Intro to Anthropology, Psychology & Sociology exam flashcard

Researcher 2025-2026 1. Jane Elliott

Jane Elliott is an American educator who conducted the famous “Blue Eyes vs. Brown Eyes” exercise to teach students about discrimination and prejudice. She divided her class by eye color, treating one group as superior and the other as inferior, and then reversed the roles the next day. The exercise showed how quickly arbitrary traits can lead to discrimination, stereotyping, and changes in behavior and self-esteem, highlighting the powerful effect of social categorization and prejudice on individuals.

Researcher 2025-2026 2. Stanley Milgram

Stanley Milgram was a social psychologist who studied the power of obedience to authority. In his famous experiment using a shock generator, participants were instructed to administer increasingly strong electric shocks to a “learner” (who was actually an actor) whenever they answered incorrectly. Despite hearing the learner’s apparent pain, many participants continued shocking because an authority figure told them to do so. The study demonstrated how ordinary people can follow orders against their personal conscience, highlighting the influence of authority on behavior.

Researcher 2025-2026 3. Philip Zimbardo

Philip Zimbardo was a psychologist who conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment to study the effects of situational power on behavior. Participants were assigned roles as guards or prisoners in a simulated prison. The experiment had to be stopped early because guards became abusive and prisoners showed.

Researcher 2025-2026 4. Harry Harlow

Harry Harlow was a psychologist who studied mother/child bonding and attachment using Rhesus monkeys. He separated infant monkeys from their mothers and provided two surrogate “mothers”: one made of wire that provided food, and one made of soft cloth that provided comfort. The monkeys preferred the cloth mother, showing that emotional comfort and physical contact are more important than food in forming attachment. Harlow’s research greatly influenced attachment theory and our understanding of early social and emotional development.

Researcher 2025-2026 5. Phineas Gage

Phineas Gage was a railroad worker who survived an accident in which a metal rod passed through his skull, damaging his frontal lobe. After the accident, his personality and behavior changed dramatically—he became impulsive, rude, and had difficulty planning. His case provided early evidence that the frontal lobe is involved in personality, decision-making, and impulse control, helping scientists understand the link between brain structures and behavior.

Researcher 2025-2026 6. Paul Broca

Paul Broca was a French neurologist who discovered that speech production is controlled by Broca’s area in the left frontal lobe. His patients could understand language but had difficulty speaking fluently, a condition known as Broca’s aphasia. His work supported the idea of brain localization, showing that specific brain areas control specific functions.

Researcher 2025-2026 7. Henry Molaison

H.M., whose hippocampus was surgically removed to treat severe epilepsy, developed profound anterograde amnesia. As a result, he was unable to form new long-term declarative memories, while his short-term memory and memories from before the surgery remained largely intact. His case provided crucial insight into the critical role of the hippocampus in the formation of new long-term memories.

Researcher 2025-2026 8. Brain plasticity - the story of Jody

As a young child, Jody lost her left hemisphere due to a severe brain disorder. Remarkably, her right hemisphere adapted and took over many functions normally controlled by the left, allowing her to recover language and motor skills. This case shows the brain’s incredible adaptability, especially in children, where damaged areas can sometimes be reassigned to maintain function.

Researcher 2025-2026 9. Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin was a naturalist and biologist who developed the theory of evolution by natural selection. He observed variations among species, such as finches on the Galápagos Islands, and proposed that traits that increase survival and reproduction are passed on, leading to gradual changes in populations over time. His work laid the foundation for modern evolutionary biology.

Researcher 2025-2026 10. Jane Goodall

Jane Goodall

Jane Goodall (born 1934, England) studied chimpanzees in Tanzania, observing their social behaviors and tool use. Her work showed that primates have culture and complex social behaviors.

Researcher 2025-2026 11. The Leakeys

The Leakeys were a family of paleoanthropologists who made major discoveries of early hominid fossils in East Africa, particularly in Kenya and Tanzania. Louis and Mary Leakey helped establish Africa as the birthplace of humanity, while Meave Leakey discovered important fossils such as Kenyanthropus platyops. Their research greatly expanded scientific understanding of human evolution, ancestry, and diversity.

Researcher 2025-2026 12. Marvin Harris

Marvin Harris (1927–2001) was an American anthropologist who developed cultural materialism, explaining culture through material and economic factors. His approach made anthropology more scientific and empirical.

Researcher 2025-2026 13. Franz Boas/George Hunt

Franz Boas (1858–1942) and George Hunt (1854–1933) emphasized cultural relativism and ethnography, with Hunt providing Indigenous knowledge. Their collaboration shaped modern anthropology.

