
Achieved status is what you earned… -Doctor
Source characteristic in “Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion” is the ethos of the speaker
is taken into account….
Central/peripheral- central= the main message (message characteristic); peripheral- how he
looks….
Central>peripheral in memory
Target characteristic- how the audience is feeling; if the individual is tired… self-esteem…
mood… intelligence toward subject… if it is important or not.
FUNCTIONALISM- formal organizationUtilitarian Organization- compensations to their members (Microsoft users)
Normative- moral causes…. (PETA)
In primary groups- it is expressive function…. Because it helps develop morals and emotions….
Instrumental function is leadership and completion of the task
Environmental injustice- WHEN poor minorities have to live in bad environments that causes
disease
APPLICATION/EXAMPLE OF ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE: when minority live
in these environemnts and are obese because they do not have access to good/nutritious food
THIS IS FOOD DESERT
Demographic Transition… when high birth AND death rates lower…. Due to industrialization
Meritocracy- society where individual status can go up or down based on accomplishments…
Caste system is where individual status is defined at birth and will remain there FOREVER.
Class system- BOTH accomplishments and birth rights.
Cultural competence- include minority/socioeconomic backgrounds…. groups in biomedical
research
Suburbanization- people moving to suburbs (areas around the cities/urban settings)
Counter-urbanization suburb to rural….
Sub-replacement fertility when net birth rate is NEGATIVE…. (more deaths than birth rates)
Population-lag effect is when the net is ZERO
Fecundity refers to the reproductive potential of a single women
Colonization- form of immigration where a group of people arrives to a place where it is already
settled and proceeds to dominate and exploit the indigenous people
Involuntary migration- where the Europeans will actually force the native americans out of their
land…. (trail of tears)
False consensus- when you think you’re right… but everyone around completely disagrees
Confirmation bias- is looking for information to support your own previously known opinions…
Belief bias- when one judges a situation on the plausibility of the event instead of the actually
logical facts
Example of belief bias : all humans are mortall Socrates is human Socrates is
mortal
All teenage girls are ambitious teenage girls study hard Therefore, girls study
hard because they are ambitious
Absolute poverty- is the measure of the bare minimum for subsistence…. One disadvantage of
using this number is that poverty threshold in developed nations tend to higher
Relative poverty- measure of poverty compared to other families; defined as an inability to meet
the average standard of living within a society
Deductive- broad to specific (top-down)
Inductive- specific to broad (bottom up)
Panic disorder- when the patient has SOB, heart palpitations, and various panic attacks
Conversion disorder- when there is no physiological disorder and his disorder is bought by
traumatic event
Somatization- same thing as conversion disorder [there is no physiological disorder….] but… it
doesn’t have to be a traumatic event that occurs.
Hidden curriculum- the latent values of education… and when the latent values becomes obvious
when they are in conflict with the overt…
For example: the doctor does a complete physical of the patient… but then is suspicious
of the patients.
Teacher-expectancy…. How much the teachers expect out of the students will effect how
much/how little treatment the teacher will provide to the students
Mores- are NOT laws… but how society distinguishes it’s morals, they are highly important and
strictly enforced… so when they are violated…. Extreme consequences of (sanctions) are acted.
Folkways- kinda like mores… where if they are allowed then society is happy… and even when
they are broken… society doesn’t really care…
Formal norms- LAWS….
Feminist perspective= conflict theory because the perspective is interested in the persistent
gender inequalities, which is comparable to the interest of conflict theories.
“gatekeeper” effect is the media’s way of censoring what will be on on their medias…. (latent
consequence)
neurocognitive disorder- alzhemisers, huntingtons, and parkinsons
Compliance- is done to avoid punishments or get rewards… if punishment or rewards are gone…
then the decision/behavior will change
Identification behavior- you want to be more like the other person
Internalization behavior- internalized behavior… rarely deviants from what their morals are
Feral children- children that were raised without parents and basically in the wild (TARZAN)
Harry and Margaret harlow- monkey experiment involving neglect and nuture
Mary ainsworth- the parents and child abuse… if the baby cries when the mother leaves.
Trust vs. mistrust- infants
Initiative vs guilt- preschool- exploring
Autonomy vs shame and doubt- toilet training
James-Lange- physiogical and behavior emotions
Canon and bard- physioglical and emotions at the same time; they are independent of each other
SCHACHTER-SINGER- physiological emotions physiological (emotions are a
combination of physiological arousal and the brain that labels the states)
Starts at physiological arousal + labeling emotions
Social loafing- BASICALLY ANH…. Doesn’t do work in the group
Absenteeism- is the absence of taking responsibility for duties… but is describe in a pattern of
actions…
Deindividuation- when you more likely to moan @ people when your friends are around
Diffusion of responsibility- is the aspect of bystander effect that states that an individual will not
intervene because they believe someone else will do it
Acquisition converting an unconditional response to a conditional one
Histrionic- excessive emotionality and attention-seeking behavior
Narcissistic- thinks they are the shit… and a lack of empathy for others
Schizoid- detached from social relationships (but they don’t mind their isolation) and only exhibit
a few emotions
Personality disorders- is characterized by a set of personality traits that deviates from cultural
norms, impairs functioning, and causes distress
Borderline personality disorder- unstable self-image and interpersonal relationship, and feelings
of emptiness and efforts to abandonment
Fearful avoidant attachment style- loves the emotion contact between friends, but VERY fearful/
paranoid of other people’s intentions and doesn’t express emotions a lot
Anxious-preoccupied: wants the emotional connections with others, but fears he/she is not good
enough [basically a bitch]
primacy effect- remembers the first item
Recency effect- remembers the last item
Schizotypal personality disorder- acute discomfort in interpersonal relationship where they have
odd eccentric behavior including constricted or inappropriate affect; magical or paranoid
thinking; and odd beliefs, speech, behavior, appearance, and perception … but have support from
immediate family members
Antisocial personality disorder- acts of aggression against people or animals; deliberate property
descturciton; lying or theft
Schizoid- detached from social relationships and detached from close relationships… but not odd
or completely eccentric
Sensory memory (Echoic or iconic) must pass through the BROADBENT FILTER in order to
become short term memory (iconic and echoic memory are short term)
Long term:
Episodic memory- That’s another story… I’m no story teller (type of autobiographical
events/EXPLICIT MEMORY)
Procedural memory – riding a bike
Semantic memory- factual information
The Big Five personalities: OCEAN
O-Openness
C- conscientiousness
E- extraversion
A- Agreeable
N- neuroticism- ability to control/handle stress (EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE) (personality trait
characterized by anxiety, fear, moodiness, worry, envy, frustration, jealousy, and loneliness
Working memory and long term memory- stored in PRE-FRONTAL CORTEX
HIPPOCAMPUS- is involved in making new memories and adding emotional association with
those memories
Psychoanalytic theory- THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND.
Humanist theory- emphasizes an individual inherent drive toward self-actualization… focuses on
healthy personality developments. Humans are inherently good.
Behaviorist perspective- people are a blank slates and then environment refinrocements their
personality through operative and classical conditioning
Social cognitive perspective- environment/behavioral/cognitive all effect personality
Trait perspective- each individual possesses traits that are stable and enduring???? WTF.
Stimulus reactions:
Sensitization- sensitivity increases as stimulus increases
Habituation- sensitivity decreases as stimulus decreases
Dishabituation- when the stimulus is removed… and then reaction is gone… but when stimulus
comes back…. The reaction comes back… SOMETIMES EVEN STRONGER.
Extinction- unconditional conditional unconditional [IT IS COMPLETELY GONE….]
As habituation continues… extinction is bound to happen…
Spontaneous recovery is when the conditioned stimulus triggers the same conditioned response as
before.
Acquisition- unconditional conditional
Stimulus is always trying to be CONDITIONED….. The “food” is the unconditioned response in
the case of the dog and bell/salivation
Agoraphobia- frear of embarrassment or inablility to escape a certain situation…. Causes anxiety
disorders NOT A MOOD DISORDER
EXAMPLE of SOCIAL PHOBIA: Social phobia is an unreasonable, paralyzing fear of
feeling embarrassed or humiliated while one is watched by others.
