uoft psy100 exam

what is william paley's argument from design

you don't get design without a designer, so essentially god is suggested

problems with creationism

- pushes back the question
- evidence for evolution
(fossils, vestigial features, continuity with other animals)
- occasional poor design

what is natural selection

- random variation
- gives rise to differences in survival and reproduction
- passed on from generation to generation

misconceptions about evolution and psychology

- not everything is adaptive
- because adaptations can be by products or accidents

why is star trek a bad representation of emotions

- say that spock doesnt have emotions but he still has intellectual curiosity
- has fear
- has certain goals and motivations
- has regret, trust, gratitude, envy, disappointment etc

6 basic emotions

1. surprise
2. fear
3. disgust
4. anger
5. happiness
6. sadness

different smiles

duchenne vs pan am smile
(genuine vs faked smile)
third is coy smile - related to embarassment

for mammals, which sex has the higher parental investment

the females much more than the males

summary of the evolution of the sex differences

1. differences in sex cells
2. differences in parental investment
3. differences in physiological and psychological mechanisms that evolve

what is reciprocal altruism

when we are more likely to help those who help us

what is the prisoners dilemma

a game in which players act in rational, self-interested ways that leave everyone worse off

how to use social emotions to analyze the prisoners dilemma

- we feel gratitude and liking for people who cooperate with us

- we feel anger and distrust for those who betray us

- we feel guilt when we betray someone who cooperates with us

the moral of the ultimatum game

- people are not purely rational
- people won't accept unfair distributions and will reject out of spite causing person A needing to offer more

the usefulness of irrationality

- a rational person is easily exploited
- a person with a temper has an advantage

proposed goals of the human brain

1. homeostasis
2. minimize prediction error
3. avoid pain/seek pleasure
but none provide a comprehensive account of motivation
they are just redescriptions

why do instincts exist

because rudimentary versions of these traits and capacities were associated with greater reproductive success

what is naturalistic fallacy

the misconception that evolutionary goals are valuable goals

the paradox of certain emotional reponses

ex laughing when anxious or embarassed
grinning when angry
smiling when sad

why do we feel fear

- it is an adaptation to dealing with threat
- fear can be influenced by our conscious appreciation of what puts us in danger

why do we feel disgust

- evolved to ward us away from eating bad foods
- disease avoidance theory

why do we feel lust

- some vague instinct for mating
- uhh ill come back to this

three major factors determining who you are likely to be romantic partners

- proximity
- familiarity
- similarity

knowing the big 3 of relationships, why do you avoid sexual relations with relatives?

- they share too many of your genes
- avoid inbreeding depression

how do we know who our kin are?

- we tend not to be sexually interested in those who we are raised with as children

what are universal features associated with attractiveness

- smooth and symmetrical complexion
- being average

partner choice of heterosexual men

strong preference for young women of peak fertile age

partner choice of heterosexual women

prefer slightly older or similar in age

female vs male reproductive strategy

female - more choosy of partner, less partners in time
male - less choosy of partner, more partners in time
relation to parental investment

why can females enjoy sexual intercourse at any time of the menstrual cycle

facilitates pair bonding and encourages the male to stick around for the child if they have their genes

does culture affect sexual preferences

yes, some countries on average will prefer more or less sexual partners
and there is individual variation within cultures

what is the #1 trait we seek out in partners

kindness! <3

about kindness...

- evolution favours animals that love others as they love themselves
- not limited to kin
- selective in a way that suggests moral motivation
- find it early in life

the problem of how kindness evolved

- free riders will thrive
- it must be costly to be a free rider
- kindness can only persist if we also have feelings such as anger and resentment

the principle of impartiality

- helps us to maintain morals and kindness

why do we act in self sacrificial ways

to bolster our reputation - reputational theory

what is the replication crisis

- issue in social psychology about being able to reproduce findings of studies
- p hacking
- creating false positives

solutions to the replication crisis

- making data public
- pre registration of the study
- publish all findings, even the null ones

WEIRD crisis of social psychology

- many studies only focus on western, educated, industrial, rich, democratic societies and are not entirely representative of the world

what are WEIRD people like

- self obsessed
- control oriented
- analytical
essentially focus on ourselves over relationships and social roles
motivated to conform

solution to WEIRD crisis

- use different cultures
- test people from all over the world
- look at sex differences

what is the spotlight effect

overestimating others' noticing because you believe you are the center of attention

what is the lake wobegon effect

Our tendency to overestimate our achievements and capabilities, especially in relation to others

we enhance ourselved

what is the self serving bias

the tendency for individuals to attribute their own successes to internal factors and put the blame for failures on external factors

what is cognitive dissonance

we act to reduce the discomfort we feel when two of our thoughts are inconsistent

how do we act to reduce dissonance

1. avoid inconsistent info (attend to info that supports our existing views)
2. insufficient justification effect (ex. the money for a boring task)

examples of cognitive dissonance

hazing - makes you think the group is really important if you went through so much hardship to join
therapy - if you're paying for it you must be getting something out of it

fundamental attribution error (person bias)

give too much weight to personality and not enough to situational variables ex movie actors
might be a product of western culture

why do we like others

- familiarity
- similarity
- attractiveness

attractiveness bias (the matthew effect)

- attractive people are rated higher on intelligence, competence, sociability, morality
- good gets more good

the power of first impressions

ex rating speakers differently based on how they were told the speaker was before they came
first impressions are also extremely fast - 6 seconds

prejudice

age, sex, race

even babies prefer to look at things that are familiar to them

what matters more is language

we make generalizations about human groups and everything (essential for survival)

henri tajfel minimal group

powerful ingroup outgroup psychology

why is categorization of people not necessarily bad

- often positive
- often accurate

problems with stereotyping

- moral problems: people should be judged as individuals, not as group members
- not always accurate

