Psychology Quiz Two Vocabulary ;)

Developmental Psychology

A branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span.

Zygote

The fertilized egg; it enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division and develops into an embryo.

Embryo

The developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month.

Fetus

the developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth.

Teratogens

(literally, "monster maker") agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)

Physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman's heavy drinking. In severe cases, symptoms include a small out of proportion head and abnormal facial features.

Habituation

Decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a visual stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner.

Critical Period

An optimal period early in the life of an organism when exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces normal development.

Cognition

All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

Schema

A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.

Assimilation

Interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas

Accommodation

Adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information.

Sensorimotor Stage

In Piaget's theory, the stage (from birth to about 2 years of age) during which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities.

Object Permanence

The awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived.

Preoperational Stage

In Piaget's theory, the stage (from about 2 to 6 or 7 years of age) during which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic.

Conservation

The principle (which Piaget believed to be a part of concrete operational reasoning) that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects.

Egocentrism

In Piaget's theory, the preoperational child's difficulty taking another's point of view.

Theory of Mind

People's ideas about their own and others' mental states—about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts, and the behaviors these might predict.

Concrete Operational Stage

In Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (from about 6 or 7 to 11 years of age) during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events.

Formal Operational Stage

In Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (normally beginning about age 12) during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts.

Stranger Anxiety

The fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 months of age.

Attachment

An emotional tie with another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the caregiver and showing distress on separation.

Imprinting

The process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life

Temperament

A person's characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity.

Basic Trust

According to Erik Erikson, a sense that the world is predictable and trustworthy; said to be formed during infancy by appropriate experiences with responsive caregivers.

Adolescence

The transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to independence.

Puberty

The period of sexual maturation, during which a person becomes capable of reproducing.

Identity

Our sense of self; according to Erikson, the adolescent's task is to solidify a sense of self by testing and integrating various roles.

Social Identity

The "we" aspect of our self-concept; the part of our answer to "Who am I?" that comes from our group memberships.

Intimacy

In Erikson's theory, the ability to form close, loving relationships; a primary developmental task in late adolescence and early adulthood.

Emerging Adulthood

A period from about age 18 to the mid-twenties, when many in Western cultures are no longer adolescents but have not yet achieved full independence as adults.

Menopause

The time of natural cessation of menstruation; also refers to the biological changes a woman experiences as her ability to reproduce declines.

Cross-sectional Study

A study in which people of different ages are compared with one another.

Longitudinal Study

Research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period.

Social Clock

The culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

A disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by significant deficiencies in communication and social interaction, and by rigidly fixated interests and repetitive behaviors.

Maturation

Biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience.

Learning

The process of acquiring through experience new and relatively enduring information or behaviors

Associative Learning

Learning that certain events occur together. The events may be two stimuli (as in classical conditioning) or a response and its consequences (as in operant conditioning).

Stimulus

Any event or situation that evokes a response

Respondent Behavior

Behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus

Operant Behavior

Behavior that operates on the environment, producing consequences

Cognitive Learning

The acquisition of mental information, whether by observing events, by watching others, or through language

Classical Conditioning

A type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events

Behaviorism

The view that psychology (1) should be an objective science that (2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes. Most research psychologists today agree with (1) but not with (2).

Neutral Stimulus (NS)

In classical conditioning, a stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning

Unconditioned Response (UR)

In classical conditioning, an unlearned, naturally occurring response (such as salivation) to an unconditioned stimulus (US) (such as food in the mouth)

Unconditioned Stimulus (US)

In classical conditioning, a stimulus that unconditionally—naturally and automatically—triggers the uncoordinated response.

Conditioned Response (CR)

In classical conditioning, the learned response to a previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus (CS)

Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

in classical conditioning, an originally irrelevant stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus (US), comes to trigger a conditioned response (CR).

Acquisition

In classical conditioning, the initial stage, when one links a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus so that the neutral stimulus begins triggering the conditioned response. In operant conditioning, the strengthening of a reinforced response.

Extinction

The diminishing of a conditioned response; occurs in classical conditioning when an unconditioned stimulus (US) does not follow a conditioned stimulus (CS); occurs in operant conditioning when a response is no longer reinforced.