Cyclothymic disorder- same thing as bipolar disorder
Types of reinforcements:
Fixed ratio- reinforced every nth response
used car dealer gets 1000 for every 10 car sold
Variable ratio- reinforced ON AVERAGE every nth response, but not on each nth response.
slot machines… because though the jackpot is constant…. The number of times of lever pulling
is variable)
fixed interval- reinforced after n amount of time
rewarded after 15 minutes of rat pushing the lever
variable interval- reinforced ON AVERAGE every nth response, BUT not ALWAYS on the nth
amount of time....
fishing….--> you might be able to catch a fish in 5 minutes… but the next one might take an
hour…
schizophrenia- positive and negative symptoms
positive- seeing things that are not there…. (delusions, hallucinations, and
negative- lack of behaviors- (losing interest aka avolition), feeling out of touch)
catatonic behavior(they are rigid and stuck…. Stuck in time) [I THINK IT’S NEGATIVE]
Bobo dolls (Albert Bandura)- child who observe adult behavior will model that behavior with or
WITHOUT rewards geared toward that behavior
vicarious reinforcement is our tendency to repeat or duplicate behaviors for which
others are being rewarded; copying behaviors because someone else received a reward
Alzheimer Disease (AD)- Plaques, tangles in cortex, ALWAYS dementia
Parkinson’s Disease (PD)- Impaired movement (NOT AD), lose of dopamine in the substantia
nigra, DEMENTIA as disease progresses, gait (walking abnormality) and tremors, facial
expression and movement
castration anxiety. Freud theorized that morality developed in young males out of a fear of their
father’s disapproval and the resulting anxiety that their father would castrate them as punishment;
to avoid this, the boy attempts to become more like his father, and to identify with him rather than
to pursue his mother as a sexual object
suppression- act of voluntarily withholding ideas/feelings from conscious awareness
repression- act of involuntarily withholding ideas
depression and bipolar disorder- BOTH ARE PERSONALITY disorders
Anxiety disorders: Panic disorder, OCD, PTSD, phobias MOST PREVELANT
Mood disorders- depression, bipolar
Personality- borderline personality disorder; antisocial personality disorder, dissociative identity
disorder
Dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality disorder)- alternates among two or
more distinct personality states (or identities), only one of which interacts with other people at
any one time
Freud- PsychoSexual
Oral(feeding/sucking), anal(toilet training), phallic(oedius/electra), latent(none), genital (sexual
maturity)
Erikson- Psychosocial (conficts)
Trust vs mistrust
Indepdence vs guilt
Industry vs inferiority
Identify vs role confusion
Intimacy vs isolation
Generation vs separation
Integrity vs despair
Instinct theory- all physiological behavior
Drive reduction theory physiological in order to reduction unmet tension (both innate and
conscious behavior)
COOKING FOOD WHEN YOU ARE HUNGRY IS A DRIVE… NOT A INNATE
RESPONSE.
Secondary reinforcers are one main criticism of the Drive Reduction Theory, because
these are other types of reinforcers that do not directly reduce physiological and biological drives.
Money as a secondary reinforcer can buy things that would reduce physiological drives, such as
buying food to reduce hunger, but there is no direct connection between a secondary reinforcer
and a reduction in drive, only an indirect connection through the primary reinforcer.
Maslow the pyramid…
Taste aversion conditioning- individual avoids eating foods that have made him/her ill; foods
associated with illness
Children with autism often display repetitive behavior but do NOT have difficulties with
sustained attention…. AKA they do not have ADD…. Or ADHD
The Diagnosis of ASD (autism spectrum disorders) is made during toddlerhood (18-30 months)
Denial- occurs when parents outright refusal to admit the existence of a painful experience….
(postpartum depression) this is different from repression because repression involves memroeis
that are held in the SUBCONSCIOUS and we are not clearly thinking of it.
Role conflict- SHOULD I BE A STUDENT… OR A FRAT BRO….
Role exit happens in the case of disengagement from a role that is important to a person's sense of
self; for example, a mother might experience role exit as a result of birth because she exits the
role of a pregnant woman
Role strain- happens in the case of a SINGLEEEEE status that has conflicting expectations
associated with it; for example, a mother might experience role strain due to the struggle between
the expectation to show compassion to her children while also being expected to discipline them
for poor behavior
The Arousal Theory of Motivation suggests that individuals are motivated to change their
behavior to achieve their optimal level of arousal, which means they will work to increase or
decrease arousal.
Yerkes-Dodson Law states that increased arousal can help improve performance, but at the point
when arousal becomes excessive, performance diminishes
Stimulus generalization- when a conditioned stimulus has been generalized to a response for
everything…..
Response generalization- when an organism emits a different response to a conditioned stimulus
Response discrimination- is when the invidiual can discern between the conditioned stimulus and
other stuff
Implicit memories- are memories that explain completely procedural or motor tasks aka hard to
explain/nondeclarative, only measured indirectly
Explicit memory- facts and numbers and shit
Example: episodic memory
Proactive interference- when old material interferes with new material
Retroactive interference- when new material interferes with old material
Source monitor error- is where you thought you heard the information from…. But you’re
WRONG.
State-dependent learning is a phenomenon in which material learned in one state (physical,
emotional, pharmaceutical) is best recalled while in that state, which explains why those taking
the test in the same room in which they studied out-performed those taking the test in a new
environment.
Serial recall is remembering words or events in the order they occurred
The episodic buffer mediates between the long-term memory and the central executive in
Baddeley’s model, and helps give chronological order to memories and stories
The phonological loop is the part of Baddeley’s model of working memory that deals with
remembering auditory information, and would be involved in repeating an auditory message over
and over mentally.
The dual coding hypothesis suggests that it is easier to remember words with associated images
than either words or images alone; by encoding both a visual mental representation of an
associated word, there are more connections made to the memory and an opportunity to process
the information at a deeper level
Both emotional and non-emotional memory are subjected to reconstruction
Hermann Ebbinghaus- forgetting curve; intial time of learning the information= forgetting
information is rapidly lost, but as time continues the rate of forgetting levels off
The practice effect refers to the improvements made in performance on any task with repetition or
repeated practice; this effect would suggest that if the children were give identical or very similar
tasks for each trial, their performance should improve to some degree just because of repeated
exposure to the problems
Maintenance and repetition, both processes of simply repeating information to oneself, allows
one to keep the information in short-term memory but often does not cause the information to
enter the long-term memory
Elaboration (semantic networking) is when you compare the information you already know to
information that you just learned… it becomes LONG TERM MEMORY
Spreading activation is a model that suggest thinking about ideas allows for the “priming” of new
ideas to be learned easier
Carl rogers- humanistic approach of personality… everyone is going to be self-actualized
Parasomnia- abnormal behavior that occurs during sleep
Example: night terrors
Dyssomnias- sleep apnea, insomnia, and narcolepsy
Attitude is effected by ABC
A- affect (emotion)
B- behavior tendencies
C- Cognition (thoughts)
Attitude become a good predictor of behavior when social influences are minimal (alone), when
people self-reflect to strengthen those attitudes, and when the geranl behavior pattern is noted
NOT the analysis of the specific behaviors
The reticular activating system (RAS), which is located in the midbrain, controls alertness and
arousal.
Thalamus is the relay station
Cognitive dissonance- when an individual feels tension when two thoughts/beliefs are
conflicting… it is necessary to eliminate this to establish self-worth/self-identity
Yerkes-Dodson Law suggest that you will do better on the real MCAT than the practice ones
because there is a little nervousness involved…
There is a relationship between performance and arousal…. Increased arousal can help
improve performance, but only up to a certain point. At the point when arousal becomes
excessive, performance diminishes.
Atonia- skeletal muscle paralysis (REM)
N2- sleep spindles
A cross-sectional study is observational and involves comparisons of different population groups
within a single point in time.
A study in which participants are observed at different points over time is considered a
longitudinal study
CORRELATION DOES NOT MEAN CAUSATION… FUNDAMENTAL RULE OF
PYSCHOLOGY
Functional fixedness- A specific type of mental set that involves us only being able to see
solutions to a problem that involve using objects in their normal or expected manner is known
as functional fixedness. With functional fixedness, there is a tendency to perceive the functions
of objects as fixed and unchanging, which prevents us from using objects in novel or innovative
ways to potentially solve problems.
