psychology
Terms
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- rational-emotive behavior therapy
- treatment where illogical self defeating thoughts are identified and the client is helped to replace them with more realistic and beneficial ones
- pituitary gland
- regulates growth, thyroid, reproductive, pancreas, adrenal cortex, and water and salt metabolism
- Oedipus complex
- constellation of impulses that occur during the phallic stage where a boy's id impulses involve sexual desires for the mother and desire to eliminate the father
- ovaries
- affescts development, reproduction, and sexual behavior in women
- prejudice
- a positive or negative attitude toward people in certain groups
- inferential statistics
- a type of statistical analysis designed to provide confidence on whether the results appeared by chance
- psychopathology
- maladaptive patterns of behavior that are disruptive to the person or others
- gender roles
- general patterns of work, appearance, and behavior associated with being male or female
- statistical infrequency
- that which is unusual or rare
- projective personality tests
- type of personlaity test that is unstructured stumuli that can be perveived and responded to in many ways, ie from unconcious
- null hypothesis
- assertion that the manipulated variable will have no effect on the depent variable
- nervous system
- network of billions of cells that know what is going on inside and outside the body
- token economy
- system for improving behavior of clients in institutions using tokens to be given as rewards redeemed as various rewards
- amygdala
- forebrain structure that links info from different system and plays a part in emotions
- experimental group
- a group that receives the experimental treatment
- proactive interference
- when old memories interferes with remembering new information
- terminal drop
- is the decline in mental functioning that occurs in the months or years preceding death
- Diener
- did a study on obedience using Hallowe'en costume
- rods
- photoreceptors in the retina that allow sight even in dim light that cannot show colours
- aptitude tests
- are tests on your future/practical knowledge like college entrance exams
- depend variable
- a variable that is depend/controlled by another
- identity crisis
- usually occurs during adolescence using bits and pieces of self knowledge learned as a child then the individual develops and intergrates an image of themselves as unique
- receptor
- proteins on the cell body that receive signals, allowing the post synaptic potential to begin in the dendrite
- cerebellum
- part of the hindbrain that controls finely coordinated movements
- Allport
- is a trait personality psychologist who began with examining definitions from 17000-4000
- social phobias
- strong irrational fears of relating to social situations
- suprachiasmatic nuclei
- internal 24 hour alarm clock and temperature control
- glial cells
- NS cells that hold the neurons together and help them communicate with each other
- naturalistic observation
- research on behavior without interfering
- humanistic approach
- behavior results from how individuals perceive the world
- IQ score/intelligence quotient
- a number that reflects relative standing on a test within a population of the same age group
- social identity
- beliefs we hold about the groups to which we belong
- community psychology
- a mental health approach where the goal is to minimize or prevent psychological disorders by promoting social change and making treatment methods more accessible to those who have little or no access
- cones
- photoreceptors in the retina that are less sensitive then rods, and can distinguish colours
- Margaret Washburn
- first woman to earn a doctorate in pyschology
- transferred excitation
- is when arousal is transferred from one experience to a different situation
- sensitivity
- ability to detect stimulus
- health psychologists
- psychologists who study the effects of behavior on health and the impact of illness on behavior and emotion
- perceptual constancy
- perception of objects as retaining many of it's characteristics despite changes in its retinal image
- storage
- storing information in memory over time
- Roger
- developed a theory on personality coming from the actualizing tendency focusing on the self
- Mary Whiton Calkins
- first woman president of the American Pyschology Association
- Charles Spearman
- believed that there is a general intelligence
- latent learning
- learning that takes place after the fact ie you don't learn in lectures you lean for the tests that happen weeks later
- generativity
- usually occurs during a person's thirties when a person becomes concerned with producing something worthwhile
- partial reinforcement extinction effect
- is a reinforcement schedule that causes us to be unable to predict reinforcements/rewards and is difficult to erase the behavior from ie using a broken slot machine you don't know it's broken so you keep using it to see if it will eventually pay out
- major depressive disrder
- condition where a person feels sad and hopeless for weeks/months losing interest in all activities and taking pleasure in nothing
- transformational/charismatic leaders
- leaders who concentrate on creating a vision of the group's goals, inspire the pursuit of those goals and give group members reason to respect and admire them
- Bowlby
- developed the theory of stages of attachment
- dissociative identity disorder
- a dissociative disorder where a person appears to have more than one identity, each of which behaves in a different way
- social-cognitive approach
- views personality as behaviors that are acquired through learning believing the process and social situations play a part
- coding
- translating properties of the stimuli into patterns of neural activity
- parallel distributed processing
- new experiences change our overall knowledge
- proprioceptive
- referring to sensory systems that tell us about the location f our body parts and what each is doing
- Maslow
- was a personality psychologist believing that it came from growth and also created the heirarchy of our individual needs
- conditions of worth
- the beliefs that a person's worth depends on displaying the 'right' behaviors, attitudes, and values
- reflection
- restating or paraphrasing what the client has said
- impaired functioning
- difficulty fulfilling appropriate and expected social roles
- bipolar disorder
- condition where a person alterates between the two emotional extremes of depression and mania
- nitric oxide
- is responsible for memory and penile erection
- cochlea
- fluid filled spiral structure in the inner ear where auditory transduction occurs
- defense mechanisms
- are unconscious psychological and behavioral tactics that help protect a person from anxiety by preventing conscious awareness of unacceptable id impulses
- Ogive curve
- applies to our perceptions, movements, and sensations
- frequency
- number of complete waves or cycles that pass a given point per unit of time
- reliability
- refers to the test consistency or stability in scores over repeated test occaisions, is found through re-testing, split half, and parallel forms
