Psychology Midterm #1

Ch's 1-6 + Lectures

Psychology

the scientific study of minds and behavior that includes the 9 perspectives: evolutionary, cultural, cognitive, emotional, biological-neuroscience, developmental, personality, social, and clinical

Evolutionary Perspective

identifies aspects of behavior that are the result of evolutionary adaptations

Cultural Perspective

investigates how cultural context affects people’s thoughts and preferences

Cognitive Perspective

studies the mental processes that underlie perception, thought, learning, memory, language, and creativity

Emotional Perspective

examines how the human capacity to feel, express, and perceive emotions plays an important role in decision making, behavior, and social relationships

Biological-neuroscience Perspective

studies the biological and underpinnings of how we think, act, and behave

Developmental Perspective

examines how people change physically, cognitively, socially, and emotionally as they age

Personality Perspective

seeks to understand aspects of behavior that are relatively stable over time and situation

Social Perspective

considers the ways in which immediate social contexts influence thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

Clinical Perspective

focuses on the causes ad treatments of psychological disorders, with the goal of improving human well-being, daily functioning, and social relationships

WEIRD Samples

research participants from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic backgrounds

Confucius

(551 - 479 BCE) Chinese philosopher who said “The common man marvels at the uncommon, the wise man marvels at the commonplace.”

What is Psychology?

psychology is summative, meaning that it rests on a body of knowledge that is continuously growing

Overconfidence Effect

the tendency to be overly sure of what we know, making us unreasonably confident that our own intuitions are more correct than the consistent results of 100 research studies

Confirmation Bias

the tendency to seek out, pay attention, and believe only evidence that supports what we already think we know

Examples of Fake News and False/Misleading Information

• article referring to a “specialist” without listing a name, credentials, employer, or affiliation

• company spokesperson is quoted and works for a company that is motivated by profit, not necessarily by scientific truth

• Self assessments or quizzes - does not offer info about the psychological research that informed the creation of the quiz and supports the validity of results

• self-help books - taking advice from so-called “experts” without academic credentials, people with advanced degrees talking about something out their field of expertise, drawing conclusions from case histories which are intended to illustrate one person’s experience, not to imply all case histories represent everyone’s experience

• social media - posts by people who have known biases/agenda, info you can’t verify through a neutral fact-checking organization

• TV news outlet & talk shows - political agendas which causes the news they share to be slanted in a direction that supports their beliefs & biases

• Websites - sponsor or author is not identified, site focuses on one person’s opinions, writers’ biographies do not include info that explains their expertise on the topic they’re writing about

Examples of Reliable Sources of Psychological Science Info

• Published in well-known and respected academic journals that are indexed in major academic databases e.g., JSTOR & ProQuest

• published by reputable publishing houses like university presses & major publishers

• sponsored by organizations that are dedicated to scientific truth e.g., National Institutes for Mental Health (NIMH), The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and U.S. Census Bureau

• acknowledge earlier research on the topic to provide background info and context

• provide detailed descriptions of experimental methods used which allows others to evaluate on experiment’s methods and results

• suggest reasonable conclusions based on the research conducted, and also identify areas of weakness and suggest areas for future studies

Scientific Branch

took root in universities and intellectual endeavors & scientific exploration and is equated with experimental studies of perception, thought, and behavior

Clinical Branch

took root in medical examination rooms, where doctors used therapeutic interventions to treat people suffering from psychological disorders, such as debilitating anxiety & depression, and is equated with psychotherapy, psychiatry, and clinical practice

Who did the scientific approach begin with?

Wilhelm Wundt & William James

Who did the clinical approach begin with?