Belief perseverance is the tendency to reject convincing proof and become even more tenaciously
firm about an existing idea, even despite contradictory evidence
The availability heuristic is a tendency to make judgments based on how readily available
information is in our memories. If a memory is readily available, we may think the idea is more
common than it actually is.
A confirmation bias is a type of cognitive error that involves favoring information that confirms
previously existing beliefs; this occurs when she pays attention to the information that upholds
her ideas about stem cell research and ignores the information that challenges her existing
beliefs.
The representativeness heuristic (stereotyping) occurs when one estimates the likelihood of an
event occurring by comparing it to an existing mental prototype; these prototypes are what each
person thinks are the most relevant or typical example of a particular event or object.
Olfaction is the only sense that does not synapse with the thalamus before reaching its primary
processing cortex. The olfactory bulb of the frontal lobe is connected directly to the nasal cavity
by the olfactory nerve (cranial nerve I)
left hemisphere where Broca’s area is localized, so he will not be able to say what the shape is.
Blindsight, the ability to accurately “guess” what an object is without consciously seeing it, tends
to occur in patients with primary visual cortex damage and would not be seen with a split brain
patient as his visual system is intact.
Right hemisphere- visual processing
The ability to produce fluent but meaningless spoken or written language is indicative of damage
to Wernicke’s area, located in the left temporal lobe in right-handed individuals
Signal detection theory tests look for subjects to correctly identify the presence or absence of a
signal amidst background noise; they do not test for the presence of noise itself. When a subject
correctly detects a signal that is present, that is known as a “hit.” When a subject detects the
absence of a signal that is truly absent, that is known as a “correct rejection.” When a subject
detects a signal as present that is actually absent, this is known as a “false alarm.”
Sapir-whorf hypothesis- The idea that language encodes cultural and cognitive properties that
affect the way that people think, such that speakers of different languages will tend to think and
behave differently depending on the language they use, is known as the Sapir–Whorf
hypothesis
Linguist Noam Chomsky proposed that humans are born hard-wired to learn language, and
suggested this ability was due to the presence of a “language acquisition device” (LAD), an
innate feature unique to the human mind that allows people to gain mastery of language from
limited exposure during the sensitive developmental years in early childhood.
B. F. Skinner, on the other hand, believed that humans learn language through a series of operant
conditioning steps and stages, wherein young children are praised for making sounds that
resemble words and eventually are conditioned through shaping to produce language.
Parallel processing- When watching a movie or other complex visual stimulus, all of the
elements (form, depth, color, movement) are processed simultaneously. This process is
referred to as parallel processing.
According to Baddeley’s model, working memory consists of four components—a phonological
loop, a visuospatial sketchpad, an episodic buffer, and a central executive. The phonological loop
allows us to repeat verbal information to help us remember it. The visuospatial sketchpad serves a
similar purpose for visuospatial information through the use of mental images. The episodic
buffer is where information in the working memory can interact with information in long-term
memory. For example, if a doctor sees a rare condition much like the one she saw in residency
years ago, she is able to make this connection through the interaction between her memory of
residency and her current visual experience in the episodic buffer. Echoic memory, which is not a
component of Baddeley’s model, is a component of sensory memory that is specific to retaining
auditory information.
Korsakoff’s syndrome- alcoholism/ affects long term memory
REM sleep- there is no EMG activity and NO K complexes or theta waves (K complexes are in
N2
Nucleus accumbens- reward center= dopamine centers
Dissociative fugue (a type of dissociative disorder)- sufferes of dissociative fugue tend ot wander
or travel and often establish new identities based on who they believe they are
Delusional disorder- psychotic illness that is characterized by non-bizarre delusions, with no
accompanying hallucinations, mood disturbances, or flattening of affect;
Social network theory- people’s network are important and necessary for the spread of ideas and
resources; there is much strength in weak ties because weak ties allow the sharing of new
resources to a vast network….. although strong ties have advantages, there is a sense of
redundancy with the information and resources provided; generally people’s strong ties have
infmration that the person is already aware of since they are part of the same cluster
Mead- final step to forming a self is the ability of seeing oneself…..
“I” is the observer while ME is the observed….
The Me prevents the I from violating social norms
Me can be reflected…. But I can not self-reflect… because I is self…
The opponent-process theory was first developed by Ewald Hering. He noted that there are color
combinations that we never see, such as reddish-green or yellowish-blue. Opponent-process
theory suggests that color perception is controlled by the activity of three opponent systems. In
the theory, he postulated about three independent receptor types which all have opposing pairs:
white and black, blue and yellow, and red and green.
Positive correlation means the correlation coefficient [ranges from -1 to 1] is greater than zero…
and negative is vice versa BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY…. CORRELATION DOES NOT
IMPLY CAUSATION
Insight= light bulb
When measures vary but the scores are consistent, that is intermethod
reliability, which is absent in this case.
Testretest reliability is only applicable when the first and second measures
are identical (i.e., the questions are the same on each test).
The child is most likely in the preoperational stage, which ranges from 27
years old and is featured by animism, the tendency to give nonhuman
objects human characteristics. She is also exhibiting egocentrism, or the
tendency to focus on her own thoughts & emotions.
The Whorfian hypothesis is that language determines thought; the idea of
linguistic determinism.
This psychologist supports the idea that thought determines language.
Universalists/nativist believe that thought determines language.
Language is inherent
Elevated activation of the right hemisphere is associated with social
withdrawal and isolation.
Elevated activation of the left hemisphere is associated with positive
emotions.
The evaluation of a potential threat as stressful or not occurs in the first stage
of appraisal.
The evaluation of a potential threat as stressful occurs during primary
appraisal.
The General Adaptation Syndrome theorizes that: As proposed by Hans Selye, and supported by
his research, the physiological response to stress is universal
target cells of lower motor neurons
polydysia
The FootintheDoor Phenomenon explains how people have a tendency to
agree to a small action and comply later on with a larger action. At first the
smoker only agreed to remain sober for one week. He remained in the
company of people who didn’t smoke and over time, his cognitions and
behaviors changed his attitudes towards smoking, which lasted longer than
one week.
Displacement is a defense mechanism that shifts aggressive impulses to a
less threatening target. It redirects emotion to a safer outlet or someone
unrelated to the emotional situation, in order to avoid dealing directly with
what is frightening or threatening. The girl yells at her roommate even
though she is angry with her mother.
Projection project your own ideas onto other people
Theory of Planned Behavior The implications of our actions are generally
thought out before we engage in behavior and together with our intentions,
subjective norms (what others think about our behavior), and perceived
behavior control (how easy or difficult we think it is to control our
behavior), we form an attitude and thus act.
social psychologists, the presence of others increases arousal—it does not
decrease it.
Signal Detection Theory
I.
The signal-to-noise ratio
II.
The operator’s alertness
III.
The operator’s expectations
Delta waves are characteristics of deep sleep (stages 3 and 4), not REM sleep, which while
deep, is known as “paradoxical sleep,” because the EEG measures most resemble that of
wakefulness
REM- LOOKS LIKE BETA WAVES…. it looks like you’re awake
Object permance, egocentric, conservation, abstract thinking
Language is lateralized in the left hemisphere, particularly in right-handed individuals, so this
deficit would not have been caused by a blow to the right hemisphere
Language is in the dominant hemisphere
B.F. Skinner’s behaviorist model of language development proposed that children learn language
through a series of positive reinforcements
Chomsky proposed something entirely contrary to this theory (choice D is correct). Noam
Chomsky proposed that all children are born with an innate ability to learn language (choice A is
wrong) during the sensitive developmental years during early childhood (choice C is wrong).
Chomsky also proposed that children learn language through mere exposure to it, and do not
need to be actively taught language (choice B is wrong).
CHOMSKY-you can lack syntax and sentence structure, but it is still considered language
acquisition because you are being exposed it….