- timbre
- quality of a sound that identifies it
- negative reinforcer
- found in operant condtitioning where negative stimulus is removed ie eating to cause hunger pains to go away
- encoding
- creating a pattern of information memory can assess and use
- Thorndike
- believed that there is specific abilities in intelligence that can be grouped
- reprensentative sampling
- research participants who represent what the researchers want to study
- sampling
- process of selecting participants for research study
- Robert B Cattell
- believed that intelligence is fluid (genetic) vs crystallized (learned)
- anxiolytics
- drugs that reduce tension and symptoms of anxiety
- Cecil-Liker
- developed a study regarding the intelligence of horse handicappers
- perception
- process through which sensations are given meaning using knowledge, experience and understanding of the world
- saturation
- overall intensity of the wavelengths making up light
- visible light
- physical dimension of light waves that refer to how much energy the light contains, and that determines its brightness
- group therapy
- psychotherapy involving six to twelve unrelated individuals
- thalamus
- forebrain structure sending messages from the senses to higher brain areas
- state dependant memory
- memory dependant on your internal state their learned
- phobia
- an anxiety disorder that involves strong irrational fear of an object or situation that doesn't justify such a reaction
- psychodynamic aproach
- to personlity was developed by Freud to emphasis the role of the unconcious in determining our behaviors, thoughts and feelings
- environmental psychology
- the study of the effects of the phsyical environment on people's behavior and mental processes
- educational psychologists
- psychologists who study methods by which instructors teach and students learn and who apply their results to improving such methods
- light wavelength
- physical demension of light waves that refer to their length and produces sensations of different colours
- somatoform disorders
- a psychological problem where a person shows syptons of some physical (somatic) disorder where there is no cause
- shaping
- found in operant conditioning when successive aproximates of behavior are forced into the desired pattern ie dog trainers use this process to train dogs to be obedient to their owners
- latency period
- occurs after the phallic stage where sexual impulses are dormant lasting until puberty
- Howard Gardner
- believed that there are multiple intelligences (7/9)
- actor-observer bias
- bias of attributing others behavior to interal causes while attributing one's own behavior to exteranl causes
- contact hypothesis
- idea that prejudice and discrimination will diminish through contact with the group increases
- dendrite
- fibres that receive signals from the axons of other neurons
- maturation
- refers to any development process ie walking, that is guided by biological or genetic factors (nature) and isn't affected by environmental conditions (nurture)
- peripheral nervous system
- part of the nervous system that sends to and from the central nervous system
- self-concept
- the way one thinks of oneself
- Rorschach
- developed the inkblots, an example of the prejective personality test
- vestibular sense
- proprioceptive sense that gives info about the position of the head and its movements
- cognitive approach
- behavior results from research on creating, perceiving, and receiving info that creates patterns of action
- midlife transition
- often occurs during a person's forties when a person reevaluates the decisions they have made concerning goals and relationships
- interrater reliability
- is the degree to which different mental health professionals agree on what label a particular person should have
- fight or flight response
- a physical reaction triggered by the sympathetic nervous system preparing the body to fight or run from a threatening situation
- preoperational period
- is Piaget's second stage of cognitive development lasting from age 2 to 7 where children learn to use symbols allowing them to talk, pretend, and draw
- Ainsworth
- developed the theory of attachment based in the quality using the strange situation
- bystander effect
- phenomenon where the chances of someone helping in an emergency decreases as the number of people present increases
- longitudinal method
- testing the same people over time, very expensive, dropouts due to death, moved, or loss of interest
- medulla
- an area of the hindbrain that controls the vitals in the autonomic functions, ie heart rate, blood pressure and breathing
- sequential design
- chart that gives results on both types of tests where you are able to compare them
- fibre tracts
- bundles of axons that travel together
- Young-Helmholtz
- developed the trichromoatic theory of colour
- t test
- is a inferential statistical method to analyze data to determine if the difference between two means are the result of chance
- Euclid
- Is the Ray Gun theory that believed perception happened through rays being emitted from the eyes
- dissociative amnesia
- a psychological disorder marked by a sudeen loss of memory for one's own name, occupation, or other identifying information
- social perception
- process where people interpret information about others, draw inferences about them, and develop mental representations of them
- biological psychology
- is the study of the physical and chemical factors in behavior and mental processes
- object permanence
- is acquired during the sensory period when children form mental representations of objects and actions, they know an object exists even if they can't see or touch it
- medium cones
- response to green
- postive reinforcer
- found in operant conditioning where a behavior is rewarded ie dog gets bone (positive reinforcer) for rolling over
- temperament
- is the style of an infant's emotional response to the enviroment
- Wertheimer
- believed in Gestalt where the sum is greater then the parts
- operant conditioning
- procedure where we know the results of a response to a certain stimulus to get the desired results ie students know to study for tests to get good marks
- psychosexual stages
- is part of Freud's psycholdynamic theory where each of the five stages refers to an area of the body to which a person feels dominant pleasure starting with oral, anal, phallic, latent, and genital. Failure to resolve problems occuring during these stages can lead to fixation in adulthood
- unconditional positive regard
- in client-centered therapy, the thereapist's attitude that expresses caring and acceptance of the the client as a valued person
- amplitude
- distance between the peaks and the baseline of a wave
- stimulus generalization
- found in classical conditioning when stimulus' are generally similiar but not the same yet cause the same reflex ie fear of a type if dog causes fear of all types of dogs
- postconventional moral reasoning
- in Kohlberg's theory is the highest level of moral reasoning based on personal or universal standards of justice, equality, and respect for human life
- agoraphobia
- strong fear of being away from a safe place/person
- addiction
