Psych First Exam

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How is psychological science defined?

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1

How is psychological science defined?

  • “Science of behavior and mental processes”

  • Observable and unobservable behavior

  • Includes “mental behavior”, can be unconscious

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What is the “scientific attitude” and why did I call it “special?”

Being curious, skeptical, open-minded, not cynical or gullible, critical thinking

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What are ways of “knowing”

  • Ex: Faith, religion, memory, logic, reasoning

  • Science is one special way of knowing

  • Some things just seem true (intuition/emotion)

    • Observation can back it up to seem true (illusory correlation)

  • “Somebody told me” “The same thing happened to her” (anecdote)

  • Personal experience

  • Authority

  • Slippery slope that goes both ways

    • Why peer reputations matter, institutions matter, funding matters

  • Actors, musicians, politicians, physicians, friends, historical figures, many followers on social media

    • Why famous people are used in advertising

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What is the scientific approach to knowing? What makes “good” science? What is empiricism?

  • Science is based on empiricism, not opinion

    • Observable, measurable, quantifiable, verifiable, replicable

    • Process of uncovering likely truths

    • Driven by data

    • Skeptical

    • Collaborative and adversarial

    • Falsifiable

    • Peer reviewed

    • Open, transparent, ethical

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What are some of the things psychologists study? Why do we “need” psychology, anyway?

  • Clinical, developmental, personality, social, cognitive, counseling, biological etc

  • We need psychology because of hindsight bias, overconfidence and the better than average effect, perceiving order where none exists

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What is the replication crisis? What is open science, statistical power, and meta-analysis?

  • Replication crisis: the results of scientific studies are difficult or impossible to improve

  • Open Science: To make the output of research work openly accessible, understandable, and reusable to the greatest extent possible

  • Statistical power: the likelihood of a hypothesis test detecting a true effect if there is one

  • Meta-analysis: the likelihood of a hypothesis test detecting a true effect if there is one

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What are the differences between case studies, surveys, naturalistic observation, correlation research, and experiments?

  • Case studies: In-depth analyses of individuals or groups

  • Surveys: Examines “average” responses with large samples

  • Naturalistic observation: recording natural behavior

  • Correlation research: Not causation, measuring two variables and assessing their relationship

  • Experiments: Help establish causality, random assignment to conditions, helps rule out confounds

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What is the difference, if any, between “basic” and “applied” research?

  • Basic answers to fundamental questions

  • Applied tries to solve problems

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9

What is an operational definition?

Ex:  “happiness”, “depression”, “job satisfaction”, definitions that are different for every person

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10

How do theories and hypotheses differ?

Theories: explanations that's well-justified by facts, tested hypotheses, and laws

Hypothesis: testable prediction of a relationship between two or more things

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11

What is skewness? What is the mean and standard deviation? What are some problems with treating a mean as the “center” of a distribution?

  • Skewness: used to show whether a distribution is distorted or asymmetrical

  • Mean: Average

  • Standard deviation: How many individuals in each set

  • Problems with treating mean as “center” of a distribution: Mean takes into account outliers which changes the most accurate average

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What are populations, samples, and statistical significance?

  • Populations: the pool of individuals from which a statistical sample is drawn for a study

  • Samples: a subset containing the characteristics of a larger population

  • Statistical significance: indicates that an observed relationship is unlikely to be due to chance

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13

How is consciousness defined?

  • The sense of “you”; your thoughts, drives, sensations, and awareness of yourself as you

  • Our subjective awareness of ourselves and our environment

  • If others have no consciousness, they have no free will, which means they lack moral standing

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What is attention? How many things can we attend to at once?

  • Attention: The ability to focus stimuli on specific things, it’s selective

  • We can only consciously attend to one thing at a time, maybe a few bc we only have so much cognitive capacity

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What is cognition and how does it differ from consciousness?

Consciousness is about awareness of our minds whereas cognition is our understanding through attention

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What is system 1 and system 2? Which of these is “hot” and which is “cold?”

  • System 1 “Cold”; Automatic thinking, unconscious

  • System 2 “Hot”; When you think about it, spending time, using cognitive effort

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17

What are the stages of sleep and what is the brain (and mind, and body) doing during each state?

  • N1: Early sleep, sometimes accompanied by sensory hallucinations (falling asleep)

  • N2: Deeper relaxation accompanied by sleep spindles or bursts of rapid brain-wave activity that aids memory processing

  • N3: Deep sleep, hard to be awaken, accompanied by slow delta waves

  • Throughout the night, we pass back and forth through these stages

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18

What happens during REM sleep and what does REM stand for?

