Overview of Brain Functions and Psychological Concepts

Frontal lobe

Makes decisions and plans behavior

Parietal lobe

Processes touch and sensory input

Occipital lobe

Responsible for vision

Temporal lobe

Processes auditory (sound) information

Cerebellum

Controls balance and coordination

Amygdala

Processes emotions, especially fear and aggression

Hippocampus

Helps form new memories

Neurotransmitter

Chemical messenger in the brain

Dopamine

Linked to reward and motivation

Serotonin

Stabilizes mood and emotion

Acetylcholine

Helps control muscle movement

GABA

Calms the brain; inhibitory

Norepinephrine

Associated with stress response and alertness

Central nervous system

Includes brain and spinal cord

Peripheral nervous system

Controls everything outside brain and spinal cord

Sympathetic nervous system

Prepares you for fight or flight

Parasympathetic nervous system

Calms you down; rest and digest

Memory steps

Encoding, storage, retrieval

Working memory

Short-term mental scratchpad

Explicit memory

Stores facts and information (declarative)

Implicit memory

Involves skills and habits (like riding a bike)

Schemas

Mental categories for processing information

Algorithms

Logical, methodical, accurate problem-solving methods

Heuristics

Fast, error-prone shortcuts

Confirmation bias

Favoring information that supports your beliefs

Chomsky's theory

Universal grammar is innate

Skinner's view

Language is learned through reinforcement

Piaget's stages

Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete operational, Formal operational

Erikson's adolescent conflict

Identity vs. Role Confusion

Kohlberg's moral reasoning levels

Pre-conventional, Conventional, Post-conventional

Classical conditioning

Learning via association (Pavlov's dog)

Operant conditioning

Behavior shaped by rewards/punishment (Skinner)

Observational learning

Learning by watching others (Bandura's Bobo doll)

Fundamental attribution error

Blaming traits instead of the situation

Cognitive dissonance

Mental discomfort from conflicting thoughts/actions

Milgram's experiment

Obedience to authority (shock test)

Asch's experiment

Conformity to group pressure

Zimbardo's prison study

Power of roles on behavior

Big Five personality traits

Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism

Major disorders

Anxiety, Depression, Schizophrenia, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

CBT

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy - changes thoughts and behaviors

Psychoanalysis

Uncovers unconscious conflicts

General Adaptation Syndrome stages

Alarm, Resistance, Exhaustion

Health psychology

Studies how behavior and emotions affect physical health