- development of a physical need for a psychoactive drug
- observational learning
- learning by watching others responses ie seeing someone else get burned by a hot burner tells us that the stove is hot
- sociocultural model
- an approach that views mental disorders as being explained by and emphasizing the role of factors such as gender, age, physical situations, cultural values
- concrete operation
- is Piaget's third stage of cognitive development occuring between the ages of 7 and 11 where children can addition, subtraction, and conservation
- endocrine system
- cells that form organs called glands that secrete hormones to communicate to each other
- industrial/organizational psychologists
- psychologists who examine factors that influence people's performance in the workplace
- escape conditioning
- when we learn responses to escape a troubling stimulus ie changing your route home to avoid most of rush hour traffic
- hypothesis
- prediction stated as a testable proposition, usually in the form of an if-then statement
- sense of taste
- or gustation, sense that detects chemicals in solution that come into contact with receptors inside the mouth
- pitch
- how high or low a tone sounds, depends on frequency of a sound wave
- random assignment
- placing participants through a coin flip or some other random selection
- groupthink
- patterns of thinking rendering the group unable to realistically evaluate the options and decisions
- adaptation
- constant, or decrease in responsiveness to constant stimuli, ie being unaware of wristwatch
- blind spot
- point where the optic nerve exits the eyeball
- self fulfilling prophecy
- process where an initial impression causes us to bring out a behavior in another that confirms the impression
- punishment
- is the presentation of a troubling stimulus or the removal of a positive one ie taking away child's TV priviledges because of bad behavior
- Schachter Singer Lazarus theory
- cognitive interpretations and physiological reactions shape emotional experiences
- unconditioned stimulus
- found in classical conditioning where it causes the reflex without conditioning ie the cat food
- classical conditioning
- procedure of neutral stimulus being paired with a stimulus that causes a reflex action so that the neutral stumulus alone causes it ie can opener for cat food causes cats too salivate
- retreival cues
- stimuli that help retrieve from long term memory ie chunking, elaborative
- primacy effect
- recall is good for first few items (primary relates to long term)
- correlational studies
- research that examines the relationships between variables
- olfactory bulb
- brain structure that receives messages regarding smell
- Cannon Bard Central theory
- is the theory that emotion starts in the brain, specifically the thalamus which relays sensory input to the cortex where there is a direct central nervous system experience of emotion, later research has shown that different emotions have different pathways sometimes bypassing the thalamus completely, ie intense phobias
- generalized anxiety disorder
- a condition that involves long lasting anxiety that is not focused on any particular object/situation
- Gilbert Haven Jones
- first African American to earn a doctorate in psychology
- sensation
- raw information from the senses
- behavior modification
- treatment where operant conditioning is used to change behavior
- gate control theory
- theory stating the presence of a gate in the spinal cord that either permits or blocks the passage of pain impuslses to the brain
- EEG (Electroencephalograph)
- billions of neurons charted on an electrical field
- mitochondria
- the space between the outer membrane of a cell and the nuclei, that keeps a stable chemical environment
- double blind design
- research method where no one in the experiment knows what is tho be expected
- avoidance conditioning
- when we learn responses to avoid a troubling stimulus ie accept most invitations to dates because you don't like explaining or saying no
- hindbrain
- is the oldest part of the brain lying just inside the skull and is a continuation of the spinal cord
- reflexes
- simple, involuntary, unlearned behavior that's directed by the spinal cord without instruction
- conduction deafness
- fusion of bones in the mid ear region
- engineering psychologists
- psychologists who study and try to improve the relationships betwenn human beings and the computers and other machines they use
- stereotypes
- false assumptions that all members of some group share the same characteristics
- school psychologists
- psychologists who test IQ, diagnoses students' academic problems, and set up programs to improve students' achievement
- selective attention
- process of focusing on only one stimuli
- receptors
- cells specialized in determining certain types of energy and turning it into neural activity
- forebrain
- part of the brain responsible for the most complex aspects of behavior such as sensory info, voluntary movement and abstract thinking
- cognitive maps
- a mental representation of an environment ie knowing how to get around your highschool years after you've graduated
- short term memory
- stage of memory lasting 10-18 part of working memory, gets lost from displacement and decay
- aversion conditioning
- method for reducing unwanted behavior by using classical condtioning principles to create a negative response to a stimuli
- vestibular occular reflexes
- allows you to focus on one point when body is in motion
- cyclothymic disorder
- a mood disoder containing all the symptoms of bipolar disorder but to a lesser degree
- pain disorder
- a somatoform disorder where a person complains of severe often constant pain witn no physical cause
- cognitive therapy
- organized problem sovling approach where therapists actively collaborate with the clients to help them notice how negative thoughts precede anxiety and depression
- social impairment
- phenomenon where the presence of others impairs a person's performance
- antegrade amnesia
- memory loss after injury
- information processing
- information must pass through all 3 areas of memory to be embedded
- fixed interval
- a schedule where reinforcement happens after a certain length of time
- neuroleptics
- drugs that relieve the symptons of schizophrenia or other severe forms of psychological disorders, also called antipsychotics
- Hippocrates
- developed the theory of personality caming from the four humors in the body
- genital stage
- occurs from puberty onward, genitals are the primary source of sexual pleasure, satisfaction depends on the earlier stages being resolved
- specific phobias
- phobias that ilvove fears of specific stimuli or situations ie heights
- convergence
- depth cue resulting when the eyes rotate to project the same image of an object on each retina
- case study
- research on rare behavior in particular individuals or groups, good for studying new treatments
- electroconvulsive therapy
- brief electric shock administered to the brain to reduce severe depression that does not respond to drug treatment
- accomodation
- process of taing in information that causes a person to modify an existing schema
- personality
