Psychology Exam

What is psychology?

the scientific study of behavior and mental processes

What is the Scientific Method? Why would you use it?

A process for completing an experiment to collect and interpret data

What is the first step of the scientific method?

Form a question

What is the second step of the scientific method?

Form a hypothesis

What is the third step of the scientific method?

Test the hypothesis

What is the fourth step of the scientific method?

Analyze results

What is the fifth step of the scientific method?

conclusion

What is the sixth step of the scientific method?

replication

What is the last step in the scientific method?

New questions

Humanistic Perspective

**Humans need to self "actualize" and become the best we can be. People want to be helpful.**

Mr Jones has a low self esteem because he doesn't measure up to the smartest and richest people, so he is angry.

Biological Perspective

**Behavior is the result of brain and nerve impulses, hormones and genetics**

Mr. Jones is a loud-mouthed, mean-spirited person. His children are too (genetic inheritance)

Psychoanalytical Perspective

**Believe behavior is influenced by unconscious drives and childhood events**

The man was frustrated with his job, then that night he has a dream about quitting.

Cognitive Perspective

**A psychological approach that emphasizes mental processes in perception, memory, language, problem solving, and what we think about ourselves affects our values**

One person said the same thing to two different people and they each took it a different way.

Sigmund Freud

Psychoanalyst whose work focused on the unconscious causes of behavior and personality formation; founded psychoanalysis.

Alfred Adler

Psychoanalyst who introduced concept of "inferiority complex" and stressed the importance of birth order, realized that everyone felt inferior and everyone wanted to gain a feeling of belonging

BF Skinner

Learning Perspective, Operant Conditioning, decided peoples behaviors are trained through punishment and reward

Ivan Pavlov

Learning Perspective, discovered classical conditioning; trained dogs to salivate at the ringing of a bell

Carl Rogers

Humanistic Psychologist, we see an ideal persona and if we feel that we are like them then we feel good, if we don't feel like we are similar to them then we don't feel good

Abraham Maslow

Humanistic psychologist known for his "Hierarchy of Needs" and the concept of "self-actualization", people always wanna be better

John B. Watson

Behaviorist who was known for his Little Albert study (Would clang metal bars when albert saw something soft so he would be afraid of them)

Behavioral Perspective

Human behavior is caused by environmental conditions

Carl Jung

Psychoanalyst who was known for founding analytical psychology

Eric Erickson

Psychosocial, he believed you went through 8 stages from infancy to death

Piaget

Came up with the famous theory of cognitive development which explain how a child thinks and functions as they grow

Kohlberg

Believed in Moral Development, it said that people work through different stages of moral development and that is why they make certain decisions

Pie graph

used for percentages

Bar graph

used for comparing different things

Line graph

show one thing over time

Testing Method

giving your subjects psychological tests

Case Study

**an in depth look at one person or a small group** \n ^^Strengths- an in depth look at 1 person or small groups^^ \n ==Weaknesses- What you find out may not apply to anyone else, easy to get a close relationship==

Longitudinal Method

**take a small group of people and watch them for months/years** \n ^^Strengths- can get really in depth^^ \n ==Weaknesses- people quit or die before it is over==

Cross Sectional Method

**study people at different ages** \n ^^Strengths-Shorter and cheaper^^ \n ==Weaknesses- different experiences and abilities==

Natural Observation

**try to study people in their natural environment** \n ^^Strengths- tend to get a more "real" observation^^ \n ==Weaknesses- You can't control the conditions==

Laboratory Observation

**you study things in a controlled environment** \n ^^Strengths- You can control the conditions^^ \n ==Weaknesses- May affect behaviors==

Independent Variable

the factor that is changed by the researcher to determine the effect of change

Dependent Variable

change resulting from application of the independent variable

Control Group

doesn't receive independent variable, used for comparing how independent variables change the situation

Controlled Experiment

an experiment that uses an control group

Single Blind Study

do experiments on different groups and they don't know if they are the control group or the experiment group

Double Blind Study

neither the experimental group nor the observers know who is getting what so the observers cannot bias the experiment

What was the point of the Hawthorne experiment?

The effect of rest periods, workdays, and work weeks on productivity

What did we learn from the Hawthorne Experiment?

People perform better when they are being watched

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Mean (central tendency)

average score

Median

the middle score

mode

most frequent score

Correlation

^^Positive-as one thing goes up/down so does the other^^ \n ==Negative- as one thing goes up/down another does opposite==

Ethics

standards for proper and responsible behavior

Occipital Lobe

back of the head, visual area

Temporal Lobe

On the side and below your ears, controls hearing

Parietal Lobe

Top rear of your head, handles skin senses

Frontal Lobe

behind the forehead, solves problems, makes plans, and makes decisions

Thalamus

(Forebrain) a critical structure because it relays sensory information to the appropriate places

Hypothalamus

(Forebrain)below the thalamus (tiny). It regulates body temperature, stores nutrients, controls motivation and emotion. For example hunger, thirst, sexual behavior, caring for offspring, and aggression. Disturbances lead to unusual behaviors.

