Intro to Psychology Exam #2

Domains of Development

How we learn and think

Domains of development (physical)

Focuses on growth and changes in the body/brain and motor skills

Domains of development (cognitive)

Thinking/processing

Domains of development (emotional/social)

Interpersonal skills

The zygote

A fertilized egg

Germinal stage

Conception to 2 wks

Embryonic stage

2wks-8wks (4 wks: size of a poppyseed, 8 wks: size of a raspberry)

Fetal stage

9wks-birth (5 months: size of a banana)

Müllerian and Wolffian duct

Embryonic structures that differentiate into the internal female and male reproductive parts, regardless of chromosomal makeup, male (SRY) gene on the Y chromosome

Motor development

Cephalocaudal (top to bottom) and Proximodistal (control trunk before extremities, limbs, hands and fingers)

Cognitive development

Jean Piaget (1896-1980), the emergence of the ability to think and understand, how the physical world works, how their minds represent it, how other minds represent it

Sources of continuity

The process of categorization

Assimilation

The process by which people translate incoming information into a form they can understand (a child seeing a cow for the first time and saying “dog” because it fits their existing information of a four legged animal)

Accommodation

The process by which people adapt current knowledge structures in response to new experiences (when the child learns the difference between a cow and a dog, even though they both have four legs, they can create a new category)

Piaget’s Four stages of cognitive development

Sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational, formal operational

Sensorimotor

From birth to 2 years, infants learn about the world through their senses and motor actions. They can develop object permanence (where objects continue to exist even if they cannot be seen)

Pre-operational

From 2 to 6 years, children use symbols, language, and mental representations to describe the world but their thinking is illogical, focusing on only one aspect of a situation at a time

Concrete operational

From 6 to 11 years, children can think logically about physical objects and events and understanding conservation of physical properties

Formal operational

From 11 years and up, children can think logically about abstract propositions and hypotheticals

Piagets three-mountain task

A psychology experiment for egocentrism, the child must identify a mountain scene from a doll’s perspective rather than their own, they often chose their own perspective, demonstrating limited spatial perspective-taking

Lev Vygotsky: Social development

Joint attention, social referencing and imitation

Joint attention

The ability to focus on what another persona is focused on

Social referencing

The ability to use another person’s reactions and information about the world

Imitation

The ability to do what another person does

Social and emotional development attachment: Harlow’s monkey food or comfort

How infant monkeys preferred comfort and emotional security over food, highlighting how important nurturing relationships are in early development

Attachment Styles Experiment

The relationship infants had with their caregiver, conducted in the 1960’s-1970’s, mostly middle white class families

Secure attachment

The infant explores while the parent is present, but is distressed when the leave and is easily comforted upon their return (65%)

Avoidant attachment

The infant displays little stress when the mother leaves and shows little interest upon the mother’s return (20%)

Ambivalent attachment

The infant gets very distressed during separation and approaches the mother upon return, but resists comfort/contact (10-15%)

Disorganized attachment

Infants show confusion or fear upon reunion, often dressing or displaying inconsistent behaviors (10-15%)

Kohlberg’s levels of moral development

Pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional

Pre-conventional (stages 1 and 2)

Stage 1: obedience and punishment, based on avoiding punishment, a focus on the consequences of actions rather than intentions, Stage 2: individualism and exchange, the “right behaviors are those that are in the best interest of oneself

Conventional (stages 3 and 4)

Stage 3: interpersonal relationships, “good boy” attitude, sees individuals as filling social roles, Stage 4: authority and social order, law and order as highest ideals, maintaining a functional society

Post-conventional (stages 5 and 6)

Stage 5: social contract, begin to learn that others have different values, and the law is contingent on culture.Stage 6: universal principles, develop internal moral principles, individual begins to obey these above the law

Adolescence and puberty

11ish to 22ish

Personality

An individual’s characteristic style of behaving, thinking, and feeling, explanations of personality differences are concerned with prior events (genes) and anticipated events(how we think about ourselves) that affect personality

Self report

A series of answers to a questionnaire that asks people to indicate the extent to which sets of statements or adjectives accurately describe their own behavior or mental state, validity scales can help alleviate response style biases (military or clinical work)

Advantages: large population, easy to conduct

Disadvantages: people think about themselves differently, highly subjective

Projective techniques

A standard series of ambiguous stimuli designed to elicit unique responses that reveal inner aspects of an individual’s personality, open to subjective interpretation (Rorschach inkblot test and thematic apperception test)

Advantages: able to find patterns

Disadvantages: can be subjective at two levels

Objective measures

Electronically activated recorder (EAR), objective approach (words people were saying throughout times of the day)

Advantages: real-world behavior, less bias, more objective

Disadvantages: privacy concerns, limited scope and context dependent

Trait

A relatively stable disposition to behave in a particular and consistent way

Two ways in which a trait might give an explanation of behavior

1. A trait may be a pre-existing disposition that causes the behavior (personality inventories)

2. The motivation that guides the behavior (projective tests)

States: are transitory (they come and go)

