"THE BIG LIST" CED Terms Sheet for EBQs

Flashcards for safety terms, research, bio, cognition, development & learning, social psych & personality, mental & physical health, and perspectives.

Hindsight bias

The tendency to believe, after learning an outcome, that one would have foreseen it.

Sampling bias

A bias in which a sample is collected in such a way that some members of the intended population are less likely to be included than others.

Institutional Review Boards (IRB)

A committee established to review and approve research involving human subjects.

Reliability

The consistency of a research study or measuring test.

Validity

The extent to which a concept, conclusion or measurement is well-founded and likely corresponds accurately to the real world.

Ethics

Moral principles that govern a person's behavior or the conducting of an activity.

Consent

Permission for something to happen or agreement to do something.

Debriefing

The procedure conducted in psychological research with human subjects after the experiment or study has been concluded.

IV (Independent Variable)

The variable that is manipulated by the researcher.

DV (Dependent Variable)

The variable that is measured by the researcher.

Double-blind

An experimental procedure in which neither the person doing the experiment nor the participants know which treatment each participant is receiving.

Placebo Effect

A beneficial effect produced by a placebo drug or treatment, which cannot be attributed to the properties of the placebo itself, and must therefore be due to the patient's belief in that treatment.

Hippocampus

A neural center located in the limbic system; helps process explicit memories for storage.

Dopamine

A neurotransmitter associated with movement, attention, learning, and the brain's pleasure and reward system.

Serotonin

A neurotransmitter that affects hunger, sleep, arousal, and mood.

Neurotransmitters

Chemical messengers that cross the synaptic gaps between neurons.

Neurons

A nerve cell; the basic building block of the nervous system.

Central nervous system

The brain and spinal cord.

Plasticity

The brain's ability to change, especially during childhood, by reorganizing after damage or by building new pathways based on experience.

Hormones

Chemical messengers that are manufactured by the endocrine glands, travel through the bloodstream, and affect other tissues.

Endorphins

Natural, opiate-like neurotransmitters linked to pain control and to pleasure.

Brain Scans (EEG)

An amplified recording of the waves of electrical activity that sweep across the brain's surface. Measured by electrodes placed on the scalp.

Brain Scans (fMRI)

A technique for revealing blood flow and, therefore, brain activity by comparing successive MRI scans. fMRI scans show brain function.

Frontal lobe

The portion of the cerebral cortex lying just behind the forehead; involved in speaking and muscle movements and in making plans and judgments.

Sleep

A periodic, natural loss of consciousness--as distinct from unconsciousness resulting from a coma, general anesthesia, or hibernation.

Circadian rhythm

The biological clock; regular bodily rhythms (for example, of temperature and wakefulness) that occur on a 24-hour cycle.

Consciousness

Our awareness of ourselves and our environment.

Transduction

Conversion of one form of energy into another. In sensation, the transforming of stimulus energies, such as sights, sounds, and smells, into neural impulses our brains can interpret.

Retina

The light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing the receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the processing of visual information.

Semicircular canals

Three fluid-filled bony channels in the inner ear are situated at right angles to each other and detect head movements.

Cochlea

A coiled, bony, fluid-filled tube in the inner ear through which sound waves trigger nerve impulses.

Kinesthesis

The system for sensing the position and movement of individual body parts.

Vestibular sense

The sense of body movement and position, including the sense of balance.

Twin Studies

A common method of investigating whether nature or nurture affects behavior.

Long-term potentiation

An increase in a synapse's firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory.

Encoding

The processing of information into the memory system—for example, by extracting meaning.

Chunking

Organizing items into familiar, manageable units; often occurs automatically.

Retrieval

The process of getting information out of memory storage.

Top-down processing

Information processing guided by higher-level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations.

Bottom-up processing

Analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information.

Schema

A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.

Heuristics

A simple thinking strategy that often allows us to make judgments and solve problems efficiently; usually speedier but also more error-prone than algorithms.

Growth mindset

The belief that qualities can change and improve through effort.

Meta-cognition

Thinking about thinking.