- unique patterns of enduring psychological and behavioral characteristics that we can compare and contrast with others
- social psychology
- psychology that explores the effects of the social world on the beahvior and mental processes of individuals and groups
- Thorndike
- developed the law of effect, where rewards determine behavior being repeated, also believed intelligence to be determined as specific
- retina
- surface of the back of the eye on which the lens focuses light rays (images)
- antisocial personality disorder
- long term persistent pattern of impulsive, selfish, unscrupulous, even criminal behavior
- accomodation
- ability of lens to change it's shape and bend light rays so objects are in focus
- conservation
- is the knowledge that a substance's number or amount does not change even when it's shape or form does
- spontaneous recovery
- is the reappearance of the reflex after extinction in classical conditioning ie Pavlov's dogs conditioned to salivate upon the sound of the bell, extinction, then after time heardt the bell, they would salivate
- helping behavior
- any act that benefits another person
- visual codes
- mental represenations of stimuli as pictures
- second order conditioning
- found in classical conditioning when a secondary neutral stimulus is associated with the conditioned stimulus so that causes the reflex ie a light flashing at the time the bell rings for Pavlov's dogs
- developmental psychology
- area specializing in documenting the course and cause of people's social, emotional, moral, and intellectual development throughout the life span
- conformity
- changing one's behavior or beliefs to match those of others caused usually by unspoken group pressure, real or imagined
- tacit knowledge
- is not taught is 'picked up' on the way, found in experts on subjects
- working memory
- stage of memory allowing us to manipulate or work with information in short term memory
- TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation)
- an image of a specific brain region and it's changes
- phrenlogy
- technique in the 1800s of feeling bumps and ridges on the skull, believed to explain personality, mental abilities, talent etc, some scientists believe MRIs are the 21st century version of this
- cognitive-behavior therapy
- behavior treatment where the way a person thinks as well as the behavior is change
- Lewis Terman
- brought the test to Stanford and saw that it was good for children but not adults, he was the first to come up with the IQ test
- semantic codes
- general mental represenatations of an experience
- schemas
- mental representations of what we know and expect from the world
- biased sample
- research participants who aren't randomly chosen among the larger population
- Harris
- developed the theory of attachment where it relies on group socialization
- biological psychologists
- psychologists who analyze the biological factors influencing behavior and mental processes
- stimulus discrimination
- found in classical conditioning when you are able to discriminate between stimulus to determine the correct reflex ie knowing you child's cry over the cries of other babies
- schema
- is the basic unit of knowledge that takes the form of a pattern of action
- teratogens
- are external substances that cause defects in the developing baby when introduced to the womb
- somatization disorder
- a psychological problem where a person has numerous physical complaints without physicl illness
- humanistic/phenomenological approach
- to personality focus's on the individual's perceptions, interpretations, and experiences of reality, assuming that humans have an innate drive to grow and to fulfill their own inique potential
- transfer appropriate processing
- memory depends on coding matching retrieval cues
- self-efficacy
- term used by Bandura to describe the expectations of success in a situation, and may play a role in the behavior of that situation
- gestalt therapy
- form of treatment seeking to create conditions, usually in groups, where a client can feel more self aware and self accepting
- antidepressants
- drugs that reduce depression
- schemas
- mental representations of categories of people/place/things etc
- fetus
- is the third prenatal stage which lasts from the third month of pregnancy til birth
- placebo
- a treatment with no affects, yet the person receiving it believes there will be
- social dilemmas
- situations where actions causing individual rewards. when adopted by all cause negative consequences
- deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
- provides the genetic code
- aggression
- an act that is intended to harm another person
- conversion disorder
- a somatoform disorrder in which a person appears to be blind, deaf, paralyzed, or insensitve to pain
- Hippocrates
- physican in ancient Greece said that psychological disorders resulted from an imbalance in four humors or bodily fluids (blood, phlegm, yellow and black bile)
- synapse
- tiny space between the axon of one neuron and the dendrite of another
- photoreceptors
- specialized cells in the retina that convert light energy into nerual activity
- psychiatrists
- medical doctors who have completed training in treatment of mental disorders
- accessory structures
- structures which modify the incoming stimuli, ie eyelid, outer part of ear
- thyroid
- controls metabolism
- median
- is the halfway point in the set of data
- ground
- part of the visual field that has no meaning-the backgroud
- sense of smell
- or olfaction, sense that detects chemicals that are airborne
- hormones
- chemicals that are secreted by glands to stimulate cells that aren't connected
- unconditioned response
- found in classical conditioning and is the reflex action ie the cats salivating
- hue
- essential colour determined by the dominant wavelength of a light
- behavior genetics
- study of how genes and enviornment affect behavior and mental processes
- retroactive interferece
- when new information interferes with remembering old memories
- basilar membrane
- floor of the fluid filled duct that runs through the cochlea
- empathy-altrusim theory
- theory where people help others because they feel empathy towards them
- formal operational period
- is Piaget's fourth stage of cognitive development beginning at the age of 11 where children can think and reason about abstract concepts, generate hypotheses, and think logically
- context dependant memory
- memories helped/hindered by the setting their learned in
- hypothalamus
- forebrain structure regulating hunger, thirst, sex drive, with connections to the autonomic NS and other parts of the brain
- stroboscopic motion
- illusion in which lights or images flash in the rapid succession and are perceived as moving
- opponent process theory
- theory of colour vision that states visual elements that are sensitive to colour are grouped into red-green, blue-yello, and black-white pairs
- matching hypothesis
- notion that people are more likely to form committed relationships with people who are similiar to them
- corpus callosum
- bundle of fibres that connects the left and right cerebral hemispheres
- personality disorders
- long standing inflexible ways of behavior becoming styles of life that create problems for others
