PSYC 100 - April Exam Prep

Audience design

constructing utterances to suit the audience’s knowledge

Common ground

information that is shared by people who engage in a conversation

Ingroup

group to which a person belongs

Lexicon

words and expressions

Linguistic intergroup bias

a tendency for people to characterize positive things about their ingroup using more abstract expressions, but negative things about their outgroups using more abstract expressions

Outgroup

group to which a person does not belong

Priming

a stimulus presented to a person reminds him or her about other ideas associated with the stimulus

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

the hypothesis that the language that people use determines their thoughts

Situation model

a mental representation of an event, object, or situation constructed at the time of comprehending a linguistic description

Social brain hypothesis

the hypothesis that the human brain has evolved, so that humans can maintain larger ingroups

Social networks

networks of social relationships among individuals through which information can travel

Syntax

rules by which words are strung together to form sentences

Automatic empathy

a social perceiver unwittingly taking on the internal state of another person, usually because of mimicking the person’s expressive behavior and thereby feeling the expressed emotion

False-belief test

an experimental procedure that assesses whether a perceiver recognizes that another person has a false belief—a belief that contradicts reality

Folk explanations of behavior

people’s natural explanations for why somebody did something, felt something, etc. (differing substantially for unintentional and intentional behaviors)

Intention

an agent’s mental state of committing to perform an action that the agent believes will bring about a desired outcome

Intentionality

the quality of an agent’s performing a behavior intentionally—that is, with skill and awareness and executing an intention (which is in turn based on a desire and relevant beliefs)

Joint attention

two people attending to the same object and being aware that they both are attending to it

Mimicry

copying others’ behavior, usually without awareness

Mirror neurons

neurons identified in monkey brains that fire both when the monkey performs a certain action and when it perceives another agent performing that action

Projection

a social perceiver’s assumption that the other person wants, knows, or feels the same as the perceiver wants, know, or feels

Simulation

the process of representing the other person’s mental state

Synchrony

two people displaying the same behaviors or having the same internal states (typically because of mutual mimicry)

Theory of mind

the human capacity to understand minds, a capacity that is made up of a collection of concepts (e.g., agent, intentionality) and processes (e.g., goal detection, imitation, empathy, perspective taking)

Visual perspective taking

can refer to visual perspective taking (perceiving something from another person’s spatial vantage point) or more generally to effortful mental state inference (trying to infer the other person’s thoughts, desires, emotions)

Basic-level category

the neutral, preferred category for a given object, at an intermediate level of specificity

Category

a set of entities that are equivalent in some way. Usually the items are similar to one another

Concept

the mental representation of a category

Exemplar

an example in memory that is labeled as being in a particular category

Psychological essentialism

the belief that members of a category have an unseen property that causes them to be in the category and to have the properties associated with it

Typicality

the difference in “goodness” of category members, ranging from the most typical (the prototype) to borderline members

Chutes and Ladders

a numerical board game that seems to be useful for building numerical knowledge

Concrete operations stage

piagetian stage between ages 7 and 12 when children can think logically about concrete situations but not engage in systematic scientific reasoning

Conservation problems

problems pioneered by Piaget in which physical transformation of an object or set of objects changes a perceptually salient dimension but not the quantity that is being asked about

Continuous development

ways in which development occurs in a gradual incremental manner, rather than through sudden jumps

Depth perception

the ability to actively perceive the distance from oneself of objects in the environment

Discontinuous development

development that does not occur in a gradual incremental manner

Formal operations stage

piagetian stage starting at age 12 years and continuing for the rest of life, in which adolescents may gain the reasoning powers of educated adults

Information processing theories

theories that focus on describing the cognitive processes that underlie thinking at any one age and cognitive growth over time

Nature

the genes that children bring with them to life and that influence all aspects of their development

Numerical magnitudes

the sizes of numbers

Nurture

the environments, starting with the womb, that influence all aspects of children’s development

Object permanence task

the Piagetian task in which infants below about 9 months of age fail to search for an object that is removed from their sight and, if not allowed to search immediately for the object, act as if they do not know that it continues to exist.

