Psych Weeks 9-12 (Condensed)

Stratum I

General intelligence (g).

Stratum II

Broad abilities, including fluid intelligence, visual perception, and processing speed.

Stratum III

Specific abilities, including spatial scanning, reaction time, and word fluency.

The Flynn effect

phenomenon suggesting IQ scores are rising across the generations (1900s) faster than genetics can account for

the reverse Flynn effect

since the mid 1990s, there have been some recent declines in mid IQ especially vocabulary and fluid intelligence

intelligence quotient (IQ)

a numerical score yielded from standardized tests meant to estimate a person’s cognitive ability (i.e. g) mental age (i.e. test score) divided by chronological age x 100

At its core, how is IQ calculated?

The ratio of mental age to actual age

Intelligence

The ability to learn, remember, and use new information, solve problems, and adapt to novel situations.

Spearman's g Factor

General intelligence; the idea that people who perform well in one intellectual area tend to perform well in others.

Francis Galton

Pioneered psychological and intellectual measurement and promoted studying heritability using identical and fraternal twins.

Alfred Binet

Pioneered formal measurement of intellectual ability and developed the first IQ test for children.

Binet-Simon Test

An early test of children's intellectual capacity that became the first IQ test.

Lewis Terman

Adapted the Binet-Simon test into the standardized Stanford-Binet test in the early 1900s.

David Wechsler

Created the WAIS and criticized the Stanford- Binet's heavy reliance on verbal ability and a single intelligence score.

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)

An intelligence test assessing memory, computation, language comprehension, reasoning, and information processing.

Possible Explanations for the Flynn Effect

Better nutrition, greater familiarity with testing, and increased exposure to visual stimuli.

Carroll's Three-Stratum Model

A hierarchical model organizing intelligence into three levels, from general intelligence to specific abilities.

Fluid Intelligence

The ability to think on your feet and solve new problems; associated with youth.

Crystallized Intelligence

The ability to apply acquired knowledge, language, skills, and experience; generally increases with age.

Gardner's Multiple Intelligences

The theory that people process information through relatively independent channels of intelligence.

Gardner's Eight Intelligences

Logical-mathematical, visual-spatial, musical- rhythmic, verbal-linguistic, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic.

Emotional Intelligence

The ability to understand others' emotions, identify and label one's own emotions, and use emotions effectively.

Schmidt and Hunter (1998)

Found that intelligence is the strongest predictor of success in job training and learning on the job.

Carol Dweck

Researcher who found that beliefs about whether intelligence can change influence performance and responses to failure.

Fixed Mindset

The belief that intelligence and abilities are fixed traits; associated with poorer responses to failure.

Growth Mindset

The belief that intelligence and abilities can develop; associated with better responses to failure and performance.

Heritability of Intelligence

Research in adults suggests intelligence is largely, but not entirely, inherited.

Stereotype Threat

When awareness of a negative group stereotype interferes with performance.

Self-Affirmation

Affirming one's values or identity before a stereotype threat; may reduce its negative effects.

Validity

The extent to which a test measures what it claims to measure and predicts relevant performance or behavior.

Norms

Scores obtained from a representative population sample used to compare individual test performance.

Standardization

Administering an assessment in exactly the same manner to all test takers.

Theory of Work Adjustment

A framework explaining how individuals fit environments through abilities, requirements, interests, and rewards.

Satisfaction

Correspondence between an individual's needs or interests and the rewards offered by an environment.

Satisfactoriness

Correspondence between an individual's abilities and the ability requirements of an environment.

Person-Environment Correspondence

A match between a person's abilities and interests and the environment's demands and rewards.

Radex Model

A circular representation of cognitive tests organized by complexity and content.

Ceiling Effect

When a test cannot adequately distinguish among people at the highest ability levels.

General Ability vs. Ability Pattern

General ability predicts magnitude of achievement; patterns of specific abilities predict domains of achievement.

Holland's RIASEC Model

Six vocational interest types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional.

Realistic (R)

Interests in gadgets, tools, physical things, outdoor activities, and structured work.

Investigative (I)

Interests in scientific pursuits, mathematics, physical science, and theory.

Artistic (A)

Interests in creative expression, art, writing, and less structured environments.

Social (S)

Interests in helping, teaching, nursing, counseling, and working with people.

Enterprising (E)

Interests in leadership roles directed toward economic objectives.

Conventional (C)

Interests in structured environments, organization, and clear chains of command.

Conative Determinants

Traits such as grit, zeal, and industriousness that help people sustain effort and use abilities over time.

What did the Twenty Statements Test find about US vs. Japanese self-descriptions?

American students were more likely to use descriptives related to traits whereas Japanese students were more likely to use descriptives related to social roles

What are the three major functions of emotions?

Intrapersonal, interpersonal, and social/cultural functions.

What are intrapersonal functions of emotions?

Emotions help individuals process information quickly, prepare for action, regulate bodily systems, and motivate future behavior.

Why are emotions considered adaptive?

They help us respond rapidly to situations with minimal thinking, such as disgust preventing us from eating spoiled food.

How do emotions prepare us for behavior?

They coordinate perception, attention, learning, memory, goal choice, and motor behaviors.

How do emotions influence memory?

Emotions connect facts and memories, making mood-congruent information easier to recall.