  • REM: Rapid Eye Movement sleep

    • Hard to awaken

    • Accompanied by story-like dreams with strong emotional content

    • Essentially paralyzed

    • Internal arousal but physical calm

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What are things that disrupt sleep, and why do they disrupt it?

Disruptions:

  • Bright lights: Decreases melatonin production

  • Stress: time to think

  • Drugs (alcohol)

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Impact of sleep loss

  • Sleep loss fatigues us, makes us hungrier, slows our reaction times, reduces immune response, negatively impacts our mood and memory, associated with depression

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Examples of sleep disorders

  • Sleepwalking

  • Sleep apnea

  • Night terrors

  • Nightmares

  • Sleep paralysis

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22

What are some of the theories for why we need sleep?

  • Evolution: Protection from predators

  • Recuperation: Body rests and repairs

  • Consolidate memories and skill

  • Stimulate creative thinking

  • Support growth

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What are some of the theories for why we dream? What happens, theoretically, while dreaming?

  • Freud: Subconscious wish fulfillment (not much support)

  • Information processing: consolidation of memories and learning

  • Physiological functions: develop and preserve neural pathways

  • Synthesis of random neural activity: Making sense of activation from brainstem

  • Developmental: more descriptive than explanatory; dreaming reflects different stages of cognitive development

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Psychoactive drugs: Depressants

  • All used to alter consciousness

  • Alcohol

    • Slows brain activity that controls judgement and inhibitions, disrupts memory, reduces self-awareness

    • Causes around 3 million yearly deaths

  • Barbiturates

    • Can also impair memory and judgement

  • Opiates (heroin, oxycontin, Vicodin, morphine, fentanyl)

    • Very addictive, tolerance builds up quickly

    • Relieve pain, cause pleasure

    • Taken repeatedly, brain stops producing natural opiates (endorphins)

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Psychoactive drugs: Stimulants

  • Excite neural activity, increased energy and self-confidence, alertness, weight loss

  • Caffeine, nicotine, amphetamines, methamphetamine, ecstasy

  • Little effect on memory, frequently addictive, can cause anxiety and create long-term problems

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Psychoactive drugs: Hallucinogens

  • LSD, ecstasy, shrooms, marijuana, DMT

  • Visual and auditory hallucinations, strong emotions, perceived separation from body, felt connection with the external world

  • Can lead to “bad trips”

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What is cognitive capacity?

The total amount of information that the brain can retain at once

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What is cognitive load, why do researchers use it, and what would be an example of a cognitive load manipulation?

  • Cognitive load is the mental effort required for a task

  • Used by researchers to understand how task complexity and design impact performance

  • Example of manipulation: adding distracting visuals to assess their effect on learning

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What is a circadian rhythm?

  • Natural, internal biological clock that regulates various physiological and behavioral processes in a 24-hour cycle, such as sleep-wake patterns, body temperature, hormone secretion, and alertness, in alignment with the Earth's day-night cycle

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The cocktail party effect, pop out, inattentional blindness, change blindness? How do these effects relate to attention?

  • Cocktail party effect: Individual can focus on a singular conversation in a crowded room

  • Pop out effect: Something that naturally stands out and grabs attention

  • Inattentional blindness: people fail to perceive or notice an unexpected and salient object or event in their visual field due to their attention being focused on something else

  • Change blindness: the inability to notice significant changes in a visual scene when attention is not directed to those changes

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What is biological psychology?

  • Studying links between psychological processes and different biological processes such as genetics, neurons and nervous system, hormones

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32

In what ways is the human brain complex?

  • The brain is the most complex structure in the universe as far as we can tell

    • The brain has 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion interconnections among neurons

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What is neuroplasticity and why is this important?

  • The brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life, and it's important because it underlies learning, memory, recovery from brain injuries, and adaptation to new experiences

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What are neurons and what are the parts of neurons (e.g., soma, axon, dendrite, terminal button)?

  • Neurons receive input from other neurons

  • Soma: Cell body

  • Synaptic gap: Gap between 2 neurons

  • Axon: Signal fires from the cell body to the terminal end

  • Dendrite: receives info

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What is a synapse and a synaptic gap?

  • Synapses: Where neurons connect

  • Synaptic gap: Gap between two neurons

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What are neurotransmitters?

