psychology exam 1

What is Social Psychology?

The study of how the real or imagined presence of others influences thought, feeling, and behavior.

What is Cognitive Psychology?

The study of how we:

Perceive information

Learn and remember

Acquire and use language

Solve problems

What is Developmental Psychology?

The study of how thought and behavior change and show stability across the life span.

What is Personality Psychology?

The study of what makes people unique and the consistencies in people’s behavior across time and situations.

What is Behavioral Neuroscience?

The study of the links among brain, mind, and behavior.

What is Biological Psychology?

The study of the connections between bodily systems and chemicals, and their relationship to behavior and thought.

What is the difference between Clinical Psychology and Counseling Psychology?

Clinical Psychology: The study of the treatment of mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders, and ways to promote psychological health.

Counseling Psychology: Works with less severe psychological disorders and helps healthy people deal with life.

What is Industrial/Organizational (I/O) Psychology?

The application of psychological concepts and questions to work settings:

Industrial Focus: Selecting workers, matching employees to jobs, evaluating performance.

Organizational Focus: Worker satisfaction, productivity, management styles, work environment.

What are Sports Psychology and Forensic Psychology?

Sports Psychology: Examines psychological factors that affect performance and participation in sports/exercise.

Forensic Psychology: Field that blends psychology, law, and criminal justice.

What characterized views of mental illness in the Middle Ages?

Supernatural causes were blamed.

The Inquisition performed tests like the float test for witchcraft.

Asylums emerged with deplorable and chaotic conditions (e.g., "Bedlam").

Later, movements for moral treatment emerged in Europe and the U.S.

What were Emil Kraepelin's main diagnostic contributions?

Medical Model (Late 1880s)

Diagnosed Dementia praecox (now known as schizophrenia).

Diagnosed Melancholia (now known as depression).

What are the key focus areas of Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalysis?

The unconscious mind

Defense mechanisms

Childhood experiences

What is the Philosophy of Empiricism?

Definition: The view that all knowledge and thoughts come from experience.

Key Figure: John Locke (17th Century).

Concept: Tabula rasa ("blank slate").

Psychology vs. Philosophy: Psychology used the methods of Empiricism to test the claims of Empiricism.

How do Physics and Psychophysics differ in studying light and sound?

Physics: Studies the physical properties of light and sound.

Psychophysics: Studies the human perception of light and sound.

Significance: First scientific form of psychology; involves laboratory studies of the subjective experience of physical sensations to understand the relationship between the physical and psychological worlds.

Who were the key Founding Psychophysicists and key lab founders?

Early Psychophysicists: Ernst Weber, Gustav Fechner, and Hermann von Helmholtz.

Wilhelm Wundt: Opened the first psychology laboratory in Leipzig, Germany, in 1879.

Who were the key Founding Psychological Scientists in the U.S.?

G. Stanley Hall: Founded the American Psychological Association (APA), established the first psychology laboratory in the USA at Johns Hopkins University, and taught Francis Cecil Sumner.

Francis Cecil Sumner: First African American to earn a PhD in psychology (1920).

William James: Considered the founder of American psychology; taught G. Stanley Hall and Mary Whiton Calkins.

Mary Whiton Calkins: First female president of the APA (1905).

What is Structuralism?

Definition: 19th-century school of thought that argued breaking down experience into its elemental parts offers the best way to understand thought and behavior.

Method: Introspection — looking into one's own mind to determine the structure of consciousness.

Chief Proponent: Wilhelm Wundt.

What is Functionalism?

Definition: 19th-century school of thought that argued it was better to look at why the mind works the way it does than to describe its parts.

Influenced by: Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

Championed by: William James.

Method: Used introspection as well.

What is Behaviorism?

Definition: School of thought that asserts psychology can be a true science only if it examines observable behavior, not ideas, thoughts, feelings, or motives.

Key Figures: John Watson and B.F. Skinner.

What is Gestalt Psychology (under Cognitivism)?

Core Idea: We perceive things as wholes rather than as a compilation of parts.

Key Figure: Max Wertheimer (1880–1943).

What are Humanistic Psychology and Positive Psychology?

Humanistic Psychology: Focuses on personal growth and meaning as a way of reaching one's highest potential. (Key figures: Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers)

Positive Psychology (1990s): Revitalization of humanistic psychology using a scientific approach to healthy and positive psychological functioning. (Key figures: Martin Seligman, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)

Front: What three major developments occurred in Clinical Psychology in the mid-1900s?

1. Psychotherapy

2. Drug treatment

3. Criteria for diagnosing mental disorders

Front: What is the DSM-5?

Stand for: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition.

Purpose: A classification system that includes diagnoses for more than 250 psychological disorders.

What are Self-Report Measures?

Written or oral accounts of one's own thoughts, feelings, or actions.

Interviews: Researcher asks open-ended questions without strict constraints on responses.

Questionnaires: Responses are limited to a provided set of options.

What are Behavioral Measures?

Measures based on the systematic observation of people’s actions in either their normal environment or a laboratory setting.

Benefit: Reduces Social Desirability Bias.

What are Physiological Measures?

Measures of bodily responses used to infer psychological states.

Examples: Heart rate, sweating, respiration, hormone levels, and brain activity.

What is Statistics in research?

Mathematical methods used to report data through the collection, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of numerical data

What did Robert Rosenthal contribute to research methodology?

Identified key issues in experimental bias, specifically:

Experimenter Expectancy Effects: Unintentional bias introduced when researchers' expectations influence the outcome.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Expecting an outcome leads to behaviors that make that outcome come true.

Solution: Using Double-Blind Studies to control for bias

What are Research Ethics and the role of the IRB?

Ethics: Rules governing conduct and standards of right and wrong, essential for research on humans or animals.

