Psych Soc Review Terms

What is the primacy effect

Tendency to recall remember earlier objects in a series

What is the misinformation effect

Memory error in past memories are impaired by exposure to misleading information (e.g. imagine asking viewers of an accident how fast were the cars going when they hit each other vs how fast were the cars going when they smashed each other.)

What is egocentricism and how does it relate to piaget?

Egocentricism is a self centered point of reference and fails to see others point of views. Occurs in Piagets preoperational (2-7)

What is an ethnographic study?

Systematic observation of people in their cultural settings

What is social reproduction

Social inequality that is passed down through generations

How does the idea of linguistic relativity relate to perception

People are better at identifying things if their language has a word for it (i.e. language effects the way we think)

What is the state working memory capacity for the MCAT

7 +- 2

What is an assimilated gorup?

Group in which people have adopted values of a new culture

What is network redundancy

Repetition of ties within a social network and the degree to which connections are connected to each other

How does the size of group relate to its stability and intimacy

Stability increases with group size however intimacy decreases with size

What is the hierarchy of salience

Framework describing how an individuals identities are ordered based on how frequently they are used and how likely they are to be used in a particular situation. In other words some aspects of identity are more important than others depending on the situation

Describe primary, secondary, and tertiary circular reactions and which developmental theory they relate to

Piagets theory, occurs during sensorimotor

Primary: Repetitive pleasurable behaviors focused on infants body (sucking thumb)

Secondary: Repetitive behaviors involving environment (shaking rattle)

Tertiary: Trial and error (throwing bottle off table and adult picks it up and replaces it)

What is the theory of the mind?

Individuals have cognitive capacity to recognize others thoughts, beliefs, and feelings that differ form our own (opposite of egocentricism)

How do stimulants affect neurotransmitters

Decrease reuptake into the synaptic cleft

What is Self handicapping

Creating of obstacles to excuse potential failure

What is impression management

Maintaining public image through strategic actions to maintain social standing

What are Behavioral Scipts

Sequence of expected behaviors for a given situation

What is the idea of paternalism?

People with high status have a greater right to make decisions than others because they have better info

What is the difference between social cognitive and social behaviorism?

Social behaviorism: Personalities are shaped by operant conditioning through social interactions

Social cognitive: Interactions with environment (reciprocal determinism), observing others, and personal factors —> Behaviors are learned through observation

Describe the following:

1)Door in the face

2)Thats not all

3)Foot in the door

4)Low ball technique

Door in the face: Large initial request is rejected and follow up with smaller request and accepted

Thats-not-all: Initial offer made more attractive by adding a bonus

Foot-in-the-door: Acceptance of a small request is followed by a larger request

Low-ball: Initial terms of agreement are heightened following agreement

What is anterior cingulate cortex in charge of?

Impulse control

What class of drugs has the lowest rate of addiction

Hallucinogens

Give a brief overview of all 7 of Gardners theories of intelligence

X

What are the components of interpersonal attraction?

Physical attraction, proximity, mutual liking, self disclosure, and reciprocity (mere-exposure effect also plays a role)

What is reproductive v reconstructive memories?

Reproductive memories are when we are able to recall memories with high accuracy (less accepted)

Reconstructive memories are when over time we incorporate new false information, often semantic, into episodic memories thus distorting them (generally accepted)

What is a edietic memory

Photographic memory- recalling images from memory with high fidelity

What is REM Rebound

REM rebound occurs when individual do not get enough REM sleep. This in turn causes individuals to spend more time in REM and less in other phases of sleep while sleeping. This occurs because REM sleep is very important.

What is the difference between cultural and social capital

Social capital is the benefits provided to one due to their network

Cultural capital is the knowledge, education, understanding of the world, etc. that people have often due to being more affluent

What are dichotic listening tasks?