Researcher 2025-2026 14. Noam Chomsky

Noam Chomsky (born 1928, USA) is a linguist who developed theories of generative and universal grammar, showing that language reflects innate cognitive structures. His work shaped both linguistics and anthropological studies of language.

Researcher 2025-2026 15. Margaret Mead

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) studied adolescence and gender roles in Samoa and New Guinea. She showed how culture shapes personality and social norms.

Researcher 2025-2026 16. Edward Sapir

Edward Sapir (1884–1939) studied Native American languages and how language shapes thought, co-developing the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. His work founded linguistic anthropology.

Researcher 2025-2026 17. Sherry Ortner

Sherry Ortner (born 1941, USA) studies symbols, gender, and social class in cultures. She advanced feminist anthropology and highlighted how culture reflects power and social meaning.

Researcher 2025-2026 18. Richard Lee

Richard Lee

Richard Lee (born 1937) studied the !Kung San of the Kalahari, focusing on their hunting and social organization. His work highlighted egalitarianism and human ecological adaptation.

Researcher 2025-2026 19. Birute Galdikas

Biruté Galdikas (born 1946, Canada) studied orangutans in Borneo, observing their social behavior and tool use. She advanced primatology and conservation, showing links to human social development.

Researcher 2025-2026 20. Ivan Pavlov

Ivan Pavlov was a Russian psychologist and physiologist known for discovering classical conditioning. He studied dogs’ salivary responses and found that a neutral stimulus (like a bell) could, when paired repeatedly with food, trigger a conditioned response (salivation). His work demonstrated how associations are formed between stimuli and automatic behaviors.

Researcher 2025-2026 21. B.F. Skinner

B. F. Skinner was a psychologist and behaviorist who taught at Harvard University and is one of the most famous American psychologists. His key concepts include operant conditioning, positive and negative reinforcement, punishment, shaping, schedules of reinforcement, behavior modification, and the Skinner Box, a tool for studying learning in animals.

Researcher 2025-2026 22. Solomon Asch

Solomon Asch was a social psychologist known for his conformity experiments. In his classic study, participants were asked to match line lengths in a group where confederates deliberately gave wrong answers. Many participants conformed to the group, even when they knew the answers were wrong, demonstrating the strong influence of social pressure on individual behavior.

Researcher 2025-2026 23. Albert Bandura

Albert Bandura was a social (cognitive) psychologist who performed the classic Bobo doll experiment, studying imitation and aggressive behavior in children. His work demonstrated that children learn behaviors by observing and imitating others, forming the basis of social learning theory.

Researcher 2025-2026 24. Auguste Comte

Auguste Comte coined the term “sociology” and believed that society could be studied scientifically, just like the natural sciences. His key ideas include positivism, the view that knowledge should be based on observable facts, and social engineering, the idea that scientific knowledge could be used to improve society.

Researcher 2025-2026 25. Harriet Martineau

Harriet Martineau translated Auguste Comte’s work into English, making sociology accessible to the English-speaking world. She focused on social change, especially the living and working conditions of women and children during early industrialization. She is recognized as the first female sociologist and studied early American society in 1834.

Researcher 2025-2026 26. Émile Durkheim

Émile Durkheim was a founder of sociology as an academic discipline who emphasized the use of statistics and scientific methods to study society. He is well known for his study of suicide, showing how social factors influence individual behavior. Durkheim was a structural-functional theorist, focusing on how social institutions maintain stability, and his work also contributed to microsociological understandings of social interaction.

Researcher 2025-2026 27. Karl Marx

Karl Marx was the founder of the political and economic theory of socialism and is considered the founder of the conflict perspective in sociology. He co-wrote The Communist Manifesto and authored Das Kapital, focusing on class struggle between the bourgeoisie (owners) and the proletariat (workers) under capitalism. His work is rooted in macrosociology, examining large-scale social and economic systems.

Researcher 2025-2026 28. Erving Goffman

Erving Goffman was a symbolic interactionist who focused on microsociology. He believed that people play roles and present a “face” to manage how others perceive them. His key ideas include the dramaturgical approach, which compares social interaction to theater, where individuals perform roles in everyday life.

Researcher 2025-2026 29. Herbert Spence

Herbert Spencer was a structural-functionalist and macrosociologist who applied the concept of “survival of the fittest” to human societies, an idea known as social Darwinism. He believed that helping the poor interfered with natural social selection and that society should evolve without intervention.

