GVSU PSY 101 Galen Midterm

What is psychology?

The study of behavior and mental processes.

Naive Realism

belief that the way we see the world is precisely as it actually is

Levels of Analysis in Psychology (6)

Social, Behavioral, mental/Cognitive, Neurological, Neurochemical, Molecular

Social Analysis

Interactions, relationships with others

Mental/Cognitive Analysis

Thoughts/feelings

Neurological analysis

brain STRUCTURE

Neurochemical

Brain CHEMISTRY

Molecular

Genes

Multiple Determinism

Many forces work together to cause behavior

Belief Perseverance

stick to initial beliefs even when evidence contradicts them

science vs. intuition

-We make mistakes when we base our reasoning on intuition rather than on science

-Researchers create comparison groups and look at all the data

individual differences

variations among people in their thinking, emotion, personality, and behavior

Hindsight Bias

tend to think you predicted something all along

Confirmation Bias

only seek evidence that supports a hypothesis/neglect contradicting evidence

Barnum Effect

tendency to accept certain info as true even when it is so vague as to be worthless

ex:horoscopes, fortune-telling, personality tests

sense of control and comfort

a person's ability or perception of their ability to affect themselves, others, their conditions, their environment or some other circumstance.

Anecdotal Evidence

an informal observation that has not been systematically tested

evidence in the form of stories

Empirical Evidence

scientific evidence obtained by careful observation and experimentation

Ad Hoc Immunizing Hypotheses

escape hatch or loophole that defenders of a theory use to protect their theory from falsification

Lack of Self Correction

never adjust claims when contrary evidence is published

Patternicity

brain predisposed to make order

Pareidolla

seeing meaningful images in meaningless visual stimuli

ex: seeing faces in objects

Apophenia

over-detect patterns/connections among unrelated or random phenomena

cause of superstition

Logical Fallicies (6)

Faulty reasoning strategies including:

- circular reasoning

- false dichotomy

- emotional reasoning

- argument from antiquity

- appeal to authority

-bandwagon

appeal to authority fallacy

To justify support for a position by citing an esteemed or well-known figure who supports it.

false dichotomy fallacy (either/or)

wrongly assuming that there are only two alternatives to consider. Look, either you're against the war or you're a warmonger. You're not against the war. So you're a warmonger.

Scientific Skepticism

approach of evaluating all claims with an open mind but insisting on persuasive evidence before accepting them

Correlation

measure of the extent to which two factors vary together, and thus of how well either factor predicts the other.

Causation

the belief that events occur in predictable ways and that one event leads to another

Circular Reasoning

repeats the claim as a way to provide evidence

Either-or

forces listeners to choose between two alternatives when more than two alternatives exist

Dunning-Kruger Effect

People who are least skilled at a task, suffer from the most overconfidence.

Overconfidence

the tendency to be more confident than correct

Emotional Reasoning

Drawing a conclusion based on an emotional state

Ex: "I feel guilty, so I must have done something bad," "I'm feeling inadequate, so I must be worthless," or "I feel afraid, so I must be in a dangerous situation."

Argument from Antiquity

something must be true because people have believed it for a long time

Appeal to Authority

persuades by appealing to the respect people have for a famous person or institution

Critical Thinking Principles (4)

- should be subjected to standardized tests

- ruling out rival hypothesis

- correlation vs causation

- replicability

Ruling out rival hypotheses

Have important alternative explanations for the findings been excluded?

Falsifiability

theory generates hypothesis that could be disproved

Occams Razor

- find simpler explanation

- cut away extra info

Peer Review

- anonymous expert

- determine acceptability for publication

- suggest changes

- not all journals peer reviewed

Naturalistic Observation

gathering data from real-world settings

Psychology used to be the same as...

philosophy

Psychology was first used to investigate...

spiritualism

Types of psychology studies in history

Structuralism Wundt and Turner

Functionalism - William James and Darwin

Behaviorism - Skinner

Cognitivism - Piget

Psychoanalysis - Freud

Structuralism

- Wundt and E.B. Turner

- identify most basic elements of psychological experience

- used introspection

Functionalism

- William James (influenced by Darwin)

- understand adaptive purposes of psychological characteristic

- bridge between structuralism and behaviorism

- stream of consiousness

Behaviorism

- Watson and Skinner

- focus on what is observable

- focus on environmental impacts

Cognitivism

- Piaget and Neisser

- mental process involved in different aspects of thinking

Psychoanalysis

- Freud and Jung

- focus on internal psychology processes of which we were unaware

Types of Psychologists

Basic - scientists

Applied - Scientists and Practitioners

Pseudoscience

a collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly regarded as being based on scientific method.