Playing two different sounds in the ears of participants

Describe the use cases for the following imaging techniques:

CT

PET

MRI

fMRI

EEG

CT: Focuses on structure with no information on function

PET: Allows imaging of structure as well as function

MRI: Focuses on structure and no function (less radiation)

fMRI: Allows imaging of structures and functions

EEG: Understanding of electrical impulses in brain and can be used over long periods of time

In terms of Piagets theory of cognitive development what are the difference between the following:

Accomodation

Assimilation

Accommodation is the altering of existing schema to incorporate new information that conflicts with old

Assimilation is the fitting new info into existing schema

Avoidance v Escape learning

Avoidance: Avoiding the harmful stimulus prior to its presentation

Escape learning: Learning how to terminate the harmful stimulus by escaping it (post stimulus presentation)

What is Rogers concept of incongruence

When the ideal self and the actual self have a large difference individuals will become stressed

What is base rate fallacy

Disregarding statistical information regarding the rate at which something confirms to enable you to maintain your belief

Glass Escalator v Glass cieling

Glass escalator: Men in women dominated fields will move up the ranks quickly

Glass ceiling: Women in men dominated fields tend to be passed over for promotions

What is social learning?

Learning through the observation of others

Describe the following terms in regards to language acquisition:

Naming explosion

Overextension

Bootstrapping

Naming explosion is the rapid acquiring of words from the ages 1-2

Overextension: Application of words to things that they do not belong to (e.g. calling a bow that looks like a butterfly a butterfly)

Bootstrapping: Learning grammar and syntax by building off pre-existing knowledge

What is elaborative encoding

Process of relating new information to pre-existing stored information to increase retention

What are the monocular depth cues

Relative size, relative height (things further away are higher, interposition, texture, constancy

What is disinhibition and what drug does it relate to?

Disinhibition is when alcohol aids in the removal of inhibition and resistance for interactions (causes increase in talking, more injuries, etc.)

What principles doe the different parts of the mind use in Freunds pscychoananalytical theory

Id: Pleasure Principle

Ego: Reality principle

Superego: Moral principle

Webers law of ideal bureaucracy

1. formal selection- employment is based on technical qualifications

2. formal rules- employees follow standard operating protocol/procedures

3. impersonality- protocol is not catered toward personality; if you're in the same hierarchy, you're expected to follow protocol

4. career orientation- you follow the rules, you stay. you break them, you're fired.

5. division of labor- each position has a clear job description. employees don't take up a variety of tasks.

6. hierarchy- only big dawgs at the top call the shots and make decisions. there is no employee consensus

Describe what social strain theory explains

Explains that individuals with less resources are more likely to turn to deviance in order to reach their goals

What side of the brain is language comprehension and production localized to?

Left side

Describe the following research techniques

Word association testing

Psychophysical discrimination testing

Operational span testing

Word association: Word is presented and subject says first thing that comes to mind

Psychophysical discrimination: Testing between two stimuli to see if participants notice difference (tests jnd)

Operational span testing: Researchers alternate between presenting a word and a math problem and then ask participant to recall all words (tests working memory)

What are practice effects in research?

When tests are repeated, the additional attempts can improve performance in a task. This can act as a moderating variable

How is motivation state tested in operational conditioning?

Removing desirable reinforcer for period of time to see how hard the individual will work to return the reinforcer

How should you differentiate between when fMRI and PET scans are used?

PET scans require a radioactive tracer. Additionally PET scans are used to look at overall/average brain activity using metabolic uptake (uses radioactive glucose). Whereas, fMRI can look at quick changes based on blood flow.

What is the nucleus accumbens involved in?

Reward and pleasure center

What is stranger anxiety ?

Developmental milestone in which children are fearful of those who are not their caretaker. Begins around 8 months and ceases at end of sensorimotor (2 years of age)

What is the difference between atypical antipsychotics and neuroleptics

Atypical antipsychotics is the new generation of treatments and reduce both positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia

Neuroleptics are the old generation of treatments and reduced positive symptoms of schizophrenia but can worsen negative symptoms

What information can be processed automatically and what cannot?

Spatial, temporal, and frequency of events can be processed automatically whereas novel stimuli require explicit focus to process

What is the Thomas Theorem

Belief in subjective reality causes behaviors even though the objective reality contradicts the subjective

e.g. a person believes a group of people are talking about them so they throw something at them, when in reality the individuals were discussing something unrelated to the aggressor

Explain the difference between Mead’s description of Me and I

Me is the socialize version of yourself who abides by social norms and expectations other people have of you

I is your non-socialized spontaneous self who makes decisions that go against social norms (e.g. decisions made when black out drunk)