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What is Piaget’s Preopperational thought?

The 2nd Stage, 2-6, of cognitive development where children don’t know logic

What is preoperational characterized by? (SPCM)

Symbolic thought, Primitive reasoning, Creative thinking, Magical thinking

What is number conservation?

Kids in the preoperational stage fail this because they think the length of a row of coins means more coins instead of the same amount; this focus on one dimension is called Centration

Who said a child is an apprentice in thinking?

Vygotsky in his Social Learning theory

What is Vygotsky’s social learning theory?

Cognitive development is embedded in a social context

Zone of proximal development

skills a person can perform with assistance, but not quite independently

What are Baumrind’s styles of parenting?

authoritarian, authoritative, uninvolved, and permissive

What is an authoritative style of parenting like?

willingness to compromise; high acceptance/involvement; appropriate autonomy granting

Likely outcome: happy with self and successful

What is a permissive style of parenting like?

Little control; Discipline is lax; Overindulging or inattentive

Likely outcome: Lack self-control

What is Erikson’s 4th stage of psychosocial development?

Industry vs. Inferiority at 5-13 years; to recognize yourself as competent or incompetent

What is the sequence for puberty?

Hypothalamus signals pituitary to send hormones to the adrenals to enlarge the gonads, causing lots of sex hormones

What happens to the Limbic system during puberty?

controls fear and emotional impulses; it matures before the prefrontal cortex which controls the abilities to plan ahead and emotional regulation

What happens to the Prefrontal cortex during puberty?

limits connections/engagement and may be overwhelmed with impulses

What do puberty hormones directly affect?

the amygdala

Hormones, especially testosterone, fuel emotional impulses like…

Heightened arousal which influences risk-taking, and social approval becomes crucial

Puberty begins between what ages?

8 and 14

What is Piaget’s Formal operational stage?

children over 11 are characterized by logic and abstract ideas like thinking hypothetically, deductively, and inductively

Erikson’s 4 aspects of identity…

Religious, Political, Job, Gender

Drivers example..

Driving simulator while fMRI scan; 14-18 yr olds, asked to bring 2 peers; Did task alone, then told peers were watching; they were more risky when peers were watching

What are the ages of Erikson’s Identity vs role confusion?

13-21

What percent of teens have had one or more major depressive episode?

15-20%; with 2%-8% chronically depressed; twice as often in girls

Who makes more suicide attempts? What about completed suicides?

girls make 3x (internalized); but completed suicides are more common among boys at 4x (externalized)

What is allostasis?

a longer term adjustment to stay in equilibrium

What is allostatic load?

the stresses on the body system; higher load means more prone to illness

Low rate of disease between what ages is what?

18 and 25; is counterbalanced by a high rate of violent death

Violent death includes…

Fatal accidents, homicide, and suicide

How many parents want their children to go to college? How many adults believe college is too expensive?

94%; 75%

What are two facts about college?

Debt pays off over time, and lower graduation-rate colleges are popular

What is Identity Achievement?

Erikson’s belief that at every stage outcomes of prior crises provide the foundation of each new era

What is Erikson’s sixth psychosocial stage? What does it emphasize?

intimacy vs isolation; humans are social creatures

Social networks and dating sites result in..

one-third of all U.S. marriages

What ages are early adulthood?

25-40

What ages are middle adulthood?

40-65

What does menopause occur?

Estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone levels drop around 51, a year after her last period

What is the Seattle Longitudal study?

in 1956 K. Warner Schaie made this first cross-sectional design and found at 80, cognitive abilities have age-related decline

Who discovered Fluid Intelligence?

John Horn in 1960

What is fluid intelligence? What does it enable?

Working and abstract memory; understanding of relationships between concepts and processing new information; it declines with age

What is crystallized intelligence?

The accumulation of knowledge (like vocabulary size); it increases in middle age

What are Sternberg’s 3 forms of intelligence?

Analytic, creative, and practical

At what age does Erikson’s intimacy vs isolation occur?

21-39

At what age does Erikson’s generativity vs. stagnation occur?

40-65

What are the big 5 personality traits (OCEAN)?

Openness

Conscientiousness

Extroversion

Agreeableness

Neuroticism

Divorce occurs in…

One-third of first marriages; odds increase with each

Life expectancy..

Max is 122 years; globally it’s M: 69, F: 73; in the US it’s M: 77, F: 82

When does Alzheimer’s occur?

it progresses for 10-15 years, it usually occurs after 75, early would be 65

What is vascular dementia?

Due to a series of ischemic strokes; confusion may be transitory

What is Erikson’s Integrity vs. Despair stage?

Erikson’s final “crisis” in which an individual reflects on the past

What are the four theoretical perspectives of motivation?

Instinct Theory, Drive-reduction Theory, Arousal Theory, Abraham Maslow ’s hierarchy of needs

Yerkes-Dodson Law states that..

moderate arousal creates the best performance

Instinct Theory suggests that..