- Ebbinhaus
- developed the method of savings, where learning is easier the second time around
- self-esteem
- evaluation people make about their worth as human beings
- retrograde amnesia
- memory loss before injury
- absolute threshold
- the minimun amount of stimuli that can be detected (50 percent)
- random sample
- research participants who are randomly chosen among the larger poplulation
- psychological model
- an approach that views mental disorders as being caused by inner conflicts or other psychological processes
- broca's and wernicke's area
- two regions that are found on the left of the cortex and are vital for language interpretation and production
- bottom up processing
- recognition that depends on info coming from the sensory systems
- Fantz
- developed prefferential looking in infants
- analgesia
- reduction in the sensation of pain in the presence of a normally painful stimulus
- Main
- developed the theory of attachment where the early attachment affects the later attachments
- reticular formation
- found both in the hind and midbrain, controlin arousal and attention
- cognitive dissonance theory
- theory on attitudes changing by adjusting the differences in the between attitudes and behaviors
- surveys
- research giving people questionnaires/interviews to obtain attitudes, beliefs, intentions, and opinions
- explicit memory
- process of trying to remember
- lens
- part of the eye behind the pupil
- feature detectors
- cells in the cortex that respond to specific features of an object ie corners, straight lines
- trait approach
- views personality as a unique combination of dispositions/tendencies to think and behave in certain ways that are stable/consistent over time and in situations
- normal distribution
- is where data scores mostly occur in the middle of the range also known as standard deviant
- just noticeable difference
- smallest detectable difference in stimulus energy (difference threshold)
- cooperation
- any type of behavior where people work together to achieve a goal
- reality principle
- is the operating principle of the ego because it must comprimise between the irrational id and the demands of the real world
- IQ tests
- any test designed to measure intelligence in a standard scale ie Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
- task-oriented leaders
- leaders who provide close supervison, give instructions, and discourage group discussion
- competition
- any type of behavior where people try to obtain a goal for themselves, denying the goal to others
- psychometric tests
- measure psychological capacity
- somatosensory system or somatic senses
- senses including touch, temperature, pain, and kinesthesia that are spread through out the body
- forensic psychologists
- psychologists who are involved in many aspects of psychology and law
- Brown Peterson Process
- method of determining how long unrehersed memory lasts
- depth perception
- perception of distance allowing us to experience the world in 3D
- cross sectional method
- testing a range (cross section) cheap and fast
- phallic stage
- occurs from the three to five years of age when pleasure is derived from genital area. This is when the Oedipus/Eletra complex can occur, fixation can occur with problems with authority/love relationships
- internal noise
- spontaneous random firing of nerve cells in the always active nervous system
- N
- describes the number of oberservations that make up the data
- Robert J Sternberg
- cognitive psychologist specializing in intelligence believe intelligence to be goal oriented adaptive behavior
- structuralism
- (Titchener, Wundt) study of consciousness and it's structure through introspection (looking inward)
- social psychologists
- psychologists who study how people influence one another's behavior and attitudes, especially in groups
- axon
- a fibre that carries signals AWAY from the cell body
- trichromatic theory
- theory of colour vision that states info from 3 different visual elements combine to produce the sensation of colour
- primary reinforcers
- are survival rewards ie food and water
- data
- numbers that represent research findings providing a conclusion
- puberty
- condition of being able to for the first time reproduce, onset of menstration/sperm production
- Cattell
- was in intelligence (fluid and crystal), also an early trait psychologist
- sports psychologists
- psychologists whose research is aimed at maximizing athletic performance
- chunks
- stimuli grouped into units for easier retreival
- somatic nervous system
- subsystem of the peripheral nervous system that transmits info from the senses to the CNS, and back to muscles that move the skeleton
- Rotter
- developed a theory on personality coming from expectancies
- signal detection theory
- a mathematical model of what determines a person's report of a near threshold stimuli
- vicarious conditioning
- conditioning through others responses to specific behavior ie we learn vicariously the consequences being a lousy tipper equals lousy service at restaurants
- clinical, counseling, and community psychologists
- psychologists who seek to assess, understand, modify, and prevent behavior disorders
- behaviorism
- (Watson, Skinner) studying observable behavior through functional analysis
- mood disorder
- condition where a person experiences extremes of mood for long periods, shifting from one extreme mood to another that are inconsistent with events
- recency effect
- recall is good for last few items (recent relates to short term)
- operational definition
- statement of the specific methods used to measure a variable
- James Lange theory
- is the theory that emotion comes from physiological responses outside the brain, to a stimuli and nothing else
- dark adaptation
- increase in ability to see in the dark as time passes
- variable ratio
- a schedule where reinforcement happens after a varied number of responses
- James
- developed the first psychology lab in America and believed in functionalism
- client-centered therapy
- type of therapy where the client makes the decisions
- developmental psychologists
- psychologists who seek to understand, describe, and explore how behavior and mental processess change over the course of a lifetime
- big five/five-factor model
- five factors that trait theorists believe best defines the basic organizations of personality they include neuroticism, extraversion, openess, agreeableness, and conscientiousness
- family therapy
- type of treatment involving two or more clients from the same family
- auditory nerve
- bundle of axons that carry messages from the hair of the cochlea to the brain
- papilllae
- structures in the mouth on which taste buds are grouped
- Vgotzky
- developed a theory on attachment where it is a continuous devlopment
- hallucinations
- false or distorted perceptions of objects or events
- reference groups
- categories of people with whom individuals compare themselves
- attachment
- is the close emotional relationship between an infant and his or her caregiver
- consciousness
- awareness of external stimuli and your own mental activity
- Eysenck
- I SEE-intraversion, stability, emotionality, extraversion