Researcher 2025-2026 30. Barlett

Bartlett was a British psychologist who studied how memory is influenced by prior knowledge and culture. In his famous study, “The War of the Ghosts,” participants read a Native American story and later recalled it. He found that they omitted unfamiliar details, simplified events, and altered parts to make the story more logical, showing that memory is reconstructive and shaped by schemas and cultural expectations.

Researcher 2025-2026 31. Craik and Lockhart

Craik and Lockhart developed the Levels of Processing theory in 1972, showing that memory depends on how deeply information is processed. Shallow processing (focusing on appearance or sound) leads to weaker memory, while deep processing (focusing on meaning) produces stronger, long-lasting memory. The theory highlights the importance of how information is encoded for retention.

Researcher 2025-2026 32. Dian Fossey

Dian Fossey (1932–1985) studied mountain gorillas in Rwanda, focusing on their behaviour and social structures. Her work promoted conservation and primate research.

Researcher 2025-2026 33. Carl wernicke

Carl Wernicke was a German neurologist who studied language in the brain after Broca’s discoveries. He identified Wernicke’s area in the left temporal lobe, which is responsible for language comprehension. Damage to this area causes Wernicke’s aphasia, where people can speak fluently but produce nonsensical sentences and have difficulty understanding language.

Researcher 2025-2026 34. Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell is a journalist and author who studies success and performance. In his book “Outliers”, he introduced the 10,000-Hour Rule, showing that it takes about 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to reach expert-level skill. He emphasizes that success relies not just on talent, but also on environment, opportunities, and consistent practice.

Social sciences defined:

The use of science to explore human societies and social relationships

ex: Anthropology, Economics & politics, Geography & History, Sociology, Psychology

Sociology

The scientific study of the development, structure, and functioning of human society. EX: Group conformity, primary vs secondary groups, family and peer groups, etc.

Anthropology

The study of the culture and customs of human beings. Ex: human evolution, rites of passage, forensics, group behaviour in primates, etc.

Psychology

The scientific study of individual behavior and mental processes, and how they are influenced by internal factors and the environment.

Naturalistic Observation

Psychologists observe the subject in its natural setting, without interfering

Naturalistic Observation advantages and disadvantages

Advantages

real-world behaviors, high external validity, detect patterns, etc.

Disadvantages

lack of control, observer bias, not explaining why people act the way they do, etc.

Case Studies

An intensive study of a person or group.  Usually involves long-term observations and uses personal diaries, tests, interviews, and observations to explain behavior.

Case Studies advantages and disadvantages

Advantages

They are inexpensive, can change opinion into facts, can be done on your own, etc.

Disadvantages

Needs lots of work, very long to analyze, can be inefficient, etc.

Surveys

Information is obtained by asking individuals a fixed set of questions, For example, interviews and questionnaires.

Surveys advantages and disadvantages

Advantages

They collect data quickly, reach large numbers, are cheap and cost-effective, etc.

Disadvantages

Skipping a question, not being honest, misunderstanding a question, etc.

Longitudinal Studies

Data is collected about a group over an extended period of time to assess how certain characteristics change or remain the same.

Longitudinal Studies advantages and disadvantages

Advantages

Shows changes over time, gives detailed data, reduce recall bias, etc.

Disadvantages

Expensive, time-consuming, finding participants, etc.

Cross-sectional Studies

Data is collected from groups of participants of different ages simultaneously and compared. Differences in behavior are attributed to differences in age.

Cross-sectional Studies advantages and disadvantages

Advantages

quick, cost-effective, multiple variables, generates hypotheses, etc.

Disadvantages

Not good for rare outcomes, prone to bias, snapshot in time, etc.periments

Experiments

Uses the scientific method to answer a specific research question.

Experiments advantages and disadvantages

Advantages

Great control, participants do not impact the effectiveness, Specific results, the only method to show cause and effect, etc.

Disadvantages

High cost, low external validity, researcher bias, etc.

Nature definition

our innate, genetically determined traits, biology, and predispositions (like genes, temperament, and inherited characteristics)

Nurture

all the environmental influences and life experiences (after conception) that shape a person's development, behavior, and personality

Scientific Method

A systematic way of asking questions, collecting evidence, and testing ideas to understand human thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Psychologists use it to ensure their findings are objective, reliable, and based on evidence, rather than just opinion.

Independent Variable

the factor that a researcher manipulates, changes, or controls in an experiment to observe its effect on behavior or mental processes

Dependent variable

The outcome or effect that researchers measure in an experiment to see if it changes in response to manipulations of the independent variable (the presumed cause).

Sample

A smaller, manageable subset of individuals selected from a larger population.

