Psychology 105 Lecture Notes

These flashcards cover key concepts from the Psychology 105 Lecture Notes, focusing on thinking, reasoning, language, emotional intelligence, developmental psychology, and psychotherapy.

Thinking

Any mental activity or processing of information.

Cognitive Miser

A concept proposing that individuals try to reduce their mental effort.

System 1 Thinking

Automatic, quick, and intuitive thinking.

System 2 Thinking

Controlled and effortful thinking.

Heuristics

Mental shortcuts or rules of thumb that simplify decision making.

Cognitive Biases

Systematic errors in thinking that affect judgments and decisions.

Confirmation Bias

Tendency to seek out information that aligns with our beliefs while ignoring conflicting evidence.

Hindsight Bias

The tendency to believe, after an event has occurred, that one would have foreseen or predicted the outcome.

Schemas

Knowledge structures that help individuals organize and interpret information.

Top-down Processing

Filling in gaps of information based on preexisting knowledge.

Bottom-up Processing

Starting with nothing and building understanding from incoming information.

Framing

How information is presented, which can significantly influence decisions.

Salience

Focus on superficial or surface-level similarities between problems.

Mental Set

The tendency to use the same problem-solving strategies over and over.

Phoneme

The smallest unit of sound in a language.

Morpheme

The smallest unit that conveys meaning in a language.

Syntax

The rules that govern how words are combined to form sentences.

Extralinguistic Information

Non-verbal cues that influence language interpretation.

Bilingualism

Proficiency in two distinct languages.

Emotional Intelligence

The ability to recognize and manage one's own emotions and the emotions of others.

Developmental Psychology

The study of how humans change over the lifespan.

Cross-sectional Design

A research method that compares individuals from different age groups at one point in time.

Longitudinal Design

A research method that studies the same individuals over a long period of time.

Cohort Effect

Systematic differences among groups that arise from shared experiences.

Diathesis-stress Model

The perspective that mental disorders develop when a predisposition for a disorder combines with stressful life events.

General Adaptive Syndrome

The body's three-stage response to stress: alarm reaction, resistance, and exhaustion.

Psychophysiological Illness

A physical illness that is influenced by emotional factors.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

A type of psychotherapy that focuses on changing dysfunctional thoughts and behaviors.

Psychopharmacology

The study of the effects of medications on mood, thinking, and behavior.