PSYCH FINAL IF YIU FEEL LIKE IT

Validity

The degree to which a test or research instrument accurately measures what it claims to measure.

Reliability

The consistency or stability of a behavioral measure or test score across repeated trials.

Standardization

The process of establishing uniform procedures for administering and scoring a test, and creating norms for comparison.

Contemporary Psychology

The scientific study of behavior and mental processes, integrating biological, psychological, and social-cultural perspectives.

Hindsight Bias

The psychological tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it (the "I-knew-it-all-along" phenomenon).

Standard Deviation

A computed measure of how much scores vary or disperse around the mean score in a distribution.

Mean

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

Median

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

Mode

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

Hypothesis

A testable prediction, often implied by a theory, stating a relationship between variables.

Operational Definitions

A carefully worded statement of the exact procedures (operations) used to measure or manipulate a variables in a research study.

Wundt (Wilhelm)

Established the first psychology laboratory in 1879 in Leipzig, Germany; widely considered the father of psychology and associated with structuralism.

Random Assignment

Assigning participants to experimental and control groups by chance, minimizing preexisting differences between the groups.

Overconfidence

The tendency to be more confident than correct—to overestimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.

Cross-Sectional Research

A study in which people of different ages are compared with one another at a single point in time.

Longitudinal Research

Research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period of time.

Correlational Research

A research design that measures the statistical relationship between two or more variables without manipulating them.

Illusory Correlation

Perceiving a relationship between variables (typically people, events, or behaviors) even when no such relationship exists.

Experimental Method

A research method in which an investigator manipulates one or more factors to observe the effect on some behavior or mental process.

Placebo

An inert substance or condition (like a sugar pill) administered instead of an active agent to test its psychological effects.

Case Study

An in-depth descriptive research method in which one individual or group is studied in great detail.

Survey

A technique for ascertaining the self-reported attitudes or behaviors of a particular group, usually by questioning a representative, random sample.

Observation (Naturalistic)

Observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate and control the situation.

False Consensus Effect

The tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes.

Independent Variable (IV)

The experimental factor that is manipulated; the variable whose effect is being studied.

Dependent Variable (DV)

The outcome factor; the variable that may change in response to manipulations of the independent variable.

Confounding Variables

A factor other than the independent variable that might produce an effect in an experiment.

Factor Analysis

A statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test; used to identify underlying dimensions.

Ethical Standards (APA)

The code of conduct established by the American Psychological Association to protect human and animal participants (including informed consent, confidentiality, debriefing, and protection from harm).

Biological Psychologist

A psychologist concerned with the links between biology (genetic, neural, hormonal processes) and behavior.

Neuroscientist

A scientist who conducts research on the brain, spinal cord, and nervous system structures and functions.

Sensory (Afferent)

Carry incoming information from sensory receptors to the CNS.

Motor (Efferent)

Carry outgoing information from the CNS to muscles and glands.

Interneurons

Neurons within the CNS that communicate internally and process information between sensory and motor inputs.

Mirror Neurons

Frontal lobe neurons that some scientists believe fire when performing certain actions or when observing another doing so, potentially enabling imitation and empathy.

Brain Imaging

• Structure

Neurotransmitters

Chemical messengers that traverse the synaptic gaps between neurons, binding to receptor sites and influencing neural impulses.

Hormones

Chemical messengers manufactured by the endocrine glands that travel through the bloodstream and affect other tissues.

CNS (Central Nervous System)

The brain and the spinal cord.

PNS (Peripheral Nervous System)

The sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system to the rest of the body.

Cerebral Cortex

The intricate fabric of interconnected neural cells covering the cerebral hemispheres; the body's ultimate control and information-processing center.

Phineas Gage

Famous 19th-century railroad case study; survived a rod through his frontal lobe, providing early evidence that the frontal cortex is linked to personality and executive function.

Corpus Callosum

The large band of neural fibers connecting the two brain hemispheres and carrying messages between them.

ANS (Autonomic Nervous System)

The part of the peripheral nervous system that controls the glands and the muscles of the internal organs (such as the heart).

SNS (Somatic Nervous System)

The division of the peripheral nervous system that controls the body's skeletal muscles (also called the skeletal nervous system).

Fight or Flight

A physiological reaction that occurs in response to a perceived harmful event, attack, or threat to survival, mediated by the sympathetic nervous system.

Lesion

Tissue destruction; a brain lesion is a naturally or experimentally caused destruction of brain tissue.

Limbic System

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

Reticular Formation

A nerve network that travels through the brainstem into the thalamus and plays an important role in controlling arousal and alertness.

Olfactory

Relating to the sense of smell; bypasses the thalamus and goes directly to the olfactory bulb.

Thalamus

The brain's sensory control center, located on top of the brainstem; it directs messages to the sensory receiving areas in the cortex (except smell).

Psychopharmacology

The study of the effects of drugs on mind and behavior.

