Vocab Test 1

Sigmund Freud

Created the psychoanalytic theory; Emphasized the role of the unconscious, a depository of memories, feelings, and drives, many of the unwanted, that are beyond the reach of conscious awareness.

Extinction

a process that leads to the gradual weakening and eventual disappearance of the conditioned response to the conditioned stimulus.

Charles Darwin

Created the basic principle of natural selections; That given a range of possible inherited trait variations, those traits that lead to increased reproduction and survival of the species are most likely to be passed down to generations.

Structuralism

Breaking down the conscious experience into basic components of "structures "using introspective techniques, examining, and putting them back together.

Mode

The most frequently occurring score in a data set.

Generalization

Applying what they learn to all people of a population.

Psychoactive Drugs

chemical substances that alter perceptions, mood, or behavior; can change consciousness by changing brain chemistry through their specific effects on neurotransmitters.

Gestalt

Explores the idea that although a sensory experience can be broken down into individual parts, how those parts relate to each other as a whole is often what the individual responds to in perception.

John B Watson

Known as the founder of Behaviorism; Believed that behavior needs to be observable to be objectively and empirically measured; Baby Albert experiment.

Id

holds our wants and desires (motivated by sex and aggression)

Stanley Milgram

Why do people obey authority when it goes against morals; Obedience Study.

Plasticity

The ability of the brain to create new neurons, form new neural connections, and recruit neurons from other parts of the brain to perform functions once performed by damaged neurons.

Broca's Aphasia

Can understand speech but cant form the words.

Survey

An inexpensive and quick way of gaining information about an individual's opinions, attitudes, and perceptions; Participants receive a list of questions to answer; Usually in interview format.

Validity

Whether the assessment measures what it claims to measure.

Psychiatrist

medical doctors who can prescribe medication, find the right medications to successfully treat disorders, and monitor their effectiveness and side effects.

Frontal Lobe

Part of the brain directly behind the forehead and above the eyes; Decision- making, problem-solving, reasoning, planning, personality and language, motivation and exercise of willpower, and executive functions.

Placebo

People don't receive real treatment; a real response, positive or negative, action or substance is based solely on expectations, not on the actual properties of the action or substance.

Circadian Rhythm

defines the wake /sleep cycle; ebbs and flows for roughly 24 hours without external cues.

Schema

mental filters or maps that organize our information about the world.

Psychoanalysis

The idea that each of us has an unconscious part whose existence, activities, and thoughts are hidden behind a mental barrier that we cant voluntarily remove; Behind the barrier are repressed and psychologically dangerous thoughts that give rise to unconscious conflicts that can result in psychological and physical symptoms.

Superego

acts as our conscience and leads us to do the right thing.

Consciousness

our state of awareness of our existence, sensations, thoughts, and environments; process underlying the mental model we create of the world of which we are aware; allows us to retrieve a fact, an idea, an emotion, or a memory and combine it with critical thinking.

Ego

allows people to get what they want and desire within the confines set by society (balances the other two)

Displacement

occurs when aggressive urges are shifted toward a recipient other than the one who engendered the feelings; redirecting a negative emotion from its original source to a less threatening recipient.

Theory

A coherent explanation or interpretation of facts and observations that have been identified in past studies.

Sensation

the process by which our brain and nervous system receive input from the environment through our 5 senses.

Cognition

the mental activity associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communication; a deeply complex set of activities that allows us to process new information.

Selection Bias

________: introduced by the selection of individuals, groups, or data for analysis in such a way that proper randomization is not achieved.

Illusionary correlation

an expected or suspected relationship that doesnt empirically exist.

Correlation

finding the relationship between 2 variables.

Unconscious mind

an invisible force deep within our minds, a series of unaware conflicts between competing parts of our personalities that influence our behavior; cognition thought without awareness; involves levels of brain systems that range from autopilot to those which can have subtle influences on consciousness and behavior.

Confounding variable

extraneous factors that can interfere with the independent variable and therefore have an impact on the outcome of the study.

Visual Accommodation

the lens flips an image and focuses the inverted image before passing through the retina.

Control Group

A comparison group that doesn't receive the treatment.

Random Assignment

A process that ensures all members of the sample have an equal chance of being placed into either the control or the experimental group.

Accommodation

A way to modify the schema to include new information.

middle number

Median: The ________ in a set of scores; Needs to be put in numerical order.

Classical Conditioning

tricking the person into associating something with fear; being conditioned to reflect a certain behavior; associating an involuntary response and a stimulus.

Behaviorism

Focuses on observing and controlling behavior; Focuses on observing and controlling behavior through what is observable.

