General Psychology Midterm Examination Vocabulary Review

Comprehensive 100-card vocabulary practice set covering core concepts from Modules 1-5, 8, and 16, derived from the Midterm Examination.

Empirical Methods

Approaches for knowledge acquisition grounded in direct observation, systematic experimentation, and evidence, establishing psychology as a true science.

Functionalism

An early school of psychological thought that focuses on the purpose and adaptive functions of mental processes and behavior in helping organisms adapt to their environments.

Introspection

A research technique employed by structuralists that involves examining and reporting one's own conscious sensory experiences to break them down into basic elements.

Structuralism

An early psychological perspective aimed at identifying and understanding the basic elements and fundamental components of conscious mental processes.

Lack of Diverse Research Subjects

A historical and ongoing limitation in psychological science wherein study participant samples fail to adequately represent diverse populations.

Psychoanalytic Case Study Limitation

A major criticism directed at Sigmund Freud's groundbreaking theories due to an over-reliance on detailed qualitative clinical case studies rather than empirical experimentation.

Gestalt Psychology

A psychological approach founded on the premise that 'the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,' which served as a major historical precursor to cognitive psychology.

Humanism

A psychological perspective asserting that human beings inherently possess the capacity for self-fulfillment, personal agency, and psychological growth.

Evolutionary Psychology

A subfield within the biological domain that investigates the ultimate biological and evolutionary origins that shape human behaviors and cognitive adaptations.

Social Psychology

The scientific discipline examining how human thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others.

Abnormal Psychology

The subfield of psychology dedicated to studying the nature, etiology, and therapeutic treatments of mental and psychological disorders.

Multicultural and Cross-Cultural Psychology

The psychological subfield that explores how cultural norms, traditions, and societal values shape individual cognition, behavior, and decision-making.

Psychology Student Competencies

Broad intellectual capabilities developed through the study of psychology, specifically strong critical thinking and effective communication skills.

Industrial-Organizational Applications

Psychological knowledge leveraged in organizational settings such as human resources to facilitate conflict resolution and understand group dynamics.

Developmental Psychology

The branch of psychology dedicated to researching physical, cognitive, and emotional changes that unfold across the human lifespan.

Hypothesis Formation

The specific stage within the scientific method that involves proposing a testable, educated guess regarding the relationship between two or more variables.

Scientific Method

A continuous, self-correcting cycle of inquiry that allows researchers to repeatedly question, test, and refine theories based on empirical findings.

Theory Modification

The scientific requirement that researchers reevaluate and alter existing explanatory frameworks when confronted with robust contradictory evidence.

Experimental Research

The research methodology that manipulates independent variables under controlled circumstances to infer definitive cause-and-effect relationships.

Naturalistic Observation

A qualitative research method involving observing subjects in their natural environments, inherently constrained by the researcher's lack of control over extraneous variables.

Longitudinal Research

A longitudinal research design where the same cohort of participants is tracked and repeatedly tested over an extended period to assess developmental changes.

Cross-Sectional Research

An observational study design comparing multiple age groups simultaneously, which has the limitation of being unable to observe longitudinal changes within the same individuals.

Weak Correlation

A statistical association indicated by a correlation coefficient very close to zero, such as $r = 0.05$, reflecting virtually no linear relationship between variables.

Dependent Variable

The outcome variable measured and observed by an experimenter that is predicted to vary as a function of the manipulated independent variable.

Distribution

The overall pattern, spread, and frequency of variation exhibited across scores within a given data set.

Reliability and Validity

Measurement standards where reliability denotes consistent reproducibility of outcomes, while validity represents whether an instrument accurately assesses what it claims to measure.

Peer-Reviewed Article

A scholarly publication critically assessed by independent experts prior to release to ensure methodological clarity and reproducibility.

Replication

The scientific procedure of repeating an existing research study using identical or equivalent methods to validate or refute its initial discoveries.

Reproducibility Project

A landmark psychology initiative attempting to reproduce 100 published findings, in which only $36\%$ successfully replicated, highlighting issues with experimental reliability.

Central Nervous System

The core division of the nervous system composed of the brain and spinal cord, responsible for integrating sensory data and dictating bodily responses.

Spinal Reflex

An automatic, rapid withdrawal response mediated directly by the spinal cord within the central nervous system without preliminary brain processing.

Synaptic Vesicles

Membrane-bound spheres located within axonal terminal buttons that encapsulate and store neurotransmitter molecules prior to exocytosis.

Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs)

A class of pharmaceutical antidepressant medications designed to prevent the reabsorption of serotonin into presynaptic neurons, primarily used to treat depression.

Occipital Lobe

The posterior cerebral cortex region of the brain specialized for processing visual inputs.