The amygdala communicates with the hypothalamus, which controls the physiological aspects of
emotion, such as sweating and a racing heart
CHUNKING IS NOT A CUED-RECALL… it is FREE RECALL….. for example, remembering
a long series of numbers by seeing it as a group of years chained together
The encoding-specificity principle states that information is most easily retrieved in the place
where it was first learned. For example, if one studies for a test in the library, that person would
do better on the test if he or she took the test in the library because that is where recall of the
material would be best
One of the hallmarks of autistic spectrum disorder is that the person appears remote and
indifferent to those around them, often failing to make eye contact (choice C is correct). If a child
is not engaging in what Erikson calls “associative play,” where he or she plays in groups of
several people, it is likely the child is still under the age of about three years old and hasn’t
matured from the parallel play stage, but is normal developmentally (choice A is wrong).
Telegraphic speech—the use of two to three word sentences—is also a sign that children are
quite young, in this case 18-24 months, but is still a part of normal language development (choice
B is wrong). Moral relativism is Piaget’s term for the stage children go through when they mature
and recognize the importance of rules and cooperation in creating a working social system. This
is also a normal developmental stage (choice D is wrong).
The familiarity effect, also known as the mere-exposure principle, is a psychological
phenomenon that suggests that the degree to which someone likes a novel object or stimuli
increases with additional exposures; therefore, the familiarity effect would predict that even if a
participant didn’t particularly like the piece of music the first time they heard it, they would report
liking it more after hearing it a second time
Individuals do have the ability to selectively attend to a chosen stream of sensory information,
and are capable of filtering unwanted information and ignoring it effectively, as described in the
cocktail party effect. This is especially true if the information is subjectively important, such as
hearing one’s own name amidst the noise
The learning perspective, which is attributed to B. F. Skinner, holds that adults have a significant
impact on the speech of children when they reinforce infant babbling
nteractionist theory, which is often related to Vygotsky, bridges the social and biological factors
that contribute to language learning;
Vygotsky= daddy puzzle
The critical period hypothesis (also part of Chomsky’s nativist theory) posits that children are
more easily able to learn a language before a certain age. The exact age is debatable, but all
proponents of this approach agree that individuals have more difficulty acquiring language after
they have reached a certain age (
A cross-sectional study is observational and involves comparisons of different population groups
within a single point in time.
A study in which participants are observed at different points over time is considered a
longitudinal study
The process that would best account for this phenomenon is that of synaptic pruning, which
refers to the gradual elimination of neuronal synapses, or brain cell connections, that are not
relevant to the infant’s developing brain. Thus, the synapses that would support processing of
sounds that are not part of the infant’s native language are not stimulated, and they wither and
die. Accordingly, when presented with novel, nuanced sounds, the infant may have difficulty
quickly learning to discriminate between those sounds
The researchers examined the influence of a parent/caregiver’s directives on a child’s behavior at
various stages of development, which can be broken down into the elements of the person, the
environment, and the behavior. The bidirectional influence that each of these components has on
the others and the resulting learning or behavior that occurs is a process Albert Bandura termed
reciprocal causation
Experience expectant skills are those that have been part of the human repertoire for a long time,
so the brain is essentially hard-wired to produce them. As long as basic, universal needs are met,
these experience expectant skills, such as language and visual perception, will evolve within the
developing human practically automatically. In contrast, experience dependent skills sets are
those that are newer to the human experience or limited to a particular culture, such as driving a
car or carrying water jugs on one’s head. Accordingly, comprehension of verbal language would
be considered experience expectant, while playing a culturally unique game would be considered
experience dependen
Damage to Broca’s area in an adult would produce an inability to produce both spoken and
written language
The availability heuristic occurs when we rely on immediate examples that come to mind when
trying to make a decision or judgment. When you overestimate the probability or likelihood of
something happening because you can think of examples of it happening (JJ thinks he’ll hate
State U because several people he’s met don’t like State U and want to transfer), the availability
heuristic has occurred
A heuristic is defined as a mental rule-of-thumb, shortcut, or guideline that can be applied to
problem solving which prevents us from having to try all possible options, but may lead to
erroneous solutions (choice A is wrong). A mental set is our tendency to approach situations in a
certain way because that method worked for us in the past; a mental set precludes the use of a
step-by-step procedure because you are cutting corners to save time (choice C is wrong).
In signal detection theory, a type II error occurs when the signal is present but the detector fails
to respond; this is also known as a miss (choice A is correct). A false alarm occurs when the
signal is not present, but the detector responds anyway; this is also known as a type I error or a
false positive
Kolberg- morality
Kluver-bucy- HYPER ORALITY (when you’re amayldya is missing)… SUCKS EVERYTHING
when you fail oral
Social network analysis helps us identify communities ties and key
members within communities that are crucial to understanding
channels of attitude and behavior change.
Relative deprivation itself refers to the gap between what one has and
what one expects, particularly in comparison to some specific reference
group in society.
A rumination is a mood-congruent obsessive thought process (e.g., a person is
sad and dwells on the circumstances that made them feel sad). Rumination is not
typically seen as an abnormal or irrational thought process, even while it may be
harmful. Rumination is often associated with mental disorders like depression or
anxiety.
A compulsion is a repetitive behavior or action that is performed to decrease
anxiety or relieve obsessive thoughts.
A delusion is a false belief that is held even when there is evidence to the
contrary. Individuals who experience delusions typically lack the insight described
in the question above. Delusions are also qualitatively different from the
experience of OCD; instead of fearing contamination or harm from discarding
items, individuals who experience delusions may believe that they have special
powers or or are being persecuted.
Thus, the phenomenon in the question is best described by the term
obsession.
Many psychodynamic theories focus on how experiences in childhood
shape adulthood. This is most likely a psychodynamic theory of
persistent depressive disorder.
Overt- phenotype/outside causes
“Positive” refers to adding a stimulus.
“Negative” refers to removing a stimulus.
“Reinforcement” refers to increased frequency of a behavior.
“Punishment” refers to decreased frequency of a behavior.
Repression is a defense mechanism.
Repression involves suppressing thoughts until they no longer a part of a
person’s conscious mind.
Repression is a key concept in theories from Sigmund Freud, the father
of psychoanalytic theory.
Classical conditioning ties one stimulus to another, while operant
conditioning ties a behavior to a consequence - thus, only operant
conditioning directly affects behavior.
In an A-not-B error, the individual perseveres in looking for an object in a location where it was
previously placed, even with the knowledge that it has been placed elsewhere. This is most
common in infants under 12 months of age
Morality is a set of standards of conduct that is specific to the social group one is embedded in.
Socialization is the process by which one person becomes a member of a group, and learning the
moral standards of the group is important to retaining group membership
The rules governing emotional displays within a particular culture are called display rules
influence of social norms on individuals. But NORMALLY…. Individuals followed
functionalism……. manifest (overt) functions- intended and obvious consequences Latent
FUNCTIONS- unintended or less obvious consequences
For example: schools= manifest (formal education) latent (social knowledge)
Deviance- based on the cultural norm AND IS NOT INHERENT… (marrying first cousins) but
not all deviance is “bad/criminal” mental illness is deviance
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONALISM AND SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONALISM ARE
MICRO… LEVEL THEORIES of societies.
Social constructionalism(middle finger)- are interested in the construction of perceived social
realities through social interactions…. Basically you are a man because someone told you
that you were a man…. These social intrepretations must be restated many things… and
are mapped through knowledge and human choices…. FOCUSES ON LANGUAGE.
Weak social constructionalism- brute facts quarks make up electrons… institutional facts… paper
with value (money)
Strong social constructionalism- EVERYTHING is a institutional facts…. Our reality is what we
create it to be.
Symbolic interactionalism (the tree/ant example)- relates the individual with greater social
structure with a focus on communication. The action is depends on meaning…. And
experiences… the meanings can CHANGE through experiences.
BACK STAGE/ FRONT STAGE…
Dramaturgical perspective/approach- individuals play certain roles when interacting with
others.
Impression management is the conscious or unconscious process where individuals manage
their own image by influence others because of different roles….
Self-schema- stable set of beliefs, expereicnes, and generalizamation about one’s self….