Action Potential

The electrical impulse created by the positive charge; the cell has reached the electrical threshold

Circadian Rhythm

defines the wake/sleep cycle; ebbs and flows for roughly 24 hours without external cues

Single-Blind Study

Participants do not know whether they belong to the control or experimental group

Double-Blind Study

Neither the experimenter nor the participants know to which group the participants belong

Operant conditioning

associates a voluntary behavior with a consequence

Cognition

the mental activity associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communication; a deeply complex set of activities that allows us to process new information

Conditioned Response

Behavior that is considered a reflex or automatic response, paired with a conditional stimulus

Conditioned Stimulus

A neutral stimulus paired with the unconditioned response becomes part of a new stimulus-response association; Anything we  can perceive, hear, smell, feel, see, or taste

Conditioning

Reinforcement and punishment; the process of training or accustoming a person or animal to behave in a certain way or to accept certain circumstances

Consciousness

our state of awareness of our existence, sensations, thoughts, and environments; process underlying the mental model we create of the world of which we are aware; allows us to retrieve a fact, an idea, an emotion, or a memory and combine it with critical thinking

Correlation

finding the relationship between 2 variables

Positive Correlation

the independent and dependent variables move together in the same direction

Negative correlation

the variables have an inverse relationship, and move in opposite directions

Illusionary correlation

an expected or suspected relationship that doesnt empirically exist

Independent Variable

The variable that the experimenter manipulates

Dependent Variable

The variable that researchers measure

John B. Watson

Known as the founder of Behaviorism; Believed that behavior needs to be observable to be objectively and empirically measured; Baby Albert experiment

Stanley Milgram

Why do people obey authority when it goes against morals; Obedience Study

Charles Darwin

Created the basic principle of natural selections; That given a range of possible inherited trait variations, those traits that lead to increased reproduction and survival of the species are most likely to be passed down to generations

Sigmund Freud

Created the psychoanalytic theory; Emphasized the role of the unconscious, a depository of memories, feelings, and drives, many of the unwanted, that are beyond the reach of conscious awareness

Displacement

 occurs when aggressive urges are shifted toward a recipient other than the one who engendered the feelings; redirecting a negative emotion from its original source to a less threatening recipient

Experimental Group

The group in which the independent variable is manipulated

Experimenter Bias

an error resulting from the experimenters unconscious expectations of results, can interfere with the objective outcome of a study

Extinction

a process that leads to the gradual weakening and eventual disappearance of the conditioned response to the conditioned stimulus

Frontal Lobe

Part of the brain directly behind the forehead and above the eyes; Decision-making, problem-solving, reasoning, planning, personality and language, motivation and exercise of willpower, executive functions

Generalization

Applying what they learn to all people of a population

Gestalt

Explores the idea that although a sensory experience can be broken down into individual parts, how those parts relate to each other as a whole is often what the individual responds to in perception

Id

holds our wants and desires (motivated by sex and aggression)

Ego

allows people to get what they want and desire within the confines set by society (balances the other two)

Superego

acts as our conscience and leads us to do the right thing

Just Noticeable Difference

the smallest amount that two stimuli have to differ for us to be able to tell them apart

Mean

The average number in a data set; is the most commonly reported measure of central tendency

Median

The middle number in a set of scores; Needs to be put in numerical order

Mode

The most frequently occurring score in a data set

Naturalistic Observation

Observation of humans or animals in a natural setting

Structuralism

Breaking down the conscious experience into basic components of "structures" using introspective techniques, examining, and putting them back together

Psychoactive Drugs

chemical substances that alter perceptions, mood, or behavior; can change consciousness by changing brain chemistry through their specific effects on neurotransmitters

Neurotransmitter

Chemicals in the brain

Placebo

People dont receive real treatment; a real response, positive or negative, action or substance is based solely on expectations, not on the actual properties of the action or substance

Plasticity

The ability of the brain to create new neurons, form new neural connections, and recruit neurons from other parts of the brain to perform functions once performed by damaged neurons

Psychiatrist

medical doctors who can prescribe medication, find the right medications to successfully treat disorders, and monitor their effectiveness and side effects

Psychoanalysis

The idea that each of us has an unconscious part whose existence, activities, and thoughts are hidden behind a mental barrier that we cant voluntarily remove; Behind the barrier are repressed and psychologically dangerous thoughts that give rise to unconscious conflicts that can result in psychological and physical symptoms

Random Sample

Each member of the population has the same chance of getting into the sample as any other member

Range

represents the span of the scores in a data set

Regression

When adult defense mechanisms stop working for us, we regress to a personality we had in childhood; immature patterns of behavior emerge; a return to earlier stages of development and abandoned forms of gratification belonging to them

Repression

the person forces the unacceptable or threatening feeling out of awareness to a point where he/she becomes unaware of it

Schema

mental filters or maps that organize our information about the world

Selection Bias

introduced by the selection of individuals, groups, or data for analysis in such a way that proper randomization is not achieved

Sensation

the process by which our brain and nervous system receive input from the environment through our 5 senses

Unconscious mind

an invisible force deep within our minds, a series of unaware conflicts between competing parts of our personalities that influence our behavior; cognition thought without awareness; involves levels of brain systems that range from autopilot to those which can have subtle influences on consciousness and behavior

Survey

An inexpensive and quick way of gaining information about an individuals opinions, attitudes, and perceptions; Participants receive a list of questions to answer; Usually interview format

Theory

A coherent explanation or interpretation of facts and observations that have been identified in past studies

Confounding variable

extraneous factors that can interfere with the independent variable and therefore have an impact on the outcome of the study

Validity

Whether the assessment measures what it claims to measure

Variable

anything that can change or be changed

Wernickes Aphasia

They can speak, but cant understand language, therefore what they say doesnt make sense