Phonemic awareness

awareness of the component sounds within words

Piaget’s theory

theory that development occurs through a sequence of discontinuous stages

Preoperational reasoning stage

period within Piagetian theory from age 2 to 7 years, in which children can represent objects through drawing and language but cannot solve logical reasoning problems, such as the conservation problems

Qualitative changes

large, fundamental change, as when a caterpillar changes into a butterfly; stage theories such as Piaget’s posit that each stage reflects qualitative change relative to previous stages

Quantitative changes

gradual, incremental change, as in the growth of a pine tree’s girth

Sensorimotor stage

period within Piagetian theory from birth to age 2 years, during which children come to represent the enduring reality of objects

Sociocultural theories

theory founded in large part by Lev Vygotsky that emphasizes how other people and the attitudes, values, and beliefs of the surrounding culture influence children’s development

Endophenotypes

a characteristic that reflects a genetic liability for disease and a more basic component of a complex clinical presentation. Endophenotypes are less developmentally malleable than overt behavior

Event-related potentials (ERP)

measures the firing of groups of neurons in the cortex. As a person views or listens to specific types of information, neuronal activity creates small electrical currents that can be recorded from non-invasive sensors placed on the scalp. ERP provides excellent information about the timing of processing, clarifying brain activity at the millisecond pace at which it unfolds

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

entails the use of powerful magnets to measure the levels of oxygen within the brain that vary with changes in neural activity. That is, as the neurons in specific brain regions “work harder” when performing a specific task, they require more oxygen. By having people listen to or view social percepts in an MRI scanner, fMRI specifies the brain regions that evidence a relative increase in blood flow. In this way, fMRI provides excellent spatial information, pinpointing with millimeter accuracy, the brain regions most critical for different social processes

Social brain

the set of neuroanatomical structures that allows us to understand the actions and intentions of other people

Authoritative

parenting style characterized by high (but reasonable) expectations for children’s behavior, good communication, warmth and nurturance, and the use of reasoning (rather than coercion) as preferred responses to children’s misbehavior

Conscience

the cognitive, emotional, and social influences that cause young children to create and act consistently with internal standards of conduct

Effortful control

a temperament quality that enables children to be more successful in motivated self-regulation

Family Stress Model

a description of the negative effects of family financial difficulty on child adjustment through the effects of economic stress on parents’ depressed mood, increased marital problems, and poor parenting

Gender schemas

organized beliefs and expectations about maleness and femaleness that guide children’s thinking about gender

Goodness of fit

the match or synchrony between a child’s temperament and characteristics of parental care that contributes to positive or negative personality development. A good “fit” means that parents have accommodated to the child’s temperamental attributes, and this contributes to positive personality growth and better adjustment

Security of attachment

an infant’s confidence in the sensitivity and responsiveness of a caregiver, especially when he or she is needed. Infants can be securely attached or insecurely attached

Social referencing

the process by which one individual consults another’s emotional expressions to determine how to evaluate and respond to circumstances that are ambiguous or uncertain

Temperament

early emerging differences in reactivity and self-regulation, which constitutes a foundation for personality development

Theory of mind

children’s growing understanding of the mental states that affect people’s behavior

Attachment behavioral system

a motivational system selected over the course of evolution to maintain proximity between a young child and his or her primary attachment figure

Attachment behaviors

behaviors and signals that attract the attention of a primary attachment figure and function to prevent separation from that individual or to reestablish proximity to that individual (e.g., crying, clinging)

Attachment figure

someone who functions as the primary safe haven and secure base for an individual. In childhood, an individual’s attachment figure is often a parent. In adulthood, an individual’s attachment figure is often a romantic partner

Attachment patterns

(also called “attachment styles” or “attachment orientations”) Individual differences in how securely (vs. insecurely) people think, feel, and behave in attachment relationships

Strange situation

a laboratory task that involves briefly separating and reuniting infants and their primary caregivers as a way of studying individual differences in attachment behavior