- Milgram
- did an obedience study using shock
- large cones
- response to red
- fovea
- region in the center of the retina where the cones are concentrated
- chromosomes
- made of genes and carry an individual's genetic information
- biological approach
- behavior results from physical processes
- method of savings
- method of measuring forgetting/saving information in memory through the Brown Peterson Process
- assimilation
- process of taking in informamtion that adds to an existing schemas
- experiment
- research where one variable is manipulated against another and the results are interpreted
- mania
- an elated, active emotional state
- Miller
- developed the memory capacity
- habituation
- when we learn not to respond to a repeated stimulus, like adaptation ie wearing a new diamond ring
- midbrain
- small area between the hindbrain and the forebrain, that helps produce smooth movements
- top down processing
- recognition guided by higher level of cognitive processes and psychological factors ie expectations
- sulci
- are identified as the brain valleys
- pleasure principle
- the operating principle by which the wants and desires of the id push people to do whatever feels good
- psychologists
- in the area of treatment, therapists with advanced training in clinical/counseling psychology
- reinforcer
- anything that will increase the chances of a behavior repeating itself can be positive or negative
- conditioned response
- found in classical conditioning is the learned response caused by the conditioned stimulus ie the cats running and salivatin when it hears the can opener
- attention
- process of directing and focusing psychological resources to enhance perception
- sensory registers
- memory systems briefly holding information
- flooding
- procedure for reducing anxiety by keeping a client in a feared harmless situation
- acoustic codes
- mental represenatations of stimuli as sounds
- Hierarchical Theories
- saw that intelligence is both genetic and learned
- myelin, nodes of ranvier, and diameter of axon
- accelerates an action potential's movement to bind to another cell
- Eidolon
- Democritus in the 5th century believed perception happened through replicas
- variable interval
- a schedule where reinforcement happens after a varied length of time
- iris
- part of the eye that gives it its colour, and adjusts the amount of light entering it
- elaborative rehersal
- memorization through association
- long term memory
- stage of memory where the capacity is limitless, to get information here is hard work
- Francis Galton
- Darwin's 2nd cousin who believed intelligence is inherited, found in level of processing, and he developed the correlational method
- Binet and Simon
- developed a mental age vs chronological age
- gyri
- are identified as the brain ridges
- Gray
- BAS-BIS-behavior approach system, behavior inhibit system
- dissociative fugue
- a psychological disorder involving sudden loss of memory and the assumption of a new identity in a new location
- control group
- a group that receives none or different treatment to compare the responses
- conditioned stimulus
- found in classical conditioning only after repeated pairings with the unconditioned stimulus does it cause a reaction ie the sound of the can opener
- fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)
- refers to infants born to women who consume moderate to heavy amounts of alcohol during pregnancy resulting in physical malformations in the face or retardation
- standard score
- expressing the value of a score by indicating its distance from the standard deviant or mean
- central nervous system
- brain and spinal cord
- parasympathetic nervous system
- subsystem of the autonomic nervous system that helps the body grow, protects and nourishes it
- Mischel
- developed a theory on personality coming from person variables
- actualizing tendency
- an innate tendency toward realizing one's potential
- oral stage
- occurs during the first year of life when the child derives pleasure from the mouth. Weaned to early or late can lead to fixation of smoking/eating/talking too much or the opposite
- anxiety disorder
- a condition in which intense feelings of fear and dread are long standing or disruptive
- episodic memory
- memory for events in one's past
- validity
- refers to the extent a test measures exactly what it is designed to measure, is found through criterion, content and construct
- independant variable
- a variable that is manipulated
- assertiveness training
- a set of methods to help clients learn to express themselves and stand up for their rights in situations
- systematic dessenitization
- a behavioral treatment method used to treat anxiety where clients visualize feared stimuli in a graduated series while being relaxed
- spreading activation
- a theory of how semantic memory is retrieved
- Skinner
- developed instramental conditioning, ie the Skinner box
- neurotransmitter
- a chemical that transfers messages across the snapses
- Mandler
- developed our sense of organization
- levels of processing
- how well we remember depends on our depth of perception
- ethnic identity
- refers to the part of a person's identity that reflects the racial, religious, or cultural group to which they belong to
- social comparison
- using other people as a basis of comparison for evaluatin oneself
- insight
- sudden understanding of a problem ie the chimps solving how to get the fruit in the textbook
- Rosenhan
- studied the ease of admission to hospitals with pseudopatients
- interposition
- most important depth cue of overlapping objects determining nearness
- environmental psychologists
- psychologists who study the relationships between people's physical environment and their behavior
- Harlowe
- did a study using monkeys on attachment
- mode
- is the score in the data that occurs more frequently
- familial retardation
- is usually mild and lacks an obvious genetic or environmental cause; it results from a complex interaction between heredity and environment
- place theory
- theory of hearing that states that hair cells at a place respond most to a specific frequency of sound
- nuclei
- cluster of nerve cell bodies in the CNS
- anal stage
- occurs during the second year of life when the child derives pleasure from the anal area. If toliet training is too demanding or is begun too early or too late can lead to fixation on neat/messy disorders
- eardrum
- or tympanic membrane, tightly stretched membrane in the middle ear that generates vibrations that match sound waves striking it
- procedural memory
- memory for information on how to do things
- pinna
- crumpled part of the outer ear that collects sound waves
- alcoholism
- pattern of continuous/intermittent drinking that can cause addiction and almost always causes severe social, physical and other problems
- intelligence
- according to Sternberg it is defined as a combination of three characteristics: possession of knowledge, the ability to use information processing to reason about about the world, and ability to employ reasoning adaptively
- deindividuation
- psychological state occuring in groups where members loss individuality and begin to do things they wouldn't do alone