IRB (Institutional Review Board): A committee that reviews research proposals to ensure ethical guidelines are followed.

What are the key ethical principles for research involving Humans?

1. Informed Consent: Participants must agree voluntarily with knowledge of the study.

2. Respect for Persons: Treating participants with dignity.

3. Beneficence: Minimize costs and maximize benefits to participants (includes Debriefing to mitigate any negative effects of deception).

4. Privacy and Confidentiality: Protecting participant identities and data.

5. Justice: Equity in the distribution of costs and benefits among participants.

What are the core guidelines for ethical research involving Animals?

Core Principle: Humane Treatment.

Key Considerations: Animals cannot give informed consent; critics argue research must benefit the animals.

Standards: Strict laws govern adequate housing, care, comfort, health, and ensuring pain/suffering are kept to an absolute minimum.

How do different research methods apply to studying technology's impact?

Descriptive Research: e.g., Men use more crude language online than women do.

Correlational Research: e.g., A negative relation exists between GPA and time spent on Facebook.

Experimental Research: e.g., Cell phone use (even hands-free) slows reaction time in drivers.

Ethical Question: Is it ethical to analyze Big Data without individual consent?

What is Meta-Analysis?

A quantitative method for combining all available research results on one question and drawing a conclusion.

Key Function: Summarizes effect sizes.

What is Effect Size?

A measure of the strength of the relationship between two variables or the extent of an experimental effect.

What is the difference between a Population and a Sample?

Population: The entire group about whom you have a research question.

Sample: A portion of the population that is actually observed.

What are Longitudinal Studies?

Studies that observe the same people over time.

How do Twin Adoption Studies help evaluate Nature vs. Nurture?

They examine the relative impact of genes (nature) vs. environment (nurture) by comparing identical twins and unrelated siblings:

Genetic Trait: Twins share the trait despite being reared apart.

Environmental Trait: Adopted siblings share the trait despite being genetically unrelated.

What are Descriptive Studies?

Questions Researched: Single variables (e.g., "How do people flirt?").

Methods: Case studies, naturalistic observation, qualitative research, surveys, interviews.

Best Use: Finding patterns and leading to more refined research.

Main Limitations: Cannot test hypotheses or investigate cause-and-effect.

What are Correlational Studies?

Questions Researched: Relationships between variables (e.g., "Is variable x related to variable y?").

Methods: Questionnaires, naturalistic observations.

Best Use: Predicting one thing from another or when variables cannot be manipulated.

Main Limitation: Cannot investigate cause-and-effect.

Why does Correlation NOT equal Causation?

Correlation is necessary but not sufficient to prove causation.

Example: Parental harshness correlating with child rebellion could mean harsh parents cause rebellion, rebellious kids drive parent harshness, or family stress/genetics drive both.

Correlation does not settle why a behavior occurs.

What are Experimental Studies, and how are groups divided?

Goal: Determine Causation using Random Assignment.

Experimental Group: Receives manipulation of the hypothesized cause (Independent Variable).

Control Group: Treated identically, but receives no manipulation.

What are Independent, Dependent, and Confounding Variables?

Independent Variable (IV): The hypothesized cause that is manipulated.

Dependent Variable (DV): The observed effect/difference measured between groups.

Confounding Variables: Unwanted differences between experimental and control groups that distort results.

What is a Placebo?

A substance or treatment that appears identical to the actual treatment but lacks the active substance. It is often given to the control group.

What is the difference between Single-Blind and Double-Blind Studies?

Single-Blind: Controls for participant expectations.

Double-Blind: Controls for both participant expectations AND experimenter expectancy effects / self-fulfilling prophecies (Robert Rosenthal).

How do Acute Stress and Chronic Stress differ in their health impact?

Acute (Short-Term) Stress: Can be good for health and promotes healing.

Chronic (Long-Term) Stress: Bad for overall health.

Note: Personal perceptions of stress significantly influence its health impact.

What is the RICH acronym for Type A Behavior Pattern, and which component is most harmful?

R – Rushed for time

I – Impatient

C – Competitive

H – Hostile

Key Finding: Follow-up research revealed that hostility is the primary factor driving heart disease risk.

How does Depression affect individuals with existing heart disease?

For people diagnosed with coronary heart disease, being clinically depressed significantly increases the risk of death.

What is the Gut-Brain Axis and the Microbiome?

Gut-Brain Axis: A bi-directional pathway of influence between the intestines and the central nervous system (CNS).

Microbiome: Microbes living inside our bodies that play a multifaceted role in health.

Can be disrupted by psychological stress.

Influenced by diet, lifestyle, kissing, and breastfeeding.

What are the primary health risks associated with Smoking?

Reduces life expectancy by an average of 10 years.

Linked to lung cancer, heart disease, stroke, emphysema, and male impotence.

Secondhand smoke carries health risks similar to active smoking.

What health risks and potential benefits are associated with Alcohol consumption?

Risks: Cirrhosis, cancer (liver, digestive tract), accidents, and domestic violence.

Potential Benefit: Moderate alcohol consumption may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease.

What health outcomes are linked to Obesity and Stress-Induced Eating?

Obesity Risks: Heart disease, high blood pressure, adult-onset diabetes, and cancer.

Stress & Eating: Eating can temporarily calm the stress response, but stress-induced eating is risky for health.

What are the health benefits of regular Exercise?

Reduces risk of heart disease, stroke, and certain cancers.

Keeps diabetes under control and slows bone loss in older women.

Extends life expectancy.

Promotes Brain Health: Stimulates growth of new neurons and helps prevent brain inflammation.

What are the health benefits of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)?

Pain reduction.

Reduction in anxiety and depression.

Reduction in stress-related physical illnesses (e.g., psoriasis).