Random sampling

A probability sampling technique where every individual in a target population has an equal and independent chance of being chosen for a study sample.

Stratified Sampling

A sampling method where the population is divided into groups (strata) based on shared characteristics (like age, gender, or ethnicity), and participants are randomly selected from each group. This ensures the sample represents the population fairly.

Reliability

The extent to which a research study, test, or measurement produces consistent and stable results over time.

Reliability = consistency

Validity

The degree to which a test, tool, or research study actually measures what it claims to measure.

Validity = accuracy

Double blind experiment

In a double-blind experiment, neither the participants nor the researchers know who gets the real treatment or the placebo. This prevents bias and makes the results more trustworthy.

Placebo

A placebo is a fake treatment, like a sugar pill, given to participants in a study

Single Blind experiment

the participants don’t know whether they are receiving the real treatment or a fake one (placebo). This helps prevent their expectations from influencing the results.

Representative sample

a smaller group of participants selected from a larger population that accurately mirrors the key characteristics (like age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status) of the entire population

Experimental group

the sample of participants exposed to the specific treatment, intervention, or change in the independent variable that researchers are testing to observe its effects.

Control group

a baseline comparison group in an experiment that doesn't receive the specific treatment or independent variable being tested

Hypothesis

a specific, testable prediction about the relationship between two or more variables, serving as a clear, focused statement guiding research before data collection.

Psychoanalytic Perspective

Based on Freud’s ideas; explores how unconscious desires, childhood experiences, and inner conflicts shape behavior and personality.

Socio-cultural Perspective

Examines how society, culture, family, and social influences affect thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

Humanistic Perspective

Emphasizes personal growth, free will, self-actualization, and the belief that people are inherently good and capable of making choices.

Biological Perspective

Explains behavior through brain structures, nervous system activity, genetics, hormones, and other biological factors.

Cognitive Perspective

Studies how people think, remember, learn, and solve problems; emphasizes mental processes like perception and memory.

how to identify OBSERVABLE behaviours (and not feelings, or character traits) what to look for

Observable behaviours are actions you can see or hear, such as running, talking, or hitting, and do not include feelings or personality traits.

Learning perspective

Focuses on how behavior is shaped by experiences, rewards, punishments, and observation of others

Correlational Studies

used to look for relationships between variables.

Correlation Coefficient

Is a measure of correlation strength and can range from -1.00 and +1.00.

The nervous system

It is the body communication network it gathers information processes it, and tell the body how to respond.

The brain system

It handles everything from thinking and memory to balance and survival

Main point about biopsychology

reflexes hormones and brain structures all connect to behaviour.

How biopsychology help explain connection between body and brain

• why we act the way we do

• How our physical state affects out mind

• The complex interplay between nature and nurture

Behaviour is directed by _

biology

principles of biopsychology 1.

behaviours is the result of the anatomy and physiology of the nervous and endocrine systems (1. Hormones, 2. Neurotransmitters, 3. Brain Localization)

POSITIVE CORRELATIONS

Both variables Increase or decrease at the same time

NEGATIVE CORRELATIONS

Indicates that as the amount of one variables increase, the other decreases (and vice versa)

NO CORRELATIONS

Indicates no relationship between the two variables. A correlation coefficient of 0 indicates no correlation.

Limitations of Correlational Studies

While correlational studies can suggest that there is relationship between to variables, they cannot prove, that variables, causes a change in another, variables.

STRUCTURE (ANATOMY)

What it’s made up of

FUNCTION (PHYSIOLOGY)

What it does

Brain plasticity definition

the ability of the brain to change its activity by reorganizing its structure, function, or connections.

Biopsychology definition

The study of how biology influences out thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.

examples of biopsychology

feeling “hangry” when hungry, stress hormones before a test, Adrenaline in a scary situation.

Key point about biopsychology

Biopsychology is about this overlap our bodies and minds constantly affect each other.

Central Nervous System (CNS)

Brain and Spinal cord

Posterior pituitary

is the part of the pituitary gland that stores and releases hormones made by the hypothalamus, such as oxytocin (for childbirth and bonding) and antidiuretic hormone (ADH) (for water balance).

Peripheral Nervous system (PNS)

Nerves that connect the Cns to every other part of the body.

Somatic nervous system

Controls voluntary movement of skeletal muscles.

Autonomic Nervous system

Controls involuntary actions like the heart & lungs

Neurons

Send signals rapidly and precisely to other cells vias axons

Axons

Cause chemicals called neurotransmitters to be released at junctions called synapses

Action potential

Cause the release of neurotransmitters