Pituitary Gland

sends out hormones including growth hormones which greatly affects children and pregnancy hormones

Brainstem

Controls things such as breathing, consciousness, blood pressure, heart rate, and sleep

Cerebellum

(Hindbrain) takes care of balance and coordination

Corpus Callosum

a broad transverse nerve tract connecting the two cerebral hemispheres, aids the transfer of information

What does your "right brain" do?

creativity and artistic ability

What does your "left brain" do?

logic and problem solving

For right handed people language is based in the ______ hemisphere

Left

What glands produce chemicals?

Endocrine Glands

Stage 1 of sleep

lightest sleep, pulse slows down, brain waves slow, 30-40 mins, feels like you never slept

Stage 2 of sleep

Deeper version of Stage 1, lasts 15-30 mins

Stage 3 of Sleep

Deeper sleep yet 15-30mins

Stage 4 of sleep

Deepest sleep, very difficult to wake up, 30-40 mins

REM (rapid eye movement)

Occurs in stage 1 during second cycle, most vivid dreams, 50-80% of sleep time for babies, lack of REM results in behavioral changes

Hypnosis

A trance, deep state of relaxation, not everyone can be hypnotized

Meditiation

**narrowing of consciousness and focus on a small repetitive visual stimuli or sound** \n benefits-helps relax, less anxiety, lower blood pressure

Altered States of Consciousness

happens when one's sense of the world changes usually through sleep, drugs, meditation or hypnosis

3 Kinds of memory

Episodic, Semantic, and Implicit

Onset sleep (very first stage)

Pulse slows, temperature drops etc.

Episodic Memory

memory of a specific event or experience (flashbulb memories)

Semantic Memory

general knowledge that we remember but we don’t know exactly when we learned it (george washington was the 1st president)

Implicit

skills you can do like riding a bike

Encoding

the translation of information into a form in which it can be stored (remembering through a picture, sound)

Storage

Second process of memory, maintains encoded information over time (repeating information over and over again, relating information to something you already know, or filing system)

Retrieval

locating stored information and returning it to conscious thought (you remember something if you are in the place the memory happened, you remember details if you are in the same emotional state as you were when the memory occurred, tip of your tongue)

What are the three stages of memory?

==Sensory memory- useful info goes to short term memory, not useful information goes to trash==

^^Short-term Memory- 7-8 items at a time, we tend to remember first and last things in a series, useful info is stored into groups, non useful goes into trash^^

Long term Memory- Items categorized by common characteristics, no limit on how much can be stored

Echoic Memory-

traces of things we have heard

Eidetic Imagery-

photographic memory. Super ironic memory. 5% of children have it. Fades with age

Iconic Memory

A snapshot or mental picture of something we saw

Primacy effect

we tend to remember the first few things in a series

Recency effect

we tend to remember the last items in a series

Chunking

organization of items into familiar or manageable units

Interference

is when new information pushes old information out of short term memory

Forgetting

Forgetting can occur during any of the 3 memory tasks

3 Memory Tasks-

Recognition-Identifying objects or events that have been encountered before

^^Recall- to bring something out of storage without seeing it^^

==Relearn- you can relearn things you once knew but forgot very quickly==

3 kinds of forgetting-

==Decay-a memory fades away if it isn’t used==

^^Repression- we forget painful memories (it helps us cope)^^

Amnesia- we forget what happened before age 3, forget trauma

Learning

A change in behavior as a result of an experience

Who is Pavlov, and what did he do?

Psychologist who would train dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell through classical conditioning

What are the principles of classical conditioning?

Unconditioned Stimulus, Unconditioned Response, Conditioned Stimulus, and Conditioned Response

In Pavlov's Experiment what is the Unconditioned Stimulus?

Meat Powder

In Pavlov's Experiment what is the Unconditioned Response?

Dog drooling

In Pavlov's Experiment what is the conditioned stimulus?

Ringing of a Bell

In Pavlov's Experiment what is the conditioned response?

Dog drooling

Generalization

Responding to two or more stimuli in the same way

Ex: The dogs in Pavlov's experiment will drool at the sound of bells with high or low tones

Extinction

The response to a conditioned stimulus weakens overtime after the unconditioned stimulus is removed

Ex: If a child is throwing a fit in the store and the parent doesn't give in, the child will most likely stop doing that

What is spontaneous recovery?

Revival of an response after a time of extinction

Ex: If pavlov stopped ringing the bell for his dog, then continued to ring the bell in a few days, they would still drool