Self-identity- an OVERALL understanding of one’s self
Feminism= conflict theory
Socialization- process by which an individual acquires the norms, values, customs, ideologies,
and behaviors of his or her society.
Indoctrination- coercive form of learning (when you go to catholic school as a kid)
Social facilitation- when an individual can perform better/worse when he/she is in a group
Better- when the task is simple to the individual
Worse- when it is the first time doing it… in front of senior professionals
Minorities- less access to health care facilities based on geographic location, socioeconomic
status, and dangerous environments
We are more likely to attribute to environment if EVERYONE is doing it…. Or if it rarely
happens…. Or if it only happens in a specific environment….
Rational choice and social exchange theories- take into account economic considerations when
decision-making…
Rational choice- extrinsic (measurable costs)… profit…. Advancement in education
Social exchange theories- extrinsic as well as intrinsic…. (non-measureable costs) like
friendship and companionship….
Fundamental attribution error- blames individuals for their behaviors and not environment
Actor/Observer Bias- blames ourselves but because of our environment….
Self-serving bias- attribute success to ourselves…. but failures on others (like the teacher)
Optimism bias- things happen bad to others but not ourselves.
Stanley Milgram- obedience with authority figure
Solomon Asch- conformity theory
BOTH used confederates to deceive people
“ascribed” status- is something you didn’t have to work for to get the status of… (female, OC
resident…., Vietnamese)
Achieved status is what you earned… -Doctor
Source characteristic in “Elaboration Likelihood Model of persuasion” is the ethos of the speaker
is taken into account….
Central/peripheral- central= the main message (message characteristic); peripheral- how he
looks….
Central>peripheral in memory
Target characteristic- how the audience is feeling; if the individual is tired… self-esteem…
mood… intelligence toward subject… if it is important or not.
FUNCTIONALISM- formal organizationUtilitarian Organization- compensations to their members (Microsoft users)
Normative- moral causes…. (PETA)
In primary groups- it is expressive function…. Because it helps develop morals and emotions….
Instrumental function is leadership and completion of the task
Environmental injustice- WHEN poor minorities have to live in bad environments that causes
disease
APPLICATION/EXAMPLE OF ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE: when minority live
in these environemnts and are obese because they do not have access to good/nutritious food
THIS IS FOOD DESERT
Demographic Transition… when high birth AND death rates lower…. Due to industrialization
Meritocracy- society where individual status can go up or down based on accomplishments…
Caste system is where individual status is defined at birth and will remain there FOREVER.
Class system- BOTH accomplishments and birth rights.
Cultural competence- include minority/socioeconomic backgrounds…. groups in biomedical
research
Suburbanization- people moving to suburbs (areas around the cities/urban settings)
Counter-urbanization suburb to rural….
Sub-replacement fertility when net birth rate is NEGATIVE…. (more deaths than birth rates)
Population-lag effect is when the net is ZERO
Fecundity refers to the reproductive potential of a single women
Colonization- form of immigration where a group of people arrives to a place where it is already
settled and proceeds to dominate and exploit the indigenous people
Involuntary migration- where the Europeans will actually force the native americans out of their
land…. (trail of tears)
False consensus- when you think you’re right… but everyone around completely disagrees
Confirmation bias- is looking for information to support your own previously known opinions…
Belief bias- when one judges a situation on the plausibility of the event instead of the actually
logical facts
Example of belief bias : all humans are mortall Socrates is human Socrates is
mortal
All teenage girls are ambitious teenage girls study hard Therefore, girls study
hard because they are ambitious
Absolute poverty- is the measure of the bare minimum for subsistence…. One disadvantage of
using this number is that poverty threshold in developed nations tend to higher
Relative poverty- measure of poverty compared to other families; defined as an inability to meet
the average standard of living within a society
Deductive- broad to specific (top-down)
Inductive- specific to broad (bottom up)
Panic disorder- when the patient has SOB, heart palpitations, and various panic attacks
Conversion disorder- when there is no physiological disorder and his disorder is bought by
traumatic event
Somatization- same thing as conversion disorder [there is no physiological disorder….] but… it
doesn’t have to be a traumatic event that occurs.
Hidden curriculum- the latent values of education… and when the latent values becomes obvious
when they are in conflict with the overt…
For example: the doctor does a complete physical of the patient… but then is suspicious
of the patients.
Teacher-expectancy…. How much the teachers expect out of the students will effect how
much/how little treatment the teacher will provide to the students
Mores- are NOT laws… but how society distinguishes it’s morals, they are highly important and
strictly enforced… so when they are violated…. Extreme consequences of (sanctions) are acted.
Folkways- kinda like mores… where if they are allowed then society is happy… and even when
they are broken… society doesn’t really care…
Formal norms- LAWS….
Feminist perspective= conflict theory because the perspective is interested in the persistent
gender inequalities, which is comparable to the interest of conflict theories.
“gatekeeper” effect is the media’s way of censoring what will be on on their medias…. (latent
consequence)
neurocognitive disorder- alzhemisers, huntingtons, and parkinsons
Compliance- is done to avoid punishments or get rewards… if punishment or rewards are gone…
then the decision/behavior will change
Identification behavior- you want to be more like the other person
Internalization behavior- internalized behavior… rarely deviants from what their morals are
Feral children- children that were raised without parents and basically in the wild (TARZAN)
Harry and Margaret harlow- monkey experiment involving neglect and nuture
Mary ainsworth- the parents and child abuse… if the baby cries when the mother leaves.
Trust vs. mistrust- infants
Initiative vs guilt- preschool- exploring
Autonomy vs shame and doubt- toilet training
James-Lange- physiogical and behavior emotions
Canon and bard- physioglical and emotions at the same time; they are independent of each other
SCHACHTER-SINGER- physiological emotions physiological (emotions are a
combination of physiological arousal and the brain that labels the states)
Starts at physiological arousal + labeling emotions
Social loafing- BASICALLY ANH…. Doesn’t do work in the group
Absenteeism- is the absence of taking responsibility for duties… but is describe in a pattern of
actions…
Deindividuation- when you more likely to moan @ people when your friends are around
Diffusion of responsibility- is the aspect of bystander effect that states that an individual will not
intervene because they believe someone else will do it
Acquisition converting an unconditional response to a conditional one
Histrionic- excessive emotionality and attention-seeking behavior
Narcissistic- thinks they are the shit… and a lack of empathy for others
Schizoid- detached from social relationships (but they don’t mind their isolation) and only exhibit
a few emotions
Personality disorders- is characterized by a set of personality traits that deviates from cultural
norms, impairs functioning, and causes distress
Borderline personality disorder- unstable self-image and interpersonal relationship, and feelings
of emptiness and efforts to abandonment
Fearful avoidant attachment style- loves the emotion contact between friends, but VERY fearful/
paranoid of other people’s intentions and doesn’t express emotions a lot
Anxious-preoccupied: wants the emotional connections with others, but fears he/she is not good
enough [basically a bitch]
primacy effect- remembers the first item
Recency effect- remembers the last item
Schizotypal personality disorder- acute discomfort in interpersonal relationship where they have
odd eccentric behavior including constricted or inappropriate affect; magical or paranoid
thinking; and odd beliefs, speech, behavior, appearance, and perception … but have support from
immediate family members
Antisocial personality disorder- acts of aggression against people or animals; deliberate property
descturciton; lying or theft
Schizoid- detached from social relationships and detached from close relationships… but not odd
or completely eccentric
Sensory memory (Echoic or iconic) must pass through the BROADBENT FILTER in order to
become short term memory (iconic and echoic memory are short term)
Long term:
Episodic memory- That’s another story… I’m no story teller (type of autobiographical
events/EXPLICIT MEMORY)
Procedural memory – riding a bike
Semantic memory- factual information
The Big Five personalities: OCEAN
O-Openness
C- conscientiousness
E- extraversion
A- Agreeable
N- neuroticism- ability to control/handle stress (EMOTIONAL RESILIENCE) (personality trait
characterized by anxiety, fear, moodiness, worry, envy, frustration, jealousy, and loneliness
Working memory and long term memory- stored in PRE-FRONTAL CORTEX
HIPPOCAMPUS- is involved in making new memories and adding emotional association with
those memories
Psychoanalytic theory- THE UNCONSCIOUS MIND.