Pseudoscience examples

astrology

anecdote

short account of event

often used as evidence for pseudoscience

Facilitated Communication

- 1990's

- developed for Autism

- communication only occurred via the facilitators

Heuristics

- mental shortcuts

- rules of thumb

- less cognitive energy required but oversimplifies

System 1 Thinking

- intuitive

- fast

- automatic

System 2 Thinking

- analytical

- slow

- effortful

Base Rate Fallacy

ignore how common something actually is in a population

Cognitive Biases

- hindsight

- overconfidence

Case Study Designs

- studying one, or a small number of people for extended period of time

- common with rare types of brain damage or mental illness

- helpful in providing existence proof

Self-report (surveys)

A research approach that requires subjects to reveal their own information

Reliability

consistency of measurement

Validity

extent to which a measure assesses what it claims to measure

Correlation Coefficient

measure of the strength and direction of an association between two variables

Volunteer Bias

non-random selection of samples in research also affected

External Validity

extent to which we can generalize our findings to the real world

Internal Validity

extent to which we can draw cause and effect inferences

Experimental Design

test for cause and effect relationships between variables

Confounds

difference between the experimental ad control groups aside from internal validity

randsom selection

a method of selecting a sample from a population; every member of the population has an equal chance of being selected

- increases the likelihood that the sample represents the population and that one can generalize the findings to the larger population

random assignment

assigning participants to experimental and control conditions by chance, thus minimizing preexisting differences between those assigned to the different groups

Inferring Causation

This is a problem that occurs when people assume that two related variables mean one is the result of the other

Placebo

something which has a positive mental effect, but no physical effect

double-blind study

An experiment in which neither the participant nor the researcher knows whether the participant has received the treatment or the placebo

Demand Effect

changes in behavior by experimental subjects due to cues about what constitutes appropriate behavior

They guess what they're supposed to be doing

IRB (International Review Board)

groups of people responsible for reviewing proposed research to ensure that it meets the accepted standards of science and provides for the physical and emotional well-being of research participants

Experimenter Expectancy Effect

researcher's hypothesis leads them to unintentionally bias a study outcome

Nerve Cell Components (Neuron)

- cell body (soma)

- dendrites

- axon

Cell Body (Soma)

- center of neuron

- contains nucleus

Dendrites

branchlike extension that receive information from neurons

Axons

"tails" that spread out from the cell body

Glial Cells

- non-neuronal cells that maintain homeostasis, from myelin, provide support for neurons

- plentiful (1:1 ratio)

- "personal assistant" to neurons

Neuronal Components (4)

- axon terminal

- neurotransmitters

- synapse

- myelin

Axon Terminal

knob at end of the axons

Neurotransmitters (definition)

chemical messengers

Synapse

space between neurons

Myelin

increases speed of impulses

Resting Potential

no neurotransmitters acting on neuron

Threshold Potential

The minimum membrane potential that must be reached in order for an action potential to be generated.

ionotropic receptors

ions can pass through the receptor

Nicotine and serotonin receptors

metabotropic receptors

Second messenger inside the cell relays the message

Norepinephrine, epinephrine, histamine, dopamine, neuropeptides, and endocannabinoids

Central Nervous System

The brain and spinal cord

A subdivision of the human nervous system comprising the brain and spinal cord. Transmits & receives messages to & from the PNS

Peripheral Nervous System

the sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system to the rest of the body

Heart-rate/breathing

somatic nervous system

Conveys information between the CNS and the body, voluntary movement

Automatic Nervous System

the part of the nervous system responsible for control of the bodily functions not consciously directed, such as breathing, the heartbeat, and digestive processes.

Sympathetic Nervous System

the division of the autonomic nervous system that arouses the body, mobilizing its energy in stressful situations

Ex: accelerated heart rate/sweating

(automatic nervous system component)

Parasympathetic Nervous System

the division of the autonomic nervous system that calms the body, conserving its energy

Salivation

(automatic nervous system component)

Action Potential

- charge exceeds the threshold

- abrupt waves of electric discharge

- messages are added as they come into the cell

- some excitatory, some inhibitory

- all or non response

- originate near cell body and travel down axon

- fire 100-1000 times per second

Synaptic Transmission

communication between neurons