College Psych Final Review

Flashcards for College Psych Final Review

Encoding

getting info into memory

Storage

Maintaining encoded information in memory

Retrieval

Recovering information from memory stores

Structural Level of Processing

Focuses on the physical structure of words.

Phonemic Level of Processing

Emphasizes the sound of words.

Semantic Level of Processing

Highlights the meaning of words.

Self-Referent Encoding

Making information personally relevant to improve encoding.

Sensory Memory

Brief storage of sensory information.

Working Memory

Memory system with limited capacity that temporarily holds information.

Short-Term Memory

Limited-capacity memory store that can maintain unrehearsed information for about 10-20 seconds.

Rehearsal

The process of repetitively verbalizing or thinking about information to keep it in working memory.

Chunking

Grouping familiar stimuli for storage as a single unit.

Recall

Retrieving information without explicit cues.

Recognition

Identifying previously learned information.

Relearning

Learning something again faster than the first time.

Long-Term Memory

Unlimited capacity store that holds information for long periods.

Flashbulb Memories

Vivid and detailed memories of momentous events.

Cluster

Organizing information into related groups.

Schema

Organized knowledge structure or mental framework.

Conceptual Hierarchy

Arranging concepts from general to specific.

Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomenon

Temporary inability to remember something you know, accompanied by a feeling that it's just out of reach.

Reality Monitoring

The process of deciding whether memories are based on external sources (one's perceptions of actual events) or internal sources (one's thoughts and imaginations).

Source Monitoring

Making attributions about the origins of memories.

Intelligence Tests

Assess general mental ability.

Aptitude Tests

Evaluate potential capacity to learn.

Achievement Tests

Gauge mastery and knowledge of subjects.

Personality Tests

Measure various aspects of personality.

Standardization

Uniform procedures used in the administration and scoring of a test.

Percentile Score

Indicates the percentage of people who score at or below the score one has obtained.

Reliability

Measurement consistency of a test.

Validity

Ability of a test to measure what it was designed to measure.

Content Validity

Test covers the content it was told it would cover

Criterion-Related Validity

Test has demonstrated correlation to relevant criteria.

IQ

Intelligence quotient; mental age/chronological age * 100.

Binet-Simon Test

First intelligence test; measured child's mental age.

Stanford-Binet Test

American revision of the Binet-Simon intelligence scale.

Wechsler Test

Intelligence test that includes verbal and performance scales.

Normal Distribution

Symmetrical, bell-shaped curve that represents the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes.

Standard Deviation

Index of the amount of variability in a set of data.

Gifted

Individuals with unusually high scores.

Intellectual Disability

Subnormal general mental ability accompanied by deficiencies in adaptive skills, originating before age 18.

Reaction Range

Genetically determined limits on IQ.

Heritability of Intelligence

Estimate of the proportion of trait variability in a population that is determined by variations in genetic inheritance.

Motivation

Factors within the individual that activate, maintain, and direct behavior.

Homeostasis

State of physiological equilibrium or stability.

Drive Theory

Internal state of tension that motivates an organism to reduce tension.

Incentive

External goal that has the capacity to motivate behavior.

Incentive Theory

Drive originates from outside the organism.

External Goals

Involved in hunger regulation.

Obesity

State of being extremely overweight.

Set Point

The level of weight the body strives to maintain.

Sexual Motivation

Human sexual behavior.

Phases of Sexual Response

Excitement, plateau, orgasm, resolution.

Refractory Period

Time following orgasm when males are largely unresponsive to further stimulation.

Parental Investment

What each sex has to invest- in terms of time, energy, survival risk, and forgone opportunities- to produce and nurture offspring.

Sexual Orientation

A person's preference for emotional and sexual relationships with individuals of the same sex, the other sex, or either sex.

Continuum of Orientation

A range is possible.

Achievement Motive

Need to excel.

Emotion

Evaluative reaction to events.

Cognitive Component

Subjective conscious experience.

Physiological Component

Bodily arousal.

Autonomic Arousal

Controlled by the autonomic nervous system.

Galvanic Skin Response

Increase in electrical conductivity of the skin that occurs when sweat glands increase their activity.

Polygraph

Records autonomic fluctuations during questioning.

James-Lange Theory

Conscious experience of emotion results from perception of one's autonomic arousal.

Canon-Bard Theory

Emotion occurs when the thalamus sends signals simultaneously to the cortex and autonomic nervous system.

Development

Sequence of age-related changes that occur as a person progresses from conception to death.

Zygote

One-celled organism formed by the union of a sperm and an egg.

Prenatal Period

From conception to birth.

Germinal Stage

First two weeks after conception.

Embryonic Stage

Two weeks until the end of the second month.

Fetal Stage

Two months until birth.

Stage Theories of Development

Progress through relatively discrete stages.

Erik Erikson -Psychosocial Stages

Eight stages spanning entire life, each stage brings a psychosocial crisis.

Psychosocial Crisis

A challenge to adjust.

Jean Piaget - Cognitive Development

Four stages of cognitive development.

Object Permanence

Child understands that objects continue to exist even when they are no longer visible.

Conservation

Awareness that physical quantities remain constant in spite of changes in shape or appearance.

Irreversibility

Inability to envision reversing an action.

Egocentrism

Limited ability to share another person's viewpoint.

Lawrence Kohlberg Moral Development

Three levels of moral reasoning.

Preconventional Level

Punishments determine morality.

Conventional Level

Rules determine morality.

Postconventional Level

Personal code of ethics shape morality.

Separation Anxiety

Emotional distress seen in infants when they are separated from those people with whom they have formed an attachment.

Attachment

Close emotional bonds of affection that develop between infants and their caregivers.

Personality

An individual's unique constellation of consistent behavioral traits.

Sigmund Freud

Psychodynamic theory.

Id

The primitive, instinctive component of personality that operates according to the pleasure principle.

Ego

The decision-making component of personality that operates according to the reality principle.

Superego

The moral component of personality that incorporates social standards about what represents right and wrong.

Defense Mechanisms

Largely unconscious reactions that protect a person from unpleasant emotions such as anxiety and guilt.

Repression

Keeping distressing thoughts and feelings buried in the unconscious.

Regression

Reversion to immature patterns of behavior.

Displacement

Diverting emotional feelings (usually anger) from their original source to a substitute target.

Projection

Attributing one's own thoughts, feelings, or motives to another.

Psychosexual Stages

Oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital stages.

Oedipal Complex

Erotic desires for the opposite-sex parent.

Levels of Awareness

Conscious, preconscious and unconscious.

Carl Jung

Analytical psychology.