What are interpersonal functions of emotions?

Emotions communicate information to others and influence social interactions and relationships.

What did the married-couples study find about emotional expressions?

Contempt, especially by men, and disgust, especially by women, predicted later marital dissatisfaction and divorce.

What is social referencing?

The process by which infants seek emotional information from others to interpret uncertain situations and guide their behavior.

What is the visual cliff experiment?

Infants were encouraged to crawl across safety glass while researchers examined how their mothers' emotional expressions affected their decisions.

What did the visual cliff study find?

Infants crossed when mothers smiled, but only 6% crossed when mothers showed anger and 0% when mothers showed fear.

What are social and cultural functions of emotions?

Emotions help coordinate social behavior, maintain social order, and reinforce cultural expectations about appropriate feelings and expression.

What are cultural display rules?

Learned social rules specifying when and how emotions should be expressed or suppressed.

What is the universalist perspective on emotion?

The belief that emotions evolved from shared human ancestry and are fundamentally similar across cultures.

What is the social constructivist perspective on emotion?

The belief that emotions are shaped significantly by cultural practices and environments, which vary across groups.

What is the Facial Action Coding System (FACS)?

A system developed by Ekman and Friesen to measure facial muscle movements associated with emotional expressions.

What did Ekman and Friesen's cross-cultural research suggest?

People across different cultures could recognize many of the same emotional facial expressions, supporting some universality.

What cultural differences did Ekman and Friesen find in smile recognition?

95% of US participants associated smiles with happiness, compared with 69% of Sumatran participants.

How do Americans and Japanese participants differ in facial emotion recognition?

Americans tend to focus on the mouth, while Japanese participants tend to focus on the eyes.

What is an independent model of self?

A self-concept emphasizing personal expression, individual beliefs, and influencing other people.

What is an interdependent model of self?

A self-concept emphasizing adjustment to others, group harmony, and restraint of personal desires or expression.

How does emotional suppression affect well- being in North American contexts?

It can negatively affect psychological well- being because emotional expression is important for positive social relationships.

Why may emotional suppression have different consequences in China?

Suppression is a normal part of adjusting to others and is not necessarily associated with depression.

Why are mixed emotions during positive events more common in East Asian contexts?

Dialectical thinking encourages acceptance of contradiction and change, and interdependence encourages consideration of others.

What is dialectical thinking?

A way of thinking that is more accepting of contradiction, change, and the coexistence of opposing feelings.

What is ideal affect?

The emotional states people want or prefer to experience.

What is actual affect?

The emotional states people actually experience.

What are high-arousal positive states?

Positive emotional states involving greater activation, such as excitement and enthusiasm.

What are low-arousal positive states?

Positive emotional states involving less activation, such as calmness and peacefulness.

How does ideal affect differ between North American and East Asian contexts?

North Americans tend to prefer high-arousal positive states, while East Asians tend to prefer low-arousal positive states.

How do European Americans and Hong Kong Chinese differ in sources of life satisfaction?

Both value self-esteem and relationship harmony, but European Americans emphasize self-esteem and Hong Kong Chinese emphasize relationship harmony.

How do individualistic and collectivistic cultures differ in judging life satisfaction?

Individualistic contexts emphasize personal emotions; collectivistic contexts balance personal emotions with social norms.

What did the children's story experiment find about ideal affect?

Children exposed to exciting stories valued excited states more and preferred more arousing toys; calming stories encouraged calm-state preferences.

What is Affect Valuation Theory?

The theory that cultural factors influence ideal affect more than actual affect, while temperament influences actual affect more than ideal affect.

How do drive states differ from affect/emotion?

They serve biological functions

Cognitive component of empathy

Perspective taking; understanding another person's thoughts or point of view.

Emotional component of empathy

Empathic concern; feeling sympathy and concern for others.

Four humor styles

Self-defeating, aggressive, self-enhancing, and affiliative.

Self-defeating humor

Maladaptive, self-focused humor; making oneself the target of jokes.

Aggressive humor

Maladaptive, other-focused humor; teasing, sarcasm, or ridicule.

Self-enhancing humor

Adaptive, self-focused humor; using humor to cope with stress.

Affiliative humor

Adaptive, other-focused humor; using humor to connect with others.

Reverse-coding

Reversing scores on oppositely worded items so all scores reflect the construct in the same direction.

Reverse-coding formula (1–7 scale)

8 minus the original score.

Correlation coefficient (r)

A statistic indicating the strength and direction of a linear relationship; ranges from -1 to +1.

Schachter and Singer (1962)

Two-factor theory experiment testing how physiological arousal and situational cues shape emotion.

Schachter and Singer: experimental manipulation

Participants received epinephrine or placebo; some were informed of epinephrine's side effects.

Schachter and Singer: findings

Unexplained physiological arousal could be interpreted according to emotional cues in the situation.

Two-factor theory of emotion

Emotion results from physiological arousal and a cognitive interpretation of that arousal.

Motivation

Factors of varying strength that initiate, direct, and sustain behavior.

Drive-reduction theory

Physiological needs create tension that motivates behavior to satisfy those needs.

Goal

A cognitive representation of a desired state.

Intrinsic motivation

Motivation arising from the enjoyment or benefits of performing an activity.