Somatosensory Cortex

A cortical strip located in the parietal lobe that processes sensory signals related to somatic sensations including touch, temperature, and pain.

Broca's Area

A language center located in the frontal lobe of the dominant cerebral hemisphere; damage to this area leads to severe impairment in speech production.

Amygdala

A key limbic system nucleus involved in emotion processing, physiological arousal, and fear-conditioning responses.

Split-Brain Left Visual Field Processing

A clinical phenomenon in patients with a severed corpus callosum where an object seen in the left visual field projects to the right hemisphere, permitting drawing with the left hand but preventing verbal naming.

Sympathetic Nervous System

The branch of the autonomic nervous system that triggers physiological arousal, heightened heart rate, and the 'fight-or-flight' stress reaction.

Nature Stance

The viewpoint in the nature-nurture debate arguing that cognitive traits, abilities, and intelligence are driven primarily by genetic and biological factors.

Alleles

Alternative and specific variations of a single gene located at the same relative position on a chromosome.

Gene-Environment Interaction

The mutually influential relationship where an individual's genetic predispositions and environmental circumstances operate jointly to determine behavioral outcomes.

Epigenetics

The biological field studying mechanisms that alter gene activity and expression due to environmental influences without modifying the underlying DNA nucleotide sequence.

Consciousness

The continuous internal and external awareness that an individual maintains of themselves and their surrounding environment.

Blindsight

A neurological phenomenon where people with primary visual cortex lesions can respond accurately to visual stimuli without consciously perceiving them.

Circadian Rhythm

An endogenous biological cycle spanning approximately 24 hours that governs physiological patterns including body temperature and sleep-wake cycles.

Pineal Gland

An endocrine organ that secretes the hormone melatonin into the bloodstream to help regulate biological rhythms and circadian sleep timing.

Cognitive Function Theory of Sleep

A sleep theory emphasizing that restorative sleep is necessary for maintaining optimal cognitive performance, decision-making, and memory consolidation.

REM Sleep

A stage of sleep characterized by rapid eye movement, brain activity similar to wakefulness, and motor paralysis, often referred to as paradoxical sleep.

Manifest Content

In Freudian psychoanalysis, the explicit, literal storyline and imagery experienced and recalled by an individual upon waking from a dream.

Threat-Simulation Theory

An evolutionary explanation proposing that dreaming functions to simulate threatening scenarios, preparing individuals to handle waking hazards.

Night Terrors

A parasomnia occurring during Stage 3 NREM sleep characterized by sudden screaming and physical agitation, which generally requires no clinical intervention.

Positive Psychology

A branch of psychology oriented toward researching and nurturing positive character strengths, subjective well-being, and flourishing rather than exclusively treating psychological pathology.

Insomnia

A sleep disorder characterized by chronic and persistent difficulty with initiating sleep, maintaining sleep continuity, or obtaining restorative sleep.

Stimulants

A class of psychoactive drugs, such as caffeine and cocaine, that increase central nervous system activity, alertness, and sympathetic arousal.

Classes of Psychoactive Drugs

The four main functional groups of psychoactive substances: stimulants, depressants, hallucinogens, and opioids.

Hypnosis

A specialized psychological state characterized by focused attention, heightened suggestibility, and minimal focus on external environmental cues.

Dissociation Theory of Hypnosis

A perspective suggesting that hypnotic induction creates a divided, dissociated stream of consciousness between voluntary motor control and awareness.

Subliminal Messaging

The delivery of sensory information below the absolute threshold of conscious detection that can influence cognitive or perceptual processing.

Sensation and Perception

Related sensory functions where sensation involves gathering raw physical stimuli, and perception involves organizing and interpreting that sensory data into meaningful experiences.

Top-Down Processing

Perceptual analysis guided by higher-level mental expectations, prior knowledge, cognitive framing, and personal experiences.

Light Amplitude

The vertical height of a light wave, which directly determines the perceived brightness or luminance of visual stimuli.

Wavelength and Frequency Relationship

The inverse physical relationship where shorter wavelengths yield higher frequencies, and longer wavelengths yield lower frequencies.

Opponent-Process Theory

A color vision theory positing that retinal ganglion cells encode color through three paired antagonistic channels: black-white, yellow-blue, and green-red.

Convergence

A binocular depth cue relying on the neuromuscular feedback produced when the two eyes turn inward to focus on near objects.

Basilar Membrane

A structure inside the fluid-filled cochlea of the inner ear that contains auditory hair cells that transduce sound vibrations into neural signals.

Temporal Lobe (Audition)

The cerebral cortex region that receives neural signals from the auditory nerve via the cochlea to interpret sound.

Sensorineural Hearing Loss

A type of auditory impairment caused by damage to the cochlear hair cells or auditory nerve, which responds less effectively to standard hearing aids than conductive loss.

