PSYCH 3000 CH. 7-9

The part of the brain that is located underneath the thalamus near the bottom center of the brain and plays a central role in fighting, fleeing, feeding, and mating is called the

hypothalamus

Chemical messengers that transmit neural messages across the synapse between neurons are called

neurotransmitters.

does a neurotransmitter always excite the next neuron

No, they can excite and inhibit

the research methods used to study the brain

make it possible to observe which parts of the brain are most active

chemical released in response to stress and prepares body for flight or fight

Epinephrine

The oldest brain imaging technique, which involves electrodes being placed on the scalp to measure the electrical signals generated by brain activity, is called

electroencephalography (EEG)

The neurotransmitter that is involved in systems associated with responses to reward and approach tendencies and is also associated with individual differences in extraversion and openness is

dopamine.

Low levels of _____________ have been linked to sensation-seeking and underreactivity to signs of danger.

cortisol

social understanding, self control, emotions, decision making, response to pleasant/unpleasant stimuli

Frontal Lobe and Neocortex Function

According to Colin DeYoung (2010), the plasticity metatrait is associated with dopamine and plays a role in activity, exploration, and emotional expression. These Big Five plasticity traits include

extraversion and openness.

Kevin is a shy individual who has always been very wary of strangers. He also tends to be an anxious and emotionally fragile individual. According to research on the brain structures associated with neuroticism, these tendencies may be associated with the functioning of Kevin’s

amygdala

Extraverts tend to enjoy and seek out rewards more than introverts. This may be due to the connection between extraversion and responsiveness to the neurotransmitter

dopamine

Serotonin, testosterone, and the insula brain region seem to play important roles in which of the Big Five personality traits?

agreeableness

behavioral tendencies can rarely be mapped to a single brain area.

true

According to the text, which neurotransmitter is the foundation of plasticity?

dopamine

Early brain stimulation studies determined that stimulating the substantia nigra could produce symptoms of __________.

depression

High levels of testosterone have been positively associated with ________ and __________.

loneliness; avoiding emotional commitment

What is NOT a challenge associated with the advancement of neural imaging technology?

There is not much evidence supporting its use to assess brain activity.

The MOST important thing scientists gain by studying animal models for the biological basis of personality is

an understanding of our own anatomy by studying animals with similar brain structures as our own.

Evolutionary theory can be used to explain personality because

human behaviors and personality traits that were adaptive in our distant past were likely to get passed on to future generations, and behaviors and traits that were maladaptive did not get passed on.

Evolutionary theory can be used to explain current individual differences because

certain levels of traits can help one survive and reproduce in some situations but may decrease survival and reproduction in others, which helps to maintain individual differences.

The existence of individual differences

is necessary for traits that are frequency dependent.

How do evolutionary psychologists respond to the criticism that humans do not all seem to have an instinct to have as many children as possible?

People do not have to consciously want to have as many children as possible to support the prediction that people who behaved in ways that led to them having more children were more likely to have survived and reproduced in the distant past.

An alternative explanation to evolutionary theory for explaining things like sex differences in mating preferences is

social structure, because differences in how society is structured for men and women as a result of physical sex differences could explain why there are differences in mating preferences.

according to evolutionary personality psych

one way to explain personality is to look at how behaviors might have been adaptive

one criticism of EPT (evolutionary personality theory)

does not explain how people living now decide to behave

The ideas of eugenics and cloning

have been associated with controversy because the ideas of behavioral genetics have been implicated in some dark parts of world history.

A common research method used in behavioral genetics is

to study relatives with differing levels of genetic similarity (such as identical and fraternal twins) to determine how similar their personality traits are and to then determine how much this similarity is related to genetic similarity.

The heritability coefficient tells us

the extent to which differences in traits in the population are likely to be the result of differences in genes.

Based on heritability coefficients

we know that personality is influenced ( not due to) by genes and the environment.

Genes can interact with the environment

in multiple ways, such as influencing how much genes are able to influence outcomes, the environments people choose to be in, and the ways in which those environments affect them.

QUIZ: Which of the following is a NOT a common methodological concern of evolutionary psychology?

Many of the theories do not account for individual differences.

QUIZ: In which sample would you expect the heritability of IQ to be the lowest?

low socioeconomic status twins

QUIZ: If the correlation between the shyness of a sample of dizygotic twin pairs is .25 and the correlation between the shyness of a sample of monozygotic twin pairs is .50, then the heritability coefficient for shyness is

.500.

QUIZ: The field of study that attempts to explain how individual differences in behavior (i.e., personality traits) are shared by biological relatives is called

behavioral genetics

QUIZ: What term refers to a variant of the same gene?

allele

QUIZ: If a trait is influenced by genes, then it ought to be more highly correlated across pairs of ________ than across pairs of ________.

identical twins; fraternal twins

QUIZ: If there is no physical variation in a trait, then the heritability of that trait will be approximately

0

QUIZ: According to evolutionary psychology, which of the following does NOT account for individual differences?

Certain levels of maladaptive traits such as neuroticism ensure that populations are not so excessively large that it threatens the survival of the group.

instructing the patient to say whatever came to mind

free association

Freud thought that talking about the difficulties in one’s life

would be helpful because then the conscious and rational mind can be used to deal with them and this allows the therapist to help the person deal with them.

Which of the following reasons for someone doing something that they have said is a terrible and amoral thing to do is consistent with a psychoanalytic perspective?

The behavior is a result of unconscious mental processes.

According to Freud’s ideas about the internal structure of the mind,

the id is the irrational part of the mind, the ego is the rational part, and the superego is the moral part.

According to the idea of compromise formation,

behavior is a result of a compromise among the parts of the mind and the ego is responsible for making this compromise.

Freud proposed that there are two fundamental motives or drives,

the life or sexual drive and the death drive, and this is a good example of the doctrine of opposites.

Freud used the term “psychosexual development” to indicate that

development can be understood in terms of how life energy or the libido is invested and redirected.

development can be understood in terms of how life energy or the libido is invested and redirected.

anal stage

The oral phase is associated with adult character types of

dependence or extreme independence.

The part of the mind’s activities of which one is aware.

conscious

QUIZ: According to Freud, the superego develops during the ________ stage of psychosexual development, and the ego develops during the ________ stage.

phallic; anal

QUIZ: The psychoanalytic explanation for the behavior of the governor who paid for prostitutes yet supported anticrime initiatives would be that

the causes of his behavior lie in the psychic conflict of his mind.

QUIZ: The therapeutic technique that involves instructing the patient to say whatever comes to mind is called

free association

QUIZ: What is the difference between the mind and the brain according to the psychoanalytic perspective?

The mind is the psychological product of the brain’s activity.

QUIZ: What did Freud mean when he described sexual behavior as fixation?

Libido left behind at any stage causes adults to continue to struggle with its issues.

QUIZ: Why did Freud believe that psychotherapy was beneficial?

Talking about problems helps bring those issues into conscious awareness.

QUIZ: When someone asks how you are currently feeling, what level of consciousness are they accessing?

unconscious mind

QUIZ: Freud’s greatest contribution to modern-day psychotherapy was

the “talking cure.”

QUIZ: Unlike other perspectives, the psychoanalytic perspective emphasizes the importance of ________ in determining behavior.

conscious processes

QUIZ: The id is present

during the oral stage of development.