Humanist theory- emphasizes an individual inherent drive toward self-actualization… focuses on
healthy personality developments. Humans are inherently good.
Behaviorist perspective- people are a blank slates and then environment refinrocements their
personality through operative and classical conditioning
Social cognitive perspective- environment/behavioral/cognitive all effect personality
Trait perspective- each individual possesses traits that are stable and enduring???? WTF.
Stimulus reactions:
Sensitization- sensitivity increases as stimulus increases
Habituation- sensitivity decreases as stimulus decreases
Dishabituation- when the stimulus is removed… and then reaction is gone… but when stimulus
comes back…. The reaction comes back… SOMETIMES EVEN STRONGER.
Extinction- unconditional conditional unconditional [IT IS COMPLETELY GONE….]
As habituation continues… extinction is bound to happen…
Spontaneous recovery is when the conditioned stimulus triggers the same conditioned response as
before.
Acquisition- unconditional conditional
Stimulus is always trying to be CONDITIONED….. The “food” is the unconditioned response in
the case of the dog and bell/salivation
Agoraphobia- frear of embarrassment or inablility to escape a certain situation…. Causes anxiety
disorders NOT A MOOD DISORDER
EXAMPLE of SOCIAL PHOBIA: Social phobia is an unreasonable, paralyzing fear of
feeling embarrassed or humiliated while one is watched by others.
Cyclothymic disorder- same thing as bipolar disorder
Types of reinforcements:
Fixed ratio- reinforced every nth response
used car dealer gets 1000 for every 10 car sold
Variable ratio- reinforced ON AVERAGE every nth response, but not on each nth response.
slot machines… because though the jackpot is constant…. The number of times of lever pulling
is variable)
fixed interval- reinforced after n amount of time
rewarded after 15 minutes of rat pushing the lever
variable interval- reinforced ON AVERAGE every nth response, BUT not ALWAYS on the nth
amount of time....
fishing….--> you might be able to catch a fish in 5 minutes… but the next one might take an
hour…
schizophrenia- positive and negative symptoms
positive- seeing things that are not there…. (delusions, hallucinations, and
negative- lack of behaviors- (losing interest aka avolition), feeling out of touch)
catatonic behavior(they are rigid and stuck…. Stuck in time) [I THINK IT’S NEGATIVE]
Bobo dolls (Albert Bandura)- child who observe adult behavior will model that behavior with or
WITHOUT rewards geared toward that behavior
vicarious reinforcement is our tendency to repeat or duplicate behaviors for which
others are being rewarded; copying behaviors because someone else received a reward
Alzheimer Disease (AD)- Plaques, tangles in cortex, ALWAYS dementia
Parkinson’s Disease (PD)- Impaired movement (NOT AD), lose of dopamine in the substantia
nigra, DEMENTIA as disease progresses, gait (walking abnormality) and tremors, facial
expression and movement
castration anxiety. Freud theorized that morality developed in young males out of a fear of their
father’s disapproval and the resulting anxiety that their father would castrate them as punishment;
to avoid this, the boy attempts to become more like his father, and to identify with him rather than
to pursue his mother as a sexual object
suppression- act of voluntarily withholding ideas/feelings from conscious awareness
repression- act of involuntarily withholding ideas
depression and bipolar disorder- BOTH ARE PERSONALITY disorders
Anxiety disorders: Panic disorder, OCD, PTSD, phobias MOST PREVELANT
Mood disorders- depression, bipolar
Personality- borderline personality disorder; antisocial personality disorder, dissociative identity
disorder
Dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality disorder)- alternates among two or
more distinct personality states (or identities), only one of which interacts with other people at
any one time
Freud- PsychoSexual
Oral(feeding/sucking), anal(toilet training), phallic(oedius/electra), latent(none), genital (sexual
maturity)
Erikson- Psychosocial (conficts)
Trust vs mistrust
Indepdence vs guilt
Industry vs inferiority
Identify vs role confusion
Intimacy vs isolation
Generation vs separation
Integrity vs despair
Instinct theory- all physiological behavior
Drive reduction theory physiological in order to reduction unmet tension (both innate and
conscious behavior)
COOKING FOOD WHEN YOU ARE HUNGRY IS A DRIVE… NOT A INNATE
RESPONSE.
Secondary reinforcers are one main criticism of the Drive Reduction Theory, because
these are other types of reinforcers that do not directly reduce physiological and biological drives.
Money as a secondary reinforcer can buy things that would reduce physiological drives, such as
buying food to reduce hunger, but there is no direct connection between a secondary reinforcer
and a reduction in drive, only an indirect connection through the primary reinforcer.
Maslow the pyramid…
Taste aversion conditioning- individual avoids eating foods that have made him/her ill; foods
associated with illness
Children with autism often display repetitive behavior but do NOT have difficulties with
sustained attention…. AKA they do not have ADD…. Or ADHD
The Diagnosis of ASD (autism spectrum disorders) is made during toddlerhood (18-30 months)
Denial- occurs when parents outright refusal to admit the existence of a painful experience….
(postpartum depression) this is different from repression because repression involves memroeis
that are held in the SUBCONSCIOUS and we are not clearly thinking of it.
Role conflict- SHOULD I BE A STUDENT… OR A FRAT BRO….
Role exit happens in the case of disengagement from a role that is important to a person's sense of
self; for example, a mother might experience role exit as a result of birth because she exits the
role of a pregnant woman
Role strain- happens in the case of a SINGLEEEEE status that has conflicting expectations
associated with it; for example, a mother might experience role strain due to the struggle between
the expectation to show compassion to her children while also being expected to discipline them
for poor behavior
The Arousal Theory of Motivation suggests that individuals are motivated to change their
behavior to achieve their optimal level of arousal, which means they will work to increase or
decrease arousal.
Yerkes-Dodson Law states that increased arousal can help improve performance, but at the point
when arousal becomes excessive, performance diminishes
Stimulus generalization- when a conditioned stimulus has been generalized to a response for
everything…..
Response generalization- when an organism emits a different response to a conditioned stimulus
Response discrimination- is when the invidiual can discern between the conditioned stimulus and
other stuff
Implicit memories- are memories that explain completely procedural or motor tasks aka hard to
explain/nondeclarative, only measured indirectly
Explicit memory- facts and numbers and shit
Example: episodic memory
Proactive interference- when old material interferes with new material
Retroactive interference- when new material interferes with old material
Source monitor error- is where you thought you heard the information from…. But you’re
WRONG.
State-dependent learning is a phenomenon in which material learned in one state (physical,
emotional, pharmaceutical) is best recalled while in that state, which explains why those taking
the test in the same room in which they studied out-performed those taking the test in a new
environment.
Serial recall is remembering words or events in the order they occurred
The episodic buffer mediates between the long-term memory and the central executive in
Baddeley’s model, and helps give chronological order to memories and stories
The phonological loop is the part of Baddeley’s model of working memory that deals with
remembering auditory information, and would be involved in repeating an auditory message over
and over mentally.
The dual coding hypothesis suggests that it is easier to remember words with associated images
than either words or images alone; by encoding both a visual mental representation of an
associated word, there are more connections made to the memory and an opportunity to process
the information at a deeper level
Both emotional and non-emotional memory are subjected to reconstruction
Hermann Ebbinghaus- forgetting curve; intial time of learning the information= forgetting
information is rapidly lost, but as time continues the rate of forgetting levels off
The practice effect refers to the improvements made in performance on any task with repetition or
repeated practice; this effect would suggest that if the children were give identical or very similar
tasks for each trial, their performance should improve to some degree just because of repeated
exposure to the problems
Maintenance and repetition, both processes of simply repeating information to oneself, allows
one to keep the information in short-term memory but often does not cause the information to
enter the long-term memory
Elaboration (semantic networking) is when you compare the information you already know to
information that you just learned… it becomes LONG TERM MEMORY
Spreading activation is a model that suggest thinking about ideas allows for the “priming” of new
ideas to be learned easier
Carl rogers- humanistic approach of personality… everyone is going to be self-actualized
Parasomnia- abnormal behavior that occurs during sleep
Example: night terrors
Dyssomnias- sleep apnea, insomnia, and narcolepsy
Attitude is effected by ABC
A- affect (emotion)
B- behavior tendencies
C- Cognition (thoughts)
Attitude become a good predictor of behavior when social influences are minimal (alone), when
people self-reflect to strengthen those attitudes, and when the geranl behavior pattern is noted
NOT the analysis of the specific behaviors
The reticular activating system (RAS), which is located in the midbrain, controls alertness and
arousal.
