UNCC PSYC 1101 Exam 1 Flashcards

scientific attitude

curiosity, skepticism, humility

curiosity

a strong desire to know or learn something

Skepticism

A philosophy which suggests that nothing can ever be known for certain; have some doubt when approaching an issue

humility

researchers must be willing to be surprised and follow new ideas

Structuralism

an early school of psychology that used introspection to explore the elemental structure of the human mind; Unreliable as it depends on the person's intelligence and the experience of doing something varied; TITCHENER and WUNDT

Functionalism

A school of psychology that focused on how our mental and behavioral processes function - how they enable us to adapt, survive, and flourish; WILLIAM JAMES

Behaviorism

the view that psychology (1) should be an objective science that (2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes; ex: the rat experiments; SKINNER and WATSON

Freudian Psychology

emphasized the ways our unconscious thought processes and our emotional responses to childhood experiences affect our behavior

Humanistic

emphasizes human growth potential; ROGERS and MASLOW

Evolutionary Perspective

This perspective takes the stance that behaviors came into existence as a result of adaptations to living conditions; ex: humans naturally dislike and fear snakes and spiders bc they're poisonous

Behavioral Perspective

the study of the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behavior that have been learned

neuroscience

How the body and brain enable emotions, memories, and sensory experiences; subfields: biological, cognitive, clinical

psychodynamic

How behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts; subfields: clinical, counseling, personality

cognitive

how we encode, process, store, and retrieve information; industrial-organizational, counseling, clinical,

behavior genetics

How our genes and our environment influence our individual differences; subfields: personality, developmental, legal/forensic

social-cultural

how behavior and thinking vary across situations and cultures; developmental, social, clinical, counseling

critical thinking

thinking that does not blindy accept arguments and conclusions; examines assumptions, appraises the source, discerns hidden biases, evaluates evidence, and assesses conclusions

hindsight bias

the tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it; I KNEW IT ALL ALONG

overconfidence

humans tend to think we know more than we do

theory

an explanation using an integrated set of principles that organizes observations and predicts behaviors or events

regression toward the mean

the tendency for extreme or unusual scores or events to fall back toward the average

availability heuristics

mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a given person's mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method or decision

representative heuristics

similarity of objects or events regarding the probability of an outcome; People make the mistake of believing that two similar things or events are more closely correlated than they actually are; stereotypes

belief perseverance

Tendency to cling to one's initial belief even after receiving new information that contradicts or disconfirms the basis of that belief; pride

confirmation bias

looking for info that supports your view while ignoring those that don't

framing effect

A cognitive bias where people decide on options based on whether the options are presented with positive or negative connotations; One of the strongest biases in decision making; Ex: motivating people by offering people a $5 reward vs. imposing a $5 penalty; People will more likely avoid risks when presented with a positive frame

Research method: descriptive

to observe and record behavior; weaknesses: no control of variables and single cases misleading

Research method: correlational

To detect naturally occurring relationships; to assess how well one variable predicts another; weaknesses: Cannot specify cause and effect

Research method: experimental

to explore cause and effect; weaknesses: Sometimes not feasible; results may not generalize to other contexts; not ethical to manipulate certain variables

encoding

get information into our brain

effortful processing

encode explicit memories; requires attention and conscious effort; one track out of two

automatic processing

encode unconsciously incidental information

such as: space, time, and frequency, and well-learned information;

encodes implicit memories

Strategies for Remembering: Chunking

organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically

Strategies for Remembering: Mnemonics

memory aids, especially those techniques that use vivid imagery and organizational devices

Strategies for Remembering: Spacing effect

the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice

Strategies for Remembering: Testing effect

enhanced performance on a memory test caused by being tested on the material to be remembered

short term memory

activated memory that holds a few items briefly; Only 7 items of information can be stored at a time

long term memory

the relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system;

Includes knowledge, skills, and experiences

explicit memory

retention of facts and experiences that one can consciously know and "declare", conscious; Ex: 2+4=6; what you learn in school

implicit memory

retention of learned skills or classically conditioned associations independent of conscious recollection, automatic and unconscious; Ex: singing a familiar song, typing on your computer, brushing your teeth