Psychoactive Drugs

A chemical substance that alters perceptions, mood, consciousness, or behavior by changing neurochemistry.

Agonist

A molecule that increases a neurotransmitter's action, often by mimicking its effects or blocking its reuptake.

Antagonist

A molecule that inhibits or blocks a neurotransmitter's action.

All-or-None Principle

A neuron's reaction of either firing (with a full-strength response) or not firing at all.

Teratogen

Agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm or birth defects.

Brain Structures and Functions

The organizational breakdown of brain sections (hindbrain, midbrain, forebrain) performing basic life support, movement coordination, and complex cognition.

Frontal

Judgement, motor movement, speech.

Parietal

Somatosensory input (touch, body position).

Occipital

Visual processing.

Temporal

Auditory processing.

Hemispheres

The left and right halves of the brain; the left is typically dominant for language/logic, and the right for spatial/creative/holistic processing.

Lobotomy

A historical, now obsolete psychosurgical procedure once used to calm uncontrollably emotional or violent patients by severing connections in the prefrontal lobes.

Evolutionary Perspective

The study of the evolution of behavior and the mind, using principles of natural selection and adaptive survival value.

Gender Identity / Schema Theory

The theory that children learn from their cultures a concept of what it means to be male and female and adjust their behavior accordingly.

Twin Research

Studies comparing identical (monozygotic) and fraternal (dizygotic) twins to isolate the relative contributions of genetics (nature) and environment (nurture).

Epigenetics

The study of environmental influences on gene expression that occur without a DNA change (genes can be turned "on" or "off").

Piaget (Jean)

Pioneer in developmental psychology who formulated a four-stage theory of cognitive development (Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete Operational, Formal Operational).

Kohlberg (Lawrence)

Created a stage theory of moral development, categorizing morality into Preconventional, Conventional, and Postconventional levels.

Ainsworth (Mary)

Developed the "Strange Situation" assessment to study and categorize infant attachment styles (secure, insecure-avoidant, insecure-resistant).

Harlow (Harry)

Conducted landmark monkey studies demonstrating that attachment is based on "contact comfort" rather than nourishment/feeding alone.

Gibson (Eleanor)

Co-creator of the "visual cliff" experiment used to determine that depth perception is largely innate or develops very early in infancy.

Lorenz (Konrad)

Ethologist who famously studied imprinting—the rigid, rapid process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period early in life.

Baumrind (Diana)

Researched parenting styles and defined three major archetypes

Habituation

Decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation; as infants gain familiarity with a visual stimulus, their interest wanes.

Assimilation

Interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas.

Accommodation

Adapting or modifying our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information.

Object Permanence

The awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived or hidden from view (develops during Piaget's sensorimotor stage).

Stranger Anxiety

The fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 months of age.

Conservation of Thought

The principle (which Piaget believed to be a part of concrete operational reasoning) that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects.

Theory of Mind

People's ideas about their own and others' mental states—about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts, and the behaviors these might predict.

Telegraphic Speech

Early speech stage in which a child speaks like a telegram—"go car"—using mostly nouns and verbs, omitting auxiliary words.

Phoneme

In language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.

Morpheme

In language, the smallest unit that carries meaning (can be a word or a prefix/suffix).

Opponent-Process Theory

The theory that opposing retinal processes (red-green, yellow-blue, white-black) enable color vision; explains afterimages.

Adaptation (Sensory)

Diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant, unchanging stimulation.

Retinal Disparity

A binocular cue for perceiving depth; by comparing images from the retinas in the two eyes, the brain computes distance.

Binocular

Depth cues that depend on the use of two eyes (e.g., convergence, retinal disparity).

Monocular

Depth cues available to either eye alone (e.g., linear perspective, interposition, relative size).

Cocktail Party Effect

The ability to focus one's auditory attention on a single stimulus among a mixture of conversations and background noises (selective attention).

Absolute Threshold

The minimum stimulation needed to detect a particular stimulus 50 percent of the time.

Difference Threshold / JND

The minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50 percent of the time; Just Noticeable Difference.

Weber’s Law

The principle that, to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (rather than a constant amount).

Feature Detectors

Nerve cells in the brain's visual cortex that respond to specific structural elements of the stimulus, such as shape, angle, or movement.

Gestalt Concepts

Perceptual principles emphasizing our tendency to integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes ("the whole is greater than the sum of its parts").

Transduction (Eye and Ear)

Conversion of one form of energy into neural signals; occurs via rods and cones in the retina (eye) and hair cells on the basilar membrane in the cochlea (ear).

Signal Detection Theory

A theory predicting how and when we detect the presence of a faint stimulus (signal) amid background stimulation (noise); assumes there is no single absolute threshold.

Kinesthesis

The system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts.

Vestibular Sense

The system for sensing body orientation and balance, located in the inner ear.