Psychology 101, Quamme, GVSU Exam 1 with 64 questions and answers

Psychology

Scientific study of behavior & mental processes

Differentiate behavior and mental processes

Behavior - Observable actions

Mental Processes - Internal stats inferred from behavior (unobservable)

Levels of Analysis

1) molecular

2)Neurochemical (brain chemistry)

3) Neurological (brain strucctures & networks)

4) Cognitive/Mental (thoughts, feelings)

5) Behavioral (Physical activity)

6) Social (Interactions, relationships w/ others)

Explain how a "common sense" approach differs from a scientific approach

Common sense & intuition are not always wrong, but they are susceptible to cognitive biases

Confirmation Bias

"seek and you shall find"

Seeking out info. that confirms a belief, while ignoring info. that disconfirms the belief

Hindsight Bias

"I knew it all along"

After we hear about something, we tend to think we would have predicted it beforehand

Patternicity (Apophenia)

Seeing trends that aren't there (e.g., clustering illusion)

"Hot hand effect": Do basketball players shoot in streaks?

Scientific Skepticism

Evaluates all claims with an open mind but insists on persuasive evidence before accepting them

Structuralism

-Wilhelm Wundt

-Aimed to identify the basic elements of consciousness

-Used introspection to study senses and perceptions

"look inward" and report your subjective experience

-LC- Importance of systematic observation and analysis

Functionalism

-William james (1842-1910), opposed structuralism

-We experience a stream of consciousness rather than a collection of "basic elements"

-Focused on adaptive purposes of our minds and behaviors (Functionalism)

-LC- Psychological principles have adaptive purpose and practical application

Psychodynamic Theory

-Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

-Behavior reflects a tension between unconscious urges and conscious thought

-Developed Psychoanalysis, a method of interpreting behavior to identify the causes of psychological problems

-LC- Much of mental processing occurs outside conscious awareness

Behaviorism

-John Watson (1878 -1958) B.F. Skinner (1904-1990)

-The mind has cannot be measured objectively, and therefore has no place in science.

-Psychology should focus only on observable behavior and how it is shaped by the environment (learning and conditioning)

-LC- To be scientific, psychology must rely on objective analysis of behavior

Basic Fields of Psychology

(scientists)

Neuroscience

Cognitive

Social

Personality

Developmental

applied fields of psychology

(scientists and practitioners)

Clinical

Counseling

Social Work

Human Factors

Industrial/Organizational

Forensic

Educational

School

Naïve Realism

the human tendency to believe that we see the world around us objectively, and that people who disagree with us must be uninformed, irrational, or biased.

Belief Perseverance

the tendency to cling to one's initial belief even after receiving new information that contradicts or dis- confirms the basis of that belief.

Patternicity

the tendency to find meaningful patterns in meaningless noise

Emotional reasoning fallacy

-a cognitive process by which a person concludes that his/her emotional reaction proves something is true, regardless of the observed evidence

-amplifies the effects of other cognitive distortions

Bandwagon fallacy

-type of logical fallacy-an argument based on reasoning that is unsound

-argues that one must accept or reject an argument because of everyone else who accepts it or rejects it-similar to peer pressure

Not Me fallacy

also known as the subjectivist fallacy, is claiming that something is true for one person but not true for someone else

falsifiability

the principle that in hypothesis testing a proposition or theory cannot be considered scientific if it does not admit the possibility of being shown to be false

replicatability

- a study should produce the same results if repeated exactly

-can be increased by doing in-depth research on other similiar experiments and ruling out variables you may not have thought of originally

Occam's Razor

a scientific and philosophical rule that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily which is interpreted as requiring that the simplest of competing theories be preferred to the more complex or that explanations of unknown phenomena be sought first in terms of known quantities.

three kinds of research studies

Descriptive - describes a set of facts ex. case studies, naturalistic observation

Correlational - looks for relationships among facts

ex. correlation coefficient

Experimental - test a hypothesis about cause-and-effect relationships

case study

examine one person in detail

Naturalistic Observation

-Watch behavior in real world Settings

-High external validity - findings generalize well to real-world settings

-Low internal validity - cannot tell us much about cause and effect

Correlation Coefficient

A mathematical measure of the strength and direction of an association between two variables

expirements

-Test for cause-and-effect relationships between variables

-Independent Variable: Controlled by experimenter

-Dependent Variable: Measured to see if it changes

-high internal validity if variables are well-controlled

-low external validity if the controls make the scenario too artificial

Expectanty effects

-Subjects' and experimenters' expectations often influence results

-Blinding - remove knowledge about experimental conditions

Single-blind: one of the two doesn't know:

Subject-blind

Experimenter blind

Double-blind: neither subject nor experimenter know

Internal Validity

how well an experiment is done, especially whether it avoids confounding (more than one possible independent variable [cause] acting at the same time). The less chance for confounding in a study, the higher its internal validity is

External Validity

the validity of generalized (causal) inferences in scientific research, usually based on experiments as experimental validity. In other words, it is the extent to which the results of a study can be generalized to other situations and to other people

Existence Proofs

demonstration that a given psychological phenomenon can occur ... of a statistical association between two variables where none exists

Random Selection

process in which subjects are selected randomly from a larger group such that every group member has an equal chance of being included in the study

Response Sets

the human tendency to answer questions in ways that are the most complimentary, or flattering, to the respondent rather than telling the absolute truth

cell body (soma)

controls metabolic activities

dendrites

- receive messages from other neurons

axon

- sends messages to other neurons, muscles, or glands

myelin sheath

- electrical insulator on axon

speeds communication

axon terminals

-extend toward other neurons

all or none law

When total excitation (+) reaches a Threshold, an output signal is sent to next neuron

action potential

- a rapid change in electrical potential that travels down the axon (from cell body toward other neurons)

synaptic transmission

Communication between neurons; input to the next cell

Neurons are separated by a small space (synapse)

Action potential reaches the axon terminal

Neurotransmitter(NT) chemicals are released into the synapse

NT bind to receptor sites on the next neuron, opening ion channels that excite or inhibit it

Sending neuron takes back the excess neurotransmitter (reuptake)

3 ways drugs work at the synapse

Agonists

fit receptor well

mimic effect of neurotransmitter

e.g., nicotine mimics acetylcholine

Antagonists

Fit receptor, but not well

Block effect of neurotransmitter

e.g., Dopamine blockers for schizophrenia

Reuptake inhibitors

Prevent reuptake

Neurotransmitter stays in synapse longer

e.g., many antidepressants, e.g. Prozac, Paxil, block serotonin reuptake

neurotransmitters

Glutamate - general excitation

GABA - general inhibition

Acetylcholine - muscle movements, cortical arousal

Dopamine - motor function, reward processing

Seratonin - mood, sleep, arousal

Norepinephrine - alertness, hunger, sleep

Major divisions of the nervous system

Central Nervous System (CNS) and Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)

Somatic

Autonomic

Parasympathetic

Sympathetic

major structurs of limbic system

Hypothalamus

Internal states

(hunger, thirst, temp.)

Amygdala

Arousal & Emotion

(especially fear)

Hippocampus

Memory formation

(especially spatial)

basal ganglia

Several structures important for motor and cognitive routines (e.g., selecting the next movement or next step in a sequence)

major structures of brain stem

Medulla

Controls heartrate, breathing

Pons

Sleep and arousal

Midbrain

Movement, eye-tracking, sound reflexes

thalamus

"Relay station" for sensory and motor pathways that run between cortex and body

cerebellum

"little brain"

Attached to rear of brainstem

Helps coordinate voluntary movement and balance

Lobes of the cerebral cortex

Occipital Lobe

Vision

Parietal Lobe

Attention

Motion and location

Body sensations

Temporal Lobe

Hearing

Speech and object recognition

Frontal Lobe

Executive control

Motor control and planning

Speech production

Somatosensory

More sensitive areas = more brain tissue

Motor

finer motor control = more brain tissue

Crossover of pathways

Left controls right (and vice versa)

Left visual field of both eyes goes to right brain (and vice versa)

Lateralization of function

speech and language on left;

face recognition on right

lateralization is almost never 100%

Corpus Callosum

Connects the two hemispheres

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)

Delivers a magnetic pulse that can create brief (seconds) disruptions in processing

Computed Tomography (CT)

X-ray scan of body tissue

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and fMRI

Detects alignment of ions in body tissue to magnetic field

Functional (fMRI) version also detects oxygen in blood

More neural activity more blood oxygen

Positron Emission Tomography (PET)

Measures blood flow

More neural activity more blood flow

Pituitary Gland

The endocrine system's most influential gland. Under the influence of the hypothalamus, the pituitary regulates growth and controls other endocrine glands.

Electroencephalograph (EEG)

Recording of electrical activity from the scalp

"Brain waves"

Adrenal gland

A pair of endocrine glands that sit just above the kidneys and secrete hormones that help arouse the body in times of stress.

Oxytocin

A hormone released by the posterior pituitary that stimulates uterine contractions during childbirth and milk ejection during breastfeeding.