Amygdala

in charge of memory consolidation which is the process of transferring new learning into long-term memory; also emotional memories

Hippocampus

a neural center located in the limbic system; helps process explicit memories for storage

Cerebellum

processing procedural memories

procedural memory

type of implicit memory and long-term memory which aids the performance of particular types of tasks; unconscious

episodic memory

explicit memory of personally experienced events; one of our two conscious memory systems

priming

the activation of particular associations in memory; unconscious

Memory Storing Process

1. To-be-remembered info recorded as a sensory memory

2. Then it's processed as a short-term memory-> encode it through rehearsal

3. Information moves into long-term memory for later retrieval

Sensory memory

works with working memory, records momentary images of scenes and sounds

Iconic memory

a fleeting sensory memory of visual stimuli; lasts no more than a second

Echoic memory

a fleeting sensory of auditory stimuli; if attention is elsewhere, sounds and words can still be recalled within 3-4 seconds

Shallow processing

encoding on a basic level; Elementary level such as a word's letters or even a word's sound

Deep processing

encodes semantically, based on the meaning of the words

Spacing Effect

the tendency for distributed study or practice to yield better long-term retention than is achieved through massed study or practice

Classical conditioning

learn to expect and prepare for significant consequences; Pavlov and the dog; associate two stimuli; automatic response to a stimulus

John B. Watson

basis for CC; Psychology should be an objective science, not based on feelings, emotions, or motives; without reference to mental processes->Called "behaviorism"

neutral stimulus

a stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning; Ex: the dog didn't associate food with events he could see or hear

Unconditioned response

an unlearned, naturally occurring response to an unconditioned stimulus

Unconditioned stimulus

a stimulus that unconditionally triggers an UR

Conditioned response

a learned response to a previously neutral stimulus

Conditioned stimulus

an originally neutral stimulus that becomes associated with an unconditioned stimulus and triggers a conditioned response

Operant condtioning

learn to repeat acts that bring rewards and avoid acts that bring unwanted results

shaping

reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer borders of the desired behavior

positive reinforcement

increasing behaviors by presenting positive reinforcers

negative reinforcement

increasing behaviors by stopping or reducing stimuli

Primary reinforcers

innately reinforcing stimulus; such as one that satisfies a biological need

Conditioned reinforcers

a stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer

punishment

an event that tends to decrease the behavior that it follows

Positive: give a stimulus as a punishment

Negative: take a stimulus as a punishment

conditioning processes

1. acquistion

2. extinction

3. spontaneous recovery

4. generalization

5. discrimination

acquistion

the strengthening of a reinforced response

extinction

diminishing of a conditioned response or response is no longer enforced

spontaneous recovery

reappearance after a pause of a conditioned response

generalization

tendency, once a response has been conditioned for stimuli similar to the CS to have similar responses

discrimination

learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and similar stimuli that does not signal an unconditioned stimulus

operant behavior

depends on environment

reinforcement schedules

a pattern that defines how often a desired response will be reinforced

continuous reinforcement

reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs

partial reinforcement schedules

reinforcing a response only part of the time

fixed-ratio schedules

a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses

variable-ratio schedules

in operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses

fixed-interval schedules

reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed

variable-interval schedules

reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals

latent learning

A form of learning that is not immediately expressed in an overt response; it occurs without any obvious reinforcement of the behavior or associations that are learned; ex: Ex: a student is taught how to perform a special type of addition, but does not demonstrate the knowledge until an important test is administered

Observational learning (BANDURA)

a form of cognitive learning; The acquirement of mental information either by observing events/other or through language (environment)

4 processes of observational learning

1. Attention

2. Retention

3. Production

4. Motivation

Compound Conditioning

simultaneous conditioning of 2 cues; usually presented at the same time; CR to BOTH S1 and S2 is stronger than ind. stimulus

availability heurisitcs