Cultural display rules

these are rules that are learned early in life that specify the management and modification of emotional expressions according to social circumstances. Cultural display rules can work in a number of different ways. For example, they can require individuals to express emotions “as is” (i.e., as they feel them), to exaggerate their expressions to show more than what is actually felt, to tone down their expressions to show less than what is actually felt, to conceal their feelings by expressing something else, or to show nothing at all

Interpersonal

this refers to the relationship or interaction between two or more individuals in a group. Thus, the interpersonal functions of emotion refer to the effects of one’s emotion on others, or to the relationship between oneself and others

Intrapersonal

this refers to what occurs within oneself. Thus, the intrapersonal functions of emotion refer to the effects of emotion to individuals that occur physically inside their bodies and psychologically inside their minds

Social and cultural

society refers to a system of relationships between individuals and groups of individuals; culture refers to the meaning and information afforded to that system that is transmitted across generations. Thus, the social and cultural functions of emotion refer to the effects that emotions have on the functioning and maintenance of societies and cultures

Social referencing

this refers to the process whereby individuals look for information from others to clarify a situation, and then use that information to act. Thus, individuals will often use the emotional expressions of others as a source of information to make decisions about their own behavior

Crowds

adolescent peer groups characterized by shared reputations or images

Deviant peer contagion

the spread of problem behaviors within groups of adolescents

Differential susceptibility

genetic factors that make individuals more or less responsive to environmental experiences

Foreclosure

individuals commit to an identity without exploration of options

Homophily

adolescents tend to associate with peers who are similar to themselves

Identity achievement

individuals have explored different options and then made commitments

Identity diffusion

adolescents neither explore nor commit to any roles or ideologies

Moratorium

state in which adolescents are actively exploring options but have not yet made identity commitments

Psychological control

parents’ manipulation of and intrusion into adolescents’ emotional and cognitive world through invalidating adolescents’ feelings and pressuring them to think in particular ways

Collectivism

belief system that emphasizes the duties and obligations that each person has toward others

Emerging adulthood

a new life stage extending from approximately ages 18 to 25, during which the foundation of an adult life is gradually constructed in love and work. Primary features include identity explorations, instability, focus on self-development, feeling incompletely adult, and a broad sense of possibilities

Individualism

belief system that exalts freedom, independence, and individual choice as high values

Industrialized countries

the economically advanced countries of the world, in which most of the world’s wealth is concentrated

Non-industrialized countries

the less economically advanced countries that comprise the majority of the world’s population. Most are currently developing at a rapid rate

OECD countries

members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, comprised of the world’s wealthiest countries

Tertiary education

education or training beyond secondary school, usually taking place in a college, university, or vocational training program

Age identity

how old or young people feel compared to their chronological age; after early adulthood, most people feel younger than their chronological age

Autobiographical narratives

a qualitative research method used to understand characteristics and life themes that an individual considers to uniquely distinguish him- or herself from others

Average life expectancy

mean number of years that 50% of people in a specific birth cohort are expected to survive. This is typically calculated from birth but is also sometimes re-calculated for people who have already reached a particular age (e.g., 65)

Cohort

group of people typically born in the same year or historical period, who share common experiences over time; sometimes called a generation (e.g., Baby Boom Generation)

Convoy Model of Social Relations

theory that proposes that the frequency, types, and reciprocity of social exchanges change with age. These social exchanges impact the health and well-being of the givers and receivers in the convoy

Cross-sectional studies

research method that provides information about age group differences; age differences are confounded with cohort differences and effects related to history and time of study

Crystallized intelligence

type of intellectual ability that relies on the application of knowledge, experience, and learned information

Fluid intelligence

type of intelligence that relies on the ability to use information processing resources to reason logically and solve novel problems

Global subjective well-being

individuals’ perceptions of and satisfaction with their lives as a whole

Hedonic well-being

component of well-being that refers to emotional experiences, often including measures of positive (e.g., happiness, contentment) and negative affect (e.g., stress, sadness)