Psychology final terms- semester 1

Specifically listing, outlining, and describing the experiment

Operational Conditioning

The data has meaning

Statistical significance

The scientific study of behavior and mental processes

Psychology

The higher order of mental processing

Critical thinking

What psychologists do to prove or disprove their hypotheses

Research

"I knew it all along" Phenomenon

Hindsight Bias

An explanation that integrates principles and organizes and predicts behavior or events

Theory

A testable prediction, often prompted by a theory, to enable us to accept,, reject or revise the theory

Hypothesis

A technique in which one person is studied in depth to reveal underlying behavioral principle

Case study

A technique for ascertaining the self-reported attitudes, opinions or behaviors of people

Survey

..

Random Sample

observing and recording the behavior of animals in the wild and recording self-selecting patterns

Naturalistic observation

the perception of a relationship where no relationship actually exists

Illusionary correlation

a research method in which an investigator manipulates on or more variable

Experiment

Higher order mental processing

Critical thinking

The variables are related

Correlation

A graph using dots to represent data points

Scatter plots

A factor manipulated by the experiment

Independent variable

factor that may change in response to an independent variable

Dependent variable

The group that does not receive a treatment in an experiment

Control group

patients and experimenter's assistants should remain unaware of which patients had the real treatment and which patients had the placebo treatment

Double-Blind Procedure

a nerve cell

Neurons

Neurons carrying out-going neurons

Motor Neurons

Bushy branching extension of a neuron

Dendrite

Layer of fatty tissue that speeds up neural transmission

Myelin Sheath

Chemical messages between neurons

Neurotransmitters

The body's speedy chemical communication network

Nervous system

Portion of the cerebral cortex located at the back of the brain

Occipital Lobe

Portion of the cerebral cortex located behind the forehead

Frontal lobe

Condition resulting from surgery that isolates the 2 hemispheres

Split Brain

Portion of the cerebral cortex located at the top of the brain

Parietal lobe

The brain's ability to change

Plasticity

The awareness of or possibility of knowing what is happening inside or outside the organism

Consciousness

Consciousness just below our present awarness

Subconsciousness

The study of forces that control the body at different times of the day, month, or year

Biological clock

sequences of behavioral changes that occur every 24 hours

Circadian Rythym

Rapid eye movement when we dream

REM sleep

Frightening dream during REM

Nightmare

increase in the number of dreams after being deprived from them

REM rebound

The inability to get enough sleep

Insomnia

Disorder in which a person falls instantly into sleep no matter what is going on in the environment

Narcolepsy

Breathing stops while someone is asleep, waking them up

Sleep apnea

A state of relaxation in which attention is focused on certain objects, acts or feelings.

Hypnosis

A form of self-control in which the outside world is cut off from consciousness.

Meditation

in operant conditioning a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed

Variable interval Schedule

An innately reinforcing stimulus such as one that satisfies a biological need

Primary reinforcer

An event that decreases the behavior that it follow

Punishment

In operant conditioning a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only.

Fixed interval schedule

In operant conditioning a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses

Variable ratio schedule

Increasing behaviors by presenting a positive stimulus

Positive Reinforcement

Positive constructive helpful behavior

Prosocial Behavior

increasing behavior by stopping or reducing negative stimuli

Negative Reinforcement

An operant conditioning procedure in which reinforces guide behavior close and closer toward the desired behavior

shaping

Frontal lobe neurons that fir when performing certain actions or when observing another doing so

Mirror Neurons

The process of observing or imitating a specific behavior

Modeling

Learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it

Latent learning

In operant conditioning a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses

Fixed ratio schedule

A mental representation of the layout of one's environment

Cognitive map

An operant conditioning tool containing a bar or key that an animal can manipulate to obtain a reward

Operant Chamber

the processing of information

encoding

The persistence of learning over time through the storage and retrieval of information

memory

The relatively permanent and limitless storehouse of the memory system

Long term memory

Activated memory that holds a few items briefly

Short term memory

The immediate, very brief recording of sensory information in the memory system

Sensory memory

The process of getting information out of the memory stage

Retrieval

A newer understanding of short-term memory, focusing conscious active processing.

Working memory

Encoding that requires attention

Effortful processing

Unconscious encoding of incidental information

Automatic processing

The tendency for distributes study or practice to yield better long-term retention, not achieved by massed study or practice

Spacing effect

Organizing items into familiar manageable units; often occurs automatically

Chunking

The encoding of sound

Acoustic encoding

The encoding of picture images

Visual encoding

the encoding of meaning

Semantic encoding

Memory of facts and experiences that one can consciously know

Explicit memory

memory aids

Mnemonics

The distributive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information

Proactive interference

The distributive effect of new learning on the recall of old information

Retroactive interference

A characteristic pattern of behavior

Trait

The scientific study of optimal human functioning

Positive psychology

According to Freud, a boy's sexual desires towards his mother and feeling of jealous or hatred for his rival father.

Oedipus Complex

An individual's characteristic patter of thinking, feeling and acting

Personality

Freud's theory of personality that attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious motivates and conflicts

Psychoanalysis

A personality test that provides ambiguous stimuli designed to trigger projection of one's inner dynamics

Protective test

In contemporary psychology assuming to be the center of personality the organizer of our thoughts feeling and actions

Self

Overestimating others noticing and evaluating our appearance performance and blunder

Spotlight effect

A questionnaire on which people respond to items designed to gauge a wide range of feelings and behaviors

Personality inventory

Carl Jung's concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory from our species history

Collective Unconscious

In psychoanalysis a method of exploring the unconscious in which the person relaxes and says whatever come to mind

Free association

In psychoanalysis the ego's protective method of reducing anxiety

Defense mechanisms

The test most widely used seeking to identify people's inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of blots

Rorschach Inkblot test

According to Maslow one of the ultimate psychological need that arises after basic needs are met

self-actualization

The hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human leans when unable to avoid repeated aversive events

Learned Helplessness

The perception that you control your own fate

Internal locus of control

The perception that changes or outside forces beyond your personal control determine your fate

External locus of control

According to freud, a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier stage of development

Fixation

The part of personality that according to Freud, represents internalized ideal and provides standards for judgement

Superego

Ones feeling of high or low self worth

Self-esteem

The most widely used of all personality tests, used for screening processes.

Minnesota Multiphasic personality inventory

The interacting of behavioral internal cognition and environment

Reciprocal Determinism

According to rogers an attitude of total acceptance toward another person

Unconditional positive regard