3 types of stereotypes

1. public: what we say to others about a group
2. private: what we consciously think about a group but don't say to others
3. implicit: unconscious associations guiding our judgments and actions without our conscious awareness

how do we override our biases

- removing the option for discrimination ex blind auditions
- making it an integral part of the decision ex hiring while taking account of race gender etc

what is religion

1. belief: belief in spiritual beings and events
2. practice: rituals and social activities
3. experience: feeling the connection with something greater than yourself

three approaches to religion

1. motivational: supernatural opiate to evil
2. social: fraternity and cohesion
3. cognitive

assumptions about the social world making religious belief natural

1. animism
2. dualism
3. creationism

reasons to doubt sponge theory

- children get info from many sources
- are selective about this info

facts about religious vs secular people

religious: more likely to donate to charity etc, to say they are very happy with their lives
secular: more likely to say they feel like a failure

paradox of religion

religious people nicer
religious societies are also least nice
being non religious is only bad when everyone else is religious (social exclusion)

what is social priming

the environment is changing how you think or act

is morality innate

yes, study shows choosing the helper over the hinderer, good over the neutral, neutral over the bad

do children care about fairness

care more about relative advantage at the cost of everyone having more

moral relativism

there is no single right thing, we tend to believe in the one we have

frameworks of moral thought

- ethics of autonomy (rights, equality, freedom)

- ethics of community (duty, status, hierarchy, interdependence)

- ethics of divinity (purity, sanctity, pollution, sin)

5 moral categories

1. harm (A)
2. fairness (A)
3. in group (C)
4. authority (C)
5. purity (D)

what do liberals give more care to

harm and fairness

what do conservatives give more care to

ingroup, authority, and purity

what is moral realism

The view that moral truths exist necessarily

what is moral dumbfounding

where people have strong moral reactions, but have no logical reasoning to explain their feelings

moral intuitions come from the gut

consequentialism

look at its consequences and its overall benefit and cost

trolley problem difference

flipping the switch to run over one person vs pushing a man off the bridge to stop the trolley (flipping the switch is logical but pushing a person also uses emotions)

dehumanization

conceiving people as subhuman animals

worst actions do not reflect dehumanization

rather recognizing they are human and humiliating them. recognition of morality and agency

why cruelty

punishment and domination

how could religion influence morality

- obsessed with reputation
- we are nicer when we are observed
its an open question about whether religious beliefs and practices are causes of moral change or the consequences

what is mental illness

It is medical conditions that affect a person's thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others, and daily functioning. It includes flawed biological, psychological, social, and cultural processes.

what is neurodiversity

shouldn't view neurodivergents as suffering from disease but rather they think about the world in different ways

positive symptoms of schizophrenia

1. hallucinations (auditory or visual)
2. delusions
3. disorganized speech
4. disorganized behaviors

negative symptoms of schizophrenia

5. absence of normal cognition or affect (emotions)

subtypes of schizophrenia

- paranoid

delusions of persecution

delusions of grandeur

- catatonic

unresponsive to surroundings

purposeless movement

parrot like speech

- disorganized

delusions and hallucinations with little meaning

disorganized speech, behavior, and flat affect

basic psychological malfunction of schizophrenia

- serious cognitive problems
- inability to sequence and coordinate thoughts and perceptions
- further problems from loss of social contact

basic neural malfunction of schizophrenia

- too much dopamine?
not that simple though
structural brain malfunctions

cause of schizophrenia

- increases with genetic similarity
- triggered by environment (early or late)

major depressive disorder

- severely depressed mood that lasts 2 or more weeks (average 12 weeks)
- feelings of worthlessness
- lack of pleasure
- lethargy
- sleep and appetite disturbances
- affects poor more than rich
- heritable
- no reasonable cause

bipolar depression

mania + depression
highly heritable
1. inflated self esteem or grandiosity
2. increased goal directed activity or psychomotor agitation
3. reduced need for sleep
4. racing thoughts or flight of ideas
5. distractibility
6. increased talkativeness
7. excessive involvement in risky behaviours

generalized anxiety disorder

- constant worry about many issues, interferes with functioning
1. headaches & stomachaches
2. muscle tension
3. irritability
childhood trauma related

obsessive compulsive disorder

obsessions: irrational, disturbing thoughts that intrude into consciousness
compulsions: repetitive actions performed to alleviate obsessions

phobias

intense irrational fear that may focus on:
- category of objects
- event of situation
- social setting
development: classical conditioning model

dissociative disorders

dis association of memory, unaware of some aspect of identity or history

dissociative amnesia

- psychogenic amnesia
- memory loss the only symptom
- often selective around traumatic events
- can also be global

dissociative identity disorder

- multiple personality disorder
- 2 or more distinct personalities manifested in the same person at different times
- most people who have it are women
- from trauma
- controversy around it

antisocial personality disorder

- psychopathy
- typically male
- selfish, callous, impulsive, promiscuous
- deficit in love, loyalty, guilt, anxiety
- easily bored, seeks out simulation

types of therapy

- psychodynamic
- behavioural
- cognitive
- cognitive behavioural
- humanistic
- biological interventions

does therapy work

- people report feeling better after therapy
- some types of therapy better for specific problems
- some therapists better than others

non specific factors in therapy

- non specific
- support
- hope

what was chomsky's critique of skinner

if you can explain everything, you can explain nothing

we cannnot predict verbal behavior in terms of the stimuli in the speaker's environment since we do not know what the current stimuli are until he responds

behaviorism applied to human behavior is either false (when the terms are taken literally) or is trivially and boringly true (when they are taken metaphorically)

top down influence

perceptions start with general and move to the more specific
heavily influenced by our expectations and previous knowledge