Sigmund Freud

Open Science Practices

emphasizes the transparency of research so that findings can be more easily shared and tested

Animal Magnetism

the property of the animal body that makes it susceptible to the influence of celestial bodies and the reciprocal action of those around it

Pseudoscience

a collection of beliefs or practices mistakenly thought to be based on valid science; makes claims supposedly based on rigorous science science and fact, but are not supported by reliable, verifiable, scientific evidence

Evidence

the available body of of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid

Empirical

based on astute observation and accurate measurement

Sources of Popular Psychology

social media, websites, magazines, TV shows, simplistic self-help books, and clickbait

Popular Psychology

often based on out-of-date or invalid research unproven propositions, and misinterpreted data or observations, and often oversimplified

Herd Immunity

the indirect protection of susceptible individuals in a population when a large percentage becomes immune through vaccination or prior infection

Homeopathy

the treatment of diseases, such as asthma, cancer, and dementia, by tiny doses of natural substances (e.g., poison ivy and arsenic) that in a heathy person would produce symptoms of the disease - not an effective treatment for any health condition

Critical Thinking

the purposeful, reasoned, and goal-directed process of exploring a situation or problem; seeks to examine evidence, evaluate conclusions, solve problems, make decisions, and formulate reasonable & accurate conclusions

The Three Key Critical-Thinking Questions

• What scientific evidence supports this claim?

• Has this topic been studied empirically?

• Am I listening to (or reading) someone’s opinion, or is the information based on facts that are accepted by unbiased experts?

Cultural Universals

core psychological processes, behavioral traits, values, or mental capacities that exist and are shared across every known human culture

Culture

the rules, values, customs, and beliefs that exist within a group of people who share a common language and environment; culture passes from generation to generation as children learn it from their parents, caregivers, and the larger society

Unconscious

the part of our mental life that influences our thoughts, feelings, and actions that we cannot directly observe and of which which we are unaware

Neuroscience

the scientific study of how nerves and cells send and receive information from the brain, body and spinal cord

Dysfunction

impaired functions

Oxytocin

plays a role in trust and romantic love, as well as a critical role in childbirth, lactation, and bonding

Important to Note

when taking a biological perspective on behavior, we must not assume that anything genetic or biological is fixed or unchangeable

Social Relationships

Early relationships (parents) affect the level of trust in romantic partners in adolescence and later in life

• Positive & healthy relationships with parents → expert positive & healthy relationship with their romantic partners

• Negative & unhealthy → more likely to develop insecure romantic relationships

Attachment Styles

• Secure - securely attached spouses tend to express more positive affect in relationships compared with those of other attachment styles

• Dismissive-avoidant - associated with increased well-being, as those with this attachment style tend to think they are in the right and their partners are in the wrong

• Anxious ambivalent - tendency to express the most negative affect in relationships, out of concern that their investment is not being reciprocated

Key Takeaway

the importance of considering people’s openness to change

Growth Mindset

the belief that human personality and behavior can be changed

Positive Psychology

the scientific study of the factors that make people happy, keep them healthy, and help them manage stress; includes the stood of important human experience such as hope, courage, and creativity

Metacognition

an awareness and understanding of your own thought processes

Previewing

an active pre-reading strategy where a learner skims structural elements of a text to activate prior knowledge, assess complexity, and create a mental framework before reading in detail

Schema

your existing framework or knowledge

Placebo Effect

belief medication has a mind/bodily improvement and can be seen in the brain

Framing

reaction to an idea/concept based on how it’s presented to you

Priming

previous stimuli (even one you’re not aware of you were exposed to) influences how you react to subsequent stimuli

Confederate

A person who is on the study/working with the study staff

Variable

a thing you’re interested in that varies between people

• Can measure or manipulate them

• EX/ Manipulation: assign some subjects to drink alcohol

• EX/ Measure: assess self-confidence

Independent Variable

manipulated part of the experiment/study

Dependent Variable

measured part of the experiment/study

Operationalizing a Variable

determine exactly how it will be captured, defined, or measured in the experiment

Random Sample

a sample that, by virtue of being random, is equally representative of all kinds of people in the population

Experimental Group

A (our thing of interest) is present

Control Group

A (our thing of interest) is absent

Random Assignment

Randomly putting your participants in the experiment vs. control group

Internal Validity

how well a study is structured to make the conclusions it makes

• A “threat” to this validity: there are alternative explanations/confounding variables

External Validity

how applicable the findings are to the real world

• A “threat” to this validity: the procedures as they happened in the lab don’t parallel how they happen in the real world

P-value

an indicator that the relationship is meaningful/worth making conclusions about

• p < 0.5 is the magical threshold

• more than 0.05 = not meaningful/insignificant

• less than 0.05 = meaningful/significant

Neurons

a bunch of messengers consisting of dendrites, soma, axon, myelin sheath, and terminal branches; the cellular building blocks of the brain