The big 5 factor model

1. Open to experience (high on independent, low on conforming) (O)

2. Conscientiousness (high on organized, low on disorganized) (C)

3. Extraversion (high on fun-loving, low on sober) (E)

4. Agreeableness (high on trusting, low on suspicious) (A)

5. Neuroticism (high on worried, low on calm) (N)

Heritability

The proportion of the difference between people that can be explained by their genes (estimates for the big 5 personality traits)

Freud: The good and bad, and the struggle between the ID and superego

Superego: ages 5-6 (social and moral) ID: birth (pleasure principle)

Social psyschology

The study of the causes and consequences of sociality

Agression

Behavior whose purpose is to harm another

Frustration-aggression hypothesis

A principle stating that animals and people aggress only when their goals are blocked

Instrumental aggression

Motivated by the desire to obtain a concrete goal, such as gaining possession of a peer’s toy, physical fighting (boy-man)

Relational aggression

Harms others by damaging their peer relationships (girl-women)

Corporation: the prisoners' dilemma

If they both cooperate in silence, A and B both get 1 year (mutual cooperation). If A defects and B cooperates, A gets 30 years, and B gets 0 years (suckers payoff). If A cooperates and B defects, A gets 0 years, and B gets 30 years (temptations to defect) If A and B defect then they both get 10 years (punishment for mutual defection)

Group

A collection of people who have something in common that distinguishes them from others, favoritism towards other members in the group

Prejudice

A positive or negative EVALUATION of another person based on their relationship

Discrimination

Positive or negative BEHAVIOR toward another person based on their group membership (different treatment for different groups) (decision making in a group can be hindered, inclusion in groups promotes well-being and a feeling of belonging)

De-individuation

When immersion in a group causes people to become less aware of their individual values

Diffusion of responsibility

The tendency for individuals to feel diminished responsibility for their actions when they are surrounded by others who are acting the same way

Social influence

The ability to control another person’s behavior

Three basic motivations which made people susceptible to social influence

1. The Hedonic Motive: people want to experience pleasure (rewards vs. punishments)

2. Approval Motive: be accepted and avoid rejection

3. Accuracy Motive: believe what is right, avoid what is wrong

Infants and the looking time paradigm

Monitoring how long infants look at stimuli, researchers asses their ability to discriminate objects, form memories and perceive, using habituation and preferential looking

The ultimatum problem

One person (proposer) is given a sum of money and must decide how to split with another person (responder), the responder can either accept or reject the offer, if they accept both people get the proposed amounts, if they reject neither person gets anything

The effects of mob size

The number of people in a group influences behavior, especially in situations like helping, decision-making, or acting aggressively. As group size increases, individual behavior often changes in predictable ways

Normative influence

Occurs when another persons behavior provides information about what is appropriate

Norm of reciprocity

The unwritten rule that people should benefit those who have benefited them

Door-in-the-face technique

A strategy that uses reciprocating concessions to influence behavior

Asch’s conformity study

The tendency to do what others do simply because others are doing it, the experiment had one person choose what the standard line most looked like and other people who knew about the experiment chose the wrong one on purpose to see if the original person would conform

Obedience (Stanley Milgrams’s obedience study)

The tendency to do what powerful people tell us to do, this was the experiment with the lab, and shocking people if they answered the questions wrong, people will obey authority even when it feels wrong (there were also certain pressures during the actual experiment)

Informational influence

Occurs when another person’s behavior provides information about what is good or right

Attitude

An enduring positive or negative evaluation of an object or event

Belief

An enduring piece of knowledge about an object or event

Persuasion

A persons attitude or beliefs are influenced by a communication from another person

Systematic Persuasion (central route)

The process by which attitudes, or beliefs are changed by appeals to reason

Heuristic persuasion (peripheral-route)

The process by which attitudes or beliefs are changed by appeals to habit or emotion

Cognitive dissonance

An unpleasant state that arises when a person recognizes the inconsistency of one’s actions, attitudes, or beliefs (change to alleviate anxiety; inconsistencies can be justified)

Stereotypes

The process by which people draw inferences about others based on their knowledge of the categories (groups) to which others belong

Inaccurate stereotypes

Overestimate rare events

Overused stereotypes

Underestimate within category variability and overestimate between category variability

Automatic stereotypes

Unconsciously

Perpetual confirmation

Seeing a woman driver and she messes up on the road, and then you automatically associate with how bad women are at driving

Subtyping

Don’t get me wrong…I know some very nice X people, but…

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Where an initial thought or belief causes actions that make the belief come true

Stereotype threat

People feel threatened in situations in which they believe that their performance will identify themselves as examples of their group’s negative stereotype