Psych Module 3: Thought and Development Psych

What is the functions of thinking and intelligence?

Acquiring, Storing, Retrieving and Using knowledge

What are the steps of the Circle of Thought?

Describe → Elaborate → Decide → Plan → Act

What are concepts?

Categories of objects, events or ideas with common properties; the basic building blocks of thought

what are formal concepts?

Formed by logical, specific rules

what are natural or abstract concepts?

Formed by everyday life

what are prototypes?

typical member of a category, a member of a natural concept that has most of its characteristic features

Ex: red apple → prototypical member of apple concept

what are propositions?

Mental representations that express relationships between concepts

Ex: The cow jumped over the moon

What are schemas?

Generalizations that develop about categories of objects, places, events and people

what are scripts?

Schemas about familiar activities (you know what will occur and how to act)

what are mental models?

Mental representations of how things are organized and the way they work in the real world

what are mental images?

mental representations of previously stored sensory experiences including visual and auditory experiences

what is a cognitive map?

mental model of familiar parts of your world

Ex: Can get to class by another route if your usual path is blocked

what is the hill-climbing strategy?

you choose an option that moves you in the direction of your goal (baby steps)

what are the four obstacles to problem solving?

mental sets: persistence in using strategies that have worked in the past

functional fixedness: thinking of an object as only functioning in its usual way

confirmation bias: tendency to search for, interpret and remember information that confirms our beliefs and ignoring contradictory evidence

heuristics: a mental short cut to make decisions without cognitive effort (to save energy)

what is the anchoring heuristic?

Initial anchor sets a reference point and the final agreement is biased towards the anchor.

Ex: Salary Negotiations → whoever makes the first offer tends to capture more value because the anchor drags the “zone of possible agreement” in their direction

what is the availability heuristic?

Judging the likelihood of an event based on how readily available other instances are in memory

Ex: The Lottery: we have readily available memories of people winning the lottery

what is the representative heuristic?

Estimating the probability of something based on how similar it is to existing mental categories

what are some biases and flaws in decision making?

loss aversion: tendency to be more sensitive to losses than gains

biases in how we think about probability: overstimulate probability of rare events; underestimate probability of frequent events

Overconfidence in the accuracy of choices

What is the Sunk-Cost Fallacy?

Tendency to stick with a choice we’ve wasted time, money or energy into even if the current costs outweigh the benefits

What is Development Psychology?

the study of age-related changes in behavior and mental processes from conception to death

What is the Biopsychosocial Model?

Nature (inherited/genes) and Nurture (learned/environment) are both contributed to development.

What are Dangerous Teratogens that cause Prenatal Risks?

Legal and illegal drugs, diseases, malnutrition and exposure to x-rays

What are the 3 key areas of early childhood development?

Brian, Motor and Sensory/Perceptual Development

What is Neuroplasticity?

As child grows, neurons grow and the number of dendrites and axons increase

What is the Motor Development Order in relation to cultural differences?

Different infants from different cultures can achieve the motor development order stays the same

What are the sensory capabilities that all newborns are born with?

Well developed smell, taste, touch and hearing,

What is Piget’s Theory is Cognitive Development?

Infants begin at a cognitive primitive level and progress as they develop.

What is Cognition?

The mental activities involved in acquiring, storing, retrieving and using knowledge

What part of the brain are the majority thinking processes distributed?

Pre-frontal lobe

Which two cognitive processes affect every part of the circle of thought?

Attention and Memory

What are shortcomings of Formal Reasoning?

Reasoning does not always follow logically.

Ex: All birds can fly. (A) A penguin is a bird. (B) Therefore, penguins can fly. (C)

The reasoning of statements A and B are correct but that does not mean that statement C is correct.

What is the Means-end analysis (Decomposition) problem-solving technique?

Starts by comparing the current state and goal state, then “decompose” break the problem into smaller sub-problems

What is the Working backward problem-solving technique?

Focusing on the goal rather than one’s current state and working backwards from the goal

What is the “Finding an analogy” problem solving technique?

A person is reminded of how they solved a problem prior to the current issue. They can solve the problem quickly.

What is a heuristic?

A “rule of thumb” or mental shortcut

What is Functional Fixedness?

Thinking of an object as only functioning in its usual way

What is Confirmation bias?

The tendency to search for, interpret and remember information that confirms our beliefs

What is the Representative heuristic?

Estimating the probability of something based on how our circumstances match (or represent) a previous prototype. Tendency to make an instant decision based on readily available attributes (looks, behavior etc.). Making judgements about categories and in some cases people

What is an example of Loss Aversion?

Refusing to play a coin-flip game where heads wins $20 and tails loses $10. This is the bias of loss aversion because the chances of a player coming out of the coin-flip game with some money is higher than not having a money at all after playing this game. The player does not want to take the possible chance of losing.

What are two biases on how people think about probability?

Overestimating probability → Believing there is higher chance of your plane crashing, even if studies have shown that it is more safe in a plane then other modes of transportation.

Underestimating probability → Believing that you will not get a prize at Bingo, even if you go to a Bingo event every week.

What is Developmental Psychology?

The study of age-related changes in behavior and cognition from conception to death

What are the three parts of the Biopsychosocial model?

Biological, Social and Psychosocial

What is the Germinal stage of prenatal development?

Conception to uterine implantation; fertilized egg travels and implants into the uterus

What is the Embryonic stage of Prenatal development?

Implantation through the 8th week. The egg grows and develops a midbrain, forebrain, hindbrain, spinal cord etc.

What are Tetratogens?

Environmental agents (High level addictive drugs, Alcohol, Nicotine) that cause damage during prenatal development

What are four reflexes that newborns are born with?

Grasping, Sucking, Babinski, Rooting

What are schemas in Piaget’s theory?

The basic most unit of intellect; they act as patterns that organize interactions with the environment

What is Assimilation?

New information added to existing schemas

What is Accommodation?

Old information adjusted or made to fit with new information

What is the Sensorimotor stage of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development?

Birth to 2 yrs. Child develops object permanence, Infants can think but they cannot move yet.

What is the Preoperational stage in Piaget’s theory of cognitive development

2-7 yrs. Can use symbols and make guesses about their world. No conversation abilities and Egocentric thinking

What is the Concrete Operational stage of Piaget’s theory of Cognitive development?

7-11 yrs. Developed conservation, uses simple logic, performs simple concrete mental operations. Cannot reason fully