Spontaneous Recovery

The reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished conditioned response

Generalization

The tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses

Discrimination

In classical conditioning, the learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus

Operant Conditioning

A type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher

Law of Effect

Thorndike's principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely, and that behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely

Operant Chamber

In operant conditioning research, a chamber (also known as a Skinner box) containing a bar or key that an animal can manipulate to obtain a food or water reinforcer; attached devices record the animal's rate of bar pressing or key pecking.

Reinforcement

In operant conditioning, any event that strengthens the behavior it follows

Shaping

An operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior

Positive Reinforcement

Increasing behaviors by presenting positive reinforcers. A positive reinforcer is any stimulus that, when presented after a response, strengthens the response.

Negative Reinforcement

Increasing behaviors by stopping or reducing negative stimuli, such as shock. A negative reinforcer is any stimulus that, when removed after a response, strengthens the response. (Note: negative reinforcement is not punishment.)

Primary Reinforcer

An innately reinforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfies a biological need

Conditioned Reinforcer

Aa stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer; also known as a secondary reinforcer

Reinforcement Schedule

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

Continuous Reinforcement Schedule

Reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs

Partial (intermittent) Reinforcement Schedule

Reinforcing a response only part of the time; results in slower acquisition of a response but much greater resistance to extinction than does continuous reinforcement

Fixed-Ratio Schedule

In operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses

Variable - Ratio Schedule

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

Punishment

An event that decreases the behavior that it follows

Biological Constraints

Evolved biological tendencies that predispose animals' behavior and learning. Thus, certain behaviors are more easily learned than others.

Cognitive Map

A mental representation of the layout of one's environment. For example, after exploring a maze, rats act as if they have learned a cognitive map of it.

Latent Learning

Learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it

Intrinsic Motivation

A desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake

Extrinsic Motivation

A desire to perform a behavior to receive promised rewards or avoid threatened punishment

Observational Learning

Learning by observing others

Modeling

The process of observing and imitating a specific behavior

Mirror Neruons

Frontal lobe neurons that some scientists believe fire when performing certain actions or when observing another doing so. The brain's mirroring of another's action may enable imitation and empathy

Prosocial Behavior

Positive, constructive, helpful behavior. The opposite of antisocial behavior

Cognition

All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

Concept

A mental grouping of similar objects, events, ideas, or people.

Prototype

A mental image or best example of a category. Matching new items to a prototype provides a quick and easy method for sorting items into categories (as when comparing feathered creature to a bird, such as a robin).

Algorithm

A methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees solving a particular problem. Contrasts with the usually speedier-but also more error prone-use of heuristics.

Heuristic

A simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgements and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms.

Insight

A sudden realization to a problem's solution; contrasts with strategy based solutions.

Confirmation Bias

A tendency to search for information that supports our perceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory perceptions.

Mental Set

A tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past.

Intuition

An effortless, immediate automatic feeling or though, as contrasted with explicit, conscious reasoning.

Availability Heuristic

Estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory; if instances come readily to mind (perhaps because of their vividness). We presume such events are common.

Overconfidence

The tendency to be more confident than correct-to over-estimate the accuracy of our beliefs and judgments.

Belief Perseverance

Clinging to one's initial conceptions after the basis on which they were formed has been discredited.

Framing

The way an issue is poses; how an issue id framed can significantly affect decisions and judgement.

Creativity

The ability to produce new and valuable ideas.

Convergent Thinking

Narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution.

Divergent Thinking

Expanding the number of possible solutions; creative thinking that diverges in different directions.

Language

Our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.

Phomeme

In a language, the smallest distinctive sound unit.

Moropheme

In a language the smallest unit that carries meaning; may be a word or part of a word (such as the prefix).

Grammer

in a language, a system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others. In a given language semantics is the set if rules of deriving the meaning from sounds, and syntax is the set of rules of combining words into grammatically sensible sentences.

Babbling Stage

beginning at about 4 months, the stage of speech development in which the infant spontaneously utters various sounds at first unrelated to the household language.