Intelligence

Mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.

IQ

Intelligence quotient; defined originally as the ratio of mental age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100.

Alzheimer's Disease

A progressive and irreversible brain disorder characterized by gradual deterioration of memory, reasoning, language, and, finally, physical functioning.

Nature-Nurture

Long-standing controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors.

Teratogens

Agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm.

Cross-sectional study

A study in which people of different ages are compared with one another.

Longitudinal study

Research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period.

Cognitive development

The development of thinking, problem solving, and memory.

Language

Our spoken, written, or signed words and the ways we combine them to communicate meaning.

Classical conditioning

A type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events.

Operant conditioning

A type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher.

Parenting styles

A psychology construct representing standard strategies that parents use in their child rearing.

Temperament

A person's characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity.

Dementia

A broad category of brain diseases that cause a long-term and often gradual decrease in the ability to think and remember that is severe enough to affect a person's daily functioning.

Social learning theory

The theory that we learn social behavior by observing and imitating and by being rewarded or punished.

Models

The process of observing and imitating a specific behavior.

Locus of control

The extent to which individuals believe they can control events affecting them.

Social loafing

The tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable.

Attribution

The process of explaining one's own behavior and the behavior of others.

Norms

Understood rules for accepted and expected behavior. Norms prescribe 'proper' behavior.

Conformity

Adjusting one's behavior or thinking to coincide with a group standard.

Social trap

A situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally pursuing their self-interest, become caught in mutually destructive behavior.

Intrinsic motivation

A desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake.

Extrinsic motivation

A desire to perform a behavior to receive promised rewards or avoid threatened punishment.

Arousal

The condition of being physiologically alert, awake, and attentive.

Self-efficacy

One's sense of competence and effectiveness.

Self-esteem

One's feelings of high or low self-worth.

Self

In contemporary psychology, assumed to be the center of personality, the organizer of our thoughts, feelings, and actions.

Self-actualizing tendency

The human motivation to realize our inner potential.

Emotion

A response of the whole organism, involving (1) physiological arousal, (2) expressive behaviors, and (3) conscious experience.

Emotional stability

The ability to remain calm and composed under stress.

DSM

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; A widely used system for classifying psychological disorders.

Positive psychology

The scientific study of optimal human functioning; aims to discover and promote strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive.

Stress

The process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called stressors, that we appraise as threatening or challenging.

General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)

Selye's concept of the body's adaptive response to stress in three phases—alarm, resistance, exhaustion.

Resilience

The personal strength that helps most people cope with stress and recover from adversity and even trauma.

Stigma

A mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person.

3 D's (dysfunction, distress, deviance)

Three components of abnormal behavior: Dysfunction refers to the impairment of daily activities, distress refers to unpleasant feelings or emotions, and deviance refers to behaviors or feelings that are considered abnormal or statistically unusual in a given culture.

Depression (MDD)

A prolonged feeling of helplessness, hopelessness, and sadness.

Anxiety Disorders

Psychological disorders characterized by distressing, persistent anxiety or maladaptive behaviors that reduce anxiety.

Therapy

Treatment methods aimed at making people feel better and function more effectively.

Distress

Negative stress.

Eustress

Positive stress.

Fight, Flight, Freeze response

A physiological reaction that occurs in response to a perceived harmful event, attack, or threat to survival.

Psychodynamic Perspective

A psychological perspective that analyzes how behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts.

Humanistic Perspective

A psychological perspective that emphasizes the unique qualities of humans, especially their freedom and their potential for personal growth.

Cognitive Perspective

A psychological perspective that focuses on how people think, remember, and reason.

Evolutionary Perspective

A psychological perspective that applies Darwin's theory of natural selection to human and animal behavior.

Biological Perspective

A psychological perspective that studies the physiological mechanisms in the brain and nervous system that organize and control behavior.

Behavioral Perspective

A psychological perspective approach that emphasizes the role of environmental forces in producing behavior.

Sociocultural Perspective

A psychological perspective that focuses on the relationship between social behavior and culture.