Thalamus is the relay station
Cognitive dissonance- when an individual feels tension when two thoughts/beliefs are
conflicting… it is necessary to eliminate this to establish self-worth/self-identity
Yerkes-Dodson Law suggest that you will do better on the real MCAT than the practice ones
because there is a little nervousness involved…
There is a relationship between performance and arousal…. Increased arousal can help
improve performance, but only up to a certain point. At the point when arousal becomes
excessive, performance diminishes.
Atonia- skeletal muscle paralysis (REM)
N2- sleep spindles
A cross-sectional study is observational and involves comparisons of different population groups
within a single point in time.
A study in which participants are observed at different points over time is considered a
longitudinal study
CORRELATION DOES NOT MEAN CAUSATION… FUNDAMENTAL RULE OF
PYSCHOLOGY
Functional fixedness- A specific type of mental set that involves us only being able to see
solutions to a problem that involve using objects in their normal or expected manner is known
as functional fixedness. With functional fixedness, there is a tendency to perceive the functions
of objects as fixed and unchanging, which prevents us from using objects in novel or innovative
ways to potentially solve problems.
Belief perseverance is the tendency to reject convincing proof and become even more tenaciously
firm about an existing idea, even despite contradictory evidence
The availability heuristic is a tendency to make judgments based on how readily available
information is in our memories. If a memory is readily available, we may think the idea is more
common than it actually is.
A confirmation bias is a type of cognitive error that involves favoring information that confirms
previously existing beliefs; this occurs when she pays attention to the information that upholds
her ideas about stem cell research and ignores the information that challenges her existing
beliefs.
The representativeness heuristic (stereotyping) occurs when one estimates the likelihood of an
event occurring by comparing it to an existing mental prototype; these prototypes are what each
person thinks are the most relevant or typical example of a particular event or object.
Olfaction is the only sense that does not synapse with the thalamus before reaching its primary
processing cortex. The olfactory bulb of the frontal lobe is connected directly to the nasal cavity
by the olfactory nerve (cranial nerve I)
left hemisphere where Broca’s area is localized, so he will not be able to say what the shape is.
Blindsight, the ability to accurately “guess” what an object is without consciously seeing it, tends
to occur in patients with primary visual cortex damage and would not be seen with a split brain
patient as his visual system is intact.
Right hemisphere- visual processing
The ability to produce fluent but meaningless spoken or written language is indicative of damage
to Wernicke’s area, located in the left temporal lobe in right-handed individuals
Signal detection theory tests look for subjects to correctly identify the presence or absence of a
signal amidst background noise; they do not test for the presence of noise itself. When a subject
correctly detects a signal that is present, that is known as a “hit.” When a subject detects the
absence of a signal that is truly absent, that is known as a “correct rejection.” When a subject
detects a signal as present that is actually absent, this is known as a “false alarm.”
Sapir-whorf hypothesis- The idea that language encodes cultural and cognitive properties that
affect the way that people think, such that speakers of different languages will tend to think and
behave differently depending on the language they use, is known as the Sapir–Whorf
hypothesis
Linguist Noam Chomsky proposed that humans are born hard-wired to learn language, and
suggested this ability was due to the presence of a “language acquisition device” (LAD), an
innate feature unique to the human mind that allows people to gain mastery of language from
limited exposure during the sensitive developmental years in early childhood.
B. F. Skinner, on the other hand, believed that humans learn language through a series of operant
conditioning steps and stages, wherein young children are praised for making sounds that
resemble words and eventually are conditioned through shaping to produce language.
Parallel processing- When watching a movie or other complex visual stimulus, all of the
elements (form, depth, color, movement) are processed simultaneously. This process is
referred to as parallel processing.
According to Baddeley’s model, working memory consists of four components—a phonological
loop, a visuospatial sketchpad, an episodic buffer, and a central executive. The phonological loop
allows us to repeat verbal information to help us remember it. The visuospatial sketchpad serves a
similar purpose for visuospatial information through the use of mental images. The episodic
buffer is where information in the working memory can interact with information in long-term
memory. For example, if a doctor sees a rare condition much like the one she saw in residency
years ago, she is able to make this connection through the interaction between her memory of
residency and her current visual experience in the episodic buffer. Echoic memory, which is not a
component of Baddeley’s model, is a component of sensory memory that is specific to retaining
auditory information.
Korsakoff’s syndrome- alcoholism/ affects long term memory
REM sleep- there is no EMG activity and NO K complexes or theta waves (K complexes are in
N2
Nucleus accumbens- reward center= dopamine centers
Dissociative fugue (a type of dissociative disorder)- sufferes of dissociative fugue tend ot wander
or travel and often establish new identities based on who they believe they are
Delusional disorder- psychotic illness that is characterized by non-bizarre delusions, with no
accompanying hallucinations, mood disturbances, or flattening of affect;
Social network theory- people’s network are important and necessary for the spread of ideas and
resources; there is much strength in weak ties because weak ties allow the sharing of new
resources to a vast network….. although strong ties have advantages, there is a sense of
redundancy with the information and resources provided; generally people’s strong ties have
infmration that the person is already aware of since they are part of the same cluster
Mead- final step to forming a self is the ability of seeing oneself…..
“I” is the observer while ME is the observed….
The Me prevents the I from violating social norms
Me can be reflected…. But I can not self-reflect… because I is self…
The opponent-process theory was first developed by Ewald Hering. He noted that there are color
combinations that we never see, such as reddish-green or yellowish-blue. Opponent-process
theory suggests that color perception is controlled by the activity of three opponent systems. In
the theory, he postulated about three independent receptor types which all have opposing pairs:
white and black, blue and yellow, and red and green.
Positive correlation means the correlation coefficient [ranges from -1 to 1] is greater than zero…
and negative is vice versa BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY…. CORRELATION DOES NOT
IMPLY CAUSATION
Insight= light bulb
When measures vary but the scores are consistent, that is intermethod
reliability, which is absent in this case.
Testretest reliability is only applicable when the first and second measures
are identical (i.e., the questions are the same on each test).
The child is most likely in the preoperational stage, which ranges from 27
years old and is featured by animism, the tendency to give nonhuman
objects human characteristics. She is also exhibiting egocentrism, or the
tendency to focus on her own thoughts & emotions.
The Whorfian hypothesis is that language determines thought; the idea of
linguistic determinism.
This psychologist supports the idea that thought determines language.
Universalists/nativist believe that thought determines language.
Language is inherent
Elevated activation of the right hemisphere is associated with social
withdrawal and isolation.
Elevated activation of the left hemisphere is associated with positive
emotions.
The evaluation of a potential threat as stressful or not occurs in the first stage
of appraisal.
The evaluation of a potential threat as stressful occurs during primary
appraisal.
The General Adaptation Syndrome theorizes that: As proposed by Hans Selye, and supported by
his research, the physiological response to stress is universal
target cells of lower motor neurons
polydysia
The FootintheDoor Phenomenon explains how people have a tendency to
agree to a small action and comply later on with a larger action. At first the
smoker only agreed to remain sober for one week. He remained in the
company of people who didn’t smoke and over time, his cognitions and
behaviors changed his attitudes towards smoking, which lasted longer than
one week.
Displacement is a defense mechanism that shifts aggressive impulses to a
less threatening target. It redirects emotion to a safer outlet or someone
unrelated to the emotional situation, in order to avoid dealing directly with
what is frightening or threatening. The girl yells at her roommate even
though she is angry with her mother.