- delusions
- false beliefs such as those experienced by people suffering from schizophrenia or severe depression
- pheromones
- chemicals released by one creature, detected by another, and shaping the seconds behavior
- PET (positronemisson tomography)
- an image of neurotransmitters, drugs, tracers for blood or glucose use
- glands
- organs that secrete hormones into the bloodstream
- psychoanalysis
- (Freud) Explaining personality and behavior through developing and treating individuals
- looming
- motion cue where rapid expansion of the size of an image fills the available space on the retina
- psychodynamic approach
- behavior results from the unconscious, developed by Freud
- sensorimotor period
- is Piaget's first stage of cognitive development where the infant's mental activity is confined to sensory and motor functions
- reconditioning
- found in classical conditioning where stimulus' are repaired after extinction and are learned faster than the first time
- socialization
- is a process of teaching children society's rules and the skills they need examples including authoritarian, permissive, and authoriatitive
- behavioral genetics
- is the study of how genes affect behavior
- couples therapy
- form of therapy that focuses on improving communication between partners
- critical period
- refers to tany time when if development doesn't occur in the baby it never will
- immediate memory span
- maximum number of items recalled perfectly is 7 +/- 2
- maintenance rehersal
- memorization through maintaining by repitition
- Sheldon
- developed the three different body types
- action potential
- a message or electromagnetic impulse sent down the axon and stimulates the release of a neurotransmitter
- association cortex
- part of cerebral cortex that intergrates sensory and motor info and complex cognitive tasks
- Weber's law
- smallest detectable difference in stimulus energy is a fraction of the intensity of the stimulus
- conventional moral reasoning
- in Kohlberg's theory is moral reasoning characterized by concern for others due to social obligations such as caring for one's spouse and family
- social loafing
- phenomenon where people exert less effort in a group activity then when performing the same task alone
- quantitative psychologists
- psychologists who develop statistical methods for evaluating and analyzing data from psychological research
- dscrimination stimuli
- found in operant conditioning when we know to distinguish between stimulus to correctly respond to it ie the sky is clear the temperature is warm and there is no wind good time for a kyak trip
- dissociative disorders
- conditions involving sudden and usually temporary disruptions in a person's memory, consiciousness, or identity
- Eletra complex
- occurs during the phallic stage when girls experience penis envy transfering their love for their mothers to their fathers
- optic nerve
- bundle of fibres that carries visual info to the brain
- arousal cost-reward theory
- theory attributing helping behavior to people's efforts to reduce the unpleasant feelings caused by the confrontation of a suffering victim, while also considering their own costs involved
- authoritarian parents
- are firm, punitive, and unsympathetic demanding obedience, offering no encouragement of independance and rarely offer praise
- altruism
- an unselfish concern with another's welfare
- motor cortex
- part of the cortex that controls volunatry movement
- personality psychologists
- psychologists who focus on people's unique characteristics
- social neuroscience
- a specialty focusing on the influence of social processes on biological processes and the influence of biological processes on social processes
- social facilitation
- phenomenon where the presence of others improves a person's performance
- permissive parents
- give their children complete freedom and their use of discipline is lax
- spinal cord
- part of the CNS that receives messages from the senses and sends messages from the brain to the body
- hypochondriasis
- a strong unjusitified fear of physical illness
- mnemonics
- strategy for organizing information into patterns to remember (never eat shredded wheat)
- relative depreivation
- sense that one isn't getting all that one deserves
- loudness
- psychological dimension of sound determined by the amplitude of a sound wave
- verbal scale
- found in the Wechsler tests and is a subscale that measures verbal skills
- objective personality tests
- type of personality test using paper and pencil containing clear, specific statements or concepts requiring a written response
- Stantford-Binet
- primarily based on Binet's tests devised to help children's mental abilities determined by age graded questions, score received is mental age divided by choronological age multiplied by 100 resulting in IQ
- cerebral cortex
- outer surface of the forebrain
- MRI (magnetic resonance imaging)
- an image of brain anatomy, functioning ones provide images of blood flow and neural activity
- sound
- repetitive fluctuation in the pressure of the medium of air
- mean
- is calculated by adding observations together and dividing by the total number equaling the arithmetic average of the data
- dysthymic disorder
- condition containing all the symptoms of major depression but to a lesser degree and for longer (2 years min)
- social cognition
- mental processes associated with people's perceptions of and reactions to other people
- attribution
- process of identifying the cause of an event through cognitive appraisal
- norms
- descriptions of the frequency of particular scores providing information about a certain person's test score compares to the population
- fixed ratio
- a schedule where reinforcement happens after a correct number of responses
- substance related disorders
- problems involving the use of pshcoactive drugs for months/years in ways that harm the user/others
- encoding specificity principle
- ability of cue depends on if it matches specifically with it's original coding
- psychotherapy
- treatment of psychological disorders through psychological methods such as talking about the problem, encouraging adaptive ways etc
- autonomic nervous system
- subsystem of the peripheral nervous system that carries messages between the CNS, the organs, glands, and readies the body for vigorous activity
- correlation
- the degree one variable relates to another
- semantic memory
- memory for general knowledge of the world
- retreival
- process of recalling information in memory
- hippocampus
- forebrain structure that forms new memories
- percentile score
- a way of stating percentage of reseach data that fall at or below a certain score
- sense
- a system that translates info from outside the nervous system into neural activity
- gestalt
- (Wertheimer) mental processes=the whole is greater than the sum of its parts
- reflexes
- control the majority of movements in the first weeks and months of life, they are quick unlearned responses to external stimuli
- psychology
- the science that seeks to understand behavior and mental processes and to apply that understanding in the service of human welfare
- response criterion