  • When an action potential reaches the terminal button, it releases neurotransmitters

    • These are like “keys” for receptor locks in dendrites

    • Then, neurons reuptake excess

  • Examples: Dopamine, Serotonin, Endorphins

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What is an action potential and why is it described as an “all or nothing” response?

  • Types of action potentials

    • Excitatory

      • Makes the neuron want to fire

    • Inhibitory

      • Stops the neuron from firing

  • All or nothing response, they either fire or they don’t

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38

What types of effects do drugs have on the brain and behavior? Why do drugs have these effects?

  • Drugs can mimic neurotransmitters and affect the brain

    • Alcohol enhances GABA transmission, dampened transmission of neurotransmitters

    • Nicotine enhances attention and arousal

    • Morphine makes people feel good and block pain

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39

What is an “agonist” and “antagonist?”

  • Agnoists may block reuptake or enhance transmission

  • Antagonists may block the function of a neurotransmitter

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What happens to the production of neurotransmitters when we take too many drugs for too long?

  • Because drugs can mimic the brain’s natural neurotransmitters, the brain can stop producing them naturally

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What are the complex downstream effects of drug use?

  • Mimicked neurotransmitters from the drugs can affect the release or inhibition of different neurotransmitters

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42

What is the nervous system and what are its major branches?

  • Specialized cells called neurons and other support cells that transmit and process information in the body

  • Includes Central nervous system (just your brain and spinal cord “the boss”) and the peripheral (everything else

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43

What are the parasympathetic and sympathetic branches of the nervous system and what is associated with each?

  • Sympathetic (arousing): fight or flight, feeling scared

  • Parasympathetic (calming): rest and digest, feeling calm

  • Both in the autonomic system

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44

What is the difference between the autonomic and somatic nervous system?

  • Somatic: voluntary control of muscles

    • Sensory neurons (input) and motor neurons (output controlling skeletal muscles)

    • Interneurons connect these and facilitate neuronal “conversations”

  • Autonomic system: controls glands and muscles of internal organs autonomously

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45

What is the endocrine system and what are hormones? How do they work?

  • Connects to our nervous system

  • Pituitary: the “master gland” (controlled by the hypothalamus)

  • Communicates through hormones

    • Travel through the blood

    • Affects behavior

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What are the different ways we study the brain? How do the different methods differ from one another?

  • Brain lesioning

  • Destroying parts of the brain

  • EEG (electroencephalogram) and MEG (magnetoencephalography)

    • Allow us to see brain activity

  • MRI (magnetic resonance imaging)

    • Structural

    • Functional

    • Traces blood oxygenation

      • fMRI (uses blood level oxygen dependence, while you’re doing something)

  • PET (Positron Emission Tomography)

    • Determines blood glucose

  • TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation)

    • Generates a current TMS can interfere with the firing of neurons (on the surface only)

By disrupting activity, we can discover what types of behaviors are controlled by different brain regions

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What is BOLD signal?

Blood Oxygenation Level-Dependent signal; measures used in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

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48

What is the “old brain”?

  • Human and non-human brains are very similar

  • Our brainstem is the oldest brain, responsible for automatic survival functions

    • Medulla regulates heartbeat, breathing, BP

    • Reticular formation helps control arousal

    • Thalamus is a hub for traffic between the senses and the higher brain

    • Cerebellum helps with balance, motor coordination, etc

  • These structures work outside of conscious awareness

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What is the limbic system? What are some of the major areas of the limbic system?

  • Part of our brain associated with emotions, drives

    • Amygdala: fear

    • Hypothalamus: controls the pituitary gland, regulates hunger, thrust, body temperature, and is implicated in reward

    • Hippocampus: memories

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50

What are the major lobes of the brain and what functions are generally associated with each?

  • Frontal (higher-order reasoning, interpretation, associations)

  • Temporal (hearing)

  • Parietal (sensory associations, sense of “self)

  • Occupital (visual perception)

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51

What is a brain-machine interface?

  • Large strides have been made in helping people regain motor functions

    • Cybernetic organisms

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52

What are the somatosensory and motor cortices?

  • Somatosensory: Left hemisphere section, receives input from right bodys side

  • Motor Cortex: Right hemisphere section, receives input from left bodys side

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What is the majority of our brains devoted to?

  • About 75% of our brain is devoted to higher mental functions

    • We use all of our brains

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What is “functional connectivity?”

Communication between different brain regions and neural networks

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55

What is evolutionary psychology?

  • Human behavior can be explained through evolutionary processes

    • Natural selection

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What are the basics of the theory of evolution? What is natural selection?