Dendrites

receive chemicals from other neurons

Soma/Body

collects messages from other neurons and decides western to fire out a new message

Axon

shoots an electrical message

Myelin Sheath

insulates the axon and protects it

Terminal Branches

send chemical message out to the next neuron

Synapse

the gap the messages cross as they go from one neuron’s terminal branch to the next neuron’s dendrites

Neurotransmitters

1. Neurotransmitters - released

2. cross

3. some get take up by receiving

4. ones that don’t get taken up go away through

• Diffusion (float away)

• Degradation (break down)

• Reuptake (go back into the sending neuron)

Two feel good transmitters?

Serotonin & Dopamine

What does reuptake do to the amount of serotonin in the synapse?

It reduces the amount of serotonin in the synapse

What does more serotonin the the synapse mean?

Receiving neurons fire more when there is an increase of serotonin

Frontal Lobe - forebrain (neocortex)

planning & complex thought (prefrontal cortex); generates language (Broca’s area); planning control of movement (motor cortex); map of body’s muscles

Parietal Lobe - forebrain (neocortex)

spatial awareness; touch (somatosensory cortex); map of the body’s skins surface

Temporal Lobe - forebrain (neocortex)

understanding language (Wernicke’s area); hearing (auditory cortex); object memory

Occipital Lobe - forebrain (neocortex)

Vision (visual cortex)

Insular - forebrain (neocortex)

awareness of internal organs like indigestion; Taste (taste cortex)

Neural Plasticity

the brain’s ability to modify itself over your life

Neurogenesis

the birth of new neurons (e.g., motor cortex when you learn an instrument)

Damage Plasticity

neural reorganization following injury (e.g., Wernicke’s lost inn TBI > areas nearby organize to take over)

Fusiform Face Area (FFA)

area in the brain dedicated to recognizing faces (temporal lobe)

Prosopagnosia

develops when FFA gets damaged and the brain loses the ability to recognize faces aka face blindness

MRI

captures the structure of the brain (e.g., how big lobes are)

fMRI (functional MRI)

captures the activity of the brain (e.g., when is your occipital lobe active)

• does not measure neuronal firing

How does fMRI work?

• Neurons require oxygen to work

• fMRI detects where oxygenated blood is going

• oxygenated blood = where active brain areas are

Parahippocampal Place Area (PPA)

located in hippocampus - viewing/imagining places

Post-coma unresponsive state

no reproducible evidence purposeful behavior in response to external stimulation

Lizard Brain

brainstem, cerebellum, and hypothalamus

Mammal Brain

limbic system & hippocampus

Human Brain

cerebral cortex

Brainstem

• evolutionarily oldest, most primitive brain region

• responsible for the most essential, basic activities

• Pons and medulla oblongata: control automatic movements like swallowing, breathing, and heart rate

Reticular Formation - hindbrain (Brain Stem)

keeps us awake, alert, and attentive (or makes us sleepy)

Substantia nigra (Brain Stem)

regulates movement

Parkinson’s Disease

a movement disorder related to deterioration of the substantial nigra (and basal ganglia)

• consistent tremors disrupt fluidity of walking, eating, and balance

• not a disorder of the muscles, but of the brain

Cerebellum - hindbrain

balance, precision, coordination, accurate timing, overall cognition

• Damage? - profound dizziness & loss of balance

Limbic System

Emotion, memory, and motivation

• Consists of hippocampus, amygdala, thalamus, hypothalamus

Hippocampus - forebrain (subcortex)

memory; memories of time and place, including spatial memory (e.g., imagining rooms in your house)

• EXs: squirrels & taxi drivers have a larger/more active hippocampus

Amygdala - forebrain (subcortex)

• registers emotional significance of things/events

• sometimes thought go as a fear structure - not quite, but those with blunted amygdala activation do show less fear

Thalamus - forebrain (subcortex)

Sensory relay station; sensory pathways to and from cortex

• e.g., before going to visual cortex, visual input from the outside world goes to the thalamus

• except smell! smell goes directly to its area of the cortex (olfactory cortex)

• seems to be why smell brings back evocative memories