Cortisol

stress hormone released by the adrenal cortex

6 basic emotional expressions

anger, fear, disgust, sadness, happiness, surprise

display rules

culturally determined rules about which nonverbal behaviors are appropriate to display

Role of amygdala in emotion

basic fear mechanism (generate emotional responses, hormonal secretions and autonomic reactions that accompany strong emotions, damage causes inability to recognize fear in faces)

James-Lange Theory

the theory that emotion results from physiological states triggered by stimuli in the environment

-emotions after body reacts

Cannon-Bard Theory

the theory that an emotion-arousing stimulus simultaneously triggers (1) physiological responses and (2) the subjective experience of emotion

two-factor theory

Schachter-Singer's theory that to experience emotion one must (1) be physically aroused and (2) cognitively label the arousal.

Pan Am Smile

(a fake smile) - Movement of mouth, but not eyes.

evidence that cognitive interpretations of arousal affect emotion

Schacter & Singer (1962) epinephrine experiment

"You will receive a vitamin supplement"

2 groups:

epinephrine heightened arousal

placebo No change in arousal

amplitude eeg

height of waves

frequency eeg

speed of waves

circadian rhythms

The 24-hour biological cycles found in humans and many other species.

Stages of sleep cycle

stage 1- light level, Theta Waves

Hypnagogic hallucinations & Hypnic Jerks 5-10 min

stage 2- sound sleep, sleep spindles

K-complexes 20 min

stage 3- deep sleep, stage 4- deepest stage of sleep Delta Waves

low frequency

high amplitude

Muscles are active

30-50 min

freud theory of dreams

: Wish-fulfillment theory (Psychodynamic)

Dreams fulfill sexual and aggressive desires that are suppressed when awake

Assumes dreams are meaningful and interpretable

Activation-synthesis theory (Neuroscientific)

Random patterns of activity originating in the pons

Cortex tries to make sense of it, but meaningless, uninterpretable

Hypnic Jerks/ myoclonic jerk

Sudden brief muscular contractions that may awaken individuals that occur in stage 1

latent content

according to Freud, the underlying meaning of a dream (as distinct from its manifest content)

manifest content

according to Freud, the remembered story line of a dream (as distinct from its latent, or hidden, content)

Suprachiasmic Nucleus

The portion of the hypothalamus that controls the cycles of the endocrine system.

Beta waves (EEG)

Highest frequency, lowest amplitude. During Awake, and REM sleep.

alpha waves

the relatively slow brain waves of a relaxed, awake state

delta waves

long, slow waves that indicate the deepest stage of sleep

K complexes and sleep spindles

occur during stage 2 sleep

are EEG waves

Mere Exposure Effect (Zajonc, 1968)

by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them.

Facial Feedback studies:

that the contractions of the facial muscles may not only communicate what a person feels to others but also to the person him or herself.

Discrete Emotion theory:

is the claim that there is a small number of core emotions

Somatic marker theory:

the theory posits that feelings and emotions give rise to "somatic markers," which serve as guideposts that help steer behavior in an advantageous direction.

Capilano Bridge study (Dutton & Aron, 1974):

to test the causation of misattribution of arousal incorporated an attractive confederate female to wait at the end of a bridge that was either a suspension bridge (that would induce fear) or a sturdy bridge (that would not induce fear).

Duchenne Smile:

is an expression that signals true enjoyment.

Nonverbal Leakage:

is a form of non-verbal behavior that occurs when a person verbalizes one thing, but their body language indicates another, common forms of which include facial movements and hand-to-face gestures.

Illustrators:

are nonverbal cues directly linked with words. They reinforce verbal. communication and allow us to accent or emphasize words or ideas.

Manipulators:

is the use of devious means to exploit, control, or otherwise influence others to one's advantage.

Emblems:

a bodily movement that substitutes for a spoken word or phrase and that can be readily comprehended by most individuals in a culture

Proxemics:

is the study of how space is used in human interactions.

Neurocognitive:

cognitive processes or functioning understood in relation to the specific neural mechanisms by which they occur in the brain and any impairment of these mechanisms

Hypnagogic Hallucinations:

are visual, tactile, auditory, or other sensory events, usually brief but occasionally prolonged, that occur at the transition from wakefulness to sleep (hypnagogic) or from sleep to wakefulness (hypnopompic)

Hypnic Jerks:

sudden muscle contractions that occur on the threshold of sleep

Sleep Talking:

formally known as somniloquy, is a sleep disorder defined as talking during sleep without being aware of it.

Muscle paralysis:

loss of function of voluntary muscles. A common cause is a lesion of the nervous or muscular system due to injury, disease, or congenital factors