Psych Midterm Free Response Vocab

central route to persuasion

central route to persuasion

direct; relies on content of message

classical conditioning

involves associations between stimuli and responses; Unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, neutral stimulus, conditioned stimulus, conditioned response; Pavlov

cognitive map

mental representation of layout of one's environment; Tolman

confounding variables

a factor produced by experiment other than independent variable

descriptive statistics

mean, median, mode, range, standard deviation

double blind research

neither subject nor experimenter knows who is in control group and who is in experimental group

extinction

eventual disappearance of learned response

fixed-ratio schedule

number of responses required is always the same

groupthink

desire for group harmony overrides realistic outlook of situations

insomnia

Difficulty in falling asleep or staying asleep

latent learning

hidden learning - when reinforcement is applied later; Tolman

mere exposure effect

develop preference for people and things we're more familiar with

myelin sheath

protective covering of axon; created by Glial Cells

neural impulse

action potential; signal sent from neurons to other neurons

observational learning

learning new responses by observing behavior of another rather than through experience; Albert Bandura - Bobo Doll experiment

occipital lobe

deals w vision, contains visual cortex, at back of head/brain

operational definition

a description of something in terms of the operations (procedures, actions, or processes) by which it could be observed and measured

operant conditioning

response becomes more or less likely to occur depending on its consequences; reinforcement, punishments; Thorndike, Skinner

overjustification effect

external reward weakens intrinsic motivation - ex loving job but getting paid for it and only doing for money

parasympathetic nervous system

calming; contracts pupils, slows heart rate, stimulates digestion, stimulates gallbladder, contracts bladder, allows blood flow

peripheral route to persuasion

relies on other factors like jingle, candidate's voice, etc

predictive validity

ability of test to predict future behavior

random assignment

assigned to experimental and control groups by chance; minimizes confounding variables

regression

reverts to childlike behavior; freudian defense mechanism

reinforcement

increases likelihood of behavior

replication

replication of original experiment to further prove results

reticular formation

tickle me elmo; draws focus to particular part of body

social facilitation

improved performance of easy/routine tasks in presence of others

successive approximations

step-reward-step-reward until completion of desired behavior

sympathetic nervous system

arousing; dilates pupils, accelerates heart rate, inhibits digestion, relaxes bladder

temporal lobe

process sound - auditory cortex, contains Wernicke's area - wernicke's aphasia = can get words out but don't make sense - can't comprehend language, Fusiform Facial Area - facial recognition

thalamus

"hal and amos" - relay center for all incoming sensory information except smell

validity effect

people believe statement bc it has been repeated many times; repetition equals truth