Patterned behaviors that aren’t learned are what motivate us and genes predispose us to certain behaviors

What is Drive-Reduction Theory?

Motivations that arise from homeostasis, like being thirsty and getting water

What is arousal theory?

How we respond to inner pushes and external pulls; finding the ‘right level’ of stimulation

What are Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?

Self-Transcendence (highest)

Self Actualization

Esteem

Belongingness and Love

Safety needs

Physiological needs (lowest)

What is the Affiliation need? What is the Self-Determination Theory?

building/maintaining relationships to feel part of a group; the 3 main needs are competence, autonomy, and relatedness

What is the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation?

I’m doing this because I want to vs I’m doing this to get a reward

What is the over-justification effect?

Believing a behavior was motivated by extrinsic factors (getting rewarded), therefor reducing intrinsic motivation (I’m doing this because I want to)

What is an example of the over-justification effect?

Kids showing an interest in drawing were exposed to an expected-reward condition (decreased their intrinsic motivation- ‘drawing because they want to’), an unexpected-reward condition (leads to the over-justification effect; rethought their motivation for drawing), and a no-reward condition (increased their extrinsic motivation- drew for the reward).

What happened in the Asch conformity experiment?

Red lines were shown with one obviously the same length as the original, but in a group setting everyone else says they aren’t the same length to see if the subject will conform.

What is Freud’s Psychoanalytic theory?

Behavior is motivated by unconscious drives and impulses

What are some examples of psychological fixations?

oral (nail biting), anal (obsessing), and phallic (vanity)

Who made humanistic therapy? What does it do?

Carl Rogers created this person-centered therapy providing unconditional positive regard.

Operant conditioning techniques like behavior modification in behavioral therapy do what?

Reinforces desirable behaviors but fails to reinforce/punish undesirable ones

What does cognitive behavioral therapy do?

It makes people aware of irrational, negative thinking by replacing it with new ways of thinking. It’s used to treat depression, anxiety, OCD, eating disorders, and substance abuse disorders

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What do antianxiety drugs do?

As examples, Xanax or Ativan depress the central nervous system’s activity

What do antidepressants do?

As examples, Prozac and Zoloft increase the availability of serotonin/norepinephrine in the system

What are Freud’s 3 structures of the personality in his Psychoanalytical Theory?

ID, Ego, and the Superego

In Freud’s 3 structures of personality in his Psychoanalytical Theory, what is the ID?

Pleasure seeking, earliest developing

In Freud’s 3 structures of personality in his Psychoanalytical Theory, what does Ego do?

Responds to ID in a realistic way

In Freud’s 3 structures of personality in his Psychoanalytical Theory, what is the Superego?

Morality/conscience, latest developing, how we should behave

Who started the first laboratory?

Wilhelm Wundt

structuralism vs functionalism

understanding the structure of the human mind; function of human and behavioral processes

first women in psychology

Mary Calkins

behaviorism’s key people and ideas…

Skinner, Watson, and Pavlov with a focus on observed behavior

Classical conditioning involves…

pairing a neutral stimulus with a reflexive response

What is operant conditioning?

behavior can be increased by following it with reinforcers or decreased by punishers

What is Freud’s Psychoanalytic theory?

That behavior is motivated by unconscious drives and impulses originating in childhood

Psychoanalytic theory’s key people are…

Freud & Erikson

What is humanistic psychology?

The idea that we need love and acceptance within environments to promote growth

What is cognitive revolution?

Piage’s idea that babies and kids are “little scientists”

Observational Studies have…

a rich data set and ecological validity but limited interpretations and correlations without causality

Longitudal (over time) can…

allow for a better understanding of individual differences but can train a subject to the test

Cross Sectional (at once) can…

identify abilities that occur at different ages but makes it tricky to understand individual differences

experiments can…

create situations that elicit certain behaviors but lacks validity

Independant variables are what we…

manipulate

Dependent variables are what we…

measure

Correlation vs Causation

when two variables are measured statistically, it doesn’t mean they could be actually related

What was the Tuskegee syphilis experiment?

African American men were tested for syphilis but were never told they had it or treated, so they thought they were receiving free health care and 33% of them died

phrenology

the idea that skull shape affects behavior

What is neuroplasticity?

the capacity of the brain to be affected by experience/our environment

glial cells

support, protect, and nourish the neuron

axon terminal

forms junction with other neurons

what does the axon do?

passes message to other neuron

What is synaptic pruning? When does it occur?

When the brain removes neurons it no longer needs (face perception, speech perception)

Synaptogenesis

the formation of synapses between neurons

What is neurogenesis?

forming neurons

What do dendrites do?

Receive information

What is the soma?

The cell body

What are neurotransmitters?

Chemical messengers that cross the synaptic gap between neurons

What is Reuptake?

a neurotransmitter’s reabsorption by the sending neuron