Psychology Test Review

Review for psychology test

Sigmund Freud

* Known for his conception of human consciousness as consisting of three distinct parts: the id, the ego, and the superego
* The human personality results from the ego’s efforts to resolved conflicts between the id, ego, and the superego
* Discovered that when a patient is relaxed, whatever they say will uncover the unconscious
* Believed that the id is the instinctual part of a person’s mind as it follows that pleasure principle
* The super-ego functions as the rule maker

Carl Jung

* Founded analytical psychology - a way to understand motivation based on the unconscious and conscious mind, when together for a psyche.
* Believed that achieving balance within the psyche would allow people to reach their true potential
* Believed it that there are two parts to the unconscious: the personal and the collective
* Believed that there are universal symbols that reappear over time (archetypes)
* The personal unconscious is where we keep our forgotten and repressed memories

Ivan Pavlov

* Tested dogs by using stimuli before the presentations of food
* Behaviour can be explained through classical conditioning, where someone will react physically to a conditioned stimulus
* Took a previously neutral stimulus (a bell) and began to ring it at the same time the dog received food. After a while, the dog began to associate the sound of the bell with receiving food, a conditioned stimulus, since it produced the conditioned responsed.

B.F Skinner

* Created a device that allowed him to observe who would receive a reward of food if they passed the required test
* Showed that a lack of rewards will result in the stopping of a conditioned behaviour
* Using rats and pigeons, Skinner studied how the use of rewards and punishment can influence behaviour, which is known as operant conditioning
* He designed the Skinner box (a chamber) that had a pedal on one wall that when pressed, causes a little mechanism to release a food pellet into the cage.

Abraham Maslow

* In order to obtain more advanced needs, a person must achieve certain basic needs first
* One of the founders of humanist psychology
* He studied what he called “self-actualizing” people and their “peak experiences” because he wanted to understand how they achieved the status of having reached their full potential
* Known for his hierarchy of needs
* Based his theory on observing clients rather than on experimentation
* From bottom to top - physiological needs, safety needs, belongingness and love needs, esteem needs, self-actualization (achieving one’s full potential)

Viktor Frankl

* Created a theory called logotherapy
* Noted that people who survived the Holocaust did so because they had something to hold on to
* Believed that people who could not find meaning in their lives will feel empty which can lead to depression

Carl Rogers

* Developed client-centered therapy - a humanistic therapy in which the client plays an active role
* The approach focuses on the potential of each person to realize his or her own growth in self-awareness and self-fulfillment

Albert Bandura

* Organized a study where children attacked a Bobo Doll and found that children would copy an aggressive adult model
* Illustrated how children’s actions are easily influenced by others based on their environment
* Believes that people learn behaviours by watching and then imitating others
* His research led him to come up with social-cognitive theory, a perspective on personality that takes a person’s motivation, environment, and behaviour into account
* His theory can be used to predict change individual and group behaviour

Elizabeth Loftus

* Showed that as time passes, new memories will replace older memories causing the older memories to potentially become altered
* Proved that people will push terrible memories into the corners of their mind

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Jean Piaget

* Known for his work on the Binet IQ test
* Felt that there were 4 stages to development
* In the sensorimotor stage, children learn through touching, looking and mouthing
* From the age of 12 onward, a person in the formal operational stage would develop the ability to logically link symbols to abstract ideas

Harry Harlow

* Showed that infants who were raised in unstable conditions would grow up showing signs of fear or aggressiveness
* Used rhesus monkeys to show the importance of maternal bonding
* Wanted to find out which urge was stronger: the need for affection or the satisfaction of physical needs (specifically food)
* Devised the Surrogate Mother experiment where two “mothers” (one covered in cloth and the other offered food) were put in a cage with the rhesus monkey
* Proved that infants depend on their caregivers for more than just their physical needs: meeting emotional needs is crucial for attachment

Mary Ainsworth

* Understanding the mother-infant separation and how it influences the child in later stages of life
* Infants become attached to those who are familiar and responsive with their needs
* Wanted to learn about the ways infants are attached to their parents
* She devised the Strange Situation experiment where she studied the quality of infant to mother attachments and relationships