- internal rule a person uses to decide on reporting stimuli
- biopsycholosocial model
- explaining mental disorder as a combination of biological, social, and cultural factors
- confounding variable
- any factor that affects the dependant variable with/instead of the independant variable
- frequency histogram
- a pictogram of the results of research data
- id
- one of the structures of the personality containing the basic life and death instincts ie innate desires and impulses
- Savant
- type of autism, like Rainman they have one extrodinary ablility
- elaboration likelihood model
- a model of a change in attitude through a central route (content) or through a peripheral route (persausion cues)
- pupil
- an opening in the eye just behind the cornea, through which light passes
- plasticity
- property of the CNS that allows it to strengthen neural connections, and synapses as well establishing new connections
- binocular disparity
- depth cue based on the difference between the retinal images received by each eye
- discrimination
- treating peope in certain groups differently, the behavioral part of prejudice
- nerve deafness
- when hair cells are damaged and hearing aids are a no go
- transduction
- process of converting incoming physical energy into neural activity
- behavioral approach
- behavior results from what is learned by rewards and punishments
- preconventional moral reasoning
- in Kohlberg's theory is typical of children younger than 9 years of age where moral reasoning is directed toward avoiding punishment and following rules to one's own advantage
- random variables
- uncontrolled factors that can influence the dependant variable
- superego
- is formed from internalized values and dictates what people should and should not do
- Wundt
- developed the first psychology lab in Liepzig Germany in 1879
- wavelength
- the distance between peaks in a wave of light or sound
- testes
- affects development, reproduction, and sexual behavior in men
- secondary reinforcers
- are rewards that have acquired meaning by association ie money has meaning of it's uses not its taste
- volley theory
- or frequency matching theory, a theory of hearing that states a firing rate of an auditory nerve matchs a sound wave frequency
- sensory cortex
- part of the cerebral cortex, located in the parietal, occipital , and temporal lobes that receives info from the skin, eyes, and ears
- tests
- systematic procedures for observing behavior in a standard situation where the behavior is measured with a numerical scale or category systej
- obedience
- changing behavior in response to a demand from an authority figure
- performance scale
- found in the Wechsler test and is a subscale that measures spatial ability and the ability to manipulate materials
- Pavlov
- developed the classical conditioning found in learning
- Hall
- was the father of psychology as an organized science and the child movement in America
- authoritative parents
- reason with their children, are firm but understanidng, and encourage give and take, with age give more responsiblity, set limits but encourage independence
- nuerobiological model
- a view that mental disorders are caused by illness in physical processes, the anatomy, and chemistry in the brain
- adrenal cortex
- regulates salt and carbohydrate metabolism
- empiricism
- the view that knowledge comes from experience and observation
- panic disorder
- anxiety in the form of sever panic attacks that come without warning or obvious cause
- sensory memory
- brief memory (.5-3 sec) gives an impression, gets lost from decay
- attitude
- a tendency towards a cognitive emotional or behavioral reaction to objects in one's environment
- conflict
- what occurs when a person or a group believes another person or group is interfering with achieving a goal
- genes
- are genetic blueprints that governs the development of an individual
- refractory period
- short recovery time after a cell fires. during which it can't fire again
- fundamental attribution error
- bias of attributing others behavior to internal factors
- congruence
- in client-centered therapy, a consistency in how a therapist feels and acts towards clients
- compliance
- adjusting one's behavior because of a direct request
- operant
- is a behavior that operates on the world in some way ie when a child says they are hungry to a parent and then are fed
- diathesis-stress
- an approach that recognizes roles of both predispositions and situational factors when psychological disorders happen
- transactional leaders
- leaders who provide rewards for good behaviors and punish or correct those who don't
- frustration-aggression hypothesis
- a proposition stating that frustration always leads to some form of aggressive behavior
- schizophrenia
- a pattern of severely disturbed thinking, emotion, perception, and behavior that is seen to be the most disabling of all mental disorders
- obsessive compulsive disorder
- an anxiety disorder where a person becomes obsessed with certain thoughts or feels a compulsion to do certain things ritualistically
- ego
- evolves from the id and attempts to satisfy the id's demands thru comprimises to not break society's rules
- embryo
- is the part of the zygote that will mature into an infant (2nd month of pregnancy)
- figure
- part of the visual field that has meaning
- person-oriented leaders
- leaders who provide loose supervison, ask for group members ideas, and are concerned with members feelings
- cornea
- curved transparent protective layer through which light waves enter the eye
- kinesthesia
- proprioceptive sense that tells us where the parts of the body are with respect to one another
- short cones
- response to blue
- neurons
- specialized cells that send and receive messages in the NS
- DSM-IV and DSM-IV-TR
- official North American diagnostic classification system; the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual includes more than 300 specific diagnostic labels for mental disorders using five axes to give a broad picture of a person's problem
- behavior therapy
- treatment where classical conditioning is used to change behavior
- evolutionary approach
- behavior results from inheritance
- empirically supported therapies
- treatments for psychological disorders whose effectiveness has been validated by experimental research
- modeling
- a behavioral therapy method where desired behavior is demonstrated for the client
- experimenter bias
- an example of a confounding variable where the experimenter's beliefs influence their participants to make certain responses
- achievement tests
- are like test in this class
- empathy
- in client-centered therapy, the therapist's attempt to appreciate how the world looks from the client's perspective
- information processing
- is a cognitive approach to studying cognitive development differing from Piaget through focusing on the quantitative rather tan qualitiative changes in a child's ability
- extinction
- found in classical conditioning when the paired stimulus' stop being paired so the reflex stops ie the shepherds stopped responding when the boy cried wolf because there was no wolf paired with the cry anymore
- implicit memory
- process of accidental recollection