Psych/Soc MCAT

frontal lobe

reasoning, planning, Broca’s area, movement, emotions & problem solving

temporal lobe

auditory stimuli, memory, Wernicke’s area

parietal lobe

movement, orientation, proprioception, recognition and perception of stimuli

occipital lobe

visual processing

left hemisphere

language, logic, math and science, analytic thought, positive emotions

right hemisphere

creativity, 3D, imagination, intuition, art and music

antipsychotics

manage psychosis, treat both positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia

neuroleptics

manage psychosis, but exacerbates negative symptoms of schizophrenia

Cluster A personality traits

weird

• paranoid

• schizoid: avoid people

• schizotypal: magical thinking

Cluster B personality traits

wild

• antisocial

• borderline

• histrionic

• narcissistic

Cluster C personality traits

worried

• avoidant

• dependent

• OCD

mesolimbic pathway

VTA, nucleus accumbens, medial forebrain bundle

cornea

gathers and focuses incoming light

lens

focuses light on retina

aqueous humor

produced by ciliary body to give eye its shape and nutrients

support of eye is given by

inside is by vitreous, outside is by sclera and chloroid

iris

controls size of pupil

visual pathway

eye —> optic nerve —> optic chiasm —> optic tract —> lateral geniculate nucleus —> visual radiation —> visual cortex

outer ear

pinna, tympanic membrane, external auditory canal

middle ear

ossicles

• malleus: hammer

• incus: anvil

• stapes: stirrup

inner ear

bony labyrinth - perilymph

membraneous labyrinth - endolymph

• utricle and saccule (linear acceleration)

• semicircular canal (rotational acceleration)

• cochlea (sound)

primary appraisal

evaluating stressor

secondary appraisal

appraisal of ability to coope with stressor

auditory pathway

cochlea —> vestibulocochlear nerve —> medial geniculate nucleus —> auditory cortex

magnocellular cells

motion, high temporal resolution

parvocellular cells

shape, high spatial resolution

encoding

the process of putting new information into memory

Korsakoff’s syndrome

memory loss caused by thiamine deficiency in the brain, causes retrograde and anterograde amnesia, confabulation (fabrication of vivid but fake memories)

agnosia

loss of ability to recognize objects, people or sound caused by physical damage to the brain

retroactive interference

new memories make you forget old

proactive interference

old memories interfere with learning new memories

phonology

actual sound of speech

morphology

building blocks of words

semantics

meaning of words

syntax

rules dictating word order

pragmatics

changes in language delivery depending on context

arcuate fasciculus

connects Broca’s and Wernicke’s area

self-determination theory

emphasizes 3 universal needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness

expectancy-value theory

amount of motivation for a task is based on expectation of success and value of that success

opponent-process theory

explain motivation for drug use: as drug use increases, body counteracts its effects —> tolerance and uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms

house money effect

after a prior gain, people become more open to assuming risk since the new money is not treated as one’s own

gambler’s fallacy

if something happens more frequently than normal, it will happen less frequently in future

Maslow’s hierarchy

self-actualization, esteem, love/belonging, safety, physiological

Freud’s psychoanalytic theory

Id: primal urges, pleasure principle

superego: the idealist and perfectionist

ego: mediator between the two and conscious mind

Jung personality

collective unconscious links all humans together, personality influenced by archetypes

Adler & Horney

unconscious motivated by social urges

humanistic perspective of personality

emphasizes internal feelings of healthy individuals as they strive for happiness and self-realization

type and trait theory

personality can be described by identifiable traits that carry characteristic behaviors

type theories

ancient Greek humors, Sheldon’s somatotypes, divisions into Type A and Type b, Myers-Briggs

trait theories

PEN, Big Five, 3 basic traits

cardinal traits

traits around which a person organizes their life

central traits

major characteristics of personality

secondary traits

more personal characteristics and limited in occurrence

functional attitudes theory

four functional areas of attitudes: knowledge, ego expression, adaptability, ego defense

interpersonal attraction

physical attractiveness, similarity of thoughts and physical traits, self-disclosure, reciprocity, and proximity

secure attachment

1. Explores when caregiver is present 

2. Expresses distress when caregiver leaves, but is comforted by return

avoidant attachment

1. Avoids contact with caregiver 

2. Does not express distress when caregiver leaves

3. Treats stranger like caregiver

anxious-ambivalent attachment

1. Clingy 

2. Distressed during separation 

3. When caregiver comes back, resists comfort while seeking it

disorganized attachment

1. Odd behavior, no strategy for dealing with separation

2. Indication of abuse

Weber’s ideal bureaucracy

• Division of labor 

• Impersonality: activities conducted in unbiased manner 

• Hierarchy of organization

• Written rules and regulations

• Selection based on technical qualifications

medicalization

when human conditions previously considered normal get defined as medical conditions and are subject to studies, diagnosis, and treatment 

• Recategorization of condition 

relative deprivation

people seek to acquire something that others possess and which they believe they should have too 

Counterconditioning

 replacing undesirable response with a more favorable one 

Aversive conditioning

links undesirable behavior with adverse stimulus to discourage that behavior 

Thomas Theorem

outcome depends on the way the situation is interpreted, not the actual situation itself 

Flynn effect

people getting smarter each generation

Mediating variable

variables that are DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE for the relationship between the independent and dependent variable 

Moderating variable

variables that explain the strength of the relationship between two variables, but do not explain the cause-effect relationship 

Proximal stimulus

the actual stimulus itself (e.g. light)

Distal stimulus

anything that gives off the stimulus (e.g. anything that gives off light)

Structural functionalism

Emile Durkheim, macro theory that discusses how different groups of society work together to maintain equilibrium 

• Consists of manifest / latent functions 

illness experience

ways in which people, rather than doctors, define and adjust to changes in their health 

rationalization (defense mechanism)

justifying behaviors in a manner acceptable to self

displacement (defense mechanism)

transferring undesired urge from 1 person/object to another 

False belief

tests whether someone can understand that another person can hold a belief different from reality and different from theirs 

Continuous vs partial reinforcement

Continuous: faster acquisition, faster extinction

partial: slower acquisition, slower extinction

Conjunction fallacy

you think the chances of two things occurring at the same time is greater 

base rate fallacy

when you think something is true by ignoring the low odds of it occurring (ignoring prior probabilities when evaluating probabilities of events)

attrition bias

unequal loss of participants across groups

socialization

process of learning values and norms in a society

institutionalization

sociological process of defining ideas in organizations, social structures, or society 

dual coding

the retrieval advantage of verbal items that are imageable

Binocular cues

1. retinal disparity - eyes being 2.5 cm apart

2. convergence - how much eyeballs are turned inwards

Monocular cues

1. relative size

2. relative height

3. motion parallax

4. interposition

5. shading and contour

6. shape, size, color constancy

Gestalt principles

Pragnanz, symmetry, similarity, continuity, law of common fate, law of past experiences, contextual effects, proximity

dual coding hypothesis

easier to remember words associated with images than either one alone

aging & cognitive abilities

Decline: prospective memory, recall, episodic memory

Unchanged: implicit memory, recognition

Improved: crystallized intelligence, emotional reasoning, semantic memory 

means-end analysis

we analyze main problem and break it down into smaller problems, and reduce differences between problem and goal 

Type 1 error

false positive

Type 2 error

false negative

theory of planned behavior

consider the implications of our intentions before we behave

attitude to behavior process model

event triggers our attitude, then attitude + outside knowledge together determines behavior

prototype willingness model

behavior function of 6 things: past behavior, attitudes, subjective norms, our intentions, our willingness to engage in a specific type of behavior, prototypes/models