Projection project your own ideas onto other people
Theory of Planned Behavior The implications of our actions are generally
thought out before we engage in behavior and together with our intentions,
subjective norms (what others think about our behavior), and perceived
behavior control (how easy or difficult we think it is to control our
behavior), we form an attitude and thus act.
social psychologists, the presence of others increases arousal—it does not
decrease it.
Signal Detection Theory
I.
The signal-to-noise ratio
II.
The operator’s alertness
III.
The operator’s expectations
Delta waves are characteristics of deep sleep (stages 3 and 4), not REM sleep, which while
deep, is known as “paradoxical sleep,” because the EEG measures most resemble that of
wakefulness
REM- LOOKS LIKE BETA WAVES…. it looks like you’re awake
Object permance, egocentric, conservation, abstract thinking
Language is lateralized in the left hemisphere, particularly in right-handed individuals, so this
deficit would not have been caused by a blow to the right hemisphere
Language is in the dominant hemisphere
B.F. Skinner’s behaviorist model of language development proposed that children learn language
through a series of positive reinforcements
Chomsky proposed something entirely contrary to this theory (choice D is correct). Noam
Chomsky proposed that all children are born with an innate ability to learn language (choice A is
wrong) during the sensitive developmental years during early childhood (choice C is wrong).
Chomsky also proposed that children learn language through mere exposure to it, and do not
need to be actively taught language (choice B is wrong).
CHOMSKY-you can lack syntax and sentence structure, but it is still considered language
acquisition because you are being exposed it….
The amygdala communicates with the hypothalamus, which controls the physiological aspects of
emotion, such as sweating and a racing heart
CHUNKING IS NOT A CUED-RECALL… it is FREE RECALL….. for example, remembering
a long series of numbers by seeing it as a group of years chained together
The encoding-specificity principle states that information is most easily retrieved in the place
where it was first learned. For example, if one studies for a test in the library, that person would
do better on the test if he or she took the test in the library because that is where recall of the
material would be best
One of the hallmarks of autistic spectrum disorder is that the person appears remote and
indifferent to those around them, often failing to make eye contact (choice C is correct). If a child
is not engaging in what Erikson calls “associative play,” where he or she plays in groups of
several people, it is likely the child is still under the age of about three years old and hasn’t
matured from the parallel play stage, but is normal developmentally (choice A is wrong).
Telegraphic speech—the use of two to three word sentences—is also a sign that children are
quite young, in this case 18-24 months, but is still a part of normal language development (choice
B is wrong). Moral relativism is Piaget’s term for the stage children go through when they mature
and recognize the importance of rules and cooperation in creating a working social system. This
is also a normal developmental stage (choice D is wrong).
The familiarity effect, also known as the mere-exposure principle, is a psychological
phenomenon that suggests that the degree to which someone likes a novel object or stimuli
increases with additional exposures; therefore, the familiarity effect would predict that even if a
participant didn’t particularly like the piece of music the first time they heard it, they would report
liking it more after hearing it a second time
Individuals do have the ability to selectively attend to a chosen stream of sensory information,
and are capable of filtering unwanted information and ignoring it effectively, as described in the
cocktail party effect. This is especially true if the information is subjectively important, such as
hearing one’s own name amidst the noise
The learning perspective, which is attributed to B. F. Skinner, holds that adults have a significant
impact on the speech of children when they reinforce infant babbling
nteractionist theory, which is often related to Vygotsky, bridges the social and biological factors
that contribute to language learning;
Vygotsky= daddy puzzle
The critical period hypothesis (also part of Chomsky’s nativist theory) posits that children are
more easily able to learn a language before a certain age. The exact age is debatable, but all
proponents of this approach agree that individuals have more difficulty acquiring language after
they have reached a certain age (
A cross-sectional study is observational and involves comparisons of different population groups
within a single point in time.
A study in which participants are observed at different points over time is considered a
longitudinal study
The process that would best account for this phenomenon is that of synaptic pruning, which
refers to the gradual elimination of neuronal synapses, or brain cell connections, that are not
relevant to the infant’s developing brain. Thus, the synapses that would support processing of
sounds that are not part of the infant’s native language are not stimulated, and they wither and
die. Accordingly, when presented with novel, nuanced sounds, the infant may have difficulty
quickly learning to discriminate between those sounds
The researchers examined the influence of a parent/caregiver’s directives on a child’s behavior at
various stages of development, which can be broken down into the elements of the person, the
environment, and the behavior. The bidirectional influence that each of these components has on
the others and the resulting learning or behavior that occurs is a process Albert Bandura termed
reciprocal causation
Experience expectant skills are those that have been part of the human repertoire for a long time,
so the brain is essentially hard-wired to produce them. As long as basic, universal needs are met,
these experience expectant skills, such as language and visual perception, will evolve within the
developing human practically automatically. In contrast, experience dependent skills sets are
those that are newer to the human experience or limited to a particular culture, such as driving a
car or carrying water jugs on one’s head. Accordingly, comprehension of verbal language would
be considered experience expectant, while playing a culturally unique game would be considered
experience dependen
Damage to Broca’s area in an adult would produce an inability to produce both spoken and
written language
The availability heuristic occurs when we rely on immediate examples that come to mind when
trying to make a decision or judgment. When you overestimate the probability or likelihood of
something happening because you can think of examples of it happening (JJ thinks he’ll hate
State U because several people he’s met don’t like State U and want to transfer), the availability
heuristic has occurred
A heuristic is defined as a mental rule-of-thumb, shortcut, or guideline that can be applied to
problem solving which prevents us from having to try all possible options, but may lead to
erroneous solutions (choice A is wrong). A mental set is our tendency to approach situations in a
certain way because that method worked for us in the past; a mental set precludes the use of a
step-by-step procedure because you are cutting corners to save time (choice C is wrong).
In signal detection theory, a type II error occurs when the signal is present but the detector fails
to respond; this is also known as a miss (choice A is correct). A false alarm occurs when the
signal is not present, but the detector responds anyway; this is also known as a type I error or a
false positive
Kolberg- morality
Kluver-bucy- HYPER ORALITY (when you’re amayldya is missing)… SUCKS EVERYTHING
when you fail oral
Social network analysis helps us identify communities ties and key
members within communities that are crucial to understanding
channels of attitude and behavior change.
Relative deprivation itself refers to the gap between what one has and
what one expects, particularly in comparison to some specific reference
group in society.
A rumination is a mood-congruent obsessive thought process (e.g., a person is
sad and dwells on the circumstances that made them feel sad). Rumination is not
typically seen as an abnormal or irrational thought process, even while it may be
harmful. Rumination is often associated with mental disorders like depression or
anxiety.
A compulsion is a repetitive behavior or action that is performed to decrease
anxiety or relieve obsessive thoughts.
A delusion is a false belief that is held even when there is evidence to the
contrary. Individuals who experience delusions typically lack the insight described
in the question above. Delusions are also qualitatively different from the
experience of OCD; instead of fearing contamination or harm from discarding
items, individuals who experience delusions may believe that they have special
powers or or are being persecuted.
Thus, the phenomenon in the question is best described by the term
obsession.
Many psychodynamic theories focus on how experiences in childhood
shape adulthood. This is most likely a psychodynamic theory of
persistent depressive disorder.
Overt- phenotype/outside causes
“Positive” refers to adding a stimulus.
“Negative” refers to removing a stimulus.
“Reinforcement” refers to increased frequency of a behavior.
“Punishment” refers to decreased frequency of a behavior.
Repression is a defense mechanism.
Repression involves suppressing thoughts until they no longer a part of a
person’s conscious mind.
Repression is a key concept in theories from Sigmund Freud, the father
of psychoanalytic theory.
Classical conditioning ties one stimulus to another, while operant
conditioning ties a behavior to a consequence - thus, only operant
conditioning directly affects behavior.
In an A-not-B error, the individual perseveres in looking for an object in a location where it was
previously placed, even with the knowledge that it has been placed elsewhere. This is most
common in infants under 12 months of age
Morality is a set of standards of conduct that is specific to the social group one is embedded in.
Socialization is the process by which one person becomes a member of a group, and learning the
moral standards of the group is important to retaining group membership
The rules governing emotional displays within a particular culture are called display rules