Hermann Rorschach

* Known for his creation called the Rorschach Inkblot Test
* The idea of when seeing a simple image, the mind will impose harder on what the image really is
* The test is used to uncover carious thoughts of a person’s unconscious mind (thoughts in your head that are unspoken)
* You are given an ink picture, and told to write down the first thing that comes to mind when seeing that picture
* Rorschach would make conclusions about your personality based on what your mind sees

Operant condition

A type of learning in which behaviour is changed or modified by the consequences that follow it (whether it is positive or negative reinforcement). If it is followed by a positive outcome, the behaviour is likely to be repeated in the future. If a behaviour is followed by a negative outcome, the behaviour is less likely to be repeated in the future

Classical conditioning

A type of learning where a neutral stimulus (something that doesn’t naturally cause a specific response) becomes associated with another stimulus that naturally causes a response (such as sound, smell or taste) through repetition, and eventually the neutral stimulus alone can cause the same response as the original stimulus.

Cognitive dissonance

The feeling of discomfort you get when your actions or beliefs don’t align with one another.

Extinction

The process of a learned behaviour becoming weaker or disappearing when it is no longer rewards or reinforced.

Positive reinforcement

A way of encouraging a desired behaviour by giving something pleasant or rewarding after that behaviour is shown.

Negative reinforcement

A way of encouraging a desired behaviour by taking away something unpleasant or undesirable after that behaviour is shown.

Cognition

Refers to the brain. Refers to the mental processes and activities associated with thinking, understanding, and knowing.

Latent learning

The process of learning something without realizing it or without receiving any immediate benefit from it.

Perceptual set

The way we expect to perceive something based on what we have seen before or what we really know. It’s like having a filter on your perception of the world that can make you more likely to notice certain things and ignore others.

Form perception

The ability to see the shapes and structures of things around us and to understand what they are. It helps us recognize objects, and to understand how they are related to one another.

Depth perception

The ability to see how far away things are and how they relate to each other in space.

Perceptual constancy

The ability to perceive things as being the same, even when the way we see them changes. For example, if you see a cup on a table, it will appear to the the same size even if you move closer or further away from it, or even if the lighting changes.

Edith Experiment

Tried to prove that the right environment and teaching strategies could lead to the creation of a genius. Aaron Stern played classical music to his daughter and showed her flashcards at an early age. By the age of 5, she could read the entire encyclopedia and by the age of 18, she obtained a Ph.D.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

A test that helps us to understand and individual's personality traits and how they perceive and interact with the world around them. It is based on the theory of psychological type, developed by Carl Jung, and it consists of a series of questions that assess an individual’s preferences in four areas extraversion vs, introversion, sensing vs. intuition, thinking vs. feeling, and judging vs. perceiving. These answers are then used to determine an individual's personality type (such as ISTJ or ENFP). 

Thematic Apperception Test

A test that uses pictures to help understand a person’s thoughts, feelings, and attitudes. It works by showing pictures to a person and asking them to make up stories about what is happening in each picture.

Psychotic disorders

Mental illnesses that cause disturbances in thoughts, emotions, and perceptions that can cause a person to lose touch with reality. These disorders can include symptoms such as hallucinations (hearing or seeing things that aren’t there), delusions (false beliefs that are not based on reality), disordered thinking, and abnormal behaviour. Often require professional treatment such as therapy and medication. 

A severe mental disorder characterized by a break from reality that can involve hallucinations and/or delusions, the ability to cope socially, academically or in daily living.

Neurotic disorders

Mental health conditions that have excessive and long-lasting feelings of anxiety, worry, and fear that can affect daily life, and can also include symptoms such as panic attacks, phobias, and obsessive-compulsive behaviours. Can be treated with therapy and medication. 

These disorders can be treated with therapy and medication. These disorders can be learned or biologically based (if your parents have OCD, you may likely develop OCD as well)

Forensic psychology

A field in psychology that studies how the mind works and behaves in relation to the law. Forensic psychologists work with criminal suspects, defendants, victims, and offenders, as well as legal professionals to help understand ad explain criminal behaviour and assess mental states. They may work on criminal investigations, and court evaluations, or even provide expert testimony in court. They help in understanding the psychological factors that contribute to criminal behaviour and in developing effective interventions for offenders. 

Deals with the collection, examination and presentation of evidence for judicial purposes. Deals with criminals once they’ve entered the prison system.