psyc final

What is the definition of psychology?

Scientific study of behavior and mental processes.

What is plasticity

The brains special capacity for change.

When is the brain more plastic?

The you are a young child. Specifically, infancy and early childhood

What is the difference between sensation and perception

Sensation is input about the physical world obtained by our sensory receptors and perception is the process by which the brain selects, organizes, and interprets these sensations.

What is consciousness? Describe its two parts

Consciousness is a person’s awareness of external events and internal sensations under a condition of arousal. Awareness is the awareness of self and thought. You are aware that you are experiencing something. Arousal is the physiological state of being engaged with the environment.

What is learning

A systematic, relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs through experience.

What are the two types of learning?

Classical conditioning is where organisms learn the association between two stimuli. As a result of this, organisms learn to anticipate events. (Lightning, thunder usually after it) Operant conditioning is where organisms learn the association between a behavior and a consequence, like a reward. As a result of this, organisms tend to increase behaviors that are followed by rewards and to decrease behaviors that are followed by punishment.

How do psychologists define memory

The retention of information or experience over time. ENCODING, STORAGE, AND RETREVIAL.

What is cognition

How information is processed and manipulated in remembering, thinking, and knowing.

What do psychologists mean by the term development

They mean the pattern of continuity and change in human characteristics that occurs throughout the course of life. Most of it involves growth, but some is decline.

How do psychologists define motivation and what are some of its characteristics

Motivation is the force that moves people to behave, think, and feel the way they do. The want or need to achieve a goal whether consciously or not.

What is the definition of personality

The pattern of enduring, distinctive thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that characterize the way a person adapts to the world.

What is social psychology

The scientific study of how people think about, influence, and relate to other people.

Identify and define the three criteria used to define abnormal behavior (deviant, maladaptive, personally distressful). Provide an example of each

Deviant, not fitting social norm or fighting to change them, women in Britain showing that they wanted to have ; Maladaptive, a behavior or characteristic disrupts the person’s ability to lead a satisfying life, interfering with their ability to function effectively in the world, someone believing that they can endanger someone with their breathing and go to great lengths to isolate themselves; Personally distressful, when someone is engaging in a behavior finds it troubling, someone who secretly makes themselves vomit after every meal.

How does one’s culture and context influence the meaning or definition of abnormal behavior?

Their culture establishes what is normal and how others evaluate each other. Depending on the approach, the social context you exist in can effect the way you act and your mental state.

What is clinical psychology

The area of psychology that integrates science and theory to prevent and treat mental health conditions.

What is health psychology

Emphasizes psychology’s role in establishing and maintaining health and preventing and treating illness. It reflects the belief that choices, behaviors, and psychological characteristics can play important roles in health.

What is critical thinking? How does critical thinking help us make better decisions

It is the process of thinking deeply and actively, asking questions, and evaluating the evidence. It reduces the likelihood that conclusions will be based on unreliable personal beliefs, opinions, and emotions.

Identify the two structures of the central nervous system

The brain and the spinal cord

Explain bottom-up processing and provide a real-life example

This type of processing is when sensory receptors register information about the external environment and send it to the brain for interpretation. A rea-life experience using bottom-up processing would be listening to a song for the first time and listening carefully to get a feel for it.

What is the difference between controlled processes and automatic processes

Controlled processing uses a higher level of consciousness and automatic processing uses lower levels of consciousness. It requires a little attention while controlled processing has to have sustain attention.

What is behaviorism

It is a theory of learning that focuses on observable behaviors. From the behaviorist perspective, understanding the causes of behavior requires looking at the environmental factors that produce them.

What does it mean to encode information in memory

It means the way information gets into memory storage. Some information get into memory automatically where other information takes effort.

What are the different levels of processing and how do they affect memory

SHALLOW, only physical and perceptual features are analyzed, not that great of a memory; INTERMEDIATE, stimulus is recognized and labeled, a decent memory; DEEP, semantic, meaningful, symbolic characteristics are used, very good memory as you make connections to help you remember better

What are examples of elaboration

Shallow elaboration would be saying that the word mom has an M in it and how that M looks like its comprised of two Ns. Deep elaboration would think about what a mother is, or think about the moms that they know, how moms are portrayed, etc.