Cutaneous Receptors

The three main classes of skin sensory receptors: mechanoreceptors (pressure), thermoreceptors (temperature), and chemoreceptors/nociceptors (pain and chemicals).

Gate-Control Theory

A pain perception model suggesting that neurological gating mechanisms in the spinal cord can open or close to either transmit or inhibit nociceptive pain signals to the brain.

Crossmodal Phenomena

Sensory interactions where input received through one sensory modality alters or influences the subjective perception of a different sensory modality.

McGurk Effect

A crossmodal speech illusion occurring when auditory audio of 'ba' is paired with visual lip movements of 'ga', causing the listener to perceive 'da'.

Ebbinghaus Illusion

A geometric optical illusion where the perceived size of a central circle is biased by the size of surrounding circles, utilized in advertising to alter size perception.

Observational Learning

A form of learning that occurs by watching, retaining, and reproducing the actions and behaviors demonstrated by another individual.

Classical Conditioning

A learning mechanism whereby an involuntary reflex or emotional response becomes paired with an initially neutral stimulus due to repeated co-occurrence.

Stimulus Discrimination

The learned ability to display a conditioned response exclusively to a specific stimulus while showing no response to other similar stimuli.

Operant Conditioning

A learning paradigm in which voluntary behaviors are shaped, increased, or decreased based on the consequences that follow them.

Law of Effect

Edward Thorndike's principle stating that behaviors followed by satisfying consequences are more likely to be repeated, while those followed by unpleasant outcomes are weakened.

Reinforcement vs. Punishment

Operant conditioning outcomes defined by their functional impact: reinforcement increases the future frequency of a behavior, while punishment decreases it.

Negative Punishment

An operant procedure designed to decrease an undesirable behavior by removing an appetitive or desirable stimulus.

Shaping

An operant training procedure that establishes a complex novel behavior by reinforcing successive approximations toward the final target action.

Secondary Reinforcers

Conditioned reinforcers, such as tokens or money, that gain their reinforcing effectiveness through learned associations with innate primary reinforcers.

Fixed-Ratio Schedule

An intermittent schedule of reinforcement in which a consequence is delivered following a set, predictable number of correct behavioral responses.

Latent Learning

Learning demonstrated by Edward Tolman that occurs without immediate reinforcement or observable performance changes, such as rats acquiring cognitive maps of a maze.

Vicarious Reinforcement

A social learning process in which an observer increases the likelihood of imitating a behavior after seeing a model receive a reward for that action.

Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment

A landmark study demonstrating that children who observed an adult model act aggressively toward an inflatable doll subsequently replicated those aggressive behaviors.

Gender Differences in Observational Aggression

Bandura's finding that boys are more likely to imitate physical violence, whereas boys and girls are almost equally likely to imitate verbal aggression.

Stimulus-Based Stress

A definition of stress that conceptualizes it as a demanding, harmful, or threatening environmental condition or event.

Daily Hassles

Minor, recurring everyday irritations and minor stressors, such as commuting traffic, that accumulate over time to elevate physiological stress.

Alarm Reaction Stage

The opening phase of Selye's General Adaptation Syndrome characterized by an immediate activation of fight-or-flight physiological defenses.

HPA Axis

The neuroendocrine pathway comprising the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, and adrenal cortex that coordinates the prolonged endocrine stress response.

Chronic Stress on Wound Healing

The physiological effect of prolonged stress that suppresses cellular immune responses, thereby significantly slowing down tissue repair and wound healing.

Depression-Heart Disease Link

The clinical relationship showing that depressed individuals have a higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease and suffer higher cardiovascular mortality rates.

Problem-Focused Coping

An active stress management strategy directed toward resolving the root cause of a stressor by formulating practical plans and actionable solutions.

Emotion-Focused Coping

A coping approach aimed at reducing the negative emotional tension associated with an unchangeable stressor, such as practicing relaxation or yoga.

Perceived Control

An individual's personal belief regarding their capacity to manage life circumstances, which correlates positively with mental health and subjective well-being.

Social Relationships and Survival

The epidemiological discovery that possessing strong social connections increases an individual's statistical likelihood of survival by $50\%$ relative to weak relationships.

Exercise on Hippocampal Stress Resilience

A biological benefit of regular aerobic exercise that protects memory by minimizing the detrimental neurotoxic effects of chronic cortisol on the hippocampus.

Subjective Well-Being

An individual's cognitive and affective self-evaluation of life quality, marked by frequent positive emotions, infrequent negative emotions, and life satisfaction.

Habitual Behaviors Prevalence

Wood, Quinn, and Kashy's empirical finding that just over $40\%$ of daily human activities are carried out automatically as habitual behaviors.