  • Organisms and their offspring compete for survival

  • Some biological or behavioral variations, sometimes due to random mutations, increase chances for survival and subsequent reproduction (evolutionary fitness)

  • Offspring that survive are more likely to reproduce and pass on their genes

  • Over time, species change and diversity in pursuit of better survival and reproduction

    • Less competitive species become extinct

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What are behavior genetics?

  • Branch of biological psych that studies the interplay of hereditary and environment

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 What are genes, chromosomes, and DNA?

Genetics:

  • Every cell in your body contains the master code for how to build another you

  • We have 46 chromosomes, 23 from each parent

  • Chromosomes are composed of DNA

  • Genes are small segments that make up DNA and can be expressed or inactive

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What does it mean when a gene is “expressed” or is not expressed?

  • Expressed: the information encoded in that gene is used to produce a functional product

  • Not expressed: it remains inactive, and its information is not used to create a biological product.

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What is polygenetics? What is epigenetics?

  • Epigenetics: genes adapt to environments

  • Polygenetics: characteristics/traits

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What is a genome and to what extent does the human genome overlap with the genomes of other organisms?

  • 20,000 genes, which can be turned on or off

  • Yet, humans also have a somewhat unique genetic sequence that makes us all human

  • Despite this, at functionally important DNA cites, our DNA sequence overlaps with a lot of other living things

    • Ex: We share 99.4% overlap with chimpanzees

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What are the basics of sibling studies?

  • Identical twins: from the same fertilized egg

    • Share 100% of genes

    • Same start, same prenatal environment

    • Same developmental timing

  • Fraternal twins: from two different eggs

    • Share 50% of genes

    • Different start, same prenatal environment

    • Same developmental timing

  • Non-twin biological siblings

    • Share 50% of genes, different prenatal environment

    • Different start

    • Different developmental timing

EMPHASIS: Regardless of where you’re raised, you would have a lot of similarities with your siblings (Nature and Nuture are equally important)

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63

What do we know about the effects of environments? Do environments matter much, and if so, what is the evidence they do (or do not)?

  • Growing up together has little effect on personality (stable traits that vary substantially across people)

  • People who have been adopted are more similar to biological parents than adoptive parents

    • Yet, environments do matter: Adoptive parents invariably want children, and neglect and abuse are much rarer

    • Strong attachment frequent between adopted children and parents

    • May be more altruistic, happier, stable, than people raised by biological parents

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What are traits and temperaments and how do these two things differ from one another?

  • Traits: consistent patterns of behavior and characteristics across various situations

  • Temperaments: early-emerging tendencies that influence emotional reactions and activity levels.

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What does adaptability mean in terms of behavior and genetics?

  • We adapt to our environments

  • The most important is how our genes and environments interact

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What is culture, norms, and rituals?

It is “ways of life” (arts, food, beliefs, institutions, laws, norms. Languages, rituals) shared by a population and passed down from generation to generation

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Gender similarities and differences

Similarities

  • Dr. Hyde notes: that genders are very similar in most ways

    • For ex: Variation within genders on various traits or preferences is often much greater than variation between genders

    • 45 of our 46 chromosomes are the same for everyone

    • We feel the same emotions

    • We are similarly capable and intelligent

    • We use language in the same ways

    • Brains essentially the same

Differences

  • Males tend to be more aggressive and independent

    • More willing to fight, commit more violent crimes

    • More social power

  • Females tend to be more socially connected and listen more without trying to solve problems

    • Women’s friendships tend to be more intimate

    • Men and women both think female friends are more nurturing and are preferred for sharing intimacy

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68

What has research found about sex differences? What are evolutionary explanations for sex differences?

  • Men are much more willing to sleep with strangers than women

  • For women, takes a long time to grow a baby, and can only have so many children, takes a lot of resources to raise them, so an invested mate with resources is useful to a woman

  • Men can have number of children and although women with high reproductive chances are best, the best evolutionary bet might be as many as possible in many environments as possible

  • Be sure to read about evolutionary critiques in mate selections

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69

What are gender roles and how do “masculinity” and “femininity” differ from “agency” and “communion?”

  • Attitudes, behaviors, and traits that are “expected” in women and men

    • Attitudes about these issues are rapidly changing, in some places

    • Division of labor in nomadic societies was very similar; agriculture led to many changes

  • Psychology femininity and masculinity vs communion and agency

    • Communion: Warm, intimate

    • Agency: Self-sufficient

    • Women are underrepresented in STEM, earn less, face backlash

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